USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Melrose > The history of Melrose, County of Middlesex, Massachusetts > Part 2
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Again he says:
We found the people in those parts very kinde. but in their fury no lesse valiant ; for vpon a quarrell. we fought with forty or fifty of them, till they had spent all their Arrowes, and then we tooke six or seuen of their Canowes. which towards the euening they ransomed for Beuer skinnes.
Other navigators had visited our Massachusetts coast before this. In 1662, Bartholomew Gosnold came to Massachusetts Bay, entered Boston Harbor, and then landed on Cape Cod, which he named and explored. He afterwards made an at- tempt at a settlement on Elizabeth Island, now Cuttyhunk, but it was soon abandoned. Martin Pring, another English navigator, visited the New England coast in 1603, exploring many of its rivers and inlets. There is evidence that he visited the region of Plymouth, but none that he entered Boston Harbor. He landed on, and named the group of islands Martin's Vineyard, afterwards corrupted to Martha's Vineyard.
:
EARLY EXPLORATION.
After Pring's visit Samuel de Champlain entered Boston Harbor, in 1605, and anchored on the westerly side of Noddle's Island, now East Boston. He saw and entered Charles River, which he called River du Guast. As this expedition was so short a time in the harbor, probably no inland exploration was undertaken, but the shores and islands of the harbor were visited.
Still other navigators and explorers had been to our New England shores, landing on the islands, and travelling over the country surrounding Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay.
The first explorers of our continent were the Northmen. Leif Eriksen, in the year 1000, was the first European to travel the great mainland southwest of Greenland, and the first to ex- plore the territory of Massachusetts, which he called Vinland. The beautiful statue of this Northman, by Anne Whitney, on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, commemorates the discovery of the continent of America by this hardy race of explorers. And within a few years there has been discovered on the banks of the Charles River, what has been claimed to be " the site of Fort Norumbega, occupied for a time by the Bretons, some four hundred years ago, and as many years earlier still built and occupied as the seat of extensive fisheries, and a settle- ment by the Northmen."3
Massachusetts Bay had been visited by other explorers be- sides those already named, and previous to the year 1600; among them Gilbert, Raleigh, and Verrazano; the latter as early as 1524. From the topographical descriptions contained in a letter from Verrazano, dated July, 1524. it is seen that he sailed along the coast from North Carolina to the Penobscot River, in Maine, visiting many of the intervening harbors, and exploring the adjoining territory.4
And in the year 1542, the French explorer, Jean Alfonsce de Saintonge, was the first to explore in detail the shores of
" Horsford, The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega. Pub- lished in 1890, with numerous il- lustrations.
+ "From this harbour of refuge [Narragansett Bay] the worthy Florentine set sail on the sixth of
May [1524], passed to the south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. which he mistook for portions of the mainland, rounded Cape Cod. and went ashore probably some- where between Nahant and Cape Ann." Fiske. The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, i. 05-6.
1
HISTORY OF MELROSE.
Massachusetts Bay; then visiting the islands in Boston Harbor, and the adjoining territory.
But the more important explorations of the territory around Boston Harbor were made after 1600. After Gosnold, Pring, Champlain and Smith, came the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620.
In September, 1621, ten men, under the leadership of Captain Myles Standish, with Tisquantum, or Squanto, and two other Indians, left Plymouth on a voyage of discovery. They were gone four days. They landed, evidently, on the Malden shore of the Mystic River, and travelled up through Medford:
On the morrow we went ashore, all but two men, and marched in Armes vp in the Countrey. Hauing gone three myles, we came to a place where Corne had been gathered, a house pulled downe, and the people gone.5
They went as far as the residence of the former Chief Nanepashemet, parleyed and bartered with some Indians and returned to Plymouth, reporting the result of their observa- tions. Many other exploring expeditions were made by those ' who followed the Pilgrims to our shores.
These were engendered by the different grants made in England about this time. The territory of which Melrose forms a part, was granted to Robert Gorges by "The Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing of New England in America," of which the Earl of Warwick and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, father of Robert, were the most prominent members. This Council claimed authority "over the region extending from Delaware Bay to Newfoundland and westward over un- known countries to the great South Sea." This grant to Robert Gorges conveyed
all that part of the mainland commonly called Messachusiac, on the north-east side of the Bay known by the name of Massachuset, to- gether with all the shores along the sea for ten English miles in a strait line towards the north-east, and thirty miles into the mainland through all the breadth aforesaid.
5 Henry Martyn Dexter's edition of Mourt's Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth, 127. Edward Winslow was of the com-
pany and wrote the account of this expedition, above quoted, in his A Relation of Our Voyage to the Massachusetts.
5
EARLY EXPLORATION.
Soon after Robert granted to John Oldham and John Dorrell
all the lands wthin Mattachusetts Bay betweene Charles River and Abousett [Saugus] River, Containd in lengt by a streight lyne 5 myles vp the said Charles River into the maine land north west from the border of the sd Bay including all Creekes and points by the way and 3 myles in length from the mouth of the foresaid river of Abousett vp into the maine land vpon a streight lyne S: W: including all Creeks and points, and all the land in bredth and length betweene the fore- said Rivers, wth all prrogatives Ryall Mynes excepted.
March 4, 1628-9, a royal charter was issued to the "Governor and Company of the Mattachusetts Bay in New England, one body politique and corporate in deed, fact, and name."
Under the authority of the grant from the Council for New England, and while negotiations for the royal charter were in progress. John Endicott, a gentleman of Dorsetshire and one of the original grantees, sailed in the ship "Abigail," Gauden, master, from the little harbor of Weymouth, with a small company, and arrived at Naumkeag. Sep- tember 6, 1628. Others had preceded him and were seated along the shore from Cape Ann to Scituate. Among these were Roger Conant. Peter Palfrey, John Balch and John Woodbury at Naumkeag, the Mavericks at Noddle's Island and Winnisimmet, Thomas Walford at Mishawum, David Thompson at Neponset or Thompson's Island, William Blackstone at Shawmut, and John Bursley and William Jeffrey at Wessaguset. Some of these had been followers of Robert Gorges and had scattered in favorable trading places around the Bay; others were single adventurers or perhaps agents for those who claimed lands by former grants. Besides these "the mad Bacchanalian," Thomas Morton, was still at Merry-Mount, and a gathering of fishermen and traders had become a permanent settlement at Nantasket.6
The next year many other settlers came to Salem, among them Ralph, Richard and William Sprague, sons of Edward Sprague of Upway, in Dorsetshire. Soon after arriving, these brothers, with several others, with the approbation of Governor Endicott, went on an exploring expedition, in a westerly direction, traversing the intervening territory between Salem and Charlestown; thus passing through and examining on the way, portions of Lynn, Saugus, Melrose, Malden and Medford; fording three rivers, Saugus, Malden and Mystic, before reach- ing their destination, Mishawam, now Charlestown. Returning
6 Corey, History of Malden, 18, 19.
6
HISTORY OF MELROSE.
the Sprague brothers remained in Salem but a short time; for they soon after retraced their steps and settled in Charlestown, and were among those referred to in a letter written in 1629, by Rev. Francis Higginson.7
There are in all of vs both old and new planters about three hundred, whereof two hundred of them are settled in Neihumkek, now called Salem : and the rest have planted themselves at Masathulets Bay, beginning to build a towne there which wee doe call Cherton, or Charles Towne.8
As soon as Gov. John Winthrop arrived at Salem, June 12, 1630, other explorations into the interior began. Five days later, he says in his Journal:
We went to Mattachusetts to find out a place for our sitting down. We went up Mistick River about six miles.
After a few days more of observation, he writes to his son John, in England, under date of
CHARLTON. July 23, 1630.
For the country itself I can discern little difference between it and our own. We have had only two days, which I have observed more hot than in England. Here is as good land as I have seen there, but none so bad as there. Here is sweet air, fair rivers, and plenty of springs, and water better than in England. Here can be no want of anything to those who bring means to raise out of the earth and sea.9
Higginson seemed as well pleased with the air as was Winthrop, as is evidenced by the oft-used quotation from his New England's Plantation, "A sup of New England's aire is better than a whole draught of Old England's ale."
Other enthusiastic commendations were written to the home friends in England, by Hutchinson, Graves and others. Hig- ginson states that in one place might be seen "thousands of acres of ground as good as need to be and not a tree in the same."
The general appearance of the country was not entirely that of " an uncouth wilderness;" for a pleasant feature which struck the early
7 Further details concerning the Spragues and their history are given in the chapter, "Old Fami- lies and Homesteads."
* Higginson, in Force's Tracts, vol. i.
9 Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 43.
1
EARLY EXPLORATION.
comers was the extended and frequent areas of open lands around the margins of the marshes and meadows and upon the plains. - lands ready for the plough and tillage without much labor.10)
Thomas Graves wrote home to England:
It is very beautifull in open lands, mixed with goodly woods, and again open plaines, in some places five hundred acres, some places more. some lesse, not so much troublesome for to cleere for the plough to goe in. no place barren, but on the tops of the hils: the grasse and weedes grow up to a man's face, in the lowlands and by fresh rivers aboundance of grasse and large meddowes without any tree or shrubbe to hinder the sith.11
These open lands were accounted for by Thomos Morton as follows:
The Salvages are accustomed to set fire of the Country in all places where they come, and to burne it twize a yeare, viz: at the Spring, and the fall of the leafe. The reason that mooves them to doe so, is be- cause it would other wise be so overgrowne with underweedes that it would be all a coppice wood, and the people would not be able in any wise to passe through the Country out of a beaten path. And this custome of firing the Country is the meanes to make it passable : and by that meanes the trees growe here and there as in our parks: and makes the Country very beautifull and commodious. 12
There were many other descriptions of our New England territory sent home to England by these early adventurers, some of which seem to us of today somewhat overdrawn and too enthusiastic; but none of these writers were so thorough and enthusiastic as was William Wood, who, after his return to England in 1634, gives a complete and detailed history of this whole territory. His work was entitled, "New Englands Pros- pect. A true, lively, and experimentall description of that part of America, commonly called New England: discovering the state of that Countrie, both as it stands to our new-come English Planters ; and to the old Native Inhabitants. Laying downe that which may both enrich the knowledge of the mind-travelling Reader, or benefit the future Voyager."
The Hon. E. Moody Boynton published an exact reproduc- tion of this book in 1898, and in his introduction he says:
19 Corey, History of Malden, 21. 12 Morton, New English Candan,
11 Massachusetts, Historical Col- lections, i. 124.
52, 54.
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HISTORY OF MELROSE.
This book, rightly entitled The Prospects of New England, contains the first description of the prospects, surroundings. settlements and territory of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the period when its principal towns and cities were located. He remained four years, from 1629, to August 15th, 1633, when he sailed for London in the Hopewell.
In the second part of this work Wood gives a complete description of the Indian tribes then inhabiting this region. It has besides, the first map of "The South Part of New-Eng- land, as it is Planted this Yearc, 1634," wherein he locates the various rivers, settlements, etc. Herein is shown our "Spott pond," "Misticke pond," " Horn ponds," and others.
As Mr. Boynton says: "To those who highly regard the first steps in the founding of a great nation this little work is of rare value and historical interest."
The exaggerations of the first comers. with other causes, added to the tide of immigration. which was very much increased in 1630, and Cambridge, Boston. Dorchester, and other places received their first inhabitants. The disappointments and sufferings of those who were not well prepared to meet the hardships and dangers of a pioneer's life were, no doubt. as strongly set forth to their friends in England as had been the attractions and advantages of the country before. As a consequence, in part, immigration nearly ceased, and some returned to England. But after a year or two ship after ship continued to arrive in the harbors of Salem and Boston: and growing communities of sturdy Puritans attested at once the troubles which had befallen the mother land, and the permanence of the refuge which Providence had opened upon the bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay. A new empire had been founded; and upon a narrow strip of country, between unknown forests and the barren sands and sombre rocks of an unkind coast. a handful of earnest men and women, in the language of the time, " chosen vessels " and " precious seed." began to work out that problem of freedom which forecasts the coming Glory of the Ages. From the green lanes and ancient towns of Essex. full of the traditions and associations of a thousand years, to the tangled forests and the wild shores of a new world; from the old English homes to the land which God had prepared for the chosen seed whose fruitage was to be a great nation. - these are to us of the nineteenth century but the turning of a leaf; but to the men and women of 1628, a stormy waste of waters and many weeks of anxiety and distress, of weeping and praying. lay between the homes of their childhood and the unknown land where they were to watch and work and lay their bones to rest. 13
13 Corey, History of Malden, 28. 29.
EARLY EXPLORATION.
Two large and powerful tribes held sway in this region when our fathers landed. - the Massachusetts and the Pawtuckets. The re- nowned sachem of the Pawtuckets was Nanepashemit, who took up his abode on the Mystic River in 1615. and was killed there three or four years later. He was the father of Sagamore John of the Mystic. Sagamore James of Lynn, and Sagamore George of Salem. George finally filled the place of his father. and was sachem of the Pawtuckets. During the residence of Nanepashemit in Medford, his lodge was on Rock Hill, where he could best watch the approach of his enemies. The territory for many miles round Mystic River was owned and occupied by small tribes or detachments, each having its own head. Medford and some of the adjoining territory belonged to Sagamore John, whose Indian name was Monohagnaham, and who was friendly to our ancestors, and gave our fathers permission to settle. and after- wards apprised them of premeditated attacks by unfriendly Indians. 14
Sagamore John had his headquarters in Malden, his home being in the southern part of the town, now Everett, "upon a creek, which runs from the marshes between Powder - Horn Hill and Winnesimmet, into the Mystic River at Sweeetzer's, or Beacham's, Point." 15
14 Brooks, History of Medford, 91, 92.
15 This creek is now known as Island End River, or Chelsea Creek. The point has been known as Van Voorhis, and Wormwood. - some- times corrupted into Wormal's Point. For a complete history of the various tribes of Indians that were found in this region by the
early settlers, and the policy which governed those who "saw in the apparently aimless wanderings of the Indians no traces of that occu- pancy and subjugation of the earth which civilization has made a ne- cessity and the Scripture enjoins as a duty," see the History of Malden, Massachusetts, 1633-1785. by Delo- raine P. Corey, pp. 29-53, chapter. " Discoverers and Indians."
CHAPTER II.
TERRITORY.
MALDEN.
0 RIGINALLY the territory of Melrose belonged to the town of Charlestown, which was settled in 1629, and was a far more extensive region than that now belong- ing to it. It then included what is now Somerville, Malden, Everett, Woburn, Burlington, Melrose, Stoneham, a small part of Cambridge, West Cambridge and Reading, and a large part of Medford. Town after town was taken from it, grad- ually diminishing its territory until it became the smallest town, territorially, in the State. Woburn, comprising Bur- lington, was taken from it and incorporated in 1642; Mal- den, in 1649; Stoneham, in 1725; Somerville, in 1842. In 1717 and 1725, a large tract called " North Charlestown," was set off, part to Malden and part to Reading. In 1754, another tract, including several large farms, was set off to Medford, and now forms the eastern part of that city. A tract was set off to Cambridge in 1802, and to West Cam- bridge in 1842. Thus was Charlestown. now a district of Boston, reduced to its present limits.
Very early in the history of Charlestown, differences of opinion connected with the boundaries of the different towns arose, which necessitated a settlement by the General Court ; and at "A Court, holden att Boston," July 2, 1633, Mystic Side, or Mystic Field [ now Malden] was granted to Charles- town, it being then ordered
That the ground lyeing betwixte the North Ryvr [sometimes called " Three Myle Brooke," now Malden River] & the creeke on the north side of M' Mauacks, & soe vpp into the country, shall belonge to the inhabitants of Charlton.
As " vpp into the country " did not determine how far the line should go, another order passed "Att the Gen'all Court, holden att Newe Towne, March 3, 1635," was more definite:
11
TERRITORY.
Ordered, That Charles Towne bounds shall run eight myles into the country from their meeteing howse, if noe other bounds intercept. reserueing the pprietie of ffermes graunted to John Winthrop Esq., Mr Nowell, Mr Cradocke & Mr Wilson, to the owners thereof. as also ffree ingresse & egresse for the servis & cattell of the said gent. & comon for their cattell. on the backeside of Mr Cradocks fferme.
In 1836, a commission consisting of Abraham Palmer, Wil- liam Cheeseborough and William Spencer, decided and deter- mined the bounds as follows :
Agreed by vs, whose names are under written. that the bounds betweene Boston & Charles Towne. on the noreast syde of Misticke Ryver, shall run from the mked tree vpon the rocky hill above Rumney Marshe, neere the written tree nore-norewest vpon a straight lyne by a meridean compas vpp into the countrie.
Corey, in his History of Malden, in Samuel Adams Drake's History of Middlesex County, ISSo, says :
This line. running from near " Black Ann's Corner " in Linden, has never been changed, and is still the eastern limit of Malden and Melrose. The rocky hill, called in 1635 " a point of rock, on the side of the high way to Mistick," may still be recognized. and is a promi- nent feature in the landscape : but the "marked tree," an ancient pine, after having been a landmark more than a century, disappeared many years ago.
This boundary question is again referred to in the Charles- town records of 1638, as follows : "the Gen" Court had setled theire Bounds by granting eight miles from the old Meeting- house into the Contry Northwest Northrly."
A year later Charlestown received the following deed from the original owners.
Of this Indian deed of our territory given by Squaw Sachem and Webcowet, recorded in Middlesex County Deeds, i. 190, Corey, in his History of Malden, p. 34, says :
In 1639 the two signed a deed by which they conveyed to the inhabitants of Charlestown, with some reservations, all the lands which the Court had granted them, including the bounds of the present cities of Malden and Everett, and the town of Melrose. This document is of interest to us as being the first and only con- veyance of the aboriginal title in the territory which we occupy. The consideration, or " sattisfaction." proves how little the Indians valued their rights and how cheaply the settlers quieted their claims.
12
HISTORY OF MELROSE.
The 15th of the 2. mº 1639.
Wee Web Cowet & Squaw Sachem do sell vnto the Inhabitants of the Towne of Charlestowne, all the land with in the lines granted them by the Court (excepting the farmes and the ground, on the West of the two great Ponds called misticke ponds, from the South side of mr Nowells lott, neere the vppr end of the Ponds. vnto the little run- net that cometh from Capt Cookes mills which the Squaw reserveth to their vse, for her life. for the Indians to plant and hunt ypon, and the weare above the Ponds, they also reserve for the Indians to fish at whiles the Squaw liveth, and after the death of Squaw Sachem shee doth leave all her lands from mr Mayhues house [Cradock house on east bank of the Mystic River] to neere Salem to the present Gov- ernor. mr Jnº Winthrop Sent, mr Increase Nowell, mr Jnº Wilson, mr Edward Gibons to dispose of. and all Indians to depart, and for sattisfaction from Charlestowne, wee acknowledge to have received in full sattisfaction twenty and one coates ninten fathom of Wampon, & three bushels of corne. In witnes whereof we have here vnto sett or hands. the day and yeare above named.
the marke of SQUA SACHEM, mc the marke of WEB COWET.
Subscribed in the
prsence off
Jno HUMPHREY ROBERT FEAKE.
This is to testifie that the aforenamed purchase was made at the charges of the Inhabitants of Charlestowne. and to their vse. and for so much as lyeth with in their limitts, we do accordingly resigne, and yeld vp all our interest therein to the use of the said towne, according to the trust reposed in vs. 10th mº 18th, 1639.
JNO WINTHROP GOUT". INCREASE NOWELL. JNO WILSON.
Entred & Recorded. 23th 8 mº 1656. By THOMAS DANFORTH Recorder.
Nothwithstanding the near presence of the natives, the people of Charlestown began at a very early period to push out into the adjacent country, and within and without the borders of that town to settle wherever they could find land suited to their needs. New colonists were constantly arriving from England. and during the first ten years after the arrival of Winthrop it is estimated that four thousand families had reached the shores of New England, including more than twenty- one thousand persons. They had come from a country where the ownership of land was a prize which only the wealthy were able to secure, and the almost limitless bounds of the western world attracted a continued wave of emigration, with liberal homesteads and farms,
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TERRITORY.
almost free of cost, as the expected rewards of their enterprise. The eagerness displayed in our own day by the settlers of Oklahoma and other newly-opened Territories to possess advantageous sites for homes, finds a parallel in the days of our fathers, when almost for the asking the poor English laborer, with only sufficient means to secure a passage across the Atlantic, could become the lord of lands on a footing, so far as ownership was concerned, with the more favored in his English home.1
In a few years after the settlement of Charlestown, the inhabitants from that town and other sources, began to cross over the Mystic River, and settle at Mystic Side; it was thus known as early as 1634 ; and when Thomas Coytmore, "a right godly man," built a dam, and soon after a mill at " Black Rock," on "Three Myle Brook," near the present center of Malden, quite a settlement had been established ; and, owing to their distance from Charlestown proper, very soon the inhabitants began to think of forming a new town, and hay- ing taken the necessary steps, on May 11, 1649, the General Court passed the following vote :
In answer to the peticon of seull inhabitants of Misticke side their request is graunted, viz., to be a distinct towne of themselves. & the name thereof to be Maulden.
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