USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 7
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Gosnold is the first Englishman that we know to have landed in Massachusetts, and he may well have landed in or near Salem Bay, for his description of the coast fits the coastline from Cape Ann to Nahant. Gosnold loaded cedars and sassafras from the promontory which he named Cape Cod.
In 1603, Martin Pring, an English explorer, may have landed on Cape Ann, for his ship's log states that it "bare into that great gulf which Captain Gosnold overshot the year before, coasting, and finding people on the north shore thereof." In 1604, another Englishman, George Weymouth, examined the coast pretty carefully.
The most distinguished of the cartographers and explorers was Samuel. de Champlain. He sighted Cape Ann on July 15, 1604, and
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anchored near its shores sometime before the next morning. He was astonished to find how much the Indians knew of the coast ter. ritory, as they added to the map which he had by showing the Merri- mac River, which had been hidden from him by Plum Island. The fruitfulness of the territory is shown in Champlain's writings: "We saw some very fine grapes just ripe, Brazilian peas (the New England bush-bean), pumpkins, squashes and very good roots (artichokes), which the savages cultivated, having a taste similar to that of chards. They made us presents of some of these, in exchange for little trifles which we gave them. They had already finished their harvest. We saw two hundred savages in this very pleasant place, and there are here a large number of very fine walnut trees, cypresses, sassafras, oaks, ashes and beeches." Champlain also tells of the Indians' way of mak- ing clearings: "After cutting down the trees of the distance of three feet from the ground, they burn the branches upon the trunks, and then plant their corn between these stumps, in course of time tearing up also the roots." Champlain showed the results of his survey on a map which he published in 1612.
In 1614, Captain John Smith, chiefly noted for his planting and sustaining the colony in Virginia, made a map of the coast of the territory that he named New England from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. To Cape Ann he gave the name Tragabigzanda in memory of a Turkish lady who had befriended him when he was a prisoner in her country. To the three islands now called Thatcher's, Straitsmouth, and Milk islands, he gave the name the "Three Turks' Heads" in memory of his single-handed victory over three Turkish champions. When Captain John Smith returned home, Prince Charles changed the name Tragabigzanda to the cape of Ann in honor of his mother. Captain Smith had noticed the place now called Nahant, and he named it the Mattahunt Isles. In the time of Governor Endicott it was referred to as Nahant, probably from the Indian chief named Nahanton.
In 1622, Robert Gorges obtained a grant of land in Massachusetts Bay in which Nahant was included. A settlement was made previous to 1630 in Nahant, trees were cut down and the soil was cultivated. The settlers had the full consent of the Indians with whom they lived in harmony.
In 1623, a small group of merchants and other gentlemen of Dorchester, England, received a charter entitling them to carry on
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the fishing business and to establish a colony. Fourteen men were left "in the country of Cape Ann," when the ship sailed back. This occupation of Cape Ann seems to have been due to the fact that fish were plentiful there as no evidence is available that the adven- turers intended, when they left England, to make a permanent settle- ment in that particular place. The next year the ship returned with
SALEM-THATCHED FRAME HOUSE, PIONEERS' VILLAGE The most common type of residence of the first settlers
Photo by Lantz
enough new settlers to increase the number to thirty-two. In three years' time Roger Conant was selected by the Dorchester Company to manage the affairs and the government of Cape Ann, and Rev- erend John Lyford, a minister of the Established Church, who had been dismissed from Plymouth, became the first minister of the new settlement upon the invitation of the company. At the end of the year it became apparent that the plantation had failed, so the ships of the company were sold and the hope of establishing a colony was given up. Although most of the settlers returned to England, Conant and a few others, including John Woodbury, John Balch, and Peter
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Palfrey, decided to stay. When it was seen that Naumkeag (Salem) was a better place to carry on agriculture, Conant and his followers removed to Naumkeag in 1626 and started a settlement there.
In 1627, John Endicott, Sir Henry Roswell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcoat, John Humphrey, and Simon Whitcomb formed a company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and obtained a patent from the Council of New England for their territory. This company became the successor of the Dorchester Company, and received its powers and lands from the King in return for one-fifth of the gold mined. The company had a governor, a deputy governor, and assist- ants chosen by the freemen, members of the company. Four general courts, or assemblies, of these company members were to be held every year, at which times other freemen could be admitted. Quot- ing from J. Duncan Phillips in his "Salem in the Seventeenth Century" :
"The General Court was specifically authorized to 'estab- lish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, etc., not contrary to this our realm of England.' All proper offi- cers shall 'have full and absolute power and authority to cor- rect, punish, pardon, govern and rule all such the subjects of us' and 'to resist by force of arms all such persons . . . as shall attempt . . ,the destruction or annoyance to the said plantation.' The right of fishing and the necessary operation of drying fish on the shore was reserved specifically 'to any of our loving subjects,' and no monopoly of this indus- try was therefore included."
This company was something more than a commercial company, since it provided for the government of a certain territory. It was also a trading company organized for profit. Its stockholders, the freemen, who held different amounts of stock, carried on the gov- ernment and elected the governor and assistants, clerk, and treas- urer. The indentured servants who came to America worked for so many years to pay for their passage.
To quote again from Phillips :
The factor which took the whole transaction out of the realm of commercialism was the conscientiousness of the found- ers in providing for the welfare of its servants and their reli-
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gious education, and the fact that the largest promoters wanted to found a state for themselves where the Puritan Church should be relieved of the interference of the bishops of the Church of England. It was, however, the idea of at least some of the adventurers that the colony should yield a profit, and they wanted returns on their money, objected to its loss pretty violently, and were as slow as most stockholders in contributing more when they began to doubt the hope of return. The leaders, however, were very able and compara- tively wealthy men, and they furnished the money to see the venture through. Their main rewards came from land grants proportionate to their contributions, which in the course of twenty-five or thirty years came to have a definite value, and, it is to be hoped, rewarded them to some extent for their struggle."
The man who was chosen to establish the company in New Eng- land was John Endicott, a courageous, sociable, cheerful, and opti- mistic man, but one who would let nothing stand in the way of finishing his assigned task. Endicott reached Naumkeag on Septem- ber 6, 1628, with about fifty people in his company. Roger Conant may have expected to remain as governor or superintendent of the plantation, but he soon learned that the Dorchester Company had sold out to the Massachusetts Bay Company, which had also obtained whatever rights the Dorchester Company had to Cape Ann. So Conant and his followers now found that they had no political power. There was an understandable feeling of resentment on the part of Conant's group toward Endicott's group, but Conant finally accepted the company's terms. The company ordered that two of the thirteen magistrates should be chosen by the old planters, and in the com- pany's first General Letter of Instructions to Endicott it was stated ยท that these planters should be allowed "to continue the planting of tobacco (a trade by the whole company generally disavowed and utterly disdained). . . .. But, however, we absolutely forbid the sale of it or the use of it by any of our own or particular men's serv- ants." Soon after Endicott's arrival the name Naumkeag was changed to Salem (Peace ).
Because the settlers did not have enough clothes, food and shelter, that first winter was a terrible one. Perhaps because of their pri-
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vations a disease appeared which took the lives of many of the set- tlers, including Endicott's wife. The indentured servants of the company had to be turned loose to care for themselves, as there was not enough food for them. Dr. Fuller, a physician, came from Plym- outh and tried to prevent the disease's spread, but he was not success- ful. Dr. Fuller had many talks with Governor Endicott about theo- logical affairs and church government and orgainzation, and Endi- cott wrote to Governor Bradford, of Plymouth: "I am by him satis- field touching your judgements of ye outward forms of God's wor- ship. It is . . . no other than is warranted by ye evidence of truth." This indicates that the Salem Colony already was becoming a Separatist group from the Church of England. More of the reli- gious affairs will not be included here, for that phase of the subject is treated in the chapter on religion in this history.
In 1629, Governor Endicott received instructions from the com- pany in England that he had been confirmed as Governor with a council called "The Councill of Massachusetts Bay."
The number of those in England that wanted to come to this country was increasing; in April of 1629 some five ships were gathered, and in May they left the shores of England. The Gen- eral Letters of Instructions that were sent with these new settlers were very detailed and I shall quote from Phillips some of the orders that were given regarding the duties of the Governor and the use of supplies :
"With George Farr, another shipwright, were sent ship- building supplies, tar, pitch, oakum, cordage, sails, and nails, to be in charge of Robert Moulton, and as soon as three shal- lops were built, one was to belong to Governor Craddock and two to the Company. All the cattle sent were after landing to be divided equally between the Company and Governor Cradock (the Governor of the Company in England). Six fishermen were sent, to be divided on the one third and two thirds basis, with salt, hooks, lines, knives, boots, and barrels as their equipment. A house was to be provided to keep their supplies. Thomas Beard, a shoemaker, and Isaac Rickman were sent with supplies of leather for shoes, and evidently to start a shoe business. All these entries clearly indicate the desire of the Company to make a self-sustaining colony, with
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at least fishing, farming, . . . .. sawmilling, salt-making, ship- building, and shoemaking to start on. It suggests a busy win- ter ahead for the Governor, and not much time to be devoted to theological discussion when the everpresent necessity of securing food is added. Meanwhile the Governor was also to be 'impartial' in the administration of justice, to watch over the morals of the community, prevent the tobacco trade, 'make some good laws for the punishing of swearers,' and 'so to order it as that the salvages may not, for our lucre sake, be induced to the excessive use of much strong waters sent for sale,' though for what other purpose they sent them over, it is hard to see."
Judging from these instructions it seems quite obvious that those in charge of the company in England did not realize what Endicott and his companions were faced with in this country. It was a hard enough matter to keep body and soul together without worrying about how much the people smoked or drank of strong waters.
In August of 1629 it had been decided by the company in England that the government of the plantation should be transferred to New England. Accordingly, that winter and the next spring were spent largely in preparation of the fleet and provisions. The "Arbella," that had as chief passengers John Winthrop, Richard Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, Thomas Dudley, William Coddington, and George Phillips, was among the first of the eleven ships that sailed during the spring of 1630. On June 8 the first of the ships sighted Mt. Man- sell (Mt. Desert), and thus they knew they had reached America. As they sailed south they recognized Agamenticus, Cape Porpoise, Boone Island, Piscataqua, and the Isles of Shoals before they reached Cape Ann, so it was evident that the mariners were familiar with the coast.
When Winthrop's group arrived, there were about two hundred people left in Salem of Endicott's original number and of the people that came in 1629. The new group consisted of about five hundred people plus cows, goats, and horses. Of the conditions in Salem at this time Thomas Dudley, who arrived with Winthrop, reported : "We found the Colony in a sad and unexpected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before, and many of those alive
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weak and sick." Winthrop soon left for Charleston ( Charlestown), where he established his home.
The house in which Governor Endicott lived had been built by the old planters on Cape Ann and had been removed to Salem by Endicott's orders. This house was made of oak and was two stories and a half high. It was used not only as the Governor's house, but also for the storage of supplies and as a general meeting place for the first year.
By 1630, Salem was organized with some sort of a governing body. In time this body was superseded by the General Court and the Court of Assistants in Boston. About 1632, the Colony was apprehensive about the possibility of a commission being sent from England and thought turned to defense. Salem had her own forts and was not particularly interested in helping Boston build hers, so it was ordered that the towns of Saugus, Lynn, and Salem should pay for one day's work out of every two that were spent on defense. The court came to think that this was unfair; consequently it was decided that "if Salem shall fortifie themselves as to satisfie the Court within theis 12 monethes that they shall have such moneyes as they have contributed."
In 1635-36 a remarkable act was passed by the General Court and I shall quote it in full, using the original spellings :
"Att the Generall Court, holden att Newe Towne, March 3, 1635. Whereas pticular townes have many things wch concerne onely themselues, & the ordering of their owne affaires, and disposeing of businesses in their owne towne, it is therefore ordered, that the ffreemen of euy towne, or the maior pte of them, shall onely have power to dispose of their owne lands, & woods, with all the previlidges & appurtenances of the said townes, to graunt lotts, & make such orders as may concerne the well ordering of their owne townes, not repug- nant to the lawes & orders here established by the Genall Court; and also to lay mulks & penaltyes for the breach of theis orders, & to levy & distreine the same, not exceeding the some of xxs; also to chuse their owne pticul officers, as con- stables, surveyors for the high wayes, & the like; & because
Essex-6
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much business is like to ensue to the constables of seuall townes, by reason they are to make distresses, & gather ffynes therefore that euy towne shall have two constables were there is neede, that soe their office may not be a burthen vnto them, & thay may attend more carefully vpon the discharge of their office, for wch they shalbe lyeable to giue their accompts to this Court when they shalbe called therevnto."
It was under this act that these freemen of Salem and the other towns attempted to form their government. It is to be remembered that the owners of the company were the freemen, and that there- fore only a few of the citizens were freemen, since the indentured servants had no share in the government. According to the first edi- tion of Felt's "Annals of Salem," there were not more than forty-five freemen in Salem before 1640 and only sixty by 1651. It was thus easy for the freemen to meet and decide on the issues as they came up.
In 1637, the freemen of Salem adopted the plan of entrusting the business of the town to a committee of twelve, the modern selectmen. In 1638, seven were chosen, and as it was noticed that these seven men were the ones who usually came to the town meeting, in 1639 it was voted that six was a quorum in a general town meeting if sufficient notice of the meeting had been given. Thus the action of the seven could be binding if no others were present. The board of selectmen was fully organized in 1640, when four was made a legal quorum of the seven.
The following admirable paragraph from Phillips deserves to be quoted :
"In this way, step by step, all the activities of the town were organized. They grew up, not on some pre-arranged theory of how a town should be organized or how governed, but by building step by step on what had already been accom- plished, using what was useful in the old and discarding the rest; carefully experimenting with each new idea, adopting it if valuable, and adapting it to changing conditions as they arose. Sound common sense was the dominant characteristic of the Puritan. He brought the institutions of England with him, but he quickly adapted them to the conditions of the frontier. He had only two assets, the will to work and a
.
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virgin country. Neither was of value without the other, but with high courage, dauntless energy and an orderly mind, he turned a wilderness into a rich, happy, and prosperous com- monwealth. In every age there are those who, for trivial and unimportant aims, try to impede the great work of far abler men whose objects they are utterly unable to comprehend. Knowing what they were about, the leaders went steadily on with their intended purpose. Those who got in their way suffered. They had, of course, the defects of dominant, forceful men of all ages. They were proud and determined, which sometimes made them seem ruthless and even cruel, but so also have been the men of action of every age. So they are today. The leaders of Massachusetts Bay of the seven- teenth century, had they lived in the twentieth century, would have been great captains of industry. In spite of our vaunted humanitarianism, our great bridges, dams, and buildings are today costing their toll of human lives just as truly as the theocratic state drew blood at rare intervals at the whipping- post."
Illustrations of these more or less general thoughts will be given as our story progresses.
Having shown specifically the development of Salem from a set- tlement into a well-organized town, let us now deal more generally with the early settlements with reference to the life that these people led and the customs that they adopted as the necessary circumstances presented themselves.
Of course, the fathers of New England wanted to have their own form of religion and their own form of government, but their main desire was to live, and this meant that they would have to consider the political, religious, and social problems as a unit. Every free- man's interpretation of these different problems must be subordinated to the common good.
W. B. Weeden, in his "Economic and Social History of New England," states :
"New England was made, not by lordships, but by par- celling the land so that a communal social interest and an indi- vidual, personal proprietorship could work together in con-
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stant harmony. The old idea of society concentrating itself in the divine mission of the king, and inspired authority emanat- ing from the crown, had not the creative governmental force of this diffused common weal. This common feeling made every man of substance a part of the government, a factor in the social issue of every governmental effort."
The Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from the New England Council a patent for their territory, and according to this grant all the public lands were held by the government. The Gen- eral Court, or mass meeting of freemen, which later became an elec- tive body, in 1635 and 1636 granted to the towns by the law quoted above the right to act as agents of the government and to dis- tribute the public lands among the inhabitants. Thus the land on which the settlements were made was considered as belonging to the community as a whole and was granted by the selectmen to those who would do the community the most good. According to Rev- erend George Batchelor, in his account of Salem in the 1888 "His- tory of Essex County," "the land was granted in small building lots and planting fields to those who were admitted to the privileges of the town. There could be no speculation in the town lots. Only the occupiers could hold them. The rights of forest, field, and shore were common, and to the householders pertained certain privileges of pasturage and other rights peculiar to the proprietors. A man was made a freeman by the General Court, and when he desired to settle, asked to be 'admitted an inhabitant,' and, if his request was granted, became a member of the corporation consisting of certain named persons and such others as they chose." At first newcomers were not welcome, and they were made to give an account of them- selves before they were admitted to the town. Land was not granted at all to undesirables, such as Quakers, Anabaptists, and Jesuits. When these persisted in their efforts to settle, they were persecuted, because the magistrates thought that they were bringing unrest and revolution in their wake and were, therefore, dangerous to the community.
The first settlers naturally lived rather close together around their meetinghouse on "home-lots," usually of some four to ten acres in size. The size of the lot depended on the wealth and importance of the settler. The allotments of meadow, tillage, and wood land in
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more remote parts of the town were made in proportion to the value and the size of the village lot, and some of the settlers lived on these outlying farms; though such practice was long discouraged because it was thought dangerous to live away from the shelter that the little settlement afforded. This practice was voted against in the town meeting in Andover, and a fine of twenty shillings a month was imposed on him who continued to live in prohibited places. As the roads improved and the dangers from the Indians lessened, there was a tendency for the people to move to their farms, and in this way
SALEM-REPRODUCTION OF GOVERNOR ENDICOTT HOUSE, PIONEERS' VILLAGE Photo by Lantz
began the settlement of the present town of Andover which grew out of the original settlement now known as North Andover.
The townsmen of Haverhill had purchased a large tract of ter- ritory from the Indians, thus becoming the proprietors of it and enabled to divide it and allot it as they saw fit. There was land enough for everybody, but the problem of distributing it was not easy. Taxes were levied at first according to the amount and kinds
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of land that a man owned; that is, he would pay taxes proportion- ately on the planting ground, home land, meadows, or commonage (land of inferior quality and partly covered with trees and bushes) that he possessed. In 1651, the town of Haverhill voted that "James Pecker should be an inhabitant with us and that he shall have a four acre lot (house lot) with accommodations proportionable to it, which lot is to be bought from Bartholomew Heath for eight pounds. James Pecker doth promise to come and be an inhabitant with us by June. 1653."
Further attempts on the part of the town to control its individual members is shown by the following extracts from the records of Haverhill. On January 13, 1645, the town voted "that every inhabi- tant that will, may make upon the common, for every acre of house- lot which he hath, one hundred of pipe-staves and no more; provided he fell no timber for the same within two miles of the house-lots." In 1646, if any man felled more than his share of trees, he was to pay the town five shillings for each tree. In 1648 it was voted "that all men shall have liberty to fell or let stand any tree or trees which stand- eth at the end of his lot, next the street or great river; and if any man shall fell any such tree unto whom it doth not belong, he shall pay for every tree five shillings unto him at the end of whose lot it did grow." In spite of these regulations a great deal of illegal fell- ing went on probably because it was profitable to do so even though the fines were high. Timber was bringing a good price and the cleared soil was good for agriculture.
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