USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > Some annals of Nahant, Massachusetts > Part 4
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It would seem that from out this welter of confusion on Nahant lands, present-day titles might be found too incom- plete for comfort. In fact, however, they are much less so than in many another old town, and most towns of the period were settled more or less loosely, with their lands afterwards divided. George A. Dary, a careful and reliable Boston con- veyancer whom many Nahanters remember, was a student of Nahant lands and titles, and never considered them so wanting that any trouble could result. Of course there were a few exceptions, but these arose mostly from later transac- tions not connected with these early methods and mixups which
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so far have been considered. Nowadays Land Court titles are popular and desirable, and there never has been difficulty in registering Nahant titles.
The Lewis and Hammond map, to which reference has been made, is too large to reproduce in this work. A smaller map by Lewis is pictured here because it shows roads and names, although too small to show property owners. There is also shown a Lewis map of Lynn which is interesting. Note that in 1838 no street crossed Broad Street toward the water except Nahant Street, and that the present Ocean Street district, full of residences, is marked farm land from Lynn Harbor to Swampscott. Indeed, people now living can remember when Humphrey Street was called the new road, and the old road to Swampscott was less direct. The old part of Ocean Street is the Swampscott end. Nahant Street ran from earliest times to the sandy beach over which was the only access to Nahant. Nahant Street was also a street of Quakers, and as late as 1840, with a dozen or twenty families on it, only one was not a Quaker. Lynn had many Quakers, and separate schoolhouses were used where no others could attend. When Lynn was first divided into wards, all the Quakers were put into one ward wherever they lived; geographical lines were ignored with this important sect.
Even after this division of Nahant among the citizens of Lynn, which seems to have been a legal and proper process, and upon which land titles in Nahant today mostly rest, lawsuits were not over. On September 28, 1706, the town of Lynn voted that after the commons lands were divided every person should have liberty at all times to pass and repass over any other person's land for necessary access to his own land, provided he cut down no tree in so doing. This might have made trouble if legal or enforcible, but probably it was not aimed at Nahant. The common lands of Lynn were in seven divisions of which Nahant was called the Seventh. By its layout with range roads, to give ready access to the beaches as well as to the various lots, there was little need of crossing
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each other's land. There were, however, settlers claiming ownership by right of occupancy.
In 1708 Dr. John H. Burchsted of Lynn brought suit of trespass against Hugh Alley, Jr., at Nahant for trespass on land the former had bought of Joseph Collins, Jr., and Samuel Newhall, to whom it had been allotted a couple of years before. Reference to the old map by Lewis & Hammond shows that Lewis placed this land of Collins and Newhall as two adjoining lots extending from what is now Cliff Street down the hill westerly to the range road between Ranges Four and Five. This road was never a town road, and as laid out by the 1706 committee it ran parallel to Pleasant Street, north- east and southwest, as did other range roads in Great Nahant. It started from what is now Nahant Road, then a main road also, in such a position that the westerly wing of Whitney's Hotel, now the Whitney Homestead, would rest upon it. The location on Cliff Street of this Collins and Newhall land shows that its limits were from nearly over to the northerly side of the "Lodge Villa" land to about a half or two-thirds across the Fred R. Sears estate land. Alley claimed this land be- cause he had held and enjoyed it for "above fifty years last passed." Alley further claimed eight acres Lynn had given for services in the Pequot War. This service was probably by his father in 1636, but the alleged grant of land may have been some time later. Alley lost his land and soon after moved to Lynn. Again the depositions give interesting infor- mation. They show that Hugh Alley, Sr., lived at Nahant as early as 1647. He appears to have been the second known inhabitant. The first was Thomas Graves, as is shown in an indenture dated 1656 between Joseph Armitage and the citi- zens of Lynn, which uses the phrase "near unto ye place where Thomas Graves' house stood." In the Alley case one Susanna Fferne deposed that she was born in Nahant and could remember Alley's occupancy of the land he claimed for thirty years, or back to 1678. No doubt Hugh Alley, Sr., settled here in 1647 or 1648, and had six children born here.
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Probably his wife was a daughter of this Thomas Graves who is the earliest known settler. Alley appears to have op- posed all decrees of Lynn or the courts and kept his residence in Nahant, and his son after him, until this final scrimmage in 1708. Benjamin Collins and others deposed, in this legal battle, that the land in controversy was given to Hugh Alley for his services in the Pequot War, and the land was called the Hope Well. Another, John Lewis, testified that he had plowed this land for Hugh Alley from year to year for forty years. Benjamin Collins also testified that Hugh Alley had another field within fence, "where his house stood, some distance from ye land in controversie." One Joanna Alley mentions her mother-in-law Mary Graves, and apparently in this deposition is the evidence that Hugh Alley married a Graves. This document states that the house of Hugh Alley was standing in 1673 or 1674. These various depositions show that the rest of Nahant, outside of these Alley holdings, was at the time used only for pasturage.
It was this Pequot War which finally brought a death judgment, curiously made, to Miantonomo, the Narragansett Indian chief. As a captive, according to Indian customs, he would meet death and torture, but his captors were warned by their white allies not to kill him. Puzzled but obedient they sent him to Hartford and then to Boston, so John Fiske says, for the white man's judgment. The government was also puzzled, for they did not want him alive. They referred the matter to a synod of clergymen from all over New England, which was in session in Boston, and their advice was asked. A committee of five of them recommended death, and Mian- tonomo was sent back to Hartford to be slain by his Indian captor's tomahawk.
There seems some question if Graves and Alley were the first and second permanent settlers on Nahant. E. J. Johnson, in his "History of Nahant," says the evidence shows it, but goes on to say that Lindsey and Fferne lived here about this time. The statement of Susanna Fferne that she was born here has been cited, and she remembered back to 1678.
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There is also the peculiarity, which may need adjusting by those sufficiently interested, of the 1706 committee men- tion of James Mills. They say, referring to what is now Nahant Road, "and soe running on the North East end of James Mills his land." This would indicate no Alley land recognized along this road in 1706. The 1708 deposition of Collins places Alley's house "some distance from ye land in Controversie," which was the Hope Well land already lo- cated, if the Lewis map is correct. E. J. Johnson agrees with this location, but avers that this Alley house must have stood in from Nahant Road, probably on the north part of the Sears lot. But the northerly part of the Sears lot would appear to lie within the Hope Well lot, and therefore not answering the description of "some distance away." Again, Joanna Alley, as quoted by Johnson, testifies that she saw her mother- in-law Mary Graves put James Mills in possession of "ye aforesaid house and land that was formerly in ye possession of Hugh Alley about thirty three years since." This would be in 1673 or 1674. It seems confusing, therefore; and what actually happened may only be guessed, as E. J. Johnson worked long and hard on the question with only this indistinct outcome.
If the Hope Well lot was where the "Lodge Villa" and Sears estates are now, and if Hugh Alley, Jr., lived "some distance away" in 1708, and if James Mills took over Hugh Alley's house in 1673 or 1674, probably at the death of Hugh Alley, Sr., in January, 1674, then it seems clear that the house Mills assumed and occupied, as mentioned by the committee dividing Nahant in 1706, was the house of Hugh Alley, Sr., while Hugh Alley, Jr., lived in from what is now the main road. Probably this would be along the side hill westerly from Cliff Street but farther in than E. J. Johnson places it. Lewis, in his "Picture of Nahant" (1845), says the James Mills house was about six rods southeast from Whitney's Hotel.
Hugh Alley, Sr., most prominent of the few early Nahanters, came from England in 1635 in the ship "Abigail" bound for
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New England. If he married Mary Graves, as E. J. Johnson suggests, probably it was before he settled in Nahant, as the first two of his eight children are not recorded as born in Nahant. The children were Mary, John, Martha, Sarah, Hugh, Solomon, Hannah and Jacob, born between 1642 and 1663. The son Solomon was killed in King Philip's War. The son Hugh is the only son coming into Nahant history, as already mentioned. The daughter Martha married James Mills, here mentioned, who was employed by his father-in- law. The piece of land called "Hope Well," Johnson says, was probably named after the ship "Hope Well" which arrived at Salem in September, 1635, with Joanna and Mary Graves among its passengers. These were "probably" daughters of Thomas Graves, as they came to Nahant where Graves was settled.
People from farther away than Lynn used Nahant for pasturage, and apparently some of the early residents were temporary. They were employed to care for the cattle and sometimes went when their jobs were ended, although a few stayed longer. Joseph Jacobs married a daughter of Hugh Alley and acquired a considerable acreage on Nahant but finally moved away. John and Michael Lambert were others who appear here, and Christopher Lindsey. Others have already been named.
The year 1717, Lewis says, found Nahant without an in- habitant, James Mills having died and his family moved away. His house and land became the property of Dr. John H. Burchsted, who in December sold it to Samuel Breed. Lewis states that Breed "built a house where Whitney's Hotel now stands." The exact locations of all these older houses remain more or less indefinite. It may be said, however, that these early residents all seem to have chosen this protected hillside, with its southwesterly exposure, for their homes. Doubtless there were exceptions in the cabins of the herdsmen who were here temporarily. All these early houses were crude and bound to be superseded by better structures, and in the later con- struction it was natural to use material from the old buildings.
William Wood
Frederic Tudor
Alfred D. Johnson Town Clerk
Washington H. Johnson Selectman
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These contained well-seasoned logs, or if they had any hewn timber this would be used because the process of preparing this material was arduous. As for sawed timber, none was made on Nahant, and to haul it over the beach from Lynn meant trouble, also encouraging the use over again of ma- terial from these outgrown houses. Thus it is that seldom are the earliest houses in existence. The method of construction did not yield a very durable result, and this also helped toward their disappearance. Whether this early Samuel Breed house replaced the Mills house, which had come to him from his wife's father, Hugh Alley, or whether the Mills house was not in this exact location, may not be stated. In either event, old timber may have been used in the Breed house. No one can tell.
E. J. Johnson in his history of Nahant does not seem clear in his statements about the Breeds. In one place he says it is "uncertain whether Samuel Breed Senior lived at Nahant previous to 1717, when he purchased his land there: but his two sons were both living there in separate houses before 1739." Elsewhere he says, "The Breed family were among the first families to make their permanent home at Nahant, Samuel Breed having lived there previous to 1706." Samuel Breed, Sr., married Annie Hood in 1690. She was a sister of Rebecca Hood who was married to Hugh Alley, Jr., in 1681. This Breed and the Hood family, who now appear in the picture of Nahant, were from the Lynn families of early settlers, and their antecedents and family connections are easily found in various books or by reference to material at the Lynn Historical Society. Samuel Breed, Sr., who was born in 1669, was a son of Allen and Mary Breed, the first Breeds in Lynn. Samuel Breed, Jr., son of the former, was born in 1692, and E. J. Johnson says he was born in Nahant. Yet Lewis says that 1717 saw Nahant without an inhabitant, after James Mills was driven out by Burchsted. Nor do Lewis and Johnson agree which Samuel Breed, father or son, bought of Burchsted. Their ages in 1717 were forty-eight and twenty-five. Lewis says it was Samuel
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Breed, Jr., while Johnson says it was the senior, who married Annie Hood, and conveyed his purchase to two of his sons, Samuel and Jabez, in 1735. The senior Breed had several children, some of whom, Johnson says, were born in Nahant. In any event, it appears that Samuel, Jr., and Jabez Breed, brothers, and sons of Samuel Breed, Sr., were both living on Nahant in separate houses in 1735, and that the former lived where is now the Whitney Homestead, formerly Whitney's Hotel. Johnson finds that in 1738 Samuel Breed is designated "Inn Keeper" in a deed. This would prob- ably be the Junior, and Johnson says it was. He was commonly known as "Governor Breed," probably because he was very small in stature. Nicknames have a way of being ironical. His wife was Deliverance Basset, so named because born after her mother's release from prison in the witchcraft orgy in 1692. Several Lynn people were engulfed in this tragic mist of superstition, by which a few young girls could cry out successfully against their elders. Perhaps some today would like similarly strong capacities. There are fogs hard to dispel in any age, so that opinions rarely are known to be wholly enduring. Those who think of the Salem witchcraft period without drawing a lesson from it need to be reminded of the old adage about the inhabitants of glass houses. The wheel comes full circle. Astrologers were ridiculed, and now scientists say the planet Jupiter affects the spread of bubonic plague. Deliverance Basset was a daughter of William Bas- set, Jr., and Sarah (Hood) Basset, the latter a daughter of Richard Hood. William Basset lived on Nahant Street in Lynn. The custom of choosing names with a meaning was more common in earlier days, though often seen even in mod- ern times. Perhaps the names Prudence and Patience have been relegated to the places where dead dreams go, but other instances occur, even on Nahant of today. Samuel Breed, Jr., had several children, one of whom was Nehemiah Breed who acquired his father's property, and it was then inherited by an only child, William Breed, born in 1759. The Breeds moved to Lynn in 1817, and Lewis says they remodelled the house or
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hotel in 1819 for Jesse Rice, its new proprietor. It is inter- esting to note that William Breed had a son Daniel, a grand- son William N., and a great-grandson George Herbert Breed. The latter was well known to Nahanters, and his wife was Edith H. Gove, herself a Nahanter until her removal to Lynn.
Jabez Breed built a house, Johnson says, which together with his share of the Breed land he sold to Richard Hood in 1738. The house was across the street from the Whitney Home- stead. This Hood was born in Lynn, a son of Richard Hood. He married Theodate Collins in 1718 and had nine children, of whom Abner became the Nahanter, owning most of the considerable Hood holdings here. Johnson says they amounted to fifty-three acres, and that Abner came to Nahant at the age of five, with his father. A daughter of Richard Hood, Theodate, married Jeremiah Gray. In 1741 Gray built a house on land given by his father-in-law, Richard Hood. This house Gray sold in 1758 to Jonathan Johnson, soon after which there seem to have been three families living on Na- hant, -Samuel Breed, Richard Hood and Jonathan Johnson. Gray and Jabez Breed had gone, and no record appears of any others remaining here.
It is interesting to see that the Breeds appear to have owned more land here at one time than any other family until Frederic Tudor of more recent times. Dr. Burchsted seems to have been a purchaser of many of the smaller holdings arising from the division of 1706 among the people of Lynn. Most of these folks had no personal interest here and were ready to sell at once. Dr. Burchsted sold sixty acres to Breed in 1717, and the Hoods had acquired fifty-three acres when Abner Hood came into possession. The Hoods and Breeds owned nearly all the land in the first four ranges, or nearly up to what is now Wharf Street as a westerly limit, while both had holdings still farther westerly. This appears to be the origin of the concentration into one ownership of the property later known as Whitney's Swamp, through the sale by Breed to Jesse Rice, and by Rice to his son-in-law, Albert Whitney. Mrs. Alice C. McIntosh, a granddaughter of Jesse Rice, says that Rice
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added to the house in 1820, building the easterly end. The exact years of any remodellings or addition is not important, though it could be settled by references to the old deeds, at least as to who did the remodelling. In any event, it was done for Rice or by Rice, who then or soon after bought it. Rice kept the hotel on the old site from 1817 to 1841, the date of Whitney's purchase. It was long known as the "Rice House," and is so mentioned by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Albert Whitney continued the hotel business in the location as "Whitney's Hotel," until 1883. Then, after some years' interim, it was opened in 1896 as the "Whitney Homestead," under which title it has been and is now operated by sons and daughters of Albert Whitney. Thus comes down to present days what is doubtless in part the oldest structure on Nahant, and the oldest hotel on Nahant. Probably it was a small place in Breed's day, for there does not seem to have been much to attract to Nahant, with its almost island diffi- culty of access. Certainly parts of the building reach back before the Revolution, perhaps even to Breed's building of 1717 or a little later. The present proprietor is Mrs. Alice C. McIntosh, a well-known genuine "Nahanter," as those born and bred here are sometimes called. She has lived here a great part of her time, although several years of her married life were spent elsewhere.
Richard Hood, before mentioned, was born in Lynn in 1692 and died in 1764. He moved to Nahant in 1738 or 1739. He was a son of Richard Hood of Lynn, who was born in 1655 and died in 1696, and a grandson of Richard Hood, who is said to have come from Lynn Regis in England before 1650, and who died in Lynn in 1695. He bought the Humfries farm on Na- hant Street. Abner, who came to Nahant in 1738 or 1739 as a boy of his father's family, was born in Lynn in 1733 and died in 1818 at Nahant. He was married at the age of fifty to Keziah Breed, daughter of Benjamin and Ruth Breed of Lynn. These people were all Quakers. Abner Hood was a selectman of Lynn and did other public service. The Society of Friends finally decided that to hold public office was worldly and
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unseemly for their people, and he held no further positions. Some years later, apparently after 1800, he built a house up the hill toward Bass Beach, on what is now the Upham estate, and lived there, owning all of his father's Nahant property. There were five children, Abner, Richard, Theodate, Benja- min and Ebenezer, born between 1784 and 1790. The latter two were twins. The Nahant property was divided among the four sons, of whom Benjamin had the old homestead of his grandfather. This was in 1820. Benjamin and Ebenezer married into the Phillips family of Lynn, which later had representatives living on Nahant. From these two came the later Hoods well known on Nahant. A son of Ebenezer was Elbridge, father of Elbridge Gerry Hood, who was a Civil War veteran well known to many Nahanters now living. His daughter, Abby May, is Mrs. Thomas Roland, another real Nahanter. From Benjamin Hood are descended four sisters very well known here until their deaths. One was Ann Maria, wife of Dexter Stetson, while the Misses Julia Pond Hood and Ann Amelia Hood were familiar figures. They lived for some time in a house on Castle Road, while it was about the only house there, and after the death of the Stetsons, the two unmarried sisters, with their niece Helen Stetson, lived in Lynn. They owned the house on the northerly corner of Na- hant Road and Pond Street. Miss Helen Stetson bequeathed money to the Congregational Church and to the Nahant Public Library as memorial funds. The fourth sister, Louisa Phillips Hood, was the wife of Albert Wyer, who, with his son, developed a large ice business in Lynn, which is now combined with others into the ice deliveries company which serves this vicinity. Other Hood descendants have drifted away from Nahant, until today none of the name and belong- ing to the family are living here. These four sons of Abner Hood all lived on the Hood property, occupying four adjacent houses on the right-hand side of the road coming down from Bass Beach, and across the street from the Whitney holdings. The original Hood house, inherited by Benjamin, was about where now is the gardener's cottage of the Upham estate,
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and was taken down, except the wing, which was moved to Summer Street Court and made into a cottage occupied for years by Charles H. Palmer and family and now owned by Fred B. Libbey. Ebenezer built what is now known as the Elbridge Hood house owned by Mrs. Thomas Roland, a great-granddaughter of Ebenezer Hood. Richard built what is now known as the Rice house, across Nahant Road from the head of Wharf Street, and more recently familiar as the home of George W. Kibbey. On Richard Hood's removal to Lynn he sold to Charles Bradbury who sold to Jesse Rice, elsewhere mentioned. Abner, Jr., inherited his father's place up the hill toward Bass Beach. He sold to John C. Gray, a summer resident, who in turn sold to Dexter Stetson, the same Stetson whose wife was a daughter of Benjamin Hood. This house Stetson kept as a hotel or boarding house. When Upham bought this property the house was moved. A part went to Short Beach, made over into a store and a house for James C. White; and a wing went to Spring Road, made into a house for David Robertson, and subsequently was moved back to Emerald Street, and became the property of Thomas F. Coakley.
It is interesting to see how the Hoods are entwined in all the Nahant families of this period. In 1739 Jeremiah Gray mar- ried Theodate Hood, daughter of Richard Hood, the first Hood on Nahant. Gray built the house subsequently owned by Jonathan Johnson, the first Johnson on Nahant. Johnson's third wife, from whom the large family of Nahant Johnsons are descended, was a granddaughter of Hugh Alley, Jr., whose wife was Rebecca Hood, a sister of Annie Hood who married Samuel Breed, Sr., in 1690. Samuel Breed, Jr., married De- liverance Basset, whose mother, Sarah Basset, tried for witch- craft in 1692, was a daughter of Richard Hood of Lynn and an aunt of the first Richard Hood of Nahant. Thus the Hood family was represented in all three of these early Nahant homes, as well as in the Alley family earlier on Nahant, but gone in the later half of the century, and with their house not standing.
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The third family living on Nahant, in or before 1770, was of Jonathan Johnson. He was a son of Jonathan Johnson who came to Lynn in 1706, and married Sarah Mansfield in 1710. They had two sons and four daughters. One of the sons, Edward, born in 1721, has numerous descendants now living in Boston and Lynn, with some becoming summer residents of Nahant. He was a private in Captain Farrington's company at the battle of Lexington. The other son, Jonathan, born in 1723, was the original Johnson on Nahant. He enlisted in a cavalry regiment under Major Graves for the French and Indian Wars, and thus gained the common title of Trooper Johnson. On his return he lived in Marblehead. He first married Katherine Brummage in 1745; second, Susanna Farrington in 1753; and third, Ann Alley, widow of Thomas Williams and daughter of Benjamin B. Alley, who was a son of Hugh Alley, Jr., mentioned elsewhere as one of Nahant's earliest settlers. Thus the well-known family of Nahant Johnsons trace descent from the beginning of the town. He bought out Jeremiah Gray in 1758, and some time later, perhaps soon after this later marriage, he moved to Nahant, where three sons were born, - Benjamin, 1771; Joseph, 1776; and Caleb, 1778. He was farmer, fisherman and chair maker. His experience proved his metal, and he lived out an interesting, hard-working life until his death in 1799 while living with his son Caleb in the same house that he had bought about forty years before.
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