USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 92
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II .- Lands purchased to be for benefit of all proprietors.
III. - One share for Ministry.
IV. - No person shall have more than two shares.
V .- Not to sell without consent of Majority of proprietors.
Probably at this time no white man had a home within its bounds. The Church brothers, Benjamin and Joseph, were na- tives of Plymouth, and still resided there where their father, Richard, had died five years before. Duxbury, Marshfield, and the neighboring region, were the homes of the others. Thus the first white owners of this now ancient town are found to have been the descendants of the Pilgrims and the representa- tives of the Puritan ideas of government and religion. It may be of interest to recall, in connection with this circumstance, the fact that at this first meeting they agreed upon three of their number, Constant Southworth, William Pabodie and Na- thaniel Thomas, to purchase of the Indians. It had then been forty years since Roger Williams, in the same Plymouth, that scene of much that is best and much that is worst in American colonial history, had been compelled for the sake of public peace to burn a paper he had written, embodying the doctrine that no English grant, not even from the king himself, was valid un- til the natives had been fully recompensed. A single genera- tion, in the average development of sympathy for the weak in the hearts of the strong, will hardly show as great a change in the public mind as this action of the proprietors of Seconnet implies.
While many of the broad farms of New England are the spoil of unscrupulous conquests, or the proceeds of bargaining which, save for the mere matter of euphony, might as well be called robbery, the homes on this beautiful peninsula belong to our race by virtue of a purchase, in which the aboriginal landlords received all that the lands were worth to them, and all they would be worth to-day but for the magic touch of toil which a working race has spent to make the present possible.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
The three men named concluded their negotiations with the natives on the 31st of July, 1673, and in consideration of sev- enty-five pounds sterling the Seconnet tribe deeded to them under that date the land "bounded on the west by the sea or sound; on the south side by a white oak tree marked on four sides, standing in a swamp called Tompe, and so by an Easterly and Westerly line from the said tree, extending one mile from the seaside into the woods, and from the end of that mile into the woods Northerly till it meet with a fresh meadow in the woods at the head of Packet brooke, for the easterly bonnds and for the Northerly bounds the said brook called Packet, till it meets with the sea aforesaid." This deed was signed by Awashonks, as their sachem, with the totem of the tribe, and witnessed by Robert Gibbs and John Monroe. The doctrine of land inheritance appears to have been well established among the tribes in New England, and before the close of the year the purchasers of Seconnet found that several other Indians claimed rights in the lands they had bought of Awashonks. There were those who claimed under Wetamoo, of Pocasset, the widow of Alexander, as heir to the equitable rights of Massasoit.
Mamannah, Osomehen, Suckqua and others met the whites on the first of November, 1673, in a parley, and for thirty five pounds deeded a larger tract, including within its bounds the former purchase from Awashonks. On the same day Peter, one of Awashonk's sons, signed the former deed given by his mother. It does not appear in what currency the purchase price was paid in these instances, but the descendants of these first purehas- ers, some of them still here, bearing other family names, may point with pride to the friendly relations existing between their ancestors and the natives of Seconnet. These lands were not only bought, as were others, but appear to have been paid for.
We have seen in a preceding chapter that a white settlement probably existed at Puncatest, to the northward, before the year 1674, which is set down as the date of the first (164) white man's habitation in Little Compton. The reader has already the impression that the proprietors who bought the lands here as recited above were not residents, thus far, of this region, bu were yet in their Puritan homes to the northeastward. Then meetings, until 1687, were held at Duxbury, and on the first of March, 1674, probably not five of their number had ever seen
62
980
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
their goodly lands by the sea, these very lands which the Plym- outh people, thirty-six years before, had told the Aquidneck settlers they claimed and regarded as the very garden of their colony. On that first day of March, however, apparently in an- ticipation of the purpose of Captain Church to reduce their right to actual possession, the general court of Plymouth passed the following decree:
"Ordered that upon the petition of the Proprietors of the lands att Seaconett and places adjacent, the Court hath granted unto the said Proprietors or the Major part of them as a Townshippe to make such actes and orders as shall be need- full or convenient for their wel being settleing and ordering of said place or plantation, and especially for the settleing of such a society there as may be instrumentall for the managing and carrying on of the Worship of God and matters of the Commonwealth."
This document has been regarded as the act of incorporation of Little Compton, or at least its date assumed as the date of the erection of the town. The wording might mislead, but subsequent orders of the court quoted below precinde such an assumption. The order is of interest, however, as showing how matters and means of religious worship in the territory were legislated upon before a tree was felled or a kernel was planted, save possibly in the little tract of Puncatest.
Thirty-two great lots had been surveyed and plotted in the Seconnet tract, and at Duxbury, on the 10th of April, 1674, they were drawn for by the proprietors individually, the re- mainder of their lands remaining as some of them still are, the common property of all concerned. The names of the twenty . nine proprietors who, at Plymouth, on the 22d of July, 1673, proved their respective rights formerly granted to certain per- sons have been given above. Of that number, let it be noticed that the two Church brothers each owned, by purchase, the rights of two others, thus the twenty nine persons represented thirty-one shares. They had agreed that one share should be for the minister, so we find that the lands they bought of Awa- shonks were allotted in the autumn of 1673 into thirty-two shares, and on the 10th of April, 1674, at Duxbury, the same twenty-nine persons determined, by chance, the lot each should have. The thirty-two shares comprised the whole of the Awa- shonks purchase. It was what is now the northwest quarter
981
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
of the town, bounded north by Tiverton, west by the Seconnet river, south by Taylor's lane, and east by a straight line which was one mile from the river at its nearest point and more than a mile where the shore curves. A private copy of the proprie- tors' map, which Otis Wilbour made (the town has allowed the original to become almost useless), shows the location of each proprietor's lot. These lots were each a mile or more in length, and nearly equal in width, separated by parallel lines running from the river, east. The lot adjacent to Tiverton was numbered I, and the others in numerical order to the southward, the thirty-second one being at the southern limit of the purchase. The lots as drawn and the owners' names were :
I. Thomas Williams. XVII. Ephraim Tinkham.
II. Walter Woodworth.
XVIII. John Rouse
III. Peter Colomore. XIX. Benjamin Church.
IV. William Shirtlif.
XX. John Rogers.
V. John Almy.
XXI. Nathaniel Thomas.
VI. Martha Dean. XXII. Thomas Pope.
VII. Nicholas Wade. XXIII. Thomas Pinson.
VIII. William Pabodie.
XXIV. Joseph Church.
IX. Constant Southworth. XXV. Daniel Hayward.
X. Minister. XXVI. John Richmond.
XI. Edward Fobes. XXVII. Daniel Wilcox.
XII. William Merrick.
XXVIII. Josiah Winsłow.
XIII. William Sherman. XXIX. Benjamin Church.
XIV. John Washborne. XXX. Joseph Church.
XV. Simon Rouse.
XXXI. Hugh Cole.
XVI. John Irish.
XXXII. Josiah Cook.
The estates as thus distributed were then, and are at present, known as "The Great Lots." At this meeting Captain John Almy, of the Island of Aquidneck, was admitted an equal pro- prietor. Within the year Benjamin Church, and most probably John Almy and John Irish, had built houses in the town. Mr. Church did not build on the great lot that fell to him, but on one he bought of Mr. Pabodie. They reserved a roadway eight rods wide to run due south across all these Great lots.
The growth of the settlement was retarded during the year by the prospect of more serious trouble with the Wampanoags, and all attempts to develop the purchase were brought to a temporary close by the opening scenes of the King Philip war. Benjamin Church, a man of great political sagacity, had secured
982
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the pledge of friendship from the shrewd squaw sachem, Awa shonks, but as the war clonds thickened and every white man's life was in the issue, we find the proprietors, under his advice, on the 29th of May, 1675, setting off a tract of land three-fourths of a mile square for her use. This reservation was included in a third purchase previously made of the Indians, and was in the very heart of their property, covering the farms now owned by Isaac C. Wilbour, George A. Gray and others in that vicin- ity. Taylor's lane was the northern boundary and the river the western.
Nearly two years now elapsed, covering few, if any, local events of notable interest. The attention of all the English set- tlements had been absorbed in the doubtful issues of the King Philip war. Philip, the king of the Wampanoags, was dead; the tribe which had owned him as their chief was practically eliminated as a factor in the white man's problem of settling New England; Plymouth and her dependencies recovered from the shock; the great heart of New England beat regularly again; circulation was restored, and the extremities were warm once more with the life-currents of enterprise.
The spring of 1677 witnessed a new impulse toward the farther occupancy of the Seconnet purchase. Some lands there, or some rights in the lands, had not been secured by the three deeds mentioned, and on the 6th of March, Mamanuitt, a sachem at or about Seconnet, appeared before the court at Plymouth and satisfied them that he and fifteen men had, dur- ing the King Philip war, been faithful to the English, and de- sired that they be allowed to return to Seconnet to possess the land not formerly disposed of. Whether this request was fully granted does not appear, but it is recorded that on the 13th of the same month the Seconnet company made a purchase of land from Mamanuah for thirty-live ponnds. It was bounded south by the sea, commencing at "Oquomuck Rocks" and extending to the creek at the southwest corner of "Quopognit [Quicksand] Pond," and from the north end of the pond at "Musquetiquit" Brook, thence northerly through "Massawisawit [cold brook] swamp" to the Puncatest line.
This was the fourth deed they had taken from the Seconnet natives, and appears to have peaceably extinguished the last title claimed by the tribe or their race in these fair acres. We get a glimpse into the character of Benjamin Church in the fact
983
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
that the Indians themselves, knowing him as the conqueror of the implacable Philip, sought permission from the English to become his neighbors and live by him in the pursuits of peace, a relation of amity which was maintained to the close of his life.
When the allotment of the farms, or as they are still called, " the Great Lots," was made in 1673 it was presumed by the proprietors that this reduced to individual ownership the most valuable of the farming lands of the tract, and the unauspicions circumstances of the next three years, at the same time they checked the course of immigration, prevented as well the cor- rection of that impression. We have seen how, after the war, they gave their almost instant attention to the possession and development of their property. An important step in that di- rection was in the early spring of 1677, when their plans were formulated for having some day, in the midst of their farms or plantations, a central village on lands not comprised within the individual estates. Their meeting to consider this question was held, as all their meetings had been, at Duxbury, on the 21st of March, 1677. They recorded their agreement that a piece or parcel of land within the confines of their individual lands at Seconnet should be appropriated and allotted out for a compact town, if any such place could be there found. At this meeting Thomas Burgess, of Rhode Island, appeared and asked admis- sion as a proprietor in right of Hugh Cole, whose land he had bargained to purchase. The spring of 1677 was well advanced toward summer before further action was taken looking toward the locating of the proposed compact town. Settlements were being made on the farms which four years before had been al- lotted, and the settlers were rapidly finding out the truth that in fertility of soil and salubrity of climate they owned the very flower of New England; that truly their lines had fallen to them in pleasant places. Those not yet in actual possession of their farms came over from Duxbury and Marshfield and from Rhode Island, and a meeting was held on their allotted lands, on the 10th of May, to see if a suitable place might remain for the vil- lage they had resolved to build. They selected a site near the center of their property, and called it, as it then truly was "The Commons." a name still used and recognized as applying to the village here now, and to its vicinity generally. They agreed at this meeting to lay ont seventy-four building lots, which was
984
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY,
subsequently done, with suitable streets, or common ways, not all of which streets were found needful to be nsed for that purpose.
Of the seventy-four lots, two were for each of the thirty-two proprietor's shares, and ten were to be disposed of as they should at times see cause, or for the accommodation of such persons as might thereafter desire to become residents among them. They also voted that "whatever water should be found capable of a mill, should be for that use." In the boundaries of the tenth of the common lots, it is stated " within which is a little Pond and is at present owned for public or Town use." There is scarcely a doubt that the first building erected at the commons was a meeting honse, for in scanning the divergent lines of local history and tradition, one must keep ever in view the fundamental fact that this community-the only one in this county-was composed thus far exclusively of Puritan families and descendants of the Pilgrims. With them, in their little local government, the state was the church and the church was the state; so the meeting honse was the place for meetings and, whether for worship or for public business, the same building sufficed. The proprietors continued to hold their meetings at Duxbury, where William Pabodie, their clerk, lived, until 1681, after which time the meetings were held here. Much specula- tion has been indulged in regarding the time of building their first meeting house, in its relation to the ecclesiastical history of the town, but with the date established, if that were possi- ble, it would have no more reference to the religious than to the political history, for wherever the Puritan principle predomi- nated in planting a settlement, that settlement was planned to be a religions rather than a civil commonwealth. These settlers were from the Plymouth country; the same Plymouth where they once made confession of faith an essential prerequisite in every voter, and where eligibility to office depended, primarily, npon membership in the Puritan church. A vote was recorded in 1693, May 17th, authorizing the sale of two pieces of land, the proceeds to aid in the building of a meeting house. The work seems to have been diligently prosecuted, and it became of im- portance to the dwellers on the great west road, where the first farm improvements were made, to have a way leading from their road to the Commons; a matter not satisfactorily provided for in the plotting of the tract. This is the record for March 21st,
985
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
1694. The road is the one from the post office west to the resi- dence of Frederick R. Brownell:
'. The Proprietors have agreed and voted that there be a high- way to go from the Great Highway of ten rods broad, up be- tween the lands of Joseph Church, Jr., and Edward Richmond, Jr., up to Daniel Butler, his land, repairing what damage is done thereby in land, by restoring so much land and as good, and also to allow in land three shillings per rod for so many rods as the highway is in length, that we may have an open way or Common Highway to the Meeting House."
During the summer of 1698 the meeting house was repaired at a cost of twenty pounds. In 1711 other repairs were needed, and in 1720 Robert Brownell was paid one shilling and sixpence " for underpining the town meeting house," a matter as nearly omitted as was possible at its building. In 1747 and 1749 fur- ther repairs were voted. One writer has ascribed great piety to Colonel Benjamin Church for furnishing, as was doubtless the case, the timber or trees for this interesting structure. The name meeting house in the present generation has an echo as if piety should prevail in its erection and in its use, but when, if ever, this old edifice was dedicated, it was to the week day service of men as well as to the Sabbath day service of God, and in its rugged walls many a scene has occurred which would illy comport with the modern idea of a meeting house, since now, happily for both, the church and state are forever separate and distinct.
Probably in all its history the old meeting house never wit- nessed a more exciting scene than occurred in May, 1803. The l'ederalists and republicans were nearly equal as to numbers. The meeting was for the choice of town officers and two repre- sentatives to the general assembly. Benjamin Tompkins held the office of town clerk, and Samuel T. Grinnell was the oppos- ing candidate. The moderator, Isaac Wilbour, declared Grin nell elected clerk, and ordered Tompkins to vacate the seat, which he refused to do. The town sergeant was then ordered to put him out. A scene of confusion ensued, and in the struggle Tompkins lost his coat, but managed to escape with the records. It is said that the freemen came ont through the windows like angry bees from a hive. The party who left the hall organized and proceeded to elect officers, while the party that remained also chose a set. Part of this public building
986
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
was used for many years as an asylum for the poor, for whose care and comfort the freemen of Little Compton have ever stood sponsors. Sometimes, and often, the apartments were leased by the town to individuals as a public inn. Andrew Taylor had a tavern here in 1797. The building was finally sold to Chris topher Brown, with the reserved right to have use of a part for the public business of the town. This right was exercised until the 5th of April, 1882, on which day the last meeting within its walls was adjourned to the new and commodious town hall, now furnishing a public hall and elegant rooms, accommodating the public records, the public library, and the town's legislative and judicial officers. On this occasion a very scholarly address by Mr. Wilbour closed with these fitting utterances:
"I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the possession of so convenient and substantial a structure, in which we now meet for the first time, and especially for this light and beautiful room, all of which alike does credit to the committee who planned it, to the builders, and to the generous spirit of the town. We have left an unattractive and dimly lighted cham- ber of medieval style of architecture, but rich and full of the associations and memories of the past. We have come to a room not only bright with the light of the sun, but also with the dawn of the 20th century. Let us see to it that our legis. lation here be of that enlightened and progressive character which the change from the old to the new would seem to sym- bolize and typify."
Of the first tavern or inn kept at the Commons the proprie- tors' records give definite data. The Puritan fathers of the hamlet made it a matter of publie concern that a place be pro- vided to care for the traveler and the stranger, and they record permission given in 1681 to Simon Rouse " to keep a house of entertainment at Seaconnett for strangers and travellers and that hee be provided with provisions and Nesessaryes for that purpose, and likewise he is to keep good order in his House that no damage or just harme befall him by his negligence." A tavern here was of some importance a hundred and fifty years ago, when Little Compton was a way station on a line of travel between Newport and southern Massachusetts.
Encroachments of private owners upon the adjoining public domain was one of the first civil vices into which these good people at the Commons fell. In 1708 two of their principal men -
587
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
Captain Southworth and Edward Richmond, the latter with "Esquire," that insignia of Puritan importance, attached to his name-were directed to "appoint upon the station the meeting- honse now standeth upon." These acts and events were the ru - diments of the present village of Little Compton. Much here said of the old public house is relevant to the following political and ecclesiastical sections of this chapter. The public business of the town has always been transacted at the Commons, and most of the commercial interest of the town has been centered here from the first. The General Church homestead, now the residence of Senator Church, contained one of the early stores. Philip F. Little was the last of the merchants in this building. George Cook Bailey is remembered as a merchant in the build- ing now a residence north of that of Oliver C. Brownell. The same Mr. Bailey kept a store where Preston B. Richmond's mercantile business was located in his lifetime and where his widow now carries on one of the two general stores of the ham- let. Captain Seabury built and occupied as a store the build- ing, now vacant, north of Mrs. Richmond's. Peter White was a partner in the business at one time and Mr. Bixby at a later period, before he located where he now is, in the old town build - ing on the corner of the Commons.
We are thus taken back again to the same old town meeting house, still standing, which has borne its part in the commercial, as well as the civil and religious, history of the town. Humphrey Brownell, Wilbor Brownell, Colonel Joseph Pearce and Stephen Simmons are in that long line of tradesmen here who hired, of the town, part of this historic structure prior to 1831. In that year Christopher Brown rented the place, and purchased it in the year following, as mentioned above. In the reservation made by the town it was stipulated that the town might for- ever use the assembly room of the second story, but never drive a nail or make any improvement. This restriction for fifty years rendered the quarters almost untenantable, and these strained relations between the public and the individual were terminated by the payment of a sum of money, agreed upon, to the town. In the meantime the building had passed into the possession of Henry Brown, who now owns it, and until 1877 he kept it as a general country store. He built the south wing in 1855, and later arranged the old hall for domestic purposes. Mr. Brown, as a merchant, was succeeded by Smith & Manches- ter, Bliss & Cowan, and George T. Bixby.
988
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
Prior to 1834 there was no post office nearer than Adamsville or Tiverton Four Corners, but in May of that year an office was established here called Commons. The first postmaster was Ed- ward Gray, his appointment bearing date May 13th, 1834. Forty days later Philip F. Little was appointed, and served un- til August 3d, 1840, when Jonathan Wilbonr succeeded him. Henry T. Brown became postmaster on the 24th of the April following, and in 1846, June 12th, was succeeded by Benjamin Seabury, who kept the office until after its name was changed. Little Compton, the present name of the office, was adopted on the 8th of March, 1847, and on the 3d of July, 1849, Henry T. Brown was again appointed. Preston B. Richmond was post- master from March 26th, 1857, to May 31st, 1861, when Mr. Brown was, for the third time, appointed. The present incnn- bent, his daughter, Lilla S., was appointed July 13th, 1886.
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