USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Winthrop > The history of Winthrop, Massachusetts ; 1630-1952 > Part 7
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"1634. Winthrop, Dean, Pullen Point, about 120 acres." This grant was made before this young son of John Winthrop's was of age, or even before he had come to America. It is also a revelation of the way in which leaders at Boston acquired large holdings of land in various areas adjacent to Boston. In Winthrop's case, not wishing to have it all under his own name, he employed that of his son. Thus began, unbeknownst to the man concerned, Deane Winthrop's association with the town
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of which he was to be the first distinguished citizen. He was not the first resident, however.
That distinction belongs to one William Cheseborough. Cheseborough, a constable of Boston, was in 1635, appointed herder to serve at Pullen Point from May to November. Boston folks, even then were a bit pressed for room and it became the custom, and remained such for many years, for them to pasture their cattle during half the year across the harbor on Noddles Island, Hog Island and in Winthrop. The pasturage was good; there was abundant water, and neither Indians nor wolves in any serious number to bother the herds. However, it was ad- judged wise to have a herdsman in attendance, just in case. The mere presence of a white man would keep the Indians away and the wolves, if any, were learning that the settlers' muskets meant sudden death.
The business began on February 23, 1634-35 (old style dating) when the Court ordered, "It is agreed by special con- sent that all barren cattle whatsoever, (except such as are con- stantly employed in draught), weaned calves twenty weeks old and weaned mayle kidds, shall be kept abroad from off the Necke, and for everyone unput away within a week after warning, 2s and 6p shal be paid for every week not put away ; and our breth- ren, John Stampford, William Cheseborough and William Bos- ton to take care for the observing of this order.
"Item: That there shall be a little house built and a suffi- ciently payled yard to lodge the cattell in of Nights at Pullin Poynte Neck before the 14th day of ye nexte second month (April 14, 1635.)
"Item: That all the drye cattell that are put unto our bro- ther William Cheseborough for keeping at Pullen Poynte Necke, until the first of the ninth moon (November 1st) shall be at the rate of 5s a head unto him."
The house and palisaded yard were promptly erected and thus the first house was built in what is now Winthrop. Most likely the site chosen was somewhere just below the present Town Hall for the fresh water swamp there, above where the Winthrop Center railroad station was, offered a good natural water supply and abundant grass. Possibly the house was on the Court Park side of the swamp rather than up towards the Town Hall site.
In any event, we can picture the little house with its stock- aded yard in a natural clearing on the edge of a little swamp, with all about the heavy primeval forest. Deer abounded. The woods were filled with turkeys and partridge and pigeons while the air nights and mornings must have resounded with the cries of teeming wild fowl from the harbor's edge and from the marsh. For a hunter it must have been a paradise. And it was
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not remote at all, for then as now, Boston was hardly more than an hour's row across the harbor or an even briefer sail if the wind favored.
Of course, we have no picture or description of the house the colony built but judging from similar houses elsewhere, of which descriptions exist, it was a one-room house, built of logs with a roof covered with shingles (Shakes) split from great drums of soft pine or cedar. The house had few windows and but one door, all stoutly made so to be proof against Indian arrows. In each wall, numerous loopholes for musket shots were cut. The palisade or stockade was made of stout logs set on end and firmly tied together with cross beams. The gate, large-enough to just admit one cow at a time, was very heavy and solid and held shut by bars fitting into sockets. It was more a fortress than a house-but so far as is known was never molested by the Indians.
But there was constant fear of such raids and real peril of depredations from wolves, bears and wild cats. Boston built a heavy fence across Short Beach, in Beachmont, the only land connection between Winthrop and the mainland. This kept the cattle, sheep and goats from roaming too far. Cheseborough constantly went armed and greatly increased his income by the heads of wolves he shot, for there was a bounty on the great, grey dog-like creatures then.
The cattle, goats and sheep, as if aware of their peril, kept together and, as night came on, returned to the stockade will- ingly. Cheseborough counted them inside and then barred the gate. If any were missing, it was his job to go in search of them, a job in which he was aided by two great dogs, especially trained to fight wolves. These brave animals would hold wolves off and by their barking bring Cheseborough and his musket to the kill.
Cheseborough kept bachelor hall and lived in the plainest fashion. The chief item indoors was a rude fireplace built not of stone but of small logs daubed with clay. Probably a large flat stone served as the hearth and the fire box itself was lined with flat slabs of slate or shale picked up on the nearest beach and split apart with the blow of a hammer. For furniture, the table was hung from the poles of the rafters on thongs or rope-a way of keeping crawling things out of the food. The bed was just a bunk built into a corner of the one room with a mattress of hem- lock twigs covered with hay or straw and blankets. For chairs there was just one-a stool made of a slab of plank with four or three legs inserted into auger holes. Three legs were better than four because on the rough floor three legs were more steady. Floors were usually of the existing dirt beaten hard by usage, al-
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though in better huts the floor was of the puncheon type. This means that stringers of poles, hewed flat on one side were laid and to them a floor of pole or logs, all of about the same diameter and also hewn flat on one side, were pegged. It was less smooth and even than a dirt floor but it was much warmer in winter.
There was no silverware; indeed no forks at all, for they were then unknown. Instead, Cheseborough used his hunting knife both to cut and to convey solid food to his mouth. Liquids he ate with a wooden spoon, probably, although there were silver and pewter spoons at Boston. China plates were known but similarly restricted in use. Undoubtedly Cheseborough used the common utensils of the time-wooden bowls carved from bass- wood or birch and for meat and fowl a wooden trencher-which was an oblong chunk of wood with a bowl-like cavity carved into its substance. House-keeping was of the simplest. Perhaps he swept out his floor now and then with a besom-a broom made by tying a few handsful of birch twigs to a stick. His knife he cleansed by plunging it in the ground. His spoons, bowls and trenchers he just cleaned by wiping out with grass or hay and then, on occasion, scouring them with sand and water. Soap could be had, of course-the settlers made it themselves from grease and wood ashes-but it was seldom an item included in bachelor housekeeping.
It must not be thought that Cheseborough was a poor man; indeed, he became wealthy and influential in later life and was then possessed of lands of his own and a house in Boston. Be- sides he had a cash income from his work as a constable. Cash then was hard to come by and would purchase far more than it does today. Nor is it to be thought that he lived poorly. Indeed, many a modern family lives on much less and on a far less varied diet than this first bachelor resident of Winthrop.
He had his ale-and the Puritans brewed very good and strong ale, according to accounts. He probably did not have much whiskey, if any, but he did have brandy, which was im- ported from England until the settlers began making their own. It was not illegal then, and there was no tax. The Puritans are sometimes considered to have been Prohibitionists. They were not such. They considered that indulgence in any food or drink to the point of gluttony was bad and they forbade it-for a church- state is always ready to forbid anything considered bad. All the Puritans insisted upon was moderation. Beer or ale was the com- mon drink, after cider and perry, which might or might not be hard. Wine was used by those who could afford it and brandy was saved for special occasions, perhaps medicinal, as after a chill or a fright.
Probably Cheseborough lived on a high protein diet for meat
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is easiest of all things to cook and there was plenty in great variety all about him-deer, bear, partridges, turkeys and ducks. He could vary his diet with vast quantities of fish and help him- self to lobster, clams and oysters. Boston harbor then ran crystal clear and it teemed with shellfish as well as cod, flounders and many more fish. From Boston he obtained his carbohydrates, as well as his beer. He carried a stock of huge loaves of whole wheat bread on a hanging shelf; great loaves of dark color and solid substance that "stuck to a man's ribs in noble fashion." He also carried a store of corn meal, the Indian staple the settlers had learned to use. With this meal he could boil himself a dish of porridge or mush which, sweetened with maple sugar and sea- soned with a dash of salt and possibly with a daub of butter- for he was a herdsman-made a solid breakfast. If he wanted fresh bread he could mix up corn meal, milk or water, salt, and drippings and bake it in a reflecting oven before his fire. This is the famous corn pone, Johnny cake or corn cake, still enjoyed by Yankees and also in the deep South-although today Yankees add sugar and down South they do not. Also from corn meal he could make Indian pudding-a mixture of corn meal, molasses and other simple things which he baked for hours be- fore his fire and then, when it was a rich brown, ate at night with cream. Cheseborough ate very well!
In addition, he had his clay pipes and a store of Virginia tobacco, light brown in color, or of black Trinidad leaf from the Indies. He reports he was worried lest he found too much solace and comfort in his pipe. For reading he had his Bible, which, next to the musket and the axe was the most important item in any Puritan dwelling. Besides, he could visit Boston at will, pro- vided his visits were irregular so that thieves could not know when he was away, and provided he returned before dusk, for the wolves and the Indians were to be feared only at night. And Boston was but an hour away. Beside his cabin stood an old, tar soaked barrel which, in case of need, he could fire. The night watch would see the flame in Boston and help would be his within the hour. By day a column of smoke would serve the same pur- pose.
For clothes, Cheseborough wore the common garb of the day-doublet and hose, and heavy shoes and a large, high crowned hat. These hats were wonderful things. The brim was wide enough to act as a small umbrella ; they were heavy enough to remain firmly in place in an ordinary storm; they gave enough shade from the unaccustomed hot sun; and in the crown there was storage place for small articles of particular value. In cold or wet weather, he wrapped himself in a cloak. At first, these clothes were all of English make but, as settlement progressed,
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the Boston sheep gave their wool and the housewives somehow found time to take the wool and card it, spin it, dye it, weave it and make clothes after the established pattern. Women really worked in those days. One reason why a man might have several wives was simply that a household could not be operated without a woman to cook, clean, weave, mend, knit, preserve, milk, make cheese and butter and so on and on in an endless chain that did run in sober truth from dawn to dark. There was no unemploy- ment then for anyone. Indeed, the colonies constantly suffered from a labor shortage, even with indentured servants and slaves -although there never were many of them in New England. The climate was too cold and since a slave was property, full value could not be obtained from them. Slavery was not economically profitable in New England. There were slaves, of course but they were mostly house servants in homes of wealth. There was an attempt made to enslave after a fashion or else to hire Indians to work-but this was a dismal failure. The Indians, once their bellies were filled, would not work until they were hungry again. Besides the law forbade their mistreatment. The early solution was the bondsmen or the indentured servant. The first were criminals-you could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread in England then-who were given the choice of transportation over- seas and working out their penal sentences as laborers.
It is to the glory of New England that the Puritans treated these criminals fairly. They had to work but they were decently treated; the law saw to that. No man could be mistreated, ill- clothed or allowed to go hungry. If a child was concerned, and some bond servants were children, the law at Boston saw to it they were sent to public school. When the term of punishment was ended, they became free citizens and could if they wished acquire land and become respectable citizens.
The indentured servants were men, women and children who sold their services for a specified time for the sake of transporta- tion overseas. They were bought as slaves, in that the settlers wanting hands purchased their time for the sake of their labor. These too were well treated under the law and when their time was up they took their place in society without the slightest stigma of any kind.
Cheseborough in fact, while herding Boston's cattle in Win- throp, had a bondsman with him as a servant. He was an Irish- man who chose five years of servitude in America to escape the rope in Ireland. Cheseborough kept him as a helper with the cattle and also employed him to act as a messenger to Boston as well as to go and fetch needed supplies. There was seldom any attempt made by these bondsmen or indentured servants to es- cape. The woods for all settlers were filled with terrors, far more
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of the imagination than of fact. Besides, there was no point in escaping for they were assured of fair treatment and, when their time was up, they became free men and were free to come and go and to rise in position in direct proportion to their industry. Of course, there were rogues, there always are, but these were few and far between. The reason for this is that the English courts did not send murderers and major felons-most of the unfortu- nate bondsmen were people who fell into debt or were convicted of political irregularities or of disrespect of authority, usually religious. In fact, most of the bondspeople were stouthearted, ambitious in that they were rebellious, and able people. They be- came in sober fact good citizens and their descendents doubtless played a part in the Revolution. The indentured servants were even better fitted for colonization for at the least they had spirit and strength of character. Else they would not have been willing to sell themselves for sake of an opportunity to advance in a new world.
One of Cheseborough's Irish bondsman's jobs was to keep his master's weapons bright-for when men depend upon wea- pons for food and even for life itself they must be sharp and well polished and oiled. Cheseborough wore, when fighting, a light armor, consisting of a steel cap, a breast plate, a back-piece and tasletts. These were black lacquered and very plain in finish as became a good Puritan. It was the Cavaliers who had their armor gaily decorated, just as they wore their doublets slashed to allow their silken undergarments of crimson, gold and blue to show through to the admiration of the ladies, and just as good Puritans cropped their hair while the Cavaliers wore their hair long, curled and perfumed. Of course the greatest difference in dress between the two parties was with the women-but even so, in those days, the men, especially if gentlemen of means, out- did their wives and ladies in finery. A glory passed from the world when it became the custom to allow men to wear color only in their neckties.
In addition, Cheseborough had the common sword, known as the cut-and-thrust, a compromise between the delicate thrust- ing rapier of the gentleman and the heavy slashing saber of the professional cavalryman. This sword had to be kept polished and bright. So did the dagger that Cheseborough wore at his belt whenever he went abroad; men wore daggers then as they do wrist watches today, for they were not dressed without one. Then there were the muskets, the powder horns, the flints, the bullets and the chunk of lead out of which more bullets could be made when needed. Muskets had to be cleaned and oiled; the powder had to be kept dry and a store of flints and bullets always ready. This all required the most meticulous attention for, while
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a single shot often supplied food enough in the form of a deer, for days, weather permitting its preservation that long, a man's life often depended upon his musket firing on the instant when needed. Sword and dagger were secondary weapons, already re- duced to hardly more than traditional value. It was the musket which gave the settler his advantage over the Indian-that and his ability to fight under military discipline.
The housekeeping of Constable Cheseborough has been re- lated in detail not so much because it was the first home, of a kind, in Winthrop, but because it was indicative of life as it was lived by the early settlers. With minor variations it was also the life that was followed for generations as settlers went west- ward, leapfrogging in their turn over settlers who had preceded them. In Boston itself, and in a measure in Winthrop, too, since the town was so near to Boston that it was economically a part of it from the very beginning, life ameliorated greatly as Boston grew and grew.
It must be remembered that while the Pilgrims were poor people in large part, and labored under a debt for their trans- portation for several years, a debt which they struggled to dis- charge, Boston settlers were in many instances from families of wealth and circumstance. They brought with them such refine- ments of civilization as could be transported, china, glass, silver and the like-even rose bushes for the garden and fruit trees for the orchard. Life in Boston, as Colonial trade flourished mightily, became civilized to an astonishing degree at an amaz- ingly early stage of development. Some of the more prosperous merchants maintained mansions whose elegance was unequalled in America, for more than a century and a half. Winthrop, as said, shared in these luxuries and conveniences, although mod- estly for Winthrop was a farming section until it became what it is now, a town of small homes.
Cheseborough did not long remain a brother, as he was called in his writs, although he advanced in circumstances, soon becoming, for example, an official of the General Court in the matter of land allotments, and, also a commissioner to assess taxes. He seems to have become dissatisfied with Boston for in 1638 he moved out to the new town of Braintree and from there went on to the still newer town of Rehoboth, while in 1649, he became the first settler of the town of Stoughton, Connecticut.
Up to 1636, there was no general ownership of land in Win- throp, save perhaps for the quasi-legal reservation of land held by Governor Winthrop in the name of his young son, Deane Winthrop. In point of fact, the entire area of the future town, title to which was claimed by Boston, was held by the city. This was also true, incidentally of Revere and Chelsea, save for those
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portions held by Samuel Maverick and his "brother" Elias-and there was much uncertainty about their titles.
From time to time, the magistrates did give permits for hunting, for pasturing, for cutting wood for fires and for timber but these were held on a strictly lease basis. In 1635, even these permits were practically cancelled in their entirety by an order of the General Court that "noe further allottments shall be granted unto any new comers, but such as may likely to be re- ceived members of the congregation." This was official sanction of the theocratic government, in which ministers came to exer- cise an inordinate influence, a system in which a man had to be a member of the established church, Congregational, in order to be franchised. The Puritans came to America to escape the in- fluence and tyranny of the Established Church of England, Epis- copal, and promptly formed their own theocratic order as soon as could be. Underneath, there was of course a vast difference, for the men and women who had dared the Atlantic, who had suffered the hardships of pioneering, were of independent mind and spirit. The very air of America infused liberty into all Americans. None the less, it required many years and much wrangling before the divorce of the state and the church was accomplished. There was some persecution, too, as of Baptists and Quakers, but Boston's history is at least not blood-stained in the matter of religion, in bright contrast to the black pages of blood-soaked Europe and even their mother country, England.
This first ordinance of 1635 was followed shortly by notice that the lands held by Boston would soon be broken up into allot- ments. The ordinance read : "It is agreed that noe Wood shall be felled att any of the Islands nor elsewhere, until they be lotted out."
Boston by then had its first engineer, Thomas Grives, who came up to Boston from Salem. Reports Boston records : "Hee is well able to surveigh and sett forth lands, make any sort of fortyfications, knows about iron ore and Iron workes, mynes & Mineralls, and can fynde salt sprynges." He must have been a useful man with so much land waiting to be divided up among so many new settlers, with iron mines (bog iron) deposits to be developed, and still verdant, the warm belief that the new coun- try was rich in great mines of gold, silver, emeralds, diamonds and what not. The Spaniards had found these; why not the Eng- lish ?
With the work of "lottments" as a whole, this book has no concern; only Winthrop need be reported here. The work began, legally, in 1634, when it was voted: "That Mr. Winthrop, Mr. Coddington, Mr. Bellingham, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Col- born and William Balstone (the title of Mr. was reserved for
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gentlemen in those days so evidently Balstone was not such) shall have the power to divide and dispose of all such lands belonging to the towne as are not yet the lawful possession of any parti- cular persons to the inhabitants of the towne according to the Orders of the Court, leaving such portions in Common for the use of newcomers, and the benefit of the towne, as in theire dis- cretion they shall think fitte."
The work of laying out the lands at Rumney Marsh, which then included Winthrop, was assigned in 1635 to a committee including William Hutchinson, Edmund Quinsey, Samuel Wil- bore, William Cheseborough and John Oliver. The same year the General Court laid down the rule that persons of modest estate should be given land near to the city, such as at Muddy River, now the fair town of Brookline, the wealthiest of all the Commonwealth. Thus only the wealthy families, at least those who had capital enough to build houses and employ servants to bring their wild land into cultivation, were given the large allot- ments, which being large, were necessarily in outlying areas. Rumney Marsh and Pullen Poynte fell within this latter classi- fication and the grants given were good sized.
The first allotments at Pullen Poynte were made in May of 1636, when Sir Henry Vane, mysterious Royalist at large in Bos- ton then, and John Winthrop received the first two allotments. The majority of the allotments were held up for almost another year and were not announced until January 9, 1636-37 (O.S.). These comprise the so-called "Great Allottments att Rumney Marsh and Pullen Poynte."
As far as Winthrop was concerned, the following grants were made at that date: John Ollyvar, "fifty acres at Pullen Poynte"; Mr. William Brenton, "twenty acres at Pullen Poynte"; Mr. Edward Gibbon, "four score acres at Pullen Poynte, if it is there to be had." Six months later, June 12, 1637, there were laid out for Mr. William Pierce, "one hundred acres of upland and marsh land at Pullen Poynte Neck"; Mr. Edw. Gibbon, "eight acres of upland and marsh land"; John Ollyvar, "fifty acres of upland and marsh"; Mr. William Brenton "three score and four acres of upland and marsh, and one hundred acres on the other side of Mr. Aspinwall's (At Rumney Marsh) ." Also, "Edward Bayts hath fourteen acres laid him out there (at Pullen Poynte Neck)."
On November 13, 1637 ". .. also there is granted to the Governor, Mr. John Winthrop, the two hills next Pullen Poynte with some barren marsh adjourning thereto, provided that it be no hindrance to the towne's setting up a ware in Fisher's Creek or fishing basse there."
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