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 15
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In these fifty years the descendants of the first comers were found in Scituate occupying the homesteads and farms built and tilled by the fathers; and also upon those of their own rearing. Hatherly was gone, leaving no issue to perpetuate his name.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
John Cudworth was living at Hooppole Neck on a part of the farm of his great grandfather.
Ebenezer Bailey had his homestead at Farm Neck,- the same acres which were given to the original John Bailey by his friend Capt. John Williams.
Zachary Damon, whose forbears came to Scituate with their uncle Anthony Annable, was at Assinippi.
Thomas Webb was on Brushy Hill at Greenbush and his nearest neighbor, Nathaniel Wade, tilled the same acres that had been broken out and cultivated by his ancestor Nicholas in 1638.
Anna Vinal's devotion had reared a sturdy family. Her great grandchildren were living on Kent street.
Captain Samuel Barker from the old garrison house at Cedar Point, now comfortably framed and enlarged, watched the fleet of schooners, scows, sloops and ketches go out over the bar on their coasting and fishing trips. His neighbors at the Harbor were the Briggses, who occasionally built a schooner at the "Will James" yard next the tavern; the Merritts; Israel Chittenden; John Manson, Ensign Otis and John Stetson, the descendant of Cornet Robert, who owned and operated the tide mill.
Deacon Stephen Clap lived in "Samuel Clap's new house" at White Oak Plain, built before the two colonies joined their fortunes. Here he was proud to receive the infrequent visits of his son Thomas, the President of Yale College, and to accompany him to church to listen to the sermon of Mr. Eells from Deuteronomy XXXII 47, a text upon which that venerable gentleman delighted to discourse.
Capt. Enoch Collamore kept the public house at Valley Swamp, on the Plymouth road, and the Jacobs, David, Joshua and Joseph, ran the saw-mill on Third Herring brook a short distance away. Zebulon Sylvester and the Stodder family were also at Assinippi. On the way thence toward Greenbush at No Pork Hill, Capt. Caleb Torrey. kept a tavern and over its bar dispensed the crude New Eng- land rum which the Boston distillers in Essex Street sold
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
him at two shillings a gallon. Further on, near Union Bridge overlooking the sinuous river on its way to the sea, lived the great grandchildren of Humphrey Turner, the first tanner in the colony. Their near neighbor was Deacon John James, who lived on the site of the Block House of King Phillip's War. Just before reaching Greenbush the Cushings, John and William, father and son, had their homes, the former at Belle House Neck and the latter at Walnut Tree Hill. This was in the days of their service to the Massachusetts judiciary. When not riding the circuit in discharge of their duties, each dispensed a charming hospitality among a wide circle of the eminent men of the time. Benjamin Woodworth lived at Green- bush just beyond Judge John Cushing's. At that time his bibulous descendant had not written the inspired lines which have made "the wide spreading pond and the mill which stood by it" famous. Then the little village was noted only as the home of Dr. Benjamin Stockbridge and his son Charles also a physician. These men, celebrated in their profession the colony over, rode their saddle bagged mares among a large number of widely separated patients and the former found time also to educate his son-in-law and other young men in the science which he successfully practised. His not infrequent prescription, which he dispensed himself, for mild forms of fever was:
"First, as soon as taken ill, take a vomit of the infus- ion of crocus metallorum. When it hath done working, some hours later, take a small dose of pil rufi, two or three, more or less according as they work. Take once in twenty-four hours, to keep the body soluble through- out the whole sickness. Three hours after the pills first given, or the first dose of pills, take two full and large spoonfuls of treacle water to a man or woman, and proportionably to a child. Let the treacle water be thoroughly tinged or colored with saffron; and after this, take only one spoonful of treacle water every eight hours throughout the sickness. This is
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET PLACE, GREENBUSH.
From a crayon drawing.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
to drive out the malignity by sweat; to keep the sick in a breathing sweat; which is the most hopeful sign of recovery. If they be distempered in their heads, then, instead of one dose of pills, give the following glister, viz : one handful of common barley, washed and boil- ed in water. To the barley-water add a good spoonful of butter, as much of sugar and as much of small salt as will lie upon a sixpence. When it is almost cold enough to be given, add the yolks of two eggs beaten and give it. If the disease continue strong, and much afflict the head, apply blister-plasters to the ankles, a little above the ankle-bone, on the inside; sometimes, in case of strong deliriums, or 'distraction, to the neck; sometimes to the wrists. Drink barley-water, in which boil anise seed, liquorice, figs sliced, raisins stoned, a good quantity of maidenhair and pimpernel or as many of these things as may be had. Of this they may drink always their fill. Beer or cider are not good. For change of drinks sometimes, take posset-drink, in which boil feather-few. If the pain of the side be very grievous, we apply stone horse dung outwardly, and steep some in white wine or cider, and give in- wardly, and administer a salt water glister. For the mouth we take strawberry leaves, five finger, violet, columbine, black-briar leaves, sorrel, of each a like quantity boiled in spring water; sweeten it with sirup of violets, or honey. With this both wash and spray the mouth and throat often, night and day. It availeth much to the comfort of the sick to keep the mouth clean. Stew prunes, together with a little quantity of senna, tied up in a rag. Take it sometime, instead of the pills."
Charles Stockbridge was no less renowned as a physician than his father. When the latter's death occurred the son was already engrossed in a large practice over a wide ter- ritory.
The mill which his ancestor had built in 1650 was still
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
in the possession of the family, and formed the industrial nucleus around which centered the homes of Robert and Abraham Northey, Isaac Stetson, Benjamin Woodworth and Peleg Ford.
Thomas Curtis and David Little's son Barnabas lived at Egypt. William Collier owned and occupied the Walter Briggs farm near the Glades and John Tilden cultivated the Conihasset farm which Timothy Hatherly gave to his great grandfather.
These were the prominent families in Scituate during the fifty years preceding the war of the Revolution. They were well-to-do and industrious. They owned the ships that were built at the Wanton, Chittenden, Block House and other shipyards on the North River and financed the fishing and coasting in which the vessels were themselves engaged. They also owned the ferry at Littles Bridge kept by John Doggett and that by his son at the upper ferry at Union Bridge. Deacon Stephen Otis and Anthony Water- man operated tanneries; there were grist mills at the Harbor, on the three Herring brooks and at Hugh's Cross brook.
Once a week the mail was sent over the road from Boston in the custody of the messenger to Plymouth. He brought the Boston News-Letter, the New England Weekly Journal, the Boston Gazette or Country Journal, the Massachusetts Spy and the Boston Post Boy and Advertiser.
Thomas Clap, before becoming the head of Yale College, Richard Fitzgerald, Timothy Symmes, William Turner and Joseph Cushing were the schoolmasters. . Symmes taught the grammar school and others privately or at the "Latin School," preparing the young Litchfields, Turners, Cush- ings, Otises, Stockbridges and Vinals for entrance to "the College at Cambridge."
Besides the doctors Stockbridge at Greenbush there were Dr. James Otis at the Harbor, Dr. Ephraim Otis, Dr. Jacobs at Assinppi and for a few years prior to his death in the Revolutionary army, Dr. Lemuel Cushing,-all ministering
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With location of Colonial Shipyards. From a sketch map by Henry T. Bailey.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
to the ills of a rapidly growing community. Dr. Cushing was a grandson of Joseph, the eleventh and youngest child of the original John Cushing, and was a famous surgeon of his day.
The Cushing family likewise furnished the lawyers who attended to the not infrequent litigation in which the Scituate people were engaged during this period. Judge John, the third of that name, while most of his life was spent upon the bench, practised in town until 1738, when he was made Judge of Probate for Plymouth County. Nathan, the son of his cousin Joseph, kept a law office for ten years until the beginning of the Revolution, when he too was elevated to the bench and made a judge of the admiralty. Thomas Turner, who lived at the Harbor, on Kent Street, was de- clining in his years and practice in 1725, and his clients were gradually turned over to David Little, who although living in Marshfield, had an office here.
The dwelling which housed the average family was a story and a half structure built of wood, cut near by, and covered on the outside with cedar shingles. The more pretentious had an upper story, sometimes overhanging the lower by a foot and a half. Of whichever style of construc- tion, they were all reared about a generous chimney, containing enough bricks to erect a small jail. The men of the time were no mean builders. Sills were of oak and plates and studding usually of walnut. The size and weight of the latter made it necessary to gather a good number from among the neighbors for each house raising. Upon such occasions what beef and brawn lacked in strength and force, large quantities of hard cider and the product of the New England still, in due measure, supplied. The house was usually placed so that the living room should face the south, and this without much reference to the highway on which it was located. Immediately upon entering the front door, the visitor was confronted by a solid face of the immense chimney about which wound the stairs to the best room, the spare room, the parlor chamber, the guest room or
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
the attic as the case might be. In both the living room and front room or parlor, the great fireplace was the principal feature. Built to accommodate a cord-wood length of oak, it nevertheless failed to afford a uniform and sufficient heat for the whole room, and while the sitter by the hearth had his or her face subjected to the heat of the equator, the spine was subjected to the discomforts of an arctic night, Beside the sitting-room fireplace hung the brass bedwarm- er which, filled with live coals, warmed the winter beds of the children. In the best parlor of the Turners, Fords, Tildens, Cushings, Vinals, Wades, Barkers and others of the more wealthy families, were stiff slat-backed chairs with rush seats, standing squarely against the wall. There were, during the period of which this is being written, no such dust gathering abominations as sofas. In the center of the room was a claw-and-ball foot table, and in the cor- ner a tea-table the top of which threw back upon its hinges against the wall. These were made of solid St. Domingo mahogany in true puritanical contrast to the veneers and inlayings of Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton which succeeded them in the early part of the nineteenth century.
There were a few books, among which, of course, was the family Bible bound in sheep or red Turkey leather, "Translated out of the original tongues" > x x and "diligently compared and revised by His Majesty's Special Command. Printed by T. Wright and W. Gill, and sold cum privilegio by S. Crowder, Paternoster Row, London, and by W. Jackson at the University in Oxford."
On the mantel stood two whale oil lamps (other parts of the house were lighted solely by candles) and above, hanging against the wall, was a looking glass framed in mahogany and gilt. Its outline was fancifully sawed, and surmounted by a circular opening partially filled by three feathers, a conventional shell or a flower in gilt. f
Beside the "best parlor" fireplace a rude cupboard was
¡ Frances Clarey Morse-"Furniture of the Olden Time" page 349.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
built into the wall. It contained conch shells from the South Seas, bits of red coral from the Indian Ocean, china from Nagaski and Hong Kong, all carefully kept from sight except on occasion when the dark, stuffy and illy-ventilated room was opened for the entertainment of some distin- guished visitor.
In the kitchen, which also served as the family meeting place at meals, was the great brick oven and again the open fire place, cluttered with pot hooks and kettles and on its jamb bellows and candle moulds. Standing in a corner, beside the long straight handled ash shovel, was a bowl shaped iron utensil, in which father and the boys melted lead for the bullet mould and in the winter time reduced the tallow to liquid, which they smeared upon their rough boots to make them water proof. Above the fireplace, just underneath the "mantel-shelf" hung the flint lock and on its butt a copious horn. In this room also was likely to be found the flax and spinning wheels. Rows of dried apples covered with corn husks to prevent them from becoming flyblown, were drawn across the ceiling. There were also, perhaps, freak ears of corn, a suggestively shaped gourd or an Indian stone hatchet hobnobbing with the candlesticks and the candle snuffer upon the mantel. A portion of the kitchen was invariably partitioned off for a pantry, from which access was conveniently had to the well. Here the thrifty housewife "set" the milk and with a quahog shell skimmed the thick cream for the churn in the corner. This was also the storage room for pan dowdy, bang-belly ven- geance, pumpkin pies, marmalades of wild grape and beach plums, all the products of her culinary skill. There were also the two containers marked "blackberry brandy" and "cherry rhum" each of home concoction and for invalid consumption.
In the more ordinary houses the kitchen occupied a lean to -- pronounced "leanter"-built on the back of the house, its roof extending from the eaves, to within five or six feet
,
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
of the ground. In one end of this was the side door lead- ing to the barn and corn crib or the well.
Is the picture attractive? Does the severe provincial life of the middle of the eighteenth century appear to be more desirable than that of the greater material enjoyments of the twentieth? John Adams, the second President of the United States, who had enjoyed the best that his time afforded in the way of creature comforts, said towards the end of his life that he "used to wish he could go to sleep in the autumn like a dormouse, and not wake until spring." i
And yet the people of those days were not without sub- stantial household comforts. They expressed a taste for, and appreciation of, handsome silver and brass, mahogany highboys, four posted canopied beds and fine glass ware and napery. The appraisers of the estate of John Barker who died in 1729 were shown a silver tankard which they valued at £26; a silver colander and silver spoons and plate worth as much more. There were napkins, table cloths, "pillow coats" and sheets, all of fine texture and appraised at £12. In his library were works on law, divinity, history; and books in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. His estate was not large as the fortunes of Scituate planters then went, yet the whole of his household furniture and plate reached a value of £374.
The inventory of Benjamin Turner who died in 1734 discloses, napkins, pillow coats, table cloths, towels and sheets valued at "£18:02s;" his pewter, "lanthorn" and warming pan were worth three pounds and fifteen shillings more. In his cellar was found fifty gallons of rum and wine, cherry rum, "cyder" and brandy, while in the larder were "Biskit and Ginger bread £2."
The probate records amply warrant the belief that the average Scituate townsman filled his home with things which were substantial if not elegant, but comfortable and pleasant to look upon. Carpets are frequently mentioned. Now and then "an oval table of black walnut and another
Three Episodes of Mass. History. Adams Vol. II Page 682.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
small ditto" appear. There were always feather beds, "coverlids," woolen blankets, underbeds, chests of drawers, looking glasses; now and then a "multiplying glass" and invariably pails, washing tubs, trays, milk pans and the steelyard and mortar.
The larder contained sausages, salt pork, and other soused and smoked meats in large quantity. Very little fresh meat was used. Fish of course was plentiful and lib- erally eaten. The barn yard furnished fowl and the garden produced pumpkins, corn, beans, peas, parsnips, turnips and carrots. Potatoes did not become general until after the Revolution. Eight bushels was considered a large crop in 1763. 1 There was much pickling and preserving of sam- phire, fennel, purple cabbage, bay berries, beech plums, huckleberries and quinces; besides the manifold uses to which the apple was put.
Sweetening was supplied by molasses, maple sugar and honey. In the homes of the more wealthy a loaf sugar which was purchased in lumps of nine or ten pounds apiece, was carefully cut into small cubes with the assistance of a pair of sugar shears, an implement designed for the especial purpose.
Indian corn, that Pilgrim staple, which the aborigines had taught the forefathers to grow, was still the chief bread ingredient. Corn meal was not infrequently used with rye in the making of "rye-an-injun" bread, a nourish- · ing and hearty food.
The dairy furnished milk, butter and cheese in abundance. The house-wife was no mean artist in the palatable prepara- tion of all the food stuffs which the farm and woods provid- ed and the family table was a gathering place for good ap- petites. It is not to be ascertained that dyspepsia was either common or prevalent.
The pilgrim maiden is invariably pictured as a person of serious and demure mien, clothed in plain garments of the severest cut. Not so her sister of a century later. Silks,
+ "Home Life in Colonial Days"-Alice Morse Earle page 144.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
crinoline and velvets were materials in general use. Laces were worn by the women of the wealthier families and hoop-petticoats, heavy corsets or "stays" as they were called, pandered to their vanity. The head gear was a ponderous contrivance of black or colored silk attached to wire hoops, usually seven in number, the whole being readily collapsed or expanded like an accordion. This was called a calash, and was especially in fashion for twenty years preceding the close of the Revolutionary War. In Abington in 1775 this headcovering became such an abomination that the church of which Rev. Samuel Niles was pastor, openly con- demned in parish meeting the "indecent way that the female sex do sit with their bonnets on to worship God."
Nor were the men far behind their wives and sisters in the gaiety of their apparel. Waistcoats of fancy colors, small clothes, silk hosiery, and silver buckles were among their personal adornments. 'After the death of Samuel Turner, the inventory of his estate disclosed "hats, shirts, waistcoat, gold buttons, trousers, breeches, stockings, gloves, wig, great coat and jacket of the value of £31:00:08d." His contemporary Deacon Joseph Bailey, a sober pillar of the church, arrayed himself in a wardrobe that was appraised at "$22:09s." They wore wigs of all sorts of grotesque shapes and fashions, and when ridicule had accomplished the discard of this unsanitary head covering, the gentleman of the day let his hair grow long behind, greased it with pomatum, powdered it and tied it at the nape of his neck with a bow of silk or satin ribbon.
This outward display of frivolity did not affect the constant attendance upon divine worship and the strict observance of religious forms. The Dutch in New York were not more exact. The Sabbath commenced at sunset on Saturday and no work save the milking of the cows, the feeding of the "critters," and the essential duties of the household was performed. Washington Irving's quip that the "sponge" was not set on Saturday night, lest the yeast should work on Sunday, is undoubtedly true to the letter.
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CUSTOMS PREVIOUS TO REVOLUTION
On Sunday morning the whole family went to the meet- ing house. The elders either rode in chaises or on horse- back with the women folk mounted behind upon pilions. The children walked. All remained the entire day listening to sermons of tedious length, and at intermission eating the luncheon of buttered bread, doughnuts, cheese and gingerbread which had been brought along in the family splint basket. The singing accompanied by a bass-viol, clarionet and flute was confined wholly to the Psalms. A pitch-pipe set the key. Psalms of praise or thanksgiving were sung to St. David's tune and the Martyrs' tune. The accomplishment often occupied half an hour. As the supply of psalms books was frequently limited, line after line was sung after first being read by the deacon. Prayers were usually as long as the sermons, the exhortations of the minister as fervent as the singing of his congregation, and thus the day passed, whether the participants in the ceremonies sweltered on the hard board seats and straight backed pews in the heat of the stiff and uncomfortable Sun- day dress, or shivered in the frigid atmosphere of the unwarmed temple.
In the middle of the week the same meeting place was sought for the Thursday lecture at which, contrary to Sunday practice, young men and women were permitted to sit together and from which the youth who was courting his damsel might "beau" her home.
If dancing were permitted it was indulged in only at taverns or huskings and raising. The Scituate church- goer deemed it unseemly and frivolous and it was generally frowned upon.
As a holiday, training day of the "train band" or mili- tary company outshone either Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was the occasion in all the year when freedom of action was unshackled. While the militia men were put through the manual of arms, the townsmen who gathered to look on, drank rum and cider, ate cakes and cheese, swapped horses and stories and generally behaved in a manner far from
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
bearing any resemblance to the deportment of their forbears. There were two training fields, one at Herring Brook hill, near the south meeting house, and the other opposite the end of Meeting House lane, directly across the street from the present Union Cemetery.
The members of this train band were active in the French War. Captain John Clap, afterward a colonel in the Revo- lutionary army, Captain Benjamin Briggs, Lieutenants Elisha Turner, Viney Turner and Job Tirrell and Sergeant Barnabas Barker, were all active in the expeditions against Crown Point, Ticonderoga and Lake George. Captain Clap's Company got as far as Quebec and Reuben Bates and David Dunbar participated in the second taking of Louis- berg. The two Doctors Otis, Ephraim and James, did surgeon's duty with the troops, the one at Fort William Henry; and the other at Crown Point.
It is greatly to be doubted if this one training day of the year performed a definitely useful purpose in preparing the men of that day for military duty. Naturally hardy, always courageous, and accustomed to follow obediently where brilliantly led, the excellence of the work which they performed as soldiers, is more correctly ascribed to their sturdiness of purpose and readiness to take up arms in support of a conviction. The training field was after all, a play ground.
CHAPTER XII
TOWN ACTS AGAINST TORIES
"We, therefore, apprehending such a subjection utterly incon- sistent with the just rights and blessings of society, unanimously instruct you to endeavor that our delegates in Congress be informed in case that representative body of the continent should think fit to declare the Colonies independent of Great Britain, of our readiness and determination to assist with our lives and fortunes."
Vote of the town June 7, 1776, instructing Nathan Cushing, Representative to the Great and General Court.
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