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 81

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 81

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No definite allotment of land was made till 1638. Prior to this, each man took what he could improve, and it became his own. At the back of the settlement lay unexplored forests, and from these the fuel was cut by all the townsmen in common ; but for the grass, which grew spontaneously on the meadows and marshes, Lewis asserts that a different method was taken, and that the hay was distributed by lot. It is not quite clear how this is to be understood, nor is any authority given for the statement. There must have been, certainly at first, plenty of hay for all ; but no doubt it differed in quality, and they may have been in the habit of drawing for choice of parcels. The domestic life of these carly people was, moreover, of the plainest sort, resembling, doubtless, in general, what they had led in England ; but always, it seems, with strict watchfulness for the exemplifying and inculcating of what they held for the greatest of truth, and meant that their children should do so after them. It would, however, be wrong to attribute any excess of moral purity to the little population. Very soon, after the needs of hunger are provided against, and the danger from enemies found to be only small, we see the common viecs of that day cropping out here and there as readily as among others ; though with this difference, that the public sentiment and discipline of the time dragged all such forth and punished them openly.

Some controversy has been had as to the real time of incorporation of the planters of Lynn. Lewis makes the very pertinent observa- tion, that inasmuch as no special aets were passed for the incorporation of any of the carly towns, the admission of the freemen of any place to sit in the General Court was itself an acknowledgment of the same thing. He further asserts that this was done for Lynn (Saugus) in 1630. But in all his preceding enumeration, which may be supposed complete for this purpose, he fails to show more than a single freeman admitted till 1631, and then, only two or three. John Taylor, of whom we know little further, is said to have been admitted Oct. 19, 1630. There may have been others, but certainly all we know as prominent townsmen were admitted later. Perhaps, however, one was as good as more, and Saugus became an embodied reality in the person of John Taylor.

At this stage, then, we perceive a small town, or rather village, of about a hundred scattered inhabitants, established about the open lands that bordered the courses of Saugus River and Strawberry and Stacy's brooks. Forests were everywhere. All the present High- lands, all the common but a part of the north side, the whole of Bos- ton Street, or nearly so, all but a little of Saugus and Swampscott, and everything south of the common but a bit of Summer Street - all these were included in the densest woods. There is the best of reason for supposing that much that is now salt marsh was then low upland, and covered with heavy trees. But where the principal water- courses ran, more or less open meadow was found ; and this, with the natural glades in the forest, and the clearings effected by the immi- grants, constituted what farms there were at this date.

But of neighbors there was no lack. In this, as in all like cases, a great deal has been said and written of the Indians, both in praise

and discredit. It is most probable that the early authors were more censorious of the unfortunate race than they should have been, while it is even more certain that the moderns have exaggerated more grossly the other way. Lewis has devoted himself to the immortalizing of the Indians about Lynn in terms more befitting a work of romance than a veracious history ; and Judge Newhall has very properly and pointedly reproved the poetic style of some of his warm expressions by clear and well-put suggestions. As to the Indians themselves, it would seem that they were much as all others of that race, neither better nor worse. For the most part, they seem to have been not ill- disposed towards the settlers, yet there were exceptions to this. The more influential appear to have been quite accommodating ; yet it is always a fair question whether this temper was not largely traceable to natural indolenee, and an ignorant hope of valuable favor to be re- ceived in return.

The substance of all the Indian history that concerns the present sketch may be stated as follows : A certain chief, called Nanapashemet, was found by the first settlers dwelling near Mystic River, and holding a dominant influence over the tribes as far cast as the Merrimac. He had three sons, variously located, and acting in some sense as his viceroys. The oldest dwelt at Medford ; was called W.onohaquaham, or, in English, John, and is described as good and gentle, which, probably, meant little more than lazy. The second, established on Sagamore Hill, was named Montowampate, or James, by the whites, and was considered less well-disposed. The third bore the name of Wenepoykin, alias George, and was at first at Salem. Afterward, his brothers both dying in 1633, he succeeded to the whole dominion ; and thus is the man in nearest relation to the new-comers from beyond sea. From him, or his family, in later days, were obtained nearly all the grants, rights, and concessions that our fathers ever procured from the Indians. The following family, however, were of intimate con- nection and consequence : -

At Nahant lived an old Indian, recognized as under-chief, or " sachem," of that locality. He was called Poquanum, conceived to mean "Dark Skin," and having gained from the first settlers the nickname "Duke William," soon found it shortened and lowered to " Black Will." He is supposed to have been the Indian in English clothes who boarded the vessel of Gosnold in 1602, and he is surely the one who traded all Nahant to Thomas Dexter for a suit of a sim- ilar pattern. The chief had a danghter, Ahawayet, or Joan, who at length married Wenepoykin, above named, and had one son and three daughters. The son was named Manatahqua, and the daughters, waiving their shocking Indian titles, came respectively to be called Cicely, Sarah, and Susanna. The son ultimately married, and, dying, left two sons, called David and Samuel.

Not far from 1675, the settlers had too fully occupied the seaboard to leave much room or comfort for the Indians, and the family of Wenepoykin, who had just been taken prisoner in the war with the Wampanoags, emigrated to the Merrimae Valley, and settled near Lowell. In 1684, the captive, Wenepoykin, finally died, and as he, from his scant friendship for the whites, had always been a bar to negotiations, so they were now only too ready to act on his departure, and secure conveyances and releases from his family of all the terri- tory they were then occupying.

Accordingly, Sept. 16, 1684, the people of Marblehead obtained a deed of quitclaim from the Indians of all their township. Their example was followed by the Salem men, Oct. 11, 1686, they being somewhat more deliberate. Lynn went and did likewise, selecting a middle position in time, and effecting their purchase on the 4th of September previous. Judge Newhall gives the entire text of the deed, -a paper of immense length and barbarous construction. The small practical value of such a document will appear from a few con- siderations. First, all the Indians, or nearly so, had been totally dis- possessed of these same lands, and could not have re-occupied them if they would. Second, they had never been other than a wandering people, not well located, and really recognizing no such title as they were asked to convey. Third, they had no defined boundaries, and not an Indian knew where his land ended, and another's began, nor, by consequence, how much or what he could sell. Add to this, that they had no conscience in these things ; and any one of them, for a quart of rum, or a showy blanket, could be brought to sign any deed, or any other paper. The same disabilities apply to those who were cited as parol witnesses to prove the right of the grantors to convey. Thus, it easily appears that, while the Indian deeds may have been the best thing obtainable, their intrinsic value as conveyances was in no way comparable to that of ours.

The deed of Lynn, executed Sept. 4, 1686, was signed by David,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

grandson of Wenepoykin. by his father's sister, Cicely, and by James Quonopahit, who was first cousin of Cieely, being the son of her father's sister. Yawata. The wives of David and James also joined to convey. probably because they were so directed. Certain other Indians ; viz .. Queakussen, brother of Wenepoykin's wife, also Nahan- ton, and Waboquin, of whom we know little, made depositions to the effeet that the others were true relatives and heirs of Wenepoykin, and fully entitled to sell and convey, both as to the lands of Lynn and those of Salem. And this, in short, is the story of the bargain and sale of this township from the degraded savages, who held it by occu- pation. The consideration in the deed was abont seventy-three dollars.

It is neither necessary nor useful to say more of the relations of the Indians to the early settlers. They were a people who claimed atten- tion only by their presence and the immediate work of their hands. They left nothing behind them to commemorate either their ingenuity or their industry. When the Indian himself was gone, all evidence of him was gone likewise, save the possible fragments of his weapons, a few valueless trinkets. or, here and there, a shallow grave, too easily robbed of the bones of some ancestor. Now, after two centuries, the only knowledge we have of them, save history, is comprised in a moderate-sized "shell-bed," or camp-ground, in the Highlands, near Bay View Avenue, one skeleton exhumed in Liberty Street, one in Lowell Street, and two or three elsewhere. and a scanty parcel of arrow-heads and bits of wampum, collected near Cliftondale, at Bass Rock, about Swampscott, and elsewhere. No city-wall, no fort nor earthwork, no stone nor monument nor inscription, - nothing that may endure as a work of their creative art is left on the face of all this broad country to attest the former might and being of that strange people of whom history tells, but whose visible signs have all forever vanished.

LYNN AS TOWN, 1630 TO 1850.

The settlement at "Saugus " being now wholly in view, in both its elements of native and immigrant population. it remains to recall the progress of its development from this forward, as it gradually grew from a scattered hamlet of a hundred up to whatever it may have been at any subsequent time. Such a panoramic view may, of course, be taken in many different lights, - the religion, the industry, agricult- ure, and education of a place all deserve consideration. But, as the most prominent and demanding of these aspects, though not perhaps the most important, the political advancement is entitled to, and will reecive, first notice.

It has already been admitted that, probably, one or more freemen of Lynn sat in the General Court of 1630. giving the place an equal standing with others in the Colony. But the average course of human life is well illustrated in the next fact that appears, which is, that in 1633, the inevitable element of taxation was introduced, and, out of a levy of £384 on the eight towns of the Colony, Lynn was set down for £36, or almost ten per cent. of the whole. Salem paid but £28, and in several cases afterward came off more lightly than her neighbor. The same shrewdness on one side, and want of it on the other, has been often since apparent. This seems the first tax for general pur- poses ; but Lynn had paid, in 1631, toward an assessment to open a canal from Charles River to Cambridge.

In the next year, a remarkable change was effeeted in the form of government, in which Lynn had a prominent share. The General Court had been almost a democracy, all freemen, or constituted voters, being entitled to place. But this drew off every season more and more of the best men from the plantation, leaving it in more or less danger, and, besides, made a Legislature of increasing bulk and cum- brousness. It was, therefore, decided to depart still further from the pure democratic plan, and a government of purely representative form was organized in 1634. The delegation from Lynn to this first Legis- lature ineluded three members ; and the names thus primarily honored were those of Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tomlins, and Thomas Willis.

From this decisive beginning, the outgrowth of what we now call American ideas was both natural and rapid. The new General Court having resolved, March 3, 1636, that each town should have power to regulate its own affairs, thus carrying the Republic, in spirit, down to the very hearths of the people; it was also resolved that each town should . choose not more than seven " prudential men," to manage municipal business. Here we find the origin of the board of select- men, since adopted as the universal form of town government through- out New England. Lynn kept up to the maximum number of seven till 1755. After this, the number varied, three, five, or seven, as it

happened. The peculiar office of tythingman was created about this time. It seems to have had nothing to do with the collection of tithes or religions offerings, but to have been named from the supervision of each being over ten families, whom they were directed to hold to good behavior. Lynn has always appointed these latter officers till within a very few years.

The next movement we notice is in the judicial department. The quarterly court was created, located in Salem, and empowered with the jurisdiction of eases too small to engage the attention of the Gen- eral Court. This court had a chief justice, and several associates, commissioned by the General Court, from the freemen of the towns. Here, again, we find Nathaniel Turner and John Humfrey. By this time, the town had been inereased by the arrival of some thirty new families, mostly arriving in 1635. The population must now have been rather more than 200.

Naturally, again, beyond all these peaceful deliberations and con- trivances, comes war. These settlements had been spared this afflic- tion hitherto, though they might have known they could not always be so ; yet now, June 16, 1636, Gov. Vane issued his proclamation against the Pequots. in retaliation for outrages committed. Nathan- iel Turner again took the lead, in a new character this time, and from being representative and county judge, passed on to a captainey of volunteers, of which four companies formed the expedition. These having returned in September without subdning the enemy, a second expedition was raised the next spring, April 18, 1637, of 175 men, of which Lynn contributed twenty-one, a larger quota than any other town save Boston, which sent twenty-six. This was the force com- manded hy Stoughton. and who arrived, three days too late, when the fort of Sassacns had been stormed by the Connecticut soldiers, and more than 600 Indians put to the sword in cold blood. The Lynn troops returned August 26th. By this time, the fear of the Indians had seriously grown upon the settlers, the Tarratines, or eastern Indians, having actually made some hostile approaches in 1631; and now John Humfrey, Esq., wrote a letter of counsel to Gov. Winthrop, couched in the unmanly court dialect, advising as to further and better defences against the savages.

The year 1637 is one of mark in this history. as being the time when the town, by authority, received its present name.

The first definite " town meeting," save one, hardly identifiable, in 1633, is noted in 1637, when a committee were chosen to "lay out ffarines." Whether such assemblies had been regularly had before is uneertain. Lewis says something of the kind was held every three months, but this is probably more traditionary than of record. At this time, the affairs of the settlement were apparently very flourish- ing, and there were more aecessions to its numbers than at any other date for many years. Between this and the close of 1640, we hear of sixty or seventy new families, some being of the greatest conse- quence to the young town, and commemorated in a large posterity to- dav.

In 1641-42, very much alarm spread about. lest the Indians should fall upon the settlement unawares, and carry out their threat of exter- mination. The meeting-house was voted to be used for a watch-house, and it also seems that several other buildings were similarly devoted. In 1642, especially, the watch was kept all night, and no blacksmith had liberty to do any other work till all the arms were put in repair. A place in the forest, about eighty rods west of the present boundary of Lynn and Saugus, was selected, and a " garrison-house " of two buildings erected, one for the soldiers, and the other for non-combat- ants. The place is yet easily identified ; a chimney-bottom appears, also a vestige of a cellar, and the remains of what may have been a considerable earthwork. with a trench in front. But it hardly seems as if these quarters were ever occupied.

After this, the enterprise of the town very much diminished, though not from any apparent canse. A large number of the more wealthy and influential moved away, and left the plantation so much enfeebled that the selectmen petitioned the General Court for an abatement of taxes. The matter was considered, and the share of Lynn comforta- bly reduced. This was in 1645. From this time, very little of note appears in regard to the place, till 1675, when, with all the rest of New England, the people of Lynn were stirred by the great war, which Philip of the Wampanoags brought that year, for the death and destruction of everything that could be called white. There was then one company of militia at Lynn, with Thomas Marshall, captain. Oliver Purchis, lieutenant, and John Fuller, ensign. It would seem that this company did duty in the campaign ; at any rate, a re-enforcement, or new draft, was made here. Nov. 13, 1675, by which fifteen men were impressed for service against Philip. These were as follows : Thomas

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Baker, Robert Driver, Job Farrington, Samuel Graves, Isaac Hart, Daniel Hitchens, Nicholas Hitchens, John Lindsey, Jonathan Locke, Charles Phillips, Samuel Rhodes, Henry Stacey, Samuel Tarbox, An- drew Townsend, Isaac Wellman.

In the fight at Bloody Brook, by Lothrop's command, Lynn had two men killed ; viz., Solomon Alley and Benjamin Farwell. In the sub- sequent engagement at South Kingston, R. I., Dec. 19, 1675, and known as the " Great Swamp Fight," we had Ephraim Newhall, killed, and Andrew Townsend, wounded. The war continued through 1676 and 1677, as we have local proof in the record that Teague, or Thad- deus, Braun, was impressed, at Lynn, June 22, 1677, and killed in the fight at Black Point, just seven days after.

In 1680, the military spirit accomplished the formation of a new troop, which may have been cavalry. The officers were Richard Wal- ker, captain, Ralph King, lieutenant, John Lewis, cornet, and Wil- liani Basset, quartermaster. Five years later than this, twenty-five inhabitants of Lynn, joining with some from elsewhere, memorialized the General Court that they had been soldiers in Philip's war, and rendered service, thus far unrewarded. They asked for a compensa- tion in land, somewhere in the conquered region. They gained good audience, and obtained a tract eight miles square, in Worcester Coun- ty, " on condition that thirty families, and an orthodox minister, should settle there within four years." This was about the conclusion of the Wampanoag War, so far as Lynn was concerned.

It has already been stated, that in the next year, 1686, a final deed was procured from the Indians, of the whole territory of the town. It seems the money was not exactly ready to pay for it when deliv- ered, and the method taken to raise it was rather eurious. Next year, Feb. 15, 1687, the selectmen were ordered to look up all encroach- ments by the inhabitants upon lands of the town, and make the people pay for all they had thus " squatted" upon, so that the money might be raised to pay to the first proprietors for the same land. Thus the town commenced acquaintance with debt very early.

But no sooner had the settlers seen Philip, Sassacus, and the Indi- ans of the south-west comfortably disposed of, than danger to them broke out from fresh quarters. It would have been enough, had the new war with the Indians at the East been all which broke out in 1688, under the fomenting influence of Castine and his followers ; for a company was impressed directly at Lynn, and sent into the eastern wilderness in the middle of winter, where they had a long and painful service, and one of them, Joseph Ramsdell, was killed at Casco Bay, in 1690. This would have been enough for the not very vigorous town ; but the outrages of Andros, the English Governor of Massa- chusetts, had precipitated that very war, and his like atrocity of spirit soon grew to a greater danger to liberty, even here at home. Lynn was destined to have rather a close encounter. Feb. 3, 1688, Edward Randolph, sceretary to Andros, having petitioned the governor and council for a grant of Nahant to him, personally, an order of notice was issued, appointing a hearing on the 7th of March. The town met on the 5th, and remonstrated. It was done by the best inen we had ; Thomas Laughton, Ralph King, John Lewis, Oliver Purchis, Jolin Burrill, Edward Richards, and John Fuller; and they appear to have made a good case for the rights of the town. But Randolph persisted, and the town rejoined by a memorial, signed by seventy- four chief inhabitants, in which they made a counter application for a patent of Nahant to themselves, instead of Randolph. What the issue of the curious controversy might have been will never appear; for the collateral abuses and usurpations of Andros had already so exas- perated the people of Boston, that April 19, 1689, they rose up and put the tyrannical governor in prison, where they kept him till they sent him back to England. In such a demonstration, Lynn could hardly have been spared. Her men were there in force, about eleven o'clock, A.M., with Parson Jeremiah Shepard at their head, " like so many wild bears," says a paper of the time, probably written by Ran- dolph himself. The government of Andros was practically broken up, and the possession of Nahant remained safe enough thereafter ; but the people responded more than readily to the invitation of the Com- mittee of Safety for Essex County, and filed a long official statement of their grievances, under the hand of Oliver Purchis, town elerk. The document was fortified by a deposition, forcibly drawn, to the same effect, and signed by Jeremiah Shepard and John Burrill. This seems about the last of the matter.

All this time, we notice the same vigilance in the internal police of the place that prompted the resistance to a despotie governor. The town directed that every freeman who did not attend town-meeting should be prosecuted ; that every stranger should be " warned out of town," lest he might become poor, and chargeable ; and that nobody

should molest the wild-fowl in the harbor, with a score of other such regulations. Thus things went quietly on, at least so far as political condititions were affected, till 1704, when " Queen Anne's War" with the French and Indians ealled out more soldiers from Lynn, several of whom were taken prisoners. But we are told of no deaths among them.

The year 1706 is notable for the last great division of all the com- mon lands belonging to the town. April 15th, the town ereated a commission ; viz., Samuel Gardner, of Salem, John Greenland, of Malden, and Joseph Hasey, of Chelsea (then called Rumneymarsh), and empowered them to survey, divide, and apportion all the public lands, except the present common, among the inhabitants who already had lands of their own under cultivation. Who these men were, or what record of their work may have disappeared, we cannot tell ; but their report to the town, made Jan. 1, 1706-07, consists merely of a recitation of the rules under which the division was made, and under which the lands were to be held, together with a full list of proprie- tors, and the quantity allotted to cach. But there is no plan, no ref- erence to bearing and distance, no mention of monuments, nor indica- tion of any survey of any description. The whole, sinee that time, has rested on tradition, except so far as quantity is concerned, and this tradition has gradually narrowed, till no one man knows the whole scheme ; and only one survives, now very old, who has any con- siderable knowledge of these original and very important locations. Yet thousands of acres of valuable lands here are to-day held by no better title, the whole of Nahant being thus included.

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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 81

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