USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > The history of Concord, Massachusetts > Part 6
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It is needless to say that town meeting had made us hungry, and for a half hour we showed our appreciation of this simple farm fare.
Supper over, the food that remained was removed to the buttery in a "varder," a utensil made for the purpose, and the dishes after being washed were placed in the "dresser," a triangular shaped closet in one corner of the room.
The kitchen work being completed a trundle bed was drawn out from under the high bed for little Cerinthy and Charity : and then Goody Wheeler joined her husband and myself who were sitting by the fireside.
Hardly were we fairly seated and engaged in conversation concerning Timothy's crops, and methods of husbandry, when here was a pull at the latch string, and in walked
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Goodman John Scotchford, whom we met at town meeting, and who had come over with his wife Susanna for an even- ings talk. Their arrival was timely, for we had ascertained in a conversation held with him at the meeting house that he was of the company that arrived at Concord the first fall, and was therefore conversant with the settlers' earliest experience the first year, and also knew something of their antecedents in England; some of which things we could hardly have expected to ascertain from Timothy Wheeler, since he did not join the Concord colony until 1639.
It was not long before we were conversing on these sub- jects, and soon obtained facts which taken in conjunction with what the sparks had deposed in other places led us to infer that the Concord grantees, whether of the company first arriving or those who soon followed, were mostly Englishmen, and that they came to America not as worldly minded adventurers but rather as sturdy Puritans ; so that it is by no false nomenclature that we speak of the Puritan pilgrims of Concord, and assert that their early homes by the Musketequid were in every sense shrines of the truth, where liberty loving devotees burned incense. That these pilgrims founded the township at a sacrifice can scarcely be doubted ; for was it not that which John Scotchford told us? and did not the sparks snap vigorously and even the cob irons suddenly redden with an additional glow as he described his home beyond seas ?
Most surely, there could be no mistaking on this point; for, although the wind blew bleakly outside and occasionally crept down the chimney with a melancholy wail, giving an unwonted brightness to the back log, yet not half so bright was it as the picture given by him of his far, English birth- place. But the more pathetic part of his narration was that relating to his leaving home; and here he became agitated and appeared to live again that part of his life which he thought the saddest. He spoke of the prayers and the parting at his parents' threshold, and the words of blessing at the garden gate.
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At this point in the narrative the sparks stopped snap- ping and the coals were fast fading into an ashen hue, giv- ing the room a sombre appearance; moreover, John acted as if he did not care to talk further, but sat silently gazing upon the changeful embers as though he saw images in them ; while Susanna sighed heavily like one thinking of things far distant. Presently, Timothy Wheeler arose and threw upon the fire a few chips, whereupon John began slowly pacing the room.
As for ourselves we did not care to say anything. It was a time for thought. The facts stated had been impres- sive, and John's manner was so demonstrative that it needed nothing farther from any one to convince us of the cause of the Puritans' exodus to America ; and that the inhabitants in the lone hamlet at Concord became pilgrims for things not of earth. Moreover, the spell that had over- taken John was upon us also; we saw spectres in the air and weird pictures. Sprites danced down the great chim- ney flue and perched on the sooty lug bar; the candle flared ; its spent wick sputtered and the last spark ceased to twinkle; the back log broke and half buried itself in the ashes ; and it was twice night in Timothy Wheeler's domi- cile,- the night of nature and the night of the past. Meekly bowing to the inevitable, as we always mean to, we immediately mused on the apostrophe of the poet Lowell to the great monarch whose realm we had invaded :
"O realm of silence and of swart eclipse, The shapes that haunt thy gloom Make signs to us and move thy withered lips Across the gulf of doom ; Yet all their sound and motion Bring no more freight to us than wraiths of ships On the mirage's ocean."
The silence had continued till it began to be quite un- comfortable, when the chips last thrown upon the coals became suddenly ignited, and as the flames roared up the chimney the sprites followed them, and when the hinder-
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most leaped over the lug stick there was a sharp whine from the dog Towser as if making sympathetic response to the sad narration.
The noise of Towser awoke Charity and little Cerinthy, whose deep and peaceful breathing had been one of the pleasant features of the evening. As Cerinthy climbed out of the trundle bed and ran to Goody Wheeler, saying she was lonesome, it occurred to us to inquire some- thing about child life in the earlier days of the Concord colony. This we did, and learned among other things that some of the settlers who arrived early brought with them several children, and that the families were generally large, as the Hartwells, Willards and some of the Wheelers, although this was not the case with our friend Timothy, for we had ascertained in the course of our conversation that Cerinthy and Charity were not their own children, but they had taken them into their home from a household that was somewhat straightened in means.
As the subject of child life was being discussed we noticed that the ears of little Charity were evidently open to all that was being said, and thought it might be in poor taste to continue our interrogatories farther concerning this mat- ter. We were not compelled, however, to leave the topic here, for no sooner had our talk upon it ceased, than Tim- othy took from the wood box and threw against the chim- ney back a handful of pine cones, which he informed us the children had gathered in the warm fall days for winter kindling. Immediately, these inflammable objects became ablaze, and as they crackled the sparks snapped and struck out until all moved back from the hearth's edge lest they be burned by them.
CHAPTER VIII.
Continued Account of Colonial Child Life - Synop- sis of Events the First Year at the Musketequid Settlement - Purchase of Territory from the Indians - Plan of the Township - Names of the Original Grantees - Description of the Journey from Watertown to Concord.
H ERE was an opportunity, for not only were we in the way to get at the indoor experience of the children, but also to know something of their prat- tle and play and their little duties outside; so while the rest were talking together about an expected visit from Parson Bulkeley to catechise their households, we sat quietly listening as the sparks spoke, and the following is what we learned.
Before the birth of a child preparation was made for a jubilee dinner or supper to be held a few weeks after the child was born, at which the nurse and others were invited, and what was called "grooming" beer and "grooming" cake were prepared for this occasion weeks beforehand. On the Sunday next after the birth the babe was taken to the meeting house for baptism, and it mattered not about the weather, for the "chrisom" child was to undergo the rite even if ice had to be broken in the "christening bowl."
It was usually carried in the arms of the midwife and was attired in a "bearing cloth" or "christening blanket" made of linen and woven by hand, and when at the altar it was placed in the arms of the father.
The little children in early times were usually clothed with the best the householder could afford. An important article of dress for church service, whether in summer or
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BY PERMISSION OF FOSTER BROS.
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winter, was a low necked and short sleeved shirt, and its head was covered with a "bigger" or cap.
The first time a babe was moved from the room it was carried upstairs with silver or gold in its hand to bring wealth and to cause it always to rise in the world. It also had scarlet laid upon its head to keep it from harm. Among the prescriptions for children's ailments was "snail- water"; a concoction of garden snails, earth worms, rue, agrimony, barberry bark, bear's foot, and betony. The snails were to be washed in small beer and bruised in a stone mortar and then mixed with the crushed earth worms. To facilitate teething, babes sometimes wore anodyne neck- laces ; and one old writer recommends for teething, milk pottage, "flummery," and warm beer. The children were early sent to what were called "Dame schools," where they were taught among other rudiments of knowledge, to sew, knit, spin, and weave.
The "boughten" luxuries of the boys and girls were not many nor great. We hear of "lemon pil candy," and "angelica candy," and "carraway comfits"; but confections were probably only the things of an occasional holiday, and even then not to be practically thought of by the average child. Amusements of an intellectual nature were quite as few, there being little perhaps of an amusing character until the appearance of the "Mother Goose Melodies."
Some of the books of the period are the following :- the titles of which we conclude could not have been very attrac- tive, notwithstanding Cotton Mather said in his election sermon before the governor and council in 1685, "The youth of this country are verrie sharp and early ripe in their capacities."-"A Looking Glass for Children," "The Life of Mary Paddock, Who Died at the Age of Nine," "A Particular Account of Some Extraordinary Pious Motions and Devout Exercises Observed of Late in Many Children of Siberia."
But notwithstanding the paucity of amusements and gala days caused by the severity of the times, child nature would
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assert itself and mirth and merry making could not be sup- pressed. It found expression at the corn huskings, apple bees, and quiltings, and whenever the older folks gathered of an evening in a neighborly way the children were pre- sent, and seated on stools in the back part of the room, listened to stories of forest adventure and village gossip, and shared with their elders the pop-corn, apples and cider, or cracked nuts all by themselves near the oven's mouth, while they may have made many an innocent caricature of some quaint individual. Even in their work they found play. If they kept the blackbirds from the corn there was many a skip, and jump, and gleeful halloo. If they drove afield the herds and flocks there was the bird's nest that they visited and the brook in which they waded or swam. If they went on errands there were the berries by the way- side, and the squirrel, woodchuck and coons. They had access to the purple wild grapes, and the brown nuts of the woods. The field flowers they could see at their best, and they had an appetite for anything eatable. With such pleasures they were satisfied.
"Learn to Obey" and little "Hate-evil" could frolic and romp as much as they pleased when sent to the "close" to call the men folks, and nothing could prevent Welcome Wheat from waiting at the bar-way before dropping the rails until she heard the familiar co, co, co, from Mindwell Dean, as he coaxed his herd from an adjacent pasture in order to drive their droves home together.
In these homes the families were usually large, and there was the companionship of near ages, and the crude play- things served as did the same cradle for each new comer. It mattered not if Helpful Hunt and prattling Patience Potter, and the twins, Thomas and Haggai Hayward, could not go with a "ha-penny" to Robert Meriam's grocery for a "carraway comfit" or a stick of "angelica candy," for their happiness did not depend on these things. More- over, their mothers made marmalade, and "quidonies," and "typocias," and sometimes when they had company there
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was the "sack posset" made of sack, ale, cream, and eggs, which even baby Jane sometimes sipped from the "pap spoon." There was the sweet "pumpkin bread" and the occasional sweet cake of "guinny wheat." Furthermore, at the "Dame schools" there was doubtless no little of fun, and of that merriment which school life always finds no matter how staid or strict the environment, and we may easily conjecture that at one of these early Concord kinder- gartens while Dame Dakin had stepped to the kitchen to get a noggin of hot "mumm" (a fat ale made of oat meal and malt) "to stay her stomach," Fidelity Flint and Honorbright Hartwell have crept to the "noon mark" to see how near it is to dinner time.
As it was getting late we concluded to retire, and upon making known our intention, Timothy Wheeler slipped from the candlestick the spent candle and placed it upon a saveall, saying, "It will more than last till you git to bed." He did not know, however, that to retire from the hearth side was not to retire to our couch, but that there was to be a review of what had been said by John Scotchford and a noting of it.
And now let us pause in our story and briefly consider some events that are matters of record, together with what may have been some of the scenes, incidents and processes in connection with the beginning of the settlement of Concord.
As has been stated, several families in the fall of 1635 went from Watertown to a spot by the Musketequid river to establish a township. The territory was purchased of the Indians and was surrounded on all sides by their land. A part of the price was paid in "wampum-peage, hatchets, Hows, knives, cotton cloth, and shirts." It is stated that an agreement to sell the land, or the actual sale of it, was made at the house of Rev. Peter Bulkeley.
The deed was early lost and never recovered, but there is ample evidence that it was duly executed and delivered. Tradition states that the bargain was made under an oak
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tree called Jethro's tree, and that the tree stood at a spot just in front of the site of the old Middlesex hotel at the southwesterly end of Concord square.
On Sept. 2, 1635, the tract was granted by the act of the Colonial Court, as was customary, and was to be, according to Governor Winthrop, "6 myles of land square." The name Concord may have been given it from the harmony early existing among the grantees. The deed of conveyance was probably signed by those who made the agreement to sell, among whom were the squaw Sachem, Tahattawan ; Muttanktuckes, Nimrod and others, accord- ing to various depositions, and we believe it not improbable that the others referred to were Kato, a former In- dian owner of the Sudbury plantation, Jehojakim, Majus, Musqua, some of the Speen family, Musquamog, Bohew, Boman, Nepanum, and Wenneto.
No plan of the territory acquired by the first purchase is known to have ever been made, but it is supposed that the township was surveyed and laid out by Major Simon Willard. It has been stated that the tract was to be three miles north, south, east and west, that the house lot of Rev. Peter Bulkeley was its geographical center, and that it included among its natural advantages six mill privileges, seven ponds and more than nine miles of river course.
Stone bounds were set at the corners of the township, and tradition has pointed out the place of some of them. In process of time other land acquisitions were added to the original grant, notably among which were Concord village (Acton), and the Blood farm (Carlisle).
The names of all the settlers who had reached the place of settlement by 1635 and 1636 is uncertain but a part of them are Rev. Peter Bulkeley, Elder John Jones, Hay- ward, Heald, Fletcher; William and Thomas .Bateman, Hosmer, Potter, Ball, Rice, Hartwell, Meriam, Judson, Griffin, George, Joseph and Obadiah Wheeler and John Scotchford. Peter Bulkeley came from Wodell, Bedford- shire county, England ; James Hosmer from Hockhurst
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in Kent, John Heald from Berwick in Northumberland, William Buttrick from Kingston on Thames in Surrey, John Ball from Wiltshire, and the Wheelers, according to tradition, from Wales.
The names of settlers who arrived at Concord between 1635-6 and 1640 are Thomas Flint from Matlock, Wil- liam Hunt from Yorkshire, Ephraim Thomas and Timothy Wheeler, whom tradition says came from Wales ; Thomas Brooks from London, Jonathan Mitchell from Yorkshire, Stow, Blood, Brown, Andrews, Atkinson, Barrett, Billings, Miles, Smeadley, Squire, Underwood, Burr, Draper, Far- well, Chandler, Gobble, Fox and probably Middlebrook, Odell and Fuller.
Some of the larger estates of these settlers are estimated as follows : Peter Bulkeley, £6000; Thomas Flint, £4000; William and Thomas Bateman, £348; George Hayward, £500; William Hunt, £596. James Blood and Thomas Stow were large real estate owners.
There is no evidence that these families lived together before their arrival in America ; neither have we any evi- dence that the settlement was planned in England.
The journey to the Musketequid country was doubtless an arduous one and attended with peril, as we may infer from the following account given by the writer Edward Johnson in his "Wonder working Providence of Zion's Saviour."
"Sometimes passing through the thickets, where their hands are forced to break way for their bodies' passage, and their feet clambering over the crossed trees, which when they missed they sink into an uncertain bottom in water, and wade up to their knees, tumbling sometimes higher and sometimes lower. Wearied with this toil, they at the end of this meet with scorching plains, yet not so plain but that the ragged bushes scratch their legs fouly, even to wearing their stockings to their bare skin in two or three hours. If they are not otherwise well defended with boots or buskins, their flesh will be torn, - some of them being
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forced to pass on without further provision, have had the blood trickle down at every step. And in time of summer, the sun cast such a reflecting heat from the sweet fern, whose scent is so very strong, that some herewith have been very near fainting, altho very able bodies to endure much travel. And this not to be indured for one day, but for many ; and verily did not the Lord encourage their natural parts with hopes of a new and strange discovery, expecting every hour to see some rare sight never seen before, they were not able to hold out and break through. After some days spent in search, toiling in the day- time, as formerly said, like true Jacob they rest them on the rocks where the night takes them. Their short repast is some small pittance of bread, if it holds out ; but as for drink they have plenty, the country being well watered in all places that are yet found out. Their further hardship is to travel, sometimes they know not whither, bewildered indeed without sight of sun, their compass miscarrying in crowding through the bushes. They sadly search up and down for a known way, the Indian paths being not above one foot broad, so that a man may travel many days and never find one. * : * This intricate work no whit daunted these resolved servants of Christ to go on with the work in hand, but lying in the open air while the watery clouds pour down all the night season, and sometimes the driving snow desolving on their backs, they keep their wet clothes warm with continued fire till the renewed morning gives fresh opportunity of further travel."
This account may perhaps relate to the journeys of var- ious companies who went at different seasons to the pro- posed new plantation, rather than to any one journey made by explorers or permanent settlers.
The language is strong and may have been designed to convey for substance a general instead of a detailed descrip- tion.
Captain Edward Johnson was one of the prominent founders of Woburn and a good man.
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He wrote about the settlement of other New England towns also; and doubtless obtained much of his informa- tion from conversations with their inhabitants.
The goods of the settlers were conveyed to Concord in teams which were impressed by order of the Colonial Court ; as indicated by the following record, dated Sept. 2, 1635:
"It is ordered that there shall be a Plantation at Mus- ketequid, and that there shall be six miles square to belong to it, and that the inhabitants thereof shall have three years immunities from all public charges except trainings. Fur- ther, that when any that shall plant there shall have occa- sion of carrying of goods thither, they shall repair to two of the next magistrates where the teams are, who shall have power for a year to press draughts at reasonable rates to be paid by the owners of the goods to transport their goods thither at seasonable times. And the name of the place is changed, and henceforth to be called Concord."
The preparation for the departure from Watertown into the wilderness was doubtless short ; for the settlers would have but few household articles to take with them ; but the scene at the departure was probably an interesting one. We may conjecture that foremost in the procession were several outriders, who were for watch and ward lest the train be attacked by hostile Indians, for as yet the settlers did not know the friendly character of the natives. Be- tween the wagons and the vanguard were, naturally, the cattle, sheep, goats and swine, upon whose safety so much depended. Lastly, and accompanied probably by some of the more lusty of the company as a rear guard, we may suppose rode reverentially and anxiously, Rev. Peter Bulkeley and Elder John Jones.
As there were no roads nor bridges, fording places were to be sought, for crossing the streams ; swamps were to be avoided by a circuitous path, and fodder for the animals was either to be carried or obtained from the tufts of wild wood grass or from occasional open spaces in the forest.
As more than one day was consumed in making the
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journey, at night everything was to be carefully guarded, and, let the weather be what it might, there was no shelter but an improvised one of tree branches or that of some projecting rock or friendly windfall.
No welcome of any kind awaited their arrival, but in- stead,
"Bleak Nature's desolation wraps them round, Eternal forests, and unyielding earth, And savage men, who through the thickets peer, With vengeful arrow."
The only sounds that greeted them were of the wilder- ness. The eagle screamed over the pines by the ridgeway, and from the vast meadow wastes came the deep booming of the lone bittern. Down the gentle defiles, which after a lapse of two centuries have become such pleasant places, danced the dim shadows of an early twilight, and long be- fore the day was done the wild beast began his nightly prowling with dismal cry and suspicious skulk.
But there are other things which may have lent their influence to make the arrival a forbidding one. There was in the nature of the Massachusetts Bay settlers an element of superstition which was easily aroused, and there were conditions in the country about Concord suited to call it forth to an unusual degree; ponds with lonely environ- ments, from which the loons wild and pathetic cry as it pealed over the woodland might be mistaken for the spirit of some unavenged victim of Indian hate; dark recesses by the meadow border, upon which the night bird de- scended with whistling wing, making sounds which to unac- customed ears might be mistaken for voices unearthly ; dark, evergreen groves by the hillside; tangled and vine webbed archways beneath which were the imprints of unknown animals, or of strange moccasined feet; fresh coals on abandoned hearthstones, suggestive of some one living, and perhaps somewhere listening and watching; all these things and others it may be of like nature awaited the settlers.
THE HOME OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
CHAPTER IX.
Character of the First Houses - Food, Clothing, Occupation - Preparations for Cold Weather - The Setting in of Winter - Trials and Amusements - The Coming of Spring - Scenes Along the Mus- ketequid.
T HE first work that presented itself was that of providing themselves shelter; in doing this they seized upon every advantage.
They laid out their stinted house lots at the foot of the ridgeway before spoken of, thinking, it may be that the bank to the northerly would prove a friendly wind break, and that the southerly slope would catch the slant beams of the winter's sun. But the expected advantage had its drawback, for old Boreas strode ruthlessly down the little "strate strete" and knocked loudly at their cabin doors, while the snow swept by his besom from the "great fields" above, fell unexpectedly over the bank, and only awaited the springtime to melt and flood their dwellings.
The first houses were thinly scattered from what is now Concord square to "Meriam's corner." They were con- structed by the driving or setting of upright stakes or logs at the foot of the hill, and the placing thereon of stringers or poles, which, resting on the sloping ground formed a roof admitting of a room beneath, by the removal of the earth. The roof poles were covered with sods, or brushwood thatched with grass. The fireplaces were against the bank; and for light, the door may have served a partial purpose, supplemented by one or two small apertures, closing with slides or filled with oiled paper. It is stated that these structures were only designed for a tem- porary purpose, and made to the end that when kindly
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