pounds per annum. But some of the enlisted men had deserted, under the
discouragement of the Long Island reverses, and none the less they
claimed their bounties. The action of the town meeting seems to have
been hardly consistent with the usually received ideas of military
discipline, for it was voted to pay “those who deserted and came home
before their times were up” four pounds apiece, on the report of a
committee, to which the town added a further sum of forty shillings.
But the whole story is told in the following extract from the record of
May 21st, 1777: “Voted that Col. Solomon Lovell, Lieut. E. Cushing &
Deaⁿ Samuel Blancher be a Committee to go out of Town to Hire men for
the Contenential army for the Term of three years,--and that they be
directed to git them as Cheep as they can,--and that noe one of them be
allowed to give more than Thirty pounds for a man without the advise
of another of the committee.”
Throughout the long war the people would not consent to a draft. They
resorted to every expedient and makeshift, but they could not bring
themselves to the one single expedient by which only can war be made
decisive. In September, 1777, a draft was suggested,[97] but the idea
met with no favor: again recourse was had to bounties, which were now
£100 in lawful money, or forty shillings a month in produce at prices
which ruled before the war.
The year 1779 must, however, have been much the gloomiest year of all
to Weymouth, for it was in this year that the State of Massachusetts
undertook the unfortunate Penobscot expedition. The land forces were
commanded by the brave and popular Solomon Lovell, and naturally must
have numbered in their ranks many Weymouth men. It encountered only
disaster and loss, and added heavily to the already grievous burdens of
the war. The commander of the naval contingent was court-martialled,
but no question was made as to General Lovell’s conduct. Meanwhile
prices were rising, and now $4,500 was voted, wherewith to raise
nine men. It had also become very evident that the tariff of prices
fixed by the selectmen and the committee of the town, two years and
a half before, was somewhat out of date, as, its provisions to the
contrary notwithstanding, butcher’s meat was now a dollar a pound,
corn twenty-five dollars per bushel and labor eight dollars per day.
Still the good people were not discouraged, but a new committee was
set to work, and again, by a large majority, a tariff of prices was
established; but at the same town meeting which adopted it $9,000 was
voted to procure recruits. Indeed, the figures now become colossal,
and in September, 1780, the town votes £5,000 for the support of
schools and £15,000 “to pay the three months men, if wanted for that
purpose, if not, for other town charges.” Nor was this all. The new
State government was now organized, and John Hancock had been elected
Governor, receiving, in Weymouth, twenty-nine votes to eleven for
James Bowdoin; but one of the first acts of the Legislature was to
allot among the various towns a quota of beef to be supplied as well
as men, so the year 1780 closes with these two melancholy entries in
the records of this poor little town, casting forty votes at the annual
election:--
* * * * *
“_Voted_ to raise one hundred and thirty thousand dollars of the old
currency to procure the beef set on the town by the General Court.”
“_Voted_ to give fifty hard dollars a year for any one or more men that
shall engage for this town for three year in the Continental Servis.”
“Gen. Lovell, Capᵗ Nash, Capt. Whitman & Lt Vinson chosen a Comᵉᵉ to
hire the Nineteen men set on this town.”
* * * * *
Of course the Continental currency was now almost wholly discredited,
having fallen to seventy-five for one, and Weymouth instructed its
representative to use his influence “that the act called the Tender
Act should be repealed.” But its repeal was of little consequence;
the country had gotten back to hard money by the radical course of
rendering all other money worthless. In 1781 Weymouth had also
returned to the old tax figures, raising £60 for the support of schools
and £160 for all other expenses; but the burden of recruiting grew
heavier and heavier, and in October, 1781, it was “Voted to give the
committee for hiring soldiers discretionary power to hire them upon the
best terms they can,” and $2,500, “hard dollars,” were appropriated for
the purpose.
Fortunately the long trial now drew near its close. The towns of
Massachusetts were thoroughly exhausted and neither men nor money
could be procured. In spite of the large sums offered, recruits were
no longer forthcoming, and finally Weymouth as one of many delinquent
towns, became liable to a heavy fine. The wonder, however, was not
that the towns were delinquent, but rather where they found so many
able-bodied men as they then supplied. Weymouth, at that time, could
not well have mustered over two hundred men of the age of military
service. The record would seem to establish the fact that more than
one-tenth of these were annually called for. Such a strain could
not long have been sustained; but the dogged tenacity of the people
was equal to the burden they were called upon to bear, and it is
pleasant to find, almost before the struggle was over, the process of
recuperation begun, and the town on the 20th of November, 1782, voting
£300 for the purpose of partly paying its debts.
* * * * *
With the close of the long struggle for independence ends the second
period in the history of Weymouth. More than ninety years have since
passed away, carrying with them three generations of the children of
the soil. They have been years of great development and of healthy
growth,--not such development nor such growth as is often seen in this
country,--nothing, indeed, which in our age may be called remarkable,
for almost any active and bustling railroad centre in the Western
States can boast of greater census figures; but the growth of Weymouth
has been that of a thrifty, industrious New England town, and when,
after the long lapse of ages, the final account is rendered, who shall
say that the former growth will be found better than the latter?
In 1782 Weymouth was still an agricultural community,--its people were
scattered over its wide territory and it scarcely contained within its
limits any cluster of houses worthy of the name of village. In the
state election of that year fifty-one votes were cast, and the sum
raised by taxation to defray the annual expenses of the town was the
equivalent of $1,230. It contains now four separate villages within its
limits, each one far more populous and more wealthy than the entire
town then was; its annual levy exceeds $85,000, and at its elections it
casts 1,200 votes.
It is now fifty years since the learned editor of Governor Winthrop’s
History of New England remarked that “a careful history of Weymouth
is much needed.”[98] The want is still felt. To me the preparation
of this hasty sketch of the earlier days has been a work of great
enjoyment. I have had to deal with Mount Wollaston and with Weymouth,
those twin settlements in the first infancy of New England life, and
in the history of each I could not do otherwise than take a deep
hereditary interest. It was at Mount Wollaston, close to the spot where
once stood the May-pole of the wild Morton, that John Quincy lived and
died,--it was in the old parsonage of Weymouth, almost within a stone’s
throw of the site of Weston’s plantation, that John Adams was married
to the grand-daughter of that John Quincy. Nevertheless, no degree
of personal interest can convert a hurried sketch into a careful
history, and Weymouth deserves no less. Nor should the story of later
development remain untold. It necessarily lacks, indeed, those elements
of strangeness, of remoteness and of mystery, which lend their charm to
the earlier periods which we have considered to-day, but the record is
none the less of sufficing interest.
The children of Weymouth, during the present century, have gone forth
in peace and in war, and are now scattered all over the common country,
and, indeed, over the civilized world. Her children, too, remaining
at home, have altered and diversified the old town until the fathers
would know it no longer. It must be for others to recount these
changes of the later years. I prefer to leave the narrative on the
threshold of the new era and before the old order of things had yet
begun to pass away,--while a fresher and a purer air still hung around
the Great Hill, and while a certain fragrance of the primeval forest
gathered about Whitman’s pond. I prefer to leave it while Joshua Bates,
newly come back from the continental army, a colonel of artillery at
twenty-eight, was meditating those busy enterprises which were destined
to infuse a new life into his native town; and I shall not seek to
follow that other Joshua Bates, then unborn, whose destiny it was to
migrate back to the mother country, and there in fullness of time to
die at the head of the first commercial firm of London or the world. We
leave Weymouth just emerging, weak but alive yet, from the long ordeal
of an eight years’ war, and entering on a more prosperous career; we
leave it while brave old Brigadier Lovell yet viewed his broad acres
from the summit of King-Oak Hill,--while Dr. Cotton Tufts still served
the town whether at the bedsides of the sick or in the councils of the
State, and ere yet the grass had grown over the new-made grave of the
good old Parson Smith. Two centuries and a half of municipal life are
now completed, and in celebrating the event of to-day may we not fitly
close with the earnest hope that the succeeding years may be as blessed
as those which are past,--that unity, virtue and good-will may long
find their abode within the limits of the ancient town, and that, even
more in the future than in the past, “may peace be within thy walls and
prosperity within thy palaces.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Winslow’s Good Newes; Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 291.
[2] Phinehas Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p.
478.
[3] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 478, 487.
[4] Bradford; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 3, p. 107.
[5] Levett’s Voyage; III. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 8, p. 190.
[6] “So base in condition (for yᵉ most parte) as in all apearance not
fitt for an honest mans company.” _Letter of John Peirce in Bradford_
(p. 123). Thomas Morton describes them as “men made choice of at all
adventures.” _The New English Canaan_ (p. 72), _Force’s Hist. Tracts_
(v. 2). In the preface to his Good Newes, Winslow speaks of them as “a
disorderly colony, ... who were a stain to Old England that bred them
in respect of their lives and manners amongst the Indians.” _Young,
C. of P._ (p. 276). Weston himself speaks of them as “rude fellows,”
and proposes to reclaim them “from that profanenes that may scandalise
yᵉ vioago,” etc. _Bradford_ (p. 120). Robert Cushman in a letter to
Governor Bradford, gives the following hint: “if they borrow anything
of you let them leave a good pawne.” _Ib._ (p. 122).
I have stated that Thomas Morton came over as one of Weston’s company.
This has been denied, _Young’s C. of P._ (p. 334, n.), but Morton
himself twice states in the New English Canaan, that he came to New
England in 1622, and in one of the two cases fixes the time as in June
of that year. _The New English Canaan_ (pp. 15, 41), _Force’s Hist.
Tracts_ (v. 2). Winslow states that the Charity and Swan arrived “in
the end of June or beginning of July,” 1622. _Young’s C. of P._ (p.
296). Now no other ships from England came to Plymouth that year, and
no company such as Morton describes his to have been, except Weston’s,
arrived in Massachusetts between 1622 and Wollaston’s arrival in 1625.
Morton, however, not only positively says that he arrived at the very
time the Weston company arrived, but he shows throughout his book a
remarkable familiarity not only with the events which occurred in the
Weston settlement, but with the people composing it. A connection with
that settlement was not a thing which Morton would have been likely
to boast of in subsequent years; but, judging by internal evidence, I
should feel inclined not only to venture a surmise that Morton was one
of Weston’s colony, but also that it was Morton himself who proposed
to the Wessagusset “Parliament” the vicarious execution presently to
be described. The whole tone of his account of that affair is highly
suggestive of a close connection with it, and of great sympathy with
the real culprit and his ingenious counsel.
My explanation of Morton’s statement as to his arrival is, that in
it, with his usual recklessness as to facts, he confounded two events
which occurred at different dates. He says, _The New English Canaan_
(p. 41), “In the Moneth of Iune, Anno Salutis: 1622. It was my chaunce
to arrive in the parts of New England with 30. Servants, and provision
of all sorts fit for a plantation.” Here are two facts distinctly
stated;--one as to the date of his arrival, exactly coinciding with
that of the Weston company;--the other as to the number of “servants,”
etc., answering to the description of Wollaston’s company. Morton, I
think, therefore, came out with Weston’s company, and left Wessagusset
in March, 1623, with them; he then, more than two years later, returned
there with Wollaston, probably acting as his guide. When, seven years
later, he printed his book, desiring to make his American experience
date as far back as possible, he simply confused his two arrivals, and
quietly ignored his connection with the Weston company, which had left
a very unsavory reputation behind it as being made up of the refuse of
mankind.
[7] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 297.
[8] “A correspondent in Quincy thus describes the place: ‘It is about
three miles south-east of the granite church in Quincy, at a place
locally called Old Spain.’ Weston’s colony sailed up Fore River, which
separates Quincy from Weymouth, and then entered Phillips Creek, and
commenced operations on its north bank.” _Russell’s Guide to Plymouth_
(p. 106, n.).
[9] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 299. Bradford, p. 130.
[10] Bradford, p. 128.
[11] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 302.
[12] Bradford, p. 130.
[13] Pratt’s Petition; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 486, 7.
Bradford, p. 130. Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 332.
[14] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 328.
[15] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 329.
[16] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, pp. 479, 489.
New English Canaan, p. 18; Force’s Tracts, v. 2.
[17] Winslow, in his Relation, states that Pratt told them of this
execution on his arrival at Plymouth. _Young’s C. of P._ (p. 332);
_see, also, Bradford_ (p. 130). But Pratt, in his own Narrative,
distinctly says that “we kep him (the malefactor) bound som few days,”
but does not mention the execution. _IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 4,
p. 482). In his Relation by Mather, however, he states that the real
delinquent was put to death. _Ib._ (p. 491).
[18] The New English Canaan, p. 74.
[19] Hudibras, Part II, Canto II, ll. 409-36.
[20] Hist. of Mass., v. 1, p. 6, n.;--for a curious traditionary
account of this execution see, also, _Uring’s Voyages_ (pp. 116-18),
and _Proceedings of Mass. Hist. Soc. for 1871_ (p. 59).
[21] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 336.
[22] _Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 4, pp. 483-7),
can be accepted as authority only with very decided limitations.
Prepared for a specific purpose, long subsequent to the occurrence
of the events to which it relates, it is neither consistent with
itself nor with the Plymouth authorities. He dwells at length on the
apprehension of an attack by the Indians felt by the Weston colony,
and the precautions they took against it (pp. 482-3). Standish, on the
contrary, reported that he found them living in reckless disregard of
every precaution. _Winslow, in Young’s C. of P._ (p. 336.) Pecksuot’s
famous speech to Standish, which Pratt must often have heard discussed
at Plymouth, finds a place in his narrative as having been made to
him long previously (p. 481). Finally, if the terror at Wessagusset
was such as he asserts it to have been, the settlers there could have
gone on board the Swan and sailed to Plymouth in search of aid, quite
as well as Standish could come to them or they go subsequently to the
eastward. Pratt himself was unquestionably both alarmed and hungry, but
he probably fled to Plymouth as a refugee. When he got there, having
doubtless encountered enough of danger and hardship on the way, he
found Standish already starting for Wessagusset. His own sense of the
dangers he had run and the heroism he had displayed, both before and
during his flight, probably grew with each succeeding year. I have
adopted only such of his statements as are corroborated by others, or
seem to wear an aspect of inherent probability.
[23] The whole number of Indians in that vicinity was not computed at
over fifty. _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 305). _Winslow; Young’s C. of
P._ (p. 310).
[24] The Courtship of Miles Standish, Part VII. See also Pratt’s
Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p. 481, and Young’s C. of
P., p. 338.
[25] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 331. Bradford, p. 164.
[26] Bradford, p. 132.
[27] Pratt’s Narrative; IV. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 4, p. 486. New
English Canaan, p. 76; Force’s Tracts, v. 2. Young’s C. of P., p. 344.
[28] Bradford, p. 164.
[29] Winslow; Young’s C. of P., p. 344. The New English Canaan, p. 73.
[30] Young’s C. of P., p. 477, n.
[31] Bradford, p. 148.
[32] Bradford, p. 154.
[33] Ecclesiastical History of Massachusetts; I. Mass. Hist. Soc.
Coll., v. 9, p. 6.
[34] Both poem and translation are to be found in I. Mass. Hist. Soc.
Coll., v. 1, p. 125.
[35] Bradford, p. 154.
[36] The New English Canaan, p. 84.
[37] Records of Mass., v. 1, p. 366.
[38] Savage’s Winthrop, v. 1, p. 91.
[39] Wood’s New England’s Prospect; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 395.
[40] Records of Mass., v. 1, pp. 174-9.
[41] Hazard’s Hist. Coll., v. 1, p. 391.
[42] As respects Blackstone, see _Young’s Chron. of Mass._ (p. 169),
but the best account of this singular and interesting man is found in
Bliss’ History of Rehoboth. It is another point of some importance as
identifying Blackstone with the Gorges settlement, that he had received
Episcopal ordination in England. _II. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 9,
p. 174.) Now the Gorges settlement was a distinct and the only attempt
to plant Episcopacy in early Massachusetts. Morell and Blackstone were
both educated and studious men of somewhat similar cast of minds and
thought. The obvious and natural explanation of their presence in the
wilderness would be that they came there together, influenced by the
same inducements.
[43] A statement to this effect has crept into the generally accepted
accounts of the settlement of Weymouth, on the high authority of
Prince’s Annals. _Emery Memorial_ (p. 88). The entry in Prince is
at the close of 1624, and reads as follows:--“This Year comes some
Addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Weymouth in
England; who are another sort of people than the Former (_mst_) [and
on whose account I conclude the Town is since called Weymouth.]” To
this entry the compiler appended the following foot-note: “They have
the Rev. Mr. Barnard their first Non-conformist Minister, who dies
among them: But whether He comes before or after 1630, or when He Dies
is yet unknown (_mst_) nor do I anywhere find the least Hint of Him,
but in the Manuscript Letters, taken from some of the oldest People at
Weymouth.” _Annals_ (p. 150).
Prince compiled his work more than a century after the events here
alleged to have taken place. He carefully gives his authority, as was
his custom, for his statement, and himself discredits it. It seems, so
far as the date was concerned, to have been a mere “oldest inhabitant”
tradition, which wholly lacked corroboration by the contemporaneous
authorities. The party from Weymouth, in England, settled at Dorchester
in July, 1633. _Prince_; _II. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._ (v. 7, p. 96).
In 1635, Massachiel Barnard, an elder not a minister, came out with
the party mentioned by Winthrop and in the Records of Massachusetts as
being placed at Weymouth. This party included not only the Rev. Mr.
Hull, but the original bearers of several of the names now most common
in Weymouth, such as Bicknell, Lovell, Pool, Upham, Porter, &c. See
_N. E. Gen. Reg._ (v. 25, p. 13). It is safe to say that the date of
1624 given in Prince is wholly erroneous. If the permanent settlement
of Weymouth does not belong to 1623, no precise date for it can be
assigned; but I cannot see any room for doubt as to September, 1623.
The discovery, in 1870, of the names of those who came out with Mr.
Hull, in 1635, is very important in the genealogy of Weymouth. It is
singular to study in the several lists of names which have at various
times been made out, the fate of the families which bore them. Some,
the Kings and Kingmans for instance, have never increased, but are
still perpetuated by single families in Weymouth; others like Jeffries
and Bursley have disappeared; while yet others, like the Bicknells,
Frenches and Lovells have increased amazingly. Lists of names found
in the town at various epochs are printed in the Appendix to the
Address, with indications and figures shewing the apparent increase or
disappearance of the families.
[44] New English Canaan, pp. 84, 86.
[45] Hubbard, p. 428.
[46] This was the Rev. John Lyford. A detailed account of the somewhat
high handed proceedings of the Plymouth authorities in regard to
this individual and John Oldham is found in Bradford’s History. The
ceremonial of Oldham’s expulsion from Plymouth was formal but peculiar.
Morton gives the following account of it: “A lane of Musketiers was
made, and hee compelled in scorne to passe along betweene, & to receave
a bob upon the bumme be every musketier, and then a board a shallop,
and so convayed to Wessaguscus shoare & staid at Massachussets, to
whome Iohn Layford and some few more did resort, where Master Layford
freely executed his office and preached every Lords day, and yet
maintained his wife & children foure or five, upon his industry there,
with the blessing of God, and the plenty of the Land, without the
helpe of his auditory, in an honest and laudable manner, till hee was
wearied, and made to leave the Country.” _New English Canaan_ (p.
81); _see also Bradford_ (p. 190). This took place early in 1625, but
the Oldham and Lyford settlement was at Hull, not at Wessagusset, and
lasted but little over a year; _note to Bradford_ (p. 195).
[47] Wood’s New-England’s Prospect; Young’s Chron. of Mass., p. 395.
[48] Bradford’s Letter Book; I. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 3, p. 61.
[49] New English Canaan, p. 93.
[50] Bradford, p. 241.