USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Falmouth > Suckanesset; wherein may be read a history of Falmouth, Massachusetts > Part 7
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them that dinner was ready, and at nine in the evening it tolled a curfew.
Katharine Lee Bates, professor emeritus of English literature at Wellesley College and author of many poems and books, composed some graceful lines for the centen- nial of the Paul Revere bell.
Miss Bates was the daughter of the Rev. William and Cornelia Bates and was born August 12, 1859 in the house belonging originally to Captain Benjamin F. Jones, now the property of his son, George W. Jones and occupied (1930) by Dr. A. J. Wagner on Main Street near Locust Avenue. Her father was pastor of the First Congrega- tional Church, and died here.
A manuscript copy, signed by Miss Bates, is in the possession of the author, from which the following is quoted :
THE FALMOUTH BELL
Never was there lovlier town than our Falmouth by the sea.
Tender curves of sky look down on her grace of knoll and lea. Sweet her shy arbutus blows ere from prouder haunts the spring Scarcely yet has brushed the snows with a violet-covered wing
Bright the autumn gleams pervade cranberry marsh and bushy wold,
Till the children's mirth has made millionaires in leaves of gold;
And upon her pleasant ways set with many a gardened home, Flash through fret of drooping sprays visions far of ocean foam.
Happy bell of Paul Revere, sounding o'er such blest demesne, While a hundred times the year weaves the round from green to green!
Never were there friendlier folk than in Falmouth by the sea, Neighbor-households that invoke pride of sailor-pedigree. Here is princely interchange of the gifts of shore and field,
Starred with treasures rare and strange that the liberal sea- chests yield.
Culture here burns breezy torch, where gray captains, bronzed of neck,
Tread their little length of porch with the memory of the deck.
.Ah, and here the tenderest hearts, here where sorrows sorest wring
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And the widows shift their parts, comforted and comforting Holy bell of Paul Revere, calling such to prayer and praise,
While a hundred times the year herds her flock of faithful days!
Greetings to thee, ancient bell of our Falmouth by the sea!
Answered by the ocean swell, ring thy centuried jubilee! Like the white sails of the sound, hast thou seen the years drift by,
From the dreamful, dim profound to a goal beyond the eye. Long thy maker lieth mute, hero of a faded strife.
Thou hast tolled from seed to fruit generations three of life.
Still thy mellow voice and clear floats o'er land and listening deep,
And we deem our fathers hear from their shadowy hill of sleep. Ring thy peals for centuries yet, living voice of Paul Revere! Let the future not forget what the past accounted dear! Katharine Lee Bates
Not content with having built for the town of Fal- mouth a new meeting house upon the Green, the leading citizens of the town next bestirred themselves to provide yet further advantages for the township.
In September, 1798, a group of men undertook to build a schoolhouse in the center of the town. This was not the first school in Falmouth, for as early as 1715 we find the genesis of a School Committee and notice of the employment of Hannah Sargent as School Dame at a salary of twelve pounds and diet a year. It appears that the town was divided in four quarters and the Dame so- journed in each quarter a certain portion of the year, but we do not know whether the Dame kept school in a room of a dwelling house, or whether buildings for the purpose were erected. The first school building on record is that we are now to discuss.
In March, 1798, Marine Lodge, A. F. & A. M. was granted a charter in Falmouth, the charter members of this Masonic body being Dr. Francis Wicks, Joseph Webb, Robinson Dimmick, Isaac Parker, Prince Hatch, Davis Swift, John P. Caswell, Dr. Hugh George. Donaldson, Timothy Crocker, Richard Bunker, James Wing and Lewis Parker. Many of these names are those of gentlemen who had taken leading parts in the affairs of the community for years; and it would appear that to their enterprise and broad vision is to be attributed the building of a
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school house to replace what was evidently an old and in- adequate structure.
In September, 1798 we find this record: "We, the sub- scribers, jointly agree and engage to pay the sums an- nexed to our names, by us subscribed into the hands of the committee who may be appointed to carry on the building of a school house where the old one now stands, which is divided into 80 shares, in company with the Ma- sonic Society, if they choose to join with us, also the town so far as they may agree for the benefit of a Town House." The value of the shares was $7.42 each, and the list of subscribers as follows: (names marked with an asterisk. are those of men living in the neighborhood of the Green.) *Timothy Crocker, (2); * Dr. Francis Wicks, (2); Elijah Swift, (2); * Weston Jenkins, (2); Ichabod Hatch, (2); * Thomas Shiverick, (1); Zimri Tobey, (2); * Timothy Parker, (2); Samuel Lewis, (2); Lot Price, (2); Thomas Jones, (2); * Samuel Shiverick, (2); Parnell Butler, (1); Paul Price, (2); Silas Lawrence, (2); * Shubael Hatch, jr., (2); Thomas Bourne, (2); * Joseph Snow, (1); Robinson Dimmick, (1); * Joseph Crocker, (2); Joseph Hatch, (2); Simri Bourne, (1); Joseph Mayhew, (1); William Nye, (1); * Joseph Crocker, (1); Timothy Crocker, jr., (2); David Swift, (2); Dr. Hugh George Donaldson, (2); * Con- sider Hatch, (2); * Braddock Dimmick, (2); Major Hatch, (1); Temperance Palmer, (1); Thatcher Lewis, (1); Job Parker, (1); Prince Dimmick, (2); Joseph Palmer, jr., (1); Benjamin Palmer, jr., (1); Ebenezer Weeks, (2); Natha- niel Lewis, (2); Joseph Bourne, (2); Stephen Swift, (1); Richard Lake, (1); Henry Lincoln, (2); Warren Gifford, (2); Benjamin Butler, (1); Moses Hatch, (1); Matthew Price, (2); David Wood, (2); Ephraim Parker, (1); Joseph Parker, jr., (1).
Nine of the subscribers for this building, as desig- nated by the asterisks, were residents of the neighborhood of the Green.
Timothy Parker, from an old deed found at the Barn- stable Court House, we take to have been living on the property now Dr. Wiswall's (1930) although we have no positive evidence that his house is that now occupied by Dr. Wiswall. Perhaps such will be forthcoming, however. The deed which is dated 1817 and transfers the property of Timothy Crocker by act of his son, Joseph Crocker to Elijah Swift, reads as follows: "bounded northeasterly by the County Road and John Hatch, jr., thence southwest-
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erly 331/2 rods to Fresh Pond, northeasterly by Consider Hatch thence on the same course by Timothy Parker's land to the northeast corner of said Parker's at the road thence easterly 211/2 rods on the county road."
This deed describes the boundaries of that property now the site of the church of St. Barnabas, and including the house and lot (1930) belonging to Mrs. J. E. Dwight. Consider Hatch was the owner of the house (1930) owned by Mr. Thomas Keck while John Hatch lived in the house (1930) on Main Street used as the Episcopal Rectory.
The subscribers to the projected new school house transacted the business in connection with it near the Green. We may picture them on a Tuesday, October first, 1799 as walking in small groups or singly along the road or through the rustling leaves on the Green to a meeting called in the inn of Shubael Hatch, which stood on the corner of Main Street and Locust Street, where (1930) Mrs. James Watson has her home. Still wearing knee breeches and three-cornered hats, with their hair clubbde in a queue, although powder for the hair had gone out of fashion, these stately gentlemen of the olden time were clean-shaven, beards had not yet 'come in.' Perhaps Dea- con Timothy Crocker, as he walked up the road to the inn, leaned on the arm of his son, Capt. Joseph Crocker, for the Deacon was seventy-one years old, and before the leaves were yellow again, he was to be laid to rest in the Old Burying Ground.
With them comes General Joseph Dimmick, hero of the Revolutionary War, and as he passes the children run to curtsy or pull their forelocks in reverence, for those were the days when children were schooled in courtesy to their elders, and years later old men in Falmouth were to re- count how all the children liked "to make their manners to the General" who was ever genial to them. We may be sure that arrived at Shubael Hatch's inn, the kindly old General would pause to pinch the cheek of six-year old Deborah, daughter of the landlord, as she dropped her dutiful curtsy. This little Deborah, fifteen years later, was to be the happy bride for whom Capt. William Bod- fish built the lovely square white house that today stands at the corner of our Green, occupied (1930) by Mrs. Elijah Swift.
In 1799, the schoolhouse contract was awarded for $675 to a young housewright of Falmouth who lived at that time in a house where the small park now is before
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the Town Hall and who was destined to have more in- fluence on the growth of Falmouth than any other single man in its history. Elijah Swift was his name.
Timothy Parker was moderator of the Proprietor's meeting in Shubael Hatch's inn, and it was voted that the Proprietors of the School house and the Masonic Society should assume equal responsibility for the construction of the building. Timothy Crocker was to receive the money from the subscribers and pay it over to Elijah Swift, and the next year, when the building was ready for occupancy, they subscribed a dollar a share additional for seating material and Capt. Joseph Crocker was appointed to procure two iron stoves with pipe for heating the build- ing. The old school house on the site was sold to Elijah Swift for $15 in consideration of his adding 2 feet to the original dimensions of the new school as he built it.
Dec. 18, 1800, the school was ready for occupancy, and the rates were set at two pence per week for each scholar, exclusive of fire wood, and any child not capable of read- ing in the class in a man's school was to be remanded to a woman's school. This latter provision explains the re- collection of Robinson Crocker Bodfish that his great- aunt Sophia Crocker had kept a school in the house of her grandfather, Timothy Crocker. Doubtless Dame Sophia, in the old house overlooking the Green, taught the small- er scholars until they were sufficiently advanced to enter the school whose building we have just described.
This building is still standing (1930) in Falmouth next east of the present Post Office block. Originally it stood out close to the sidewalk with a front porch, two entrances to the schoolrooms (one room in each end of the building) and an entrance to the Masonic Lodge rooms in the second story, at the southwest corner. It is now the Masonic Hall.
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CHAPTER IX
THE TWO FRIENDS
H AVING built a new meeting house (1796) upon the Green, and a School House and Masonic Lodge room (1800) in sight of the Green, where the present post office stands, the hardy Revolutionary vet- erans of Falmouth found themselves in need of new em- ployment for their civic zeal.
On July 4, 1804 the last link in the circle of homes about the Green was completed by an old-fashioned house-raising bee for Braddock Dimmick. Braddock Dim- mick was the eldest son of General Joseph Dimmick and was born in 1761. He married Celia Crowell and their daughter, Martha, who became the wife of Thomas Law- rence was the mother of Captain Augustus Lawrence. and Captain Lewis Lawrence.
Braddock Dimmick held many offices of dignity and trust. For thirty five years he was an officer of the church on the Green; for ten years selectman of Fal- mouth and for the same space of time clerk and treasurer. From 1808 till his death in 1845 he was a Justice of the Peace; for eight years a Representative to the General Court and for several years a State senator.
The house occupied by this prominent citizen was that at the head of the Green now owned (1930) by Dr. Tripp, although in the hundred odd years since it was raised it has been much altered in appearance by succes- sive tenants.
Braddock Dimmick's next door neighbor was Captain Weston Jenkins, in the house (1930) occupied by Sumner Crosby, and Weston Jenkins was the moving spirit in the next picturesque incident of the history of the Green. . the forming of the Falmouth Artillery Company, in 1806.
He was a handsome fellow, this Captain Weston Jen- kins, so tall and broad of frame that it was said of him he filled a doorway when he stood in it. He had thick,
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naturally wavy, crisp auburn hair and the masterful quick way of speaking that often goes with such a com- plexion. He was great friends with the young house- wright Elijah Swift, of whom we are to hear so much later in the history of Falmouth. We hear of Weston and Elijah, both fond of hunting, going camping on the shore at Popponessett in the fall when the ducks and geese were flying and picking up a smattering of the Indian tongue still spoken by the red men of Mashpee whom they met down there. Fishing, too, was a favorite sport of Wes- ton Jenkins, and he may have been fishing through the ice on the occasion when tradition relates he fell unex- pectedly into the waters of Shiverick's Pond. "Lord save us!" the tale goes was his pious exclamation as he felt himself going. "The devil! I thought 'twas deeper!" he ended up as he found his feet on the bottom.
Weston Jenkins may have named his sloop "The Two Friends" for himself and Elijah Swift. At any rate, their long friendship was cemented prettily in 1825 when John Jenkins, the oldest son of Weston, married Elijah Swift's daughter, Harriet and took her to live in the house at the head of the Green occupied (1930) by W. H. Hewins.
A personable, masterful man of decision and initia- tive like Weston Jenkins was just the man to organize the Artillery Company in 1806. August 14th is the date of his commission as Captain of a battalion of Foot Artil- lery in the Third Brigade; Joseph Percival and William Nye were his first and second lieutenants.
Two brass cannon, three-pounders, each mounted on a four-wheeled carriage and accompanied by a "tumbrel" or ammunition cart on two wheels were furnished by the State of Massachusetts to the Falmouth Artillery Com- pany on Sept. 7, 1807. Five horses were supposed to be used with this armament, two on each cannon and one to the tumbrel; but it is a question whether the Falmouth company used horses for as first incorporated, the com- pany was designated Foot Artillery in which the guns were moved by the enlisted men, who were called "Mat- rosses."
Horses in the early days were not common in Fal- mouth. Farming and teaming work was done with oxen, and as late as the 1830's when the barn of Elijah Swift, the friend of Weston Jenkins, burned, Elijah sent his son all the way to Vermont to purchase and drive back over the road five new horses which was such an astounding
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extravagance that it was remembered in 1920 by an old, old man as one of the outstanding events of his childhood.
Presumably the two brass cannon and their tumbrel would be shipped to Falmouth from Boston by packet and as a new wharf had been built in 1805 at the town landing at the foot of Shore Street, very likely the guns were un- loaded there and Captain Weston Jenkins marched his company down in full dress to draw them up for parade on the Green and to be ensconsed in "The Gun House" which stood near the present (1930) Old Lawrence Academy.
Shore Street was not formally laid out until 1808, but there would have been some sort of rough track worn by the ox teams going down to the wharf and the salt works that covered the plain from Quissett to Great Hill (Fal- mouth Heights) and doubtless a great crowd turned out to see the 'milishy' in their new uniforms.
Blue coats, vests and pantaloons they wore, with fac- ings of red and gallant red linings in the flapping skirts of their coats. Sturdy home-knit worsted stockings, stout leather shoes cobbled at home, and broad cocked hats of black felt with perhaps, a gay little red cockade stuck in it, completed the brave costume; but for all their bright trappings, these were no 'tin soldiers' who tugged the brass cannon up Shore Street that bright September day, for eight years later they were to march down Shore Street again in battle array to repel the British navy.
Evidently the personality of Captain Weston Jenkins and the war-like glitter of the brass cannon as the com- pany drilled on the 'training ground' which was none other than our Green, stirred the imagination of daring young men, for on Dec. 2, 1807, we meet a familiar name on the roster of the Falmouth Artillery Company. Joseph Percival has left, William Nye is promoted to First Lieu- tenant in his place, and the new second lieutenant is young Samuel W. Dewey, who taught the singing school in Falmouth and twenty-five years later was to decapi- tate Andrew Jackson, as we have seen in a previous chapter.
Our grounds for thinking that the Falmouth Artillery Company never achieved the dignity of having horses to draw the cannon, but continued to leave that task to the "Matrosses" is a quaint old account of a court-martial held on the officers of the Falmouth Company at Ply-
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mouth in 1817 on the following charges exhibited against them by Brigadier General Cobb, viz :-
First, disobedience of orders and neglect of duty for not attending yourself nor ordering your company to at- tend the Regimental Muster
bringing your field pieces on parade the 25th October, 1815, aggreably to orders.
Second, for disobedience of orders and neglect of duty for not attending yourself nor ordering your com- pany to attend the Regimental Muster of the First Regi- ment third Brigade, in the town of Sandwich the 14th day of October last agreeably to orders.
Captain Jenkins, as commander of the company, was found guilty on the first charge and sentenced to be re- primanded in orders; but he and the others were found not guilty on the second charge, by which we infer that even a Brigadier General had not the heart to expect perspiring "Matrosses" to haul two brass fieldpieces and a tumbrel nineteen miles over forest roads to a Regiment- al Muster at Sandwich.
The other officers, cited with Captain Jenkins, were Captains Micajah Handy and Timothy Parker and Ensign John Bursley, junr of the first Regiment; Captain Nath- aniel Nickerson and Lt. David Crowell of the second regi- ment and 2nd Lieutenant Thomas Lawrence of the Fal- mouth battalion. The first and second regiments hailed from farther down the Cape. In 1810 the Falmouth and Brewster Regiments had been constituted a battalion of artillery.
The Falmouth Battalion of Artillery was not organ- ized by Captain Weston Jenkins in 1806 in any spirit of playfulness. No part of the United States felt earlier than the Cape the annoyance caused by the rivalry of Napoleon with England for the control of the seas, for not only were the Cape men largely engaged in maritime occupations, but the supplies and transportation of the Cape were chiefly effected by water.
Napoleon's Berlin Decree in 1806, declaring Great Britain in a state of blockade was the beginning of the trouble. In 1807 England retaliated by prohibiting com- merce by neutrals with France. Napoleon retorted with the Milan Decree by which any vessel searched by the English and consenting to be sent to England became a lawful French prize. Jefferson's Embargo Act, forbid- ding exports from America which was so unpopular as to
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force its repeal in 1809, was followed by the non-inter- course law interdicting commerce with either England or France, but nothing availed to put a stop to the seizure of American vessels and the impressing of seamen from them for the British navy, and in June, 1812, Madison declared war on England by the United States.
The British fleet blockading the American coast naturally found Cape Cod extremely accessible, and hard- ships at once descended on the Cape folks. Flour rose to $18 a barrel and corn to $2.50 a bushel, and sugar was not to be had, so difficult was it for vessels to run the gauntlet to the West Indies. Instead the women made a sort of molasses from cornstalks and pumpkins.
The towns of Brewster and Eastham were driven to purchase immunity from the raids of the British fleet on their shores, Brewster paying $4000 and Eastham $1000, but Falmouth, like the rest of the Cape towns, refused to pay tribute and preferred to defend her coast as best she might.
Two British naval vessels, in particular, scoured the Sound and threatened Falmouth, the Nimrod and the privateer Retaliation; and, as in the Revolution, Naushon Island in Tarpaulin Cove furnished a lurking place for the enemy vessels from whence they might pounce on shipping or make raids on the shore.
On the night of Jan. 27, 1814, Mr. Slocum, who kept a tavern at Tarpaulin Cove, overheard the British naval of- ficers planning to descend on Falmouth the next day to carry off the brass cannon of the Artillery battalion. It is said that Captain Jenkins had made good use of his field pieces to drive away from time to time British sail that stood in towards the town, and the enemy had de- cided to put a stop to it. Slocum quietly rowed over to Woods Hole and gave the warning. It is related that Cap- tain Jenkins was ill in bed when the news came, but to his wife's remonstrances at his risking his health by go- ing out, he would only answer in his peppery, masterful manner, "Betsy, bring me my boots."
Through the night the militia gathered and as breast- works are mentioned, it is likely that they occupied them- selves with reinforcing the trenches thrown up in '79 near the foot of Shore Street and doubtless doughty Gen- eral Dimmick who had been in command on that day came down to give them sage counsel and many a rem- iniscence. The General was eighty-one years old but it
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would have been hard to keep him away with battle in the air. The next day his house was a centre of refuge for non-combatants, so perhaps Braddock Dimmick, his son, persuaded the old gentleman to go home by inveigling him into taking charge of the women and children.
The Nimrod carrying 18 guns sailed up from the Elizabeth Islands, dropped anchor a half mile off shore and sent a boat to demand the cannon. Fiery red headed Captain Weston Jenkins did not propose to surrender his brass field-pieces tamely and he was supported whole- heartedly by the townspeople.
"If you want them, come and take them, but I'll give you what's in them first" was the substance of his an- swer. The British captain of the corvette accepted the challenge, but generously allowed a truce until noon to permit the removal of non-combatants from the danger zone.
Mrs. Harriet Burrill, daughter of Benjamin Franklin Jones who built and lived in the house now known as Elm Arch Inn which was moved in 1926 from its original site on Main Street west of the Methodist Church, was born in 1812 and lived to within two weeks of completing a full century. In 1900, with her memory clear, she wrote an account of the tales she had heard from her mother of the bombardment of Falmouth by the Nimrod. Her mo- ther took her, a two-year-old baby, to the house of Parnell Butler, as the Jones home was directly in range of the Nimrod's guns. Miss Ann Freeman, who was staying with them, decided to stay in the house and cook some food for the militia, but a ball soon came through the wall and landed in a feather bed, filling the room with a storm of white feathers and starting a fire, which was happily extinguished by a neighbor who chanced to pass.
Captain John Crocker's house on Shore Street (now spoken of as 'the Worthington place') was the largest mansion in that vicinity. The British called it "The Governor's House" and made it a special target. Captain John was a son of Timothy Crocker of the Green and had married a daughter of Dr. Francis Wicks.
The British were no mean marksmen. Mrs. Burrill remembered that Ichabod Hatch, who had refused to leave his house during the bombardment, saw a cannon ball whiz through his front entry. Taking a chair, the old captain seated himself in the open door, saying "There, damn ye, John Bull, see if ye can do that again!"
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Shortly afterward, another ball knocked splinters from the lintel over the chair and occupant and Ichabod Hatch prudently gave the devil his due as a sharpshooter and removed to a safer spot.
Elijah Swift, the friend of Weston Jenkins, at this time was living opposite the Jones homestead on Main Street between the present Town Hall and Library. A cannon ball coming into his house demolished a well- laden sideboard. Perhaps it was this indignity that de- cided Elijah to show the British that their privateers could not keep him off the sea, for it was that very year of 1814 that he built in his yard on Main Street, the 50- ton schooner which he defiantly cherished "Status Ante Bellum" and trundled down to the shore near King Street with oxen to be launched and successfully sailed to South Carolina.
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