Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham., Part 4

Author:
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: [Mattapoisett, Mass.] : Mattapoisett Improvement Association
Number of Pages: 516


USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Mattapoisett > Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. > Part 4
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Rochester > Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, Massachusetts : being a history of these towns and also in part of Marion and a portion of Wareham. > Part 4


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).


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But, whatever the structure called the "long Bridge" may have been, the location of the meeting-house is no longer in doubt. From independent and authentic sources we know to-day that the meeting-house stood a few rods westward from the low tract referred to, and within the


47


Beginnings of Rochester Town, 1679-1700


limits of the town's burying-ground, which is indeed the only natural place to look for it.


In 1699 the Meeting-house was built, and with this event began a new era in the town history. The scat- tered interests of the growing villages were now in a meas- ure united. At a town meeting held June 4, 1700, "The inhabitance had before them the accompts of some of the chang that necessarily is coming and hath been in sd town of Rochester, and being sensable of the necessity of mony to be Received for a town stock or Treasury, the inhabitance voted that a Rat of thirty shillings be raised to defray the necessary chang arising in sd town of Roches- ter, in the year 1700."


With this change in the town of Rochester in the year 1700, the period of beginnings may be said to be passed, and with the new century the town entered on its second stage of history, an interesting era of general town development.


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


daughter of Minister Arnold of Rochester. His home was near to the herring weir, where about 1700 he built a fine house which is still standing in good preservation, and is the oldest house within the limits of Old Rochester territory.


In 1684, Benjamin Hammond,1 who was the father of these brothers, and whose mother (widow Elizabeth Ham- mond) with her children had belonged to Parson Lo- throp's congregation of Scituate, came to Rochester and purchased for twenty-six pounds half of a proprietor's share.


A younger son of Benjamin Hammond, Benjamin Hammond, Jr., also came to Rochester, and with his numerous descendants gave the name to the village of Hammondtown, a mile or so from the harbor, where Hammond Cemetery is located, and the first meeting- house in Mattapoisett was built. Benjamin Hammond, Jr., was a noted surveyor of the region. In 1723 he became the special surveyor of the town of Dartmouth, But he also made extensive surveys in his own town of Rochester. At Plymouth Court-house may be seen a book containing five hundred drawings, showing surveys of Rochester lands, more than half of these drawings having been made by Benjamin Hammond. They are of especial technical interest in showing the methods used, and the ways in which land areas were estimated.


Descendants of the Hammond brothers settled early on Mattapoisett Neck and in other parts of Mattapoisett,


1 Benjamin Hammond was the own cousin of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, his mother Elizabeth, the widow of William Hammond of London, being the daughter of the Admiral, Sir William Penn.


THE LIEUT. JOHN HAMMOND HOUSE, MATTAPOISETT HERRING WEIR Built about 1700. The oldest house now standing in the Old Rochester territory


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The Settlers and the Settlements


some also going to Sippican where many Hammonds have lived. The name has been a prominent one in all eras of the town history.1 Nathaniel Hammond, Edward Hammond, Gideon Hammond, and Enoch Hammond figured conspicuously in the Revolutionary history of Rochester town.


Israel Hammond (the great-grandfather of the Noah Hammond who copied the Proprietors' Books) was a prominent man in business, church, and society, and kept a slave, Uncle Tom, who held an honorable position as a member of the family. The story is told that once when efforts were being made at the Hammond Mill to catch a thief, Tom said he was afraid. "Afraid of what?" he was asked. "Afraid the thief is one of our good old honest neighbors," was the reply. A few slaves were then owned in New England, and the ships of Massachu- setts towns brought them over rather freely for the south- ern market. Freedom was offered to Mr. Hammond's "Uncle Tom," but he declined to accept, and died a slave and a self-respecting and honest man.


Another proprietor who came early to Mattapoisett and settled near the river was Moses Barlow. The oldest of the Mattapoisett graveyards is to-day known as the " Old Barlow Cemetery." Wilson Barstow wrote:


" The Barlows and Hammonds were the ancient nobility of the place.


" Old Deacon Barlow, one of the first proprietors to lay out land, was famous in his day as a deacon, pillar of


" A "Hammond Genealogy " compiled and published in 1894 by Rowland Hammond, M.D., a native of Mattapoisett, gives much in- formation of this family and of their participation in the town's history.


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


the church, and leader in society. It is said that when the wife of Deacon Barlow died, he mourned for her with due propriety for a year and a day. Then mounting his horse, he rode to the house of a maiden lady, and having knocked with his cane without dismounting, he greeted her with 'Good morning, I am in pursuit of a wife; if you will have me, I will come in, if not, I shall go farther.' ' Why, Deacon,' was the reply, 'How you astonish me! Thank you, you had better come in.' A few days later there was a wedding, and the Deacon took his new wife home on a pillion behind him."


The third proprietor mentioned who came to Matta- poisett was William Dexter, whose descendants in town have been about as numerous as those of Benjamin Ham- mond, and have figured conspicuously in both church and town history. His home was at Pine Island, where he had a farm three fourths of a mile square, with a brook running through it. At the "Dexter Dam" on this stream a sawmill and a gristmill were built at an early date. Benjamin Dexter, who died in 1732, in his will names the mill as a part of his property assets. A house built some time before 1800 stands to-day on the site of the original Dexter home, and is still owned in the Dexter family.


William Dexter, the proprietor, died in 1694, but four of his sons settled in Rochester, and his only daughter, Mary Dexter, became the wife of Moses Barlow. Thomas Dexter was an early representative, and the names of Benjamin and John Dexter figure prominently in the early town records. Benjamin married Sarah, a daughter of Minister Arnold, and many of Mr. Arnold's extensive land holdings passed finally into the hands of his Dexter


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The Settlers and the Settlements


grandchildren. Constant Dexter, a son of Benjamin, was an early deacon of the Mattapoisett church. He died in military service at Crown Point during the French and Indian War. Another of Benjamin's sons, Seth Dexter, settled near the church at Rochester Center, on land still owned and occupied by his descendants. Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D.D., the distinguished leader and historian of the Congregational denomination, was a descendant of this Dexter line.1


Among the proprietors who drew house-lots in Sippican, the first mentioned is Mrs. Elizabeth Ellis, a widow, whose husband, John Ellis, of Sandwich, died in 1677. In 1687 Mrs. Ellis was living on her land in Sippican, but her descendants two or three generations later were clear- ing lands and breaking up the virgin soil in the Ellis neighborhood of Mattapoisett.


Samuel Briggs lived at Little Neck and came into possession of the old ministry lands there after the new ministry lands had been laid out at Rochester Center.


Aaron Barlow, who became the second representative of the town to the General Court at Plymouth, lived at Rochester at an early date, and in 1708 the town built a new pound close beside Aaron Barlow's house.


John Wing's home, the ancestral home of numerous Wing descendants, was on Great Neck, but later genera- tions lived farther north in Marion, in the vicinity where to-day stands the Methodist Church. A large territory in this region was once occupied by Wing families. John Wing was a surveyor, and about 1700 he wrote a book on


1 A " Dexter Genealogy " compiled by Robert L. Dexter of Matta- poisett, and others, has recently been published, from which knowl- edge of this extensive family connection may be gained.


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


surveying, which showed the methods then used. For many years persons by the name of Wing held the office of town clerk.


John Wing with Savory Clifton who lived in the same vicinity, and a few others, started the Quaker movement in Rochester. John Wing and very many of his descend- ants lie buried in the old Friends' burying-ground op- posite the Methodist church.


The graves of these early settlers are mostly unmarked, but on a small tablet in the enclosure one may read :


" Within this inclosure lie the Remains of 326 Friends : 200 x 67 Ft."


Kenelm Winslow, who was a nephew of Governor Ed- ward Winslow of Plymouth, owned lands near Leonard's Pond, and in Mattapoisett and other places; but it does not appear that he ever lived upon these lands. The names Job, Thomas, and Edward Winslow, however, appear early in the town history.


Some of the Winslows lived several miles north of the Center. The "house of Capt. Edward Winslow in Sniptuit " is mentioned in 1726. The old "Whitridge House," built in 1695, and recently taken down, was originally a "Winslow House." It stood not far from Rounseville's Mill, which was originally the "Winslow Mill." The house of Mr. Andrew Fearing at the Center was also an old Winslow house, moved to its present position many years ago from the "Clapp neighborhood."


The location of some of the proprietors who found homes in Rochester cannot be distinctly traced; but families bearing the name of Clark were found very early in several


-


Ww


THE WHITRIDGE, OR WINSLOW, HOUSE Near Rounseville's Mill, Rochester. Built in 1695; taken down in 1906


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The Settlers and the Settlements


parts of the town. Some of the name of Pope lived near the Dartmouth line. There were Bensons in several localities, and Davises some time later in the northern section and elsewhere. Nicholas Davis and Timothy Davis were public speakers of note in the religious de- nomination of "Friends" in Rochester. Burge (after- wards Burgess) became an early name of Wareham. At a later date Burgess was a family name in the Town quarter. Tristam Burgess, born in Rochester, after graduating at Brown University, became a prominent member of Congress from Rhode Island. He was a man of impassioned oratory, with keen powers of sarcasm, and figured conspicuously in debates with southern mem- bers about the middle of the first half of the nineteenth century.


Bumpus (now Bump) was an early name in Wareham, along the Weweantit River on which Bumpus's Mill was situated. Among the members of the First Church dis- missed in 1739 to form the Wareham Church there were eight persons named Bumpus. The same persons were also leaders in the movement for the incorporation of the town of Wareham.


Samuel White from Marshfield, of the old Mayflower stock, was one of the first board of selectmen in 1690. The most distinguished of the White descendants in Rochester was Lieut .- Col. Ebenezer White, the town representative of the Revolutionary era. The location of the White family is obscure, but in 1704 John White was owner of lands a mile or so east of Rochester Center, and at a later date White was a family name in North Rochester.


Dotey, also a Mayflower name, appears at an early


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


date in various land descriptions near the center of the town. It was also the name of early settlers in the vicinity of Look's Mills. In recent years, Mary Dotey, born in Rochester, has been known in musical circles as a con- cert singer in America and Europe, under the name of Madame Dotti.


In 1694 Benjamin Foster sold his entire share to Samuel Prince of Sandwich, who, before he moved his family to Rochester Center owned a house and land at Cromeset, which may have been Benjamin Foster's. Several Fos- ters of prominence were found later in Rochester. Lieut. Chillingsworth Foster, whose grave is in Rochester ceme- tery, was a military man of the eighteenth century, and early in the nineteenth century Dr. James Foster was a prominent physician near Rochester Center, but becom- ing depressed on account of financial troubles he finally took his own life.


Among the original proprietors it is probable that the two Lothrops, the two Bartletts, the two Bradfords, Ralph Powel, George Morton, Joseph Dunham, Thomas Hinck- ley, John Cotton, and William Paybody never took up their residence in Rochester.


The earliest list of freemen for Rochester, made in 1684, is given as follows:


Mr. Samuel Arnold, Peter Blackmer, John Hammond, Moses Barlow, Samuel White, Samuel Hammond, Joseph Dotey, Jacob Bumpus, Joseph Burges, John Haskell, Sprague, Abraham Holmes, Job Winslow. The names of John Wing and Aaron Barlow were soon afterwards added.


From this it appears that Mr. Arnold was living in the town before he became the town's minister. At his


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The Settlers and the Settlements


death, in 1709, he left one son, Samuel Arnold, Jr., who was a deacon in the First Church, and several daughters. Elizabeth Arnold, who married Charles Sturtevant, suc- ceeded to the ownership of the family house on "Arnold's Plain" at the Center. At the time of the Rochester Bi- centennial four generations of Minister Arnold's descend- ants were then living in the Sturtevant house at Rochester . Center.


Peter Blackmer has already been named as living at the Sippican Mill Site, where he was miller as well as town clerk. His last descendant in Rochester bearing the name of Blackmer - Mr. Garrison Blackmer - died a few years ago at his home near the Acushnet border.


John Haskell, named as freeman in 1684, soon left Rochester and went to Middleboro. In 1692, Mark Haskell, a brother of John Haskell, came from Salem. It is said that he came in haste to avoid serving on the jury of a witchcraft trial. He lived a little to the west of the meeting-house, and took a prominent part in the town affairs for several years, but died in 1699, leaving four sons, from whom the different lines of Rochester Haskells have descended. Deacon Roger Haskell, the oldest son, succeeded his father at the home place, and his descend- ants are numerous to-day at Rochester Center. John Haskell, the second son, was a minor at the time of his father's death, and his mother took up land for him at Mary's Pond. He had many descendants, but most of his sons finally went to Hardwick. Mark Haskell, the third son of Mark, Sr., lived in Rochester, but the ex- act location is not clear. Joseph Haskell, the young- est son of Mark, Sr., became a man of considerable wealth. His last descendant in Rochester, of the name


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


of Haskell - Miss Eugenia Haskell, a woman of interest- ing and unique personality - died in 1907 at the age of eighty-nine.


Sprague was a prominent name in Rochester town for many years. Samuel Sprague, Noah Sprague, and Nathaniel Sprague held important town offices at various dates. Samuel Sprague, who was town representative before the Revolution, lived a little north of the Center. The Spragues intermarried with the Hammonds of Mat- tapoisett, and Sprague became a prominent name in that village as well as in the more northern part of the town.


Abraham Holmes, whose name appears in this first list of freemen, lived in the northern part of the town. A little later we find the names of three brothers, Abraham, Isaac, and Josiah Holmes, all living in the vicinity of Vaughn's Hill, a little south of Snow's Pond. Abraham Holmes (who was also the first deacon of the First Church) and Isaac Holmes, known variously as Captain and En- sign Isaac Holmes, were both among the signers of the Covenant at the founding of the First Church. Ensign Isaac Holmes was also in 1700 put in charge of the town's herring weir at Sniptuit. Experience Holmes, the son of Abraham Holmes, lived on old Weir Hill by Sniptuit. Another Abraham Holmes, great-grandson of the first Abraham, from whose Memoirs quotations are made in this history, moved later to Rochester Center. Other Holmeses went to Mattapoisett, and the name Holmes has at some period figured prominently in all four of the quarters of Old Rochester.


With the purchase of Benjamin Foster's share in 1694, Samuel Prince became a most influential factor in town affairs. In addition to Benjamin Foster's share, Mr.


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The Settlers and the Settlements


Prince bought half of Samuel Lothrop's proprietary rights. He also made other very extensive land purchases in various parts of the town, so that he was for some years the largest landowner in Rochester. The large house which he built in 1710 stood near the trout brook on the old road from the Center toward Marion that was given up in 1785. The house was called Whitehall, in memory of a family estate in England. In later years it was known as the White House. At a period long after the Prince family had left Rochester, it stood for years as a disused building, but during the Revolution its floors were taken up " to procure materials for making saltpeter for use of the army," and afterwards it was taken down.


Mr. Prince was twice married, his second wife, who came with him to Rochester, being a daughter of Governor Hinckley. He was the father of many children, one of them being Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor for forty years of the Old South Church of Boston, and an important New England historian. Mr. Samuel Prince was himself a man of education as well as of wealth, and during his stay in Rochester he did much to promote the general interests of the town, especially in school affairs. He was a Justice of the Peace, at that time an important office, and he also held for years the office of representative to the General Court.


The Prince family moved to Middleboro in 1723, where Samuel Prince died in 1728, at the age of eighty. After his death some of his Rochester lands along Muddy Brook were made a subject of legal contest among those who had been his neighbors, and were voluntarily relinquished by the Prince heirs. One son, Joseph Prince, remained for a time in Cromeset, and a granddaughter, who had


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


married in town, continued to live here; but for the most part the Prince family, which for a few years had been very influential, passed out of the Rochester history.


Another name that appeared in Rochester Center at a very early date was that of Clapp. In the earliest town records that are preserved, those of 1697, Increase Clap is the first name mentioned as that of selectman in that year. Major Earl Clapp was a brave and distinguished officer in the Revolution. He was also the leader of the party in the First Parish that opposed Minister Moore, and for a time brought disruption into the church.


About 1725, Richard Church, a cousin of Benjamin Church, came, with others, from Scituate, and acquired a large tract of land at " Macedonia," its northern boun- dary being on the old "Rhode Island Path." A few years later, he built a sawmill on the Mattapoisett River at Wolf Island. The stones of the old cellar and chimneys and a few wild apple trees still mark the site of the old Church dwelling at "Macedonia."


Lemuel Church, son of Richard Church, was the first of the Church name to be born in Rochester. In 1750 he married Bethiah Clapp, who outlived her husband by sixty years, dying in 1832 at the age of one hundred years, perhaps the first of the Rochester centenarians.


Lemuel Church built his home in what has since been called the Church neighborhood, on the old Middleboro path from Assawampsett to Mattapoisett, now known as the "Mattapoisett Road" or the "Rochester Road." In taking his corn for grinding to the mill some miles away, he used to sling it on one side of the horse (as did all his neighbors), balancing it by a stone of similar weight on the other, the more modern method of "dividing the


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The Settlers and the Settlements


grist " not being then invented. After the death of Lemuel Church in 1772, his widow Bethiah opened her house as an inn, furnishing rum and other "entertain- ment" to foot travelers, - which was much appreciated by the Indians, who still occasionally came this way, and depended on this as a stopping-place. It is said that on one occasion a squaw who had brought her papoose on her back strapped to a board, confused perhaps by what she had been drinking, carelessly placed the board against the side of the room head downward, and "in the morning there was a little dead Indian."


In the vicinity of this Church neighborhood there were various lands which were held at an early date in the name of Cowen or Cowing. Descendants of the Cowings still live here, though another Cowen neighborhood ap- peared later in the more northern part of the town.


To the south of the Church neighborhood was the land of the Randalls, where Mr. Thomas Randall (one of the survivors of the men of Forty-nine) still lives. There have been many Randalls in this vicinity, though the name Randall was carried to the central and northern parts of the town as well. Mr. Jeremiah Randall, who died at the Center several years ago, was the oldest resi- dent and last person by the name of Randall in the old Town quarter at that date.


Aunt Keziah Randall, a well-known Rochester cen- tenarian, was born in 1789, near the site of the Marion depot. She was a daughter of Jesse Parlow, and in her girlhood it was said that "Kezey Parlow was the hand- somest gal for miles around." After the death of her husband, who was a soldier of 1812, Aunt Keziah drew a United States pension and lived for many years alone in


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


a clearing in the woods to the north of the Friends' meet- ing-house, Aucoot, gaining health and enjoyment from the care of her vegetable garden. On her hundredth birthday in 1889 (though she claimed to be six years older), she had many callers to whom she talked entertainingly of her reminiscences, saying that she remembered Mattapoisett village when it had only four houses and a blacksmith shop.


Another Rochester centenarian was Mrs. Jane Paine, who lived beside Mary's Pond, dying in 1891 in her one hundred and first year. Paine has also been an old family name in the Mattapoisett quarter of Old Rochester.


In 1790 the first census of the United States was taken, in order to secure the population basis for representation in Congress, this being as early as it was found practicable to do it after the adoption of the Constitution.


A list of Rochester family names taken from this list, together with the towns from which these settlers had come, was afterwards published in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, in 1815, as follows :


Sandwich Names - Barlow, Sanders, Burges, Nye, Hammond, Swift, Willis, Blackmer, Ellis, Bessey, Wing, Black, Hamblin, Dexter, Gifford, Allen.


Marshfield Names - Arnold, Bumpus, Baker, Winslow, Snow, Hathaway, Holmes, Sherman, Sprague, White, Dotey, Russell.


Scituate Names - Church, Turner, Barstow, King, Foster, Cowin, Keen, Briggs.


Plymouth and Middleboro - Savory, Jenny, Tinkham, Clarke, Morton, Pierce, Sturtevant, Coome.


Barnstable - Davis, Lombard, Annable, Chase.


Yarmouth - Tilley, Sears, Rider, Hiller, White.


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The Settlers and the Settlements


Eastham - Higgins.


Also a few Rhode Island names, with those of Pease, Luce, and Norton from the Vineyard.


Among the names in this list which have had many representatives in Rochester, the Nyes were early settlers at Charles's Neck and in the lower part of Marion. Some of the oldest graves at the ancient burying-ground of Little Neck also bear the name of Nye. At a later era the Blankinships intermarried with the Nyes and settled in the same region. Allen, Hamblin, Luce, and Savery also became well-known Sippican names, though Savery became also a name of Center Rochester. Mr. Silas B. Allen, Mr. Ichabod Blankinship, and Mr. George B. Nye are three men' now living in the southern part of Marion at an advanced age, whose memories have preserved some of the facts relating to old Marion families that are mentioned in these pages.


The Hillers lived at Aucoot (formerly spelled Orcoot) and belonged to Quaker circles. They were important salt-makers. The Hathaways lived southeast of Mary's Pond, near the corner of the present towns of Wareham, Marion, and Rochester, though they were afterwards found in many other localities. Several Captain Hatha- ways were prominent among the shipmasters that sailed from Marion in the seafaring days.


Of other names given in this 1790 list, Barstow, Jenney, Pease, Sturtevant, and Tinkham took root in Matta- poisett, though Sturtevant was found at the Center also. Pease and Barstow became associated prominently with the later ship-building interests of Mattapoisett.


Swift became a name of Wareham. Pierce was found near the Wareham line, and Keen near the Acushnet


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Mattapoisett and Old Rochester


border. King and Willis became well-known names at Rochester Center, though King was found in other local- ities also. Gifford, Sears, and Chase were found in several localities, though the Gifford neighborhood was in the northern part of the town. Sherman was an early name both in North Rochester and Mattapoisett, but became later a wide-spread name in all the town quarters. Rider was found at first in the northern part of the town, later at the Center and in other localities. Rider's Mill was east of Sniptuit. Snow was at first a North Rochester name, and later a name of Mattapoisett also. The Nich- olas Snow house near Snow's Pond is one of the oldest of Old Rochester houses.




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