USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > The book of the three hundredth anniversary observance of the foundation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Cape Ann in 1623 and the fiftieth year of the incorporation of Gloucester as a city > Part 16
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With the approach of the Tercentenary it was the opinion of the historic and literary committee that a paper on this important sub- ject should be prepared for the occasion. The assignment was given the writer. He, therefore, quotes the foregoing section of the resolu- tion of Mr. Somes as a warrant for undertaking such a commission. Having been closely connected with Mr. Somes and Mr. Tibbets in the 1892 celebration and in the preliminaries of the Tercentenary ob- servance, the writer feels that he is meeting the wishes of his earlier associates in carrying on in this matter. He feels that this is his most lasting service to his native city. As such it is submitted.
T HE PURPOSE of this paper is to establish that the perma- nent settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was at Fisherman's Field, later Stage Head, by a company sent from Dorchester, England, by Rev. John White in 1623.
In so doing I propose to marshal only such evidence as would be adjudged competent in a court of law. I shall be as
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brief as is consistent with an adequate presentation of the facts and without attempt at rhetorical embellishment.
The crux of the argument is that between the years 1623 and 1630, in which latter year, Abraham Robinson and his associates came to Annisquam and set up their fishing stage, settlers were always in residence in the territory of Cape Ann. This established and the case is proved.
In consequence of the departure of Roger Conant and a few of his associates in 1626 some have erroneously assumed that the Cape Ann settlement was abandoned in its entirety. Even today the statement passes current in standard historical works that the roster of the settlement at Cape Ann was, all told, 14 men -the "landsmen" left during the winter of 1623-24 when the fishermen sailed to Bilboa to market their catch.
The outstanding importance of this landmark in American historical annals has attracted the attention of historians. In 1854 John Wingate Thornton issued his "Landing at Cape Ann," the first American publication dealing with the enterprise. While Mr. Thornton was not a native nor a resident of the cape and wrote from a distance his work is of value. His conclusions were that in all essentials of commercial stability, provision for the machinery of religious worship, maintenance of magistrates, etc. Cape Ann was the place of the foundation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Important data, uncovered by local antiquarians, was not available to Mr. Thornton. It was truly said at a meeting of the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1923 that only by the inten- sive research of local historians is the general writer enabled to present with accuracy pertinent historical facts. This particularly applies in the case under discussion.
CAUSES LEADING TO A PERMANENT SETTLEMENT OF ENGLISH- MEN IN NEW ENGLAND
Before presenting the evidence it may be advisable, in order that a clearer perspective be had, to review, briefly, the causes which lead to the first efforts of Englishmen to establish them- selves in New England.
In this connection it must be borne in mind that the one dominant idea actuating the Pilgrims was a refuge, secure for religious liberty, after which mundane matters were to be consid- ered and also that their destination was Virginia and not New England. Plymouth was a happening; the Dorchester colony "somewhere in New England," a planned objective.
ON THIS IN
1625
A COMPANY OF FISHERMEN AND FARMERS FROM DORCHESTER ENG. UNDER THE DIRECTION OF REV-JOHN WHITE FOUNDED THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
FROM THAT TIME THE FIS RIE.
THE OLDEST INDUSTRY IN THE COMMONWEALTH VE BEEN UNINTERRUPTEDLY PURSUED FROM THIS PORT
HERE IN 1625 GOV ROGER CONANT GY WISE DIPLOMACY AVERTED BLOODSHED BETWEEN CONTENDING PACTIONS ONE LED BY MYLES STANDISH OF PLYMOUTH THE OTHER BY CAPT- HEWES A NOTABLE EXEMPLIFICATION OF ARBITRATION IN THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND
PLACCO BY THE EN'S DE GLOUCESTER 1907
MEMORIAL TABLET ERECTED IN STONE HILLOCK AT STAGE FORT PARK, AUGUST 15, 1907. Idea Suggested and Forwarded by John J. Somes, City Clerk, 1873-1922. Inscription Written by James R. Pringle. Design by Eric Pape.
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OF GLOUCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
WESTWARD, Ho ! !
In 1602 Gosnold spied out the land. He touched at Cape Ann sailed southwest to Cape Cod which he named and reported a great plenteousness of fish.
The glowing accounts of Captain John Smith on his return to England at the end of the year 1614 greatly stimulated interest in the New England fisheries. At Monhegan, he says, he found the "strangest fish pond he ever saw" where it is recorded, in 1619, an English ship secured a fare that netted £2100, where the next year several ships did even better than that. From that date English craft continued to resort to this marine El Dorado.
In 1622 Smith recounts that 35 ships came on the New Eng- land coast in search of fish and bases were established at Pemaquid, Casco bay, Cape Porpoise, Piscataqua, the Isles of Shoals and other places for the curing of fish, so that the project of the Dorchester company had a solid foundation of fact and accom- plishment to warrant its adventure.
As early as 1621 this matter excited attention among the people of Dorset and adjoining counties. The Mayor of Wey- mouth (eight miles distant from Dorchester; wrote to the Mayor of Exeter inquiring "what they of Exeter intended to doe touching Sir Fernando Gorges project about the plantacion and ffysshinge att New England." The Dorchester colony of Rev. John White was the first response to this appeal.
It was by accident rather than intent that the fishing vessel of this company chose Cape Ann, in 1623, as a base. The captain first resorted to the fishing grounds on the coast of Maine, but being unable to seure a full fare "the master thought good to pass into Massachusetts bay, to try whether that would yield him any." He succeeded and sailed in the fall for Bilboa to market his catch, having left 14 "spare men in the country at Cape Ann" for the pur- pose of beginning the foundation of the colony, as projected by the Dorchester company. These men, all of whose names are not recorded, spent the winter of 1623-24 on Cape Ann, and thus be- gan the permanent settlement of Cape Ann and the Massachusetts Bay colony.
It has been stated by some writers that the charter granted by Lord Sheffield, to Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow, of the Plymouth colony, in 1623, embracing "that tract comonly called Cape Anne" was the original grant. As a matter of fact, Captain John Mason, a merchant of London and governor of Newfound-
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land, was granted, in March, 1621, by the Plymouth Council, "all the land from the river Naumkeag around Cape Anne to the river Merrimac," etc. This is the first grant of the Cape Ann territory. The fishermen adventurers from England settled upon any base that suited their purpose. Possession was sufficient title, as wit- ness the settlement here in 1623 and the coming of Hewes and his men in 1624-25. When the Dorchester adventurers sailed in 1623 for New England, there was no previous consultation or agree- ment with the Plymouth company as to occupancy of territory, for it had not been intended to establish the colony at Cape Ann, the commander of the ship, as we have seen, coming here as a last resort, after meeting poor success on the Maine coast.
"FISHERMAN'S FIELD," CAPE ANN, 1623. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY
"Cape Anne in New England," in the years 1623-27, was a locality of great activity. Apparently a maritime metropolis was being founded on its shores. Boston and Salem were as yet virgin territory.
It was the base of fishing operations for six large ships and numerous smaller boats or shallops. These included the first ship and crew sent over by the Dorchester colony in 1623, about 35 men in all, of whom 14 were farmers. The next year, 1624, after the season's catch had been disposed of at Bilboa, this ship and a Flemish fly boat of 140 tons-the same type as the historic Half Moon, in which Henry Hudson sailed up the river which now bears his name-returned and at the end of the season sailed for Bilboa, leaving 32 men in the Community house brought over the year before and set up in Fisherman's Field. Again, in 1625, the Dorchester company sent over three vessels, including one of 40 tons, which brought "kine and provisions." This is a total of three large vessels and 100 men, at the least, sent here by the Dor- chester company.
In 1624 the Plymouth company which had secured a grant of this territory dispatched two ships to Cape Ann, one command- ed by Captain William Pierce, the Pilgrim sailing master, and an- other, the Charity, by one Baker, of whom Bradford in his history speaks most disparagingly.
The Pilgrims designed to set up a permanent fishing base. Among their contingent was a ship carpenter who built shallops, of whom Bradford writes in high praise, and a "salt man" whose mission was to manufacture salt, whom the Plymouth governor
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condemns roundly as unfit for his work. (See Bradford's History, 1624.)
In addition the Pilgrims were surprised to find that they had been preceded by Captain Hewes and his West of England com- pany, whom Standish vainly attempted to eject.
This made a total fleet riding in the harbor at that time of six large craft, three of the Dorchester colony, two of the Pilgrims, and one of Captain Hewes, embracing in all some 250 men.
These ships were constantly sailing to the fishing grounds and returning to discharge their fares. The landsmen built the drying stages. The surrounding woods echoed back the music of the ship carpenter's mallet and adze as he fashioned shallops near the shore. The salt man, too. was busily engaged in building a shelter for his pots and pans, while the farmers sought ground suitable for tillage for the season's harvest .*
It became early apparent to the small minority of the farming element, of the Dorchester yeomanry, that Cape Ann, no matter how admirably fitted as a fishing base, was ill adapted for agricul- tural purposes.
Under the lead of Conant. who came over from Weymouth, (Massachusetts) in 1624, three men, Woodbury, Palfrey and Balch, according to Rev. Mr. White, determined to seek land better adapted for farming. Conant had failed to cope with the rough- and-ready, two-fisted mariners of his time. Piracy was a well recognized institution of the period and it is a reasonable surmise that Hewes and his crew, who so successfully withstood Stand- ish, were not above the ethics of their day and dominated the Cape Ann settlement with a high hand. The pacific Conant and the farmers were out of place, subordinated and anxious to seek a location by themselves. No matter how high a degree of pros- perity came to the Fisherman's Field settlers the yeomanry in- evitably, would have sought a more congenial habitation.t
White records that Conant's heart was not in the work. So after spending the winter of 1625-26 on Cape Ann this quartette trekked along the shore taking up land at what is now Beverly and Salem.
*Since writing this I find that the historian of the Conant family had reached the same conclusions. See "Genealogy of the Conant family"-by Frederick Odell Conant, M. A., Portland, Maine, 1887.
¡Rev. Mr. White hints broadly at this in his "Planter's Plea referring to the ill carriage," etc. of the ruling spirits of the colony.
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THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
From the fact that this negligible group, numerically speaking, separated from the original colony, it has been assumed by some that the settlement here was entirely deserted from 1626 to 1630-31 at which date Abraham Robinson's colony, which came over with Governor Winthrop in 1630, settled at Annisquam.
But this is an error and it is the purpose of this article to demonstrate this fact.
First let us quote the founder of the colony himself.
Rev. Mr. White in his Planter's Plea says that the Dorchester company in 1625 paid the landsmen employed at Cape Ann and offered them a passage if they desired. This offer it is stated was accepted by some. The others remained here.
So that some of the colony preferred to remain at Cape Ann rather than return home.
Corroborating this is the following from Humphrey Wood- bury, son of John Woodbury, who came to Cape Ann in 1624 removing to Beverly in 1626. Humphrey, in an affidavit made in 1680, deposes as follows :
"My father and the company with him brought cattle and other things to Cape Ann, built a house, set up fishing and after- wards SOME OF THEM (mark these words) removed to a neck of land since called Salem."
So here we have the sworn testimony of what might be termed an adverse witness, the son of one of the founders of the Cape Ann colony that some of the Dorchester colony remained at Cape Ann. This fact cannot be gainsaid.
Cape Ann was the natural fishing base of New England, as it always has been, and had been exploited as such in England. "I fear that too faire a glosse hath been placed on Cape Anne" wrote one commentator about that time.
It is fair conjecture that the isolated groups of fishermen then at Weymouth, Nantasket and along the Maine coast were also attracted here during the period in question.
In those days very little of record was made. We know but few of the names of the Dorchester colonists .* Conant left nothing of value and we know that Captain Hewes' outfit of about 40 men was established here only because of the clash between him and Standish in 1625. Is it reasonable to assume that the defection of a few farmers, a negative element, had
*The writer has caused diligent search to be made in the archives in Dorchester, England, to discover such a list but without result.
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any influence on a group of some 200 fishermen in abandon- ing in its entirety their base and fishing plant? As a matter of fact the Community house was left by Conant to the remaining fishermen. It stood there until the late fall of 1628, when it was taken down by order of Endicott and removed to Salem, having been abandoned by the fishermen, who sought more sheltered loca- tions for their fishing boats. Fisherman's Field fronting the outer harbor, exposed to the gales, offering little security for anchorage, was soon deserted for a more sheltered locality.
Those remaining comprised that larger number which includ- ed fishing and farming in their vocation. Some of these settled on a tract to the westward, the southeasterly side of Kettle Cove, well sheltered, and utilized as a common landing and fish drying grounds.
This was occupied under what was known in Colonial times as "fishermen's rights," a squatter sovereignty. Some of these "rights" are maintained today by fishermen of the locality. An at- tempt of an individual to claim a town landing (Magnolia) several years ago, was defeated in the courts.
In this connection it must be constantly borne in mind that the territory included in Cape Ann in 1623 remained intact until 1641, when the records show that on October 7 of that year a com- mittee was appointed "to settle the bounds between Cape Ann, Jefferies creek (now Manchester) and Ipswich. The report is dated May 3, 1643, and mentions the meetinghouse at Cape Ann as a starting point. This meetinghouse was on the northwesterlv side of Beacon or Governor's hill. This was the first boundary dividing the original territory of Cape Ann .*
In 1645, what is now Manchester was set off by itself. Disputes as to the location of the boundary between the two com- munities arose early and a commission was appointed by the Colo- nial government, consisting of Captain Thomas Lowthrop, Major Samuel Appleton and Joseph Gardner. They met September 19, 1671, in Gloucester, "heard both sides and determined the bound as follows :
"A west southwest course from Gloucester meeting house four miles and there marked a pine tree which is the bounds at that place between the said towns thence upon a strait line to a white oak to another white oak at the coming in of a little creek at the eastern edge of the beach . . . and Gloucester to keep the
*Originally termed Meeting House hill; see town records 1648.
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four miles from the meeting house until they meet with the Ipswich line."
This point of departure was the first meetinghouse on the northwesterly side of Beacon hill. Four miles from this point in the indicated direction fixes this boundary well along toward Graves Beach in Manchester. The meetinghouse in Riverdale on the Green, so called, the third in the town, was not built until 1700. But assuming that the measurement was made from this latter location (farther away from Manchester) a line drawn from the site of the doorstep of this later structure running west four miles establishes irrevocably that the original boundary between Glouces- ter and Manchester was on the westerly side of Goldsmith's, now Coolidge Point, at the easterly edge of a beach where a creek comes in. Reference to any map will readily corroborate this fact. (See map annexed.)
Reference to recent maps of the two communities will dis- close that a narrow strip of land from Coolidge, formerly Gold- smith's Point, taking in Kettle Cove or Crescent Beach, is now in- cluded as Manchester territory. The peculiarity of this boundary is frequently commented upon.
In 1903 the city of Gloucester brought suit against the town of Manchester that this wedge in which Coolidge Point is situated be adjudged within the precincts of this city, as it has become a valuable resort area. The case was heard before a master. Gloucester lost.
A quotation from Lamson's History of Manchester (1895), may illuminate the causes for these latter day land and boundary controversies :
"A contest dragging its slow lengths in the courts between the town and some of the owners of 'shore acres' may throw new light on proprietors' rights. The distinction between law and equity may also receive new emphasis." (Page 21.) The reader may draw his own in- ferences.
The town records of Manchester from the time of its set-off from Gloucester in 1645 to 1655 were lost. No light may be ob- tained from that source. An occasional reference in the Salem records adds little to our knowledge.
It is known that after the farming faction of the Dorchester colony went to Beverly in 1626, several of the fishermen-farmers, as William Jefferies, the discoverer of Jefferies bank, 22 miles northeast of Thacher's island, Goodman Norman and his son John, William Allen and others decided to locate at Kettle Cove now
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four miles from the meeting house until they meet with the Ipswich line."
This point of departure was the first meetinghouse on the northwesterly side of Beacon hill. Four miles from this point in the indicated direction fixes this boundary well along toward Graves Beach in Manchester. The meetinghouse in Riverdale on the Green, so called, the third in the town, was not built until 1700. But assuming that the measurement was made from this latter location (farther away from Manchester) a line drawn from the site of the doorstep of this later structure running west four miles establishes irrevocably that the original boundary between Glouces- ter and Manchester was on the westerly side of Goldsmith's, now Coolidge Point, at the easterly edge of a beach where a creek comes in. Reference to any map will readily corroborate this fact. (See map annexed.)
Reference to recent maps of the two communities will dis- close that a narrow strip of land from Coolidge, formerly Gold- smith's Point, taking in Kettle Cove or Crescent Beach, is now in- cluded as Manchester territory. The peculiarity of this boundary is frequently commented upon.
In 1903 the city of Gloucester brought suit against the town of Manchester that this wedge in which Coolidge Point is situated be adjudged within the precincts of this city, as it has become a valuable resort area. The case was heard before a master. Gloucester lost.
A quotation from Lamson's History of Manchester (1895), may illuminate the causes for these latter day land and boundary controversies :
"A contest dragging its slow lengths in the courts between the town and some of the owners of 'shore acres' may throw new light on proprietors' rights. The distinction between law and equity may also receive new emphasis." (Page 21.) The reader may draw his own in- ferences.
The town records of Manchester from the time of its set-off from Gloucester in 1645 to 1655 were lost. No light may be ob- tained from that source. An occasional reference in the Salem records adds little to our knowledge.
It is known that after the farming faction of the Dorchester colony went to Beverly in 1626, several of the fishermen-farmers, as William Jefferies, the discoverer of Jefferies bank, 22 miles northeast of Thacher's island, Goodman Norman and his son John, William Allen and others decided to locate at Kettle Cove now
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MAP OF CAPE ANN SHOWING LOCATION OF PERMANENT SETTLERS FROM 1623 TO 1642 Accompanying Article on the "Permanent Settlement."
ENT
JOHN BLACK 1627
Ann
WILLIAM JEFFERIES
1626-1634
FISHERMAN'S
Thomas Morton
FIELD
CAPT JOHN MATHS
626-/637
GILES BARGE DORCHESTER COLONY
Colony
+THOMAS GARDNER
4 MILES W.S. W.
MEETING HOUSE HILL
(GOVERNOR'S OR BEACON HILL)
WILLIAM ALLEN /426 -/640
. JEFFRIES CREEK
PLANTERS
ABRAM ROBINSON
COLONY
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CHEBACCO
ESSEX
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Magnolia. This haven, sheltered by Kettle island, was selected as the site of a fishing hamlet by these people and was always includ- ed with the original territory of Gloucester.
According to Lamson's History of Manchester (1895) it is stated "that the first settlers (of Jefferies creek) landed, it is sup- posed, at Kettle Cove in 1626 or 1627. They were of Conant's company. ... These locations presented a safe harbor and abund- ant opportunity for building fish weirs and offered an almost ideal spot for a new settlement." (Page 21.)
This is conclusive testimony from a source not considered especially favorable to Gloucester.
The names of the men given by Lamson as settling in Kettle Cove in 1626 are William Jefferies, the navigator, John and Richard Norman and William Allen, all known to be of the Dor- chester colony. William Jefferies is perhaps the most outstanding of these. The fact that he gave his name to this suburb of Cape Ann establishes his residence there beyond all doubt. He was here as late as 1634. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, gives the contents of a letter written from England May 1, 1634, by Thomas Morton to "one Jefferies in New England." Diligent search of all other records fails to place him anywhere except at Kettle Cove up to 1634.
With him were Goodman Norman and his son, who settled on what is now Magnolia Neck. His name is commemorated by the rock of Norman's Woe. Tradition says that it was so be- stowed by reason of the wrecking of one of Norman's boats on the ledge immortalized in "The Wreck of the Hesperus." On all the old maps up to 1860, the reef is marked "Norman's rock"; the headland opposite, as "Norman's Woe" and the cove, "Norman's Cove." This establishes beyond doubt the site of the houses of the Normans .*
William Allen came over to Cape Ann in 1624 and is said to have afterward settled in Manchester, "about 1640." The Allens always kept in close touch with Gloucester, William's son Joseph being granted land here in 1674.
All but Allen were fishermen and he probably pursued that vocation in his younger days prior to his departure to Manchester "about 1640."
*See map of Gloucester drawn by Major John Mason in 1830, in the office of the City Clerk, Gloucester.
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Thomas Gardner of the original Dorchester colony was a native of Sherborn. England. He is not recorded as going to Salem until 1637. He is not included in the list of the Manchester residents at any time. He probably removed to the "Farms" sec- tion, where "Gardner's Brook" perpetuates his name.
All but Jefferies, who was here up to 1634, later appearing for a short time in Ipswich, and Thomas Gardner, who left here in 1637, continued to live on Cape Ann up to 1640 and later. They were of the original Dorchester colony.
So there are five members of the Dorchester colony abso- lutely accounted for as residents here from 1623 to 1634 or 1645. In 1629 the colony at Kettle Cove was joined by John Black (see History of Manchester, page 65). This makes six of the Dorches- ter colony recorded here during the time metioned.
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