USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Franklin > History of the town of Franklin, Mass., from its settlement to the completion of its first century > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
16
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
farms are held by equitable purchase of the only occupants who could justify any claim.
With the lands in their possession by grant of the General Court and by purchase from both the natives and the proprie- tors of Dedham, nothing hinders our transferring ourselves to the young settlement, not yet named, at Wollomonopoag. Even while signs have been thickening along the southern horizon, and among the Wampanoags especially, portending a disturbance to these pioneers, they have been pushing on their young enterprise. They adopt rules for the due management of their plantation, among which are-that each proprietor shall pay one shilling and sixpence per common right for the main- tenance of a minister ; that the choice of a minister shall be long to the inhabitants with the concurrence of the Dedham proprietors who can be easily consulted, and especially of the Dedham minister, Rev. John 'Allin, the ruling Elder, John Hunting, Eleazer Lusher, the head man in civil affairs ; and that a tax of two shillings per common right be paid towards a convenient meeting-house, of which John Thurston, Robert Ware, and Sargent Fuller are to be the building committee. The ministerial candidate seems to have been already selected, for within twenty-five days, 27th December, 1669, Mr. Samuel Man is invited and the choice approved by the Dedham ad- visers. But the hindrances to his acceptance are many, and time slips along for three years and more, so filled with other most urgent business, not the least of which is watching the Wampanoags, before the full arrangements are completed. Mr. Man's answer, in the 11th month of 1672, that he accepts their propositions " in case they be performed within the space of a year and a half," hints at some dilatoriness possible on the part of the settlers. But they are hurrying as fast, no doubt, as those rugged times will permit. Anxious, may be, to secure this young Harvard graduate, within a year after his call, a petition for incorporation as a town is presented to the General Court, and is, with astonishing promptness, granted on the same day, 16th October, 1673; and that too, when, on
17
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Rev. Mr. Bean's testimony, there are only sixteen families in the settlement .*
But while these few families are getting themselves into comfortable order, building a grist-mill, securing a blacksmith, etc., the conspiracy of Philip is also ripening, and within three years his bands of warriors dash upon the frontier towns all along the line from Swansey to Hadley. At first their ravages are at the sonth and along the Connecticut valley. But the smoke of their presence draws nearer and nearer. Hardly have the flames died down in Lancaster before the sky over Medfield is thick with smoke. Wrentham lies next in their path, and only ten days, from the 10th to the 21st of February, 1675, O. S., between the burning of Lancaster and Medfield ! In a week the Indians will be here. Speedily are the goods packed and sent with the wives and children back to Dedham, and by 30th March the deserted houses are left to their fate. A. band of the Narragansetts, returning from Medfield, set fire to the empty dwellings and burn, tradition says, all but two. It was a vengeful act, perhaps in response to an unexpected encounter which they had met with at Indian Rock, less than five hundred rods from this spot.
The traditions of this encounter vary, but the essential facts are that a man named Rocket, in search of a horse lost in the woods, found instead a trail of forty-two Indians, which he cautiously followed until night, when he saw them fairly laid down to sleep. He hastened back to the settlement, mustered a dozen resolute men under Capt. Robert (?) Ware, and before daylight the little band was posted within eyesight of the sleeping savages and ready to salute them as soon as they awaked. It was a sharp and anxious watch, for the Indians were more than two to one of the Wrenthamites. Between daylight and sunrise the Indians arose almost together, when, at a preconcerted signal, each waiting musket sent its bullet to its mark. The suddenness of the attack so confused the
* But the records of the General Court show the incorporation to have been consummated upon the 17th. See records, Vol. iv., pt. ji., p. 569.
2
18
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
Indians who escaped the first shot that they rushed and leaped down a steep precipice of the rock ; where they, maimed and lamed by the fall, became speedily victims to the quick and steady aim of the whites. One or two only escaped to tell the fate of their comrades. Rocket is said to have received an annual pension from the General Court for his prompt and skillful action.
In 1823, the Fourth of July was celebrated on Indian Rock, by an oration from Dr. John G. Metcalf, a dinner, etc., when earnest talk was had of some commemorative monument on the spot. But a visit there a few days ago showed me only the names of the originators of that celebration deeply engraven in the rock and distinctly legible after over fifty years of frosts and storms : " W. Lovering, D. C. Fisher, H. N. Gridley, J. G. Metcalf, W. B. Wright." These are flanked here and there by half a score of initials of later dates. But Indian Rock still lifts itself its own monument, solitary as ever, above the trees, and gives the visitor one of the finest views, from the Milton Hills to Wachusett, which this town affords. Pity that the path which once led to it were not again made passable, for few jaunts would be more pleasurable and so near the village.
But we must hasten after the departed colonists. Many are the meetings and discussions held upon the question of return, pivoting mostly upon the number willing to go back with them, and especially upon the company of their young minister, Mr. Man, not yet settled over them. Meanwhile they keep up their organization and choose their officers annually while these questions are settling. The spirit in which they dis- cussed the position of their affairs finds illustration in their answer to the vote of the proprietors that they rebuild again. It is dated 8th Jannary, 1677 : -
We whose names are beneath subscribed having formerly had our recidance in Wollomonoponge but by thos sad and sollame dispensations of God's providences were Removed, yet desire a Work for the Honour of God and the Good and comfort of ourselves and ours might be again Ingaged and Promotted att that place : Therefore our purpose is to returne
19
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
thither God willing - But knowing our owne Inability for so Great and Waytie a worke, both in Respecte of our Insuffi- ciency for the carrying on of new plantation worke, and the dangers that may yett be reanewed upon us by the heathen breaking out on us ; thinke it not safe for us to returne alone except other of the proprietors joyne to Go up along with us or Send Inhabitants to ingage in that worke with us.
Subscribed by
Elezeare Metcalf, William Macknah, Samuel Man,
Daniels Hawes, Elizear Gay,
Cornelius Fisher,
Daniels Wight,
John Payne,
Joseph Kingsbury,
Robert Ware,
Benjamin Rockett,
Jolm Ware,
Jolm Aldis,
Nath Ware,
Michell Willson,
Samuel Fisher,
James Mossman,
Samuelle Sheers.
As a result of this vote we find them returned to Wrent- ham and so far re-established as to hold a general meeting in their rebuilt meeting-house in 1685, at which date a lot of from twenty to twenty-five acres is granted for a school, and leave is given to several persons to put in a gallery into the meeting-house.
We infer that the children have grown somewhat large and saucy, too, from living in Dedham, for two men had al- ready, in 1684, been chosen to keep the boys from playing on the Sabbath '" in time of exercise." They send also a peti- tion to the General Court for permission to choose their own selectmen, like other towns, and to manage their own affairs without consulting the court's committee - the latter, they say, being now difficult to get at, and besides, in their plain language, crazy and infirm in body. This petition is granted, and also a committee is ordered to lay a road between Wrent- ham and Medfield. This road is that now crossing Charles river at Rockville in East Medway, and along which road the Medfield people spread themselves into Franklin and became the earliest settlers of its territory.
But there is not time now to tell the several steps by which the little child in this wilderness of Wollomonopoag gradu- ally learned to walk. How John Woodcock had a bit of land given him close to the yet unplastered and unshingled meet- ing-house to put up a small refreshment-house for Sabbath
20
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
day; how two watchmen, according to the colonial law, walk every night each half a mile east and west from the meeting-house to challenge stragglers and bring them before the magistrate next morning for explanation ; of the watch- house to be built in 1695, or of the school-house, " so big as yt ye may be a room of sixteen feet square beside convenient room for a chimney, where the selectmen will keep school in turn per week, to teach children and youth to read English and wright and cypher gratis, and begin, God willing, next Monday ; " how town meetings are called to be held at 6 o'clock in the morning, and that, too, in March; and how Dorchester people, i. e. Foxboro, are by vote allowed to at- tend meeting, if they will " pay like the rest."
But the ministerial history claims a paragraph, for the Christian life of our ancestry was an element in it for more than fifty years.
Although Wollomonopoag was incorporated 17th October, 1673, as the town of Wrentham, so named from the old town in England whence some of the families came, and although Samuel Man had been called the year before, yet for the troublous times and divers hindrances, a church had not been gathered nor Mr. Man settled until April 13, 1692, when ten members, including the minister, were covenanted together .*
Mr. Man was son of William and Mary (Iarsard) Man, of Cambridge, born 6th July, 1647; H. U. 1665, married Esther Ware, of Dedham, May 17, 1693, by whom he had seven sons and four daughters, and died May 22, 1719, in the forty-ninth year of his ministry.
Within seven months Rev. Henry Messenger was settled, Dec. 5, 1719. Two years after, in 1721, a new and larger house replaced the first sanctuary, to which the fathers of this town resorted until their separation in 1737 into a dis- tinct precinct for religious purposes."
* They were Samuel Man (master elect), John Ware, John Guild, Benjamin Rockwood, Thomas Thurston, John Fairbank, John Fales, Eleazer Metcalf, Ephraim Pond, Samuel Fisher (first deacon).
21
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Mr. Messenger was born in Boston, 28th February, 1695, graduated at Harvard College 1719, and married 5th Janu- ary, 1720, Esther, daughter of Israel and Bridget Cheever, of Cambridge. He had seven sons and five daughters, four of whom became the wives of ministers. He was the second son of Thomas and Elizabeth Messenger, and grandson of Henry and Sarah Messenger from England, in 1640. He died 30th March, 1750, in the thirty-second year of his min- istry.
The town meanwhile has increased so steadily that in 1718 it is divided into four districts, and a school is kept three months in each, under a committee of three for each part - north, east, south and west, and in ten years thereafter the old school-house with its chimney is voted to be sold at auc- tion.
In 1719 thirteen Wrentham families are set off by the General Court to Bellingham, which begets a protest and lawsuit over the town line. It begets, also, another move- ment of greater interest to us. For the overflow from Boggestow, or Medfield, across the Charles river has been moving on until nineteen families - " who live remote from the Public Worship and cannot attend on the same without difficulties and hardships," petition that a separate account may be kept of what every person pays towards the new meeting-house in Wrentham proper, so that it may be repaid to them whenever they shall be set off into a precinct or parish, for building a meeting-house for themselves. With this petition granted, March 13, 1720, O. S., as an anchor to the windward, shrewdly dropped when a new minister and untested is being settled, the western side of the town quietly wait and watch for five years longer. But, that this anchor may not drag for want of holding ground, they secure a grant of sixty acres to be laid out of the common lands in two par- cels, " in the most convenient place for these people." Some of the less patient spirits -John Pond and twelve others - getting uneasy, petition in 1725 to be set off to Medway. Wrentham shakes its head. Whereupon Capt. Robert Pond and twenty others ask that a new precinct next to Belling-
22
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
ham and Charles river, six and a half miles by four and a half, may be erected. This, too, is refused ; but there is evi- dently some propriety in the request, for the town, at its next meeting, Sept. 21, 1725, choose a " committee to give in rea- sons why the petition of the west part to be set off should not be granted." In 1728, John Pond, Jr., and thirteen others reurge his father's request to go to Medway. It will not be allowed yet, and there is quiet waiting again for six years more. In 1734, the westerly side moves in another direction. It asks, modestly, if a town's committee]may not come and " state the place for the building of the meeting-house where the petitioners have agreed for the building of said meeting- house, being about seventy-three rods southwest from the house of Michal Willson ?" Nay ! Then they ask, Will the town build a meeting-house there, and finish it at the town's cost ? Nay ! much louder. Well, then, will the town pro- vide the west side with preaching four months in the winter season this present year ? Thinking of the long rides " of seven, eight, and nine miles," from River End and the City Mills in the New England snows for their western brethren, the town does give a reluctant yes, and " the selectmen agree with Mr. Jacob Bacon to preach four months in the westerly part of the town, to begin the second Sabbath in December, and also to keep school three months from the 1st of January for £42"- £34 for the preaching, and £8 for the school .*
A similar arrangement for the next winter's preaching of 1735-6 is made with Mr. Hezekiah Man.t
Mr. Bacon was the son of Thomas, grandson of John, and great-grandson of Michal of Dedham, 1640, who came from Ireland with a wife and four chil- dren, and died 1648. Jacob was born in Wrentham 9th September, 1706, gradu- ated at Cambridge, 1731, and settled first minister in Keene, N. H., 18th Octo- ber, 1738; dismissed in April, 1747, when the settlement was broken up by the Indians, and again settled over the third church, Plymouth, Mass., in 1749, and dismissed in 1776. He preached a year and a half in Carver, and then removed to Rowley, where he died, June, 1787, in his eighty-first year.
+ Mr. Man was born 27th October, 1707, son of William, grandson of Rev. Samuel Man, the first minister of Wrentham. He graduated at Cambridge, 1731, in the same class with Mr. Bacon, and died before ordination, in 1739.
23
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
Still this compromise of a third part of a minister does not satisfy the west side. Perhaps a politic move may quiet it and, 11th March, 1735, the town vigorously sets off to Med- way the still persistent John Pond, Jr., and his uneasy neigh- bors, Thomas Bacon, Jr., Samuel Pond, Richard Puffer, Joseph Ellis, Peter Adams, Samuel Fisher, and James Ellis, Jr.
But the remnant, resolute as ever, next year, in May, 1736, renew their petition for a separation ; to be again refused. The town, in August, declined even to give reasons to the General Court for their negative. Nor will they, in September, remit the west side from their ministerial taxes. But in December they are willing to argue the question by a com- mittee before the General Court, to which the west side have already applied in June, 1736, for a parish, or precinct charter, through Capt. Robert Pond, Eleazer Metcalf, and forty-six others. Such a growing list of names brings matters to a crisis. The General Court sends out a committee to view the premises, who approve of the separation in general, but refer the way and manner thereof to the agreement of the two sections in- terested. The town is to answer the petition at the next court session, and, therefore, a general meeting is called for Aug. 29, 1737, at which, after sundry complimentary where- ases, a consent is voted ; with the condition, however, that they move the dividing line " half a mile and forty rods " (so exact were they) further westwards. In due course of legis- lative action, the end is reached by the signature of Governor Belcher, Dec. 23, 1737, and the second precinct of Wrentham assumes legal existence.
Like a cutting from the parent bulb, this dependency grows, in forty years, into the town of Franklin.
The process by which the town thus severed its northern half into a precinct may not be uninteresting. The record says : -
WHEREAS, Capt. Robert Pond, Eleazer Metcalf and forty- six others inhabitants of the western part of Wrentham pre- ferred a petition to the great and General Court in June A. D. 1736 setting forth that they have preferred a petition (as
24
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
above) praying that they may either be set off a separate township by the bounds following (the present town bounda- ries nearly); and whereas the Honorable Committee appointed by the General Court in last December, were ordered to re- pair to the westerly part of Wrentham and view the situation of the same and consider the circumstances of the petitioners and hear the parties concerned, did not report in favor of the prayer of the petitioners but were of oppinion that they should be relieved from under their hardships and difficulties they complain of in another way and manner than they prayed for in their petition Unless the inhabitants of the town of Wrent- ham should agree upon a method among themselves for the relief of their Westerly inhabitants and report the same to the General Court at such time as said Court should appoint therefor ; and whereas, the inhabitants of this town are this day assembled in a public town meeting appointed by the selectmen agreeable to the order of the General Court to know the mind of the town by a vote, what method they will agree upon to accommodate the Westerly inhabitants who preferred a petition to the said Court in June, 1736, setting forth the great difficulties, etc., the consideration whereof being recom- mended to this town by the said Court; - And although it doth not appear to this town by any petition to the Court or town from the said petitioners that they desire any relief from their difficulties and hardships in any other way or manner than their being set off a separate township, which the town has denied them and given in their reasons to the General Court, yet notwithstanding the inhabitants being desirous it may appear that they are willing to come into some method agreeable to reason and justice, and as far as they are able under their present poor circumstances to accommodate the said petitioners and relieve them under the hardships and dif- ficulties they complain of in their petition, although no proper steps be taken by the said petitioners on application made to the town therefor ; and whereas the Court ordered the Com- mittee's report to the first Tuesday of next fall sessions that so the town of Wrentham may have opportunity to accommo- date the matter among themselves : -
Wherefore voted that it is the mind of the town that all the said petitioners with their estates, that are of that mind and all such other inhabitants of this town with their estates as shall join with them living and lying within the bounds and limits following, viz. : four miles upon the Charles river from the North end of the line between Wrentham and Bellingham,
25
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
and at the end of the said four miles to run a straight line to the middle of the length of the line between Wrentham and Attleboro for their East bounds, and half the length of the line between Wrentham and Attleboro to be their South bounds ; the line between Wrentham and Bellingham to be their West bounds ; and Charles river to be their North bounds ; be a separate Parish by themselves, and that they have leave to call and settle a minister among themselves and be discharged from paying any ministerial charges to the support of the ministry in the other part of the town so long as they main- tain preaching among themselves.
Secondly, Or that all the petitioners within the bounds petitioned for by the said petitioners be a separate parish, etc., provided their Easterly bounds mentioned in their petition be set half a mile and 40 rods further westward nearer the line between Wrentham and Bellingham.
The petitioners thus set off were -
John Adams,
Eleazer Fisher,
Jolın Fisher,
David Pond,
Simon Sloeum,
David Lawrence, Jr.,
John Failes,
James New,
Eleazer Ware,
Saml. Morse,
Uriah Wilson,
Eleazer Metcalf, Jr.,
Daniel Thurston,
Edward Hall, Ebenezer Lawrence,
Michael Wilson,
Nathl. Fisher,
Michael Metcalf,
Ezra Pond,
Saml. Partridge,
Ebenezer Hunting,
Saml. Metcalf,
Daniel Maccane,
Daniel Haws,
Ebenr. Sheckelworth,
Baruch Pond,
Edward Gay,
Ebenr. Partridge,
Nathl. Fairbanks,
Ichabod Pond,
Thomas Man, Sen.,
Jonathan Wright,
Nathıl. Haws, David Jones,
Robert Pond,
John Richardson,
Leneard Fisher,
Eleazer Metcalf,
Job Partridge,
Ebenr. Clark,
Josialı Haws,
Thomas Rockwood,
David Lawrence, Jr.,
Joseph Whitng, Total, 48.
Robert Blake,
David Darling.
John Smith,
Benjamin Rockwood,
The first warrant to organize the new precinet is issued by Jonathan Ware, Justice of the Peace, and is addressed to Robert Pond, Daniel Haws, David Jones, Daniel Thurston, and John Adams, five of the freeholders. They are called to meet "at the house the inhabitants usually meet in for public worship" on the 16th of January, 1737-8, at 12 o'clock. When they came together they found everything to be done anew. No church, no minister, no meeting-house ! They chose the necessary officers and adjourned four days for meditation. At the next meeting they go resolutely at their work. They vote £80 for preaching, and a committee to
26
HISTORY OF FRANKLIN.
secure it; another committee to provide materials for a meeting-house in place of the small building heretofore pro- vided and used, to be forty feet long, thirty-one feet wide and twenty feet posts, towards which each may contribute his proportion : and especially sent a request to Wrentham for that money previously paid towards its meeting-house, and which they had sagaciously, by a vote ten years before, se- cured to be repaid to them whenever they should need it for a like use. It amounted to £130 11s. The request was at first refused, but four months after granted.
Meanwhile the steps for a church existence are going on. Some twenty brethren having secured letters from the mother church, the 16th of February, 1738, is kept " as a day of solemn fasting and prayer - to implore the blessing of God and His direction in the settling of a church and in order to the calling and settling of a gospel minister in said place." And there, in a large assembly the covenant is read and ac- cepted, and Rev. Mr. Baxter of Medfield, moderator, pro- nounces them a duly organized church of our Lord Jesus Christ." * Two other ministers are present, doubtless Mr. Messenger of Wrentham ; and Mr. Bucknam of Medway, as being both fraternally interested in the new church. These three ministers being questioned then and there by a com- mittee of the church, cordially commend Mr. Elias Haven, who has for a considerable time preached in the precinct, " as in some good measure qualified for the gospel ministry." The parish proceed immediately (March 23d) to choose Mr. Haven as their minister; which they do unanimously, " sixty- one yeas and not one scattering vote," with a salary of six score pounds annually by the 1st of March, old tenor, and " to rise and fall as the credit of money rises and falls from what it is this day," also with a glebe of sixty acres and £60 with it, or, if he prefer, £200 instead, for a settlement. The church at the same time agrees and formally extends a call on the 25th of August following.
* For a copy of this covenant, see the Manual of the First Congregational Church of Franklin.
27
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
On Nov. 8, 1738, a council gathers for the installation. The churches invited are in Hopkinton, Wrentham, Medfield, Leicester, Uxbridge, and the old and new north churches in Boston. The audience assembles near the public meeting- house - not yet finished - and before the sun sets Rev. Elias Haven has become the first pastor of this new church.
After nearly sixteen years of labor, often interrupted for months by sickness, he finally closed his painful and long wrestle with consumption Aug. 10, 1754, at forty years of age, and now rests in the old cemetery, where a still remem- bering town, by vote Nov. 2, 1795, forty years after his death, ordered gravestones to be set up, " the bigness of the stones with the inscription thereon to be left discretionary with a special committee." * The stones still stand, large and thick slate, and may be legible for another century. This long interval of forty years since Mr. Haven's death does not im- ply that his grave had been all the while left without a monu- ment. But the burial-lot had received several fits of atten- tion, clearings, fencings, etc., and a late revision of it may have suggested that their first pastor had not been honored with sufficient distinction.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.