USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Marion > Lands of Sippican on Buzzards Bay > Part 11
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Plyme, Ape 10, 1800.
Besides this "gentleman" and others, like the schoolmasters and ministers, there were millers, carpenters, shipwrights, sailors, laborers, blacksmiths, taylors, caulkers, nailors, blockmakers, pump makers, seamen, and even a "quact doctor": a good crew to carry on the shipbuilding and salt making, the tilling, sow- ing, reaping and grinding corn.
But all these really served as the henchmen, the super- numeraries of the play, for over all were the captains! Captains!
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
Count them! The town records bristle with their names! By 1809 every family in town was represented by at least one captain, two, three sometimes in far away waters.
A few adventurous sons drifted off landward, up in the Northeastern part of the state, now Maine, and some of the comments on the speculation in land reminds one of a century later.
"I do not see how the brother could have bought such!"
Some were drawn out into the unknown world of Indians, and black forests, and rushing rivers by letters such as Noah Fearing wrote from
"the city of Moratta in Columbus."
"Now that there is an agreeable pece made with the Indians" he says, "Down the River, 150 miles Square, Settled thick as Middleborough from the Mountains down the River Ohio there is Deer in a hundred & turkeys without numbering. After you Gott the farm in Some order you may Live as well hear without half the Work as in New England Settlements."
He goes on "The proprietors have given 100 acres to 1500 persons Ech that will Settle first."
"There is a boat almost Every Day coming down the River with their families to Settle. Down River thoufands of persons a year, it is the moft healthy Country that Ever I was acquainted with, there is no feavers hear of any kind the year past. I like the Country So well I do not think Ever to Come to New England again. Giting over the Mountains the Taxes is almost nothing. A farm of 300 acres, 100 cleared cuts 20 load of hay and Reeps 500 bushels of wheat, have 20 head of cattle, 8 horses, 50 swine, 2 sheep is rated 16s."
But Deacon Jesse Haskell is making 4 saddles and 8 bridles that month of December for $42.00, and the faces of old Rochester Towne are turned towards the East, the sea!
Call the roll of old Rochester Captains' names. Adams; Allen (Albert, and Joseph and James and Ephraim) ; Blackmer; Bates (Joseph, Sylvester, George, Roland, Albert) ; Barden; Blankinship (beginning with Capt. James in 1720, George Job, Seth, Peleg); Briggs (Paul, Hallett, Nathaniel) ; Bolles (Wil-
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· liam, Frederick,. Savory, Obed); Clapp; Coleman; Church; Cleghorn; Crandon; Clark (James, Henry, Elisha, Lemuel, Lem Jr.); Delano (Stephen, Franklin) ; Davis; Fuller; Jenne; Lovell; Keen; Look; Luce; Norton; Nye; Pierce; Pope; Rug- gles ; Rogers; Ryder ; Snow; Swift; Sherman; Sprague; Taber ; Weeks; Winslow; White (Resolved, Resolved, Jr.); and the Wings, Quaker Captains, (John, Resolved, Timothy, David, Jed- idiah, Stephen, Samuel, Clifton, Paul) ; and the Hammond fam- ily from Alfred Elnathan, 1787, (Nathaniel, Gideon, Nathan, Stephen, Jabez, Israel) ; the Hillers, saltmakers and Captains all: and so on down the long list of captains who lived in the days of "satten" vests, and swords, uniforms, pantaloons, "saddal" bags, chaises, and "Nee buckles".
In some families, fathers, brothers, uncles, were captains; and captain's sisters and captain's daughters married captains.
One girl of old Rochester married a captain from Sand- wich, Capt. Geo. Gibbs, and her five boys became sea captains - George, John, Charles, Joseph and Lot.
Their life was from the sea - the sea claimed them in death.
Death was so near their little ships, that no wonder when the captains came home to look over their estates they went to the meeting house regularly.
With the great white throne above and the deaths of old and young alike the decree of the Lord God of Israel, that God of Abraham and Isaac, with the last day and the judgment lurking just beyond, there were many protracted meetings, great religious revival services in the villages.
A letter sent to Deacon Haskell, Rochester's representative in the Legislature in Boston, brings back a picture of "a work of Grace" in Sippican.
"Respected and Beloved Sir, and may I say Brother in the Lord -
"Thursday eve I went to the Wharf, there was a most sol- emn season our Beloved old Mr. Luce prayed - very few but were in tears. Widow Luce spoke in tears of the dying love of J. H. S. and her own awful ingratitude, it was enough to melt the heart of stone.
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
A number say we have sinned - we have sinned what shall we do - some feared that they had sinned that day.
Friday at Mr. Clapp's a very solemn meeting - great solemnity. Capt. Hillar became a new man and some others. There it appears the Lord intends to show what his ALMIGHTY grace can do. Mr. Shepard, Mr. Grey, Dean Bailey came Sat- urday to the harbour meeting Saturday eve, solemn, solemn, joyful."
He goes on to describe many meetings; one he calls "sol- emn as eternity itself" where he "warned sinners to flee from the wrath to come." "friday eve a meeting is expected at Earl church, he is very solemn. Christians are alive, some their hearts leap for joy to see serious trouble and some rejoice nothing but the ALMIGHTY power of God could do this".
And he signs himself "from an unworthy and hell deserv- ing sinner,
Your humble servant
Daniel Morton."
There was a kind of fearful shivering excitement about it that relieved the soul, and the sailors went off to sea again at peace with Jehovah.
Out the Captains sailed in the little coasters to New York, and to the merchantmen lying at the great town wharves.
Sippican didn't know Boston well. It might be the Cap- ital of the growing State but in order to get anything from Boston, one had the slow ox cart journey to Plymouth, to get the supplies brought down in schooners.
Of course there was the stage from Bedford to Boston, sinking to its hubs sometimes in mud and slush, or clinging, silvery sand.
But easier to travel by the sea, and Gosnold's "mighty headland" still blocked the Northern passage, so the little ships sailed South, and New York was the home port of Rochester Towne. New York with the pigs running in the streets; people coming out to the street wells with buckets for water, and sailors, sailors, swarming on the wharves in their red checked shirts and shiny be-ribboned hats.
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Boarding house runners given a receipt by cool eyed mates, for all the would-be sea-men they can drag down on board.
A lively water front!
A young Sippican captain leaves half his heart in the home village with his business affairs in the hands of an agent who looks after his whalers, his ship on the ways, his cranberry bogs and sometimes his outfitting store, and with a man on the farm to tend crops and cattle and sheep.
And the anchor goes "apeak", and he sails for Darien with memories of the village playing on his heart like gentle fingers on harp strings. He looks from visions of a cheerful sunny kitchen and pink and white babies tumbling about, to bleary eyed Jack Tars who when roused, think they are still in New York; and as far as both captain and crew can see stretch grey waters.
And the young captains' wives left at home! Like squir- rels they provide for the winter. Mince meat and pickles, horse-radish, jellies and preserves, pound cake, candied flag- root, fruit cake; all this put up in the big summer kitchen and set in solid ranks on the pantry shelves in the store-room, to go with hams, sausages, lard, and barrels of pork, and vegetables - potatoes, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, beets, onions cram- ming the "root cellar" under the house from its low ceiling to the sand floor.
How they did toil! Little brown fingers working harder than their grandmothers of fifty years before because life has become more decorated. There are more furnishings than wooden benches and sanded floors. Heavy iron pots have to be lifted from the fireplaces, so soon to be replaced by the little iron stoves.
From sunrise to sunset, as their grandmothers did before them, spinning, weaving and cutting out little frocks and trousers, making sheets and quilts and blankets and rag carpets, soap and candles, doing all the tasks that were so soon to be swept out of frail hands by steel and iron electric monsters that would create, like demi gods, millions of garments in the
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
time it took one mother to spin, and weave, and fashion the winter suits of her dozen children.
The clumsily clothed little infants with pious sounding Biblical names of their grandfathers and mothers, or fanciful appellations of tired mothers reaching out after something romantic, different.
The Hammond captains all over the world, with little Amittai, Antipas, Beriritta, Pernal, Pollipus, and Amezia grow- ing up at home with the Clark ship builders' little Melentha, Mattish, Sena, Azerba, Milatrah, Zerviah; and the Doty child- ren, Garshow, Arolotha, Uphemia, Asoph, Ruhamer and Zeri- shaddi.
And the fathers loading Canton willow ware and tea in China, or cotton, molasses and peanuts at Galveston and Dar- ien, that little Beuritta might learn to play the harpischord or Melodeon, and later make wax flowers. The next generation must not work as hard as their grandmothers had. "My girls shall never braid rags" said the mother, and "My boys shall go to Exeter and Harvard" quoth the fathers.
Capt. Joseph Hammatt of Martha's Vineyard who was round the Horn as Captain at 21 years of age, started before the end of the century to think of his children's education and he sailed over to the mainland with his wife in his little vessel, the Spinet. His wife was homesick and tired, and it began to get dark as they landed in a cove at the Old Landing, called Hammett's to this day.
Immigrants, sailing to a better opportunity.
Ever since the first wharf was built in 1708, with its tax of "one shilling in money for every boat's load of whit' caeder brought on or carried off", the little coasters and whalers had brought in their loads of sailors.
Sailors, as in New Bedford and New York, rolling down the sandy roadway round by the Landing Wharf where the water lapped the wagon ruts as the tide came in over the marsh; and into the taverns for lively yarns and a good stiff horn. And nuts, and ginger in blue jars, casks of tamarinds, strange jellies, and rock candy came in to the Rochester homes. Or out
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they piled from the stage coach from Bedford with shawls and silks from China, and whale teeth, and parrots that talked in strange tongues.
Sons, brothers, fathers, husbands; three, four, five years away from home!
Are these John, and Scott, and Steven, and Peleg - for- eign, fascinating, bearded, tattooed, strong, strange, men with earrings in their ears! Could they be the slight lads who went away so different, these tall bronzed men with stories of can- nibals and naked tribes!
The bashful children stand watching these new fathers, and the maidens shyly listen to these startling wooers.
And Captains come and Captains go!
David Dexter, Isaac Hathaway, Jonathan Swift, Clifton Wing, Jonathan Mendell, what difference does the name make?
On the Black Ball packets that by 1816 were great ships of 400 tons on the way to Liverpool, or on the deck of the rolling Annawan, the captain stood, Melville's "mighty pageant creature fit for noble tragedies".
He stood apart, aloof on the ship; and the small boys of old Rochester strained muscle, heart and soul to reach that lofty place.
And the girls dreamed dreams, and the banns were posted on the meeting house door.
Sometimes a wife took the littlest one in her arms and off she sailed with her captain husband. Of many an old Roch- ester mother, could be said as of the sailors, she "laughed the storms to scorn"
"Crossed and re-crossed the line Cancer and Capricon And doubling cold Cape Horn Saw Southern icebergs shine."
To New York sailing for two, three years leaving the older children with relatives to go to school. Little Sippican child- ren singing "Charley over the Water"; playing "I'm up cham- ber spinning tow," boasting sometimes of the far away father
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
and mother and what they would do "when my ship comes in from India!"
They chanted for a nursery rhyme
"Great Naushon and Nonamessett Uncatena and Weepeckets Nashawena, Pasquanese Cuttyhunk, and Penekese."
And sailors' songs that many had heard from their birth on ship-board off strange coasts or in foreign harbors.
The whalers had a song
"In fact I asked a little boy If he could tell where he was born He answered with a smile of joy Around Cape Horn!"
The old days of the sea in the Rochester villages! It is as though the wind from beyond the world blew back again the curtain of years from that century ago time, and one hears voices stilled long ago, and sees faces dimly, and can follow the little figures in and out of the doorways, the "mil", the stores, the ship yards.
It is May, 1828, and house cleaning time!
A little more color than in 1728, a few more houses and gardens, but the same deep rutted roads through the villages.
On these May days the lilacs are blooming in the door- yards in the "Old Landing" and "Wharf village". The South- west wind is blowing all the Spring afternoons. The gardens and the farms are being planted and the little schooners go out.
This is the month that Capt. Elisha is busy outfitting the Persia. .
Can it be the same Persia that had arrived in New Bedford from the Japan grounds in 1823, and caused such consternation in the Quaker town for discharging her cargo on "the first day of the week"?
Anyway, all hands are busy at "the wharf", for Capt. George Luce is taking out the Magnolia, and Capt. Osborne is outfitting the Meridian for the long Indian Ocean voyage. The blacksmith shop! The sail loft, the cooper shop, all busy!
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The wharf! the massive stones, the oxloads of sand and boulders brought down to make the wharves that jut out into the harbor!
Young Frank Sherman had to lift, and lift, and lift again, until he saw stars, and then lift some more; but slowly Sher- man's Wharf grew and grew, until the whalers could dock there in safety, looking out for Gull Rock as they came in.
Busy! Busy that year of 1828! Saltmaking, and ship hammers sounding, and of course the "mil" humming.
Herring running, too!
Everybody seemed to be buying "goose neck" hoes at the Old Landing store, and "Pearline" was a favorite with the shoppers.
They come in and out, and the storekeeper jots down "4c and 9c", but once in a while somebody steps in like Methra Clark and purchases
1 bbl. flour 6.25
20 lbs. pork 2.00
$8.25
It is a very good day when Archippius Leonard comes down. He orders "Rum, sugar, molasses, pork, tea, 4 fish hooks, Raisins, Tobacco, gin and snuff." The iron makers, the Leon- ards, are up at "the Sippican mil", and don't get down often, perhaps.
Can this be the "Archippius" who appears in the Ware- ham Treasurer's account book in 1815 as the only man paid out of the town's account the year before, when the Nimrod's boats appeared?
"Paid Archippus Leonard for standing guard when the British landed, seventy-one cents."
Talk in the store tacks back and forth from planting to weddings; from price of whale bone to Quaker meetings.
More banns up on the meeting house doors!
Rochester girls are pretty, and captains come from Ware- ham and the Cape towns and carry them off. Captain John Pitcher's boys are doing well. Beginning as cabin boys at
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
$2.50 a month, and here is James Scott captain at 21 and wed to Captain Hammett's girl Ann.
Captain of a steamer is James Scott! You can see to this day engraved on his silver headed cane the picture of the queer little steamship of 1829.
And Betsy Pitcher, the little school marm has married Stephen Taber, and has gone to the whaling town to live. A good warm winter, that of 1824 when Betsy married, but do you remember the winter before when the Nantucket packet didn't leave the harbor all winter?
And then Butler Wing, Esq. comes into the Store, and has 60c charged to him for a "horse and waggon to the herring- ware." Horses were scarce in town, but you could always hire one at "the store" for about ten cents a mile.
Widow Sally Crapo comes in and buys "1 oz. allom, 1/2 pt. N. E. rum, 1 pt. Holland gin."
It wasn't so shocking that the wives of the village bought rum. Everybody drank.
Many a housewife threw her apron hastily over her head, and ran by a back gate to a neighbor's to borrow something to replenish her empty demijohn, when she saw the minister coming.
A disgrace not to give him wine with his pound cake. Be- tween the long sermons on the Sabbath Day it became the cus- tom for the aristocrats to go less and less to the tavern, but rather to some prominent deacon's house near. - The Major Rowland Luce house became noted for it's hospitality.
The story of one of the Luce boys, Captain Elisha, was . the tale of many a captain in the Rochester villages at the be- ginning of the century.
He had married Jane Hiller, daughter of Timothy Hiller whose farm lands were later cut by South Street. Capt. Elisha built his house, corner of Main and Water Sts. today, near the Hiller homestead, which later blossomed out under the as- tonishing name of the "Bay View House".
The year that "Hosey" died, Jane died too at the age of 29 years. Of her might have been written as was that same year of another in Rochester.
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"I think she was a valluable woman one that was humble & Feared God & I hope & trust she is gone to a better world - & may the trying scene be sanctifyed to our Dear Nephew and he be made Alive unto God."
The young captain voyaged again, and in 1823 married one of the Clark girls, Lucretia.
In 1825 he stays at home, and runs his store and outfitting shop with the Bates.
That year they are organizing a company of light in- fantry for "home safety", under the name of the 4th Plymouth Co. with David Hathaway, Colonel, and John Clark, Ensign.
That was on June 18, 1825, and Capt. Elisha comes back to his store, and sells a crowbar to Capt. Bolles for $2.00, to Capt. Gurney, chains, cables and anchors for $79.30, and wood to Capt. Barden, and also jots down
"George Look to E. Luce, Dr.
Cash advanced in Savannah and Darien New York 8m 15 days wages at $20 $170.00
Later in the year he writes
To Sloop William Dr.
Freight to Savannah $72.62
9.22
Darien 125.50
and on Jan. 10, 1820 he is writing a long list of articles of freight to Darien. Sugar, salt, mackerel, potatoes go aboard, and gin, rum, Brandy, wine, coffee, tobacco, flour, soap, beef, pork, Bars of iron and 152 Plow moulds!
Just underneath all this he writes
"To one sixteenth Sloop Anne __ $75.00"
So, a captain, like George Bonum Nye up the long road to Charles Neck, kept his accounts in the year 1825.
He is getting to be an old captain now in this year of 1828. He is forty years old, and outfitting for the China Sea! "Wall! Elisha's most overhauled" says one on the bench in the Whaler's corner in the Old Landing Store!
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
Frederick Mendell comes in. His wife is going to mend his vest and he dutifully buys
"11/4 Brown .44
1 stick twist .06
2 skeins colored thread .03
8 horn Button moles .03
Then he is taken by a vest he is shown, and he buys it regard- less of price.
"Vest $2.25"
That 31st of May, 1828, Cornelius Briggs is going to write a letter.
Besides taking 151/4 lbs. Pork 1/2 gal. rum .25
$1.53
he buys 3 sheets of paper at a cent a sheet. He can take plenty of time to write it. The mail went three times a week on the stage coach that ran through the center from Plymouth to New Bedford. Later John Delano got 12c for carrying up the mail from Sippican. Letters were expensive, for it cost sometimes 171/2 or 18c to send one any distance; so the captains and sail- ors and other travellers often found themselves on their trips with letters from strangers to strangers.
Quite a task to write a letter, and a thrilling event to receive one, to hear your name called out by the Postmaster with everybody at the store gathered around when the mail came. Every letter was tied up in a piece of brown paper which told when it was sent and the amount of postage, and once a month the names of those who had received letters were sent to Washington.
Sometimes a note to the Post Master was written across, "Mr. Ruggles the Postmaster is requested to forward this im- mediately."
After one got safely home from Rochester to Wareham in the stage coach one wrote a real letter of Thanksgiving!
One cold January day a visitor to the Haskell family wrote "Got home on account of cold very comfortable indeed. Found parents and friends in health. May I duly appreciate & with humble gratitude acknowledge God my preserver from
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whom all my blessings flow and all my hopes of future hap- piness depend.".
She became more cheerful in the Post Script. "Singing school to commence here tomorrow evening." And all this while Cornelius Briggs buys 3 sheets of paper for 3c.
That month of May, 1828, they are buying Lottery tickets! Moses Westgett thinks he can chance $1.50 so he gambles blithely
"To 1 ticket .50
1 do watch lottery .50
1 do Connecticut lottery .50"
Peleg Hathaway's family, we suspect, are all dosed with sulphur and molasses on May 25, 1828, and the boys in Alexander Hathaway's family are going to look real ship shape for he buys
2 boys Hatts $1.84
Nathan Jenne comes in and buys
5 yds. gingham $1.00
11/2 yds. Brown Cambrick .50
1 gall. gin .50
$2.00
Two whole days of labor for Nathan as John Blankinship and B. Nye are paying $2.50 down in the wharf Village for 21/2 days shingling, and 41/2 days lathing and plastering $4.50, and for making hay gear, 75c.
Widow Sally Crapo must live near as she is always run- ning in and having charged something like
To 8 needles .04"
The store keeper thoughtfully writes below Elam Look's pur- chase of 1 bbl. flour, "if not paid in 60 days, Interest."
The Persia, the Meridian, the Magnolia, all ready, just the last few things to pack aboard! Then a fair wind, and they will spread their white sails and disappear around Charles Neck Point.
Rochester buys shirting and oak timber, port wine, nut- megs, ginger, woolenette, and rye, corn, striped silks, cardigan,
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THE GOOD OLD WAYS OF CAPTAINS DAYS
Pine wood, gin, calico, Souchong tea, Pork; and the store keeper is busy also as banker, lending three dollars, five dollars!
Peleg Hathaway buys 1 pt. new rum for .07c and stands around, and then spends 8c for rum for "son and self."
Stephen Allen and Steven Briggs are making a sociable call, so Stephen treats Steven to rum for 15c. If you wanted a real time of course you cruised off up the road to the Land- ing Tavern, but if you were just gamming in the store you sometimes took a drink if trade was slack. Good stock of supplies in the Old Landing Store! Of course you could go to New Bedford. That was getting to be a lively town of 6 or 7 thousand people, although some of the whalemen said money was scarce over there, and the population had dropped a thousand or two. ·
But you could buy just as cheap at home. A "pare of bellouses" only cost 42c, knife, 25c; vial of peppermint, 13c; a good pair of shoes $1.67 (Clifton Wing got a pair in April for 50c) ; Spectacles, 58c; gall. stone pot 30c. Josiah G. Handy must be going to have a "vendue", or a house raising, or is he buying for Handy's Tavern?
"43/4 lb. L. Sugar .95
2 gall. maloga wine 2.00
1 gall. H. gin 1.25
1/2 gall. barberry rum .38
4.58
Somebody is a little sensitive about the "liquor question", and it appears on the storekeeper's account as
"To 1 pt. W. I. Rum (for sickness) per Betsy."
That's all. Betsy must have been charged "Be sure you say it's for sickness, Betsy!"
David Hathaway takes "a horse & waggon (for Maj. Luce) 25c" and down on the book goes
"Walter Turner, By shining horse (for Z. Eddy) .621/2c. and Eddy "Pays butter to Turner at .621/c," so that account is clear. And what do you think! They say Packet ships are going to Liverpool in fifteen days! Incredible! and "Widow Susan Delano" buys "1/2 gall N. Rum 25c."
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On June 9. off sails Capt. Elisha in the Persia, and the Meridian sails and Capt. Geo. Luce in the Magnolia.
The next year is charged in Capt. Elisha's "Worfage Book"
"Sloop William Run $1207.50
Wages port charges 229.54
997.96
Charges against sloop
488.98
199.48
Balance
289.50
But it was his agent that made the entry as Capt. Elisha was still swashing about in the Indian Ocean.
The boys on the whalers as they mend their clothes and scrimshaw, talk of home with the thousands of miles between, of how David Hathaway and Rufe Leonard bought new frock coats at the Old Landing store. "Paid $17.00 a piece." "Wall, Tim Clifton had his made at home. There's the Quaker in him!"
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