Various - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1

V >> Various >> The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Our breaking-bread day is always on the first Sabbath in every month,
and, always on the Friday before it, we have a Church Meeting, which is
carried on by prayer, in order to prepare for our approach to the Lord's
table: at which Meetings _those_ are sometimes heard and sometimes
on the Sabbath, as circumstances best serve--so that any Person at a
Distance may send to our minister to propound them to the Church timely,
and order their coming, so as to partake of both ordinances on the same
day: The Reverend Mr. Cotton of Newton, on occasion of a man of his
Parish desiring to join in Communion with our Church, gave him a Letter
of Recommendation, not as a member with him, but as of one in Judgment
of Charity qualified by the grace of God to be received amongst us:
which the Church received as a mark of his Catholic Christian Spirit.

That you and your spouse may be directed to do what may be most for
the glory of God: and for your own Peace and Comfort, both for time
and Eternity: that you may both walk in all the commands and ordinances
of the Lord blameless is the Prayer and Desire of your loving uncle.

SHEM DROWNE.

Two of the three best known weather vanes made by Drowne, are still on
duty; and one, the Indian chief, which for so many years decked the
Province House, is now the property of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, in one of the rooms of which it is to be seen, still swinging
on its original pivot. From the sole of his foot to the top of his
plume, it is four feet, six inches; and from his elbow to tip of arrow,
four feet; weight forty-eight pounds.

The old grasshopper on Fanueil Hall[10] was made in 1742, and has veered
with the winds and been beaten by the storms of one hundred and forty
odd years. It was last repaired in 1852, when there was found within it
a much-defaced paper, only a part of which could be read:

SHEM DROWNE MADE ITT

May 25, 1742

To my Brethren and Fellow Grasshoppers

Fell in y'e year 1755 Nov 15th day from y'e Market by a great Earthquake
... sing ... sett a ... by my old Master above.

Again Like to have Met with my Utter Ruin by Fire, but hopping Timely
from my Publick Situation came of with Broken bones, and much Bruised,
Cured and again fixed....

Old Master's Son Thomas Drowne June 28th, 1763. And Although I now
promise to Play ... Discharge my Office, yet I shall vary as ye
wind.[11]

The other one still in use is the old "Cockerel" of Hanover Street
Church fame. This was made for the New Brick Church in 1721, and is the
oldest of the three. It held its position on this church and its
successors, one of which was long known as the "Cockerel Church," for
one hundred and forty-eight years, when it was raised on the Shepard
Memorial Church of Cambridge, where it now is. "It measures five feet
four inches from bill to tip of tail, and stands five feet five inches
from the foot of the socket to the top of comb, and weighs one hundred
and seventy-two pounds."[12]

Possibly some other specimens of the handiwork of this good Deacon Shem
Drowne are still in existence. Who knows?

[Footnote 1: Boston Globe, October 18, 1884.]

[Footnote 2: Neither of these were carved; they were both of metal.]

[Footnote 3: Boston Evening Record, January 10, 1885.]

[Footnote 4: Fac-similes of his signature are given in "Memorial History
of Boston," vol. II, p. 110, written in 1733, and in John Johnston's
"History of Bristol, Bremen and the Pemaquid Plantation," p. 466,
written in 1762.]

[Footnote 5: Johnston's "Bristol and Bremen."]

[Footnote 6: Samuel Adams Drake's "Old Landmarks of Boston," p. 135.]

[Footnote 7: Mss. letter of Henry T. Drowne, Esq., of New York.]

[Footnote 8: Samuel G. Drake's "History of Boston."]

[Footnote 9: History of "Bristol and Bremen."]

[Footnote 10: Drake in "Old Landmarks," says: "the grasshopper was long
thought to be the crest of the Faneuils."]

[Footnote 11: Boston Daily Advertiser, December 3, 1852.]

[Footnote 12: Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. XXVII, p. 422.]

* * * * *

THE WEDDING IN YE DAYS LANG SYNE.

By Rev. Anson Titus.

The story of courtship and marriage is ever fascinating. It is new and
fresh to the hearts of the youthful and aged. A few words upon the
marriage day in the early New England will not be without interest.
September 9, 1639, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony passed
a law ordering intentions of marriage to be published fourteen days at
the public lecture, or in towns where there was no lecture the
"intention" was to be posted "vpon some poast standinge in publique
viewe." On this same day it was ordered that the clerks of the several
towns record all marriages, births and deaths. This was a wise
provision. It at once taught the people of the beginning and of the
designed stability of the new-founded government.

The course of true love did not run smooth in these early days any more
than to-day. Parents were desirous of having sons and daughters
intermarry with families of like social standing and respectability. But
the youth and maid often desired to exercise their own freedom and
choice. On May 7, 1651, the General Court ordered a fine and punishment
against those who "seeke to draw away y'e affections of yong maydens." In
the time of Louis XV, of France, the following decree was made: "Whoever
by means of red or white paint, perfumes, essences, artificial teeth,
false hair, cotton, wool, iron corsets, hoops, shoes, with high heels,
or false tips, shall seek to entice into the bonds of marriage any male
subject of his majesty, shall be prosecuted for witchcraft, and declared
incapable of matrimony." The fathers of New England may have made
foolish laws, but this one in France at a later time goes beyond them.
The seductive charms of the sexes they deemed could not be trusted.
Wonderment often comes to us of the thoughts and manners of the sage
law-makers when their youthful hearts were reaching out after another's
love.

The marriage day was celebrated with decorum. The entire community were
conversant of the proposed marriage, for the same had been read in
meeting and posted in "publique viewe." The earliest lawmakers of the
Colony were pillars in the church, and though they did not regard
marriage an ordinance over which the church had chief to say, yet they
desired an attending solemnity. In 1651 it was ordered that "there shall
be no dancinge vpon such occasions," meaning the festivities, which
usually followed the marriage, at the "ordinary" or village inn.

The marriage of widows made special laws needful. Property was held in
the name of the husband. The wife owned nothing, though it came from the
meagre dowry of her own father. When the husband died the widow had
certain rights as long as she "remained his widow." These rights were
small at best, though the estate may have been accumulated through years
of their mutual toil and hardships. We have notes of a number of cases,
but give only a few. We omit the names of the contracting parties.
"T---- C---- of A---- and H---- B---- of S----, widow were married
together, September y'e 28th, 1748, before O---- B---- J.P. And at ye
same time y'e s'd H---- solemnly declared as in y'e presence of Almighty
God & before many witnesses, that she was in no way in possession of her
former husband's estate of whatever kind soever neither possession or
reversion." An excellent Deacon married an elderly matron, Dorothea
----, and before the Justice of Peace "Y'e s'd Dorothea declared she
was free from using any of her former husband's estate, and so y'e
s'd Nathaniel [the Deacon] received her." The following declarations
are not without interest. "Y'e s'd John B---- declared before marriage
that he took y'e s'd Hannah naked and had clothed her & that he took
her then in his own clothes separate from any interest of her former
husbands." Again a groom declares: "And he takes her as naked and
destitute, not having nor in no ways holding any part of her former
husband's estate whatever." We have also the declaration of a widower on
marrying a widow in 1702, who had property in her own name, probably
gained by will, "that he did renounce meddling with her estate." These
declarations evidence that the widow relinquished, and that the groom
received her without the least design upon the estate. It has been
intimated that in a few instances these declarations became a "sign,"
but we can hardly credit it. The "rich" widow was taken out of the
matrimonial problem.

The following affidavit is spread on the town records of Amesbury:

"Whereas Thomas Challis of Amesbury in y'e County of Essex in y'e
Province of y'e Massachsetts Bay in New England, and Sarah Weed,
daughter of George Weed in y'e same Town, County and Province, have
declared their intention of taking each other in marriage before
several public meetings of y'e people called Quakers in Hampton and
Amesbury, and according to y't good order used amongst them whose
proceeding therein after a deliberate consideration thereof with
regard to y'e righteous law of God and example of his people recorded
in y'e holy Scriptures of truth in that case, and by enquiry they
appeared clear of all others relating to marriage and having consent
of parties and relations concerned were approved by said meeting.

Now these certify whom it may concern y't for y'e full accomplishment
of their intention, this twenty-second day of September being y'e year
according to our account 1727, then they the s'd Thom's Challis and
Sarah Weed appeared in a public assembly of y'e afores'd people and
others met together for that purpose at their public meeting-house
in Amesbury afores'd and then and there he y'e s'd Thom's Challis
standing up in y'e s'd assembly taking y'e s'd Sarah Weed by y'e hand
did solemnly declare as followeth:

Friends in y'e fear of God and in y'e presence of this assembly whom I
declare to bear witness, that I take this my Friend Sarah Weed to be my
wife promising by y'e Lord's assistance to be unto her a kind and loving
husband till death, or to this effect; and then and there in y'e s'd
assembly she y'e said Sarah Weed did in like manner declare as follweth:
Friends in y'e fear of God and presence of this assembly whom I declare
to bear witness that I take this my Friend Thom's Challis to be my
husband promising to be unto him a faithful and loving wife till death
separate us, or words of y'e same effect. And y'e s'd Thom's Challis
and Sarah Weed, as a further confirmation thereof did then and there to
these presents set their hands, she assuming y'e name of her husband. And
we whose names are hereto subscribed being present amongst others at
their solemnizing Subscription in manner afores'd have hereto set our
names as witness."

Then follow the names of groom and bride, relatives on either side, and
then the names of members in the assembly, first the "menfolks," then
the "womenfolks." The names all told are forty-one. Among them is that
of Joseph Whittier, which name with those of Challis and Weed have long
been honored names in Amesbury.

The marriage gift to the husband on the part of his parents was usually
a farm, a part of the homestead; the dowry to the young bride from her
parents was a cow, a year's supply of wool, or something needful in
setting up house-keeping. If the homestead farm was not large the young
couple were brave enough to encounter the labors and toils of frontier
life, and begin for themselves on virgin soil and amid new scenes. It
required bravery on the part of the young bride. But there were noble
maidens in those days. The cares and duties of motherhood soon followed,
but the house-cares and the maternal obligations were performed to the
admiration of later generations. The fathers and mothers of New England
were strong and hardy. Their praises come down to us. Witnesses new and
ancient testify of their worth and royalty of character.

* * * * *

A REMINISCENCE OF COL. FLETCHER WEBSTER.

In a private conversation with the writer not long since General
Marston, of New Hampshire, related the following story:

"On the morning of the thirtieth of August, 1862, before sunrise, I was
lying under a fence rolled up in a blanket on the Bull Run battle-field.
It was the second day of the Bull Run battle. My own regiment, the
Second New Hampshire Volunteers, had been in the fight the day before
and had lost one-third of the entire regiment in killed and wounded.

"While so lying by the fence some one shook me and said, 'Get up here.'
In answer I said, without throwing the blanket from over my head, 'Who
in thunder are you?' The answer was made, 'Get up here and see the
Colonel of the Massachusetts Twelfth.'

"The speaker then partly pulled the blanket off my head and I saw that
it was Colonel Fletcher Webster; whereupon I arose, and we sat down
together and I sent my orderly for coffee.

"We sat there drinking the coffee and talking about his father, Daniel
Webster, and he told me about his father going up to Franklin every year
and always using the same expression about going. He would say
'Fletcher, my son, let us go up to Franklin to-morrow; let us have a
good time and leave the old lady at home. Let us have a good old New
Hampshire dinner--fried apples and onions and pork.' At about that time
the Adjutant of Colonel Webster's regiment came along and told him that
the General commanding his brigade wanted to see him. Colonel Webster
replied that he would be there shortly.

"As he sat there on the blanket with me he took hold of his left leg
just below the knee with both hands and said: 'There, I will agree to
have my leg taken off right there for my share of the casualties of this
day.' I replied: 'I would as soon be killed as lose a leg; and the
chances are a hundred to one that you won't be hit at all.' 'Well,' said
he as he gave me his hand, 'I hope to see you again; goodbye.' I never
saw him again. He was killed that day. His extreme sadness, his
depression, was perhaps indicative of a conviction or presentiment of
some impending misfortune."

* * * * *

OLD DORCHESTER.

By Charles M. Barrows.

The quaint old Puritan annalist, James Blake, wrote as a preface to his
book of records:

"When many most Godly and Religious People that Dissented from y'e way
of worship then Established by Law in y'e Realm of England, in y'e Reign
of King Charles y'e first, being denied y'e free exercise of Religion
after y'e manner they professed according to y'e light of God's Word and
their own consciences, did under y'e Incouragment of a Charter Granted
by y'e S'd King, Charles, in y'e Fourth Year of his Reign, A.D. 1628,
Remoue themselues & their Families into y'e Colony of y'e Massachusetts
Bay in New England, that they might Worship God according to y'e light
of their own Consciences, without any burthensome Impositions, which was
y'e very motive & cause of their coming; Then it was, that the First
Inhabitants of Dorchester came ouer, and were y'e first Company or
Church Society that arriued here, next y'e Town of Salem who was one
year before them."

Nonconformity, then, was the "very motive and cause" which settled
Dorchester, the oldest town but one in Puritan New England, and planted
there a sturdy yeomanry to whom freedom of conscience was more than home
and dearer than life. Nor was this "vast extent of wilderness" to which
they succeeded by right of purchase from the heirs of Chickatabat any
such narrow area as that of the same name, recently annexed to the city
of Boston. It extended from what is now the northern limit of South
Boston to within a hundred and sixty rods of the Rhode Island line, thus
giving the township a length of about thirty-five miles "as y'e road
goethe." The late Ellis Ames, of Canton, a competent authority, says the
town "was formerly bounded by Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, Wrentham,
Taunton, Bridgewater and Braintree," so that its history is the history
of a large part of the towns in Norfolk county and a portion of Bristol.
The manner in which the original territory has been gradually reduced is
thus told by Mr. Ames: "Milton was set off in 1662; part of Wrentham, in
1724: Stoughton, in 1726; Sharon, in 1765; Foxborough, in 1778; Canton,
in 1797; strips were also set off to Dedham, probably, in 1739; and
before the whole was annexed, portions of the northern part of the town
were set off to Boston, at two several times: in 1804 and in 1855."
Since that date another portion has been severed to make the northern
quarter of Hyde Park. Honorable John Daggett, the historian of
Attleborough, which was then a part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, says
there was a dispute concerning the boundary between Dorchester and that
town, which was finally settled by a conference of delegates, held at
the house of one of his ancestors.

Why those "most Godly and Religious People" chose to settle where they
did rather than on the Charles river, as at first intended, Mr. Blake
proceeds to tell us in his annals. He says they made the voyage from
England to New England in a vessel of four hundred tons, commanded by
Captain Squeb, and that they had "preaching or expounding of the
Scriptures every day of their passage, performed by Ministers." Contrary
to their desires, the ship discharged them and their goods at Nantasket,
but they procured a boat in which part of the company rowed into Boston
harbor and up the Charles river, "until it became narrow and shallow,"
when they went ashore at a point in the present village of Watertown.
But after exploring the open lands about Boston, they finally made
choice of a neck of land "joyning to a place called by y'e Indians
Mattapan," because it formed a natural inclosure for the cattle they had
brought with them, and which, if turned into the open land, would be
liable to stray and be lost. This little circumstance fixed the original
settlement on the marsh now known as Dorchester Neck.

The honor of the name Dorchester appears to belong to Rev. John White,
minister of a town of the same name in the mother country, who planned
and encouraged the exodus to America. But the hardy little band of
exiles who received the title from old Cutshumaquin, the successor of
Chickatabat, little knew what their wild territory was destined to
become in the course of a hundred years. They were loyal subjects of the
English throne, building their log cabins and rude meeting-house on
Allen's Plain under protection of a charter from King Charles; there
they hoped to found a permanent town, where the worship of God should be
maintained in accordance with the dictates of the Puritan conscience,
without interference of churchman, Roman Catholic, Baptist, or Quaker.
There was room in the unexplored forests to the south for pasturage and
for the overflow, whenever, as Cotton Mather said when the whole state
contained less than six thousand white inhabitants, "Massachusetts
should be like a hive overstocked with bees."

The first meeting-house in Dorchester, a very unpretentious structure of
logs and thatch, was completed in 1631, and no free-holder was allowed
to plant his domicile farther than the distance of half a mile from it,
without special permission of the fathers of the town. It stood near the
intersection of the present Pleasant and Cottage streets, and that
portion of the former highway between Cottage and Stoughton streets is
supposed to have been the first road laid out in the early settlement.
Shortly after, this road was extended to Five Corners in one direction,
and to the marsh, then called the Calf Pasture, in the other. The
present names of these extensions are Pond street and Crescent avenue.
From Five Corners a road was subsequently laid out running, north-east
to a point a little below the Captain William Clapp place, where there
was a gate which closed the entrance to Dorchester Neck, where the
cattle were pastured. It was on this street that Rev. Richard Mather,
the first minister of the town, Roger Williams, of Rhode Island fame,
and other distinguished citizens resided. The next undertaking in the
way of public improvements was the building of two important roads, one
leading to Penny Ferry, thus opening a highway of communication with the
sister Colony at Plymouth; the other leading to Roxbury, Brookline and
Cambridge.

In Josselyn's description of the town soon after its settlement may be
read:

"Six myles from Braintree lyeth Dorchester, a frontire Town, pleasantly
situated and of large extent into the maine land, well watered with two
small rivers, her body and wings filled somewhat thick with houses, ...
accounted the greatest town heretofore in New England, but now giving
way to Boston."

Through what hardships and privations this infant freehold was
maintained can be understood by those only, who have read the records of
the colonial struggle against a sterile soil, a rigorous climate, grim
famine, hostile Indians, and a total lack of all the appliances and
comforts of civilization. The years 1631 and 1632 were a period of great
distress to the Dorchester farmers, on account of the failure of their
crops and supplies of provision, and Captain Clapp wrote concerning it:
"Oh! y'e Hunger that many suffered and saw no hope in an Eye of Reason
to be Supplied, only by Clams & Muscles, and Fish; and _Bread_ was
very Scarce, that sometimes y'e very Crusts of my Fathers Table would
have been very sweete vnto me; And when I could have _Meal & Water &
Salt_, boyled together, it was so good, who could wish better. And it
was not accounted a strange thing in those Days to Drink Water, and to
eat _Samp_ or _Homine_ without Butter or Milk. Indeed it would
have been a very strange thing to see a piece of Roast Beef, Mutton, or
Veal, tho' it was not long before there was Roast _Goat_."

In 1740, the same year that Whitefield visited New England, on his
evangelistic mission, the crops were again cut off by untimely frosts,
and Mr. Blake wrote in his annual entry-book: "There was this year an
early frost that much Damnified y'e Indian Corn in y'e Field, and after
it was Gathered a long Series of wett weather & a very hard frost vpon
it, that damnified a great deal more."

It is not unfair to suppose that the habits of rigid economy learned in
this school of adversity influenced the passage of the celebrated law
against wearing superfluities, quite as much as their austere prejudice
against display. Be that as it may, the attention of the court was
called to the dangerous increase of lace and other ornaments in female
attire, and, after mature deliberation, it seemed wise to them to pass
the following wholesome law:

"Whereas there is much complaint of the wearing of lace and other
superflueties tending to little use, or benefit, but to the nourishing
of pride, and exhausting men's estates, and also of evil example to
others; it is therefore ordered that henceforth no person whatsoever
shall prsume to buy or sell within this jurisdiction any manner of lace
to bee worne ore used within o'r limits.

"And no taylor or any other person, whatsoever shall hereafter set any
lace or points vpon any garments, either linnen, woolen, or any other
wearing cloathes whatsoever, and that no p'son hereafter shall be
imployed in making any manner of lace, but such as they shall sell to
such persons but such as shall and will transport the same out of this
jurisdiction, who in such a case shall have liberty to buy and sell; and
that hereafter no garment shall be made w'th short sleeves, whereby the
nakedness of the arm may be discovered in the bareing thereof, and such
as have garments already made w'th short sleeves shall not hereafter
wear the same, unless they cover their armes with linnen or otherwise;
and that hereafter no person whatsoever shall make any garment for
women, or any of their sex, w'th sleeves more than halfe an elle wide in
y'e widest place thereof, and so proportionable for bigger or smaller
persons; and for the p'r sent alleviation of immoderate great sleeves
and some other superfluities, w'ch may easily bee redressed w'th out
much pr udice, or y'e spoile of garments, as immoderate great briches,
knots of ribban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk lases, double
ruffes and caffes, &c."

But the court did not confine itself to prescribing the size of a lady's
sleeves, or the trimming she might wear on her dress: it passed other
timely laws to restrain the idle and vicious and preserve good order
throughout the community. It was ordered in 1632 "that y'e remainder
of Mr. (John) Allen's strong water, being estimated about two gallandes,
shall be deliuered into y'e hands of y'e Deacons of Dorchester for
the benefit of y'e poore there, for his selling of it dyvers tymes to
such as were drunke by it, knowing thereof."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10