USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76
8 Ignorance in Holland in 1745 is certainly more pardonable than the English blunder of 1778, when the North American Gazetleer of that year spoke of Bristol, R. I., as being famed "for
62
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
cause no dispute, Boston is put down somewhere in the latitude of Ports- mouth, where Prince Charles had placed it, and Bristow and London flank the mouths of what must be the Merrimac. This was not long before 1700.
It is interesting to note that Winthrop, in the " Arbella " in 1630, mak- ing the shore just south of Cape Ann, sketched on a blank leaf of his journal -as on preceding page-the earliest outline of the coast from Gloucester to Salem harbor, which is preserved to us in any original drawing. The same page bears a description of the islands and reefs about Cape Ann.1
Justin Louise
the King of Spain having a palace in it and being killed there." The Indian "King Philip " was meant. A popular account of the English empire in America, published by N. Crouch in
1685, still keeps Charles's London on the south shore of the bay. 1 Savage's ed. of Winthrop's Hist. of New England, ii. 418.
CHAPTER III.
THE EARLIEST EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.
BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.
N the afternoon of Wednesday, the 29th of September, 1621, a large open sail-boat, or shallop, as it was then called, entered Boston Harbor, coming up along the shore from the direction of Plymouth. In it were thirteen men, -ten Europeans, with three savages acting as their guides. The whole party was under the immediate command of Captain Miles Standish, and their purpose was to explore the country in and about Massachusetts Bay, as Boston myles Standif Harbor was then called, and to establish friendly trading relations with the inhabitants. They had started from Ply- mouth on the ebb tide shortly before the previous midnight, expecting to reach their destination the next morning; but the wind was light and the dis- tance greater than they supposed, so that the day was already old when they made the harbor's mouth. Passing by Point Allerton they laid their course for what appeared to them to be the bottom of the bay, and, finding good shelter there, came to anchor off what is now known as Thomson's Island.1 Here they lay during the night, which they passed on board their boat ; though it would seem that Standish and others landed and explored the little island, even naming it Trevore, after one of their number, - William Trevore, an English sailor.
! The course of this exploring expedition has been differently surmised by the several au- thorities. The words used in Mourt are : " We came into the bottom of the bay." Young sup- poses this to mean that they anchored off Copp's Hill, at the north end of Boston (Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 225, n., following, in this statement, Dr. Belknap in his American Biography) ; while Dexter, in his edition of Mourt, says : "That is, run in by Point Allerton into Light-house Chan- nel " (p. 125, 12.). Neither Dr. Young nor Dr. Dexter, it is fair to presume, were practically very familiar with Boston Harbor. To one who
has been in the custom of navigating it, how- ever, the phrase "the bottom of the bay " is, as a description, almost unmistakable. A boat com- ing from Plymouth would enter the harbor by the channel between Shag-rocks and Point Allerton ; and from there the view in the direction of Thom- son's Island is wholly unobstructed, while the ship-channel to Boston and Copp's Hill is de- vious, and masked by islands. Explorers would naturally go directly through the open water to Squantum near the mouth of the Neponset, - the apparent "bottom of the bay."
Many years subsequently (in 1650), Stand-
64
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Early on the morning of the next day the party made ready to extend their explorations to the main-land. As they had come to establish rela- tions with what remained of the once powerful tribe of the. Massachusetts,
7
>
SQUAW ROCK, OR SQUANTUM HEAD. their Indian guides seem to have brought them to that point on the shore of the bay which was most convenient for access to the broad plain then and long subsequently known as the " Massachusetts Fields," from its being used as the central gathering-place of the tribe.1 This plain lay in
ish made a deposition in relation to Thomson's Island, in which he stated that, in the year he came into the country, he visited this island, and then named it Island Trevore, -after William Trevore, who, as stated in the text, was with him (N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ix. 248). This Trevore came over in the "Mayflower," hired to stay in the country one year. At the expiration of his year he returned to England. Standish and Trevore, therefore, could only have visited Thomson's Island together during the Septem- ber expedition of 1621. (MMass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1875-76, P. 373.)
This visit also could apparently have been made only on the evening of their arrival at the " bottom of the bay," or the morning after their arrival there, and before they crossed to the main-land. For it is clear that Obbatinewat did not live on this island, as Standish, in the depo- sition of 1650, particularly says that it was not only deserted, but that there were no signs of its ever having been inhabited. After visiting
the main-land, and setting out in search of Ob- batinewat's place of abode, the whole time of the explorers is accounted for : they crossed the bay, passed the night off the main shore on its other side, and the next day made their excur- sion into the interior, getting back to their boat only in time to start for Plymouth by moonlight. Apparently, they were too much occupied to explore uninhabited islands.
It seems, therefore, fairly to be inferred that they came to anchor off Thomson's Island on their arrival, and that their subsequent course was as described in the text. The Hist. of Dorchester supposes that the first landing was at Nantasket, then at Squantum, and that it was on the Neponset that they made their explorations.
1 Chronicles of Mass., p. 395; Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 226. [Mr. Everett, in his Dor- chester oration, 1855 (Works, iii. 318), speaks of a solitary individual of the tribe still lingering within his recollection. - ED.]
65
THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.
the northern part of what is now the town of Quincy, and, almost surrounded by the swamps and marshes bordering on the bay and the Neponset River, was connected with the Squantum headland, opposite to which the party had anchored their boat, by a low neck of mingled marsh and beach. Crossing the narrow channel which divides Thomson's Island from this headland,
MILES STANDISH.1
Standish landed at the foot of the bold rocky cliff which is still so striking and exceptional a feature of the shore, - a miniature Nahant deep within the recesses of the harbor.
1 [The portrait which is here called that of Standish is from a photograph, taken from an old painting owned by Captain A. M. Harri- son, U. S. Coast Survey, of Plymouth, which, through the friendly offices of B. Marston Wat- son, Esq., of that town, was kindly placed at my disposal by the owner. Captain IFarrison has given an account of what is known of the pic- ture, in a letter printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October, 1877, p. 324. The canvas stands in need of complete identification as a likeness of the redoubtable Pilgrim hero, and the leader of the first party of Englishmen of whom we have accounts as landing on any part of the ter-
ritory of Boston ; but, until positively disproven, it must have a certain interest. The portrait, which is painted on an old panel, was found in a picture shop in School Street, the legend Ætatis suc 38, A0. 1625 being observable, - the year of Standish's visit to England, when he was of the age noted. The name M. Standish was disclosed on removing the apparently mod- ern frame. The previous owner, James Gilbert, stated that it was purchased by Roger Gilbert, his great-uncle, who was born in Portsmouth, Va, but then living in Philadelphia, of a branch of the Chew family in Germantown, l'enn., shortly before the war of [812 .- ED.]
VOL. 1 .- 9.
66
TI11: MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Either the party had set out but slenderly provided, or they had not yet breakfasted ; for, finding a number of lobsters on the shore, collected there by the savages, they appropriated them, and on them made their morning's meal. This done, Standish, having posted two men as sentinels behind the cliff on the landward side, to secure the shallop against any attempt at surprise, took four other men, with Squanto as a guide, and went in search of the inhabitants. They had not gone far when they met a woman coming for the lobsters they had found on landing. They told her that they had taken them and gave her something in compensation, and she in return explained to them where her people were. Her sachem's name she gave as Obbatinewat. There is no record, other than this, either of him or of the place where he usually lived. He professed allegiance to Massasoit, though then in the territory of the Massachusetts, and at this particular time was in such terror of the dreaded Tarrentines that he did not dare remain long in any settled place. It would seem probable that he and his people were then tarrying somewhere on the shores north of the Neponset, perhaps
STANDISH'S SWORD AND A MATCHLOCK.1
at Savin Hill or near Dorchester Heights; for, while Squanto went thither with the woman, probably in her canoe, the rest returned to the shallop and followed them by water, which they would scarcely have done had their destination been any point further to the south and accessible by land.
Rejoining Squanto and the Indian woman at the place she had indicated, Standish there found Obbatinewat, and, taking advantage of the terror in which he lived both of the Squaw-Sachem of the Massachusetts, the widow of Nanepashemet, and of the Tarrentines, he easily, by means of a promised protection, induced him to profess allegiance to King James. Obbatinewat then undertook to guide the party to the Squaw-Sachem, who lived somewhere on the Mystic, in the neighborhood, it is supposed, of the Wachuset. Going, therefore, presently on board their boat, they crossed
1 Į This sword came into the possession of the
Mass. Hist. Soc. in 1798, where it now is. See their Proceedings, January, 1798, p. 115. The
matchlock is also in the Society's cabinet, and is given here as a specimen of the weapons with which Standish's men were armed. - ED.]
67
THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.
the bay, and, as they did so, they noted with admiration its broad expanse and the numerous islands dotting its surface, which, though then deserted by their inhabitants, were covered with trees and the remains of those savage plantations which Captain Smith had observed upon them seven years before.1 It was night before the explorers reached the mouth of the Mystic and landed the savages, who, however, found no one. It being too late to go further that day, they anchored their shallop and again passed the night on board.
The next morning they landed, and, leaving two men to protect the boat, pushed forward up the country in the direction of Medford and Winchester.2 It was the first of October, of the present style, and a bright clear autumnal day, with the wind, what little there was of it, from the west.3 Though en- cumbered by their arms, the explorers marched briskly on, following their Indian guides, until, having gone some three miles, they came to an aban- doned village; another mile brought them to the place where the Sachen Nanepashemet had lived. His wigwam they found still standing, though deserted. It was situated on the top of a hill, and consisted of a wide scaf- folding of planks, raised some six feet from the ground and supported upon posts, and on this stood the hut. Still pressing forward, they next found in a swamp, not far distant from the hill, the dead sachem's stronghold, which consisted of a palisaded enclosure of about forty or fifty feet in diameter, and of the usual circular form. The single means of entrance was by way of a bridge crossing two ditches, which formed the chief protection for the place, one being within and the other without the palisade; and "in the midst of this Pallizade stood the frame of an house, wherein being dead he lay buryed."
The party had now gone perhaps four miles from their starting-point, and one mile more brought them to their destination, - another and similar stronghold on a hill-top, in which, some two years before, Nanepashemet had been surprised and killed by the Tarrentines.4 Here, on what is supposed to have been Rock-hill, in Medford, they halted. The stockade had not been occupied since the sachem's death, nor had they as yet seen any of his people. Indeed, the rumor of their approach had evidently gone before them, for at several points they had come upon the bare poles of recently dismantled wigwams, and once they had found a pile of Indian corn covered only with a inat. They now, therefore, stopped at the second of these stockades and sent two of their guides out to hunt up the savages. About a mile away some Indian squaws were found at the place where they had carried their corn, and thither the party went. It was not without difficulty that the terror of the women was appeased, but at last the friendly bearing of the strangers had its effect, and they recovered their courage sufficiently to prepare for them such an entertainment as they could of boiled cod and whatever else they had. No males had yet been seen. At length, however,
1 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., vi. 119. [The question of Smith's sailing into the inner harbor is examined in Mr. Winsor's chapter, next preceding. - ED.]
2 The Harris MS., followed by Drake, -
History of Boston, -is the authority for the course pursued by the explorers on this day.
3 Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 229.
+ Dexter's Mourt's Relation, p. 127.
68
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
after much sending and coaxing, one was induced to show himself, "shaking and trembling for feare ;" but finally they satisfied him also that they came to trade and not to injure him, and then he promised them his furs. They could, however, get no information as to the whereabouts of the Squaw- Sachem. They were simply told that " shec was far from thence."
The day now being well spent the party prepared to return, and Squanto then took occasion to suggest the propriety of plundering the poor Indian women, who had just entertained them, of their furs; " for," said he, " they are a bad people, and have often threatened you." Naturally the suggestion was not listened to, and the squaws, on the contrary, had by this time become so friendly that they accompanied the explorers the whole distance back to the boat. Then at last the spirit of trade proved so strong with them that they even "sold their coats from their backs, and tied boughs about them, but with great shamefacedness, for indeed they are more modest than some of our English women." Their provisions growing scarce, the party now set sail, having a fair wind and a bright moon, and reached their homes at Plymouth before noon of the following day, the last of the week.
They had been most fortunate in the time of their expedition, for they had enjoyed a series of clear, windless days, during which they saw the harbor and its surrounding country under their most attractive aspect, - through the translucent September haze, when field and forest and hill-side glow with autumnal tints, and it is a pleasure to breathe and move in the pure New England air.1 Their explorations, it is true, had not gone far, and they saw apparently the mouth of one only of the rivers which empty into the harbor.2 They had, however, in their going and coming, thoroughly traversed the bay, and taken in its great size and the number of its islands. It was, therefore, no occasion for surprise that they returned to Plymouth not without repining; and, as they made report of the pleasant places they had visited, they could not help " wishing they had been ther seated." 3
Such was the first recorded exploration of Boston Harbor; for Smith, when he passed along the New England coast seven years before, had
1 The facts stated in Mourt fix perfectly the character of the weather. It was a period of full moon, between the 29th of September and October 2. The wind was westerly, but so light -" coming fayre " in the evening - that the voyage of about forty-four miles occupied, each way, from fifteen to twenty hours.
2 [It would seem, however, that at the same time they discovered the Charles; for Bradford, in his History of Plymouth Plantation, -edited by C. Deane, p. 369,- claims for the Pilgrims that they really fixed that name upon the stream now bearing it. They recognized that Smith had ap- plied the name to a river emptying into this bay ; but when, on further exploration, there proved to be several streams, "ye people of this place which came first " - meaning presumably Stand- ish and his party -were the first to impose
" such a name upon that river upon which since Charles-towne is built (supposing that was it which Captain Smith in his map so named)." - ED.]
3 [Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 105. It may be unsafe to say that Bradford himself was one of this party; but that he made one of some party of these early Plymouth explorers before Winthrop came would appear from his verses on Boston, written long subsequently. It would be inferred that he landed, whenever it was, upon the peninsula itself : -
" Yet 1 have seen thee a void place, Shrubs and bushes covering thy face ; And houses then in thee none were there,
Nor such as gold and silk did weare. We then drunk freely of thy spring Without paying of anything."
1 Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. - ED. ]
69
THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.
apparently hardly more than looked into it, as he did not even ascertain the non-existence of the great river, a mouth for which he suggested in his map, and which the savages assured him pierced " many days journeys the entrails of that country." There is no question, however, that long before Standish's visit the harbor was well known to the traders and fishermen of all the maritime nationalities. Of the French, in particular, the traces arc curiously distinct. Smith, for instance, mentions that, when he visited the bay in 1614, a French ship had shortly before been there and remained six weeks, trading with the natives until, when he followed, they had nothing left to barter. A year or two later there is a passing record of another French vessel which entered the harbor to truck for furs; and while she lay at anchor off Pettuck's Island the savages conspired to surprise her; which they successfully did, killing or capturing all on board, and then plundering and burning the vessel. Years afterwards pieces of French money, which not improbably fell into the hands of the savages on this occasion, were dug up at Dorchester. There were traditions also of shipwrecked Frenchmen, most of whom ended a miserable existence as captives among the Indians, though one or two were rescued from them.1 These passing traders, whatever their nation, left, however, no records of their visits; and, though the harbor was familiar to many, no attempt at settlement had yet been made upon its shores. It is probable that, in consequence of Standish's expedition, some shelter necessary for the uses of an occasional trading- party may have been erected by the Plymouth people at Hull the next year ;? if so, it was but temporarily occupied, and had about it nothing of the character of a settlement.
It was not possible, however, that so advantageous a point upon the coast should long remain a wilderness; and in 1621 its civilized occupation was already a question of time, and a very short time at that. The first attempt at a settlement was, in fact, made the very next year, at a place known by the Indians as Wessagusset, on the south side of the bay, and in that part of the present town of Weymouth locally known as Old Spain.
The advance party of those concerned in this attempt made their appearance in the bay less than eight months after Standish's visit, about the middle of May, 1622. Ten in number, they came from the northward in an open boat. They had been sent out by Mr. Thomas Weston, a London merchant, who had a design of establishing a trading-post some- where on the coast, in the immediate vicinity of Plymouth. Weston was well known to the Plymouth people, and, indeed, had for a time been prominently connected with their enterprise. He, however, was interested only in its commercial aspect, being a pure adventurer of the Captain John Smith type, so common at that time. As such, he had very naturally looked upon the English exiles then at Leyden as convenient instruments
1 Pratt, Relation, 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 489; Morton, New English Canaan, bk. i. ch. iii .; Savage, Winthrop, i. 59*, n. ; Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 98.
2 Hubbard, New England, p. 102.
70
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
for the establishment of a permanent trading-station on that New England coast of which Smith had given so glowing and so deceptive an account. Accordingly, he had been very instrumental in sending them out. But, as time went on and the Plymouth people sent little or nothing back to their English partners, Thomas Weston was disposed to attribute the unsatisfac- tory financial outcome rather to "weeknes of judgmente, than weeknes of hands;" and so he bluntly charged them with passing their time in discoursing, arguing and consulting, when they should have been trad- ing. Wholly breaking with them, therefore, and selling out his interest in the Merchant Adventurers' Company, Weston now proceeded to organize an expedition of his own on what he regarded as the correct commercial plan. Though long concerned in trading voyages, he personally seems to have known nothing of New England. An inborn adventurer him- self, he was persuaded that a settlement of able-bodied men could, as Captain Christopher Levett afterwards expressed it, " do more good there in seven years than in England in twenty; "1 and he regarded families as a mere eneumbrance to any well-designed enterprise. Accordingly, in the winter of 1621-22, he was busy in London organizing his new company on this approved plan ; and he made it up of the roughest material pos- sible, -the very scum, apparently, of the streets and docks of the English trading-ports, - " rude fellows" ... "made choice of at all adventures." 2
Before sending out his main expedition, Weston took the precaution to dispatch the smaller party, which has been mentioned, to explore the way and fix upon a place of settlement. Those composing it were shipped in a vessel named the "Sparrow," bound to the fishing-grounds off the coast of Maine; and the plan was for them to leave the vessel near the Damariscove Islands, and thence to find their way by sea to Plymouth, looking as they went along for some place suitable for their purpose. Their method of procedure was a curious exemplifieation of the reckless spirit of the times, as well as of the lack of forethought, which, throughout, seems to have characterized Weston's attempt. None of the advance party appear to have been familiar with the region to which they were going; a portion of them were not even seafaring men, and they were wholly unprovided with outfit. Not until they were on the point of leaving the "Sparrow" for a voyage of 150 miles along the New England coast in an open boat do they seem to have fully realized the nature of their errand. Apparently commiserating their helplessness, and being himself an adven-
1 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., viii. 190.
2 [The authorities for this and all other facts connected with Weston's attempted settlement are given in detail in Adams's Address on the Two
Phinchas Pratt.
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settle- ment of Weymouth. The other chief contempo. rary and later writers to be consulted are :
Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 120; Winslow, Good Newes ; Hubbard, New England, ch. xiii. ; Baylies, Old Colony, chs. v. and vi. ; Palfrey, New England, i. 199. The narrative of Phinehas Pratt, one of Weston's company, still exists in manu- script, and Richard Frothingham has edited it in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv .; but Mr. Adams says "it can be accepted as authority only with very de- cided limitations." It was Prati who warned the Plymouth people. - ED.]
7 I
THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.
turous fellow, the mate of the "Sparrow" volunteered to pilot the party, and under his guidance they skirted the shore to Cape Ann, whence they ran across to Boston Harbor. Here they seem to have passed a number of days exploring, and finally selected its southerly side as that most favorable for the proposed settlement, for the single reason that there were the fewest natives thereabout. Indeed, there would not seem at this time to have been more than a few score of the wretched remnant of the Massa- chusetts lingering in that vicinity.1 Making some arrangement for what land they needed with the local sachem, and growing uneasy at the vast- ness of the solitude and the smallness of their own number, they then left the bay and made their way to Plymouth. There they landed and were cared for; and, while their pilot returned to his vessel, they awaited the arrival of the main body of their enterprise.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.