Part 8

The very general assumption that there was no permanent settlement in Weymouth, (using the name by which the town has since been known), previous to the arrival of the Hull company, in 1635, can hardly be sustained in face of the very strong evidence to the contrary. C. F. Adams, Jr., Esq., in his address delivered 4 July, 1874, at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the town, and in his paper on the “Old Planters about Boston Harbor,” read before the Massachusetts Historical Society, and published in its collections, “the ablest paper,” says Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., no mean judge of such matters, “ever read before that Society,” proves conclusively that the Gorges company, which settled upon the deserted plantations of Thomas Weston’s people, in September, 1623, and which, it has been usually thought, was wholly broken up in the following spring, left a number of its emigrants there, who remained and became permanent settlers. These were joined from time to time by single families or small companies, until, upon the arrival of Mr. Hull’s company, the settlement had attained to quite respectable proportions.

This ground has been so carefully covered by Mr. Adams in the papers before mentioned, that it will be necessary only to mention very briefly the main facts, and to sustain them by such other evidence as may be had from the court and town records, as well as from private sources.

A careful analysis of these records will show that, instead of the company from Weymouth, England, in 1635, being the first settlers, there were, at the date of its arrival, certainly not less than fifty families, and perhaps seventy or eighty, already residing there; and it is more than possible that this was an important reason why this place was selected by this company for its settlement. A flourishing colony already established, was sufficient evidence of good soil, a good location, a favorable position for trade with the Indians, and for communication with the other plantations about the bay; besides, and this was no insignificant matter in those days, the protection thus afforded against the savages.

More than this, it is probable that many of the previous settlers were relatives or friends of the later arrivals. Lenthal, in his remarks before the Dorchester Council in 1639, says that many of his former people had preceded him, giving this as a reason why he came to Weymouth. The similarity of name, and the localities of some whose former residences are known, give color to this probability; and the name Weymouth, given at this time, 1635, to the plantation, may not be wholly owing to the influx of new people, sailing from Weymouth, in Dorset, but to the calling up of old memories in the minds of previous settlers, who, years before, sailed from the same port and perhaps lived there.

An examination of the public records will afford evidence, surprising in value and volume, of this early and continued settlement. Although the earliest record in the archives of the town bears date 10 December, 1636, and very few entries are prior to 1644-5, yet there are those undated that are probably earlier, and these, with the evidence reflected from later dates, together with corroboration received from other and contemporaneous sources, give additional and strong proof in support of the same.

Thus we have the Gorges colony in 1623, the arrival of a new company from Weymouth, England, the following year, the capture of Morton in 1628, the visit of Gov. Winthrop in 1632, the tax lists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for 1630 and onwards, which include Wessaguscus, and the incidental mention from contemporaneous sources covering nearly all of the intervening time. These afford a firm basis upon which to rest an earlier settlement than that of the Hull company. Later on, and still previous to that arrival, we learn from the colonial records that in March, 1635, the bounds between Wessaguscus and Mount Wollaston were referred to a committee for adjustment, and in the July following, a similar arrangement was made to fix the bounds between it and its next neighbor on the east, Bare-Cove, afterwards Hingham. In October, Richard Long was fined for making clapboards from good trees and selling them out of town, when he had been directed to make them into shingles for Castle Island; the proceeds of the fine to go towards a bridge in Wessaguscus. The Hull company could hardly have been so far advanced in business by this time, as this state of things would indicate; besides, Long was not a member of that company but must have been a prior settler. In March of the next year, Thomas Applegate, also a prior settler, was removed from his position as ferry keeper, and Henry Kingman, one of the new-comers, appointed to succeed him.

The assessment and payment of taxes is usually deemed conclusive evidence in matters with which they come in connection. If there were boundaries to be adjusted, there must have been residents on both sides of the line who were in contention about them. A ferry and a bridge, as means of communication, would hardly be necessary where there was no population.

The earliest of the town records contains a list of land owners with a description of their property. The record is not dated, but the time can be fixed with certainty, within about a year and a half. The names of Elizabeth and Mary Fry, daughters of William Fry, deceased, are upon this list, and as his burial is recorded as having taken place October 26, 1642, the list must have been prepared subsequent to that time. At the close of these property descriptions is the record of the transfer of some of this same property, and it is described in the lists as belonging to the grantors. Two of these transfers bear date 21 and 26 May, 1644, thus showing the latest limit at which it could have been compiled. The true date is probably 1643, and there is reason for believing, from internal evidence, that Rev. Samuel Newman was the compiler, he being at that time a resident of the town, his removal to Rehoboth taking place in 1644.

In this list, which is very incomplete as will be easily seen, there are the names of 71 persons with a general description of the property then owned by them. In these descriptions the names of 17 others are mentioned, from whom some of this property was purchased, or to whom the original grants were made. There are also mentioned as owners of property bounding the different lots described, the names of 52, who do not appear in the other two classes, yet who must have been property owners or they could not have been abuttors, making in all 123, at least, real estate owners at the time the list was made up. Why this large number escaped record we have no means of knowing, but since such is the fact we may reasonably infer that many others may have been omitted altogether, and that the full number was originally much greater; in fact we have evidence that this was so, from incidental mention in the later records. Taking, however, the lists as they come to us, we have the names of 123, without doubt most of them heads of families. These, at an average of five to the family, a moderate estimate for those days, would furnish a population of more than 600.

Of these 123, only 17 are found in the list of the Hull company, 20 March, 1635; the remaining 106 must have come in at some other date. Besides these above mentioned, there are found upon the birth record of Weymouth, previous to 1644, the names of seven, belonging to families not before enumerated, and this record is notoriously incomplete. A careful examination of these 130 families will throw further light upon the matter. Some of them came into the settlement subsequent to 1635, but only a few. Many are known to have been earlier residents. Some came with the Gorges company in 1623, and had resided here since that time, and many others were among the arrivals continually coming in during the eleven intervening years before the arrival of Mr. Hull and his company.

Bursley, Jeffries, and probably Ludden, with several others, were members of the Gorges company. Henry Adams, John Allen, Robert Abell, Stephen French, John Glover, Walter Harris, Edmond Hart, James Parker, Thomas Richards, Thomas Rawlins, Clement Briggs, Richard Sylvester and Clement Weaver, came in 1630, or soon after; William Torrey, as late as 1640, while the large majority were here at the date of the making up of the record, but further than this nothing is known with certainty. From the evidence we have, however, we may fairly presume that many of them were settlers previous to the arrival of Gov. Winthrop, and that some of them were of that company from Weymouth, England, in 1624, of whom Prince makes mention, and of whom something more will be said hereafter. Of the settlers who were here in 1628 and 1630, we know but little beyond the fact that they were here at that date, and that Thomas Morton, of Mount Wollaston, of unpleasant memory, was on intimate terms with some of them, and was arrested by the Plymouth authorities, while on a visit here in 1628.

So, then, our facts relative to the early settlement are briefly these. A permanent settlement in the fall of 1623, by Capt. Robert Gorges and his followers, continual additions during the next four years, the record of the arrest of Morton in 1628, for which the settlement was taxed £2, to £2: 10_s._ for Plymouth, showing the comparative size of the two plantations, casual mention for the following three years, the visit of Gov. Winthrop on his way to and from Plymouth, in 1632, record of births in 1633, and the colonial tax lists from 1630 onwards until the erection of the settlement into a plantation, with the right of a deputy to the General Court.

It will be remembered that the original settlers of Wessaguscus, or Weymouth, were what would now be termed “squatters,” and their titles simply those of possession, the real owners being the Indians, whose rights were general and not individual. The English titles were vested in governmental grants to the large companies like the Plymouth, the Gorges and the Massachusetts Bay. These early settlers came into the territory of Wessaguscus before it fairly was in the possession of either company; consequently they could only acquire such title as the native holders could give them, to be confirmed by later authority, whatever that might be. Weymouth extinguished the Indian title to its territory by purchase; the deed bearing date 26 April, 1642, was executed by the resident chiefs, who sign themselves Wampetuc, alias Jonas Webacowett, Nateaunt and Nahawton, and is recorded among the Suffolk Deeds. Nateaunt’s beach and probable camping ground was at the foot of Great Hill, in North Weymouth. The town was therefore now in a position to confirm the planters in their possessions, and the existence of the list of possessions made soon after, seems to indicate that this was done.

There are reasons why the early contemporaneous records and writers so seldom mention this town and its affairs, in the fact of its different origin, the marked jealousy, not to say unkind feelings with which the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies regarded it. It had a more commercial element in its constitution. It was, also, in its incipience, episcopal in its ecclesiastical relations, which, although gradually relaxing, carried enough of the flavor of the “establishment” with it to make it anything but palatable to the taste of their puritan and independent neighbors. The relations then existing between them and their neighbors about the Bay we cannot determine with certainty now, but we may judge something of what they were by the casual mention, and the incidental exhibitions of feeling, cropping out but too frequently.

If it were the usual custom in the settlement of this country to form churches immediately after taking permanent possession, and of this there can be little doubt, then Wessaguscus should have had a church several years at least before the arrival of Rev. Joseph Hull; and perhaps by a careful study of the facts we have, and the results growing out of them, we may make our probabilities approach more nearly to positive evidence than we have been able heretofore to do, although we may not quite reach the point we wish to attain.

With the Gorges company in the autumn of 1623, came Rev. William Morrell, their minister, a clergyman of the Established Church. He appears to have been a quiet, scholarly gentlemen, of cultivated tastes and refined habits, much better fitted for the duties and enjoyments of an English rectory, than to found and build up a church in the rough settlements of a new country. He could better enjoy the congenial society of his equals, at home, than guide the rude, independent minds of those who constituted his companions in this, to him, wholly unknown enterprise. The whole plan of the undertaking was conceived and started in a spirit particularly unconscious of the real position of affairs where it was to be executed. It was a paper campaign, projected by an impracticable general, and entrusted to incompetent officers. As such the result was inevitable failure. It was started with organization and machinery enough to carry on a colony of the greatest magnitude after years of successful growth; and in order to give it dignity and importance, and to secure the favor of the home government, its ecclesiastical character and position were well cared for in the plan. Mr. Morrell was its minister, sufficient for the needs of its first company. He was the pioneer to whom was intrusted all of the preliminary work that was to speedily result in a flourishing bishopric, and as such he was clothed with ample powers, with full control of all the churches present and in immediate prospect upon these shores. The reality soon satisfied him that the plan was a failure, or that he was not the man to execute it. A rigorous climate, an inhospitable coast, and the companionship of uncongenial spirits were more than he had bargained for and more than he could bear. With the discouragements of many of his associates he sympathized. Thus we find that he remained with his charge about a year and a half and then returned to England, sailing from Plymouth; having had the rare good sense and discretion to keep his ecclesiastical powers and authority to himself, for he did not attempt in the least degree to exercise these, although they were so large, showing them only when about to leave. With this marvellous prospect before him when he undertook the position, and the facilities given him to carry out almost any ideas he may have entertained respecting his ecclesiastical work, however extravagant they may have been, is it presumptuous to suppose that he did not neglect the very first step necessary to carry out the plan of the enterprise, which would be the formation of a local church? We have no positive evidence that he did this, but the probabilities would certainly seem to favor such a proceeding. Without such an organization he could hope to accomplish but little; with it he would have made a beginning and laid the foundations, at least, upon which to erect the imposing structure, that had filled the minds of the original projectors in England.

For the chronicles of the church and minister during the next ten years we have to rely mainly upon a single statement, we might almost say tradition, and that somewhat vague and unsatisfactory. The passage in “Prince’s Chronicles” relating to this settlement seems not to be credited by Mr. Adams, yet it is of such a nature that we can hardly pass it by as entirely without foundation. It reads as follows: “This year comes some addition to the few inhabitants of Wessagusset, from Weymouth, England, who are another sort of people than the former.” Then follows in brackets [“and on whose account I conclude the town is since called Weymouth”]. To this is appended the following note:--“They have the Rev. Mr. Barnard, their first non-conformist minister, who dies among them. But whether he comes before or after 1630, or when he dies is yet unknown, nor do I anywhere find the least hint of him, but in the manuscript letter taken from some of the oldest people of Weymouth.” The authority upon which this whole passage depends is the manuscript letter. The statement is a very important one, and would seem to be entitled to more weight than Mr. Adams is inclined to allow it. Rev. Thomas Prince was born 15 May, 1687, and was old enough before their decease, to know many of those who were the children of the very earliest settlers of the town. From them he undoubtedly obtained the information contained in the manuscript letter. And who were these people and how much value should attach to their testimony? As an answer let us look at the record of a single year, that of 1718, when Mr. Prince was 31 years of age. Among the deaths of that year we find the following:--Samuel, son of Elder Edward Bates, Capt. Stephen French, son of Stephen French, (Edward Bates and Stephen French were members of the Dorchester council, Feb., 1639, in the Lenthal matter, from the Weymouth church); Ichabod, son of Capt. John Holbrook; James, son of Dea. Jonas Humphrey; James, son of Robert Lovell; Lieut. Jacob, son of Capt. James Nash; John, son of Robert Randall; Dea. John, son of Joseph Shaw; William and Jonathan, sons of Capt. William Torrey, and John, son of John Vinson. These were all old men, and their fathers were among the first settlers of the town, and all, fathers and sons, were among its most intelligent and important citizens. This is the record for a single year. While Mr. Prince was in the prime of life there were scores of such, from whom his information would come only second hand. The death of Rev. Samuel Torrey, one of the ablest ministers of his day, the pastor of the church in Weymouth for many years, occurred in 1707, when Mr. Prince was 20 years old, whom he well knew, and whose authority would be unquestioned. Here were sources of information from which he probably drew his account. He has always had the reputation of being a very careful historian, and any statement of his should not be hastily set aside. Mr. Prince himself does not appear to doubt its correctness, but is surprised to find no mention made of the company and the minister, Mr. Barnard, in contemporary writers. As before intimated, satisfactory reason could no doubt be found for such omissions were the relations between the few scattered settlements of the time known to us. If we may not give some credit to this tradition upon such an authority, it will be hardly worth our while to pursue our inquiries further in this direction, for it is by just such incidental testimony, and that alone, that we are to establish much of our proof. And this is often the most satisfactory evidence, for the very reason that it is incidental and indirect, and therefore less liable to be swayed by prejudice or predisposition. Again, the probabilities are strongly in favor of the existence of this Mr. Barnard as the minister; for with such antecedents and surroundings as these early planters had, it would be natural and proper for them to have a minister, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, may we not credit the statement of Mr. Prince, that these settlers at Wessagusset had for their minister, Mr. Barnard, who lived and died among them; and that the statement did not come merely from a confusion of names, consequent upon the appearance of Massachiel Barnard, a member of the Hull company, who made his home in the town for several years? For similar reasons may we not well believe that this people and minister were not without a church for a series of years?

We have no further record of church or minister until 1635, when permission was given, 8 July, by the General Court, for Rev. Joseph Hull and 21 families to sit down at Wessaguscus. On the 2d of September, following, the name of the settlement was changed to Weymouth, and it was made a plantation, with a privilege of a deputy to the General Court. Mr. Hull was also made a freeman at the same time. His first grant of land is recorded as in Weymouth, 12 June, 1636. The same year he also received a grant of land in Hingham. In 1637, he was reported as being still in Weymouth, while the same year, probably later and transiently, he is named among the list of first settlers in Salem. He was also heard from about the same time, preaching at Bass River, Beverly. In September, 1638, he was chosen deputy to the General Court from Hingham, and was also appointed a local magistrate for the same town. His son, Benjamin, was baptized there, 24 March, 1639; and again he was elected its deputy to the General Court. 5 May of that year, he preached his farewell sermon in Weymouth, and later, in the same month, is heard from at Barnstable, in Plymouth colony, making a settlement.

His sojourn at Barnstable was a short and stormy one, for he had hardly become settled there with his little company when the territory was entered upon by Rev. Mr. Lothrop and his flock from Scituate. There his daughter Joanna was married in November, 1639, to Capt. John Bursley, who was unquestionably the Bursley of the Gorges company, at Weymouth, in 1623, whom we find back again in that town as a land owner in 1643. Mr. Hull was made a freeman of Plymouth colony, in December, 1639. There seems to have been trouble in the Barnstable church, and Mr. Hull preached at Yarmouth so acceptably, that, early in 1641 he received a call from the church there, which he promptly accepted, and for which both he and his wife were excommunicated by the Barnstable church. On this account perhaps, and possibly from the influence of the Plymouth authorities, who appear to have become hostile to him, his stay at Yarmouth was of short duration, for we find him as preacher at the Isle of Shoals, in March, 1642. He seems not yet to have wholly abandoned the Plymouth colony, for, 11 March, 1642, his wife Agnes renews her covenant with the Barnstable church, and 7 March, 1643, a warrant for his arrest is issued by the court, “should he continue his ministrations as minister or magistrate in that colony.” His troubles there appear to have been adjusted, for he was received back into the Barnstable church, 10 August, 1643. He now bids a final farewell to that colony, and we next hear of him as preaching at York, Maine, where, or in that vicinity, he remained for 8 or 10 years, subject however to the not very friendly attentions of his Massachusetts Bay colony acquaintances. He afterwards returned to England, and was, in 1659, rector of St. Buryan’s, Cornwall, where he remained about three years, when his name appears among the ejected ministers under the “St. Bartholomew Act.” He again took refuge in America, where he was found, 1665, the year of his death, once more at the Isle of Shoals, having been driven from Oyster River by the Quakers.

Mr. Hull was born in Somersetshire, England, about the year 1590; was educated at Oxford University, St. Mary’s Hall, where he graduated in 1614; became rector of Northleigh, Devon, in 1621, which position he resigned in 1632, when he commenced gathering from his native county and those surrounding it, the company with which he sailed from Weymouth, Dorset, 20 March, 1635.