USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Somerset > History of the town of Somerset Massachusetts : Shawomet purchase 1677, incorporated 1790 > Part 3
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
At news of Philip's death, Weetamoe, who had spent the night with a few followers somewhere in the vicinity of Swansea, sought to make her escape across the Taunton river on a raft constructed of brush. The next morning her body was found drowned on the shore of Brayton's Point. Whether she had been murdered by her followers or had drowned by the falling to pieces of her raft has never been determined.
Her head was borne through her cherished Shawomet Lands on the end of a pole to land to be set up on Taunton green.
In Squahannock swamp, in Rehoboth, Capt. Benjamin Church, dropping from a ledge to land between forty braves and their arms laid at its foot, single-handed captured Philip's great battle leader Anawan, whose mighty cry of "Tarboosh" had sent terror to the Colonists' hearts through a terrible year.
After a supper in which Church had chosen "cow beef" in preference to "horse beef," Anawan slipped quietly away to return soon with Philip's royal trapping of wampum which he laid at Church's feet in token of the final surrender of the Wampanoags. Then in the moonlight Indian and White captains sat until dawn talking over the past year's tactics, successes and defeats : two great warriors.
Church's promises of protection for Anawan and his family were betrayed by the Pilgrims. Church was sent on an errand to Boston and during his absence Anawan, his wife and his son, were executed.
Awashunks and her Sakonnets were alloted land on Little Compton shores. Peter Nunuit, the Pocasset sagamore who had staid faithful to the Whites, was made custodian of the other peacable Pocassets on a reservation established
22
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
in Freetown. In Shawomet Lands, a fragmentary and spiritless group of Wampanoags known as the Quaker Indians remained on the flats and slopes of the later Dublin.
All other Indians of the region were either dead, fled or ending their lives as slaves on the estates of Bermuda, the Bahamas or the West Indies.
Shawomet Lands, bare except for overgrown farms and rotting wigwam frames, awaited the era of White settlement.
22
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
in Freetown. In Shawomet Lands, a fragmentary and spiritless group of Wampanoags known as the Quaker Indians remained on the flats and slopes of the later Dublin.
All other Indians of the region were either dead, fled or ending their lives as slaves on the estates of Bermuda, the Bahamas or the West Indies.
Shawomet Lands, bare except for overgrown farms and rotting wigwam frames, awaited the era of White settlement.
COPIED FROM THE BOOK OF RECORDS OF THE
EDWARD GRAY
9 9
28
WALLDOR BRIGGS FOR CORNELIUS DRIGGS 26 |26 7
27 27 3
MALOCHY HOLLAWAY - - 10 10
INCREASE ROBINSON - -
20 THOMAS PAINE
- - 26 28 8
ISAACK LITTLE -
CAPTAIN JOHN WILLIAMS - - -12 12 30
JOHN DRI445
GOVERNOR WINSLOW
50 25
WALLBOR BRIGGS FOR RICHARD WINSLOW
-13 1
CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CHURCH
- - - 32 31
EVERY PURCHASERS NAME.
THE MINISTERS LOT -
14'14 24
INDIAN
14
IN THE FIRST COLUMN THE GREAT DIVISION OF THE NECK
IN THE SECOND COLUMN THE LIBOL DIVISION OF THE NECK
THE LINCOLN & JOHN SMITH - - - 26 16
2
AND BELONGS TO THE TOWN OF SOMERSET
RICHARD WINSLOW
SAML SPRAGUR
RANDALL
WHOSE NAMES ARE
CPHRAM LITTLE & SAMUEL LITTLE -- 19
2
JOHN HENDALL
-20 20
5
RICHARD DWELLY
27
ISAAC BUCK & DANIEL DORMAN-
-Z 2
NATHANIEL WINSLOW-
JOSEPH WOOD & DAVID WOOD - a - -- 22 22
SAMUEL PRINCE
WALL DOR BRHAS FOR RICHARD WINSLOW - - 23 25 16
WALLBIR BINIGAS TOR SAMUEL WINSLOW - - 24 24
NATHANIEL WINSLOW - - - - - 25 25 36
JOHNATHAN ALDEN -- -
2ª
14
50
*
4
15
22
7
THE FIRST DIVISION 15 45 ACRES
THE SECOND DIVISION 15 ACRES
THE THIRD DIVISION 15 36 ACRES
PELES SHERMAN
17
20
18
EPHRAIM LITTLE
30
3
20
15
14
N
10
7
4
HATCH
WM. PROULEY (?)
JOHN MENDALL
EPHRAIM LITTLE SAMUEL LITTLE
JONATHAN JACKSON
RICHARD PROUTEY
THOMAS HINCKLEY
THOMAS LINCOLN
COWARD GREY
DAN'S WILBUR
27
BRIGGS
RICHARD WINSLOW
JOHN WILLIAMS
ISAAC LITTLE
MALLACHY HOLLAWAY
ISAAC LITTLE
JOHN WILLIAMS
JONATHAN ALDEN
SAMUEL
BURK Bo
N WH. CHASE
NATHANIEL
ISAAC
LITTLE
RICHARD DWELLY
JOHN WILLIAMS
BRIGGS
LITTLE
MENDALL
BRIGGS
CORNELIUS BRIGGS
THOMAS PAINE
THOMAS HINCKLEY
JOHN JAMES
JOSEPH WOOD & DAVID WOOD
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
COWARD GRAY
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
JONATHAN ALOEN
RICHARD WINDLOW
ISAAC BUCH
DANIEL DORMAN
JOHN SMITH
.
15
ISAAC
PELEA SHERMAN
13
17
23
22
WM
WH. HATCH
WM SLADE
SAMUEL
SAMUEL
ZACHARIAH
NATHANIEL
JOHN
EPHRAIM
EPHRAIM
PELEG
CORNELIUS BRIGGS
CORNELIUS BRIGGS
ISAAC LITTLE
RICHARD
EPHRAIM
WM. CHASE
JOHN SMITH
ISAAC LITTLE & WM. SLADE
ELIZABETH BURTON
WM WILBUR
WM. CHASE
"LITTLE TOM"
TOM BAYLEY
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
9
17
20
JOSEPH WOOD
WOOD
RICHARD WINSLOW
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
BRIGGS
SAMUEL WINSLOW
CORNELIUS BRIGGS
27
26
DAM'L SPRAGUE
PAINE
JOHN JAMES
GOV. WINSLOW
BENJAMIN CHURCH
5
WH. HATCH & WH. PROUTEY
. 21
26
ROBINSON
ZACHARIAH BOOY 21
BRIGGS
WALLDOR BRIGGS POR CORNELIUS DRIGGS-5 5
ISAAC LITTLE
INCREASE
ROBERT BENNETT
THOMAS DAYLEY
CAPTAIN JOHN WILLIAMS- - - - 7
ISAACK LITTLE - - 8
4
CACH PART CONTAINS
M LITTLE
LITTLE
SHERMAN
. CHACE
WINSLOW
SPRAGUE
CROY
PIERCE
SPRAGUE
JOB RANDAL
WM. CHACE
EPHRAIM LITTLE
PELEG SHERMAN
N JARCO
CORNELIUS
DRIGGS
26
IN.
WILBUR
JOHN
INCREASE
ISAAC L
JOHN
NOTE
THIS PLAN COPIED FROM PLAN OF ABOVE TITLE FEB 23, 1987
H.J. HARVEY ENG'S
HERE FOLLOWS THE NAMES OF THE PURCHASERS OF SHAWOMET NECK AND THE OUT LOT.
THIS PLAN IS A COPY OF A PLAN OF THE
SHAWOMAT NECK AND OUT LOT
LITTLE T
THE SAID PLAN WAS MADE ABOUT A.D. 1683
EDWARD GRAY -
15 15
15
24
IN THE THIRD COLUMN THE THIRD DIVISION OF THE OUT LOT CAPTAIN FULLOR FOR MR. HINKLEY = = 17
17
Frp 11. 1901
JONATHAN JACKSON A RICHARD PROSTY -- 18
24
"LITTLE TOM"
WH. SLADE
IMAC LITTLE
SAMUEL SHERMAN
A EPHRAIM LITTLE
· İHOIAN
BENNETT
M LITTLE
JOHN REED
LITTLE TOM
JOSEPH
24
22
2
20
75
26
WINSLOW
CHURCH
NATHANIEL
BENJAMIN
ISAAC LITTLE
GRAY
₦ WILLIAMS
THOMAS LINCOLN &
SAMUEL WINSLOW
EPHRAIM LITTLE & SAMUEL LITTLE
JONATHAN JACKSON & RICHARD PROUTETNI
GOV. WINSLOW
WM. HATEN & WM. PECH
RICHARD
MALLACHY HOLLAWAY
SAMUEL PRINCE
CORNELIUS BRIGGS
PRINCE
GRAY
COWARD
WALKER
NATHANIEL WINSLOW
DORMAN
DWELLEY
14
5
9
WM. CHACE & SAMUEL SHERMAN
A DANIEL WILBUR
DAVID
11 12
-
25
20
THOMAS
NATH'L WINSLOW
JOHN PIERCE
29
27
21
LITTLE
SMITH
BENJAMIN CHURCH
EDWARD
RICHARD WINSLOW
ROBINSON
CORNELIUS
SHAWOMAT LANDS'
WITH THE NUMBER OF EVERY MANS LOT AS THEY ARE IN THE PLOT. THE NUMBER OF THE THREE DIVISIONS BEING SHOWN IN ORDER IN THREE COLUMNS AGAINST
JOHN JAMES
- - - 29 29 10
ISAAC LITTLE & JOHN BRIGGS
24
5
16
18
ISAAC LITTLE
SCALE OF EQUAL PARTS
14
SHAWOMET PURCHASE
THE same English legal logic that had ordered the
quartering of King Philip as a traitor declared that the lands of all Indians participating in the war should be for- feited to the Colonies. They were to be sold and the proceeds used either to reimburse the Colonies for the war's expense or for the relief of disabled soldiers and the families of those killed.
Lands in this immediate vicinity thus seized and sold included those choice possessions of the Indians, no part of which they had ever been willing to sell : Assonet, Pokanoket, including Mt. Hope, and Shawomet Lands.
Mt. Hope was purchased mainly by men of Boston ; Assonet by residents principally of Taunton and Dighton; and Shawomet by men of Plymouth, Marshfield and other contiguous Plymouth colony settlements.
As a means of disposing of Shawomet Lands without charge of favoritism; and possibly of increasing the pro- ceeds ; the Shawomet area was offered in a lottery in which 31 full shares were designated including a share for Captain Benjamin Church and one for Governor Winslow. Governor Josiah Winslow was the third generation of his family in succession to be governor of Plymouth colony; and the grandson of the first White Man to set foot on Shawomet Lands.
The gift to Captain Church combined an expression of admiration for that doughty warrior's achievements on behalf of the Colony with payment in part for the financial debt it owed him : a debt which it never came anywhere near paying and which finally ruined him.
Not all of the purchasers received a full share. Some had to be content with a half or a quarter while others had two and three full units. The method by which this division was arrived at does not appear.
23
24
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
The first meeting of the Purchasers was held at Plymouth under date of March 6, 1677, with Samuel Sprague as clerk. According to Sprague's record, and spelling, the purchasers were:
"Richard Dwelby, Isaac Buck, Daniel Damon, Nathaniel Winslow, Samuel Prence, W. Briggs Jr., C. Briggs, Jonathin Halloway, John Briggs, Richard Winslow, Thomas Linkcom, John Swift, Capt. Fuller, John McNuckly, Jonathan Jackson, Richard Pronby, Ephraim Littelle, Samuel Littelle, John Mendall, William Hatch, William Poaks, Joseph Wod, Daniel Wod, Cornelius Briggs, Increase Robinson, Thomas Peirce, John James, Governor Winslow, and Capt. Benjamin Church."
At this meeting of March 6, 1677, it was "voted, as their joint agreement, that the said lands shall be divided into thirty and one shares, whereof one of the said shares shall be laid out in a convenient place for a minister, and to be perpetually for the use of the ministry."
"It is further agreed that the little neck called Boston Neck shall be laid out in thirty-one shares, every man enjoying according to his proportionate interest in the, purchase."
"It is likewise agreed that the great neck shall be laid out in thirty-one shares."
"It is likewise agreed that the lands lying in Taunton river from the said neck to Taunton bounds be laid out into thirty-one shares, each share extending from the said river till it crosses to the highway which is to be left between these lands and the two miles that belong to Swanzey."
"As also it is agreed that three men be chose to be a committee who shall have the power to order such prudentials as are necessary for the good of the whole Society as to the setting the bounds between their lands and the lands of Swanzey in the best way they can and to procure an artist to survey said lands to be lotted out and lay them out as aforesaid, making such allowance in quantity to such shares as shall not fall out to be so good land as the
25
SHAWOMET PURCHASE
other shares and also to lay out such convenient highways as in their view and survey shall to them seem most convenient."
Captain John Williams, Isaac Little and Thomas Lincoln were chosen to serve on this committee, and they made divisions with each lot of the Little Neck containing five acres, each on the Great Neck forty-five acres and each in the Out Lot thirty-five acres.
For the first three years the Purchasers held their meetings at Plymouth; then in 1680 they transferred them to the home of William Slade, who had taken up his residence at Shawomet to run the ferry left idle by the death of Corbitant, and built a home nearby.
With this year begins the ancient record book of the Purchase, which continued for exactly one hundred fifty years until the final meeting, on June 19 of 1830, when the remaining interest of the Purchasers was deeded in gift to the town of Somerset.
This book is still in existence in the custody of the Somerset town clerk : in a fine state of preservation, with its pages of rag paper not greatly yellowed by age and its ink, from the first entry, as black as the day it was set there by goosequill. While the writing until 1745 is in old English script, requiring familiarity to read it rapidly, every word of it is legible, and from the time its entries begin in the modern Italian script in 1745, gives many satisfactions to the reader.
The book's first entry, made with the flourish of a newly appointed secretary, is on its title page with the following inscription :
"This book was begun in the year 1680 By Increase Robinson, Clark for the Said purchasers."
Robinson's spelling of the Indian name of the land should be noted as varying from that adopted in this history. To him they are Showamet Lands. To later "clerks" the spelling is Shewammock. To a still later secretary, Shewamett. In one or two entries the writer arrives at what is undoubtedly the right rendition of Shawomet. A strange survival of some one's early error is seen on the U. S. Coast
26
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
Survey map of 1920 where Brayton's Point is called by a name that never was on land or sea-Sewammock Neck.
Shawomet is the spelling authorized by the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology in its encyclopedia of the American Indian, and therefore the one adopted for this history.
Other spellings reported by the Bureau are Mishawomet, Mshawomat, Shawamet, Shewamett and Shewamet. The definition of the name is given in the encyclopedia as "Point of Land." But it may be profitable to consider Ruttenber's Indian Geographical Names in which he notes that "Shaw" means "side"; "ong" means "hill" and "et" the place where or "at." It is within possibility that tribal usage had slurred the word "Shawonget" originally meaning "at the hillside" to the Shawomet the Whites found in use.
Increase Robinson, although himself a purchaser, did not long remain the Purchasers' clerk, for the name of Samuel Sprague soon reappears in that office to serve until 1699, and he is very early recorded as a holder of consider- able lots of land in partnership with Zachariah Eddy.
Zachariah Eddy may safely be supposed to have received his lots by way of payment for service rendered. After the clerk he was the first officer of Shawomet Purchase. At the first business meeting in Plymouth Eddy was appointed constable of the new purchase. He was a former Plymouth settler who had moved to Marshfield. His principal duty at Shawomet purchase, as the records show, was to guard the land from timber cutters who had long regarded Shawomet Lands as ownerless and needed to be taught that owners had arisen.
A heavier problem soon fell on the Shawomet Pur- chasers than that of protecting their timber. No sooner had they begun to lay claim to their land than it appeared that much of it in the vicinty of the present Swansea boundary was already claimed by, and had apparently been sold to, the earlier arriving Swansea residents. Many an early session of the Purchasers was devoted to untangling this knotty problem, with the dispute generally ending by the Purchasers paying Swansea claimants amounts sufficient to hold the boundary lines set up in the Shawomet Purchase.
27
SHAWOMET PURCHASE
The outstanding historical and documentary interest of the records is the establishment and definition of the original holdings under the basic division into thirty-one three-fold shares. These were the outline and framework of the future Somerset, and no written pages can compare with the Plan of Shawomet Purchase included in this volume as a picture of the newborn town.
This plan or map has been prepared by Somerset's town engineer, Henry J. Harvey, from an earlier plan prepared in 1881 by I. C. Burgess, and confirmed by a detail study of the Proprietors' record book. The original purchase map was taken to Taunton in a law case and never traced. It presents Shawomet Purchase as it was divided in 1683, six years after the purchase and three years after the transfer of the Proprietors' meeting place to this vicinity.
It is especially valuable as recording the first buyers of the land from the original owners. These were Thomas Bailey, Robert Bennett, Elizabeth Burton, William Peck, John Pierce, Job Randall, John Reed, Samual Sherman, William Slade, the Indian Little Tom, and Daniel, inheritor of William, Wilbur. The names are here given alphabet- ically because the sales, being the personal affair of the individual owners, were not entered in the record book and their relative dates cannot be stated.
The apparent tidal river forming an island at the end of Brayton Point in the plan, represents the tidal marsh which was not at first deemed worth owning or assigning, although its value for salt hay was later realized. The same lack of apparent value explains the failure to assign Lot 30 which comprises the marsh still existing above the mouth of the "Creek." This area was named Labor in Vain by the town's settlers because of its uselessness. The unmarked area comprising the present Read Street playground and school lot and the town farm was reserved by the Pur- chasers to be the location of a town tavern, never built.
New names appearing from time to time in the records, due to their presence at the meetings as proprietors, announce the arrival of additional families as owners and residents : In 1694, Joseph Woodworth arrived; in 1702,
28
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
William Anthony ; in 1711, Russell Mason, Thomas Stephens, and Oliver Read; in 1712-13 Robert Gibbs, Sylvanus Soule, Abraham Baker and Oabdiah Eddy.
In 1714 new names were Charles Joslin, Edward Sim- mons, John Pearse, John Cloobus, Major James Brown and Preserved Brayton.
The probability that new owners attended meetings makes this list, however incomplete, an indication of the Purchase's steady expansion. Family records show that the year of Preserved Brayton's first appearance at a meeting, 1714, was the year that he purchased 138 acres of land on the neck which would bear his family's name through coming centuries. from William, son of Isaac Little and there built his first home about a quarter of a mile west of the present homestead, on the west side of Brayton Avenue. This farm 160 years later would be crossed by a railroad and edged by Slade's Ferry Bridge.
On the other hand, Jonathan Bowers, who arrived and took over Bowers Shore in 1694, is not mentioned for years in the record. Nor are the Perrys, although there is a Perry cemetery at the foot of Simms Avenue whose only decipher- able headstone indicates it had been much used by 1725.
Buyers and settlers of the Purchase came from all sections. Brayton, Bowers and the Perry's, like William Slade, came from Newport. John Pierce was from Rehoboth, Thomas Buffington from Salem. Sprague, Eddy and the Little's were from Marshfield. James Brown was from Swansea, the Chace's branched from Warren through Swan- sea. William Wilbur was from Portsmouth, the Luther's from Taunton. Road and the first Shove's were from Free- town. The Sherman's were a Rhode Island family. Other regions were doubtless represented though not traced. Predominantly they were from Pilgrim Colony territory ; and like the new Assonet and Bristol settlements the Purchase was placed under Plymouth's administration in an order issued the year of the purchase.
In March of that year, 1677, the General Court decreed "that Wannamoisett and parts adjacent thereto shall there-
29
SHAWOMET PURCHASE
after be known by the name of Swansea and that Captain Thomas Willett, Mr. Paine Sr., Mr. James Brown, John Allen and John Butterworth have the trust of admittance of the town's inhabitants and disposal of the land therein. All but Thomas Paine were residents of Swansea, Paine being one of the original Purchasers and Major James Brown, the successor of Myles Standish as commander of the Plymouth Military, a proprietor by 1683.
On June 2, 1685, the Old Colony was formed into Bristol County by the coalition of Taunton, Swansea, Rehoboth, Freetown, Dartmouth, Bristol and Little Compton.
The laying out of main highways, the fencing of high- ways and by-ways, the guardianship of private timber and of the public timber on the lot assigned for school purposes, and the establishment and maintenance of a school, fill the written record of Shawomet for upwards of a century. Before the century's end the names of Brayton, Bowers, Slade and Gibbs are predominant in the moderators, secretaries and committees chosen. By the turn of the century the meetings grow briefer, scarcely more than routine. The common interests of the heirs and assigns of the original Purchasers are dwindling.
Finally, on May 22, 1830, a warrant is issued for a meeting of the Purchasers to be held on June 19 :-
"To show their minds whether they will reconsider a vote passed at the previous Proprietors' meeting to lease the Proprietors' land to the Town of Somerset.
"To show their minds whether they will Deed said land to said town and to act on all matters that may properly come before said meeting."
The warrant is signed by Edward Slade, Eber Chace, David Buffinton, Nathaniel Mason, Lemuel Chase, Elisha Slade, Asa Pierce, Jonathan Buffinton, Jonathan Slade, Benjamin Buffinton, David Earle, and attested by David Buffinton, clerk.
At the meeting thus warranted for June 19, 1850, Samuel Gibbs being chosen moderator it is :-
30
HISTORY OF SOMERSET
"Voted to deed the proprietor's Land to the Town of Somerset and that the deed should be without an consider- ation, or as a deed of gift.
"Voted to choose a special Committee to give a deed to the town of Somerset on behalf of the proprietors.
"Voted to choose Captain Elisha Burgess, Edward Slade and Eber Chace to give the inhabitants of the said town a deed of the Shewamet Purchase.
"Voted that the above named Committee be impowered to give a deed of gift to the inhabitants of the Town of Somerset in behalf of the Proprietors, the deed to be executed on or before the last day of July next and the Proprietors' Records be kept at the Town clerk's office.
David Buffinton,
Proprietors' Clerk."
This is the last entry in the record book. Shawomet Purchase had passed into history.
1675-1775
T THE century between the outbreak of King Philip's war at Swansea on June 19, 1675, and the Revolution's first battle at Concord and Lexington on April 19, 1775, saw Shawomet Lands grow from a deserted Indian village to a Colonial town of nearly a thousand inhabitants.
Like all New England, it began as an agricultural community and however it branched out industrially or commercially, it remained agricultural. The settler on a farm needed no capital but his axe and his farming tools. The labor of his neighbors helped him frame his house and raise his barn. The process of building these cleared his land if he needed it cleared, and as a byproduct gave him his first pay crop for market.
As near as Newport there was a good market for hewn logs and firewood. Providence, Boston, New York, the South and the West Indies took as fast as vessels could be found to ship them, oak lumber, cedar logs and cedar poles for fences, fir boards, masts, tan bark, pitch, tar and barrel staves. Staves had the best market of all, being so needed in England that no pioneer ship could sail without bond to return as many new barrels as it took away with supplies. John Alden came to Plymouth with the Pilgrims because they had hired him as a cooper.
Another immediate crop which Shawomet settlers could market was hay. Even thus early the thickly settled areas, and those engaged in occupations on the sea, had to buy much of their hay and grain. Two natural crops of hay were found in Shawomet; fresh meadow hay and salt meadow hay. To this the settlers soon added plantings of English hay, usually timothy, sometimes mixed with orchard grass and clover. Haying, like house building, was usually done by exchange labor between the farms, dates being
31
JONATHAN BOWERS' HOUSE - FIRST HOUSE IN SOMERSET
32
33
1675-1775
mutually arranged, with special references to salt hay which had to be cut at low tide.
Where the land owner had capital and extensive hay- fields he hired workers. The pay for mowers was eighteen pence a week. Four oxen and a man could be hired for five shillings sixpence a day; six oxen and a man for seven shillings, and eight oxen and a man for eight shillings. If this seems small pay, it may be noted that there is a record of land in Rehoboth being sold at about this time for eight pence an acre. It did not require more than a season's hiring out for an ambitious young man to acquire enough money to buy a farm for himself.
If the settler had capital he stocked his place with a full variety of livestock. Well before King Philip's war the farms of the Old Colony had horses, cattle, oxen, sheep, hogs, geese, and hens. These, except the sheep, furnished additional material for commerce in meat with other communities and with those industrially occupied at home. Sheep were seldom eaten in the first century of Shawomet, being care- fully bred and kept for their all-necessary wool. Pork, beef, horses and corn had a ready market as far away as Virginia and the West Indies. Fish, salted, was shipped regularly to England, France and Spain.
With the coming of livestock, if not for the clearing of hay fields, wall building began. The whole reach of Somerset is within a terminal morain where the retreating glaciers of the ice age dumped their cargo of loose rock torn from the mountains to the north or ground from local ledges. Clearing these from the land was a task that used up the late fall and winter for the settler, his sons and his neighbors, and furnished another source of income for the landless. The going pay for wall building in the late 1600's was fifteen cents a rod for the ordinary field wall, upwards for finished wall.
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.