USA > Rhode Island > Bristol County > Barrington > A history of Barrington, Rhode Island > Part 13
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The boys are here preparing themselves as deputies to the Great and General Court at Boston, as constables, grand-jurymen, selectmen, surveyors, town clerks, tithing- men, schoolmasters, fence-viewers, hog reeves, etc., etc., and the various other duties and offices of civil society. Among them is Samuel Myles, the son of the pastor, who entered Harvard College from our grammar school in 1680, grad- uated in 1684, received the title of A. M., was appointed as
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rector of King's Chapel, Boston, in 1689, and died in 1729, after an able ministry of forty years over one people. And the girls,- well, we know not how our intelligent grand- mothers and grand aunts would have figured in the world, and how different a figure we should have cut to-day, had it not been for the schools and teachers of that ancient time.
In 1698 the selectmen met and treated with Jonathan Bosworth to be schoolmaster for the town for the year en- suing and to teach school in the several places of the town by course. The town records the fact as follows :
"At ye meeting for choice of Town Officers March 28, 1699.
Also then voted and confirmed the agreement the select- men made with Jonathan Bosworth for schoolmaster this present year and to begin teaching the first month on Wanamosset neck ye second month on New Meadow neck ye 3d month on Kicamuet ye 4 month at Barttroums neigh- borhood ye 5th at Mattapoiset, and so successively and to have 18£ per annum one fourth part in money the other 3 parts in provisions at money price."
In 1695, it was proposed and concluded "that any part of the town that neglects to provide a convenient place for teaching school, that then the other part of the town that doth provide and accommodate shall improve said school- master." In 1701, pedagogue Bosworth is still teaching with his salary increased to £20 and his itinerancy extended from Wannamoisett to Bartram's, and " he to satisfie for his diet out of his wages." In 1702, the Court of Quarter Sessions at Bristol has fined our old town for want of a grammar schoolmaster the sum of £5, and the selectmen are au- thorized to procure a grammar schoolmaster with all con- venient speed, and in November, 1702, we find that they have agreed with one Mr. John Devotion to give him £12, current money of New England, to be paid quarterly, and the town to pay for his diet ; "that he shall in the year remove in ye four quarters of ye town," and they also allow him £20 to be paid by the town for the keeping of his horse.
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SCHOOL AND SCHOOL-HOUSE, DISTRICT 1, BARRINGTON.
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JOHN DEVOTION, SCHOOLMASTER.
In 1703 it was voted that the schoolmaster's abode should be paid after the rate of 4s per week in provisions at money price, and the salary of Mr. Devotion be raised four pounds in money "and pay for his Dyet." A good commentary on the schoolmaster's labors. In 1709, it was unanimously voted that the selectmen should agree with Mr. John Devo- tion, our former schoolmaster, for his services for six years ensuing. In 1715 his contract expired. So happy are the relations between master and people that the selectmen are again authorized to treat with Mr. John Devotion.
"At a Town Meeting in Swansea Oct. 4th, 1715, Treated with Mr. John Devotion late schoolmaster of this town his time being out by former agreement the Selectmen being present Agreed with said school master John Devotion to serve ye Town of Swanzey the Term of Twenty years Insu- ing if he lives and remains capable to perform sd service to teach our Youth to Read English and Latin and write and Cypher as there may be Occation. Upon the several con- dishens following that is to say sª John Devotion is to Dili- gently and stedily to tend and Keep a school five months yearly and every year During the sª 20 years yt is to be understood as following viz. : October, November, Decem- ber, January, February, the two first months at or near his own dwelling house every year and to remove ye 3 Remain- ing months yearly to the several places here expressed yt is to say as far as Kekemuit to John Hails or there abouts and Elisha May's all in sª Town and to find him self board within sª Limmits and further ye sd John Devotion is obliged to remove his schooling ye latter 3 months to any part of sd Town provided he hath his board upon free cost and con- veniency for ye school by any neighborhood or any particu- lar man orderly considered proper by ye selectmen of sd Town.
"And the sd John Devotion is to have the sum of seven- teen pounds ten shillings yearly paid to him by ye sª Town for his service in his schooling ye term of the sª 20 years if he lives and performs sª agreement at sd meeting let out to
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ye sª John Devotion a lot of land Called teachers and school Lot lying and being on the east side of New Meadow River between the land of Richard Hail Junr and John Thurber on ye east side of the country Road in Swanzey aforesd the full term of 20 years if sd Devotion Liveth and keep school aforesª, Reserving a Priviledg of wood for maintaining a fire for ye school out of sd lot during sd term and for ye use of s1 lot ye sd Devotion is to pay the sum of 3 pounds yearly and except the sª 3 pounds for ye use of sª Lot for 3 pounds paid towards and in part of sª sum of 17 Pound Ten Shil- lings yearly and at ye end of sd Term sª Devotion is obliged Peacably and quietly to surrender sd Lot up to the Town and farther it is agreed that the owners or proprietors of sª Lot are to pay the worth or vallew of what fence shall or may be on sª Lot at the end of sd Term to the said John Devotion or his heirs and further it is agreed yt sª Devotion shall not let out s Lot to any other person and if sd Devo- tion Decease before sª Term be expired sª Lot shall return to the Propriety and the fences to be paid for as a to his heirs or assigns."
Of Mr. Devotion's qualifications for teaching we can have little question. Of his discipline we may form an idea from a manual of a school code then in general use.
THE SCHOOLMASTER TO HIS SCHOLARS.
" My child and scholar take good heed, Unto the words that are here set, And see thou do accordingly, Or else be sure thou shalt be beat.
First, I command thee God to serve, Then to thy parents duly yield, Unto all men be courteous, And mannerly in town and field.
Your clothes unbuttoned do not use, Let not your hose ungartered be ; Have handkerchief in readiness, Wash hands and face, or not see me.
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SCHOOL-HOUSES.
Lose not your books, inkhorns or pens, Nor girdle, garters, hat or band, Let shoes be tyed, pin shirt-band close, Keep well your hands at any hand.
If broken hosed or shoed you go, Or slovenly in your array, Without a girdle or intrust, Then you and I must have a fray."
Several more verses added to the duties and increased the perils of a scholar's life in that early day.
Of the early school-houses, built by the proprietors of the town, very little can be said to commend their comforts or even their conveniences. Rudely built, located near the centre of the district, on the triangle where three ways parted, or on the angle formed by two roads ; furnished with long wooden benches and desks; heated from open fireplaces at the end of the room opposite the door, so far as it could be said to have been heated at all; the wood for fuel fur- nished by the patrons of the school, in lieu of money for the support of the school; the fires built by the larger boys, and the house swept and otherwise kept clean by the larger girls ;- these were some of the conditions of that early school life of our ancestors two centuries ago. In fact, matters had but little altered in the early part of this century for Edward Everett in an address at Faneuil Hall, Boston, in 1855, speaks thus of the " old school house " of IS04. "It contained but one room heated in the winter by an iron stove, which sent up a funnel into a curious brick chimney, built down from the roof, in the middle of the room, to within seven or eight feet of the floor, being like Mahomet's coffin, held in the air to the roof by bars of iron. The boys had to take their turns, in winter, in coming early to the school-house, to open it, to make a fire sometimes of wet logs and a very inadequate supply of other combustibles, to sweep out the room, and, if need be, to shovel a path through the snow to the street. These were not very fascinating duties for an urchin of ten or eleven; but we lived through
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it, and were perhaps not the worse for having to turn our hands to these little offices."
In addition to the books already referred to, a word should be said as to the Hornbook of our ancestors. This book was a simpler book for beginners than the New England Primer, which in its later editions contained the catechisms of John Cotton and that of the Westminster Assembly. The Horn- book was so called on account of its horn cover, which ren- dered it indestructible from without. Shakespeare calls it the " teacher of boys" in his time, and it was used in Mas- sachusetts and other parts of New England a little over a hundred years ago. "He does not know his hornbook," was equivalent to " he does not know his letters." A single book would often serve two or three generations of children of the same family, so carefully were those early text books used and handed down from parents to children. But facts enough have been given to show from what .small begin- nings our present efficient public school system has sprung.
As the town has settled a schoolmaster over its educa- tional interests for the term of twenty years, we may safely leave the boys and girls of that generation to Mr. Devotion's care, and turn backward forty years to the stirring and tragic events of Philip's War.
CHAPTER XII
SWANSEA RANKS
Division of Lands - Order of Town - Threefold Ranks -Names of Men in the Several Ranks-Town Legislation - Committee on Ranking - Highest Rank Hereditary -The Town Abolished the System.
A LL the lands of the town not included in the Sowams' purchase, which had not been distributed among the proprietors of Sowams and Mattapoisett prior to 1667, were under the general control of the inhabitants and subject to town legislation. We come now to consider a most extraordi- nary and novel method of dividing the lands of the town among its citizens, a plan which was adopted in no other colony in New England, and the motive for which does not appear in the town records. The inhabitants were divided into three ranks or classes, according to their ability, character, or influence, corresponding in some sense to the three Roman orders, the Patrician, the Equestrian, and the Plebeian. The power of ranking the inhabitants was exer- cised by the five persons appointed by the Court to regulate the admission of the same, in 1666, and was afterwards assumed by the committee appointed by the town. Captain Thomas Willett, Mr. Paine, Senior Mr. Brown, John Allen, and John Butterworth arranged the ranks at the first. Pro- motions and degradations were made from one rank to another according to the authority and judgment of the com- mittee in charge. The act of the town, establishing the ranking system was as follows :
SWANSEA, February 9th, 1670.
"It is ordered, that all lots and divisions of lands that are or hereafter shall be granted to any particular person, shall be proportioned according to the three-fold ranks under- written, so that where those of the first rank shall have three
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acres, those of the second rank shall have two acres, and those of the third rank shall have one; and that it shall be in the power of the selectmen for the time being, or com- mittee for admission of inhabitants, to admit of and place such as shall be received as inhabitants, into either of the said ranks as they shall judge fit, till the number of three- score inhabitants shall be made up, and that when the said number of three-score is accomplished, the lands that are already bought shall be divided and proportioned according to the said three-fold ranks; that in the meantime, the said selectmen or committee shall have full power to grant lots unto such persons as may not be placed into any of the said ranks until further order, provided the grants not to exceed nine acres to a man."
" The said first ranks are only such as are in these col- umns :
Capt. Thomas Willett,
Mr. Richard Sharpe,
Mr. Nathaniel Paine,
William Ingraham,
Mr. James Browne,
Mr. John Myles, Pastor,
Mr. John Allen, Sen.,
A Pastor's lot,
John Butterworth, A Teacher's lot,
Mr. John Dickse.
"The above second rank are only such as are in these col- umns :
Samuel Luther,
William Howard,
Robert Jones,
Gideon Allen,
Zach'r Eddy,
Thomas Lewis,
Hugh Cole,
Jonathan Bosworth,
John Myles, Jun.,
Anthony Low,
Nicholas Tanner,
Obadiah Bowen,
Benjamin Alby,
Thomas Eastabrooks,
Sampson Mason,
William Bartram,
Thomas Barnes,
George Aldrich,
John Cole,
William Salisbury,
Joseph Carpenter,
John Brown,
Gerard Ingraham,
A Schoolmaster.
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TOWN LEGISLATION.
" The said third rank are only such as are in these col- umns :
Hez. Luther,
John Martin,
Joseph Lewis,
Isaac Allen,
Caleb Eddy,
Eldad Kingsley,
John Paddock,
Samuel Woodbury,
Nathaniel Lewis,
Joseph Wheaton,
Samuel Wheaton,
John Wheaton,
Thomas Manning,
John Harding,
William Cahoone,
Jeremiah Child."
Further town legislation as to ranks was as follows :
November 2, 1671, first rank was ordered to pay £3., 12s .; second rank, £2., 8s .; third rank, £1., 4s.
1671, John Crabtree was permitted to occupy six acres of land for the present, and to be at the town's courtesy in re- lation to more lands.
1672, Joseph Wheaton admitted an inhabitant of the third rank.
Job Winslow and John Lathrop admitted to the second rank.
John Clow was admitted an inhabitant, if there be no just objection for his removal.
1673, Hezekiah Luther was promoted from the third rank to the second, and Gerard Ingraham, by his own consent, degraded from the second to the third rank.
1673, the names of George Aldrich, Wm. Salsbury, and John Harding were ordered to be erased from the town book "for not fulfilling the fundamental order of the town."
1674, John Harding was ordered to leave the town.
Richard Burgess was placed in the third rank.
Dermit Smith and Wm. Hammon were admitted inhabi- tants.
1677, There was granted to John West ye six acres of Land be it more or less Lying between John Martins Lot & Richard Burgesses Lot and also to be stated in ye third or lower Rank.
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" Whereas there hath been a difference betwixt ye Town of Swanzey & Joseph Kent, about his buying John Harding's Right and his Claiming a Right to him granted by ye Town for ye Final Issue of all other differences of this nature, the Town doth grant and agree that Joseph Kent shall have land in this Town according to ye Proportion of land allowed to ye 2d Rank and In Witness of Joseph Kents free Consent & good satisfaction in this agreement and this agreement to be a final Issue on his part, In Witness hereof ye sd Joseph Kent hath hereunto set his hand, November ye 14th, 1677."
" 1678. Whereas Thomas Man was accepted an Inhabi- tant in ye Town of Swanzey to ye Right of ye Third Rank & ye sd Thomas Man did sometime since by ye Consent of ye Towns men, Alienate ye sd Right to Robert Jones Inhab- itant of this Town by way of exchange for other Lands in Rehoboth by a verbal bargain although no Record doth appear of ye Towns men's Consent yet ye Townsmen do grant Liberty to ye sd Thomas Man to confirm the sd Right of a Third Rank by deed or deeds to ye heirs of ye sd Rob- ert Jones or to ye Administrator to ye estate of ye sd Rob- ert Jones for ye use of ye sd heirs and ye said heirs by vir- tue of sd deed or deeds may be invested with a good and lawful Right into ye whole Right of ye Third Rank."
1679. Nathaniel Toogood is admitted into ye 3d Rank upon his performing ye Town order.
Jeremiah Child was promoted from the third to the sec- ond rank.
The grant to Stephen Brace was declared utterly void.
In 1680, Mr. John Saffin was admitted into the first rank.
1680. "Mr. Timothy Brooks is admitted into ye second Rank to have only such a proportion as shall belong to ye sd Rank after ye second division of fourty acres is laid out to ye second Rank."
"John Thurber, Junr., James Cole, Hugh Cole, Junr. are admitted into ye 3d Rank to have only such proportion as shall belong to ye 3d Rank after ye present division of 20 acres is laid out to ye sd 3d Rank."
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END OF RANKING.
In 1681 Mr. James Brown senior, Mr. John Allen senior and John Butterworth, were elected the committee for the admission of inhabitants, and they granted to Capt. John Browne, Ensign Thomas Estabrooke, Serjeant Samuel Luther, Serjeant Hugh Cole, and Mr. Nicholas Tanner, their heirs and assigns forever, " the full right and interest of the highest rank, &c."
The ranking system had already created a landed aristoc- racy. This act of the committee proceeded a step further and made the highest rank hereditary. The inhabitants of the town began to understand the tendency of their extra- ordinary rules on this subject. Although great dissatisfac- tion had been caused by the several assignments of ranks and the promotions and degradations from rank to rank, the townsmen had not been able to see the purely undemo- cratic character and tendency of their ordinance, until the further singular, but logical actions of the committee occa- sioned a unanimous protest on the part of the town, and a declaration that the act was utterly void and of no effect. From this time, the ranking system went into disuse, only occasional reference being made to it thereafter.
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CHAPTER XIII
PHILIP'S WAR
Swansea - Its Exposed Situation - Philip Shut In at Mount Hope - Reasons for War - Philip's Diplomacy - Preparations for Conflict -The First Blow - Suffering Swansea - New England Losses - Aid from Ireland - Philip's Character and Tragic Death.
0 UR mother town, Swansea, was the most exposed and the greatest sufferer by Philip's War of any of the New England settlements, and a brief account must be given of that bloody and destructive contest, so far as it relates to this section. Those desiring a full account of this war will read Capt. Benjamin Church's history of the eventful strug- gle between barbarism and civilization.
Swansea, as we have seen, extended from Narragansett Bay, on the west, to Shawomet, the present town of Somer. set, on the east. On the south it was bounded by Mount Hope Bay, Mount Hope Neck, and Narragansett Bay.
The settlements in Swansea extended from John Brown's and Captain Willett's at Wannamoisett, to Bartram's, at Mattapoisett, and included forty-four houses, besides the Baptist meeting-house on New Meadow Neck, and four gar- rison houses, or forts, one near Captain Willett's, for the protection of that neighborhood, the second near Mr. Myles's house, and not far from Myles's Bridge, and a third at Wm. Bourne's house, at Mattapoisett. The fourth garrison house, built of stone, stood near Thomas Chaffee's house, near the present residence of Leander R. Peck, Esq. The population of the town is estimated to have been two hundred and fifty, the majority of the families living on New Meadow Neck and vicinity.
Philip's chief residence was at Mount Hope. His father
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had sold the lands of Swansea to the people of Plymouth, and Philip had seemed to acquiesce in the sale, but after the death of his father, Massasoit, and the tragic death of his brother Alexander, his disposition towards the white settlers changed from friendship to a bitter and poorly-concealed hostility. All the neighboring lands, for twenty miles around him, had been sold and deeded to the whites. He possessed only Mount Hope Bay and Poppasquash Necks as his own, where he could hunt and fish at his pleasure, but the balance of the Pokanoket territory was divided into the house lots, planting and pasture lands, and meadows of the white settlers. He could not leave his own wigwam and lands at Mount Hope, except by canoes, without trespassing on the lands of the whites. This was a great trial to his free spirit. Still further, the cattle of the whites encroached on his Mount Hope lands, and caused him and his tribe great annoyance. Most of all was he influenced by the insult to Alexander. which caused his early death, and he nursed revenge in his heart while he mingled with the whites, visited their homes, received their favors, and made himself familiar with their affairs and modes of life. He was a man of great cunning, shrewd and subtle in his dealings, and at the very time when he made the strongest declarations of friendship for the whites, was planning the destruction of all the English colo- nists in New England. He had united all the New England tribes in his plot of destruction so secretly that, but for an accident, the terrible massacre might have fallen on the peo- ple like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. The sachem of a small tribe, he had made himself the real commander-in- chief of all the Indians from the Hudson to the Penobscot. Even his long-time enemies, the Narragansetts, had been won over by his wiles, while his treachery to Plymouth, and his sworn pledges to Massachusetts Bay, misled the whites, and lulled them into fateful security. He foresaw that noth- ing short of a war of extermination of the English could save his tribe from annihilation, in which they might conquer and could but perish. The English saw the impending dan-
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ger, and strove by all conciliatory measures to avert it ; treaty stipulations were entered into with Philip, but these were regarded by him only as procrastinating measures that were to afford him time to prepare his men for the conflict, and mature his plan of operations.
The terrible blow was to be struck in 1676, a year later than it fell. The murder of Sausaman by one of Philip's men was the immediate occasion and hastening of the war. In June, 1675, Philip was holding a war dance at Mount Hope. James Brown of Wannamoisett went with a friendly letter to Philip from Governor Winslow and found him in the midst of the warlike revelry. Petananuet told Captain Church that Brown would have been killed by the young warriors but for a promise Philip had made to his father, Massassoit, that he would show kindness to him. He then learned that Philip had promised his young men, who were crazy for a fight, " that on the next Lord's day when the English were gone to meeting, they should rifle their houses and from that time forward kill their cattle."
On Sunday, the 20th of June, 1675, according to promise to his warriors, Philip provoked the first bloodshed in Swan- sea, through the insolence and provocations of his men. An Indian was wounded by a settler's shot and this was the sig- nal for the onset. Thursday, the 24th of June, was a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer at Swansea, and, during the services the Indians pillaged several houses, and, on re- turning home from church, the people were fired upon by the savages, one being killed and another wounded. Two men despatched for a surgeon were also slain. The people fled to the garrison houses, whither they carried their corn and other provisions. The garrison house at Bourne's at Mattapoisett sheltered seventy persons, sixteen men, the remainder women and children. Of a party of men sent out for corn at a deserted house, six were slain by the Indians, beheaded and their heads set up on poles at Kickemuit. Half the houses of the settlers were also burned. On the 28th of June, forces under Captain Samuel Moseby arrived
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PHILIP'S WAR.
at Myles's Garrison from Boston and Plymouth, and head- quarters were made at Swansea. A skirmish took place the evening of the 28th near Myles's Bridge, on the east side of Palmer's River, in which Captain Benjamin Church began his military career as a great soldier of the whites. One man was killed and one wounded in this fight. The troops spent the night at Myles's Garrison, and the next morning started out, expecting to find Philip at Mount Hope, but he had fled to Pocassett, east of the Taunton River. A party of Indians, who had gone to Rehoboth, was discovered burn- ing a house, and, being fired upon, four or five of them were slain, one being Peebee, a sachem of a part of the tribe that occupied the main neck of Barrington, Peebee's Neck.
The war had now become general and the destruction of lifeand property by the Indians extended from town to town, until the whole of Southern New England was involved in the terrible conflict. Small parties of the savages still hung around the Swansea and Rehoboth settlements, attacking and pillaging without warning, and keeping the settlers in constant fear and watchfulness. At Wannamoisett, in July, 1676, an attack was made on the whites and Mr. Willett's son, Hezekiah, was slain, a young man about twenty-five years of age and recently married to Andia Brown. Unsus- picious of danger, Mr. Willett was shot dead with three balls, near his own door, his head was cut off and his body left on the ground.
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