USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Truro > Truro-Cape Cod; or, Land marks and sea marks > Part 24
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A gentleman now living has seen a pair of andirons in use
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in Truro, that were made from chain-shot thrown ashore from a war ship.
June 5, 1780. Another requisition was made for reinforcements. The quota for Truro was eleven. June 22d, another call was made for thirteen, and Decem- ber I, still another for nine.
Here were thirty-two men demanded in less than six months from this already overdrained town. Three calls were also made for beef, aggregating 13,460 pounds.
In 1781 another call was made for seven men. October 19, 1781, Truro repre- sented her reduced condition and utter inability to produce its quota of men or supplies and prayed for relief.
It was voted that in lieu of the beef required by this town for the sustenance of the army, £4416 be sent to the Gen. Court, as it was impossible to provide it. The town now voted $1000 to each man who will enlist in the Continental service. A committee was appointed to see if the Gen. Court will allow the depreciation on the money paid to soldiers' wives. Military officers chosen this year were, Jede- diah Paine, Capt .; Seth Dyer, Ist Lt .; Ambrose Snow, Jr., 2d Lt. In July an attempt was made to raise five months' men for the army and $100 in silver was offered as the town bounty.
This year, 1781, money was scarcer than ever, and rates could be collected only with the greatest difficulty. But few could offer satisfactory security to obtain money, and that at a ruinous sacrifice.
Sept. 17. A meeting was called to consult what can be done to furnish blankets, shirts, shoes and stockings demanded from this town for the army.
1782 dawned upon the Colonies in a most troublous, but not hopeless condition. The coast towns, particularly those on the lower part of the Cape, where, owing to continued pres- sure, constant emigration was going on, were by far the greatest sufferers ; their condition was growing desperate, but there is no sign of weakness ; not a word of yielding the cause. " A committee was again chosen, whose duty it shall be to go on board the enemy's ships in Cape Cod harbor, if necessity shall arise."
A great many Cape men were now on board of privateers.
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From May, 1776, to February, 1778, one hundred and seventy- three American privateers made prizes of seven hundred and thirty-three British vessels, over four to each, which, with their cargoes, were worth not less than twenty millions of dollars after deducting the balance of property retaken and restored. It may be stated on authority, that during the war, quite two hundred thousand tons of British shipping was cap- tured by our privateers, which were largely manned by fish- ermen. It was this wholesale gobbling of the enemy's substance that pieced out our own resources, but sapped the resources and aggravated the people of England, and so much embarrassed the ministry in their measures.
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Marblehead, a loyal and brave old town, had at the begin- ning of the war upwards of twelve thousand tons of ship- ping ; at the close it was one eighth of that amount. In capital, population and importance, she was second only to Boston before the war. No other town in the United States lost so large a proportion of property and men. Captain John Manly, of Marblehead, enjoyed the high honor of receiv- ing the first British flag, and hoisting the first American.
Salem's fleet was reduced from sixty vessels to six. At the close of the war, five hundred prisoners were released from Old Mill prison. In 1777 the American Colonies laid before Europe that noble Declaration, which, says an English writer, "Deserves to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace." But not till the seventh year of the war, at the conclusive battle of Yorktown, and surrender of Earl Cornwallis, Octo- ber 19, 1781, was that Declaration honored. Peace was not fully restored till 1783.
Doctor Samuel Adams, of Truro, was a true patriot, and entered with ardor into the cause. He first acted on the committee of correspondence, but at an early day entered the army as a surgeon, where he served till the close of the war, gaining the reputation of a zealous patriot and skilful physi- cian. Doctor Adams was a native of Killingly, Conn., the son of Henry, who came to New England in 1630. He studied medicine with Doctor Nathaniel Freeman of Sand-
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wich. After the war he settled in Bath, Me., where he died in 1819, aged seventy-four.
Benjamin Collins, an uncle of the present Jesse, when eighteen years of age, belonged to the barge that rowed General Benedict Arnold on board the Vulture. He was first drugged and kept on board till he understood that Arnold had joined the enemy, and that he would be regarded a traitor ; he then ran away, and did not return for forty- eight years, when he visited Truro for one year, and returned to his home in Canada, where he had a family, and where he died.
Lieutenant Ebenezer Collins, aged twenty-five, was killed at the siege of Boston, and buried on Prospect Hill. He wrote in his last letter, when the English army held Boston, " We are about to move on the British, and may the Lord of hosts go with us." Solomon, aged twenty-one, died at the Army Hospital in New York, 1776; Richard, aged thirty, died at home of sickness contracted in the army, 1777 ; Jona- than, aged thirty-three, died a prisoner in Halifax, 1778 : were sons of Jonathan Paine, and uncles of the present Richard. Lemuel Paine, son of Elkanah, died on board the prison-ship Old Jersey, at New York, during the Revolutionary War.
The Reverend Levi Whitman of Wellfleet, wrote Doctor Freeman in 1790 referring to the Cape : " No towns suffered more during the war except those reduced to ashes." The story of these long years is best told by the simple records which, as we have seen, indicate that men and means were taxed to the utmost limit, by their unfaltering patriotism. The especial attention called by the devoted patriot General Joseph Otis, and others in commanding positions during the war, that Truro was among the first to do her duty, and her example quoted as worthy of imitation by some others, is a gratifying portion of history not to be forgotten. It is impossible to ascertain accurately the number of men furnished ; fifteen officers were named ; perhaps some of these belonged to the militia. From the twenty-six houses north of the Pond Village, where now are three only, twenty-eight men were either killed, died by sickness in camp, or on board prison-ships. The number
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of men altogether furnished could not have been less than two hundred, which seems almost incredible from so small a town.
The Brig Resolution, an American privateer, was taken by an English vessel November 27, 1780, and her crew committed to Old Mill Prison January 22, 1771, among whom were Thomas Cobb, Isaac Snow, Joseph Crowell, Elias Gage, Stephen Young, Jeremiah Newcomb, Aquilla Rich, Samuel Curtis, Nathan Atwood, Eleazer Higgins, Elisha Jones, Joseph Pierce, and Ezekiel Rich: Truro and Wellfleet men. Obadiah Rich was commander of the brig Intrepid of four guns. Whether he then lived in Truro, I am not informed.
During the year 1775, David Snow, father of the late Cap- tain Ephraim of Cohasset, was living with his large family in the broad flat house originally belonging to John Snow, last occupied by Joshua Dyer. Mr. Snow, accompanied by his son David, a lad of fifteen years, while fishing in a boat from the Back Side, was captured by one of the numerous English priva- teers that constantly hovered round our coast ; and in spite of the most earnest remonstrance, was carried to Halifax. The privateer in question was known as the "shaving-mill."
When the father and son did not in due time return, the friends and neighbors gathered on the bank, but no trace of the missing boat could be discovered ; and as no tidings reached the afflicted family, they were soon given up, and the bereaved wife nerved herself for the life task before her.
From Halifax they were transferred to Old Mill Prison. They soon gained the confidence of the officers, who gave them many privileges. One day young David found a large file which his father advised him to keep, as he saw in it a key to liberty. To carry out his plot, Mr. Snow pro- posed a great frolic and dance throughout the prison. He enlisted thirty-six of the prisoners in his little scheme. With the fiddling began the heavy double shuffle of the prison bro- gans, which, brought down square on to the rough floor, drowned the sharp squeak of the rasp doing full service in strong hands on the prison bars.
Great enthusiasm was given to the dance, and fresh hands kept the file doing full work till a place was made large enough
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for exit, when the thirty-six men, not missed in the excitement of the dance, emerged into the prison yard. To knock down the sentinels and escape clear from the old prison was short work. They were now outside the walls of Old Mill, and fif- teen miles from Plymouth Harbor, whither they directed their steps in double-quick, knowing well that their success was to be clear of the shore of England before daylight. The only conveyance possible at Plymouth was a large scow on which they embarked, and when the morning prison gun echoed over the moors, the thirty-six men were afloat on the water of the English Channel.
With almost superhuman strength, they boarded a small vessel near by, and under threat of surrender or death, were soon in command of their prize, and trimmed their sails for the coast of France. Upon arrival they sold their prize, Mr. Snow and his son retaining forty dollars as their share.
They gave themselves up to the French government, were placed on board of a cartel, sent to America, and landed in some part of the Carolinas. As the war was still going on, and the coast guarded, their only hope of getting home was by land, which Mr. Snow and his son accomplished by weeks of wearisome travel. Upon their arrival at Boston peace had been declared. They soon found passage to Provincetown, and received intelligence of friends who had mourned them as dead for seven years. They continued their homeward march. By inquiry, Mr. Snow found his wife was sewing at Isaac Small's, where he presented himself without ceremony. A messenger from the shades of death, he seemed to his wife, who fell as dead at his feet.
The boy David, who in the seven years had become a stal- wart man, had passed on to his own neighborhood, but instead of going to his own house, went to his old neighbor, Lot Harding's. He introduced himself as a stranger, but in the conversation, one of the bright-eyed girls said to her sis- ter, " If that isn't David Snow, it is his ghost." Mrs. Snow recovered, and walked home with her husband. David seeing them coming, met them in the road near the corner, where neighbors and friends joined and welcomed them home.
CHAPTER XVII.
1786-REV. JUDE DAMON- 1828.
The Third settled Minister of the Church of Christ in Truro. Ordination. Sketch of Mr. Damon. Church Wheels. Dr. Hersey's Will. Deacon's Congress. Utopian. Election of Deacons. First and Last Baptisms. A Peacemaker. A side Wind. Polite Boys. The " old Shay." Four Kings. Mr. Damon and Mr. Job. Orthodoxy Rev. Joseph Cook. A good Man. A good Minister. The great Sickness of 1816. The Triumvirate. The old North. Moral Excellence. Christian Forbearance. Old Blood. Huldah Rich. The Squire and the Priest. Peggy Rider. Accepting the Terms. Bible Society. John. Stately Gravestones. Mr. Damon's Register. His best Monument. The Truro Astronomer. The Conclusion.
S EPTEMBER 25, 1786, a meeting was held to see if the town would concur with the Church in calling to the pas- toral office Rev. Jude Damon. The town united in the call, and voted £200 specie by way of a settlement, and a salary of £ 75 specie annually, and the use of the parsonage ; fifteen cords of good oak wood and three cords of pine and five tons of hay, to be delivered at his door each year. A few dissented from the call. He was ordained November 15, 1786. After the ordination forty dollars (Spanish Milled) were voted by the town to Captain Joshua Atkins for entertaining the ordain- ing council.
FIRST AND LAST BAPTISMS : - November 19, 1786, baptized Mary, daughter of Jonathan Snow and Deliverance his wife ; January 25, 1828, Alexander Richards Kelley, adult ; Mr. Kelley died in 1866, at Los Angeles, California, where he was engaged in business. He was a brother to Benjamin S. Kelley, a well-known citizen of Truro.
March 29, 1792. On Lecture day the Church passed a vote that every male member should contribute four pence and every female member four coppers, which was judged sufficient to provide for the Communion Table.
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June, 1794. Elizabeth Treat, wife of Samuel Treat Junior, made application to the pastor for a dismissal from the Church, to join a Baptist Church in Har- wich, and desired to have her request for a dismission laid before the Church. June 26 being lecture day, the request of the said Elizabeth Treat for a dis- mission from the Church, was layed before the Church; and after some conver- sation on the subject, it was voted to choose a Committee of three brethren to go and converse with her in regard to the matter of her request. The Com- mittee chosen were Sylvanus Snow Esq., John Rich, and Deacon Ephraim Harding.
Attest. JUDE DAMON. Pastor.
Whatever the facilities of getting into that Church, it will be admitted that, like Ezekiel's vision by the river Chebar, it was a wheel within a wheel, and hard to get out to join another church with a different creed.
June 10, 1795. Lecture Day, the Church voted unanimously to abide by and defend with the other Churches, concerning the will of the late Doctor Hersey of Barnstable, against all attempts whatsoever that may be made to break said will.
Attest. JUDE DAMON. Pastor.
Several references are made to this bequest, and committees appointed from time to time to attend to the same, for more than twenty years. Perplexing questions growing out of this will were often referred to the Legislature. A full account of Doctor Hersey and his will is given in Freeman's History.
As a strange freak of eccentricity, and as Truro was inter- ested with all the other Cape towns, we present the principal points. Doctor Abner Hersey was a practising physician of Barnstable, who died in about 1794, leaving a considerable estate and no children. His will directed that his estate after the payment of £ 500 to Harvard College, should be vested in the thirteen Congregational Churches then existing in Barn- stable County. It necessitated an annual meeting of delegates from all the thirteen churches, whose expenses were paid out of the estate. This, though not so intended, was the most successful part of the will, as it created an annual excursion for three deacons from each of the thirteen churches, who were constituted trustees, to meet annually at Barnstable and there compare notes and refresh themselves upon the Doctor's
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liberality. Unfortunately for the deacons, the estate did not pay the expenses, and so the property was sold and a division made among the churches. The amount to the church in Truro was three hundred and five dollars in all. The will was no doubt intended as purely Orthodox, but it proved purely Utopian. After minute directions as to the manage- ment of the farm, the fences, crops, wood-cutting, etc.
The directors were to pay over the net income to the pastors, who were to invest in books and distribute one third part to be applied in purchasing Dr. Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul -one third part Dr. Evan's sermons on the Christian Temple - twelve sixty-third parts Grove's dis- course on the Lord's Supper- eighteen sixty-third parts on Dr. Doddridge's Discourses on Regeneration and his two sermons on Salvation by Faith - nine sixty-third parts Doddridge's Discourses to Young People -twelve sixty-third parts Discourses of the same on the Education of Children - twelve sixty- third parts discourses of the same on the Grace of Christ and on the Evidences of Christianity.
After the lapse of one hundred years, ministers of the thirteen Cape Cod parishes (mentioning them all) were to be allowed to select other books of like character except that, every fourth year the books purchased must forever be the books afore specified.
Funuary 27, 1796. At a church meeting appointed for the purpose of choos- ing persons to officiate as deacon in the church, the brethren by written votes unanimously made choice of Mr. Jonathan Snow.
April 14, 1802. At a church meeting Mr. Anthony Snow was chosen by the written votes of the church unto the office of deacon.
May 1816. At a church meeting appointed for the purpose of choosing one of the brethren to officiate as deacon of the church, Benjamin Hinckley Jun., was unanimously chosen by written vote.
April 11, 1813, being Fast Day, after divine service Allen Hinckley Esq. and Mr. Lewis Lombard were unanimously chosen by the written votes of the church unto the office of deacon.
June 1, 1814, being Lecture Day, after the services were concluded the brethren of the church were desired to stop a short time. The pastor then pro- posed to the said brethren to lay aside and drop the custom practised in the church, of requiring persons to make a public confession of some particular instance of omission direct, as a prerequisite to making a christian profession, in order to have baptism administered to their children. The vote being called for, it passed in the affirmative.
Attest. JUDE DAMON. Pastor.
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Mr. Damon was cautious in all his statements, always allow- ing for a margin on the safe side. On one occasion in the fall of the year, when a fleet of four or five hundred mackerel catchers made the bay white with their sails, Mr. Damon sur- veyed them with delight from the bank, and said to a neigh- bor, " I never saw such a beautiful sight; I should think there must be seventy-five vessels."
In the early part of his ministry particularly, it was the cus- tom of the fishermen to make two trips during the season to the Banks. So that during the summer months, some of the vessels were going and coming at the same time. If the wind was west, it would be fair only for those going down to the Banks; and if east, only fair for those coming home, and dead ahead for the return fleet. Mr. Damon soon understood this, and his benevolent heart shaped his prayers to the contin- gency, by introducing the following passage :
" We pray, O Lord, that thou wilt watch over our mariners that go down to do business upon the mighty deep, keep them in the hollow of thy hand ; and we pray thee, that thou wilt send a side-wind, so that their vessels may pass and repass."
Great deference was paid the minister in those days by old and young, and the ministers in turn paid great deference to the people and maintained a dignified self respect with no sus- picion of pride or superiority.
Mr. Marshall Ayres of New York, son of the late Doctor Ayres, stated at a social meeting, "that the boys never failed to take off their hats when they passed Mr. Damon, and he never failed to recognize them, and pleasantly remark, ' Thank ye, good boys,' " or some other like expressions.
A good meaning man was anxious to join the Church, whom Mr. Damon thought best to keep awhile longer on probation, or on his good behavior. He became at last a little impatient. Said he did not want to be the last. Mr. Damon told him to hold out a while longer and he need not feel afraid of being last, as the Bible said " the last should be first."
Mr. Damon's parish embraced the whole town. He visited regularly his parishioners ; it was considered a compliment whenever the minister called ; and so it passed into a compli-
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ment among the people when their neighbors or friends came to see them, whom they were glad to see, to say, "I would as soon have expected Mr. Damon."
On one occasion the "old shay " was seen approaching a house before things were to my lady's mind ; the four roguish boys were not over-dressed or over-clean. The big-mouthed oven stood open, and as any harbor in a storm, the four boys were hustled into it, and told to keep still till the minis- ter had gone. Soon after Mr. Damon was well seated, the good woman was disturbed by an inquiry from the oven, " Has he gone ? " Losing her presence of mind, she exclaimed, "Keep still. you little scamps !" which let the cat out of the bag,
That muffle-doored oven did not contain future presidents or governors, but it did contain four future kings - ocean kings who ruled their little kingdoms up and down the world.
Like old Job, Mr. Damon was puzzled over that theological problem, the prosperity and long life of the wicked, and the man whom God hath hedged in. Perhaps sitting together under the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, the man of Uz and the Truro minister have long since settled that knotty point.
Mr. Damon's later years were somewhat ruffled by that old foe, sectarianism, which disputed the good man's theology and alienated some of his friends.
For, letting down the golden chain from high, He drew his audience upward to the sky. He warned the sinner with becoming zeal, But on eternal mercy loved to dwell. He taught the gospel rather than the law ;
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.
In doctrine Mr. Damon sympathized with the spirit of his time, and preached more Unitarianism than Orthodoxy. I suppose it is a mild declaration that the old-school Orthodoxy that Rev. Joseph Cook says "took Charles the First by the throat and broke his neck," and that fled from England for conscience sake, had lost much of its sectarian zeal and doc- trinal grip about this time. Be this as it may, Mr. Damon
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was a good man and a Christian. Whatever his doctrinal leanings, he preached the gospel as he understood it, without cant or dogmatism. He lived in happy communion with his people, and spent his life in faithfully ministering to them, who in return loved and respected him to the last. He always visited and prayed with every sick or afflicted family in town.
Wide was his parish - houses far asunder -
But he neglected naught for rain or thunder, In sickness and in grief, to visit all, The farthest in his parish great and small.
In simple rounds of toil the years flowed quietly and pleas- antly along. Distractions nor expectations on either side disturbed not his even way.
The Cape people, and all people, make a date of important local events. The elderly will tell you such a person was born or died the year after the "Embargo," or the year of the "great sickness," or the year before the "great April," or " September or October gale," just as in history we tell about Julius Cæsar, or The Spanish War, or Napoleon in Egypt, and with just as much propriety.
I find in the old Church history, the following notice of the great sickness so often mentioned among the old people in Truro forty years ago. It is without signature, but I judge it was written by Rev. Mr. Damon. "In the month of February, and year 1816, an epidemic appeared in the town of Eastham in this county and proved very mortal. It was called by dif- ferent names, as malignant fever, putrid fever, spotted fever, cold plague, etc. It extended from Brewster to Provincetown ; in the latter place but lightly. It did not seem to be conta- gious ; some that went freely among the sick continued well, while those who avoided the sick died. Its signs were pains, either in the head, breast, side, arms and legs, attended with chills. The pulse in general very low and great debility. Some lived four or five days and were in great distress. Those who lived over the seventh or ninth day generally recovered. It was melancholy times. The grave was daily opened to receive the dead. Two or three funerals in a day
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often took place. Many houses were emphatically houses of mourning. Five were shut up in consequence of sudden deaths. Thirty-six died in this town ; but few that did not feel some symptoms of the prevailing sickness. The first death occurred on the ninth day of March, the last on the twenty- third day of May. Seventy-two persons died in Eastham ; about one eleventh of the population. Five were buried in one day, and there was seldom a day during the fifty days of the sickness, without a funeral. It required the services of all the well to care for the sick. The physicians could give no satisfactory reason for the strange epidemic."
THE TRIUMVIRATE.
It is worthy of notice that the united years of service ren- dered by Messrs. Avery, Upham and Damon, the first three ministers of "the Church of Christ in Truro," was one hun- dred and eighteen years. During this time eight hundred and thirty-nine were added to the Church and three thousand nine hundred and seventy-five were baptized. Though not prepared to prove that this embraces a larger consecutive period than that of any other three ministers of the same church in New England, I have no reasonable doubt such is the fact. Commencing in the reign of Queen Anne, it reaches within nine years of the succession of Victoria. It commenced with the British Colonies in America a few feeble settlements, under a Governor appointed by the Crown ; it closed over a free and independent nation, acknowledged and respected among the great powers of the earth. With the death of Mr. Damon closed really the old Church regime, and began the new order of modern Congregationalism, or Orthodoxy in Truro.
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