USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Dedham > Proceedings at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Dedham, Massachusetts, September 21, 1886 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
78
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
with sixty-seven officers and men. In all, including the minute men and the militia, three hundred men under arms must have marched from Dedham on that historic day. Nor were these all. The gray-haired veterans of the French wars, whose blood was stirred anew by the sights and sounds of war, resolved to follow their sons to the battle. Assembled on the Common before this meeting- house, they met Rev. Mr. Gordon, of Roxbury, who had just come to Dedham ; and he, from the steps of the eastern porch, offered a prayer, and then they also marched, under the lead of Hezekiah Fuller and Nathaniel Sumner. Well may we be- lieve, as we are told, that the town was left "almost literally without a male inhabitant below the age of seventy and above that of sixteen."1 Where our soldiers met the enemy is not precisely known, but probably in Cambridge. We only know that among the casualties of the day it is recorded that Elias Haven was killed, and Israel Everett wounded, and that these men belonged to different Dedham companies. While the glory of the eventful morn- ing justly belongs to Lexington and Concord, yet after noon, when the British began their retreat, the battle was maintained by men from all the surrounding towns; and among these, the men of Dedham were at the front. Dr. Nathaniel Ames made this significant entry in his diary for that day, which seems to describe it with historic accu-
' Haven's Centennial Address, p. 46.
79
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
racy : " Grand battle from Concord to Charlestown. I went and dressed the wounded."
This quiet hamlet now became the scene of war- like operations. Provincial cannon were brought ' here, and Ebenezer Brackett was chosen to guard them. Committees were appointed to procure guns and ammunition, and to establish a night watch. The old gun of King Philip's War was ordered to be swung. The town voted to raise one hundred and twenty men to be ready to march on an alarm. Samuel Dexter announced that he would give his services in attending the Provincial Congress. Troops from Rhode Island passed through. Our people heard the booming of the guns at Bunker's Hill and saw the smoke of Charlestown, but our soldiers had no part in the battle. They, however, formed a part of the force that invested Boston the succeeding winter. After the evacuation, when the army was moving to New York, General Washing- ton spent a night here, and was entertained by Mr. Dexter.
At the session of the General Court in November, 1775, Dedham was made the shire town of Suffolk County. The reason of this act, as recited in its preamble, was that Boston was "a garrison of the ministerial army, and had become the receptacle of the enemies of America." The books and papers of the Registry of Deeds were removed here; and although the act was repealed in 1776, yet at the same time a resolve directed that these should be
80
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
kept in Dedham during the unsettled state of public affairs, until the further order of the General Court.
In May, 1776, the town held a meeting to know the minds of the people about coming into a state of independency. The subject was fully discussed and considered at several adjournments of the meeting; and finally, May 27, 1776, the inhabi- tants unanimously voted, "that if the Honorable Congress should declare the Colonies independent of Great Britain, they would solemnly engage to support it in that measure with their lives and fortunes."
The whole story of how the town redeemed this pledge cannot be told here. The exact number of men raised for the service has never been stated, but the published list must fall short of the real number. Bounties were paid, committees of correspondence and safety were maintained, and a committee for the care of soldiers' families in distress was appointed. The demands for horses and beef were supplied. The fluctuation of the currency gave to everything a factitious price. The burden of taxation became very heavy as time went on. It has been estimated that the annual expenses of the war, met by taxation, assessed upon the in- habitants by the town and parishes, were eight thousand dollars, federal currency.1 When we con- sider that all this expense was maintained by a town of less than two thousand inhabitants, all
1 Worthington's History, p. 69.
81
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
farmers, having little or no means beyond what their farms yielded, we may gain some idea of the trials and sacrifices of the people during the eight long years of the Revolutionary War. Their en- durance did not fail, though the limit was nearly reached. Their indomitable spirit bore them up, and they maintained the common cause with great unanimity. They had the leadership of able men like Samuel Dexter in the beginning, who aided them by donations of money as well as by his personal influence. Mr. Haven, the minister, was an active leader; and Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the younger, was an ardent supporter of the popular cause. Fisher Ames was but seventeen years old in 1775, but he did some military service dur- ing the war. The town, therefore, made good its pledge, solemnly given at the beginning, to support independency.
In the brief but serious insurrection led by Daniel Shays, which followed the Revolution, and which threatened the supremacy of law in Massa- chusetts, Dedham furnished a quota of forty-five men, showing that her people, though suffering from impoverishing taxes, were ready to suppress lawlessness under the guise of relief from oppres- sive laws.
Between the close of the Revolution and 1790, no marked changes occurred in the affairs of the town; but during the last decade of the eigh- teenth century, there began an era of improve
82
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
ments in Dedham village. It was about to shake off its rural aspect and to take on a more imposing appearance. Since the first little compact village of the settlers had disappeared, a century before, here and there, scattered over the plain, had stood the farm-houses. The meeting-house, the school- house, and the tavern made the only centre of Dedham life. The mansion of Dr. Sprague, pur- chased of Mr. Dexter, the parsonage of Mr. Haven, and the house of Dr. Nathaniel Ames the younger, were the only conspicuous houses in the village. Besides the minister, the two physicians, and per- haps the schoolmaster, all were farmers. The change was a gradual one, and proceeded from a variety of causes.
In 1793 the County of Norfolk was incorpor- ated, formed by a division of Suffolk County. This project had long been agitated among the farmers of the country towns, and the subject of many resolutions. Dedham, in 1786, had declared, as a reason for the division of the county, "that if the courts of justice should be held in some country town within the county, we expect (at least for a while) that the wheels of justice would move on without the clogs and embarrassments of a numerous train of lawyers. The scenes of gayety and amusements which are now prevalent in Boston, we expect, would so allure them that we should be rid of their perplexing officiousness." Dedham, chiefly on account of its central position,
83
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
was made the shire town of the new county, and this at once gave it a new importance. Despite the public deprecation of the "order of lawyers," two natives of Dedham, Samuel Haven and Fisher Ames, both lawyers, almost immediately opened their law offices here, and began to build their fine mansions. In 1796 Captain Edward Dowse, a retired merchant, and a liberal-spirited and chari- table gentleman, afterwards a member of Congress, came here, and soon erected another mansion on High Street. The spacious and imposing resi- dence, first known as the Lovell house, on the corner of Court and Highland Streets, was built soon after. All these houses are now standing, much enlarged and enriched by their subsequent owners. In 1795 about twenty acres of land in the heart of the village, which had been devised to the Episcopal Church by Samuel Colburn in 1756, was divided and leased in village lots, and houses began to be built on them. Not many years after, the land of the First Church on the west side of Court Street was also leased. A new interest began to be manifested in public schools, and a new brick school-house was finished in 1800. A wooden court-house, fronting on the Meeting- house Common, was finished in 1795. The courts before had been held in the meeting-house, and they continued to be held there afterwards on special occasions. On the fourth day of April, 1792, the stage-coach began to make its regular
84
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
trips of two hours from Dedham to Boston, for five days in the week.1 In 1797 the old Episcopal Church, opened in 1761, was removed and recon- structed. The town began to increase in popula- tion, and mechanics and tradesmen to come from elsewhere.
In 1804 the turnpike from Boston to Providence was opened, which gave to Dedham the advantage of a direct and well-graded road to Boston. In 1797 water was brought to the village by an aqueduct. A still more significant mark of the new order of things was the establishment of the Norfolk Cotton Factory in 1807. Its corporators were citizens of Dedham, and its water-power was furnished by the canal of the early settlers. This factory was a source of much pride to our citizens; and though a dozen years later it met with financial disaster, it attracted to Dedham men of enterprise and skill, who subse- quently were among its most reliable citizens. In this way began the village of Dedham as we see it to-day; and with the exception of a very few houses, none are now standing which were built earlier than 1795.
All these things were the outward signs of social changes. In 1792 Fisher Ames wrote to Thomas Dwight : " Dedham will never become more than a village, but it is growing up to be a smart one." And in the same letter he added : " Is there not a cold hard spot in the heart which is indifferent
1 Nathaniel Ames's Diary.
85
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
1
to the natale solum? The growth of the place I live in concerns my profit and my pleasure, and it seems to me there is reason, if not philosophy, in my taking an interest in that event." These were noble words, and in the few years of life that remained for him he nobly endeavored to carry them into action.
Having studied law with William Tudor in Boston, Fisher Ames was admitted to the bar in 1781. He had a small practice in Dedham for a few years, but employed his leisure in writing a series of articles for the "Independent Chronicle " upon questions then agitating the public mind growing out of Shays' Rebellion. The vigor of thought and style in these essays attracted attention, and they may be regarded as the beginning of his public career. He was a delegate from Dedham in the Constitutional Convention of 1788, where he made his maiden speech in favor of biennial elections. He was elected to the Legislature from Dedham in the same year. In 1789 he took his seat in Congress, and served eight years, during Washington's ad- ministration. It is beyond the scope of this address to speak of his public life further than to say that in a period of a national history remarkable for its statesmen and political writers, no one produced a more profound impression than Fisher Ames. But as a private citizen living here on his native soil and identified with the interests of this town, something should be said to-day. After his marriage
86
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
and a brief residence in Boston, while he was still a member of Congress, Mr. Ames returned to Ded- ham to make his home upon the patrimonial estate. The old house where he was born was still standing, and it was not taken down until after his mother's death in 1817. He built a law office on the corner of what is now the Court-House Yard, on High and Court streets, which he occupied until his death in 1808. He immediately entered upon local enter- prises with great earnestness. He took pride and satisfaction in his farm. He makes frequent allu- sions in his letters to his large stock of cattle, to the productiveness of his cows, to his breed of sheep, to his desire to get the best seeds, and to his belief that his farm is approaching the period when it would be profitable; adding, "if he did not think it would be, it would not be an amusement, it would be a mere piece of ostentation on any other prospect, an expensive folly, a toilsome disappointment." But Mr. Ames was specially active in plans for the im- provement of the appearance of the village. He engaged in the fierce debates of a Dedham town- meeting to urge that the roads be repaired by con- tract, instead of by the old plan of working out the highway taxes, and that the district school should be kept for a longer time. He was interested in the drainage of the Charles River meadows; in the estab- lishment of a manufactory; in the founding of a li- brary and an academy; in the building of a new town- house, and the safe-keeping of the records ; in a new
87
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
meeting-house, and in making a public square in the centre of the village. He was the first president of the turnpike corporation, and personally supervised the building of the road. He was hospitable, and gave parties, and strove to cultivate social relations with his neighbors. During all this time Mr. Ames's health was extremely precarious, and he was occu- pied more or less in the trial of causes. In all these ways, animated by the highest and most disinterested motives, he strove to elevate and improve the condi- tion of affairs around him. He was doubtless far in advance of his time, and many of his plans were little heeded. He encountered a strong opposition from the sturdy farmers in the parishes who did not favor any project for the improvement of the village. Beyond the remaining elms on High Street, there are no existing memorials of the enlightened public spirit of Fisher Ames. His efforts, however, are not to be estimated by the degree of success which attended them, but rather by the spirit that inspired them ; and they should always meet with a grateful recognition whenever our local history is told.
The period beginning with the present century and ending with the War of 1812 was characterized by an intense political feeling. Probably never was partisan controversy so bitter, or carried so far into the relations of social life. It was then that the name of Federalist became so offensive to the pop- ular party as to be handed down in history with unpleasant associations, while the Republicans were
88
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
denounced as "Jacobins " by their political adver- saries. These political animosities had full play in Dedham. Dedham supported the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, and the War of 1812. Soldiers for the army were recruited and drilled here, and the Dedham Light Infantry performed service at South Boston. In August, 1812, a con- vention of five hundred delegates assembled here to express their approbation of the war. Fisher Ames was a Federalist. Doubtless much of the opposi- tion to his plans for the improvement of the village was due to politics. Between him and his eldest brother, Dr. Nathaniel Ames, who was a Repub- lican, there were many sharp political conflicts, as there are apt to be between strong men of the same blood.
The administration of James Monroe was charac- terized as the "era of good feeling," in contradis- tinction to the intense bitterness of political strife during the administrations of Jefferson and Mad- ison. This was illustrated in Dedham upon the occasion of the visit of President Monroe. On the first day of July, 1817, there was a great military parade here to receive him. The first division of the Massachusetts militia was ordered out, includ- ing the cavalry and artillery as well as infantry, and mustered at Dedham. The President was escorted by a detachment of cavalry from the southerly line of the county in Wrentham. Upon his arrival at Dedham, near sunset, he reviewed the troops on the
89
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
Great Common. He then retired to the hospitable mansion of Mr. Dowse, where he was entertained for the night. In the morning he walked through throngs of people to Polley's Tavern, where he re- ceived the salutations of the citizens, and "shook hands until near exhausted with the tedious cere- mony." 1 General Crane finally requested the mul- titude to pay their respects by simply bowing and passing on. Then, escorted by the cavalry and carriages, the President went on his journey to Boston. Such was the manner of receiving a Re- publican President in Dedham in 1817.
The most memorable event in the history of the town was the division of the church, which occurred in 1818. In these days when theological dogmas have so relaxed their hold even upon religious men, it is difficult to put ourselves into a position to understand the full meaning of this event to the men and women of the First Parish nearly seventy years ago. The church and the parish then in- cluded nearly all the people of the village, and all were required by law to attend public worship. The church was supported by general taxation, and it was bound by inseparable ties to the civil admin- istration of the town. To the church-members the church was an object of unspeakable solicitude, and the subject of constant prayers. It was the ark of the covenant placed here by the fathers. The time has now come when we may speak of the division
1 Nathaniel Ames's Diary.
90
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
as an important fact of history, though there was a time when our people alluded to it with bated breath, and it was not deemed to be a proper sub- ject for public discussion. It was the result of no common local quarrel over a question of transient importance. Briefly stated, the issue was made upon the right of a territorial parish to elect a religious teacher without the concurrence of the church connected with it. The usage of the Puri- tan churches had always required such a concur- rence. But in the Constitutional Convention of 1780, without much serious discussion, there had been inserted in the Bill of Rights a provision which gave to towns and parishes the exclusive right to choose their public teacher. The First Parish of Dedham in 1818 elected a " public teacher of morality and religion," but in this election a majority of the church refused to concur. Upon the ordination of the teacher-elect, a majority of the church with the deacons, and a minority of the parish, withdrew and formed a separate reli- gious body. Then the right to the property and records of the church became the subject of a suit at law, and the court held that under the provision of the Bill of Rights, made in 1780, the parish might elect a teacher with or without the consent of the church, and without regard to ecclesiastical usage ; that a church could have no legal existence apart from the parish, and that those members of the church who remained with the First Parish
91
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
of Dedham were entitled to the property of the church. Such were the legal questions involved in this celebrated case. But the real underlying causes of the controversy must be sought for in the theological history of that time. It must be ascribed to the powerful reaction from the dogmas of Calvinism, which may be traced back for many years before, and which culminated in 1816 with a great religious upheaval that rent asunder the par- ish churches in half the towns of eastern Massa- chusetts. The decision of the Dedham case was the most far-reaching in its results perhaps of any decision of our courts; for under it the church property in a majority of those towns passed into the exclusive control of the parishes, while the church members who adhered to the Orthodox Puritan faith were relegated to the position of dis- senters from the established parish churches. This was an ecclesiastical revolution which the union of churches and territorial parishes could not with- stand; and in 1834 the parochial system of the Puritans, which had been so carefully framed and steadily maintained for two hundred years, by an amendment to the Bill of Rights, was dissolved forever.
It is a privilege to be able to add a peaceful sequel to this story of strife and division here in Dedham. Since 1819, in separate churches and congregations and confessing different rules of faith, the descendants and successors of the Puritan found-
92
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
ers have worshipped here. Though widely sepa- rated by differences of administration, they have worshipped so near each other that sometimes the passer-by might hear the songs of praise borne on the same harmonies going up together from both congregations. The venerated pastors, who were both ordained in the hour of great tribulation, for forty years afterwards led the devotions of their hearers. They were both representative men of their diverse schools of theology, but they both bore themselves with a dignity becoming their sacred office, and both labored for peace. If there were heart-burnings and some bitterness in the beginning, these found no encouragement from the pulpits. There was a calm on the surface of the troubled waters, though there might have been whirlpools and eddies below ; and long before the faithful pas- tors were borne to their final rest, through no diplo- macy but the silent force of their example, a treaty of amity had been concluded which has been well kept and, as we trust, is never to be broken.
In 1830 the population of the town was upwards of three thousand. There had been a slow but steady advance in population and prosperity. The formation of a bank, an insurance company, and an institution for savings, were further evidence of its growth. The manufacture of woollen goods at the mills had been put upon a firm basis by the capital and capacity of Benjamin Bussey and his efficient agent, Thomas Barrows. Two cotton-mills had
93
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
been built, and they were operated by Frederick A. Taft and Ezra W. Taft, skilful and experienced manufacturers. In the South Parish, George Wins- low, Willard Everett, Lyman Smith, and Joseph Day had begun those enterprises which afterwards transformed that farming neighborhood into a pros- perous village. In Dedham village there was a silk- factory and shops for making stage-coaches. The Citizens' Stage Company, owning three hundred horses, with coaches and equipments, had its head- quarters here. This line ran from Boston to Provi- dence, leaving Boston at five o'clock in the morning, and connecting at Providence with the New York steamer at half-past eleven. Subsequently the time was reduced one hour. It has been stated that ex- press riders once carried a message of President Jackson from Providence to Boston in two hours and forty-five minutes. Sometimes a procession of twelve coaches filled with passengers, heralded by the horn, would draw up here for breakfast or a re- lay of horses. At the sessions of the courts the county lawyers brought their satchels with their papers, and tarried at the taverns until their cases were disposed of. Sometimes a leader of the Suf- folk bar would appear, to electrify the jury and the spectators. In the winter, balls and sleighing-parties made the two taverns centres of life and gayety. In the summer, families from Boston found Dedham a pleasant place of sojourn. Mrs. Kemble and Mrs. Hawthorne in their published diaries give us some
94
THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
glimpses of Dedham life at this period. Books and pamphlets were printed here. There was a young men's lyceum, which produced original plays. Each political party had a county newspaper. Of the dreaded order of lawyers there were not less than five in practice. Theron Metcalf, who came in 1809, delivered law lectures to students in 1828. Horace Mann began his brief professional career in 1826. In the same year Lafayette was received here at nearly midnight by a concourse of people who had waited all day to see him, amid the ringing of bells, the firing of a salute, and an illumination of the houses. In 1833 President Jackson with his cabinet rode through long lines of men, who received him with uncovered heads, as he made his journey to- wards Boston. Such was Dedham village in 1834. The prediction made by Fisher Ames forty years before had been fulfilled. It had grown to be "a smart village."
Fifty years ago to-day the town observed its two hundredth anniversary. It was entered into with spirit, and was a memorable occasion. The town had then attained the height of its local importance, and the arrangements made were quite imposing. The Governor of the Commonwealth, Edward Everett, and his brother, Alexander H. Everett, both descendants of Richard Everard, were present. The felicitous speech of the Governor added much to the impressiveness of the occasion. A senti- ment to the memory of Rev. Samuel Dexter was
95
250TH ANNIVERSARY.
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.