USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Scituate > The early planters of Scituate; a history of the town of Scituate, Massachusetts, from its establishment to the end of the revolutionary war > Part 12
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+ Plymouth Colony Records Vol. V Page 250.
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above 2s. 6d. a week except in extraordinary cases, and the town hath ordered that there shall be 3 pounds put in the next rating to be in readiness to supply the widow's wants when necessity shall require."
There is the point-a prominent pilgrim characteristic- justice before generosity.
There was no thought of public schools in the early days of the colony. The leaders were mostly men of education. They had expected that their new commonwealth would attract to itself men of that class. In this they were par- tially disappointed. The words of Governor Bradford quoted in the preface to this volume, evidence the concern which he and others felt.
Rev. Charles Chauncey, the second minister, was an ac- complished and well educated man. Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, Christi Americana, says of him that, "he was incomparably well skilled in all the learned languages, espe- cially in the oriental, and eminently in the Hebrew." Rev. William Witherell, the first pastor of the second church, had been a grammar school teacher in the Bay Colony before his ordination to the ministry, and while he lived in Dux- bury (1638) although nominally a "planter," clearing and tilling his fifty-five acre farm on the South River, undoubt- edly continued his vocation among the families there. These men privately instructed the youth of the town and, upon the erection of the "college at Cambridge," fitted them for entrance to it. It is probable also that Henry Dunster, resigning his place as president of the college, to minister to the first parish of Scituate, found here opportunity for con- tinuing his services as an educator while engaged in the work of the church. Capt. Cudworth too was a man of good education, something of a critical analyst and a writer of good, if quaint, English. As showing this an extract from letter hereafter alluded to f is given.
"You may remember a law once made, called Thom- as Hinckley's law; that if any neglect the worship of
¡ Post page 264.
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TOWN GOVERNMENT AND FREEMEN
God in the place where he lives, and set up a worship contrary to God and the allowance of this Government to the publick profanation of God's Holy Day and or- dinances, he shall pay 10 shillings. This law would not reach what then (early in the year 1658) was aimed at, because he must do all things therein express'd or else not break the law. In March last a Court of Deputies was called, and some acts touching Quakers were made: and then they contrived to make this law serviceable to them by putting out the word (and) and putting in the word (or) which is a disjunctive and makes every branch to become a law; yet they left it dated June 6, 1651. And so it stands as an act of the Gen. Court they to be the authors of it seven years before it was in being."
William Vassall who quarrelled so constantly with Mr. Chauncy was by no means ungifted in facility of expression. He must certainly have received a good education for the times in which he lived, to be able to indite his reverend antagonist in this manner.
"We did not renew our Covenant surreptitiously. We secreted nothing by fraud from you, for you had before sent messengers to tell us that we were not of your church; and if you have any just exceptions against some of our persons, you have broken Christ's rule which require 'If thou has aught against thy brother, to tell him between thee and him &c: But thy brother intreats thee to show him his offence and of- fers satisfaction; and yet you will cast evil reports abroad of him, who may not know the fault commit- ted."
A brief relation of the trades and callings in which the early colonizers of Scituate were engaged at the time they left England, and some of their known characteristics, may shed an added light upon that view of their condition now under consideration.
William Gilson was a miller.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
Anthony Annable, Henry Merritt, Peter Collamore, Thomas Pincin and Isaac Stedman, although all men of substance could not write their names.
Timothy Hatherley was a merchant and a man of means. Edward Foster, John Hoar and John Saffin were lawyers. Humphrey Turner was a tanner.
Joseph Coleman, a shoemaker.
John Bryant, a carpenter.
Isaac Buck, a blacksmith.
George Pedcock and Ephraim Kempton, tailors.
Edward Jenkins, an inn keeper.
George Lewis and James Torrey weavers.
John Stockbridge a mill wright; and Gowin White, Rich- ard Mann, William Holmes and John Hollett were farmers.
All of necessity became planters when they began the foundation of the "New Freedom." They were outcasts, voluntary exiles, and their social condition was not to be compared with their compatriots of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who with royal charter and as colonizers for the Crown, settled in and about Boston. Roxbury and Charles- town had their grammar Schools in 1635, Braintree a Latin school a few years later and Cambridge the "College" for the education of "pious ministers" for them all.
It is not to be denied that for half a century the undesir- ables of whom Bradford wrote continued to come. In 1678 "Att the Generall Court of his Majestie held att Plymouth for the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth the fifth of June 1678. Ffor the preventing of prophanes f Increas- ing in the Collonies which is soe provoaking to God and threatening to bring Judgments upon us :
It is enacted as an addition to our printed order Chapter 9th folio 30th That none shall come to inhabite without leave &c; and if any have or shall att any time intrude themselfes to Inhabite anywhere within this Colonie, not attending the aforesaid order, shall forth- with be warned to be gon out of the Collonie, which if
¡ Profaneness-ridicule of the word of God and of His worship.
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they shall not speedily doe, then every such offender shall pay five shillings per week for every weekes continuance in this Colonie after warning to be gon:
And if any of our inhabitants shall at any time sell or hier out accommodation in this Collonie to any that have not according to Court order bin accepted, into this Government, or otherwise entertaine any such inhabitant they shall be fined five or ten pound, or more according to the discretion of the Court; hoping the Court wilbe careful that whom they accept off are persons orthadox in their judgment."
Four years before this, the Deputies sitting in General Court "being informed that it is upon the harts of our Naighbours of the Massachusetts Colonie to support and incurrage that Nursery of Learning att Harvard College in Cambridge in New England" i concluded that they "would particularly and earnestly stirr up all such in their several townes as are able to contribute unto this worthy worke, be it in money or other goods."
There was a "Schoole" at Plymouth at about this time maintained in part from the revenues of "the ffishing att Cape Code;" but it was not until 1677, when, being cogni- zant of the profaneness of the times and bearing in mind that the undesirables who were amongst them, many orig- inally indentured servants, having "come out of their time" and become fathers and mothers of families, had come to stay, that education was determined upon as the one and surest means of their redemption. It was therefore enacted that :---
"Fforasmuch as the Maintenance of good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the wealth and florishing estate of societies and Republiques.
¡ "In 1669 the condition of the seminary was critical and appar- ently hopeless-when its buildings were pronounced ruinous and almost irreparable, and it was declared that without a new build- ing its situation was desperate,-in this great Emergency, Brain- tree was one of the towns which responded most liberally to the loud groans of the sinking college." Adams' "Three Episodes" Vol. II Page 767.
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This Court doth therefore order: That in whatso- ever township in this Government consisting of fifty families or upwards any meet man shalbe obtained to teach a Gramer Schoole such township shall allow att least twelve pounds in currant marchantable pay to be raised by rate on all the inhabitants of such Towne and those that have the more emediate benefitt thereof, by theire childrens going to scoole, with what others may voluntarily give to promote soe good a work and generall good, shall make up the residue Nessasarie to maintaine the same and that the profitts ariseing of the Cape ffishing heretofore ordered to maintaine a Gram- er Scoole in this Colonie be destributed to such townes as have such Gramer scooles, for the maintenance thereof, etc." There were not fifty freemen with families living in Scituate at the time this law was enacted, but the law clearly meant familes of inhabi- tants as well as freemen. No grammar school was established until 1700 when "The Town desired James Torrey to teach children and youth to read and write as the Law requireth, and said Torrey consented to make tryall thereof awhile, on these conditions, that he be paid 20s in money for each and every person sent to school, the parent or master engaging to pay fifteen shillings of the said twenty, the Town having agreed to pay the other five shillings for each, and that those that send any children or youth to the school, shall provide books, pen, ink and paper suitable for their learning as aforesaid." This school was kept at Dea- con Torrey's own house, about a mile from the present Little's bridge. Whether its location was unsatisfac- tory or the trial had satisfied Mr. Torrey that the effort was not worth while, is not known. The school itself was a success but its master did not care to continue it.
The next year the town contracted with Capt. John Jacobs, a nephew of John Cushing, to teach the school for a year at
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a salary of £20 and also to build a school house at the same price. This, the first school house in Scituate, was erected near his own home. The locality was that of the second church, or the society at the North River, as it was called. It was not satisfactory. Manifestly the long controversy between the two church bodies had left its impression which had become engrafted into the school, and after three years "the Town directed the school to be kept one third of the year at each end of the Town, and one third in the middle." This arrangement held for seven years until 1711, when the Selectmen who also acted as a school committee were in- structed by the town that they "should provide but one grammar school, and that to be kept in the middle of the Town and not to be removed." The next annual meeting reversed this vote. "The town ordered three schools, one in the middle and one at each end." In order to meet the expense of the increased attendance, the town the same year, appropriated sixty-four pounds for their maintenance. f Undoubtedly three schools were needed, but the evidence of geographical jealousy and local covetousness is too strong not to admit of the conclusion that these considerations were paramount. This lack of stability and permanency of action taken in town meetings, is often pointed to by critics as one if not the principal weakness of the town form of govern- ment. In this particular it does not differ from many higher deliberative representative assemblies whose mem- bership is made up of the ablest selected from the whole. It is well also to bear in mind that the Scituate townsmen in developing the muncipal structure were pioneers. They
¿ The town was in difficulty over its grammar school as late as 1797. For a few years prior to the year it had failed entirely through disagreement as to locality or otherwise to provide one. For this failure some of the heads of families having children, caused it to be indicted. At the May Term of the Superior Court of Judicature for the province "Elijah Turner Agent for the town of Scituate has this indictment read to him-he says that the said inhabitants of the town of Scituate will not contend with the Commonwealth." A satisfactory grammar school was thereupon established.
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had neither charter, counsellor, prophet, guide nor chief. Theirs was the entire responsibility and the consequences of error were visited alone upon their own devoted heads. While at the period of which we are writing, Scituate was no longer Colonial but Provincial, yet for sixty years the town meeting had been the forum in which everything closest to their own welfare except church affairs (and these sometimes crept in) was discussed and settled. The taxes, defense of their own homes from the Indians, their schools, the poor and insane, highways and the support of the church were all important matters for settlement. Un- doubtedly they erred; yet in the process of solution of these questions they developed a sturdy self-reliance, mistaken by some for a stubborn individuality. All of which is written to the point that the town meeting as the truly democratic deliberative body, first begotten out of the womb of priva- tion, want, heart burnings and suffering found in Plymouth, Scituate, Duxbury, Marshfield, Barnstable, Rehobeth and Bridgewater,-the plantations of the "Collonie" of New Plymouth in New England"-is the very foundation stone of American polity.
A Latin School, or one in which "youths were fitted for the College" was established in Scituate in 1765. Previous to this time young men had been prepared for college here by the ministers or some residents who had themselves re- ceived the advantages of a higher training. Mr. Chauncey had fitted his six sons for entrance into Harvard and all graduated there. Joseph Cushing a grandson of the first John who taught a grammar school here did likewise for his sons, Joseph, who graduated in 1752, Nathan in 1763 and Lemuel in 1767.
Richard Fitzgerald and Thomas Clapp, afterward Pres- ident of Yale, also fitted for the college; and William Turner, a descendant of old Humphrey taught the Latin school in Scituate after his graduation from Harvard in 1767. Deane seems to think that the second and third generations, descended from the first comers, suffered to
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SCITUATE.
1831.
OLD SCITUATE, UNDIVIDED. From map of 1831, surveyed by Robbins and Turner.
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a considerable extent for lack of early education; but if heredity counts for aught, and we may judge by their deeds and accomplishments which are matters not only of local but of state and national history, that lack, as compared with the opportunities for learning of others of their time, is not apparent.
CHAPTER X
THE INDIANS
1. "That neither he nor any of his should injure or doe hurte to any of their people.
2. That if any of his did any hurte to any of theirs, he should send ye offender, that they might punish him.
3. That if anything were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should doe ye like to his.
4. If any did unjustly warr against him, they would aide him, if any warr against them, he should aid them.
5. He should send to his neighbors confederats, to certifie them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be like- wise comprised in ye conditions of peace.
6. That when there men came to them, they should leave their bows & arrows behind them."
Treaty of amity and peace between Massasoit and the Eng- lishmen March 21-22, 1620.
T HE legitimate field of human interest to be covered by a town history is so limited, that the chronicler may well be tempted to depart from it into both realms of tradition and the current of events in the political division of which the given municipality forms a more or less important integral part. The writer of these pages has studiously refrained from the former and sedulously avoided trenching upon the later. The attempt is made here to bring into promi- nence those characteristics, either foibles or sterling merits, which made the early planters of Scituate prominent in their day and generation as part and parcel of the larger events which have proven the influence of the Pilgrim forefather upon succeeding generations in this great freedom of states. The history of these larger events has been well and fully written, and they are gone into now with such particularity as may be found, only because the part borne in them by Scituate men has not heretofore been entirely told, and in
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THE INDIANS
order that a background may be furnished to complete the picture of their bravery, their devotion, their sufferings and their patriotism. This by way of further preface, because in writing of their dealings with the Indians, the student is taken into the colonies of New Haven and Con- necticut with the Pequots; from the Deerfield valley in Massachusetts to Rhode Island and the lower towns of the Old Colony itself, while the bloody war was raging with Phillip. The parts borne in these affairs by General Cudworth, Captain Michael Peirce, the Bucks, Cornet and Lieutenant, and the Stetsons, Ensign and Cornet, show them always at the front, resourceful, indomitable and filled with stubborn courage. This chapter in the history of the an- cient town is its bright particular star. In it and the distress and anguish of the men and women who are of it, may be seen the constellation of one of God's far off pur- poses.
An English speaking Indian in 1620 was a rarity; yet there were a few like Hobomok, t the faithful friend and servant of Miles Standish and a member of his family; and Squanto, who had been taken to England by one of Sir Ferdinand Gorges' kidnaping captains, and afterwards returned to Plymouth by Dermer, who could make them- selves understood in the English tongue. Both of these men had been well treated by the whites into whose com- pany they had been thrown, and were kindly inclined. It was Squanto who brought Massasoit and the Pilgrim lead- ers together at the meeting which resulted in the peace pact which heads this chapter. The agreement thus made lasted for years. It was further cemented by the friend- ship for and justice shown to the aborigines, whose numbers along the south shore had been only two years before the landing of the Pilgrims, so seriously decimated by the scourge, in their trading with the forefathers and the lat-
¡ In the Indian language Hobomok means an imaginary evil spirit or "Devil." Why this inmate of Standish's household and friend of the Pilgrims was so called is not known. Hubbard's Indian Wars. Vol. 1. Page 176.
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ter's purchase of their lands. Carver, Standish, Bradford, Cudworth, Hatherly and the other leaders realized that in this attitude of friendship they were laying the surest foun- dation of their own safety. While they bought from the red man the skins of such animals as he could trap, and paid him for his lands more than they were worth; while they whipped in his presence, the man who stole from him; and publicly hanged those who took his life, yet all were prohib- ited from inflaming him with liquor and no man could loan, sell or deliver to him either gunpowder or shot, except the Indian was such an one as first had the approval of the Court.
Various opinions have been expressed by local historians and others, concerning the purchase from the Indians, of the lands to the occupancy of which, the forefathers suc- ceeded. Some have extolled the act; others have belittled it. Adams 1, speaking of the Indian title taken by Richard Thayer to the Braintree lands says: "While the controver- sy with Boston was still dragging on, certain inhabitants of Braintree in behalf of the whole, secured as a muniment of title and out of mere superabundance of caution, a deed of the township from some of the Indian descendants of Chickatawbut. * This deed duly signed and sealed, with delivery "by turf and twigge" conveyed to the grantees one of those Indian titles so frequently met with in the early records of New England,-titles the result of transactions which grave historians have not hesitated to defend and even to extol, but which in point of fact were a mockery of law and entitled to no more consideration than if those defraud- ed through them, had been infants or simpletons. Never- theless the so-called Wampatuck deed of 1665 professed to convey a title to Braintree township from certain ignorant savages who never owned the soil."
¡ Adams' Three Episodes-Vol. II Page 653.
¿ This descendant was Josias Wampatuck, the same person who in 1640 conveyed to certain persons the land comprised within the limits of Scituate for the benefit of the whole and who prior to this had conveyed the Conihasset territory to the Partners.
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THE INDIANS
Deane t a conservative chronicler with an advantage of observation earlier by eighty years than that of Adams- if such be an advantage-takes this view :- "It has been very common for people to lament over the fallen fortunes of the Natives of these shores, and to the forefathers for driving them from their wonted forests, and occupying their lands by force, or purchasing them for an inadequate trifle. As general remarks, we believe these to be the cant of very superficial readers and reasoners and certainly without the least truth or pertinency so far as respects Ply- mouth Colony. The lands were purchased whenever a tribe could be found to allege the slightest claim. The sums paid were small but they were a sufficient compensa- tion to the few wandering natives whom the pestilence had spared, and who could make no use of their lands; nay they were often above the full value of the lands to the English. These lands were a dangerous and uncultivated wilderness, and had they been received without compensation, they would have been a perilous possession."
Whatever the truth may be, the weight of evidence de- ducible from the one thing open after the lapse of nearly three centuries-the written testimonies of the times- seems to be with the forefathers. The third article of the treaty with Massasoit: "If any thing were taken away from any of theirs (The English), he should cause it to be restored, and they should do the like to his" indicates a desire to do justice on both sides. There is abundant evidence which will be noted later in this chapter that the Pilgrim lived up to his part of this agreement. 'Again, it does not seem to have occurred to either Deane or Fiske or Adams in dealing with this question, to take into consid- eration the fact that the forefathers for a long time felt insecure in their patent and may have desired to obtain such an advantage in dealing with those others upon whom a fickle crown might bestow the lands colonized by them, as the Indian title, scoffed at by Adams, might give them. At
1 Deane-History of Scituate page 145.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
all events they proposed, that for what it was worth, it should belong to the Colony and not the individual. In 1643 this law was enacted :
"Whereas it is holden very unlawful and of danger- ous consequence and it hath beene the constant custome from our first beginning That noe person or persons have or ever did purchase, rent or hire any lands, herb- age, wood or timber of the Natives but by the Majestrates consent. It is therefore enacted by the Court that if any person or persons doe hereafter pur- chase rent or hyre any lands herbage, wood or tymber of any of the Natives in any place in this Government without the consent and assent of the Court every such person or persons shall forfeit five pounuds for every acre which shalbe so purchased, rented, hyred, and taken And for wood and tymber to pay five tymes the value thereof to be levyed to the Colonies use." Fiske i corroborates Deane in these words :
"The policy pursued by the settlers was in the main well considered. While they had shown that they could strike with terrible force when blows were needed, their treatment of the natives in times of peace, seems to have been generally just and kind except in the single case of the conquered Pequot territory; they scrupu- lously paid for every rood of ground in which they settled, and so far as possible they extended to the In- dians the protection of the law. On these points we have. the explicit testimony of Josiah Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth, in his report to the Federal Commissioners in May 1676; and what he says about Plymouth seems to have been equally true of the other colonies. Says Winslow, 'I think I can clearly say that before these present troubles broke out, the Eng- lish did not possess one foot of land in this colony but what was fairly obtained by honest purchase of the Indian proprietors. Nay, because some of our people
¡ Fiske, The Beginnings of New England page 198.
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THE INDIANS
are of a covetous disposition, and the Indians are in their straits easily prevailed with to part with their lands, we first made a law that none should purchase or receive gift of any land of the Indians without the knowledge and allowance of the Court x X x And if at any time they have brought complaint before us, they have had justice impartial and speedy, so that our own people have frequently complained that we erred on the other hand in showing them overmuch favor."
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