USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Pigeon Cove : its early settlers & their farms, 1702-1840 > Part 2
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
About this time, or shortly thereafter, a group of men from Wenham and Ipswich, acting in partnership, acquired several lots on the southerly side of what is now Landmark Lane, and subsequently they also purchased three lots north of the Lane. These men and their successors, all non-residents, continued to own that hill property, which they used as a sheep and cattle pasture, until 1784. By that time there were 137 acres in the property, and it extended from the sea westerly to what is now the road to Johnson's quarry, then known as " the path from Sandy Bay to Jumper's." Those figures of acreage and extent were given in the deed by which the farm was conveyed by Barnabas Dodge, the last Wenham owner, to Major John Rowe in the fall of 1784. Not the slightest reference was made in that deed to the Town's Sea Mark reservation, which lay well within the farm boundaries. In fact the deed declared the property to be " free and clear of all encumbrances of what nature soever except the Town's highway." Non-residents though they were, it is obvious that the owners of the hill farm were not ignorant of the Town's title to the five summit acres. In three deeds that
[19]
passed among the partners, one in 1763 and two in 1769, the Land Mark was referred to as a boundary.
About 1782 someone in town had begun to suspect that it was time to assert an interest in this public property. It is apparent from subsequent records that the five-acre piece was not even fenced in, and that the three oak trees had been cut down in spite of the Town's earlier prohibition against their cutting. Per- haps someone had begun to fear that the owners of the surround- ing land might seek to acquire title to the five acres through adverse possession. At all events the subject was brought up in Town Meeting in December, 1783, almost a year before Dodge sold the farm to Major Rowe.
The warrant for that meeting contained an article reading: " To know what the Town will order respecting land on Pigeon Hill to be appropriated as a land mark for the use of the public forever." Under that article it was voted " To choose four men to join the County Committee to make enquiry respecting the number of acres of land on Pigeon Hill that are appropriated as a perpetual sea mark for the use of the public."
At the Town Meeting the following April, 1784, a warrant article provided for the presentation of " the report of the com- mittee respecting the land on Pigeon Hill that belongs to the Town, and to see if the Town will grant it to the public in order to have it fenced to preserve the trees there." Judging from a vote passed five years later it seems probable that someone had an idea that the plot should be given to the Commonwealth, since it was a mark useful to mariners in general. What was actually proposed by that committee will never be known, for the report was not preserved, and no action was taken on this subject by that Town Meeting.
Three years later, at the March Town Meeting, 1787, the warrant once again propounded the question as to what the Town would do about the land. No action was taken. Two years later still, 1789, the warrant proposed that several pieces of Town owned property be sold, among them the Pigeon Hill lot. This time the Town voted: " That the Selectmen endeavor to ascer- tain the Quantity of Land on Pigeon Hill belonging to this town and reserved for a Seamark and to see if this Commonwealth will
[20]
purchase the same for that purpose and if so to dispose of it on the best terms they can."
The following year, 1790, the Town petitioned the General Court to sanction a lottery to raise funds sufficient for repairing the highways and for the building of a monument to serve as a sea mark on the hill. To this proposal the Legislature turned a cold shoulder. Six years later a lottery bill did pass, but it pro- vided only for the repair of certain highways.
In all this time there is nothing to indicate that Major Rowe, the new owner of the Pigeon Hill farm, had any inclination to contest the Town's ownership in the five acres. It is somewhat apparent, however, that he was not at all sure as to the precise location of the sea mark lot. A detailed survey that he had made of his property in 1794 (a copy in the files of The Sandy Bay Historical Society) shows fence lines running across what is now the top field, but gives no indication of the existence of the sea mark area. Those fences may have been there when he bought the farm in 1784, or they may have been built by him subse- quently. It is a bit singular, though, that the plan of the farm did not show the corners of the five-acre lot, for it had been again officially laid out and marked two years earlier.
That laying out was the result of a vote in the March Town Meeting in 1792 by which the Selectmen were directed to at- tend to it, and on July 17, 1792, it was entered on the Town Records that "The Selectmen agreeable to Directions from the Town went on Pigeon Hill and Laid out the five acres of Land formerly Reserved for a Sea Mark and bounded the same as fol- lows Viz- Beginning at a Cedar post in the ground with stones round it Running thence South 81 degrees East twenty-six Rods to another Cedar Stump with Stones about it thence North five degrees West thirty-one Rods thence North eighty-one degrees West twenty-six Rods to another Cedar Stump with stones about it one Rod to the Southward of a Large Rock out of the Ground- thence South five degrees East thirty-one Rods to the bound begun at. N.B. The Variation of the Compass at this time is Seven Degrees and Twenty-one minutes."
The above layout describes the field as it is at the present time (1940). Either the Selectmen of 1792 knew the location of the
[21]
original corners, and knew that the old triangular description was incorrect, or they admitted that the old location was doubtful and entered into an agreement with Major Rowe for a wholly new layout. The Town was entitled to five acres under the vote of 1713, and that is the area of the rhomboidal parcel defined in 1792.
Following the staking out of the sea mark in 1792, every annual Town Meeting during the next six years debated the question of what should be done to protect this land. Again it was proposed that the Town give it to the State if the latter would wall it in. When nothing came of that it was voted that the Selectmen should lease the lot for pasturage to someone who would wall it, and give the trees protection. Apparently no one could be found who wanted to rent on those terms. As a matter of fact the parcel was not readily accessible to anyone except to Major Rowe, within whose farm it lay, as there was no specified right of way to it from the highway. As the Major had plenty of pasturage of his own he probably was not interested in hiring more.
In April, 1798, the Town voted that the Selectmen should lay out a road from the highway, Granite Street, to the Sea Mark, and one month later $200 was appropriated "to defray the ex- pense of purchasing and walling in the road " to the Pigeon Hill land " and to fence in the land " itself. Within a month the Selectmen recorded the layout and in March, 1799, Major Rowe deeded to the Town a strip through his land from the Sea Mark down the hill to the highway, about 82 rods (1,353 feet) long and one and a half rods wide to a "great Rock," thence from two to two and a half rods wide to the highway. That "great Rock " was on the northerly side of the road a little less than two hundred feet above Granite Street. The Town thus ac- quired, not merely a right of way across the Rowe farm, but a fee simple title to the entire strip.
The annual Town Meeting warrant for that year, 1799, con- tained an article to see if the Town would lease the Sea Mark, or set out some young trees there, or petition for a monument to be built there. The meeting voted that it should be rented for pasturing, and that no existing trees should be cut. The subject
[ 22 ]
did not come up again until the March meeting in 1804, when it was voted to fence in one acre on the hill and to plant 200 poplar trees and 50 elms under the supervision of the Selectmen. No record has been found showing that the trees were actually planted.
Nothing further about Pigeon Hill was heard in Town Meet- ing during the next twenty years. Then at the annual Town Meeting in 1819 it was voted to authorize the Overseers of the Poor to buy and sell real estate on behalf of the Town. Almost immediately thereafter, on May 29, a deed was executed which conveyed the five acres " on the top of Pigeon Hill " to David Babson, William Fears and John Fears. They paid the Town $525. The deed also included a small triangular piece at the Granite Street end of Landmark Road, thus reducing the width of that road at the lower end from two and a half rods to one rod. The road as a whole, from Granite Street to the summit, was not sold but remained Town property. Ten years later Babson and the Fears brothers deeded that triangle to Gustavus Norwood who built there the house now numbered 90 Granite Street. From that deed to Babson it is evident that the Sea Mark field and the road had been walled in, for the description bounds the land and road on walls against Rowe. Major Rowe was then dead and the farm was owned by his son William. It further appears from this deed that the road itself had been reduced in width throughout its entire length, for it stated that it was one rod wide between the walls.
In 1838 Babson sold his interest in the top field, as it came to be called, to Ezra Eames who had begun to buy land along Granite Street on which he built the house No. 96 two years later. In 1854 Eames bought the Fears brothers' interest in the field. From that time on the field was owned by Mr. Eames and his heirs until 1929, when the Town of Rockport bought for park purposes all but the northeast corner acre, thus bringing the major portion of the Landmark back into public ownership. In 1931 the water supply standpipe was erected on the southwest corner of the Town's land.
About fifteen acres on the easterly slope of the hill are owned by the Village Improvement Society of Pigeon Cove. This land
[23]
was purchased in 1916 and 192 1, partly from the heirs of Austin W. Story and partly from heirs of Ezra Eames, and is held as a public trust. This reservation includes the walled acre in the northeast corner of the Sea Mark or Top Field; a large open field called Eames Field, abutting on the upper 400 feet of Landmark Lane and adjoining the Sea Mark; a small piece of about one acre north of the field and east of the northeast Sea Mark corner lot; and 9 acres of woodland adjoining the latter and extending east- erly down the hill past the school house and Pingree Park to a knoll overlooking the sea. This woodland piece is the old Lot 60 of the 1688 layout and lay on the northerly side of the Rowe farm next the Old Castle property. It has long been known locally as the Pea Grove, which name is surmised to be a cor- ruption of Pig Grove. The latter name is presumed to be remi- niscent of the day when the Rowes pastured hogs on that land. Pig Grove being difficult to pronounce clearly, the corruption naturally developed. There is nothing more substantial than tra- dition to substantiate this presumption.
About one hundred years ago a triangulation station was estab- lished on the hill by the State Survey, then being conducted under Simeon Borden. That station has been perpetuated by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The station is marked by a small bronze plate set flush with the ground surface about 75 feet easterly of the standpipe.
[24]
Early Farms of Pigeon Cove
LANESVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD
T HE six-acre lots, laid out and granted in 1688, between Flat Stone Cove (now Lane's) and Halibut Point, were traded around in a speculative way until about 1700, when they began to be purchased by persons who intended to settle there. One of the earliest was John Lane, who came from Falmouth, Me., and bought lots 1, 2 and 3, July 29, 1700. In addition he had a grant of ten acres of common land. He was a native of Malden, Mass., whose father, James, moved to Falmouth in 1658. A few years later, April 24, 1707, John's brother Samuel bought lots 22 and 23 at Gallop's Folly Cove. Both settled on their land. An- other early settler was Thomas Wise of Chebacco, who bought lots 12, 13 and 20, January 23, 1704/5. Soon after he also bought lots 14 and 21. The latter bounded east on the westerly shore of Folly Cove. In 1707 a grant of upward of four acres lying on the west side of Folly Brook was made to Benjamin Hoppen. This land lay on the easterly side of what is now Woodbury Street and south of Washington Street. About the same time a similar grant was made to Edward Jumper. His land lay on the westerly side of Woodbury Street and south of Washington Street. Wood- bury Street is the northerly end of a path that led from these places south across the woods to Sandy Bay .. It was long known as Jumper's Lane and as the path from Sandy Bay to Jumper's. By 1723 Wise and Hoppen sold to Deacon James Lane, a son of the above named John. There was also a Finson family in that neighborhood who likewise sold to Deacon Lane. When he died in 175 I the deacon owned a considerable portion of the land lying between the two coves, and several of the woodlots south of there.
Although the original and immediately subsequent deeds to the foregoing places are so vague that it is impossible to locate their boundaries with any degree of definiteness, it is not un-
[25]
likely that the ancient story and a half gambrel-roofed house, now numbered 1261 Washington Street, is the one built by Thomas Wise about 1705. Wise sold his place to Deacon James Lane June 8, 1723, the deed describing the property as "twenty acres of upland and fresh meadow with a good double house, a barn and orchard near Gallop's Folly Cove." That Deacon Lane ever lived in that house appears to be doubtful.
SAMUEL LANE
SAMUEL LANE, blacksmith, who bought lots 22 and 23, April 24, 1707, was born about 1664, probably at Falmouth, Me., whither his father moved from Malden, Mass., in 1658. Samuel's wife's name was Abigail, surname unknown. Just before his death he deeded his place to his son Samuel junior. The deed, dated De- cember 30, 1724, mentions three married daughters, Hannah Gott (Mrs. Samuel junior), Mary Tucker (Mrs. John), and Phebe Butler (Mrs. John). Another daughter, Rachall, died in 1718, ten years old.
Lane's two lots were wide ones, extending on the shore from the present Rockport-Gloucester line easterly nearly to the Nor- wood Mill Brook. From the sea the land ran southerly on to what was then known as Folly Hill, now Woodbury Hill.
Samuel Lane, Jr., who also was a blacksmith, married first Mary Emmons October 23, 1722. She was the mother of their twelve children, born between 1723 and 1741. Mary died soon after the latter date and Samuel married, May 17, 1745, Deliver- ance (Giddings) Pool, widow of Joshua Pool. The children of Samuel junior and Mary were: Samuel, 3ª, b. July 7, 1723; m. Abi- gail Stanford 1743, Mercy Newhall 1762. Mary b. Sept. 4, 1724; d. before 1741. Elezabeth bp. Mch. 26, 1728/9. Zebulon b. July I, 1729. Hannah bp. Jan. 10, 1730/31. Judith bp. May 13, 1733; d. before 1736. Daniel bp. Jan. 5, 1734/35; m. Mary Lane 1761. Judith bp. June 16, 1736. Susanna bp. Oct. 23, 1737. Issachar bp. June 11, 1739. Zacheus bp. Aug. 3, 1740. Mary b. Oct. 16, 1741.
Samuel Lane, Jr. died before April 10, 1765, on which date the appraisal of his property was filed by David Lane as Ad-
[ 26 ]
ministrator. In the inventory, filed a month later, he was credited with 17 acres of land, a dwelling house, barn, blacksmith shop, a fishing boat, canoe, a horse, a cow, two heifers and a hog. John Woodbury, a neighbor, who married Susanna, presumably a daughter of David Lane, acquired the property, subject to the widow's dower, though no deed has been found covering the transfer. Five years after Samuel's death Woodbury deeded the place, May 17, 1770, still subject to the widow's rights, to Daniel Marchant, Jr. for 40 pounds. Marchant (presumed son of Jabez and Mary (Babson), baptized August 11, 1745) had married Thomasine Lane, presumably daughter of Samuel, 3ª, Novem- ber 21, 1769, only six months before he bought the Lane farm. Thomasine died April 13, 1780. It is presumed that it was this Daniel who married Mrs. Experience Marsh two years later, May 2, 1782. His death is not recorded, but it appears likely that he died shortly before 1828.
The vital records of the Marchant family are fragmentary, making it difficult to trace the generations accurately. It seems probable, however, that Daniel junior and Thomasine had a son, Daniel, 3d, born about 1775, who married Susanna Grover in 1798 and Lydia Hale in 1822. A son Caleb, credited in the records to Daniel junior, was baptized June 6, 1784, but as the name of the mother was not given it is impossible to know if he was a son of Thomasine or of Experience. Children sometimes were not baptized until they were five or more years old. Caleb married Mary Grover December 7, 1805. A daughter, Abigail, was also recorded to Daniel junior and Thomasine as born June 1, 1777. She was probably the Abigail who married Joel Griffin Novem- ber 24, 1798.
During the last century there were seven houses on the old Lane farm. Five of these remain. None of them have been given street numbers. It is impossible to definitely fix the origins of some of these houses, owing to the absence of recorded deeds, and for want of adequate probate records relating to the Mar- chant family. From such records as have been found, supple- mented by the testimony of members of the Marchant and Griffin and related families now living, it is presumed that the origins here given are probably correct.
[27]
Beginning at the Rockport-Gloucester town line monument, and working easterly on Granite Street, the first house, which is close to the line, was built by Caleb Marchant senior, son of Daniel junior. Its exact date is uncertain. Caleb married in December, 1805, but his father did not deed him this lot, 99 feet wide on the highway, until April 21, 1817. It seems obvious that no house was conveyed with the land, for the price named in the deed was only $29. It is not impossible that the house was built at the time of Caleb's marriage, and that his father may have helped him to finance its building, the deed being withheld until that indebtedness was fully discharged. This was a not uncom- mon practice in those days. The first definite evidence found of Caleb's living there is on the plan of the road around the cape made by Jabez R. Gott in 1823. The house and Caleb's name appear on the plan. Unfortunately Mr. Gott did not locate all the houses that then stood along the road. Had he done so this attempt to establish their origins would have been greatly sim- plified.
Caleb and Mary (Grover) evidently had three sons, Caleb junior, Nathaniel L. and William, though their births are not recorded. William married Cynthia Sargent, December 31, 1843, and in June, 1852, his father deeded him a house lot next east of his own. It is stated that the story and a half house now there was built by William. It is quite likely that it dates from the time of his marriage. Since the accompanying map includes no houses built after 1840, this one does not appear there. In 1857 William bought the house at 158 Granite Street opposite Breakwater Ave- nue and established the wood and coal business that has been continued there to the present time. In May, 1865, he sold his Folly Cove house to Howard Poland, who had married his cousin, Sarah Jane Marchant, a daughter of Nathaniel L.
Until about 1892 there stood close to the roadside, next east of the William Marchant house, a very old story and a half dwell- ing. At that time a new owner moved it back from the street on to the hillside and incorporated it in a new studio building. Ex- teriorly it has been completely disguised, but interiorly its original characteristics have been preserved. Its timbering, the panelled finish and the wrought-iron work are clearly of early
[28 ]
eighteenth century origin. It is probable that this house was built either by Samuel Lane senior at the time of his settlement there in 1707, or by his son Samuel junior about 1722, when the latter married. As will appear later there is a possibility that Samuel senior's house stood on the easterly side of the farm. Samuel junior died in this westerly house in 1765, after which it came into the possession of John Woodbury, as already stated, and in 1770 he conveyed it and the entire farm to Daniel Marchant, Jr. Daniel appears to have died before 1828, in which year the place came into the possession of Mrs. Thomasine (York) Currier, widow of Moses. In 1833 she conveyed the house and a lot of back land to her son Philander Currier, who probably lived there until 1837, when he bought land of the Moses Wheeler heirs and built the house 1701/2 Granite Street. The old house at Folly Cove he sold in 1838 to Nathaniel Lane, who lived there until his death, which appears to have been before 1852. His heirs continued to own the property until 1892, after which it became a part of the studio already referred to.
Just east of the above old house the " old road," a remnant of the original highway layout of 1707, swings right from the pres- ent Granite Street, and within a few feet passes a story and a half house. In 1828 the site was owned by Daniel Marchant, Jr. (3d), whose wife was then Lydia (Hale), and in April of that year they conveyed the property as 41/2 acres to Charles Marchant, his son by his first wife, Susanna (Grover), for $60. Charles was born in 1803. Six months after purchasing the above land he married Sophia Rider, November 16, 1828. He doubtless built the house at that time. Except for the fact that a single flue chim- ney has at some time been substituted for the larger old one, the house bears architectural evidences characteristic of the early years of the nineteenth century.
Until within relatively recent years a house stood a little east of the Charles Marchant place, also on the old road. It burned and only its cellar remains. It is known that this house was built by Caleb Marchant, Jr., a cousin of Charles, both being grand- sons of Daniel junior and Thomasine (Lane). Caleb junior married Sally Goins December 14, 183 1, and probably built the house at that time. He died there in 1875, leaving the property
[29]
to his nephew Caleb L., a son of Nathaniel L., subject to the life interest of his widow.
Directly opposite the Caleb junior cellar, on the north side of the old road, is the house known locally as the Griffin homestead. There is reason to conclude that this house was built by Joel Griffin, a son of Samuel and Elizabeth, who was baptized Febru- ary 26, 1775. He married Abigail Marchant (intentions Novem- ber 24, 1798), presumably a daughter of Daniel junior and Thomasine (Lane). Although no deed has been found, it is pre- sumed that Joel bought this lot from his father-in-law in 1803, in which year he was assessed for a house lot. The following year he was assessed for a house, and it is said in the family that the one in question was built in 1804. Abigail died October 10, 1831, and Joel died October 7, 1848.
Yet another house once stood on the Lane Farm, but nothing positive has been learned about it beyond the fact that it was standing in 1828. It is quite definitely located in two deeds of that date, and in two subsequent deeds dated 1832 and 1844. (Salem Deeds, Bk. 264, pp. 199, 200; Bk. 271, p. 101; Bk. 487, p. 166.) These deeds referred to the house as a landmark, but gave no clue as to its early owner. The deed of 1832 called it " the old house." With the aid of those descriptions the founda- tion stones of the house were located a little southeast of the Caleb Marchant, Jr., cellar, and back about 150 feet from the old road. It is possible that this may have been the house built by Samuel Lane senior in 1707. If so, the old house that is now a part of the studio near the town line was almost certainly that of Samuel junior.
WILLIAM WOODBERRY
CAPTAIN WILLIAM WOODBERRY, wheelwright, from Beverly, married Judith Riggs of Gloucester about 1705. Judging from the statement on his death record, January 17, 1712/13, that he was " very aged," it is assumed that he may have been previously married. When his widow married again, intentions April 16, 1715, her age was recorded as 30 years. She would, therefore, have been about 20 years old when she married Captain Wood- berry. The Woodberrys had two children, Nicholas, born June
[30 ]
10, 1707, who died the same year, and Judith, born July 12, 1710. She married William Norwood, son of Francis, Jr., of Goose Cove, May 30, 1732.
Captain Woodberry began buying land at Halibut Point in 1705. His first purchase, November 2, 1705, consisted of lots 26, 27 and 28, lying east of Granite Street and next to Samuel Gott's land. On November 27 of that year he bought lot 24, the meadow through which the Norwood Mill Brook flows, and abutting west on Samuel Lane's land. On September 27, 1709, he bought of Rev. John White eight acres which apparently lay just south of the meadow lot and on the west side of Granite Street. On January 10, 1710/11, he bought about ten acres from Ebenezer Davis, land apparently lying next south of the White piece. On August 23, 1711, he bought lot 25. This lot is crossed diago- nally by Granite Street between Gott Avenue and Folly Cove. His final purchase, on April 1, 1712, was from the heirs of Rev. John Emerson, a triangular piece of eleven acres, which appar- ently lay next south of the Davis lot. This must have extended his holdings on the west of Granite Street to the northern end of Curtis Street.
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.