LORD’S POINT
My good friend, John Lord, octogenarian and retired Foreign Service
officer, spent his boyhood summers on South Pond at the place of his
father, Arthur Lord, at the north end of the Pond. His father had
obtained the land in 1879, Book 1464, Page 247, which had been part of
the Isaac Barnes property, and was held until his death in 1925.
John Lord remembers his father pulling him, in a dory, through the
connecting brook leading into Boot Pond. This brook, sometimes dry,
varies in height with that of the water level of the ponds.
Lord’s Point had been known earlier as Kamesit, which was the Indian
name. After his father purchased the point, he joined with a group of
men to form the Kamesit Club.
The members of the club were William Hedge, Dr. Morris Richardson,
William M. Bullivant, Arthur Lincoln of Hingham, Winslow Warren of
Dedham, William V. Kellen, and Arthur Lord. Arthur Lord bought the
property from the two surviving members, Lincoln and Warren, on Dec.
30, 1899, the last day of the century and recorded in Book 1498, Page
499.
John Lord has told me that he remembers that over the living room
fireplace was a large unfinished painting by Winslow Homer of an ocean
beach with a bonfire. Apparently it was sold with the house, which
has been taken down and the land belongs to the Plymouth water supply
system. John Lord spent pleasant summers there with his brothers and
sister and family until he was fourteen.
It is said that Grover Cleveland, during his presidency and while
summering at Buzzard’s Bay, would come to South Pond with friends and
enjoy the fishing.
John Lord has told me that just west of the present aqueduct from
Great South Pond to Little South Pond there was before 1900 property
belonging to the John Darling Churchill family. It contained a two
story residence and a bowling alley of wooden construction nearer
the Pond. At one time, inspired by the Civil War, it was called the
_Union House_ and was used as a tavern. By 1900 it had fallen
apart in disuse.
Arthur Lord was an able and distinguished man. He was a resident of
North Street in Plymouth, and commuted to Boston. In this family house
John Lord was born. His father was a lawyer, historian, and public
speaker. On his mother’s side he is descended from Rev. James Kendall,
1769-1859, pastor of the Plymouth Church for 59 years until his death,
and during his ministry the new meeting house was built in 1831. He was
a distinguished incumbent and much loved by all who knew him.
John Lord’s great great uncle was Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth
College in the years before the Civil War.
Arthur Lord was a bookman and collector. He was president of the
Massachusetts Bar Association and the Massachusetts Historical Society.
He gave in 1925 his library to Pilgrim Hall, described in a publication
of the Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, 1971, entitled _The Arthur Lord
Collection_, prepared by L. D. Geller, Director of the Pilgrim
Society.
As Mr. Geller points out, he is “generally considered to be the most
knowledgeable scholar in the area of Old Colony studies, both in
academic circles and without.” Arthur Lord is characterized as a
gentleman historian who valued the physical artifact and also the
literary qualities of color and interest in historical writing above
technical professionalism.
One of the dramatic achievements in his collecting was a copy of
William Lambard’s _Eirenarcha or of the Office of the Justices
of Peace in Foure Books_, London, 1592, one volume, and his
identifying the volume as a copy from the library of William Cecil,
Lord Burghley.[37] It originally belonged to Sir William Cecil who was
created Baron Burghley by Queen Elizabeth in 1571 and made a Privy
Councilor. Cecil had previously been Secretary of State under Edward
VI. The book bears the Burghley coat of arms on the cover, surrounded
by the Order of the Garter.
It was given to and brought over on the _Mayflower_ by William
Brewster. It was the only written guide for a system of law and justice
in the colony from its beginning and had a tremendous influence
setting precedents for the administration of justice henceforth in the
Colony.[38]
The _Eirenarcha_ had been handed down by each Justice of the Peace
to his successor. As Arthur Lord was the last Justice of the Peace in
Plymouth, the book was in the collection he left to Pilgrim Hall.
There is now in Pilgrim Hall a stone pestle and axehead given to Arthur
Lord by the Wampanoag Indians before 1900, in appreciation for legal
advice he gave them.
John Lord has told me that he remembers being with his father when,
having been the last Justice of the Peace in Plymouth, he thought he
should dispose of the sealing implement of that office and did so
by hurling it into the deep water of South Pond. This action made a
dramatic moment ending a long historical legal era, back to the days of
Elizabethan Lord Burghley.