Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 106

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America. > Part 106

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Robert Coats was probably only a resident fisherman, as Lewis thinks ; but Mills lived near the present centre of the town for about twenty-six years. When he died, about 1717, his successor, Dr. Burehstead, sold the property to Samuel Breed, who built the hotel since called Whitney's. This same year, the third house was built by Jeremiah, uncle of the celebrated William Gray ; and this finally became the property of Caleb Johnson and his descendants, Both these houses remain in good condition, but the Mills house seems to have disappeared. It cannot be far from this same time that we must date the arrival there of the large family of Johnson, who have ever since been the leading name in the place. They appear to be partly from the original stock now spoken of, that is, from Jonathan John- son, who bought the old mansion of Gray, about 1770, and partly from a later immigration, having no direct affinity with the former. But how- ever this may have been, the Johnsons have for many years outnum- bered all other families in the town.

One other house had been built before 1800, by Jabez Breed, who sold to Richard Hood. In fact, this was apparently built before the Gray house, so that by this time there must have been four, if not five dwellings, within the town. The place by this time had begun to enjoy its coming reputation as a watering-place, and though not yet the resort of distinguished Americans and foreigners of rank, was, by 1815, in the height of its good name as a resort for picnic and chowder parties from all the country round. In Medford, for example, it was a fixed custom to join in such visits to Nabant several times in a season.

But the fame of the lovely island-group was not slow in developing. Another large house, intended for public entertainment, had been

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built, in 1800, on West Nahant, by Joseph Johnson. But a little after, Aug. 28, 1803, this house was burned to the ground, the family just escaping. It was afterward rebuilt, and, in the favorable atten- tion now given to the place by wealthy families, passed into the hands of Wendell Phillips, Esq., where it has since remained. The hotel enterprise in this direction was ended ; but a second such estab- lishment was meanwhile opened by Jesse Rice in the principal village, and, in 1819, this kind of effort culminated in the erection of the " Nahant Hotel," by Thomas H. Perkins and Edward H. Robbins. It was set on the extreme eastern end of Great Nahant, was partly a stone structure, and cost about sixty thousand dollars. It did a large and favorable business for some time, but finally fell into partial dis- use. It was at length taken by Paran Stevens, of Boston, supported by a company in which were prominent Hons. Francis S. Newhall and Daniel C. Baker, of Lynn. A great enlargement was made and a splendid business done for some years ; but again the profits de- clined, and the property was negleeted. Finally, at a time when the whole was vaeant, it was utterly destroyed by fire, Sept. 12, 1861, making one of the most brilliant conflagrations ever seen hereabout. Since then the proper hotel business has been mostly confined to the old " Whitney House," the later establishment of Mr. Rice having been given up.

In the meantime a different class of summer entertainment had begun here. The " Relay House " was established in 1861, by Nathan Mower, of Lynn, not far from the Phillips mansion on West Nahant, and became a place of much resort. The " Hood Cottage," near the east end of Pond Beach, was opened somewhat later. These, as also the other about to be named, only ministered to the wants of sum- mer parties, and took no boarders.

In 1825, Frederick Tudor, Esq., of Boston, turned his attention to Nahant, built a fine eottage residenee, and gave great and suecessful attention to horticulture and the general benefit of the place. His relations to Nahant are full of interest. But at last, in 1859, he de- cided to lay out and adorn a tract of pleasant, sloping ground, near his house, for a place of public resort. It was on the north-eastern shore of Great Nahant, and possessed a pretty spring of water among the rocky erags. This he collected into an artificial pool, for which he transposed the name " Siloam," and called both this and the orna- mental grounds which he laid out around it by the title " Maolis." Other waters were conducted thither from a reservoir on higher ground ; and the groves of trees and pavilions of shade soon be- came, and have always proved, prime attraetions to the seekers of pleasure, who know the "Maolis Gardens " for many a mile around.

With the established population, however, summer boarding has long been the chief business. Only a section of the place has been thus engaged, however; for the eastern third of Great Nahant was early sold in lots to wealthy parties for summer cottages, and in the winter it is almost tenantless. The other extremity, next

the beach, is occupied, with few exceptions, by the laboring people of the town. Only the middle remains for the original families, and of these very little is seen in the warm season. The abundant wealth thus attracted to Nahant, with the unchangeable limits of the township, have led to its being more lightly taxed than any other town in the Commonwealth. Yet the appropriations suffice to make the publie works and ways cqual to those of any private possession. The streets are beautifully even, set with abundant trecs, and fully lighted. Public buildings are not numerous, but very good and pleasant ; a Catholic church appears in the northerly quarter ; a Methodist in the old, or middle, section ; and an Epis- copal chapel, of choice design, first built in 1832, serves the numer- ous distinguished parties who sojourn here in the warm season. A fine school building and a town hall are likewise noticed.

Communication is sufficiently secured with the mainland by an excellent road over Long Beach, built in 1848, at the joint ex- pense of the town of Lynn and people of Nahant, and with the capital by a steamboat, which runs, in the summer, several trips in a day, and gives the place much activity. West Nahant, being largely open pasture, is permitted to pleasure parties and is in con- stant use in warm weather.

The industries of the town are not numerolis. A considerable amount is done in fishing, and some little ship-building has also been had. A sixteen-ton schooner was built here, in 1858, by J. & E. Johnson. The catching of lobsters has been, and per- haps now is, more than anything else, the leading industry ; great numbers being trapped for the Boston trade.

The isolated position of Nahant always made her eonneetion with Lynn somewhat equivocal ; and after the incorporation of the latter and the separation of Swampscott, she struck for her own inde- pendence, and was made a town March 29, 1853, with, perhaps, the smallest population ever incorporated in the State. The census of 1860 found only 380 persons there, though some increase must have happened meanwhile. By 1875 it was up to 766, with 169 voters. There were then 1,777 dwellings and 154 families. The town had then no manufactures, save what might be reckoned to carpentry ; and only $66 invested in meehanie industry ; and it is eertainly remarkable that she alone, of all the towns in the State, reported a total blank in all departments of agricultural effort. Neither had she a pauper or a convict; but her school-children were 134, at whose service were buildings worth $10,000, and other property worth $300 more.

With more of space, an interesting description might be given of the many curiosities of this place. The Swallows' Cave, the Spout- ing Horn, Pulpit Rock, and Natural Bridge are most attractive. Much might be said of the assemblage of eminent talent that has happened here, ineluding such residents as Longfellow, Agassiz, Prescott, Motley, Willis, and Felton; but the limits of our sketch forbid further expansion.

NEWBURY.

CHAPTER I.

ITS DISCOVERY - LOCATION - ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS, AND WHITE SETTLEMENT.

When first the white man visited the place where the town now is, or even the county or State in which it is, we do not determine. It seems scarcely possible even that, taking the thousands of fishermen annually on the Banks of Newfoundland, some should not have held their way to the mainland, and skirted the coast before Cabot, or even Columbus, for that fleet of fishermen from France, Spain, and Eng- land, comprised full four hundred sail, in a single season, within a half century of Columbus's first voyage. But our history begins not with them ; they left no records. But in the summer of 1605, a lit- tle barque of fifteen tons, commanded by Samuel Champlain, the most energetic of all the French navigators, explorers, or settlers, having on board Pierre Guast, Sieur de Monts, who was Vice-Admiral and Lieutenant-General of "New France," with viccregal powers, with some twenty seamen, and an Indian pilot, coasted along what is now the New England shores, on a voyage of discovery. The year before, they had come from France with two ships, and some eighty persons, and founded a settlement on the island of St. Croix, in Passamaquoddy Bay, where during the winter one-half their number had died, and now they were looking for a more goodly land. No Colony, State, or town invited them : for this was three years before Jamestown was founded, in Virginia ; two years before Popham's settlement near the mouth of the Kennebee ; and fifteen years before Plymonth. One vast soli- tude of waters and rough lands, with a rock-bound coast, was around them. No church-spire crowned a hill ; no sail whitened the waters ; no civilized man hailed them ; and only a scattered Indian population answered visits to the shore, or came out in their birch or wooden canoes to receive gifts, or return presents of corn, beans, tobacco, squashes, or esculent roots, grown on the rudely cultivated patches near their wigwams. On sailed that brave little barque along the strangely indented shores of Maine, across the bays, by the river- mouths and headlands and surf-washed islands ; over the reefs and sunken ledges ; in sight of Mt. Desert, down to the Isles of Shoals, to Cape Ann, and the highlands of Cape Cod. Passing this point, they cast anchor off the mouth of the Merrimac, to which, in honor of De Monts, Champlain gave the name La Riviere du Guast, not doubt- ing that its French designation would go down to the ages. Failing to find such a location as he desired, De Monts returning castward, made his settlement at Arcadia, now Annapolis, Nova Scotia ; and that failure may have determined whether the Merrimae Valley was to be in New France or New England. What became of his set- tlement, what was the fate of the Arcadians, has it not all been writ- ten in prose and poetry ?

Nine years later, in 1614, came another explorer and navigator, more eccentric and more romantic, but equally brave and daring - John Smith - John Smith, the founder of Jamestown, the pioneer set- tler of the great State of Virginia. He came from the opposite direc- tion, doubling Cape Cod, and coasted eastward to the Penobscot. He mapped the shore from Cape Ann beyond the Isles of Shoals, which islands he discovered and gave to them his own name. He looked more favorably upon the beauty of the lands within the lower end than about the upper end of Plum Island. The scenery is there very pleasing ; the beautifully rounded bluffs, the hills, then wooded it may be, the broad marshes, the islands, the streams flowing into Plum Is- land Sound, the rich pastures and lands suited to cultivation, the abundance of fishes, birds, seals, &c., all these may have pleased him ; while it is scarcely possible that he did not explore the Merri- mac, though he made little account of it on his map. His voyage eastward overlapped Champlain's westward, as did the land-grants of the old countries, that of Francis I. of France to De Monts, covering the whole country, even south of Massachusetts Bay, including that granted by James of England to the Plymouth company ; and as

early as the very first years of the seventeenth century, commenced that conflict for possession which virtually terminated, more than a hundred and fifty years after, on the Heights of Abraham, at Quebec, where the brave Gen. Wolf, and the no less gallant Montcalm, gave their lives for their respective countries in decisive battle.

But some years were to elapse before the history of Newbury should begin. George Popham had made a settlement at Pemequod, near the mouth of the Kennebec, in 1607, but had returned to Eng- land the ensuing year. Not yet had the hand of Providence per- formed the last preparatory work in opening the wilderness for another race of men. The Indians were many. and hostile to the occupation by the " pale faces "; but, in 1617, came the plague that swept them off in multitudes, till the panic-stricken red-man waited not to bury his dead. They rotted in the woods, and on the river banks, and in their wigwams ; and many of those left by the plague a few years after were victims of the small-pox : so that not above 50,000 Indians could be found in all New England when the tide of white immigration began.

The settlement of the Massachusetts coast was rapid for that age of the world. In 1633, English ships arrived with their living cargoes ; and, in 1634, twenty-two, on one of which was Thomas Parker and his company of about 100 souls, our great ancestors. So rapidly came the immigrants that frequently the new towns had more people than they could accommodate. Tradition has it that the Newbury people, in the winter of 1634-35, camped upon one of the hills near the mouth of Ipswich River.

Hubbard. in his history of New England, says that Agawam was so filled with inhabitants that some of them were obliged to swarm. In 1633, the Court ordered that no person should go to Agawam (Ipswich) to inhabit without leave of the Court.

Now, we may properly inquire, Why this haste to settle the country east of Boston? De Monts, as we have seen, was looking for a proper place to locate, and nominally the country had been granted to the French ; and, only that the St. Lawrence opened to a more inviting field, a contest at arms could not then have been avoided.

Winthrop writes in his History of New England, under date of 1632-33: "The governor having intelligence that the French had bought the Scottish plantation near Cape Sable, and that the fort and all the ammunition were delivered to them, and that the cardinal hav- ing the managing thereof, had sent some companies already, and that preparations were made to send many more the next year, and divers priests and JJesnits among them, called his assistants to Boston, the ministers, the captains, and some other chief men, to advise what was fit to be done for our safety, in regard to the French likely to prove ill neighbors, being papists." Oftentimes he calls them "French Jesuites." In that council it was determined that a plantation should be begun at Agawam, "least the enemy, finding it void, should possess and take it from us." So important did he deem it that the governor sent his own son with twelve men to commence the work. Two years later, in 1634, the General Court granted liberty to this same John Winthrop, Jr., to set up a trading-house upon the Merrimac River, showing how rapidly. for that period, they were endeavoring to cover the country. It is, therefore, literally true. as the town record of 1752 says, "for religion's sake our fathers left their native shore," &c. Gov. Hutchinson remarks : "The Massachusetts people took posses- sion of the country at a very critical time," and he points to the French exploration under De Monts to prove it, adding. "it does not appear that they went round or to the bottom of Massachusetts Bay. Had they once gained footing there, they would have prevented the Eng- lish."

Gov. Winthrop undoubtedly created a fever of excitement. both at home and in England, and fleets of vessels came over from year to vcar, for nothing so spurs men to action as religious zeal or animosity. It was a crusade for the possession of the " promised land," in which, however, their material interests seem never to have been forgotten.

Not only were the settlers hastened towards the eastern frontier, but great care was had of " the manner of men " they should be, and,

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therefore, the Court forbade any to go without its permission ; and when some "misliked " had already settled at Agawam, the governor forthwith authorized their removal. Our forefathers, therefore, we may rest assured, were a goodly, zealous, Christian people. They were the wheat of old England, and they were sifted after their arrival in the province, and none but the most stable and reliable permitted to settle in the new towns, consecrated as they were to industry, piety and freedom. Therefore, this Essex County has been, as all our annals show, in its spirit, its industry, its culture, and its morals, inferior to no other equal territory on the face of the globe. As the fathers, so their sons ! As the mothers, so their daughters, from the beginning to this day.

CHAPTER II.

FROM 1635 TO 1642 - THE ERA OF THE OLD TOWN.

At this day, we have little idea of the difficulty of travelling, when there were not only no expresses, stages, or railroads, but farm- wagons and horses were very few, and no roads had yet been laid out for their use. The travel was by foot-paths winding through the unbroken woods, that could be trodden only by men, armed against the wild Indians and wild beasts, which now and then showed them- selves in the forests, but shrank from the face of civilization. It should not surprise us, therefore, to find that Parker and his company reached their destination by water, the natural highway for a new country. They left their camping ground on the left bank of the Aga- wam, which river connects with the Merrimac by Plum Island Sound, which may have had better water for navigation then than now, the Merrimac being more obstructed by sands at its mouth, and sending a larger volume of water through the sound, over Ipswich bar. That, however, is not certain, as we find the town, in its petition, a dozen years later, to have a grant of all Plum Island, representing that they usually crossed to the island, the sound being dry in some places, and in many passable with carts and horses; and, moreover, that Plum Island " in many places is not distant ten rods, and in no place is a hundred rods from low water mark." From this it would appear that the water has not changed since ; but still Parker found it deep enough to be of easy transit for vessels of sixty tons, and such were in trans-Atlantic trade at that period.

The settlers passed up the sound till they reached the beautiful Quascacunquen, as the Indians called it, which the early records call the " Great River," and we, in later times, the river Parker, in honor of the first minister. At a short distance up, making in the whole pas- sage not over five miles, they landed on the north bank, just below where the bridge stands to-day ; and there, tradition has it, Nicholas Noyes, a cousin to Mr. Parker, and whose descendants are many at this day, and not a few distinguished men, first leaped to the shore. The little company consisted of twenty-two men, their wives and children and servants. They were Mr. Henry Sewall and his servants, - he was the rich man of the party, and had abundant cattle; Wil- liam Moody, his wife and four sons; Anthony Short, Henry Short and wife ; Mr. John Spencer; Mr. Nicholas Easton, his wife and son John; Richard Kent, Sr., and Stephen Kent, with their wives; Mr. Thomas Parker; Mr. James Noyes and wife ; Mr. John Woodbridge, and his brother Nicholas ; Thomas, Richard, and George Brown ; Mr. James Brown and wife ; Thomas Coleman ; Francis Plumer and wife, with his two sons, Joseph and Samuel; and a few others, some of whose names have not reached us.

Even now, when migration is so speedy and so easy, a party of emigrants, with their homes and friends behind, and an unknown country and future before them, presents a sad and a queer appear- ance ; and then much more strange must have been the picture. In the boats were those who had left goodly estates to come here -men rich and honored, women pious and devoted, children weak and timid, - with their household goods and gods, mementoes of places of birth and friends to be seen no more. The primeval forests - the giant oaks, the wide-spreading elms, and the graceful willows at the water side, welcomed them: but no house - that was to be built ; no home - that was to be made ; no friendly hand was extended, and no kindly voice cheered them. . Alone with nature and God, trusting to their own right hands and their own brave hearts, they were to begin life in the wilderness. Before nightfall, their merchan- dise and their cattle were landed, their camp pitched, and the sentinels

posted to guard against surprise. They gathered in a little group, and the singing of a psalm and the voice of prayer closed the first day in Newbury. On the morrow, the ring of the axe on the trees which never saw axe before, and the smoke of their fires, were the evidences of the settlement at the Lower Green.

. The first task was the erection of huts or wigwams, till the more sub- stantial log-cabin could be had, for, as yet, there were no saw-mills. These were, of course, low, floorless, windowless, and smoky, not most agreeable for our maternal ancestors, though some of the log- houses, which followed immediately, were substantial and comfortable buildings. One built by Richard Dummer and John Spencer, by order of the Court, as the " Bound house," in Seabrook, within two years, is standing to the present day. But we may be certain that generally the mere shelters- on poles, or fastened to the trees, or dug into the sides of the hill - with the summer rains dripping through the roof, and the winter snows blowing through the crevices, while the cattle, sick from the wild fodder, bellowed without, and the wolves, in search of sheep and swine, left their tracks at the door, - were not most agreeable homes.

But while they were among the poorest of civilized men in the provi- sions and blessings that money can give, their resolve was firm sct that they would excel in holiness of heart and spiritual life. So we find them gathered by Mr. Parker, under a wide-spreading oak, on the banks of the river, and there in the " open ayre" he preached from Matthew xviii. 17 : "And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; and if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." He laid down the principles of the government to be established. The church was the governing power, - a finality. After the sermon, the people joined in covenant whereby they established the church; and then they elected Thomas Parker pastor of the first church in Newbury, which was the tenth in Massachusetts ; and they also clected James Noyes, his cousin, their teacher.

These were two of the seven of the company allowed to prefix Mr. to their names. They were among the most learned men of their day, in some respects inferior to none who have succeeded them in that or any other church in the town or country. The meeting-house, which was likewise the school and the town-house, was on land now owned by Albert Plummer, one of the descendants of Francis, who have held the paternal acres through all the years to this date.

During this year, eighteen ships brought emigrants from England to the Province, many of whom came to Newbury, for it soon had a goodly reputation. Among them were John and Robert Pike, John Emery, John Bailey, John, Jr., and others, - names familiar to us away down our annals. Also Richard Dummer, the richest man in town for many years, from whose loins sprang Gov. Dummer, the founder of the academy, -a family as liberal as wealthy ; and John Spencer, likewise of means and enterprise, who afterwards built the stone-house on the Little farm, just below the Upper Green, which he owned. Among other persons who came was Mr. Avery, a minister, with his cousin, Anthony Thatcher. He was persuaded by the magistrates to settle in Marblehead ; but, on the way by water, the vessel was wrecked off Cape Ann, on Avery's Rock, so called from him ; and he, his wife and children, and others were drowned : all on board but Anthony Thatcher and his wife, who were cast upon an island near by, called Thatcher's Island from that event.

So we find the town peaceful, prosperous, and happy at the close of the first year. It was the largest town, territorially, in the Pro- vinec, -ten miles long, and six broad at the widest, containing 28.000 acres of land, and 2,000 acres of water. The settlers came rightfully in possession : first, by finding it unoccupied - there were not twenty Indians in the whole territory ; second, by legal grant ; and, third, by payment of money, subsequently, to the heir of the Sagamore of Agawam, who had all the Indian claim that could exist.

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Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 106

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett Number of Pages: 450

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450