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diff --git a/77234-0.txt b/77234-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..141f5cf --- /dev/null +++ b/77234-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3554 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77234 *** + + + 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. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + THE FIRST BURGESSES + + +We now come to the Burgess family and its occupancy of the house from +1801 to 1959. This family has an extensive and well recorded genealogy +and history and I would like to tell you about them and point out some +interesting factors. In a sense, such a family mirrors in part the +settlement and growth of this part of Massachusetts.[13] + +The name Burgess is of ancient origin, signifying an inhabitant of a +borough, a freeman, a citizen. It has been spelled Burge, Burges, in +early Plymouth documents. The first was said to be Stephen de Burg who +came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. + +Thomas Burgess, called Burge, came to these shores in 1630, supposedly +to escape the Stuart persecution, to Salem, Mass. He resided in Lynn, +Mass. briefly. In 1637 land was assigned him in Duxbury. The next +year in 1638 he settled in Sandwich, Mass. at the beginning of Cape +Cod. He became a large land owner and with advancing age was called +Goodman Burgess, an archaic form of the word “mister.” He held many +town offices and was deputy to the General Court in Plymouth Colony +for several years before it ceased in 1691 and became part of the +Massachusetts Bay Colony. + +He had more than six children. The property assigned to him in Sandwich +remained in the family 220 years. The house which no longer exists bore +the marks of a British cannon from the war of 1812. + +The house in Sandwich, built in 1638, became known as the Thomas Tupper +house. Jacob, a son of the first Thomas, in 1660 married Mary Nye, the +granddaughter of Thomas Tupper. The Nye family descended from Lave Nye, +a figure in the royal house of Sweden in the fourteenth century. + +Their son, Ebenezer, b. 1672, had a grandson, Seth, 1736-1795, who +removed to Nova Scotia in 1760. He kept a farm and general store in +Kingsport, near Canning. With him he brought his father Benjamin’s +account book, dated 1742, showing him to be a man of diligent habits. +To Ebenezer has been attributed ancestry of Henry L. Dawes, vice +president at the time of Calvin Coolidge. Franklin Delano Roosevelt +was twice descended from the first Thomas Burgess through the marriage +of Ebenezer Burgess to the great granddaughter of Richard Warren, a +_Mayflower_ passenger. A Patience Burgess married Malachi Delano. +Thornton W. Burgess, a well known author of children’s books was +descended from the first Thomas Burgess of Sandwich. + +The second Thomas Burgess, born about 1627 in England, came to the new +world at the age of three with his father. In 1643, at 16 years of age, +he was enrolled to bear arms. In 1661 he left Sandwich in the Plymouth +Colony for Newport, R. I. He was admitted as freeman in Rhode Island +and Providence Plantations and served as a grand juror in 1667. In 1648 +he married Elizabeth Bassett. After her death he married Lydia Gaunt. +This union produced one child, the third Thomas, 1668-1743, born at +Little Compton, Rhode Island. + +The third Thomas has thirteen children by three wives. He married +Esther in 1691, and had Edward, Deborah, Esther, and Lydia. In 1707 he +married Martha Clossen and had Joseph, John (the first John), Mary, +Thomas (the fourth Thomas), and Jacob. In 1721 he married Patience Doty +and had Mercy, Rebecca, Martha and Nathaniel. This last child was the +father of John Burgess who became the owner of the Pond homestead. + +Nathaniel, May 1729-January 1, 1793, was born at Little Compton, R. I. +He removed to Plymouth and later to Saquish Neck in the outer harbor. +In keeping with his prolific father, he had twelve children. He married +Ruth Chandler of Plymouth. Their children were Jacob, Nathaniel, +Patience, who married Malachi Delano, Thomas (the fifth Thomas), Lucy, +William, John, Mercy, Nathan, Rebecca, Zerviah.[14] + +Nathaniel’s will, #3389, was probated in 1789 and administered by his +son, Jacob. The inventory of his estate showed a value of $1241.46, not +inconsiderable at that time. He had lived and farmed on Saquish Neck on +the Plymouth-Duxbury outer shore. Principal access to Plymouth would be +by boat. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + JOHN BURGESS + + +John Burgess, 1765-1850, is sometimes referred to as the second John. +The first John was a half brother of his father, Nathaniel. Keeping in +the stride of his father and grandfather, he had thirteen children. As +a young man, after leaving his family farm on Saquish by the ocean, +he lived for a time in Rochester, Mass., in that part now included in +Wareham, Mass., near the Plymouth southern boundary. + +John Burgess lived on the homestead from the purchase in 1801 until his +death in 1850 at the age of 85. He prospered, added to his acreage, and +was a land owner in Plymouth center.[15] The sustaining of a family of +thirteen children and two parents for a period of fifty years from a +small country farm is a significant accomplishment. + +He married first Annie Tribble, 1765-1805. Their children were +Chandler, Annie, Nathan, Lucy, Mary, Serviah, Hannah, Jabez, Sarah, +Rebecca, and Nathaniel. Secondly, about age 41 he married Ruth Sprague, +1766-1846, of Duxbury. By her he had one child, Phineas Sprague +Burgess, 1807-1890. As in the case of his father Nathaniel, who was the +last son of the third Thomas, Phineas was the last child of his father, +John. He became the next owner of his father’s homestead. + +Ruth Sprague was the twin sister of the Hon. Seth Sprague of Duxbury. +He was a representative in the Massachusetts legislature. His son, Hon. +Peleg Sprague, 1793-1886, was U. S. senator from Maine 1829-1835 and +judge of the U. S. District Court in Boston, 1847-1865. Mary Burgess +has said that the family tradition was that she considered herself an +old maid and might as well go to Plymouth, marry John, and help bring +up his children.[16] + +John Burgess’s son, Phineas, cared for him in his last years, as can be +seen from his will of 1850. + +The action of deeding over to a son of the father’s property during +the father’s or parents’ lifetime with a provision for continuous use +during their natural lives was a common custom from the early Plymouth +Colony days. It is illustrated here between John and Phineas Burgess. +Although the son chosen might be one of many sons, it was often the +one who continued living in the homestead, farming the property, and +providing care for the elders. John Burgess lived nineteen years after +this arrangement to a long life of eighty-five years. + +The advantages for such an agreement to a father as he ages is +apparent. It provided security and some comfort against the time when +these factors were most necessary. It might work to the economic +advantage of the son as well. It was their solution to a problem that +people living today have to solve by radically different methods, be +they better or worse. + +The same procedure was carried on from father Phineas to son Peleg and +to a certain extent by Peleg in the arrangement with his children. + +At the Plymouth Registry of Probate I have examined the will of John +Burgess, #3370. It throws some light on parts of the life of that time. +The administrator was his son, Phineas. He died in 1850 at the age of +85. Before the nineteenth century began he was already thirty-five +years old. Those appointed by the Court to appraise the estate were +George Manter, Truman Sampson, and Freeman Manter. + +A synopsis of the estate is as follows: + + One lot of woodland called watercourse + lot containing about twenty-five acres at + 12 doll per acre. 300.00 + + One lot of woodland by the name of half + moon pond, lot containing about 30 + acres at 5 doll 40 cts. per acre. 162.00 + + (Other real estate and buildings had been + previously sold to his son Phineas). + + Personal Estate + + Fifty-eight cords and four feet of wood 121.62 + Farming tools 5.00 + Boat boards .50 + Furniture 2.50 + Wearing apparel 20.50 + Bed and bedstead and gun 7.50 + ------ + 157.62 + +A cord of wood for fuel is a stack 4 x 4 x 8 feet or 128 cubic feet. A +cord here is valued at about $2.50 cut. This would include the worth of +the standing timber and removal from the woods. By our standards the +pay would be meagre. From the administrator’s account it can be seen +that the sawing labor is priced at about 95 cents per cord. The wood +itself has a value of $1.55 per cord. The house contained three or more +wood-burning stoves, plus a fireplace and heating fuel was needed for +five or six months per year. + +Let us not be unaware of the great amount of manual labor, exerted +by someone at least, for heat. It is in marked contrast with today’s +thermostatic systems. + +The relatively large value assigned to wearing apparel is not uncommon, +but it does point up to us the high value assigned to clothing in their +society which had to include sheep raising and hand spinning of cloth +before the days of mills. “Best clothes,” such as wool suits were made +to last for years. Black felt hats, often of beaver, one of which +remains in the house in good condition, and black dress shoes were +part of the apparel. In inventories, beds were singled out as items +of value. The term “bedstead” is what we would call a bed. Remember +Shakespeare directed in his will that his wife should receive his +“second best bed.” + +Below I list the expenses of the administrator, Phineas Burgess: + + Cutting 58-1/2 cords of wood $48.75 + Care and providing for my father + from May 1, 1846 to May 15, 1850 100.00 + Nov. 1 Doctor’s bill 10.37 + Nov. 23 Funeral bill 11.50 + Nov. 27 To appraise property 5.00 + Nov. 30 Grave Stones 12.00 + Six days service and expenses 12.00 + -------- + $199.62 + +These expenses compare with the Personal Estate of $157. + +The cost of the care and providing for his father after the age of +eighty is illuminating. It averages under 10 cents per day for food +and care and illustrates the cultural pattern under which people lived +before nursing homes, social security and medical insurance. The prices +for the doctor, funeral and gravestones speak for themselves. + +This will throws light on John Burgess, scion of the first Thomas, +arriving on these shores in 1630. John was in the fourth generation +after him, making a span of 220 years. + +[Illustration] + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + THE COMMUNITY: NEARBY, AND BEYOND + + +In the 1790’s the total population of the town of Plymouth had grown +to 3500 people. By today’s standards this seems to be slow growth, +averaging an increase of about 200 people per year since 1620. After +the first growth of the early decades Plymouth settled into a slow +growth rate until recent times, partly because economic growth and +settlements flourished elsewhere. Much of the area then could be called +a basically rural countryside. + +There was a small village for the South Ponds area near the present +small chapel, located at the beginning of the road into the South Pond +Cemetery. The early Burgess and other settlers are buried there.[17] + +It may be assumed from perusal of deeds and a general acquaintance of +the area that it had acreage with enough meadow, upland and woodland to +provide a basis for a livelihood of varying quality from the land. + +There was a school established in South Pond village in 1796. In this +year the town voted $850.00 to maintain all the schools of the town, +mostly primary and grammar schools for young males. Earlier, in 1793, +the town voted to establish female schooling, based on six months per +year, with one teacher and one session being held for them one hour in +the forenoon and one hour in the afternoon at the close of the regular +daily sessions. Discrimination against girls, obviously, but at least a +start was made. + +The South Pond schoolhouse is now converted into a dwelling house +beside the chapel. Nearby is another schoolhouse also converted into a +dwelling house. The S. Bourne map of Plymouth in 1830 shows a school +location on the road near the junction of the watercourse and the +stream from Finney’s meadow which later becomes Eel River. + +The homesteads in the area toward the end of the eighteenth century +included those of Samuel Wright-John Burgess and that of Belcher +Manter, as well as Jonathan Holmes. South of the chapel were other +Burgess dwellings and that of Nathaniel Thomas. These locations are +near the third share of the sixth great lot and near the fourth share +at Gunner’s Exchange Pond. One of the Nathaniel Thomases served in the +Revolution. The Joshua Wright homestead was in the vicinity. + +The road northeast to Plymouth center was approximately five miles long +for the horse-drawn team or carriage. The Burgess Road followed along +not far from the eastern shore of South Pond. The roads were selected +for as much lack of grade as possible to avoid hills for horses and +teams. The Baptist Road continued south to College Pond and then west +to Carver. Settled land in this area was not common. There were some +farms near Bloody and Half-Way Ponds. Long Pond Road went through South +Pond village, later crossing Mast Road at the Four Corners. It went +eventually southward beyond Herring Pond to Sandwich. + +Belcher Manter had a homestead built probably during the last quarter +of the eighteenth century one mile north of the Burgess homestead near +the shore of South Pond. Near his house a stream called Watercourse +began at the Pond and flowed downhill east through his property and +eventually joining a stream from Finney’s Meadow to Russell Mill Pond +and Eel River to the ocean. + +The cut fieldstone sides of this stream can still be seen near the +site of the house. There was a grist mill on this stream, as mentioned +in old deeds. The Watercourse has now largely dried up except in +periods of very high water in South Pond, since the 1850’s a source of +Plymouth’s water supply. + +In his history Wm. Davis states that this outlet for South Pond was not +alluded to in the early records, thus confirming the tradition that it +was an artificial brook dug under the direction of Elder Thomas Faunce +in 1701. Elder Faunce was the son of John, who came on the _Ann_, +1623, and was born in 1647. From 1685 to 1723, Thomas Faunce, the +worthy elder of the church, held the office of town clerk and kept the +town records. + +In the 1780’s there was a town effort made to get alewives to come from +the ocean up into the Watercourse and into South Pond for spawning. +Some sections of the stream were dug and deepened, but I could find no +evidence that the project ultimately succeeded.[18] + +The first Belcher Manter, 1736-1825, came from neighboring Wareham to +the south. By his second marriage to Rebecca Palmer he had a son, the +second Belcher, 1776-1857. This second Belcher married Sarah Wright in +1799, probably the daughter of Joshua Wright who had a homestead in the +vicinity. + +Their family is close to the John and Phineas Burgess families, since +Phineas was one of the administrators of the second Belcher’s estate. +The daughter of Phineas Burgess, Ruth Anna, married Benjamin B. Manter. +She was the girl who planted the maple tree now thriving in front of +the barn here and lived for 105 years, until 1956. + +The Belcher Manter house also provided the north ell on the front of +the Burgess dwelling. This ell had been moved here and attached at +an early date. Its foundation stones at its original site match the +dimensions of the ell here. This account was given me by Susan Burgess. + +The event we consider so important, the American Revolution, has little +concerning it recorded about the South Pond community except for some +names of members of families we are familiar with and their relation +to it. Henry Richmond was the owner of the homestead during that time +until 1783 when the crisis had passed. Perhaps the proximity of the +events that aroused the Boston area were, in the geography of the time, +a little remote for close involvement by the rural area of Plymouth. + +There are the names of a few men associated with the South Pond +community who served in the war of the American Revolution recorded in +the Veterans Administration files in the Plymouth Town Office Building. + +Nathaniel Carver, who bought a piece of land on the west shore of the +pond from Samuel Wright enlisted on June 6, 1776 and served until +August 26, 1779. He served in both the army and navy and was on the +sloop _Reprisal_ as well as in the Plymouth Fifth Company Regiment. + +John Churchill, 1745-1779, was lost at sea. He enlisted on May 28, 1776. + +Col. Theophilus Cotton, 1716-1782, was a colonel of the First Plymouth +Company. He enlisted on June 5, 1775, and was discharged March 31, +1781. Joshua Cotton, son of the third John, 1753-1829, enlisted in the +colonel’s regiment and served for three and one half months. + +Nathaniel Thomas, 1756-1838, of a family with a homestead in this +region was a member of Captain Peleg Wadsworth’s company. + +Wadsworth, Harvard class of 1769, the year Henry Richmond built the +homestead, was a teacher in a private school in Plymouth in 1769, +served in the Revolution and was captured by the British during the +period. He is the grandfather of the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. +Mr. Lewis Wadsworth, Jr., a Boot Pond resident, is in the same +Wadsworth family. + +The surrounding community also had a wider community beyond, economic +and other forces of which had an impact on the lives of the people of +the South Pond region. + +To increase our understanding of some of the influences of the people +in this chronicle I have found a reading of Wm. T. Davis’s _Plymouth +Memories of an Octogenarian_ to be a source of illumination. His +dates are 1822-1907. Accurate and charmingly written by an aware mind +it has many delightful and human passages as well. I am indebted to his +granddaughter, Ruth Gardner Steinway, for lending me her copy. I have +chosen various subjects that he had taken up, showing influences on the +Plymouth community during most of the nineteenth century. We can follow +such matters as fishing, shipping, transportation, stage coaches, +postal service, railroads, and finally the anti-slavery movement. A way +of life was followed then very different from our present technological +society. + +We may look back upon whaling with some romantic nostalgia. Plymouth +did have some whale fishery in the first half of the century, providing +employment and adventure for some of the townspeople.[19] Whales were +in Massachusetts Bay, but no serious efforts were made to engage in +their capture. In 1821, however, a company was formed to prosecute +this fishery. In this year the ship _Mayflower_ of 345 59-95 tons +sailed for the Pacific, was absent for three years and landed between +two and three thousand barrels of oil. She made two more Pacific +voyages, landing about five thousand barrels. + +In 1822 another company was formed, built the bark _Fortune_ of +278 47-95 tons. She returned from the Pacific in 1825 with two thousand +barrels. She made five voyages through 1840, the year of her last +voyage. + +Other ships sailing in the whale fishery were the _Arabella_, +of 404 26-95 tons, 1830; the _Levant_ of 332 34-95 tons, 1831; +the _Triton_ of 314 49-95 tons, 1833, and the bark _Mary and +Martha_ of 316 56-95 tons, 1838. All these sailed the Pacific. + +In 1833 the brig _Yeoman_, afterwards changed to a bark, was +built in Plymouth. It made several voyages to the South Atlantic. The +schooner _Marcaibo_, 93 53-95 tons, built in Plymouth, engaged +in Atlantic fishery and was lost off Bermuda in 1846. The schooner +_Exchange_ of 99 91-95 tons, made four voyages and was wrecked in +West Indian waters. Two other vessels engaged in whale fishery were the +schooner _Mercury_ of 74 34-95 tons and the schooner _Vesper_ +of 95 53-95 tons. + + “In 1803 the foreign trade of Plymouth was at the height of its + prosperity. In that year it was carried on by seventeen ships, + sixteen brigs and forty schooners, and the duties paid into the + Plymouth Custom House amounted to nearly one hundred thousand + dollars.”[20] + +The embargo act of 1807 and the war of 1812 brought this activity to a +permanent decline. + +Of the captains commanding such vessels, Davis mentions some with the +name of Burgess: Chandler, John, Lewis, William W. and Winslow. + +Cod fishery was active and successful.[21] From 1765 to 1775 an average +of 65 vessels per year were employed. In 1802 there were 37 vessels +engaged, employing 265 men, landing 26,175 quintals (hundred weight) of +codfish. All but six of these vessels made two trips yearly. Among the +skippers he lists there is Nathaniel Clark, possibly a one time owner +of the homestead. He was of the _Benjamin Church_ of 70 tons which +produced 350 quintals of codfish. + +All those of us who love to eat lobster and regret their present and +future scarcity and high cost will enjoy this account telling of Sam +and Joseph Burgess:[22] + + “In the angle where the T joined the main wharf, there was a flight + of substantial steps, where boats at all times could land, drawing + not over two feet of water. This was a great convenience, enabling + Sam Burgess, with his fish for the market, lobster boats from the + Gurnet, and the Island and Saquish boats, to land without regard + to the stage of the tide. Many a householder with his mouth made + up for a fish dinner has sat by the hour together at the head of + those steps, waiting for Sam. In those days, too, the purveyor + of lobsters was Joseph Burgess, the keeper of the light, and as + regular as the day he would appear with his lobsters and wearing + his red thrum cap, would wheel his barrow full about the town. + There was no talk then of short lobsters, nor of extravagant + prices, for nine pence, or twelve and a half cents in the currency + of the time, would buy a three or four pound lobster.” + +During his lifetime, of thirteen packets in service Davis remembers +the last eight very well.[23] These ships carried merchandise and +some passengers on runs to Boston, using sail. The last packet with +passenger service was the schooner _Russell_. She survived the +advent of the railroad in 1845. Her fate was a sad one. On March +17, 1854, on a return from Boston, she drifted off course and went +ashore at Billingsgate Light on Cape Cod, southeast from the Gurnet. +The schooner was a total wreck and all on board were lost. She had +a captain and three crew members and five passengers. The bodies +came ashore at Wellfleet and Truro. Davis, as administrator of Capt. +Simmons’ estate, had to identify them and arrange for their removal to +Plymouth. + +A steamboat line was established with the advent of the _General +Lafayette_,[24] in 1828. She left Plymouth when the tide served, and +left Boston at hours which on her arrival would enable her to reach her +dock. The fuel was wood and she made the passage in five hours, making +about eight and one half statute miles per hour. In 1830 the steamboat +_Rushlight_ came to Plymouth and advertised to carry passengers to +Boston for a dollar and a quarter, the fare by stage being two dollars. + +In 1840, the _Hope_ left Boston at two, reaching Plymouth at six. +Wm. Davis tells of an incident that year. He took a stage which left +the same time as the ship. The driver, Samuel Gardner, told Davis that +he would beat the steamboat that day. Gardner did not leave the box, +horses were ready at the three places where changes were made and, “as +I dismounted at my mother’s house on Cole’s Hill the boat passengers +were coming up the wharf.” That day the stage did thirty six miles in +four hours. + +In 1801, Davis quotes the _Farmer’s Almanac_, there were +twenty-five lines of stagecoaches running out of Boston.[25] The +stage to Plymouth made three trips per week by the way of Hingham, +being ten hours on the road. The New England stage in the early part +of the nineteenth century was a long covered wagon hung on leather +thorough-braces and contained seats without backs. “After a few years +the clumsy stage gave way to the well-known English stage made with the +addition of a middle seat with an adjustable tack strap.”[26] + +In 1834 a line of stages to and from Boston for mail and passengers was +established and continued until the opening of the Old Colony Railroad +in 1845. The accommodation left Plymouth at six or seven each day, and +returning left Boston by two. By way of Pembroke, Hanover, Weymouth +Landing, Quincy and Dorchester was the route up from Plymouth. The +mail stage, when separate, left Boston at five o’clock in the morning, +arriving at Plymouth at ten thirty. + +The first post office and postmaster were established in 1775 in +Plymouth.[27] In this year a horseback mail route was established from +Cambridge to Falmouth through Plymouth. The two post riders made the +trip down and back once a week. + +On March 18, 1844, the Old Colony Railroad was incorporated.[28] On the +8th of November, 1845, the road was opened. The next day trains ran +twice daily at 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. from Plymouth and 7:45 a.m. and +4:30 p.m. from Boston. Running time was an hour and three quarters. The +railroad for the next twenty years used wood for fuel. The distance was +37 miles. + +The population of Plymouth in 1820 was 4384. In 1833 it was 5,000. By +1905 it had reached 11,107. + +A moral and political situation, slavery and the abolitionist movement, +had an impact on the Plymouth community. Wm. T. Davis has written about +some aspects of the attitudes in Plymouth. His observations have a +special validity because he gathered them during his active public life +as lawyer, banker, historian, writer and political leader while the +storm clouds were gathering. + +We know that in the family tradition Charlotte Burgess, in particular +was sympathetic to the cause of freedom for the blacks. Strong and +moving words on slavery were contained in the eloquent address by a +young Daniel Webster, 1782-1852, to the Pilgrim Society dinner in 1820, +the occasion being the commemoration of the landing two hundred years +previously. + + “It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame + longer. I hear the sound of the hammer; I see the smoke of the + furnace where manacles and fetters are still forged for human + limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and midnight labor + in this work of hell and dark, as may become the artificers of such + instruments of misery and tortures. Let that spot be purified, or + let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified or let it + be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the + circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man + henceforth have no communion with it.”[29] + +From the assessor’s records, Davis estimates there were fifty slaves +of all ages in Plymouth in 1740. He lists many of these slaves and +their owners.[30] When the Massachusetts Constitution was adopted in +1780 slavery was forbidden. In 1781 the supreme judicial court of +Massachusetts so decided in the case of Walker vs. Jennison. Davis +cites a case of a slave in which his grandfather had a part.[31] + + “It is not improbable that Plymouth was associated with the first + claim made on a citizen of Massachusetts for the restoration of a + slave to his master. Information concerning it I found among my + grandfather’s papers. In 1808 the brig _Thomas_, Solomon + Davie master, at some port in Delaware, received on board a slave + who had deserted from his master, David M. McIlvaine, and until + 1812 remained in my grandfather’s service, receiving wages as a + hired man. In 1812 Mr. McIlvaine found the slave on board the + brig in Baltimore, and a claim for his restoration being made, he + was given up. In the meantime the slave who called himself George + Thomson, bought a small house on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and in + a settlement of a suit to recover wages, which my grandfather had + paid to Thomson, Mr. McIlvaine, in consideration of the money paid, + conveyed to my grandfather the house, and the following articles + of personal property which were in the keeping of a colored woman, + named Violet Philips, and were the property of Thomson--a blue + cloth coat, fine; a black cloth coat, fine; one pair of ribbed + velvet pantaloons; one black bombazet waistcoat; one black silk + waistcoat; three yellow marseilles waistcoats; one pair white + stockings; two checked shirts; one new fur hat; one chest, and one + trunk in which were the title papers to his house, and one silver + watch.” + +Wm. T. Davis recounts the role of Borne Spooner, 1790-1870, born in +Plymouth, and founder of the Plymouth Cordage Company in 1824, in the +anti-slavery movement.[32] Perhaps his younger days in New Orleans, +learning the rope trade, had influenced him. Davis goes on to list the +names of those citizens of Plymouth engaged in the movement. + + “The merchants, professional men, including ministers, and the + politicians in both the whig and democratic parties, were either + too timid to join the anti-slavery ranks, or were decidedly + hostile to the anti-slavery movement. An anti-slavery meeting + held on the evening of July 4, 1835, in the Robinson church, + which was disturbed by an incipient mob which contented itself + with breaking a few windows, and afterwards smearing with tar + the dry goods sign of Deacon Ripley. Though the _Old Colony + Memorial_ contained a paid advertisement of the meeting, its + columns were silent concerning its doings and the disturbance. It + is of little consequence how or when Mr. Spooner became interested + in the movement. He became one of the most prominent men in the + state, supporting it, and undoubtedly furnished to it material + aid not exceeded in amount by the contributions of any others in + its ranks. He was a constant friend and supporter of Garrison, + Phillips, Quincy and Douglas, all of whom frequently enjoyed the + hospitalities of his home.” + + “The seed of anti-slavery fell in Plymouth on sandy soil, but + watered by heavenly dew, it soon took root and broke through the + conservation crust which under the influence of the commercial + and financial interests of the town, for a time obstructed its + growth.”[33] + +Wm. Davis relates a vivid account of Jonathan Walker, a fellow +townsman, and his anti-slavery experience.[34] + + “I suppose that few of my readers know that Johnathan Walker, the + man with the branded hand, ever lived in Plymouth. About fifty + years ago, or perhaps a little earlier, he lived in the house now + standing in what is called the Nook at the head of the waters of + Hobb’s Hole brook. I do not remember to have ever seen him, but I + recall the time when he was complained of for shingling his house + on the Sabbath. He was born in Harvard, Mass., March 22, 1799, and + at the age of seventeen went to sea. When quite young he assisted + Benjamin Lundy in colonizing slaves in Mexico, and for a time lived + with his family in Florida. In 1844 he assisted four slaves to + escape by water, but was overtaken and captured with his companions + by a Revenue Cutter which was sent in pursuit. He was carried to + Pensacola, and after a trial for his offense was sentenced to + stand one hour in the pillory, to pay a fine of one hundred and + fifty dollars, and be branded on the hand with the letters S.S., + signifying slave stealer. It is creditable to Southern humanity + that a blacksmith refused to heat the instrument of torture. He + remained in prison eleven months in default of payment of the + fine, and then by the aid of Northern friends released. After his + release he delivered lectures in various Northern towns and then + settled down in Plymouth.... He left behind in Plymouth a son John, + whom I knew very well, and whom it fell to me once to aid during a + pecuniary embarrassment. His father had neglected his education, + but he was a noble fellow in whose presence I always felt that I + was in the presence of a man. + + “I think he was one of not more than twenty men whose personality + during my long life has impressed me. He always would call me + William and I always called him John. I would have entrusted to + him my life in any emergency, for I knew that he would have risked + his own to save the life of a fellow man.” + +Among the Plymouth men killed during the Civil War was Nathaniel +Burgess, wounded at Fort Steadman, March 25, 1865, died of wounds in +July, 1865.[35] + +We now go on to the Burgess family, Phineas and Charlotte, whose +lives span the nineteenth century and who spent most of their times +at the Boot Pond Place in farming and raising eight children. We have +photographs of them and information about their daily lives that is not +similarly available for Nathaniel and John of previous generations. So +time observed begins to move closer to the present. Our imaginations +are assisted by reminiscences and we see more clearly what took place +here long ago. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + + 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] + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + + PELEG BURGESS + + +Peleg Burgess, 1840-1931, by purchase from his brother, Phineas +Franklin Burgess, became the sole owner of the homestead and kept the +property until October 17, 1918, when at the age of 78 he sold it to +his children. In 1923, Book 1445, Page 428, it is recorded that it was +granted back to him for his lifetime use when he had sold it to his +four daughters, Annie, Charlotte, Susan and Mary and his son Harrison +for $300.00 each. Peleg’s home on Union Street was sold in 1930 to +these children and his son Walter, then of California, in addition. + +As a young man, Peleg had wanted to be a sea captain and started +training early in life. He spent some time in Bangkok, then Siam, +during the Civil War, at the age of 22, because of ship movement +problems brought on by the war. He brought back a large dictionary and +many small art treasures from the Far East. He did not live regularly +at the homestead, but his father Phineas did so. + +At the age of 27 Peleg married Ann Jane Nicol, 1843-1891, on July 22, +1867. + +They had eight children: Annie Sprague, 1868-1956; Harrison Nicol, +1870-1954; Frances Allison, 1872-1896; Charlotte Jane, 1875-1934; Susan +Howland, 1878-1968; and Mary Alma, born 1885. + +Six years after the death of Ann Nicol in 1891, he married Henrietta +Lavender of Provincetown in 1897. + +During his career, Peleg lived for a time in Boston, where he was +engaged in construction. In Plymouth he participated in construction +of Plymouth Cordage Company buildings and the original part of Jordan +Hospital. He also built houses on Union Street where the family home is +located. He played the violin well and served for a time as organist at +the Baptist Church. He was proficient in carpentry, cabinet making and +surveying. + +During the latter part of his period of ownership at the Pond, after +1874, he sold small pond frontage lots from time to time, up to 15 +or so in number for summer cottages or camps, as they are generally +called. The small peninsula jutting into Boot Pond was sold to the +Douglas family who built there a large summer home. Mary Burgess told +me her father considered Mr. Douglas a pious man and would be sure to +observe a quiet Sabbath. These sales provided perhaps needed revenue. +Five hundred feet of Boot Pond shoreline was reserved for the use of +the homestead. + +Peleg’s daughter Susan was born in Boston and was a graduate of the +Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in modeling. She became a talented +artist in several fields and taught art courses for many decades in +the public schools of Hollywood, California, in its early days of +prominence. Earlier she had won an award to be a student for four +years of the sculptor Rodin in Paris. Her opportunity was not realized +because of World War I. She excelled in many fields, in sketches, +painting, sculpture, wood carving, ceramics and children’s book +illustration. Many of her works are in existence. A memorial exhibit +of her many works was held by the Plymouth Black and White Club, an +art society, in 1970. She was always energetic at the Pond where she +summered with her sisters and converted the barn into a sort of studio +for art classes. She was somewhat upset by seeing the family homestead +in other hands after 200 years, but did come out for a visit in her +early eighties. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +Mary Burgess became a registered nurse as a 1910 graduate of Boston’s +Children’s Hospital and served with distinction in Boston hospitals +and St. Luke’s in New York City. In 1913 she lived for a year in +England on an estate on the Thames near Hartley as a special nurse for +a Boston family. She was an army nurse in France during the first world +war for a year and a half and underwent hospital bombardment at times. +For many years she and her sister Susan travelled to California by car +to spend winters in the Santa Barbara and other regions. Since retiring +and living in Plymouth she has been until recently active as a hostess +at the Spooner House. + +She is a warm, kind and friendly person. She has been most helpful to +me in providing information about what she remembers of the family +and the Pond from her long lifetime and delights to visit her family +homestead. + +One of Peleg’s sons, Leonard, lived in Plymouth and was a builder. +He had a son, Eldon, who has two sons, Eldon and Richard, living in +California. Leonard also has a daughter, Frances Burgess O’Keeffe, who +resides in Santa Barbara, California. + +The children of Richard Burgess, who with his family takes a summer +cottage at South Pond, are in the tenth generation of Burgesses since +the first Thomas came in 1630. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + 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. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + + THE DWELLING HOUSE + + +The area around the house and barn had been cleared for farming and +other uses, totaling perhaps twelve acres. The contour of this land +is relatively flat, a somewhat rare occurrence here, and possibly a +major reason for its selection for a farm and dwelling. Initially such +clearing was backbreaking work requiring many years, using the stump +burning methods and removal by oxen if available, or planting around +the stumps which would eventually rot. Most of this land today except +for four or five acres around the house has reverted to forest and high +white pine trees. I have some photographs taken perhaps a hundred years +ago which show open fields with crops at that time. From about 1870 on +it is evident that farming came to a gradual halt. + +In this woodland before settlement there had been a small piece of +meadow by the Pond as described in the Churchill deed. Some patches +of this meadow grass are still growing. This was a treeless area with +rich soil and some moisture. The Pond could supply water for cattle and +crops, a supply of which was necessary for any husbandman to succeed. +Perhaps it can be said that the ponds supplied a source of food from +the abundant fish available which could be caught in great quantity. +There was also an ice house near the shore of the Pond in the old +photographs. If the settlers took time for bathing and swimming it +would be delightful. + +There is now an oil painting on canvas in the house showing the house +and surroundings from a distance in the east front. This was painted by +Alonzo Warren in 1884. Its many colors with full sky and a glimpse of +South Pond give it a landscape effect. + +In an article that appeared in the _Boston Sunday Globe_ Magazine +of November 19, 1972, Jeff Wylie wrote about archaeological diggings in +old Plymouth. He indicates that Dr. James Deetz, Assistant Director of +Plimoth Plantation and professor of anthropology at Brown University +has a hypothesis that three periods of culture emerged. In the first +period, 1620-1660, yeomen were predominant, conservative in customs +and deeply rooted in the medieval tradition. From 1660-1760 an +Anglo-American culture began to emerge. “It was a typical folk culture, +so resistant to change that in the rural areas of New England it +persisted until past the middle of the 18th century.” The third period +from 1760 through 1835 was one in which the impact of the Renaissance, +in the form of the Georgian tradition finally reached the deep +countryside of New England. The reign of George I began in 1714 and +the elite of that period built houses of the type known as Georgian, +but it was not until the latter half of the century that the medieval +tradition in the rural areas began to give way to the new style. + +In a conversation I had with Susan Burgess during her visit here in +1962 she pointed out that the dwelling house was not the conventional +farm type house but rather traced its design to Georgian influences +in England of a slightly earlier period. I believe her evaluation to +have been a correct one. The main part of the house is two full stories +with attic above and has a plain Georgian classic simplicity. By 1769, +the date of the building of the house, such a design was culturally +possible. + +Those who are familiar with Eleazer Wheelock and the founding of +Dartmouth College in Hanover, N. H., are aware that the year 1769 also +marks that date. The present weather vane on the barn depicts Eleazer +Wheelock, the Indian Ocean, the old pine, the barrel of rum in the +starting of the college. + +[Illustration] + +I would like to describe the house. It was built on a slight rise +of ground on three sides, providing excellent drainage under the +foundation, well preserved to the present. There were supporting +beams used over large field stones spaced randomly. The main house, +rectangular in shape, running about 75 feet north to south faced east. +It contains a large attic, used in the 1850’s or earlier for weaving +and sewing activities. Sheep on the farm provided wool for clothing, +a universal custom in the eighteenth century. Woolen clothes were +valuable enough to be mentioned in filed inventories of estates. Indian +women from the vicinity would provide help for these activities. + +On the front on each floor there are two windows left of the front door +and one to the right. Continuing on the front northward is a kitchen +with center door and window on either side. As mentioned earlier, the +kitchen seems to have been a small cottage in its own right, added to +the house at some early date. It has a slight slope from front to back, +in the wooden ceiling and in the floor. Much of the original beams +are exposed. At the west end rear of the main house was an extended +one-story with gable which had a small kitchen area, perhaps the +original one, with rear entrance to the north with its outside stepping +stone. There is a large cellar below and bulkhead entrance to it from +the west or pond side. The front of the house had a large parlor-like +room with door to the south to the side road. This room now runs along +the full south side of the house for forty-two feet. Miss Mary Burgess +told me that when she was very young, a girl came in this door riding +a small horse or pony. In the 1920’s a fireplace and hearth was added +along the north wall of the room. The room has five windows and two +glass French doors and is a most pleasant and sunny room. About a +hundred years ago it was heated with a large round stove. + +[Illustration] + +There is a small hall inside the front door and a stairway with curved +ceiling up to five bedrooms, one of which contains a fireplace +and small wrought iron Franklin stove that can be used on occasion. +There is a stairway up from the kitchen to the ample kitchen loft and +leading into the other rooms. Underneath the front stairs is a clothes +closet, the only one in the house, which is I believe typical of the +construction of the time. + +About 1870 the one-story gabled area on the west side of the house was +altered to make a large bedroom on the second floor over the area and +the roof was extended upward to make two full stories with attic above. +The room faces the pond. Also a small room was made for a cistern to +store a water supply before the days of automatic pumps. Downstairs, in +addition to the living room is a sitting room, once used as a dining +room with an original fireplace, a small borning room on the front, now +used as a den, and the kitchen. The kitchen has five windows and two +glass Christian type doors, providing lots of morning and afternoon +sunlight with open views. The kitchen was thoroughly done over in +1961 without changing its essential appearance, pine paneled and with +a brick wall for oven and small hearth and new pine cabinets. A new +subfloor was laid and the original wide pine boards restored to their +pristine natural color and relaid. + +The floor and subfloors throughout the house were made of thick wide +white pine boards of the 1760 era. For generations they were covered +with many layers of dark green paint. The paint did help to preserve +their surface. It has been a project of mine over several years to +remove the paint and restore them to their natural warm golden color. + +At some time earlier in the life of the house, probably before the +1850’s, a small ell was brought down from their neighbor’s house to the +north, as recounted earlier. This had a dirt floor and was used partly +for a woodshed and storage area. It has now been made into a bathroom, +utility room and area with closets, with outside door north to the +barn. + +A little more than two hundred years later the house, with its +alterations is now basically the same as it was in its first decades, a +tribute to the good workmanship of its builders and their materials. + +Its beautiful setting on a rise of ground has been enhanced by the +planting over many years of a variety of trees by the Burgess family. +In fact the house has outlasted many of the first trees, such as a huge +apple tree outside the kitchen door, once as high as the house. There +is a tall catalpa between the house, planted by Mary Burgess, which is +covered in July with white blossoms. There is a tamarack or larch tree, +very tall now, a tree which the settlers called a candle tree, for when +its leaves become yellow after a frost the setting sun shining through +it gives it the appearance of a lighted candle. This tree is unusual in +that it is a deciduous conifer. In the spring it has tiny ruby blossoms +that grow into small brown cones. It drops its needles after frost. + +An old wooden fence encloses an open lawn area across the front of the +house, constructed originally, I suppose, to keep the chickens and farm +animals in their proper area. Some sections have been restored, but +the original fence has great age. It is seen in the 1884 painting of +the house and probably goes back to the 1850’s. It has trumpet vines +covering it in summer which attract humming birds. Many years ago it +used to be annually painted with whitewash. There were also several +wooden hitching posts in front of it to tie up the horses, as can be +seen in the photograph. + +Some bayberry shrubs spread naturally near the front side of the house. +There are a few very old apple trees flourishing on the pond side of +the house and fill the May air with blossoms. There is also a mulberry +tree of good age which produces a bumper crop of berries all during the +month of July, for birds and humans alike. There are several hemlock +and fir trees at the rear of the house which are now quite high, +providing welcome shade in the summer and greenery in the winter. An +ancient wisteria vine is alive and well and blossoms each year. It is +an indication of its vigor that a shoot has come up from underneath the +kitchen floor through a tiny seam by a supporting post and has a length +of 18 inches and many leaves. + +Birds are all around the house and property. Most of the year one +can see partridges close to the house feeding on seeds and berries. +Bluejays are always around, as are chickadees and buntings. Yellow +grosbeaks come in clusters in early spring. Each year as soon as the +buds come out on the oaks a pair or two of Baltimore orioles arrive and +sing constantly until their departure about the fourth of July. Towhees +are here during the summer and the lower field has hosts of robins. +Varieties of humming birds can be seen, also infrequently a scarlet +tanager. The old maple tree is host to many woodpeckers, including the +downy variety. There are many flickers with their red heads digging +worms from the grass. Wren families and yellow finches live close to +the house. Friendly catbirds are here during the season. Occasionally +a bobwhite can be heard or seen in the yard. Mourning doves and +whippoorwills are common and the hoot or screetch of owls can be heard +on many nights. + +Along our northeastern boundary which starts at the shore of South Pond +and runs easterly a distance of 1200 feet to Boot Pond Road, there is +an area of continuous high ground sloping southward at various degrees +for 300 feet or more, making a sort of wooded hillside. It has an +abundance of tall white pines which makes a sylvan grove. The ground +has become cushion-like by pine needles fallen since early times. It is +a pleasant place for quiet and revery. + +[Illustration] + +I would like to mention the continuous cluster of wild beach plums +along the southern side of the house near the road. Their botanical +name is _prunus maritima_, plums near the sea. They are an +indication of the age and tranquility of the house location. Whether +some were first brought here and transplanted, or more likely, by +chance arrived by natural methods is not known. We are almost five +miles from the sandy seashore which is their natural habitat. An +occasional surviving clump can still be seen in a few spots on the +incoming roads. The soil around the house seems to be hospitable for +their thriving, since there is a small residue of white sand in it, a +remnant of the scouring of the bed rock by the ice sheets. The bush has +deep tap roots going down several feet. There are also side roots for +shoots. The beach plums seem to be almost indestructible, for some were +chopped down to the base of the trunks of 3 inches in diameter, perhaps +fifty or more years ago, yet have come back to heights of 7 or 8 feet. + +They have thrived and spread out over the years and run continuously +for a distance of 100 feet. Toward the end of April or early May they +are in bloom along each spikey branch for a period of two weeks. They +always bloom even if they later do not produce fruit. They are a +delightful sight. + +Their fruit yield has a wide variation from year to year. Some years +there are no plums. Occasionally they are bountiful and might produce +up to a bushel or more. They are considered to be self sterile and +require cross pollination, so having blossoms from other growing things +nearby is helpful, so that the bees can act. Late spring frosts or +too much rain at the wrong time can have effects. The color of the +beach plum varies from a deep purple, light red, light green, and a +few with yellow skins. Some of this variation is due to plums maturing +at different intervals on the same bush. Their size is not uniform, +either, but most of them are hazel nut and some are like cranberries in +size. + +They were noted along the shores of New York and Narragansett Bays by +John de Verrazano, the Florentine voyager, in 1524, who called them +“damson trees.” They are a fine gift from nature to this homestead. + +In 1959 after being in the Burgess family for a period of 158 years, +the homestead and lands at Boot Pond were sold by Susan and Mary +Burgess to Warren Reed, Judge Paul Reardon, and Dr. Milton Brougham, +friends of mine and summer residents and neighbors of the Burgess +sisters who had spent their summers at the Pond continuously since 1918. + +From them the writer bought the homestead and barn with sixteen acres +of surrounding fields and woodlands and part of the shoreline in 1959. +The house contained the furniture and household possessions, some going +back to early days and with restoration are still used. The barn, +built in the 1850’s and converted by the sisters into a studio and +recreational area can also be used as a large indoor porch in addition +to its other uses. It still has many implements used in the house and +farm from its earliest days. A lean-to, attached to the south side of +the barn when it was built, served as a buggy stall and now as a wood +shed. + +One of the great pleasures that came from my purchase of the Burgess +Place was a warm friendship that developed with Charles H. Packard. He +lived close by on the Pond since the 1920’s. He was a veteran Plymouth +police officer with a host of friends and was retired when I came to +know him. He had the flavor of an earlier America about him, and was of +an open, warm, friendly disposition. He cultivated a large vegetable +garden in the open field between the house and the Pond. He was helpful +to the Burgess sisters in many ways. + +He really loved this area by the Pond and it was easy for me to catch +his affection. He helped me in innumerable ways to restore the house +where repairs were needed. He was skilled in carpentry, painting, +roofing, and could fix most anything that needed fixing. + +He was nearing his seventies when I first got to know him. He would +visit the house each morning and evening for friendly greetings and +conversation. He showed enthusiasm and devotion in his many projects +about this place because he was very fond of it. The pleasant memory of +Charlie Packard is a part of this homestead. + +One of the seasons at the Pond I particularly enjoy is the autumn +months of September and October. Frosts usually do not occur until +about the first of November, but as the days get shorter the foliage +changes and colors are produced. Since there is such a variety of trees +and shrubs the range of colors is vast. For a period of eight weeks +every few days there are new and different delights for the eye. With +most days of clear blue skies and sunshine and pleasant temperatures +autumn can bring ecstatic experience here. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + + 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. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77234 *** |