USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Scituate > An historical address, delivered in Scituate, Rhode Island, July 4th, 1876, at the request of the town authorities > Part 3
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Gov. West was quite a farmer and kept a great many cows. He would often set off with a load of cheese to sell, valued at $1,500. He married Ellen Brown ; his children were William, Charles, John, Samuel, Hiram, Elsie, Olive, Ellen, Sally and Hannah. Job Ran- dall married two of his daughters-Ellen for his first wife, and Sally for his second. Jeremy Philips married Elsie West, and Hannah married Mr. Gidcon Smith, father of Mr. Russel Smith, who resides in North Scituate village.
The going down in value of continental money ruined Gov. West financially, as it did many other patriots of the Revolution who trusted the government, and made his last years afflictive. This was one of the sacrifices our fathers made for us, that we might enjoy freedom and prosperity. Mr. West died about sixty years ago. Elder Westcott attended his funeral. He was a man rather above the middle height, a bony, sinewy man, long favored, with a prominent nose.
As an illustration of the spirit of the town of Scituate, in the Revolutionary war, and as evidence of confidence in their townsmen, are many votes on record. Here is one !- " At a Town Meeting held April 28, 1777, it was Voted that Col. William West be appointed to use the utmost of his endeavors and abilities, by giv- ing directions to his under-officers, as well as using his influence other ways, to raise soldiers by enlisting the number of men assigned to
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be raised in this town, by act of Assembly aforesaid." May 5, following, he was chosen chairman of a committee "to prepare and divide into classes the male inhabitants of the town, liable to bear . arms." How ready the town was to bear its proportion of war ex- penses, see the following vote of September 23, 1779 : " Voted that the town will raise their proportion of the $20,000,000 recom- mended by the Hon. Continental Congress, £5,359, 2s, 8d being said town's proportion. The collector of taxes is directed to pay the same, when collected, into the Loan Office in this State, taking Loan Office certificates of the same."
In this part of the town, where Col. West lived, are preserved some articles of furniture of great antiquity, heir-looms of families. Mrs. Farnham, who lives on the road to the West House-a little east-the only surviving child of the late Hon. Elisha Mathewson, has in her possession the veritable looking-glass brought to Scitu- ate by her first ancestor, John Mathewson. It is small-the plate only seven inches by nine-of hard wood frame, stout, and of good repair, save that the quicksilver has come off in a good many small spots. The same lady has other centennial articles,-one is a solid mahogany table of an oval form, three feet in length, an old fashioned tea table. This table was brought from England, and it belonged to Mrs. Farnham's grandmother, the wife of Richard Smith, whose maiden name was Lydia Clarke, daughter of Judge Joseph Clarke, who was driven off in the Revolutionary war to Pawtuxet. Several ancient chairs are also the property of this venerable lady, who is still living. The backs are about four and a half feet high, with leather bottoms and backs, with brass nails and carved work on the top. These were brought from Newport, and came from the same family as the table, and were made in England. An old cane of her grandfather, Thomas Mathewson, with round top and brass ferrule and bottom, is also preserved by this lady. John Harris, Esq., had an oaken arm chair, rush-bottomed, made by his grandfather, John Aldrich, during a great snow storm and the time subsequent, in all three weeks, that the people were kept from traveling. This chair commemorates a fall of snow unpara-
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lelled in Rhode Island history, and probably dates back to the re- markable snow storms of 1716 or 1738. A silver cup, holding about a pint, and reaching back to Jonathan Harris, great-grand- father of John, is in preservation to be handed in due course to Stephen Harris, son of John, now in California. This cup was originally left as a legacy to be thus transmitted from generation to generation.
Mr. George Brownell left several articles of antiquarian value. A table of curled maple, three feet across at the top, with slanting legs crossing each other, once the property of his grandfather, Samuel Aldrich, who came from England and settled in Smithfield. It came subsequently into the hands of his son John, and his grand- son James who settled in Scituate. There is a pewter soup platter of the same hereditary origin, twenty inches across, very heavy, marked with the initials of three generations-J. for John Aldrich, S. for Samuel, E. for Elizabeth, wife of John, J. for Jane.
Simeon Arnold came from Smithfield, and purchased about two hundred acres of land, including the farm on which his grand- son, Simeon C. Arnold, now lives ; he died about ninety-six years ago, occupying the premises until his death. His son Dexter was born, lived and died on the same farm, living as did his father to the age of about eighty years. His son Simeon, now upwards of fifty years old, has known no other home. He and his wife are the sixth generation from Roger Williams.
Other families have more or less of tables ; chests of drawers, and chairs of ancient patterns, many of them still in use. The quantity of pewter is considerable, and parts of antiquated China sets are found here and there. Looking-glasses, a few large and handsome ones, of great age, are to be found.
The spinning wheels, large and small, of former generations, are placed away in garrets, or stored in old and dilapidated out- buildings. Their busy hum is heard no longer, but silent, as those who once used them in commendable skill and industry, we may imagine them as wearing away life in indolent musings of the past, and perhaps wonder if the wheels of fashion will ever bring them
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again into favor. How many pleasant hours are associated in the past with these now neglected wheels. The spinning by them of wool, cotton and flax was esteemed an honorable and indispensa- ble avocation. The young daughters of a household soon learnt with pride to survey the skeins of yarn they had spun, and many a charming day-dream was born in the monotonous buzz of the spin- ning wheel, and many a sweet song was sung by youth and beauty : "Noise sweetens toil, however rude the sound, All at her work the village maiden sings, Nor while she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitude of things."
Every newly married couple must have a spinning wheel to commence life with, and the solitude of the new settlements was broken by the cheerful sound of the buzzing wheel. The old ladies solaced many a weary hour of the live-long summer day at this em- ployment, the door thrown open, and the cooling breeze sporting with the rolls they were spinning into useful threads.
Considerable interest is attached to the table, platter and bureau, handed down from Samuel Aldrich, which have been mentioned, from the following anecdote, showing how they were saved from destruction : Mr. Aldrich, one of the first settlers of Smithfield, had an Indian servant in his family. Several strange Indians came along one day and had a talk with this servant in the Indian lan- guage, the purport of which he made known to his master after the strange Indians had gone away. He told Mr. Aldrich that King Philip had proclaimed war, and he advised him to remove imme- diately. Accordingly, they went to work, digging holes to bury their heaviest and most bulky articles ; and the most light and port- able they took with them, the whole family proceeding in all haste to Providence. They were not any too swift, for on arriving at Tracy's Hill, in Johnston, they saw their house in flames, kindled by the Indians. They passed some armed Indians in their flight, but Mr. Aldrich's Indian, pointing to his master, said : "That man is my master; you must not kill him." Mr. Samuel Aldrich was a Quaker preacher.
Not very long ago in Scituate, no house was painted, plastered
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or papered, there were no carpets-the parlor floors were sanded, and hardly any furniture was in the house, and what was to be seen was simple and rude. A few ordinary chairs, rush-bottomed, or in the case of the better sort, stuffed with straw and covered with stout leather. Tables, stoutly made, but rude in construction, and bedsteads equally common and inelegant. Trenchers, or wooden plates, were in use in most families until the war of the Revolution, ' and to some extent afterwards. Pewter plates and earthen mugs, with a little China, appeared after tea drinking came in fashion, with cups and saucers very small. The Chinaware was considered so choice and genteel that it was placed in a little cupboard over the fire-place, and the glass door or window in it enabled all visitors to see the half-dozen or more ornamented cups. Old looms; now disused, remain to show how independent the farmer was in . those ancient times, wearing his home-made clothes and demonstrat- ing the capabilities of his wife, who often in church on Sundays eyed with just pride her husband's nicely spun and woven clothes, the product of her own hands, and often the cutting and making of them also.
Edwin and his brother John Howland, living on and owning extensive portions of land in the northerly section of Scituate, sold to Jeremiah Smith of Providence, in 1788, one hundred and seventy-five acres for $2,100, who put up on it a one-story gambrel roof house, and died in 1816, aged ninety-two years. Mr. Martin Smith, his great-grandson, occupied a large two-story house, built by his father in 1817.
Richard Brown, living in Providence, attracted by the fine situation of the land for hunting grounds, procured, so tradition says, at about the cost of laying out and registering, a large tract of land. Richard Brown, Jr., June 5th, 1765, gave to his son Jesse two hundred acres, saying : "it is the lot of land given to me by my grandfather, Richard Brown, April 28, 1744, and is on Mosquito Hawk Plain." Jesse settled on the spot, and also his brother Samuel. Mr. William Brownell, and after him Isaac S. Devereaux, of Providence, bought and lived there.
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Richard Brown, the senior, lived to be an hundred years old. Ås his century birthday approached, his children and friends made great preparations to celebrate the day by a dance and a feast. As the old gentleman was still hearty and active, they got him out to dance, and enjoying the sport as well as any one, he exerted him- self to comply with the general wish, making much merriment and acquitting himself well. He did not live long afterwards.
A hunting house, or lodge, was built nearly a century and three-quarters ago, for the convenience of sportsmen from Provi- dence and other places, while hunting deer and other game in that then wild and unsettled region. These animals used to come to the hunting house brook to drink, and in the thick tangled wood and brush, and tall herbage, they found a covert, and tender grass and berries for food. Some of the gentlemen who resorted to this place for hunting were Joseph Smith, Richard Brown, Jeremiah Smith, Edward Howland, John Hulet, Joseph Wilkinson, William West, James Aldrich and Gov. Fenner.
A famous squirrel hunt took place about 1784, on a wager be- tween the towns of Glocester and Scituate, as to which should kill the greatest number. They were to hunt for ten successive days and then bring in the spoils and make the award. Judges were mutually appointed, consisting of a committee of fifteen. Ten gal- lons of rum and the expense of a dinner for the committee was to be the forfeit of the losing party.
The boys turned out as well as the men, and even the women became fired with ardor. The dogs entered heartily into the work of searching the woods and ferreting out the squirrels. The sqir- rels were taken by surprise, at such a general, earnest and murder- ous onslaught, the object of which they so little understood. Doubtless, many Revolutionary soldiers, fresh from the battle-fields, condescended to show their skill on this occasion. At the close of the period allotted for shooting, the company met at the house of James Aldrich, to decide who were the victors. The piles of the respective combatants were ranged on each side of the town's border line opposite to each other, and consisted of the heads and
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one of the fore-paws of each of the slaughtered animals. The heaps were about the size of hay cocks. Scituate beat Glocester by sev- eral thousands. Mr. Obediah Fenner, of Foster, was present, and related to me these facts.
THE ANGELL TAVERN AND OTHER PUBLIC HOUSES.
Thirty-five years ago there stood very near the geograpical . centre of Scituate, in a place latterly known as Richmond Mills, an antique and somewhat grotesque edifice of a century and a quarter's date, looking very much the worse for time, with its red paint nearly all washed off, and looking dingy enough, and a little awkward with its south-east corner projecting very near to the junction of two roads. That was our old "Angell Tavern," built when the stumps in the road, and the wide-spreading forest around, indicated a country just beginning to be cleared up. When it was raised, so few were the inhabitants around, that they had to send to Providence for men to assist ; there was a great gathering of the region for many miles in circuit, and a merry time they had of it, and also when the tavern sign was elevated and the house opened for public entertainment. A curious and entertaining his- tory is belonging to that old house, for town meetings were held there, and the news of the day proclaimed, and politics discussed, and strangers found there a good supper and a night's lodging. It was two stories high, with the eaves of the front extending a few feet, forming a little shelter in stormy weather. On the western end was a very huge stone-chimney, forming a wall for that end of the building. There was also back of the main building, an addi- tion sloping down from the main roof to form a kitchen, closet and. . bed-room, one story high, which being old and out of repair, was taken down in 1823. The house had three narrow windows, with small panes of glass on the lower front, and four of the same de- scription above, with one at the east end. The front door was at the western extremity of the part facing on the road. As you en- tered, a door on the right hand of the passage opened upon the . bar-room, a large square room, and leading out of it, the entire length of the remaining fore part of the house was a sitting-room,
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used in later years, if not before, for a bed-room. Back of the bar-room was a kitchen, a large square room, which had been as large again before the addition was removed. A bed-room was at one end of it, nearly corresponding in size to the sitting-room, di- rectly behind which it stood. The only pair of stairs to the upper rooms, ascended from the kitchen at the west end. Three bed- rooms were on the east end, and all the rest of the second floor, with the exception of a sleeping chamber over the front entry, was a hall for dancing and public meetings.
I have been thus minute and full in this description, as this tavern is often referred to in the doings at Scituate-a sort of town hall, exchange, eating and lodging house, real estate office, and place of resort for young and old, day and evening, where bargains were made, balls were held, and a general news-room established, or what was equivalent to it.
Capt. Thomas Angell, who built this house one hundred and sixty-six years ago, that is, in 1710, if a stone, taken out of the chimney, gives the correct date, was a large owner of property in the vicinity, and had built his first house of much smaller dimen- sions and in simpler construction, near where Pardon Angell's house stands, a quarter of a mile north. His land lay on both sides of the Ponagansett river, and his second house was erected near a fall of water, improved of late years for a factory, but might originally have been used for a saw and grist mill. Immediately before the tavern the river makes rather a sudden bend, rounding with a graceful sweep through woodlands festooned with vines, which still grow in the region. Before the house, on the opposite or southern side, the land sloped down to a very beautiful intervale on the sides of the stream.
The parties taking possession of this new house were the family of Capt. Thomas Angell. He was the son of John and Ruth Angell, of Providence, and was born March 25, 1672, and married April 4, 1700, Sarah Brown, daughter of Daniel Brown and Alice his wife. Sarah was born at Providence, Oct. 10, 1677. It must have been very soon after their marriage that the young and
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adventurous couple took up their line of march for the thousand acres of wild land, of which Thomas had become the proprietor.
In 1730 Scituate was taken out of the limits of Providence and made a separate town. The first meeting it was voted to hold the town meetings in the new house of Capt. Thomas Angell. Three years afterwards he was appointed to represent the town in the General Assembly. He contracted with the town to build a bridge over Ponagansett river in 1734, and about the same time he petitioned with one or two others to have a pound near his dwell- ing, and leave was granted that they might do it at their own ex- pense, which they did, building it of stone. It stood two or three rods east of the tavern, and continued to be the only pound in the town until 1810, when the place being wanted by Mr. Charles Angell, the then proprietor of the tavern, to put up a new and spacious house upon the spot, it was removed and a new one built on the opposite side of the road, a little west of the old spot.
The town meetings continued to be held at Mr. Angell's tav- ern for many years, until the building of the Baptist Church a mile east. The large hall in the second story was improved on these occasions. By far the largest use of the hall was for dancing. This tavern became quite noted among the traveling commu- nity, and what is remarkable, continued in the hands of the family until quite recently, except a period of ten years, during the ill- health of Mr. Andrew Angell, when it was leased successively to John Manchester, Nathan Manchester and Mr. Hazard. Mr. Charles Angell then resumed it on the old hereditary line.
Many eminent men have been entertained at this tavern, as well as a multitude of more humble travelers. Gen. Washington has stopped there. Gen. Lafayette encamped his regiment on the pleasant intervale in front of the house while marching through the town during the Revolutionary war. They continued there until the troops had finished their washing in the river. The old people used to speak often to their children about the fine music of the band, as in the morning and evening they played in the camp. Lafayette lodged in the tavern, and another French officer of high
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rank had accommodations in a house near by, where lived Mr. Abel Angell. Mr. Angell's wife, who died thirty-five or forty years ago, used to speak of making porridge for this officer, whom she called General, while he was sick at her house. This house stood for a long period, and Mr. Richard Angell, son of Abel, pointed out to myself and other visitors the small bed-room back of the kitchen which had been occupied by the officer. Gen. Lafayette, on his last visit to this country, passed up the same road, recognized the old places, and enquired particularly for a spring at the foot of Cranberry Hill, some three or four miles west of the Angell tavern on the turnpike, at which spring he and his troops had refreshed themselves on their dusty and weary march. Many were then alive to greet him, of his old companions in the war. Dr. Owen Battey, residing within a mile of the tavern, on the same road, remembered seeing Lafayette and his soldiers as they passed along, and also of walking into the camp-ground on the intervale, led, while a child, by one of his father's men.
It being in the fall of the year the river was high, and one of the soldiers having drunk too freely tried to drown himself, but other soldiers jumped into the river and pulled him out.
Some things remain of the old tavern. The well which faith- fully served other generations abides to moisten the lips of several families in the neighborhood, and gives a good supply for all house- hold uses. The old stone steps, as good as new, upon which so many feet alighted from travelers' carriages, and the ponderous iron shovel for the use of the oven, are still in use. A hatchet which once belonged to Jeremy Angell, and marked February, 1755 ; an iron square, bearing the date April 2, 1770, and formerly the proper- ty of Andrew Angell, and a gauge of still greater antiquity, for measuring the contents of barrels, are still preserved, or were up to twenty years ago, when I saw them ; but the hatchet, once so indispensable in a household, for the preparation of flax for use, is no longer wanted. The large old clock that clicked in the bar- room has been swapped away for a smaller and more modern measurer of time. A chest of drawers belonging to old Capt.
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Thomas Angell, who first occupied the tavern, was burnt up forty- five years ago in the house of Mr. Stephen Peckham, which was de- stroyed by fire. One or two tables of ancient form are left, but time and accident have swept away other articles of furniture. .
In a field back of the house is a burial place containing the graves of some of the ancient household. Mr. Andrew Angell, who died about 1791 ; his wife, Tabitha, who survived thirty years and deceased Dec. 10, 1821; Gideon Angell, son of Andrew, who was born June 21, 1773, and died unmarried, May 14, 1829; Abi- gail Hopkins, brought up by Andrew Angell, and who married a Sanders. The last named grave, with that of him who brought her up, is without an inscription.
Capt. Angell seems to have made his tavern the great centre of business and amusement in the town. The militia musters were held in the vicinity, and the pound drew all the stray cattle, and their owners to reclaim them; there, too, the blacksmith shop ad- joining the pound, under another line of Angells, brought custom- ers, and there also, we must not forget to mention, was the "stocks," a machine consisting of two heavy pieces of timber, rounded so as to enclose the legs of criminals, and in which ludi- crous and painful condition they had to sit out their time. Here, too, those who got into scrapes during the trainings, and at other times, were put; and the pole of the tavern sign was used as a post to fasten those unfortunate gentlemen who were sentenced to be whipped, an operation they were not likely very soon to forget.
Other taverns sprung up, as the town increased, in different places. Matthew Manchester was licensed as an inn-keeper in 1769, and Thomas Manchester and Levi Colvin at the same time. Steph- en Smith and Zebedee Hopkins were licensed in 1762, and Col. John Potter and Christopher Potter in 1760. Some of these per- sons lived in Foster, then a part of Scituate.
Peter Cook, 1755; Joseph Kimball, 1745; Jeremiah Angell, 1758; Elisha Hopkins, jr., 1758; William West, 1758 ; John Hulet, 1745; Thomas Brown, 1749; Samuel Cooper, 1745; Henry Ran- dall, jr., 1748 ; William Jackson, 1758, were among the licensed.
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"Tavern Ale House and Victualling House" is the term em- ployed in licensing many of the above. Only a few of these per- sons could have done much business.
An old house on Bald Hill, marked on the chimney 1710, or 1740, was built by John Hammond, who lived in it; also Jeremiah Baker lived there, and died about forty years ago.
The license to Joseph Knight runs thus: "License to keep a tavern, or house of public entertainment, and to retail strong liquors in said town, and hath given bond for maintaining good order and conforming to the regulations of the law respecting taverns and public houses. Provided, that he suffer no unlawful game or games, drunkenness, or any other disorder, in said house, or in any place in his possession, but that good government, rule and order be kept therein according to law." This license is dated Feb. 12, 1803, and is signed, John Harris, Clerk.
Thomas Wilmarth, who was a tavern keeper and clothier, kept an old tavern, still standing. His son, Stephen Wilmarth, of Glo- cester, married Nancy, daughter of James Aldrich.
The first tavern in Providence, and the first in the State, was in May, 1638, in charge of William Baulston.
Two taverns in each town, in early legislation, were allowed, and leave was granted to add one more if they saw fit : this was in 1655. Very full laws were enacted regulating the sale of liquors. The tavern bars were to be closed at 9 o'clock in the evening. Tavern keepers, when they trusted any one for liquors beyond twenty shillings, were barred an action at law.
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