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Title: Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

Author: William T. Davis

Release date: March 30, 2023 [eBook #70420]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Bittinger Brothers, 1906

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLYMOUTH
MEMORIES OF AN OCTOGENARIAN ***

Wm T. Davis. (signature)

Plymouth Memories
of an Octogenarian

BY

WILLIAM T. DAVIS
Author of “History of Plymouth,” “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth,” History of
“The Massachusetts Judiciary,” History of “The Massachusetts Bar,” etc.
Former President of the Pilgrim Society
Honorary Member of the Connecticut Historical Society
Honorary Member of the Old Colony Historical Society

“A tree that’s severed from its root
Can bear no longer flowers or fruit;
A nation that forgets its past
Is without root and cannot last.”

PRINTED BY THE MEMORIAL PRESS, PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS.

Copyrighted, 1906.
By Bittinger Brothers,
Plymouth, Mass.

PREFACE

By the death of every person something within the range of his study and
knowledge is lost beyond recovery. In publishing this book of memories it
is my desire to rescue from oblivion persons and events coming under my
observation during a long life, and to make a record of habits, customs and
fashions which have prevailed at different periods within my knowledge.
The book is not intended to be either in any sense an autobiography, or a
mere collection of interesting reminiscences, but a legacy which I wish to
leave for the benefit of those coming after me. I cannot permit its
publication without a grateful acknowledgment of the service rendered
during its preparation by friends too numerous to be mentioned by name in
contributing material essential to its approximate completeness and
accuracy.
Wm. T. Davis.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my children with the hope that they
will remember with love and pride their native town,
and be always ready to render it useful service.
WM. T. DAVIS.

CONTENTS
Chapter Page
PREFACE 3
DEDICATION 4
I. 5
II. 10
III. 21
IV. 31
V. 44
VI. 52
VII. 59
VIII. 72
IX. 79
X. 86
XI. 96
XII. 102
XIII. 110
XIV. 120
XV. 131
XVI. 143
XVII. 151
XVIII. 166
XIX. 179
XX. 191
XXI. 204
XXII. 214
XXIII. 223
XXIV. 230
XXV. 238
XXVI. 245

XXVII. 254
XXVIII. 264
XXIX. 280
XXX. 302
XXXI. 310
XXXII. 320
XXXIII. 330
XXXIV. 338
XXXV. 349
XXXVI. 356
XXXVII. 372
XXXVIII. 389
XXXIX. 405
XXXX. 419
XXXXI. 433
XXXXII. 450
XXXXIII. 462
XXXXIV. 473
XXXXV. 479
XXXXVI. 489
XXXXVII. 496
XXXXVIII. 506
XXXXIX. 517
Errata and Addenda 531
INDEX 533

PLYMOUTH MEMORIES OF AN
OCTOGENARIAN

CHAPTER I.
Introductory.
In writing these memories I have in mind both the old and the young.
With the old I may perhaps clear away some of the cobwebs which obscure
their backward glance and reopen to their vision vistas of the past. With the
young I may perhaps show how their fathers and grandfathers lived, and
how through the results of their careers, the comforts and luxuries of the
present generation have been evolved from the simple habits and ways of
living of those who have gone before. An important lesson may be learned
by the young, that, in this process of evolution, the achievements of today
are only the culmination of the continuous labors of earlier generations; that
all we are, and all we know, came to us from our fathers; and that the
wonderful inventions and discoveries of which we boast, as if they were
ours alone, would have been impossible without the lessons taught by the
inventors and discoverers who blazed the way for our feet to tread.
Let me premise, without intending to enter the domain of history, by
answering three questions, which, perhaps oftener than any others, are
asked by visitors, and by young Plymoutheans who are beginning to study
the career of their native town. The first question is—how and from whom
did Plymouth receive its name? This question has been somewhat confused
by the intimation of some writers that the name owes its origin, at least in
part, to the Pilgrims. The facts show conclusively that such is not the case.
In 1614 John Smith arrived on the coast of New England in command of an
expedition fitted out under the patronage of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the
Governor of the castle in old Plymouth. Anchoring his ships near the mouth
of the present Penosbcot river he embarked in a shallop to explore the coast,
with the hope of making such discoveries of mines of gold and copper, and
of finding such opportunities of obtaining a cargo of fish and furs, as would
at least defray the expenses of his expedition. While on his exploring trip he
“drew a map from point to point, isle to isle, and harbor to harbor, with the
soundings, sands, rocks and landmarks,” and gave the country the name of
New England instead of Virginia, the name by which it had been previously

known. Making a chart of the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod, he
placed it on his return in the hands of Gorges, who submitted it to the
inspection of Prince Charles, afterwards Charles the first, who affixed to it
the names of three localities, which have adhered to them up to the present
time. These were, Plymouth, probably named in honor of Gorges, the
governor of the Plymouth castle, and the patron of Smith’s expedition;
Charles River, named after himself, and Cape Ann named after his mother,
Ann of Denmark. Other names affixed by the Prince were Stuard’s Bay for
Cape Cod Bay, Cape James for Cape Cod, Oxford and London for two
localities between Plymouth and what is now Boston, Cheviot Hills for the
Blue Hills, and Bristol, Southampton, Hull, Ipswich, Dartmouth, Sandwich,
Cambridge and Leith.
Nathaniel Morton, in his New England’s Memorial, published in 1669,
suggested that the Pilgrims adopted the name for the above reason, and also
because “Plymouth in old England was the last town they left in their native
country, and because they received many kindnesses from some Christians
there.” It seems to me that Morton was unfortunate in the use of language.
If he had said that the name given by Prince Charles was agreeable to the
Pilgrims on account of its associations with their last port of departure, he
would have undoubtedly spoken the truth, but it should not be stated that a
name, already conferred on the landing place of the Pilgrims, was
originated five years after its well known place on Smith’s map. That the
Pilgrims knew of the name there can be no doubt. Capt. Thomas Dermer
was at Plymouth in the summer of 1620, and wrote a letter to Gorges, dated,
Plymouth, in July of that year, advising any colony of fifty or more to settle
there. That letter must have reached Gorges before the Mayflower sailed
from old Plymouth on the 6th of September, and of its contents the Pilgrims
must have been made acquainted by Gorges, who was their adviser and
friend. Besides, Edward Winslow wrote a letter to England from “Plymouth
in New England,” dated December 11th, 1620, the very day of the Landing,
a date too early for any formal action to have been taken by the Colony
concerning a name for the locality; and further, Winslow uses the term,
“New England,” a title which Smith alone had given to the Northern part or
Virginia, and which probably appeared nowhere else than on his map.
The second question is—when was Plymouth incorporated. The direct
answer to this question, that Plymouth was never incorporated, would be

very unsatisfactory without some explanation of the relations existing
between the Colony and the town of Plymouth. It is all very well to speak
of the settlement of the town instead of its incorporation, and fix the date at
1620, but the precise time, when the line was drawn between the colony and
town, and when the town was clothed by official authority with the
functions of a municipality, it is impossible to fix. In the records of 1626
Plymouth is called a plantation; in a deed dated, 1631, from John to Edward
Winslow, the town of Plymouth is referred to; in accordance with the law
passed by the General Court requiring towns to choose constables, one was
chosen in Plymouth in 1633; and in 1638 at a meeting held for the purpose
of considering the disposition of the gift of stock by James Sherley of
London for the benefit of the poor of the town, it was decided “that the
town should be considered as extending from the lands of Wm. Pontus and
John Dunham (now the lands of Thomas O. Jackson) on the south, to the
outside of New street (now North street) on the north. Finally in the year
1637 the first entry in the town records was made, and on the second day of
November, 1640, it was ordered at a meeting of the Court of Assistants that
“whereas by the Act of the General Court held the third of March in the
sixteenth year of his Majesties now reign, the Governor and Assistants were
authorized to set the bounds of the several townships, it is enacted and
concluded by the Court that the bounds of Plymouth township shall extend
southwards to the bounds of Sandwich township, and northward to the little
brook falling into Black Water from the commons left to Duxbury, and the
neighborhood thereabouts, and westward eight miles up into the lands from
any part of the bay or sea; always provided that the bounds shall extend so
far up into the woodlands as to include the South Meadows toward
Agawam, lately discovered, and the convenient uplands thereabouts.” But
notwithstanding all these references, it is enough to say that Plymouth was
settled in 1620, but never formally incorporated.
The third question is: What was the disease which carried off one-half of
the Plymouth Colony during the first four months after the landing. In
answer to this question only plausible conjectures can be made. Various
theories have been suggested by medical men and others, but unfortunately
insufficient data as to the symptoms and general characteristics of the
epidemic have been handed down to us to enable any definite diagnosis to
be made. Some have suggested smallpox, and some yellow fever, some
cholera and some quick consumption. Some also have raised the question

whether the germs of the disease, which swept off the Indians living in
Plymouth four or five years before, still lurking in the soil or in vegetation,
might not have retained sufficient vitality to develop in the human system.
This last suggestion would afford little satisfaction, for the question would
remain unsolved as to the nature of the disease. After much thought given to
the matter, I have come to what I think is the most natural conclusion, that
the disease was what was well known in the days of Irish immigration,
before ocean steam navigation was available, as ship fever. Many readers
will remember that packet ships and transient vessels were constantly
arriving at New York and Boston, crowded with immigrants—after long
passages from England, and that long confinement below deck resulted
frequently in the breaking out of ship fever and caused serious mortality.
The voyage of the Mayflower from Southampton to Cape Cod harbor was
more than ninety days in length, and during that time imperfect ventilation
and inadequate nourishment in a vessel of only one hundred and eighty
tons, carrying within her walls one hundred and twenty crew and
passengers, must have furnished all the conditions necessary for the
presence of that terrible infection, which in our own day was so fatal to the
immigrants from Ireland.
Let me further premise, in closing this introductory chapter, by saying
that, of events occurring during a period of seventy-five years, of the
changes in the external character of Plymouth, and of the manners and
customs and ways of living of its people, I have a distinct recollection.
Some of these, at a still earlier period, I can imperfectly recall. For instance
in 1825, when I was a few months more than three years of age, my mother
carried me on a visit to her father in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and while I
recall nothing of the voyage made in a fishing schooner on her way to the
Grand Banks, the accuracy of my memory concerning many localities in
Shelburne, was confirmed on a visit to that place twenty-six years later in
1851. My grandfather, Gideon White, a native of Plymouth, and a
descendant from Peregrine White, was a loyalist during the revolution, and,
holding a Captain’s commission in the British army, served with his
regiment in Jamaica during the war. With other loyalists he settled in
Shelburne, where, receiving the appointment of Provincial Judge, he
afterwards lived, making occasional visits to England, but none to the
United States, until his death in 1833. He married Deborah Whitworth, the
daughter of Miles Whitworth, a British Army surgeon, and four of his

children married in Boston and Plymouth and Cambridge, while a son
graduated at Harvard in 1812.
I remember, too, that at the age of four, in 1826, I was carried to my first
school. It was kept by Mrs. Martha Weston, who was known as Mrs. Patty,
or more generally Ma’am Weston, the widow of Coomer Weston, and
grandmother of our townsman, Myles S. Weston, in the house on North
street, the third below that of Miss Dr. Pierce, not long since occupied by
Wm. W. Brewster. I remember well the school room, its sanded floor and
the cricket on which I sat. From that dear old lady, with a pleasant smile and
kindly voice, I first tasted the “sweet food of kindly uttered knowledge.”
She died July 27, 1841, and but few of her scholars can now be left to join
with me in blessing her memory.

CHAPTER II.
Before proceeding to a general consideration of the streets and ways of
Plymouth, and their changes, this is a fitting place to refer to an important
alteration, in one of its chief highways, which, though occurring during my
life time, is a little beyond the scope of my memory. In ancient times the
route from Plymouth to Sandwich was through the district of “half way
ponds,” which thus received its name. When a stage line between the two
towns was established the route ran through Chiltonville, leaving
Bramhall’s corner on the right, and passing over Eel River bridge, turned to
the right and by a diagonal course reached a point on the present road near
the estate of Mr. Jordan. At that time the road through Clark’s valley by the
cotton factory extended no farther south than the cross roads leading to the
Russell Mills on the west, and by the old Edes & Wood factory on the east.
In 1825 this road was extended, making a junction with the old road, and
thus establishing the present Plymouth and Sandwich highway.
In 1830 there were in Plymouth, north of Bramhall’s corner in
Chiltonville, seventeen streets so called, thirteen lanes, three squares, nine
places and ways, and four alleys, concerning all of which something will be
said in their order. The streets were Court, Howland, Main, North, Water,
Middle, Leyden, School, Market, Spring, High, Summer, Pleasant,
Sandwich, Commercial, Green and South streets. Court street, which took
its present name by a vote of the town in 1823, owes its origin to no formal
laying out. It practically followed the old Massachusetts path, and was a
way of necessity gradually evolved from a footway, and bridle path, and
cart way to its present condition. There is a tradition, which needs
confirmation, that opposite the head of the present Murray street, it once
made a detour to the west through the valley in the rear of the houses of Mr.
Charles G. Hathaway and others, and came out into the present road at
some point beyond Cold Spring. There seems to have been no necessity for
such a detour, and no available route for it to pursue, and I am inclined to
the belief that the tradition is unfounded. There is another tradition, which
may also be distrusted, that Tinker’s Rock Spring, now known as Cold

Spring, was removed by an earthquake in 1755 from the east to the west
side of the street, where it now flows. There can be no doubt that it once
flowed on the east side, but I was told by Mr. John Kempton Cobb, who
always lived in the neighborhood of the spring, and would be now, if he
were living, one hundred and nineteen years of age, that it was moved by
owners of a pasture on the west side to supply water for their cattle. Within
my own knowledge for many years the water after it left the pipe, turned
into and out of the pasture referred to, before it crossed the street and passed
through the Nelson field on its way to the harbor. When the trench was
opened in 1904 for the purpose of laying a sewer, I noticed that the water
from the site of the old spring on the east side was conveyed to the present
outlet, through a pipe laid across the street, for which the story of the
earthquake would fail to account. The boundaries of Court street,
notwithstanding widenings and straightenings in various places, have
remained practically as they were in 1830, except in two places. Until 1851,
at what is now the head of Murray street, there was a watering place on the
east side, through which teams were driven to water their horses. In the
above year the easterly line of the street was straightened, and the old
watering place thrown into the adjoining lots. The brook at this place was
called “second brook” by the Pilgrims, the “first brook” being that which in
my boyhood was called “Shaw’s brook,” and which flows, or recently did
flow, between the houses of Mrs. Helen F. Hedge and Mr. Ripley, through
pipes under the brick block to the harbor. The above mentioned “second
brook” flows from a spring just within the lot on the west side of the street,
and the bridge over it was long ago the terminus of the evening walks of
loving couples who, as they turned for home formally rechristened the
bridge in the most natural way as “Kissing bridge.” The other place where
the street underwent an important change was at the corner of North street,
which in 1892 was cut off to meet the necessities of travel then increased by
the recent construction of the street railway.
The greatest change which Court street has passed through in my day, has
been brought about by the rows of elm trees along its sidewalks, all of
which have been set out since 1830, and most of them as far as Cold Spring
by the late Andrew L. Russell, to whose public spirit the town is chiefly
indebted for one of its crowning glories. In the above year the only shade
trees within the bounds of Main and Court streets, between Town Square
and Cold Spring, were two ash trees in front of the house on the southerly

corner of North street. North of the trees set out by Mr. Russell were the old
mile tree, which stood in front of the estate of the late Joab Thomas, and the
trees beyond the estate of Mrs. Knapp, for which the town is indebted to the
late Leavitt T. Robbins, father of our late townsman of the same name. The
mile tree was struck by lightning in 1829, and not long after was blown
down and replaced by that now standing. The beauty which these trees have
added to the town, even lending grace and ornament to the many houses of
ordinary styles of architecture along Court street, suggests a remark made
many years ago by John Quincy Adams, while walking with a friend one
bleak cloudy day in March, in reply to his companion who had expressed a
wonder that the Pilgrims settled here. “Oh,” Mr. Adams answered, “you
must remember that there were no houses here then.” Mr. Adams must have
been another Jonathan who

“Said he could not see the town
There were so many houses.”

Howland street was laid out August 6, 1728, by Thomas Howland,
through his land, and by deed of that date, under the name of Howland
street, was dedicated to public use. For more than a hundred years it
extended only as far as the present westerly line of the Gas works land,
though originally laid out to the shore, but on the tenth of September, 1859,
it was formally laid out in accordance with the original intent of Mr.
Howland.
Main street, once called Hanover street, like Court street, was one of the
original ways, not formally laid out, but from time to time changed along its
lines. The first important change was effected May 26, 1851, by
straightening the westerly line from the corner of the land now owned by
Wm. P. Stoddard, to the Plymouth Bank Building. Up to that time the
Thomas house, now the Plymouth tavern, had a front yard perhaps twenty
feet deep, and the law office of Wm. Thomas was on the southeast corner of
the lot. Next south of the Thomas house and land, was an old house built
out to the Thomas line, and both estates were cut off at the above date, thus
establishing the present line of the street. Another important change was
made August 3, 1886, by running a new line on the westerly side from the
bank to Town Square, moving all the buildings back to the line, and giving
the street at the narrowest point between Middle and Leyden streets, a width

of fifty-eight feet seven inches. Its present name of Main street was adopted
by the town in 1823. Middle street was laid out August 6, 1725, by Jonathan
Bryant, Consider Howland, Isaac Little and Mayhew Little, owners of the
land “for and in consideration of the public good, and for the more regular
and uniform situation of the town of Plymouth, and to be forever hereafter
called King street.” At the time of the revolution it informally received its
present name, which was finally adopted by the town in 1823, and on the
6th of March, 1899, it was widened to its present width. The way from the
foot of the street to Water street, which for the purposes of this narrative,
may be considered a part of the street, was laid out September 21, 1768, and
May 13, 1807.
Two remarkable coincidences have occurred in connection with Middle
street. In the early part of the 18th century one of the Bryant family kept a
tavern on the corner of Main and Middle streets, which is called on the
records Bryant’s tavern, and in 1834 Danville Bryant kept a tavern on the
same site. The other coincidence relates to the third Parish, which was
established in Middle street, and built a meeting house in 1744, where the
house occupied by Mr. Frink now stands. Rev. Thomas Frink of Rutland,
Vt., was settled as its pastor, and more than a hundred years later our
present townsman, bearing the same name, came to Plymouth, and now
lives on the same site. These coincidences are constantly occurring as if
men were mere puppets following unconsciously certain predestined lines.
When the Plymouth Woolen Mill went into operation about 1865, a
Scotchman by the name of Fernside was employed as a wool sorter. After
the manufacture of flannels was abandoned he bought and settled on land in
Duxbury, which a man of the same name occupied more than two hundred
years before. A story of what perhaps may be called a coincidence, was told
me by our townsman Wm. Burns. He came from Scotland, and on his
arrival between 1850 and 1860, was employed in the Cordage Company’s
store at Seaside. One day a man drove up to the store, and as he alighted,
Mr. Burns said to him, “Good morning, Mr. Glass,—when did you come
over?” “What do you mean by coming over?” replied the man. “Why, from
Scotland,” said Mr. Burns. “I never was in Scotland, my ancestors have
lived in Duxbury since about 1640.” “Is not your name Glass?” continued
Mr. Burns. “Yes,” said the man. “Why, I thought you were Mr. Glass, a
neighbor of mine in Scotland,” said Mr. Burns. This may, however, not have
been a coincidence, but a remarkable perpetuation of a family type. I have

had in my own experience more than one illustration of the descent of
family types, through many generations, one of which recently occurred. A
stranger met me in the street and asked me if I was Mr. Davis. I said, “Yes,
and your name is Howland.” “How do you know that?” he asked, “I have
never seen you before.” I said, “I know by your hand with its web fingers,”
instances of which I have known in five generations of the family of Henry
Howland, one of the early members of the Plymouth Colony. It is true that
he might have descended from a female Howland, and thus borne another
name, but I was right in calling him by that name.
North street was laid out in 1633, and at various times was called New
street, Queen street, Howland street and North street, which last name was
adopted by the town in 1823. The upper half of the street, on its northerly
side, has been changed since 1830 by the erection of the following houses;
that of Dr. Brown, built in 1833 by Jacob Covington, on the site of the old
Marcy house; the next house built in 1830 by Rev. Frederick Freeman, the
pastor of the Trinitarian Congregational church; the easterly addition of the
house of the late Edward L. Barnes on the site of the house of Capt. William
Rogers, and the house now occupied by Isaac M. Jackson, built about 1850,
by Thomas T. Jackson, on the site of a house, which within my memory,
was occupied by William Morton Jackson, and Richard Bagnall and others.
On the upper half of the street on the southerly side the following houses
have been built since 1830; that built in 1838 by Ebenezer G. Parker, the
cashier of the Old Colony Bank, and now occupied by the Misses Russell;
that built in 1832 by Mrs. Betsey H. Hodge, recently occupied by Mrs.
Thomas B. Drew; that occupied by Benjamin A. Hathaway, and built by
Abraham Jackson on the site of one previously occupied by him, which was
built about 1745 by Colonel George Watson; and finally the public library
building built by the heirs of William G. Russell and Mary Ellen, his wife,
on a part of the old Jackson land.
On the lower half of the street there have been several changes in its
boundaries. From the way leading to the oil works, as Winslow street was
called, at a point in front of the Willoughby house, there was for many years
a way with steps running easterly and reaching the street below at an acute
angle, thus breaking the continuity of the stone wall bounding the street.
About 1858, while I was chairman of the selectmen, the board discontinued
this way, and rebuilt the wall on a continuous line.

On the other side of the street there was another way with steps at its
upper and lower ends opening opposite the northerly door of the Plymouth
Rock House, and reaching the street below immediately above the house
which stood on the corner of Water street. This way has also been
discontinued by the selectmen. Through my youth a row of balm of Gilead
trees stood below the wall extending from the elm tree in front of the house
of Mrs. Ruth H. Baker to the way above mentioned. The Linden tree
standing on the corner of Cole’s Hill, has an interesting romance associated
with it. The tree was planted by a youthful couple as a memorial of their
engagement, and when not long afterwards, in 1809, the engagement was
discontinued, and the memorial was no longer prized by the lady in whose
garden it had been planted, she one day pulled it up, and threw it into the
street. My father, who happened to pass at the time, picked it up and planted
it where it now stands. He lived in the house now known as the Plymouth
Rock House, where he died in 1824, and under his careful nursing it
survived its treatment, and has grown into the beautiful tree, now blessing
so many with its grateful shade. In that house I was born in 1822, and lived
until I was more than twenty years of age, and hundreds of times I have
climbed the branches of the Linden, often with book in hand, seeking
shelter from the summer sun.
North street received a new laying out February 11, 1716, and still
another on the 7th of October, 1765, and after the estates on Water street
below Cole’s Hill had been bought by the Pilgrim Society in 1856, and
other dates, land was thrown out by the society, and the corner rounded.
So far as the houses on the lower half of North street are concerned,
several changes have occurred since 1830. In my boyhood the double house
now partly occupied by Miss Catherine Kendall, was a single house,
occupied by the widow of Edward Taylor, who was then the wife of John
Blaney Bates, whom she married in 1807. After the death of Mrs. Bates and
her husband, whom I well remember, Jacob and Abner Sylvester Taylor,
sons of Mrs. Bates, remodelled the house and divided it into two tenements.
John Blaney Bates, the second husband of Mrs. Taylor, was one of the most
skilful masons and master builders in southeastern Massachusetts, and was
largely engaged in enterprises in other towns. He built the Plymouth Court
House in 1820, the Barnstable Court House, and as many as eight or ten
brick or stone dwelling houses on Summer street and Winthrop Place in

Boston. A contract to build a house of hammered stone for George Bond in
Winthrop Place, proved a disastrous one, and terminated his business career.
After the failure of Whitwell and Bond, the house referred to was sold to
Henry Cabot, the grandfather of Henry Cabot Lodge, and occupied by him
until Winthrop Place was extended to Franklin street, and made a part of the
present Devonshire street. Mr. Bates, as I remember him, was in his later
days an inveterate sportsman, and would often spend hours behind an ice
hummock, when the harbor was partially frozen, waiting for a possible shot
at ducks in a sheet of open water near by. He died in 1831.
His stepsons, the Taylor brothers, who learned their mason’s trade with
him, also became skilful workmen and contractors in Plymouth and
neighboring towns. In 1824 they built Pilgrim Hall for the Pilgrim Society,
and Mr. Taylor told me that when they signed the contract in July, the stone
was lying undisturbed in a virgin rock on the easterly side of Queen Ann’s
turnpike in Weymouth, and the timber stood uncut in the forests of Maine.
So expeditiously, however, was the work performed that the hall was
occupied by the Society at the anniversary celebration in the following
December.
The house next east of the Taylor house was built in 1829 by the Messrs.
Taylor on land of the Taylor estate. The Taylors had completed in that year
their contract to build Long wharf and, having considerable material left,
they put it into this house. I remember hearing it said that the partitions, and
perhaps the walls, were constructed of some of the plank used in covering
the wharf, and were consequently unusually solid and firm. The story was
told that when Deacon Wm. P. Ripley, who bought the house, went to
inspect it, he was told by one of the brothers that the partitions were so
impervious to sound that conversation could not be heard from room to
room. To confirm his statement he invited the Deacon to test it. After the
doors were closed, the Deacon in one room and Mr. Taylor in another, the
former called out loudly—“Do you hear?” and the answer “No,” came
promptly back. The Deacon evidently was willing to take Mr. Taylor’s
word, thus confirmed, and bought the house. Deacon Ripley, son of
Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Bartlett) Ripley, was born in Plymouth in 1775,
and after his first marriage in 1805, owned and occupied the house on
Summer street, which after 1845 was owned and occupied by Benjamin
Hathaway. He kept a dry goods store in that house many years, and after the

sale of the house in 1833 to the heirs of Robert Dunham, the store was
occupied by the millinery establishment of Mrs. Thomas Long, one of the
heirs. After giving up the store, Deacon Ripley entered into a partnership
with his son-in-law, Andrew S. March, in Boston, under the firm name of
Ripley & March, 21 Central street, but finally returned to Plymouth and
took the store afterwards occupied by Southworth Barnes, on the site of the
present Sherman block. He died November 10, 1842, and in the next year
the house on North street was sold to Phineas Wells, to whom reference will
be hereafter made.
Within my recollection no persons have been universally called Deacons,
irrespective of their church connections, besides Deacon Ripley and Deacon
John Hall. The latter was many years Deacon of the Baptist church, and was
a farmer living at the corner of Court and Hall streets, where he raised a
family of sons, well known by the last generations as industrious, useful
and worthy citizens.
In his church he was the supervisor of every act. I remember that on one
occasion the minister announced from the pulpit that on the next Thursday
evening “the Lord willing, there will be a prayer meeting in this house, the
weather permitting, if Deacon Hall has no objections, and on Friday
evening, whether or no.”
In middle life the Deacon bought a sloop and employed her in fishing,
and in taking fishing parties into the bay. He scorned the fishing ledges
generally resorted to, such as the Offer ledge, the House ledge, Faunce’s
ledge and the Thrum Caps, and fished on ledges of his own, the bearings of
which he kept to himself. I was with him once, one of a party of ten, and
before ten o’clock, the party caught one hundred and sixty cod and one
hundred and forty haddock. In those days haddock were thought an inferior
fish, and were difficult to dispose of in the Plymouth market at one cent a
pound. In fact, they were not even dignified by the name of “fish,” and I
remember hearing a servant ordered to get a fish at the fish market, and if
he could not get a fish, to get a haddock.
But some critical person found worms between the flakes of a codfish,
and then another discovered that a haddock made a superior fry, and still
another that in a chowder the flesh of a haddock was firmer than that of a
codfish, and finally both came to be held in equal estimation. In my early

days no lover of salt cod would eat anything but dunfish, and Deacon Hall
was the only person in Plymouth, who cured them, Swampscott being
generally looked to for a supply. They received their name from their dun
color, which was of a reddish brown. They were caught in the spring, slack
salted, and when partially dry, piled in a dark room covered with seaweed.
After several weeks they were repiled, and after several weeks more, they
were ready to be eaten.
In my mother’s day short, thick fish were selected for the table, and every
Saturday three were served with a napkin above and below, the upper one
being removed to the kitchen, and the middle one eaten, while the other two
supplied minced fish for Sunday’s breakfast, and the Monday washing day
dinner. A slice of dunfish cut up with potatoes, beets, carrots and onions,
well covered with pork scraps and sweet oil, judiciously peppered, makes a
dinner, which, with the white salt fish of today, it is impossible to prepare.
Fish balls were not in vogue in my early days, but gradually took the place
of mince fish, especially Sunday morning. Baked beans, now improperly
called distinctively a New England dish, were according to my recollection,
unknown in Plymouth, and were associated exclusively with Beverly,
whose people were called Beverly beaners. A story was told of a vessel at
sea running down to a schooner in distress, and finding that she was from
Beverly, and out of beans. The first dish of baked beans I ever saw, was on
a club dining table in Cambridge, after I entered college in 1838.
Deacon Hall understood the art of making a chowder as well as that of
curing dunfish, or if his fishing party preferred a muddle, that is, a chowder
with no potatoes and less liquor, he was equally skilful. Real lovers of fish
and seafaring men I have generally found liked the muddle, as perhaps the
following incident will attest. Capt. Ignatius Pierce, a man of dry humor,
spent a number of years in California, never intimating in his letters any
intention of an immediate return home. His wife, about nine o’clock one
morning, received a telegram from him in Boston, merely saying, “have a
muddle for dinner.”
The good Deacon would have been amused at the following description
of the ingredients of a genuine New England chowder by a professor of
modern languages in the University of Virginia, in a work published by him
in 1872, “A many sided dish of pork and fish, potatoes and bread, onions
and turnips all mixed up with fresh chequits and seabass, black fish and

long clams, pumpkinseed, and an accidental eel, well peppered and salted,
piled up in layers, and stewed together.” If such a dish as that had been
placed before the Deacon he would in a changed form have followed the
directions for cooking a coot—to wit, shoot your coot, pick it, parboil it,
stuff it, roast it, baste it, and then throw it away.

CHAPTER III.
During my early life a house stood in North street between the house of
Mrs. Ruth H. Baker and the present Plymouth Rock House, concerning the
occupants of which I must say a word. It was a double house, the westerly
end of which was occupied by Ebenezer Drew, his wife Deborah, or Aunt
Debby, as she was called, and his brother Malachi. Ebenezer had no
children and Malachi was a bachelor. They were the salt of the earth and the
salt had not lost its savor. Without the three it would have been difficult for
some of the neighbors, including my mother, to keep house. Malachi
repaired the leaks in the roof, eased the doors, mended the chairs and kept
the house generally in running order. Uncle Eben did the chores, fed and
scratched the pig, sawed, split and piled the wood and wheeled our corn to
the mill, taking care that Sylvanus Maxim, the miller, did not take out too
much toll. In those days, every family bought or raised its own corn and
sent it to the mill to be ground. When the steamboat arrived, if one
happened to be running, Eben was always on the wharf with his handcart
ready to take the luggage of passengers to their homes. I can see the old
man now scraping with his jackknife the apples I occasionally gave him,
which, with his loss of teeth, he could neither bite nor chew. He died
January 6, 1851, at the age of 77 years.
But chief of “the blessed three” was Aunt Debby. She assisted in making
soap and candles, would nurse the sick, diagnose the various diseases of
children, such as measles, by their smell, administer picra and “yarb” tea,
staunch the blood of a cut finger with cobwebs and with the buds of the
balsam poplar, or balm of Gilead, heal the wound. She was the forerunner,
too, of those who with no more accuracy than she exhibited, foretell the
number of a winter’s snow storms. In my college vacation my first visit was
always to her, and at Thanksgiving time it was often my privilege to bear a
turkey and a couple of pies to her scanty board. She died April 15, 1844, at
the age of 72. Peace to her ashes.
The easterly part of the house was occupied by William Collingwood, a
worthy and intelligent Englishman, the father of our respected townsmen,

George and James Bartlett Collingwood. He had been a manufacturer of
pottery in Sunderland, in the shire of Durham, but owing to reverses he was
induced to come to America, and took passage in 1819 with Capt. Plasket of
Nantucket, bringing with him his wife Eleanor (Harrow) Collingwood and
two sons, George and William, one year old. He settled in Nantucket, the
home of Capt. Plasket, where he remained until 1825, when James Bartlett,
who, with others, owned two ships in the whale fishery, induced him to
come to Plymouth and take charge of the oil and candle works then recently
established, which were situated between the house of the late Jesse R.
Atwood and the shore. As long as the works remained in operation he was
at their head, and afterwards for a time kept a restaurant at the corner of
North and Water streets. He died in Plymouth in 1866, at the age of 76, and
his wife died in 1884, at the age of 90. Three of Mr. Collingwood’s sons
died in the civil war. Joseph W., born in Nantucket January 5, 1822, was
captain in Company H, 18th Massachusetts regiment, and died in a field
hospital December 24, 1862, of wounds received at the battle of
Fredericksburg on the 13th of that month. John B., born December 30,
1825, was adjutant of the 29th Massachusetts regiment and died in St.
John’s Hospital in Cincinnati, August 21, 1863. Thomas, born November
10, 1831, was a corporal in Company E, 29th Massachusetts regiment, and
died at Camp Banks, Crab Orchard, Ky., August 31, 1863.
In 1843 Mrs. Collingwood was summoned to England to secure by
identification an inheritance of property. She had then reached middle life,
but, nevertheless, without a companion or attendant, she sailed on the 1st of
July in the above year in the Cunard steamer Columbia, from Boston for
Halifax and Liverpool. The Columbia, like all the earliest boats of the
Cunard line, was a paddle wheel boat of about 1,200 tons. I know very well
what those boats were, for I made a passage in the Hibernia of the same line
in March, 1847, and I often wonder that in such small crafts, with one
wheel buried in every roll of the sea, passengers were willing to expose
themselves to the hazards of a winter passage. On Sunday, the second day
out, when 240 miles from Boston, while still in charge of the pilot who, in
accordance with the custom prevailing while the steamers called at Halifax,
remained on board, the Columbia, in a thick fog, having been carried out of
her course by an unusual Bay of Fundy current, struck a sloping rock on
Black Ledge about a mile and a quarter from Seal Island, and 25 miles from
Barrington, Nova Scotia, the nearest port on the mainland. Fortunately the

sea was smooth and when the fog lifted a fishing schooner nearby came to
the ship and with the boats of the steamer transferred to the island the
passengers, 95 in number, including those in the steerage, and 73 officers
and men, with luggage and the mails. The cargo was eventually saved, but
the ship was a total loss. While on the island a sort of colonial government
was established with Mr. Abbot Lawrence of Boston, one of the passengers
at its head, to prevent excesses and possible disturbance, and a passing
vessel was sent to Halifax with news of the wreck. In due time the steamer
Margaret took them to that port, most of the passengers and crew
continuing their passage in her to Liverpool. For the kindness and attention
shown to Mrs. Collingwood by Mr. Lawrence she was always grateful. The
valet of Mr. Lawrence was James Burr, a colored boy from Plymouth, who
often with pride recounted to me the story of his adventure.
It is a little singular that our townsman, Robert Swinburn, recently
deceased at an advanced age, came to Plymouth when a young man from
Sunderland, the town in which Mr. Collingwood lived, and where he also
was engaged in the employment of a potter, and should twenty years later
than the voyage of Mrs. Collingwood have been also summoned to England
for the purpose of obtaining an inheritance. A circumstance connected with
the loss of the Columbia, which reminds us of the changes which have
occurred in the facilities of communication, is the fact that the news of the
wreck, which occurred on Sunday, the 2d of July, did not reach Boston until
Sunday, the 9th.
I have given the loss of the Columbia a prominence in these memories
because it was the only loss which the Cunard company has suffered during
its career of 64 years, except that of the Oregon, a steamer sold to the
company by another line after a collision and a transfer of her passengers to
another vessel, which foundered near Fire Island. Two other ocean steamers
had been previously lost, the President, with all on board, in 1841, and the
West India packet steamer Solway, off Corunna, in April, 1843, with her
captain and fifty lives.
Returning from this digression to North street, from which I have
wandered long and far, I wish to correct a statement, based on
misinformation, made by me in “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth,” that the
Willoughby house, built by Edward Winslow in 1755, was confiscated. Mr.
Winslow held the office of collector of the port of Plymouth, registrar of

wills and clerk of the superior court of common pleas, and the salaries from
these offices, though he was not a rich man, enabled him to live in luxury
and ease. He was generous to the poor and lavish in his entertainment of
families in the aristocratic circles. He was a loyalist of the most pronounced
type, and consequently lost his offices at the breaking out of the revolution.
As nearly as I can learn from family records he remained in Plymouth
several years, evidently assisted by friends, some of whom in a quiet way
shared his loyalty to the king. In December, 1781, he reached the British
garrison in New York with a part of his family, the remainder joining him at
a later period. Sir Henry Clinton allowed him a pension of £200 per annum,
with rations and fuel. On the 30th of August, 1783, he embarked with his
wife, two daughters and three colored servants from New York and arrived
at Halifax on the 14th of September. He died in Halifax the next year, 70
years of age. The house in question was taken on execution by his creditors,
consisting of the town of Plymouth, Thomas Davis, William Thomas,
Oakes Angier and John Rowe, and in 1782, 1789, 1790 and 1791 it was
sold by the above parties to Thomas Jackson. In 1813 it passed under an
execution from Thomas Jackson to his cousin, Charles Jackson, the father
of the late Dr. Charles T. Jackson and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Edward Winslow, son of the above, graduated in Harvard in 1765, and at
the time of the revolution was naval officer of the port of Plymouth and
held the offices of clerk of the court and register of probate jointly with his
father. He joined the British army in Boston and went with Lord Percy on
his disastrous expedition to Lexington and Concord, and was later
appointed by Gen. Gage collector of Boston and register of probate for
Suffolk county. At the evacuation of Boston, March 17, 1776, he went with
the army to Halifax, where he was made by Sir William Howe secretary of
the board of general officers, of which Lord Percy was president, for the
distribution of donations to the troops. He afterwards went to New York and
was appointed muster master general of the forces, and acted in that
capacity during the war. In 1779 he was chosen by refugees in Rhode Island
to command them, and served during two campaigns. After the war he was
military secretary until the death of his father, and in 1785 went to New
Brunswick, where he held the positions of king’s counsellor and paymaster
of contingencies, and died in 1815.

In the Winslow house above referred to Ralph Waldo Emerson married,
August 22, 1835, Lydia Jackson, daughter of Charles and Lucy (Cotton)
Jackson. I have a distinct recollection of the first time I ever saw Mr.
Emerson, and I have no doubt that it was the first time he ever visited
Plymouth. It was, I feel sure, in 1833, soon after he left the pulpit of the
Second Unitarian church in Boston and after he had begun his career as a
lecturer. It is said that his first lecture was delivered before the Boston
Mechanics Institute on the very practical subject of “Water.” At the time
referred to he lectured in Pilgrim Hall on Socrates, and was the guest of
Nathaniel Russell, whose daughter, Mary Howland Russell, born in 1803,
was an intimate friend of Lydia Jackson, born in 1802. I believe that I am
justified in assuming that on that visit he first saw his future wife. I
remember well his appearance and manners on the lecture platform, and as
a boy of eleven years I thought him oracular and dull. In the same year the
wandering piper with his kilt and bagpipe appeared also in Pilgrim Hall,
and Potter, the ventriloquist, entertained audiences by swallowing swords,
and I am almost afraid to say that the exhibitions gave me more pleasure
than the lecture. But my eyes had not at that early age been opened. Dr.
Holmes once asked an English gentleman to whom he had just been
introduced, how he liked America, and on receiving the reply that he had
been in the country only nine days, told him that a pup required only nine
days to open its eyes. But the doctor never hesitated to sacrifice courtesy for
the sake of a joke, as the following story will further show: Hearing one
evening at a party the name of a gentleman present, whom he had never
seen before, he asked him if he were a relative of an apothecary of that
name, and on receiving the answer that he was his son, he told him that he
thought he recognized in his face the “liniments” of his father. But to return
to Mr. Emerson, my eyes have been opened.
In concluding the changes which have occurred in North street within my
recollection, it only remains to be said that the Manter building on the
corner of Water street was removed in 1859 from Pilgrim wharf, and stands
on land formerly occupied by a tenement house, and by a small one-story
building occupied by Thomas Maglathlen.
Water street, including its extension, was laid out by various acts of the
town, as follows: On the 16th of February, 1715, in 1762, on the 4th of
April, 1881, the 9th of December, 1893, and the 22d of June, 1895. The

changes on the extension of the street, caused by the erection of the woolen
mill of Mr. Mabbett, the utilization of the old Jackson lumber yard by Mr.
Craig and the erection of the Brockton and Plymouth trolley electric plant,
have been so recent that no reference to them is necessary. With the
exception of the foundry, which was built to take the place of the foundry
burned in 1856, and the electric light building on the corner of Leyden
street, no new structure has changed in my day the general character of the
street.
In my youth, and later, there were eight buildings on the westerly side of
the street between North street and the steps at the foot of Middle street. In
the rear of these houses there were two terraces supported by stone walls,
and some of the houses were entered by flights of steps leading down from
the top of the hill. In 1856, and in the years immediately succeeding, the
Pilgrim Society bought all these estates, and after the removal of the houses
graded the slope as it is seen today. The granite steps from the surface of the
hill to the canopy over the Rock was built by private subscription. The
graded bank is the property of the Pilgrim Society, and the surface of the
hill, which belongs to the town, was placed by a vote of the town under the
superintendence and care of the society.
Until recently there were also eight buildings between the way leading to
the Middle street steps and the grass bank on Leyden street. By the will of J.
Henry Stickney of Baltimore, who died May 3, 1893, the sum of $21,000
was given to a board of trustees for the purpose of buying and removing
these houses and grading the bank. The board of trustees consists of the
chairman of the selectmen, the presidents of the two national banks, the
president and secretary of the Pilgrim Society, the president of the
Plymouth Savings Bank, and the judge of probate and treasurer of
Plymouth county, and their successors in said offices. All the estates have
been bought except that owned by Winslow Brewster Standish, and the
grading as far as practicable has been done.
The only remaining change in the street to be referred to is that
associated with Pilgrim wharf and the Rock. Until 1859 the wharf was
devoted to commercial uses. In that year the upper part of the wharf came
into the possession of the Pilgrim Society, and the building which had stood
on the northerly corner of the wharf was moved to the corner of Water and

North streets, and eventually came into the possession of Mr. Manter, its
present occupant.
Two buildings on the south side, between the wharf and the store of Mr.
Atwood, were also bought by the society and removed. That on the corner
had for many years been occupied in its lower story by a cooper shop and in
its upper story by the sail loft of Daniel Goddard, and the other had been
occupied as a store successively by Richard Holmes, Holmes & Scudder,
Holmes & Brewster and John Churchill.
In 1883 the Pilgrim Society bought the entire wharf, and after removing
the store houses standing on it fitted it for a steamboat landing exclusively.
The corner stone of the canopy over the Rock was laid on the 2d of August,
1859, and the structure was completed in 1867. It was designed by
Hammatt Billings, but follows very closely the plan of the Arch of Trajan
built on one of the moles of the harbor of Ancona on the shores of the
Adriatic. The use of scallop shells on its top was suggested by the fact that
this shell was the emblem worn by the Pilgrims on their way to the Holy
Land. The word Pilgrim, as applied to the Plymouth colonists, was never
used, as far as I can learn, for more than a hundred and seventy years after
the landing. They were called “first-comers” and “forefathers” until 1794,
when Judge John Davis, in his ode written for the anniversary celebration in
that year first used the word “Pilgrim” in the following verse:

“Columbia, child of heaven,
The best of blessings given,
Be thine to greet;
Hailing this votive day,
Looking with fond survey,
Upon the weary way,
Of Pilgrim feet.”

The next use of the word was made by Samuel Davis in a hymn written
by him for the celebration in 1799, the first verse of which is as follows:

“Hail Pilgrim fathers of our race!
With grateful hearts your toils we trace.
Again this votive day returns
And finds us bending o’er your urns.”

The word was undoubtedly suggested to Judge Davis by a casual remark
of Governor Bradford in his history of Plymouth Plantation expressing the
regret of the colonists at leaving Leyden, as follows: “But they knew they
were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things but lifted up their eyes
to the heavens, their dearest country, and so quieted their spirits.” The first
use of the scallop shell associated with the Plymouth Pilgrims was at the
anniversary celebration in 1820, when at the ball in the evening some young
ladies hung a shell suitably decorated on the breast of Mr. Webster, the
orator of the day. It simply expresses the sentiment that man is a wayfarer
travelling toward another and a better world. I have seen it somewhere
stated that it was worn by the Pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, and if
such is the case as the scallop is abundant on the shores of the
Mediterranean, it may have been adopted to attest their pilgrimage. In the
chamber of the canopy are deposited four skeletons of Pilgrims buried in
the winter of 1620-1 on Cole’s Hill, which were discovered in 1854 by
workmen digging a trench for laying water pipes in Carver street, a little
south of the foot of Middle street.
Before concluding what I have to say concerning Water street with its
business, its stores and their occupants, I wish to refer more particularly to
Plymouth Rock and its history, to supply necessary links in the chain of my
narrative. Its first public recognition as the landing place of the Pilgrims
occurred in 1742, after a grant had been made to individuals by the town of
a strip of land extending from the top of Cole’s Hill to low water mark, for
the purpose of building a wharf. Thomas Faunce, the third elder of the
Plymouth church, born in 1647, was ten years old when Governor Bradford
died in 1657, twenty-six years old when John Howland died in 1673, thirty-
three years old when George Soule died in 1680, and forty years old when
John Alden died in 1687, all of whom were Mayflower’s passengers.
Hearing of the proposed wharf, and believing that the Rock would be buried
from sight, he gathered on the spot his children and grandchildren and told
them the story of the landing, which he had received from the Pilgrims
themselves. Dr. James Thacher was told of this incident by witnesses of the
scene, and through the channel of his history of Plymouth, the authenticity
of the Rock has become a matter of historic record.
The second recognition of the Rock as the place of the landing, occurred
in 1774, when the inhabitants of Plymouth under the lead of Col. Theopilus

Cotton assembled about it with about twenty yoke of oxen, with the view of
removing it to Liberty Pole square, as they called Town square, and
consecrating it to the shrine of liberty. In attempting to raise it it separated
into two parts, one of which was permitted to remain and the other was
carried to its destination. There it remained until 1834, resting against the
lower elm tree on the southerly side of the square. In that year the fourth of
July was celebrated by its removal to the front yard of Pilgrim hall. A
procession, of which Capt. Samuel Doten was marshal, preceded by the
school children of the town, escorted a decorated truck bearing the Rock,
then weighing 6,997 pounds, which was followed by a model of the
Mayflower mounted on a car and drawn by six boys, of whom I was one.
The Plymouth Band and the Standish Guards performed escort duty, and on
reaching Pilgrim hall an address was delivered by Dr. Chas. Cotton, and a
prayer was made by Rev. Dr. James Kendall. The ceremonies of the day
closed with a dinner served in the basement of the hall by Danville Bryant,
proprietor of the Pilgrim House, at which Hon. Nathaniel M. Davis
presided, assisted by Hon. Isaac L. Hedge, Abraham Jackson, John Bartlett
3d, Nathaniel Wood and Eliab Ward as vice presidents. In June of the next
year the Rock, in its new place, was inclosed by an iron fence designed by
George W. Brimmer of Boston, the designer of the Gothic meeting house of
the Unitarian parish, and so remained until 1880, when it was removed
without display and placed within the canopy on that part of the Rock from
which it was separated one hundred and six years before. The iron fence has
since that time served to inclose a granite memorial in front of Pilgrim Hall
bearing on its face the text of the Pilgrim compact.
As far back as I can recall, in 1832, Water street retained much of the
business aspect, which had characterized it for about seventy-five years.
The whaling and fishing industries were active and prosperous and Boston
had not yet drawn away from Plymouth any considerable portion of its
foreign trade. Molasses and sugar from the West India Islands, salt from
Turks Island and Cadiz, and iron from Gothenberg, continued to come in,
the last free of that burdensome duty, which has destroyed the iron
industries of the old colony. I can hear today the rattling of the bars which
Stephen Thomas and others carted through our streets to the various
manufactories established in Plymouth, Carver, Wareham, Plympton and
Kingston. I can count within my memory twenty-six establishments
engaged in the manufacture of iron in Plymouth county, while with only

two or three exceptions the few now at work are in a languishing condition.
I have letters in my possession written in Plymouth, opposing the
imposition of high duties, and predicting as a result of their operation the
very conditions which now exist.

CHAPTER IV.
Living as I did on Cole’s Hill through my youth, I have a distinct
recollection of Water street and its business as far back as 1832. During the
summer I spent much of my time out of school hours sculling a boat, or
climbing vessels’ rigging. At those times my special playmate was Winslow
Whiting, who during the last years of his seafaring life commanded the bark
Volant, and when the brig Hannah was in her berth on the north side of
Hedge’s wharf we laughed at the boys crawling through the lubber hole,
while we proudly mounted the futtock shrouds.
At that time there were on Water street fourteen stores, three counting
rooms, two blacksmith shops, two pump and blockmakers’ shops, two
painters’ shops, one sail loft, one rigging loft, perhaps six cooper shops, one
carpenter’s shop, a wood carver’s loft, and on the eight wharves leading
from the street, sixteen storehouses. The stores were occupied by James
Spooner, I. L. and T. Hedge, Richard Holmes, George Cooper, Elkanah
Bartlett, William Nye, Josiah Robbins, Atwood L. Drew, Charles Bramhall,
Phineas Wells, Levi Barnes, Scudder and Churchill, Leander Lovell and
Henry Tillson.
James Spooner was the son of Deacon Ephraim Spooner, and lived all his
life in the house on North street, now occupied by the widow of his
grandson, James Walter Spooner. He occupied a store in the building still
standing at the head of what is called Long Wharf. He owned several
schooners engaged in the Grand Bank fishery, among which were the
Swallow, Seneca and Leo. In the last named I was, though a boy, permitted
to launch, and she was commanded for a time by the late Peter W. Smith.
The Swallow had been a fisherman ever since 1803, but, nevertheless,
continued in active business until 1873, when she was lost. Mr. Spooner
died, March 5, 1838. He was succeeded in the store by William Churchill, a
native of Duxbury, and the son of Peleg Churchill, whose daughter, Eliza,
married Joseph Chandler, the father of the late Peleg Churchill Chandler of
Plymouth, who was named after his grandfather. Mr. Churchill built and
occupied for several years the house on Middle street, now occupied by

Charles H. Frink. While in Plymouth he carried on the mackerel fishery,
employing as packers and coopers, his brother, Otis Churchill, and Winslow
Cole. He removed in 1838 to Boston, where on Long Wharf he continued
the same business.
The store of I. L. and T. Hedge, occupied the easterly half of the building
which stood on the northerly corner of Hedge’s wharf. With James Bartlett
they were largely engaged in the whale fishery, having their counting room
upstairs, and their store room below. Mr. Isaac L. Hedge moved in that year,
1832, into the house built by him, now owned and occupied by Father
Buckley, where he died, April 19, 1867; Mr. Thomas Hedge was living in
the house now owned by his daughter, Mrs. Lothrop, which he had bought
off Thomas Jackson in 1830, and where he died, July 11, 1865.
John Thomas, who as a lawyer, occupied an office connected with the
Hayward house on Main street, where the engine house now stands, was
admitted to the firm in 1832, but in 1837 he removed to New York, where
he engaged successfully in the wholesale iron business, and accumulated a
handsome property. When retiring from business he bought an estate at
Irvington on the North river, and built a house which he occupied until his
death. He was killed by lightning in the hay field in July, 1855. He was the
father of the late Wm. A. Thomas of Kingston.
Richard Holmes occupied a store standing immediately north of the
present market of Anthony Atwood. He was a member of one of the oldest
Plymouth families, and lived until 1835 in the house on Cole’s Hill, now
occupied by Anthony Atwood. In that year he bought a lot of land
immediately north of the house of Mrs. Lothrop, extending from Court
street to the shore, and built a house with fish houses and fish flakes in its
rear, where he lived until his death. In 1833, his son-in-law, Alonzo D.
Scudder, became his partner in business, and, after his death, July 4, 1841,
continued with his son, Richard W. Holmes. After the death of Mr. Scudder,
April 5, 1853, Isaac Brewster became the partner of Richard W. Holmes,
after whose death, February 15, 1862, the store was occupied by John
Churchill. Holmes & Scudder and Holmes & Brewster were many years
engaged in the Grand Bank fishery, and general navigation, and their
skippers, among whom were Oliver C. Vaughn, Benjamin Jenkins and
William Atwood, regardless of equinoctial storms remained on the Banks
until they had wet their salt. They owned at various times the schooners

Volant, Flash, Abeona, Medium, Seadrift, Swallow, Challenge, Flora, Anna
Hincks and Palestine, all of which, except the last two, were engaged in the
Grand Bank fishery.
The next building at the head of Davis wharf contained for many years
prior to 1826 the counting room of my grandfather, William Davis, who
died, January 5, in that year. After a short occupation by William Spooner, it
was in 1832 occupied as a store by George Cooper. For several years before
that date, and many years after 1833, Mr. Cooper was employed as a clerk,
and as far as I know, was never concerned in navigation. His occupation of
the store was short, and he was succeeded by Elisha Whiting and Bartlett
Holmes, Jr., and William Davis Simmons and others, until it came into the
possession of Jesse R. Atwood, whose son, Anthony Atwood, now occupies
it for a fish market. Mr. Cooper died April 29, 1864.
Elkanah Bartlett kept a store at the northerly corner of Carver’s, now
Craig’s wharf, until his death. John Darling Churchill was connected as
clerk, and in other ways with Mr. Bartlett, for many years, and succeeded
him in business. Mr. Churchill, like Mr. Bartlett, was engaged in the Grand
Bank fishery, and with Nathaniel E. Harlow, owned the schooners
Conanchet, Engineer, Oronoco and Wampatuck.
William Nye had a store a little back from the street between Carver’s
wharf and Barnes’ wharf, where he bought and sold old iron and junk. My
associations with his store are among the pleasantest of my youth, for there
by the sale of old iron, which I most assiduously picked up for two or three
weeks before that holiday which was so delightful to all boys, the old
election day, I found the wherewithal for the holiday feast, which was held
in the barn or carriage house of some one of our families, and consisted of
election cake and lobster and lemonade in the morning, followed by a
stomach ache in the afternoon. The town baker always made up a good
batch of election cake or buns, for the occasion, and these articles formed as
important a part in the diet of the day as succotash on Forefathers’ day. Mr.
Nye would gather for his business at election time, a bag of bright new
cents, and would tempt the æsthetic taste of the boys by asking them if they
would take one bright cent or two dull ones. No day, not even Thanksgiving
day, has such a firm seat in my memory as the old election day. It was the
day of the meeting of the General Court, which until 1832, occurred on the
third Wednesday in May. Mr. Nye lived in a house at the southerly end of

Water street, which stood on the site of the house built and occupied by the
late Rufus Churchill, who married one of his daughters. Mr. Nye came to
Plymouth from Sandwich, and died February 25, 1849, and after his death,
his house was moved across the street, where it now stands.
Alonzo D. Scudder, who came to Plymouth from Barnstable, began
business in Water street with Lemuel B. Churchill for the sale of grain and
flour, but precisely where their store was I cannot say. The partnership
continued only a short time, and in 1833 Mr. Scudder became a partner with
his father-in-law, Richard Holmes. He died as already stated, April 5, 1853,
and Mr. Churchill died December 30, 1833.
Atwood L. Drew, I think, occupied a store, in 1832, in the basement of
his father’s house, near the corner of Leyden street, and was quite
extensively engaged at various times in the whale and Grand Bank
fisheries, and in general navigation. In 1839 he was associated as a partner
with Leander Lovell, and built the store now standing at the northerly
corner of Barnes’ wharf. In later life he was associated in some capacity
with his brother, William Rider Drew, an enterprising and prosperous
manufacturer, who is still living, and whose extensive establishment for the
manufacture of tacks and rivets is situated on Smelt Brook at Rocky Nook.
Mr. Drew died November 25, 1877.
The store kept by Levi Barnes as early as 1830 was one of two in the
building which stood on the southerly corner of the way leading to Middle
street. In the latter part of his life he occupied the store which had been
occupied by Phineas Wells. He died May 14, 1853, in the house on North
street which he had owned and occupied since 1835.
Chas. Bramhall, who occupied the northerly store in the building above
mentioned, was the son of Benjamin Bramhall, and one of a family of
enterprising sons, five of whom I knew. His brother William was a
prosperous merchant in Boston, and for many years President of the
Shawmut Bank, a position now occupied by our summer townsman, Jas. P.
Stearns, his son-in-law. Mr. Bramhall was actively engaged in the Grand
Bank fishery, and died May 29, 1859, in the house where he had lived many
years, recently occupied by B. O. Strong.
Henry Tillson was a son of Hamblin Tillson, and kept a shoe store on
Water street, as early as 1828, and in 1832 removed to Market street, and

died December 27, 1834.
Leander Lovell’s store on Water street I cannot locate, but he was there as
early as 1827, and on the tenth of November in that year his store was
entered by burglars. In 1839 he was associated in business with Atwood L.
Drew, and in the later years of his life was a partner with J. H. Harlow in
the dry goods business in the store on Main street, now occupied by H. H.
Cole. He was Town Clerk from 1852 to 1878, and as chairman of the Board
of Selectmen and Moderator for many years, I am glad to put on record my
appreciation of his courtesy and fidelity in the performance of his municipal
duties. He came to Plymouth from Barnstable and married a daughter of
Capt. James Bartlett, and died October 1, 1879.
Phineas Wells came to Plymouth from Maine, and married in 1828
Mercy, daughter of George Ellis. He opened in 1827 a grocery store which
occupied the whole front of the building opposite the head of Hedge’s
wharf. He was a master of his business, prudent, methodical and
industrious, and so far as salesroom and storeroom were concerned, his
store has never been surpassed in Plymouth. In or about 1850 he moved
across the street and fitted up a store on the northerly corner of Hedge’s
wharf, where he remained until 1859, when he again moved to the store at
the junction of Water and Leyden streets, where he remained until his death,
December 8, 1869.
Josiah Robbins occupied a store at the head of Robbins’ wharf. In
looking over the files of the Old Colony Memorial to verify my
recollection of Water street, I find that he was there as early as 1827, and in
that year advertised the sale of old currant wine. The temperance movement
began in the above year, and I think in the sale of wines the lines must have
been drawn at the product of currants, as the following officers of the
Temperance Society organized in 1827 were chosen: Nathaniel Russell,
President; Zabdiel Sampson, Vice-President; Wm. Thomas, Secretary; and
Ichabod Morton, Nathan Hayward, Jacob Covington, Josiah Robbins,
Thomas Atwood, John Russell, Thomas Russell and Isaac L. Hedge,
Executive Committee. It is probable that up to that time every grocery store
contained ardent spirits in its stock, and on the 8th of September, 1827, I. &
E. Morton, whose senior partner was one of the above executive committee,
advertised concerning their store at Wellingsley that “that prolific mother of
miseries, that giant foe to human happiness, shall no longer have a dwelling

place under our roof.” The movement was followed up by temperance
lectures delivered in the church at Training Green by Mr. Daniel Frost, and
total abstinence pledges were signed by nearly one quarter of the entire
population of the town. Though the grocers as a body abandoned the sale of
spirits, obedience to popular sentiment was by no means universal. Family
use and individual consumption were largely diminished, and with the
erection in 1835 of the frame of the double house on the corner of Howland
street, the practice of using liquor at “raisings” ceased. In the ship yards,
however, for some years after that date, work was regularly knocked off
every day at eleven and four o’clock for the distribution among the men of
New England rum. Public opinion, however, without its re-inforcement by
law, finally prevailed, and I should say that from 1835 to 1840 it would
have been impossible to buy either ardent spirits or wines, except at the
hotels, and that there were less than a dozen houses in which they could be
found. I am inclined to think that even under the operation of stringent laws
there has been a reaction, and that they are now more generally, though not
excessively used than they were sixty-five years ago. It cannot, however, be
denied, that if total abstinence less widely prevails, intemperance is less
common, and more severely condemned. May it not be true that public
opinion is more potent than law?
I have said that in 1832 there were three counting houses on Water street,
meaning such as were engaged in the business of foreign navigation. These
were D. & A. Jackson, Nelson & Harlow, and Nathaniel Carver. The oldest
and most important was that of D. & A. Jackson, which derived both its
business and character from the old firm of Daniel and Charles Jackson,
father and uncle of the members of the house. It did not immediately follow
in chronological order the old house of Daniel and Charles Jackson, as for a
time after the death of Charles Jackson in 1818 Daniel, the surviving
partner, formed a partnership with his son Jacob, under the firm name of
Daniel Jackson and son, which was dissolved in 1828. In this last year the
firm of D. & A. Jackson had its origin. Though as far as the public knew
only Daniel and Abraham were members of the firm, that at a later date
their younger brother, Isaac Carver Jackson, became associated with them,
there can be no doubt. It is within my recollection that the ship Iconium, the
last ship built by the firm, was built in 1848 or thereabouts on the
Sheepscott river, under Mr. Isaac C. Jackson’s exclusive supervision.

The Jackson brothers were a remarkable set of men, six in number, all
about six feet in height, gentlemen in bearing and dress, and with their blue
coats and brass buttons, and in summer, white beaver hats, white trousers,
low shoes and white stockings, their appearance in our streets gave
character and expression to the town. They were all confident, self-centered
men, who knew what they wanted and how to accomplish it, meddling in no
man’s business and permitting no man to meddle in theirs; neither asking
for nor offering advice. They had means sufficient to carry out their
enterprises and never sought outside of their family and their commanders,
the contribution of a timber head to their ships.
The first vessels built by D. & A. Jackson were the Echo and Arno
fishing vessels, which were sold. The Arno was probably the vessel of that
name, which was many years one of the Plymouth fishing fleet. They next
built a topsail schooner named the Janus, which made one voyage under
command of Capt. Daniel Jackson to Russia, and was sold. In 1829 they
built the brig Janus, commanded by Capt. William Holmes, who died in
Valparaiso, May 10, 1831, while in command. They next built the brig
Rhine of which Capt. Frederick Robbins was master a number of years, and
which was finally lost on Fire Island. The brigs Maze and Autumn
followed, engaged in general freighting business, and the brig Ganges
commanded by Capt. Phineas Leach, and also the brig Cyclops. All of these
vessels, including others up to perhaps 1835, were built in what was
afterwards known as Battles’ lumber yard. The brig Eurotas, one of the
Jackson fleet, was bought in Duxbury and placed in command of Capt.
Eleazer Stevens Turner, which he commanded until he took command of
the ship Thracian, when he was succeeded in the Eurotas by Capt. Ira
Potter.
How well I remember those bright waisted brigs, graceful and weatherly,
and especially the Cyclops with her figurehead representing the
mythological giant with a single eye in the middle of his forehead.
This head was doubtless the work of Samuel W. Gleason, who came to
Plymouth from Middleboro and exhibited much talent as a wood carver.
Two of his sons continued in business in Plymouth as long as ship building
was active in Plymouth and Duxbury and Kingston, when they removed to
Boston, and achieved some very commendable work on the clipper ships of
the California and Australian period.

The Jackson firm were not long content with the building of brigs. While
such vessels were well enough adapted to the iron trade, they were unsuited
to the carrying of sugar from the West Indies to the North of Europe, and
still more unsuited to the transportation of cotton. It was not an uncommon
thing for vessels in the sugar trade bound from Havana to Cronstadt, to put
into Plymouth to take out a clean bill of health. I remember well the ship
Harvest, Capt. Lawton with George Warren supercargo, belonging to
Barnabas Hedge, anchoring in Saquish cove, and proceeding with a new bill
of health. The complete abandonment of the brig was effected when, at a
later period, coal transportation became extensive on the Delaware and
other rivers. The last full rigged brig in Plymouth was the old brig Hannah,
which was owned by Barnabas Hedge, and commanded many years by
Capt. Isaac Bartlett in the West India trade. Her last service was on a fishing
trip to the straits, commanded by Capt. Ignatius Pierce, the father of the late
Capts. Ignatius and Ebenezer Pierce. The last American brig ever seen by
me was in Salem harbor about thirty years ago, engaged in the African
trade.
The ships Thracian and Persian were built in a yard about where the foot
of Brewster street now is, by James Collins, master carpenter, who had
already built the ships Brenda and Dromo for Arthur French of Boston, a
brother-in-law of Abraham Jackson. The Jackson fleet of ships was
completed by the purchase in Maine of the Tyrian and the building of the
Iconium. Of each of these ships I have something to say. Many a trenail
turned out by me in a trenail machine on a Saturday afternoon was put into
the bottoms of the Thracian and Persian, and many a cracker and slice of
cheese have I eaten in the ship house at their launchings. Capt. Frederick
Robbins was transferred from the brig Rhine to the Persian, Capt. Eleazer
Stevens Turner from the brig Eurotas to the Thracian, and Capt. Daniel
Lothrop Jackson, son of the senior partner of the house, was given the
command of the Tyrian.
Capt. Turner was eventually transferred to the Iconium, on which ship he
was finally succeeded by Capt. William Davie. These ships were first class
ships in every particular, and for one or each of them the schooner Capitol
was bought in Maine and placed in command of Capt. Richard Rogers, who
was sent to Virginia with wood choppers, teams and provisions and a gang

of carpenters under Benjamin Bagnall, to get out frames on a tract of timber
land, which the Jacksons had bought or leased for the purpose.
In December, 1846, I was in Marseilles waiting for a steamer to take me
to Genoa and Naples. Having been in Paris away from the sea six months or
more, I have never before or since experienced the pleasure which a sight of
the Mediterranean gave me. My first excursion from the hotel, after my
arrival, was as it would have been at home—down among the shipping. The
new harbor had not then been opened, and the ships were made fast with
their sterns to the mole. Seeing an American flag at one mast head, I soon
read on the stern of the ship, “Persian of Plymouth.” Inquiring of the ship
keeper if Capt. Robbins, whom I knew was the captain, was on board, and
learning that he was not, I walked along the mole, looking into the various
stores, and soon saw him astride a chair, club house fashion, with his arms
folded on the back, looking at me as I entered. During the three days I was
obliged to wait for my steamer, I spent a half hour each day with him on
board his ship. He was soon to sail for New Orleans, and as I afterwards
learned he died while on the passage, or soon after his arrival. He was
succeeded by Capt. Thomas Appling, who had commanded the Cyclops,
who died at sea of yellow fever, and was succeeded by Capt. Lewis
Robbins. After leaving Capt. Robbins I walked farther down the mole and
read on the stern of a bark flying the stars and stripes, the familiar name,
“Griffin of Boston.” I knew Capt. Charles Blake, her owner and
commander, who lived directly opposite my grandmother’s house in
Winthrop place. His vessel was half yacht, half trader, and sometimes with
guests, and sometimes without. He was a skimmer of the seas, taking
comfort and pleasure, for which his freight list might pay in whole or in
part. While I was at Naples he came over and anchored his bark directly in
front of the hotel where I was stopping.
But my story of Yankee vessels is not all told. On my way down the coast
of the Mediterranean a fellow passenger on the steamer, an Englishman
named James Buchanan, was constantly boasting of the superiority of
English vessels over all others. Of course I defended my own, nor was it
difficult, in those days at least, to find fault with the squat sails, short top
gallant masts, clumsy blocks, poorly set up spars, and if at anchor with sails
furled, the untidy bunts which often looked like bundles of rags on the
yards of the Englishmen. As we came to an anchor one morning in the

harbor of Genoa, I pointed out to Mr. Buchanan a very trig looking bark,
anchored near by, which had a familiar look. “She’s a tidy craft,” said he,
“and she’ll be English, of course.” I knew better, and calling a boatman,
directed him to row to the vessel. As we rowed round her stern I was not
very much surprised to read, “Truman of Kingston,” in hospitable letters. I
had often seen the Truman, Capt. Doane, as well as her sister ship, the
Cecilian, Capt. Dawes, belonging to Joseph Holmes, and I spent a pleasant
hour with the captain in his cabin before going ashore for a day’s stroll
before leaving for Naples in the evening. It was singular that the only three
American vessels visited by me in nearly a year’s absence from home,
should have hailed from Plymouth, Kingston and Boston, and that all
should have been commanded by men whom I knew. Another American
vessel not actually visited by me during my trip to Europe in 1846, but seen
under interesting circumstances, emphasized the environment enveloping
me associated with home. On the second of May in the above year, Capt.
John Eldridge of Yarmouth, Mass., master of the New York and Liverpool
packet ship Liverpool, on which I was a passenger, sighted a dismasted
vessel. She lay ahead of us directly on our course, and in answer to our hail
as we rounded her stern, we found her to be the bark Espindola of and for
New York from Liverpool, with four hundred steerage passengers, and
commanded by Capt. Barstow of Hanover, Mass., fourteen miles distant
from my house. Capt. Barstow reported that while he was in his cabin at
eight o’clock on the morning before, the ship under full sail with a light
northerly wind, without warning, was struck by a whirlwind, and
completely dismasted. She wanted spars and provisions. The subsequent
scenes were full of interest.
Luffing up into the wind and running close hauled about three miles,
while spare spars were got out and lashed outside, and provisions were got
in readiness, we ran back and layed to to the windward of the wreck. With a
picked crew, under the command of the mate, the life boat was sent off in a
rough sea, the mate holding in his hand a coil of lanyard attached to a
Manila line that would float, fastened to the spars. When all was ready the
lashings of the spars were cut, and when the boat was near enough the coil
was thrown on board the wreck, and the spars pulled alongside. The mate
backing up to the bark jumped into the chains, when she rolled to
windward, and soon had the supply of meats and other provisions put on
board. Capt. Barstow learning that a Plymouth man was on board the

Liverpool, sent his compliments to me, and after about three hours’
detention, we were again on our course. I afterwards saw that the Espindola
obtained more spars from the packet ships, Ashburton and Hottinger, and
reached New York after a passage of forty days.
The Tyrian, commanded by Capt. Daniel Lothrop Jackson, met an
untimely fate. During the Irish famine she loaded with corn for Glasgow,
and after her departure from New York no tidings of her were ever received.
Of the Iconium I have a story to tell, as I received it from Capt. Turner’s
own lips on his way from Boston to Plymouth, the day after his marvelous
escape from shipwreck in Boston Bay. It must have been in the month of
March in the early 1850s that he came round the Cape with a load of cotton
for Boston, and with a strong northeast wind, without rain or snow, he
expected to find his way without trouble into lighthouse channel. But as the
day wore on the wind increased to a gale, while the weather became so
thick that to haul off shore, if possible, was the only safe course to pursue.
With a light cotton ship, the sagging to leeward made it necessary, as night
approached, to come to an anchor. With both anchors down and a long
scope of cable, Capt. Turner hoped to ride out the gale. As near as he could
judge he lay a mile and a half northeast and by north of the outer Minot’s
Rocks. The wind veered a little to the southeast, but as it veered it increased
in intensity until about midnight one chain parted. He then cut away his
spars, hoping that with an eased ship the other cable would stand by. But at
daybreak the gale still increasing, the last cable parted, and the ship drifted,
stern foremost, toward Strawberry Hill. The wind had veered at this time
still more to the south, so that if the bow could be twisted to the northward
and westward, and steerage way be got on the ship, it might be still possible
to enter the harbor. Capt. Turner managed to set a piece of canvas on the
foremast stump, but it did no good, and the ship continued to drift stern
foremost. At this time the air had cleared, but the gale had not abated, and
as a last resort he carried his kedge anchor aft, and dropped it over the stern,
thinking it barely possible that it might catch long enough to turn the ship
on her heel and give her steerage way. It worked as he hoped, and with the
wind still veering, and hundreds on the shore awaiting a final disaster, he
crawled along between Hardings and the breakers and rounded Point
Allerton without a fathom to spare. A station pilot boat lying at anchor in
the roads put a pilot on board, and Capt. Turner, as he told me, went into his
cabin and crying like a child, thanked God for his deliverance. Not long

after this he retired temporarily from the sea to recruit his enfeebled health,
and was succeeded in the Iconium by Capt. William Davie, but in 1861 was
commissioned Sailing Master in the Navy, and while in command of the
storeship Relief, bound to the East Indies, he died at Rio Janeiro, August 5,
1864. In just appreciation of his seamanship and skill, the Boston
Underwriters made him a present of five hundred dollars.
Daniel Jackson, the senior member of the Jackson house, died July 1,
1852, Abraham Jackson died February 6, 1859, and Isaac Carver Jackson
May 23, 1875.

CHAPTER V.
Finding it difficult to define the ownership of vessels engaged in
commerce, with which other counting houses on Water street were at
various times within my memory associated, I shall subjoin a list as
accurate as I have been able to make it, of all vessels except those engaged
in the cod fishery hailing from Plymouth since about the year 1828. Those
vessels in the list engaged in whaling will be referred to more particularly in
a narrative of the whaling industry, while it was carried on in Plymouth.
Those vessels engaged in the cod fishery, which only occasionally engaged
in commercial pursuits, are not included in the list, but will be spoken of in
a separate chapter. Packets and coasters and smacks are included in the list,
but the packets will be further considered under their own head.
SHIPS.
Arbella Massasoit
Granada Mayflower
Hampden Persian
Harvest Sydney
Iconium Thracian
Isaac Allerton Tyrian
Levant
BARKS.
Abagun Laura
Brontes Liberia
Charles Bartlett Mary and Martha
Chilton Osprey
Condor Plymouth
Crusoe Triton
Edward Cohen Victor
Fortune Volant
BRIGS.
Attila Massasoit
Aurora Maze
Autumn Miles Standish
Chase Minerva
Cobden Oceanus
Cybelle Old Colony

Cyclops Plymouth
Daniel Webster Plymouth Rock
Eurotas Reindeer
Ganges Rhine
Garnet Rollins
Hannah Santiago
Isabella Sarah Abigail
James Monroe Waverly
Janus William
Jennie Cushman William Davis
John Fehrman Violet
Junius Yeoman
Levant Young America
Lucy Washington
Maria
SCHOONERS.
Anna D. Price M. R. Shepard
Atalanta Maracaibo
Capitol Mary
Eliza Jane Mary Allerton
Emma T. Story Mary Eliza
Emma Winsor Mary Holbrook
Exchange Martha May
Fearless Mercury
Glide New York
Grace Russell Rainbow
Independence Sarah Burton
Janus Sarah E. Hyde
J. H. Racey Sarah Elizabeth
John Eliot Shave
J. R. Atwood Speedwell
John Randolph Vesper
Leader Wm. G. Eadie
Louisa Sears Wm. Wilson
PINKIES.
Charles Augusta Industry
George Independence
SLOOPS.
Actress J. W. Crawford
Argo Pennsylvania
Belus Planet
Betsey Polly
Comet Russell
Coral Sally Curtis

Eagle Spartan
Emerald Splendid
Falcon Susan
Harriet Thetis
Hector Wave

The four following ships, Granada, Hampden, Massasoit and Sydney in
the above list were managed by Capt. John Russell, who bought or built
them with the aid of contributions from Sydney Bartlett, William Perkins,
William Thomas, Thomas Davis of Boston, and Thomas Russell of
Plymouth. I think the Massasoit was the only one of the four built in
Plymouth, and she was lost on Point Allerton on her return from a Calcutta
voyage in February, 1843. A Mr. Holbrook of Dorchester, either passenger
or supercargo, was lost. The negro cook calling himself Professor
Steamburg, some years afterwards opened a barber’s shop in the Danforth
building at the corner of North street, having been attracted here by the
name of the town to which the ship belonged on which he was wrecked.
Exclusive of the packets and smacks, some of which were also built in
Plymouth, a large majority of the vessels in the above list were launched in
Plymouth yards. There were building yards in Plymouth as early as the
beginning of the eighteenth century, one of which was at the foot of Middle
street, and another on the site of the electric plant at the foot of Leyden
street. The last must have been a well known and much used yard, and was
situated on the northerly shore of the Mill pond, which was then an arm or
cove of the harbor, with a broad entrance which was later traversed by the
causeway and bridge existing today. At the beginning of the Revolution
John Peck, a naval constructor, was sent to Plymouth to design and build
two vessels of war, which were named Belisarius and Mercury, the latter
being put in the command of the noted Capt. Simeon Sampson. It is
probable that in early days, when only vessels of light draft of water were
required, building yards were located on shores in close proximity to the
woods, from which with short hauls building materials could be obtained.
Thus the ship building industries of the south shore of Massachusetts Bay
were established and continued active until the exigencies of commerce
demanded larger vessels, and the construction of railroads and the transport
by water rendered it easy to supply with timber the yards of East Boston
and Medford and Newburyport. I have no conclusive record to guide me,
but I am inclined to think that up to the time of the civil war as many

vessels were built in Plymouth and Kingston and Duxbury, and on the
North River as in all the remainder of New England.
Some indication of the extent of the building of vessels in Duxbury may
be seen in the following record of the industry in that town from 1826 to
1831, inclusive. In 1826 thirteen square rigged vessels, and three schooners
were built; in 1827, seven square rigged and one schooner; in 1828, two
ships, three brigs and five schooners; in 1829, two ships, six brigs and two
schooners; in 1830, one ship, two brigs and eight schooners, and in 1831,
four ships, three brigs and eight schooners.
In 1834 Ezra Weston of Duxbury, or King Cæsar, as he was called, who
was reckoned the largest ship owner in the United States next to Wm. Gray
of Salem, built the ship Hope of 800 tons, which I remember seeing
anchored in the Cow Yard waiting to be towed to Boston to be rigged. She
was the largest merchantman ever seen in Boston. In my vacation visits to
my grandmother in Boston, where I was in the habit of rambling about the
wharves, I remember the largest ships of that time, the Asia, the St.
Petersburg and the Akbar, owned by Daniel C. Bacon and others, and none
were larger than 400 tons. After the death of Mr. Weston, which occurred
August 15, 1842, ship building in Duxbury practically ceased.
So far as the North River is concerned the building of vessels was begun
as early as 1678, and the first one there built was launched on the Hanover
side of the river, a little above the present bridge on the Plymouth and
Boston road. Up to 1889, according to the record of Dr. L. V. Briggs, ten
hundred and twenty-five vessels had been built, many of which before the
Revolution were owned in England. The largest vessel was a ship of six
hundred and fifty tons, and the classes numbered one hundred and one
sloops, four hundred and eight schooners, sixty-six brigantines, one
hundred and thirty-three brigs, fifty-three barks and two hundred and eight
ships. The North River industry gradually declined as the demand for larger
vessels than could float in the waters of the river, increased. The records of
the ship building industry of the Merrimac river, and those of Medford and
East Boston, show where the industry went. The industry on the Merrimac
river began at a very early period, it having the advantage of floating its
timber from the northern woods directly to the ship yards. Before the
Revolution, what were called Jew’s Rafts, were built on the Merrimac for a
London Jew named Levi, bolted and fastened with the equipment of a ship,

and sent across the ocean. In an English newspaper of 1770 it was
announced “that the Newbury,” Capt. Rose, had arrived in the Thames, a
raft of timber in the form of a ship, in twenty-six days from Newbury, New
England.
No record of vessels built before the Revolution exists, but after the
Revolution, up to 1883, about five hundred vessels were built on the
Merrimac, and registered in the Custom House at Newburyport. The career
of John Currier, Jr., of that city, was a remarkable one. Between 1831 and
1883, he built ninety-two ships, four barks and one schooner, of which the
largest measured nineteen hundred and forty-five tons, and the average
tonnage of the whole number was nine hundred and fifty-six.
Unfortunately there is no available record of the East Boston and
Medford ships, but though the career of Donald McKay was shorter than
that of Mr. Currier, it was more remarkable. Knowing something of Mr.
McKay’s origin and early life, I may be pardoned for making a special
reference to him. He belonged to a family living in Shelburne, Nova Scotia,
my mother’s native town, and was engaged there in his trade as ship
carpenter. My uncle, Cornelius White, a merchant, and the American
Consul in that town, knowing his ability, advised him to go to Boston, and
provided him with letters to such persons as he thought would advance his
interests. Through these letters to my uncle, Isaac P. Davis, and William
Sturgis, he at once secured work in the Charlestown Navy Yard. An entering
wedge was enough for a man of genius like him, and the clipper ships
which came one after another from his hands, soon placed him at the head
of his profession in the country. A few years ago I had an interview in New
York with his youngest brother, Nathaniel White McKay, named after
another of my uncles, with regard to a steamboat for the Boston and
Plymouth line, and I think the steamer Shrewsbury, which ran one season,
was chartered through him.
The greatest triumph of Mr. McKay was the ship Great Republic, built at
East Boston, three hundred and twenty-five feet long, fifty-three feet wide,
and thirty-seven feet deep, with a capacity of four thousand tons. She had
four masts, the after one called the spanker mast of a single spar fore and aft
rigged. Her main yard was one hundred and twenty feet long, and her suit
of sails contained 15,653 yards of canvas. She was partially burned at her
dock in New York, and razeed to three decks and three masts.

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. The above list of vessels shows
how much the trade was reduced during the first quarter of the last century.
This was due to the embargo act passed Dec. 22, 1807, on the
recommendation of President Jefferson, and later to the war of 1812. The
embargo act prohibited the departure from United States ports of all but
foreign armed vessels with public commissions, or foreign merchant ships
in ballast, or with such cargo only as they might have on board when
notified of the law. All American vessels engaged in the coasting trade were
obliged to give bonds to land their cargo in the United States. This embargo
was repealed by a law taking effect March 15, 1809, except so far as it
related to France and Great Britain, and their dependencies, and in regard to
them also after the next session of Congress. Of course such a law struck a
severe blow at the trade on which Plymouth most depended for the support
of its people, and at a town meeting held in August, 1808, a petition to the
President for a suspension of the embargo, was adopted in which it was
stated that “prohibitory laws that subject the citizens to grevious privations
and sufferings, the policy of which is at least questionable, and the
temptations to the violations of which from the nature of man are almost
irresistible, will gradually undermine the morals of society, and introduce a
laxity of principle and contempt of the laws more to be deplored than even
the useless waste of property.”
The President replied that “he would with great willingness have
executed the wish of the inhabitants of Plymouth had the Berlin and Milan
decrees, and the British orders in Council, which endangered the safety of
neutral ships been repealed, but while the edicts remain, Congress alone can
suspend the embargo.”
During the fifteen months of the continuance of the embargo, many of
the business men of Plymouth were seriously crippled, and to some who
survived its effects, the war which followed it, brought absolute ruin.
During the war the wharves were crowded with vessels with their topmasts
housed, and canvas bags, which received the name of Madison night caps,
covered the hounds of their rigging. It is not to be supposed that yankee
shrewdness entirely failed to evade the watchfulness of government

officers, whose duty it was to prevent departures from port. Some of the
vessels were already loaded with cargoes of fish for the West Indies when
the war embargo began, and those which succeeded in the darkness of some
stormy night in quietly setting up their rigging, and bending their sails, and
getting to sea, found ready markets for their fish at from fifteen to twenty
dollars per quintal.
I will close this chapter with a list of the captains of all vessels excepting
those engaged in the cod fishery, who have served within my recollection.
Benjamin Nye Adams Michael Holmes
George N. Adams Peter Holmes
Thomas Appling Samuel D. Holmes
Anthony Atwood Truman C. Holmes
Edward B. Atwood Wm. Holmes
Thomas Atwood Winslow Holmes
Thomas Atwood James Howard
Otis Baker Robert Hutchinson
Wm. W. Baker Daniel Jackson
Bradford Barnes Daniel L. Jackson
James Barnes Robert King
Zacheus Barnes Thomas King
Amasa Bartlett Clark Johnson
Andrew Bartlett Wm. Langford
Cornelius Bartlett Phineas Leach
Flavel Bartlett Augustus H. Lucas
Frederick Bartlett Wm. Morton
Isaac Bartlett Wm. Mullins
James Bartlett Thomas Nicolson
Josiah Bartlett Wm. Nightingale
Thomas Bartlett Grant C. Parsons
Truman Bartlett John Parsons
Truman Bartlett, Jr. Ephraim Paty
Wm. Bartlett John Paty
Wm. Bartlett Gideon Perkins
John Battles Ebenezer Pierce
Edward W. Bradford Ignatius Pierce
Lemuel Bradford Ignatius Pierce, Jr.
Samuel Briggs Gideon V. Pool
Chandler Burgess Richard Pope
John Burgess Calvin Ripley
Lewis Burgess Luther Ripley
Wm. W. Burgess Frederick Robbins
Winslow Burgess Isaac M. Robbins

Horatio G. Cameron Lewis Robbins
John Carlton Nathan B. Robbins
Nath’l Carver Samuel Robbins
Wm. Carver Richard Rogers
Daniel D. Churchill Samuel Rogers
Sylvanus Churchill Wm. Rogers
James M. Clark John Ross
Nath. Clark Wm. Ross
Wm. Clark John Russell
Wm. Clark Merrick Rider
George Collingwood Marston Sampson
Joseph Cooper Amasa C. Sears
James Cornish Benj. W. Sears
Thomas E. Cornish Hiram B. Sears
Nathaniel Covington Thomas B. Sears
Robert Cowen George Simmons
Dexter H. Craig George Simmons, Jr.
Ichabod Davie Wm. D. Simmons
Solomon Davie Nath’l Spooner
Wm. Davie Nath’l Spooner
Francis B. Davis Wm. Swift
Samuel Doten John Sylvester
Samuel H. Doten Wm. Sylvester
Simeon Dike Gamaliel Thomas
John Faunce Thomas Torrey
Elkanah Finney Thomas Tribble
Henry Gibbs Eleazer S. Turner
John Gooding Lothrop Turner
Albert G. Goodwin Wm. Wall
Ezra S. Goodwin Charles H. Weston
Nath’l Goodwin Francis H. Weston
Ezra Harlow Harvey Weston
Wm. O. Harris Gideon C. White
Nathan Haskins Henry Whiting
Gideon Holbrook Henry Whiting, Jr.
Albert Holmes Winslow Whiting
John F. Holmes George Wood
Kendall Holmes George Weston

CHAPTER VI.
To the remaining features of Water street about the year 1830, it is not
worth while to devote much space or time. The two blacksmith shops were
conducted by Henry Jackson, with whom his son, Henry Foster Jackson,
was associated, opposite the head of Davis’s wharf, and by Southworth
Shaw and his son Ichabod at the foot of Leyden street. A twelve-foot way
from Leyden street, in direct continuation to Water street, separated the
Shaw shop on the north from the building, which David Turner occupied as
a pump and blockmaker’s shop on the south. Thus the blacksmith building,
the northerly part of which was converted into a grocery store, was
surrounded by Water street, Leyden street and the way above mentioned.
There is a photograph in Pilgrim Hall of the above buildings as they were
before the changes were made which resulted in the present condition of
that neighborhood.
These blacksmith shops as I remember them were confined to vessel and
general work, and did not include horse shoeing in their business. Joshua
Standish came to Plymouth from Middleboro in 1828, and established a
blacksmith shop opposite the jail on what is now South Russell street, and
went into the shoeing business; and there were shops of Lewis Perry near
Bradford street, of Ezekiel Rider at Hobbs Hole, of Caleb Battles at
Bramhall’s corner, and of Isaac and Henry Morton at Chiltonville. The shop
now on Summer street, and one carried on by Newell Raymond and Job
Churchill at the head of North wharf, were started at a later period.
Henry Jackson lived in the house at the corner of Middle street and
Cole’s Hill, and died there, September 29, 1835. His son, Henry Foster
Jackson, who succeeded him in business, died in the same house, March 10,
1868. While I remember the personality of the father, I recall nothing of his
character, but the fact that he was fourteen years a member of the board of
Selectmen shows him to have been a respected and trusted citizen. The son,
never taking special interest in town matters, was closely observant of
public affairs, and was reliable authority on all questions relating to the
nautical history of the town.

Southworth Shaw lived in the house now standing at the southerly corner
of Court and Vernon streets, which had been occupied by his ancestors
since 1701, when the southerly part of the house was built, and it is now
owned and partially occupied by his granddaughter, Lucia Shaw, having
been in the family more than two hundred years. He had seven children,
Southworth, late of Boston, Ichabod, Betsey, who married the late Wm.
Bramhall of Boston, Maria, Samuel of Plymouth, and the late George
Atwood and James R. of Boston. He died January 18, 1847. His son,
Ichabod, who continued the business, died March 20, 1873.
The two painters on Water street were Isaac and John Tribble. Isaac
Tribble’s shop was on his own premises a little north of the blacksmith’s
shop of Henry Jackson. He lived in the house to which his shop was
attached, until 1834, when he bought the house recently standing next east
of the house of John Russell on North street, where he died, Feb. 16, 1865.
John Tribble’s shop stood north of the shop now occupied by Winslow B.
Standish, and he lived at the corner of High street and Ring Lane, where he
died, June 2, 1862.
The pump and blockmakers on Water street were John Sampson Paine
and David Turner. Mr. Paine lived for some years in a building set back
from Water street, and facing the way leading from that street to the Middle
street steps, and his shop was in the brick basement of the house, and facing
Water street. Many years before his death, which occurred September 29,
1878, he bought and occupied the Samuel Robbins’ estate on the north side
of Middle street, including the hall, which for a long time was called
Paine’s hall.
David Turner occupied a shop at the foot of Leyden street already
described in connection with the Shaw blacksmith shop. Over his shop was
a hall, long known as Turner’s hall, which was somewhat historic in its
career. In that hall a public female school was first established in Plymouth
in 1827, under the direction of the committee of the Central District. In
1827, Miss Laura Dewey from Sheffield, Mass., who married in 1832
Andrew Leach Russell of Plymouth, opened a private school for girls there,
and in 1829 Horace H. Rolfe opened a private school. In 1832 Wm. H.
Simmons, son of Judge Wm. Simmons of Boston, opened a private school
for girls, and one of David Turner’s sisters, and Miss Louisa S. Jackson
taught school there for a time. For many years it was a favorite hall for

singing schools kept by Webster Seymour and Wm. Atwood and others. I
have always looked on that hall as sacred to the memory of a lost musical
genius, for on my second day’s attendance at Mr. Seymour’s school I was
dismissed because I could not raise the octave. When I have heard some of
my fellow pupils sing, who succeeded where I failed, I have regretted that
the dismissals were not more general. If I am not mistaken, in that hall the
Know Nothings held their meetings during their period of incubation before
the demonstration of their strength in Town meeting in 1854. There also the
Mayflower Lodge, I. O. O. F., was instituted Dec. 3, 1844. The hall was
only about thirty-five feet long by about twenty wide, having an access to it
by a flight of outside steps on the westerly end with a closed porch at the
top. So deficient was the town in halls before Pilgrim Hall was built in
1824, and before the hall in the hotel on the corner of Middle street, built in
1825 was available, that dancing parties were often held in this hall, and I
have heard my mother say that she once attended an anniversary ball there,
use being made of the shop beneath for a supper room, to which access was
had by means of a trap door in the floor, and a stairway built for the
occasion. Mr. Turner lived in a house a little west of his shop on Leyden
street, and died May 14, 1869.
The two sailmakers were Daniel Goddard, with a loft at the southerly
corner of Hedge’s wharf and Water street, and David Drew at a later period,
with a loft in the Bramhall building south of the way leading to the Middle
street steps. Mr. Goddard lived next to my mother’s house on Cole’s Hill,
and I had occasion many times as a boy to thank him for his kindness. If I
wanted a ball of twine for my kite he gave it to me, and if I picked out a
pumpkin from the products of his farm for a jack lantern, he made me a
present of it. He was farmer as well as sailmaker, and employed on his farm
as well as in his loft, Alpheus Richmond, his brother-in-law, and his brother
Nathan and John A. Richmond, the son of Alpheus. Associated with him in
the loft was Lemuel Simmons, brother of his wife, who a few years after the
death of Mr. Goddard, which occurred October 30, 1844, retired from
business. Mr. Goddard married Beulah Simmons, and I have the liveliest
recollections of her house and neat kitchen and cool dairy, where I, or some
other member of our family, had our milk pail filled with morning and
evening milk. Those were not the days of milk carts, for a large portion of
the families in town kept cows, and those who did not, sent daily to some
neighbor who did. The building up of the town has so far reduced available

pasturage near its centre that reliance for a supply of milk now rests entirely
on the remote districts of Plymouth and on the adjoining towns. Not long
ago I saw an old assessor’s book for the year 1748, when with a population
of about eighteen hundred, there were kept in town four hundred and thirty-
eight cows, one for about every four of all the men, women and children. In
the last year, 1904, with a population of about eleven thousand, there were
three hundred and forty-seven cows, or one for every thirty-two inhabitants.
In 1831 there were three or four besides Mr. Goddard, who kept small
herds of cows, and among them was Lemuel Stephens, who near his
residence at the foot of Fremont street, then known as Stephen’s lane, had
an abundance of pasturage. In the above year Mr. Stephens had a milk cart,
supplying customers, and I remember his son Lemuel calling at our house
on the morning of the 21st of November of that year, and telling us that the
new Unitarian church had that morning been struck by lightning. The son,
Lemuel, must have been either merely assisting the driver of the cart, or
driving it temporarily during Thanksgiving vacation, as in that year he
entered Harvard College at the age of seventeen, and graduated in 1835.
The mention of his name recalls an incident in his life as Professor in later
years in Girard College. With many people the memory of Stephen Girard,
the founder of the college was held sacred, and one of the articles on
exhibition was a suit of clothes which had been worn by him. Professor
Stephens told me that during the absence from home one Saturday
afternoon of himself and wife, he found on his return that quite a party had
visited his house. “What did they want,” asked the Professor of the servant.
“Oh, sir, and for sure, they wanted to see Brother Stephens’ old clothes.”
“Well Bridget, what did you do?” “Oh, and for certain, I showed them some
old clothes of your own hanging on a line in the attic, and sir you ought to
have seen what a time they had over them, stroking and kissing them, and
almost crying over them.” “Well, Bridget,” said the Professor, “if they call
again, you may tell them they may have the lot for five dollars.”
As I am getting somewhat garrulous and running away from the main
thread of my narrative, I may be excused if I tell another story, which the
mention of Girard College suggests. It is well known that Mr. Girard
provided in his will that no clergyman should ever be admitted to the
grounds and buildings of the college. Some years ago a convention was
held in Philadelphia of the Masonic order, of which Dr. Winslow Lewis of

Boston, a distinguished physician and surgeon, was a member. One of the
entertainments provided for the convention was a visit to Girard College.
Dr. Lewis, whom I remember well, always wore a high white clerical
cravat, and as the procession marched into the grounds, an official at the
gate said to him—“excuse me sir, but you cannot be admitted.” “The hell I
can’t” said the Doctor. “Walk in sir,” said the official. It is an interesting
commentary on the will of Mr. Girard that profanity could serve as a ticket
of admission where the insignia of religion failed.
Returning from this digression, as I have spoken of Mrs. Goddard, I
cannot refrain from saying a word about her brother, Capt. George
Simmons, the father of the late George Simmons. He sailed for my father
and grandfather many years in command of the brig Pilgrim in foreign
trade, and was one of their most efficient and trustworthy captains. My
father was in Boston in 1824, fitting the brig for a voyage, when he was
taken sick, and Captain Simmons brought him home in a chaise, to die two
days later. He named his second son Wm. Davis Simmons, born in 1811,
the master of the ill-fated packet Russell, after my grandfather, and a
daughter, Joanna White, born in 1826, after my mother. It always gave me
pleasure to meet and talk with him when in later years, enfeebled by
lameness, he was employed as weigher of coal at the pockets on the
wharves. He died, July 26, 1863, at the age of eighty-one years. I know no
family with more marked physical traits than the family of which he and
Mrs. Goddard and Lemuel Simmons were conspicuous members. I have
noticed these traits in other families in Plymouth, not always the same,
sometimes in figure, sometimes in walk, and again in voice, in mould of
features, and in ways of doing things. They are such that neither time nor
marriage can extinguish, and any close observer may have seen them in the
Jackson, Kendall, Warren, Russell, Spooner and Simmons families, and in
the Perkins family of Newfields street.
Not many years ago I was in the Town Clerk’s office, and seeing a man
dismounting from a wagon in the Square, I said to the clerk, “I never saw
that man before but I feel sure that his name is Simmons, or he has
Simmons blood in his veins.” When I went out and addressed him as Mr.
Simmons, I asked him if I was right in so calling him, and he said, “yes,
that is my name.” “Where do you live?” I asked him. “In West Duxbury,”
he replied. “Are you connected with the Plymouth Simmons family?” and

he said he supposed he was distantly, but he was not acquainted with any of
them. It has always been interesting to me to observe and study these family
traits.
David Drew, the other sail maker, learned his trade of Mr. Goddard, and
began business about 1840. He lived many years on Pleasant street,
opposite Training Green, and died within a year or two, more than ninety
years of age.
The old fashioned coopers who in the first half of the 19th century were
numerous on Water street, have entirely disappeared. Mr. John C. Barnes
now buys shooks and puts together twenty thousand barrels for cranberries
annually. The coopers whom I recall were David and Heman Churchill, Otis
Churchill, Winslow Cole, David Dickson, Ansel H. and Abner H. Harlow,
Perez Pool and Gideon Holbrook.
Among the riggers who had their lofts on the wharves, may be
mentioned, Lewis and Thomas Goodwin, John Chase, Merrick Ryder,
Coleman Bartlett, Isaac J. Lucas and Peter W. Smith; and among the
caulkers and gravers, Wm. Pearsons, Abbet and Atwood Drew, Clement
Bates and Eliab Wood.
The master shipwrights, who ought to be mentioned were James Collins,
Wm. R. Cox, Benjamin Bagnall, Richard W. Bagnall, Wm. Drew and
Joseph Holmes; and among the ship carpenters were, Gamaliel Collins,
Samuel Lanman, Elias Cox, Richard and Samuel West Bagnall, Abijah
Drew, David Thrasher and Isaac Lanman.
The house carpenter mentioned on Water street was Benjamin Weston,
who, associated with his brother Lewis, had a shop south of the bridge
opposite the foundry. He lived for many years in the house inherited from
his father, Lewis Weston, on North street, immediately west of the house of
the late Edward L. Barnes, and died July 25, 1858.
Before closing this chapter it will be pertinent, in connection with those
engaged in the equipment of vessels, to speak of the patent windlass
invented by a native of Plymouth. Samuel Nicolson was the son of Thomas
and Hannah (Otis) Nicolson, and was born in the house which formerly
stood on the north side of Court square, Dec. 22, 1791. His father was a
shipmaster, and in the revolution commanded the privateer sloop America,

owned by Wm. Watson and Ephraim Spooner and others, carrying six
swivels and seventy men, with Corban Barnes first lieutenant, and
Nathaniel Ripley, second lieutenant, commissioned September 6, 1776. Mr.
Nicolson invented in 1830 what is known as the Nicolson windlass, and
was the patentee of other inventions, among which was the Nicolson
pavement. He had two sisters, Hannah Otis, who married William Spooner,
and Caroline, the wife of Edw. Miller, and the mother of the wife of Chief
Justice George T. Bigelow. He died in Boston, January 6, 1866, and is
buried on Burial Hill.

CHAPTER VII.
In speaking of the part Plymouth took in the whale fishery, it may be well
to refer to the general history of that industry. In the year, 1640, Thomas
Macy came from Chilmark, England, and settled in Salisbury, Mass. In
1659 he embarked from Salisbury in an open boat with his family and
Edward Starbuck, and landed at Nantucket, where they were the first white
settlers. Not long after their arrival, additions were made to the settlement,
and to the appearance of a whale in their harbor, which they succeeded in
capturing, seems to be due the origin of that great industry, for which
Nantucket was for many years distinguished. Whales were abundant in the
waters of the island, and for some years they were taken by boats, which
brought the dead carcasses to the shore, where their blubber was peeled off
and carried to the try pots of the fishermen.
In order to facilitate their work, the fishermen erected masts on the land
with crow’s nests at their tops, in which in suitable weather, observers were
stationed, and when a spout was seen the boats were launched. This method
was pursued for thirty or forty years, when small sloops were employed,
making shorter or longer cruises during the summer months, and bringing
in the blubber to be tried out on the island. Gradually larger vessels were
employed, furnished with try pots, which made cruises to Davis straits as
early as 1746, to Baffin’s Bay in 1751, to the African coast in 1763, to the
Brazil ground in 1774, and round Cape Horn to the Pacific in 1791. I have
heard it said that Gamaliel Collins of Plymouth was one of the crew of the
first American whaler to round the Horn.
It is a little singular that until 1821 no persistent effort was made in
Plymouth to engage in the whale fishery. Whales were always at certain
seasons abundant in the bay, but as far as I can learn only occasional
attempts were made to take them. It is recorded that while the Mayflower
was at anchor in Cape Harbor, “large whales of the best kind for oil and
bone came daily alongside, and played about the ship.” On the second of
February, 1673, the town ordered that whatsoever whale, or part of a whale,
or other great fish that will make oil, shall by the Providence of God be cast

up, or come on shore, within the bounds of this township, that every such
whale or part of a whale, or other such fish as will make oil; two parts of
three thereof are to belong and appertain to the town, viz: the proprietors
aforesaid, and the other third part to such of the town as shall find and cut
them up and try the oil.
The following entry is made in the town records: “The marks of a whale
left on record by Benjamin Drew of Plymouth, Dec. 17, 1737; the said
whale was struck by Joseph Sachemus Indian at Manomet Ponds, the 25th
of November, 1737, there were several irons put into her, one was a
backward iron on her left side, and two irons on her right side pretty
backward, and one lance on her right side, the iron on the left side was
broke about six inches from the socket. She carried away one short warp
with a drug to it, and a long warp with a drug without a buoy, one of the
drug staves was made with a white birch, one of the irons was marked with
an I on the head as the Indians think, with a blind S on the other side of the
head, the rest of the irons we cannot give an account of the marks.”
Thus it will be seen that though whales made their appearance in
Massachusetts Bay, and the means for taking them were possessed in
Plymouth, yet no serious movement was made to engage in the business of
their capture. In 1821 a company was formed to prosecute the fishery,
consisting of James Bartlett, Jr., Isaac Barnes, Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge,
Benjamin Barnes, Henry Jackson, Ichabod Shaw, Southworth Shaw,
Atwood Drew, Thomas Jackson, Jr., Daniel Jackson, Jacob Jackson, Josiah
Robbins, John Harlow, Jr., Samuel Doten, Nathaniel Ripley, Nathaniel
Ripley, Jr., William P. Ripley, Richard Holmes, Jr., Benjamin Bramhall,
Wm. Davis, Jr., and John B. Bates of Plymouth, John Wheeler and Luther
Gay of Cambridge and Stephen Griggs of Boston. Though at a later period
Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge were active in the management of one or more
whalers, they were young men at the time of the formation of the company,
the former twenty-three, and the latter, twenty-one, and James Bartlett, Jr.,
was the projector of the enterprise, and the leader in its management. The
company contracted with Nehemiah Newhall of Berkley to build the ship
Mayflower of 345 59-95 tons, and she sailed for the Pacific in September of
that year under the command of George Harris. The fitting of this ship with
the hopes, which the advent of a new industry inspired, seemed to arouse
the dormant energies of the town, which the war, so recently closed, had

done much to paralyze. Coopers and bakers and dealers in general supplies,
as well as mechanics, felt the quickening impulse, and the people of the
town generally were ready to contribute their capital in enlarging and
extending the new business. The Mayflower was absent nearly three years,
and landed between two and three thousand barrels of oil. How much of her
cargo was sperm oil, and how much whalebone she brought, I have no
record to show. Before her arrival an oil and candle factory was established
between what is now Winslow street and the shore, about where the house
stands recently occupied by George H. Jackson.
The Mayflower made two more voyages to the Pacific of about three
years each, under the command of Capt. Harris, landing about five thousand
barrels, and in 1830 she was sold to Gideon Randall of New Bedford, an
interest in her being retained in Plymouth by Jas. Bartlett, Jr., Abner S.
Taylor and the heirs of Atwood Drew. While the Mayflower was on her first
voyage, after the establishment of the oil and candle factory, Mr. Bartlett,
while in Nantucket on business, induced Mr. Wm. Collingwood, then living
there, to come to Plymouth and superintend the refining of oil, and the
manufacture of spermaciti candles.
In 1822 another company was formed consisting of James Bartlett, Jr.,
Josiah Robbins, Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge, John B. Bates, Thomas
Jackson, Jr., John Thomas, Henry Jackson, Jacob Covington, Daniel
Jackson, Jacob Jackson, Allen Danforth, Isaac Sampson, John Harlow, Jr.,
Richard Holmes, Jr., Ichabod Shaw, Isaac Barnes, Lemuel Bradford, George
Bacon, Rufus Robbins and Ephraim Harlow. They contracted with Richard
Currier of Amesbury to build the bark Fortune of 278 47-95 tons for the
same service. She sailed for the Pacific in September, 1822, under the
command of Peter C. Myrick, and returned in 1825 with two thousand
barrels of oil. The names of the members of both this and the other
company show the interest taken in the new industry by men of all
occupations and professions, merchants, lawyers, traders, blacksmiths,
owners of cod fishermen, silversmiths and masons, and a determination to
make it a success. Among them appears the name of Allen Danforth, who
became in that year a permanent resident of Plymouth as the editor of the
Old Colony Memorial.
The Fortune made a second voyage of three years in 1825, and a third in
1829, under the command of Charles P. Swain, and a fourth in 1833, under

the command of David Upham. In 1837 she sailed under the command of
Albert G. Goodwin of Plymouth, and in 1840 she made her last voyage
from Plymouth under the command of Wm. Almy. I remember the Fortune
well on her return in 1832, from her third voyage, and her sailing on her
fourth in 1833. Owing to shoal water at the wharves, she made her fitting as
did the other ships and barks in the Cow Yard, and the whale boats as they
came and went loaded with supplies were especially attractive to the boys.
One of my schoolmates, Nathaniel Lothrop Hedge, went with her. Being
called out by Mr. Stoddard, the teacher of the high school, to receive a
flogging for some offense, which must have been trivial, for he was never
guilty of any other, he quietly took his cap from the nail above his head, and
walked out of school to ship the next day for a three years’ voyage. Two
other Plymouth men, I think, shipped in the Fortune, John Barrett, who
became the captain of a ship from New Bedford, and his brother, William,
who became one of the best boat steerers of his day. On her voyage begun
in 1837, George Collingwood of Plymouth was one of the crew, and Ozen
Bates of Plymouth shipped on that or another voyage of the same ship. The
Fortune was sunk to aid in blocking Charleston harbor in 1861.
In 1830 James Bartlett, Jr., Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge and Jacob
Covington bought the ship Arbella of 404 26-95 tons, built in Bath, and in
August of that year sent her to the Pacific under the command of George
Harris, the first Captain of the Mayflower. She sailed again in 1834, and
1836 under the command of Ellis E. Eldridge, but what became of her after
her return I have no means of knowing. I remember well the Arbella hove
down near the end of the new Long wharf, with a raft under her bottom,
being either caulked or sheathed or both. My impression is that most of the
whalers made their voyages with either a bare or sheathed bottom. The
process of heaving down was resorted to where docks were not available,
and was safe in shoal water. The process of heeling for the purpose of
making repairs below the water line is sometimes dangerous in deep water.
The British man of war, George, heeled at Spithead in 1782, was caught by
a slight squall with her ports open, and sunk with the loss of six hundred
lives.
In 1831 Isaac L. and Thomas Hedge, Jacob Covington, John Thomas and
James Bartlett, Jr., bought the ship Levant of 332 34-95 tons, built at
Newbury, and in July of that year, under the command of Thomas Russell

of Nantucket, she sailed for the Pacific. She returned with 2,700 barrels of
oil, and was sold February 14, 1835, for $15,600. This vessel was under the
management of the Hedge firm.
In 1833 Jacob Covington, James Bartlett, Jr., Josiah Robbins, Jacob H.
Loud and John B. Thomas, bought the bark Triton of 314 49-95 tons, built
in Durham, N. H., and in November she sailed for the Pacific under the
command of Mason Taber. She made two other voyages, one in 1835, under
the command of Thomas Russell, and one in 1838 under the command of
Chandler Burgess, Jr., of Plymouth. On her first voyage William
Collingwood of Plymouth was one of the crew.
In 1838 James Bartlett, Jr., Daniel Jackson, Abraham Jackson, John B.
Thomas, Jacob H. Loud, Nathaniel Russell, Nathaniel Russell, Jr., Allen
Danforth, Thomas Russell and the heirs of Jacob Covington of Plymouth,
and Thomas Russell of Nantucket, bought the bark Mary and Martha of 316
56-95 tons, built in Westbrook, Me., and in December she sailed for the
Pacific on her only voyage from Plymouth, under the command of Thomas
Russell. Wm. Collingwood of Plymouth was one of her crew.
The brig Yeoman, afterwards changed to a bark, was built in Plymouth in
1833, by James Spooner, Southworth Shaw, Ichabod Shaw, Ichabod Shaw,
Jr., Benjamin Bagnall, Nathaniel C. Lanman, Wm. M. Jackson and Stephen
Turner, and made several voyages to the South Atlantic, under the
command of John Gooding and James M. Clark, and on several of her
voyages George Collingwood was one of her crew.
The brig James Monroe, of 114 91-95 tons, built in Sandwich, was
owned by Isaac L. Hedge, George Churchill, Nathaniel C. Lanman,
Benjamin Hathaway, Southworth Barnes, John B. Thomas, Ichabod Shaw,
Comfort Bates, Joseph W. Hodgkins, Nathaniel Russell, Albert G.
Goodwin, Isaac Barnes, Thomas Hedge and Nathaniel M. Davis, and was
engaged in the Atlantic fishery, under the command of Simeon Dike of
Plymouth, and probably made a second voyage.
The schooner Exchange, of 99 91-95 tons, owned by Alonzo D. Scudder,
Henry F. Jackson, James Collins, Wm. Nelson, and Rufus B. Bradford, was
under the command of James King of Plymouth, and Rufus Hopkins of
Provincetown. She made four voyages, in three of which George

Collingwood was sailor, and in one, mate, and William Collingwood was a
seaman when she was wrecked in the West India waters.
The schooner Maracaibo, 93 53-95 tons, built in Plymouth, and owned
by Atwood L. Drew, Josiah Drew, Ephraim Harlow, James Doten, Ellis B.
Bramhall, James Morton, Bartlett Ellis, Andrew L. Russell, Benjamin
Barnes, 2d, David Turner, Lemuel Simmons, John Harlow, 3d, Robert
Hatch, Nathaniel Holmes and David Holmes, engaged also in the Atlantic
fishery, under the command of Capt. Pope and George Collingwood. She
was lost September 19, 1846, off Bermuda.
The only other vessels engaged in the whale fishery were the schooner
Mercury, of 74 34-95 tons, built in Middleboro and owned by Isaac Barnes,
Southworth Barnes, Ivory L. Harlow, and Charles Goodwin, and
commanded by Capt. Nickerson, and the schooner Vesper, of 95 52-95 tons,
built in Essex, and owned by Bradford Barnes, Jr., William Atwood, Samuel
Robbins, Jr., Benjamin Barnes, Bradford Barnes, Ellis Barnes, Nathaniel C.
Barnes, Nathaniel E. Harlow, Bartlett Ellis, Joseph White, Robert Hatch,
Heman Cobb, Jr., Corban Barnes, Jeremiah Farris, Samuel N. Diman, David
Turner, Charles Goodwin, Southworth Barnes, Joab Thomas, Jr., Nathan H.
Holmes, David Holmes, Ellis Drew, Ebenezer Ellis, Jr., and Edwin A. Perry.
The Vesper afterwards entered the fishing and merchant service.
James Bartlett, the projector of the enterprise, which seemed to promise
new life, and an aroused activity in Plymouth, stood in the front rank among
the business men of his native town. He was the son of Capt. James Bartlett,
a successful shipmaster in days when it was necessary that a captain
engaged in foreign trade should be something more than a navigator and
seaman. He had, to be sure, his sailing orders from his owners, seemingly
controlling his actions, but sailing orders, in the many which I have read,
written by my grandfather, really left the fortunes of a voyage to the
discretion of the master. Capt. Bartlett died December 22, 1840, at the age
of 81. There were others whom I might mention, some still living in
Plymouth, who also represented the best class of merchant captains.
Mr. Bartlett, when quite a young man, was appointed supercargo on
board a ship belonging to Barnabas Hedge, engaged in foreign trade. Such a
position, with the responsibilities it imposed, was the best popular training
school for a commercial life, and consequently when he projected the

whaling industry in 1821, he possessed all the qualifications for its
successful management. He occupied for some years the easterly part of the
Winslow House on North street, but in 1832 he bought the LeBaron estate
on Leyden street, at the corner of LeBaron’s Alley, and built the house now
occupied by his grandson, Wm. W. Brewster, where he died July 29, 1845,
fifty-nine years of age.
With regard to the packet service of Plymouth there were four packets
within my lifetime, which are not within my memory, the Belus, Capt.
Thomas Atwood; the Falcon, Capt. Samuel Briggs; the Sally Curtis, Capt.
Samuel Robbins, and the Betsey, Capt. Isaac Robbins. There was a fifth, the
Argo, Capt. Sylvanus Churchill, which I have a hazy recollection of seeing
at her berth at the end of Davis’ wharf. Of the eight succeeding packets I
have very definite pictures in my mind. These, in the order of their probable
ages, were the Polly, Eagle, Splendid, Hector, Harriet, Atalanta, Thetis and
Russell. The Polly was a black sloop, a dull sailer, unattractive in
appearance, and poorly equipped for passengers. Her captain was Joseph
Cooper, who lived in High street at the upper corner of Cooper’s alley,
leading to Town Square. At the northerly end of his garden on Church
street, then known as Back street, there was a store house which, when he
retired from the packet service in 1835, he altered into a grocery store,
which he kept until his death, which occurred November 25, 1851, in the
83d year of his age. He was one of the last grocers in town to keep
spirituous liquors for sale, and his stock in these was confined to Cicily
Madeira wine. In 1835, or thereabouts, one of my mother’s brothers, living
in Nova Scotia, arrived unexpectedly one evening on the stage, and finding
that she was out of wine to dispense the hospitalities of the occasion, she
sent me with one of those square bottles made to fit partitions in the closet
of the sideboard, up to Capt. Cooper’s for two quarts of the above
mentioned wine. I had nearly performed my errand in safety, when slipping
on the icy sidewalk I fell near the doorstep and broke the bottle. Enough
wine, however, was saved for immediate purposes, but it was the last wine
my mother ever bought.
I remember that one afternoon in 1831, when two or three of the packets
had been wind bound during a long spell of easterly weather, Capt. Cooper
came down to the wharf in a hurried manner, evidently about to make a
move. One of the other captains said: “What is the matter, old man, what

are you going to do?” “I am going to cast off and hoist my jib,” the Captain
replied. “Parson Kendall’s vane pints sou’west.” “Hm,” said the other
Captain, “I’d stay here a month before I’d go to sea by Parson Kendall’s
rooster.” This was before April, 1831, because in that month the old
meeting house was taken down, rooster and all.
Sectarianism was active in those days, but Dr. Kendall was so little of a
controversialist, and so much respected, that he occasionally exchanged
pulpits with the evangelical ministers in Plymouth and adjoining towns. On
one occasion he exchanged with Rev. Benjamin Whittemore of Eel River,
and after church a conversation between two parishioners was heard—
something to this effect: “Well, Captain, how did you like the parson?” The
Captain replied, “I don’t take much to this one God doctrine.” “I guess,”
said the other, “one God is enough for Eel River, they only claim three in
Boston.”
In this connection it may not be improper to refer to an incident
creditable to all concerned, which may interest my readers. The editors of
the Congregationalist, the leading New England Trinitarian Congregational
journal, inserted in its issue of March 4, 1851, the following notice:
“A premium of $30 is offered for a dissertation containing the most full
and perfect and the best narrative of historical and other facts bearing upon
the following question, viz: ‘So far as Christian salvation is a change
effected in individuals, and may be known to them and be by them
described to others, does the saving power of Christ eminently attend upon
a knowledge of his life, as it is revealed in his manifestations from his birth
to his ascension; and is it reasonable to expect that the redeeming effect of
this saving power will be proportioned to the faithfulness with which his
life is studied, and the perfectness with which it becomes known, and is
contemplated?’”
After the decision on the merits of the dissertations had been reached, it
was found on opening the envelopes containing the names of the authors,
that the premium had been awarded to Rev. Geo. Ware Briggs, pastor of the
First Church in Plymouth, Unitarian.
The sloop Eagle had her berth at Hedge’s wharf. She was a snub nosed,
broad beamed craft, without a figure head, and painted a dull green,
unattractive to the public and not a much better sailer than the Polly. She

was commanded for a time by John Battles, Jr., but through most of the
years of my boyhood, by Richard Pope. Captain Pope was a genial man,
kind to his crew, and accommodating to his passengers, and by his popular
ways secured his full share of both freight and passengers. After giving up
the packet service, perhaps about 1840, he engaged in other pursuits, one of
which will be mentioned in connection with the steamboats running on the
line between Plymouth and Boston. In 1849 he went to California in the
ship Samuel Appleton, sailing from New York, and on his return he was for
a time sexton of the Unitarian church, and then was appointed keeper of the
lighthouse at the Gurnet. Later he was a town watchman for some years,
and died July 29, 1881, at 83 years of age.
The sloop Splendid was a handsome craft, well modelled, tall masted,
had a figure head, was painted bright green, and was a fast sailer. To my
youthful eyes she was the queen of the line. For a short time she was
commanded by Richard Pope and Sylvanus Churchill, but through most of
my boyhood, after 1832, by George Simmons. Capt. Simmons was an
energetic man, taking advantage of every opportunity, running perhaps at
times some risk, and making a trip to Boston and back, while the vessels of
his prudent rivals lay in their berths. I remember seeing him leave the wharf
one afternoon at sunset with a full load of hollow ware from the Federal
furnace, and finding her the next morning but one, when I looked out of my
window at Cole’s Hill, lying in her berth with a full load of hemp for the
Plymouth Cordage Company. Capt. Simmons, after he left the packet
service, engaged for some years in the coal business, and as wharfinger of
Hedge’s wharf, and afterwards until his death, as the manager of trucking
teams. He died June 4, 1886, eighty years of age. Capt. Sylvanus Churchill
died March 2, 1878.
The sloops Harriet and Hector, both probably built in Plymouth, I speak
of together, because they were of about the same age, and looked very much
alike. Both were painted a bright green, and were good sailers. The Harriet
had a berth at Barnes’ wharf, and was commanded as long as I knew her by
Samuel Doten Holmes. Captain Holmes bought in 1829 the house with a
brick end, opposite the Universalist church, which he occupied until 1834,
when he built and occupied until his death the house next above it. He died
October 22, 1861.

The Hector had her berth at Carver’s wharf, and was commanded by
Bradford Barnes for a short time, but chiefly by Edward Winslow Bradford,
who after the opening of the Old Colony Railroad established with Samuel
Gardner, who had been a driver on the Boston stage line, the Bradford and
Gardner express. After some years he sold his interest in the express to
Isaac B. Rich, but again later he established Bradford’s express, which he
conducted until his death, which occurred December 27, 1874. Bradford
Barnes, who for a time commanded the Hector, lived many years in the
house on the southerly corner of Lincoln street, in the house which stood
where Davis building stands, and in the house next north of the Universalist
church. He died January 22, 1883.
The sloop Atalanta was built in Plymouth as early as 1830, and was
commanded at first by Truman C. Holmes. She was afterwards rigged as a
schooner, and as early as 1837 was commanded by Samuel H. Doten. I
think she had her berth for a time at Carver’s wharf, but I remember seeing
her loading at Hedge’s wharf on the 12th of June, 1837, the day after the
Broad street riot in Boston, about which the crew talked as they took in
their cargo. Of Capt. Holmes I shall have something to say in connection
with the steamboat General Lafayette, and of Capt. Doten in connection
with the Civil War.
The sloop Thetis was commanded by Isaac Robbins, and had her berth at
Hedge’s wharf. She was changed to a schooner in 1843, and I saw her last
about 1865, at anchor off Marblehead Neck, loading with gravel.
The last packet equipped with any view to passenger service was the
schooner Russell, owned by N. Russell & Co., Phineas Wells, and her
commander William Davis Simmons, which had her berth at Davis wharf.
Having the business of her owners she survived the advent of the railroad,
and continued in service until her wreck. Her fate was a sad one. She left
Boston on the afternoon of Friday, March 17, 1854, with a crew, besides her
captain, consisting of Erastus Torrence, Alpheus Richmond and Ichabod
Rogers, and with five passengers, Harvey H. Raymond, and his son,
Benjamin B. Raymond, Elkanah Barnes, Edmund Griffin, son of Grenville
W. Griffin, and Henry H. Weston, son of Henry Weston. The next day in a
northwest gale, she went ashore near Billingsgate light on Cape Cod, and
with the schooner a total wreck, all on board were lost. All the bodies came
ashore at Wellfleet and Truro, and as I was requested to act as administrator

of Capt. Simmons’ estate, it became my duty to visit the tombs in those
towns, where they were deposited, and after their identification to arrange
for their removal to Plymouth.
The cause of the disaster can only be conjectured. The gale was from the
west northwest, and as Billingsgate is about east southeast from the Gurnet,
where the Russell was seen early Saturday morning, it is certain that she
was driven helpless before it. And as the bodies came ashore in the
immediate vicinity of the wreck, it is equally certain that those on board did
not leave the vessel before she struck. I see no reason why if the rudder was
under control, the schooner could not, even with the partial loss of her sails,
have been sheered a little southerly to a lee under Manomet, or a little
easterly to a lee under Wood End. I am therefore inclined to think that her
rudder was disabled, either by striking a rock at the Gurnet in getting away
from her anchorage, or by striking the tail of Brown’s Island in missing
stays, and that in that condition she became the prey of the gale.
Since the loss of the Russell the following freighters have run at different
periods between Plymouth and Boston, though not in the order stated:
The Glide, commanded by Thomas Bartlett and Capt. Joy.
The Wm. G. Eadie, commanded by Thomas Bartlett and Kendall
Holmes.
The M. R. Shepard and Eliza Jane, commanded by Thomas Bartlett.
The Shave and Mary Eliza, commanded by Kendall Holmes.
The Emma T. Story and Anna B. Price, commanded by Wm. Nightingale.
The Martha May, commanded by Wm. Swift, and the Sarah Elizabeth,
commanded by Daniel O. Churchill.
Besides the above there were two sloops, the Comet, Capt. Ephraim Paty,
and the Coral, Capt. John Battles, Jr., which were quasi packets, running on
no special lines, but sailing for any near port to or from which they could
find freight. Before railroads were built from Boston to the sea ports of
Massachusetts, all kinds of freight to and from those ports were carried
necessarily by water. Thus packets were running from Boston to every town
of importance on the New England coast. Those to the nearer places were
sloops as to Salem, Newburyport, Portsmouth, Barnstable, Plymouth and

Provincetown; those to places a little more distant topsail schooners; those
to Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Savannah and
Charleston, brigs, and those to Mobile and New Orleans, ships. Plymouth
had a very considerable amount of freight to distribute, cotton cloth, nails,
anchors, hollow ware, cordage, fish and imported iron, sugar and molasses.
When these were sent in small amounts they were sent to Boston by the
regular packets, and transhipped to the packets in Boston running on other
lines. But if any considerable amount of freight, a gang of rigging for
instance for Nantucket, a dozen or two anchors for New Bedford, or twenty
hogsheads of molasses for Hartford, or some other port, were wanting
transportation, then the Comet and Coral found their opportunity, trusting to
chance for more or less of a return cargo for Plymouth or Boston. If they
were needed to go to Maine ports they were reasonably sure of a lumber
freight home. Indeed, as I remember, these vessels did practically the entire
lumber business of the town. Capt. Paty died in California July 24, 1849,
and Capt. Battles died in Plymouth March 1, 1872.
There were other packets besides those of Plymouth seen in our waters.
There was the Juventa, a Kingston packet, and there were the Duxbury
packets Union and Glide, commanded by Capt. Martin Winsor, the Spy, the
Jack Downing, Capt. Holmes, the Traveller, Capt. John Alden, and the
Reform, so that with the fifteen running to and from the three towns there
was rarely a day in suitable weather when more than one did not pass the
old square pier. In addition to all the above, the Barnstable packet sloop
Henry Clay not only passed within sight, but frequently sought an
anchorage in the Cow Yard, or came to the wharves. The distance by stage
of Barnstable from Boston induced a large passenger traffic, and she was
fitted with a handsome cabin extending to the main hatch, lighted by
skylights, and containing ample and luxurious accommodations.
There was one other vessel to whose memory I wish to pay a tribute on
account of the pleasant fishing parties on board of her, in which I have
participated. Her name was the Rainbow, but whence she came, what her
regular business was, and whither she went, I never knew. She was a queer
craft, sailing well on the starboard tack, but as dull as a log on the port tack.
She would loaf along up Saquish channel with the wind southwest, but after
rounding the pier she would come up Beach channel like a race horse. She
reminded me of the story of a traveller, who said he saw in South America a

race of goats made with two long legs on one side and two short ones on the
other, so that they could walk easily round the mountain side. A sailor in the
group cried out: “Belay there, Captain, how did them air goats sail on
t’other tack?”

CHAPTER VIII.
It is singular that the spirit of invention and enterprise, which New
England has displayed in the advance of civilization, should have been
apparently indifferent in the development of steam navigation. It is true that
her activities have been fully exerted in other directions, and that, as
necessity is the mother of invention, the requirements of her manufacturing
industries have demanded to the fullest extent the display of her genius. The
Hudson River and New York bay seem to have been the theatre in which
those early experiments were made, which laid the foundation in this
country of successful navigation by steam. In these experiments, as early as
1803, Robert Fulton, assisted by Chancellor R. Livingston, seems to have
led the way. In 1804 Col. John Stevens made a trial of a propelling power,
consisting of a small engine and a screw. He later attached two screws to
the engine, and the identical machine which he used is now owned by the
Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was placed on a
new hull in 1844, and made on the Hudson eight miles an hour. In 1806
Robert Fulton built a sidewheel boat one hundred and thirty feet long,
propelled by steam, with paddles 15 feet in diameter, and floats with two
feet dip, and went to Albany at the rate of five miles an hour. This boat was
called the Clermont, the name of the seat on the Hudson of Chancellor
Livingston, and in 1808 made regular trips from New York to Albany.
While these operations were going on, causing a complete revolution in
the commercial life of the country, New England never saw the smoke of a
steamboat. The first boat to enter Massachusetts Bay was the
Massachusetts, built in Philadelphia, and designed by its owners, Joseph
and John H. Andrews, Wm. Fettyplace, Stephen White, Andrew Watkins
and Andrew Bell, to run between Boston and Salem. After a few
unsuccessful trips she was sent to Charleston, S. C., and was lost on the
passage.
The next steamboat to enter the waters of Massachusetts was the Eagle,
which was built in New York and had been for a time in Chesapeake Bay,
under command of Capt. Moses Rogers, who was later commander of the

steamboat Savannah, the first steam vessel to cross the Atlantic. She came
to Plymouth in 1818, commanded by Lemuel Clark. Capt. Clark was either
a Plymouth man, or the son of a Plymouth man, and had married in 1817
Lydia Bartlett, daughter of the late Ezra Finney, who lived, as many of my
readers will remember, on the westerly corner of Summer and Spring
streets. He had a son, William, one of my school and playmates, the father
of William Clark, now living on Cushman street, who at one time was the
master of the bark Evangeline of Boston. It is probable that Capt. Lemuel
Clark was induced by his connection with Plymouth to bring his vessel
here, where she must have been an object of great interest to the people of
Plymouth and the adjoining towns. She remained here a number of days,
having her berth at Carver’s wharf and taking daily excursion parties into
the bay. She was eight hours on her passage from Boston, making about
five and one-half statute miles per hour. On her return to Boston she ran for
a time on the Hingham line, but I have no record of her later history. A
picture of her in oil hangs on the walls of Pilgrim Hall, taken from a
contemporaneous drawing, and presented, through the good offices of Mr.
George P. Cushing, the manager of the Nantasket Steamboat Company, by
the artist to the Pilgrim Society, and occupies a frame given by the
grandchildren of Capt. Lemuel Clark.
There is no record of the visit of any other steamboat to Plymouth until
the advent of the General Lafayette, in 1828. She was built in New York in
1824, and bought in Boston by James Bartlett, Jr., James Spooner and Jacob
Covington, with the view of establishing a steamboat line between
Plymouth and Boston. According to her enrolment in the Plymouth Custom
House, issued September 16, 1828, her name was General Lafayette, with
one deck, two masts, 82 feet, 7 inches long, 6 feet, 1 inch deep, and
measured 92 54-95 tons. For her better accommodation the owners of the
boat bought Jackson’s wharf at the foot of North street, and contracted with
Jacob and Abner S. Taylor to build at the end of the wharf an extension nine
hundred feet long and twenty-eight feet wide with a T at the end projecting
northwesterly one hundred feet square. The extension built of piles and
timber and plank was not completed until the autumn of 1828. In the
meantime the Lafayette ran through the summer of that year from Hedge’s
wharf, leaving Plymouth at hours when the tide served, and leaving Boston
at hours which on her arrival would enable her to reach her dock. Of course
her fuel was wood, and she made the passage in five hours, making about

eight and one-half statute miles per hour. The point reached by the wharf
was that point on what was called the Town Guzzle, where at mean low tide
there were four or five feet of water. With that depth of water a small
steamboat like the General Lafayette could reach the extreme end of the
wharf at all times of tide. The Town Guzzle was a circuitous one. It left
Broad channel at its extreme southwesterly end, and running southwesterly
five or six hundred feet, it made an easy curve; thence running
northwesterly about eight hundred feet, and thence with another easy curve
running southwesterly about four hundred feet to a point reached by the
wharf. It was perhaps forty feet wide, and with sufficient water beyond that
width for the dip of paddle wheels, at any time except within an hour of low
water, there was rarely any detention. Steamboats of moderate length found
little difficulty in rounding the curves, but those of greater length found it
anything but easy work. I remember once the steamboat Connecticut left
the wharf at near low tide, with a spring line from her bow to the wharf to
twitch her round the curve, and as the line tautened, it snapped, the hither
end coming back like a whip lash and tripping up, without serious injury,
about a dozen persons standing near the cap log. I learned the lesson then
and there to always stand at a distance from a spring line.
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
only 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. The scarcity and small size of this delicious shell fish in our day
have not been satisfactorily explained. I am inclined to think that the cause
is not to be found in the excessive amount of their catch, but in the
appearance on our shores, and the increasing numbers, of the tautog, which
not only exhausts the food, which the lobster feeds upon, but also feeds on
the lobster itself. In my early boyhood, if I am not mistaken, the tautog was

an unknown fish north of Cape Cod. The sandy shores of Barnstable county
formed an effectual barrier to its northern migration. I think that about 1830
Capt. Josiah Sturgis, commander of the Revenue Cutter Hamilton, brought
some live tautog round the Cape and dropped them in Plymouth Bay. A
very few years afterwards the first tautog was caught off Manomet, and one
or two years later several were caught off the Gurnet, while now they are
found all along the shores of Massachusetts and Maine. To this new fish, in
my judgment, may fairly be attributed the gradual disappearance of a food
fish which was once abundant and cheap.
Returning now to the Lafayette, it can only be said that her career was a
short one. Under the command of Capt. Truman C. Holmes, with Seth
Morton as steward, she ran through the seasons of 1828 and 1829, the latter
year making her berth at Long wharf, or steamboat wharf, as for many years
it was called, and then was laid up in Tribble’s Dock, or building yard, as it
was called, north of the wharf to die. Her upperworks were removed, and
her engine taken out, and my only recollection of the vessel is of a
dismantled hulk with her planking stripped off, and her timbers fastened to
the keel, standing otherwise unsupported, just visible at high tide above the
surface of the water. The only incident of her service, which I remember,
was an attempt with a party of excursionists, of which my mother was one,
to go to Boston and return the same day. Night came without her return, and
about midnight my mother reached home, having ridden from Scituate,
where the steamboat had put in out of wood. Capt. Holmes, her commander,
took command in 1830 of the new packet sloop Atalanta, and served with
her several years until she was altered to a schooner, and placed under
command first of Sylvanus Churchill, and then of Samuel H. Doten. He
died March 14, 1880, eighty-five years of age.
In 1830, the year after the Lafayette ceased to run, the steamboat
Rushlight, Capt. Currie, came to Plymouth and advertised to carry
passengers to Boston for a dollar and a quarter, the fare by stage being two
dollars, but how long this arrangement continued I do not know.
I know of no other steamboat in Plymouth until 1839, when the Suffolk
ran on excursions to Boston and elsewhere during July and August. In 1840
a small steamboat, the Hope, Capt. Van Pelt, with a light draft, made regular
trips to and from Boston during a part of the season. I recall an incident
suggested by the mention of her name. On the 11th of September in that

year I was called to Plymouth, being then in college, on account of the
death of my brother-in-law, Ebenezer G. Parker, and left an order at the
stage office in the City Hotel on Brattle street, to be called for by the stage
at my grandmother’s in Winthrop Place, leading out of Summer street. The
Hope left Boston at two o’clock, reaching Plymouth at six. The leaving
hour of the stage was the same, and as the passengers on that day were few
in number, it was exactly two when I took my seat by the side of Samuel
Gardner, the driver. As we started, Mr. Gardner said to me, “Mr. Davis, I am
going to beat the boat today.” The air was clear and exhilarating, the four
horses were in good trim, and the road was in its best condition. Mr.
Gardner did not leave the box during the trip, the horses were ready at the
three places where changes were made, and as I dismounted at my mother’s
house at Cole’s Hill, the boat passengers were coming up the wharf. I doubt
very much whether any regular stage line in this country has ever travelled
as our stage did that day, thirty-six miles in four hours.
Shortly after 1840 the steamboat Connecticut came to Plymouth and took
excursion parties into the bay, but I do not remember that she made any
regular trips to Boston. In 1844, if I am correct in the dates, the steamboat
Express, Capt. Sanford, ran between Boston and Barnstable, stopping at
Plymouth to leave and take passengers. She was a good boat, and made the
passage to Plymouth in three and a half hours. Her managers had built a flat
bottomed barge with scow ends, which, under the charge of Capt. Richard
Pope, at low water met her at the upper end of Broad Channel, and
exchanged passengers and freight. The return of the barge, by the way of
the Guzzle, especially with wind and tide against her, was sometimes
tedious, frequently consuming an hour. In 1844 the steamer Yacht ran a part
of the season.
After 1845 I know of no steamboats coming to Plymouth, except
occasionally on excursions from Boston for the day, until 1880. In the
meantime the wharf began to suffer from storms and decay. Of course it
was convenient for vessels to make fast to, until they could reach their
regular berths, and in northeast storms it served as a barrier to protect the
vessels at the short wharves from the wind and waves. At one time a
bathing house was constructed beneath its flooring. Two bathing pools were
built in two bays of the wharf, with plank floors and walls, and steps
leading up into two dressing rooms above the wharf, to which subscribers,

or those buying tickets, were admitted. These bathing rooms served their
purpose for a time, but soon, like the wharf, needed repairs and were
abandoned.
In 1880 the steamboat Hackensack, owned, I think, by the Seaver fish
guano factory of Duxbury, made regular daily trips to or from Boston, or
both, during the summer, except while she was repairing damages
occasioned by a fire at Comey’s wharf in Boston, where she lay. At that
time the whole wharf, except about three hundred feet, which had been kept
in repair, had by the action of storms and ice been practically destroyed,
leaving only about a hundred piles within sight above the water. These were
pulled up in 1880 by the tug Screamer, some of them requiring a force of
thirty-three tons to start them from their beds.
In 1876 an appropriation made by Congress was expended in dredging a
channel fifty feet wide, and six feet deep from Broad channel to the wharf,
and in later years the width has been increased to one hundred and fifty feet,
and the depth to nine feet, at mean low water. A basin connecting with the
channel has been dredged in front of the short wharves so that not only can
steamboats of sufficient size reach the docks, but barges drawing sixteen
feet of water find no difficulty in berthing at the pockets of the coal dealers.
In 1881 the steamboat Stamford, commanded by E. W. Davidson, began to
run regularly from Boston to Plymouth and back daily, and continued to run
uninterruptedly until 1895, under the same command, except during a part
of one season, when, owing to some difficulty between Capt. Davidson and
her owner, Nathaniel Webster of Gloucester, the former was temporarily
displaced. Capt. Davidson also ran the Shrewsbury and Wm. Story each one
season, and as a supplementary freight boat after the close of one season the
Shoe City of Lynn. Since 1897, or about that time, the following boats have
run on the route: The Lillie, Putnam, O. E. Lewis, Henry Morrison,
Plymouth, Cape Cod, Governor Andrew, and Old Colony. During one
season the Stamford ran after her name was changed to Endicott. During the
last three seasons the Nantasket Steamboat Co. have had exclusive leases of
available wharves, and have run the Governor Andrew and the Old Colony.
The latter is a new boat running in 1904 for the first time, and is recognized
as the most convenient, safest and most elegant excursion boat in the waters
of Massachusetts. The wharf is now, with three hundred feet of its old
timber and pile extension, owned by Charles I. and Henry H. Litchfield of

Plymouth who, having fitted it expressly for steamboat purposes, keep it in
excellent repair, and have leased it to the Nantasket Steamboat Company.
The Pilgrim Society, owning Pilgrim wharf, refrain from leasing it to any
competing line, believing that the Nantasket Co. should be encouraged in
their efforts to establish a permanent and successful enterprise.

CHAPTER IX.
Allusion has been made to the embargo and to the Yankee shrewdness
which evaded the watchfulness of government officers whose duty it was to
prevent departures from port. The following narrative, for the incidents in
which I am indebted to Capt. Charles C. Doten, illustrates the shrewdness to
which I referred.
During the Embargo, Plymouth’s fishing fleet was laid up in the docks,
and the owners found themselves cut off from the trade with the West India
Islands. The catch of fish from the Grand Banks could not be sold to
advantage for want of this market, and after being cured remained stored in
the fish houses.
England and France then being at war their West India dependencies
were subject to blockade, and as a consequence provisions which could be
run into the ports of either nationality, commanded high prices. With such a
temptation it was not strange that there were found adventurous men in
fishing ports to hazard the loading of vessels with dry fish, and disregarding
embargo penalties of our own government, surreptitiously depart “for the
West Indies and a market.”
Plymouth was not lacking in this sort of enterprise, and the writer
proposes to sketch one or two of the “run-a-ways,” to show the character of
the men of those days who a little later did the country good service as
“privateersmen” when the war between the United States and England was
fought.
Anticipating that these attempts to break the embargo would be made in
spite of stringent regulations, orders were given to the customs officers at
every port to keep strict watch and prevent vessels from going to sea.
Accordingly at Plymouth, Water street was nightly patrolled, and a guard
boat well manned, and in charge of Capt. Joseph Bradford, was stationed in
Beach channel to intercept any outward bound vessel which might succeed
in getting away from the wharves. With these precautions it would seem to
have been difficult to evade successfully the minions of the law and run out

a cargo of fish in defiance of all the Federal government could do to prevent
it, yet it was done.
The first schooner was the Hannah, lying at Hedge’s, now known as
Pilgrim wharf, which then had two or three warehouses on it, one of them
containing fish. On a dark night an industrious gang of men quietly loaded
the vessel from the warehouse, but unluckily, before their work was
completed, the tide fell so that the Hannah grounded, and could not get to
sea that night as intended. Next day the custom house officers noted that the
vessel did not rise buoyantly with the tide, so going on board they lifted the
hatches, and at once discovered “what was the matter with Hannah.”
Felicitating themselves that they had caught their mouse, and
determining that there should be no escape, they stripped the vessel “to a
girtline,” that is, they removed all her sails together with the running and
standing rigging, leaving nothing aloft but a single block on each mast
through which a line was rove for the purpose of hoisting a man when the
craft was to be re-rigged. All the gear was carted away, and, while the fish
were left on board, the Hannah being absolutely reduced to bare poles, the
officials were perfectly certain that they had made it impossible for her to
take her cargo to the West Indies. Of course the laugh went round town at
the expense of the defeated owners, and the officials were “cocky” over
their smartness. Weeks went by and the incident passed out of mind, the
deeply laden Hannah meantime lying in her berth and daily rising and
falling with the tide. All the same her voyage to Martinique was made up,
her captain and crew engaged, and the man who was to rig and take her out
of dock had his gang picked for the purpose, and only awaited his
opportunity. This man was Capt. Samuel Doten, father of our townsmen,
the late Major Samuel H. and Capt. Charles C. Doten, one of the most
energetic shipmasters of his day, whom nothing ever daunted, and who
liked nothing better than a bit of dare-devil business, being perfectly
competent for anything pertaining to seamanship or calling for executive
ability. These qualities were well known in this town, so naturally he was
“in it” with the Hannah. Capt. George Adams, another old sea dog, was his
right-hand man in the part he had to do, and there were two or three others,
who could handle a marlinspike and make a knot or seizing as well in
darkness as at noonday.

Capt. Doten lived at the foot of the Green, on what is now Sandwich
street and kept a boat on the south shore near the place, where he afterwards
built the wharf, now owned by Capt. E. B. Atwood. The long waited
opportunity came one night with a howling southeast rain storm, from
which the Water street watch sought shelter in one of the stores. There the
officers with pipes and toddy made themselves comfortable, while right
before their noses the Hannah’s decks were alive with her own crew, and
Capt. Doten’s gang of riggers, who had come alongside in boats. A loft
which contained the gear of another vessel, likewise clean stripped by her
careful owner, so her rigging might not get weather worn in the months of
the tie-up, was broken open and the shrouds and stays were carried on
board the Hannah. Capt. Adams was the man to go aloft and put the eyes of
the rigging over the mast heads, and Capt. Doten arranged for a system of
wooden tags to be tied to the pieces as they went up, so that by feeling the
notches cut in the tags, Capt. Adams would know whether what he received
belonged on the starboard or port side. So it was also with the blocks and
halliards, and all being understood, Capt. Adams took his place in the sling
tied in the end of the girtline, and was soon hoisted to the crosstrees. The
hours passed, but before daylight the Hannah was rigged, halliards rove fore
and aft, and sails bent, though both rigging and sails were too large for her,
belonging as they did to another vessel of greater tonnage. Capt. Doten had
met this difficulty in the case of the standing rigging, which was too long,
by turning up the ends of the shrouds over hand spikes used for shearpoles,
and passing the lanyards from the deadeyes at the rail also over the
handspikes, his deck men then setting taut with the watch tackles they had
brought, and seizing all off securely. The sails were made smaller simply by
putting in a reef.
All was now ready, and the Hannah cast off and dropped down to the end
of the wharf. Capt. Doten, who was a good pilot for the harbor, took charge,
and with the hoisting of the jib the vessel quickly fell off before the wind
and ran directly along the shore for High Cliff, there then being no Long
wharf in the way. This course was taken to avoid the guard boat which was
supposed to be patrolling the channel along by the Beach, the usual way of
leaving the port. It was the top of high water and there was little likelihood
that with proper care the vessel would touch anything. At High Cliff Capt.
Doten ordered the mainsail set and pointed the Hannah’s nose for the open
sea. Then giving the helm to her captain, whose name the writer

unfortunately has never heard, he gave the course to steer, and the schooner
went romping down by Beach Point at a pace which left no chance for the
guard boat to intercept her, when from away up Beach channel Capt.
Bradford descried the fleeting sail. Before getting far down the harbor Capt.
Doten and his men wished the Hannah and her crew a successful voyage,
and jumping into their boat towing alongside were, before the early
morning, snugly stowed away in their respective homes. Of course there
was great excitement when it was found the bird had flown, and instantly
the conclusion was reached that “Sam Doten had run away with the
Hannah,” so the officers at once repaired to his house where his wife was
unconcernedly getting breakfast, and Capt. Doten, having apparently just
arisen, was leisurely dressing. The officers were greatly surprised at finding
him and he equally surprised to learn from them that the Hannah had got
away, nor did he hesitate to express his gratification that the custom house
gang had been so thoroughly outwitted.
The Hannah made an excellent run to the West Indies and arrived safely
at Martinique, where she sold her fish at $20 per quintal of 112 pounds and
the vessel also was disposed of, the aggregate sum which ultimately got
around to her owners being a very handsome one for the venture.
The Hope and the Cutter.
The brig Hope was the next Plymouth vessel to “run the embargo.” She
belonged to William Holmes of this town, and loaded a cargo of dry fish at
Provincetown, where she was seized by the customs officers of that port,
and anchored in the harbor, with a revenue cutter commanded by Capt.
Thomas Nicolson of Plymouth lying near at hand to prevent her from going
to sea. Under these circumstances her owner induced Capt. Samuel Doten,
who had “assisted” in the Hannah adventure, to become the principal in
“cutting out” the Hope from under the guns of the revenue vessel.
Selecting his crew, Capt. Doten took charge of the brig and waited for
things to come around to his liking. What he wanted was a smart northeast
gale, which is a fair wind out of Provincetown, though of course a pretty
rough affair to contend with in the open bay, and against which he would
have to work his vessel out past the Cape after getting clear of the harbor.
No abler or more daring seaman ever trod a deck, and, whatever the
chances, Capt. Doten was ready to take them, so when one night the

weather shut in “nasty” with indications of the wished for gale the next day,
he made his preparations. A mooring line was run out aft to keep the brig’s
head toward the harbor mouth, so that her square sails should immediately
fill before the wind when hoisted. On the yards the gaskets keeping the
furled sails in place were nearly cut off, so that while they still preserved
the shape, they would part and allow the topsails to be hoisted without
having to send men aloft to loose them as usual when getting under way,
much depending on gaining a few minutes over the cutter at the start.
Vessels of those days had hemp cables, and Capt. Doten meant to “cut and
run” when the decisive moment came.
With the morning the gale was piping smartly, and it never occurring to
the captain of the revenue cutter that a vessel would attempt to go to sea in
such a blow, he took his gig with her crew and went ashore. The ebb tide
left the boat on the beach while Capt. Nicolson and his men were up town,
and meanwhile the sympathetic Provincetowners, ready to help the Hope,
stole the thole pins and an oar or two. This was the favorable moment,
while the cutter was disabled for want of her commander and several men,
for whose return on board she would have to wait, so Capt. Doten cut his
cable and stern mooring line, quickly hoisted and sheeted home his fore
topsail, and was moving down the harbor before the lieutenant in charge of
the cutter realized the situation. Seizing a musket he fired at Capt. Doten,
who was at the Hope’s helm, but made a bad shot. Then he let go a big gun
at the brig, which also was poorly aimed, and did no harm. It served,
however, as a signal for Capt. Nicolson to come on board, if he needed
more than the evidence of his eyes. The town was immediately alive with
excitement, for the seafaring men took in the whole plan and shouted with
delight over its boldness and sheer sailor-like daring. Men hindered more
than they helped while pretending to assist in getting the boat down to the
water, but at last, with her captain on board again, the cutter got into full
chase, firing her bow guns at the brig in hope of crippling her spars if doing
nothing more damaging. Provincetown has rarely seen anything more
exciting than that running fight, and the story is told there even to this day,
as the writer can vouch, having himself heard it from an old sea dog over
there within a few years.
The Hope was a good sailer, and soon doubled round the long, sandy
point at the harbor mouth, across which the cutter still continued firing, the

shots sending the sand into the air in clouds as they skipped over the beach.
After getting outside, Capt. Doten made more sail for the better handling
of his vessel, and one of his men, William Stacy of Boston, went aloft to
loose a to’gallant sail. Just as he reached the crosstrees and gripped the
shrouds for further ascent, a shot passed so close to him that, holding by his
hands, the wind of it strung him out like a flag. Getting his footing again he
yelled: “A good shot, try it again,” and went on with his duty.
The cutter soon got into the open bay where the sea was so rough that her
firing became entirely ineffectual, and she could only chase. Capt.
Nicolson, however, was one of the plucky kind and meant to do his full
duty by keeping the Hope in sight if he could do nothing more. The gale
became fiercer, and the sea rougher as the two vessels got from under the
lee of the Cape, and that night the cutter was forced ashore near Scituate
and wrecked, but with no loss of life. Capt. Doten, with a loaded vessel
under him, which he knew how to handle, made better weather of it, and
succeeded in beating the Hope out past Cape Cod against the storm, and in
a day or two was running for the West Indies, intending to make
Martinique.
All went well until nearing his destination, when one afternoon a big
British frigate poked her nose out from behind an island right across his
path and fired a gun for him to heave to. There was nothing for it but to
obey, and a boat with a boarding party was soon alongside. The officer
wanted to know where the brig was bound, to which Capt. Doten replied,
“West Indies and a market.” “You mean Martinique, don’t you?” said the
officer, “and let me tell you that had you got in there the Frenchmen would
have given you $25 a quintal for your fish; but you will do well as it is, for
I’m going to send you into the English island of St. Lucia, and our people
will give you $16.” “Very well,” answered Capt. Doten, “I’ll go to St. Lucia
then.” “Yes,” replied the officer, “I’m sure you will, as I’m going with you,
for you Yankees are altogether too smart and slippery to be trusted alone,
with $9 on a quintal of fish difference as to where you land them.”
So the Hope went into St. Lucia, where Capt. Doten sold both fish and
vessel, and later he found his way home with $25,000 in Spanish
doubloons, a large part of the sum being sewed into his clothing, and the
writer has heard the Captain’s wife tell of letting him into the house at about

two o’clock one morning, and of their sitting up in bed together, ripping out
the gold pieces and tossing them into a shining pile, of which “Hope told a
flattering tale.”

CHAPTER X.
At the beginning of the Revolution the cod fishery of Plymouth was
active and successful, and during the previous ten years had employed an
average of sixty vessels. During the war it was of course seriously
depressed, but after the declaration of peace its recuperation was rapid. In
1802 it had reached its maximum of prosperity, before the embargo and the
war of 1812 again crippled it. In that year there were thirty-seven vessels
engaged in it, employing two hundred and sixty-six men, and landing
twenty-six thousand, one hundred and seventy-five quintals of codfish, or
an average of seven hundred and seven quintals for each vessel. All but six
of these vessels made two trips. The following list of the vessels engaged
that year with their tonnage, the names of the skippers and the fare of each
may be interesting to some of my readers.
Lucy, Thomas Sears, 75 tons, 800 quintals.
Old Colony, George Finney, 80 tons, 850 quintals.
Wm. Davis, Jr., Elkanah Finney, 90 tons, 1000 quintals.
Mary, Clark Finney, 75 tons, 450 quintals.
Swan, Thadeus Churchill, Jr., 60 tons, 895 quintals.
Polly, Amasa Churchill, 45 tons, 800 quintals.
Ceres, Wm. Brewster, 60 tons, 1,100 quintals.
Washington, Amasa Brewster, 90 tons, 840 quintals.
Swallow, Melzar Whiting, 50 tons, 900 quintals.
Benj. Church, Nathaniel Clark, 70 tons, 350 quintals.
Crusoe, Stephen Payne, 60 tons, 900 quintals.
Nightingale, Ansel Holmes, 35 tons, 700 quintals.
Union, Samuel Virgin, 70 tons, 850 quintals.
Rose, Barnabas Dunham, 55 tons, 710 quintals.
Dove, Wm. Barnes, 34 tons, 650 quintals.
Seaflower, Isaac Bartlett, 60 tons, 1,000 quintals.
— — — Nathaniel Sylvester, 80 tons, 800 quintals.
— — — Ansel Holmes, 60 tons, 500 quintals.
Phebe, John Allen, 75 tons, 700 quintals.

New State, Joseph Holmes, 50 tons, 700 quintals.
Drake, Barnabas Faunce, 44 tons, 550 quintals.
Columbia, Truman Bartlett, 70 tons, 700 quintals.
Neptune, Chandler Holmes, 55 tons, 600 quintals.
Esther, Seth Robbins, 45 tons, 600 quintals.
Lucy, Eben Davie, 50 tons, 600 quintals.
Caroline, Ellis Holmes, 60 tons, 800 quintals.
Hero, Joseph Doten, 60 tons, 600 quintals.
Industry, Joseph Ryder, 60 tons, 600 quintals.
Federalist, Finney Leach, 80 tons, 750 quintals.
Eagle, Jabez Churchill, 30 tons, 300 quintals.
Polly, Lemuel Leach, 70 tons, 700 quintals.
Leader, Job Brewster, 35 tons, 660 quintals.
Manson, Ellis Brewster, 105 tons, 450 quintals.
Rosebud, Andrew Bartlett, 40 tons, 580 quintals.
Hawk, Samuel Churchill, 60 tons, 700 quintals.
Seaflower, Ansel Bartlett, 40 tons, 790 quintals.
Rebecca, —— Codman, 50 tons, 700 quintals.
After the peace of 1815 the fishery entered upon a season of renewed
activity, which continued with occasional periods of relaxation until its final
extinction. The government having found during the revolution that
fishermen made up a large share of naval enlistments, adopted the policy of
aiding and encouraging the fishing industry, and in 1789 Congress passed
an act granting a bounty of five cents per quintal on dried fish, and imposed
a duty of fifty cents per quintal on imported fish. In 1790 the bounty of five
cents was increased to ten, but on the 16th of February, 1792, the bounty of
ten cents per quintal was discontinued, and an allowance was made to
vessels employed in the cod fishery at sea for four months between the last
day of February and the last day of November, according to the following
rates: Vessels between twenty and thirty tons were to receive $1.50 per ton
annually, and those of more than thirty tons, $2.50 per ton, but the
allowance to any vessel was limited to $170. In 1797 the allowance was
increased one-third; but in 1807 all bounties were abolished. In 1813 the
bounty was revived and the allowance fixed as follows: To vessels from
five to twenty tons, $1.60 per ton; to those from twenty to thirty, $2.40 per
ton, and to those above thirty, $4, but no vessel was to receive more than
$272. In 1819 an allowance was made to vessels from five to thirty tons of

$3.50 per ton, and to those of more than thirty, $4 per ton, but vessels
having a crew of ten men were to be allowed $3.50 per ton on a service of
three months and a half. No vessel, however, was to receive more than
$360. By an act passed in 1817, it was required in order to entitle a vessel to
receive a bounty that the master and three quarters of the crew should be
citizens of the United States, but in 1864 this requirement was limited to the
masters. By an act passed July 28, 1866, bounties were abolished, and
duties on salt used in curing fish were remitted.
The abolition of bounties was a blow to the fishing interests, which was
destined to be followed by a more deadly one. It cannot, however, be said
that it was wholly undeserved, for the requirement of four months’ service
at sea had been often evaded. A very considerable number of the fishing
fleet returned home before four months had expired, and anchoring in beach
channel by night and cruising in the bay by day, spent the time in what was
called bounty catching, until the expiration of the four months.
But a severer blow than the loss of bounty soon fell on the fishery. In
1871 the treaty of Washington between the United States and Great Britain
provided that “fish oil and fish of all kinds, except fish of the inland lakes,
and of the rivers falling into them, and except fish preserved in oil, being
the produce of the fisheries of the United States, or of the Dominion of
Canada, or of Prince Edward Island, shall be admitted into each country,
respectively, free of duty.” This treaty went into operation July 1, 1873, to
remain in force for ten years, and further until the expiration of two years
after the United States or Great Britain shall have given notice to terminate
it.
At the time of the repeal of the bounty law in 1866, the product of the
Plymouth fishery taking the returns from the previous year as a basis of an
estimate was as follows: Value of fish, $261,053; value of oil, $24,530;
bounties, $14,249, and the number of men employed was 420. I am inclined
to think that the largest number of vessels ever employed was in the year
1862, when sixty-seven were employed, but in 1873, the year the treaty of
Washington went into operation, there were only twenty.
As nearly as I can judge the following is a correct list of vessels engaged
in the fishery since 1828:
Abby Morton John Fehrman

Abeona Joshua Bates
Adelaide Juvenile
Adeline Latona
Albatross Leo
Albert Leonidas
Albion Lewis Perry
Annie Eldridge Linda
Anti Linnet
Arabella Lizzie W. Hannum
Arno Louisa
Aurora Louise
Austin Lucy
Avon Lyceum
Banker Malvina
Ben Perley Poor Manchester
Betsey Manomet
Blue Wave Maria
Black Warrior Martha Washington
Brontes Mary A. Taylor
California Mary Baker
Caroline Mary Chilton
Ceres Mary Holbrook
Challenge Mary Susan
Charles Massachusetts
Charles Matilda
Charles Augusta May
Charles Henry Mayflower
Christie Johnson May Queen
Clara Jane Medium
Climax Molly Foster
Clio Mona
Clifford Mountain King
Cobden Nahant
Coiner Naiad Queen
Columbia Nathaniel Doane
Columbus Neptune
Conanchet N. D. Scudder
Confidence Oasis
Congress Ocean
Constitution Old Colony
Cora Olive Branch
Costello Ontario
Deborah Orion
Deliverance Oronoco
Delos Pamlico

Delta Perseverance
Dolphin Philip Bridges
Drake Pezarro
Duck President
Eagle Profit
Elder Brewster Rainbow
Eleanor Reaper
Eliza Reform
Eliza Ann Rescue
Elizabeth Resolution
Ellis Risk
Engineer Rival
Enterprise Robert Roberts
Essex Rollins
Experience Roxanna
Fairplay Sabine
Fair Trade Samuel
Favorite Samuel Davis
Fearless Sarah and Mary
Fisher Sarah E. Hyde
Flash Sarah Elizabeth
Flora Scud
Fornax Seadrift
Florida Seaflower
Forest King Seafoam
Fortune Sea Witch
Franklin Seneca
Fred Lawrence Silver Spring
Fredonia Speedwell
Gentile Storm King
George Stranger
George Henry Sunbeam
Glendora Surprise
Glide Susan
Grampus Swallow
Guide Thatcher Taylor
Hannah Thetis
Hannah Coomer Three Friends
Hannah Stone Traffic
Hattie Weston Tremont
Helena Vesper
Herald Village Belle
Hercules Volant
Hero Wampatuck
Hiram Wanderer

Home Wave
Horatio Wide Awake
Howard Willie Lord
Independence Wm. Tell
Industry Wm. Wilson
Jane Winslow
John Eliot

The following list of vessels employed in 1868 shows the gradual
reduction of the fleet from sixty-seven in 1862 to twenty in 1873:
Abby Morton Mary Taylor
Adeline Mary Susan
Avon Matilda
Charles May Flower
Charles Augusta May Queen
Clara Jane Nahant
Climax Naiad Queen
Cora N. D. Scudder
Delos Oasis
Dolphin Ocean
Elizabeth Olive Branch
Engineer Oronoco
Favorite Profit
Florida Risk
Forest King Samuel
George Samuel Davis
George Henry Seadrift
Glendora Sea Witch
Helena Silver Spring
Herald Sunbeam
Joshua Bates Surprise
Juvenile Swallow
Linnet Thatcher Taylor
Louisa Tremont
Manomet Volant
Manchester Wave
Martha Washington Wampatuck
Mary Chilton Winslow

In 1869 there were fifty-four; in 1870, fifty-two; in 1871, forty; in 1872,
twenty-six; in 1873, twenty; in 1874, twelve; in 1876, twelve; in 1878,
eleven; in 1879, ten; in 1880, eight; in 1881, seven; in 1882, two; in 1883,
two; in 1884, eight; in 1885, three; in 1886, one; in 1888, one, the Hannah
Coomer, Capt. Nickerson, the last vessel to go to the Banks from Plymouth.

In 1882 Prince Manter bought the Sabine, and Capt. James S. Kelley made
seven trips in her in four summers, the last vessel to go to the Grand Banks,
while the Hannah Coomer was the last to go to Quereau Bank.
The following is a list of fishing vessels lost since 1828, as complete as I
am able to make it:
Abby Morton, Joseph Whitton, master, lost in Hell Gate, New York.
Adelaide, Capt. Joseph Sampson, was lost on the Banks.
Samuel, condemned in Nova Scotia.
Brontes, on a passage from Aux Cayes, to Boston, left Holmes Hole
December 31, 1862, and was never heard from. Her crew consisted of John
E. Morton, captain; George Morey, mate, and Samuel Howland, Isaac
Howland, Bartlett Finney and Josiah H. Swift.
Charles, Isaac Howland, master, was lost on Cape Cod.
Charles, Isaac Swift, master, left Plymouth September 29, 1868, on a fall
fishing trip, and was never heard from.
Congress, owned by Samuel Doten, was lost.
Wampatuck, seized in Nova Scotia in 1870 or 1871.
Delos, sunk in Nantucket Roads in 1872.
Wm. Tell, sold before 1828, and lost on Grand Banks in 1829.
Christie Johnson, Solomon M. Holmes, master, was lost on the banks in
1874.
Ellis, was lost on Cape Cod in 1844.
Flash, Eli H. Minter, master, was lost in the West Indies in 1865.
Fred Lawrence was lost.
Herald, lost or sold in Nova Scotia in 1870.
Linnet, Wm. Langford, master, was lost with all hands, in September,
1870.
Martha Washington, Capt. Gooding, was lost in Nova Scotia in 1874.

Mary A. Taylor, Lewis King, master, was lost or sold in Nova Scotia in
1874.
May was lost in 1871.
Ocean, Jerry McCuskey, master, was lost in Nova Scotia in 1870.
Olive Branch was lost in 1869.
President, John Ellis Bartlett, master, lost in 1828, bound to Martinique.
President, Stephen D. Drew, master, was lost on Cape Cod in 1844.
Rollins, Charles Harlow, master, was lost on Cape Cod in 1868.
Seadrift was lost or sold in 1871 in Nova Scotia.
Speedwell was lost in the West Indies in 1865.
Swallow was lost or sold in Nova Scotia in 1871.
Thatcher Taylor, James Simmons, was lost or sold in 1871.
Fearless, Capt. George N. Adams, sailed from Boston for Aux Cayes,
August 13, 1862, and was never heard from.
John Eliot, Francis H. Weston, master, sailed from Boston October 9,
1863, for Cape Haytien, and crew taken off November 21 by schooner
Thrasher, and landed at Port Spain.
Mary Holbrook, was lost in the Gulf, January 25, 1831.
Joshua Bates was lost on Richmond Island in February, 1876.
Franklin was lost at the Western Islands in 1837.
George Henry, Lamberton, master, was condemned in West Indies, 1869.
Vesper, Capt. Burgess, sailed from New York, February 28, 1846, for
Jamaica, and was lost probably in a gale March 2.
Flora, Benjamin Jenkins, master, was spoken August 8, 1846, with
15,000 fish; August 21, with 21,000; August 28, with 23,000; September
17, with 30,000, and was probably lost in a gale which occurred September
19, 1846.
Coiner, Samuel Rogers, master, was lost on a passage home from Inagua
in 1865.

Stranger was lost at sea near St. Thomas, 1835.
Oronoco was lost in 1871.
Schooner Maracaibo, changed to a brig before she entered the whale
fishery, has been earlier mentioned without any details of her loss. She
sailed from Plymouth on a whaling voyage September 12, 1846. On the
19th, in latitude 38.22, and longitude 72.35, she was capsized, losing
second mate, Wm. Tripp, of Tiverton, David Sylvia seaman, and George
Ellis of Plymouth, also a seaman, who was drowned in the forecastle. The
masts went by the board, and the brig righted, and Capt. Collingwood and
eighteen men were lashed to the wreck ninety-six hours with only a barrel
of sugar to eat. On the twenty-third they battened down the hatches and
bailed the vessel out, and on the twenty-fourth set up jury masts. On the
twenty-fifth they obtained from the bark Newton of New Bedford two spars
and gear, and a quadrant, and finally, after being on the wreck twenty-one
days, were taken off by the bark Clement.
The question is often asked, what becomes of all the vessels that have
been built? Upon this question official records throw some light. The last
accessible statistics show that during the ten years from 1879 to 1889,
nineteen thousand one hundred and ninety United States vessels were
wrecked on or near the coasts, or on the inland waters of the United States,
and during the same period, sixty-six hundred and forty-one British vessels.
The following is an imperfect list of skippers since 1828:
Benjamin Nye Adams Wellington Lambert
George Adams Wm. Langford
George N. Adams Moses Larkin
John Allen Ezra Leach
George Allen Lemuel Leach
Winslow Allen David Manter
Thomas Atwood David L. Manter
Wm. Atwood George Manter
Solomon Attaquin Prince Manter
Coleman Bartlett Owen McGahan
Frederick Bartlett Jake McCarthy
Nathaniel Bartlett Jerry McCluskey
Benjamin Bates Duncan McDonald
Braman L. Bennett Eli H. Minter
John Briggs George Morey
Frederick Burgess Wm. Morrisey

Henry Burgess John Morse
James Burgess Josiah Morton
Phineas F. Burgess Lemuel Morton
Horatio G. Camero Levi P. Morton
A. R. Carnes Wm. Mullins
John Chase Grant C. Parsons
John B. Chandler John Parsons
Samuel Chandler Ezra Pierce
Ephraim F. Churchill Ignatius Pierce
Joseph Churchill Richard Pike
Lionel Churchill Calvin Raymond
Edward Clough Henry Rickard
Isaac Connors Warren P. Rickard
James Cornish Francis Rogers
Thomas E. Cornish George Rogers
Edward Courtney David Robertson
Ichabod Davie Joseph Ross
Lemuel Doten Thomas Ryan
Nathaniel Doty Andrew Sampson
Horace J. Drew Joseph Sampson
Stephen D. Drew Nathan B. Sampson
Daniel Eldridge Sylvanus Sampson
Barnabas Ellis Angus Scott
Stephen Finney Daniel Sears
Henry Gibbs Hiram B. Sears
Grenville W. Griffin Wm. Sears
John Griffin Nathaniel Simmons
Wm. Grindle James Simmons
Frew Gross Wm. Stephens
Thomas Hannagan Isaac Smith
Branch Harlow Joseph Smith
Charles Harlow Luther Smith
Richard W. Harlow Peter W. Smith
Nathan Haskins Thomas Smith
Robert Hogg — Sparrow
Gideon Holbrook Isaac Swift
Barzillia Holmes Philip Snow
George Holmes Nahum Thomas
Solomon M. Holmes Lewis W. Thrasher
Isaac Howland Oliver C. Vaughn
John Howland Perez Wade
Lemuel C. Howland John B. Walker
Abiatha Hoxie Robert Washburn
Nathaniel Hoxie Solomon Webquish
Robert Hutchinson John Whitmore

Benjamin Jenkins Samuel O. Whittemore
Wm. Jordan Joseph Whitten
James S. Kelley Samuel M. Whitten
Lewis King George R. Wiswell
Robert King Lemuel R. Wood
William King Edward Wright

There are several disconnected items which may be mentioned in this
chapter. The Sunbeam, sold a few years ago, was employed in 1905 in
carrying gravel from the Gurnet to Boston, and the Sabine, sold at the same
time, is used as a house boat in Boston harbor by a Portuguese lobsterman.
The Maria of Plymouth, and the schooner R. Leach of Bucksport, Me., were
the first United States vessels to use, in 1859, trawls in salt fishing. It was a
method of fishing introduced by the French, and until the above date was
looked upon as an experiment. It may not be generally known that there is a
Plymouth Rock on the banks. It is laid down in “Sailing Directions for the
Island and Banks of New Foundland,” etc., published in 1882, as one of the
Eastern shoals, a group around Nine-fathom Bank, which latter lies in
latitude 46.26.45 N. and longitude 50.28.06 W. Plymouth Rock has 15
fathoms of water, and was named in honor of Capt. Burgess, of the
schooner Lyceum of Plymouth, who discovered it.

CHAPTER XI.
The following is a detailed account of the loss of the Plymouth bark
Charles Bartlett, which on the 27th of June, 1849, was run down and sunk
by the Cunard steamship Europa. The incidents attending the disaster
possess an interest in themselves, while the trial in the English law courts of
a suit for damages brought by the owners of the bark in the early days of
ocean steam navigation, was an important one, establishing as it did the
duties of steam navigators and their liability in damages for a failure to
perform them.
The Charles Bartlett was a bark of four hundred tons, built in Westbrook,
Maine, and owned by Wm. L. Finney and others of Plymouth. She left the
Downs on the 14th of June, 1849, bound for New York with a cargo of
about four hundred and fifty tons of iron, lead, etc., and with one cabin
passenger and one hundred and sixty-two in the steerage. Her officers and
crew were William Bartlett of Plymouth, Captain; Thomas Parker of
Charleston, S. C., first officer; Wm. Prince, second officer, and George
Parsons of Portland, Me., Wm. Rich of Gravesend, England, Isaac Hanson,
James Fraser, John Bell, Joshua Carey, Levi Hunt, Wm. Perry, John Jordan,
John Jackson and Harrison D. White, seamen. On the 27th of June, in
latitude 50.48 N., longitude 29 W., in a thick fog, which gathered after the
noon observation had been taken, the bark was heading northwest with the
wind west by south, close hauled and all sails set. At half-past three the
captain, who was standing on the weather side of the poop deck, caught
sight of the steamship about one point forward of the beam, and about four
hundred yards distant. He ordered his helm up and shouted to the steamer to
port her helm. The officer of the deck on the Europa, however, ordered his
helm put to starboard, which order was countermanded before the wheel
had been turned one round. If the starboard helm had produced any effect, it
was of course to make a collision the more sure, while if the helm had been
at first promptly put to port there is room for doubt whether, as the bark was
all the time going ahead, the steamer might not have slipped by her stern
without causing serious damage. As it was, the Europa going at twelve and

a half knots, struck the bark abreast of her main shrouds in one minute after
she was first seen, and three minutes later the bark went down. The
steamer’s bow entered to within a foot of the after hatch, tearing away
twenty feet of the bark’s side, and suffering as her own damage only the
loss of her head knees and her foretopmast. At the moment of the collision,
about one hundred passengers were on deck, and it was estimated that about
one half of them were killed by the impact. The captain and second officer
and nine of the crew and thirty passengers were saved, all but ten of whom,
who were picked up by boats, were saved by clinging to the bows of the
steamer, and climbing on board.
The Europa had a full passenger list, and the excitement caused by the
terrible scenes of the collision was followed by a serious anxiety for the
safety of their own vessel, which only prompt investigations and the
assurance of the officers that the hull was uninjured could allay. Among the
passengers was Capt. Robert B. Forbes of Boston, who with that generous
impulse and heroic courage which had always characterized him risked his
life by leaping into the sea and aided in the rescue of his drowning fellow
men. For the service rendered by him, a medal was presented to him by the
Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society, and another by the
Massachusetts Humane Society. The Cunard Steamship Company gave
twenty pounds toward the relief of the survivors of the Charles Bartlett, and
a free passage to America.
A suit was brought by the owners and underwriters to recover damages
estimated at twelve thousand pounds, and tried in the English Admiralty
Court, and the facts which I have stated were presented to the court by the
plaintiffs. The responsive allegation in behalf of the Europa, claimed that
the collision occurred in the usual track for steamers, but that it was two or
three degrees to the north of the usual track of sailing vessels. It denied that
there was a concentrating point in the Atlantic, and alleged that the noise of
the paddle wheels might have been heard in the direction of the bark three
or four miles, and that it was owing to some negligence that the bark was
not therefore warned of the approach of the steamer. It further alleged that
though the third officer ordered the helm to be starboarded, before the order
could be obeyed the order was revoked, and the wheel was directed to be
put hard a port. The engines were stopped so that before the collision the
steamer had come up to the wind a point and a half. It was still further

alleged that the bark was going from five and a half to six knots an hour,
having all possible sails set, and had neglected to fire guns, blow her fog
horn or ring her bell at short intervals, so that those on board the steamer
could be cognizant of her approach.
The presiding judge, addressing his brethren of the Court, said that these
cases are becoming so numerous that it was for the interest of the owners of
ships that they should be decided promptly. With regard to the burden of
proof, it is of course necessary for the plaintiff to present all the evidence
reasonably within his power, but that after he has done that it rests upon the
other party to show that they have not been guilty of the acts attributed to
them. With regard to the distance at which the vessels were seen by each
other, and the time which elapsed before the collision, nothing is more
difficult than to find consistent evidence. The conclusion of the allegation in
defense is in substance that the collision was either the result of inevitable
accident, or was the fault of those on board the Charles Bartlett. What is an
inevitable accident? Inevitable must be considered as a variable term, and
must be construed with regard to the circumstances of each case. In almost
every case it is possible to avoid a collision by going at a slow pace, or
lying to during a fog, but the import of the words “inevitable accident” is
this, where a man is pursuing his lawful vocation in a lawful manner, and
something occurs which no ordinary caution could prevent. Continuing, the
presiding Judge said to his brethren of the Court, “It is very easy to define
what is a lawful vocation, but it is not so easy to say what is a lawful
manner. The test is the probability of injury to others, and that of course
depends on circumstances, as for instance the time and locality where the
occurrences take place. The object of our inquiry is whether in the case of
the Europa going about twelve and a half knots an hour in so dense a fog
that she could not see beyond one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards,
and in latitude 50.48 and longitude 29, there was more than ordinary
probability of meeting vessels. If there was a reasonable probability of a
collision, then beyond all doubt she would be to blame. If, however, there
was no reasonable probability of meeting vessels in the track pursued, she
was nevertheless bound to take all necessary precautions to insure safety.
One of the most important questions as to these precautions which we are to
decide, is whether there was or was not a sufficient lookout on board the
Europa. The law undoubtedly requires as a reasonable lookout the most
ample that could be adopted. Was there such a lookout on board the

steamer? According to the evidence the general practice on the Europa in
dense fogs was as follows: first to station an officer on the foremost bridge;
second, his junior at the Con; third, a quartermaster at the wheel; fourth, a
second hand in the wheelhouse, and fifth and sixth, two lookouts on the
topgallant forecastle. There is some evidence also tending to show that a
man was stationed in case of a fog on the lee side of the bridge, and also a
man at the crank to convey orders to the engine room. Now, the actual
watch when the collision occurred was as follows: Wardell, the second
officer, was on the bridge; Coates, a quartermaster, on the topgallant
forecastle; White, at the wheel, and Fern, another quartermaster, at the Con,
and I do not find any other person on the lookout. The second man is placed
at the wheel so that in case of necessity it may be turned as promptly as
possible. There is an entire absence of evidence as to whether at the time of
the collision there was in operation any means of communicating orders to
the engine room, or whether any orders were really communicated.”
Continuing, the presiding Judge said: “You will have to decide also whether
there was more than one man at the wheel, and lastly, whether the order to
starboard the helm, which is agreed on all hands to have been erroneous,
did or did not produce any effect in the case. Looking at the rapidity with
which the vessels were approaching each other, the last mentioned
consideration is one of importance.”
With regard to the Charles Bartlett the Judge said, “Was she carrying too
much sail; was there a want of a sufficient look-out, and above all is it your
opinion that she ought to have sounded a fog horn or rung a bell? Whether
she ought to have heard the paddle wheels before she did, and neglected to
take measures to avert a collision, is one of the questions for you to decide.
But it is in evidence that even if she could have heard them, no fog horn
could have been heard on board the steamer above the sound of the
paddles.”
The Court retired, and returning at the end of half an hour, Dr.
Lushington, the presiding Judge, then said: “In conjunction with the
gentlemen by whom I am assisted, we have considered all the points in this
case, which I have suggested as necessary to be determined, and I trust that
there has been no omission as to any one of them. We have come
unanimously to the following determination: That no rate of sailing by
steamers or other vessels can be said to be absolutely dangerous; but

whether any given rate is dangerous or not, must depend on the
circumstances of each individual case, as the state of the weather, locality
and other similar facts. That the rate of twelve and a half knots an hour in a
dense fog in the locality where this occurrence took place, must be attended
with more risk than a slower pace; but assuming that it might be
accomplished with reasonable security, and without probable risk to other
vessels, such rate of going could not be maintained with such security,
except by taking every possible precaution against collision. That proper
precaution was not taken by the Europa: First, she had not a sufficient look-
out; second, we think that no proper arrangement was made as to the
engines; third, because no person was placed to report to the engineers the
orders as to the engines; fourth, because no second person was placed in the
wheel house; fifth, that the order to starboard the helm was erroneous. We
are of the opinion that if proper precautions had been adopted, the accident
might have been avoided, and that the collision took place for want of the
proper precautions. With respect to the Charles Bartlett, we are of opinion
that a good look-out was kept on board; that she discovered the approach of
the Europa as soon as circumstances would permit; that she adopted all
proper measures to avoid the collision by ringing the bell and putting the
helm to port. Therefore, I must pronounce against the Europa in this case.”
After the decision of the Court was read, Mr. Rothery, the proctor for the
Europa, gave notice of appeal. All appeals from the Admiralty Court, which
until the time of William 4th were made to the High Court of Admiralty, are
now made to the King in council, and are referred to the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council, which committee is composed of the Chief Justice of
the Court of King’s Bench, the Master of the Rolls, the Vice Chancellor of
England, and other ex-officio officers. The appeal in question was heard by
Lord Justice Cranworth, Lord Justice Sir James Knight Bruce, Sir Herbert
Jenner Fust, and Sir Edward Ryan, and judgment was delivered by Lord
Justice Cranworth, December 1, 1851. It is unnecessary to relate the
grounds of the judgment of the committee, as they were for the most part
the same as those which entered into the decision of the Admiralty Court.
There is one part, however, to which I wish to refer, because it lays down a
rule for the guidance of ocean steam navigators, broader and more exacting
than any suggested by the Admiralty Court. An important question in the
examination of witnesses was whether it would have been possible to stop
the steamer, or so far stop her as to enable her to get out of the way within

the distance between the two vessels when they were first seen by each
other. The preponderance of testimony was that she could not if going
twelve and a half knots an hour. The peculiarity of this question is that an
answer either in the affirmative or negative would bear against the Europa.
If she could get out of the way and did not, she is to blame. If she could not
get out of the way, the committee say that “it follows as an inevitable
consequence that she was sailing at a rate of speed at which it was not
lawful for her to navigate.” The judgment closes as follows: “Their
lordships have come to the opinion that the accident was without default on
the part of the Charles Bartlett and was through the neglect of the Europa.
The consequences will be that the appeal will be dismissed with costs.”
In closing the narrative of this important case it is pleasant to remember
the enconiums of the London press on the intelligence and general
demeanor of our late townsman, Capt. William Bartlett, as displayed by him
during the trial. The master mariners of New England were fortunate in
having in a foreign land so worthy a representative.

CHAPTER XII.
The migration from New England and the middle states to California in
1849 and 1850, was one of the remarkable events in the history of the
American Union. It was one of those events, of which the history of the
world furnishes many examples, accomplishing in the end results far
removed from the purposes sought in their conception, and apparently
carrying out the designs of an overruling providence, in which man has only
served as its instrument. It is a question worthy of consideration, whether
the destiny of the American republic would have reached its present
measure of accomplishment, without the inspiration which a mere thirst for
gold served to excite. It was another of those incidents, of which the Pilgrim
colonization was a striking example, which reached its consummation
through the aid of the merchants of London, who were looking merely for
discoveries of ores of gold and silver to reward their enterprise.
On the 9th of February, 1848, while three Americans were at work
repairing the race way of Sutter’s Mill, on the American fork of Sacramento
river, a little daughter of Mr. Marshal, the superintendent of the mill, picked
up a lump of gold, and showed it to her father as a pretty plaything. The
discovery was too important to be kept secret, and a letter written by Rev.
C. S. Lyman appeared in the March number of the American Journal of
Science announcing it to the world. No news ever spread more rapidly. In
the New England states, and in Massachusetts, especially, a wave of
migration set in, which was as strong in Plymouth as elsewhere. The time
was favorable; the supply of labor was just then greater than the demand,
and the temptation to seek wealth in California became almost irresistible.
Those who at once made preparations to go were the bone and sinew of the
town, carpenters, masons, painters and clerks, and for a time after their
departure our streets seemed almost deserted.
Among the first to leave were those who sailed in the Brig Isabelle of
Plymouth, Chandler Burgess, Jr. of Plymouth, master, which sailed from
New York, January 14, 1849. Her passengers were: Ephraim Paty, Jr., James

Burgess, Jr., Freeman Morton, Jr., Stephen Pember, Winslow Morton,
George Morton of Plymouth, and twenty-one others.
The schooner Roanoke sailed from Boston, January 19, 1849, carrying
Russell Bourne, John E. Sever and Frederick Morton of Plymouth.
The Capitol from Boston sailed in January, 1849, with Rufus Ball,
Thomas Atwood, Thomas Wood, James A. Young, Jacob Hersey, James M.
Thomas, Daniel Bickford, George E. Lugerder, Adam E. Stetson, George E.
Burns, Tolman French and one hundred and eighty-four others.
The Rochelle sailed from Boston, February 7, 1849, with Daniel P. Bates,
Wm. Churchill, Josiah Byram, David Gurney and John T. Pratt.
The bark Diman sailed from New Bedford, February 8, 1849, with Hiram
Churchill and Samuel D. Barnes.
The bark Yeoman of Plymouth, James S. Clark of Rochester, master,
sailed from Plymouth, March 18, 1849, with Geo. Collingwood of
Plymouth, mate, and the following members of the Pilgrim Mining
Company: Nathaniel C. Covington, president; Francis H. Robbins,
secretary; and Robert Swinburne, Nathan G. Cushing, John E. Churchill,
Henry Chase, Wm. Collingwood, Wm. M. Gifford, A. O. Nelson, Franklin
B. Holmes, Nathan Churchill, James T. Collins, Nathaniel S. Barrows, Jr.,
Henry M. Hubbard, Henry B. Holmes, Alfred R. Doten, Ellis Rogers, Ellis
B. Barnes, George P. Fowler, Wm. Saunders, Richard B. Dunham, Henry
M. Morton, Caleb C. Bradford, Silas M. Churchill, Elisha W. Kingman,
Ozen Bates, Chandler Dunham, James T. Wadsworth, Winslow B. Barnes,
Thomas Rogers, Edward Morton, Wm. J. Dunham, Augustus Robbins,
Sylvanus Everson, George A. Bradford, Seth Blankenship, John Clark,
Thomas Brown and John Ward. The Yeoman was built as a brig in
Plymouth, in 1833, and afterwards changed to a bark.
The Attila, Wm. W. Baker of Plymouth, master, sailed from Boston in
March, 1849, with the following passengers: Timothy Allen, Charles H.
Weston, Calvin Ripley, Samuel Lanman, Ellis H. Morton, William Randall,
Manter, Allen Holmes, Joseph L. Weston, Ephraim Finney, Abner Sylvester,
Samuel Doten, Thomas C. Smith, Winslow Bradford, Job Churchill, Samuel
C. Chamberlain, Lewis Finney, George W. Virgin, Jr., Abram C. Small,
Frederick Salter, Alfred N. Primes, Isaac R. Atwood, W. Bradford, Josiah

Nichols, Charles W. Swift, John Leighton, Wm. Smith, Rufus Holmes,
James Joyce, Lucien Winsor, Henry Holmes, Henry Lee, Samuel Alden,
Benjamin F. Winslow, Frederick Bush, James Carey, John L. Nash and
Ambrose Harmon. The Attila was one hundred and seventy days on her
passage to San Francisco.
The ship Mallory sailed from New York, February 28, 1849, with the
following passengers, Thomas Rider, Richard T. Pope and Frederick W.
Lucas.
The ship Frances Ann sailed from Boston in April, 1849, having as a
passenger, John Haggerty.
The ship York sailed from Boston April 1, 1849, having as a passenger,
John A. Spooner.
The ship New Jersey sailed from Boston in May, 1849, having Josiah
Williams as a passenger.
The ship Iconium of Plymouth, Eleazer Stephens Turner, master, sailed
from Boston, June 1, 1849, with Horace Jackson as a passenger.
The bark Helen Augusta sailed from Boston, August 15th, with James
Gorham Hedge as a passenger.
The steamship Chesapeake sailed from New York, August 9th, 1849, for
the Isthmus with Gideon Holbrook.
The ship Harriet Rockwell sailed from Boston, September 18, 1849, with
Stephen P. Sears.
The ship Cordova sailed from Boston, September 26, 1849, having as
passengers, Seth Morton, Jr., and wife; Mrs. Anna Bartlett and child, John
B. Simmons, Daniel Williams, Wm. R. Lanman, Ichabod Harlow and
George White. The ship Persian of Plymouth, Robbins, master, sailed from
Baltimore in May, 1849, with Charles Jackson as passenger.
The brig Sarah Abigail of Plymouth sailed from Plymouth, November 13,
1849, with the following passengers, Capt. Josiah Bartlett and wife,
William Bartlett, Andrew Blanchard, Josiah Drew, Josiah C. Fuller,
Ephraim Holmes, John B. Collingwood, Daniel F. Goodard, Charles T.
Goodard, Isaac N. Harlow, Calvin Raymond, Eleazer H. Barnes, Joseph B.
Hobart, Caleb Battles, Nathaniel Bradford, Thomas Diman, Wm. Bowen,

Melzar Pierce, Clark Ellis, George Benson, Curtis Davie, Hira Bates, John
P. Perry and Elisha Holbrook.
Steamer Ohio sailed from New York for the Isthmus, November 17,
1849, with George O. Barnes.
Steamer name unknown, sailed from New York for the Isthmus in
December, 1849, with Joseph Cushman.
The ship Samuel Appleton sailed from New York at an unknown date in
1849, with the following passengers, Richard Pope, Wm. W. Pope, and John
Lawrence.
The ship Regulus sailed from Boston in 1849, with Daniel Bradford,
Thomas B. Bradford and Charles E. Bryant, and one hundred and twenty
others.
The ship Cheshire sailed from Boston in 1849, with Joseph I. Holmes
and Adoniram Bates.
The ship Sweden sailed from Boston in 1849, with Elisha Whiting as
passenger.
The brig Reindeer of Plymouth sailed from New York in 1849, with Dr.
Samuel Merritt, James M. Bradford, Wm. C. Bradford, Charles Randall,
Henry Raymond, Mr. Warren and Laurence Cleales.
Steamer name unknown, sailed from New York for the Isthmus in 1849,
with A. O. Whitmore, Samuel O. Whitmore, Cyrus Bartlett, Freeman
Bartlett and Lewis Bartlett. By a route unknown, Frank Sherman sailed.
Of the above named persons, one hundred and seventy-seven in all, the
following thirty-five were from other towns. Abington, James A. Young;
South Abington, John L. Nash; Boston, Abram C. Small, Frederick Salter,
Alfred N. Primes, Joseph Nichols, Charles W. Smith and John Leighton;
Bridgewater, Benjamin F. Winslow; East Bridgewater, Josiah Byram,
Frederick Bush, David Gurney, John T. Pratt, James Carey, James M.
Thomas, Daniel Beckford, George E. Lugender, Adam E. Stetson, George
E. Burns and Tolman French; Brooklyn, N. Y., John Ward; Duxbury, Daniel
Bradford, Rufus Holmes, Samuel Joyce, Lucien Winsor, Henry Lee and
Samuel Alden; Kingston, Thomas B. Bradford, Sylvanus Everson and
George A. Bradford; Plympton, Charles E. Bryant; Pulaski, N. Y., Ambrose

Harmon; Rochester, Mass., Seth Blankenship, John Clark and Thomas
Brown. Thus the number going from Plymouth was one hundred and forty-
two, which number would doubtless be increased by those of whom I have
no record. How many of those in the list of Plymouth men are now living I
have no means of ascertaining, but of those who sailed in the Yeoman only
two, George Collingwood and Wm. J. Dunham now survive. The last of the
Yeoman’s passengers to die was Alfred R. Doten, a brother of our
townsmen, the late Major Samuel H. and Captain Charles C. Doten, who
married in Nevada, and never returned to his native town.
Of Dr. Samuel Merritt, whose name is in the list of passengers on board
the brig Reindeer, I have something to say. An account of the chief incidents
in his career I had from his own lips. He was a native of Maine, and came to
Plymouth in 1845, and established himself in the practice of medicine. He
was a man six feet in height and large in proportion, frank and honest in
speech, hearty, but rough in manner, possessing great will and energy, and
calculated in every way to win the confidence of the people. He was a
bachelor, and at first had an office on Main street, in the Bartlett building,
where Loring’s watchmaker’s shop now is. After Union building was built
on the corner of Middle street, he occupied two rooms on the lower floor at
the corner, one for an office, and the other for a sleeping room.
When the California fever struck Plymouth it seized the Doctor with
great virulence. Aside from the temptations of gold and sudden wealth, the
idea of an expedition to the Pacific shores appealed to his adventurous
spirit, and he at once determined to follow the wave of migration. Without a
family to consult, he began his preparations. Collecting his professional
bills, he invested his capital in the purchase of a snug and handy
hermaphrodite brig of about one hundred and sixty tons, owned, I think, by
Joseph Holmes of Kingston, which was then lying in New York. Having
nearly finished loading her with such merchandise as according to the latest
advices was bringing high prices, he found that he had about five hundred
dollars unexpended. This amount, or a considerable portion of it, he
determined to expend in tacks, so one afternoon he started to go to Duxbury
and make the purchase at the tack factory carried on by Samuel Loring in
that town. Before he reached Kingston, he was overtaken by a messenger
on horse back, summoning him to return at once, and attend a man, who,
while engaged in painting the house of Capt. Nathaniel Russell at the corner

of Court Square, had fallen from a ladder, and was thought to be seriously
injured. As he had no time to spare to go to Duxbury after that day, he lost
the opportunity of making a fortune in tacks, which he found on his arrival
in San Francisco were selling at five dollars a paper.
With such a number of passengers as he could easily accommodate in the
cabin, he sailed from New York in the summer of 1849, and reached his
destination in the autumn. On the way up the Pacific coast a stop was made
at Valparaiso, and while there it occurred to the Doctor that it would be a
good plan to buy a lot of potatoes to fill up the hole which the passengers
and crew had eaten in the cargo. Starting one day for the shore to make the
purchase, a favorable wind sprung up, and the Captain signalled to him to
return. Thus another good speculation was lost, for on his arrival at San
Francisco there was not a potato in the market. To his dismay the bottom
had tumbled out of the prices of nearly every other article in his vessel,
following for instance the price of lumber, which had fallen from three
hundred dollars a thousand to a price lower than it could be bought for in
Bangor. After disposing of his vessel and cargo, and finding himself without
capital, he opened an office and began a practice, which he hoped to have
permanently abandoned. Doctors were fortunately as rare as tacks and
potatoes, and within a year his medical and surgical receipts amounted to
forty thousand dollars, a sum equivalent, perhaps, to five thousand dollars
in the East.
One day a Maine Captain called at his office, who was acquainted with
his family at home, and in the course of conversation, told him that he had a
power of attorney to sell the brig which he commanded, and wished the
Doctor would buy it. “No, I thank you,” replied the Doctor, “I have had all
the brigs I have any use for, and I think I will keep out of navigation.” The
captain called in occasionally afterwards, and the Doctor in the meantime
thought, as the people of San Francisco suffered during the previous
summer from the want of ice, that it might be a good speculation to go into
the ice business in anticipation of the wants of the next summer. The next
time the Captain called he asked him if he had sold his brig, and finding
that he had not, he told him that he would buy her if he would go in her to
Puget Sound and get a load of ice. The Captain agreed, and with a gang of
men well supplied with axes and saws, the vessel sailed. In due time the
Captain reported himself to the Doctor, who said, “Well, Cap., have you got

a good load of ice?” “Ice, no” said the Captain, “not a pound; water don’t
freeze in Puget Sound; but I wasn’t coming home with an empty hold, so I
put my gang ashore and cut a load of piles.” It so happened that piles were
much needed on the harbor front, and the cargo sold at once at a big price,
and the brig started off for a second load. By the time the second load
arrived, which proved as profitable as the first, other vessel owners had got
wind of the business, and the Doctor said, “now, Captain, we have had the
cream of this business, I guess we will let these other fellows have the skim
milk. You go up and get another load and carry it over to Australia and buy
a load of coal.” In due time again the Captain returned, but without a pound
of coal, saying, that finding he would have to wait a long time for his turn
to load, he thought it better to take his money for the piles and go down to
the Society Islands for a load of oranges, six hundred thousand of which
fruit he had on board. The orange market at that time was completely bare,
and the profits of the voyage were heavy.
“Now, Captain, go up and get one more load, and carry it down to Callao,
and sell out everything, brig and all, and we will close up our business, and
you can go home.” Thus by good luck, aided largely by the shrewdness of
his captain, Dr. Merritt laid the foundations of a multi-millionaire’s fortune.
It is needless to say that he closed his office and sought favorable
investments for his money. He bought land in Oakland across the bay, laid
out streets, built houses, and in time became mayor of the city, whose
foundation he had laid.
I saw the Doctor on his last visit East about six years ago, and he then
boasted of nothing so much as of his yacht, which he said was the finest on
the Pacific. I have recently read a journal of Mrs. Stevenson, the mother of
Robert Louis Stevenson, of a six months’ excursion in the Pacific for the
benefit of her son’s health in the yacht Casco, belonging to Dr. Merritt. Her
account of an interview with the Doctor illustrates his personalty and
deportment which had more of the fortiter in re than the suaviter in modo.
She says, “Dr. M. has just been here to settle the final business
arrangements. He had heard that Louis had a mother, and was not at all sure
of allowing an old woman to sail on his beloved yacht, so he insisted on
seeing me before he left. When I came in I found a very stout man with a
strong and humorous face, who sat still in his chair and took a good look at
me. Then he held out his hand with the remark, ‘You are a healthy looking

woman.’ He built the yacht, he told me, for his health, as he was getting so
stout that some means of reduction were necessary, and going to sea had
pulled him down sixty pounds. ‘The yacht is the apple of my eye—you may
think (to Fanny) your husband loves you, but I can assure you that I love
my yacht a great deal better.’”
Dr. Merritt died three or four years ago, and the last I heard of his affairs
was that his will was in litigation.

CHAPTER XIII.
In an earlier chapter I gave a list of the streets, squares, lanes and alleys,
which existed in my boyhood, with the promise to say something
concerning the changes, which they had gone through, and the houses and
people and incidents associated with them. I have since taken a passing
glance at Court, Main, Middle and North streets with the intention of
referring to them again. In my treatment of Water street I have dwelt in
detail on its buildings and occupants.
The next street in order is Leyden street, the most interesting of all the
streets, associated, as it is with the first winter of the Pilgrims, with the
Common House, the store houses, and the seven cottages, which with their
walls of plank, their roofs of thatch, and windows of paper, served as
hospitals for the sick and shelter for all. How far east and west the original
street extended is conjectural. It is probable that on the west it extended at
least as far as the fort, which in 1622 was built near the top of burial hill,
and that within a year or two habitations for single families were
constructed on both sides of the street. The easterly end of the original street
is more doubtful. It must be remembered that what we call ropewalk pond
was a part of the harbor, a broad cove or bay with a wide entrance
extending from a point on the south near the southerly corner of the present
foundry, to a point on the north near the southerly end of the Electric Light
building. It is probable that this cove extended so far west that it felt the
flow of the tide for some distance above the present arch of Spring hill. It
will therefore be seen that this bay furnished an excellent boat harbor
protected from the ocean blasts, and, being in close proximity to the store
houses, was undoubtedly used as a landing place for boats, plying to and
from the Mayflower during her stay in the harbor.
In view of these conditions it is probable that the original street extended
no farther east than the narrow way which may still be seen on the easterly
side of the house with a brick end opposite the Universalist church, a way
which is referred to in ancient deeds, and which in my opinion led to the
landing place, and was used by the Pilgrims in reaching or leaving their

settlement by water. The first official laying out of Leyden street was made
in connection with Water street in 1716, and is entered in the town records
under date of February 16, 1715-16 old style, or February 26, 1716 new
style. It is signed by Benjamin Warren, John Dyer, John Watson and Abial
Shurtleff, selectmen, and reads as follows: “Then laid out by us the
subscribers, Town Wayes (viz) as followeth A street Called first street
beginning att a stone sett into ye Ground att ye Corner of Ephraim Coles
smiths shop, from Thence to rainge East 21 Degrees northerly To John
Rickard’s Corner bounds at The brow of The hill, & from thence To a stone
att ye foot of the hill on the same Rainge The sd street is: 40: ffoots in
Weadth att The bounds first mentioned, and to carrey its width till it comes
to The Northerly Corner of Capt. Dyer’s house There being a stone sett into
ye Ground & from Thence To Rainge East Two Degrees Northerly To a
stone sett into the Ground att The foot of The hill a little above Ephraim
Kempton’s house being the westerly corner bounds of the way That leads
over the Brook and from Thence Northeast: 16: Degrees Easterly 40: foots
to A stone sett into The Ground a little above John Rickard’s upper Ware
house, and from Thence To Extend Northeast: 6: Degrees Northerly one
hundred and Three foots to a stone sett into ye Ground being 16 Degrees
Southeasterly 30 foots from a stone sett into ye Ground at ye foot of the hill
Neere or upon The Sootherly Corner of John Ward’s land on ye westerly
side of The Way That leads To ye New street Thence from sd stone To
Extend Northeast 5 Degrees Northerly 29 foots To another stone sett in ye
Ground in John Wards land & from Thence To Extend North 20 Degrees
Easterly To a stone sett into ye Ground att ye North East Corner of Mr. John
Watson’s cooper’s shop, and from Thence to Extend North 7 Degrees
Easterly to a stone and poast sett into ye Ground above Thomas Dotyes
Coopers shop, and from Thence to Extend North 21 Degrees westerly to a
stone and poast sett in ye Ground above Thomas Doten’s cooper shop, and
from Thence to Extend North: 25: Degrees Westerly to a stone and stake
sett into ye Ground Within The easterly corner bound of new street said
stake and stones being West, & eleven Degrees Northerly 36 foots from the
Northerly part of A Grat Rock yt lyeth below ye Way The sd Way from ye
stone att ye foat of ye hill neere the Southerly Corner of John Ward’s land
is: 30: foot in width Till it comes to ye stake and stones at ye Easterly
Corner of ye New streete.” This laying out is especially interesting as
mentioning Plymouth Rock.

A part of the smith shop of Ephraim Cole, at the corner of which the
above laying out began, is still standing, and may be seen in the rear part of
the express office on the corner of Main street. The corner of John
Rickard’s land was at a point on the stone wall opposite the middle of the
alley next to the house of Wm. W. Brewster. Capt. John Dyer’s house stood
where the brick end house stands, and the Ephraim Kempton house stood
about thirty or forty feet from the present street on the lot now occupied by
Mr. Blackmer’s stable. It is probable that the land in front of the house was
kept open, and that the way across the brook began at the corner of the
narrow way above mentioned just below the Dyer house, and crossing the
open space diagonally, passed east of the Kempton house to the fording
place. All through my boyhood the Kempton house was occupied by Mrs.
Wm. Drew, who married for a second husband in 1833, Isaac Morton
Sherman, the father of Leander L. Sherman, formerly the janitor of the
Central Engine house. Its removal many years ago marked one of the
changes which have occurred in Leyden street within my recollection.
Until, perhaps twenty-five or thirty years ago, there was an ancient
footway leading from Cole’s Hill at a point nearly opposite the south front
of the house of Henry W. Barnes, next to the Universalist church, to Leyden
street, directly opposite to the way to the fording place above mentioned.
That footway doubtless ante-dated the opening of a way between Cole’s
Hill and the water, and served to enable those who were occupying lots on
North, then New Street, to make a short cut over the hill to Leyden street,
and thence to either the boat harbor landing or across the ford to the south
side of the settlement.
The John Rickard land referred to in the laying out of Leyden street
included all the land between LeBaron’s alley on the west, Leyden street on
the south, and the footway on the east, and extended to Middle street. It was
occupied for one hundred and eighty-seven years by a house built in 1639
by Robert Hicks, which was taken down in 1826, when the Universalist
Church was erected on its site. If it were standing today, as it stood when I
was four years of age, it would be the oldest house in New England, and
invaluable as a relic of the Pilgrims. It was reached by a path or private way
leading from Leyden street, and this way was never laid out as a public way
until 1827, after the Universalist church was built. A picture of this house
may be seen in Mr. Wm. S. Russell’s Pilgrim Memorials, where in

accordance with tradition it is called the Allyne house, after Joseph Allyne,
who never owned it, but merely occupied it a short time as a tenant. It is
often the case that a passing and perhaps trifling incident fastens on a spot
or house a name, which has no rightful claim. I remember an illustration of
this, which made Hon. Isaac L. Hedge very indignant. He was born in the
house now occupied and owned by Wm. R. Drew on Leyden street, and
lived there until he was married, the house remaining in the possession of
his father until his death in 1840, and of his mother until her death in 1849,
and of their heirs until 1854, when it was sold. For a short time after 1854,
before it was sold to Mr. Drew, Zaben Olney occupied it as a hotel. Mr.
Hedge became entirely blind, and employed John O’Brien to take his arm
and walk with him about the streets. One day in walking down Leyden
street he said: “Where are we now, John?” “Right by the old Olney house,”
John replied. Alas! “how soon are we forgot.” The names of the wharves
are gone, and Jackson, Hedge, Davis, Nelson and Carver have given way to
Long, Pilgrim, Atwood, Millar and Craig, to be christened again by
succeeding owners and occupants.
So far as the bounds of Leyden street are concerned, there has been no
change in my day except the widening mentioned in a previous chapter at
its junction with Water street. The changes in houses have been numerous.
The Turner house above the old blockmaker’s shop and Turner’s Hall, has
been removed, and its site occupied by the Electric Light Co. Nearly in
front of it, a little below, near the westerly end of the blacksmith’s shop of
Southworth and Ichabod Shaw was a public well, on which the
neighborhood relied for good drinking water. The aqueduct water delivered
through wooden logs from questionable sources, led our people to depend
largely on pumps or wells. These were scattered all over the town, either
public or private, and even to the private wells householders were permitted
free access. There were public wells at the foot of North street, and below
the bank at the foot of Middle street, and there was the town pump at the
foot of Spring hill. Besides these there were the county well, a well between
the old Lothrop house and Judge Thomas’ house opposite the head of North
street, another between John Gooding’s and Dr. Bartlett’s houses on Main
street, another in the yard of Capt. Wm. Rogers on North street, another in
the rear of Jacob Jackson’s house on what is now Winslow street, which
was known as Jacob’s well, and there was still another near the sidewalk on
Sandwich street, opposite the Green, between the Elkanah Bartlett and

Rogers houses. The wells on North street and below Middle street were
liable to be fouled by drains, and their water was not used for drinking or
cooking. Before the introduction of South Pond water, the whalemen and
fishermen filled their water casks at a pump in the yard of John Tribble’s
paint shop on Water street. But the well in Leyden street was the one to
which I was often sent when a boy with two pails and a hoop to get our
daily supply.
There was another old house near the so-called Allyne house, which I
well remember. It stood on the bank with its front door on what is now
Carver street, nearly opposite the easterly side of the house of Henry W.
Barnes, and was reached by the way from Middle street. It was for many
years owned and occupied by Wm. Holmes, the father of the three captains,
Samuel Doten, Truman Cook and Winslow Holmes, and after his death, by
his daughter Hannah, the wife of Laban Burt. It was taken down forty or
fifty years ago. The Universalist church, and the parsonage east of it, stand
on land bought of Barnabas Hedge in 1826, with the agreement on the part
of Mr. Hedge that the bank opposite the church, which still belongs to his
heirs should never be built on. The Universalist Society was incorporated in
1826, and the church was dedicated December 22, in that year. The sermon
on the occasion was preached by Rev. David Pickering of Providence. On
the afternoon of the same day, Rev. James H. Bugbee was ordained pastor,
the ordaining sermon being preached by Rev. John Bisbee of Hartford.
Between the time of the organization of the church, March 10, 1822, and
the ordination of Mr. Bugbee, Messina Ballou and Rev. Mr. Morse and
others, preached to the society in one of the town halls. Mr. Bugbee was
followed by Albert Case and Russell Tomlinson, who resigned in 1867, and
was followed by A. Bosserman, Alpheus Nickerson, George L. Swift, A. H.
Sweetzer and W. W. Hayward and others remembered by my readers. The
parsonage house was at one time owned by Jeremiah Farris, and its sale by
him to Roland Edwin Cotton, unaccompanied by whittling or dickering,
was somewhat characteristic of the purchaser. Mr. Farris meeting Mr.
Cotton in the street one day was asked by him what he would sell his house
for next to the Universalist church. Mr. Farris named a price, taking care to
name one high enough to allow for a discount, and Mr. Cotton, without
taking breath, promptly said, “Too much by half, I’ll take it.”

The house next above the Universalist church, long known as the Marcy
house, reminds me of a gentleman at one time its occupant, who for many
years filled a large space in the social and official life of Plymouth, and
performed elsewhere distinguished service in behalf of the state. Jacob H.
Loud, born in Hingham, February 5, 1802, graduated at Brown University
in 1822 and after studying law with Ebenezer Gay of Hingham, was
admitted to the bar at the Common Pleas Court in Plymouth in August,
1825, and at once began practice in our town. His first office was in the
building at the corner of Spring Hill and Summer street, which was taken
down a few years ago, from which place he moved in 1827 to No. 3 Town
Square, then called Market Square, which afterwards became the post office
when Bridgham Russell was appointed postmaster in 1832. He married
May 5, 1829, Elizabeth Loring Jones of Hingham, and occupied for a time
the Marcy house above mentioned. From there he changed his residence to
the house next below Mr. Beaman’s undertaking rooms on Middle street,
but in 1832 he bought a part of the Lothrop lot opposite the head of North
street, and built and occupied the house now owned and occupied by Mrs.
F. B. Davis. After the death of Beza Hayward, Register of Probate of
Plymouth County, which occurred June 4, 1830, he was appointed to
succeed him, and held office until 1852. In 1853, 1854 and 1855, he was
chosen by the legislature state treasurer. From 1855 to 1866 he was
president of the Old Colony Bank, State and National, Director of the Old
Colony Railroad from 1845 to 1850, and again from 1869 until his death,
Representative in 1862, Senator in 1863 and 1864, State Treasurer again by
a vote of the people from 1865 to 1871, and actuary of the New England
Trust Co. of Boston until his retirement in 1879. In 1871 he bought the
house now owned and occupied by Father Buckley, and occupied it during
the summer months until his death, which occurred in Boston, February 2,
1880.
The next house built by James Bartlett, Jr., in 1832, has been referred to
in a previous chapter. It occupies a part of the land given by Bridget Fuller
and Samuel Fuller, the widow and son of Dr. Samuel Fuller of the
Mayflower, in 1664, to the Church of Plymouth for the use of a minister.
The easterly boundary of the land was the middle of the alley, long known
as LeBaron’s alley. The house which up to 1832 stood on the site now
occupied by the house built by Mr. Bartlett, was built by Lazarus LeBaron,
and in my boyhood was occupied by Dr. Isaac LeBaron, the grandson of

Lazarus. Land for the alley was thrown out by Lazarus LeBaron and James
Rickard, the owner of the adjoining estate, and was laid out as a town way,
September 7 and 10, 1832. At the time of the Fuller gift there was a house
standing on the lot which was once owned by Rev. John Cotton, the pastor
of the First Church, and which afterwards was displaced by the house built
by Lazarus LeBaron.
The next house immediately west of the James Bartlett house, stands on
the site of a house built by Return Waite, which when the present house was
built not many years ago, was removed to Seaside, and now stands a
tenement house on the easterly side of the road on land belonging to the
heirs of the late Barnabas Hedge.
As I have stated the land on Leyden street extending from the estate of
Wm. R. Drew to the centre of LeBaron’s alley, was given in 1664 by
Bridget Fuller, widow of Dr. Samuel Fuller of the Mayflower, and her son
Samuel, to the church in Plymouth for the use of the minister. A parsonage
was built on the easterly end of the lot, which was finally sold to Rev. John
Cotton, the pastor of the church. The house built by Lazarus LeBaron on the
site of the parsonage, which was in turn succeeded by the house built in
1832 by James Bartlett, Jr., and now occupied by Wm. W. Brewster, and
also the house adjoining the Bartlett house have been referred to, leaving to
be considered of the original Fuller land only that part which is now
occupied by the house of the late Harvey W. Weston. When Rev. Chandler
Robbins was settled over the Plymouth Church in 1760, the Parish agreed to
pay him a salary of one hundred pounds, to give him the privilege of cutting
wood on the parish lot, and to build for him a parsonage. The Weston house
is the parsonage, built at that time. It was occupied by Mr. Robbins until
1788, when he built a house on the other side of the street, which he
occupied until his death, June 30, 1799.
Rev. James Kendall, the successor of Mr. Robbins, was ordained January
1, 1800, and occupied the parsonage until his death, which occurred March
17, 1859, and it was sold the next year to Mr. Weston. Of Dr. Kendall,
whose pastorate extended through a period of sixty years, I cannot forbear
to speak, as his life was one of the most important passages in the history of
our town. It is difficult to realize that more than a generation has been born,
and has lived to nearly middle age, without a knowledge of his personality
and a daily observation of his character and virtues. He was born in

Sterling, Mass., in 1769, and after graduating at Harvard in 1796, occupied
the position of tutor in Latin at Harvard until he received an invitation to
settle in Plymouth. At his ordination the sermon was preached by Rev. Mr.
French of Andover, and the other parts of the ceremony were performed by
Rev. Dr. Peter Thatcher, Rev. Dr. Tappan, Rev. Mr. Shaw and Rev. Mr.
Howland. In 1825 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from
Harvard, by whose government he was esteemed one of the distinguished
incumbents of the ministry. I was in my early youth impressed by the
benignant traits in his character and the purity of his life, as it was my
fortune when nine years of age to be for a few weeks a member of his
family, while my mother was passing a summer with her father in Nova
Scotia. I remember him sitting in his study in the back west room, where if I
happened to enter I was always greeted with a kindly smile and a cheerful
word; I remember him in the front east room on a chilly day sitting by a
Franklin stove, and often in the garden, which he tended with loving and
faithful care. There was a vein of humor in his composition, which, unlike
that I have often seen repressed on the Sabbath by ministers of the olden
time, was too much the overflow of a contented and joyful spirit to be
concealed on a day to him the happiest of the week. As long as I can
remember he always carried a cane, which had descended to him through
James, his father, James, his grandfather, and Samuel, his great-grandfather;
from Thomas, son of Francis, who was born in 1649 in Woburn. This cane
is now owned by his grandson, Arthur Lord of Plymouth, and represents an
ownership by seven generations of the same family.
I remember him in the old meeting house, which was taken down in
April, 1831, officiating in black gloves with a sounding board hanging over
the pulpit, which I was in constant fear would fall on the dear man’s head. I
remember well the church itself, a large, square building with doors on
three sides, and a steeple surmounted by a copper rooster, the like of which
I have never seen since the day when in April, 1831, while workmen pulled
the steeple over, it slipped off the spindle and took its unaided flight to the
ground. I remember the square pews with seats, which were turned up in
prayer time, and let down with a slam when the prayer was over, and I
especially remember the spokes in the pew rails which we boys turned in
their dowels and made to squeak when we thought that James Morton, the
sexton, sitting at the head of the pulpit stairs, was either not looking or was
asleep. And then there was the choir, with Webster Seymour leading the

singing, and I can see even now Simeon Dike, father of the late Mrs.
Samuel Shaw, drawing his bow across the bass viol, which I think, with the
violin and clarinet performed the instrumental music.
Of Dr. Kendall, it may be appropriately said as was said of another:

“Pure was his walk, peaceful was his end;
We blessed his reverend length of days,
And hailed him in the public ways,
With veneration and with praise,
Our father and our friend.”

The custom of wearing black gloves in the pulpit referred to above,
which had once been universal, was abandoned before the middle of the last
century, and I do not feel sure that Dr. Kendall wore them in the new
meeting house, built in 1831.
With the estate of William Ryder Drew, some interesting incidents are
associated beyond the memory of most of my readers. It was from his
marriage in 1789 to his death in 1840, the residence of Barnabas Hedge,
whom I remember well. He was the last man in Plymouth to wear small
clothes, in winter with boots and tassels, and in summer with buckled shoes.
I remember only two gentlemen in Boston, Nathaniel Goddard, who lived
on Summer street, and a gentleman at the south end, whose name was
Wheeler, who wore small clothes as long as Mr. Hedge. I am glad to see
some indications of a return of a fashion too handsome and becoming to
have been permitted to go out. Mr. Hedge was one of the founders of the
Plymouth Bank in 1803, a Director from that date, and President from 1826
until his death in 1840. The house in question remained in the possession of
the Hedge family until 1854, when it was sold to Zaben Olney.
One of the most interesting features of the celebration on the first of
August, 1853, of the anniversary of the departure of the Pilgrims from
Delfthaven, was the visit of the New York Light Guard with Dodsworth’s
band to Plymouth, and their participation in the parade of the day. As the
Hedge house was then unoccupied it was made their headquarters. The
celebration took place on Monday, and the arrival of the Light Guard,
Sunday afternoon, and their march through Court and Main and Leyden
streets presented a spectacle which so far as known, caused no protest from
the spirits of the Pilgrims against such an unusual observance of the Lord’s

Day. Though I was Chief Marshal of the celebration, I have no knowledge
of the ceremonies at the headquarters, but as the commander had a chaplain
on his staff, it is to be presumed that they were interesting and appropriate.
Before the sale of the house to Mr. Drew in 1858, Mr. Olney occupied it for
a short time as a hotel, which during the winter months when the Samoset
was closed, as was the custom in its earlier years, was well patronized.

CHAPTER XIV.
Of the occupants of the houses not yet referred to on the south side of
Leyden street at various times within my memory, the first to be mentioned
is Robert Roberts, who built the house on the brow of the hill, now owned
by Wm. S. Robbins. Mr. Roberts was for many years a substantial
merchant, engaged in navigation and foreign trade, and was one of the
founders of the Plymouth Bank, of whose Board of Directors he was a
member from the time of its organization in 1803, to his death in 1825. His
sister Mary married John Clark, whose daughter, Eliza Haley Clark,
occupied the house in question many years, and died December 23, 1882. I
remember hearing when young a story about the source of a part of Mr.
Roberts’s wealth which may have been, like so many stories about others,
without any foundation in fact. The story was that one of his vessels, either
under command of himself or of another, was in a French port at one period
of the French revolution and had taken on board the wealth of some
refugees who had planned to escape from the persecution of the
revolutionists, and sail for America, but that they were arrested and
guillotined, and that their property never claimed by its owners, fell into the
possession of Capt. Roberts and other owners of his vessel.
The only change within my recollection in the occupation of the next
house, which has been for many years in the possession and occupancy of
Salisbury Jackson, and his children and grandchildren, was the conversion
in 1835 of one of the rooms on the street floor by Mr. Jackson into a store,
which he opened in that year after having occupied for some years a store in
the Witherill building on the corner of Main street and Town Square. In
later years the store was abandoned, and the building restored to its original
condition. I associate an old lady by the name of Johnson, who I think about
1830 occupied one or two rooms in the Jackson house, with a bonnet called
the Navarino bonnet, which had a great run for a time among females
everywhere, old and young. I wonder if any of my readers remember as I do
the Navarino bonnet? The battle of Navarino, which secured Greek
independence, was fought October 20, 1827, in which the Turkish and

Egyptian navies were destroyed by the combined fleets of England, Russia
and France, and so great an interest was felt at that time in Greek affairs that
some ingenious originator of fashion invented a bonnet made of paper
resembling cloth, and of the prevailing shape, with a crown a little turned
up behind, and a front, which entirely concealed the face and chin from a
side view, to which in order to attract attention and sales he gave the name
of the battle. Every woman bought one, and every woman wore one, the
streets were full of them, and in the meeting houses they were in their glory.
But alas, they were fair weather bonnets, and like the feathers of a rooster,
wore a most bedraggled and flopping appearance when exposed to the rain.
The fashion was short lived, and went out like that of hoop skirts, as rapidly
as it came in, while the world still wonders what became of them. If any
one of my readers has one of these relics of bygone days, I would be glad to
have it to help my memory in recalling the appearance of my sisters, when
one day they reached home in a drenching rain.
Of Capt. James Bartlett, the occupant of the next house west of the
Jackson house from 1801 to his death in 1840, and of Leander Lovell, his
son-in-law, the next occupant, by whose heirs it was sold in 1880, to recent
owners, mention has been made in previous chapters.
The site of the next house, owned and occupied by Mr. Wm. H. H.
Weston, is an especially interesting one. For its early history, which it is
unnecessary to repeat, my readers are referred to page 164 of the first part
of “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth.” On that spot James Cole kept an
ordinary, for which he was licensed in 1645. Judge Samuel Sewall refers to
it in his diary under date of March 8, 1698, in which occurs the following
entry: “Got to Plymouth about noon, I lodge at Cole’s; the house was built
by Governor Winslow, and is the oldest in Plymouth.” The present house
was built in 1807 by General Nathaniel Goodwin, and was occupied by him
until his death, March 8, 1819. In 1827 it was sold by his heirs to Thomas
Russell, who made it his residence until his death, September 25, 1854.
General Goodwin was born in Plymouth in 1749, and while engaged
many years in iron manufactures, was more widely known as an officer in
the militia and military superintendent for Plymouth county during the
revolution. In the latter capacity he kept a record of enlistments in many of
the towns in the county, including Plymouth and Kingston, which is more
complete than the lists in the archives of the Commonwealth. This record

was given to me some years ago by his grandson, the late Captain Nathaniel
Goodwin, and has been given by me to the Pilgrim Society. After the battle
of Saratoga, fought on the 7th of October, 1777, General Burgoyne and his
army taken prisoners of war by General Gates, were marched to Cambridge
and placed in barracks on Winter and Prospect hills, while Burgoyne
himself was quartered in the Borland house in that town. General Goodwin
was detailed under General Heath to command the guard having charge of
the prisoners, and the following Plymouth men were enlisted to form a part
of the guard:
Nathaniel Barnes Eleazer Holmes, Jr.
Wm. Bartlett Samuel Holmes
Wm. Blakeley Daniel Howland
Wm. Cassady Edward Morton
George Churchill Josiah Morton
Israel Clark Levi Paty
James Collins Ebenezer Rider, Jr.
Thomas Dogget Benoni Shaw
Lemuel Doten Nathaniel Torrey
Stephen Doten Benjamin Weston
Thomas Ellis John Witherhead
John Harlow, Jr.

General Goodwin and General Burgoyne became friends, and as a
memento of their friendship, Burgoyne gave to General Goodwin his rapier,
which was also given to me by his grandson, and is now a loan from me in
the cabinet of the Pilgrim Society. General Goodwin was like Mr. Roberts
and Mr. Hedge, an original subscriber to stock in the Plymouth Bank in
1803, and was a Director from the date of its organization until his death in
1819.
General Goodwin, I have always heard, was a man of fine figure and
bearing, and vain of his appearance, especially when in uniform. His
grandson, Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin, told me the following story about him
and his negro servant Pompey, a freed slave, which illustrates the
familiarity of the slaves with their old masters and the characteristic vanity
of the General. One muster day morning the General, wearing his
regimentals, said: “Pompey, how do I look?” “You look like a lion, massa.”
“Lion, Pompey; you never saw a lion.” “Yes I have, massa; massa Davis
hab got one.” “That isn’t a lion, you fool, that is a jackass.” “I don’t care,
massa, you look just like dat er animal.”

Thomas Russell, who bought the above mentioned Goodwin house in
1827, and occupied it until his death, was a brother of Captain John Russell,
mentioned in a previous chapter as an enterprising ship owner, and married
in 1814 Mary Ann, daughter of William Goodwin, and their children were
Elizabeth, born in 1815, Lydia Cushing, 1817, who married Hon. Wm.
Whiting; Mary, who married Benjamin Marston Watson of Plymouth;
William Goodwin, 1821, Thomas, 1825, and Jane Frances, who married
Abraham Firth of Boston. Of these children Mrs. Watson alone survives.
Mr. Russell was for many years the treasurer and manager of the Cotton
Mill at Eel River, established in 1812. After his retirement from that
position, he was often the trusted adviser in the settlement of estates, and in
1837 Mr. Barnabas Hedge, supposing himself seriously involved in the
liabilities of the Tremont Iron Works in Wareham, in which he was largely
interested, made an assignment to his son-in-law, Charles H. Warren and
Mr. Russell for the security of his indebtedness. Mr. Hedge was, however,
under the management of his assignees extricated from his embarrassments,
and was left with a handsome fortune. In accordance with the provisions of
law then in force, Mr. Russell was chosen by the legislature in 1842
Treasurer and Receiver General of the Commonwealth, and again in 1844.
It is worthy of mention that within eighty-five years from the adoption of
the constitution in 1780 to 1865 three citizens of Plymouth should have
served as treasurer during a period of fourteen years. These were Thomas
Davis, from 1792 to 1797, Thomas Russell in 1842 and 1844, and Jacob H.
Loud in 1853 and 1854, and from 1866 to 1871. If the term of Hon. Nahum
Mitchell of East Bridgewater of five years from 1822 to 1827 be added, the
county of Plymouth was represented in the treasurer’s office more than a
quarter of the time.
The various occupants of the site on which the Baptist church stands, are
deserving of notice. The house, taken down when the church was erected in
1865, was built in 1703 by Dr. Francis LeBaron, who was a passenger in a
French vessel wrecked on Cape Cod in 1694, and settled in Plymouth. A
family tradition says that he was a Roman Catholic, and was buried with a
cross on his breast, but Mrs. James Humphrey of New York told me that her
grandmother, Elizabeth wife of Ammi Ruhama Robbins of Norfolk, Conn.,
who was a granddaughter of Dr. LeBaron, told her that the Doctor was a
Huguenot. It is a singular fact that one hundred years later in 1794 or 1795,
another French vessel was wrecked on Cape Cod, on which there was a

passenger named LeBaron, whose descendants are living in one or more of
the southern states. From Francis LeBaron the house descended to his son,
Dr. Lazarus LeBaron, who sold it in 1765 to Nathaniel Goodwin, the
husband of his daughter, Lydia. From Nathaniel Goodwin it descended to
his son, General Nathaniel Goodwin, who occupied it until, in 1807, he
built and occupied the W. H. H. Weston house. The General leased the
house to John Bartlett and William White, who occupied it as a tavern. I
have no knowledge as to who John Bartlett was, but William White came
from New Bedford, having married Fanny Gibbs of Wareham, and was the
father of Arabella White, who married the late Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin. I
have no means of knowing precisely when Bartlett and White terminated
their lease, but it is certain that in October, 1818, John H. Bradford kept a
tavern in the house, as on the 9th of that month George Cooper, clerk of the
Standish Guards, notified the members of the company to meet on the 21st
at the house of John H. Bradford. At first the tavern was called as above,
“the house of John H. Bradford,” but later it came to be called Bradford’s
Tavern, and was so called until it was sold in 1857. It was a stately mansion.
Its broad front, its spacious doorway, its broad hall, and its large
wainscotted rooms, told the story of its ancient grandeur. There the
“daughters of Lazarus” reigned as queens, and the fashion of the town
engaged in the minuet of the olden time.
John Howland Bradford, or Uncle Johnny, as he was affectionately
called, the landlord during a period of forty years, perhaps more widely
known than any landlord of his time, was born in Plymouth, July 14, 1780,
and never married. He was an interesting character, such as only an old
New England town could produce, with only an ordinary public school
education, but under the moral influences of an enlightened Christian home,
he grew into manhood with habits of truth, industry, kindness of heart, and
correct living, which no worldly influences could weaken. No better man
has within my observation ever lived. His sphere of life was narrow, but he
filled it full. Let every man do this and the machinery of social life will run
without friction or jar. I never knew of his attendance at any church, and I
do not believe that any theological question ever presented itself to his
mind. His character, however, was such as Christianity seeks to form, and
as long as it is formed, it is not worth while to ask whether it be the result of
the lessons of Christianity acting directly on the man, or on those under
whose ministrations his habits have been formed. When he died, December

7, 1863, we may be sure that the promise made to the pure in heart was kept
that “they shall see God.”
The hostess of Bradford’s Tavern was Mrs. Abigail (Leonard) Hollis,
wife of Henry Hollis and daughter of Thomas Leonard, of Plymouth. Mr.
Hollis came from Weymouth and married his wife in 1819. He died March
9, 1838, and his widow died September 27, 1859. Two of their children
were John Henry, a merchant in New York at the time of his death, and our
late townsman, William T. Hollis. I have no recollection of Mr. Hollis, or
his occupation, but I have no doubt that he was connected in some capacity
with the tavern. His wife was a strong minded, vigorous woman, and was
the mainstay in everything connected with the domestic concerns of the
house. Her oldest son, John Henry, was my schoolmate in the High school,
and I can testify to the care she bestowed on his moral and intellectual
instruction. The inscription on her gravestone:
“Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” was not only
intended as the statement of a general truth, but also as a recognition of its
truth as specially applicable to her.
Among the guests at Bradford’s Tavern the memory of some lingers in
my mind. When I was quite young, perhaps about the year 1830, a stranger
arrived at the tavern on the evening stage from Boston, who was destined to
keep the tongue of gossip wagging for some time. He was somewhat portly,
but moderate in height, and dressed in linen and broadcloth of immaculate
neatness and fashionable in style. His name was Surrey, but the register
contained no place of residence. Occasional visitors for a day or two were
not uncommon, and excited no remark, but when this stranger remained for
a week or more with neither acquaintance nor business to protract his stay,
the gossips began to wonder who he was, whence he came, to what
nationality he belonged, and what the purpose of his visit could be. In
suitable weather he took his morning and evening walk about the town,
making no visits, entering no store or church or public meeting, and asking
no questions concerning the town or people. From his dignified bearing he
won the name of Lord Surrey, and was never referred to by any other name.
He made occasional excursions to Boston, where apparently he received
funds, and bought new clothes. He paid his board promptly, and his habits
and demeanor were beyond criticism. At the end of a year he left town and
gossips were left to wonder where he had gone, whether he was a refugee

from abroad, or whether he was merely an eccentric man who was floating
about the world at the dictate of a capricious will.
I remember another visitor at the tavern quite as mysterious, a man of
gentlemanly appearance, who could not speak a word of English, and who
remained six months without disclosing his nationality, and went as he
came, a stranger in a strange land. Mr. Salisbury Jackson, whose humor led
him to speak of every day incidents in a manner to amuse his hearers, in
describing a visit to the unknown, said that he tried him in French, but
found that he was not a Frenchman. He then tried him in Spanish, but he
was not a Spaniard. He then tried him in German, but he was not a German.
He then, after failing to make him out an Italian, tried him in the original
tongue and fixed him. No efforts of available linguists could fix his
nationality more successfully than the humor of Mr. Jackson, and he went
as he came, and was for a long time remembered as the mysterious stranger.
In 1857 the tavern house was sold to Wm. Churchill, who sold it to Wm.
Finney, who resold it to Mr. Churchill, from whom it was bought by the
Baptist Society in 1862. From 1857 to the date of his death, December 7,
1863, Mr. Bradford boarded with Jacob Howland, who occupied chambers
in the Witherell building on the corner of Main street and Town Square.
I have spoken of Pompey, a colored servant, once a slave of General
Nathaniel Goodwin, with whom he lived in the old tavern house. He died
within my recollection, and I think he was the last of the old slaves living in
Plymouth. I remember his living with Nathaniel Goodwin, Cashier of the
Plymouth Bank, who lived in what was called the bank house, which stood
on Court street, where the Russell building now stands. Prince, whom I also
remember, was once a slave of Dr. Wm. Thomas, and lived until his death,
after the death of Dr. Thomas, with his son, Judge Joshua Thomas, who
died January 10, 1821, and afterwards with his widow, in the house now
occupied as an inn, called the Plymouth Tavern. There is no reason to doubt
that the institution of slavery was recognized, and as firmly upheld in
Plymouth as in other considerable towns in the northern states. So far as the
slave trade was concerned, though it was abolished by an act of Congress in
1808, there is reason to believe that in the town of Bristol, R. I., within the
limits of the original Plymouth Colony, until by a Royal Commission in
1751, that town was taken from Massachusetts and added to Rhode Island,
it was pursued until 1820. In that year Congress declared the trade to be

piracy, and Captain Nathaniel Gordon, engaged in the trade, was in
November, 1861, convicted and executed in New York. It was the generally
entertained belief that one or more citizens of Bristol were engaged in the
trade, which led Mr. Webster to make the following denunciatory reference
to the trade in his memorable oration delivered in Plymouth on the
celebration in 1820 of the anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. “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 foul 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.”
Slavery existed in Massachusetts until the adoption of its constitution on
the 15th of June, 1780. Article first of the “declaration of the Rights of the
Inhabitants of the Commonwealth” declared as follows: “All men are born
free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights,
among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their
lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in
fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
Whatever may have been the intent of the framers of the constitution in
constructing the above article, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided
as early as 1781 in the case of Walker vs. Jennison that slavery was
abolished in Massachusetts by the declaration of rights, and that decision
has been repeatedly confirmed by later ones. But singularly enough,
notwithstanding these decisions a slave was sold by auction in Cambridge
as late as 1793. Precisely how many slaves there were in Plymouth when
the constitution was adopted, I have no means of knowing, but it is certain
that, as elsewhere at the North where soil and climate and public opinion
were unfavorable, the number had been for some years gradually lessening.
The growth of slavery at the south was however astonishing. It has been
estimated that at various times forty million slaves were taken from the
shores of Africa, and at the first census in 1790, there were 697,897 slaves
in the United States. This number increased to 893,041 in 1800, to

1,191,369 in 1810, to 1,538,022 in 1820, to 2,009,043 in 1830, to 2,487,455
in 1840, to 3,204,313 in 1850, and to 3,953,760 in 1860.
I have seen an assessor’s record for the year 1740, which states that in
that year there were thirty-two slaves in Plymouth between the ages of
twelve and fifty, from which it may be fair to assume that there were at least
fifty of all ages. The following were the owners in the above year:
Robert Brown, one; Samuel Bartlett, one; Timothy Trent, one; James
Hovey, one; Hannah Jackson, one; Samuel Kempton, one; Isaac Lothrop,
four; Thomas Jackson, two; Lazarus LeBaron, two; John Murdock, one;
Thomas Murdock, one; Job Morton, one; Ebenezer Spooner, one; Haviland
Torrey, one; David Turner, one; James Warren, one; John Watson, one;
James Warren, Jr., one; Rebecca Witherell, one; Seth Barnes, one; John
Bartlett, one; Stephen Churchill, one; Wm. Clark, one; Nathaniel Foster,
two; Sarah Little, one; Joseph Bartlett, one.
The following slaves are mentioned in the town records at various dates:
Cæsar, Hester, Eunice, Philip and Esther, slaves of Edward Winslow in
1768; Cato and Jesse, slaves of John Foster in 1731; Britain, slave of John
Winslow in 1762; Cuffee, slave of Isaac Lothrop in 1768; Nanny, slave of
Samuel Bartlett in 1738; Hannah, slave of James Hovey in 1762; Cuffee,
slave of George Watson in 1768; Dick, slave of Nathaniel Thomas in 1731;
Phebe, slave of Haviland Torrey in 1731; Dolphin, slave of Nathaniel
Thomas in 1731; Flora, slave of Priscilla Watson in 1731; Eseck, slave of
George Watson in 1757; Rose, slave of William Clark in 1757; Prince, slave
of Wm. Thomas in 1771; Plymouth, slave of Thomas Davis in 1753;
Nannie, slave of Deacon Foster in 1741; Jane, slave of Thomas Jackson in
1760; Jack, slave of Thomas Holmes in 1739; Patience, slave of Barnabas
Churchill in 1739; Pero and Hannah, slaves of John Murdock in 1756;
Quamony, slave of Josiah Cotton in 1732; Kate, slave of John Murdock in
1732; Quash, slave of Lazarus LeBaron in 1756; Phillis, slave of
Theophilus Cotton in 1751; Silas, slave of Daniel Diman in 1772; Venus,
slave of Elizabeth Edwards in 1772; Pompey, slave of Nathaniel Goodwin
in 1775; Cæsar, slave of Joshua Thomas in 1779; Venus, slave of Elizabeth
Stephens in 1772; Quba, slave of Barnabas Hedge in 1775; Plato, slave of
unknown in 1779; Ebed Melick, slave of Madame Thatcher of Middleboro.

Besides Pompey and Prince, Quamony Quash, an old slave, commonly
called Quam, lived within my remembrance, and died April 18, 1833. Most
of the slaves emancipated by the constitution, accepted their freedom, and
so far as I know, only Pompey and Prince continued as servants of their old
masters. A few of them squatted on land belonging to the town of Plymouth,
which on that account took the name of New Guinea. Among these were
Quamony, Prince, Plato and Cato, but it is probable that Prince divided his
time between his home at New Guinea and the house of his old master,
where I remember him a faithful servant of the widow of Judge Joshua
Thomas.
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 Phillips, and were the property of
Thompson—a blue cloth coat, fine; a black cloth coat, fine; one pair of
ribbed velvet pantaloons; one black bombazet trousers; one white shirt; one
white waistcoat; one black bombazet waistcoat; one black silk waistcoat;
three yellow marseilles waistcoats; one pair white cotton 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.
Of many stories about these old slaves I have room for only one. When
the use of biers, instead of hearses was universal, occasionally two of these
freedmen would be hired as bearers. On one occasion, when Quamony and
Plato were employed, they had heard that gloves were given to the bearers,
and just as the procession was about to start, Quamony said to Plato, “Hab
you hab’m glub?” “No,” said Plato, “I no hab’m no glub.” “Nor I hab’m

glub nudder,” said Quamony, “We no bare widout glub, let the man in the
box carry hisself.”

CHAPTER XV.
The house adjoining the Baptist church, now occupied by the Custom
House, recalls next to the house on Cole’s Hill, in which I was born, the
pleasantest associations, and the dearest memories. In that building my
grandfather William Davis, born July 15, 1758, lived from 1781, the year of
his marriage, until January 5, 1826, the date of his death. He was the son of
Thos. Davis, and one of a family of one daughter and six sons, Sarah,
Thomas, William, John, Samuel, Isaac P. and Wendell. Sarah, born June 29,
1754, married LeBaron Bradford of Bristol, son of William Bradford,
United States senator from the state of Rhode Island.
Thomas Davis, born June 26, 1756, was a representative from Plymouth,
senator from Plymouth County, senator from Suffolk County, treasurer and
receiver general of the Commonwealth from 1792 to 1797, and president of
the Boston Marine Insurance Company from 1799 until his death, January
21, 1805. I have on my walls the barometer which hung in the insurance
office at the time of his death.
John Davis, born in Plymouth, January 25, 1761, graduated at Harvard in
1781, and entered the legal profession. He was the youngest member of the
convention on the adoption of the state constitution, and in 1796 was
appointed by Washington comptroller of the United States Treasury. In 1801
he was appointed by John Adams, Judge of the United States Court for the
district of Massachusetts, and continued on the bench forty years. He was
treasurer of Harvard College from 1810 to 1827, a Fellow of Harvard from
1803 to 1810, and President of the Massachusetts Historical Society from
1818 to 1843. He died in Boston, January 14, 1847.
Samuel Davis, born March 5, 1765, was a well known antiquarian, a
learned linguist, and a recognized authority on questions relating to Indian
dialects. He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
recipient of an honorary degree from Harvard in 1819, and died in
Plymouth, July 10, 1829. He is worthily commemorated by the following
inscription on his gravestone on Burial hill:

“From life on earth our pensive friend retires,
His dust commingling with the Pilgrim sires;
In thoughtful walks their every path he traced,
Their toils, their tombs his faithful page embraced,
Peaceful and pure and innocent as they,
With them to rise to everlasting day.”

Isaac P. Davis, born October 7, 1771, was for many years an extensive
manufacturer in Boston, owning a rope walk on the mill dam, now Beacon
street, and perhaps was more widely known socially in Boston than any
man of his time. He was a friend of artists, and a patron of art, whose
judgment and taste were freely consulted by purchasers. Stuart, the portrait
painter, was his intimate friend, and the horse in the Faneuil Hall picture of
Washington, is a portrait of a horse owned by Mr. Davis. After the
completion of the picture he presented the study from which it was painted,
to Mr. Davis, a picture about 20 by 24 inches, which after the death of Mrs.
Davis was sold by Josiah Quincy, and myself, her executors, to Ignatius
Sargent, for three thousand dollars. The friendship between Mr. Davis and
Mr. Webster may be judged by the following affectionate dedication to him
of the second volume of Mr. Webster’s works, published in 1851.
My dear Sir:
“A warm, private friendship has existed between us for more
than half our lives interrupted by no untoward occurrence, and
never for a minute cooling into indifference. Of this friendship,
the source of so much happiness to me, I wish to leave, if not an
enduring memorial, at least an affectionate and grateful
acknowledgment. I dedicate this volume of my speeches to you.
Daniel Webster.”
Wendell Davis, the youngest brother of my grandfather, born February
13, 1776, graduated at Harvard in 1796, and was clerk of the Massachusetts
senate from 1802 to 1805. He studied law with his brother John, and settled
in Sandwich. He served by appointment of the Governor as sheriff of
Barnstable county, and died, Dec. 30, 1830. He was the father of Hon.
George T. Davis of Greenfield, whom Thackery declared the most brilliant
conversationalist he had ever met.

My grandfather, William Davis, born July 15, 1758, was trained in the
business of his father, Thomas Davis, who was largely engaged in
navigation and foreign trade, and with whom he became associated. After
the death of his father, March 7, 1785, he continued the business of the firm
of Thomas and William Davis with marked success until his death.
Notwithstanding the depressing effects of the embargo, and the war of
1812, from which many suffered, I have been unable to discover in his files
of business letters any indications of serious injury to his vessels or his
trade. My father, William Davis, who died March 22, 1824, at the age of
forty-one, was for some years associated with his father in business. My
grandfather was representative and member of the executive council, and
twenty-five years a member of the board of selectmen. It is perhaps worthy
of mention that the services of members of four generations of my family as
selectmen, cover a period of fifty-two years. Mr. Davis was also one of the
founders of the Plymouth Bank, and its President from 1805 until his death,
and one of the founders of the Pilgrim Society, and its first Vice-president.
Before leaving my grandfather’s family I trust that I may be excused for
referring to his daughter Betsey, or Elizabeth, as she was called late in life.
She was born in the house under discussion, October 28, 1803, and until
thirteen years of age attended private schools in Plymouth. After that time
for three years, until she was sixteen, she attended the school of Miss
Elizabeth Cushing, in the family of Deacon Wm. Cushing of Hingham.
Miss Cushing’s school was probably not surpassed by any ladies’ school in
the country, and there a solid foundation was laid, which served my aunt so
well as the wife of Mr. Bancroft, during his services as minister at London
and Berlin. History, geography and public affairs were her special subjects
of study, and while in London it was said by Englishmen, that she was so
familiar with English politics as to be able to discuss them, and hold her
own with the leading statesmen of the Kingdom. To show the extent of her
early reading, when a girl, or a young woman, she listened one Sunday to a
sermon preached in the Plymouth pulpit by a minister of a Plymouth
County town exchanging with Dr. Kendall, which was much admired. It
seemed to her that she had read it somewhere, and on going home,
succeeded in finding it in a volume of sermons by Rev. Newcome Cappe,
an English clergyman, who became pastor of a dissenting congregation in
York and served from 1756 to near the end of the century. After looking the
sermon over and verifying her suspicions of a wholesale plagiarism, she

laid the book down on the centre table with the title in plain sight. In the
evening the clergyman called at the house, and during his visit, much to the
embarrassment of the hostess, and doubtless to his own bewilderment, sat
with the book at his elbow, and the title staring him in the face. I prefer not
to mention his name, but my older readers may identify him when I say that
invariably when he preached in Plymouth, as he often did, he selected for
one of his hymns that from Peale Dabney’s collection, with the familiar
verse:

“Mark the soft falling snow,
And the diffusive rain;
To heaven from whence it fell,
It turns not back again;
But waters earth through every pore,
And calls forth all her secret store.”

She married in 1825, Alexander Bliss, law partner of Daniel Webster,
who died July 15, 1827, and in 1838, married George Bancroft, the
historian, who found in her efficient aid in the performance of his duties as
secretary of the Navy, under President Polk, as minister to England from
1846 to 1849, and later as minister to Berlin.
It was my fortune to be in London in the month of February, 1847, during
her residence there, and to receive from her and Mr. Bancroft many acts of
kindness. It was during the Irish famine, and a benefit was planned to be
held at Drury Lane Theatre, to add to the Irish charitable fund. There was
no public sale of tickets, but a committee took the house from parquette to
ceiling, and sent tickets for whole boxes to such members of the nobility as
were available, and to the diplomatic corps, with prices affixed, which of
course were taken regardless of cost in the nature of subscriptions, and
tickets for the parquette to such single persons as they thought expedient.
Mr. Bancroft’s box containing four chairs, was occupied by himself and
Mrs. Bancroft, Henry H. Milman, then distinguished as an historian, poet
and dramatic writer, and Professor of poetry at Oxford, but later known as
Dean of St. Paul’s, and myself. In the dramatic world Mr. Milman was
known as the author of the tragedy of Fazio, which I have seen played at the
old Tremont theatre by Forrest and the elder Booth. The royal box, directly
opposite in the same row, was occupied by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert,
and the Duke of Cambridge. In the box next to the royal box were the Duke

of Wellington and the Marchioness of Douro, while others whom I
remember in other boxes were the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of
Westminster, the Duke of Norfolk, Hon. Mrs. Norton, Sir Robert Peel, Lord
John Russell, Lord Lyndhurst, Macaulay, Hume, and Lord George
Bentinck. I was undoubtedly the only American in the house, and probably
the only one in the audience whom the society reporter of the Times could
not call by name.
At a dinner at Mr. Bancroft’s, I had an opportunity of meeting Thomas
Carlyle, and I was astonished at his bitter denunciation of men and events,
and his almost brutal speech. While the Irish question was under discussion,
Duncan C. Pell of New York, one of the guests, asked him what he would
do with the Irish, and bringing his hand down roughly on the table he
growled out, “I would shoot every mother’s son of them.” I could not help
contrasting his coarseness with the sweet and gentle spirit of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, his friend on our side of the ocean.
Through the kindness of Mr. Bancroft I had an opportunity of seeing
most of the above named statesmen in their seats in Parliament during a
discussion on the corn laws, with the addition of Daniel O’Connell, who
upon the whole, I think, was the most striking looking man I saw in
England. During the discussion to which I have referred, Lord George
Bentinck, who was well known for his fondness for horses, and the race
course, made a speech which placed him on the side of the protectionists
against Sir Robert Peel, whom he had before ardently supported. Sir Robert
in a reply full of sharp invective said, “It is far from my intention to charge
the honorable member with inconsistency, when he is universally known as
a man of stable mind.”
After the death of my grandfather in 1826 my grandmother continued to
occupy the family mansion until 1830, when she removed to Boston, where
she died, April 1, 1847. For a year or more after her departure, the house
was occupied by her son, Nathaniel Morton Davis, while his house on
Court street, now owned by the Old Colony Club, was undergoing
alterations and repairs. In 1832 it was sold to Wm. Morton Jackson, who
moved into it from his former residence in North street on the corner of
Rope Walk lane, where the house of Isaac M. Jackson now stands. Mr.
Jackson fitted the front west room for a store, and removed his business in
dry goods from the building on the corner of Summer street and Spring

Hill, which was taken down about 1890. In 1851 Mr. Jackson, who had
been collector of the port from 1845 to 1849, sold the estate to Mrs. Sarah
Plympton, and removed to Boston, where he engaged in the wholesale
grocery business on State street, nearly opposite Merchants’ Row. During
its ownership by Mrs. Plympton, it was occupied as a boarding house at
various times by Ephraim Spooner, Mrs. Wm. H. Spear and Mrs. Ephraim
T. Paty, and was sold in 1878 by her executor to George F. Weston, Charles
O. Churchill and Samuel Harlow, with whose ownership and the erection of
the Rink in 1884 my readers are familiar.
As long ago as I can remember, the next estate on the west, on which the
store of W. H. H. Weston stands, was occupied by a building in the lower
story of which Zaben Olney and Jas. E. Leonard kept a flour and grain
store, established by them in 1827, and in the upper story of which the
Custom House was located. In 1831 Harrison Gray Otis Ellis, succeeded
Olney and Leonard in the store, but in 1832 gave up business, and the
building was sold to the Old Colony Bank, then recently organized. The
Custom House continued to occupy the second story until 1845, when
Gustavus Gilbert occupied it for a time as a law office. In 1846 Steward and
Alderman, who had bought the building of the Bank in 1842, sold it to Wm.
Rider Drew, who moved the building back, and added a new front, as the
building stands at the present time.
In 1845 Custom House was located in a room on the north side of the
house at the corner of North and Main streets, where it remained through
the administrations of Mr. Jackson, Thomas Hedge and Edward P. Little,
until 1857.
James Easdell Leonard, the partner of Zaben Olney, was a Plymouth
man, the son of Nathaniel Warren Leonard, and married Abby, daughter of
John Bishop, and step daughter of Ezra Finney, and lived for a time in the
southerly half of the double house, recently owned and occupied by the late
George E. Morton. Zaben Olney came from Rhode Island, and what his
occupation was before he entered into partnership with Mr. Leonard, is not
within my remembrance. He married in 1816, Rebecca Morton, and in
1862, Olive P. Wolcott. For some years after 1837, he kept the Old Colony
House in Court Square, and for several years after 1854, a hotel in the old
Barnabas Hedge house on Leyden street, now owned and occupied by Wm.
Rider Drew.

Harrison Gray Otis Ellis, who succeeded Olney and Leonard, came to
Plymouth, from Wareham, but was in business here not more than a year,
during which time he married Margaret D., daughter of Jeremiah Holbrook.
He removed to Sandwich, where I think he kept for a number of years a dry
goods and clothing store. Steward and Alderman, who owned the building
from 1842 to 1846, and Alderman and Gooding kept during that time dry
goods stores in it.
Most of my readers will remember that in 1883 the corner of Market and
Leyden streets was cut off by the county commissioners. At that time the
old building on the corner was moved down Market street, and the present
brick building put up on the new line of the street. As long ago as I can
remember, in 1829, the old house was kept as a hotel by Wm. Randall. Built
by William Shurtleff in 1689, it had twice before been used as a hotel, once
in 1713 by Job Cushman, and again in 1732 by Consider Howland. In 1831
Mr. Randall occupied a part of the house as an auction room, and in 1832 he
established with Lucius Doolittle a line of stages to Boston, which preceded
the famous line established by George Drew. The stage office was in the
corner room, and the stable was on the corner of School street and Town
Square. In 1835 James C. Valentine had a harness shop on the corner, and
later was succeeded by Martin Myers and Wm. Hall Jackson in the same
business. Chandler Holmes and Lysander Dunham occupied the store until
the building was moved. After William Randall, the residential part was
occupied, at various times by Dr. Andrew Mackie, Sylvanus Bramhall, Wm.
Rider Drew, James Thurber, David Drew, Isaac B. Rich and Mrs. M. J.
Lincoln, the author of the Boston Cook Book. Wm. Hall Jackson, above
mentioned, died February 3, 1869.
The occupants of the buildings on Market street, and the changes in the
line of the street, which have been made within my recollection, come next
in order. There was no change in the boundaries after 1715 until December
30, 1873, when the street was widened on the easterly side from the present
bake house south. It was again widened November 5, 1883, by cutting off
the Leyden street corner. Again on the first of January, 1890, it was widened
on the westerly side of Spring Hill by the removal of the building there
situated. At the time the Leyden street corner was cut off, the building next
to the corner was taken down, and the corner building moved into its place.
A new brick building was put on the corner with the history of which my

readers are familiar. The house now standing next to the brick one has
already been described as the house on the corner. As long ago as I
remember the house which stood next to the corner, and was taken down in
1883, was built by Benjamin Bramhall, and was called the green store. In
1827 it was occupied at times by William Z. Ripley, who kept a dry goods
store, Rufus Robbins, who kept what was called the Old Colony bookstore,
Benjamin Hathaway, who kept a harness store, and Sylvanus Bramhall,
silversmith. In 1833 it was occupied by James G. Gleason barber, in 1851,
by James Kendrick, and later, by George A. Hathaway, bookseller, and
Benjamin Churchill.
The next building was occupied in my boyhood by Deacon Nathan Reed,
who had at an earlier date kept a store in the next building on the south. He
owned a barn in School street, which was burned in January, 1835, and I
remember that the only house taking fire from flying embers was his own
dwelling on Market street. He died, January 12, 1842, and in 1856 his
widow sold the house to Barnabas H. Holmes, who converted its lower
rooms into a store, and occupied it for a tailor’s shop. It was later occupied
by Benjamin Cooper Finney, as a store, and in 1883 was removed to the
rear of the Brewster building on Leyden street, where it has since been used
as a dwelling house with its old front room restored.
The next building was long known as the Shurtleff tavern and, before the
revolution, was partially occupied by General Peleg Wadsworth for a
private school. General Wadsworth’s daughter Zilpah married Stephen
Longfellow, the grandfather of the poet. As long ago as I can remember its
upper story was occupied by Robert Dunham, who owned a large stable in
the rear, the entrance to which was through the yard on the south of the
building in question. Mr. Dunham was connected with stage lines to Boston
and Taunton in connection with George Drew, and died in 1833. He had
three daughters, one of whom, Mary Ann, married Thomas Long, second
cousin of Gov. John D. Long, and kept a milliner’s store on Summer street
in the house which was afterwards occupied by the late Benjamin
Hathaway.
The lower part of the Dunham building was divided into two stores. The
northerly one was a candy store, kept by two ladies, who were known only
as Nancy and Eliza. I wish to embalm their memories in gratitude for the
satisfaction my youthful taste often received at their hands. They were,

Nancy, a maiden lady, daughter of James and Bethiah (Dunham) Paulding,
and Eliza (Rogers) Straffin, wife of George Straffin. They were succeeded
by Stephen Rogers, who carried on the same business, and died, May 18,
1868. The other store was occupied by Lazarus Symmes, who had
succeeded Nathan Reed, and who died, Dec. 25, 1851. After the death of
Robert Dunham, the upper part was occupied by Daniel Deacon, who
married, Mary, daughter of Thomas Torrance, and died March 13, 1842.
The building in question was taken down, and the present building, recently
owned by the estate of Zaben Olney, was erected on the northerly part of
the lot, and on the southerly part the present bake house was erected by
Samuel Talbot and George Churchill, bakers.
In my youth a building standing on the south side of the entrance to
Dunham’s stable, was owned by Antipas Brigham, who occupied it as a
dwelling house and store. Mr. Brigham died, August 6, 1832, and was
succeeded in the occupancy of the store by William Barnes in 1832, and
later by Stephen Lucas, Ephraim Bartlett, and Wm. Henry Bartlett. In 1827
Harvey Shaw, accountant, occupied the upper part for a time, and in 1845
Alvah C. Page occupied it for a writing school. The building in question
was partially burned about 1870, and taken down, and in 1876 a building
which had been occupied by Wm. Bishop and others, on the Odd Fellows’
lot on Main street, was moved to its site.
This last building, after its removal was occupied for a time by Thomas
N. Eldridge as a dry goods store.
The next building has had its front altered into a store, but in other
respects it remains as it was in my youth, when owned and occupied as a
dwelling house by John Macomber. In 1874 it came into the possession of
Josiah A. Robbins, and the store now standing on its south side was moved
from the present site of the store of Christopher T. Harris.
The next house built in 1832 by Capt. Isaac Bartlett, came into the
possession of John B. Atwood in 1855, who fitted up a store on its northerly
side, and occupied the remainder as a dwelling. Capt. Isaac Bartlett was a
shipmaster for many years, and made many voyages in the Havana trade
between that port and Plymouth, in the brig Hannah, owned by Barnabas
Hedge. I have distinct and agreeable memories of his arrivals with loads of
molasses, some of which I licked from sticks introduced into hospitable

bung holes, without money and without price. Captain Bartlett died, May 3,
1845. By his second wife, Rebecca, daughter of Caleb Bartlett, he had a
son, Robert, born in 1817, and a daughter, Rebecca, born in 1819, both
remarkable for minds capable of unlimited development and cultivation.
Robert Bartlett, of whom I wish particularly to speak, was fitted for college
in Plymouth by George Washington Hosmer and Addison Brown, both
graduates of Harvard in the class of 1826; and graduated in 1836. He was
tutor in Latin at Harvard from 1839 to 1843, when his early death destroyed
the promise of a brilliant career. Aside from being a fellow townsman, I had
an opportunity afforded by being a fellow boarder with him two years in
Cambridge, of estimating his character and learning. I do not feel that I am
violating any rules of propriety in speaking of a passage in his career, which
gave me as a young man my first insight into the romances of life. He
became engaged to my cousin, Elizabeth Crowell White, a daughter of
Capt. Gideon Consider White, a lady of about his own age, and as
remarkable as he in literary culture. After the death of her father and mother
she was a member of my mother’s family until her death. In 1842, on a visit
to relatives in Nova Scotia, she broke off her engagement with Mr. Bartlett,
and soon after contracted a new engagement with an English gentleman.
The blow to Mr. Bartlett was a severe one, and I remember well the visit
which he made to our house on the afternoon of the day he received his
letter of dismissal. After her return from Nova Scotia I was not long in
discovering that her heart was still in the possession of her former lover,
though she endeavored to conceal the fact. At this time an inherited
tendency to a disease of the lungs began to show itself, both in her and in
Mr. Bartlett, and in both cases, consumption rapidly performed its fatal
work. She was soon confined permanently to the house, and he was obliged
to abandon his college work, and return home to become like her a prisoner
in his chamber and bed. He was brought from Boston in the steamboat, then
running, and she, knowing that he was coming, sat by the chamber window
on the north side of our house on Cole’s Hill, evidently anxious to catch a
glimpse of one whom she had mistakenly cast off, but whom she still loved
with all her heart. I remember well the tears she shed as he was carried up
the street, and she saw him for the last time. Both failed rapidly. He died at
his home, September 15, 1843, and she on the 7th of the next month, and
both are buried in Vine Hills cemetery, united at least in spirit, where “they
neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

It is not worth while to consider the occupancy of the remaining estates
between the Isaac Bartlett house and the brook. It will be sufficient to say
that the first building next to the Bartlett House was at one time occupied
by Oliver Keyes, and again by Martin Myers, who kept a harness store on
the corner of Leyden street. Two stores have been erected in front of the
building which are occupied by C. T. Harris & Son, and by the Co-operative
store. In 1828 a man named Joseph D. Jones, kept a tinman’s shop on
Market street, but its precise location I cannot define. He advertised bulbous
roots for sale, and we boys, always ready to adopt nicknames, called him
bulbous Jones. He deserved a better name, for he was one of the best of
men, conscientious in all his dealings, and a valuable citizen. At a later date
he moved to a one story building on Main street, where Leyden Hall
building now stands, after Dr. Isaac LeBaron, apothecary, had moved from
it to the corner of North street. Rev. Adiel Harvey, pastor of the Baptist
Society from 1845 to 1855, and superintendent of public schools from 1853
to 1859, married his daughter. About forty years after he left Plymouth I
met him one day in Boston, and instantly recognizing him, called him by
name, and had a pleasant conversation with him. Of course he failed to
recognize me, but he expressed great pleasure at meeting some one from
Plymouth, who could tell him about the doings in the old town. Twelve or
fifteen years ago I was advertised to deliver an address before the Young
Men’s Christian Union, and the old man considerably over ninety years of
age, seeing the advertisement, came escorted by his daughter to hear me. He
died not many years ago at the Old Men’s Home, on Springfield street,
where he had been for some time an inmate, nearly if not quite, a
centenarian.

CHAPTER XVI.
On the opposite side of Spring Hill there was until 1890 a building with a
front on Summer street, but there was a tenement on its easterly end which
must be considered in connection with Market street. This tenement in my
youth was occupied by Clement Bates, a native of Hanover, who came to
Plymouth and married Irene Sanger, daughter of Thomas Burgess, the
keeper of the Plymouth lighthouse, who, because he always wore a red
thrum cap, was called Red Cap Burgess. He married in 1824 Betsey
Burgess, a sister of his first wife. He was a caulker, and graver by trade, and
in 1831 was chosen sexton by the town, whose duty it was to conduct
funerals, take care of the town house, and ring the town bell at such hours,
morning, noon and night, as were specified by the town. After his
relinquishment of the management of funerals, which had been taken up by
private undertakers, he told me that he had buried thirty-two hundred and
fifty persons. He performed the other duties of his office until his death,
July 13, 1885. It is an interesting fact that after so long a period of business
dealings with the material bodies of the dead he became a confirmed
believer in the doctrines of Spiritualism.
In my early youth a wooden building standing on the north corner of
Market and Summer streets, was occupied as a store by Bridgham Russell,
until he was appointed postmaster in 1832. Mr. Russell was the son of
Jonathan and Rebecca (Turner) Russell of Barnstable, and was born in
1793. He married in 1822 Betsey, daughter of Jeremiah Farris of
Barnstable, and died March 29, 1840. He was the second Captain of the
Standish Guards, succeeding Captain Coomer Weston. The store which Mr.
Russell had occupied, was taken down in 1832, and replaced by the present
brick building, which was occupied by Alexander G. Nye, and for many
years by Samuel and Thomas Branch Sherman. Samuel Sherman was Town
Treasurer from 1835 to 1856, serving one year after I entered, for the first
time, the office of selectman, and died October 20, 1857.
The next building was occupied as long ago as I can remember by
Osmore Jenkins, who kept a jeweller’s store as early as 1830, and after

leaving Plymouth became distinguished in his profession. He was born in
Mt. Vernon, N. H., September 4, 1815, and died in Melrose, Mass.,
December 19, 1904. Mr. Jenkins was succeeded by Wm. Morey, who
occupied the store many years in making and selling boots and shoes. In
those days, especially in winter, it was the universal custom to wear boots,
the common close legged boots, in contra distinction to the top boots worn
with small clothes. In 1831, when I was nine years old, Mr. Morey made
my first pair, and if school hours had not interfered I think I should have
watched every stitch and peg in their construction. These boots, now little
worn, were first introduced into the peninsular army by the Duke of
Wellington, and are to this day in England called Wellingtons. Why
Congress boots, which have largely taken their place, should be so called, is
somewhat strange, as similar laced boots have been for many generations
worn in Ireland under the name of high-lows and brogans.
Wm. Morey had seven sons, William, born in 1813, John Edwards, 1815,
Thos., 1817, Cornelius, 1820, Charles, 1825, Edwin, 1827, and Henry,
1833. Of these Edwin lives in Boston, a successful and well known
merchant; Thomas was in 1899 the head of a thriving printing house in
Greenfield, and of John Edwards I know nothing, while William, Charles
and Henry have been dead some years, and Cornelius died in infancy.
The building extending from the Morey building to High street, was in
my youth divided into two tenements. The southerly part was owned and
occupied by Samuel Talbot, who bought it in 1826. Mr. Talbot, son of
George Talbot of Milton, was born in that town in 1791, and came to
Plymouth about 1820. In 1825 he formed a partnership with John
Calderwood Holmes in the bakery business in the building in Summer street
now occupied by the Misses Rich. Mr. Holmes died May 17, 1826, and Mr.
Talbot became associated with George Churchill in the business. I have
often seen the room, now a parlor, full of sea biscuit, waiting to be packed
in casks and placed on board the whalemen. I remember, too, the two
wheeled green baker’s cart with America Rogers driving, and the round,
warm biscuit which he left at our house nearly every morning, the size and
color of which varied with the price and quality of flour. Mr. Churchill was
a man of humor, and in speaking one day of the readiness of Plymouth
people to catch at new ideas he said, “Yes, Plymouth people will swallow
anything. I know that by experience, for I have stuffed them with poor

bread a good many years.” Nevertheless, those warm biscuits were good,
but America Rogers’ buns and election cakes were better. Mr. Talbot died
September 28, 1883. The northerly part of the building was owned and
occupied in my boyhood by John Kempton, a caulker and graver by trade,
as a dwelling house and store.
The building on the northerly corner of High street, recently owned by
Chas. T. Holmes, was in 1832 the property and home of Samuel Robbins,
and later of his son-in-law Robert Cowen. Until June 25, 1870, its southerly
end extended about eight feet south of the general line of High street, but on
that date the projection was taken by the town and the street line
straightened. This projection was occupied in 1831, and later by Albert
Leach as a shoemaker’s shop, and still later by Eleazer H. Barnes as a candy
shop. Outside of the northerly end of the building, was a covered stairway
and passage leading to a store in the rear of the main building in which Mr.
Robbins kept a store until his death, which occurred July 27, 1838, at the
age of eighty-six. It must have been about 1830 that he dislocated his thigh.
At that time the means of reducing dislocations were crude, and I remember
hearing in the street the terrible groans of the old gentleman while under the
hands of the Boston surgeon, who had been sent for to manage the case.
The next building, which belongs to the estate of the late Charles T.
Holmes, was occupied as long ago as I can remember on the front by Wm.
Brown for the post office on the street floor, while he held the office of
postmaster from 1822 to 1832, after which it was occupied by Edward
Hathaway for a harness store, and finally by Amasa and Charles T. Holmes.
The cellar under the post office was occupied at various times by Henry
Flanders, who died May 8, 1835, and later, by James Barnes and others as
an oyster shop. In 1829 H. H. Rolfe taught a private school in the room over
the post office, and in 1832, Cephas Geovani Thompson, a portrait painter,
and native of Middleboro, occupied for a time the same room where he
painted portraits of Rev. Dr. Kendall, Capt. Nathaniel Russell and my
mother. His son of the same name, was a highly esteemed portrait painter in
Boston many years. The Old Colony Hall, a part of the estate in the rear of
the main building, was through my youth occupied for various purposes.
The Universalist Society after its formation, held services there from 1822
to 1826, when their church was built on Carver street. In 1833 Hiram Fuller
taught a private school in the Hall, and many times in my boyhood I

attended lectures and exhibitions there, among which were those of
Harrington, the ventriloquist. At a later period the hall and the upper part of
the main building were occupied by Stephen P. and Joseph P. Brown for a
furniture shop and show room. William Brown, above mentioned, died May
9, 1845.
In speaking of Main street in an early chapter I referred to the physical
changes which it had undergone within my memory. I propose now to say
something about the occupants of its houses. As far back as I can remember
the building on the corner of Main and Leyden streets contained a store in
the lower story on Main street, a large room or hall on the corner over the
store, and a tenement with an entrance on Leyden street. The store was
occupied as early as 1825 as a hardware store by James and Ephraim
Spooner, who dissolved partnership in 1832, Ephraim continuing in the
business. In 1839 John Washburn and William Rider Drew were established
in the store in the same business. In 1846 Messrs. Washburn and Drew
separated, the former taking a store on the west side of the street, and the
latter establishing himself as has been stated in the building on Leyden
street, which had been occupied by Steward and Alderman, and Alderman
and Gooding. The store after Washburn & Drew left it was divided into two
and the corner one was occupied at various times by Benjamin Swift in the
watch and clock business, and Edward W. Atwood. The other was occupied
by Edward Hathaway and Edward Bartlett, Reuben Peterson and Rich and
Weston’s express. At a later time both stores were occupied by Weston’s
express succeeded by their present occupant, the New York and Boston
Despatch Express.
It is worthy of notice as showing one of the steps in the progress of the
temperance movement that the Plymouth Temperance Society in 1825
placed in the hands of Ephraim Spooner a quantity of intoxicating liquors to
be by him given without charge to persons presenting the written
prescription of a physician. Mr. Spooner was appointed postmaster in 1840,
and again in 1842, after an interval of one year, during which Joseph Lucas
held the office. He died April 10, 1887.
The large room over the store was occupied as a school room in 1831 and
1832 by George Partridge Bradford, who taught a mixed school of boys and
girls, of whom I was one, and by Wm. Whiting, also, as a school room in
1833. It was later used by private teachers, and often as political campaign

headquarters. The tenement was in those days occupied by Oliver Wood,
the father of the late Oliver T. and Isaac L. Wood.
Mr. Bradford was the son of Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, and graduated
at Harvard in 1825. He prepared for the ministry, but never sought a
settlement, devoting himself to the profession of a teacher. Concord was
frequently his home, and he possessed that mental temperament which
made him a congenial companion of Emerson and Alcott. He died in
Cambridge in 1890 at the age of 80.
Mr. Whiting graduated at Harvard in 1833, and while preparing himself
for the bar taught a school in Plymouth, and, like the teachers who had
preceded him, George Washington Hosmer, William Parsons Lunt, William
H. Lord, Isaac N. Stoddard, Nathaniel Bradstreet, Benjamin Shurtleff,
Horace H. Rolfe and Josiah Moore, married a Plymouth wife. Charles Field
another teacher, died while his marriage engagement to a Plymouth lady
was pending. Mr. Whiting married Lydia Cushing, daughter of Thomas
Russell, and became a distinguished leader at the Boston bar. Miss Rose S.
Whiting of Plymouth is his daughter. During the Civil war he was for a time
the solicitor of the War Department, and published a very able paper on
“War Powers under the Constitution,” which was taken as a guide in many
doubtful questions arising during the war. He died at his home in Roxbury,
June 29, 1873.
The next one story building was occupied as far back as my memory
goes by Thomas May as a shoe store. He occupied it until 1845, when
Henry Howard Robbins took the store and occupied it as a hat store, and
was succeeded by Harrison Finney, who occupied it many years for the sale
of shoe kit and findings, until his death, July 27, 1878. Mr. Robbins died
December 19, 1872.
The next store now occupied by Benjamin L. Bramhall, was before 1830
occupied by Ezra Collier, who kept a bookstore and circulating library. In
1829 he formed a partnership with William Sampson Bartlett, under the
firm name of Collier and Bartlett, which was dissolved the next year. Mr.
Collier came to Plymouth about 1820, and married in 1823 Mary, daughter
of Thomas and Mehitable (Shaw) Atwood, and I think removed from town
after the dissolution of his partnership.

Mr. Bartlett continued the business in the same store until 1840, when he
moved into the store built by him now occupied by Finney’s pharmacy in
the building owned by Dr. Benjamin Hubbard. Anthony Morse succeeded
Mr. Bartlett, and occupied it for a grocery store. It was later occupied by
Benjamin Bramhall for a short time, and by William L. Battles for a year,
when it was again occupied by Mr. Bramhall, who was succeeded by his
son, Benjamin L., its present occupant. Benjamin Bramhall died August 15,
1882.
The next store was occupied by Thomas and George Adams as a hat store
from 1828 until the dissolution of their partnership in 1830. Thomas Adams
continued the business until 1832, when he gave up business, and not long
after was employed as a salesman in the hat store of Rhodes on the corner
of Washington and Court streets in Boston. He was a son of Thomas and
Mercy (Savery) Adams, and married Eunice H. Bugbee of Pomfret,
Vermont. He was not open to the charge of promoting race suicide as the
following record of his children shows, to wit: Mary E., born in 1832;
Thomas H., 1834; Frederick E. and Frank W., twins, 1836; Luther B. and
Ellen, twins, 1837; Miranda B., 1839; Harriet E., 1841; James O. and
another twin, 1841; David B., 1845; Walter S. and another twin, 1848,
Adelaide V., 1849.
George Adams, brother of Thomas, removed to Boston, and became the
well known and successful founder of the Boston directory. He returned to
Plymouth in 1846, and occupied the old store. He married in 1829 Hannah
Sturtevant, daughter of Ephraim Harlow, and had George W., 1830, who
married Mary Holland of Boston; Hannah, 1832, who married Dr. Edward
A. Spooner of Philadelphia; Sarah S., 1840, and Theodore Parker, 1845,
who married Ellen B., daughter of Joseph Cushman. He died October 4,
1865, at the age of fifty-eight.
In 1835 Henry Howard Robbins moved his hatter’s business to this store,
and it was later occupied by John Perkins & Reuben Peterson, hatters,
Weston & Atwood, clothiers, and Wm. F. Peterson and others.
My first recollection of the Old Colony Memorial was when it was
located in one or both rooms over the two stores just mentioned. James
Thurber was then the publisher, and Benjamin Drew was one of the type
setters. The paper was ready for the press by seven o’clock every Friday

evening, and T remember well how much I enjoyed as a boy the permission
to go to the office after supper and help fold the papers. The machine used
in printing was the old Washington hand press which, tended by two men,
could print one side at the rate of two or three hundred in an hour. Today a
Hoe press is furnished with a roll of paper more than four miles long, and
will print fifteen thousand complete newspapers in an hour.
The next store was in 1834, occupied by James G. Gleason as a barber’s
shop, to which was attached a small room for the sale of soda and ice
cream. Up to 1828 the barber shop of Jonathan Tufts, which stood on
Church street, where the office of Jason W. Mixter, now stands, was the
gathering place where the gossips of the town exchanged their news of the
latest scandal. His shop had been for many years the place of deposit for
curiosities which shipmasters collected in various parts of the world. Both
the gossip and the curiosities were inherited by the Gleason shop, and
finally descended to the shop of Isaac B. Rich and John T. Hall, Mr.
Gleason’s successors.
Sometimes practical jokes were played in the shop more entertaining to
the lookers on than to the victims. One of the habitues was William
Bradford, a manufacturer of cotton bats, a man of humor, always ready to
play a part in any prank. One day while Mr. Bradford was in the shop, Mr.
Gleason went out on an errand and a countryman came in to be shaved.
Bradford with a wink at the crowd said, “All right sir, your turn next, sit
right down.” He gave the man a bountiful lather, and pulling off the towel
said to him, “This is all we do in this department, you will have to go into
the next shop to get your shave. When you go in don’t mind the old fellow
in the front room, for he is a queer chap, a little off in his head, but go right
through into the back room where they do the shaving.” Daniel Gale, the
tailor, occupied the next shop, using the front room for cutting out work,
and the back room for the sewing women. Mr. Gale was astonished, and so
were the women, but when the angry countryman returned, Bradford had
left, and Gleason had to bear the brunt of his mischief. Mr. Hall occupied
the store until he purchased the Dr. Warren house on the west side of Main
street, which he occupied until his death, September 21, 1885. Among those
who have since occupied the store were, Mrs. Mary F. Campbell and
Frederick L. Holmes.

CHAPTER XVII.
The last chapter closed with a mention of the various occupants of the
building on the east side of Main street, formerly occupied by John T. Hall,
and now occupied by a provision store.
The next store was a one story building, which was occupied during my
early youth by Deacon Solomon Churchill for a crockery store, and for
some reason, good man as he was, the boys selected him as a victim of
many of their mischievous acts. They would, after tying his door handle,
throw gravel against his windows, throw a cat dead or alive into his store,
or capturing one of their comrade’s caps, toss it inside his door, where a
good spanking was the only condition of its release. Deacon Churchill, son
of Amaziah and Elizabeth (Sylvester) Churchill was born in Plymouth in
1762, where he married Betsey Bartlett, and died in Perry, Ohio, April 10,
1835. Daniel Gale, the tailor, already referred to, succeeded Deacon
Churchill, and occupied it many years. Further mention will be made of him
as an occupant of a house on the west side of the street.
The next store standing by itself was also a one story building, in my
youth occupied as an apothecary shop by Dr. Isaac LeBaron until 1835,
when he moved to the corner of Main and North streets. Dr. LeBaron was
succeeded by Joseph D. Jones, tinman, who has been already referred to in
connection with Market street. The above two one story buildings occupied
the sites of the present Leyden Hall building, and the Hubbard building.
After the erection of Leyden Hall building its early occupants were,
Joseph Cushman, Alderman & Gooding, on the North side, and Jameson &
Company and Benjamin O. Strong on the South side. Mr. Cushman, son of
Joseph and Sally (Thompson) Cushman of Middleboro, came a young man
to Plymouth and opened a dry goods store on the corner of Main street and
Town Square, whence he removed to the Leyden hall building, and
continued in business there some years. In December, 1849, he sailed from
New York for California, and became a permanent resident on the Pacific
coast. He finally settled in Olympia in Washington territory, where he

engaged in the lumber and general mercantile business, and held the
position of receiver of public moneys. He married in 1835 Sarah Thomas,
daughter of Barnabas and Triphena (Covington) Hedge of Plymouth, and
died in Olympia, February 29, 1872. Two of his daughters, Mary A., widow
of Alfred E. Walker of New Haven, and Ellen Blanche, who married
Theodore Parker Adams, live in Plymouth.
The firm of Alderman & Gooding consisted of Orin F. Alderman and
George Gooding. They had previously occupied a store where John E.
Jordan’s hardware store now is. Mr. Alderman came to Plymouth from
some town unknown to me, and married Eliza Ann, daughter of John and
Deborah (Barnes) Gooding of Plymouth, and sister of his partner. After
closing his business in Plymouth, he removed to Framingham, where he and
his wife are still living.
George Gooding, son of John and Deborah Gooding, above mentioned,
was born in Plymouth in 1822. He was my playmate and schoolmate, and I
may say my comrade in arms, as we were members of a boys’ military
company, of which he was captain, and I was lieutenant. In our Saturday
afternoon parades with drum and fife, we flattered ourselves that we excited
the admiration of the misses in their teens, but we failed to be appreciated
by our fellow citizens, for to their shame, be it said, they did not even offer
us a thirty thousand dollar armory for our use. Mr. Gooding married Eliza
Merrill of Concord, N. H., and died in Plymouth, March 5, 1850.
Mr. Jameson, the head of the firm of Jameson & Co., came to Plymouth
from one of the Bridgewaters and died in 1854.
Benjamin Owen Strong, son of Ely and Betsey (Baldwin) Strong was
born in Granville, Mass., February 25, 1832, and came to Plymouth in the
autumn of 1851, when nineteen years of age. He first held the position of
clerk in the Mansion House at the corner of Court and North streets, then
conducted by N. M. Perry, but in May, 1852, he became a clerk in the dry
goods store of Jameson & Company. On the death of Mr. Jameson in 1854,
Mr. Strong assumed control of the store. He later bought out the
establishment, and from that time to this has carried on the dry goods
business with honor and success. He married Betsey J. Chute of
Newburyport, and again, February 17, 1891, Elizabeth H. Snow of Orleans.
His son, Charles Alexander, became his partner in 1884. As the Nestor of

the merchants of Plymouth, I make an exception of him among the living,
and award to him a special notice.
The next building was erected by Wm. Sampson Bartlett in 1840, and the
store on the lower floor was occupied by him as a book store until 1846,
when he removed to Boston. Dr. Benjamin Hubbard has since that time
occupied the tenement in the building as his home, and has also until a very
recent date occupied the store as an apothecary shop.
The next building was occupied from 1826 to 1832 by Isaac Sampson as
a dry goods store, and the late James Cox was his assistant. Mr. Sampson
was the son of Benjamin and Priscilla (Churchill) Sampson of Plymouth,
and married in 1822, Elizabeth, daughter of William Sherman. The late
George Sampson of the firm of Sampson and Murdock, publishers of the
Boston Directory, was his son. He died May 7, 1832, forty-two years of
age. After the death of Mr. Sampson the store was occupied by various
tenants, among whom were Reuben Peterson, who kept a hat store, Calvin
Ripley, James Barnes, Stephen Lucas and Charles H. Churchill, who
preceded D. Flanzbaum, a tailor, the present occupant.
A part of the store was set off as a separate room, and has been occupied
at various times by Winslow S. Holmes and others. Calvin Ripley died May
1, 1874.
The next building was occupied for some years previous to 1852 by
Thomas Davis and Wm. S. Russell, under the firm name of Davis &
Russell, who kept a general store for the sale of dry goods and crockery.
The importation of the Pilgrim plates was due to their enterprise. The
tradition that they were manufactured expressly for use at the dinner in
1820 on the anniversary of the “Landing” is not correct. Messrs. Davis &
Russell, impressed with the idea that an invoice of Pilgrim china would
prove a profitable venture, ordered of Enoch Wood & Sons of Burslem,
England, a considerable quantity of large sized plates and two sizes of
pitchers. Happening to arrive not long before the celebration, they were
hired for the dinner, and afterwards sold as mementoes of the occasion.
They took so well with the public, and brought such high prices, that the
firm ordered an additional invoice, which included in all six sizes of plates
and the same two sizes of pitchers, and the pieces have been scattered far
and wide, the market value in bric-a-brac stores being twelve dollars for the

large plates, and fifteen and ten dollars for the two sizes of pitchers, while
the small sized plates are unobtainable. There is a group of these various
sizes owned by a collector in New York, a photograph of which may be
seen in Pilgrim Hall. At this time it is impossible to distinguish the pieces
originally imported from those which came afterward.
Davis & Russell were succeeded by John S. Hayward in 1827, who
continued in the dry goods business until 1831. The store was afterwards
occupied by the Plymouth Institution for savings, the Old Colony Insurance
Co., and a reading room, until 1842, and was bought in 1847 by Jason Hart,
who moved his dry goods business from Summer street, and occupied the
store until 1856, when Leander Lovell and John H. Harlow, under the firm
name of Lovell & Harlow, became its occupants. John H. Harlow and
Albert Barnes succeeded Lovell & Harlow, they in turn being succeeded by
Wm. Atwood, clothier, the predecessor of H. H. Cole, the present occupant.
Jason Hart died February 20, 1874, at the age of seventy-one. The room
over the store was occupied at various times by Joseph W. Hodgkins, tailor,
Wm. Whiting and Wm. G. Russell, teachers of private schools, Wm. Davis,
attorney-at-law, and Stephen Lucas and others, photographers. William
Davis died, February 19, 1853, and Mr. Hodgkins died, May 11, 1872.
William G. Russell was the son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Goodwin)
Russell, and graduated at Harvard in 1840. He studied law with Wm.
Whiting, his brother-in-law, and became an eminent member of the Boston
bar. He married in 1847, May Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Coffin)
Hedge, and died in Boston, February 6, 1896.
The next building was divided into two stores as long ago as I can
remember it, and the southerly one was occupied by John Bartlett 3d, as a
dry and West India goods store from 1827 to 1846, and the late Joseph
Holmes, brother of Mrs. William Bartlett, was his assistant. Mr. Bartlett was
the son of John and Polly (Morton) Bartlett, and married, 1829, Eliza,
daughter of Ezra Finney, and lived in the northerly part of the house on
Court street, next south of the present house of Capt. Edward B. Atwood.
He afterwards removed to Boston, and engaged in the grocery business on
the corner of Federal and Purchase streets, and died in 1862. He was the
fourth Captain of the Standish Guards, and our townsman, J. E. Bartlett,
who lives on Clyfton street, is his son. The next occupant of the store was
Bradford & Gardner’s express, which suggests a word concerning the

Plymouth and Boston expresses. Samuel Gardner, a former driver on the
Boston line of stages, was the father of the Plymouth express business. In
January, 1846, two months after the opening of the Old Colony Railroad, he
started Gardner’s express with a booking office in the Pilgrim House on the
corner of Middle street. In March, 1846, Edward Winslow Bradford, a
former master of the packet Hector, started Bradford’s express with an
office at No. 4 Main street. After the burning of the Pilgrim House in June,
1846, Bradford and Gardner formed a partnership, and established Bradford
& Gardner’s express, and occupied the John Bartlett store. After a few years
Harvey W. Weston bought Gardner out, and for a short time the firm name
was Bradford & Weston. In the meantime Isaac B. Rich started an express
with an office in Town Square. Mr. Rich next bought Bradford out, and the
firm name became Rich & Weston, being succeeded by Weston alone, who
finally sold out to the present company, the New York and Boston Despatch
Express. Mr. Rich had immediately before the establishment of his express
kept a flour and grain store on Water street. He died March 18, 1874.
Another express was started before the war by Allen Holmes, with an
office first in Market street, and later in the old brick building on the corner
of Court street. Mr. Holmes sold to Wait, who sold to Snow, who sold to
Hubbard, who finally sold to Fowler, who had an office on Middle street. G.
A. Holbrook ran an express a short time at an unknown date.
Edward Winslow Bradford, the old partner of Gardner, again started an
express about 1870, which continued until his death, December 27, 1874.
Still another express was started by Guilford Cunningham, and a man
named Cook, which passed into the hands of Frederick W. Atwood.
Nathaniel Bradford, son of Edward Winslow Bradford, formed a
partnership in the express business with Freeman E. Wells, who sold out to
Simmons & Torrence, the predecessors of the present Torrence express.
Benjamin H. Crandon ran an express for a short time with an office on
Middle street in the easterly end of the building on the corner.
I know of no occupant of the John Bartlett store after Bradford &
Gardner, until William H. Smoot occupied it as a restaurant. Mr. Smoot
stuttered badly, as did our townsman, Anthony Morse, but neither knew the
other’s defect in speech. Not long after he began business Mr. Morse came
one day into the shop and said, “Mr. Sm-o-o-t have you any ice cr-r-earn?”

“Y-y-y-es—have s-s-ome?” “D-d-d-amn your ice c-r-r-earn,” said Morse,
very indignant at such an insult, and went out shutting the door with a slam.
The more recent occupants, Jas. E. Dodge, who died February 20, 1888, Mr.
Richards, Mr. McCoy, Martin Curly, and Manley E. Dodge, are well known
to my readers.
The small store on the corner was occupied as a boot and shoe store by
Bartlett Ellis from 1824 to 1831. I remember as a boy seeing in his store a
box of India rubber shoes packed in sawdust, the first ever seen in
Plymouth, having been imported in Boston in small quantities in the rough
state from Para. This was before the process was discovered of making the
rubber pliable, and the shoes were as stiff as iron, requiring to be warmed
before a fire before they could be put on. Mr. Ellis was succeeded by
Ephraim Bartlett, and Henry Mills, both in the same business, and later by
E. D. Seymour, tailor. The more recent well known occupants have been
Caleb Holmes, who died June 21, 1878, Charles H. Snell, Harrison Holmes,
and the recent occupant, Henry C. Thomas, in the market business. The
room over the store was occupied by the Old Colony Democrat in 1833,
conducted by Benjamin H. Crandon and Thomas Allen, and in 1834 by We
The People, conducted by C. A. Hack and Horace Seaver.
On the corner of Main and Middle streets there stood as long ago as I can
remember the Plymouth Hotel, built by George Drew about 1825, and kept
certainly in 1827, and perhaps earlier by James G. Gleason. I remember the
hotel in 1828, when my aunt, Mrs. Gideon C. White was boarding there
with her four children, while her husband was at sea in command, I think,
of the ship Harvest, belonging to Barnabas Hedge. In the summer of the
above year a small circus came to Plymouth and performed in a tent pitched
in the stable yard on Middle street. Mrs. White’s children were going to the
circus, attended by William Paty, a brother of the landlord’s wife, and I a
boy of six years, was permitted by my mother to go with them. While the
horses made no impression on my memory, I have a lively recollection of
the monkey riding the pony’s back. Mr. Gleason, who was the third captain
of the Standish Guards, kept the Plymouth Hotel until 1830, when he was
succeeded by Ellis Wright, who kept it until 1834.
Capt. Gleason was a portly, jovial landlord, who, I think, came to
Plymouth from Middleboro and married in 1816 Lucy T., daughter of
Joshua Bartlett, and second in 1820, Asenath, daughter of John Paty. He

was at different times landlord of the Plymouth Hotel, hairdresser on
Market street, barber on Main street, landlord of the Mansion House on the
corner of Court and North streets, and a purveyor of oysters and clam
chowder in various places. He was a man of humor, always ready with an
answer turning the laugh away from himself. In those days the price of a
common drink at the bar was four pence half penny, or six and a quarter
cents, but a drink of brandy was nine pence, or twelve and a half cents. One
day a stranger called at the bar for a glass of brandy and Gleason in the
American fashion gave him the bottle to help himself. To the astonishment
of Gleason he filled his tumbler nearly full, and with a little water, drank it
with gusto, and placed on the counter a nine penny piece. Gleason gave him
back four pence, half penny, and the stranger said: “I thought that brandy
was nine pence.” “It is,” said Gleason, “but we sell half price by
wholesale.” The stranger took the hint, and insisted on paying a quarter for
the extended drink. At another time, while keeping the Mansion House, a
passenger by the stage arrived for supper and left after breakfast the next
morning. On calling for his bill he found the charge to be five dollars.
“Good gracious” said the traveller, “I never paid such a bill as that before.”
“No,” said Gleason, “and I don’t suppose you ever had the honor of
stopping at the Mansion House before.” Mr. Gleason died Oct. 6, 1853.
A few days after the Old Colony Railroad was opened Gleason went
down to the railroad station to gratify his curiosity, and seeing a locomotive
on a track he climbed on, and while fumbling about the rods and bars he
turned on the steam and away the engine went. Gleason hopped off, but
fortunately an engineer on another locomotive attached to a train about to
start for Boston, unshackled his machine and caught up with the runaway,
and brought it back. “Hem! didn’t she whiz,” said Gleason in telling the
story.
Ellis Wright, who succeeded Capt. Gleason, was a Plympton man, son of
Isaac and Selah (Ellis) Wright, and after leaving Plymouth removed to
Boston. The hotel had a good hall in the second story, which was much used
for dancing schools and cotillion parties and exhibitions of various kinds. I
attended my first dancing school in that hall, and have danced there at many
cotillion parties since.
In 1834 Danville Bryant became the landlord, and from that time until it
was burned, the hotel was called the Pilgrim House. Whence Mr. Bryant

came, or where he went, I have no means of knowing, but he continued in
the hotel until 1840. His daughter, Abigail, married Horace B. Taylor. It was
during his administration, and that of Mr. Wright, that the famous line of
stages to and from Boston was established, and continued until the opening
of the Old Colony Railroad in 1845. As I remember it the line consisted of
an accommodation and a mail stage. The accommodation left Plymouth at
six or seven o’clock each day, and returning left Boston at two, going
through West Duxbury, Pembroke, Hanover, West Scituate, Weymouth
Landing, Quincy and Dorchester. The mail stage left Boston at five o’clock
in the morning, arriving at Plymouth at ten-thirty, when a return stage took
passengers from the Cape, arriving by the stage driven by Wm. Boyden,
and the Boyden stage took the passengers bound to the Cape. The route of
the mail stage would be one day the same as that of the accommodation,
and the next it would turn off at West Scituate and go through Hingham to
Quincy, and so into Boston. The mail stage carried two pouches, one
containing the through mail from the Cape, and the other containing the
way mail, which would be thrown off at the various post offices to deliver
and receive the mail to and from that office.
I remember the various lines of stages running every day into and out of
Boston, and I can say that no better horses or better drivers could be seen
than those on the Plymouth line. There were in Boston various stage houses,
Wilde’s on Elm street, Doolittle’s City tavern on Brattle street, the
Washington House on Washington street, and others. The Plymouth stage
office was in the City Tavern on Brattle street, and there orders were left for
calls by the stage for passengers. The business on the line was good, and
extra stages were frequently required to meet the demand. It was a busy
scene in front of the Pilgrim House about half past ten on the arrival and
departure of the Boston and Cape stages, and Geo. Drew, the manager of
the line, might be seen here and there with a red bandana handkerchief
hanging from his teeth, giving directions and orders.
The drivers were as good as the horses. There were Capt. Woodward,
Granville Gardner, Samuel Gardner, Benjamin Bates, John Bates, Asa
Pierce, Phineas Pierce, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Orcutt, and I think at one time,
Jacob Sprague. John Bates was perhaps the king of the line, wearing in
suitable weather, a white beaver hat, a brown suit of clothes, well polished
boots, and neat gloves. He was no more proud of his team than the team

was of him. After the line was broken up by the railroad he drove for some
years what was called a Roxbury hourly, running with its alternate mate
from that part of Washington street between State street and Cornhill, to the
Norfolk house and back. He always drove four horses, and his omnibus was
not far from twenty feet long, and to reach his Boston station he would
drive up Court street and down Cornhill. Mr. Bates married in 1827 Hannah
S., daughter of John Faunce of Plymouth, but I know neither the place or
date of his death.
Another estimable and much respected driver was Phineas Pierce, the
father of Phineas Pierce, now a retired merchant in Boston, and a recent
member of the School Committee in that city, and a trustee of the Boston
Public Library. He married in 1829 Dorcas M., daughter of Caleb Faunce of
Plymouth, and died August 10, 1841. His death was a sad one. He stopped
at Hanover to take a passenger, and in strapping the trunks on the rack of
the stage he stood on the hub of the hind wheel, and throwing himself back
with his whole weight on the strap, the strap broke, and falling to the
ground, he was instantly killed.
There were other lines of stages within my recollection running to New
Bedford, Middleboro and Bridgewater, with headquarters at Bradford’s and
Randall’s taverns in which Oliver Harris, Theophilus Rickard and Henry
Carter and others were employed as drivers. Mr. Carter, who drove the
Bridge water stage some years, married in 1833, Maria Bartlett Banks, and
for many years before his death he was the Plymouth station master of the
Old Colony Railroad. Mr. Harris came from New Bedford and married in
1835 Ruth Rogers (Goddard) Fish, widow of Samuel Fish, and daughter of
Benjamin Goddard of Plymouth. Our late townsmen, Capt. Wm. O. Harris
and Christopher T. Harris, were his sons.
The dancing school which I attended in the Plymouth Hotel, was kept by
F. C. Schaffer in 1833 and 1834. There were no local dancing masters in
those days, and professionals occupied the field, and as the lawyers say,
followed the circuit. They would arrange schools in different towns for five
afternoons and evenings in the week, and drive from one to another,
reaching their homes on Saturday. There were other professionals who
preceded and followed Mr. Schaffer, among whom were S. Whitney in
1828, and Lovet Stimson in 1830, who taught in Burbank’s hall on Middle
street. At the rear end of the Burbank house, which stood immediately

above the present house of Winslow S. Holmes, there was a two story
projection, the lower part of which was occupied by Samuel Burbank’s
bake house, above which was the hall in question. All I remember of the
schools in that hall is that on the closing night of the term in one or the
other, when pupils were permitted to dance until twelve o’clock, and invite
their friends, a terrific thunder storm set in before midnight with heavy rain
and fearful lightning, which continued so that pupils and parents, my
mother with the rest, were unable to reach home until the small hours of the
morning. In those days it was the fashion for women to wear as stiffeners in
their corsets busks made of wood or whalebone or steel, and doubtless on
that as on similar occasions, those who wore steel drew them deftly from
their waists, and put them where the lightning would fail to find them.
While Danville Bryant was keeping the Pilgrim House, men more or less
generally adopted the fashion of wearing skin tight trousers spreading
closely over the instep and fastened with a strap under the foot. The most
conspicuous persons in Plymouth to adopt this fashion were Mr. Bryant and
Capt. Simeon Dike. Of course the trousers and boots had to be put on and
off together, thus making the fashion too troublesome to last, and by a
process of evolution the cloth or leather gaiters followed. It is as true in
dress as in other things that one extreme follows another, and so the next
fashion for men was for loose trousers with full plaited or gathered bodies.
In 1840 the Pilgrim House passed into the hands of Francis J. Goddard,
who kept it two or three years, and was succeeded by Stephen Lucas, who
again was succeeded in 1845 by Joseph White. Of course Mr. Goddard, son
of Daniel and Beulah (Simmons) Goddard, is remembered by most of my
readers. Mr. Lucas was a man of varied occupations during his long life. A
wheelwright by trade, he kept several kinds of stores later, a stable on
School street, the Pilgrim House, a photograph saloon, and last a fruit store,
as the predecessor of Charles H. Churchill on Main street. He was the son
of Samuel and Jemima (Robbins) Lucas of Carver, and married in 1820
Rebecca Holmes of Plymouth, and died November 23, 1888. Joseph White,
previous to his taking the hotel, had a stall in the Plymouth market. The
Hotel was burned June 20, 1846, and Mr. White left Plymouth and carried
on a boarding house in Boston on the corner of Bedford and Lincoln streets.
The Pilgrim House was burned as I have stated, June 20, 1846. I was in
Europe at the time, but my letters from home told me about the midnight

fire, and about the appearance on the scene of Dr. Wm. J. Walker, a director
of the Old Colony Railroad, in his drawers. He was occupying for the
summer the house on North street now occupied by the Misses Russell.
After the Masonic building, then called the Union building, was built on
the site of the Pilgrim house, one of its first tenants was Dr. Samuel Merritt,
already fully referred to in a former chapter, who occupied the two rooms
on the corner, one for his office, and one for his sleeping room. After Dr.
Merritt went to California in 1849, the rooms were occupied successively
by Dr. F. B. Brewer, dentist, Dr. Robert D. Foster, and Dr. Sylvanus
Bramhall, also dentists, and by Dr. James L. Hunt. Winslow S. Holmes at
one time occupied a barber shop in a rear room on Middle street, and also at
one time, Charles T. May and Lysander Dunham had shops in the northerly
Main street room. The other occupants of the street floor and basement,
many of whom will be recalled by my readers, have been too numerous to
mention. The corner room upstairs was occupied in 1850 by Wm. H. Spear,
attorney-at-law, and the other room, together with the hall, called Union
Hall, was used by the Standish Guards. Until 1869, when the building came
into the possession of the Masons, the hall was used for miscellaneous
purposes, including dancing schools kept by Wm. Atwood and others,
cotillion parties, lectures and exhibitions.
The next site, on which the engine house stands, was occupied farther
back than 1830 by a dwelling house, in which lived on the south side Dr.
Nathan Hayward, and on the north side two of my great aunts, Miss Hannah
White, who died Jan. 3, 1841, at the age of ninety-four, and her sister, Mrs.
Joanna Winslow, who died in May, 1829.
Dr. Hayward was the son of Nathan and Susanna (Latham) Hayward of
Bridgewater, and in 1793-4 was a surgeon in the United States Army, under
Major General Anthony Wayne in the war against the western Indians. In
1795 he married Anna, daughter of Pelham and Joanna (White) Winslow,
and settled in Plymouth. He was at one time in partnership with Dr. James
Thacher, and with him was instrumental in establishing the first stage line
to Boston in 1796. He was my mother’s family physician, and I have a vivid
recollection of his administration to my rebellious stomach of senna and
salts, tincture of rhubarb and castor oil, and also of that instrument fearfully
and wonderfully made with which he occasionally extracted a tooth. He
was appointed in 1814 by the Governor sheriff of Plymouth county, and

continued in office until 1843. His youngest son, George Partridge
Hayward, now living in Boston, was named after his predecessor in office,
George Partridge of Duxbury. Dr. Hayward in 1831 formed a professional
partnership with his nephew, Dr. Winslow Warren, and died June 16, 1848.
Pelham Winslow, the husband of Mrs. Joanna Winslow, was a son of
General John and Mary (Little) Winslow, well known as the officer in
command of the expedition for the removal from Acadia of the neutral
French, and married in 1770 Joanna, daughter of Gideon and Joanna
(Howland) White. He graduated at Harvard in 1753. In 1768 he and James
Hovey of Plymouth were the only barristers at law in Plymouth County,
thus holding a position at the bar above that of either Attorney-at-law or
counsellor. At the coming on of the revolution he adhered to the crown, and
after the evacuation of Boston, joined the British Army in New York, where
he was appointed paymaster general. He died on Long Island in 1783,
leaving in Plymouth his widow and two daughters, Anna above mentioned,
who married Dr. Hayward, and Mary, who married Henry Warren. With
little means of her own, and wishing to do what she could to maintain
herself and family, her father, Gideon White, who owned the house in
question, built an addition, coming out to the sidewalk, and fitted up the
lower story for her store. The last time I saw the old lady she and her sister,
after taking tea at our house, fitted out for home with a lantern, which in
those days everybody carried on dark evenings, as there were no street
lights of any kind. An incident which occurred many years after in one of
the financial panics, recalled her to my mind. Mr. Wm. R. Sever, county
treasurer, came to me one day in great distress, because he was unable to
borrow at any of the banks ten thousand dollars to meet county obligations
coming due, and asked me to help him. I went to Boston, and, knowing that
it would be useless to apply at any bank, went to see Mr. Ebenezer Francis,
living in Pemberton Square, who with Abbot Lawrence, Robert G. Shaw
and Peter C. Brooks, were the only persons in Boston rated at a million,
while now you can’t turn a corner without running against a millionaire.
“No, Mr. Davis, I cannot loan the money to the county,” Mr. Francis said in
answer to my application. “I am a poor man. I have one hundred thousand
dollars lying in the old Boston bank, drawing no interest.” “But,” said I,
“here is a good opportunity to place a portion of it at interest.” “But I don’t
like the security, I can’t put every man in the county in jail.” “May I ask
what you call good security” I rejoined. “Yes, sir,” with an emphasis which

showed his business training at a time when commercial honor was more
potent than law—“a note based on a business transaction signed by the
buyer and endorsed by the seller.” But I got my money much to the joy of
Mr. Sever, and the obligations of the county were paid.
Before I left he asked me if I had ever heard of a Mrs. Joanna Winslow,
and he was interested to learn that she was my great aunt. More than fifty
years ago he said he kept a store on Washington street, where she bought for
her store pins and needles and ribbon, buttons and laces for her stock in
trade. “She was very much of a lady,” he added, and was remembered by
him always with pleasure. It was a surprise to him to learn that Judge
Charles Henry Warren, whom he knew very well, was her grandson.
The interview presented to my mind two transitions in the shifting scenes
of life—one from the home of gentle blood to the little store, and the other
from the little store to the mansion of the millionaire.
After the death of Miss Hannah White in 1841, William S. Russell moved
into the part of the house which had been occupied by her and made it his
home with his family until his death, and after the death of Mrs. Dr.
Hayward the house was occupied for a time by the Old Colony Club, until it
was bought by the town. The little store was abandoned by Mrs. Winslow
after a few years’ occupancy, and used as a store by James LeBaron. As far
back as I can remember it was occupied by John Thomas, attorney-at-law,
who was succeeded by Gustavus Gilbert, also an attorney, who occupied it
until 1845. In that year William S. Russell occupied it as a grocery store,
followed by Miss Priscilla Hedge with a circulating library. Capt. Eleazer
Stevens Turner then occupied it as a grocery store, succeeded by Pelham
Winslow Hayward, who had his office there until the town bought the
estate.
Gustavus Gilbert was a son of David Gilbert, an attorney-at-law
in Mansfield, who graduated at Harvard in 1797. Mr. Gilbert came to
Plymouth not far from 1830, and married Caroline Eliza, daughter of Dr.
Isaac LeBaron. He practiced law in Plymouth many years, and died
September 1, 1865.
William S. Russell was a son of James and Experience (Shaw) Russell,
and married in 1820 Mary Winslow, daughter of Dr. Nathan Hayward. After
the firm of Davis & Russell in Plymouth, of which he was a member, was

dissolved in 1827, he moved to Boston, and for a time was in the wholesale
dry goods business in Central street, the senior member of the firm of
Russell, Shaw & Freeman. After the dissolution of the partnership in 1829,
he formed a partnership with Wm. Sturtevant in the same business, which
continued two years, when he continued the business in partnership with
Andrew L. Russell. When the last firm discontinued business he went to
Illinois as the representative of parties in Plymouth and Boston, owners of
land in that state, and after his return settled in Plymouth. In 1846 he was
chosen Register of Deeds for Plymouth County, and continued in office
until his death. He was a careful student of Pilgrim history, and by the
publication in 1846 of a “Guide to Plymouth and Recollections of the
Pilgrims,” and in 1855 of “Pilgrim Memorials and Guide to Plymouth,”
made valuable contributions to Pilgrim literature. He died in Plymouth,
February 22, 1863.

CHAPTER XVIII.
I remember the occupants of the building north of the engine house as far
back as 1828. On the 9th of July in that year, I was playing on the sloping
cellar door, while the funeral procession of Henry Warren was forming in
front of the next house. The house in question was occupied on the north
side by David Turner, and on the south side down stairs by Mrs. Grace
(Hayman) Goddard, and her sister, Abigail Otis, and up stairs on the south
side by Betsey Morton Jackson, and her sister, Maria Torrey Jackson,
daughters of Woodworth Jackson. Betsey Morton Jackson died June 10,
1827, and her sister Maria became one of the family of my grandmother,
after her removal to Boston, and died in Boston, May 18, 1856.
David Turner was a son of David and Deborah (Lothrop) Turner, and
married in 1793 Lydia Washburn. I remember him well with his military
walk and bearing. His pew was in the northwest corner of the old church,
and I can see him now entering by the north door and marching up to his
seat with a soldierly air and step.
Mrs. Goddard and Miss Otis were daughters of John and Hannah
(Churchill) Otis of Plymouth. Grace Hayman married in 1796 John
Goddard, a surgeon in the United States Navy, who while serving on board
the sloop of war Boston, died at Gibraltar, June 15, 1802, at the age of
thirty-two years. She had two daughters: Harriet Otis, born in 1797, who
married Abraham Jackson, and Mary, who married Arthur French of
Boston. Mrs. Goddard, as long as I knew her, kept a little store in the
southerly corner room now occupied by a furniture store, which was once
the law office of James Otis, the patriot, and died February 8, 1851, and her
sister Abigail died February 11, 1857.
Not many years after the death of David Turner, his part of the house was
occupied some years by James Thurber, who came to Plymouth in 1832,
and conducted until his death, the Old Colony Memorial. That paper,
under his management, had able contributions to its columns, and held a
high position among the country newspapers of the state. Mr. Thurber was

an ardent Whig, and during the political campaigns of the period, exerted a
potent influence on the voters of Plymouth county. I knew him well, and
from the time when as a boy I assisted on Friday evenings in folding
newspapers in his office, until his death I enjoyed his friendship. He
married in 1831 Elizabeth, daughter of Asa Danforth of Taunton, and sister
of Allen Danforth of Plymouth, and had Elizabeth 1832, and in 1839 James
Danforth, Treasurer of the Plymouth Savings Bank. He moved into the
house in question from the house where he had lived some years on the
corner of Leyden and Market streets. Mr. Thurber died May 20, 1857.
Among the tenants of the house in later times were Wm. H. Spear, John
Perkins, John Morissey and Mrs. Thomas Atwood, and the stores have been
occupied by Keith and Cooper, pharmacists, J. W. Cooper, pharmacist, the
Loring pharmacy, by Baumgartner, James B. Collingwood & Sons, and W.
N. Snow, all furniture dealers.
On the south side of the dwelling house on the corner of North street, was
a yard with a chaise house and stable in its rear. In 1839 Allen Danforth
bought the yard and outbuildings and built the house now occupied by the
post office in which he lived until his death.
He was a son of Asa and Deborah (Thayer) Danforth of Taunton, where
he was born, January 18, 1796, and married December 30, 1818, Lydia
Presbry, daughter of William Seaver of that town. In 1821 he established in
Taunton the Old Colony Reporter, edited by Jacob Chapin, the first number
of which was issued April 4, in that year. In the spring of 1822 he came to
Plymouth and established the Old Colony Memorial, the first number of
which was issued to two hundred and twenty-three subscribers, May 4, in
that year. In its early years the Memorial occupied a chamber in Market
street, over the store of Antipas Brigham. In 1836 he gave up the
management of the paper to his brother-in-law, James Thurber, the printing
office being then located on Main street.
The Plymouth Institution for Savings, whose name was changed in 1847
to the Plymouth Savings Bank, and with which Mr. Danforth was for forty-
three years identified, was incorporated June 11, 1828, and on the 25th of
July Barnabas Hedge was chosen President, and Benjamin Marston Watson,
Treasurer. On the first of August, 1829, the same officers were chosen, but
Mr. Watson declining, Mr. Danforth was chosen in his place. The place of
business of the bank was at first in the Plymouth Bank on Court street, and

as its annual meetings were held in various places, sometimes at the
Plymouth Bank, sometimes in the reading room, and again at the Old
Colony Bank—it is difficult to locate for some years its actual resting place.
I am quite sure, however, that for a time its office was in the room on Main
street, in which John S. Hayward had kept a store where H. H. Cole is now
in business.
The Old Colony Insurance Company was incorporated March 6, 1835,
with a capital of $50,000, and organized with Jacob Covington, president,
and Mr. Danforth secretary, and shared an office with the savings
institution. On the 2d of June, 1841, the institution for savings jointly with
the Plymouth Bank, the Old Colony Bank, and the Old Colony Insurance
Company, bought of Thomas and William Jackson a vacant lot on Main
street, and erected a building into which those institutions moved in 1842.
Mr. Danforth retired from the office of secretary of the Insurance Company
in 1853, and subsequently its charter was surrendered.
At the time of the establishment of the Savings Bank, such institutions
were comparatively new and general confidence in their soundness had not
been established. Facilities for reaching Plymouth were imperfect, and
consequently the early growth of the bank was slow. The custom of
hoarding, however, was soon abandoned, and the integrity of Mr. Danforth,
and his discreet management of the Bank soon attracted a rapidly increasing
business. Its deposits, which at the end of five years, had only reached one
hundred thousand dollars, amounted according to the last statement made
by Mr. Danforth in December, 1871, to $1,759,189.97, while since that time
about three-quarters of a million have been added.
Mr. Danforth was a man possessing traits of character which fitted him
for the responsible position in which he was placed. He was eminently a
man of a judicial mind, and if he had been bred to the law he would have
been a leader at the bar, or a distinguished judge. No statute or decision
touching financial matters escaped his notice, while court reports, recent or
old, relating to banks and banking, were familiar to him. During his life he
devoted himself to the welfare of the institution under his care, neither
seeking office nor accepting it, except twice as representative, and twice as
a member of the board of selectmen. While repeatedly solicited to act as
executor or administrator or trustee, he was only in few exceptional cases
willing to assume their distracting responsibilities. Mr. Danforth’s death

was a sad one. He was taken with smallpox, and before many of his fellow
citizens were aware of his sickness, he died May 28, 1872. Death came near
the midnight hour, and before morning he was buried, unattended, except
by those who were immune. A funeral service was held in the Unitarian
church, Sunday, June 2, and a fitting tribute was then paid to his memory.
The Warren house on the corner of North street was occupied as long ago
as I can remember by Henry Warren, the son of James Warren, of the
revolution, whose wife was Mercy Otis, sister of James Otis, and who lived
in the house in question. Mr. Warren was born in 1764, and married in 1791
Mary, daughter of Pelham and Joanna (White) Winslow. He was the
collector of the port from 1803 to 1820, and died July 6, 1828. He had two
daughters and seven sons. Of these James died young, and Mary Ann died
unmarried. Marcia married in 1813, John Torrey, and was the mother of
Henry Warren Torrey, late professor of history at Harvard. Winslow, born in
1795, graduated at Harvard in 1813, and fitting himself for the practice of
medicine settled in Plymouth, where as early as 1831 he became a partner
of Dr. Nathan Hayward. His office was for some years at the corner of
North street, and there in 1832 I was examined by him as chairman of the
School Committee for admission into the High School. He married in
January, 1835, Margaret, daughter of Dr. Zacheus and Hannah (Jackson)
Bartlett, and after the death of Dr. Bartlett, which occurred December 25,
1835, he moved into his office and occupied it until his death, June 10,
1870. Dr. Warren was not only learned and skillful in his profession, but
was also a man of mental culture, familiar with the world’s affairs, and
decided in his opinions on the great questions of the day; a man of moral
culture, conscientious to the last degree; a man of social culture, a true
gentleman. Pelham Winslow Warren, born in 1797, graduated at Harvard in
1815, and from 1822 to 1831 was the clerk of the Massachusetts House of
Representatives, holding also in 1829 the office of collector of the port of
Plymouth, and living in the Warren house. During the last few years of his
residence in Plymouth he was the superintendent of the Sunday school in
the old church. The general lessons given by him I remember well. They
were not mere platitudes, such as are often addressed to children, but
interesting and instructive in language adapted to young minds on the
handiwork of God in sea, earth and sky. Under his ministrations I became
for the first time conscious of a power to think. When the Railroad Bank in
Lowell was incorporated he was appointed its cashier, and lived some years

in that city. When he retired from the Bank he removed to Boston, and
engaged in the banking and brokerage business until his death. He married
at Clark’s Island in 1825, Jeanette, daughter of John and Lucia (Watson)
Taylor, and died in Boston, October 6, 1848.
Charles Henry Warren, born September 29, 1798, graduated at Harvard in
1817. He studied law with Joshua Thomas of Plymouth and Levi Lincoln of
Worcester, and settled in New Bedford first as a partner of Lemuel
Williams, and later of Thomas Dawes Eliot, and from 1832 to 1839 was
District Attorney for the five southern counties of Massachusetts. In 1839
he was appointed Judge of the Common Pleas Court, continuing on the
bench until 1844, when he removed to Boston and associated himself with
the law firm of Fiske and Rand, composed of Augustus H. Fiske and
Benjamin Rand. He appeared as counsel for the defendant in the memorable
trial of Rev. Joy H. Fairchild, charged with adultery, and secured his
acquittal. Experiencing premonitions of heart disease he abandoned
practice, and in 1846 was chosen president of the Boston and Providence
railroad, remaining in office until 1867. He was president of the
Massachusetts Senate in 1851, and president of the Pilgrim Society from
1845 to 1852. He married Abby, daughter of Barnabas and Eunice Dennie
(Burr) Hedge of Plymouth, and died in Plymouth, June 29, 1874. As no
monument or stone marks the place of his burial, I think it proper to say that
the bodies of both himself and wife were deposited in the Warren tomb.
Richard Warren was born in 1805, and in early manhood embarked in
business in Boston and failed, settling with his creditors for a percentage on
their claims. He afterwards removed to New York, where he engaged
successfully in an auction commission business, confined chiefly to cargo
sales of teas, sugar, coffee and other importations. As soon as his
recuperated financial condition warranted, he discharged principal and
interest the old indebtedness from which he had been formally released. He
was president of the Pilgrim Society from 1852 to 1861, and the two great
celebrations of the anniversary of the embarkation of the Pilgrims on
Monday, the first of August, 1853, and Tuesday, the second of August,
1859, owe their inspiration largely to him. He married first Angelina,
daughter of Dr. Wm. Pitt Greenwood of Boston, and sister of Rev. Francis
Wm. Pitt Greenwood of King’s Chapel, and second, Susan Gore of Boston,
and died in Boston, April 12, 1875.

George Warren, born in 1807, in early manhood made several voyages as
supercargo in the Havana and Russia trade. The ship Harvest belonging to
Barnabas Hedge, in which I think he sailed when bound with sugar, to
Russia, would put into Plymouth to obtain a clean bill of health before
completing her voyage. He afterwards went to New York and formed a
partnership with Ebenezer Crocker, a native of Barnstable, under the firm
name of Crocker & Warren. The firm owned the following ships: Alert and
Talisman, commanded by Capt. Gamaliel Thomas of Plymouth; Queen of
the East, commanded by Capt. Truman Bartlett, Jr., of Plymouth; Raven,
commanded by Capt. Bursley of Barnstable; Archer, commanded by Capt.
Henry, and the Skylark, commanded by Capt. Bursley. Capt. Thomas made
seven voyages to Calcutta and California in their employ, and Mr. Warren
told me once that his accounts were always so complete and accurate that
he could settle with him a nine months’ Calcutta voyage in fifteen minutes.
In the great fire which occurred in New York, December 23 and 24, 1835,
which burned six hundred and seventy-four houses between lower
Broadway and the East River, Crocker & Warren had five hundred bags of
saltpetre stored in a warehouse burned, and the cause of repeated explosions
which occurred, was for a time a mystery, leading to the often repeated
question—will saltpetre explode? It was finally determined that while
saltpetre alone is not explosive, the carbon furnished by the burned bags
formed an explosive mixture. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Barnabas
and Eunice Dennie (Burr) Hedge, and died in New York, November 20,
1866.
Edward J. Warren, born in 1809, was in business in New York many
years, a part of the time associated with his brother Richard. Of ready wit
and quick eye, and with a familiarity with prices he was one of the most
attractive and efficient salesmen in New York. He married Mary, daughter
of Wm. G. Coffin, the official head for many years of the Massachusetts
land office, and died in New York April 27, 1872.
Soon after Henry Warren died, Madam Warren removed to Boston and
lived some years on Allston street, but later returned to Plymouth and
occupied successively until her death, the house on Middle street, next to
Mr. Beaman’s undertaking rooms, and the house on Main street, where the
new bank building stands. In 1833 Dr. Isaac LeBaron moved into the
Warren house, and in 1836 occupied the apothecary’s shop, which Dr.

Warren had vacated. I not only remember the gilded pestle and mortar over
his door, but also the sugar baker’s molasses, which he kept in stock
furnished to him by the father or brother of his wife, who owned a sugar
refinery in Leverett street, Boston. Almost as dark colored as tar, and nearly
hard enough to cut with a knife, it was like the witch’s gruel, “thick and
slab,” and those who now eat buckwheat cakes with honey or syrup, have
little idea how good they were eaten with that sugar baker’s molasses. Dr.
LeBaron died January 29, 1849.
At various times the Warren house was occupied by Mrs. Wm. Spooner,
the family of Capt. Wm. Bartlett, and in still later times by the Young Men’s
Literary Institute, the Public Library, the Custom House, and stores of Wm.
Babb, John Churchill, Pratt & Hedge, James C. Bates, Davis and Whiting,
N. M. Davis, Edgar Seavey, Allen Holmes and Edward Baker and Allen T.
Holmes. Among the transient residents were Mrs. Ann Boutelle, widow of
Dr. Caleb Boutelle, and her daughter Anne Lincoln, boarding with one of
the permanent families in the house. The south front chamber is hallowed in
my memory, for there on the 5th of December, 1835, Anne Lincoln
Boutelle, one of my playmates and schoolmates, died in consumption, one
too sweet and pure and frail to tread the rough paths of life. I saw her a day
or two before she died, with a little table by her bed side laden with gifts of
fruit and flowers, which loving friends had sent, and to which I added my
own. I never go into the printing office, which includes the chamber in
which she died, without recalling her saintly face, her saintly voice, and her
saintly spirit, joyous at the thought of journeying home. A memorial of her
life and character was published, written by Mary Ann Stevenson, a niece
of Mrs. Judge Joshua Thomas, a copy of which if one can be found, I am
anxious to obtain.
The Odd Fellows’ lot on the corner of Main street and Town Square,
included as long ago as I can remember the sites of two houses, one on
Main street and one on the square. In this chapter only the occupants of the
former will be considered. In 1829 there were two stores on the lower floor
facing Main street, and two tenements above. The store on the corner was
occupied by Salisbury Jackson, who removed in 1835 to a store, which he
had fitted up in his house on the south side of Leyden street. He was
succeeded by Joseph Cushman, who has been already noticed.

Mr. Cushman was succeeded by J. M. Perry, agent, and Mr. Perry by
Henry Orson Steward and Eleazer C. Sherman in the grain business. Mr.
Steward, who previously was a member of the firm of Steward and
Alderman, carrying on a dry goods store on Leyden street, came to
Plymouth from Connecticut, and married Bethiah, daughter of Samuel West
and Lois (Thomas) Bagnall. He finally removed from Plymouth, and after a
second marriage, died in Framingham. Mr. Sherman later carried on the
business alone, removing to a store at the head of Hedge’s wharf, where he
remained as long as he continued business in Plymouth. He later became a
wholesale dealer, receiving in Plymouth and Boston constant shipments of
corn, which were sold in the various markets of the state. He was President
of the Old Colony Bank for a time, a member of the executive council, and
finally, until his death, President of the Commonwealth National Bank in
Boston. He was a son of Levi and Lydia (Crocker) Sherman of Carver, and
was born in 1817. He married first Louisa Jane Gurney of North
Bridgewater, now Brockton, and second in 1878 Mary L. (Perkins) Thayer,
widow of Edward D. Thayer of Boston, and died in Boston.
Mr. Sherman was succeeded by Thomas Loring, who occupied the store
many years. Mr. Loring was son of Ezekiel and Lydia (Sherman) Loring of
Plympton, and married Lucy, daughter of Jonathan Parker of Plympton, and
died in Boston a few years ago.
The next store was occupied at various times by Bridgham Russell,
Jeremiah Farris, Benjamin Hathaway, Henry Howard Robbins, Edward
Bartlett, Reuben Peterson, Lewis Peterson, and Wm. F. Peterson. Mr.
Russell has already been referred to. Mr. Farris was a son of Jeremiah and
Lydia (Eldridge) Farris of Barnstable, and was born in that town in 1810.
He married in 1832 Mary, daughter of Nathaniel and Betsey (Woodward)
Carver of Plymouth, and settled in Plymouth. He first formed a partnership
in the dry goods business with Benjamin Hathaway, and after the
partnership was dissolved Mr. Hathaway continued in business, and added
the business of making neck stocks. Not long after Mr. Farris joined with
Oliver Edes in the manufacture of rivets in North Marshfield, and
Plymouth, and finally established the Plymouth Mills, which is still in
active business as a corporation under the management of his son-in-law,
Wm. P. Stoddard. Mr. Farris was the sixth captain of the Standish Guards.
Mr. Hathaway afterwards continued the stock business in other locations,

and the first time I ever saw Chief Justice Albert Mason, he was at a bench
in Mr. Hathaway’s shop cutting out material for stocks. Nothing in the
career of Mr. Mason as artisan, lawyer, soldier and Judge, impressed me as
much as his resolve while working at his bench to change the current of his
life. The flow of the tide never specially impresses me, but when I see the
buoys change their slant from East to West, I begin to wonder.
Mr. Mason was the son of Albert T. and Arlina (Orcutt) Mason, and was
born in Middleboro, Mass., Nov. 7, 1836. He came to Plymouth in 1853,
and after working a short time in Mr. Hathaway’s stock factory, he studied
law in Plymouth with Edward L. Sherman, and was admitted to the
Plymouth bar Feb. 15, 1860. In July, 1862, I was requested to raise two
companies to be attached to the 38th Regiment, and recommend their
officers, and in accordance with that request I raised Companies D and G,
and recommended Mr. Mason for the post of second lieutenant of Company
D. He was duly commissioned, and afterwards promoted to be first
lieutenant, Captain and Assistant Brigade Quartermaster. At the close of the
war he resumed practice in Plymouth, and in 1874, removing to Brookline,
was appointed by Governor Washburn a member of the Board of Harbor
Commissioners. In 1879 he was appointed a member of the Board of
Harbor and Land Commissioners by Governor Talbot; Judge of the Superior
Court by Governor Long in 1882, and Chief Justice in 1890 by Governor
Brackett. He married November 25, 1857, Lydia F., daughter of Nathan and
Experience (Finney) Whiting of Plymouth. In 1893 he received from
Dartmouth the degree of LL. D., and died in Brookline January 2, 1906.
Henry Howard Robbins was the son of Rufus and Margaret (Howard)
Robbins, and was born in Plymouth in 1811. He was a hatter by trade, and
at various times occupied other stores on Main street. My first recollection
of him was as a member of the old Plymouth Band, organized soon after
1830. The members of the band, according to my recollection, were
Bradford Barnes, leader, clarinet; William Atwood, trombone; John
Atwood, serpent; Eleazer H. Barnes, cornopean; James M. Bradford,
bassoon; Samuel H. Doten, clarinet; John N. Drew, trombone; Nathaniel D.
Drew, bugle; Edward Hathaway, bass drum; Albert Leach, bugle; Thomas
Long, fife; Seth Morton, snare drum; Edmund Robbins, orphicleide; Henry
Howard Robbins, clarinet; Albert Finney, bugle, and Ellis Rogers, bass
drum.

The orphicleide, one of the instruments above mentioned, had a short
career, and has not only gone out of use, but also almost out of memory. I
have been unable to find any one besides myself who remembers it. The
proprietor of the music store in Plymouth never heard of it. No one in the
store of John C. Haynes & Co., of Boston, remembers it, and the leader of
the band in Cambridge on Commencement Day told me that he had no
recollection of it. I remember it distinctly, a brass instrument about three
feet long and six inches in its largest diameter, and with a curved
mouthpiece, resembling somewhat that of the bassoon. The snare drum,
which in its oblong form stood the test of four hundred years, has since my
youth degenerated into the present instrument, which resembles in shape
and size a generous Herkimer county cheese. The trombone, probably the
ancient sackbut, has held its own, and is the oldest musical instrument now
in use. Mr. Robbins married Mercy Morton, daughter of John Eddy, and
died December 19, 1872.
Reuben Peterson was the son of Elijah and Abigail (Whittemore)
Peterson of Duxbury, and was born in that town about 1788, and married in
1812 Mary, daughter of Benjamin White of Hanover. He was a hatter by
trade, and he, as well as his son Lewis, who died October 5, 1878, and
grandson, William F., now living, are remembered by my readers.
Edward Bartlett was a harness maker, and occupied this as well as other
stores. He was the son of Stephen and Polly (Nye) Bartlett, and was born in
Plymouth. He married Betsey Beal of Kingston, and died within the
memory of many readers.
Mr. Hathaway above-mentioned, retiring from active business, became a
director of the Plymouth National Bank and devoted himself to the care of
his ample property. He married in 1828 Hannah, daughter of William Nye
of Plymouth, and second in 1857, Sally Barnes, daughter of George W.
Virgin, and died July 15, 1880.
In my early youth the second story was occupied by Mrs. Francis
Leonard Maynard and Dr. Hervey N. Preston. Mrs. Maynard, the daughter
of Major William and Anna (Barnes) Jackson, was born in Plymouth in
1789, and married February 5, 1821, Samuel Maynard. She occupied the
whole front of two rooms on Main street, and one room on the northerly
side of the building separated from the other two by a narrow entry to

which access was had by an outside flight of stairs leading from Main
street. The corner room on the square she occupied as a schoolroom, in
which she taught boys and girls from about six to ten years of age. I was
one of her pupils, and must have entered the school as early as 1828,
because I remember seeing the engines go by on their way to the fire which
burned the anchor works in that year. Among my fellow pupils I can recall
Jane Elizabeth Bartlett, daughter of James Bartlett, who married Thatcher
R. Raymond; Mary Holbrook, daughter of Jacob Covington, who married
George H. Bates of Brooklyn, N. Y., and her sister Martha, Betsey Foster
Ripley, daughter of Deacon Wm. Putnam and Elizabeth Foster (Morton)
Ripley, Priscilla and Barnabas Hedge, children of Isaac L. Hedge, and
Francis L. and George Maynard, children of the teacher. Mrs. Maynard was
at that time a widow and an ideal schoolmistress. She was an accomplished
lady, and taught not only the ordinary branches of a school education, but
also sewing and, above all, good manners. I carried away from her school
as evidence of my industry and skill a section of a patchwork bed quilt, and
I trust also some of the fruits of her lessons in deportment. I may
incidentally say that the wife of Rev. Dr. Mann of Trinity church in Boston
is a grandchild of Mrs. Bates, one of the pupils above mentioned. I think
that Lucy Ann Jackson, a granddaughter of Benjamin Crandon, was also a
pupil, and much the oldest girl in the school, who is now remembered
because I recall the dinners she brought to eat at the noon recess. Mrs.
Maynard’s daughter Frances married a lawyer in St. Louis, and her son
disappeared from my memory soon after my schoolboy days. The chief
punishment in the school was standing in the corner wearing a foolscap, and
one girl who was exemplary and conscientious in after life, scarcely passed
a day without suffering this punishment.
The chambers in the westerly end of the house occupied by Dr. Preston,
were reached by a door with a projecting porch on the southerly side of the
building eight or ten feet from the town tree, which stood on what is now
the gutter in the square. The stairway from the outside door led to a broad
hall above which separated the school room from Dr. Preston’s sitting room.
These two rooms had broad folding doors which were used when the
building was a hotel, and called after its owner, the Witherell tavern. John
Howland, who died in Newport not many years ago at the age of 97, said in
his diary, “that at the Pilgrim celebration, December 2, 1803, the dinner was
held in a large old house, in which the partitions in the chambers had been

removed to make room for the tables.” He doubtless took it for granted that
what were really doorways were openings made for the occasion. I
remember well the folding doors. Dr. Preston came to Plymouth in 1829.
He was the son of Amariah and Hannah (Reed) Preston, and was born in
Bedford, Mass., June 21, 1806. He married a Miss Sargent, and practiced in
Plymouth until his death, which occurred in Boston July 14, 1837.
The later occupants of the second story were Thomas Loring, Augustus
Deming, Lydia Keyes, who died June 30, 1873, at the age of 75 years, and
Jacob Howland, who died June 3, 1876, at the age of 82 years.
The building in question stood ten feet or more back from the southerly
line of the lot, while the building above it on the square, came out to the
sidewalk. When Odd Fellows’ Hall was built the open space was built upon.
About 1850 Mr. Isaac Brewster, representing the owners of the lot, erected a
two story building in the yard on its northeast corner, which was occupied
below for many years by Wm. Bishop, as early as 1845, as the Old Colony
bookstore, and later by Charles C. Doten, and above by William Davis as a
lawyer’s office, and by Benjamin Whiting and Wm. S. Robbins,
photographers. In 1876 it was moved to a lot on Market street, below the
bake house, where it now stands. Odd Fellows’ building had three rooms on
Main street. That in the corner was occupied many years by the post office.
The next was occupied by Stevens M. Burbank, H. N. P. Hubbard, and
Hathaway and Sampson, and the third by Z. F. Leach, H. W. Dick, Alfred S.
Burbank and Hatch & Shaw. The building was destroyed by fire January 10,
1904.

CHAPTER XIX.
There stood where the Sherman block stands until that block was built a
few years ago a two story wooden building occupied in my boyhood by
George W. Virgin at the south end, and by Deacon Wm. P. Ripley at the
north end. These stores were at various times also occupied by Samuel
Shaw & Co., Henry Tilson, Wm. Z. Ripley, Wm. T. Hollis, Southworth
Barnes, Stevens M. Burbank, Thomas Holsgrove, Jacob Howland and
Albert N. Fletcher.
Samuel Shaw, a son of Southworth and Maria (Churchill) Shaw, was
born in Plymouth in 1808, and married Mary Gibbs, daughter of Simeon
Dike, and died May 28, 1872. Mr. Virgin, the son of John and Priscilla
(Cooper) Virgin, married in 1816, Mary, daughter of Isaac and Lucy
(Harlow) Barnes, and died April 19, 1869. Henry Tilson, who died in
January, 1835, and Wm. P. Ripley have been already referred to. William Z.
Ripley, the son of William P. and Mary (Briggs) Ripley, was born in
Plymouth and married Adeline B. Cushman. He finally removed to Boston.
William T. Hollis, as already mentioned in connection with the Bradford
tavern, was the son of Henry and Deborah (Leonard) Hollis, and was born
in Plymouth in 1826. He was jointly with Thomas Prince, proprietor and
editor of the Old Colony Memorial from 1861 to 1863, and of the
Memorial and Rock after the Memorial was consolidated with the Plymouth
Rock, jointly with Thomas Prince and George F. Andrews, from 1863 to
1864. He died unmarried at the Plymouth Rock Hotel only a few years ago.
Southworth Barnes, son of William and Mercy (Carver) Barnes, was born in
Plymouth, and married in 1833, Lucy, daughter of John and Lydia (Mason)
Burbank. After his death, which occurred October 29, 1861, his store was
taken by Stevens Mason Burbank, nephew of his wife, who married in
1851, Cornelia, daughter of Samuel and Rebecca (Bradford) Doten. The
rooms over the stores in the building in question were occupied by various
persons at various times for miscellaneous purposes. Among the occupants
were the Plymouth Anti-Slavery Society, Thomas May, Benjamin F. Field
and Abel D. Breed, tailors, Benjamin Hathaway, manufacturer of neck

stocks, Clary and Burr, barbers, Dr. Sanborn, dentist, the Plymouth Free
Press, newspaper, P. T. Denney, and N. A. T. Jones, tailors, Thomas B.
Drew and Thomas D. Shumway, dentists.
The occupant of the next house from 1828 to 1837 was Daniel Gale, a
tailor whose shop on the other side of Main street has been already
mentioned. He was a son of Noah and Rebecca Gale, but where he was
born and when, I do not know. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward
Winslow of Duxbury, and probably about 1837 moved away from
Plymouth, as I find no record of his death. Like all men in his line of
business in localities too small for keeping an assortment of cloth, he was
only a tailor, and not a draper. Customers furnished their own cloth, and by
an unwritten law the tailor was entitled to the remnants from which in time
considerable profit accrued. These remnants were universally, in Plymouth
at least, called cabbage. Hence the word cabbage as applied in the sense of
stealing or, to use a milder phrase, of taking possession of. Mr. Gale, after a
residence of some years in Plymouth, built the block of houses between
Sandwich street and the Mill pond, which in my boyhood was known as
Gale’s Cabbage, implying that it was built from the profits of his remnants.
Another house somewhat pretentious in style, received a name suggested
by a practice more reprehensible than one which custom permitted. The
owner was often employed as a surveyor to run out large lots of woodland
into smaller lots for sale. In doing this work certain strips and gores of land
would be omitted, and in time sold as his own. The house took the name of
Strips and Gores, as having been built from the proceeds of these sales. I
mention neither the house nor the name of its owner, because like many
other stories, the charge may have no foundation in fact, and I have no
desire to taint his memory. The next occupant of the house in question was
Dr. Levi Hubbard, the brother of our townsman, Dr. Benjamin Hubbard,
and father of Hervey N. P. Hubbard, the librarian of the Pilgrim Society. He
was succeeded in 1841 by John Washburn, who occupied a hardware and
tin shop on the street floor and the tenement above, many years. Harlow &
Barnes, a firm engaged in the same business, consisting of John C. Barnes
and Samuel Harlow, succeeded Mr. Washburn, and were themselves
succeeded by Harlow & Bailey, the firm consisting of Samuel Harlow and
H. Porter Bailey, and by H. P. Bailey & Bro., the predecessors of the firm
now occupying it.

Dr. Levi Hubbard, son of Benjamin and Polly (Walker) Hubbard, was
born in Holden, Mass., and after graduating at the medical college of
Pittsfield, settled in Medfield, whence he moved to Plymouth in 1839, and
occupied the house in question until May 29, 1841, when he moved to the
north side of Town Square. In January, 1844, in consequence of a fire in the
house he occupied on the square, he removed to the house above the town
house, where he remained until November, 1844, when he removed to New
Bedford. From New Bedford he went to Chicopee, and in 1849 to
California in the ship Edward Everett, sailing from Boston. Returning in
1851 after short residences in Dutchess and Saratoga counties in New York
State, he removed to Iowa, and died in Glenwood in that state in 1886. He
married in 1837, Luzilla, daughter of Roger Haskell of Peru, Mass., and his
son, Hervey N. P. Hubbard was born in the house under consideration, in
1839.
The site of the house next north of the store of Bailey Bros. is memorable
as the site of the Bunch of Grapes Inn in the middle of the eighteenth
century.
The house now standing was built by Joseph Avery, a bookseller and
book binder, who had branch establishments in Worcester and Portland. In
school book binding his concerns were extensive and profitable. He came to
Plymouth in 1807, and up to 1816 occupied for his business one of the one
story buildings on the east side of Main street already referred to. On the
29th of July, 1822, while superintending the erection of the building he
incautiously stepped on a loose board and fell from the upper story to the
street floor, suffering injuries which resulted in his death on the fourth of
the following month at the age of forty-two years. In 1826 the house was
sold to Dr. Zacheus Bartlett, who occupied it both for his business and
home until his death, which occurred December 25, 1835. Dr. Bartlett was
born in South Plymouth, September 20, 1768, and graduated at Harvard in
1789. He studied medicine with Dr. Ezekiel Hersey of Hingham, and settled
in his native town. He served his fellow citizens as their Representative in
the General Court one or more years, was one of the founders of the Pilgrim
Society, and its vice-president from 1828 to 1835, and by invitation of the
Town, delivered the oration on the Pilgrim anniversary in 1798. He married
in 1796 Hannah, daughter of Samuel and Experience (Atwood) Jackson,
and up to the time of his occupancy of the Main street house lived in a

house on North street, easterly of the house now occupied by Miss Lydia
Jackson. All through my boyhood there was a one story building in the
southeast corner of the yard which I have always supposed was his office.
As I remember the house it was still owned by Dr. Bartlett, and occupied by
various tenants, and the office building was occupied by Thomas
Maglathlin, who lived alone. Dr. Bartlett had four children, Sydney, the
eminent lawyer who married Caroline Louisa Pratt of Boston, and for many
years was recognized as the leader of the Boston bar; Margaret, who
married Dr. Winslow Warren, Dr. George Bartlett of Boston, who married
Amelia, a daughter of Dr. Wm. Pitt Greenwood of Boston, and Caroline,
who married James Pratt of Boston. It is worthy of mention that three
Plymouth men, Richard Warren, George Bartlett and Charles L. Hayward,
married daughters of Dr. Wm. Pitt Greenwood. The occupation of this
building by John T. Hall and others, is too recent to require notice. John T.
Hall, son of Eber and Elizabeth (Burgess) Hall, was born in Plymouth and
married in 1843 Betsey, daughter of Joab Thomas, and at various times kept
a barber shop, a fancy goods store and engaged in insurance business.
The occupation of the site on which the store of George Gooding stands
with a tenement over it, possesses unusual interest. About the year 1750
James Shurtleff built a house on the site which in 1789 came into the
possession of Caleb Leach, who came to Plymouth from Bridgewater and
projected the Plymouth water works, the first water works built in the
United States. The company was chartered in 1796, the year after a
company was chartered in Wilkesbarre, Penn., but the Plymouth works
were constructed before the works of that town. The pipes were yellow or
swamp pine logs, ten to twelve feet long, and ten inches in diameter, clear
of sap, with a bore from two to four inches in diameter, and sharpened at
one end, the other end bound with an iron hoop to prevent splitting when
driven into the bore. During the latter years of the company iron
connections with a flange in the middle were used.
In 1800 the house came into the possession of Asa Hall, who came from
Boston, and fitted up its lower room for a watchmaker’s shop. From that
time to this, a period of one hundred and six years the site has been
identified with the watch making business. In 1802 John Gooding, who
came to Plymouth from Taunton, succeeded Mr. Hall in the shop, and in
1805 married Deborah, daughter of Benjamin Barnes. In the next year Mr.

Barnes bought the house, and his son-in-law, Mr. Gooding, continued to
occupy it, finally receiving in 1836 a deed of the property from Mr. Barnes.
Not many years after Mr. Gooding obtained possession, he took down the
old house and built the present one. I remember the old house well. The
shop door was divided across the middle, the lower part wood, the upper
part glass, and in suitable weather, the upper part was swung back. The
other doors which I remember like this, were in the harness shop of
Barnabas Otis on the south side of Summer street, the second or third above
Spring street, the office of Dr. Amariah Preston, next north of the Gooding
house, in the old house where Davis building now stands, and in the
Solomon Churchill shop on the east side of Main street. Mr. Gooding was
the son of Joseph and Rebecca (Macomber) Gooding of Taunton, and was
born in 1780. His father was a watchmaker, and he had at least one, and I
think two brothers, who followed the same trade. His brother Josiah and
nephew Josiah, kept within my recollection a watchmaker’s and jeweller’s
store in Joy’s building on Washington street, in Boston, many years. A
member of one of the branches of Jos. Gooding’s family, Mr. A. W. B.
Gooding, married Mary Woodward Barnes, a daughter of Bradford Barnes.
Mr. Gooding was a member of the Board of Selectmen from 1825 to 1831,
inclusive, a Director of the Plymouth Bank from 1839 to 1865, inclusive,
and died September 25, 1870, at the age of ninety years. He had seven
children, Deborah Barnes, who married Aurin Bugbee, John, 1808, who
married Betsey H., daughter of Ephraim Morton, and became a well known
master of the Bark Yeoman, William, 1810, who married Lydia Ann,
daughter of Putnam Kimball, Benjamin Barnes, 1813, who married Harriet,
daughter of Charles Goodwin, Eliza Ann, 1818, who married Orin F.
Alderman, George Barnes, who married Eliza Merrill of Concord, N. H.,
and James Bugbee, 1823, who married first, 1851, Almira T., daughter of
Henry Morton of Plymouth, and second, Rhoda Ann White of Worcester.
Benjamin Barnes Gooding succeeded his father in business in the same
store, and died June 28, 1900, at the age of 87. Two sons of Benjamin
Barnes Gooding, Benjamin W. and George, succeeded their father and
continued until the spring of 1905, when their partnership was dissolved,
George continuing in the business. Thus for 103 years, three generations of
the Gooding family have carried on the business of watch making on the
same site, and as Earl W. Gooding, the son of George, has become
associated with his father, it may with some degree of certainty be predicted

that a fourth generation will continue the business. What I have said does
not tell the whole story. James Bugbee, the youngest son of John Gooding,
learned the watchmaker’s trade, and established himself in Worcester,
finally becoming connected with the Waltham watch factory. His ingenuity
and skill soon gave him a leading position in that concern and
improvements invented by him in watchmaking machinery for which
numerous patents were secured, enabled him to leave at his death a
substantial property for his widow and son, who are still living. The upper
part of the building in question is occupied by Dr. E. E. Fuller.
The next house is occupied by two stores and a tenement. As long ago as
I can remember, the small store now occupied by Mr. Loring as a
watchmaker’s shop, was the office of Dr. Amariah Preston, the father of Dr.
Hervey N. Preston, previously mentioned. Dr. Preston was born February 5,
1758, and entered the army in 1777. After the war he lived a short time in
Uxbridge, Mass., and Ashford, Conn., and then removed to Dighton, Mass.,
to learn a trade. In 1785 he began the study of medicine, and in 1790 settled
in Bedford, where he married October 18, in that year, Hannah Read, and
second, May 15, 1796, Ruhamah Lane. After practising in Bedford forty-
three years, he removed in 1833 to Plymouth, and occupied the office in
question. He practised in Plymouth until 1845, eight years after the death of
his son, and in that year at the age of 87 went to Billerica to live with
another son, Marshall Preston, and finally removed with him to Lexington,
where he died, October 29, 1853, at the age of ninety-five. I remember well
the kindly manner of the old gentleman when I went frequently to his shop
to buy gamboge to paint the pictures in my geography.
After the departure of Dr. Preston from Plymouth in 1845, his office was
taken by Dr. Samuel Merritt, who has been already noticed in connection
with the exodus to California in 1849. After the removal of Dr. Merritt to
the Union Hall building, after its erection in 1848, Dr. Ervin Webster
succeeded to the office and occupied it until his sad death, and that of his
son, Olin E. Webster by drowning in Billington Sea, August 28, 1856. Since
that time the office has been occupied by Charles C. Doten, Ichabod Carver,
Edward W. Atwood, Benjamin H. Crandon, Sarah Morton Holmes, and B.
D. Loring, its present tenant.
The store on the north corner of the building was taken by Bartlett Ellis,
for the sale of fancy goods, and for a circulating library, after he gave up his

shoe store on the corner of Middle street in 1831, and was occupied by him
many years. His successors in the store I think, have been a Mrs. Richards,
and the present occupant, Miss F. F. Simmons both in the millinery
business.
The tenement above the stores was occupied until 1831 by John
Churchill, and after his death, George Churchill, his son, sold the building
to Thomas Burgess Bartlett, who occupied it until his recent death. Thomas
Burgess Bartlett married Bethiah, a daughter of John Churchill, while
Bartlett Ellis, the occupant of the store, married in 1821 for his second wife,
Hannah, another daughter of Mr. Churchill.
During my boyhood the house which stood on the site of the Plymouth
Savings Bank, was occupied by two brothers, Thomas and William Jackson,
substantial merchants for many years, Thomas occupying the southerly part,
and William, the northerly. Thomas, called Thomas, Jr., born in 1757, was
the son of Thomas and Sarah (Taylor) Jackson, and married in 1788 Sally
May. They had three children, Thomas, Edwin and Sarah, but I have no
recollection of any child in their family. He was one of the founders of the
Plymouth Bank in 1803, and a subscriber for thirty shares of stock, and was
a director from 1826 until his death, August 8, 1837. William Jackson,
known as Major Jackson from his rank in the militia, was born in 1763, and
married in 1788, Anna, daughter of David Barnes of Scituate, and had
Francis Leonard in 1789, who married Samuel Maynard, Leavitt Taylor,
1790, and David Barnes, 1794. He married second in 1795, Mercy,
daughter of John and Mercy (Foster) Russell, and had Frederick William,
1798, Anna, 1799, and William R., 1801. He married third in 1804, widow
Esther (Phillips) Parsons. Mr. Jackson was one of the founders of the
Plymouth Bank, a subscriber for twenty-seven shares of stock, and a
director from 1803 to 1815, and again from 1827 to 1836. He died in
Plymouth, October 22, 1836.
There was a vacant lot belonging to the Messrs. Jackson with two cellars,
the remains of houses taken down long before my remembrance, and in the
Jackson yard there was a Jackson apple tree, from which in season apples
would fall upon a shed and roll into the vacant lot, and in recess there was a
race to capture such apples as might have fallen during school hours. What
has been the fate of the Jackson apple trees of my youth, and where have
they gone? It was a red, juicy, early summer apple, a fit prize for the race,

and where have the queen apple trees gone, only one of which is left in
Plymouth. That in the yard of Wm. Rider Drew was cut down during the
last year, leaving the one in the yard of Mrs. Lothrop, solitary and alone.
And where are the June Eatings, a name corrupted into Jenitons, of which I
think there is only one left in the yard of Miss Lydia Jackson in North
street. And I must not forget those favorites with the boys, the button pears.
Not especially prized by their owners we boys were permitted to take all we
could find on the ground. With our trouser’s pockets bulging with the little
fellows, we would find our way to school, little suspecting that we were
paying dearly for them in the cost of a doctor’s visit, and a dose of picra.
In the vacant lot above mentioned, the most conspicuous feature was a
large sty in which Major Jackson kept his hogs. So far from such
appurtenance being considered a nuisance in those days, a family without
one or more hogs was an exception. In earlier times they were permitted to
run at large, though not within my day in Plymouth, but it may surprise my
younger readers to know that in New York and Washington, as late as the
civil war, they roved about the streets as freely as dogs. As late as 1721 it
was voted by the inhabitants of Plymouth that they might run at large that
year if properly ringed and yoked, and hog constables were annually chosen
to see that the condition was complied with. The custom of keeping hogs
was so universal in my day that perhaps a dozen times during the season a
dealer would buy in the Brighton market a drove of hogs and drive them
home over the road, selling them on the way. When a sale was made the
drivers would tie the four legs of the hog and raise it to a pair of steelyards,
hanging from a bar supported by their shoulders, and thus find the weight.
While this operation was going on the drove would roam at their own sweet
will, nosing up the gutters and sidewalks in every direction. I remember
James Ruggles of Rochester, the donor to the county of the fountain in front
of the Court house, and Swift, one of the members of the firm of pork
packers in Chicago, driving their hogs from house to house. Until a very
recent date, more in deference to an old custom, than to any necessity, hog-
reeves were chosen each year by the town, and recently married grooms
were selected for the honor.
The occupants of the house in question after the Jacksons were, Madam
Mary Warren and Wm. F. Peterson, in the southerly part, and Susan, Sarah
and Deborah L. Turner, daughters of Lothrop Turner, and Miss Deborah L.

Turner, Dr. Alexander Jackson, and Hannah D. Washburn, milliners, and
Sarah M. Holmes and Mrs. Charles Campbell, in the northerly part, until
the house was taken down, and the present building was erected in 1887,
the occupants of which are now the Old Colony National Bank, Plymouth
Saving’s Bank, the Black & White Club, Dr. Schubert and Dr. Lothrop, and
the Natural History Society. After the Jackson house came into the
possession of the Savings Bank, a one story building was erected on the
northerly line of the lot, which was occupied at various times by the Public
Library, and by Arthur Lord and Albert Mason, attorneys-at-law, and finally
removed to the Hathaway land on Middle street.
Before speaking of the occupants of the two houses which stood north of
the vacant lot on which the Bank building was erected in 1842, I will state
that in 1851 a slice fifteen or twenty feet deep was cut from the two lots,
including the front yard of the Thomas house, now the Plymouth Tavern,
and enough from the lot south of it to make the present line to which Davis
building when soon after erected, was made to conform. As long ago as I
can remember, the old house which stood on the site of Davis building was
occupied by Timothy Goodwin, a tinman by trade, who occupied for his
tinshop the upper story of a projection in the rear of the main building. I
have an impression that he was club footed, and that he had two sons older
than myself, who with their father must have moved from Plymouth not far
from the year, 1835.
The old fashioned tinman’s trade which flourished in Mr. Goodwin’s day
when all the tinware in use was made in the local shops, has practically
disappeared, leaving only the manufacture of hot air furnace pipes to
remind us of the resonant clatter of a tinshop once so familiar to the ear. Mr.
Goodwin was born in 1779, and was the son of Timothy Goodwin, who
came from Charlestown and married Lucy, daughter of Abiel Shurtleff of
Plymouth. His father, who was associated with the earliest postal system of
Plymouth, deserves a passing notice. Up to 1775 no post office had ever
been established in Plymouth, and at that time there were only seventy-five
post offices in the colonies, and eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles of
post routes. In the above year Benjamin Franklin was appointed Postmaster
General, and on the 12th of May William Watson was appointed postmaster
of Plymouth, and in 1790 was commissioned by Washington. On the
appointment of Mr. Watson in 1775, a horseback mail route was established

from Cambridge to Falmouth, through Plymouth, and Timothy Goodwin
and Joseph Howland were appointed post riders, making the trip down and
back once in each week. They left Cambridge Monday noon, and arrived at
Plymouth at four o’clock, Tuesday afternoon; and leaving Plymouth at nine
o’clock Wednesday morning, reached Sandwich at four o’clock on that day,
and Falmouth at eight o’clock Thursday morning. Goodwin and Howland
divided the route, making the exchange at Plymouth.
Until 1816 the rate of postage remained unchanged as follows: for a
single letter under forty miles, eight cents; under ninety miles, ten cents;
under one hundred and fifty miles, twelve and a half cents; under three
hundred miles, seventeen cents; under five hundred miles, twenty cents;
over five hundred miles, twenty-five cents. In 1816 the rate was fixed for a
single letter not over thirty miles, six and a quarter cents, over thirty miles
and under eighty, ten cents; over eighty and under one hundred and fifty,
twelve and a half cents; over one hundred and fifty, and under four hundred,
eighteen and three quarters cents; over four hundred, twenty-five cents,
with an added rate for every additional piece of paper, and if the letter
weighed an ounce, the rate was four times the above. The newspaper rate
fixed at the same time was one cent under one hundred miles, or within the
state; over one hundred miles, and out of the state, one and a half cents,
magazines and pamphlets one and a half cent a sheet under one hundred
miles, if periodicals, two and a half cents a sheet over one hundred miles,
but if not prepaid, four and five cents.
The above was the rate of the postage during my youth, and until I was
twenty-three years of age, when gradual reductions began to be made, the
result of which has been the postal rates as they stand today. The rates
above mentioned indicate the kind of currency prevailing at the time.
Articles on sale were priced at so many cents, or a four-pence happenny (six
and a quarter cents), nine pence (twelve and a half cents,) a shilling (sixteen
and two-thirds cents) a quarter of a dollar, two and three pence (thirty-seven
and a half cents) a half a dollar, three and nine pence (or sixty-two and a
half cents) four and six pence (or seventy-five cents) and so on to a dollar.
Finally Mexican coins were eliminated from our currency, and the genuine
American decimal coinage exclusively prevailed. Until the year 1855,
prepayment was optional, but with the introduction of postage stamps,
prepayment was required, and when after the establishment of expresses, it

was found that they engaged in the carriage of letters the practice was
forbidden unless the letters were stamped. If under the old system letters
were not prepaid, it was by no means unusual for persons to whom they
were addressed, to refuse to receive them and pay the high postage due. It
goes without saying that persons known to be going to Boston or New York
were pretty well loaded, as I have often been with letters to be delivered not
only to friends, but also to men in business.
If cheap postage is a blessing, it may be doubted whether it is an
unalloyed one. As one of its penalties, letter writing has become a lost art. A
three-line note or a postal card, or what is worse, a dictation by a
stenographer from which the last vestige of communion of friend with
friend is completely extinguished, has taken the place of the welcome
epistles which our grandmothers and aunts wrote with care, and filled full
not only with gossip and family news, but also with instructive comments
on events of the day. How much future readers will lose by the absence of
such volumes of correspondence as have graced our literature during the
last hundred years!
In connection with letters it may be well enough to say for the benefit of
my young readers that until 1840 envelopes were unknown, and letters were
universally folded and sealed either with sealing wax or wafers.
There was an expression of deliberation and composure investing such
correspondence which is lost in the correspondence of today. Now and then
some impecunious person found sealing wax and even wafers unnecessarily
extravagant. I was told many years ago by a man who called on the late
Joshua Sears who left his millions to a son, recently deceased, that he found
him splitting wafers. Since the days of envelopes I have known an officer of
one of our institutions to save all his letters, and turn the envelopes for
future use.

CHAPTER XX.
William Watson, the first postmaster of Plymouth, was the son of John
and Priscilla (Thomas) Watson, and was born in Plymouth, May 6, 1730,
and graduated at Harvard in 1751. In addition to the office of postmaster, he
was appointed in 1782 naval officer for the port of Plymouth, and in 1789
he was commissioned collector by Washington. In 1803 he was removed by
Jefferson from both the office of postmaster and collector, and died April
22, 1815. In 1765 he bought the lot of land in Court street, on which the Old
Colony Club house stands, and there can be no doubt that he built the house
now standing, and occupied it until his death. After the death of Mr. Watson,
the estate was bought by my grandfather, William Davis, and occupied by
my uncle, Nathaniel Morton Davis from the time of his marriage in 1817
until his death, when its occupancy passed to his son, Col. Wm. Davis.
The story of the life of the mother of Wm. Watson is full of romantic
interest. She was Priscilla Thomas, a daughter of Caleb and Priscilla
(Capen) Thomas of Marshfield. She became engaged to Noah Hobart, a
divinity student, who was at the time teaching school in Duxbury. John
Watson of Plymouth, who had married in 1715, Sarah, daughter of Daniel
Rogers of Ipswich, lost his wife, and not knowing of the engagement of
Miss Thomas, made through her father, an offer of marriage. As Mr. Watson
was a man of high standing and abundant means, Mr. Thomas was
favorably impressed by the offer, and said that he would consult his wife
and daughter. A family council was held, into which Mr. Hobart was called,
and it was finally decided with the assent of Mr. Hobart, who was ready to
make any sacrifice to secure a happy establishment for life for one whom he
sincerely loved, to accept Mr. Watson’s offer. Thus with a tearful parting
two loving hearts were separated apparently forever. In 1729 John Watson
and Priscilla Thomas were married, and the first act of a new romance of
John and Priscilla was performed. In 1732 Mr. Watson died, and at that time
his son, Elkanah, was a nursing infant. At about the same time the wife of
Isaac Lothrop died, leaving also a nursing infant. As the families were
intimate, Mrs. Watson offered to nurse Mrs. Lothrop’s infant with her own.

The natural consequence of the family relations was an offer of marriage
from Mr. Lothrop, which was unhesitatingly accepted. The alliance was an
eligible one. Mr. Lothrop was one of the Justices of the Court, and was
possessed of a large estate. The marriage took place in 1733, and he died
April 26, 1750, having by a life illustrating the highest qualities of the
human character deserved the following inscription on his gravestone:

“Had virtue’s charms the power to save
Its faithful votaries from the grave,
This stone had ne’er possessed the fame
Of being marked with Lothrop’s name.”

In the meantime it may be interesting to learn what had become of Noah
Hobart, the old time lover. He in due time entered the ministry, and was
settled over the church in Fairfield, Conn. Though he had never held
communication with Priscilla by letter or otherwise, by the wireless ways
which lovers have, he had kept himself informed of the varied scenes in her
life. He knew of the death of her first husband, and her second marriage, as
well as the two families of children which had grown up around her. He had
heard also of the death of her second husband, while with a wife and two
children of his own, a veil not wholly impenetrable obscured the
remembrance of his early days. About seven years after the death of Mr.
Lothrop her second husband, the wife of Mr. Hobart died, and after a
becoming period of mourning, his old love, which time had not obliterated,
speedily revived at the thought that both he and his early love were free.
Without delay he, as was the fashion of the time, drove in his chaise to
Plymouth, and presented himself as suitor at the Lothrop mansion. It is
unnecessary to disclose the interview. A further sacrifice was needed before
in the fullness of time God should join together whom man had put asunder.
She had promised her husband on his death bed that as long as his mother
lived, then eighty years of age, she would like a real daughter care for her
and promote her happiness. Again there was a parting which seemed to be
one forever. On his way home Mr. Hobart stopped over night with his
friend, Rev. Mr. Shute of Hingham, and attended with him the next day a
religious service in the church held every Thursday, which was sometimes
called the Thursday lecture, and sometimes the Preparatory lecture. On their
way home from church a friend passed them on horseback, who said that he
had ridden from Plymouth. In answer to the inquiry for news in the old

town he said that just as he left he was told that old Mrs. Lothrop was found
dead in her bed that morning. It is needless to say that the continuance of
the journey to Fairfield was postponed, and a return to Plymouth was made.
After the funeral and a due publication of the bans, the marriage took place
under date of 1758, and the seventeen years which she passed in Fairfield
with her third husband, were the happiest years of her life. Mr. Hobart died
in 1775, and she returned to Plymouth, where the remainder of her days was
spent until her death, June 23, 1796, in the 90th year of her age.
John Sloss Hobart, son of Rev. Noah Hobart, by his first wife, became
United States Senator from New York, and his daughter, Ellen, married
Nathaniel Lothrop, a son of Mrs. Hobart by her second husband, Isaac
Lothrop.
Returning to the old house where Davis building stands, of which in my
wanderings I have almost lost sight, its later occupants whom I can
remember were Capt. Woodward, the driver for many years of the Boston
mail stage, his son-in-law Bradford Barnes, John R. Davis and George
Churchill. All of these except Mr. Davis have been noticed in other
chapters. Mr. Davis was a ropemaker by trade, but when the Robbins
Cordage Company discontinued work he sought other means of livelihood,
chiefly that of restaurant keeper. He was a good man, of a deeply religious
spirit, who carried his religion into every day life. He not only believed in
the fatherhood of God, but also in the brotherhood of man. It would have
been impossible to provoke him to the utterance of an angry or unkind
word, and his kindly words often appeared more kind with the touch of
humor in which they were uttered. His kindness of heart and gentleness of
speech, and his humor as well, were illustrated when a man after eating at
his lunch counter left without paying. Instead of running out to the sidewalk
and calling out to the man in the hearing of passers-by “to come back and
pay his bill,” he said in the mildest tone of voice, “Mr., did I give you the
right change?”
The house now occupied as a public house, and called the Plymouth
Tavern, was for many years identified with the family of Joshua Thomas.
He bought the house in 1786, and occupied it until his death, January 10,
1821. He married in 1786 Isabella Stevenson, of Boston, who continued to
occupy it until her death. Few families displayed more earnest patriotism
than the family to which he belonged. His father, Dr. William Thomas, born

in Boston in 1718, practised medicine in Plymouth many years, and died
September 20, 1802. He was on the medical staff in the expedition against
Louisburg in 1745, and at Crown Point in 1758. He had four sons born in
Plymouth, Joshua, Joseph, Nathaniel and John. Joshua was born in 1751,
and graduated at Harvard in 1772. After some time spent in teaching, and in
theological studies, he became especially interested in public affairs, and in
1774 was adjutant of a regiment of militia organized in Plymouth County,
in view of the threatening war clouds appearing above the horizon. In 1776
he served on the staff of General John Thomas on the Canadian expedition,
in which General Thomas died, and soon after returned home where he
studied law, and henceforth devoted himself to his profession. Having
served as a member of the committee of correspondence and as
Representative and Senator, he was appointed in 1792 Judge of Probate, and
continued in office until his death. He was also President of the Plymouth
and Norfolk counties Bible Society, the first president of the Pilgrim
Society, and Moderator of town meetings twenty-eight years. He lay on his
bed of death during the celebration of December 22, 1820, when Daniel
Webster delivered the oration, and John Watson was selected to preside on
that occasion. Judge Thomas had three sons, John Boies, 1787, William,
1788, and Joshua Barker, 1797. John Boies graduated at Harvard in 1806,
and married Mary, daughter of Isaac LeBaron. He was a member of the bar,
a member of the Board of Selectmen, from 1831 to 1840, inclusive,
moderator of town meetings from 1829 to 1841, inclusive, President of the
Old Colony Bank and Clerk of the Plymouth County Courts from 1811 to
his death, December 2, 1852. William Thomas, the second son of Joshua,
graduated at Harvard in 1807, and was at the time of his death, September
20, 1882, the oldest living graduate. He practiced law in Plymouth, was in
1852 sheriff of the county, and married in 1816 Sally W., daughter of John
Sever of Kingston. Joshua Barker, the youngest son of Joshua, was also a
member of the bar, but never practised. Though not fitted by temperament
for the labors of his profession, he was a man of culture, and a
conversationalist, whom it was always agreeable to meet. Much younger
than his brothers, he was always an indulged and petted son. I heard when I
was young of an amusing effort to send him to a boarding school. His father
and mother, with great reluctance, and only from a sense of duty, decided to
send him to a school known as the Wing school in Sandwich. So they
started one morning with their boy in a chaise, and a trunk strapped to the

axle. After leaving him in the hands of Mr. Wing they regretfully bade him
good-bye and left for home. They drove into their yard, landing at the rear
door, and going into the house, found Joshua sitting by the fire, having
ridden home on the axle and entered the house at the front door before
them. They were overjoyed to see him, and embraced him with as much
fervor as if he had returned from a long term at school. He died in Plymouth
unmarried, March 7, 1873.
After the death of the widow of Judge Thomas, the house was occupied
for some years by Allen and S. D. Ballard as an eating saloon, with lodging
rooms to let. The Ballards were succeeded by Mr. Holbrook, and under the
name of the Central House it was occupied by Charles H. Snell. Mr.
Huntoon and Mr. McIntire and St. George and Manley E. Dodge followed,
who were succeeded by Mr. Shaw, Mr. Minchen, and Bruce and Abbot
Jones followed, and then Jones alone, who was succeeded by McCarthy and
Buckman, and the recent proprietor, Mr. McCarthy. The name was changed
to Plymouth Tavern by Mr. Bruce. Joseph Thomas, a brother of Judge
Joshua Thomas, born in 1755, was in the early part of the revolution a
Lieutenant of Artillery, and later, Captain and Major. He died in Plymouth
unmarried, Aug. 19, 1838. Nathaniel, another brother, born in 1756, was a
Captain in the revolution, and died in Plymouth, March 22, 1838. He
married in 1781 Priscilla Shaw, and second in 1796, Jane (Downs) widow
of Isaac Jackson. John, a third brother of Judge Joshua Thomas, born in
1758, was on the medical staff during the revolution, and after the war
settled in Poughkeepsie. Some of his descendants are living in Cleveland,
Ohio.
As long ago as I can remember the house next to the store of Moore
Bros., on the north was occupied by Benjamin Marston Watson, and was
built by him on a vacant lot in 1811. He was a son of John and Lucia
(Marston) Watson, born in 1774, and married in 1804 Lucretia Burr,
daughter of Jonathan Sturges of Fairfield, Conn. His only children
remembered by me were Lucretia Ann, who married Rev. Hersey B.
Goodwin, and was the mother of Professor William Watson Goodwin of
Cambridge; and Benjamin Marston. His son, Benjamin Marston Watson,
born January 17, 1820, graduated at Harvard in 1839, and married in 1846,
Mary, daughter of Thomas Russell, and died February 19, 1896. He was a
lovable man, whose companionship I prized; a man of culture, who enjoyed

the friendship of Emerson and Alcott and Thoreau; a man in whose
presence ordinary ambitions appeared insignificant and mean; a lover of
nature with its fruits and flowers, who received in return from nature’s hand
congenial occupation and support.
Mr. Watson, senior, was a merchant in Plymouth, President of the
Plymouth Aqueduct Company, one of the founders of the Pilgrim Society,
and for many years its recording secretary. He was also chosen treasurer of
the Plymouth institution for savings at the time of its organization in 1828,
but declined a re-election in 1829. As a boy I remember him well looking
over into the trench of the aqueduct and cleaning perch at a South Pond
picnic and putting wood on the parlor fire, in doing which he had a way
inherited by his son of standing with his limbs straight from feet to hips,
and his body at a sharp angle straight from hips to head without a lounge or
a bend. He died while on a visit to Fairfield, November 10, 1835. In 1845
his widow sold the house to William Thomas, who has been already
noticed, and it is now owned and occupied by his grandchildren, children of
William H. Whitman, who married his daughter Ann.
Captain William Bartlett, whose widow occupies the next house, has
been already noticed in connection with the loss of the bark, Charles
Bartlett, of which he was master. The house has, however, other interesting
associations. In the middle of the eighteenth century it was owned and
occupied by Ansel Lothrop. Mary Lothrop, daughter of Ansel, had a son
born in the house, who received the name of his father, Elkanah Cushman,
and was brought up and educated by him. The son was at one time engaged
in business as a member of the Boston firm of Cushman & Topliffe, and
lived in various places in Charlestown, and in the north end of Boston.
Among his places of residence was a wooden house on Richmond street,
now called Parmenter street, between Hanover and Salem streets, and there
Charlotte Cushman, his daughter, was born, July 23, 1816. It is a little
singular that John Gibbs Gilbert, the distinguished actor, should have been
born six years before in an adjacent house. Mr. Cushman attended with his
family the Second Church on Hanover street, between Richmond and North
Bennet streets, of which Henry Ware, Jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Chandler Robbins were pastors before new places of worship were found in
Bedford street, and finally in Copley Square. The site of the Cushman house
is now occupied by a school house erected in 1866, and named after the

distinguished actress, the “Cushman School.” Miss Cushman early
displayed creditable vocal talent, and was one of the choir in the Second
Church. On Thursday evening, March 25, 1830, she appeared at a concert
given at No. 1 Franklin avenue, by Mr. G. Farmer, her music teacher, when
she sung, “Take this Rose,” “Oh, merry row the bonny bark just parting
from the shore,” and “Farewell, my love.” Until 1835 she continued to sing
in church, and in April of that year, while J. G. Maeder and his wife, who
was Clara Fisher, were producing English opera at the Tremont Theatre, the
contralto fell ill, and Miss Cushman was selected to sing the Countess
Almaviva in Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” in her place. The next part she
sang under the Maeders was Lucy Bertram in “Guy Mannering,” and thus
she was early brought into association with the dramatization, in which she
became famous. Being shortly afterwards engaged to sing in English operas
in New Orleans, she made a sea voyage to that city, during which, as I have
always heard, she lost her voice in consequence of the change of climate.
Rev. J. Henry Wiggin, whose family were acquainted with the Cushmans at
the Northend, and to whom I am indebted for many of the facts in this
notice, attributes the loss of voice to the overstraining to which she
subjected it after her arrival in New Orleans. Further effort as a singer was
of course hopeless, and returning to New York she served three years as a
stock actor in the old Park Theatre, under Manager Simpson. It is
unnecessary to follow her distinguished career further than to speak of one
passage in it, which came under my direct notice. During the winter of 1843
and 1844, which I spent in Philadelphia, she was the lessee and manager of
the Chestnut Street Theatre, where I saw her repeatedly in Macbeth, Julia in
the Hunchback, Juliana in the Honeymoon, Queen Katherine, Meg
Merrilies, Oberon, Bianca in Milman’s Fazio; Lady Gay Sparker, Shylock
and Beatrice. In 1847 I saw her at the Haymarket Theatre in London, and I
remember how my patriotism was stirred by the rapturous applause her
acting elicited. During the Philadelphia winter, to which I have alluded,
Miss Cushman, with her father and a brother, whom she was educating at
the Pennsylvania Medical School, was a regular attendant morning and
evening, at the Unitarian Church, of which Rev. Dr. Furness was pastor.
Miss Cushman had a younger sister, Susan, whose beauty presented a
marked contrast to her own masculine plainness. In early life Susan married
at the Northend a tailor by the name of Merriman, after whose death
Charlotte introduced her to the stage, and as Romeo to Susan’s Juliet,

played Romeo and Juliet in London one hundred nights. On the 9th of
March, 1848, Susan married in Liverpool Dr. James S. Muspratt, Professor
of Chemistry, in that city, and died there May 10, 1859. Charlotte Cushman
died in Boston, February 18, 1876, and was buried from King’s Chapel on
Washington’s birthday.
Until 1858 a dwelling house stood on the south corner of Court square,
which in that year was removed for the purpose of widening the square. All
through my youth that house was owned and occupied by Captain Joseph
Bartlett. He bought the house in 1800, of Nathaniel Thomas, having up to
that time, after his marriage, lived in Wellingsley on an estate which had
previously belonged to his father-in-law, Joseph Churchill. Captain Bartlett,
through life, kept up the Churchill farm, the entrance to which was through
a gate at Jabez Corner. Warren avenue, when it was laid out, followed the
cartway, which led through his farm. More than once Captain Bartlett took
me in his chaise over to his farm at Poverty Point, as it was called, and I
have a vivid recollection of the apples with which I filled my pockets, and
the sweet corn which the old gentleman gave me to carry home to my
mother. His chaise was one with an iron axle, and its loud rattle in his
comings and goings always indicated his latitude and longitude. For many
years he was an enterprising and successful ship owner and merchant, and
in 1803 bought the lot on the north corner of Court square, and built and
occupied the brick house now occupied by William Hedge. His losses were
so severe during the embargoes and the war of 1812, that in 1820 he moved
back to his old home, and continued to occupy it until his death. He was a
son of Samuel and Betsey (Moore) Bartlett, and was born June 16, 1762,
and married in 1784, Rebecca Churchill, and had William, 1786, Rebecca,
Susan, 1795, Joseph, Augustus, John, Samuel, Benjamin and Eliza Ann. He
married second in 1821, Lucy, daughter of Charles Dyer, and died March 4,
1835. His son, William Bartlett, married in 1814, Susan, daughter of Dr.
James Thatcher, and had Susan Louisa, 1815, who married Charles O.
Boutelle, Elizabeth Thatcher, 1818, John, 1820, and Eliza Ann, 1825.
John Bartlett, son of William and Susan (Thatcher) Bartlett, became
distinguished in both commercial and literary life, and deserves a special
notice. He was born in Plymouth, June 14, 1820. When his grandfather,
Joseph Bartlett, removed in 1820 to his old home, his son, William, the
father of John, who had been occupying his father’s house since his

marriage in 1814, moved into the brick house and kept it as a public house
under the name of the Old Colony Hotel. Exactly how long William Bartlett
kept the house I have no means of knowing, but he was succeeded in a year
or two, by William Spooner, who was in turn succeeded by Ezra Cushing
until 1827, when the house was bought by Nathaniel Russell, and became
his residence. I have a letter from Judge John Davis of Boston, dated
September 23, 1820, to my grandfather, William Davis, disclosing a plan,
proposed by William Sturgis and others, friends of the Pilgrim Society, in
Boston, to purchase the house for a memorial edifice, dedicated to the
Pilgrims. The plan was to have it kept as a hotel, where meetings of the
society might be held, and dinners and balls provided for on anniversary
days. Judge Davis was opposed to the scheme, and finally a committee of
Boston gentlemen was appointed to aid the trustees of the society in
erecting such a memorial as might be agreeable to them. The gentlemen
appointed as the committee were Lemuel Shaw, Francis C. Gray, Harrison
Gray Otis, Isaac P. Davis, James Savage, George Bond, Benjamin Rich,
Francis Bassett, John T. Winthrop and Nathan Hale.
Returning now to John Bartlett, who was born June 14, 1820, the year in
which at an unknown date his father moved into the brick house, it is
impossible to determine in which house he was born. He was educated in
the public schools of Plymouth, and was my schoolmate and playmate. In
the autumn of 1836 he entered the bookbinding establishment connected
with the University Bookstore in Cambridge, of which John Owen was the
proprietor. In the next year, 1837, he became a clerk in the bookstore, and at
once displayed remarkable aptitude for the business. He was an extensive
reader, and possessed a wide knowledge of authors, and was soon
recognized as an expert in the preparation of books for the press. In August,
1846, Mr. Owen failed, and he continued as clerk with his successor,
George Nichols, until 1849, when he bought out Mr. Nichols. In 1859 he
sold out his store to Sever & Francis, having published a number of books
for various authors. He had also published three editions of his “Familiar
Quotations,” the first of which was issued in 1856. In 1861 he prepared a
few books for publication, but transferred them to Sever & Francis. In 1862
he served as volunteer paymaster nine months on board Admiral Du Pont’s
despatch boat. In August, 1863, he entered the publishing house of Little,
Brown & Co., as clerk, with the promise that at the expiration of eighteen
months, when the existing partnership would terminate, he would be taken

into the firm. In 1864 Little, Brown & Co. published the fourth edition of
his “Familiar Quotations,” and an edition de luxe of “Walton’s Angler,”
edited by him. In February, 1865, he became a partner in the firm, and the
literary, manufacturing and advertising departments were assigned to him,
all of which he retained during his connection with the firm. In 1882 Little,
Brown & Co. published his Shakespeare “Phrase Book,” and in February,
1889, having been several years senior partner, he retired from the firm in
order to complete his “Shakespeare Concordance.” The fifth and sixth
editions of “Quotations” were published by Little, Brown & Co., the
seventh and eighth by Routledge of London, and the ninth by Little, Brown
& Co., and Macmillan & Co. of London, and of all these editions, more
than two hundred thousand copies, have been sold.
In 1891 Macmillan & Co., of London, offered to publish his
“Shakespeare Concordance” at their own risk, and it was issued by them in
1894. In recognition of his literary service, he was made in 1892 a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 1871 was awarded by
Harvard an honorary degree of Master of Arts, and in 1894, he was made an
honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He married, June 4, 1851,
Hannah, daughter of Sydney Willard, Professor of Hebrew at Harvard from
1805 to 1831, and granddaughter of Joseph Willard, President of Harvard
from 1781 to 1804, and died in Cambridge, December 3, 1905.
I have spoken of the occupants of the brick house on the north corner of
Court Square, before 1827, when it came into the possession of Nathaniel
Russell, who occupied it from that time until his death, October 21, 1852.
He was the son of John and Mercy (Foster) Russell, and was born April 6,
1769, in the house on the west side of Main street next north of Mr.
Gooding’s watchmaker’s store, where his father lived from 1759 to 1776.
After reaching manhood he was engaged for a time in business in
Bridgewater, removing to Plymouth not long after the year 1800, and
occupying the house which until recently stood on the lower corner of
Middle street and LeBaron’s alley. About 1808 he removed to the house on
the north side of Summer street next to the house on the corner of Ring
Lane, and made that his home until he bought the house on the corner of
Court Square. He was extensively engaged many years in iron manufactures
in connection with William Davis and Barnabas Hedge, and after 1837, as
the head of the firm of N. Russell & Co. He was a man who always had at

heart the welfare of his native town, and joined in every movement to
elevate its social and moral condition. A Lyceum in 1829, of which he was
President; a Temperance Society at about the same date, with which he was
connected; a Peace Society in 1831, and affairs of the church, of which he
was a member, always commanded his aid and support. He married, June
18, 1800, Martha, daughter of Isaac LeBaron, and had Nathaniel, Mary
Howland, Andrew Leach, Mercy Ann, Francis James, LeBaron and Lucia
Jane. He was always known in my day as Captain Nathaniel Russell, having
been commissioned by Governor Samuel Adams, May 25, 1795, Captain in
the Fourth Regiment, first brigade and fifth division of the State Militia.
Nathaniel Russell, Jr., born in Bridgewater, December 18, 1801, graduated
at Harvard in 1820, and became associated with his father in business. He
married, June 25, 1827, Catherine Elizabeth, daughter of Daniel Robert and
Betsey Hayward (Thacher) Elliott of Savannah, Georgia, and died February
16, 1875. He will be further mentioned later.
Mary Howland Russell, born October 22, 1803, died January 12, 1862.
Andrew L. Russell, born May 16, 1806, graduated at Harvard in 1827,
and was engaged at one time in the dry goods’ jobbing business in Central
street, Boston, in partnership with William S. Russell, and later with N.
Russell & Co. in Plymouth. He married, May 3, 1832, Laura Dewey, and,
second, October 5, 1841, Hannah White, daughter of William Davis, Jr. He
has been already noticed in connection with the rows of elms planted by
him on Court street, which if not consigned to death by the concrete
sidewalks, will serve as a lasting memorial of his service to his native town.
Mercy Ann, born August 16, 1809, died September 18, 1832.
Francis James graduated at Harvard in 1831, and died September 6,
1833.
LeBaron graduated at Harvard in 1832, and died August 19, 1889.
Lucia Jane, born November 22, 1821, married Rev. Dr. George W.
Briggs, November 5, 1849, and died November 1, 1881.
LeBaron Russell, above mentioned, studied medicine in Boston and
Paris, and established himself in Boston. Indisposed to active labor in his
profession, he devoted himself to literary pursuits, and by his interest in the
schools and charities of the city, led a useful and beneficent life.

The house itself, so long identified with the Russell family, deserves
special notice. It is a fine example of the style of domestic architecture
which had its origin in the middle of the eighteenth century. It has been
suggested by some that it was designed by Charles Bulfinch, but I lived
from 1849 to 1853 in a block of houses on Franklin street in Boston,
designed by him, and I remember nothing in their exterior or interior to
suggest his handiwork. I am inclined to think that it was modelled after the
designs of Peter Harrison, an English architect, examples of whose work
may be found in Salem, which were followed more or less closely in later
times in that city, and in Marblehead and Portsmouth. Harrison came to
Newport, R. I., in 1829, in the ship with Bishop Berkley and Smibert, the
distinguished portrait painter, and before his death, which occurred in
Boston, designed the Redwood library in Newport, King’s chapel in Boston,
and Christ’s church in Cambridge. Symmetry and proportion were the
characteristics of his work, and no better illustration of these exquisite
qualities can be found than in his original efforts and their faithful copies.
The beautiful old porch of the house in question, rounded in shape and
supported by clover leaf columns, harmonizing with the windows beneath
and above it, was replaced by the present one about 1840.

CHAPTER XXI.
To break the monotony of personal reminiscence, I shall recall some of
the games which prevailed in my youth. When the April showers and the
dog days come year after year at their appointed times, we are satisfied with
the explanation that they are following the order of nature. When in their
seasons the robins build their nests, and the blackbirds gather in flocks
preparatory to their autumn flight, we are content with the statement that
they are guided by instinct. But we have no answer to the question—why
we boys, as if in obedience to a mysterious edict issued by a secret council,
each year simultaneously in all our towns brought from their winter quarters
our alleys and taws, and snapped our marbles on every available sidewalk.
After the marble fever had run, like measles, a certain number of days, the
scene suddenly changed, and driving hoop was the order of the day. The
hoop was not one of those toy hoops we see in these days, galvanized iron
rings, with an attachment to push them with, but the genuine hoop from an
oil cask, one from the bilge for the larger boys, and one from the chine for
the smaller ones. When we gathered at twilight, and either in single or
double file, made the circuit of the town, we made the welkin ring literally
to beat the band.
After the hoop came, as now, the ball games, skip, one old cat, two old
cat, hit or miss, and round ball. We made our own balls, winding yarn over
a core of India rubber, until the right size was reached, and then working a
loop stitch all around it with good, hard, tightly spun twine. Attempts were
occasionally made to play ball in the streets, but the by-laws of the town
forbidding it were rigidly enforced. There were four gangs of boys, the
North street gang, which played in the Jackson field in the rear of North
street; the Court street gang, which played in Captain Joseph Bartlett’s field,
where the easterly end of Russell street and the adjoining buildings are; the
Summer street gang, which played in Cow Hill Valley, and the “tother side
gang,” which played on Training Green, sometimes to the detriment of
neighboring windows.

While the days were longest the street games were next in order, hare and
hounds, prison bar, leap frog, Tom Tiddler’s ground, Red Lion in his den, I
spy, hide and seek, nine holes, back side in the way, and follow the leader.

Over hill and dale,
Through bush, through briar,
Over park and dale,
Through flood, through fire.

Wherever the leader went we must follow, over fences, off stone walls, in
and out of houses, astonishing families, and if the boot of the head of the
family was in order, coming out a little more expeditiously than we went in.
The members of the North street gang, to which I belonged, were besides
myself and brother, Augustus H. Tribble, the Collingwood boys, John J.
Russell, Richard W. Bagnall, Lewis Weston, the Jackson boys, Thomas
Cotton, Charles Cotton, George Maynard, George Gooding and Charles T.
May.
Football came next in the early autumn, with a ball made of an ox
bladder inserted in a leather case of our own making. We bought the bladder
at the slaughter house, and put it in pickle until it was ready to be used, and
then when the case was made we put it through a slit, and blowing it up
with a quill tied a string around the nozzle, laced up the slit, and the game
began. In those days all the boys wore boots, and consequently little
damage was done to our shins.
With the coming of the first cool nights we hunted in the morning for
strips of ice in the gutter, and spent the hour before school in sliding, boys
and girls together, the girls, I never knew the reason why, giving a little hop
at the beginning of their slide. And then came our sliding down hill, the
larger boys with George P. Hayward and William Rider Drew and Jesse
Turner at their head. Mr. Hayward’s Constitution, painted green, and having
round steel spring runners, taking the lead, would slide from the top of
Burial Hill down through a wide open gate between the high schoolhouse
and the Unitarian church, along Leyden street, down Turner’s hill to the end
of Barnes’ wharf. The smaller boys would spend the afternoons of Saturday
perfectly happy on the short slide from the bottom of the Middle street steps
to Water street. All our sleds were made to order, scorning as we would if
they had been purchasable, the toy sleds which can now be bought for a

song, and are high at the price. There was a sled of domestic manufacture in
my day which, considering its cheapness and simplicity, was a quite
satisfactory sled in the minds of those who could afford no better. It was
made of six white oak cask staves, three above and three below, with the
convex on the outside, and a cleat at each end between the staves, to which
it was nailed. With a little less speed, perhaps, than other sleds, yet in
humpy dagger and belly hacker in wearing out boot toes, and heels, they
were as efficient as any. With skating and its accompaniment hockey, the
winter passed away, and the year came to an end. Of course many out of
door games now in vogue were not known in my early days. Cricket was
little played, while croquet, tennis, and golf had not made their appearance.
To these modern innovations doubtless before long curling and lacrosse will
be added. The game of ten pins was a familiar one, but its enjoyment was
limited by the almost entire absence of alleys until the Samoset alleys were
built in 1845. There was a poor, short alley on Billington Sea Island, but
rarely used except on the occasion of picnics. It was by no means an
uncommon thing in the college vacation to go as far as Holmes’ Tavern,
near Harrub’s corner, and roll in the alleys of Mr. Holmes, whose lame back
we sorely tried by his efforts to act as ball boy, and sometimes we went as
far as an alley near the Cushman cotton factory, beyond Plympton Green.
Carriage hire in those days was so low that such an afternoon expedition
could be had without extravagance. We could hire for a half a day at George
Drew’s stable in Middle street, for a dollar, either Dolly or Little Jack, or
the Eastern mare, or the Peabody horse with a chaise, or for a dollar and a
half, Bob sorrel with a carryall. I say chaise, a name derived through the
English word chair, from the French chaire, because buggies were unknown
in Plymouth in my youth. Buggies were introduced from India, where in
Hindustani they were called baggi or bagghi, four wheeled carriages with
hoods, and our wagon is derived from the Dutch word wagen. Every family
owning a horse had a chaise, and carriage houses were universally called
chaise houses, as they are still by myself, and older persons. The fronts of
these houses were always made with curved tops, and I know of only three
now left in town, those of Mrs. Lothrop, Father Buckley and William Rider
Drew. The first buggy in Plymouth was brought from Boston by my uncle,
Nathaniel Morton Davis in the 1830’s, and was owned by John Harlow of
Chiltonville at the time of his death a few years ago.

Of the indoor games of my youth, battledore and shuttlecock and the
graces have gone out. The other games of the young were as they are now,
blind man’s buff, scandal, cribbage, backgammon, commerce, whist, chess,
checkers, vingt-un, all fours, bragg, loo and euchre. The gambling game of
bridge was unknown, as it ought to be today. Quadrille was played by older
people, and Boston, after a disappearance for many years, was again
introduced in 1844. Piquet, the ancient game of ombre adapted to four
instead of three persons, and played also by older persons, was
immortalized by Pope in the following lines:

Belinda when thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventurous knights,
At ombre singly to decide their doom,
And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.

In the selection of leaders and sides in the out of door games, what were
called “countings out” were used, very curious doggerels, whose origin is as
mysterious as that of language itself. They are used in every town in every
state in our Union, and have been found in more than twenty languages,
including English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Dutch, Gallic,
Turkish, Hindustani, Japanese, Hawaiian, Irish, Romani, Cornish, etc. There
is a vein of similarity running through them, though changes and additions
and corruptions have been the result of their adoption into various dialects.
In closing this chapter I subjoin the following list of such as my own
memory, and that of others have furnished me, and such as I have found in
print.

Eena, meena, mony my,
Tuscalona, bona sty,
Hulda, gulda, boo.
Out goes you. (United States.)

Eena, meena, mona my,
Tuscalona, bona stry,
Tin pan, maska dary,
Higly, pigly, pig snout,
Crinkly, cranky, you are out.
(New Hampshire)

Eeny, meeny, mony my,
Barcelona, stony stry,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,

Stick, stock, stone dead. (England.)

Eeny, meeny, mony mo,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he squeals, let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny mo. (Scotland.)

Eena, deina, dina doe,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he screams, let’ him go.
Eena, deena, dina doe. (Ireland.)

Ena, mena, bona mi,
Kisca, lana, mora di,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,
Stick, stock, stone dead. (Ancient.)

Allem, Bellem, Chirozi,
Chirmirozi, fotozi,
Fotoz girden, magara,
Magarada, tilki bush,
Pilki, beni korkoostdi,
Aallede, shovellede, edimeda,
Divid bushe,
Den Olayen, kehad bashi. (Turkey.)

Anery, twaery, duckery, seven,
Alama crack, ten am eleven,
Palm, pom, it must be done,
Come lettle, come total, come twenty-one. (Druids.)

One-ery, two-ery, ziccary zan,
Hollow bone, crockabone, ninery tan,
Spittery, spot it must be done,
Twiddle-um, twaddle-um twenty-one. (England.)

Ekkeri, akaisi, you kaiman,
Fillisin, follasy, Nicholas Jan,
Kivi, Kavi, Irishman,
Stini, stani, buck. (Romani.)

Eena, meena, mona, mite,
Basca, lora, hora, bite. (Cornwall.)

Eena, tena, mona, mi.
Pastor, lone, boni strei. (German.)

Eena, meener, mulker,
Porceleiner, stutker. (Dutch.)

Hickory, hoary, hairy, Ann,
Busybody, oven span,

Pare, pare, virgin, mari. (Guernsey.)

One ery, two ery, Dickey Davy,
Hulleboo, cracker, gentle Mary,
Dixum Dandy, merrigo hind,
Fersumble-du, tumble-du, twenty-nine. (Ireland.)

Eena, deena, dina dust,
Calita, meena, wina, must,
Spin, spon, must be done,
Twiddledum, twaddledum, twenty-one.
O. U. T. speels out,
With the old dish clout,
Out boys, out. (England.)

One is all, two is all, Zick is all zan,
Bobtail, vinegar, little tol tan,
Harum, scarum, Virginia merum,
Zee, tan, buck. (New Hampshire.)

One-ezzoll, two-ezzoll, ziggle, zol zan,
Bobtail vinegar, little tall tan,
Harum, scarum, virgin marum,
Zinctum, zanctum, buck. (Delaware.)

Intry, mintry, cutry, corn,
Apple seed, and briar thorn,
Wire briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock,
One flew east, and one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Delia Domna, Nona dig,
Oats floats, country notes,
Hy, born tusk,
Hulali, Gulala, goo,
Out goes you.

One is all, two is all,
Zick is all zeven,
Arrow bone, cracker bone,
Ten or eleven.

Six and four are ten,
Chase the red lion to his den.

Intry, mintry, cutry corn,
Apple seed and briar thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Six geese in a flock,
Set and sing by a spring,

My grandmother lives on the hill,
She has jewels, she has rings,
She has many pretty things,
O. U. T. spells out you go.

Hunt the squirrel through the woods,
I lost him, I found him;
I sent a letter to his son,
I lost him, I found him.

Fe, fi, fo, fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman,
Be he live, or be he dead,
I’ll have his bones to make my bread. (Plymouth.)

Eggs, cheese, butter, bread,
Stick, stock, stone, dead,
Hang him up, lay him down,
On his father’s living ground. (Plymouth.)

Een, teen feather pip,
Sargo, larko, bump. (Plymouth.)

Inditie, Mentitie, Petitee, Dee,
Delia, Delia, Dominee,
Oacha, Poacha, Domminnicher,
Hing, Ping, Chee. (Plymouth.)

Henry, pennery, pit for gold,
Had a louse in his head,
Seven years old.
Seventy, seventy on to that,
This old logy will grow fat,
Hinchiman, pinchiman, make his back smart,
If ever I catch him, I’ll sling him to my heart;
Sling, slang, chattery bang—out. (Plymouth.)

Intry, tentry, tethery, methery,
Bank for over Diman Diny,
Ant, tant, tooch,
Up the causey, down the cross.
There stands a bonnie white horse,
It can gallop, it can trot,
It can carry the mustard pot,
One, two, three, out goes she. (Scotland.)

Eeny, teeny, other feather hip,
Satha, latha, kedarthun deck,
Een dick, teen dick, ether dick, fether dick, bunkin,
Een bunkin, teen bunckeen, either bunkin, fether bunkin digit. (Indiana.)

Eenity, feenity, fickety, fig,
El del, dolman egg,
Irby, birky, stony rock,
An tan toosh Jack. (Scotland.)

Hinty, minty, cutry corn,
Apple seed and briar thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock;
One flew east, and one flew west,
One flew over the cuckoo nest.

Up on yonder hill,
There’s where my father dwells.
He has jewels, he has rings,
He has many pretty things,
He has a hammer with two nails,
He has a cat with two tails.
Strike Jack, lick Tom,
Blow the bellows, old man. (New England.)

Onerie, twoerie,
Hahbo crackaro,
Henry Lary,
Guacahan Dandy,
Bullalie Collilie,
Forty-nine.

Onery, youery, eckery Anna,
Phillicy, pholocy, Nicholas John,
Queeby, quoby, Irish Mary,
Tinkerlam, Tarkerlum buck.

One ezzol, two ezzoll, zichara zan,
Bobtail vinegar, little tall tan,
Harum, scarum, virgin marum,
Zinctum, zanctum buck.

Tit, tat toe,
Here I go,
And if I miss
I pitch on this.

Rumble, rumble in the pot,
King’s nail horse top,
Take off lid.

Fe, fi, fo fum,
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he live, or be he dead,
I’ll have his bones to make my bread.

Een, teen, feather pip,
Sarco, larco, bump.

Akaha, ou oi, ha,
Paele, kakini,
I kana, hoole pa;
Mai, no alaee
Ohu, memona kapolena, Kaide, wilu. (Hawaii.)

Een, twee, koppie thee,
Drie, vier, glaas ge beer,
Vzl zes bitter in de flesch,
Ziyen acht san op wacht,
Negen teen, ok hit diener gezzen. (Dutch.)

Ene tene mon emei,
Pastor Loni bone strei.
Ene funi, herke berke,
Wer-we-wo-was. (German.)

Eggs, cheese, butter bread,
Stick, stone dead,
Stick him up and stick him down,
Stick him in the old man’s crown. (United States.)

Ink, pink, papers, ink,
Am pam push. (Scotland.)

Ink, mink, pepper stink,
Sarko, Larko, Bump. (Plymouth.)

Hink, spink, the puddings stink,
The fat begins to fry,
Nobody at home but jumping Joan,
Father, mother and I. (English.)

One, two, three,
Out goes she.

One, two, three,
Nanny caught a flea,
The flea died, and Nanny cried,
Out goes she. (United States.)

One-ery, two-ery, eckeery Ann,
Phillisy, phollisy, Nicholas John,
Queebe, quarby, Irish Mary,
Sinkum, sankum, Johnny go buck. (Cambridge.)

Winnery, ory, accury han,
Phillisy, Phollisi, Nicholas Jan,
Queby, quorby, Irish Mary,

Sink, sunk, sock. (England.)

Eeny, meeny, mony mi,
Pastalony, bony sty,
Harby, darby, walk. (Michigan.)

Great house, little house, pig sty, barn.
Rich man, poor man, beggar man.

The last two were used in Plymouth in the ball game of skip. One of the
two boys who chose sides tossed the bat to the other who caught it and held
it. Then the two alternately grasped it hand over hand, and if there was
enough of the bat left for the next one to hold it, and throw it over his head,
he had the first choice of players.

CHAPTER XXII.
I will add in this chapter some additional memoranda relating to marine
matters, before proceeding with the regular order which I had prescribed for
my memories. In connection with the account of vessels built and owned in
Plymouth, it will not be inappropriate to speak of those in Kingston and
Duxbury, of which I have any recollection, or of which I have been able to
obtain an account. All of these in entering or leaving their port passed
through the waters of Plymouth.
Ezra Weston & Sons owned more vessels than any other firm in New
England, except William Gray of Salem, and, perhaps, more than any other
in the United States, with the above exception. The following is a partial list
of their vessels built in Duxbury with their tonnage as far as ascertained, for
which I am indebted to Major Joshua M. Cushing of Duxbury.
1800, Brig Rising Sun, 130 tons.
1800, Brig Sylvia, 130 tons.
1800, Schooner Ardent.
1801, Schooner Maria.
1801, Schooner Berin.
1801, Schooner Union.
1802, Schooner Volant.
1802, Schooner Laurel.
1802, Schooner Prissy.
1803, Schooner Sophia.
1803, Schooner Phœnix.
1803, Sloop Fame.
1803, Sloop Jerusha.
1803, Sloop Pomona.
1803, Brig Federal Eagle, 120 tons.
1804, Ship Julius Cæsar, 300 tons.
1804, Brig Admittance, 128 tons.
1805, Schooner Rising States.
1805, Schooner Fenelon.
1806, Schooner Salamis, 160 tons.
1806, Brig Ezra & Daniel, 125 tons.
1806, Brig Gershom, 136 tons.
1807, Ship Minerva, 250 tons.
1807, Brig Warren, 120 tons.
1807, Sloop Apollo.
1808, Ship Camillus, 350 tons.

1809, Ship Admittance, 300 tons.
1809, Sloop Linnett, 50 tons.
1810, Schooner Flora.
1811, Schooner George Washington, 50 tons.
1813, Brig Golden Goose, 130 tons.
1813, Schooner Copack.
1815, Brig Despatch, 125 tons.
1816, Ship Brahmin, 339 tons.
1816, Brig Messenger, 135 tons.
1816, Schooner Collector, 70 tons.
1816, Sloop Exchange, 60 tons.
1817, Schooner St. Michael, 120 tons.
1817, Sloop Diamond, 50 tons.
1818, Brig Despatch, 130 tons.
1818, Schooner Angler, 60 tons.
1819, Brig Two Friends, 240 tons.
1819, Schooner Franklin, 60 tons.
1820, Brig Margaret, 185 tons.
1820, Brig Baltic, 212 tons.
1821, Schooner Star, 20 tons.
1821, Schooner Panoke, 60 tons.
1822, Brig Globe, 214 tons.
1823, Brig Herald, 162 tons.
1825, Ship Franklin, 246 tons.
1825, Brig Pioneer, 231 tons.
1825, Brig Smyrna, 162 tons.
1825, Bark Pallas, 209 tons.
1826, Brig Levant, 219 tons.
1826, Brig Ganges, 174 tons.
1826, Schooner Dray, 86 tons.
1826, Schooner Triton, 75 tons.
1826, Ship Lagoda, 340 tons.
1827, Brig Malaga, 150 tons.
1827, Brig Ceres, 176 tons.
1827, Schooner Pomona, 84 tons.
1828, Ship Julian, 355 tons.
1828, Sloop Reform, 53 tons.
1828, Schooner Virginia, 73 tons.
1829, Sloop Glide, 60 tons.
1829, Brig Neptune, 196 tons.
1829, Schooner Seaman, 70 tons.
1830, Ship Renown, 300 tons.
1831, Ship Joshua Bates, 316 tons.
1831, Ship Undine, 253 tons.
1832, Schooner Seadrift, 90 tons.
1832, Schooner Ranger, 32 tons.
1832, Brig Angola, 220 tons.
1832, Ship Minerva, 291 tons.
1833, Schooner Volunteer, 109 tons.
1833, Ship Mattakeesett, 356 tons.

1833, Ship St. Lawrence, 356 tons.
1834, Brig Messenger, 213 tons.
1834, Schooner Liberty, 92 tons.
1834, Ship Admittance, 426 tons.
1835, Ship Vandalia, 432 tons.
1835, Brig Trenton, 226 tons.
1836, Ship Eliza Warwick, 530 tons.
1837, Brig Oriole, 218 tons.
1837, Schooner Maquet, 80 tons.
1839, Brig Lion, 235 tons.
1839, Brig Smyrna, 196 tons.
1839, Ship Oneco, 640 tons.
1841, Ship Hope, 880 tons.
1842, Sloop Union, 63 tons.
1842, Brig Vulture, 140 tons.
1843, Ship Manteo, 600 tons.
1844, Schooner Angler, 86 tons.
1844, Schooner Mayflower, 24 tons.
1845, Schooner Ocean, 103 tons.
1846, Schooner Express, 93 tons.

Ezra Weston, son of Ezra and Salumith (Wadsworth) Weston of Duxbury,
was born November 30, 1771. He married Jerusha Bradford, and died
August 15, 1842. His sons, living until manhood, were Gershom Bradford,
born August 27, 1799; Alden Bradford, 1805, and Ezra, 1809.
Besides the ship yards of the Westons there were the yards of Samuel
Hall, Joshua Cushing and Joshua Cushing, Jr., the Drews and of Paulding
and Southworth, in which many vessels were built.
The following is a list of vessels built and owned by Joseph Holmes of
Kingston, between 1801 and 1862, the year of his death, for which I am
indebted to Mrs. H. M. Jones of Kingston:
1801, Brig Two Pollies, 250 tons.
1802, Brig Algol, 220 tons.
1804, Ship Lucy, 208 tons.
1805, Schooner Alexander, 100 tons.
1806, Brig Trident, 130 tons.
1806, Brig Brunette, 180 tons.
1807, Schooner Dolly, 106 tons.
1809, Brig Roxanna, 200 tons.
1812, Ship Elizabeth, 300 tons.
1813, Ship Chili, 300 tons.
1814, Schooner Milo, 100 tons.
1814, Brig Lucy, 140 tons.
1816, Schooner Ann Gurley, 100 tons.
1816, Brig Indian Chief, 150 tons.

1817, Schooner Celer, 64 tons.
1817, Schooner Paraclite, 95 tons.
1818, Schooner Hope, 70 tons.
1818, Ship Rambler, 320 tons.
1820, Schooner Edward, 40 tons.
1821, Ship Columbus, 320 tons.
1822, Ship Horace, 53 tons.
1822, Ship Kingston, 325 tons.
1822, Brig Sophia and Eliza, 200 tons.
1823, Brig Leonidas, 180 tons.
1824, Schooner Cornelius, 35 tons.
1824, Schooner Pamela, 75 tons.
1824, Brig Deborah, 165 tons.
1825, Schooner Wm. Allen, 88 tons.
1825, Schooner Five Brothers, 76 tons.
1825, Brig Edward, 239 tons.
1825, Schooner Eveline, 75 tons.
1826, Schooner Industry, 72 tons.
1827, Bark Truman, 267 tons.
1827, Brig Galago, 160 tons.
1828, Schooner Hunter, 12 tons.
1828, Schooner January, 64 tons.
1828, Schooner February, 88 tons.
1828, Schooner March, 90 tons.
1828, Brig Roxanna, 140 tons.
1829, Brig Two Sisters, 130 tons.
1829, Schooner April, 64 tons.
1829, Ship Helen Mar, 290 tons.
1830, Bark Turbo, 280 tons.
1830, Ship Ohio, 300 tons.
1831, Bark Alasco, 286 tons.
1834, Schooner December, 50 tons.
1834, Ship Rialto, 460 tons.
1837, Schooner July, 48 tons.
1837, Schooner August, 117 tons.
1838, Schooner September, 119 tons.
1838, Brig Belize, 164 tons.
1838, Ship Herculean, 540 tons.
1839, Schooner October, 110 tons.
1840, Schooner Honest Tom, 115 tons.
1840, Schooner November, 107 tons.
1843, Ship Raritan, 499 tons.
1843, Schooner May, 92 tons.
1843, Schooner June, 92 tons.
1843, Brig Gustavus, 153 tons.
1845, Brig Edward Henry, 164 tons.
1848, Schooner Risk, 94 tons.
1848, Ship Nathan Hannum, 512 tons.
1849, Schooner Cosmos, 108 tons.
1849, Bark Ann and Mary, 210 tons.

1850, Schooner Clark Winsor, 127 tons.
1851, Ship Joseph Holmes, 610 tons.
1852, Schooner Ocean Bird, 118 tons.
1852, Bark Fruiter, 290 tons.
1853, Schooner Kingfisher, 116 tons.
1855, Bark Sicilian, 320 tons.
1855, Bark Abby, 178 tons.
1856, Bark Neapolitan, 320 tons.
1858, Brig Bird of the Wave, 178 tons.
1859, Bark Fruiterer, 320 tons.
1860, Bark Egypt, 547 tons.
1863, Bark Lemuel, 321 tons.

Mr. Holmes was in many respects a remarkable man. He was born in
Kingston in 1771, and died in that town in 1862. On the 27th of May, 1821,
he went to Bridgewater and collected materials for building a vessel, hiring
a yard near the Raynham line and laid the keel of the brig Two Pollies. After
launching the brig Trident in 1806, she took all the spare materials in the
yard, and carried them to Kingston, where all his vessels were built except
the Two Pollies, Algol, Lucy, Alexander and Trident, which were built in
Bridgewater. He stated in a letter written July 1, 1859, that he kept a vessel
on the stocks nearly all the time, and sometimes two, and once built three in
a year, all of which he built, fitted and sent to sea, except two, on his own
account and risk. In that letter he said that at the age of 87 years and 7
months, he was about to lay the keel of a vessel of two hundred tons, and
that he was writing the letter without spectacles. I knew him well, and often
called at his house on the corner of Main street. He did his bank business in
Boston, leaving only at the Plymouth Bank a deposit made up chiefly of his
bank dividends, and I was a little amused by a incident which occurred
somewhere between 1859 and 1862, for which I never saw an explanation,
though I think it may have been intended as a personal compliment. One
day while in the bank he said, “I don’t suppose you would lend me any
money if I wanted it.” Knowing very well that he was never in want of
money, I said, “Mr. Holmes, make out your note payable to your own order
for such an amount and on such a time as may be agreeable to you, and
endorse it, and you can have the money.” He signed a note for $5,000 on
four months, and told me to place the money to his credit. I did so, and the
money remained untouched until the note became due.
The following vessels were built and owned by his son Edward Holmes
of Kingston:

1864, Schooner Anna Eldredge, 139 tons.
1865, Schooner Fisher, 105 tons.
1866, Bark Solomon, 600 tons.
1867, Schooner Lucy Holmes, 137 tons.
1868, Bark Hornet, 330 tons.
1869, Schooner Mary Baker, 139 tons.
1874, Brig H. A. Holmes, 320 tons.
Sloop Roxanna, 60 tons.
Sloop Leo, 70 tons.
Sloop Rosewood.

Besides the above, the ship Matchless was built in Boston, and owned by
James H. Dawes of Kingston, and the ship Brookline, with others, was
owned by John and James N. Sever of Kingston.
The following is a list of Kingston captains in the merchant service
within my memory, for which I am indebted to Capt. John C. Dawes of
Kingston:
William Adams, Frederick C. Bailey, Justus Bailey, Otis Baker, George
Bicknell, Calvin Bryant, Cephas Dawes, James H. Dawes, John C. Dawes,
Paraclete Holmes, Edward Richardson, Benjamin T. Robbins, James W.
Sever, Charles Stetson, William Symmes, Peter Winsor, William Winsor.
The following is a partial list of vessels wrecked within my memory in
Plymouth waters:
The earliest wreck in Plymouth waters of which I have any recollection,
was that of the brig Sally Ann, Captain Caulfield, in January, 1835, bound
from Porto Rico to Boston. She was owned by Charles W. Shepard of
Salem, and after striking on Brown’s Island became a total wreck on the
beach. No lives were lost, and Martin Gould, one of the crew, became a
permanent resident of Plymouth, and married in 1836 Ruth (Westgate)
widow of William Barrett.
The next wreck within my memory was that of the brig Regulator of
Boston, Phelps master, on Brown’s Island, February 4, 1836. She was
bound from Smyrna to Boston, and with rudder and rigging frozen, and the
vessel unmanageable, she came into the bay in a gale from east, northeast,
and bore away for Plymouth to find an anchorage in Saquish Cove, where
she saw a brig lying. She dropped her anchor at the entrance of the channel
in three fathoms of water, and in the heavy swell struck hard. At eight in the
evening she floated with the tide, and held on until seven o’clock the next

morning, when she drifted into the breakers, and the captain cut away his
foremast, which carried with it the main mast, and the main yard. At half-
past eight she began to break up, and George Dryden, an Englishman,
Daniel Canton of New York, and Augustus Tilton of Vermont, who took to
the long boat, capsized fifty yards under the lea of the brig and were lost.
John Smith, a Swede, and a Greek boy, were killed by the wreckage, and
the remainder of the crew retreated to the main rigging, and their final
safety was due to the presence, in the channel, under the Gurnet, of the brig
Cervantes of Salem, Kendrick, master, which bound into Boston from
Charleston, had succeeded in finding a safe anchorage. The crew of the
Cervantes, after six hours of heroic work, took off the men and carried them
to their own vessel. The cargo of the Regulator consisted of four hundred
and sixty bales of wool, twenty-five cases of opium, twenty-five cases of
gum Arabic, twelve bales of senna, two thousand drums of Sultana raisins,
five packages of cow’s tails, one case of saffron flower, four hundred sacks
of salt, and five tons of logwood. The men saved were Captain Phelps,
Martin Adams, first mate; James Warden, second mate; Elijah Butler, and
Louis Almeira.
On the 20th of November, 1848, the schooner Welcome Return, from
Charlottetown, bound for Boston, went ashore in a gale at Rocky Hill. She
had as passengers, John and Mary Burns and six children: Ellen, 11;
Catherine, 9; Henry, 7; Mary, 5; Rose, 3; and Sarah, six months old. The
father and mother and infant were saved, and all the others lost. The father
and mother died in Taunton, and the infant, Sarah A., is living in Plymouth,
the widow of John H. Parsons.
The next wreck I remember occurred on Friday, January 25, 1867, at
Gunners’ Point at Manomet. A gale with snow set in Wednesday night, and
the railroad was so blocked that no trains ran through to Boston until
Sunday, and the train from Boston Wednesday night reached no further than
Halifax, where the passengers were supplied with refreshments. The flag
staff in Shirley Square was blown down, as well as those at Pilgrim Hall
and at the Cordage Factory, and also the store house of the Cordage Works.
Considerable damage was done at the wharves, and the schooner Thatcher
Taylor was capsized, and her masts were carried away. The bark Velma
from Smyrna, October 18th, Zenas Nickerson of Chatham, master, entered
the bay on Thursday morning, and during the early part of the gale, headed

northeast with the wind southeast, and finally struck at two o’clock Friday
morning, a half a mile off shore. Beating over the ledge she came within
twenty rods of the beach, and swung round with her head to the sea. The
crew took to the mizzen rigging. A little before daylight the steward, unable
to longer hold on, fell overboard, carrying with him another of the crew,
and both were lost. The main mast soon fell, carrying also the mizzen above
the men, and through the forenoon the survivors succeeded in holding on.
At two o’clock in the afternoon Henry B. Holmes, Paran Bartlett, James
Bartlett, James Lynch, Henry Briggs, Otis Nichols, Robert Reamy and
Octavius Reamy, reached the vessel and saved the remainder of the crew as
follows: Zenas Nickerson of Chatham, master; Starks Nickerson of
Chatham, first mate; John G. Allen of New Bedford, second mate; Augustus
L. Jenkins of Portsmouth, John Florida of New York, John Perry of Lisbon
and Joseph Sylvia of Boston. The names of the two men lost were William
Sampson, England, and Manuel Gustres of Pico, Western Islands. The men
were carried to the Manomet House, and when stripped, one called Jack
was found to have on seven undershirts and four pairs of stockings. Dr.
Alexander Jackson of Plymouth, and Dr. C. J. Wood of Chiltonville, the
father of Gen. Leonard Wood, who was then practicing in Chiltonville,
attended the men, and performed a number of necessary amputations. While
they were under treatment I visited them several times and rendered such
assistance as I was able. The vessel belonged to G. W. Bisbee, and her cargo
consisted of 1245 cases of figs; 1120 boxes do; 7,937 drums, do; 3,527
mats, do; 1,340 drums of Sultana raisins; 7 casks of prunes; 108 bales of
wool; 180 bags of canary seed; 6 cases of gum tragacanth; 3,070 pieces of
logwood; 50 cases of figs; 8,407 cases, and 1,587 drums, do, the consignees
of which were Baker & Morrell, Ryder & Hardy, and the captain.
In the same gale the schooner Shooting Star, Captain Coe, with corn from
Newcastle, Delaware, for Salem, went ashore at Saquish, and was lost.
In 1873 the schooner Daniel Webster, loaded with iron, went ashore on
Brown’s Island, and was a total loss.
The brig John R. Rhodes, loaded with corn, was wrecked in the outer
harbor in the winter of 1850-1. The wreck was bought by John D. Churchill
and others, and after repairs in Boston was sold.

In previous chapters I have mentioned Samuel Doten in connection with
the escape of Plymouth vessels from the embargo, but I have not by any
means done with him. He was the son of Samuel and Eunice (Robbins)
Doten, and was born in 1783. His father had three wives, and twenty-three
children, the oldest of whom was Samuel, born in 1783, and the youngest,
James, born in 1829. Captain Doten in early life was an enterprising
shipmaster, later a builder and owner of vessels engaged in the grand bank
fishery, and finally a lumber merchant on Doten’s yard and wharf, the latter
of which he built not far from 1825. He was a man of commanding figure,
judicious, active, and prompt, selected many times to serve as chief marshal
at celebrations of the Pilgrim Society and town. He married in 1807
Rebecca, daughter of Nathaniel Bradford, and died September 8, 1861. Two
of his sons, Major Samuel H. and Captain Charles C., will be noticed in a
later chapter in connection with the civil war. Captain Doten was engaged
in the privateer service during the war of 1812, and the following narrative
of some of his experiences in that service may be interesting to my readers.
For its incidents, and for extracts from his log and diary, I am indebted to
Captain Charles C. Doten, his son.

CHAPTER XXIII.
During the war of 1812, as in that of the Revolution, the government of
the United States issued “letters of marque,” giving authority to private
individuals to build, arm, and man vessels, for the purpose of making
reprisals upon and destroying the enemy’s commerce. While these
“privateers,” as they were called, were entirely outside of and unconnected
with the regular naval force of the country, they became one of the most
potent weapons wielded on the high seas in behalf of the government. Their
destructiveness to English commerce made them the dread of the ocean, for
the daring men who engaged in privateering enterprises were the best
shipmasters and seamen of their day, perfectly familiar with all coast ports
and the highways of the sea, so they knew where to strike most effectively
for their own advantage. A vessel captured under the English flag, became,
with her cargo, the lawful prize of her captors, and the proceeds of sale
were divided under established rules among the owners, officers and men of
the privateer, the business in many instances being very profitable. The
English commercial vessels likewise armed for defence, and quite often
there were spirited engagements before the English Jack would be lowered
to the Stars and Stripes flown by some saucy, fast sailing Yankee brig, or
long, low, rakish schooner of the Baltimore clipper type.
France being friendly to the United States, her ports were open to our
privateers and their prizes, so the English channel itself, right under the
nose, of Great Britain, was a tempting cruising ground where our letters of
marque made many a successful venture and some of them came to grief in
capture by the English men-of-war.
As has been previously said in this series of reminiscences, Plymouth had
her full number of adventurous spirits, and her “men of the sea” on board
the many privateers, sailing from southern and northern ports. On two
vessels, however, the “Leo” and the “George Little,” fitted at Boston, the
crews were largely made up of Plymouth men, so they may be regarded as
the “Plymouth privateers” of 1812. Of the “Leo’s” career we have no
detailed knowledge, but it has been told us that Captain Harvey Weston,

Captain Robert Hutchinson, Captain John Chase, Captain Nat Bartlett and
others from this town whose names are not known, were members of her
company, and that she took several prizes before she herself was forced to
surrender over on the English coast. Her men were imprisoned for the rest
of the war period, some of them being sent to the horrible Dartmoor prison
of England, of which history says that the dreadful tales of suffering and
death in the “black hole” and massacre by the guards are all too truthful, but
the “Leo’s” men were not there when the prison was at its very worst.
The “George Little” was a smart hermaphrodite brig, mounting ten guns
and a “chaser,” and was owned and fitted at Boston. Her commander was
Captain Nathaniel Spooner; first lieutenant, Captain Samuel Doten; second
lieutenant, William Holmes, and third lieutenant, — Turner, all of
Plymouth. The crew list contained the names of many of our townsmen, but
as it was not preserved, only those of Jacob Morton, William Hammatt and
William Stacy are now remembered. A private log book of the voyage was
kept by first lieutenant Doten, and is now in possession of his son, Captain
Charles C. Doten, the first entry being: Monday, December 26, 1814, at 2 p.
m., passed Boston light, fresh gale, north by east, and extreme cold. At 3 p.
m. chased by one of His Majesty’s gun brigs, and outsailed her with ease.
At that time there was a fleet of British men-of-war cruising along the
American coast from Maine to Virginia, several frigates and gun brigs
making rendezvous at Provincetown, and often coming over near the
Gurnet, thence running up off Boston and along the Cape Ann shore. It was
from one of these brigs that the “George Little” so easily escaped and got to
sea. The log has daily entries, that of January 7, 1815, recording that
William Stacy fell from the top gallant mast head, sending down royal yard,
by the royal mast pitch poling, and was saved on topsail yard.” “January 12,
at 6.25 a. m., made a sail four leagues away, and set chase. At 11.30 she
fired a lee gun—11.40 fired another, and set English colors—11.55, seeing
American colors she fired her stern chasers in good direction for us, but
without effect, they falling short, and in a moment struck. Proved to be the
ship “Mary,” six guns and eighteen men, James Bags, master, from New
Foundland with fish for Lisbon. 13th took some articles from the prize, put
Mr. Turner and nine men on board, and ordered her to proceed for first port
in the United States.”

It may here be stated that the “Mary” arrived safely at Marblehead, where
with her cargo she was sold, yielding to the “George Little’s” owners and
men a good amount of prize money. The “Mary’s” crew, being two to one
of the “Little’s” men put on board, attempted to retake her, but after a
severe fight were driven below, and Jacob Morton of Plymouth, who was a
powerful man, drew the companion slide over them, and upon it placed a
large anchor, lifting alone the weight which two ordinary men would have
found a test of their strength.
The “George Little” held on her course across the ocean, intending to
cruise in the English channel and take her prizes, if any were there secured,
into French ports. Off the Azores or Western Islands, January 21st and 22d,
she chased a vessel but lost her. January 28 she overhauled the Prussian
schooner “Ferwarhting,” from St. Michael’s for Hamburg with fruit, and put
Captain Bags, his son and mate of the “Mary” on board.
“February 2 overhauled Prussian brig, “Ann Elizabeth,” from London to
St. Michael’s, in ballast. Put four prisoners on board and ordered her to
proceed. Lost both boats boarding, but saved all the men.”
February 4th and 5th the privateer brig was in chase of a sloop, which
escaped in the darkness of the second night, and the next day the “George
Little” met her own fate, the log reading as follows: “February 6, made a
sail on our lee bow, which gave chase at 8.30. Bore away, made all sail,
supposing her to be a frigate. At 9 she fired her bow chaser, which fell
short. At 10 her shot went over us. At 11.30, finding no means of escape, we
reluctantly struck our colors to His Majesty’s ship “Granicus” of 36 guns,
Captain William Furlong Wise. So was lost the “George Little,” in my
opinion for the want of those necessaries to induce one and all to do their
best to save her, as we were short of bread, beef—poor rum—generally
spirits sunk—this is the effect of too much economy privateering. So ends
these 24 hours, rainy, and overpowering all with heavy hearts.”
The closing remarks above would indicate that the owners of the “George
Little” had not been liberal in fitting out the vessel, and in consequence
some discontent had existed on board. The “Granicus” took the prisoners to
Gibraltar, where they were placed with others on hulks anchored in the
harbor, and kept during March. On the 26th of that month “His Majesty’s
ship Eurylaus from the Chesapeake, arrived with news of the ratification of

peace between the United States and Great Britain,” and on the 29th the
prisoners were embarked for England in the “Eurylaus,” arriving at
Plymouth April 16th. Captain Doten’s memorandum becomes personal after
that date, and relates that on the 17th he was sent on board the “Ganges” 74,
and on the 21st “had intelligence of the arrival of the Mary at Marblehead,
by an American paper of February 24.” April 24, he says he “obtained
permission to go on shore from the Ganges,” and May 3d, “smuggled
myself on board the ‘Royal Sovereign,’ Captain Spence, bound to Boston as
a cartel”—a vessel commissioned to exchange prisoners. The “Royal
Sovereign” had 400 prisoners, and as she was coming direct to Boston,
Captain Doten, not being included in the list, took his chances as a
stowaway. The vessel sailed from Plymouth, England, May 4th, and arrived
in Boston after a passage of 35 days. In crossing the Grand Banks the
schooner “Almira” of Provincetown was spoken, 25 days from home, with
10,000 fish.
A personal expense account appended to Captain Doten’s journal of the
“George Little’s” cruise shows that at Gibraltar he spent $51.25, among the
items being $15.25 for provisions, and $1.00 for liquor, a proportion which
certainly was very moderate for those days. On board the “Ganges” his
expenses were $14.95, and at Plymouth, $105.63, mostly for clothing, and
passage home. The latter, seven pounds, was probably paid to Captain
Spence for not finding him on board until the “Royal Sovereign” was at sea.
The total of $171.83 paid out on account of capture, was recouped with a
fair margin of profit from his share of the prize money of the “Mary.”
The lack of facilities for quick transmission of news at that time, is
strikingly illustrated by the fact that the treaty to end the war was signed at
Ghent, December 24, 1814, two days before the “George Little” sailed from
Boston, so her entire cruise was made in a period of unknown peace. The
battle of New Orleans, in which the British were defeated with a loss of
2,000 men, including the death of their commanding general, Edward
Pakenham, was fought January 8, 1815, two weeks after the agreement on
articles of peace, which at the present time would have been known all over
the world within a few minutes of their adoption.
It was a custom for old shipmasters and seamen, after their seafaring days
were over, occasionally to meet in Captain Doten’s counting room at the
head of what is now Captain E. B. Atwood’s wharf, and while a wild

northeaster howled outside they would toast their shins at a good fire,
smoke their pipes, and spin yarns of privateering days, or their experiences
in various voyages to the West Indies or ports across the ocean. There could
be no keener enjoyment to those of younger generations than to sit while all
was blue about them from the tobacco exhalations, and listen to these “tales
of the sea” from men who were veritable actors in the scenes so vividly
recalled. Two incidents pertaining to Captain Doten’s cruise in the “George
Little,” as her first lieutenant, thus came out, not written in his journal.
When at the time of her capture by the “Granicus” the American flag was
hauled down on the “George Little,” Lieutenant Doten was not only
chagrined, but wrathy, and swore that he wouldn’t surrender his sword to
any Englishman, so he broke it across his knee. The boarding officer from
the “Granicus” on finding him without side arms to give up, at once
declared him not entitled to consideration, and ordered him ironed. This
was done, and in that condition, with Captain Spooner, he was taken to the
“Granicus.” To the great surprise of the boarding officer who had thus
thought to humiliate him, he was greeted by Captain Wise of the frigate as
he stepped on the deck with, “Hallo, Sam! what have you got those on for?”
“Because I was a fool and broke my sword,” was the response, at which
Captain Wise laughed and called the master-at-arms to relieve him of the
“bracelets,” bidding him go to the private cabin. There Captain Wise soon
joined him, and over a bottle of the best, they renewed the acquaintance of
some years before, when Captain Doten, then master of the brig “Dragon”
of Plymouth, Mass., had sailed for three years in succession under convoy
of Captain Wise, engaged in carrying naval stores up the Baltic from
Plymouth, England, the “Dragon” having been chartered by the British
government among other merchant vessels for that purpose. This service
brought Captain Doten into quite intimate relations with many of the
English naval officers, so that when he was a prisoner at Gibraltar, he was
allowed many privileges. Among these was shore going almost daily, and
passage through the batteries to the top of the Rock, where he could spend
the time more agreeably than on the prison hulk. One day in going up he
found Lieutenant Daly, who was in charge of one of the batteries,
unshotting the guns, and was told by him that some ships in the offing were
from America and signalled that the British had won a great victory, in
honor of which he was ordered to fire a salute when the details were known.
Much depressed in spirits, Captain Doten listened during the day for the

salute, but it was not fired. Returning in the afternoon, Daly was then
engaged in reshotting the guns, and explained that when the ships got
nearer, the fortress had learned that there indeed had been a great battle “at
a place called New Orleans,” but it had resulted in a tremendous defeat for
the British arms, and General Pakenham had been “sent home in a hogshead
of rum.” Daly—who of course was an Irishman—added at a low breath,
“and I’m glad of it.” Captain Doten told the great news to his fellow
prisoners on the hulk, and that night after they had been confined below the
gratings one of their number, a ship carpenter, who had located where a
barrel of beer rested on the deck, bored up through the planks and bilge of
the cask, inserting an improvised tube or pipe, and drew off the contents. Of
course a great deal ran to waste, but enough was secured to make all hands
feel mighty “merry,” and they hilariously celebrated the victory of New
Orleans, taunting the guard so outrageously, singing “Yankee Doodle,” and
bandying epithets, that they were only partially quieted by the gratings
being removed, the guard drawn up around the hatchways with muskets
pointed down into the crowd, and the threat made to fire if the disturbance
did not cease. Undoubtedly there would have been shooting, but the English
officers had heard rumors of peace, and under such circumstances the
killing of unarmed prisoners would have been deemed murder. They “made
a night of it,” and the next day, when the loss of the beer was discovered,
the cause of their high spirits was explained, while the shrewd manner in
which they had obtained the liquid for the jollification, was characterized
by the commander of the hulk, as “another d—d smart Yankee trick.”
During the passage of the Royal Sovereign bringing home 400 prisoners,
she was caught in a heavy gale near the Grand Banks, but Captain Spence,
her commander, was a good seaman, and made a safe arrival at Boston.

CHAPTER XXIV.
During my youth the house now occupied by Miss Perkins, the daughter
of the late John Perkins, was owned and occupied by George Drew, who
has already been noticed. He built the hotel which stood on the corner of
Middle street, and besides conducting a stable on that street, was largely
engaged in the management of the Boston line of stages. Among other
children he had a son, John Glover Drew, who was one of my playmates
and schoolmates. John Glover was afflicted at times with a singular
infirmity which like paralysis of the vocal organs would for the space of
fifteen minutes disable him from uttering a word. I remember once his
receiving a flogging for not answering a question put to him by the teacher
the first time an attack occurred in school. I had a classmate at Harvard who
for a time was affected in the same way, but in both cases the infirmity
finally disappeared.
George Drew had a brother, Thomas, known as Dr. Drew, though I never
knew of his practicing medicine, who for many years rendered important
service in the educational field in Plymouth. Besides teaching a private
school, he was in conjunction with Benjamin Drew, a teacher in the school
in town square, and, when what was called the town school was established
in 1827, and a school house built in that year for its accommodation in
School street, opposite the rear land of the Davis building lot, he was
selected as its teacher. He was also town clerk from 1818 to 1840,
succeeding Deacon Ephraim Spooner in that office. He had a son, Thomas,
three years older than myself, one of the old boys in the High school when I
entered it in 1832. Tom was a bright fellow, and for many years performed
valuable service as a journalist in the offices of the Worcester Spy and the
Boston Herald. While William H. Lord was the teacher of the High school,
a gentleman, by the way, very popular with the boys, and one who always
enjoyed a joke, it was the custom at the opening of the school in the
morning for the scholars to rise in turn and repeat a verse of scripture. On
the morning after it became known that the teacher was engaged to Miss