USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Dorchester > History of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts > Part 37
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1811. EDWARD EVERETT, son of Oliver and Lucy (Hill) Everett, was born in Dorchester, April 11th, 1794; now living. He is the distinguished orator. (See Loring's " Hundred Boston Orators," p. 529.)
1812. JOHN HOMANS was born September 17th, 1793 ; a physician in Boston, now living.
1812. JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT was born in England, February 24th, 1792, and came to New England in his youth. He was a man of dis- tinction ; was Rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and subsequently Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern New York. He died Sept. 21st, 1854.
1815. STEVENS EVERETT, son of Rev. Moses, was born Dec. 14th, 1797. He was Pastor of the Unitarian Church in Hallowell, Me. ;- was very feeble in health, the latter part of his life, and died in Dorchester February 20th, 1833.
1815. THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS, M. D., son of Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, was born in Dor- chester, Nov. 12th, 1795. He was a physician in Milton for several years, and subsequently for a long
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
period the distinguished Librarian of Harvard Col- lege. He died in Cambridge, January 16th, 1856.
1821. WILLIAM WITHINGTON, son of Joseph Weeks Withington, is a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
1823. WILLIAM PARSONS LUNT, son of the late Henry and Mary Green (Pearson) Lunt, was born in Newburyport, April 21st, 1805. He was a man of great mental cultivation, a poet and writer of dis- tinction. He was ordained Pastor of the Second Congregational Unitarian Society in New York City, June 19th, 1828; was installed June 3d, 1835, as Colleague with Rev. Peter Whitney, of Quincy, Mass., who died March 3d, 1843. Mr. Lunt was sole minister of that Church and Society from the death of Mr. Whitney till his own decease. He sailed for Egypt in December, 1856, was taken ill while crossing the desert between Cairo and Jerusa- lem whither he was bound, and died March 21st, 1857, at Akaba, a small village in Arabia Petræa, near the site of the ancient cities of Elath and Ezion Geber.
1827. AARON DAVIS CAPEN, son of John Capen. Several years a teacher in Boston, now an agricul- turist in Dorchester.
1831. WILLIAM SAXTON MORTON, son of Joseph Morton, born Sept. 22d, 1809; now a lawyer in Quincy, Massachusetts.
572
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
1832. CHARLES FRANCIS BARNARD, son of John; was born Feb. 9th, 1811; now living, a dentist, in Boston.
1834. THADDEUS CLAPP, son of William, was born May 11th, 1811; an agriculturist, now living in Dorchester.
1837. HENRY VOSE was born May 21st, 1817, son of the late Elijah Vose; now living, a lawyer, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1838. DARIUS RICHMOND BREWER was born June 23d, 1819; son of Darius Brewer; a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, now at Newport, Rhode Island.
1838. ABNER LORING CUSHING was born July 19th, 1816; son of Hon. Abel Cushing; a lawyer in Randolph, Massachusetts.
1838. JAMES ROBINSON PEIRCE was born Feb. 13th, 1818; son of John Peirce; studied for the ministry. Died in 1842.
1842. BENJAMIN CUSHING was born May 9th, 1822; son of Jerome Cushing, of Hingham; is a physician in Dorchester.
1844. ROBERT CODMAN was born March 18th,
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
1823; son of Rev. John Codman, D.D .; is a lawyer in Boston.
1849. JOHN WAIT DRAPER was born August 14th, 1830; son of Jeremiah Draper ; is a lawyer in Dorchester.
1849. JAMES PIERCE, son of James and Mary (Withington) Pierce, was born in Dorchester, Nov. 20th, 1826; studied for the ministry ; died of con- sumption, on his passage from Europe, on board ship Parliament, May 29th, 1853.
1851. JOHN APPLETON BAILEY, son of John Bai- ley, was born July 23d, 1828; now living.
1852. WILLIAM HENRY PHIPPS was born Feb. 26th, 1832; son of Samuel Phipps; now living.
1852. HENRY GARDNER DENNY, son of Daniel Denny ; a lawyer in Boston.
1853. EDWARD L. PIERCE, son of Jesse Pierce ; a lawyer in Boston.
1854. DANIEL DENNY, Jr., son of Daniel.
1855. JOHN BOIES TILESTON, son of Edmund P. Tileston.
65
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
In College in 1858 :-
Edward Griffin Porter, son of the late Royal L. Porter; William Willard Swan and Francis Henry Swan, sons of William D. Swan; Henry Austin Clapp, son of John P. Clapp ; Thomas Bayley Fox, son of Thomas B. Fox ; Charles Alfred Humphreys, son of Henry Humphreys; Abner Francis Thomp- son, son of Joshua P. Thompson, who lately remov- ed from Dedham to Dorchester; Alpheus Holmes Hardy, son of Alpheus Hardy.
CHAPTER XXV.
Neponset River - Its Sources, Tides, &c. - Neponset Tribe of In- dians - Navigation of the River - Various Fishes in its Waters - Ferries, Bridges, &c.
As the history of the Mills in Dorchester is so in- timately connected with that of the Mills in Milton, and both are so dependent upon Neponset River, it is thought that a glance at the history of the river may not here be out of place ; and more particularly when we reflect that nearly the whole of the river was within the ancient township of Dorchester, and that its waters turned the wheels of nearly all the important branches of manufactures in their infancy, for which Massachusetts has become so well known throughout the nation.
In the northerly part of the town of Foxboro' there are extensive tracts of low land-meadows and swamps-which send off their waters by several
575
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
brooklets, which, when united, form the west or main branch of the Neponset River.
In the year 1846, several individuals, who were proprietors of mills on the Neponset River, obtained an act of incorporation under the title of the Ne- ponset Reservoir Company, and soon after erected a dam across the united brooklets in the town of Fox- boro', for the purpose of retaining the waters in a large reservoir, from which to draw water in dry seasons for the use of their mills. This reservoir, styled the Neponset Reservoir, covers an area of be- tween three and four hundred acres, and when well filled is about eight feet in depth-thus forming a body of water which in the dry season of the year is a powerful auxiliary to the other sources for their supply when needed.
From the westerly side of this reservoir is the outlet which is now the birth place of the Neponset River. From this point it flows in a humble stream nearly north about one mile, where it enters the south part of the town of Walpole, near the centre of which town it receives the waters of Diamond Brook, which has its source in Sharon, and also the waters of Mill Brook, which has its source in the eastern part of Medfield. From the north part of the town of Walpole it runs through the northwest corner of Sharon, and enters the town of Dedham near its southerly part. Soon after leaving this point, it takes the waters of Bubbling Brook, which is formed by two small brooks, the one rising in Medfield and the other in Dover. From this point the river traverses three sides of a square,
576
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
nearly, and then becomes the boundary line of the towns of Sharon and Dedham. Pursuing its course northerly, it receives the waters of Tadpole Brook, which rises in the town of Sharon. From this point it soon becomes the boundary of the towns of Ded- ham and Canton. When near the junction of the Providence and Stoughton Branch Rail Road, it re- ceives the valuable acquisition of the stream known as the Eastern Branch of the Neponset River.
This stream is formed by the surplus water of Massapoag Pond, mingling with a small brook, both rising in Sharon and there uniting with the waters of York Brook, from the northeast part of Canton, which was dammed up at a place known as the Crossman meadows, about half a mile southeasterly from the first Church in Canton (by the Neponset Woolen Manufacturing Company, of which Har- rison Gray Otis was President in 1827)-thus form- ing a reservoir, covering an area of upwards of three hundred acres of water six and a half feet deep. Upon the failure of that Company, the property in the reservoir passed into the hands of the Revere Copper Company, who now hold and manage it for their own use, in common with the use of all the manufacturing interests on the stream.
The union of these waters forms the eastern branch of the Neponset. Upon this stream Benjamin Ever- den set up his powder-mill, when he sold his privi- lege at Dorchester Lower Mills to Edward Preston, in 1757. Here Jonathan Leonard and Adam Kins- ley set up their extensive forges in 1789, which have been so long and so favorably known, and
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
where Lyman Kinsley, a descendant of the original proprietor, now carries on extensively the same busi- ness ; and James Bomant set up a cotton mill in 1800. Upon this branch, Paul Revere, of Revolutionary notoriety, established the first Copper Works in America, in 1801, for the making of brass guns, bells, &c. Paul Revere & Son were succeeded by the Revere Copper Company, who were incorporated in 1828, and who now carry on the business exten- sively. Upon this branch is the Canton Stone Fac- tory, originally built for the purpose of carrying on the woolen business, but which is now used for the manufacture of cotton goods.
The eastern and western branches, united, flow northerly, dividing the towns of Dedham and Canton, and about five miles below the junction receive the surplus waters of Punkapoag* Pond through a brook of the same name. About one and a half miles below this point, the river becomes the bounds of the towns of Dedham and Milton, and continues so for about two miles, where it receives the waters of the Mother Brooks, which is a stream formed by di- verting one third of the waters of Charles River from its natural course, in the town of Dedham, about half a mile north of the Court House, and which turns the wheels of several large manufactories in Dedham. The Mother Brooks loses its identity in the Neponset, at the foot of Brush Hill, in Milton. The Neponset here turning a more easterly course, divides the towns of Dorchester and Milton for about five miles, during which course it receives the waters
* The name Punkapoag signifies a stream issuing out of red earth.
578
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
of a stream running nearly through the centre of the town of Milton, known at present as Aunt Sarah's* Brook, but on the ancient plans styled Robert Bab- cock's river. The Neponset then divides the towns of Dorchester and Quincy for about two miles, until it loses itself in the waters of Dorchester Bay, be- tween Commercial Point of the present day (for- merly known as Preston's Point, anciently as the Cap- tain's Point, and by the Indians as Tinnean), on the west, and the north point of the Farm Meadows in Quincy, formerly known as Mr. Hawkins's Meadow- having run a course of about thirty miles from the Neponset Reservoir to the salt water.
The Neponset runs through a large tract of mea- dow land, commencing in the southerly part of Ded- ham, and running about seven and a quarter miles to Paul's Bridge, in Milton, which meadows are known as the Great Fowl Meadows, from the fact that in the early part of the last century a large flight of a peculiar kind of fowl visited these mea- dows, and sowed the seed of a grass before unknown
* About one mile south of Milton Bridge, this brook approaches the old Taunton Road in the town of Milton, and there forms a public watering place; and where the two roads now divide, directly opposite the brook, stood the house of Mr. Elijah Vose. After his death, and during the revolutionary war, his widow, Sarah Vose, occupied the house, and sat constantly at her door when the weather would permit, accosting every person who passed, with the salutation, " What's the news from the war? I have four sons gone to the war-what's the news from the war?" The old lady has been many years in her grave, and her name has been transferred to the brook, to keep in remembrance the aged widow who furnished four sons for the war. Col. Joseph Vose, and Lieut. Col. Elijah Vose, of the First Massachusetts Regiment, were two of the sons ; and Bill and Moses, who served in more humble capacities, were the other two.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
in that region. From the way it was introduced, it received the name of Fowl Meadow Grass. The seed of this grass has been collected for the market, and the value of the grass has caused the seed to become an article of merchandise.
Between the mouth of the river and the head of tide water the tides usually rise and fall about ten feet, but occasionally vary much from that. They have been known to rise and fall less than four feet ; and, on the other hand, have been known to rise to great heights. Tradition informs us that the high tide of 1786 was ten inches higher than was ever before known, and was about five feet and six inches above the average of tides. The tide of March, 1825, exceeded the last by one inch. The tide of March, 1830, was half an inch higher than that of 1825. The tide of April, 1851 (known as the light- house tide, from its happening at the time of the destruction of Minot's Ledge Light-house), exceeded the tide of 1830 by one foot and an inch-being six feet and eight and a half inches above the average of tides. To commemorate the height of this tide, an iron bolt has been permanently placed, by the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, in the large rock just below the bridge at the Lower Falls, the top of the head of which bolt is the point to which that tide arose. A bolt, with a head six inches in circumference, has also been placed on the easterly side of the bridge, in one of the stone piers ; also in several other places-the centre of the head of the bolt fixing the same point as the top of the bolt in the rock.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
From the highest point to which the tide has ever been known to rise, to the lowest point it has ever been known to fall, is nineteen feet five and a half inches.
The navigation of the river is usually interrupted about two months in each year, by being frozen up, as the following record for the last twenty years will show.
River frozen over.
River clear of ice.
December 13, 1837.
March 17, 1838.
November 26, 1838.
February 26, 1839.
December 20, 1839.
February 21, 1840.
December 24, 1840.
February 28, 1841.
December 22, 1842.
Opened and closed several times.
February 6, 1843.
March 30, 1843.
January 5, 1844.
March 11, 1844.
December 17, 1844.
February 26, 1845.
December 13, 1845.
March 14, 1846.
January 12, 1847.
March 8, 1847.
December 27, 1847.
February 22, 1848.
December 31, 1848.
March 18, 1849.
December 27, 1849.
February 10, 1850.
December 25, 1850.
February 15, 1851.
December 7, 1851.
March 12, 1852.
December 30, 1852.
February 17, 1853.
January 23, 1854. March 9, 1854.
February 5, 1855.
March 4, 1855.
January 1, 1856. April 5, 1856.
December 10, 1856.
March 10, 1857.
February 12, 1858.
March -, 1858.
The head of navigation, or the place where the fresh and salt waters begin to mingle, was the seat of that branch of the Massachusetts tribe of Indians known as the Neponset tribe. This place they call- ed Unquety, and the falls, at which they took large
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER,
quantities of fish, were called Unquety Quissett. Here they caught their shad, tom-cod, alewives, and eels in abundance. Their canoes took them readily to the creeks, where bass was abundant, and to the clam banks that never failed to discount in bank hours. Their planting ground was at the Massachu- setts Fields, now Billings's Plains, in Quincy, but which was formerly a part of Dorchester. Their trapping grounds were in the meadows that sur- rounded the tributaries of the Neponset. Their bu- rial place was upon the hill in Quincy, near the river, known as Mount Hope, where skeletons, beads, and Indian utensils, are now frequently found.
Located at Unquety, their canoes readily trans- ported them to their planting and fishing grounds below them, and by a short carriage around the falls brought them to the highway to their hunting and trapping grounds in the interior.
At this point the Indian loved to linger, even after the rapids had become a water-fall and the sound of the mill-wheel of the white man sounded its warn- ings for their departure by driving off their game. Here the apostle Eliot preached to the natives at the wigwam of Kitchmakin. Here the process of civili- zation began. The Indians still lingered near the graves of their ancestors until the apostle Eliot pre- vailed upon the town of Dorchester, in 1657, to ap- propriate a tract of land for their exclusive use. This tract of about 6000 acres was located around Punkapoag Pond, now in Canton and Stoughton, then in Dorchester, to which the Indians were in- duced to remove, and there took the name of the 66
582
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
Punkapoag tribe. Here they continued for many years, decreasing in numbers as civilization changed their circumstances, until at the present time the tribe is represented by a few scattered individuals, who have lost most of the Indian character by be- ing crossed with the African and other races.
As long as the pure-blooded Indians remained at Punkapoag, they made a yearly pilgrimage to the homes of their fathers and the graves of their an- cestors at Unquety. There are those now living who remember when the Mohoes and the Bancrofts . drew their grandmother Dinah Moho, blind with age, on a hand sled, upon her annual visit to the home of her ancestors.
The Indian has gone. The name of Bancroft is more a negro than an Indian name, while that of Moho is known only in tradition and history.
NAVIGATION OF THE NEPONSET.
As Mr. John Holland's navigation and fisheries (to be noticed hereafter) were carried on at the mouth of Neponset River, he is hardly to be identi- fied with the river itself; and from his death, in 1652, the next hundred years have left little to show in its navigation, except that ship and other tim- ber were transferred by way of the river to Boston and to a market. In the year 1760, Daniel Vose, a man of great energy and business capacity, com- menced operations at the head of navigation, and was for a short time in partnership with Mr. Joseph Fenno. The latter was accidentally drowned while getting a vessel up the river, leaving the business
583
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
to Mr. Vose. At first a small store was opened, which rapidly increased in size. A chocolate, grist, paper and saw mill, a lumber wharf, and a distil- house, were gradually added to the concern. A wharf was built upon the landing place, and several store-houses were required for the business of Mr. Vose. His sloops were running to Boston, Salem, Gloucester, and other places. He supplied most of the traders of Plymouth County with West India goods, and took in pay their articles of trade, a great staple of which was flax-seed and hoop-poles. The transportation of these made quite an item of navi- gation. In 1765, before the death of Mr. Fenno, two vessels were built by the firm on the landing place - one a schooner, being launched May 8th, and the other a brig, launched October 29th.
In the severe winter of 1780, the deep snows cut off nearly all communication between Boston and the surrounding country, and the inhabitants of the former place began to suffer from want of fuel. The farmers of Milton, reinforced by gangs of hands from Boston, laid the woodlands of Milton and Quincy under heavy contributions, the wood all be- ing carted to the landing place, and from thence, by way of the river on the ice, to Boston. Gov. Hancock sent out hands from the latter place, to cut the wood from his lot in Milton, and had it carted by way of the river to the metropolis, where he gratuitously distributed it among the poor. For the convenience of travellers and teamsters upon this new route to Boston, a building, which had been used as a bar- ber's shop, was removed on sleds from the landing
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
place in Milton, to Fox Point, in Dorchester, to accommodate customers with flip and other refresh- ments.
In the year 1777, the French fleet of thirteen large ships, under command of Count d'Estaing, lay in the King's Roads in Boston harbor, from August 11th to September 15th. In preparing for their homeward bound voyage, they received their supply of fresh water from Neponset River. The water was taken from above the dam, and trucked to the wharf on the landing place, and there put on board ... of sloops and conveyed to the fleet, under a contract with Mr. Vose - the French sailors, under their own officers, doing most of the manual labor.
Mr. Joseph Blake, a merchant of Boston, but who resided in Milton, induced Daniel Briggs to come from Weymouth and build a vessel for him by the day, which was launched near the head of tide water, October 26th, 1786.
In December, of the same year, a large vessel load- ed with plank came up the river in a very high tide, got ashore on the marsh, and there froze up; and in January, 1787, seventy people were at work cut- ting ice to get her out.
September 30th, 1788, Mr. Briggs launched a large vessel he had built for Ebenezer Wales, Esq., of Dorchester. Mr. Briggs then went to German- town, in Quincy, and built the large ship called the "Massachusetts," which was launched September 21st, 1789. He then returned to Milton, and com- menced ship-building as a regular business, at the foot of Milton hill, where he continued building first class vessels of that day, till 1815.
585
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
Mr. Vose retired from business at the close of the last century, no one taking his place. The general navigation of the river soon declined, until an occa- sional load of lumber or wood brought up the river, and a sloop load of wharf-stone or ballast carried down, was all the navigation left.
In 1807, Joseph Newell and Ebenezer Niles pur- chased the most of Commercial Point, where they built a wharf, erected a store, built vessels, and com- menced a large general trade. It proved that the location was for the time unfortunate, and that their means and business capacity were not equal to the emergencies, and the project fell through, with the ruin of the parties, in 1813.
Navigation on the Neponset slumbered until 1824, when Joseph Porter, a native of Wrentham, estab- lished a lumber wharf near the head of tide water.
In 1826, the Granite Railway Company construct- ed their railroad from the stone ledges in Quincy, to tide water at Gulliver's Creek, where they erected spacious wharves, to which they carted their granite in large cars by horse power, steam then being un- known as a locomotive power. From this wharf the granite was deposited in large flat-bottomed barges, which were towed to Boston by a steamboat.
In 1827, William Hobart, from Braintree, first set up the grain business near the head of tide wa- ter, and kept two schooners plying between this place and New York, bringing grain, and returning to New York loaded with granite.
In 1831, the first hard coal ever kept on the river for sale, arrived, although several cargoes had been
586
HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
previously landed by manufacturing companie their own exclusive use.
The same year a company purchased a quantity of land at Commercial Point, repaired and enlarged the wharf, and commenced the whaling and fishing business, and fitted out six ships on whaling voy- ages. This enterprise not proving profitable, was abandoned in 1837, and the ships sold.
In the year 1833, navigation on the river attained its height. Seventy-four vessels, of an aggregate of six thousand tons, discharged their freight at the village, at the head of navigation, in addition to which a large number of vessels came up the river empty, and loaded with granite for other ports.
Steam navigation for transporting stone was found unprofitable; and the business gradually declining, sloops did the little that was left. Occasionally a large vessel would take a load of granite for some southern city. In some instances the vessels were too large to haul to the wharf; such vessels were moored in the channel, and loaded by means of sloops.
The erection of Granite Bridge, in 1837, caused a great obstruction to the navigation above that point, which, with other causes, much reduced the business at the village.
In 1839, Micah Humphrey set up a grain store at Neponset Bridge, bringing his grain from New York in his own vessel, and taking back cargoes of leached ashes, which found a ready sale for the pur- pose of enriching the lands of Long Island. At the expiration of one year, he sold out to other parties.
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HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
In 1840, Charles A. Wood commenced a wood wharf at Neponset Bridge, and the next year took on a few cargoes of coal, which was the first wood and coal wharf at that part of the town.
In 1846, Whitcomb Porter and Joseph Chamber- lain established a lumber wharf at the north end of the Old Colony Railroad Bridge, which was the first lumber wharf in that vicinity, although individuals had had small cargoes of lumber landed there for their own use.
Since 1846, the trade at Neponset has greatly in- creased, while the trade near the head of tide water has much decreased.
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