from Weymouth, England, the following year, the capture of Morton
in 1628, the visit of Gov. Winthrop in 1632, the tax lists of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony for 1630 and onwards, which include
Wessaguscus, and the incidental mention from contemporaneous sources
covering nearly all of the intervening time. These afford a firm basis
upon which to rest an earlier settlement than that of the Hull company.
Later on, and still previous to that arrival, we learn from the
colonial records that in March, 1635, the bounds between Wessaguscus
and Mount Wollaston were referred to a committee for adjustment, and in
the July following, a similar arrangement was made to fix the bounds
between it and its next neighbor on the east, Bare-Cove, afterwards
Hingham. In October, Richard Long was fined for making clapboards from
good trees and selling them out of town, when he had been directed to
make them into shingles for Castle Island; the proceeds of the fine to
go towards a bridge in Wessaguscus. The Hull company could hardly have
been so far advanced in business by this time, as this state of things
would indicate; besides, Long was not a member of that company but must
have been a prior settler. In March of the next year, Thomas Applegate,
also a prior settler, was removed from his position as ferry keeper,
and Henry Kingman, one of the new-comers, appointed to succeed him.
The assessment and payment of taxes is usually deemed conclusive
evidence in matters with which they come in connection. If there were
boundaries to be adjusted, there must have been residents on both sides
of the line who were in contention about them. A ferry and a bridge, as
means of communication, would hardly be necessary where there was no
population.
The earliest of the town records contains a list of land owners with a
description of their property. The record is not dated, but the time
can be fixed with certainty, within about a year and a half. The names
of Elizabeth and Mary Fry, daughters of William Fry, deceased, are
upon this list, and as his burial is recorded as having taken place
October 26, 1642, the list must have been prepared subsequent to that
time. At the close of these property descriptions is the record of the
transfer of some of this same property, and it is described in the
lists as belonging to the grantors. Two of these transfers bear date
21 and 26 May, 1644, thus showing the latest limit at which it could
have been compiled. The true date is probably 1643, and there is reason
for believing, from internal evidence, that Rev. Samuel Newman was the
compiler, he being at that time a resident of the town, his removal to
Rehoboth taking place in 1644.
In this list, which is very incomplete as will be easily seen, there
are the names of 71 persons with a general description of the property
then owned by them. In these descriptions the names of 17 others are
mentioned, from whom some of this property was purchased, or to whom
the original grants were made. There are also mentioned as owners of
property bounding the different lots described, the names of 52, who do
not appear in the other two classes, yet who must have been property
owners or they could not have been abuttors, making in all 123, at
least, real estate owners at the time the list was made up. Why this
large number escaped record we have no means of knowing, but since
such is the fact we may reasonably infer that many others may have
been omitted altogether, and that the full number was originally much
greater; in fact we have evidence that this was so, from incidental
mention in the later records. Taking, however, the lists as they come
to us, we have the names of 123, without doubt most of them heads
of families. These, at an average of five to the family, a moderate
estimate for those days, would furnish a population of more than 600.
Of these 123, only 17 are found in the list of the Hull company, 20
March, 1635; the remaining 106 must have come in at some other date.
Besides these above mentioned, there are found upon the birth record of
Weymouth, previous to 1644, the names of seven, belonging to families
not before enumerated, and this record is notoriously incomplete. A
careful examination of these 130 families will throw further light upon
the matter. Some of them came into the settlement subsequent to 1635,
but only a few. Many are known to have been earlier residents. Some
came with the Gorges company in 1623, and had resided here since that
time, and many others were among the arrivals continually coming in
during the eleven intervening years before the arrival of Mr. Hull and
his company.
Bursley, Jeffries, and probably Ludden, with several others, were
members of the Gorges company. Henry Adams, John Allen, Robert Abell,
Stephen French, John Glover, Walter Harris, Edmond Hart, James Parker,
Thomas Richards, Thomas Rawlins, Clement Briggs, Richard Sylvester and
Clement Weaver, came in 1630, or soon after; William Torrey, as late as
1640, while the large majority were here at the date of the making up
of the record, but further than this nothing is known with certainty.
From the evidence we have, however, we may fairly presume that many
of them were settlers previous to the arrival of Gov. Winthrop, and
that some of them were of that company from Weymouth, England, in
1624, of whom Prince makes mention, and of whom something more will
be said hereafter. Of the settlers who were here in 1628 and 1630, we
know but little beyond the fact that they were here at that date, and
that Thomas Morton, of Mount Wollaston, of unpleasant memory, was on
intimate terms with some of them, and was arrested by the Plymouth
authorities, while on a visit here in 1628.
So, then, our facts relative to the early settlement are briefly these.
A permanent settlement in the fall of 1623, by Capt. Robert Gorges and
his followers, continual additions during the next four years, the
record of the arrest of Morton in 1628, for which the settlement was
taxed £2, to £2: 10_s._ for Plymouth, showing the comparative size of
the two plantations, casual mention for the following three years, the
visit of Gov. Winthrop on his way to and from Plymouth, in 1632, record
of births in 1633, and the colonial tax lists from 1630 onwards until
the erection of the settlement into a plantation, with the right of a
deputy to the General Court.
It will be remembered that the original settlers of Wessaguscus, or
Weymouth, were what would now be termed “squatters,” and their titles
simply those of possession, the real owners being the Indians, whose
rights were general and not individual. The English titles were vested
in governmental grants to the large companies like the Plymouth, the
Gorges and the Massachusetts Bay. These early settlers came into the
territory of Wessaguscus before it fairly was in the possession of
either company; consequently they could only acquire such title as the
native holders could give them, to be confirmed by later authority,
whatever that might be. Weymouth extinguished the Indian title to
its territory by purchase; the deed bearing date 26 April, 1642, was
executed by the resident chiefs, who sign themselves Wampetuc, alias
Jonas Webacowett, Nateaunt and Nahawton, and is recorded among the
Suffolk Deeds. Nateaunt’s beach and probable camping ground was at
the foot of Great Hill, in North Weymouth. The town was therefore now
in a position to confirm the planters in their possessions, and the
existence of the list of possessions made soon after, seems to indicate
that this was done.
There are reasons why the early contemporaneous records and writers so
seldom mention this town and its affairs, in the fact of its different
origin, the marked jealousy, not to say unkind feelings with which
the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies regarded it. It had a
more commercial element in its constitution. It was, also, in its
incipience, episcopal in its ecclesiastical relations, which, although
gradually relaxing, carried enough of the flavor of the “establishment”
with it to make it anything but palatable to the taste of their puritan
and independent neighbors. The relations then existing between them and
their neighbors about the Bay we cannot determine with certainty now,
but we may judge something of what they were by the casual mention, and
the incidental exhibitions of feeling, cropping out but too frequently.
If it were the usual custom in the settlement of this country to form
churches immediately after taking permanent possession, and of this
there can be little doubt, then Wessaguscus should have had a church
several years at least before the arrival of Rev. Joseph Hull; and
perhaps by a careful study of the facts we have, and the results
growing out of them, we may make our probabilities approach more nearly
to positive evidence than we have been able heretofore to do, although
we may not quite reach the point we wish to attain.
With the Gorges company in the autumn of 1623, came Rev. William
Morrell, their minister, a clergyman of the Established Church. He
appears to have been a quiet, scholarly gentlemen, of cultivated
tastes and refined habits, much better fitted for the duties and
enjoyments of an English rectory, than to found and build up a church
in the rough settlements of a new country. He could better enjoy
the congenial society of his equals, at home, than guide the rude,
independent minds of those who constituted his companions in this,
to him, wholly unknown enterprise. The whole plan of the undertaking
was conceived and started in a spirit particularly unconscious of
the real position of affairs where it was to be executed. It was a
paper campaign, projected by an impracticable general, and entrusted
to incompetent officers. As such the result was inevitable failure.
It was started with organization and machinery enough to carry on a
colony of the greatest magnitude after years of successful growth; and
in order to give it dignity and importance, and to secure the favor of
the home government, its ecclesiastical character and position were
well cared for in the plan. Mr. Morrell was its minister, sufficient
for the needs of its first company. He was the pioneer to whom was
intrusted all of the preliminary work that was to speedily result in a
flourishing bishopric, and as such he was clothed with ample powers,
with full control of all the churches present and in immediate prospect
upon these shores. The reality soon satisfied him that the plan was a
failure, or that he was not the man to execute it. A rigorous climate,
an inhospitable coast, and the companionship of uncongenial spirits
were more than he had bargained for and more than he could bear. With
the discouragements of many of his associates he sympathized. Thus we
find that he remained with his charge about a year and a half and then
returned to England, sailing from Plymouth; having had the rare good
sense and discretion to keep his ecclesiastical powers and authority
to himself, for he did not attempt in the least degree to exercise
these, although they were so large, showing them only when about to
leave. With this marvellous prospect before him when he undertook the
position, and the facilities given him to carry out almost any ideas
he may have entertained respecting his ecclesiastical work, however
extravagant they may have been, is it presumptuous to suppose that he
did not neglect the very first step necessary to carry out the plan
of the enterprise, which would be the formation of a local church? We
have no positive evidence that he did this, but the probabilities would
certainly seem to favor such a proceeding. Without such an organization
he could hope to accomplish but little; with it he would have made
a beginning and laid the foundations, at least, upon which to erect
the imposing structure, that had filled the minds of the original
projectors in England.
For the chronicles of the church and minister during the next ten years
we have to rely mainly upon a single statement, we might almost say
tradition, and that somewhat vague and unsatisfactory. The passage
in “Prince’s Chronicles” relating to this settlement seems not to be
credited by Mr. Adams, yet it is of such a nature that we can hardly
pass it by as entirely without foundation. It reads as follows: “This
year comes some addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from
Weymouth, England, who are another sort of people than the former.”
Then follows in brackets [“and on whose account I conclude the town is
since called Weymouth”]. To this is appended the following 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, nor do I anywhere find the least hint of him,
but in the manuscript letter taken from some of the oldest people
of Weymouth.” The authority upon which this whole passage depends is
the manuscript letter. The statement is a very important one, and
would seem to be entitled to more weight than Mr. Adams is inclined to
allow it. Rev. Thomas Prince was born 15 May, 1687, and was old enough
before their decease, to know many of those who were the children
of the very earliest settlers of the town. From them he undoubtedly
obtained the information contained in the manuscript letter. And who
were these people and how much value should attach to their testimony?
As an answer let us look at the record of a single year, that of 1718,
when Mr. Prince was 31 years of age. Among the deaths of that year we
find the following:--Samuel, son of Elder Edward Bates, Capt. Stephen
French, son of Stephen French, (Edward Bates and Stephen French were
members of the Dorchester council, Feb., 1639, in the Lenthal matter,
from the Weymouth church); Ichabod, son of Capt. John Holbrook; James,
son of Dea. Jonas Humphrey; James, son of Robert Lovell; Lieut. Jacob,
son of Capt. James Nash; John, son of Robert Randall; Dea. John, son
of Joseph Shaw; William and Jonathan, sons of Capt. William Torrey,
and John, son of John Vinson. These were all old men, and their
fathers were among the first settlers of the town, and all, fathers
and sons, were among its most intelligent and important citizens. This
is the record for a single year. While Mr. Prince was in the prime of
life there were scores of such, from whom his information would come
only second hand. The death of Rev. Samuel Torrey, one of the ablest
ministers of his day, the pastor of the church in Weymouth for many
years, occurred in 1707, when Mr. Prince was 20 years old, whom he well
knew, and whose authority would be unquestioned. Here were sources of
information from which he probably drew his account. He has always had
the reputation of being a very careful historian, and any statement of
his should not be hastily set aside. Mr. Prince himself does not appear
to doubt its correctness, but is surprised to find no mention made of
the company and the minister, Mr. Barnard, in contemporary writers. As
before intimated, satisfactory reason could no doubt be found for such
omissions were the relations between the few scattered settlements of
the time known to us. If we may not give some credit to this tradition
upon such an authority, it will be hardly worth our while to pursue our
inquiries further in this direction, for it is by just such incidental
testimony, and that alone, that we are to establish much of our proof.
And this is often the most satisfactory evidence, for the very reason
that it is incidental and indirect, and therefore less liable to be
swayed by prejudice or predisposition. Again, the probabilities are
strongly in favor of the existence of this Mr. Barnard as the minister;
for with such antecedents and surroundings as these early planters
had, it would be natural and proper for them to have a minister, and
in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, may we not credit the
statement of Mr. Prince, that these settlers at Wessagusset had for
their minister, Mr. Barnard, who lived and died among them; and that
the statement did not come merely from a confusion of names, consequent
upon the appearance of Massachiel Barnard, a member of the Hull
company, who made his home in the town for several years? For similar
reasons may we not well believe that this people and minister were not
without a church for a series of years?
We have no further record of church or minister until 1635, when
permission was given, 8 July, by the General Court, for Rev. Joseph
Hull and 21 families to sit down at Wessaguscus. On the 2d of
September, following, the name of the settlement was changed to
Weymouth, and it was made a plantation, with a privilege of a deputy to
the General Court. Mr. Hull was also made a freeman at the same time.
His first grant of land is recorded as in Weymouth, 12 June, 1636. The
same year he also received a grant of land in Hingham. In 1637, he was
reported as being still in Weymouth, while the same year, probably
later and transiently, he is named among the list of first settlers in
Salem. He was also heard from about the same time, preaching at Bass
River, Beverly. In September, 1638, he was chosen deputy to the General
Court from Hingham, and was also appointed a local magistrate for the
same town. His son, Benjamin, was baptized there, 24 March, 1639; and
again he was elected its deputy to the General Court. 5 May of that
year, he preached his farewell sermon in Weymouth, and later, in the
same month, is heard from at Barnstable, in Plymouth colony, making a
settlement.
His sojourn at Barnstable was a short and stormy one, for he had hardly
become settled there with his little company when the territory was
entered upon by Rev. Mr. Lothrop and his flock from Scituate. There
his daughter Joanna was married in November, 1639, to Capt. John
Bursley, who was unquestionably the Bursley of the Gorges company, at
Weymouth, in 1623, whom we find back again in that town as a land owner
in 1643. Mr. Hull was made a freeman of Plymouth colony, in December,
1639. There seems to have been trouble in the Barnstable church, and
Mr. Hull preached at Yarmouth so acceptably, that, early in 1641 he
received a call from the church there, which he promptly accepted, and
for which both he and his wife were excommunicated by the Barnstable
church. On this account perhaps, and possibly from the influence of
the Plymouth authorities, who appear to have become hostile to him, his
stay at Yarmouth was of short duration, for we find him as preacher at
the Isle of Shoals, in March, 1642. He seems not yet to have wholly
abandoned the Plymouth colony, for, 11 March, 1642, his wife Agnes
renews her covenant with the Barnstable church, and 7 March, 1643, a
warrant for his arrest is issued by the court, “should he continue his
ministrations as minister or magistrate in that colony.” His troubles
there appear to have been adjusted, for he was received back into
the Barnstable church, 10 August, 1643. He now bids a final farewell
to that colony, and we next hear of him as preaching at York, Maine,
where, or in that vicinity, he remained for 8 or 10 years, subject
however to the not very friendly attentions of his Massachusetts Bay
colony acquaintances. He afterwards returned to England, and was, in
1659, rector of St. Buryan’s, Cornwall, where he remained about three
years, when his name appears among the ejected ministers under the “St.
Bartholomew Act.” He again took refuge in America, where he was found,
1665, the year of his death, once more at the Isle of Shoals, having
been driven from Oyster River by the Quakers.
Mr. Hull was born in Somersetshire, England, about the year 1590; was
educated at Oxford University, St. Mary’s Hall, where he graduated
in 1614; became rector of Northleigh, Devon, in 1621, which position
he resigned in 1632, when he commenced gathering from his native
county and those surrounding it, the company with which he sailed from
Weymouth, Dorset, 20 March, 1635.
“Mr. Hull,” says Savage, “came over in the Episcopal interest,” and his
sympathies appear to have leaned in that direction, although while in
America he was professedly a non-conformist, or Independent; hence,
probably, the jealousy and petty persecution which followed him with
more or less virulence, during the greater part of his residence on
these shores. He was a man of worth and learning by the admission of
Hubbard. He must have been a popular man from his success in securing
followers to make up his company of emigrants, and his selection by the
voice of his constituents at three different elections as deputy to the
General Court, twice at Hingham, and once at Barnstable. He must have
been an acceptable preacher from the eagerness with which his services
were sought. Dr. Mather places him among our “first good men;” and
Pike, his successor at Dover, remembers him as a reverend minister,
while Gov. Winthrop says he was “a very contentious man.” Possibly the
worthy Governor may not have been quite free from prejudice against
the free-spoken, Independent minister, with Episcopal antecedents and
tendencies, yet the frequent removals, numerous troubles, vexations
and lawsuits, certainly give room for the Governor’s opinion. No
fault seems to have been found with his moral or religious character,
but he was certainly unfortunate while in this country by having
circumstances so often against him, or in having so many bad neighbors.
It is somewhat doubtful whether he was ever settled over the church in
Weymouth.
Rev. Thomas Jenner was in Weymouth in the early part of 1636, and took
the freeman’s oath in December of that year. According to Mr. Savage
he was in Roxbury a year or two previous to that. Soon, in 1637, he
received a call from the Weymouth people. The same year, according
to Winthrop and Hubbard, “divers of the ministers and elders went to
Weymouth, to reconcile the differences between the people and Mr.
Jenner, whom they had called for their pastor, and had good success.”
We find, also, from the General Court records, that this course was
ordered by the court. He remained there for several years, and in 1640
represented the town in the General Court. He retired from the ministry
there for some reason unexplained by the records, although we may get
a hint at what it was, and went to Saco, Maine. Not much is known of
him, further than this: that he came to Weymouth as early at least as
the year following the arrival of Mr. Hull, and that he came in the
interest of the ministers and authorities of the Massachusetts Bay
colony, and was sustained by them through the troubles that ensued.
And now a third minister appears upon the scene, Rev. Robert Lenthal,
who was in Weymouth as early as 1637, where “he disseminated his new
doctrines, made proselytes and collected a strong party to oppose the
new organization of the church, which took place 30 Jan’y, 1638,”
according to notes appended to a sermon preached by Rev. Josiah Bent
at the dedication of the new meeting-house in North Weymouth, 28
November, 1832. These notes were prepared by Hon. Christopher Webb, who
was deeply interested in Weymouth history and had been long engaged
in collecting materials for historical purposes. Mr. Savage also
states that Mr. Lenthal was in Weymouth in 1637, “but not pleasing the
Governor was forbid to be ordained.” Matters in the church, instead of
growing better after the council of 1637, which met with such “good
success in reconciling the differences between Mr. Jenner and his
people in Weymouth,” became so much worse that it was deemed necessary
to call a second council or conference, which was held at the house of
Capt. Israel Stoughton, in Dorchester, a magistrate of the colony, 10
February, 1639. Notes of the proceedings were taken by Capt. Robert
Keayne (brother-in-law of Rev. John Wilson), which have been preserved
among the Stiles manuscripts in Yale College Library. From these notes
much valuable information has come to light. The council must have been
considered a very important one, since we find among its members, Rev.
John Wilson, pastor, and Rev. John Cotton, teacher, of the church in
Boston; Rev. Zechariah Symmes, teacher, of the church in Charlestown;
Rev. John Weld, pastor, and Rev. John Eliot, teacher, of the church in
Roxbury; Rev. Samuel Newman, (who went to Weymouth the same year); Rev.
Thomas Jenner, of Weymouth; Mr. Edward Bates and Mr. Stephen French,
of Weymouth, the former of whom, and not the latter as Mr. Trumbull
has it, was then, or soon became, a ruling elder of the church in that
town; also a private man, perhaps Capt. Keayne himself.