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 108

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 108

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In the land division one lot was for John Indian, and then first is named in the records an Indian. He was probably John Sagamore, of Agawam, or Masconomo, whose original title covered all the lands

from Bradford to Beverly, which were purchased of him by Winthrop in 1638, for £20. In 1701 the town purchased of Masconomo's heirs all claims. Previously they had bought of Great Town for £3, his lands near Indian Hill ; and in 1663, Old Will, living at Dummer's Falls, sold to Richard Dummer and Henry Sewall his claims. His was the last Indian family in the town. The few here had been always peaceably disposed, and none from without gave trouble but once ; that was in 1695, when they raided ou Turkey Hill, and in the ab- sence of the men plundered the house of John Brown, where they seized nine women and children, but being pursued abandoned their captives, who all returned home, save an infant killed by the Indiaus to prevent its eries bringing evil to themselves.

The first question giving rise to contention between the old and new towns was the location of the meeting-house. The population may then have reached 400, and the "riverside " people required services nearer home. The old town objected, and would keep the meeting- house at the " Lower Green," or have a separate church. The " river- side " party, however, carried, and it was removed to a knoll, where the burying-ground, above the Upper Green, was laid out. In that vicinity it has remained ever since. In 1655, the bell first sounded from its tower. In 1661, a new meeting-house was built. This had galleries, in which seats were preferred. Then there were no pews, - the men, women, and children were assigned their seats, and were obliged to retain them ; the men on one side, the women on the other. When, sixteen years later, the selectmen permitted some young ladies to build a pew for themselves, the young men broke into the meeting-house and demolished it. We find, however, in 1687, that the young men wanted news, and liberty was granted for eleven of them to build a pew in the gallery, and the young ladies did not retaliate and destroy it. In that was a new for the minister's wife, by the pulpit stairs, and other news were allowed : and Col. Daniel Pierce had his first choice, - he was one of the chief rulers in the synagogne ; and Major Thomas Noyes the second choice. The town also voted a bell of 400 pounds ; and between the ringing of the first and second bells, a flag was put up to warn the people that services were about to commence. In 1700, the third meeting-house was erected -a square, two story, hip-roof building, attractive for its time. That house endured to 1806, when the fourth took its place, which, in time, burned by lightning, yielded to the present edifice.

In 1648, the town meeting was held annually, and about this date the building of the roads was no small part of the public burden. There was a ferry on the Parker, another at Carr's Island, and in time a third at Bartlett's Cove, near Moulton Hill ; while Richard Thurlow, at his own expense, had built a bridge where one now is over the Parker, leading to Dummer's Academy. These ferries located the main roads, which were over Carr's Ferry to Salisbury ; from Carr's Ferry to Thurlow's Bridge, and thence to Beverly, Andover, and Haverhill ; and by Amesbury Ferry t > the Mills and Exeter. These were no slight undertakings for a sparse population.

The punishment for crimes is worthy of notice. In 1649 Thomas Scott " was fined 108. unless he learn Mr. Norton's chatachise by the next term of the court." He chose to pay, probably esteeming it the lighter punishment. Drunkards were fined, set in the stocks, or made to stand at the meeting-house door, placarded " drunkard." There were many of this kind to punish, for unintoxicating drinks were few at that period, coffee not being introduced till a century later, and tea not for three-quarters of a century ; and that they then drank to excess, as now, may be learned from the closing of all the taverns within a mile of the meeting-house on "lecture days." For lewdness and false swearing, convicts were placarded and exposed at the meeting-house ; for lying they went to the whipping-post ; for slander their tongues were pinched in the cleft of a stick ; and for scolding they were gagged and dueked in water. For the strange offence of exposing herself naked in church, a Mrs. Lydia Wardwell, a religious fanatic who is vouched for as a chaste and modest woman, crazily led to the act on account of the conduct of the church towards her husband, was tied to a fence-post by the Ipswich Court House, in which she had been sentenced, and publicly whipped. Being a woman was no excuse for crime : and then women were sometimes jurors, as, in 1693, sitting as au inquest on the body of Elizabeth Hunt, they re- turned thus wisely and truly, that, " According to our best light, the death of said Elizabeth was not by any violence or wrong done to her by any person or thing, but by some sudden stopping of her breath."

In 1652 began the pine-tree coinage of shillings, and half, and quarter shillings. The mint-master, John Hull, greatly enriched him- self in the business, so that when his daughter married Judge Samuel Sewall, he gave her £30,000 in New England shillings. Her husband

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was one of the Judges Sewall, who for eighty-four successive years held a seat on our supreme beneh, and three of them filled the Chief Justice's chair.

In 1659, sixteen Newbury men petitioned for a tract of land where Concord, N. H., now is, though the first white settlement there was not till seventy years later.

The next year the Court granted a traet of land on the Saco River, provided twenty families, with a minister, settled there within five years. This shows how the emigration fever was upon the town. They had contributed to settle Salisbury, and Hampton, and Haverhill, and were then, in the first quarter of a century, looking up the Mer- rimae to Concord, and subsequently went above to aid in settling Bos- cawen, Newbury, and Bradford, in that State ; and, later, Littleton and Haverhill in New Hampshire, and Newbury in Vermont; also other towns in Maine. It would be an interesting chapter in our history to follow the first settlers and their descendants, in the founding of towns, from the British Provinces, through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, down to New Jersey, where they settled Woodbridge, and named it for John Woodbridge, our third minister, from which sprang General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who fell at Queenstown in 1812, and Joseph Bloomfield, some years governor of that State ; and thence to Pennsylvania, where the first white child born west of the Alleghany mountains was descended from Francis Plumer; and thence through the North-west to Oregon, where an Old Newbury man built the first house in the now rich and thriving city of Portland.

And now we have reached some dark pages in Massachusetts his- tory - the persecution of Quakers and the hanging of witches. It was enacted, in 1657, that not more than 40s. should be the fine for entertaining Quakers, and many were the outrages committed upon those unoffending and peace-loving people. They were fined, whipped, robbed, hanged, and the record stands against us unto this day. This led the Macys and Coffins, who had been among the early settlers, to emigrate to Nantucket.

It was later, in 1680, that our first and only ease of witchcraft occurred, though before, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, persons had been executed for this " erime," which, so far as we can see, was not dissimilar to some of the developments of modern Spiritualism. There lived, near the head of Market Street, a venerable couple, William Morse and Elizabeth, his wife, and the unfortunate woman, charged with being a witch, was tried, convicted, and senteneed to be banged. The testimony is peculiarly interesting. There were great noises heard, which might have been human and might have been infernal. Stones and sticks forgot the laws of gravitation, and flew in the air, coming down to pound the roof, or through the chimney into the fire-place. Doors locked flew open of their own aceord, and through them, in the night time, entered the pigs and cattle, whose escape from sty and barn could not be accounted for. The chairs danced a jig with the spinning-wheel and table, and the audirons and the tea-kettle boxed each other's ears till they rang like bells. Goodey Morse says, in trying to make the bed, " the clothes did fly off many times of themselves," and a chest opened and shut of itself; and Goodman William testified : "I being at prayer, my head covered with a eloth, a chair did oftentimes bow to me, and then strike me ou the side." All these strange occurrences were believed to be from William Morse's grandson. Still, some believed in witches and thought them from the devil ; and some liked to seem wise, of which number was Caleb Powell, who had such an air of mystery that he came near get- ting his own neek in the halter, being arrested and charged with work- ing with the devil in this matter ; but he escaped with " bearing his own shame and the cost of the proscention."

William Morse, if he believed in witches, did not believe that his wife had allied with the devil to commit evil, and he persisted in pressing petitions for reprieve, which was finally granted, and she returned to her home, for years to lead a virtuous life and die in Christian hope. The case was not without good results, for when, twelve years after, the delusion prevailed in and about Salem, it · could obtain no hold here ; people believed in witchcraft ; it was a part of their religion ; but nobody from Newbury was hanged for it. Gen- erally it was found that the witches were the smartest, most intelli- gent, and best women in the community, or the prettiest and wittiest girls of marriageable age.

We may complain of the conduct of our fathers towards Quakers and witches, but we should not forget that two centuries intervene between them and us; and 'that they, with all their prejudices and superstitions, were in advance of the rest of the world. Bancroft says : " The Puritans emancipated themselves from a world of obser- vances. They established a worship purely spiritual. To them the

elements remained but bread and water. They invoked no saints ; they raised no altars ; they adored no crucifix ; they kissed no book ; they asked no absolution ; they paid no tithes ; they saw in the priest nothing more than a man. The church, as a place of worship, was nothing more than a meeting-house ; they dug no graves in conse- erated earth ; they married without a minister, and buried their dead without a prayer."

In 1684, Newbury was recognized as a port, with Salisbury attached, and Nathaniel Clarke was naval officer. Here we have the beginning of the custom-house, and it shows that they had some commerec. The little village by the river, which was from Federal to Market Street, had gained. It attracted people from abroad. The total population of the town was 1,000. This was fifty years (1685) from its settlement. The taxable list contained 213 names, still only eight were called Mr. and only one Esq .; but the military titles were plenty, and of deacous there was a good share. The latter were often useful in works of charity, as in 1686 we find them overseers of the poor.

At this period occurred the arbitrary and oppressive administration of Sir Edmund Andros, governor, during which Robert Mason claimed the territory, under a grant to his father, for whom Plum Island had been called Mason's Island ; and that might have become trouble- some had Andros continued, to whom we are indebted for one good thing : he granted to John March the right to establish a ferry to Ring's Island, which has been continued to this date. Andros's admin- istration provoked revolution, and he was deposed by the people, who restored the old magistrates. Newbury was intensely excited over this action, and many went to Boston to participate in the work. Among them was Samuel Bartlett, one of the Bartlett family, farmers and shoemakers, who with the Moultons, silver-workers, were early in the vicinity of Moulton and Pipestave hills. It is reported of him, that, in his anxiety to reach Boston in time to engage in the revolution, he drove his horse so fast that his long sword, trailing on the ground, as it came in contact with the stones on the road left a line of fire all the way. Be that as it may, be was there in season to assist, and it was not in that blood ever to hesitate in the suppression of treason for liberty. One of them was Josiah Bartlett, signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Hampshire, a State which he served in many positions. The town sustained the deposition of Andros with only two dissenting votes, and reckless must have been the men who cast those.

In 1693, the Court of Common Pleas held its first session in New- bury, in the meeting-house, and it has been a shire town ever since. The court-house was afterwards at the head of Marlborough Street, then on the west corner of State and Essex streets, and finally on the Mall on High Street.

In 1697 was the discovery of limestone, which gave great joy to the whole Province, as great as gold and silver discoveries have in our day. To that date the builder bad made lime from elam-shells ; now it became abundant for home consumption, and a kiln was established at the foot of Marlborough Street to have it handy for exportation. This also was the date of changing Quaseacunquen to Parker, in nam- ing the river, on which " the first planter, and pastor, and learned school-master " had pitched his tent. He had been dead twenty years.

The seventeenth century elosed with a mild winter. "Winter was turned into summer," wrote the Rev. Richard Brown. But some other things were not so pleasant. Earthquakes were uncomfortably plenty ; January saw one, and February another, and the foundations of the earth were frequently shaken. A poor-house was voted ; and, seven years after, a jail marked. further progress in civilization ; and one Esther Rogers, a young mother for the second time, drowned her illegitimate mulatto child in the pond baek of the meeting-house, where the floating island is, for which she was hanged the year fol- lowing in Boston.

Immediately after, Thomas Massum, a negro, was ordered to leave town with his family, but the record saith not whether he was con- nected with Esther Rogers's mulatto child; possibly they banished then instead of lynching, as in some cases now.

In 1708, the record reads : "Joseph Lunt rode post," which is the earliest notice of any post-office arrangements.

In 1717, the snow fell, in places twenty feet deep, and all ordinary travel was suspended ; but love laughed at snow-banks, as it does at locks. Abraham Adams, on snow-shoes, went three miles courting Abigail Pieree, whose residence he entered at the chamber windows, and he was the only person the family saw for more than a week.

In 1720, potatoes were imported from Ireland and planted for food, finally to take the place of turnips used till then. They were slow in

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gaining public approval, and for years were planted in beds like onions.

In 1721, Thomas Hale, living south of the Parker, was appointed justice of the peace. He was opposed by Judge Sewall, "because there are five of them in Newbury already : and he had lately kept an ordinary and sold rum."

The saddest year ever known in Newbury was 1723, when forty persons died in the month of April from a fearful epidemie. To check that, a day of prayer and fasting was observed, when nine persons lay dead and fifty were sick by the disease ; "and it pleased God," says the chronicler, " to hear the prayers of his people, and to answer them in a wonderful manner, for the sick were all better the next morning, and few died afterwards." It is most likely that the wind changed, carrying the miasmatie effluvia in other directions. The laws of health, and the manner of treating diseases, were less under- stood then than now. From small-pox they died fearfully in those times. So the throat-distemper, which broke out by the Water-side in 1735, was absolutely uncontrollable, as it was all over New England. Between September and February 16th, eighty-one persons died, chiefly children. It swept whole families. John Boynton lost eight children, four buried in one grave. Benjamin Knight buried three in one grave. And Stephen Jaques writes : " Oct. 29th, my wife went into a chamber, that was locked, to fetch candles. that was in a bushel under a bed, and as she thrust baek the half bushel, there came out a child's hand. She saw the fingers, the hand, a streked boy's cote or sleeve, and upon search there was no child in the chamber. On Thursday, a fortnite after, my Steven's son Henry died. The next - Thursday Ebenezer died. The next Monday morning his son Stephen died."

Of course it was about time for strange signs in the heavens, and the same chronicler reports, Nov. 26th, 1720, about eight o'clock at night, "a light on ye north, almost like that which appeared last year, it being red, but not so much." These were the first appearances of the northern lights, in 1719 and 1720, not before having been seen in a century of New England settlement. They must have been brilliant, and to the beholders very strange. " They looked very red, and seemed to flie up allmost overhead, as if they had been driven with a farse wind, and then parted to the cast, and so vanished away." Three hours later there appeared a cloud like a mist. "We could see the stars through it. It was as red as blood or crimson, but not a thick red. My eies saw it." Again it was " like the daylight, when it breaks three quarters of an hour high."

As though the northern lights, earthquakes, terrible diseases, tides higher than ever before known, freshets that swept the wharves and shipyards so that two thousand cords of wood were picked up on Plum Island, and the water was twelve feet deep near Turkey Hill, were not enough to frighten them, they discovered double-headed snakes. The Rev. Christopher Toppan wrote Cotton Mather : "It had really two heads, and at each end two mouths, and two stings or tongues." " Sir I have nothing more to add but that I may have a remembrance in your prayers." That would seem desirable when the snakes eame double-headed.

Now we have reached the end of one hundred years since the coming of Parker, and we find the town to have a population of full 2,000 persons, with its centre between the Upper Green and Marl- borough Street, where were the meeting-house, the school-house, the grave-yard, the court-house, and the most popular tavern in the town. The centennial was celebrated in front of the Coffin house, where since has lived the historian of the town, Joshua Coffin, and where now some of his children reside.

Soon the light of the great reformation was to break upon them. In 1740, George Whitefield preached his first sermon here. He was the most eloquent divine of his age, and, with Edwards, Tennant, and others, disturbed the waters of the spiritual pool, so that many going in were cleansed. He was the real founder of the First Presbyterian Church. He died in a house on School Street ; his remains rest under the pulpit of the Old South ; and near by stands his cenotaph, erected by the richest merchant of the town, William Bartlett, at one time the most wealthy man of the State, and long to be remembered for his good works.

In 1750, a lottery was authorized for building the bridge over the river Parker, and with that the ferries began to disappear ; and long since all have gone, save that to Ring's Island for passengers alone.

In 1753, on petition of Nathan Hale, a fire-engine was purchased, and that was the beginning of the municipal fire department. Eight years later, Michael Dalton and others imported from London the seeond fire-engine.

The " Water-side " village was now in the ascendant, and in 1763, William Atkins, Michael Dalton, Daniel Farnham, Thomas Wood- bridge, Patrick Traey, and others, petitioned the General Court that Newburyport might be set off and incorporated as a distinet town, setting forth their reasons ; and that petition was granted. The real eanses were given by Timothy Dexter, who was far enough from be- ing a fool, though he said and did foolish things, in his " Pickle for the Knowing Ones " :

" A town ealled Newbry, all won the Younited states. Noubrey peopel kept together quiet till the Larned groned strong. the farmers was 12 out of 20. they wanted to have the offesers in the Contry. the Larned in the see port wanted to have them there. geering A Rose, groued warme, fite thay wood. in Law they went to Jinrel Cort to be sot of. finely thay got there Eands Answered. the see port was ealled Newburyport. . 600 Eakers of Land out of 30000 Eakers of good land, so much for mad, people of Larning makes them mad. if they had kept together thay wood heve been the sekont town in this state about half of Boston."

There was more good sense than eleganee in what Timothy wrote. Newbury, after Salem, was next to Boston. Newburyport was the smallest town territorially in the State, 647 acres, and much of that without inhabitants. The population was 2,282. It was increased by annexation in 1851, extending it from the ocean to the Artichoke River, to between six and seven thousand acres, or nearly a quarter of the original town, and the history of old Newbury, for more than a hundred years, unites with that portion now Newburyport. New- bury and West Newbury are towns of honorable mention, but their history so interweaves with that of Newburyport that it is often im- possible to separate them, giving due and distinct credit to each.

CHAPTER IV.

OLD NEWBURY SINCE THE INCORPORATION OF NEWBURYPORT.

Dwarfed by legislative action, Newbury still had an honorable name and her place in the Commonwealth to maintain. Nor has she failed in that mission. It is a goodly town, rich in its farms. and richer in its sons and daughters, who have happily lived at home or kept their birthplace prominent by their acts abroad. The troubles of war were close at hand when its first division took place, and its quiet eivil life in more than a hundred years after that has left only the story of a rural town to tell. During the Revolution, the town of Newbury, as its records show, was firm and unwavering on the patriot side. It furnished its quota of men, and it contributed its money promptly and liberally. On the same day of the battle at Lexington it forwarded its troops for the struggle, and at Bunker Hill two colonels, Little and Gerrish, were at the head of their regiments, and no braver troops were under any commanders ; and so the town maintained her stand to independence. But the majority of the people living on the borders of Newburyport have so merged their activities and industries with the latter town that they are largely included in its local history. Among the events to be noticed was the establishment of the " lights " on Plum Island by the government in 1787, on the same year that the Federal Constitution was adopted. In 1789, President Washington made a northern tour, and was received in a becoming manner. He rode over the Parker Bridge to the Upper Green in a carriage, and there mounted his horse and rode into Newburyport, the people universally hailing his advent with enthusiasm.

On taking the census of 1790, there were returned 538 houses, 723 families, and 3,972 inhabitants. In 1791, the last wild bear killed here came in from the Bradford woods. In 1792, the first ehain bridge in the country was opened to the public, between Newbury and Salisbury. It is 1,030 feet long, and 34 wide : in fact, it is two bridges resting ou Deer Island in the middle of the stream. which was once a great resort for pleasure parties. A few days after its com- pletion, Timothy Dexter celebrated the event with an oration. The bridge was built by Timothy Palmer, a man of rare genius as an architect, and a man of cultivated taste, many of whose works remain for our admiration to this day. It was rebuilt in 1810. In 1827 the chains broke, and precipitated a heavily loaded ox-team and two men into the river in midwinter. The men were saved ; the team, four oxen and a horse, were lost. The cost of rebuilding was $66,000.

In 1795, the town proclaimed religious liberty, in advance of their day, voting that " the inhabitants have liberty to attend worship where

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

they choose, and to be exempt from taxation elsewhere, and to peti- tion the General Court to confirm this vote." This year Rocks Bridge was built. This was swept away by ice in 1818, but immediately re- built. The eighteenth century elosed with the news of the death of Washington, which carried sorrow to the whole land. In Byfield, the event was commemorated by an oration and religious services on the 22d of February.

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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 108

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