USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hanover > History of the town of Hanover, Massachusetts, with family genealogies > Part 16
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Presently, the rattle peculiar to the old Concord Coach was heard and soon the cloud of dust which usually accompanied the four horse coach came into view. One solitary passenger made life less lonely for the driver, and only one.
As the wise men with hands in their pockets turned away from this, to them, convincing piece of testimony, we can imagine the sniff of sarcasm, when one said to the other, "And yet they say the railroad's going to pay."
At the first meeting, called April 19, '64, the following officers were elected.
Directors.
Edward Y. Perry, of Hanson.
Jenkins Lane, of East Abington.
George Curtis, of Hanover.
Sumner Shaw, of East Abington. George F. Hall, of Marshfield.
Washington Reed, of East Abington.
Edmund Q. Sylvester, of Hanover.
The Directors then chose Edward Y. Perry, President; Jenkins Lane, Treasurer ; and Calvin T. Phillips, of Hanover, Clerk. This meeting was held at the old Hotel at the Four Corners, then called · the Hanover House. All these original officers of the Company have now passed away.
The road, as first built, was seven and two-thirds miles long. The stock subscribed was one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars. No bonds were ever placed upon this road but a mort- gage for $20,000 was held for a time by Edmund Q. Sylvester and George Curtis, who advanced that sum to complete the road. Cars were running over the completed line in July, 1868, about two years after the work of construction was begun by the con- tractors, J. B. Dacey & Company. The road was located, graded, and built under the direction of Joseph Smith of Hanson, Mass., civil engineer. The highest grade was that near Project Daie of eighty-five feet to the mile. The rails first laid were fifty pounds to the yard. About one quarter of the land along the road-way was given by the owners, to aid the undertaking.
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HANOVER'S RAILROAD.
Later the Old Colony Railroad Company acquired control of this road. At the time of its sale, it was the only branch of the greater system which still retained its autonomy. Its stock brought par, it is said, in this transfer, and certain new cars and certain lands along the route, which it had owned, were not included in the sale. It had had a most successful existence as an indepen- dent road, which fact was due almost entirely to the economical management of Mr. Perry, the only president the road ever had, as well as to his successful efforts in building up new business along its line. He established in Rockland, the grain, coal, and lumber business now owned by the A. Culver Company; the box and grain-mill of Lot Phillips & Co., at West Hanover; and the coal, grain, and lumber company of Phillips, Bates & Co., at the Four Corners. All these were established by capital Mr. Perry fur- nished and in all of them he was at one time a co-partner. It is understood that the capital of Mr. Perry has never been with- drawn from the establishment at the Four Corners, remaining there under the direction of Mr. Perry's will. So economically did Mr. Perry manage the road that he himself frequently took the place of the conductor of trains, to relieve some employé who was off duty, and the jocose remark frequently heard on the line that, when he rode as president, he always paid his own fare, shows the popular appreciation of the policy of the management.
At one time, he compelled the Old Colony, by legal proceedings, to refund over $20,000, due on account, as Mr. Perry claimed, and, in the pursuit of his duty, he received injuries which nearly cost him his life and from which he was seriously crippled and never fully recovered.
IRON.
Writing in 1804, Dr. James Thatcher said that the first fur- nace for smelting iron ore known in the county of Plymouth was erected, in 1702, by Lambert Despard and the Barker family, at the mouth of Mattakeesit pond in Pembroke. It was aban- doned in a few years, owing to the exhausting of the wood supply in the neighborhood. At that time, the only method known for reducing iron ores was by the use of charcoal as fuel. As this process was very destructive of the forest, long continuance in any one spot was impossible.
The ore used for reduction into pigs was, in the early days of the Colony, largely of domestic production. At "Egg-harbor in the State of New Jersey", Dr. Thatcher said, "a very consider-
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
able portion of the ore smelted in our furnaces is procured." But this was in 1804, when the country had been in the posses- sion of the white man for nearly two centuries. The earlier times relied upon the domestic supply found in the ponds and swamps and called bog-iron.
The iron which nature appeared to have manufactured in the streams and ponds of the county, was found in varying sizes and in ever diminishing quantities. The large ponds, Assawamp- sett in Middleboro, Monponsett in Halifax and Sampson's in Carver, furnished the larger supply. The first use of this ore was made about 1740 (it is impossible to get the exact date) and, for a long time, 600 tons per year was raised from the bot- tom of Assawampsett pond. This had dwindled to 300 tons in 1804. The other two ponds, at the last named date, furnished about 100 tons per year.
This ore was found, in the shallow water of the shore, in small nodules of the size of peas or bullets. As the water grew deeper, from two to six feet in depth, the supply of ore became larger and it resembled a fig in size and shape. Out of the lower depths, were drawn huge cakes of a dirty black ore, whose adhesive power was so slight that it crumbled to pieces easily. The smaller nodular ore yielded from twenty to thirty per cent of iron. The blacker ore of the deeps was principally valuable for smelting with the better iron.
These ores brought about $6 per ton at the furnace in 1804.
From Silver Lake about 3000 tons of iron ore were taken. Out of some of this, cannon balls were made which were used in the Revolution.
In Hanover there is no record of pond ore but the bog ore in the swamps was common. Barry notes the fact that bog ore was taken from Cricket Hole and from the bog through which flows Iron Mine brook.
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SLAVERY.
CHAPTER IX.
SLAVERY. SUPPORT OF POOR. AGED PERSONS.
SLAVERY.
By Jedediah Dwelley and John F. Simmons.
The existence of African slavery in the Colonies was not con- fined to the territory south of what has come to be known as Mason and Dixon's line.
In the earlier days in Hanover there were many slaves, Indians as well as negroes. It was the common custom to have slaves, limited only by the ability of the master to buy them.
In 1754 and 1755 there were, according to the assessor's returns, eight male and nine female slaves over the age of sixteen years, in Hanover. Intermarriages between the black and red races were not infrequent. The principal sources of information in regard to these bondmen is obtained from our town records of births, mar- riages, and deaths, and the following facts are copied from the same :- "Dick, James Bailey's negro, and Daphne, Col. Barker's negro, were married Dec. 25, 1741," and "Boston and Margaret, slaves of Elijah Cushing, were married the same year."
" Windsor Jonas and Mercy Red, an Indian, were married March 9, 1749."
"Jack and Bilhah, Job Tilden's servants, were married February 8,1751."
"Newport and Kate, slaves of Nathaniel Sylvester, were mar- ried May 25, 1760."
"Cæsar, child of Deacon Stockbridge's slave, died June, 14, 1728.
Joseph Ramsdell's negro child died April 25, 1733.
Deacon Stockbridge's negro, Cuffy, died Jan. 18, 1736.
Elijah Cushing's negro child died March 5, 1736.
Fred, a negro of Matthew Estes, died Feb. 13, 1739.
Phillis, Captain Joselyn's negro, died Feb. 9, 1742.
Captain Cushing's negro child died July 30, 1744.
A negro child of Uriah Lambert, died Sept., 1746.
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
A negro child of Elijah Cushing, Esq., died Feb., 1747. Jupiter, Mr. John Curtis' negro, died Dec., 1747.
Briton, negro child of John Studley, died January 23, 1749.
A negro child of Ensign John Bailey died August 7, 1751.
A negro child of Lieutenant Job Tilden, died Dec. 25, 1754, and another, February 12, 1760.
Dina, negro servant to Mr. Amos Sylvester, died Feb. 1756. Ben, an Indian slave of John Bailey, died May, 1756.
Bilhah, Joshua Barstow's negro woman, died May 21, 1757.
Jeffrey, negro of Colonel Turner, was drowned in Furnace Pond, August 29, 1765.
Dick, slave of Rev. Samuel Baldwin, died Feb. 3, 1762.
Phebe, negro slave to David Jacobs, died Jan. 8, 1769; also Jane, a negro servant of David Jacobs, died Feb. 28. 1775.
Jesse Boos, negro slave of Rev. Samuel Baldwin, died Oct. 5, 1775.
Daphne, an old negro, probably Col. Barker's slave, died March 10, 1779.
London, negro of the widow Turner, died Jan. 15, 1786.
Dick, negro of Col. Bailey, and husband of Daphne, died Jan. 20, 1786, aged 90.
Mingo, negro of Capt. Simeon Curtis, died April 7, 1791, aged 70."
The moral wrong of human slavery is now recognized through- out the civilized world as a legal wrong also. While the earliest settlers of these Colonies did not view the holding of slaves in the same light as do the more advanced minds of today, nevertheless it is a source of gratitude to their descendants that our ancestors here in Massachusetts saw the true light so early, and did not wait for the compulsion of the Emancipation Proclamation to rid our soil of slavery's wrong.
"Slavery existed in Massachusetts until the adoption of its con- stitution on the 15th of June, 1780. Article first of the "Declara- tion of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth" declared as follows :- "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting prop- erty ; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and hap- piness." Whatever may have been the intent of the framers of the constitution in constructing the above article, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided as early as 1781, in the case of
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SLAVERY.
Walker vs. Jennison, that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by the declaration of rights, and that decision has been repeatedly confirmed by later ones."
Notwithstanding the fact of its abolishment, many old negroes continued to live and die in the homes of their masters. Follow- ing is a copy of the record of the deaths of three such persons :
"May 2, 1792, Susanna, negro woman of Deacon Bass, age 73." Rev. John Mellen makes this entry in the Church Records :
"Sept. 20, 1793. Our negro woman called Bess died, aged 36." "March 9, 1794. Mary, negro woman of Robert Estes, aged 76."
"March 25, 1795. Cuba, a negro woman of Deacon Brooks, aged 84."
It is doubtful if, in Hanover, the traffic in slaves was very great. It is certain that in the settling of estates they were appraised as property and passed to the heirs as such; or, in case of wills, they were bequeathed to legatees named. When examining the records of conveyance of real estate, it is not uncommon to find a negro named therein as the consideration. One or two cases which may be of interest are cited :-
Walter Briggs, who was the ancestor of the Briggs', shipbuilders of Hanover, was in Scituate in 1643. In a deed given to him by one Margaret Cox, dated March, 1673, she, "for £14 10s., con- veyed her right to a negro girl called Maria." The will of said Walter Briggs dated 1676, has this provision :- "Also I will my said wife, Mariah, ye little neger girl, to be with her so long as my wife lives."
This wife probably did not long survive her husband and "ye little neger girl Maria" went to their son John and later John's widow, Deborah disposed of Maria as follows :- "1688-9-Whereas Maria, a negro girl, is servant to me for term of life, I, Deborah Briggs, have granted to Cornelius Briggs of Barnstable, Maria, ye negro, my servant."
Capt. Cornelius Briggs died in 1693 and his will provided that his "negro servant woman named "Mauria" shall, thirteen years after date, be set free and at liberty to be at her own disposing." In 1694, Lieut. James Briggs, executor of the will of his brother, Cornelius Briggs, sold Maria to Stephen Otis, "she to serve said Otis from date until eleven years shall be fully ended,-at the end of which time the negro woman is to be free and at her own dis- posal."
For quite a long time there was on exhibition in the Old South Church a bill of sale of a slave girl, given by Job Tilden of Han-
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
over to a Mr. Bailey of Scituate. She was described therein as nine years old, of good bodily health, and with a kind disposition.
In 1773, John Bailey gave to his son John certain real estate on condition that "he shall comfortably support my two old negroes during their natural life." Such bequests were common.
Mr. Bass, the first minister, owned and baptized a slave named Titus. After the death of Mr. Bass his daughter Mary sold Titus to John Gould of Hull. The price paid was £42 8s., and the fol- lowing is a copy of said Bill of Sale :-
" Memorandum. That I have bought of Miss Mary Bass of Hanover her negro man Titus for the sum of £42 8s. I am to pay a pound down and give a note upon interest for £26 13s 4d, and one for £13 5s. 2d. She runs the risque of him till he shall come to Hull, and then at mine. The notes to be dated Nov., 1770; the bill of sale and notes to be made as soon as may be. Her mother and brother, Benjamin Bass, with her to sign the bill." This was signed October 25, 1770, by John Gould and Mary Bass.
Records now in existence show that there were at different times nearly one hundred slaves in the town. The number not recorded must have been large.
When, about 1780, the slaves became free, they took a surname, many that of their late owners, although to emphasize the fact some took the name of "Freed man" which later became "Free- man." James Freeman is still well remembered by men of ad- vanced years as "Uncle Jim." He was the son of Asher, who died in Hanover in 1820.
Cato, a slave of - - Winslow of Marshfield, took his owner's name and he was the ancestor of the colored Winslows of Hanover and Norwell. Cato was born about 1765 and his son Harvey about 1800. This Harvey married Clarissa Humphrey of Hingham. She was the daughter of Cæsar and Candis,-Cæsar later taking the name of Humphrey, probably becaused he lived in the neigh- borhood of that name.
During the Revolutionary War, Job Tilden sent one of his slaves named Cuffee, as a soldier in the Continental Army. He was with Col. Bailey and died at Valley Forge, and the sacrifice gave him a second name, for henceforth he was known as Cuffee Tilden, and so the printed rolls inscribe him.
Cuffee Joselyn was a slave of Col. Joseph Joselyn's. He was captured on the Coast of Africa when a boy and died at the house of Thomas Damon about 1831 at the advanced age of more than one hundred years. He, also, served in the Continental Army.
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SLAVERY.
We copy from a memorandum made by Mr. John Tower, in which he says, "We well remember the old slave and how he looked when we were very small and listened to his sorrowful tale of being kidnapped in his own country when he as a child was playing in the surf, his mother watching that no harm befell him, when the sailors landed from a large ship, seized him and carried him on board, while his mother stood on the shore wringing her hands and screaming for her little boy that she was never to see again."
William T. Davis, in an article written a few years before his death, on the subject of slavery, says: "It has been estimated that at various times forty million slaves were taken from the shores of Africa." And Booker T. Washington says "that previous to 1850 the number of slaves brought to the United States exceeded the number of persons who came voluntarily to her shores."
The preceding pages of this chapter on Slavery were written by Jedediah Dwelley; the remaining pages on the same subject were written by John F. Simmons.
The abolition movement in the North which resulted in the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln was a moral movement. The long agitation of its leaders had instilled into the very soul of the North the great moral wrong of human bon- dage. The uprising of the North in the Civil War came about partly from political, partly from economical reasons, but the real cause was that every Northern child had been taught from its earliest awakening to the consciousness of right and wrong, from the pulpit, in the Sunday school, in his daily lesson, at his mother's knee, in history, song, and story, that the holding in bondage of the black men by the white was a great moral wrong. The sense of righting this great wrong carried the Rebellion to a successful issue. The political and economic factors in the struggle were but the pawns with which the Northern conscience played the game of blood and iron.
Economically and socially Southern slavery, like its counterpart everywhere among men, was a survival of barbarism amid enlight- enment, a bit of the fourteenth century persisting to the nine- teenth; and like all antique things, it ill fitted its surroundings. The master suffered far greater and more lasting injury than the slave. No man at this date can succeed with manners, methods, and the moral and ethical standards of a mediæval baron.
Slavery in Massachusetts was never the terrible man-destroying
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
institution which existed in the South in 1860. The slave in the latter section was a thing, a chattel, not a person; and his rights as a person were consequently nil.
This was a state of affairs utterly at variance with the spirit by which the Anglo-Saxon institutions had been controlled for fifty years.
In Massachusetts, however, the marriages of slaves were pro- tected by the Legislature and the Courts. Slaves might hold prop- erty; they were admitted as witnesses even on capital trials of white persons and on suits of other slaves for freedom; they might sue their masters for wounding or immoderately beating them, and indeed hardly differed from apprentices or other servants except in being bound for life. Before the Declaration of Inde- pendence they were usually taxed as property, always afterwards as persons. The General Court, in 1776, forbade the sale of two negroes taken as prizes of war on the high seas and brought into this state, and resolved that any negroes so taken and brought in. should not be allowed to be sold but should be treated like prison- ers.
However tardy this land of ours may have been in ending the ownership of human beings within her own borders, as early as 1814 she joined England in suppressing the slave trade else- where.
In the Treaty of 1814 between Great Britain and the United States, Article X reads, "Whereas the traffic in slaves is irrecon- cilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both his Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to ac- complish so desirable an object."
In 1842 the Webster-Ashburton Treaty contained a provision whereby each country agreed to send to the Coast of Africa a naval squadron of not less than eighty guns to suppress the slave trade. This Treaty was signed by Daniel Webster for the United States and Lord Ashburton for Great Britain. Hon. Albert Smith, a Hanover man, was influentially concerned in its making.
Today the ownership of one human being by another, as his slave, is practically unknown over nearly the entire surface of the globe, although conditions approaching it in some particulars, and in some sections, still exist. It is, however, obliged to hide its head under other names than slavery. Its actual decay is evident, and its ultimate death is almost at hand.
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SUPPORT OF POOR.
SUPPORT OF THE POOR.
By Jedediah Dwelley.
Very early in the history of the Plymouth Colony action was- taken for the care of the poor, and as early as Sept. 27, 1642, the following vote was passed by the Court held that day at Plymouth : -"That every Towneship shall make competent provision for the mayntenance of their poore according as they shall fynd most con- venyent and sutable for themselves by an order and generall agree- ment in a publike Towne Meeting."
Other votes of a like nature were passed at different times and. "at a Court of Election holden att Plymouth, for the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth, the sixt of June 1682" it was ordered as fol- lows, viz .:- "That the poor may be provided for as necessity re- quireth, this Court ordered that the Celectmen in each towne shall take care and see that the poor in their respective towns be pro- vided for, and are heareby impowered to releive and provide for- them, according as nessesitie in theire descretion doth require and the towne shall defray the charge thereof."
For nearly a century after the incorporation of the town, the- Selectmen had general oversight of poor persons therein. The number was not large. Economy and plain living were common. to all, and only dire necessity prompted a call for relief. A copy of a few of the votes passed at the town meetings during this- period may be interesting :-
Nov., 1735. "Voted £15 to Benjamin Woodworth for bringing up John Loud's daughter to the age of eighteen years, and £24 for bringing up said Loud's youngest son to the age of twenty one years."
Oct. 29, 1736. "Voted to Widow Frances Josselyn £5 (old tenor) to keep Jean Barrow from Nov. 18, 1746, to Nov. 18, 1747."
In 1745. "Voted that Capt. Ezekiel Cushing take £55 (old' tenor) out of the flat money in his hands and pay to Dr. Isaac Otis Jr for his doctoring and curing Lemuel Jones."
In 1749. Amos Sylvester was voted a sum of money for caring for a squaw in her sickness.
In 1750. "Voted to pay Nathaniel Joselyn money for keeping Jane Barron two weeks and for a "gound" and apron for her."
In 1751. "Voted to pay Nathaniel Gill for taking care of Sarah Joshua, an Indian woman, and for her funeral."
In 1755. "Voted for Margaret Fitzgerald eight shillings for- . keeping Jane Barron two weeks and mending her clothes."
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
"Voted to Thomas Rose £1 2s. 10d., for shoes and making a "gound" for Jane Barron."
In 1758. "Voted to Joseph Bates £4 12s. for keeping John Woodworth twenty six weeks."
In 1762. "Voted John Bailey Jr. four shillings which he paid Edward Winslow, Esq., for recording people warned out of town."
In 1763. "Voted money for recording persons warned out of Hanover."
In 1770. "Voted to Robert Lenthal Eells £1 12s. for a "gound and pettecote" for Lucretia Gilkie."
This Lucretia Gilkie case was an expensive one for many years, and the question of the liability of the town caused embarrassment, as in 1771 it was "voted to Joseph Josselyn twelve shillings for fees paid Robert Treat Paine in the Lucretia Gilkie case." The Church record has this entry: "June 26, 1797, Lucretia Gilkie, drowned herself. Insane."
In 1786 it was voted to pay Melzar Curtis' account for mending Hannah Ford's shoes.
Oct. 1796. At this time the Selectmen were "instructed to care for the poor under their care and to call on the treasurer for money as they shall want it."
Near the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of the poor had so increased that it was voted, in 1814, to raise one hundred and ten dollars, to purchase Mary Peterson's house and land for a poorhouse and the purchase was made; but for some reason in 1816 the property was sold. This Mary Peterson prop- erty is the same which is now owned and occupied by Charles G. Perry as a residence.
In 1817, it was voted that the overseers of the poor put out town paupers as they see fit. For two or three years previous to this, they were all kept by one person. In 1823, a committee consisting of Lemuel Dwelley, Joshua Mann, Stephen Jacobs, Melzar Curtis, Barker Ramsdell, John B. Barstow, and Amos Bates, were chosen to take into consideration the subject of a poorhouse. At a meet- ing held in May, 1825, the town voted "To empower the Selectmen and Overseers of the Poor to cause Mr. Isaac Perry, Benchar Clark, Eliza Wood and Cuffe Josselyn to be boarded where they think proper."
About 1827, a system of putting out the poor at auction to the lowest bidder was adopted. The auction, which was a public affair, was held at the meeting house at the Center. This system proved unsatisfactory to the town and was continued but a few
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SUPPORT OF POOR.
years. It was a barbarous custom but was quite common at this- time in Massachusetts.
In 1836, the town voted to establish a poorhouse. A committee, consisting of Ebenezer Simmons, Turner Stetson, Benjamin Mann, Levi Curtis and William Morse, was chosen to "make choice of a suitable farm," and the Nathaniel Jacobs place, situated on the west side of Washington street, at Assinippi, was purchased. This- the first almshouse, is still standing,-a building nearly, if not. quite, one hundred and seventy five years old. Forty years later, in 1875, the town purchased of the heirs of Benjamin Bailey the present almshouse farm, situated on the corner of Main and Cedar streets. The present buildings were first occupied by the poor, June 1, 1876.
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