USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880. Vol. I > Part 52
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The first three sessions of the Court of Assistants were held in Charles- town : Aug. 23, 1630, when provision was made for the maintenance of the ministers, and the next session appointed at the Governor's house at eight o'clock in the morning; also September 7, and again September 28. From and after October 19, however, the Court convened in Boston.
The persons who came with Winthrop, but remained in Charlestown after his removal to Boston, were Increase Nowell, Esq., Mr. William Aspinwall, Mr. Richard Palsgrave, physician, Edward Converse, William Penn, William Hudson, Mr. John Glover, William Brackenbury, Rice Cole, Hugh Garrett, Ezekiel Richardson, John Baker, and John Sales. Besides these were also Captain Francis Norton, Mr. Edward Gibbons, Mr. William Jennings, and John Wignall, who "went and built in the Main on the north-east side of the north-west creek of this town."
The Court early ordered the following grants of land : --
September 6, 1631, the General Court granted to Governor Winthrop a farm of six hundred acres at Mystic, where his summer residence was located. Here he had built a bark of thirty tons called "The Blessing of the Bay," which was launched July 4th of the same year. The farm was called by the Governor " Ten Hills," from the number of elevations which could be counted upon it ; and what remains of it is so designated at the present day.4
July 2, 1633, the General Court ordered that " the ground lying betwixt the North river and the Creek on the North side of Mr. Maverick's, and up into the country, shall belong to the inhabitants of Charlestown." This was the territory known as Mystic Side.
March 3, 1635-36, the Court " ordered that Charlestown bounds shall run eight miles into the country from their meeting-house, if no other bounds intercept, reserv-
1 The site of the prison was, for more than a century, known as Lynde's Point.
" Mr. Johnson's death did not occur till Sept. 30, 1630.
3 A writer in Mass. Hist. Coll., xx. 174, thinks that "Mishawumut" means "a great spring," and " Shawmut " (the Indian name for Boston),
" fountains of living water ;" but a later and better authority, Dr. Trumbull gives another meaning in his chapter of the present volume.
4 By the courtesy of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, a reduced heliotype of a plan of this estate, made in October, 1637, is given in another place in this volume.
388
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ing the propriety of farms granted to John Winthrop, Esq., Mr. Nowell, Mr. Cradock, and Mr. Wilson, to the owners thereof, as also free ingress and egress for the Servants and Cattle of the said gentlemen, and common for their cattle, on the back side of Mr. ('radock's farm."
Ott. 28, 1636, the Court granted Lovell's Island to this town.
May 13, 1640, the Court made another grant to the town of "two miles at their head line, provided it fall not within the bounds of Lynn Village [Reading], and that they build within two years," -- that is, begin the settlement of a town which subse- quently was set off, in 1642, as Woburn, or "Charlestown Village " as it was then called. On the Seventh of October following, the Court granted to Charlestown " the proportion of four miles square with their former last grant to make a village, whereof five hundred acres is granted to Mr. Thomas Coitmore,1 to be set out by the Court."
Thomas Coughmary,
By the terms of this grant Cambridge line was not to be crossed; and the bounds of the tract granted were not to "come within a mile of Shawshine River ; and the Great Swamp and Pond " were to lie in common.
Nov. 12, 1659. the last considerable grant to the town was made by the General Court. It comprised one thousand acres at Sowheaganucke, on the west side of Merrimack River, and was laid out, " for the use of the school of Charlestown," in October, 1660.
The affairs of the town were conducted by the freemen in general town- meeting until June 13, 1634, when " it was agreed and concluded that Mr. Thomas Beecher, Mr. William Jennings, and Ralph Sprague be at town- meetings to assist in ordering their affairs, and that they present this town at the General Court held at New Towne in September next in the quality of Deputies." A fine was early imposed for non-attendance upon town- meetings. Feb. 10, 1634-35, the famous town order creating a board of selectmen was passed .? It is expressed in the following words : -
" An ord' made by the Inhabitants of Charlestowne At A ffull meeting for the Gov- ernm't of the Towne by Selectmen :
" 1634. - In consideration of the great trouble and chearg of the Inhabitants of Charlestowne by reason of the Frequent meeting of the townsmen in generall. and yt by reason of many men meeting things were not so easily brought unto a ioynt Issue : It is therefore agreed by the sayde townesmen ioyntly that these eleuen men whose names are written one the other syde, with the advice of Pastor and teacher, desired in any case of conscience. shall entreat of all such busines as shall conscerne the townsmen, The choise of officers excepted, And what they or the greater part of them shall con- clude of, the rest of the towne willingly to submit vnto as their owne pper act, and these 13 [sic] to contineu in this imployment for one yeare next ensuing the date hereof, being dated this : 10th of February, 1634.
1 Cf. N. E. Hist. and Gencal. Reg., xxxiv. -53 et seq.
2 .\ heliotype of what remains of the origi-
nal document and the signatures attached to it
accompanies this chapter. Mr. Frothingham gave a lithographed fac-simile in his History of Charlestown. Cf. Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., Oct. 21, ISTO.
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FEB. 10, 1634. ORDER CREATING BOARD OF SELECTMEN.
( Charlestonun Ratoy .: )
389
CHARLESTOWN IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
" In wittnes of this agreement wee whose names are vnder written haue set to o' hands.
JOHN GREENE
ABRA : MELLOWS
WILLIAM LEARNED
WILIAM. + GNASH
WILLY FROTHINGHAM
THOMAS GOBEL
WALTER 7 POPE his mark
RICHARD S SPRAGUE [his mark]
WILLIAM
JAMES * PEMBERTON his mark
BAKER
RICE COLES THOMAS
THOMAS SQUIRE
ROBERT HALE
THOMAS PIEARCE
NICHOLAS STOWER
ROBART BLOT
EDWARD JOHNES
EDWARD STURGES
RICE MAURIS
GEORGE BUNKER
GEORGE FELCH
ROBEART SHORTTAS
THOMAS LINCOLN
GEAG HUCHINSON
JOHN HALL
S ANTHONY EAMES 1
RICHARD PALGRAUE
The eleven seleetmen first chosen under this order were Increase Nowell, Thomas Beecher, Ezekiel Richardson, Walter Palmer, Ralph Sprague, Wil- liam Brackenbury, Edward Con-
verse, Thomas Lynde, Abraham
Palmer, John Mousall, and Rob ert Moulton.
Chomar Lunda 1649
Mr. Nowell was the first Town Clerk of Charlestown. He was succeeded by Sergeant Abraham Palmer, who was chosen March 26, 1638. Elder Greene was the next incumbent of the office, upon which he entered Jan. Samuell Hoamor 2, 1645-46. Captain Samuel Adams was Greene's successor ; but I am unable to determine the RS 1699 precise date of his first service. He acted in the capacity of Re- corder as early as 1653 ; and a record is preserved of his election to office Jan. 3, 1658-59. He was a son of Henry Adams of Braintree ; married (1) Sformato Rebecca Graves, eldest daughter of the Admiral, and (2) Esther Spar- hawk of Cambridge; removed, prior to 1668, to Chelmsford, where also he was town clerk; and died Jan. 24, 1688-89, aged 72. Edward Burt suc- ceeded Adams. He was son of Hugh Burt of Lynn ; came with his father in the " Ab- igail" in 1635, then aged 8 years; had a Bow: Butt Reconway 7861 91 patent to make salt granted him for ten years by the General Court, in 1652; and executed an agreement in that year with Governor Bradstreet, then of Andover, con- cerning salt works. He married Elizabeth Bunker daughter of George
ROBT. MOULTON WILLIAM JOHNSON GEORGE WHITEHAND
MINOR RICHARD KETLE
WILLIAM SPRAGUE
390
THE MEMORIAL IHISTORY OF BOSTON.
Bunker, by whom he had an only daughter, Mary, born in 1656. James Cary was the next Town Clerk. He
James Dary Rings was a draper by trade; came from Bristol, England, a descendant of " William Cary of Bristol, 1546, of the Devonshire family." He was here as early as 1640; had wife Eleanor and six children ; was chosen Recorder Nov. 3, 1662 ; and died Nov. 2, 1681, aged 81. Captain Laurence Hammond was elected to succeed Cary, Jan. 27, 1672-73; and he in turn was succeeded by the Hon. James Russell, Jan. 14, 1677-78. John Newell was the next incumbent of the office, to which he Ano Newell Record was chosen March 11, 1678-79, holding the position nearly twenty years, with the exception of a single year, - from June 1688 till June 1689, - when Samuel Phipps, the Schoolmaster acted as Recorder. Newell was a cooper, but appears to have been well descended. His father, Andrew Newell, was a merchant from Bristol, England; and his mother was Mary Pitt, daughter of William Pitt, who had been sheriff of Bristol. Maud Pitt, who was the first wife of the Hon. Richard Russell, is believed to have been another daughter of the sheriff. Mr. Newell married Hannah Larkin; and he died Oct. 14 or 15, 1704, aged 70 years and 2 months.
One of the carliest orders of the town provided that " the great Corn- field shall be on the east side of the Town Hill, the fence to range along even with those dwellings where Walter Palmer's house stands and so along to- wards the neck of land; and that every inhabitant dwelling within the neck be given two acres of land for an house-plot and two acres for every male that is able to plant." This field was subsequently known as the "East field within the Neck." It embraced all that section of the town lying be- tween Main Street and Charles-River Avenue on the west and the Mystic River on the cast, and was sometimes called the Town Field. Within its limits were three hills, - Bunker's,1 Breed's, and Moulton's, the last of which had formerly an elevation of thirty-five or forty feet. Breed's Hill was about sixty feet high, while Bunker's Hill - the highest land in the town - was one hundred and ten feet. In 1677 Moulton's Point Field is mentioned. It probably was the extreme easterly portion of the East Field. There were other " Fields " subsequently laid out, - East Field without the neck, which was sometimes known as Northfield and also as Highfield, was on the north side of Mystic River and extended to Penny Ferry; Waterfield, near Woburn; Menotomy Field, contiguous to Arlington ; Mystic-Side Field, now in the town of Malden; Lincfield, which included the West Field, without the neck; Northwest Field, within the peninsula,
1 George Bunker, from whom the hill takes its name, was one of the most wealthy inhabi- tants, and one of the greatest landed proprietors.
He died in Malden in 1664. The Rev. Benja- min Bunker (HI. C. 1658), who died Feb. 3, 1669-70, was his son.
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OCT. 13. 1634. ORDER RELATING TO LANDS, ETC. ( Charlestown Records.)
39I
CHARLESTOWN IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
and located near Washington Street; besides other " Fields " of less ex- tent and importance. There was also the Stinted Pasture, so called, - a large tract of common land which lay between the Winter-Hill road and Cambridge.
The first considerable division of land among the inhabitants generally was voted Jan. 9, 1633-34, when it was ordered that ten acres be laid out to every inhabitant at Mystic Side. In 1635 twenty-nine persons voluntarily surrendered half of their allotments for the accommodation of new comers. This division appears not to have been recorded till 1637, and the date has given rise to an erroneous impression that the division was made in that year. In 1635 a large tract of "Hayground . .. on Mystic Side " was laid out by a committee of the town to the inhabitants. In 1638 there was another considerable division of land on Mystic Side which was included in the tract set off to Malden in 1726. On the 28th of October, 1640, two hundred acres were laid out to thirty-five persons; and there was still another division in 1641. March 1, 1657-58, another committee laid out " the wood and com- mons" on Mystic Side to two hundred and two families. In 1685 the Stinted Pasture was laid out to those having propriety in it; and the division of the common lands was thereby completed.
The importance of preserving a record of the ownership and transfer of land in the colony was early recognized by the General Court, and legislation to that end was had. In Charlestown the compilation of the volume known as the " Book of Possessions"1 was begun in 1638 by Sergeant Abraham Palmer, who was then the Town Clerk. Mr. Palmer was a London Abr. Palmex2 163 merchant prior to his coming to New England. He was a member of the first assembly of Representatives in 1634, and was held in high esteem in the town which he faithfully served in civil and military capacities. He died in Barbadoes, in 1653.
The Town Hill, upon which the present meeting-house of the First Parish stands, is sometimes called Harvard Hill. In early times it was called Wind- mill Hill, because of the mill upon its summit which William Tuttle had leave granted to him to build in 1635. In 1646 it was ordered that the ground on the top of this hill should lie common to the town forever. The hill was originally much higher than it is now, - a great quantity of gravel having been dug from it, at different times, prior to the Revolution.
Burial Hill, on the west side of the town, is first mentioned in the town records in 1648. Cobble Hill is the site of the McLean Asylum ; Ploughed Hill, known later as Mount Benedict, the site of the Ursuline Convent which was destroyed in 1834; and Walnut-Tree Hill the site of Tufts College, - all in Somerville. Powder-Horn Hill, Prospect Hill, and Winter Hill, also referred to in the records, bear the same designations at the present day.
The Land of Nod, so called, was a large tract now within the limits of Wilmington ; and Stoncham was at first known as " Charlestown End."
1 Printed in IS78 as the Third Refort of the Boston Record Commissioners.
392
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Training Field, used for military purposes, and now known as Win- throp Square, is also mentioned in our records for the first time under date of 1648. A diagram showing its shape, dimensions, and principal abutters in 1713, found among the papers of the late Mr. Thomas Bellows Wyman, is here reproduced. The figures indicate the dimensions as shown by the surveys made in 1713-14 and 1802, respectively : -
355
356.6
EDES.
FOWLE AND LAWRENCE.
286
TRAINING FIELD,
1713
378.4
284
AND LATER.
MRS. HAYMAN.
372
EDMANDS. 22416
232
John Edes, who was the founder in New England of the once numerous family of this name in Charlestown, was born in Lawford, in the county of Essex, England, March 31, 1651, where his grandfather, of the same name, had been rector of the parish for forty years, ending with his death in 1658. Juan Coches 1.2.79 The emigrant was the owner of the estate on the training-field as early as 1687; but the records fail to show his title. The property remained in the possession of his descendants till 1790, when Stephen Edes, a great-grandson of the emigrant, sold the estate to the town. An alms-house was subsequently built upon a part of the pur- chase; but it long since gave place to briek dwelling-houses. Its location may be seen by reference to Peter Tufts's plan of Charlestown in 1818, which will appear in a later volume of this work.
" The Square " was for many years referred to as the Market Place, where " a market was kept constantly on the sixth day of every week." Wapping, or Wapping End, was the name given to a section of the town now included, for the most part, within the Navy Yard, and in the neighborhood of Wap- ping Street. Sconce Point lay between Wapping Street, Wapping Dock, the Town Dock, and Charles River; while Moulton's Point is identical with the region now known as " The Point," contiguous to Chelsea Bridge.
The Great Ferry communicated with Boston where the Charles-River
393
CHARLESTOWN IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
bridge now is. It was established in 1631; and Edward Converse was . the first ferryman. In 1640 it was granted to Harvard College. Penny Ferry communicated with Mystic Side, where Malden bridge has since been built. It was established April 10, 1640; and Philip Drinker was appointed to keep it. Convapô Jan. 6, 1672-73, the town ordered a bridge to be built over Wapping Dock, which was at the head of the Town Dock and north of Water Street.
In 1677 the first dry dock in the country was built in this town, between Charles-River bridge and the Navy Yard.
In 1670 the first survey and record of the streets and highways was made.1 The two principal ones were Main Street (otherwise known as Market Street, the Country Road, the Town Street, Fore Street, Street to the Ferry, and WVast Street) and Bow Street, also called Elbow Lane and Crooked Lanc.
The Great House, first used as the official residence of the Governor, was purchased in 1633, by the town, of John Winthrop and other gentle- men, for £10, and used as a meeting-house until it was sold, for £30, to Robert Long in 1635, when it became a tavern, Robert Jonge 1658 or "ordinary," sometimes known as the " Three Cranes," from its sign. It stood wholly in the market-place, in front of the building, lately the City Hall, at the corner of Harvard Street. The tavern was kept by Mr. Long and his descendants till 1711, when it was sold to Eben Breed, in whose family it remained until the land was bought by the town to enlarge the Square, after the Revolution. The building is believed to have been standing on the 17th of June, 1775, when the town was burned. In speaking of Governor Winthrop's discoun- tenance of the custom of the drinking or pledging of healths at table, Mr. Winthrop, in his charming biography of his illustrious ancestor,2 remarks that "there is reason for thinking that 'the Great House' in Charlestown was still the Governor's abode when this reform was first in- troduced into the social circles of New England." March 16, 1680-81, the General Court passed an order regulating the number of taverns which might be lawfully kept in each town in the colony. Three were permitted to Charlestown, and their keepers and one retailer of wine were all to be licensed annually by the selectmen.
The First Church of Boston was formed in this town July 30, 1630, when a covenant was entered into and signed by John Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, Isaac Johnson, and John Wilson, the last named being chosen teacher of the church August 27th following.3 This was the third church established in the colony, Salem and Dorchester only taking precedence of Boston.4
1 Printed in the Third Report of the Boston Record Commissioners, pp. 186-188.
2 Life and Letters of John Winthrop, ii. 53.
3 The Covenant is given elsewhere.
4 A Rev. Francis Bright had come here with VOL. 1 .- 50.
the Spragues in the preceding year. He was from Rayleigh in the County of Essex ; leaned towards Episcopacy ; and Savage says he "took some discouragement and went home [to Eng- land] in 1630, in the 'Lion.'"
394
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The congregation worshipped under a large tree, more than once referred to as " Charlestown Oak," -which Dr. Bartlett 1 located, from tradition, on Town Hill, - and afterwards in the Great House, until the removal for wor- ship to Boston, which took place in September. For two years those members of the congregation who remained in Charlestown attended wor- ship in Boston; but this was found inconvenient, especially during the winter, and on the Fourteenth of October, 1632, thirty-five members "were dismissed from the Congregation of Boston," at their own request. These persons chose the Rev. Thomas James, then recently arrived from England, as their pastor, and entered "into church covenant the 2d of the 9th month 1632," as the First Church in Charlestown, which thus became the seventh church established in the colony, - the churches in Watertown, Roxbury, and Lynn having been organized in this order after the founding of the First Church in Boston.
The Great House was first used by the new church as a meeting-house. About 1636 another building appears to have been occupied by the con- gregation ; but its location -" between the town and the neck " - cannot now be determined. Nov. 26, 1639, William Rainsborough bought the old meeting-house for £100, which was used towards paying for " the new meet- ing-house newly built in the town, on the south side of the Town Hill." This building occupied a site on the north side of the Square, between the late City Hall and the entrance to Main Street, - about where Mr. Swallow's grocery now stands, - and was the last house of worship here built and occupied during the colonial period.
Increase Nowell, a man of family and education, and of exalted position among the colonists, was the only for the of fovy ty nº 1 654 one of the Assistants who continued Enrusaft skorooff to reside in Charlestown after the re- moval to Boston. He was the first ruling elder of the Boston church, but resigned the eldership upon a question being raised as to the propriety of his holding it while an incum- bent of a civil office. He was for many years secretary of the colony. Dr. Budington regarded him as " the father of the church and the town " here; and in an elaborate note in his History of the First Church,2 he has given a sketch of Mr. Nowell's family and his public services.
Mr. James's ministry appears to have been a short and troubled one; and he was dismissed March 11, 1636. The Rev. Zechariah Symmes was next ordained teacher of the church, Dec. 22, Zech: Syms. 1634; and during his ministry the Antinomian controversy,3 which distracted the colony for some years, culminated, among other results, in the banishment of the Rev. John Wheelwright. A written remonstrance against this act of the General Court was presented to it. The document,
1 Mass. Ilist. Coll., xii. 164.
2 Pages 190-192. Sce also N. E. Ilist. and Geneal. Reg., xxxiv. 253 et seq. [Cf. Mr. Whit- more's chapter in the present volume. - ED.]
3 Cf. Dr. Ellis's chapter on "The Puritan Commonwealth" in the present volume. See also the same writer's Life of Anne Hutchinson, published in Sparks's American Biography.
395
CHARLESTOWN IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
which bore the signatures of several Charlestown men, was held to be seditious; and the signers were called to account for having subscribed . it. Ten of them acknowledged their "sin," and requested to have their names erased from the paper. George Bunker and James Brown, how- ever, maintained their position and refused to recant; whereupon the constables of Charlestown were ordered to disarm them unless they ae- knowledged their error "or give other satisfaction for their liberty." Deacon Ralph Mousall, another of the signers, " for his speeches in favor of Mr. Wheelwright " was dismissed from the General Court Sept. 6, 1638. Mr. Symmes died Feb. 4, 1671, aged 72.1 The Rev. John Harvard was ad- mitted an inhabitant Aug. 1, 1637, and " was sometimes minister of God's word " in this town during Mr. Symmes's pastorate ; but no account of his ordination has been preserved. He was highly esteemed for his scholarship and piety; received grants of land from the town; was placed on an im-
HARVARD'S MONUMENT.2
portant committee "to consider of some things tending towards a body of laws," April 26, 1638; and before his death, from consumption, Sept. 14 (24, New Style), 1638, he bequeathed, by a nuncupative will, to the proposed college, afterwards named in his honor, one half of his estate, together with his library. His house occupied the site now making the southerly corner of Main Street and the alley, ascended by steps, formerly called Gravel Lane, leading up to Town Hill. He was graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge,
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