DUXBURY HOMES
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There are certain places whose happy fortune seems to be that they are
always specially loved and specially sought by the children of men. From
that memorable date in 1630 when a little group of the Plymouth
colonists asked permission to locate across the bay at "Duxberie" until
now, when the summer colony alone has far surpassed that of the original
settlers, this section of the coast--with its lovely six-mile beach, its
high bluffs, and its pleasant hills and pasture lands, upon which are
found quite a southern flora, unique in this northern latitude--has been
thoroughly frequented and enjoyed.
There is no more graphic index to the caliber of a people than the
houses which they build, and the first house above all others which we
must associate with this spot is the Standish cottage, built at the foot
of Captain's Hill by Alexander Standish, the son of Myles, partly from
materials from his father's house, which was burned down, but whose
cellar is still visible. This long, low, gambrel-roofed structure, with
a broad chimney showing the date of 1666, was a long way ahead of the
first log cabins erected by the Pilgrims--farther than most of us
realize, accustomed as we are to glass instead of oiled paper in
windows; to shingles, and not thatch for roofs. It is fitting that this
ancient and charming dwelling should be associated with one of the most
romantic, most striking, names in the Plymouth Colony. There are few
more picturesque personalities in our early history than Myles Standish.
Small in stature, fiery in spirit, a terror to the Indians, and a strong
arm to the Pilgrims, there is no doubt that his determination to live in
Duxbury--which he named for Duxborough Hall, his ancestral home in
Lancashire--went far in obtaining for it a separate incorporation and a
separate church. This was the first definite offshoot from the Plymouth
Colony, and was accompanied by the usual maternal fears. While he could
not forbid them going to Duxbury to settle, yet, when they asked for a
separate incorporation and church, Bradford granted it most unwillingly.
He voiced the general sentiment when he wrote that such a separation
presaged the ruin of the church "& will provoke y^e Lord's displeasure
against them."
However, such unkind predictions in no wise bothered the sturdy little
group who moved over to the new location, needing room for their cattle
and their gardens, and most of all a sense of freedom from the
restrictions of the mother colony. The son of Elder Brewster went, and
in time the Elder himself, and so did John Alden and his wife Priscilla,
whose courtship has been so well told by Longfellow that it needs no
further embellishing here. On the grassy knoll where John and Priscilla
built their home in 1631, their grandson built the cottage which now
stands--the property of the Alden Kindred Association. John Alden seems
to have been an attractive young fellow--it is easy to see why Priscilla
Mullins preferred him to the swart, truculent widower--but from our
point of view John Alden's chief claim to fame is that he was a friend
of Myles Standish.
Let us, as we pay our respects to Duxbury, pause for a moment and recall
some of the courageous adventures, some of the brave traits and some of
the tender ones, which make up our memory of this doughty military
commander. In the first place, we must remember that he was never a
member of the church of the Pilgrims: there is even a question if he
were not--like the rest of his family in Lancashire--a Roman Catholic;
and this immediately places him in a position of peculiar distinction.
From the first his mission was not along ecclesiastical lines, but along
military and civil ones. The early histories are full of his intrepid
deeds: there was never an expedition too dangerous or too difficult to
daunt him. He would attack with the utmost daring the hardest or the
humblest task. He was absolutely loyal to the interest of the Colony,
and during that first dreadful winter when he was among the very few who
were not stricken with sickness, he tended the others day and night,
"unceasing in his loving care." As in many audacious characters this
sweeter side of his nature does not seem to have been fully appreciated
by his contemporaries, and we have the letter in which Robinson, that
"most learned, polished and modest spirit," writes to Bradford, and
warns him to have care about Standish. He loves him right well, and is
persuaded that God has given him to them in mercy and for much good, if
he is used aright; but he fears that there may be wanting in him "that
tenderness of the life of man (made after God's image) which is meet."
This warning doubtless flattered Standish, but Robinson's later
criticism of his methods at Weymouth hurt the little captain cruelly. He
seems to have cherished an intense affection for the Leyden pastor,
such as valorous natures often feel for meditative ones, and that
Robinson died before he--Standish--could justify himself was a deep
grief to the soldier to whom mere physical hardships were as nothing. We
do not know a great deal about this relationship between the two men: in
this as in so many cases the intimate stories of these men and women,
"also their love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished." But
we do know that thirty years later when the gallant captain lay dying he
wrote in his will: "I give three pounds to Mercy Robinson, whom I
tenderly love for her grandfather's sake." Surely one feels the touching
eloquence of this brief sentence the fitting close of a life not only
heroic in action, but deeply sensitive in sentiment.
He died on his farm in Duxbury in 1656 when he was seventy-three, and
the Myles Standish Monument on Captain's Hill, three hundred and ten
feet above the bay, is no more conspicuous than his knightly and tender
life among the people he elected to serve. His two wives, and also
Priscilla and John Alden, for whom he entertained such lively love and
equally lively fury, all are buried here--the Captain's last home
fittingly marked by four cannon and a sturdy boulder.
Not only for Standish and Alden is Duxbury famous. The beloved William
Brewster himself moved to this new settlement, and up to a few years ago
the traces of the whitewood trees which gave the name of "Eagle's Nest"
to his house could be distinguished. One son--Love--lived with the
venerable elder, who was a widower, and his other son Jonathan owned the
neighboring farm. In the sight of the Plymouth Colony--their first home
in the new land--the three men often worked together, cutting trees and
planting.
Others of the original Mayflower company came too, leaving traces of
themselves in such names as Blackfriars Brook, Billingsgate, and
Houndsditch--names which they brought from Old England.
The homes which these pioneers so laboriously and so lovingly
wrought--what were they? How did they compare with the modern home and
household? In Mr. Sheldon's "History of Deerfield" we find such a
charming and vivid picture of home life in the early days--and one that
applies with equal accuracy to Duxbury--that we cannot do better than
copy it here:
"The ample kitchen was the center of the family life, social and
industrial. Here around the rough table, seated on rude stools or
benches, all partook of the plain and sometimes stinted fare. A glance
at the family gathered here after nightfall on a winter's day may prove
of interest.
"After a supper of bean porridge or hasty pudding and milk of which all
partake in common from a great pewter basin, or wooden bowl, with spoons
of wood, horn or pewter; after a reverent reading of the Bible, and
fervent supplications to the Most High for prayer and guidance; after
the watch was set on the tall mount, and the vigilant sentinel began
pacing his lonely beat, the shutters were closed and barred, and with a
sense of security the occupations of the long winter evening began.
Here was a picture of industry enjoined alike by the law of the land and
the stern necessities of the settlers. All were busy. Idleness was a
crime. On the settle, or a low armchair, in the most sheltered nook, sat
the revered grandam--as a term of endearment called granny--in red
woolen gown, and white linen cap, her gray hair and wrinkled face
reflecting the bright firelight, the long stocking growing under her
busy needles, while she watched the youngling of the flock in the cradle
by her side. The good wife, in linsey-woolsey short-gown and red
petticoat steps lightly back and forth in calf pumps beside the great
wheel, or poising gracefully on the right foot, the left hand extended
with the roll or bat, while with a wheel finger in the other, she gives
the wheel a few swift turns for a final twist to the long-drawn thread
of wool or tow. The continuous buzz of the flax wheels, harmonizing with
the spasmodic hum of the big wheel, shows that the girls are preparing a
stock of linen against their wedding day. Less active and more fitful
rattled the quill wheel, where the younger children are filling quills
for the morrow's weaving.
"Craftsmen are still scarce, and the yeoman must depend largely on his
own skill and resources. The grandsire, and the goodman, his son, in
blue woolen frocks, buckskin breeches, long stockings, and clouted
brogans with pewter buckles, and the older boys in shirts of brown tow,
waistcoat and breeches of butternut-colored woolen homespun, surrounded
by piles of white hickory shavings, are whittling out with keen Barlow
jack-knives implements for home use: ox-bows and bow-pins, axe-helves,
rakestales, forkstales, handles for spades and billhooks, wooden
shovels, flail staff and swingle, swingling knives, or pokes and hog
yokes for unruly cattle and swine. The more ingenious, perhaps, are
fashioning buckets or powdering tubs, or weaving skeps, baskets or
snowshoes. Some, it may be, sit astride the wooden shovel, shelling corn
on its iron-shod edge, while others are pounding it into samp or hoiminy
in the great wooden mortar.
"There are no lamps or candles, but the red light from the burning pine
knots on the hearth glows over all, repeating, in fantastic pantomime on
the brown walls and closed shutters, the varied activities around it.
These are occasionally brought into higher relief by the white flashes,
as the boys throw handfuls of hickory shavings onto the forestick, or
punch the back log with the long iron peel, while wishing they had as
'many shillings as sparks go up the chimney.' Then, the smoke-stained
joists and boards of the ceiling with the twisted rings of pumpkin
strings or crimson peppers and festoons of apple, drying on poles hung
beneath; the men's hats, the crook-necked squashes, the skeins of thread
and yarn hanging in bunches on the wainscot; the sheen of the pewter
plates and basins, standing in rows on the shelves of the dresser; the
trusty firelock with powder horn, bandolier, and bullet pouch, hanging
on the summertree, and the bright brass warming-pan behind the bedroom
door--all stand revealed more clearly for an instant, showing the
provident care for the comfort and safety of the household. Dimly seen
in the corners of the room are baskets in which are packed hands of flax
from the barn, where, under the flaxbrake, the swingling knives and the
coarse hackle, the shives and swingling tow have been removed by the
men; to-morrow the more deft manipulations of the women will prepare
these bunches of fiber for the little wheel, and granny will card the
tow into bats, to be spun into tow yarn on the big wheel. All quaff the
sparkling cider or foaming beer from the briskly circulating pewter mug,
which the last out of bed in the morning must replenish from the barrel
in the cellar."
* * * * *
One notices the frequent reference to beer in these old chronicles. The
tea, over which the colonists were to take such a dramatic stand in a
hundred years, had not yet been introduced into England, and neither had
coffee. Forks had not yet made their appearance. In this admirable
picture Mr. Sheldon does not mention one of the evening industries
which was peculiarly characteristic of the Plymouth Colony. This was
the making of clapboards, which with sassafras and beaver skins,
constituted for many years the principal cargo sent back to England from
the Colony. Another point--the size of the families. The mother of
Governor William Phips had twenty-one sons and five daughters, and the
Reverend John Sherman had six children by his first wife and twenty by
his second. These were not uncommon figures in the early life of New
England; and with so many numbers within itself the home life was a
center for a very complete and variegated industrial life. Surely it is
a long cry from these kitchen fireplaces--so large that often a horse
had to be driven into the kitchen dragging the huge back log--these
immense families, to the kitchenette and one-child family of to-day!
This, then, was the old Duxbury: the Duxbury of long, cold winters,
privations, and austerity. Down by the shore to-day is the new
Duxbury--a Duxbury of automobiles, of business men's trains, of gay
society at Powder Point, where in the winter is the well-known boys'
school--a Duxbury of summer cottages, white and green along the shore,
green and brown under the pines. Of these summer homes many are new: the
Wright estate is one of the finest on the South Shore, and the pleasant,
spacious dwelling distinguished by its handsome hedge of English privet
formerly belonged to Fanny Davenport, the actress. Others are old
houses, very tastefully, almost affectionately remodeled by those for
whom the things of the past have a special lure. These remodeled
cottages are, perhaps, the prettiest of all. Those very ancient
landmarks, sagging into pathetic disrepair, present a sorrowful, albeit
an artistic, silhouette against the sky. But these "new-old" cottages,
with ruffled muslin curtains at the small-paned, antique windows, brave
with a shining knocker on the green-painted front door, and gay with
old-fashioned gardens to the side or in the rear--these are a delight to
all, and an honor to both past and present.
Surely the fair town of Duxbury, which so smilingly enticed the
Pilgrims across the bay to enjoy her sunny beach and rolling pasture
lands, must be happy to-day as she was then to feel her ground so deeply
tilled, and still to be so daintily adorned with homes and gardens and
with laughing life.
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