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 3
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"And Whereas the said Court of Magistrates in pursuance of said order having viewed and examined the Court Records concerning the said reserve and Grant, do therefore by these presents ratify establish and confirm the sd Grant to the now proprietors of sd lands who rightfully stand seized of and to the said in room and stead of the sd Mr. Shirley, Mr. Beacham and Mr. Andrews and Mr. Hatherly, either as heirs or assigns according to each proprietors interest just right and proportion to and in the same, with all and
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
singular the uplands marshes meadows swamps woods waters Rivers Brooks bays ponds coaves creeks &c being standing or growing in the said lands and prem- ises with the rights privileges and appurtences to the same belonging or in anywise appertaining.
"To have and to hold the said lands and premises with the appurtenances to the now true proprietors thereof deriving their title from the said Gentlemen, according to the said proprietors his respective interest in or unto the same and to the heirs and assigns of such proprietor or proprietors forever.
They and every of them yielding and paying to our Soveraigne Lord the King his heirs and successors, and to the President of the Honorable Council for New England such part of the gold and silver oar as shall from time to time be found in the said lands, as in and by our original charter or Patent is prescribed.
"In Testimony Whereof of the said Court of Mag- istrates, by verty of said power committed to them have ordered the Publique seal of this Colony to be affixed to these presents this fifth day of March Ano 1685-6."
CHAPTER III
INCORPORATION OF TOWN
I N 1623 the last of the so-called new comers arrived in the "goode shippe Anne." Among them were Anthony Annable and Nathaniel Tilden who were granted lands "towards the eele river" t in Plymouth. Each was admit- ted a freeman and within the next ten years had left these allotments to take up residences on the second and third cliffs here. During this decade they were joined from time to time by William Gilson, who brought with him the minor children of his sister-John and Hannah Damon,- Humphrey Turner, Henry Cobb, all of whom were "Free- man of the Incorporacon of Plymouth in New England," and Thomas Bird, Edward Foster, James Cudworth and Henry Rowley. Gilson was a member of the "counsell" or "assistant to the Govr." and all were well-to-do men of the colony as is shown by their "rating," or taxation for public use. # The locality had already received the name § of Scituate from the Indian "Satuit" or cold brook. Prior to 1634 they laid out Kent Street and erected houses on the westerly side of it. The street itself began at Satuit Brook and ran Southeasterly to the third cliff, upon which Gilson erected a grist mill two years later. Each houselot was eight rods wide upon the street and extended a quarter of a mile back into the woods. Edward Foster's was the
Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. XII, page 6.
tot cas Ibidem, Vol. 1, page 9.
"At a Generall Court held Jan. 1, 1633,-Acts 6. It. Anthony Annable chosen constable for the ward of Scituate, and to serve the King in that office for the space of one whole yeare & to enter upon the same with the Govr elect." Ibidem, Vol. I, page 21.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
most northerly; Gilson's adjoined it on the south; and next came that of Henry Rowley. Humphrey Turner owned the next lot, although the house which he built was under and to the east of Coleman's Hills and James Cudworth's was on the Driftway. The last house was that of Anthony An- nable. The meeting house had not been built at this time. Services were held at the house of James Cudworth which he describes in a letter i to his step-father as "but a mean one" and "the biggest." When it was erected a year or so later it stood upon "Meeting house lane," which ran at right angles with Kent Street, and bounded Annable's houselot on the south. The fort or "pallisadoes" was on the easterly side of Kent Street opposite the stile at the end of Greenfield lane and situated just north of the thirty foot way # to the creek which William Crocker sold to Nathaniel Tilden.
On September eighteenth 1634 Reverend John Lothrop with some thirty members of his congregation whom he had brought from Egerton in the County of Kent, arrived in Boston in the "Griffin." They immediately came to Scituate. Others joined them here § notably George Ken- nerick and George Lewis, who sought and obtained dismis- sal from the church at Plymouth "in case they join in a body at Scituate."
A farm of twenty acres was alloted to Mr. Lothrop at Colman's Hills adjoining Humphrey Turner's. John Hewes, Walter Woodworth, George Lewis, Richard Fox- well, Samuel Fuller, Barnard Lombard, Simon Hoyt and Isaac Chittenden each had lots equal in size to those of Foster, Gilson and the others, on Kent Street, and similar grants were made to William Hatch, Samuel Hinckley, Nathaniel Tilden, Isaac Stedman, George Kennerick,
fotoof con Post, page 251.
Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. XII (Deeds) page 104.
"At a Generall Court held Jan. 2nd, 1633, it was ordered 12. That whereas by indenture many are bound to give their servts land at the xpiracon of their terms, it is ordered, that they have it at Scituate, or some other convenient place, where it may be use-
ful." Ibidem Vol. I page 23.
MEMORIAL TO THE FIRST MINISTERS OF SCITUATE. Meetinghouse Lane Cemetery.
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INCORPORATION OF TOWN
Daniel Standlake and John and George Lewis, the last of whom for some reason, obtained two. The highways in addition to Kent Street were Meeting House Lane, and par- allel with it, Greenfield Lane. The "Driftway" extended around Colman's hills from Kent Street. The latter did not extend farther than its present junction with the road over the third cliff. The farm of Isaac Robinson who had sold one half of his land at Island Creek, Duxbury, for thirty dollars, and the houselot of John Handmer who af- terwards went to Green's Harbor, were around on the southerly side of Colman's hills near the New Harbor Marshes as that part of the North River which constitutes its present mouth, was called. Timothy Hatherly at this time had not built at Musquashcut Pond where he had his farm later, near the road which now appropriately bears his name.
This was the compact little settlement of twenty-seven householders who had gathered themselves and their families into a church and community. The next step was incorporation as a town. f At a general court held on the fourth and fifth days of October 1636 it was ordered "That the towne of Scituate be allowed (vizt, the purchasers and freemen) to dispose of the lands beyond the North River, except that wch was before disposed on to others. And also it be allowed them to make such orders in their town- ship for their convenient & comfortable living as they shall find necessary, provided they have, in case of justice, re- course unto Plymouth, as before."
Timothy Hatherly was already an Assistant and Hum- phrey Turner was constable, each chosen by the whole body
{ "At the first settlement of the Colony, towns consisted of clusters of inhabitants dwelling near each other, which, by the effect of legislative acts, designating them by name and conferring upon them the powers of managing their own prudential affairs, electing representatives and town officers, making by-laws and disposing subject to the paramount control of the Legislature, of unoccupied lands within their territory became in effect municipal or quasi corporations, without any formal act of incorporation." Gray, C. J. in Hill vs. Boston 122 Mass. Rep. page 349."
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
of the freemen of the colony to serve in their respective capacities. In the first year of the incorporation James Cudworth was chosen a constable and Gilson, Foster and Hatch members of the Grand Jury.
The municipal territory was soon found to be too small. Before the incorporation, there had been a suggestion that the land lying between the South River (in Marshfield) and the North River might be "more beneficiall" to Scit- uate than to Plymouth, and Governor Prence, William Collier, John Alden, Mr. Brown and John Howland had been authorized to allot it if they so found it. They did not; they reserved it; but the freemen of Scituate, especially Hatherly, Turner, Tilden, Cudworth, Gilson and Robinson who were among the best men in the colony, desired one of the banks of the North River upon which to enlarge. Hardly had they begun their corporate existence as a town when they set about the consummation of this wish. They addressed the government at Plymouth complaining that "the place is too straite for them, the lands adjacent being stony, and not convenient to plant upon." Upon these representations a court of Assistants held on the first day of January 1637 passed the following order :-
"Whereas certain freemen of Scituate, vizt Mr. Tymothy Hatherly, Mr. John Lothrop, William Gilson, Anthony An- nable, James Cudworth, Edward Foster, Henry Cobb, Isaack Robinson, George Kennerick, Henry Rowley, Samuell Fuller, John Cooper, Bernard Lumbard, George Lewis and Humphrey Turner, have complayned that they have such smale porportions of lands there alloted them that they can- not subsist upon them, the Court of Assistants have this day granted them all that upland & necke of land lying betweene the North & South Rivers, and all the meadow ground from the North River to the Beaver Pond, and all along by the North River side, and to hold the breadth from the South River trey, or passage, by a straight line to the North River, so far up into the land as it shall be marked and set forth unto them .. Always provided and upon condition that they
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INCORPORATION OF TOWN
make a towneship there & inhabit upon the said land, and that all differences betwixt them and Mr. Vassall or others of Scituate be composed & ended before the next Court, or if any doe then remayne, that they be referred to the con- sideration of the Governor & Assistants, that their removall from Scituate may be without offance. And also provided and upon condition that whereas a proportion of two or three hundred acres of the lands above said should have been granted to Mr· Vassall, upon condition he should have erected a ferry to transport men and cattell over the North River at these rates, vizt, for a man a penny, for a horse four pence, and for every beast four pence; and to make causes (causeways) or passages through the marshes on both sides the ferry both for man & beast to passe by, which he was willing to doe, and to answere all damages which might happen in default thereof; and the Court in their judgments did conceive it more expedient to prefer the necessities of a number before one private person. That the said freemen of Scituate above named do so erect a ferry over the North River, to transport men and beasts at the rates above said, and make such passages on both sides through the marshes to the ferry, & provide a sufficient man to attend the same, that may answere all damages which may happen through his neglect thereof, or else the graunt abovesaid to be voyde."
Vassall, in 1635 had lands granted to him on the North River for the purpose of a home and plantation. These he called "West Newland" and his residence, the house beautiful,-"Belle house." He was a learned man for the times and ambitious to become a landed proprietor and per- son of importance in the new colony. His neighbors evidently did not take him at his own valuation. The only public service which he performed among them was to "sett" bounds between disputing land owners and this, probably because he was a competent surveyor and possessed one of the few "instruments" in the colony. The great objection to him was apparently his endeavor to secure so
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
large a tract, containing so much valuable salt marsh, and bordering the river for himself.
The differences which existed between Mr. Vassall and his neighbors who thus took away from him "two or three hundred acres" began almost immediately upon his arrival here. Vassall had been one of the patentees of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and had been in Boston with Gov. Winthrop in 1630. He had returned to England but had come again in 1634 and located at Scituate. Edward Winslow wrote of him "he is a man never at rest, but when in the fire of contention" f and Governor Winthrop said he was "a man of busy and factious spirit #, always opposite to the civil governments of the country and the way of our churches." Deane, on the other hand, records that he united himself harmoniously with Mr. Lathrop's church and enjoyed that place until 1642 when President Chauncey came to be pastor. § Governor Hutchinson says of him:
"Mr. William Vassall, as well as his brother
Samuel Vassall, were gentlemen of good circumstances in England, but do not seem to have been fully of the same sentiment in matters of religion with the planters in general: and altho William came over with the first company (to Boston), yet he soon went back to Eng- land. He returned a few years after to New England and settled at Scituate in Plimouth Colony, not because they were reputed more rigid than the Massachusetts people. When Jamaica was taken by Cromwell, he laid the foundation of several fine estates there, enjoyed by his posterity to the present time. William Vassell as we have observed came over with the first patenties and was of the Assistants in 1630, but soon after returned to England, and in the year 1635 came back to New England and settled at Scituate in the Colony of New Plimouth. He was a gentleman of
Pamphlet entitled "New England's Salamander Discovered." II Winthrop 260.
Deane's History of Scituate page 367.
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INCORPORATION OF TOWN
a pleasant, affable disposition, but always opposite to the government both in Massachusetts and Plimouth. Scituate in Plimouth is contiguous to Hingham in Massachusetts, and Mr. Vassall had much influence in the latter colony as well as the former and had laid a scheme for petitions of such as were non freemen to the courts of both colonies and upon the petition being refused, to apply to the parliament pretending they were subjected to an arbitrary power, Extra-judicial proceedings, &c."
However correct this latter estimate of him may be it is true that he quarrelled violently with Chauncey over the question of baptism and caused a disruption in his congre- gation which was not healed until after Vassal's departure in 1646.
While it is true that both sides were capable of making a good fight and that the freemen won in the first encounter before the court, it is not clear that they lived up to the condition imposed upon the grant, -- that of maintaining a ferry. On April 2, 1638 Vassall obtained this order from the Court :-
"Two hundred acres of upland and a competency of meadow lands to be layed to that, are granted to Mr. William Vassall to keepe a ferry over the north river where the old indian ferry was, and to transport men & beasts at these rates vizt, for a man, 12 & for a beast 4 d, a horse and his rider 4 d and to make the way passable for man and beast through the marshes on both sides the river at his owne charges, and to keepe them in repaire from tyme to tyme & Captain Standish & Mr. Alden are appoynted to set the land forth to him." t Even assuming that Standish and Alden attended to this duty the land was not immediately given him. The Scituate freemen were still fractious.
1 Plymouth Colony Records Vol. I Page 82.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
They insisted that Vassall take the oath of "fidelitie," f which he did in the following February. This was supposed to settle the whole trouble. Bradford, Wins- low and Browne were appointed to view the "neck of land granted unto Mr. William Vassall & to set the same forth to him execept there be some such difficultie therein that will require the further consideration of the Court." # Finally, on the third day of June 1639 he was granted a "parcell of land to lye in forme of a long square" § containing, with the marsh, one hundred and fifty acres, which included his original Newlands.
The inhabitants of Scituate were also appeased. On November 30, 1640, at a sitting of the Court of Assistants it was enacted that:
"Whereas the inhabitants of the towne of Scituate are greatly straitened for lands and there is necessyty that they should be enlarged, and that at the North River, where they desire to have supply for their wants, there is five hundred acres and upwards granted already to divers persons of Plymouth and Duxburrow, the Court doth grant (that those persons to whome said lands are granted, having their several grants layd forth unto them) that the said inhabitants of Scituate shall have two miles ! in length from the end of the said graunts, up the said North River, and a mile in breadth (if it be there to be had when the foresaid graunts are layd forth) and if not then to abate of that proportion & Mr. Timothy Hatherly, Edward Foster & Humphrey Turner shall dispose the said lands to such persons of
Plymouth Colony Records Vol. 1, page 103.
+++cost Ibidem, page 120. Ibidem, page 124. In 1788 by mutual agreement between Scituate and Marsh- field this tract which was always called "The Two Miles" was re- leased to the latter town.
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INCORPORATION OF TOWN
Scituate as they shall think fitt to be supplyed." +
Through these orders all of the boundaries of the town became fixed and settled and were stated by the Court March 7, 1642 to be as follows :----
"It is ordered by the Court that the bounds of Scituate towneship, on the westerly side of the towne shall be up the Indian Head River, to the pond # which is the head of the said river and from thence to Accord Pond, and from thence to the sea by the lyne that is the bound betwixt Massachusetts & Plymouth." §
Its easterly boundary was the sea and its southerly boundary, the North River. T Thus we have a definition of the town boundaries, readily discernible to-day-Bound brook (so-called from the fact that it was the division line between the two provinces) on the North, the sea upon the east; North River and its headwaters, the Indian Head Riv- er to Indian Head Pond, upon the south, and a line drawn thence through Ford's Farms to Accord Pond at Hingham on the west. The towns of Pembroke, Hanover, Abington, Rockland and Norwell have all been taken either in whole or in part from this tract.
+ Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. I, Page 168.
į Indian Head Pond, now in Pembroke.
§ Plymouth Colony Records, Vol. II, Page 54. Ibidem, page 54. 1
..
CHAPTER IV
CONTROVERSY OVER TOWN LINES
T 'HE controversy which was going on for a half century between Hatherly and the Conihasset partners on the one side and the freemen of Scituate on the other, had its parallel in the contemporaneous dispute between the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay over the division line between the two governments. Beginning with 1637 dis- putes arose between the people of Hingham and Scituate over the meadows lying on either side of the Gulph. + It may be difficult at the present day to understand the wrangle over what would now appear to be a trifling lot of salt marsh; but it must be remembered that in the years of the early settlement of the colonies of Plymouth and Massachu- setts Bay, these meadows had a very material worth. The land occupied by the freemen was rocky; it was well wood- ed; acres of cleared and ploughed land were not abundant; William Gillson's single wind mill on the Third Cliff sufficed to grind all the indian corn that the planters raised; cattle were constantly being brought by each ship which came from England. The beeves readily ate the meadow grass, though salt, and the marshes upon which it grew had a dis- tinct value. On the Scituate side of "the Gulph" lay the greater expanse. The town very properly held that the Gulph was the natural boundary. Hingham upon the spec-
¡ Bound brook, following its bed, from Accord Pond to Bound Rock, (now marked by a bronze tablet near the Cohasset line,) empties into the marshes lying between Cohasset harbor and Musquashcut pond. The creek winding through these marshes through Brigg's Harbor or Musquashcut harbor, as it was called in 1637, to the harbor of "Little Hingham," was called the Gulph.
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CONTROVERSY OVER TOWN LINES
ious plea that Bound brook was in reality the Charles River spoken of by Captain John Smith in 1614, claimed that the patent line of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay lay south of it. They caused it to be surveyed, but finding that this assertion would lead them into the very egregious blunder of taking in the town of Scituate itself ("we x x X found it to come so far southward as would fetch in Scit- uate and more." ) they abandoned it before commis- sioners subsequently chosen. In 1637 four commissioners were named, two from each colony. Messrs. William Aspinwall and Joseph Andrews appeared on behalf of Massachusetts Bay and Timothy Hatherly and Nathaniel Tilden on the part of Plymouth. Not much in the way of pacification and agreement ought to have been expected from these gentlemen. Hatherly and Tilden not only lived near the disputed meadows, but the former laid claim indi- vidually to their ownership. Each was a determined, not to say pugnacious man, unused, especially when combated, to giving way to others. Andrews, for the other side was as interested as Hatherly and Tilden. He lived in Hingham, William Aspinwall was that unyielding deputy to the General Court from Boston who suffered expulsion there- from rather than desert his friend Wheelwright and acknowledge the promulgations of the Synod. + They met at Hingham and -- - disagreed.
1209744
The squabble was kept up. The authorities of Hingham undertook to "allote" certain of these meadows to their
Another plot the old serpent had against us, by sewing jeal- ousies and differences between us and our friends at Connecticut and Plimouth. This latter was about our bounds. They had planted Scituate, and had given out all the lands to Conyhasset. We desired only so much of the marshes there as might accommo- date Hingham, which being denied, we caused Charles River to be surveyed, and found it came so far southward as would fetch in. Scituate and more." I Winthrop 283.
į Three Episodes in Massachusetts History, Adams, Vol. I, pages 475 to 479.
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THE EARLY PLANTERS OF SCITUATE
own inhabitants. They measured and staked them out only to find these temporary monuments destroyed almost as soon as placed.
In 1640 the two governments again made an attempt to settle the dispute. John Endicott and Israel Stoughton, acting for Massachusetts Bay and William Bradford and Edward Winslow representing Plymouth Colony, were commisioned by the two jurisdictions to agree upon a set- tlement. The character of the men chosen to reach a satisfactory conclusion is the best evidence of the importance the quarrel had assumed in the opinion of the two govern- ments .. Endicott, enjoying at this time almost as great a popularity as Winthrop himself, domineering and insulting to those with whom, like Cotton, he disagreed, was calculat- ed to drive everything before him in reaching and securing his end. Stoughton, hero of the Pequot campaign and unrelenting magistrate, was expected to supplement the ef- forts of Endicott. Against these two were matched the patient and conciliatory Bradford, Governor at the time, and Winslow humane, just, kind, but apt to be impetuously outspoken. The occasion which brought these four strong men together is described by Bradford in his manuscript. f
"And this tracte (the Conihasset grant) extended to their utmoste limets that way, and bordered on their neighbors of ye Massachusetts, who had some years after seated a twone (called Hingham) on their lands next to these parts. So as now ther grue great dif- ferance between these 2 townships, about their grounds, and some meadow grounds that lay betweene them. They of Hingham presumed to allote parte of them to their people, and measure and stack them out. The other pulled up their stacks, and threw them. So it grew to a controversie between the 2 governments, and many letters and passages were betweene them aboute it; and it hunge some 2 years in suspense. The Courte of Massachusetts appointed some to range their line
¡ Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantations, page 439.
LINCOLN POND AND MILL, Lower Bound Brook, Mordecai Lincoln's "Mansion House" . is seen in the distance. From a painting by Walter Sargent.
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CONTROVERSY OVER TOWN LINES
according to ye bounds of their patente, and (as they wente to worke) they made it to take in all Sityate, and I know not how much more. Againe in ye other hand, according to ye line of ye patente of this place, f it would take in Highame and much more within their bounds. In ye end both Courts agreed to chose 2 commissioners of each side, and to give them full and absolute power to agree and setle ye bounds betwene them; and what they should do in ye case should stand irrevocably. One meeting they had at Hingam but could not conclude; for their commissioners # stoode stffly on a clawse in their graunte, That from Charles- river or any branch or part thereof, they were to ex- tend their limits, and 3 myles further to ye southward; or from ye most southward parte of ye Massachusetts Bay and 3 miles further. But they chose to stand on ye former termes, for they had found a smale river, or brooke rather, that a great way witn in land trended southward and issued into some part of yt river taken to be Charles-river, and from ye most southerly part of this, and 3 mile more southward of ye same, they would rune a line east to ye sea aboute 20 mile; which will say they take in a part of Plimouth itself; Now it is to be knowne yt though this patente and plantation § were much the ancienter, yet this inlarge- ment of ye same (in which Sityate stood) was granted after theirs, and so theirs were first to take place, before this inlargemente. Now their answer was, first, that, however according to their owne plan, they could noway come upon any part of their anciente grante. 2ly, they could never prove yt to be a parte of Charles- river, for they knew not which was Charles-river,
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