TO THE PRESENT
Returning to the concept we used in the beginning, the ambiance of
this two hundred year old homestead near the Pond, its lawns, trees,
shrubs, flowers and forest is an example of the past becoming part of
the present. The continuum into the present is enriched by what was
accomplished long years ago on this spot. Shakespeare said the past
is prologue. The past does speak to us here. Because of the maturing,
we have the present pleasure. What went before us, slowly brought
about by all those living here since the beginning, using human hands,
endurance, spirit, taste, produced in our time a beautiful habitation
for fully human dwelling. Time, nature and people worked together to
produce a kind of ideal habitation such as Josiah Cotton, inspired by
the poet, Pomfret, looked forward to in his time, so long ago.
Kamesit, the region around these ponds, is no longer as the Indians
once knew it, but the charm of the region endures, in part from the
ever renewing cycle of nature, the beauty that has been allowed to
flourish by itself during the seasons, especially the beauty of spring
flowers and the flaming colors of autumn, as well as even the clean
snows after a winter blizzard. The loving care of the humans here from
beyond two centuries gives delight to the present dwellers and their
friends who visit. I would like to pay what homage I can raise to this
care.
It is my hope that this excursion into the past, even though much of
what went on cannot be recaptured, something of what we found will
produce and illuminate experience now and give a place and identity in
the present to what survives from long years ago.
the mile
the nylon swimming trunks expand with green
as they follow the arms into the smooth wind
down into the crayfish hour where leeches beat
and grin; holding then a long while of wind
I flash beneath the rippled skims and rattling boughs.
down and straight out; becoming aqua-like again
as the currents of cold catch hold of the sheaves
of scalp and blow them in silence
only to surface and explode, imbibe and
refer the crest to gulls; down into a rhythm
of quest. here shattering whole schools of
fish and words I pry the pond apart and it
regains me and squirts me out into the sailboat air.
I touch the blossoming float of bobbing
barrels and plane tree sides linked in beams
of rocking wind and fresh pine trees crippling the breeze.
up now the way I sit resting from the first
one thousand strokes watching cool brooking pond
glaze broiling on the planks then
dipped into the longest hike of all I suddenly
coast into the deeps leaving only behind
“we are not come into mourning.”
--Tom Daley
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
(A recollection from his experience of swimming the length of Boot
Pond and back)
APPENDIX
List of Sources Consulted
Plymouth County Registry of Deeds
Plymouth County Registry of Probate
Plymouth Town Records
_A Little Commonwealth, Family Life in Plymouth Colony_
John Demos, Oxford 1971
_Notes on Life in Plymouth Colony_
John Demos--Offprint from the William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd.
Ser. m vol. XXII, #2, April, 1965
_Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth_
Part I, Historical Sketches and Titles of Estate
Part II, Genealogical Register of Plymouth Families,
Wm. T. Davis, Boston, copyright 1883
_Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian_
Wm. T. Davis, Plymouth, 1906, 542 pages
_The Arthur Lord Collection_, ed. L. D. Geller
Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, 1971
_A Guide to New England’s Landscape_
Neil Jorgensen, 1971, Barre Publishing Co.
_Mourt’s Relation_, 1622
Dwight B. Heath, editor, Corinth Books, 1963
_The Wampanoags in the Seventeenth Century_
An Ethnohistorical Survey
Catherine Marten, Plimoth Plantation Publication #2, Dec. 1970
_Plymouth and the Common Law, 1620-1775_
A Legal History by D. C. Parnes, Pilgrim Society, 1971
_Husbandmen of Plymouth_
Darrett B. Rutman, Beacon Press, Second ed., 1968
_The Mayflower and Pilgrim Story_
Chapters from Rotherhithe and Southwark
Published by the Council of the London Borough of Southwark, 1970
_Sixteenth Century North America_
Carl Otwin Sauer, University of California Press, 1971
_A Geologist’s View of Cape Cod_
Arthur H. Strahler
Natural History Press, New York, 1966
Opening Quotation from
_Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind_, by Shunryu Suzuki, page 29
Weatherhill, New York and Tokyo, Third Printing, 1971
AFTER KAMESIT
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
[1] Page 1--I have used as a reference for wildflowers _A Field Guide
to Wildflowers_ by Roger Tory Peterson, Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1968.
[2] Page 1--_Indian Place Names of New England_, compiled by John
C. Haden, New York, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,
1962, p. 73, refers to Kamesset Point, Dukes County, Massachusetts,
Wampanoag, “at the place of great fish,” also given as “pine place.”
Two octogenarians in Plymouth were familiar with the word. One from
Duxbury thought it meant “west wind.” There was a club on Lord’s Point
on South Pond known as the Kamesit Club during the 1890’s.
John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, does not have the name in his
dictionary.
CHAPTER I. THE FACE OF THE LAND AND GROWING THINGS
[3] Page 5--_Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian_, p. 514.
[4] Page 5--_Ibid._, “Wood, in _New England’s Prospect_ under date of
1639 says, ‘the horn bound tree is a tough kind of tree that requires
so much pains in riving as is almost incredible, being the best to make
bowls and dishes, not being subject to crack or leak.’”
CHAPTER IV. THE CHURCHILL FAMILY
[5] Page 25--Here is a condensed genealogy of the Churchill family
John Churchill, d. 1663
Three Sons
I. Joseph, b. c. 1650
A. Elkanah, b. ?
B. Elkanah, b. 1726
1. Elkanah, b. 1754
II. Eleazer, b. 1652
A. Eleazer (2nd), 1680-1754
1. Eleazer (3rd), b. 1714, m. 1738
2. Josiah, b. 1716
3. Jonathan, b. 1720
a. Eleazer (4th), b. 1744, m. 1776
III. John, b. c. 1657
A. John, b. 1691
1. John, b. 1727
In 1768, Jonathan Churchill, b. 1720, son of the third Eleazer
Churchill (1680-1754), and his wife Hannah, sold the ninety acres
of woodlot including a small piece of meadow at South Pond to Henry
Richmond for twenty pounds, as recorded in Book 54, Page 19, in the
Plymouth Registry of Deeds (see the photograph of the deed).
CHAPTER V. COTTON FAMILY LAND
[6] Page 28--_Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian_, p. 29.
[7] Page 28--In an unrelated matter, but of interest, the town records
indicate that Josiah Cotton had a black slave in 1732 named Quamony.
Theophilus Cotton had a slave in 1751 named Phillis. _Plymouth Memories
of an Octogenarian_, p. 20, Davis estimates that in 1740 there were at
least fifty slaves, all ages.
CHAPTER VI. HENRY RICHMOND AND HIS SON, ELIAB
[8] Page 31--Regarding Henry Richmond and his son Eliab’s purchase, the
deed shows how the boundaries were to be determined. His son was to
have some 580 feet on the shore of the pond, starting on the southwest
corner of the property and then northerly and northeasterly to such a
point of the compass as to include the exact quantity of thirty acres,
thence easterly to the boundary with Jonathan Holmes and by his land to
the first corner.
Eliab and Hannah Richmond held these thirty acres from January 1773
for eleven years until April 1784, and probably lived on and farmed
these acres. These years coincide closely with those of the American
Revolution. When he sold them to Nathaniel Clark, Book 63, Page 69, for
11 pounds 8 shillings, he took a loss of some two pounds during the
eleven years. Nathaniel Clark had bought Henry Richmond’s property a
year earlier.
[9] Page 32--Henry Richmond had some interesting property transactions
during the fifteen years 1768-1783 he owned the property, I discovered
in my perusal of many deeds. Book 74, Page 54, January 14, 1773,
records three transactions all on the same day. Perhaps economy was the
motive.
In the southeast corner of the land he bought from Jonathan Churchill
he had a boundary with Jonathan Holmes. The latter, a year earlier
in 1767, had bought land from Josiah Churchill, brother of Jonathan
Churchill. Curiously, somehow, Jonathan Holmes had built his house on
the Richmond land. So Richmond sold him two and one half acres where
the Holmes dwelling was located, “all with a Fence going sixteen rods
(264 feet) wide.” The consideration was an exchange of two and one half
acres from Jonathan Holmes from another part of his land described
in the deed as “a piece of land at South Pond, so called, being the
southwest corner of my land and a strip that lyes by the Pond and
to extend so far from the Pond as to make the said Richmond Range a
straight line down to the Pond and containing about two acres and a
half.” Apparently this was an amicable swap-settlement.
On September 14, 1773, the same year, Book 57, Page 180, Henry Richmond
sold to Josiah Bradford, mariner, one and one half acres for “Eighteen
shillings lawful money.” Josiah Bradford was from Middleboro.
According to Davis’s Genealogy, Josiah Bradford married Hannah Rider in
1746 and had Josiah born 1754. In 1781 Josiah, Jr., married Elizabeth
Holmes. I have not been able to find in the Registry of Deeds a record
of the final disposition of Bradford’s one and a half acre. The deed
describes the land as “the piece of land where said Bradford’s House
stands and is all included with Fence and is twenty Rods long and
sixteen Rods wide at one end and eight Rods at the other end. Being in
the easterly Part of my said Homestead lands.”
Another case of a man building his house on another man’s land?
[10] Page 32--I have found some material about Jonathan Holmes, Henry
Richmond’s neighbor to the south. He was the son of Joseph Holmes and
Phoebe, daughter of John Churchill, who were married in 1726. As of
1769 he was listed as a fisherman and had lived near Scook’s Pond near
Manomet Point. In 1765 he sold some of his land there which was laid
out to his father, Book 52, Page 165.
According to Book 54, Page 241, on April 17, 1769, he bought from Mary
and William Bartlett, a seafaring man, “for nine pounds, six shillings,
8. d, a lot of woodland containing 40 acres at a place called South
Pond and is in number fourth in the Fifth Great Lot, being the Lot
which I bought of Josiah Churchill (brother of Jonathan) by deed June
30, 1767.” This would be the area running east from the southeast side
of Boot Pond.
Nineteen years later, in 1788, as shown in Book 71, Page 265, he
sold to “Mathew Porter of Plympton for 30 pounds whole of my land
and buildings at South Pond ... saving the small part I sold Henry
Richmond.” Mathew Porter sold the land the next year to Samuel Rickard
of Plymouth, yeoman, along with 32 acres in the fifth share in the 6th
great lot he had bought from William Thomas and Benjamin Bramhall.
Porter goes on to say that the cut wood and grain in the ground “to
be free for me until January next, also liberty for one Levi Hoit
to remove his said house from said land if he moves it between this
and the first day of January next,” Sept. 7, 1789. Hoyt’s Pond is on
present day maps.
On September 26, 1791, Samuel and Priscilla Rickard sold for thirty
pounds to Luke Hall, laborer, land purchased of Mathew Porter in 1789,
containing about 69 acres, plus the other 24 acres. On June 8, 1792,
Book 78, Page 94, the land is sold to William Hall Jackson, “trader,”
24 acres and 69 acres “in the easterly side of the southerly arm of
South Pond, Gunner’s Exchange and Finney’s Meadow” for 24 pounds, two
shillings to be paid by June 1, 1794.
CHAPTER VIII. SAMUEL WRIGHT AND THE WRIGHT FAMILY
[11] In the years 1723 to the 1790’s there are recorded for the
Plymouth area some twenty-seven grants of land to the name Samuel
Wright, in three generations. The land includes uplands, swamps,
woodland and meadow, much of it in Plympton.
In 1784, 45-274 Samuel Wright bought from William Raymond, both of New
Stamford, Vermont, forty-three acres at Bloody Pond in Plymouth.
In 1794, Samuel Wright bought property in the Boot Pond area. 88-222
shows that for thirteen shillings he purchased one-sixth part of
one-half of the second share of the fifth great lot from the estate
of Benjamin Wright, laid out to Benoni Lucas, whose daughter married
John Wright, 1688-1744. The second share includes land on either side
of the upper half of Boot Pond. In 1796, 84-184, Samuel Wright bought
five-tenths part of one-half of the second share of the fifth great lot
for twenty-five dollars. This land adjoined the land he bought the year
before from Benjamin Wright’s estate. This land was bought from several
children of John Wright, his heirs. The amount would be about eighteen
acres.
Samuel Wright, in 1800, as shown in 88-241, during the time of his
ownership of the homestead, sold to Nathaniel Carver, who served in the
Revolution, for thirty-five dollars, land on the westerly side of Boot
Pond which is land in the second share of the fifth great lot which he
had bought some years before.
Another member of the Wright family who lived in the vicinity was
Joshua Wright, born 1758, son of Joseph Wright, born 1721, who in turn
is the son of Isaac Wright, son of Adam Wright, 1645-1724.
[12] Page 37
The Will of the first Samuel Wright, 1699-1773
He married Anna Tilson, 1720-1793
Dated Oct. 14, 1772. Registry of Probate File #23542
The second Samuel Wright, Executor
“I, Samuel Wright of Plimpton in the county of Plymouth in New England,
yeoman, being weak of body but of perfect mind and memory thanks be
given unto God therefor, calling unto mind the mortality of my body,
and knowing that it is apointed for all men once to dye, do make and
ordain this my last will and testament, that is to say, principally and
first of all I give and recommend my soul into the hands of God that
gave it, and my body I recommend to the earth to be buried in decent
Christian burial at the discretion of my executor hereafter named,
nothing doubting but at the general resurrection I shall receive the
same again by the almighty power of God, and as touching such worldly
estate wherewith it pleased God to bless me in this life, I give,
demise and dispose of the same in the following manner of form....”
He gives to his wife Anna one-half of their dwelling house and one-half
of the piece of land lying around the house and “half of my indoors
moveable estate.” He gives to his son Samuel “in consideration of the
labor that he did for me after he was twenty-one years of age, the
dwelling house he now lives in” and also lands around his homestead. He
gives homestead land to his sons Jacob and Edmond, his daughter Sarah
Hall and also included his grandson, Nathan Wright. To his grandson
Edmond Wright four pounds yearly until he arrives at sixteen years of
age. He gives to his sons Samuel and Jacob in equal division all his
wearing apparel. He orders his two sons Samuel and Jacob “to provide as
much firewood cut and brought to the door for my wife yearly and every
year during her natural life or so long as she remains my natural widow
as is needful for her fire.” Lastly, “I do constitute, make and ordain
my trusty and well-beloved son Samuel Wright my sole executor.”
The inventory of the estate on March 10, 1773, as attested by Gideon
Bradford, Zebedee Chandler and Joseph Wright totals 726 pounds, 5
shillings, 11 d. This is an estate of a fairly wealthy man.
Homestead farm and buildings 480-4-0
Cedar swamp outlands and iron oar 119-8-4
Wearing apparel of the deceased 8-15-8
The personal estate given
Sarah Hall (once lent) 8-16-9
Remaining part of the indoors
moveables 41-7-8
The provisions in the house 4-14-7
---------
£726-5-11
The opening paragraph gives eloquence to the faith of the believer of
that day. The hand script in which this will is written is the most
perfect and beautiful I have encountered in my investigations.
The Will and Estate of the Second Samuel Wright, 1728-1814 1816, #23543
He is the father of the third Samuel Wright, born about 1760, one-time
owner of the homestead at Boot Pond, 1786-1801. The will provides for
five of his children, including his son the third Samuel. At his death
the second Samuel was 86 years of age. The administrator of the will
was his son Peleg, 1771-1856. The appraisers were Elijah Bisbee, Isaac
Wright (he is the third Isaac, born 1776) and Levi Bradford, Jr.
I mention the will of the second Samuel, although he was not at South
Pond, since it does show factors of the social context in which the
third Samuel lived.
The property was in nearby Plympton. The real estate was divided by
the appraisers into five shares, each described in detail, for the
children, sons Samuel and Peleg, daughters Sarah, Abigail and Mercy.
The inventory was as follows:
One-half of dwelling house $100.00
One-eighth part of pew in
lower floor of meeting house 5.00
About two acres and a quarter
in orchard by house 225.00
One acre west side of road 125.00
18 acres north end of farm 300.00
6 acres of woodland in Carver,
by Israel Dunham 50.00
5 acres and a half adjoining
Noah Dunham 88.00
Cedar swamp lot 12.50
------ 943.50
Wearing apparel 11.65
Beds, bedding, and linen 69.51
Pewter, iron, brass, earthen
and glassware 19.84
Livestock and farming tools 116.22
------ $1160.72
According to the administrator’s account after payment of debts owed
and expenses, each of the five heirs received about $25.00.
In comparison with the John Burgess inventory thirty-four years later,
Samuel Wright, the second Samuel, is obviously a much wealthier man and
owner of more land. Yet his debts were relatively much higher. Maybe we
can say he lived well on credit.
John Burgess had more value in his wearing apparel, but the second
Samuel far exceeded him in his household effects and in the livestock
and farming tools especially.
CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST BURGESSES
[13] Page 41--My sources are the genealogical section of Wm. T. Davis’s
_Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth_, 1881.
Also _The Burgess Book_, T. R. Marvin & Son, Boston, 1865, compiled by
the Rev. Frederick Freeman of Dedham.
Also the _Plymouth Towne Book_ and the Sept. 8, 1961, edition of the
_Chronical Herald of Halifax, N. S._
Conversations with Miss Mary Burgess provided me with much data.
[14] Page 43--I should add that his son, Thomas (the fifth Thomas)
married in 1781 Lydia Tribble. They had twin daughters, Poly and Lydia,
born 1784. Lydia married George Delano of the later Delano-Roosevelt
family.
CHAPTER X. JOHN BURGESS
[15] Page 45--Here is some information I have been able to gather about
the land transactions of John Burgess.
His uncle, also John Burgess, has recorded many land transactions in
Rochester from 1765-1795. His nephew John Burgess, also of Rochester,
at age 30 made his first purchase in the South Pond area on Feb. 5,
1795, Book 77, Page 145, of a lot of 40 acres from Joshua Wright to the
south of Gunner’s Exchange Pond. Rochester is located on the southern
boundary of Plymouth at the foot of the original second and third great
lots. In this region is the Wankinquoh River which begins near the
western end of Halfway Pond Road in Carver. In the center flows the
Agawam River which comes from the Halfway Pond Brook flowing southwest
from Halfway Pond. Much of the region is now in the Myles Standish
State Forest.
Six years later, in 1801, he bought the Samuel Wright land and
buildings on the east shore of the Pond, as recorded in Book 91, Page
78. He paid $600.00 for the property. He made his livelihood here until
his death in 1850, a period of 49 years. In his family were 13 children.
John Burgess’s next major purchase was forty acres on March 7, 1807,
106-227, for $80.00 from Rossiter Cotton, a justice of the peace and
land agent and member of the Cotton family. It was “on the southerly
side of the southerly arm of Grate South Pond.” Some of this land was
valuable land for cedar timber and is now cranberry bog land.
The next purchase was on June 18, 1821, 149-174, of one undivided half
part of the third share of the fifth great lot laid out to Nathaniel
Holmes and sold by his great grandchildren. The original deed of the
transaction I have on the wall of the kitchen. It is signed by the
heirs Ichabod Davie, Robert Davie, Samuel Talbot, Jerusha, his wife,
Lydia Ryder, Josiah Carver, Josiah Carver, Jr., Elizabeth Carver, all
of Plymouth. It was sold for $47.50, paid by John Burgess, yeoman. It
contained thirty-eight acres on the eastern and western shores of the
southern part of the southerly arm of the Pond. So at Boot Pond he
accumulated during his lifetime some 250 acres. The area map on page
vii shows the Burgess land holdings at their maximum amount.
John Burgess also had land holdings in other parts of Plymouth, such as
salt hay marsh and land at Saquish Neck, where his father was located.
He bought in 1819 three acres near the present park or Training Green
and Town Office Building. He sold it in 1825 to Samuel Doten and became
part of Doten’s Wharf estate. This is part of the land allotted to
Governor Bradford in 1623. The present Burgess home on Union Street is
in this area. Barnes Lane was the old name for Lincoln Street.
The ancient way south from Leyden Street in the center of town had a
crossing by ford at low water to a beach on the southern side. There
was lowland extending from Water Street through what was called Dublin
to the springs in the rear of the houses standing on Sandwich Street
opposite the Training Green (Wm. Davis, _Ancient Landmarks_, p. 294).
The Burgess property was close to the springs. Even now they still
have to be drained. In 1836 John Burgess bought a lot at the corner
of Sandwich and North Green Street which the family kept beyond the
1880’s. In the same year he bought the adjoining lot on the west which
he sold in 1848.
In 1831, yeoman John Burgess was sixty-six years old. This year he
deeded his property at the Pond to his son, Phineas, 172-47. Phineas,
1807-1890, now aged 27, “in consideration of two hundred dollars ...
make over and secure to them (his parents) ... the use and improvement
of the whole of the homestead farm ... during the terms of their
natural lives or to the survivor of them.”
In 1833, 177-97, John sold 70 woodland acres near the ponds to Samuel
Leach and Daniel Gale. After his death in 1850, one of his sons and
heirs, Nathaniel of Kingston, for $30.75, sold, 241-212, a total of one
hundred assorted acres to Samuel and Thomas B. Sherman. The land was in
the Half Moon Pond area and the southerly part of Boot Pond, not near
the homestead.
[16] Page 46--According to a note I have seen in the handwriting of
Ruth Burgess Manter, which she says is copied from the _Record of the
Sprague Family_, she states:
“Jennie (Jennie, daughter of Isaac Burgess) has a Book with the History
of the Sprague Family and Which I have been Reading.
“My Grandmother was the daughter of Mercy and Phineas Sprague. They
had two daughters and one Son, named Seth and two daughters, Mercy
and Ruth. Ruth was my Grandmother and she was a twin to Seth Sprague.
They were Born on the 4th of July, and she used to go over to Duxbury
and Celebrate the day with him. I find by the Records he was a very
Business like man and is called Hon. Seth Sprague, he was a member of
Massachusetts Legislator 27 yrs., sometimes in the House and sometimes
in the Senate, he has several times been chosen one of the Counsellors
of the Governor of the Commonwealth but always declined that honor.”
CHAPTER XI. THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY, NEARBY AND BEYOND
[17] Page 53
South Pond Cemetery
Some names on gravestones to be seen there, on the land donated by the
Wright Family, going back to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
28 Indian Graves
William Burgess, 1767-1836
Mary Burgess, 1763-1843
John Burgess, 1765-1860
Anna Tribble Burgess, 1765-1805
Ruth Sprague Burgess, 1766-1846
Phineas Burgess, 1807-1890
Charlotte Burgess, 1812-1903
Jabez Burgess, 1796-1819 (died at sea)
Seth Burgess, 1830-1907
Sarah Burgess, 1831-1903
Jennie Burgess, 1879-1971 (daughter of Isaac)
Seth Bennett, 1811-1900
Sylvanus Sampson, 1748-1799
Sylvanus Sampson, 1749-1824
Sylvanus Sampson, 1780-1874
Sylvanus Sampson, 1857-1929
Belcher Manter, 1736-1825
Belcher Manter, 1776-1857
Sarah Wright Manter, 1781-1866
George Manter, 1798-1857
Vinal Burgess, 1796-1865
Esther Clark Burgess, 1801-1873
William Burgess 1762-1836
Lucy Burgess, 1763-1843
Charlotte T. Burgess, 1848-1876
Isaac Burgess, 1835-1924
Truman Sampson, 1802-1884
Levi Sampson, 1822-1891
Joseph Wright, 1721-1804
Capt. Joshua Wright, 1758-1833
Joseph Wright, 1787-1867
Lucy Wright, 1788-1872
[18] Page 55--An earlier effort in 1701 for assistance to alewives is
found in the Town Records, Vol. 2, Page 79. The petitioners mentioned
possibly did not live too far away and some may have had homesteads in
the community.
“Grant to make a stream for herring from South Pond to Eel River.”
Town meeting of May 20th, 1701.
“George Morton, Ephraim Morton, Nathaniel Morton, Josiah Finney, Benj.
Warren, Ebenezer Holmes and Thomas Faunce requested that if they could
make a stream from the Grate South Pond so called into the brook
that runneth through Finney’s meadow into the Eale River in order to
the leting up alewives into sd. Pond that the town would grant the
privilege of two or three pole breadth on each side of sd. stream of
land down along sd. stream so far as the town comons goeth which sd.
request was granted them and to stop the Pond when it needs.”
[19] Page 57--_Plymouth Memories of an Octogenarian_, p. 60.
[20] Page 58--_Ibid._, p. 49.
[21] Page 59--_Ibid._, p. 86.
[22] Page 59--_Ibid._, p. 74.
[23] Page 59--_Ibid._, p. 65.
[24] Page 60--_Ibid._, p. 74.
[25] Page 60--_Ibid._, p. 438.
[26] Page 61--_Ibid._, p. 158.
[27] Page 61--_Ibid._, p. 188.
[28] Page 61--_Ibid._, p. 468.
[29] Page 62--_Ibid._, p. 427.
[30] Page 62--_Ibid._, p. 128.
[31] Page 62--_Ibid._, p. 130.
[32] Page 63--_Ibid._, p. 241.
[33] Page 64--_Ibid._, p. 332.
[34] Page 64--_Ibid._, p. 247.
[35] Page 66--_Ibid._, p. 430.
_MEMORIES OF THE BOOT POND PLACE_
[36] This book, written by Susan H. Burgess, is in the form of a story
for children as a memoir of her own girlhood days at her grandparents’
farm. It was given to her niece, Frances Burgess O’Keeffe, and is so
inscribed by the author. It may have been written in the 1920’s and
covers a time presumably in the 1880’s. She was 12 years old by 1890.
During the 1880’s her grandparents would be in their seventies.
Totaling 33 pages, it has 11 water color illustrations, 5-1/2” × 7” in
size, each on a page of its own. It is hand printed in black ink in
script writing. The author has made the plain cover and has hand sewn
and bound the pages. They measure 12” × 9-1/2”.
The eight children mentioned were born over a period of 17 years,
from 1868 to 1885, making a group of three boys and five girls. The
1880’s would be a good time in the ages of the children to enjoy their
grandparents’ farm at Boot Pond.
Against the usual Plymouth custom of referring to bodies of fresh water
as “ponds,” Susan Burgess refers to them as “lakes.”
An obvious contrast in the 100 years since then has been the growth of
trees, not only in the open fields, but close to the house and barn.
This fact was quite apparent to Miss Minnie Burgess and she emphasized
it to me on a recent visit. She has known the Place for most of her 94
years. There are now three large white pines, many large fir trees,
several deciduous trees, such as maples, beech, tamarack, catalpa
and mulberry which have grown up in the intervening years since the
watercolors were made. Then there were more open fields, pasture and
orchard as well as a fence near the pond for keeping the cattle in
bounds.
The Water Colors
1. THE CROOKED ROAD
This was on the curve downhill before the house could be seen.
2. THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HOUSE
This is about 300 feet from the front of the house, showing an open
field on the left and Boot Pond beyond.
3. UNTITLED
Shows a horse and covered buggy tied to a hitching post by the
fence in front of the house.
4. UNTITLED
Grandma Charlotte sitting by the dining room fireplace and a
glimpse through the door into the sitting room beyond.
5. OH WHAT A PLACE TO PLAY
Two little girls playing with costumes in the north end of the
well-stocked attic.
6. UNTITLED
A boy and two girls and a head of a pig behind the pig pen fence
running north from the house and showing the steps up into the barn.
7. UNTITLED
The interior of the barn from the front door, with a cow and horse.
8. UNTITLED
Shows the lower part of the field, the big oak tree and the Pond.
9. UNTITLED
A little blond girl on the swing under the big oak at pond edge.
10. LEARNING TO ROW WITH THE ANCHOR OUT WAS SAFEST
The sandy shore of the curving beach with three children. One is in
the boat in the water with the anchor in the dry sand.
11. UNTITLED
In the rain are two children in a row boat near the pond shore.
CHAPTER XIV. LORD’S POINT
[37] Page 129--Miss Joan Wake, Hon. M. A. Oxon., F.S.A.F.R. Hist. S.,
the Hon. Secretary of the Northamptonshire Record Society, Lamport
Hall, Northampton, England, writing in _Northamptonshire Past and
Present_, Vol. II, No. 4, 1957, p. 184, tells of her visit to Plymouth
and the _Eirenarcha_.
“From Milton I was taken to Plymouth and introduced to the Plymouth
Rock, which--dare I say it?--was something of a disappointment. I
had imagined the disembarkation on it of the whole of the crew and
passengers of the _Mayflower I_, but doubt very much whether three--or
even two--of the Pilgrim Fathers, hanging around each others necks,
could have balanced on it with any degree of stability. How ever,
there it is--surrounded with its railing, facing lovely Cape Cod Bay,
and properly regarded with great veneration--one of the famous stones
of history. Plymouth, by the way was eagerly awaiting the arrival of
_Mayflower II_, which at that moment lay becalmed in the middle of the
Atlantic.
“Plymouth is naturally very conscious of its history, and in the Hall
of the Pilgrim Society is a most interesting collection of records,
pictures, furniture, clothes, books, etc. The most thrilling object
to me was a second edition (1592) of William Lambard’s _Eirenarcha_,
an early treatise on the office of Justices of the Peace. Bound in
brown calf, the book is embossed with the arms of William Cecil,
first Lord Burghley, to whom originally it first belonged. As the
catalogue states, Burghley was the colleague of William Davison,
Secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, and Davison, in turn, was the early
patron of William Brewster, one of the founders of Plymouth, Mass. It
was therefore, quite possibly William Brewster who brought this book
over in the Mayflower, where it has been known to have been for long
in the possession of the “Trial Justices” (Justices of the Peace) for
Plymouth. Be that as it may, we have here a concrete example of the way
in which this famous institution, which has worked so successfully in
the mother country since the 14th century, was carried with the flag
not only into this “remote, heathen and barbarous land” (as America is
described in Queen Elizabeth’s Letters Patent to Sir Humphrey Gilbert),
but into all the three other continents, where, in a modified form it
has in many places survived, even since the flag has been withdrawn.
“About ten miles south of Plymouth, buried deep in vast woods, is
the summer residence of Mr. and Mrs. John Lord, whom I had met in
Northampshire, Mrs. Lord being sister to Squire Brudenell of Deene. I
spent a night with them in their tiny little house in a beautiful glade
of the forest, looking across a grassy slope to a large artificial lake
which is used to flood the cranberry bogs in frosty weather. We passed
some of these bogs as we came through the woods, for cranberry growing
and preserving is carried on extensively in this district, as it well
may be if 150 million people are to have cranberry sauce with their
roast turkey on Thanksgiving Day.”
[38] Page 129--The full impact of William Lambard’s _Eirenarcha_ and
the use of the Common Law by the Pilgrims is explained by C. C. Parnes
_Plymouth and the Common Law_, pp. 27-48.
=Transcriber’s Notes=
Perceived typographical errors in the author’s work have been silently
corrected.
Unusual spelling and punctuation in quoted text have been retained.
Footnotes have been renumbered.