USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 12
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Some of the guns captured at Bennington by Stark fell
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again into British possession at the surrender of Detroit. The inscriptions were read with much curiosity by the captors, who observed that they would now add a line to the history. The British officer of the day directed the evening salutes to be fired from them. When Stark heard of the loss of his guns he was much incensed. These pieces again became American at the capture of Fort George. Two of the lightest metal were pre- sented by Congress to the State of Vermont.
In 1819 Stark was still living, the last survivor of the American generals of the Revolution. His recollections were then more distinct in relation to the events of the Old French War than of that for independence. Bunker Hill, Trenton, and Bennington should be inscribed upon his tomb.
Not long after his arrival at the camp General Lee took up his quarters in the Royall mansion, whose echoing corridors suggested to his fancy the name of Hobgoblin Hall. But Washington, as elsewhere related, caused him to remove to a point nearer his command. After Lee, Sullivan, attracted no doubt by the superior comforts of the old country-seat, unwa- rily fell into the same error. He, too, was remanded to his brigade by the chief, who knew the impulsive Sullivan would not readily forgive himself if anything befell the left wing of the army in his absence. In these two cases Washington exhibited his adhesion to the maxim that a general should sleep among his troops.
.The Royall mansion came, in 1810, into the possession of Jacob Tidd, in whose family it remained half a century, until its identity with the old royalist had become merged in the new proprietor. It has been subsequently owned by George L. Barr and by George C. Nichois, who at present occupies it. The Tidd House is the name by which it is now known, and all old citizens have a presentiment that it will not much longer retain a foothold among its modern neighbors. The surveyor has appeared on the scene with compass and level. Only one of the granite gate-posts remains in the driveway, while the stumps of the once splendid elms, planted by Royall, lie scat- tered about.
I
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Nothing goes to our heart more than to see one of these gigantic old trees, which it has cost a century to grow, struck down in an hour ; but when whole ranks of them are swept away, how quickly the scene changes from picturesque beauty to insignificance ! At the forks of every road leading into their villages the old settlers were wont to plant an elm, where weary travellers and footsore beasts might, in time, gather under its spreading branches, sheltered from the burning rays of the noonday sun. In the market-place, too, they dug their wells, but planted the tree beside. Many of these yet remain ; and if in any one thing our New England towns may claim pre-emi- nence, it is in the beauty of these trees, -the admiration of every beholder, the gigantic fans that cool and purify the air around our habitations. Dickens, no mean observer, said our country- houses, in their spruce tidiness, their white paint, and green blinds, looked like houses built of cards, which a breath might blow away, so fragile and unsubstantial did they appear. Reader, if you could stand upon one of those bluffs that rise out of our Western prairies, like headlands out of the ocean, and, after looking down upon the town at your feet, wellnigh treeless and blistering in the sun, could then descend into the brown and dusty streets, and note the care bestowed upon the growth of a few puny poplars or maples, you would come back to your New England home, all glorious in its luxuriance and wealth of every form of forest beauty, prepared to make the destruction of one of these ancestral elms a penal offence.
" God the first garden made, and the first city Cain !"
Medford possesses other elements of attraction to the anti- quary besides its old houses. Until Malden Bridge was built the great tide of travel north and east passed through the town. The visitor now finds it a very staid, quiet sort of place. Travel has so changed both its mode and its channels that we can form little idea of a country highway even fifty years ago. Travellers of every condition then pursued their route by the public roads : the wealthy or well-to-do generally in chaises or phaetons ; the professional gentleman on horseback, - a cus-
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tom so graceful and health-giving that we should not be sorry to see its revival in New England. Whole families - men, women, and even little children - passed and repassed on foot, carrying with them their scanty effects. Then there was the mail-coach, - a puffy, groaning vehicle, bulging out at the top and sides, and hung on thoroughbraces. On a rough road it lurched like a Chinese junk in a heavy sea-way, and the pas- sengers not unfrequently provided themselves with brandy, lemons, and other palliatives against sea-sickness. Besides these well-marked constituents of the stream, a nondescript element of stragglers drifted along the edges of the current until caught in some eddy which cast them up at the tavern door.
The public inn then had a relative importance to the world of wayfarers that is not now represented by any brown-stone or marble front hotel. The distances from Boston in every direc- tion were reckoned to the taverns. The landlord was a man of note. He was the village newsmonger, oracle, and referee in all disputes. When he had a full house his guests were dis- tributed about the floors, and the dining-table commanded a premium. The charge for meals or for baiting a horse was a quarter of a dollar. If the world moved then more slowly than it now does, it was not the less content.
The tavern was also the political centre where caucuses were held and the state of the country discussed. It was ofttimes there town-meetings were convened, and in war times it was the recruiting rendezvous. Proclamations, notices of that mul- tifarious character pertaining to the interior economy of the village, from the reward for the apprehension of a thief to the loss of a favorite brooch, were affixed to the bar-room walls. The smell of old Santa Cruz or other strong waters saluted the nostrils of all who entered the public room, and yet there was call for neither fumigation nor exorcism. The mail-coach, which only stopped to change horses, occupied forty-eight hours in going over this route from Boston to Portland. Concord coaches succeeded the old English pattern, and still traverse here and there a few byways into which the railway disdains to turn aside.
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The mail-coach, too, bore its fixed relation to the population along the line. It marked the time of day for the laborers in the fields, who leaned on hoe or scythe until it was lost to view. The plough stopped in the furrow, the smith rested his sledge on his anvil, while the faces of young and old were glued to the window-panes as this moving piece of the far-away metropolis rolled along. Entering the town, the driver cracked his whip, his leaders sprang out into a brisker gait, and the lumbering vehicle drew up with a flourish beside the tavern door.
The first of the Medford ordinaries, so far as known, goes back to about 1690, Nathaniel Pierce being mine host. The General Court licensed him to sell not less than a gallon of liquor at a time to one person, and prohibited the sale of smaller quantities by retail. The house was at one time owned by Colonel Royall, being known at different times by the name of the "Royal Oak " and " Admiral Vernon." In 1775 it became the Revolutionary headquarters, kept by Roger Billings, and was long afterward the principal tavern in the town. The house stood on the corner of Main and Union Streets, and was destroyed by fire in 1850.
The old Fountain Tavern, so called from its sign representing a fountain pouring forth punch, is still standing on the old Salem road, at the corner of Fountain Street. Brooks, in his History of Medford, says it was first called the " Two Palaverers." The two large trees in front had each a platform in its branches, connected with each other and with the house by wooden bridges: In summer these retreats were resorted to by the guests for tea-parties or punch-drinking. The house was built in 1725, and is extremely unique in appearance.
The name of Medford is known in every seaport under the sun for its stanch and well-built ships. Of the thousands that float the ocean bearing any flag aloft, none sail more proudly than those of Curtis or Magoun. This industry, which has dated from the time when Englishmen first set foot on the shores of the Mystic, has of late years fallen into decay, but once more the familiar sound of the shipwright's beetle is
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beginning to be heard on its banks. Cradock sent over skilled artisans, who at once laid down the keels that have increased so prodigiously. Although we are told his men had a vessel of a hundred tons on the stocks in 1632, the earlier craft were chiefly pinnaces, galleys, and snows, - the latter being rigged some- what after the fashion of our barks. No branch of mechani- cal skill appears to have developed with such rapidity in New England as shipbuilding. The timber, which is now brought hundreds of miles to the yards, then grew along the shores. We now bring the keel from Virginia, the frame from the Gulf States, and the masts from Canada. New England, which does not furnish a single product entering into the construction of the ship, forges the anchor which holds her to the bottom; twists the hemp into shrouds, rigging, and those spiders'-webs aloft whose intricacies confound the eye; spins the cotton which hangs from the yards, and weaves the colors that float at the mast-head.
In the public square of Medford is an excellent specimen of the architecture of the last century, now occupied as a tavern, but originally a dwelling. A few rods distant in a westerly direction is still standing, in tolerable repair, the house which Governor Brooks inhabited, and at the corner is the stone where he was accustomed to mount his horse. A plain granite shaft is erected over the remains of this distinguished soldier and civilian in the old burial-ground. Behind the governor's house, on a rising ground, is one of the early garrison-houses, built of brick, and looking none the worse for its long conflict with wind and weather. It is owned by Daniel Lawrence, beside whose elegant mansion it stands conspicuous, a foil to the symmetry and gracefulness of modern art.
As a soldier Governor Brooks appeared to his greatest ad- vantage in the battle of Bemis's Heights, where he was in com- mand of the old Eighth, Michael Jackson's regiment. His own relation of the incidents of that day to General Sumner is not, even now, devoid of interest.
" On the 7th of October, the day of the last battle with General Burgoyne, General Arnold and several officers dined with General
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Gates. I was among the company, and well remember that one of the dishes was an ox's heart. While at table we heard a firing from the advanced picket. The armies were about two miles from each other. The firing increasing, we all rose from table; and General Arnold, addressing General Gates, said, 'Shall I go out and see what is the matter ?' General Gates made no reply, but upon being pressed, said, ' I am afraid to trust you, Arnold.' To which Arnold answered, ' Pray let me go ; I will be careful ; and if our advance does not need support, I will promise not to commit you.' Gates then told him he might go and see what the firing meant."
Colonel Brooks repaired to his post, and under the impetuous Arnold, who seemed fully imbued on this day with the rage militaire, stormed Breyman's Fort, and thus mastered the key to the enemy's position. Arnold, once in action, forgot his promise to Gates, who vainly endeavored to recall him from the field. Had his life been laid down there, his name would have been as much revered as it is now contemned by his countrymen.
The object of paramount interest which Medford contains is the plantation house of Governor Cradock, or " Mathias Char- terparty," as the malcontent Morton styled him. This house is the monarch of all those now existing in North America. As we trace a family back generation after generation until we bring all collateral branches to one common source in the first colo- nist, so we go from one old house to another until we finally come to a pause before this patriarch by the sea. It is the handiwork of the first planters in the vicinity of Boston, and is one of the first, if not the very first, of the brick houses erected within the government of John Winthrop.
Every man, woman, and child in Medford knows the " Old Fort," as the older inhabitants love to call it, and will point you to the site with visible pride that their pleasant town contains so interesting a relic. Turning your back upon the village, and your face to the east, a brisk walk of ten minutes along the banks of the Mystic, and you are in presence of the object of your search.
A very brief survey establishes the fact that this was one of
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those houses of refuge scattered through the New England settlements, into which the inhabitants might fly for safety upon any sudden alarm of danger from the savages.
The situation was well chosen for security. It has the river in front, marshes to the eastward, and a considerable extent of level meadow behind it. As it was from this latter quarter that an attack was most to be apprehended, greater precautions were taken to secure that side. The house itself is placed a little above the general level. Standing for a century and a half in the midst of an extensive and open field, enclosed by palisades, and guarded with gates, a foe could not approach un- seen by day, nor find a vantage-ground from which to assail the inmates. Here, then, the agents of Matthew Cradock, first Governor of the Massachusetts Company in England, built the house we are describing.
In the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, at Bos- ton, hangs the charter of " The Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," brought over by Win- throp in 1630. The great seal of England, a most ponderous and convincing symbol of authority, is appended to it.
It is well known that the settlement at Salem, two years earlier, under the leadership of Endicott, was begun by a com- mercial company in England, of which Matthew Cradock was Governor. In order to secure the.emigration of such men as Winthrop, Dudley, Sir R. Saltonstall, Johnson, and others, Cradoek proposed, in July, 1629, to transfer the government from the company in England to the inhabitants here. As he was the wealthiest and most influential person in the associa- tion, his proposal was acceded to.
We cannot enter, here, into the political aspects of this coup d'état. It must ever arrest the attention and challenge the admiration of the student of American history. In defiance of the crown, which had merely organized them into a mer- cantile corporation, like the East India Company, with officers resident in England, they proceeded to nullify the clear intent of their charter by removing the government to America. The project was first mooted by Cradock, and secrecy enjoined upon
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the members of the company. That he was the avowed author of it must be our apology for introducing the incident. This circumstance renders Matthew Cradock's name conspicuous in the annals of New England.
Cradock never came to America, but there is little doubt that he entertained the purpose of doing so. He sent over, how- ever, agents, or " servants," as they were styled, who estah- lished the plantation at Mystic Side. He also had houses at Ipswich and at Marblehead, for fishery and traffic.
For a shrewd man of business Cradock seems to have been singularly unfortunate in some of his servants. One of these, Philip Ratcliff, being convicted "ore tenus of most foul and slanderous invectives " against the churches and government, was sentenced to be whipped, lose his ears, and be banished the plantation. Winthrop was complained of by Dudley because he stayed the execution of the sentence of banishment, but answered that it was on the score of humanity, as it was winter and the man must have perished. Ratcliff afterwards, in con- junction with Thomas Morton and Sir Christopher Gardiner, procured a petition to the Lords of the Privy Council, before whom Cradock was summoned.
Morton, who was sent away to England for his mad pranks and contempt of Puritan authority, wrote as follows of this examination : -
" My Lord Canterbury having with my Lord Privy Seal caused all Mr. Cradock's letters to be viewed, and his apology in particular for the brethren here, protested against him and Mr. Humfry [another of the undertakers] that they were a couple of imposterous knaves, so that for all their great friends they departed the council chamber in our view with a pair of cold shoulders.
" As for Ratcliff, he was comforted by their lordships with the croppings of Mr. Winthrop's ears, which shows what opinion is held among them of King Winthrop with all his inventions and his Amsterdam fantastical ordinances, his preachings, marriages, and other abusive ceremonies, which do exemplify his detestation of the Church of England and the contempt of his majesty's authority and wholesome laws which are and will be established here invita Minerva."
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In the letter to Winthrop which follows, printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, the old merchant complains bitterly of the conduct of another of his agents : -
" LONDON 21 Febr. 1636.
" Jno. Joliff writes mee the manner of Mr Mayheues accounts is, that what is not sett down is spent ; mnost extremely I am abused. My seruants write they drinke nothing but water & I haue in an account lately sent me Red Wyne, Sack & Aqua Vitae in one yeere aboue 300 gallons, besides many other intollerable abuses, 10 l for tobacco etc. My papers are misselayd but if you call for the coppyes of the accounts sent me and examine vppon what ground it is made you shall find I doubt all but forged stuffe.
" MATHEWE CRADOCK."
Wood, one of the early chroniclers, tells us that Master Cradock had a park impaled at Mystic, where his cattle were kept until it could be stocked with deer; and that he also was engaged in shipbuilding, a vessel of a " hundred tunne " having been built the previous year (1632). It may be, too, that Cradock's artisans built here for Winthrop the little " Blessing of the Bay," launched upon the Mystic tide July 4, 1631, - an event usually located at the governor's farm, at Ten Hills.
This house, a unique specimen of the architecture of the early settlers, must be considered a gem of its kind. It is not disguised by modern alterations in any essential feature, but bears its credentials on its face. Two hundred and thirty odd New England winters have searched every cranny of the old fortress, whistled down the big chimney-stacks, rattled the win- dow-panes in impotent rage, and, departing, certified to us the stanch and trusty handiwork of Cradock's English craftsmen.
Time has dealt gently with this venerable relic. Like a veteran of many campaigns, it shows a few honorable sears. The roof has swerved a little from its true outline. It has been denuded of a chimney, and has parted reluctantly with a dormer- window. The loopholes, seen in the front, were long since closed ; the race they were to defend against has hardly an existence to-day. The windows have been enlarged, with an
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effect on the ensemble, as Hawthorne says in a similar case, of rouging the cheeks of one's grandmother. Hoary with age, it is yet no ruin, but a comfortable habitation.
How many generations of men -and our old house has sel- dom if ever been untenanted - have lived and died within those walls ! When it was built Charles I. reigned in Old Eng- land, and Cromwell had not begun his great career. Peter the Great was not then born, and the house was waxing in years when Frederick the Great appeared on the stage. We seem to be speaking of recent events when Louis XVI. suffered by the axe of the guillotine, and Napoleon's sun rose in splendor, to set in obscurity.
The Indian, who witnessed its slowly ascending walls with wonder and misgiving; the Englishman, whose axe wakened new echoes in the primeval forest ; the colonist native to the soil, who battled and died within view, to found a new nation, - all have passed away. But here, in this old mansion, is the silent evidence of those great epochs of history.
It is not clear at what time the house was erected, but it has usually been fixed in the year 1634, when a large grant of land was made to Cradock by the General Court. The bricks are said to have been burned near by. There was some attempt at ornament, the lower course of the belt being laid with moulded bricks so as to form a cornice. The loopholes were for defence. The walls were half a yard in thickness. Heavy iron bars secured the arched windows at the back, and the entrance-door was encased in iron. The fire-proof closets, huge chimney- stacks, and massive hewn timbers told of strength and dura- bility. A single pane of glass, set in iron, and placed in the back wall of the western chimney, overlooked the approach from the town.
The builders were Englishmen, and, of course, followed their English types. They named their towns and villages after the sounding nomenclature of Old England; what more natural than that they should wish their homes to resemble those they had left behind ? Such a house might have served an inhabi- tant of the Scottish border, with its loopholes, narrow windows,
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and doors sheathed in iron. Against an Indian foray it was impregnable.
Cradock was about the only man connected with the settle- ment in Massachusetts Bay whose means admitted of such a house. Both Winthrop and Dudley built of wood, and the former rebuked the deputy for what he thought an unreason- able expense in finishing his own house. Many brick buildings were erected in Boston during the first decade of the settlement, but we have found none that can claim such an ancient pedi- gree as this of which we are writing. It is far from improbable that, having in view a future residence in New England, Cradock may have given directions for or prescribed the plan of this house, and that it may have been the counterpart of his own in St. Swithen's Lane, near London Stone.
" Then went I forth by London Stone Throughout all Canwick Street."
The plantation, with its green meadows and its stately forest- trees, was a manor of which Cradock was lord and master. His grant extended a mile into the country from the river-side in all places. Though absent, he was considered nominally pres- ent, and is constantly alluded to by name in the early records. Cradock was a member of the Long Parliament, dying in 1641. The euphonious name of Mystic has been supplanted by Med- ford, the Meadford of Dudley and the rest.
It is not to be expected that a structure belonging to so re- mote a period, for New England, should be without its legend- ary lore. It is related that the old fort was at one time beleaguered for several days by an Indian war-party, who at length retired baffled from the strong walls and death-shots of the garrison. As a veracious historian, we are compelled to add that we know of no authentic data of such an occurrence. Indians were plenty enough in the vicinity, and, though gen- erally peaceful, they were regarded with more or less distrust. The settlers seldom stirred abroad without their trusty match- locks and well-filled bandoleer. We cannot give a better pic- ture of the times than by invoking the aid of MacFingal : -
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" For once, for fear of Indian beating, Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting; Each man equipped on Sunday morn With psalm-book, shot, and powder-horn; And looked in form, as all must grant, Like the ancient, true church militant; Or fierce, like modern deep divines, Who fight with quills, like porcupines."
After standing stoutly up in presence of so many mutations, one of the gateways through which the little human stream trickled that has inundated all the land in its mighty expan- sion, we are told that this house is doomed. It no longer accommodates itself to modern ideas, and must fall. The re- gret that the Commonwealth ever parted with, even to a noble charity, the old mansion-house of the provincial governors was by no means trifling or inconsiderate. That error might now be retrieved by the purchase of the house of the first governor of Massachusetts. Every officer, civil or military, that holds a commission by State authority, derives it in a certain sense from Matthew Cradock. He made the first move to erect an independent community on our shores. This house is his monument. It should be allowed to stand where it has stood for near two hundred and forty years. Its loopholes should be restored, and the whole house set in order and furnished with the memorials of its own time. A custodian might be placed there, and the small fee charged for exhibition be used to defray the expense. At all events, Medford should see to it this ancient structure is preserved to her.
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