PHINEAS BURGESS, 1807-1890
Phineas, son of the second John, bought the homestead from his father
at age 27 in 1831. He spent his eighty-three years mostly at Boot Pond,
except in Middleboro for a period as a young man.
He married Charlotte Thomas, 1812-1903, who had been a school teacher
there. She was the daughter of Ezra Thomas. Ezra Thomas, the father
of Charlotte, came from Edinburgh, Scotland, so the family tradition
runs, and had been wealthy. His first wife was an English lady. He had
several children by his second wife, Lucy Sturdevant of Carver, Mass.
Sometime during his life in Middleboro the family fortunes were lost.
Some of the daughters removed to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and worked in
the textile mills there.
Charlotte was affectionately known as Aunt Charlotte. From the 1850’s
through the 1870’s with the help of neighboring housewives from South
Pond village she offered clambakes, picnics and luncheons at the Boot
Pond homestead for various social organizations that were popular and
well attended. Mary Burgess mentioned that her grandmother, Charlotte,
was very fond of lilacs and planted clumps of them around the house and
barn. These same clumps of great age are now found in four different
spots and bring fragrant blossoms each May. She said her grandmother
would refer to them as _lill-acs_.
Phineas and Charlotte Burgess had the following children:
Phineas Franklin, b. 1833, Isaac Sturdevant, 1835-1925, Ezra Thomas,
1837-1924, Peleg Sprague, 1840-1931, Charlotte Thomas, 1847-1876,
Ruth Anna, 1851-1956. In the photograph from left to right they are
Peleg, Ruth Anna, Ezra, Isaac, Phineas, Franklin, Charlotte died at
age 29.
Writing in the _Pilgrim Society Notes, #13_, August 1963, Margaret
Kyle describes the picnics held at the Burgess place at Great South
Pond.
“That was a favorite spot for an all day affair. A summer was not
complete without such a picnic. It was _the_ event of the season.
If company was to be invited for a visit, the invitation waited until
the date of the next Burgess Place picnic. Just before the Fourth was
the usual day. Up the winding road through the pine woods the carryalls
went, barges, too, full of young people, the horses with indigo tucked
into their bridles to keep the flies off.
“In those good old days Plymouth ‘had itself to itself.’ Each family
took its own silver (one had a great time sorting it afterwards) and
good food of all sorts was tucked under the carriage seats. Marm
Burgess was ‘Aunt Charlotte’ to everyone--the chowder was entirely her
affair and oh! the savor of its cooking in great washboilers as twelve
o’clock approached. There were endless things to do at the Burgess
Place--fishing, blueberrying, croquet, rowing, ball playing, wading,
games for young and old. But nothing compared to the moment when the
yard began to hum with activity back and forth around the long tables
set out under the trees, and the chowder appeared.
“Once, when the company was all assembled, a sudden shower came up.
Such a flurry and consternation! One of the ‘Hobshole Boys’ seized the
steaming caldron at his end of the long table and ran with it into
the house crying: In the name of Cromwell, fear God, and keep your
_chowder_ dry!”
“The guest books of those ‘Jolly Jamborees’ picnics at the Burgess
Place are worn lined old ledgers dating back almost a hundred years.
The records range from grandfathers and great-grandfathers, the
children of long ago, just able to print with their hands held. Down to
the very present the records run, for the Burgess Place and hospitality
holds wide its doors.”
The journals and guest books kept of those enjoying the outings were
recently given to Pilgrim Hall by Mary Burgess. Susan Burgess told my
son, Daniel, in 1960, that in a snowy winter when they were courting,
Phineas and Charlotte had their sleigh turned over on a trip from
Middleboro, but neither were injured. There is a picture of them at the
house taken outside by the big apple tree, Charlotte with a spinning
wheel and Phineas sitting beside her reading. He has abundant hair
and lower beard. This photo was probably taken in 1885. It was done
by Harvey Burgess, brother of Minnie Burgess, both children of Isaac
Burgess, she has told me. Harvey Burgess was of the class of 1883 at
Plymouth High School.
Ruth Anna, 1851-1956, a centenarian, married Benjamin B. Manter, later
a lighthouse keeper. A major contribution of hers to the Burgess Place
was the planting of the swamp maple tree in front of the barn when she
was a young girl, according to Mary Burgess. It is now of massive size
and majestic in character.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
During his long life at the homestead, Phineas Burgess led the life of
a countryman. He and his family experienced and had to accept long or
short winters, dry or wet summers, early or late springs and continue
to overcome the vagaries of nature which could be severe in some years
for those deriving their livelihood from the land. The rains, the winds
and sun were a close part of living. He could work the soil, tend his
animals, raise crops and berries, harvest ice from the Pond into his
icehouse located on the shore, shear the wool of sheep for clothes, and
provide for his family with their help. He did not have the creature
comforts of our present technological society, but there were rewards
for living close to nature at its best.
At this time soaps were made, using lye, from the grease and fats from
farm animals. Aside from the use of ice from the Pond preserved with
sawdust, butter and perishables could be kept cool in the summer in the
well near the house.
To understand what families in the mid-nineteenth century had for crops
to provide food and nourishment, I believe Ruth Tirrell, writing in the
_Sunday New York Times_ of January 13, 1974, provides accurate
information. Her grandmother, now in her tenth decade, recalls the
Rhode Island farm of her great grandmother, a span going back to the
time of John Adams.
In the time of Grover Cleveland, farm crops were the same as in
colonial days, the three sisters of the Indians--squash, beans, and
corn. Johnnycakes, made on the griddle from the meal of white flint
corn were served three times per day on the farm. Beans were “string”
then, not “snap.” Salads were made from cucumbers and a coarse, curly
lettuce, dressed with sugar and vinegar homemade from apples.
Beet greens were a staple, cooked with bacon. Beet roots were for
fodder. Turnips were an important winter vegetable kept in the cellar.
Squashes could be stored in the attic. Carrots were for cattle, but
parsnips for people. Fertilizer was manure, horse, cow, sheep, pig and
fowl--“organic,” like all farms once. Tomatoes, the “love apple” of the
French, were suspected to be poisonous in the first half of the century.
As at the Boot Pond Place, raspberries, strawberries, currants could be
combined in pies and preserves for a marvelous sweet-acid taste. Apple
slices were dried on racks for winter pies. Some varieties would last
until spring in barrels of leaves in a cool shed.
Peaches, high bush blueberries, wild fox grapes were nearby, as were
wild cranberries.
The high holiday was Thanksgiving. “Except for sugar, salt, tea
and white flour for pie crust, nothing on the table was ‘bought.’”
Christmas was not celebrated on the farm according to the custom of
colonial ancestors which survived until mid-century.
For heat the house had a central chimney with two fireplaces. Iron
stoves replaced fireplaces early on as local bog iron and its
technology became known. They are a vastly more efficient heat source.
In Taunton an iron foundry was established in 1655. One began in
Pembroke as early as 1648. Carver had bog iron deposits. The stoves
were considered of enough value to be listed in early inventories of
estate. Later in Plymouth, the Plymouth Iron Foundry on Water Street
began making stoves in the 1860’s.
There have been some conclusions about certain aspects of family
life pointed out by John Demos in his fascinating studies in _A
Little Commonwealth_ that throw light on practices observed in the
continuity of such families as the Churchills, Richmonds, Wrights and
Burgesses.
He explains that the average number of children per couple of eight or
nine apiece was quite standard in the seventeenth century. It seems to
me it continued probably in a not greatly different way one hundred
years later. A basic conviction was that the purpose of marriage was
procreation, even if other considerations were not openly emphasized.
Children could ultimately bring economic benefits to the family as a
whole, not forgetting the more important benefits to the quality of
life such as mutual love and affection, care, security in old age,
barriers against loneliness and the like.
There was no birth control as we know it. The fact that all babies were
generally breast fed naturally provided a two year interval between
births. In contrast with today’s average of mothers having their last
baby at age 26, couples in the Colony might have a full-grown son or
daughter about to marry and an infant at the mother’s breast all under
the same roof. This fact gave a gradualness to the lives of siblings
along the way and a chance to absorb family culture and to come of age
by gradual stages.
The mortality rate between birth and maturity is suggested by the
evidence as 25% or possibly less. This is very high by comparison with
our own one percent, producing obvious sorrows. As for life expectancy,
for example, a male of 21 years could expect to reach an age of 69.2
years and a female of 62.4 years, indicating the losses for women in
childbirth, estimating that one birth in thirty resulted in the death
of the mother. _A Little Commonwealth_, p. 66. Yet we must realize
the perpetual pregnancies for some women were a hard fact of life.
So we can see some of the reasons why, although the families we speak
about had large numbers in each generation, they were able to provide
for them. They were able to bring the children to maturity in part
because of the opportunities that lay at hand, in the accessibility
of new lands, inheritance, farming, and a type of life that required
self-sufficiency. The possibility of “growth” was a part of the spirit
of the times.
We might recount at this point the number of children in the seven
Burgess generations in the direct line from the first Thomas to Peleg.
First Thomas 5 plus others
Second Thomas 1
Third Thomas 13
Nathaniel 11
John 12
Phineas 6
Peleg 8
--
56
This is an average of eight children per generation.
I have had conversations with Mary Burgess, then aged 87, about her
recollections about her grandparents’ life at the Pond. She remembers
more of her grandmother Charlotte, being 18 at the time of her death in
1903, and also because she lived her last years in the Plymouth home of
her son, Peleg.
She said her grandparents were dedicated abolitionists before the Civil
War, Charlotte in particular. There had been centers of such activity
on North Street and on Clark’s Island. They had local black people
working at the homestead for helping with the crops and the growing of
all sorts of berries, such as raspberries and strawberries for sale in
the markets.
Each summer Indians from farther south at the Cape came to South Pond
and lived out in the vicinity of Pinnacle Hill across the Pond. They
would travel by canoe to work by day. Some of the activities for the
Indian women included spinning and weaving on looms in the attic for
making cloth and related items. They had good numbers of sheep for the
purpose. In the spring upon arrival the Indians would bring quantities
of herring from the spawning in fresh water streams for gifts to the
family.
The Indians in the area at the time of the arrival of the settlers
belonged to the Wampanoag tribe, a member of the group designated
as Algonquins. She said the Indians buried in graves in South Pond
cemetery had presumably died from small pox epidemics.
She told me about her grandparents. They lived in Middleboro at an
early time in their marriage. Phineas was a member of the Middleboro
School Committee; Charlotte was a school teacher. They had a young girl
as a servant who grew up in the family, probably in the 1850’s. She
learned from the other family children ways in which to be productive
and self-reliant, such as weaving cloth from wool, making her own
clothes, learning to read and write and the like.
The girl, at the time of the Civil War, made herself a soldier’s
uniform, posed as a male, enlisted, and served during the war.
Afterward she got married and lived in Middleboro. Mary Burgess has
told me that she thinks the “bounded servant,” as she refers to her,
was named Deborah Sampson.
Raising other people’s children in one’s family was not an uncommon
custom. The reason for its prevalence is explored in an extended
account of the whole custom in the John Demos book, _A Little
Commonwealth_. The term “servant” as we now understand it is not
an accurate indication of what took place from the early days of the
Colony well into the early part of the nineteenth century.
It was an extension of the concept of family that for the most part
benefited those who came to the family and also those in the immediate
family. It was widely practiced and accepted and was regulated by
judicial decisions when necessary to prevent injustices. There is a
great deal of evidence in wills and court decisions that the custom
provided security and a sense of identity for the many involved. It is
estimated that ten percent of the children in families in an earlier
time lived with families other than their own for care, upbringing,
education at home in a more worthwhile manner than possible in their
own families. The prevailing view had been that a child was a miniature
adult and from the age of eight years on he was ready to begin assuming
responsibilities. The void caused by a leap into a world outside his
immediate family was largely filled by the kind of nurture in a family
group other than his own. Many circumstances could bring about such a
situation, like the death of one or more parents, real poverty, family
conflicts, opportunities to learn a trade, shifts from an illiterate
family to one with the capability to provide home instruction in
reading and writing. Possibly some families had more children than they
could properly rear and were willing to let other families who could
offer more take a child in.
The Burgess family members, during the time of Phineas Burgess and his
sons, took an active part in the formation of the Union Evangelical
Society at South Pond village and the building of the present chapel
there in 1870.
Phineas Burgess’s son Isaac, 1835-1924, and brother of Peleg,
1840-1931, gave part of the land near his dwelling house at the time
for the location of the chapel. His relative, William Burgess, also
owned land adjoining the proposed chapel location and also gave a
portion of his land for the site. It was located where a “private
way leading to the burying hill called the burying hill road makes a
junction with said main road.”
The joint gift is recorded in the deed of Book 367, Page 214, December
15, 1870, signed by Isaac and Ruth Burgess, William and Lucy L.
Burgess.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
There are two significant convictions stated in this deed:
“If meeting house taken for debt or any change made from the Union
Evangelical Church as it stands at this date the lot to go back
to the former owners or heirs, also that the women of the society
shall have equal rights with the men in holding offices and voting
in other affairs.”
The present and long-time president of this church Society is the still
active Miss Minnie Burgess, aged 94, daughter of Isaac. She has been
one of its continuous benefactors. Services are held weekly each Sunday
during the summer and she is an active participant. I recently attended
a moving service conducted by Rev. Peter Gomes. The singing of the
congregation was a delight.
The Chapel itself has simplicity and the charm of long ago. It may
remind one of a Shaker interior, with wooden settees, clear glass
windows with gothic type upper arch, small pulpit in the front, and a
black cast iron, flat topped wood-burning stove of the 1870 period.
There is an unusual large recessed dome in the center ceiling.
Miss Minnie Burgess has kindly let me examine a hand written account in
her possession of the early days of the Chapel by her aunt, Ruth Anna
Manter, of an account she wrote and read in the Chapel about 1940.
“Before the years 1865-1867 the people living in this neighborhood
held their meetings in the school house. Services were well
attended and they had a Sunday School.
“In the year 1868 they began to talk about building this Chapel.
The women formed a sewing society, quilting bed quilts and doing
other kinds of work.
“The lot was given by I. S. Burgess who owned a house on the South
Side where the Chapel now stands. There was a big rock on his
land which they blasted to make the underpinning for the Chapel.
Sylvanus W. Burgess having charge of that work, I. S. Burgess
being head carpenter. Seth Burgess, Henry Sampson, Braman Bennett,
Phineas Burgess, Truman Sampson, William Pierce, George Manter,
Seth Bennett were some of the helpers.
“As near as I can remember the chapel was ready for use in 1874 or
5.
“This history is written by Ruth Manter who seems to be the only
one to remember what took place here 71 years ago.
Signed
Ruth A. Manter.”
Miss Minnie Burgess also possesses a record book of the organizing of
the Society, _Plymouth, South Ponds, Apr. 4, 1870. Reckords of the
Organization of the Union Evangelical Society_. The names listed
give an indication of some of the families living in the South Pond
village area at the time.
Expressing a desire to be legally organized, the undersigned were:
Isaac Burgess
Seth Burgess
William Burgess
Sylvanus Sampson
Sylvanus S. Bennett
Chriss Bennett
Solomon Holmes
Nelson L. Sampson
Sylvanus W. Burgess
Truman Sampson
Aaron Sampson
Henry H. Sampson
Barzilla Holmes
Frederick Burgess
Seth Bassett
Gustavus G. Sampson
Charlotte Burgess
Ruth Burgess
Aseneth Sampson
Harriet L. Burgess
Sarah H. Burgess
At the meeting of December 8, 1870, Article 4 was adopted which
explained the denominational constituency, a truly ecumenical move
forward:
Free Will Baptists
Calvinist Baptists
Christian Baptists
Methodists
Congregationalists
Advent
At a meeting of March 6, 1871 the following women for the first time
were admitted as members:
Charlotte Burgess (daughter of Phineas)
Ruth Burgess (wife of Isaac)
Aseneth Burgess
Harriet L. Burgess (wife of Phineas Franklin Burgess)
Charlotte T. Burgess (wife of Phineas)
Sarah H. Burgess (wife of Seth Burgess)
In 1874, Phineas Burgess, now 67 years old, who had actively farmed
the property during his long life there, sold the property to his sons
Phineas Franklin and Peleg, as recorded in Book 1552, Page 357. There
was a provision for occupancy during his remaining lifetime. The price
was $2,000.00. The provision was similar to that between John and
Phineas in the previous generation. Peleg watched over and provided
care for his parents until the end of their lives.
The next Burgess generation in our chronical, that of Peleg, marks
a change. Although he was born at the Pond Place, he lived most of
his life in Plymouth center. Yet he did keep close touch with the
homestead, became the owner of it and held it until the last twelve
years of his life.
Before leaving Phineas and Charlotte Burgess we offer an intimate
glimpse of their times at the Pond Place, presenting a real treasure
from a person who knew those times, wrote about them in imaginative and
poetic prose, and as an artist pictured some scenes in watercolors.
Here follows the recollection by Susan Burgess of her grandparents’
home in the form of a children’s story. There is some background
material in the notes for this section.[99]
MEMORIES OF THE BOOT POND PLACE[36]
_By_
_SUSAN H. BURGESS_
Long long ago before there were any automobiles and airplanes had not
been thot of, when steam engines were considered very swift and steam
boats were slow but sure, everybody had horses and carriages.
Then it was that a family of eight children lived in a small house
hardly big enough to hold so many. Because their house was so small
they lived out of doors most of the time.
There was room enough out of doors in those days. The streets and
roads into the country even were not crowded as they are now and people
spent a great deal of time indoors.
Horses got very tired travelling long distances over poor roads. People
enjoyed riding then even as they do now, and this family of eight
children used to love to drive with their father or mother through the
woods over a crooked road to their grandparent’s big farm house which
stood between two lovely lakes.
[Illustration: THE CROOKED ROAD]
At every turn and bend in the road were surprises or things to be
remembered, from other drives such as the spots where the pinkest
Mayflowers had been found in the spring or the birds nests or where a
black snake had once crossed over, or where the biggest blueberries
grew and best of all at the end of the trip at the last bend of the
road the fun of seeing the farm house first and if you weren’t the
first to see the house perhaps with standing up you could be first to
see the lakes. But even if you didn’t see any of the things first it
was nice to see them anyway the new and the old. There was always so
much new to be found, new flowers, bugs, birds, berries and everything
just lovely and woodsey and at grandfather’s farm it was always a time
for something--cherry time, strawberrie time or watermelon time and
if it wasn’t a time for a fruit or vegetable it was a party time like
Thanksgiving--Christmas--or just a summer picnic, and always a happy
time in such a happy place
[Illustration: THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HOUSE]
Grandfather and Grandmother had horses and carriages but the horses
travelled very slowly and the carryalls were covered and not like the
democrat wagon the eight children were used to and liked because it was
open and they could see so much. Buggys and carryalls were not bad for
old folks and rainy days. Hay wagons and truck carts were jolly fun and
rides on the backs of fat farm horses from the field to barn were worth
waiting for and then to slide off over the round fat side and to run
quickly from the hoofs that could sometimes kick. To run and offer a
few whisps of hay or an apple as reward for the ride and not get nipped
by those big rows of teeth, that was fun.
[Illustration]
Grandmother was most always at home and busy, but pleased to have
company, tho she didn’t stop being busy for company. She would spin or
weave or make cakes or pies and company could help and when dinner time
came she said they had earned their dinner. Such platters of fried
fish, rye bread and Indian meal cakes and puddings with pumpkin pies so
large and deep, a dinner to be earned and remembered
[Illustration]
In cool weather there was wood to be brought in for the fireplace and
children were handy in gathering pine cones to start a quick blaze. In
warm weather sweet smelling green bay branches had to be picked to fill
the fireplaces to keep flies and mosquitoes from coming in through The
chimneys. There was butter to churn and water to pump. There were no
faucets all the water had to be pumped up from wells. Grandmother was
lame and had to have many things done for her. The floors were uneven
the boards were very wide with big knots which made bumps. Such floors
were hard on lame people but to children it made just one more thing
different and better than any other house. The stairways were crooked
too. There were four of them, the fourth leading to the big attic at
the top of the house, a place where children could be forgotten for a
while like all the other attic things. While the children were being
forgotten they made the attic treasures live again. From hair chests,
sea chests and boxes were dragged forth hoop skirts, bustles, bonnets,
veils, mits, cloth shoes and costumes of stiff silk or stiffer calico
or print
[Illustration: OH WHAT A PLACE TO PLAY]
Following such a happy airing of honorable and ancient treasures swift
and sure came discovery and a quick exit while back with skillful hands
went the joys of other days forbidden joys of children’s ways The attic
once more resumed its quiet, broken only by an angry wasp dashing his
wrath against a dusty window pane. Retreating footsteps down the stairs
and through the house with an echo of chagrin found pause beside the
pig pen and near tragedy was turned to comedy. The pig at grandmothers
always had a lovely home with clean white-washed pen with fresh straw
on the floor, a trumpet vine shading it, and the pig himself scrubbed
clean every week. Still he would be a pig and would get into his trough
feet and all. He enjoyed having his back scratched but his ears were
ticklish.
Pig weed and sweet apples would tempt him to rise when first offered
but he preferred to eat them lying down and a pig lying down isn’t much
fun to gather apples or pig weed for. The best time of all to visit the
pig pen was when there was a litter of little pigs. How they could run
and how they could squeal Always up to little tricks it payed to fix a
seat and stay and watch them for a while.
[Illustration]
The big barn door was usually open wide. The hay from the mows was
within easy reach of cows and horses in their stalls a fact to be
noticed before taking a slide down one of them.
The barn had a shop with a bench and tools, big wooden planes, curious
things for mending wagons and harness, a shoe maker’s bench with a draw
filled with wooden pegs and shoe lasts. There was room for almost
every thing you could think of in the barn, and room enough too for
almost every kind of a game you could think of to play rain or shine,
and then when you were tired of play to come upon a family of pretty
kittens in a hidden corner was a happy surprise.
[Illustration]
The big barn door faced the road to town but the small door opposite it
looked out into the orchard and the lakes beyond. A vista of alluring
temptations, fruit trees, berry bushes kitchen garden, flowers and
last but not least the lakes with boats and fishing and sandy beach,
not forgetting the big swing in the big oak tree. The ice house was
under the big oak. You could play that goblins lived in it, goblins
that could fly out the door so high up and who didn’t need any windows
(there weren’t any windows)
It was hard to decide just what to play first down at the lakes. The
big red boat, the middle sized white boat or the little green punt were
such fun and the wharf that didn’t reach out into the water deep enough
and had to have a plank added to the end, a plank that teetered with
too many on it.
[Illustration]
The sand beach and the clear cool lake were perhaps most tempting of
all the temptations. Hours and hours of happy splashings and moulding
of sand castles and sailing of ships with the sun shining hotly and the
water swishing cool and clean around ones feet. To fall in all over
was not that wrong, but rather a clumsy accident, and in winter when
thin ice proved a temptation to daring skaters and the ice gave way it
was also considered an act of very poor judgement. The chilly bath
scalding ginger tea and bed were enough punishment.
The swing in the oak Tree was so near the lake that a big push would
make it go out over it. The pusher could run down the bank to the water
and it wasn’t easy to keep from running right in To swing higher and
higher out over the water until your feet could touch the branches of
the oak tree. then to let the old cat die and your turn was up.
[Illustration]
Learning to row a boat with heavy oars was safest with the anchor
out. It wasn’t hard to learn and then there were coves to explore and
thrilling adventures out of sight of house and farm. The toot toot toot
of a real Fourth of July horn was the call to hasten home. Pulling oars
on the home stretch was not so easy as going on the adventure.
[Illustration: LEARNING TO ROW WITH THE ANCHOR OUT WAS SAFEST]
The call of home while most always an interruption and an unwelcome one
was usually in the end a pleasant experience especially at the end of
a day of play. Cleaning up for supper meant clean hands and face and
nails, shoes and stockings on again, hair brushed and voices suitable.
It was nice to be ready and hungry for supper and it was nice to play a
game of checkers after or to hear a good story read.
Bed time and dreams of other and better adventures to come and then
the awaking to a new day. Like magic itself was the growing up of each
child with each adventure forgetting yesterday, in dreams running to
meet tomorrow, yet truly living every moment that passed.
Rainy tomorrows were not spent in regret for lack of sun. Fish always
bit best on rainy days and rubber boots and slickers were inventions
fit for the imaginations of a lively family of eight to whom weather
time and place were always right for living adventures.
Perhaps the crooked road the old house and barn and all they held, the
woods the lakes and fields had much to do with making such a happy
family, at any rate--there they were.
[Illustration]