The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Ticknor
Number of Pages: 702

USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 13

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ton, p. 45. It would seem the island had dimin- ished about one third in area from 1633, when it was reckoned at a thousand acres, to 1800, when a survey gave six hundred and sixty-six. It has of course since increased by filling in. The General Court confirmed the island to Maverick in 1633, for a yearly consideration of "a fat wether, a fat hog, or qos. in money," paid to the Governor. Sumner, in his second chapter, traces, as well as he can, the early Mavericks in New Eng- land, and makes Samuel of Noddle's Island, born in 1602, the son of the "godly " Mr. John Maver- ick, who was of the party that settled Dorchester just before the arrival of Winthrop. He also proves him to be identical with the Royal Com-

THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.

is now East Boston. The exact date of these removes cannot be fixed, but the probabilities would seem to be strong that they took place not later, certainly, than 1626, and very probably in 1625.1

In 1625, however, two additional settlements seem to have been made within the limits of the bay, - one at Natascot, as Hull was then called ; the other at Pasonagesset, since known as Mount Wollaston, in the town of Quincy. The Hull settlement was a singular affair, arising out of certain incidents, both laughable and scandalous, which occurred at Plymouth. It has been stated,2 though the authority for the statement is not now known to exist, that as early as 1622-that is about the time of the arrival of Weston's party-three men, named Thomas and John Gray and Walter Knight, pur- chased Nantasket of Chickataubut, the sachem of the " Massachusetts Fields," and there settled themselves. If they did so, which, in view of the subse- quent occurrences at Wessagusset, seems improbable, the next addition to their number was in the spring of 1625. John Lyford, a clergyman of doubtful moral character and a confirmed mischief-maker, and John Old- ham, an energetic but self-willed and passionate private adventurer, had shortly before this time got into serious trouble with the Plymouth magis- trates, and had been ignominiously expelled from the settlement. They then came to Hull, Lyford bringing his wife and children with him. It would seem that they must have found some few persons residing there, for Lyford is reported to have had an " auditory " for his preaching ; and, though the next year both Oldham and Lyford went elsewhere, those they left behind them were still able to contribute to the expense of an expedition sent up some two years later by the Plymouth authorities to put a stop to certain disorderly proceedings which had, meanwhile, occurred in the neighborhood of Wessagusset, and which will presently be described. A year later, in 1629, - the year which preceded the arrival of Governor Winthrop and his colony,-Bradford, having occasion to mention Nantas- ket in his history,3 described it as an " uncoth place " with " some stragling people," but scarcely, it would seem, deserving to be called a settlement.

The other settlement made in the summer of 1625 -that within the present limits of Quincy - was of a wholly different character. Like Wes- ton's, it was a purely trading enterprise. At its head was a Captain Wollas- ton, of whom nothing is known except that among the Plymouth people he bore the reputation of being "a man of pretie parts " and of " some emi- nencie." The party Wollaston brought with him consisted of three or four men, not without means, - his partners, apparently, in the venture, - and some thirty or forty servants, as they were called, or persons who had sold their services for a term of years, and during that period occupied towards

missioner of a later date (see Mr. Deane's chap- ler). Mr. Savage (notes to Winthrop) took a dif- ferent view. The following bears upon this point, being a deposition about the Commissioner : "Mr. Samuell Maverick hath a long tyme dwelt in New England, allmost since the first planta-

tion thereof by ye English." Clarendon Papers, in N. Y. Hist. Coll., 1869, p. 49. - ED.]

1 Mass. Ilist. Soc. Proc., 1878, p. 200.

2 " An unpublished deposition" referred to in Drake's Boston, p. 41.

3 Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 263.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

their employers the position of minors to their parents, or apprentices to their masters.

Among Wollaston's company was one Thomas Morton, a lawyer by pro- fession, for he signed himself " of Clifford's Inn. Gent.," though the grave elders of the Plymouth colony contemptuously referred to him as " a petic- fogger of Furnivall's Inn." There seems some reason for supposing that Morton had been one of Weston's company. If so, he came over with it in June, and may have gone back to England in the following September in the " Sparrow," on her return voyage, without passing the winter at Wessa- gusset or sharing in the wretched ending of the settlement there.1 In any event he carried back with him the most pleasing impressions of the country which no subsequent experience ever changed, and which he has himself recorded in glowing language. It was, in his eyes, a land of " delicate faire large plaines, sweete cristall fountaines, and cleare running streames, that twine in fine meanders through the meads" where " millions of Turtledoves one the greene boughes: which sate pecking of the full-ripe pleasant grapes."2 It was Morton, therefore, who in all probability guided Wollas- ton to Boston Bay. On the arrival of the party, however, some time in the summer of 1625, Wessagusset was already occupied by the remnants of Gorges' colony, and they accordingly selected Pasonagesset as the site for their plantation. There they proceeded to establish themselves. Situated some two miles in a direct line from Wessagusset, and upon the other, or north, side of the Monatoquit, Pasonagesset, or Mount Wollaston, was a hill of moderate elevation, sloping gently on its eastern side towards the bay, and commanding an unobstructed view of the widest anchorage-ground of the harbor. For trading purposes its single draw-back was the absence of deep water from its immediate front.3 The spot had, however, the ad- vantage of being cleared of trees, for previous to the great plague it had been the home of the Sachem Chickatabut, and there his mother had been buried.4

The adventurers had no charter and no grant of the soil on which they settled. They apparently troubled themselves little about questions of title. A season probably was passed in the work of laying out their plantation and erecting their buildings, at the close of which it would seem that Wol-

1 Address on the 250th Anniversary of the mentions the book (Wood not leaving New Eng- Settlement of Weymouth, p. S. n.

" The New English Canaan, p. Gr. [This book of Morton's, describing his experiences, has a curious history. It has been said that it was issued in 1632, presumably at London, and the date is so given by White-Kennet and Meu- sel. Force claimed to have reprinted it from such a copy ; but the Force copy is now without title, and he probably copied the date from White- Kennet. The Stationers' Register ( Arber's Transcripts, iv. 283) proves it was entered for copyright Nov. 18, 1633, and this, as well as the fact that Wood, in his New Englands Prospect,

land till Aug. 15, 1633), shows the 1632 date to be erroneous ; and Lowndes' citing of a 1634 date is likewise wrong, certainly as regards the Gordons- toun copy. About twenty copies which have come to my knowledge alf purport to be printed at Amsterdam by Jacob Frederick Stam in 1637, and Muller, the Amsterdam bookseller, contends it was printed there, though the place has been held to be falsely given for London. Cf. Har- vard College Library Bulletin, No. 10, p. 244. - ED.1

3 Young, Chronicles of Mass., P. 395-

Morton, Nav English Canaan, bk. iii. ch. iii.

THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.

laston had become satisfied that there was little legitimate profit to be looked for in the enterprise. Accordingly he determined to go elsewhere. Leaving one Rasdell in charge of the plantation, and taking with him a number of the articled servants, he set sail, some time in the winter of 1625-26, for Virginia. He there disposed of those of his servants whom he brought with him to the planters on terms so satisfactory to himself that he at once sent back word for Rasdell to turn over the plantation to one Fitcher, and to bring on to Virginia another detachment of servants. This was done, and they also were disposed of.

The number of those left at the plantation was now reduced to ten. The supplies had begun to run short, and a spirit of discontent prevailed. Taking advantage of this, Morton incited a species of mutiny, which resulted in Fitcher's being thrust out of doors, while he himself got control. Ile then changed the name of the place to Merry Mount, or, as he called it, Mare Mount, designating himself as " mine host " of the establishment; but the Plymouth people spoke of him as the " Lord of Misrule." According to his own account, he and his followers were a roystering, drunken set, trad- ing with the savages for beaver-skins, and freely supplying them with spirits, arms, and ammunition, -holding most questionable relations with the Indian women, and leading, generally, a wild frontier life. On what is now the tenth of the month, in the year 1627, the anniversary of May Day was cele- brated here by these people with revels and merriment, after the old English custom. Not only has Morton himself left us a minute description of the proceedings on this occasion, -declaring that the pole was " a goodly pine tree of So foote longe, . . . with a peare of buckshorns nayled one, somewhat neare unto the top of it," but Governor Bradford also says they "set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days togeather, inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togither ( like so many fairies, or furies rather), and worse practises." According to the evidence of both sides, therefore, it would seem there can be no question as to the nature of the proceedings at Pasonagesset during the year 1627.1

The number of Morton's followers was small as yet, but the danger was great lest the place should become a refuge for loose and disorderly char- acters, whether runaway servants of the planters or deserters from the fishing-vessels. The practice, too, of bartering with the savages firearms for furs not only destroyed the value of all other commodities in exchange, but it added a new danger to a situation already perilous enough. The straggling settlers along the coast, therefore, impelled by a common sense of alarm, came together to consider the subject; but Morton would listen to no reason, and in strength was more than a match for all of them. The question, however, was one in which the whole region was interested. An appeal was therefore finally made to the authorities at Plymouth, and they sent a messenger to Mount Wollaston, bearing a formal letter,

' [Hawthorne pictures this revelry in "The Maypole of Merry Mount," -one of his Tavlee- Told Tales. - E.D.]

VOL. 1. - 11.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

in which they, in a friendly and neighborly way, admonished Morton as to his evil courses, and called his attention to the fact that his dealings in firearms were in direet contravention of King James's proclamation of 1622. Their admonition was, however, treated with contempt. In fact they were plainly told to mind their own business, and the dangerous trade was about to be carried on upon a larger scale than ever, when, in the spring of 1628, it was decided to have recourse to more severe measures for its repression. Miles Standish was, accordingly, again sent to Wessagusset, with orders to arrest Morton. Acting, probably, on information received from the other settlers, this expedition started towards the end of May or early in June, when the larger portion of Morton's followers were in the interior looking for furs. He was found at Wessagusset, and there captured. It was, however, either too late in the day, or no part of the plan, to carry him at onee to Plymouth, and during the night which followed the prisoner succeeded in slipping away from his captors, and made his escape to his own house. Thither Standish followed him the next day, and finally suc- ceeded in arresting him. This, however, was accomplished only after a Thomas Morton ludicrous attempt at resistance on the part of Morton and such tipsy and frightened followers as he had with him, which re- sulted in injury only to one of their number, who " was so drunke yt he run his own nose upon ye pointe of a sword yt one held before him as he entred ye house ; but he lost but a litle of his hote blood." 1

Morton was taken to Plymouth by his eaptors, and thence subsequently sent to England. He returned, however, the next year with Isaac Allerton, the agent of the colony; and, after hanging about Plymouth - acting as Allerton's elerk-for some time, he found his way back to Mount Wol- laston. In the meanwhile, however, -on the 6th of September, 1628, just three months after his arrest by Standish, -John Endicott had landed at Salem; and the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, which included Merry Mount within its chartered limits, had come into existence. One of Endi- cott's first acts had been to visit Mount Wollaston, where he cut down the May-pole, and sternly admonished the remnants of the party who still lingered about the place. Whether any of them were yet there at the time of Morton's reappearance a year later, in the autumn of 1629, does not appear. He, however, repossessed himself of his old home, which he occupied until the arrival of Winthrop, a year later. He even seems to have been tolerated by Endicott, as he attended one or more of the earlier General Courts held at Salem. According to his own account, however, he was a thorn in the side of the authorities; and he escaped a second arrest only by concealing himself in the woods.2

I Bradford, Plymouth Plantation, p. 241. The history of the Merry Mount episode is narrated in detail in two articles in the Atlantic Monthly Magasine, for May and June, 1877 |by C. F. Adams, Jr. - ED.].

2 Į Samuel Maverick gives a curious story of Morton's tribulations at the hands of the colon- ists in one of his letters to Lord Clarendon. A. Y'. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1869, p. 40. - ED.]

THIE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.

In addition to those already referred to, there was at this time but one other plantation in the vicinity of Boston, -that of David Thomson, on what is now Thomson's Island. This man is referred to by Morton as a Scottish gentleman, -both a traveller and a scholar, -who had been quite observant of the habits of the Indians. Unlike Morton, who seems to have had no con- nection with the Gorges family until a subsequent period, Thomson was a distinct dependent of Sir Ferdinando and the Council for New England. In London he had been its agent or attorney, and seems to have represented it before the Privy Council. In November, 1622, a patent covering a con- siderable grant of land in New England was issued to him ; and early in the next year he seems to have come over to take possession of it, bringing with him his wife and a few servants. In the Robert Gorges grant of Dec. 30, 1622, he is mentioned as " David Thomson, Gent.," } and named as attorney to enter upon and take possession of the grant, with a view to its legal delivery to Gorges. In 1623, when Robert Gorges reached Wessagus- set, Thomson was already at Piscataqua in New Hampshire; and there, later in the year, Gorges visited him, meeting Captain Levett, of his council. Subsequently, in 1626, Thomson removed to Massachusetts. He died in 1628, leaving a wife, who was one of those who contributed to the expense of Morton's arrest by Standish, and an infant son, to whom the island occupied by his father, and which has ever since borne his name, was subsequently granted by the General Court of Massachusetts.2

In the early summer of 1630, therefore, - just prior to the arrival of Governor Winthrop, coming to "Mattachusetts" from Salem on the 7th of June to " find out a place for our sitting down," -the location of the "old planters," as they were called, was as follows : At the parent settlement of Wessagusset, or Weymouth, there still lived a few families, not unprosperously it would appear; as, when Governor Winthrop and others visited the place two years later on their way to Plymouth, they were, both going and coming, "bountifully entertained with store of turkeys, geese, ducks, &c."3 Of the Wessagusset residents, William Jeffreys and John Bursley appear to have been the most prominent ; and their names only have come down to us. They had then been living there nearly seven years. At the entrance to the harbor, at Hull, there also dwelt a few " stragling" people ; but whether the Grays were among them does not appear. In what is now Quincy, Morton was still hanging about Mount Wollaston, though his trade with the Indians had been broken up, and he was already marked by the authorities at Salem for destruction. He had been there five years. Thomson's widow occupied what is now the Farm-school island, having with her an infant son, and owning, probably, one or more English servants. In what is now Bos- ton, William Blackstone, a solitary, bookish recluse, in his thirty-fifth year,

1 3 Mass. Ilist. Coll., vi. 77. Mass. Hist. Soc. Pro -. , May, 1876. Cf. Shurt- leff's Description of Boston, p. 502. - ED.]

2 [All that is known of Thomson is given m

Chas. Deane's notes to an Indenture, printed in

3 Winthrop, New England, i. 93.

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

had a dwelling somewhere on the west slope of Beacon Hill, not far from what are now Beacon and Spruce streets, from which he commanded the motith of the Charles. Here he had lived ever since his removal from Wessagusset in 1625 or 1626, trading with the savages, cultivating his garden, and watching the growth of some apple-trees.1 Thomas Wal-

1 [It is known that Blackstone, in 1634, re- serving only six acres, sold out to the colonists his right to the remainder of the peninsula, being tired of the "lord brethren," as he had before his emigration wearied of the "lord bishops," and that at this date he removed to an estate, which he named "Study Hill," situated near the railroad station in the present town of l.ons- dale, Rhode Island, where he became the first white inhabitant of that State. In 1684 Francis Hudson, ferryman, aged sixty-eight ; John Odlin, aged eighty-two; William Lytherland, aged seventy-six ; and Robert Walker, aged seventy- eight, - all made deposition as to the purchase of the peninsula from Blackstone. Suffolk Deeds.

IM2 Vernon

shruce

Beacon

Common

xxiv. 406; Shurtleff, Desc. of Boston, p. 296. Sewall records Hudson's death, Nov. 3, 1700, as " one of the first who set foot on this peninsula." Sewall Papers, ii. 24. Blackstone later revisited Boston more than once, and married the widow of John Stephenson, who lived on Milk Street on the site of the building in which Franklin was born. Shurtleff, Boston, p. 616. Ile died in Cum- berland, K. 1., May 26, 1675. Roger Williams records it, June 13: " About a fortnight since your old acquaintance Mr. Blackstone departed this life in the fourscore year of his age; four days before his death he had a great pain m his

breast, and back, and bowells; afterward he said he was well, had no paines, and should live ; but he grew fainter, and yealded up his breath without a groanc." A Mass. Ilist. Coll., vi. 299; also cf. 2 Mass. Ilist. Coll., X. 170. Two boulders are to this day pointed out as marking his grave. Ile left among his effects "10 paper books," whose destruction shortly after, when the Indians burned his house, we must regret, as containing possibly some record of his mysterious career. The late N. I. Bowditch, in his Gleaner articles in the Boston Transcript, 1855-56 (which will soon be reprinted at the cost of the city), traced back the titles of the territory reserved by Black- stone in 1634, and his results would place his house and orchard on a plat stretching on Beacon Street from near Spruce to the water, and back so as to include what was later known as West Hill, the most westerly of the summits of "Tri- mountain." His name continued long attached to a bold point of land some- where near the foot of Pinckney Street, just inside the line of Charles Street. Sewall, Papers, i. 186, notes in August, 1687, "going into the water alone at Blackstone's Point," and again in 1709 he speaks of "behind Blackstone's Point."-Ibid. ji. 260. It is thought his famous spring was situated not far from the present Louisbourg Square. The Burgiss map of 1728 is said to present in Bannister's garden the site of Black- stone's orchard. It is sometimes in the later days called llumphrey Davy's orchard. The relations to modern streets can be seen in the annexed sketch, which follows a marking-out of the lots of the peninsula according to the Book of l'os- sessions, as figured by U. II. Crocker, Esq. The six-acre lot is here bounded by Bea- con Street, the dotted line, and the original shore line. It is made out in part from a deposition of Anne Pollard, aged eighty-nine, in 1711, who says that Blackstone visited her house on this lot, after he had removed to Rhode Island. Scwall Papers, i. 73. It is an area upon which many distinguished Bostonians have lived, - Copley, Phillips (the first mayor), Harrison Gray Otis, Channing, Prescott, David Sears, Charles Francis Adams, John Lothrop Motley, Francis Parkman, and others. Cf. Shurtleff's Boston, pp. 106, 295, 383, 391; T. C. Amory's notes to his poem,

Charles

THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF BOSTON HARBOR.

ford, the blacksmith, with his wife, were his nearest neighbors, living at Mishauwum, or Charlestown, in an "English palisadoed and thatched house ; " while a little further off, at East Boston, Samuel Maverick, a man of twenty-eight, dwelt in a sort of stronghold or fort, which probably also served as the settlers' trading-post. This he had built with the aid of Thom- son, some three years previously ; and it was armed with four large guns, or " murtherers," as a protection against the Indians. It was in fact the first of the many forts erected for the protection of those dwelling about Boston Harbor; and it is not unnatural to suppose that it was constructed at the common cost of the old planters, with the exception of Morton, and was regarded as the general place of refuge in case of danger. It only remains to be said that all of these settlers belonged to the Church of England, and either had been or afterwards became associates and adherents of Sir Fer- dinando Gorges. They were all that was left of what had been intended as the mere forerunner of a great system of colonization, emanating from the

Blackstone, Boston's First Inhabitant; W. W. Blackstone for the purchase of his Estate and Wheildon's Beacon Hill. What information we have of Blackstone can be gleaned from Bliss's Rehoboth, p. 2; Daggett's Attleborough, p. 29; Callender's Hist. Discourse, app .; S. C. New- man's Address at Study Hill, July 4, 1855; Arnold's Rhode Island, i. 99, ii. 568; and par- ticularly of his Boston life in Savage's Winthrop, i. 44, and Geneal. Dictionary ; Young's Chronicles of Mass. ; S. Davis, in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., x. 170; Drake's Boston, p. 95; L. M. Sargent, quoted in Hist. Mag., December, 1870; North American Review, Ixiii., by G. E. Ellis, and Ixviii., by F. Bowen. Motley the historian, in his early ro- mance, Merry Mount, introduces Blackstone as riding on a bull about his peninsula. Ile briefly tells Blackstone's story in "The Soli- tary of Shawmut," in the Boston Book of 18 50.

The document above referred to is endorsed, " John Odlin, &c., their depositions abt Black- ston's Sale of his Land in Boston," and is printed by Shurtleff, Desc. of Boston, p. 296, as follows : -

"The Deposition of John Odlin, aged about Eighty-two yeares; Robert Walker, aged about Seventy-eight yeares ; Francis Iludson, aged about Sixty-eight yeares; and William Lyther- land, aged about Seventy-six yeares. These Deponents being ancient dwellers and Inhabit- ants of the Town of Boston, in New England, from the time of the first planting and setling thereof, and continuing so at this day, do jointly testify and depose that in or about the yeare of our Lord One thousand Six hundred thirty and ffour, the then present Inhabitants of sd Town of Boston (of whome the llonoble John Win- throp, Esqr., Governor of the Colony, was Cheife) did treate and agree with Mr William

right in any Lands lying within the sd neck of Land called Boston ; and for sd purchase agreed that every householder should pay Six Shillings, which was accordingly Collected, none paying less, some considerably more than Six Shillings, and the sd sume Collected was delivered and paid to Mr. Blackstone to his full content and satisfaction ; in consideration whereof hee Sold unto the then Inhabitants of sd Town and their heires and assignees for ever his whole right and interest in all and every of the Lands lying within sd neck, Reserving onely unto himselfe about Six acres of Land on the point commonly called Blackston's Point, on part whereof his then dwelling house stood ; after which purchase the Town laid out a place for a trayning field, which ever since and now is used for that pur- pose and for the feeding of Cattell. Robert Walker & Wm. Lytherland further testify that M' Blackstone bought a Stock of Cows with the Money he recd as above, and Removed and dwelt near Providence, where he liv'd till ye day of his death.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I, Part 13

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.) Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Boston : Ticknor Number of Pages: 702

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.)
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Ticknor
Number of Pages: 702