Norfolk County, Massachusetts - Chapter 2: Early Explorations, 1918

Chapter 2: Early Explorations

October 12, 1492, marked the beginning of an epoch in the world's history, for on that day Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. Previous to that time the Atlantic Ocean had been a bugbear to sailors, but when the news of Columbus' successful voyage was carried to the courts of Europe, monarchs were seized with a desire to send expeditions to the new continent. Although to Spain was conceded the honor of leading the way, it was not long until other nations were .competing with Spain for the profits of her discovery.

The Cabots

Henry VII, then King of England, was not noted for his liberal policies, but he was sagacious enough to see that some advantage might be gained for his country, and showed a willingness to encourage explorations - provided the royal treasury was not called upon to bear the expense. To that end, on March, 5, 1496, he granted to John Cabot and his three sons - Lewis, Sancius and Sebastian - a commission authorizing them "to sail to all parts, countries and seas of the East, of the West and of the North, under our banners and ensigns, with five ships of what burden or quantity soever they be, and as many mariners or men as they will have with them in the said ships, upon their own proper costs and charges, to seek out, discover and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions or provinces of the heathen and the infidels whatsoever they be which before this time have been unknown to all Christians."

The patent also gave the Cabots power to set up the royal banner of England in every "village, town, castle, isle or mainland by them newly found, and to subdue, occupy and possess the same as vassals of the English crown." For this service the Cabots were given the exclusive privilege of trading with the natives of the country or countries they might discover and claim in the name of the crown. This privilege was granted to them, their successors or assigns, without limit or condition, further than that upon their return to England they were required to land at the port of Bristol and pay one-fifth of the profit of their enterprise to the King.

from Bristol in a vessel called the "Matthew" and on June 24th they lande'a either upon the Island of Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. They returned to England and on February 3, 1498, the King issued to them a new patent, which is said to have been "less ample than the first and worded more cautiously," though it granted the patentees six English ships and the exclusive right to trade with the people of the lands they might visit on their voyages.

John Cabot died soon after the second patent was granted, but Sebastian, with a fleet of five vessels, sailed from Bristol in May, 1498, on his second voyage. At that time the extent of the lands discovered by Columbus was not known, and it was believed that somewhere there was a passage by water to the "South Sea," as the Pacific Ocean was then called. To find this passage was one of the objects of Sebastian Cabot, and it is asserted by some writers that in his voyage of 1498 he passed into Hudson's Bay. He then examined the coast as far southward as the thirty-eighth parallel of north latitude and is credited with being the first explorer to discover the mainland of North America. Upon the voyages and discoveries of the Cabots England laid claim to a large part of North America.

Nearly a century later (1583) came Sir Francis Drake, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, and some others, but their explorations have no bearing upon New England history. Colonization did not follow upon the heels of the explorer and a century after Cabots' first voyage "in all New England and the vast tract north towards the pole, not a white family was settled, not a white child had been born."

Early in the spring of 1602, a company of thirty-two men, under the command of Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold, sailed from Falmouth, England, in a small vessel called the "Concord." The expedition was fitted out under the direction of the Earl of Southampton, who bore the greater share of the expense. On May 14, 1602, the expedition came in sight of land about 430 30' north latitude, somewhere on the coast of New Hampshire or Maine. Turning southward, they followed the coast until the afternoon of the 15th, when they discovered "a mighty headland, which, from the great number of cod fish caught in the vicinity, was named Cape Cod." Here they landed and were no doubt the first white men to set foot upon the soil of Massachusetts. The next day Gosnold made another landing, at what later became known as "Sandy Point," in the extreme southern part of Barnstable County. During the next two weeks he explored the coast, naming Martha's Vineyard, Dover Cliff, Gosnold's Hope (now Buzzard's Bay), the Elizabeth Islands and some other places.

On the 28th he fixed upon a site for his plantation, "near a small lake of fresh water, about two miles in circumference," on the Island of Cuttyhunk, at the entrance to Buzzard's Bay. It was arranged for eleven of the men to remain with him upon the plantation, the Concord to return to England under command of Captain Gilbert. Three weeks were spent in building a fort and storehouse, and in lading the vessel with sassafras, "a goodly quantity of which grew near by." During this time several excursions were made to the mainland's "fertile meadows, stately groves, pleasant brooks and beauteous rivers." By the time the fort and storehouse were completed it was noticed that the stock of provisions was running low and the project of establishing a plantation was abandoned. All went on board and on July 23, 1602, the Concord dropped anchor in the harbor of Exmouth, England.

Pring And Browne

Gosnold's description of the country stimulated interest in the new continent and encouraged further explorations. The Virginia patent, granted to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585, included the present State of Massachusetts, but Richard Hakluyt, an earnest advocate of colonizing the New World, and Robert Aidsworth obtained permission from Raleigh to send a vessel to that part of the coast that had been visited by Gosnold. They enlisted the cooperation of the mayor, aldermen and a number of the wealthy merchants of Bristol, and raised by subscription a fund of one thousand pounds to defray the expenses of an expedition. On April 10, 1603, two vessels - the "Speedwell" of fifty tons and the "Discoverer" of twenty-six - left Bristol. The former had a crew of thirty men and was commanded by Martin Pring, and the latter, with a crew of thirteen men, was commanded by Capt. William Browne. The two ships were provisioned for eight months and carried a large stock of cloth, hatchets, trinkets, etc., for the Indian trade.

The expedition struck the coast near the entrance to Penobscot Bay, and then cruised southward to the Vineyard Islands. There the Discoverer was laden with sassafras, which was then considered a panacea for "all the ills that flesh is heir to," and returned to England in July, leaving Pring with the Speedwell to make further explorations. In August the Indians in the vicinity began to show signs of hostility and Pring also returned to England, arriving at Bristol early in the year 1604.

To follow up the discoveries of Cabot, Gosnold and Pring, the Earl of Southhampton and his brother-in-law. Lord Arundel, fitted out a vessel called the "Archangel" with a crew of twenty-eight men and placed Capt. George Weymouth in command. The Archangel left the port of Dartmouth on the last day of March, 1605, ostensibly to discover the long sought "Northwest Passage," but really to strengthen England's claim to the territory about Massachusetts Bay. About the middle of May Weymouth reached the shore near Cape Cod. From that point he proceeded northward, ascended the Kennebec River some distance and traded with the natives.

Captain Weymouth did one thing that was a stroke of bad policy, to say the least. He lured five Indians on board the Archangel and then set sail for England. The Indian captives were sold into bondage. This act engendered a feeling of hatred and distrust among the natives that grew as colonies were established in New England, until the Indians sought vengeance in the Pequot and King Philip wars.

London And Plymouth Companies

Sir Walter Raleigh's failure to colonize Virginia within the time specified caused his patent to revert to the crown. Early in the Seventeenth Century applications were made by two companies for grants of land for plantations on the Atlantic coast, between the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude. Patents were issued to those companies on April 10. 1606, the southern grant to the London Company, called the "First Colony," and the northern to the Plymouth Company, or the "Second Colony." The London Company was authorized to establish a plantation at any point below 41° north latitude, and the Plymouth Company to open a plantation any where above 38 °, though it was stipulated that the second plantation should be located not less than one hundred miles from the first.

The patent of the Plymouth Company was granted to "Thomas Hanham, Raleigh Gilbert (a nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh), William Parker, George Popham, and their associates, knights, gentlemen and merchants, or Exeter, Plymouth and other towns of the West of England." On the last day of May, 1607, this company started two ships - the "Gift of God" and the "Mary and John" - with about one hundred men, under Raleigh Gilbert and George Popham, to open a plantation. They failed to establish a permanent colony and it seems that no second effort was made under the patent of 1606.

Capt. John Smith, who had been an active factor in the establishment of the London Company's colony at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, sailed from London early in March, 1614, with two vessels and forty-nine men to look for mines of gold or copper along the coast of New England. In the event he failed to find the mines, it was his intention to trade with the natives and carry back to England cargoes of fish and furs. He explored the coast from the mouth of the Penobscot (Kennebec) River to Cape Cod, crossed from Cape Ann to Cohasset, and some writers claim that he entered Boston Bay and to some extent explored its coast line. He prepared a map of the coast, upon which Quincy and Weymouth bays are shown with a fair degree of accuracy.

That Smith was an enthusiast regarding the beauties and possible advantages of the Massachusetts coast, may be seen from his report of the voyage, in which he says: "We saw forty several habitations (that is places where habitations might be successfully established) along the coast, sounded about twenty-five excellent harbours, in many whereof there is anchorage 'for 500 sails of ships of any burden, in some of them 1,000, and more than two hundred isles, overgrown with good timber of divers sorts of woods. * * * Of all the four parts of the world that I have yet seen, not inhabited, could I but have the means to transport a colony, I would rather live here than anywhere. And if it did not maintain itself, were we but once indifferently well fitted, let us starve."

Associated with Smith on this expedition was an Englishman named Thomas Hunt, who carried about twenty Indians into slavery - an act that was inexcusable and whirl) bore fruit in after years. Mather says it "was the unhappy occasion of the loss of many a man's estate and life, which the barbarians did from thence seek to destroy; and the English, in consequence of this treachery, were constrained for a time to suspend their trade and abandon their project of a settlement in New England."

Capt. Thomas Dermer

Smith's voyage seems to have been a prosperous one, from a pecuniary point of view, and this created in his mind an earnest desire to make a second visit to the New World. His own capital being insufficient to outfit an expedition, he imparted his views to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, " a man of kindred enthusiasm," and to Doctor Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, who agreed to assist him. After some delay two ships - one of 200 and the other of 50 tons burthen - were furnished him for a second voyage. Before going two hundred leagues, the larger vessel, which was commanded by Captain Smith, sprang a leak and was forced to return, but the smaller, commanded by Capt. Thomas Dermer, kept on, returning to England after an absence of about five months.

Captain Dermer made another voyage in 1619, and this time carried back to America the Indian Tisquantum (or Squanto), who had been carried into captivity by Hunt five years before. This Squanto afterward became the firm friend and interpreter of the Pilgrims. Bradford (History of Massachusetts, p. 14) thinks it probable that on this second voyage Dermer visited the harbors of Boston and Plymouth. While the primary object of these voyages was the acquisition of wealth, Captain Dermer was instructed to find a place in which to establish a colony "for the propagation of the gospel among the ignorant and debased aboriginal inhabitants."

Barry, in his History of Massachusetts, says: "This journey of 1619, as preceding by a year the settlement of Plymouth, and as taken in the territory so often alluded to by the Pilgrims, is exceedingly interesting. It was an important addition to the knowledge of the country and prepared the way, by its friendly termination, for the hospitable reception by the generous Massasoit and his brother Quadequina."

In the fall of 1619 Captain Dermer sailed southward and passed the winter with the colony of the London Company at Jamestown. The following spring he returned to Cape Cod, where he encountered a party of hostile Indians and received several severe wounds, of which he afterward died.

French Explorations

Before the middle of the Sixteenth Century, France had laid claim to the valley of the St. Lawrence River and the country about the Great Lakes, basing her claim upon the expeditions of Jacques Cartier in the early part of that century. In 1603 Henry the Great, then King of France, gave a patent to one of his friends named De Monts, covering the Atlantic coast from the fortieth to the forty-sixth parallels of north latitude. De Monts led an expedition to America and it is said he entered what is now Boston Harbor, in search of a place to plant a colony, but was discouraged by the hostile attitude of the Indians he found in that locality. He then explored the coast to the northward and finally located his settlement at Monts' desert (now Mount Desert), on the coast of Maine.

The greater portion of the grant made by King Henry to De Monts was included three years later in the grant made by the English crown to the Plymouth Company. This was the beginning of a conflict of French and English claims to territory in America - a conflict which was intensified when La Salle, in 1682, discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River and laid claim to all the territory drained by that stream and its tributaries, and which finally culminated in the French and Indian war.

Following the usage of nations to claim territory "by right of discovery," England had the oldest tenure to a large part of the continent of North America, On account of the discoveries made by the Cabots in the closing years of the Fifteenth Century. Subsequent expeditions sent out from England strengthened the claim, which the other nations of Europe ultimately recognized, and in time English settlements were planted along the coast from Maine to Georgia.