After Kamesit
A CHRONICAL OF A LOCAL HABITATION
AND SOME NAMES
_With notes, maps and photographs_
By
CARROLL F. DALEY
Pilgrim Publishers
Kingston, Massachusetts
1974
To my mother,
Alice Winifred Ford Daley, 1868-1949,
Who passed on to me her love
Of beauty in nature
And in the lives of others.
AFTER KAMESIT
Page
After Kamesit 2
I The Face of the Land and Growing Things 3
II The Indians 9
III Land Grants 17
IV The Churchills 25
V Cotton Family Land 27
VI Henry Richmond and His Son, Eliab 31
VII Nathaniel Clark Ownership 35
VIII Samuel Wright and the Wright Family 37
IX The First Burgesses 41
X John Burgess 45
XI The Community, Nearby, and Beyond 53
XII Phineas Burgess 69
Memories of Boot Pond Place, by Susan Burgess 85
XIII Peleg Burgess 121
XIV Lord’s Point 127
XV The Dwelling House 131
XVI To the Present 143
APPENDIX--List of Sources Consulted 147
Chapter Notes 149
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Woodcut of Homestead, by Susan Burgess Cover
Area Map xi
Alonzo Warren Painting, 1884, photo by Chip Vincent, 1972 7
Great Lots Map, 1712-1713, Copied 1882 by C. H. Holmes 15
Churchill-Richmond Deed, 1768 23
Wright-Burgess Deed, 1801 51
Phineas and Charlotte Burgess--Their Children 67
Rear View of House, Ice House on Pond, c. 1880 72
View of House by Barnes, c. 1880--Hitching Posts 79
Memories of the Boot Pond Place, Watercolors by Susan Burgess 85-119
Peleg Burgess at Side Door, Road up from the Pond 123
View from the Pond--Susan and Annie Burgess in Barn Art Class 125
The House, photo by Chip Vincent, 1972 133
Lawn and Field, photo by Chip Vincent, 1972 135
The Barn, photo by Chip Vincent, 1972 139
Milkweed--Woodcut by Nicole Inside Back Cover
I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to Arthur Pyle and
my son, Daniel F. Daley, for their valuable suggestions after reading
my first effort.
Also to Miss Mary Burgess, Miss Rose Briggs, John Lord, Ellis Brewster,
and Ruth Gardner Steinway for their readings and helpful comments.
Miss Minnie Burgess has been most helpful and I am indebted to Frances
Burgess O’Keeffe for calling my attention and allowing me to examine
the book _Memories of the Boot Pond Place_ by her aunt, Susan H.
Burgess.
My thanks to Pamela Brougham for her assistance with old photographs,
and especially to my friend, Chip Vincent for his recent photographs
here. Also to Robert Crowley for his photographic work.
I appreciate the help given me by many kind persons.
Carroll F. Daley
Boot Pond
Plymouth, Massachusetts
1974
Dogen-zenji said, “Time goes from present to past.” This is absurd, but
in our practice sometimes it is true. Instead of time progressing from
past to present, it goes backwards from present to past. Yoshitsune was
a famous warrior who lived in medieval Japan. Because of the situation
of the country at that time, he was sent to the northern provinces,
where he was killed. Before he left he bade farewell to his wife, and
soon after she wrote in poem, “Just as you unreel the thread from a
spool, I want the past to become the present.” When she said this,
actually she made past time present. In her mind the past became alive
and _was_ the present. So as Dogen said, “Time goes from present
to past.” This is not true in our logical mind, but it is in the actual
experience of making past time present. There we have poetry, and there
we have human life.
Shunryu Suzuki
[Illustration]
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
This book was typeset in 12 Point Aldine Roman and printed on 70# laid
ivory text. The type is designed after that of the Italian printer,
Aldus Manutius, a classical scholar and friend of Erasmus. Aldus
founded the Aldine Press in 1494 in Venice. He employed Francesco
Griffo of Bologna, an independent punch cutter to produce the Roman
font that bears his name. Italics were first designed by the Aldine
Press in the year 1501. The book was designed and produced by the
Pilgrim Publishers of Kingston, Massachusetts.
AFTER KAMESIT
The country about South Pond and the neighboring ponds in Plymouth,
Massachusetts was called by the Wampanoag Indians “Kamesit.” Although
the region began to be inhabited almost three hundred years ago, its
natural beauty abides and abounds. The many clear, bright, white sandy
ponds are clean and sparkling. The great white pine woods, the low
rolling hills, the bogs and old kettle holes maintain their charm. A
vast abundance of wild shrubs and native wild flowers such as trailing
arbutus (mayflower), sabbatias (marsh pinks), are about in many
places.[1]
What were once old logging roads can be walked for hours. In good
weather clear skies of clean air make the stars and planets appear very
close. I do not know the broad connotation of the word “Kamesit” in the
Indian language of the time and place. It does suggest great fish and
pine places and has a nice, pleasant sound.[2] For one who lives here
now, a countryman of sorts and is surrounded by Kamesit, the word adds
to a happy fate, my kismet.
I use the term “after Kamesit” because time has moved on and I would
like to give an account of some of the happenings here since those
Indian days; to tell about some of the people who have lived here and
what their activities were, and about the very old house I live in
now. It is an attempt to look at a segment of time, fleeting time, to
penetrate a few unknowns, to explore what has been passing. We seek
motivations and relationships in watching the continuum and haply some
pleasures will arise.
There are those who believe that there is a spirit of place which
provides a transcendence beyond the immediate reality around us. This
spirit enters our own inner selves and transports us so that we can go
beyond. Our transcendence is possible because the nature and special
power of that particular place gives off a unique illumination.
It has been my good fortune to live for fifteen years in a homestead
built by an early settler in this region, a house and site still not
readily changed from its beginning in 1769. It is five miles south
from the center of Plymouth on the eastern shore of Boot Pond. For
about a hundred years, 1770-1870, it was a working and providing farm,
originally ninety acres. Such activity used to be called husbandry. In
the early 1800’s acreage was added to a peak of 200 acres. Some acres
were cleared for dwelling, barn, animals and crops on the shores of
two beautiful ponds, one called Great South, the other the Southerly
Arm of Great South Pond, the latter eventually to be called Boot Pond
because of its true boot contour. A strip of meadow beside the pond is
mentioned in the first deed of sale. A meadow was always a thing of
value because it meant open, flat, grassy, rich soil, usually moist, in
contrast to the all pervasive woods. Now, for the last hundred years
with the ceasing of husbandry, the forest has reclaimed much of what it
once had before the fields were cleared.
The place where I live has been called the Burgess Place. This family
had lived in the house from 1801 to 1959, beginning 32 years after
it was built. This span amounts to more than a century and a half.
The first two Burgess generations here, headed by John, born 1765 and
Phineas, born 1807, earned their sustenance from this soil. Peleg, born
1840, lived here and later in Plymouth center. He bought the place from
his father and his children in turn bought it from him in 1918 and
spent their summers here until 1959.
As a sub-title to my account I have used the phrase “an account of a
local habitation and some names.”
You Shakespereans will recognize a borrowing from _A Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, V. 1, in which the poet explains how it is possible
for the imagination to give body to forms of things, turn them into
shapes and “give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.”
Perhaps a modern concept would be to say a place and an identity. In
a sense we do have records, annals, traditions to guide us that are
more than airy nothings, but hopefully, imagination may help produce a
broader understanding of the experience we see before us with the aid
of the mind’s eye.
CHAPTER I.
THE FACE OF THE LAND AND GROWING THINGS
I would like to go back with you farther, to fifteen or twenty thousand
years ago. At that time the finale of the ice sheets was at hand. The
ice sheets, hundreds of feet thick, started as glaciers in Canada
perhaps a million years ago and worked southward two thousand miles
and came to a melting end and their progress stopped in the Cape Cod
and Nantucket area. They scraped bedrock to leave white sands, dumping
earth debris to form moraines and drumlins. They left deep kettle holes
of solid ice, which melted and formed what are now the many ponds of
the area. The whole Plymouth region is dotted by many such ponds of
various sizes.
It seems that nature wants to cover over water areas, so eventually
some of these low depressions became swamps, bogs and low woodlands.
Swamp shrubs such as alder, sweet pepperbush, sheep laurel,
blueberries, acid loving plants, are everywhere, as are sedge, sphagnum
moss, aquatic plants. Pitcher plants in low areas trap insects, as do
sundews, as a source of some protein. Pink sabbatia grows abundantly
on the shores of South and Boot Ponds, a jewel among wild flowers. It
has been called the Rose of Plymouth. Its botanical name is sabatia
angularis, and its stem gives the illusion of having four sides.
The poor quality soil left by the ice sheets in many places can by no
means be rich for farming and crops. Sand is not far beneath the top
soil except in a few meadow areas which the early settlers sought for
their plantings. One example of a rich soil area is in the “mile and a
half strip” in the region of Plymouth Rock which the Indians used for
their plantings almost up to the time the _Mayflower_ arrived.
This strip of rich soil was good fortune for the Pilgrims, a decisive
factor making it possible for the newcomers to grow corn and other
crops and survive the first years.
The prevailing soil was hospitable for white pines and pitch pines,
now growing everywhere, as well as for cedars which have a liking for
swamps. There are small patches of almost untouched original forest
still found on the original Burgess homestead tract. There are a few
isolated giant white pines up to 140 feet in height and trunks over
three feet in diameter. I have found one white pine, straight and of
enormous height, with a trunk measuring 84” around at the base, a
diameter of 27” or so.
Pines are a sun loving tree and in these undisturbed wooded areas one
can observe how they gradually overcame the oaks and other hardwoods by
reaching higher for the sun. From 1688 the king’s decree reserving all
white pine of trunk diameter of 24” or more for the royal navy masts
was enforced. Such trees were marked with an arrow to identify them as
crown property.
The acid soil found in the area is a factor in the type of growth
for shrubs and wildflowers found here. High bush and low bush
blueberries, as well as huckleberries grow in abundance. Shadbushes,
also juneberries, usually the first shrub to blossom in the spring,
supposedly when shad or alewives move up from salt water into the
freshwater streams for spawning, are seen around the property. There
are three of considerable age near the house. Other members of the
heath family thrive. Wild white azaleas grow in the shady areas
near the ponds. Sheep laurel grows in many places. Wintergreen or
checkerberry is common in the woods, their red berries a delight to
the taste in the autumn. Trailing arbutus, called mayflower by the
new arrivals, is thought to be the first bloom of spring they saw.
It is found along banks in shady old wood roads in the early part of
April after the snows have gone. This is also the state flower of
Massachusetts. In June elderberry and arrowroot shrubs flower with
white blossoms in many places. Steeple bush and sweet pepperbush
give off their fragrance later on in the summer. Bayberry grows most
everywhere and in the fall their silver berries are ready for those who
would make candles from their wax.
The woods contain many sassafras trees, some of large size. Sassafras
roots were one of the first important exports back to England for
the Pilgrims. The roots make good tasting tea. The trees have fall
foliage of bright colors. In Colonial days, bedsteads were made of
sassafras wood, believed to protect against vermin. Champlain carried
back sassafras to France as a cure for venereal diseases.[3] Hornbeams,
related to the ironwood family, have a structural form suggesting that
of some Japanese trees. Their red, brown and yellow foliage in early
fall long before frost is a pleasant sight. The settlers considered
them good for fence post material. Related European trees were used
for yoking oxen and possibly the word beam and horn are concerned with
oxen.[4]
On the floor of the woods made soft by deep layers of pine needles
moccasin flowers, called pink lady slippers, of the orchid family are
found frequently. One past spring I found a cluster of perhaps fifty
pink lady slippers in bloom in one small area and had a pleasure that
reminded me of Wordsworth and his host of daffodils. Starflowers, of
the primrose family and wild lily of the valley fill the deep pine
grove near the house in May. In late August the woods are full of
ivory Indian pipes. They burst up through the pine needle floor like
a mushroom. This plant is without green and has a wax-like appearance
and yellow flowers inside the pipe. It has mutual parasites in its
structure and gets nourishment from decaying organic matter in the
shade. With abundant moisture they greatly increase in number. The
Indians sometimes used them for eye lotion.
In season, other wildflowers around here are campion, cinquefoil,
devil’s paint brush, blue-eyed grass, purple asters, goldenrod,
milkweed, wild lettuce and asparagus, pink mullein, and lion’s foot.
There is a large clump of wild roses. There are yarrow, indigo, and
yellow dog tooth and white and blue violets and in September the purple
gerardia, a member of the snapdragon family. On the pond shores grow
species of orchis, hyssop, lobelias, and the seven angled pipewort and
sundews. Many wildflowers grow here that I have not mentioned, but you
can see that there is a moveable feast of flowers.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
THE INDIANS
Reference has been made to Indians in the South Pond area and the name
“Kamesit” which they are said to have given the region.
Miss Catherine Marten of Plimoth Plantation has written a scholarly
monograph called _The Wampanoags in the Seventeenth Century_,
dated December, 1970, an extensive ethnography of these Indian people
of the coastal area of Southern New England at the time of Massasoit.
By the time settlers came to the South Pond area almost 150 years had
passed since the arrivals of 1620 and it would seem that few Indians
were in the general area by 1770. Those who were had by necessity been
strongly oriented to the white culture. Their habitations near the
woods enabled them to be near lands for hunting and the growing of
corn, squash and other crops. Fish and shellfish along the coast were
a traditionally substantial part of their diet and probably could be
obtained without great harassment well into the eighteenth century. In
the early 1600’s it was customary for the Indians to spend the winters
in communal long houses back away from the coast for better protection
from the weather. Spring, summer and fall were spent near the ocean for
the gathering of fish and shellfish and the planting of crops. Meat and
fish were preserved by smoking and drying. Corn, groundnuts, acorns
and nuts could be preserved and cooked and provide starch and protein
for their diet. They had no animals domesticated except dogs. The men
did the hunting and the women tended the crops. One of the big chores
was to scare away the birds until the seedlings were self-sustaining,
requiring a constant all-day vigil in which the children helped.
Plymouth had been occupied by the Patuxet, or more accurately, the
Wampanoags, one of the tribes designated as Algonquins, according to
Squanto the only native to survive. He had been brought to England
in 1619 by a coastal vessel, and had come back with a knowledge of
English and was a faithful and helpful friend to the settlers in their
relations with the Indians.
The proprietors, whose function we see in connection with the division
of the ten great lots, had jurisdiction over the deeds of land bought
from Indians. In 1643 the General Court required that all purchases
of Indian lands have its approval. In 1660 it further required that
it was prohibited to receive any lands under the pretence of a gift
from the Indians without the approval of the Court. Until by conquest
in King Philips War in the 1670’s, all Indian lands were secured to
them by purchase or treaty. Major conflicts until then were avoided in
comparison with other New England settlements.
The Indian population in Southern New England before 1620 has been
estimated at 20,000, and the Indian population was .22 Indians per
square mile.
The Indians had a valuable cultural trait in that they emphasized
hospitality and considered giving to be as important as receiving, if
not more so.
By 1800 the town voted that the sale of Indian lands that were held by
the town should have the proceeds of their sale applied to the support
of the schools, but the records are silent concerning the amount
realized from the sales, according to Wm. T. Davis.
Arrowheads have been found in some quantity over the years in
this vicinity. They are often found on the shores of the ponds,
particularly in the early spring when ice scours the sand. It has never
been my good fortune to find one.
When there were Indians or a few surviving Indians in the region there
have been marriages between them and whites. There are people in
Plymouth today who have Indian blood in their veins, and who although
quiet about it, do seem to have a happy pride in the fact.
The first European to visit and observe and also to write an account
of his experiences with the Indians of this region, the Wampanoags in
particular, is Giovanni Verrazzano, a Florentine and a resident of
Rouen, sailing under French auspices in the ship _Dauphine_ in
1524. They began near the Azores and sighted land at New Jersey. He and
his party voyaged north for eleven weeks up to the coast of Maine. He
gives us the first description of Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay,
about forty miles from Plymouth. He spent fifteen days there from late
April into May, the planting season for the Indians. They were in a
fertile part of New England and he was impressed by the open prairies,
well peopled by sedentary Indians, the vegetation largely patterned by
man.
These quotations from Verrazzano accounts are taken from _Sixteenth
Century North America_, by Carl O. Sauer, University of California
Press, 1971.
Professor Sauer tells about a score of boats coming out to greet the
_Dauphine_. The natives clambered aboard, among them two “kings”
of fine stature and carriage. He then quotes Verrazzano:
“The elder had about his naked body a buckskin, worked with damask
and with various adornments; the head was bare and hair coiled at
the back with various bindings; about them a large chain with
stones of diverse colors ... these are the most handsome people and
gentle in their manners of any we have met on this navigation. They
exceed ourselves in size; color; the profile sharp, the hair long
and black and they give great attention to its care; the eyes are
black and alert, and their bearing is sweet and gentle, much in the
manner of olden days.
“... They are very generous and give anything they have. We formed
great friendship with them. One day when we were trying to come
into port with the ship from a league at sea, the weather being
contrary, they came to the ship with a great number of their boats,
their faces painted and made up in different colors in token of
friendliness, and bringing us of their food. They showed us where
we should make port to save the ship and accompanied us to the
place where we dropped anchor.”
Sauer goes on to say:
“The observations were made of the Narragansett nation living on
the western side of the bay and the Wampanoag of the east side.
Both nations were numerous and well practiced in agriculture,
fishing and hunting. The houses were the Algonquian wigwams in the
form of a bell-shaped beehive, the frame of saplings set in the
ground, bent together and lashed at the top, covered with mats or
bark. The idyll of Narragansett Bay called to mind the virtuous
life of olden times that men of the Renaissance learned from
classical writings.”
The lands of the Wamponoags, that virtuous group of people, extended to
the area of Plymouth Rock. We shall see how the new arrivals and their
descendants set about to distribute these lands for the good of all the
inhabitants by means of land grants.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
LAND GRANTS
At this point perhaps you would be interested in how some families came
into possession of additional lands and homesites beyond the central
village such as the South Pond area. The thousands of acres of land
surrounding the site of the original settlement were held in common
by all of the inhabitants, or more accurately the free holders or
proprietors. These lands were thus available for distribution and use,
so that the colony could grow and support more settlers.
The General Court, the ruling body, was made up of the whole body of
freemen. At first the freemen were signers of the Mayflower Compact
and later such persons as new settlers or inhabitants from other towns
moving permanently to Plymouth might be added by majority vote. In a
sense the people of Plymouth were a legislative body in themselves.
The Court had power to elect officers, make laws, and after paying
off the indebtedness owed the English stock company, Plymouth was
recognized as a town in 1633. In the beginning land within Plymouth was
considered as held in common until legally granted away to specific
persons or users. The land in the center, commonly known as the mile
and a half strip, was the first apportioned. Land grants were made at
various times by the General Court. In 1702 it was voted that a thirty
acre lot should be given to each proprietor and ungranted land in the
mile and a half square tract should be held for the town and sold from
time to time for its benefit.
As explained by Wm. T. Davis, all common lands beyond the central
district were granted to the freemen of the town, two hundred one
in number, who were called, after the town of Plympton was set off
and incorporated, _Plymouth and Plympton Proprietors_. These
proprietors organized with records and a clerk and recorded their
grants and sales. “In 1705 they voted to grant each of their number a
twenty acre lot and shortly after a sixty acre lot. In addition in the
same year all the cedar swamps within the town were divided into thirty
nine great lots which were subdivided into shares and distributed by
lot.” These transactions can be examined today in the town records.
In 1710 it was voted to lay out the remainder of their lands, thirty
thousand acres, into ten great lots, southwest and south of the central
area. These boundaries are found in the records. There is a survey and
map compiled in January, 1882 by C. H. Holmes, surveyor, on file in
the Registry of Deeds concerning the shares in the eight great lots
laid out beginning in 1712. These lots run north and south. On the west
the first extends from West Pond south to the Wareham line. Proceeding
eastwardly, the next seven lie southward to the Half-Way Pond River,
the beginning part of Agawam River, area. The ninth is in the area of
Mast Road, Halfway Pond, Long Pond, and the Herring Path. The tenth
lies east and west of the Sandwich Road.
The size of the shares in the lots varied widely in acreage, being
influenced by such factors as uplands, swamps, meadows, wood lots,
accessibility and desirability in general. Desirable shares may be of
thirty acres. Less desirable or remotely accessible shares might have a
hundred acres or more.
Great South Pond was mostly in the fifth great lot. On the north, the
first share was on its western shore. The second share is directly
south of the first and includes land on the west and east shores of the
present Boot Pond, extended south to approximately half of the Pond.
The Burgess homestead is in this second share. Other Burgess lands
were in the third and fourth shares of the fifth great lot and also in
the sixth great lot to the east.
The thirty thousand acres involved in the distribution south to the
approximate present southern boundaries of the town of Plymouth contain
many large and lovely ponds, some of which were once collectively
called the South Ponds. They are spring fed, with white sandy shores
with a slight change in depth as the water table fluctuates. In the
area are many streams and the Agawam River. Probably a large portion
of the original distribution is now in the Myles Standish State Forest
which goes to the Wareham line, with the waters of Buzzards Bay not far
beyond.
It is pleasant to recall that Plymouth was once pristine and unsettled
for the most part. In the natural state the early settlers could
partake of such beauty, a compensation in part for the toil and effort
and hardship put forth by them to provide a livelihood and increase
what they called “improved” land.
It can be said that those who came to the outlying woodlands of the
area to clear it, make homesteads for themselves and live lives as
husbandmen and yeomen were not affluent central village inhabitants.
They were young, able-bodied types who had a future vision of ultimate
security and land owning from the result of their own laborious
efforts. Owning land was the prime motive for security from the early
beginnings. It is well to remember that these people were only a few
generations from the poorer English classes and culture as were most
people in the Plymouth settlement. A livelihood from the land by one’s
own toil was the principal one open to them.
Access to the first homesteads in the South Ponds region from Plymouth
was south by the South Pond Road, now called Long Pond Road. Leaving
the road at a point where the watercourse crossed the road a further
woods road slightly southwest, avoiding inclines for the horses
where possible, lead past the Belcher Manter property and on to the
Burgess homestead. For a long time it was called the Burgess Road and
as it continued southward it was called Baptist Road. It continued on
eventually to the Wareham and Rochester area. The Burgess and Baptist
Roads are still basically woods roads and are most pleasant for walking.
It had been a custom one hundred years ago or more to refer to the
region as that of the South Ponds. Beginning on the north the ponds
would be Cook’s, Triangle, Little South, Great South, Negro, Hallfield,
Hoyt’s, and Gunners Exchange. The original references to Great South
Pond include its lower pond as “the southerly arm of Great South Pond,”
as one reads the deeds of the time. There was a small stream connecting
the two bodies of water when the water level was high enough. The
variation can average about eight feet and seems to go in cycles of
about twelve years. South Pond is about one hundred feet above sea
level.
As far as I have been able to determine, the term “Boot Pond” for this
southerly arm seems to have been originated later on, perhaps after the
1850’s. The map of Plymouth in 1830 drawn by the surveyor S. Bourne
calls the lower arm “South Pond” as well. The use of the word “Boot”
is realistic, for when accurately mapped the shape is like a high boot
from a side view. Boot Pond is about 2500 feet in length and averaging
1200 feet in width, with the toe to the west in proportion. There is a
high pine wooded ridge along the western shore. There is a small higher
ground peninsula from the top of the pond on which the Douglas house
was built in the 1870’s.
We now come to the first owners of the lands near South Pond, members
of the Churchill family, who first obtained a grant from the town of
Plymouth in 1670. The Churchill lands were held for 100 years and then
bought by Henry Richmond, and to the south by Jonathan Holmes.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHURCHILLS
The first proprietors of the ninety acres “and small piece of meadow
on the easterly side of South Pond” where my land is located, were
members of the Churchill family. This land, later owned by the Burgess
family, came to the Churchills by grants from the town of Plymouth,
beginning in 1670 and 1702 from the common lands. The recipients were
the brothers Joseph and Eleazer Churchill. The year 1670 would be 100
years before the property was sold outside the family, namely to Henry
Richmond who made it into a homestead.
The Churchills were one of Plymouth’s earliest, largest, and continuous
families.[5] There is a Churchill house of the seventeenth century,
one of three still standing now in Plymouth. In William Davis’s
Genealogical Register of Plymouth families up to 1883, they cover a
span of 240 years and total some 250 lines and possibly 1,000 names.
The progenitor was John Churchill who arrived in 1643 and married the
next year. His extensive property ran on the east side of Sandwich
Street in the Hobshole area to the bay shore. It extended from the
brook at Nook Road south to the present Jabez Corner, named after Jabez
Churchill, b. 1756, the son of the second Elkanah, who had a shop at
this corner. He had a son and a grandson named Jabez. Jabez’s daughter,
Mercy, the wife of William Sears, sold the south half of the house in
1872, after continuous ownership in the Churchill family of about 240
years. In 1973 the telephone directory lists six Churchills in the town
of Plymouth.
The granted property begins on the easterly side of South Pond.
From its northwest corner it runs easterly to Finney’s Meadow which
at present contains a large cranberry bog. It is located north of
Gunner’s Exchange Pond, east of Snake Hill Road, and northwest of South
Pond Cemetery. Josiah Finney was the first grantee of land by lot in
the first decade of the eighteenth century. The southwest corner of the
property begins at the Pond and runs easterly, bounded on the south by
land then belonging to Jonathan Holmes, to Finney’s Meadow on the east.
It is worth recalling that the owners of the land running along a
boundary with the Churchills were a noted Plymouth family, the Cottons.
They did not occupy it. Later buyers utilized it for homesteads. We now
take a brief glimpse of the Cottons.
CHAPTER V.
COTTON FAMILY LAND
The land adjoining the Churchill property toward the north at South
Pond was owned by the famous Cotton family, by a grant from the town
of Plymouth in 1713 to Josiah, born 1680 and Theophilus, born 1682.
These brothers were granted the third share of the sixth great lot on
the eastern shore of Great South Pond. What was called “laying out”
meant that the land was allotted by the free holders of Plymouth for
development and was carried out by a systematic procedure using the
principle of chance or lot which was then recorded in formal records.
This land was “in the range of John Churchill’s land, bounded by his
land until it comes to Finney’s Meadow.” It was also bounded on the
west by South Pond and was later owned by Joseph Bartlett, Jr., and
then by Belcher Manter.
In the beginning, John Cotton, born in Derby, England in 1585, came to
Boston in 1633. He had a daughter, Mary, born 1642, who married the
famous divine and one of the colony’s first authors, Increase Mather.
Their son was Cotton Mather, also famous as a writer and divine. His
_Marginalia_ is an important book of the time. Another of his
writings called _An Horrid Snow_ is an account of a massive New
England blizzard in his time. He had a phrase for the forest and
wilderness: “the Synagogue of Satin.”
John Cotton had a son, also called John, born 1640. He was a graduate
of Harvard College, class of 1657 at the age of 17. Living in
Weathersfield, Conn., for a time, he came to Plymouth in 1667 and was
settled as minister. During his ministry a church was built on the site
of the present Unitarian Church. He continued until 1697 and died in
Charleston, South Carolina, in 1699.
Col. Theophilus Cotton, 1716-1782, a son of Josiah Cotton, is
remembered as a leader of a group of inhabitants who in 1774 with
twenty yoke of oxen assembled to remove Plymouth Rock from the water’s
edge up to Town Square. In attempting to raise the rock it separated
into two parts, one of which remained. In 1834 the portion at Town
Square, weighing 6,997 pounds, was moved to the front yard at Pilgrim
Hall. It remained there until 1880 when it was returned to its original
location from which it was separated.[6]
This pastor Cotton had a son, John, and other children, among them,
Josiah, born 1680, and Theophilus, born 1682. These brothers were
granted the third share of the sixth great lot at South Pond.[7]
In 1700, Josiah Cotton, after having graduated from Harvard College
in 1698, was engaged to be the schoolmaster of the town for a term of
seven years and during his administration the first school house was
built. This was more than 80 years after the landing. Later, for many
years he was Clerk of the Courts and Registrar of Deeds. For a time he
preached to the Indians of Pembroke, Manomet and Herring Pond with a
salary of twenty pounds “for propagating the gospel among the heathen.”
He perfected himself in the Indian language, wrote a grammar, and his
sermons to the Indians were delivered in their own tongue. He died in
1756 at the age of 76. In 1700, after the death of the pastor, the
parsonage was conveyed by his widow to her sons Josiah and Theophilus.
The population of Plymouth in 1700 was approximately 600 people.
This was nine years after the Plymouth Colony was consolidated into
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.
In the William T. Davis volume _Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth_
there is a quotation from a poem of the seventeenth century poet,
Pomfret, called _Choice_. This reference to _Choice_ was
first made by Josiah Cotton in his diary, as Davis explains, to
describe a house he bought in 1709 in the northern part of Plymouth
near the seashore. The place was known as the Crow estate, from land
sold by Francis Billington, of Billington Sea fame, in 1655 to William
Crow. His widow, Hannah, later married John Sturdevant and had a
daughter, Hannah, who married Josiah Cotton. It is to illustrate the
ideal of a home:
“If heaven the grateful liberty would give,
That I might choose my method how to live,
Near some fair town I’d have a private seat,
Built uniform, not little nor too great;
Better if on a rising ground it stood,
Fields on this side, on that a neighboring wood.”
This ideal comes close to realization in the homestead dwelling
built later on the shore of Great South Pond, a seat which has the
characteristics asked for in Pomfret’s lines.
The buyer of the land to the south of the Cottons, Henry Richmond, was
the person who had the house built there, sixty years after Josiah
Cotton used the Pomfret poem to describe his house in Plymouth. The two
men could share a realization of the ideal site for a dwelling.
CHAPTER VI.
HENRY RICHMOND AND HIS SON, ELIAB
Checking at the Registry of Deeds about Henry Richmond, the next owner
after the Churchills, I found that he and his father had many real
estate transactions in Middleboro, Massachusetts. His father, Henry,
was a native of Cumberland, R. I., once a part of the Old Plymouth
Colony. In 1747 he bought land in the “sixteen shilling purchase”
area from his father, recorded in Book 39, Page 201. In 1754 Henry
and Sarah Richmond sold land in Middleboro for 133 pounds, which land
originally belonged to John Wright, Book 45, Page 21. There will be
more on the Wrights later on. In 1759, Book 45, Page 17, he bought land
from William Hooper, called “Titticut” land in Middleboro. His last
transaction there was in 1761. Book 53, Page 43.
Then on Feb. 3, 1768, according to Book 54, Page 19, he bought 90 acres
at South Pond from Jonathan and Hannah Churchill for twenty pounds. It
was referred to as woodland. He shortly built buildings and made it
into a homestead and farm, as the deed of sale of 30 acres of this land
to his son, Eliab, five years later indicates. His son came to Plymouth
about this time and married Hannah Holmes in 1773.
The sale to his son, as described in Book 57, Page 54, was in the
amount of 13 pounds, six shillings for the thirty acres. This amount
represents about sixty percent of the cost of all of the property Henry
Richmond bought from the Churchills five years earlier.[8]
In 1794 there is recorded a marriage between Henry Richmond, probably
the son of the owner, and Submit Wetherell. No doubt giving a daughter
such a name at that time was fitting and proper, but hardly so today.
About 300 feet east of the Burgess house, near Baptist Road in the
woods are large rectangular cut foundation stones and a small grassy
area. I have speculated that a small adequate dwelling house or cottage
typical of the time could have been located there, perhaps 18 x 20
feet with upper loft, which later could have been moved and attached
to the north side of the main Richmond dwelling, or later after the
Richmonds, and serve eventually as a kitchen. That such an attachment
was made is evident and visible. Its age and construction and the type
of lumber used is the same as that of the main house. This addition
could supplant an original kitchen area in the southwest part of the
house. This transference could have been carried out at the time of
Eliab or later and not recorded in the Registry records, if there
were a dwelling on Eliab’s property in the year of the sale it is not
mentioned in the deed of sale. Near the little house site are the
remains of a dump of old glass bottles. The land is now owned by Dr.
Milton Brougham.[9]
Sarah Richmond (Henry’s daughter, I assume) married Samuel Wright in
1783. This Samuel Wright bought the Richmond homestead later on March
18, 1788, from the later owner Nathaniel Clark.[10]
There is an interesting transaction by Henry Richmond about a tight
money problem for him as shown in Book 57, Page 75, on March 7, 1773,
the year of several of his transactions. He gave a mortgage on his
homestead for “12 pounds, 15 shillings lawful money to me in hand
paid by Jesse Vaughan of Middleboro, husbandman.” All ended well, as
the mortgage was discharged and the property reconveyed, recorded
January 6, 1777. The mortgage had been for one year. This period was
considered to be a time of great fluctuations in the value of money in
the colonies, with the Revolutionary war continuing on, causing great
depreciation. Jesse Vaughan was an active man, as ten property grants
by him over several years are recorded in the Registry of Deeds.
We now come to the next owner of the homestead, apparently a bachelor.
CHAPTER VII.
NATHANIEL CLARK OWNERSHIP
The next in the succession of owners was Nathaniel Clark. On April
3, 1783, Henry Richmond sold his homestead and lands to Clark,
after ownership for fifteen years and the building of the house and
buildings. The deed is recorded in Book 62, Page 24. The price paid was
60 pounds.
Paying 20 pounds originally and receiving 13 pounds from his son Eliab
for 30 acres, he had a net gain of 53 pounds on his undertaking,
assuming a constant value in the currency of the period, which is
unlikely. About a year later, April 29, 1784, as found in Book 63, Page
69, Eliab and Hannah Richmond sold also to Nathaniel Clark their thirty
acres, having been held for eleven years. The price was 11 pounds and 8
shillings, so he had a loss of a little more than a pound from what he
had paid his father.
Records indicate there was a Nathaniel Clark, born 1747, the son of
the fourth William Clark. In 1796 he married Lydia Sampson. There were
Sampsons resident in the area. He would be a bachelor aged 37 when he
bought the homestead, 1783-1784, and did not become married until eight
years after he had sold the homestead in 1788.
On April 24, 1789, a Nathaniel Clark of Rochester, Mass., granted
to Johnathan Bates and John Burgess of Rochester, probably the John
Burgess later to buy the Pond homestead, a piece of land in Rochester,
Book 69, Page 26. This was a year after Clark sold the homestead. He
had held the property for five years at the Pond and the sale took
place on March 18, 1788, and was bought by Samuel Wright, Book 94, Page
259.
CHAPTER VIII.
SAMUEL WRIGHT AND THE WRIGHT FAMILY
Samuel Wright, Jr., and his wife Sarah Richmond, whom he married five
years previously, a daughter of a former owner, bought the ninety acres
and homestead built by Henry Richmond. He paid Nathaniel Clark the sum
of seventy pounds “lawful money in hand.”
During the thirteen years Samuel Wright owned the property he made a
living from farming and general husbandry.[11] A yeoman is one who
worked his own ground for his income. In England these small landed
proprietors have been considered fundamental people in performing
services from the early days.
The Wright family is a prominent one in this area, almost from the
beginning. In old English, a wright is a carpenter, usually in a
combined word, such as shipwright. William Wright, born 1588 in
Austerfield, England, near Scrooby Manor House, a center for the
Separatists, came on the _Fortune_ in 1621, the next ship after
the _Mayflower_. His wife, Priscilla Carpenter, came with him, and
some children. He had a son, Richard, who died in 1691, about 83 years
of age.
William settled in what is now Plympton, Mass. His grandchildren were
Adam, Esther, Mary, John and Isaac. Adam, 1645-1734, had two sons by
Sarah Soule and eight more children by his second marriage to Mehitabel
Barrows. One of these eight was the first Samuel, 1699-1773. See the
notes for a copy of his will.[12]
His son, the second Samuel, 1728-1814, had nine children, one of whom
was the third Samuel, born about 1760, married Sarah Richmond in
1783. Wm. Davis lists 37 lines of names of Wrights in his Genealogical
Register.
Through the courtesy of Mr. Eugene Wright, an octogenarian who lived
in Plymouth and was a descendant of the Plymouth and Plympton Wrights,
I was given genealogical information that the third Samuel eventually
removed to Hebron, Maine, and is buried there. The exact date of his
birth and death has not been available.
Many days and hours intermittently over three years I spent at the
Plymouth Registry of Deeds pouring over microfilm slides of deeds in
a viewer trying to decipher all sorts of bygone styles of handwriting
in an endeavor to trace back the ownership of the Boot Pond homestead
to its beginning. Since it didn’t seem to be known, I had the urge to
seek it out. I had seemed to have come to a dead end in my search, but
decided one day to give the effort one last try. The index pointing
toward the solution I was seeking was not quite complete, or else I had
just missed it, somehow. During the last attempt, on the lighted screen
of the viewer I came across the names of Nathaniel Clark and Samuel
Wright and the whole thing began to come together. The continuity back
to Johnathan Churchill and Henry Richmond was revealed in a short time.
It was like Revelation for me.
Now to go back to the Wright family.
Joshua Wright had a homestead and farm on the present road into the
South Pond Cemetery. Nothing remains of it now except a few foundation
stones, pointed out to me by Mr. William Holmes, a life-long resident
of the area whose people go back to the early beginnings. The Wright
family gave part of their land for the location of the South Pond
cemetery, according to Miss Minnie Burgess.
Joshua Wright, yeoman, according to 77-145, on Feb. 5, 1795, for 24
pounds sold John Burgess of Plymouth forty acres, his first purchase in
Plymouth. The land was southward of Gunners Exchange Pond, originally
laid out to John Foster, as in the First Book of records, p. 224. When
John Burgess bought the homestead and land in 1801 from Samuel Wright
he now adjoined the land he bought from Joshua Wright six years earlier.
There were neighborly ties between the families in the vicinity,
romances and several marriages. John Burgess’s son Nathan in 1813
married Susanna, the daughter of Joshua Wright.
The last transaction of the Wrights, Samuel and Sarah, was the sale of
the homestead, 91-78, in 1801 to John Burgess for $600.00. The original
deed was given to me by the kindness of Miss Mary Burgess. It contained
the same acreage that came from the Churchills originally.
It would have been exciting to find more evidence of the personal lives
of these people we have been writing about. Such information would come
from letters, diaries, written accounts by friends and contemporaries,
descriptions by those who knew them and their activities at the time.
However, it seems evident that these people were absorbed in their
daily activities for the most part. They did not have the leisure
or affluence nor was it the custom of the times to keep records of
personal feelings. Wills, land transactions, vital statistics, court
proceedings were necessary and recorded and are useful as far as
they go. We have to depend mostly on such sources and infer what we
reasonably can and use imagination wisely.
It is not really a case of “the short and simple annals of the poor”
for they did lead lives of significance, some dramatically so, but
their innermost lives are hidden from us in the shades of the past.