Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 1: First Settlement, 1924

Chapter 1: First Settlement

Upon the gradual effacement of Indian village and encampment, there presently began and throve within the present county bounds of Bristol the villages and the towns of a race that should soon dominate here, as their Aryan forefathers had done in the course of scores of other migratory eras in Asia and Europe, ages before America was dreamed of by Europeans. As the white race, ever restless, swarmed from overseas and sought out places here and there for their western homes, it came about that a place should soon be secured for Taunton of New England.

Yet the Taunton settlement was not made by seizure or conquest, but by peaceful purchase and occupancy, and there is no record nor tradition extant of any antagonistic measures taken by the Indians to prevent the founding of this town. And it is true, also, that the original dwellers here avoided, even during the Indian wars, such disastrous dealings to people and property as were the rule in other sections of the county. The Indian had diminished in numbers hereabouts - a recurring plague, whether or no of influenza, as some believe, that had prevailed about the year 1617, being assigned as the principal cause - and the menace of any native disapproval, en masse, was still nearly forty years in the future.

Old Colony lands had been bargained for and bought for practical valuations satisfactory to the original holders - clothing, farm tools, hunting and fishing implements that the Red Men valued more than they did their lands; and the Plymouth General Court had established laws that should prevent indiscriminate buying of lands, by any one, without the sanction and advice of that body of law-makers. Where Taunton now is, and near the falls of Mill river, the Indian encampment of Cohannet, or Quahannock, meaning "the river falls," awaited the inevitable exchange, where the first holders should give way, and the new-comers occupy.

The reason for the immigrants' town-building here had to do with the result of the general search for new homes and more lands by those increasing arrivals at Dorchester and near-by new settlements. Several towns were founded at about this time, and for the same cause, the Europeans pushing their way into the wilderness for an independent means of living. Other solutions than that of the desire of independence, either for industry or religious worship, can be only conjectural. Mostly of Non-conformist groups while in England, the settlers had come to New England in the hope of bettering their condition, both secular and religious.

The immigrants to the Taunton or Cohannet neighborhood halted at or near the river and the ponds. Where the bordering lands were of proven fertility, the Indians had been used to raising corn, the river itself providing vast quantities of herring in their season, that were made use of both as food and as means of fertilizing still further the land. The late Senator George N. Goff often told the writer that credible traditions of his family had it that the first comers along the river found no trouble in securing literally tons of fish in the spring, which, either ploughed into the ground, or set into the hills with the beans and corn, was the source of the production of rich crops. But, as the years passed on, the too abundant use of such fertilizer became the cause of the deterioration of the primitive value of the soil. Then, besides the fish, the river was the known means of transportation; water power was available for mills in prospect; timber grew in abundance; and there was plenty of wood for the winter fires. These, taken together, are not mere hearsay reasons for the coming of the white man, but the practical, established report of the warranted traditions of three hundred years.

We are aware of the presence here of John Winthrop, Jr., in 1636, and of his letter to Governor John Winthrop, his father, in regard to his exploration of the Tetiquet river and adjacent country. We do not know what his errand here was, but records of New England industry show that he was a leader in bog-iron working at Lynn and Braintree, and that he had prospected to a great extent that part of the country for possible ironworking. History has not revealed the cause of his brief sojourn along the Tetiquet, neither can we conjecture here; but we do know that in about fifteen years from that time, Taunton's early settlers had formed a company here for the manufacture of iron. In his letter, Winthrop reported "very fertyle and rich ground here," and within three years the settlers had assured themselves that that statement was true. We have told in the general history of the county how Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins, with the Indian Squanto, on their way to Montaup (Mount Hope), had passed through the future Taunton lands in 1621, and of their particular satisfaction with the appearance of the country.

But at length we peruse the most vital and interesting record of those times, as regards the founders. It is in Governor John Winthrop's "History of New England," dated 1637, that he has set down this statement: "This year a plantation was begun at Tetiquett, by a gentle woman, an ancient maid, one Miss Poole. She came late thither, and endured much hardships, and lost much cattle." And this statement in the Winthrop letter is confirmative, too, of the "Poole Family Records," still preserved at Taunton, England, which inform us that in 1635, "Elizabeth, ninth child, third daughter of Sir William Poole, and aged about 50 years, is now in New England."

Such, in their original brevity and not to be gainsaid, constitute the announcements of the first arrival here, that of Elizabeth Poole, daughter of a baronet, and whose brother William was later to train Taunton men in the use of arms. No one can with certainty state what was the motive for her removing in this direction from Dorchester - whether religious or industrial. Yet there is an authenticated record that Elizabeth Poole and members of her family, while residing in England, were interesting themselves in certain salt-works in New England. Among the "Uncalendared Proceedings of the Court of Charles I." is that to the effect that Miss Poole and her brothers, Sir John and Periam, were among the associates of Rev. John White of Dorchester, who had some interest in salt-works at Cape Ann during the years 1623 to 1628. Eventually, then, she had arrived at Tetiquet, and there bought lands of the Indian owners, known as

Josiah, Peter and David, for a jack-knife and a peck of beans, as tradition has it. The lands thus purchased she designated as her Littleworth and Shute farms, named for English estates in possession of her family. Money had no currency value to the Indians, though money was also paid them from time to time by the Europeans; a jack-knife, to them, was a sign of riches; beans meant more food for the nomad. The phrase "Taunton was bought for a jack-knife and a peck of beans" is often made use of today, but usually without a conception of the originating circumstances.

The bounds of Miss Poole's property are not exactly known, with the exception that the brook called Littleworth bounded the Littleworth farm on the west, and that it was joined with the Shute farm on the south. Another tradition has pointed out the Cain house, on Precinct road, near the foot of Caswell street, as the site of the first home of Miss Poole, and a hillock to the west as the site of the place where she kept her cattle that first hard winter. It is understood that the boundaries of Miss Poole's properties encroached upon lands of an Indian reservation as set aside by the General Court at Plymouth, though it is also known that at the time of the Poole purchase there had been made no formal recognition of the reservation on the part of the Indians. As time went on, portions of these lands, for this reason, gradually passed from her possession, and she was given certain allotments in Cohannet.

It was the Hon. Francis Baylies, Old Colony historian, who first applied the quotation from Virgil, "Dux foemina facti," to Elizabeth Poole, and the incident of her settling here. And it was James Edward Seaver, historian and genealogist, who stated a well-founded belief of his that, according to the Old Colony records of December 4, 1638, William Poole, Mr. John Gilbert, Mr. Henry Andrews, John Strong, John Deane, Walter Deane and Edward Case were nearly contemporaneous settlers, Taunton not then being named as a township.

The Littleworth farm locality retains that name today. The Shute farm, to the southeast of that, was confiscated by the government in 1781, John Borland, owner, grand-nephew of Elizabeth Poole, being a Loyalist. Elizabeth Poole was an energetic and enterprising woman, one of the founders of the first religious congregation in Taunton, and a member of the ironworks corporation. Eventually she removed to her home lot on the south side of the present Main street, in Taunton, and there she died, May 21, 1684, in the sixty-sixth year of her age. She is buried at the Plain cemetery, but Taunton women have erected a monument to her memory at Mount Pleasant cemetery. The phrase, "Dux foemina facti," referred to, was adopted for the present motto of the city seal, January 1, 1865, as advocated by Rev. Mortimer Blake.

Elizabeth Poole "led the way." Then came the Forty-six Purchasers, and the building of a permanent town. By a confirmatory deed of the First Purchase from Philip, son of Massasoit, wherein it is set down that the year 1638 was that in which the plantation was bought of Massasoit, the following-named, from most of whom hundreds of families throughout the United States claim descent, were the associated Purchasers, each name filling a unique place in these first annals: Henry Andrews, John Briant, Mr. John Browne, Richard Burt, Edward Case, Thomas Cooke, David Corwithy, William Coy, John Greenman, John Deane, Walter Deane, Fran- cis Doughtye, John Drake, William Dunn, Mr. Thomas Farwell, Mr. John Gilbert, Thomas Gilbert, John Gilbert, John Gingell, William Hailstone, George Hall, William Harvey, Hezekiah Hoar, Robert Hobell, William Holloway, John Kingsley, John Luther, George Macey, William Parker, John Parker, Richard Paull, William Phillips, Mr. William Poole, the Widow Randall, John Richmond, Hugh Rossiter, William Scadding, Anthony Slocum, Richard Smith, John Smith, Francis Street, Henry Uxley, Richard Williams, Benjamin Wilson, Joseph Wilson. Each of these people, with the exception of Mr. John Browne, was owner of six to twelve shares.

Taunton families had hardly become settled in their new holdings and built them their shelters - and Taunton was still Cohannet - when the settlement was called upon to share in representation at the court of the Pilgrims, at Plymouth. "Taunton began to be added to this booke" is first found in the Colonial Court Records, under date of October 2, 1637, although the historians have shown that it must have been entered there after March 3, 1640, since it was not until then that the act was passed that "Cohannet shall be called Taunton." And then, December 4, 1638, appears the record that "John Strong is sworne constable of Cohannett until June next"; and again, on March 5, 1639, there came the General Court's order that "Captain Poole shall exercise the inhabitants in their arms' - the two officers representing the "civil and military existence and authority of the ancient Cohannet."

Afterwards, in due order, came the General Court decrees for the grants and disposal of the lands at Taunton and the fixing of boundaries, the Cohannet lands being laid out by order of the court in May, 1639, by Captain Myles Standish and John Browne, and bounded by the same men, in 1640, by order of the court. In June, 1639, therefore, Captain William Poole, John Gilbert and Henry Andrews first represented Taunton at the Plymouth General Court, at a time when a number of the "Mayflower" Pilgrims were of that membership. The last General Court of Plymouth, be it stated here, met July, 1691, the date that has been accepted as marking the close of the Colonial period, the Old Colony having been divided in 1685 into the three counties of Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol. These were local epoch-making days, for on March 3, 1640, the Indian name Cohannet, or Quahannock, was changed to Taunton, and the first bounds of the town were set by the Plymouth Court. The township then comprised a territory of sixty-four square miles, or more than 40,000 acres.

The Taunton North And South Purchase 69

cause of the emigration of the "Mayflower" Pilgrims, extended to shipload after shipload that followed, and among whose passengers were Taunton's first settlers - some Independents, many Congregationalists, here and there a few of the Church of England; some Baptists and some Quakers. Others came here for new fortunes' sake, having set before them the lure of broader spaces and the attractive task of sharing in building the western settlements.

As for Taunton settlers themselves, they were mostly from Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Gloucester; and those like the Deane leaders who hailed from Taunton, in Somersetshire, were influential enough to have the naming of Taunton, as thus stated in a report made at a town meeting: "Whereas by the Providence of God, in the year 1638 and the year 1639, it pleased God to bring the most part of the first purchasers of Taunton over the great ocean into this wilderness from our dear and native land... in honor and love of our dear and native country, we called this place Taunton. Signed by James Walker, John Richmond, Thomas Leonard, Joseph Wilbore, John Hall, Richard Williams and Walter Deane." And, as every schoolboy in Taunton now knows, the etymology of Taunton is thus, "Tain Ton,' Gaelic and Saxon words, meaning "the town on the banks of the river," and so situated are both the mother town and the city in New England. And here, one of a little colony of towns, drifted away from the Old World, strove for the peculiar vantages of self-determination, with results that generations have been proud to own.