both the wilderness and the savages, returning to England; and with
him Episcopacy, that exotic in New England, withdrew for many years
from these shores. The settlement at Weymouth was not for all that
wholly broken up. This statement now admits of conclusive proof;
for while previous to Robert Gorges’ arrival at Weymouth the region
about Boston Bay had been wholly unoccupied, from that time forward
there is evidence of scattered plantations upon its islands and along
its shores. The Plymouth annals distinctly state that some few of
his people remained behind when he withdrew, and were assisted from
thence.[35] Two years later, the next settlers in that vicinity find
them still at Wessagusset.[36] Two years later yet they re-appear in
history, as we shall presently see. In 1631, or three years later, the
persons through whom the place thus re-appears take the oath as freemen
on the settlement of Boston.[37] In 1632, Governor Winthrop visited
Wessagusset and was liberally entertained by those residing there.[38]
The next year, the place is described as a “small village”;[39] and
finally, in 1636, it sends as a deputy to the General Court one of
those who had been prominent in connection with events there in
1628.[40] There is, therefore, but one year, 1624, unaccounted for,
between the Gorges’ settlement and the incorporation of the town in
1635. But the evidence does not stop here. When Captain Gorges returned
to England, the records of the Council of New England state that he
left his plantation in charge of certain persons, who are referred
to as “his servants, and certain other Undertakers and Tenants.”[41]
Shortly after, Robert Gorges died and his brother John succeeded to the
grant. He undertook to convey a portion of it to one John Oldham, and
accordingly wrote to William Blackstone and William Jeffries, two of
the settlers on Boston Bay, to put his grantee in possession.
And now we come to a most interesting point in connection with the
earliest records of Boston. When Winthrop and his company landed
in Charlestown in 1630, they found this William Blackstone already
settled on the opposite peninsula in what is now Boston.[42] He had
then been there some five or six years, but how he got there or from
whence has always been a mystery. There he was, however. Now when
John Gorges proposed to make over to Oldham his brother’s grant of
land, he naturally would have sent his directions to those “servants,”
“undertakers” or “tenants,” who had been left in possession of it
by his brother. As a matter of fact he did send his instructions
to Blackstone and Jeffries, and the last named then was living at
Wessagusset, while both were within the limits of the patent. The
inference is difficult to resist that both had belonged to the Gorges
settlement,--that one had remained on its site, while the other had
moved away about a year after Gorges left to a locality which pleased
him better. That Jeffries was settled at Weymouth admits of no
question, for when that place next appears in the authentic records of
the time it is under a double name, both as Wessagusset and as Jeffries
and Burslem’s plantation.
The whole chain of connected evidence, therefore, not only tends to
shew the continuing settlement of Weymouth after September, 1623, but
it also establishes the strong presumption that Boston itself was first
occupied by a straggling recluse from what is now called the village of
Old Spain.
* * * * *
The two hundred and fifty-first year of the consecutive settlement
of Weymouth will, therefore, as I conceive, be completed during the
month of September next; nor can I find any sufficient authority for
the generally accepted statement that an additional body of settlers
arrived during the year 1624, from the town of the same name in
England, having with them the Rev. Mr. Barnard, who died here after
a ministration of eleven years.[43] With the departure of Captain
Robert Gorges the Wessagusset settlement practically vanishes from
the page of cotemporary history, only to re-appear again four years
later in connection with a very famous incident. By one authority only
during the intervening time do I find its name mentioned. Mr. Thomas
Morton of Merry Mount, he of cobbler atonement memory, refers to it
as a place to which he had recourse in winter “to have the benefit of
company”;[44] and he seems to have been upon tolerably familiar terms
with those living there, as several years after he wrote to William
Jeffries, addressing him as “My very good gossip.”[45] These visits
of Morton were made between the years 1625 and 1628. Once only does
he refer to the place in connection with any clergyman, and then it
is with one notorious enough in the early annals, but of a different
stripe from what the Rev. Mr. Barnard is supposed to have been.[46]
With this single exception, Wessagusset, between 1623 and 1628, is
referred to by the chroniclers of the day only as included in several
weak and scattered plantations. In 1628, however, it again asserted
an existence. It happened in this wise. The year after Captain Robert
Gorges had retired in disgust, a certain Captain Wollaston had made
his appearance in Boston Bay, in company with several associates,
bringing with him a party of hired people with a view to establishing a
permanent trading post. He selected, as best adapted for his purpose,
the rising ground over against Wessagusset to the north, which in
his honor was called Mount Wollaston, the name by which it has ever
since been known. This spot had some time previously been the home
of Chicatabot, the greatest sagamore of the neighborhood, by whom
it had been cleared of trees.[47] He, however, had abandoned it some
eight years before, at the time of the great plague. Then, as now,
that portion of the bay was very shallow, so that ships could not
ride near the shore, nor boats approach it when the tide was out.
There was, however, an abundance of beaver in the vicinity, and here
Wollaston’s party established itself. After a brief trial, however,
Wollaston himself seems to have liked the prospect no better than
Captain Gorges, for he departed for Virginia with a portion of his
company, leaving the remainder behind in charge of a Mr. Rassdall, one
of his partners. Presently he summoned Rassdall to follow him with yet
others of the party, and one Mr. Fitcher was left in command of the
remainder. Among these was Mr. Thomas Morton. This individual had a
very well developed talent for mischief, which speedily found room for
exercise at the expense of Lieutenant Fitcher, who was deposed from his
command, expelled from the settlement and left to shift for himself
with the aid of the neighboring settlers. Then Mount Wollaston became
Merry Mount, with Thomas Morton for its presiding genius. According to
all showing they seem to have been a drunken, dissolute set, trading
with the savages for beaver-skins, holding very questionable relations
with the Indian women, and generally leading a wild, reckless existence
on the bleak and well-nigh uninhabited New England shore. Their house
stood very near the present dwelling of Mr. John Q. Adams, and they
scandalized the whole coast by erecting near it a May-pole, which
Morton describes as having been some eighty feet in height, with a pair
of buckhorns nailed to the top. Upon this pole the retired barrister
seems to have been in the custom of fastening copies of verses of his
own production, while he and his companions conducted noisy revels
about it. All this was bad enough and sufficiently well calculated to
stir the gall of the severe elders of Plymouth. But the mischief did
not stop here. The business of this precious company, in the intervals
of merriment, was to trade; and in conducting their business they
were by no means scrupulous. Liquor, fire-arms and ammunition were
freely exchanged for furs, and the unsophisticated savage evinced a
decided appreciation of the first and a dangerous aptitude in the
use of the last. Thus the solitary settlers about Boston harbor soon
found themselves in danger of their lives, as they espied armed
Indians prowling about their habitations. The trade, however, was so
profitable that Morton, regardless of consequences, was preparing to
develop it on a larger scale when his neighbors met together and took
counsel one with another. The Mount Wollaston settlement was, indeed,
the first recorded instance of what in later Massachusetts history is
technically known as “a liquor nuisance,” and the neighbors determined
that considerations of public safety required that it should be abated.
Those were primitive times. They enjoyed few of the advantages of our
more developed civilization, and while there were no ladies of the
vicinage to wait upon the then lord of Merry Mount in a spirit of
prayerful remonstrance, there was also no State constabulary before
whom the “rumseller” trembled and fled. As the best substitute for
these moral and legal agencies, and after fruitless efforts at reform
through written admonishments which the carnal Morton received in
a most unsatisfactory spirit of contumely, the men of the vicinage
called upon the fathers of Plymouth.[48] These at once despatched the
redoubtable Miles Standish to the scene of trouble, with directions to
set matters to rights there once more, even as he had done five years
before in the days of Pecksuot. Weymouth was the scene of a portion
of the succeeding operations, which were of a nature too delightfully
humorous to be told in any language except that of the actors and of
the time; besides the accounts furnish a very beautiful illustration
of the discrepancies in authority which it becomes the painful duty of
the historian to reconcile. And first, Thomas Morton shall tell his own
story:
“They set upon my honest host [Morton] at a place, called Wessaguscus,
where (by accident) they found him. The inhabitants there were in
good hope, of the subvertion of the plantation at Mare Mount (which
they principally aymed at); and the rather, because mine host was a
man that indeavoured to advance the dignity of the Church of England;
which they (on the contrary part) would laboure to vilifie; with
uncivile terms: enveying against the sacred booke of common prayer,
and mine host [Morton] that used it in a laudable manner amongst his
family, as a practise of piety....
“In briefe, mine host [Morton] must indure to be their prisoner,
untill they could contrive it so, that they might send him for England
(as they said), there to suffer according to the merrit of the fact,
which they intended to father upon him....
“Much rejoycing was made that they had gotten their cappitall enemy,
.... The Conspirators sported themselves at my honest host [Morton],
that meant them no hurt; and were so joccund that they feasted their
bodies, and fell to tippeling, as if they had obtained a great prize;
.... Mine host [Morton] fained greefe: and could not be perswaded
either to eate, or drinke, because hee knew emptines would be a
meanes to make him as watchfull as the Geese kept in the Roman
Cappitall: whereon the contrary part, the conspirators would be so
drowsy that hee might have an opportunity to give them a slip, instead
of a tester. Six persons of the conspiracy were set to watch him at
Wessaguscus: But hee kept waking; and in the dead of night (one lying
on the bed, for further suerty,) up gets mine Host [Morton] and got
to the second dore that hee was to passe which (notwithstanding the
lock) hee got open: and shut it after him with such violence, that it
affrighted some of the conspirators.
“The word which was given with an alarme, was, ô he’s gon, he’s gon,
what shall we doe, he’s gon? the rest (halfe a sleepe) start up in a
maze, and like rames, ran theire heads one at another full butt in the
darke.
“Their grand leader Captaine Shrimp [Standish] tooke on most
furiously, and tore his clothes for anger, to see the empty nest, and
their bird gone. The rest were eager to have torne theire haire from
theire heads, but it was so short, that it would give them no hold:
.... In the meane time mine Host [Morton] was got home to Ma-re Mount
through the woods, eight miles, round about the head of the river
Monatoquit, that parted the two Plantations: finding his way by the
help of the lightening (for it thundered as he went terribly)....
“Now Captaine Shrimp [Standish] ... takes eight persons more to him,
and they imbarque with preparation against Ma-re-Mount.... Now the
nine Worthies are approached; and mine Host [Morton] prepared: having
intelligence by a Salvage, that hastened in love from Wessaguscus to
give him notice of their intent.... The nine Worthies comming before
the Denne of this supposed Monster, (this seaven headed hydra, as
they termed him) and began like Don Quixote against the Windmill to
beate a parly, and to offer quarter (if mine Host [Morton] would
yeald).... Yet to save the effusion of so much worthy bloud, as would
have issued out of the vaynes of these 9. worthies of New Canaan, if
mine Host should have played upon them out at his port holes (for
they came within danger like a flocke of wild geese, as if they had
bin tayled one to another, as coults to be sold at a faire) mine Host
[Morton] was content to yeelde upon quarter; and did capitulate with
them: .... But mine Host [Morton] no sooner had set open the dore and
issued out: but instantly Captaine Shrimpe [Standish], and the rest
of the worthies stepped to him, layd hold of his armes; and had him
downe, and so eagerly was every man bent against him (not regarding
any agreement made with such a carnall man) that they fell upon him,
as if they would have eaten him: ....
“Captaine Shrimpe [Standish] and the rest of the nine worthies, made
themselves (by this outragious riot) Masters of mine Hoste [Morton] of
Ma-re Mount, and disposed of what hee had at his plantation.”[49]
So much for Mr. Thomas Morton’s account of this “outragious riot;” now
let us see what Captain Standish had to say of the affair:
“So they resolved to take Morton by force. The which accordingly was
done; but they found him to stand stifly in his defence, having made
fast his dors, armed his consorts, set diverse dishes of powder &
bullets ready on yᵉ table; and if they had not been over armed with
drinke, more hurt might have been done. They som̄aned him to yeeld,
but he kept his house, and they could gett nothing but scofes & scorns
from him; but at length, fearing they would doe some violence to yᵉ
house, he and some of his crue came out, but not to yeeld, but to
shoote; but they were so steeld with drinke as their peeces were too
heavie for them; him selfe with a carbine (over charged & allmost
halfe fild with powder & shote, as was after found) had thought to
have shot Captaine Standish; but he stept to him, & put by his peece,
& tooke him. Neither was ther any hurte done to any of either side,
save yᵗ one was so drunke yᵗ he rane his own nose upon yᵉ pointe of a
sword yᵗ one held before him as he entred yᵉ house; but he lost but a
litle of his hott blood.”[50]
Whichever of these widely divergent accounts is the more correct,
upon one point they both concur, and that is, after all, the vital
point, that Morton was arrested, carried to Plymouth and presently
sent to England; while the Wollaston settlement was practically
broken up, the liquor nuisance abated, and the trade in firearms and
ammunition stopped. Peace and security were thus once more restored
to Wessagusset, through the agency of Miles Standish. Nor were these
blessings won at any unreasonable price, as the whole cost of the
expedition was computed at £12 7_s._, of which sum £2 was assessed on
the settlers at Wessagusset, and £2 10_s._ on the Plymouth colony.[51]
The destruction of the May-pole at Merry Mount took place in the early
days of June, 1628, and just two years later Governor Winthrop arrived
in Boston harbor and the consecutive annals of the Massachusetts Bay
began. It is yet another two years, however, before we again meet
with a mention of Weymouth, still under its Indian name. In August,
1632, Governor Winthrop, in company with the Rev. Mr. Wilson and other
notables, took ship at Boston and landed at Wessagusset; and thence the
succeeding day the distinguished party started on foot for Plymouth,
completing their journey by night. Six days later, on the 31st of the
same month, they returned; leaving Plymouth at five in the morning and
reaching Wessagusset in the evening, where they passed the night, and
finished their journey next morning by water.[52] We have Governor
Winthrop’s authority for the assertion that, both going and returning,
they were here most hospitably feasted on the turkeys, geese and ducks
of the neighborhood.[53] Two years later again Wessagusset was summoned
by the General Court to assume charge of one of its pauper inhabitants,
who had seen fit to fall ill at Dorchester;[54] and in 1635 the Court
established a commission to fix the boundary line between what are
now Braintree and Weymouth,--then Mt. Wollaston and Wessagusset. Thus
through eleven years, from 1624 to 1635, the early settlers of Weymouth
only occasionally emerge from the oblivion of the past and are dimly
shadowed on the mirror of New England history. But now, at last, in
the year 1635, Wessagusset was by the order of the General Court made
a plantation under the name of Weymouth, and the Rev. Mr. Hull, with
twenty-one families from England, were allowed to establish themselves
here.[55] Why the name of Weymouth was adopted I do not find recorded:
it may well have been that the Rev. Mr. Hull and his party came from
that place in the old country, but there does not appear to be any
ground for asserting such to have been the fact.[56] With Mr. Hull,
however, began the long succession of clergymen who ministered to the
old first parish, of whom the present incumbent is the thirteenth. In
the earlier days of New England the pastorates marked epochs in the
history of the towns, much as do the reigns of kings and queens in
European annals. Nor indeed were certain of the Weymouth pastorates
brief in point of time, for two of them covered the long period of one
entire century.
To return, however, to the political history of the town; in the same
year (1635) in which it was created a plantation, Weymouth was also
authorized to send a deputy to the General Court. The next year three
deputies made their appearance instead of one; but, considering the
size of the place they represented, the delegation with becoming
modesty requested that two of their number might be dismissed, and
accordingly Messrs. Bursley and Upham received leave to withdraw.[57]
From that time forward, through a space of one hundred and thirty
years, the political history of Weymouth moved uneventfully along,--a
portion of that of the Province,--rendered noticeable only by some
question of boundaries, by fines imposed because of the badness of
highways or the insufficiency of the watch-house or carelessness in
checking the roving propensities of swine, or by the division of a
whale found stranded on its shore, or some other equally trifling
incident of municipal government. The tax-collector made his annual
visits, and his records seem to show that, as compared with others, the
town during its earlier years was neither populous nor wealthy. Its
proportion was in the neighborhood of one-fiftieth part of the whole
amount levied on the colony, ranging from £4 to £10 each year; but in
1637 came the Pequod War, and during that year Weymouth was assessed
for £27 in a total levy of £1,500. The town could not even then be said
to rank high on the assessors’ books, being thirteenth in a list of
fourteen.
As respects population during the first half century of the existence
of Weymouth, there is small material on which to form an estimate.
In 1637 a levy of one hundred and sixty men was made to carry on the
Pequod War; of these Weymouth furnished five as her contingent. Under
the system of computation adopted by the highest authority,[58] this
would indicate a total of about five hundred souls, which I am inclined
to think was not far from the true number. During the next century and
a quarter the increase was very slow, so that in 1776 the population
but little exceeded 1,400;[59] indeed, it may be said that during the
century and a half which succeeded the Pequod War the increase of the
town in numbers scarcely exceeded one-half of one per cent. a year. To
the Weymouth of to-day,--with its population of 10,000 souls,--1,400,
and much less 500, seems a somewhat sparse settlement. It did not so
impress the first inhabitants. On the contrary, in 1642 the townspeople
of those days thought themselves so numerous as to render expedient
the removal of a portion of their number to a new settlement. This was
accordingly determined on, and the Rev. Mr. Newman, the clergyman of
the time, to prevent all dispute, offered either to go or to remain
as his parishioners should decide. A vote was taken, which resulted
in favor of the removing party; with them, therefore, he cast in his
lot at the place selected for their settlement, to which the pastor
gave the name of Rehoboth, which it still bears. In later years other
and larger migrations took place, first to Easton and subsequently to
Abington, thus accounting for the slow movement of population in the
mother town, which, indeed, between 1740 and 1780 rather tended to
diminish than to increase. This condition of affairs, however, in no
way disturbed the inhabitants. On the contrary, four years after the
Rehoboth secession, the town records under the date of April 6, 1646,
contain this singular entry, with the significant words “Stand Good,”
written against it in the margin:
“Whereas we find by sad experience the great inconvenience that many
times it comes to pass by the permitting of strangers to come into the
plantation pretending only to sojourn for a season, but afterwards they
have continued a while account themselves inhabitants with us, and so
challeng to themselves all such priviledges and immunitys as others
do enjoy, who notwithstanding are of little use to advance the public
good, but rather many times are troublesome and prove a burden to the
plantation, the premises considered, together with the straightness of
the place, the number of the people, and the smallness of the trade we
yet have amongst us, we the townsmen whose names are subscribed for
the prevention of this and the like inconveniencys, have thought good
to present to consideration the insuing order to be voted by the whole
Towne to stande in force as long as they in wisdome shall see just
cause.
* * * * *
“First that no inhabitant within this plantation shall presume to take
into his house as an inmate, or servant, any person or persons, unless
he shall give sufficient bonds, to defray the plantation of what damage
may ensue thereuppon, or be as covenant servant, and that for one year
at the least without leave first had and obtayned from the whole Towne
at some of their public meetings, under the penalty of 5 shillings a
week as long as hee shall continue in the breach of this order, to be
levied by the constable or other officer, and delivered to the townsmen
for the time being, to be improved for the use and benefit of the
towne. Also it is further agreed upon by and with the consent of the
whole towne that no person or persons within this plantation shall lett
or sell any house, or land, to any person or persons that is not an
inhabitant amongst us, untill he hath first made a tender of it to the
Towne, at a trayning or some lecture day or other public meeting.”
* * * * *
And to show that this was not a mere empty threat, it is but necessary
to turn to this other record of thirty-eight years later, April 30ᵗʰ,
1684:
* * * * *
“At a Meeting of the Selectmen they passed a warrant to the Constable
John Pratt as followeth:--
“To the Constable of Weymouth
“You are hereby required in his Majestys name forthwith to distrain
upon the Estate of Joseph Poole to the value of five shillings which
is for the breach of town order for entertaining of Sarah Downing one
week contrary to town order, and so from week to week as long as the
said Joseph Poole shall entertaine the said Sarah Downing.
“Dated Aprill 30ᵗʰ 1684. Signed in the name and by the order of the
Selectmen.
“SAMUEL WHITE.”[60]