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 16
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F OLLOWING the close of King Phillip's war a substan- tial peace settled upon the town, colony and province. Scit- uate men played a small part in the northern expedition un- der Andros and that commanded by Benjamin Church against the eastern tribes. In the Canadian Invasion and the French and Indian War a considerable body of troops from this town served under Captains John Clapp and Benjamin Briggs in the regiment led by Col. John Winslow of Marsh- field. The Scituate companies were with the New England troops which took Louisberg in 1744. They were at Crown Point, Ticonderoga and before Quebec fifteen years later, where most of the fatalities were from small pox and other natural causes, rather than from the enemy's attack.
The first generation of settlers had been gathered to its fathers. The sons and daughters were of none less stern stuff, and the beginning of the eighteenth century saw Ben- jamin Stetson, the son of the cornet, Samuel Clapp, son of Deacon Thomas, Joseph Otis, the third male heir of the founder of this distinguished family of patriots, John Cush- ing, Jr., Thomas Turner, Nicholas Litchfield, Deacon James Torrey and Ann Vinal's grandson, the younger Ste- phen, upholding the family names and spirit in town and
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governmental affairs. Most unhappily the Hatherly name was not perpetuated, and the three sons of General Cudworth showed none of their father's aptitude for leadership in public affairs.
The descendants of the Pilgrims in the fourth generation who fought the Revolution were quite as devoted to prin- ciple and ready to make personal sacrifice for it, as were the forefathers themselves.
For nine years previous to 1774 the revenue laws enacted by the British Parliament had been especially vexatious to the people of Scituate. The town in those years was not the farming community that it is to-day. Shipyards dotted the banks of the North River. Two were at the Harbor. The iron mills or forges on Indian Head River and the three "Herring brooks" were turning out anchors, chains, nails and at "Kings forge," cannon. It was not alone "taxation without representation" that they denounced. They feared for their industries and commerce, which would be crippled, perhaps destroyed, and the consequences of the "importation of European commodities, which threaten the country with poverty and ruin." When the time for action came, they met it calmly and deliberately. There was no boisterousness, no rioting, no violence. There were a considerable number of known tories living in town. In the neighboring town of Braintree two hundred patriots seized the deputy sheriff, one Vinton i, took from him two processes bearing the royal seal, and burned them. In Scituate they treated the crown sympathizers differently. At a town meeting held :
"January 18, 1775. At the aforesaid meeting said town accepted & past the following Vote Respecting Two Refractory Shop- keepers in town viz :--
Scituate, January ye 18th, 1775. PUBLIC INFORMATION
That the Obstinancy of Two Refractory shopkeepers
Vinton Memorial, Pages 57-61.
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in this town may be justly cencered (if they be not too obscure) The Publick are hereby Informed, that on the ninth Instant the Committee of Inspection by Request of the Town waited on Charles Curtis & Frederic Henderson, shopkeepers, to know whether they Deter- mined to adhear to the continental 'Association, the former of whom rendered the following peremptory Answer: I shall not adhear to it !!! The latter as ye former, adding I don't know any Congress !!! whose ignorance is the more to be wondered at seeing he has been an Inhabitant of this Continent and Town since quitting his marine vocation.
Therefore the Inhabitants of this town do hereby Resolve to break of all dealings whatsoever with said Refractory Shopkeepers until they shall give publick and absolute satisfaction to the aforesaid Committee & Town touching their present open Refractoriness rel- ative to said Salutary Association, trusting in the meanwhile the Publick will condescend to trouble their memories with their names and characters.
Per Order of ye Committee of Inspection
& vote of ye Town
JOHN CUSHING, Jr.
Chairman of sd Committee and Clarck of sd Town" Thus early had the Irish Capt. Boycott implanted the moral weapon which bears his name on the shores of New England. Thus also did conservative, yet none the less earnest, Scituate use sarcasm and ostracism where Boston and Braintree took recourse to violence and threats. But to go back for a year. The first official action taken by the town was at an annual meeting held on the twenty-first day of March 1774. 1
"The town chose Nathan Cushing, Esq., Dr. Ephraim Otis, Nath'1 Clap, Esq., Dea. William Turner, Jas. Otis, Israel Vinal, Jr., Galen Clap, Joseph Tolman, Barnabas Little, Anthony Waterman and John Clap,
+ Scituate Records Vol. VIII page 46.
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Jr., a committee to draw up something if they thought proper for the town to come into, touching the diffi- culties of the present times and to present the same to the town at the next May meeting."
The report of this committee drafted by Nathan Cushing, its Chairman, who with Gideon Vinal, was also the Repre- sentative to the General Court was unanimously adopted :-
"That although we join with most of our brethren in this and ye other Colonies sentimentally, that those acts of ye British Parliament which have a tendency to control our internal commerce and manufactures, and more especially to extort our monies from us, are not only disconsonant with good and lawful govern- ment; but entirely subservise of those precious rights and privileges our fathers purchased with blood, and handed down to their children by ye sword; and al- though doubtless our brethren and neighbors rationally expect that we join them in common form, in this com- mon cause :- Nevertheless, as this is the truly alarming crisis, when the shackles of slavery and oppression (long preparing) are already fixed on the ankles of some of our neighbors in particular and fixing in the ankles of all in general-
Therefore, we think it meet not to color so much of the proceedings relative to the establishing of a late Act, as rashly and precipitously to determine, without deliberate inquiry and calmness.
And therefore, advise and move that a committee be appointed to make all suitable inquiry into our public disturbances and difficulties and lay their counsels, determinations and results before the town when and so often as they shall think necessary by applying to the Selectmen to warn a meeting for the purpose."
In the above, the characteristic caution of the early set- tler, a prominent and valuable hereditament in his progeny, is prominent. Nathan Cushing, who was its author and one of the leading spirits in its adoption, was no less patriotic
The Ind Stack
- North Scolaire Mens.
"THE TWO STACK," NORTH SCITUATE, MASS. From a pencil drawing by Henry T. Bailey. Built by Barnabas Little.
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because of that caution than was John Adams, the second President, who on like occasion prepared the following and reported it to his townsmen of Braintree who "accepted (it) without a dissenting voice."
"We further Recommend the most clear and explicit assertion and vindication of your Rights and Liberties to be entered on the public records, that the world may know in the present and all future generations, that we have a clear knowledge and just sense of those Rights and Liberties and that with submission to Divine Prov- idence we never can be slaves."
There are interesting coincidences in the lives of these two men at this period. Both were graduates of Harvard College and both lawyers. They were of about the same age when they promulgated the revolutionary resolutions to their respective towns, each was a patriot of the purest type, and both performed distinguished service when the result of their labors was reached in' the formation of the Union.
In this year Barnabas Little was sent as a delegate to the Provincial Congress at Concord and was likewise returned the next year with Nathan Cushing to the same body when it convened at Cambridge on the first of February 1775.
Although the town, heeding the advice of Nathan Cush- ing and his associates, did not act rashly and precipitately, when it did move, the action was comprehensive and thor- ough. Early in 1775 it saw both need and occasion for some form of protection against the Tories who were within its limits. They did not so much fear physical violence from these pro-British sympathizers, as that information might be sent to Boston of the vulnerability of the town. The coast line was unprotected save for the guard at three "watch boxes," one each at the Glades, Mann Hill and the Third Cliff. These were in charge of Paul Bailey and Barnabas Little at the Glades, Eleazer Litchfield at Mann Hill and James Briggs, Jr., at the Third Cliff. Of course such slender protection against landing a force from the
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British fleet which was then at anchor before Boston and from which expeditions had already been sent up the Fore River, alarming Weymouth, and threatening the north precinct of Braintree, was grossly inadequate. It was time therefore for committees of inspection and correspon- dence. Most of the towns hereabouts had already organized similar bodies following the removal of the sessions of the General Court from Boston to Salem by order of General Gage. In making up these important committees the town engaged its best citizens. John Cushing, Jr., grandson of the first settler, and father of William, who was then a member of the Superior Court of the Province; his cousin, Nathan, Joseph's son, who was already at the forefront fomenting revolution : Barnabas Little, the Representative to the General Court who had gone into secret caucus with his fellow legislators, planning for the Continental Congress which was soon to meet at Philadelphia : Israel Vinal, Jr., who had married into the Cushing family; Joseph Tolman, then but twenty-five years of age, and his father-in-law Abiel Turner; William Turner, later an officer in the Revo- lutionary army; the two brothers, Anthony and Nathaniel Waterman, who had but recently come from Marshfield; the two Clapps, Galen and Increase; John Palmer from Church Hill; Noah Otis, related by blood and in the cause of freedom to that provincial Advocate General who resigned his office rather than support an application for the Writs of Assistance; Deacon Joseph Bailey and Eli Curtis. These gentlemen with Charles Turner, Joseph Stetson, Samuel Clapp, Barnabas Barker, James Otis, George Morton, Igna- tius Otis, Deacon Thomas Mann, Samuel Jenkins, Paul Bailey, Calvin Peirce, Amasa Bailey, Constant Clapp, John Jacobs and James Briggs, Jr., constituted the Committee of Inspection. At the time of its appointment the town pro- vided for its organization and that "any seven of ye above Committee to be a Coram." It was two years after its appointment that a "coram" of the whole committee be- came active in the performance of the duty for which it had
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been created. Here again is evidence of the caution, not to say tardiness, with which the town acted in important affairs. Considering that in 1775 everybody in Scituate knew everybody else, two years seems to have been sufficient time in which to learn the names of those who were "inimicall to the interests of the colony." Yet it was not until June 3, 1777 that the committee reported that action should be taken, and "the town chose Capt. Israel Vinal to prosecute and lay before the court," the evidence of the hos- tile disposition toward this or any of the United States, of any of the inhabitants of the town of Scituate, who stand charged with being persons whose residence in the state is dangerous to publick peace and safety." Twenty-four per- sons were so charged. Frederick Henderson, who two years before had been boycotted, was still under suspicion and he with Elijah Curtis, Benjamin James, Job Otis, James Curtis, David Little, Jr., Benjamin Jacobs, Ebenezer Stet- son, Benjamin James, Jr., Elisha Turner, David Otis, Prince Otis, Joseph Turner, Jonathan Fish, the two doctors Stock- bridge, Benjamin and Charles, father and son, William Hoskins, John Stetson, William Cole, Samuel Stetson, Elisha and Joseph Jacobs, Joseph Hayden and young Jona- than Fish were given "liberty to be heard at this present town meeting or at any other day, that their names may be erased on giving satisfaction." Henderson, who was a retired officer of the British navy, living here upon a small pension, soon satisfied the authorities that his physical condition would not permit his going into active service, and upon his promise to take no part and behave himself, his name was erased from the list. Others, it subsequently appeared, had been erroneously suspected, so that in a fort- night only Job Otis, Benjamin and Joseph Jacobs, Elisha Turner, John Stetson, Elijah and James Curtis and Joseph Hayden remained. The two last named with Charles Curtis, the refractory shopkeeper had, it was believed, joined with the tories of Marshfield of whom there were many, in peti- tioning Gen. Gage to send the Queen's guards to that town
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for the protection of its loyal inhabitants. This action had been firmly protested by the Selectmen of Plymouth, Scit- uate, Duxbury, Kingston, Hanson and Pembroke in a letter to that British officer "assuring him that there was no truth in the statements of those of Marshfield and Scituate, who declared that this was necessary to protect them from the exasperated fury of the whigs." f The troops were sent however and the Provincial Congress then in session at Cambridge, taking recognition of this protest, voted "that these towns are highly approved of in finding out the mali- cious designs of their enemies in requesting Gen. Gage to station there a body of troops; and that they do steadily per- severe in the same line of conduct, which has in this instance so justly entitled them to the esteem of their fellow- countrymen; and to keep a watchful eye upon the behavior of those who are aiming at the destruction of our liberties."
Public spirit and loyalty ran high and in brilliant contrast to the attitude toward the war, later on, when Scituate in common with many other towns in Massachusetts, was forced to offer larger bounties to fill its quota for even short terms of enlistment. At a town meeting on January eighteenth 1775 it was voted to refuse a bounty proposed by the Provincial Congress. At another held in May, the Committee of safety suggested that Capt. Noah Otis be paid for keeping guard day and night at the watch boxes. This was very promptly voted down when the men who have been hereinbefore mentioned, immediately volunteered for that service without charge. The Selectmen were in- structed to see that the town was provided with "warlike stores." The inhabitants were "recommended" to bring "their firearms and accoutrements to meeting with them on the Sabbath" as the forefathers had done before them. Hawkes Cushing, Nathan Cushing, John, Increase and Galen Clapp, Nathaniel Turner and Isaac Stetson were appointed a committee for "drafting and enlisting minnit
¡ Winsor, History of Duxbury page 127.
.
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men." There was no necessity for the draft however, if the town in making this appointment, meant by the use of the word, to force service in the Continental cause. That the ranks of the Minute Men were soon full is evidenced by entries like this :- "March 6, 1775, James Cudworth and Daniel Litchfield excused from serving as warden because he was a Minuteman."
Thus matters continued with an interest very active and alive. It was not confined to the men. The wives and mothers, beside the necessity of guarding the family econ- omy, were now called upon to assist in making thirteen thousand coats-one for each officer and soldier in the Massachusetts forces called out by the third Provincial Congress which assembled at Watertown. Of this number Scituate furnished one hundred and twenty-five.
It is not, of course, the purpose of this history to follow the course of the Revolution. Only as it bears the familiar names of those by whom this town is peopled, and records some act of worthy bravery or devotion by one of them, has the record an appropriate place in these pages.
The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had been fought. The Scituate companies were in camp near the Second Meeting house awaiting the call to join General Sullivan in the campaign in Rhode Island. The Continen- tal Congress in session at Philadelphia was deliberating upon the affairs of the thirteen struggling colonies and time was ripe for independence. Nathan Cushing was Representa- tive of the town in the "General Assembly." Determina- tion and action had now succeeded caution and the town on June seventh 1776 in meeting assembled gave the following instructions to its representative in the legislature upon the declaration of that independence which all now prayerfully; sought. The draft was that of William Cushing then a judge of the Superior Court.
"The inhabitants of the town being called together on the recommendation of our General Assembly to sig- nify our minds on the great point of Independence of
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Great Britain think fit to instruct you on that head. The ministry of that kingdom having formed a design of subject- ing the colonies to a distant, external and absolute power in all cases whatsoever wherein the colonies have not, nor in the nature of things can have, any share by representation, have for a course of years past exerted their utmost act and en- deavors to put the same plan,-so destructive to both coun- tries-into execution. But finding it, through the noble and virtuous opposition of the sons of freedom, impracticable by means of mere political artifice and corruption, they have at length had a final recourse to a standing army, so repug- nant to the nature of a free government, to fire and sword, to bloodshed and devastation, calling in the aid of foreign troops, being determined, as well as endeavoring, to stir up ye savages of the wilderness to exercise their barbarities upon us and by all appearances, if practical, to extirpate the American from the face of the earth, (unless they tamely resign the rights of humanity) and repeople this once happy country with the ready sons of vassalage if such can be found.
We, therefore, apprehending such a subjection utterly inconsistent 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 deter- mination to assist with our lives and fortunes in support of that-we apprehend-necessary measure.
Touching other matters, we trust in your fidelity, discre- tion and zeal for the public welfare, to propose and forward all such measures as you shall apprehend may tend to our necessary defence in the present threatening aspect of affairs, or to the promoting of the internal peace, order and good government of this colony."
Following promulgation of this, its own declaration of independence, on October fourteenth the town voted as follows, upon the question of adopting a state constitution :
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"Agreeable to a Resolve of the General Court, said town voted that they give their consent that the present House of Representatives of the state of ye Massachu- setts Bay, together with the Council, if they consent in one body with the House and by equal voice, should propose and agree on such a constitution and form of government for this state, as the House and Council aforesaid, on the fullest and most mature deliberations shall judge will most conduce to the safety, peace and happiness of this state; and then be submitted to the people at large for their ratification and promulgation or disapprobation."
The committee which drafted and proposed this vote to the town consisted of Elisha Tolman, Nathaniel Waterman, Increase Clapp, Barnabas Little, Israel Sylvester, Daniel Damon, Israel Litchfield, Elisha James and Deacon Joseph Bailey. This committee was a most important one; it had to deal with a weighty and serious occasion. That the towns of Massachusetts were by no means unanimous in their opinions upon the advisability of the proposed move is evident from the great variety of returns made to the Secretary of State in response to the request in the Resolve for that action. f The Scituate attitude was thoroughly and characteristically cautious. While the neighboring towns of Duxbury and Weymouth voted unanimously against the action proposed; Middleborough for a caucas or convention; Hingham for publication first; Bridgewater and Pembroke for the resolve as it stood, it remained for Scituate to suggest that the people alone and not their representatives should ratify or disapprove it, once it had been enacted by the legislative department. It is not claimed for the mem- bers of the Scituate committee that the procedure outlined in the above vote originated in its entirety with them.
¡ Mass. Archives Vol. 156. The vote from many towns includ- ing Plymouth, Braintree, Abington and others in the old colony is missing. That of Scituate is found only in the Town Records Vol. VIII.
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Attention is now called to it for the purpose of again accen- tuating the deliberation and wisdom, inherited from the forefathers, shown by subsequent generations in Scituate, in dealing with public questions of grave concern, in which the rights of the individual were at stake. Braintree, its neighbor, the home of John Adams, through its committee, composed of one general, two colonels, two majors, one captain, one lieutenant, two deacons and a judge i, did not approve of the proposed constitution drafted by their own great townsman, without "some alteration and amendment." Scituate, not only sanctioned it, save as to the first and eleventh articles # but pointed out a method for its adoption which was followed. The satisfaction properly derivable from this commendable achievement by a committee of men of limited education is great. It gives an analytical retro- spection of their work, an appropriate place in these pages.
Meantime the town was doing its duty toward the pro- vincial government and its own troops in the field. In 1776 and 1777 it economically refused to appropriate any money for the highways, granted a bounty of "40s per month to a man, as additional encouragement to the Continental pay" and gave "20s. each as 1/2 month advance pay." Benjamin Hatch, Sr., and Benjamin Hatch, Jr., were added to the Committee of correspondence from the "Two Miles" in order that that neighborhood might be represented. William Turner had resigned his position on the Committee of Correspondence, had taken command of the troops which during the first winter had been quartered at the Harbor, and later had come out of the service a colonel. The Jacobs family at Assinippi, among whose members in the year 1774 had been found some tories, had furnished its son John, whose services were rewarded with the title of Colonel and Joshua, a Captain. Major John Clapp, a veteran of the French and Indian war, was also a colonel in the Revolu- tion. Nathaniel Winslow of Scituate, unlike his namesake and relative, Edward, who was warming his tory shins
+ Adams-Three Episodes of Mass. History Vol. II page 891.
# On the Judiciary and House of Representatives.
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before the open fire in the family hearthstone at Marshfield, went heartily and cheerfully into the toils and dangers of the southern expedition, leaving his wife, four small boys and little Anna, just born, to be watched over by the willing women folks at home. He returned a major. If old Hum- phrey Turner could have arisen from his grave on Meeting House Hill, he would have seen two of his name and family, Jonathan and Amos, both captains, leading commands in the fight for freedom and the right, as he himself had done one hundred and forty years before. Captain Williams Barker too, the successor of fighting John Williams in the ownership of the farm at Cedar Point, was early in the field with thirty-eight of Scituate's citizen soldiery, under Sul- livan in the Rhode Island campaign. Capt. Peter Sears, who had recently come from Halifax, Lieut. Edward Damon and Deacon Elisha James, the latter approaching seventy years of age, were in the engineering corps, or "Mechanicks" as they were called, and Dr. Lemuel Cushing, the brother of Nathan, was surgeon in the third regiment. Nor were the private soldiers less representative of the fair name and good fame of the ancient town. There were John Whit- comb, the great-great grandson of brave Mary Cudworth; Stephen Vinal, the fourth of his name; William and Amasa Hyland, whose ancestor Samuel died fighting in Phillip's bloody war; Jesse Dunbar, a boy in his teens, Elisha Briggs and Daniel Merritt. To single out any of these for par- ticular and meritorious comment is unworthy. Each served the Commonwealth and confederation earnestly and well in the place assigned to him. His best monument is the position which his name bears on the rolls of combatants in that successful but disheartening struggle. The pages of this volume have been written to some purpose if for no other, than to assist in perpetuating this list in full.
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