The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, No. 5, May, 1884

Capt Thomas Hinchman, Lt. Joseph Wheeler, & Lt. Jno flynt surveyor, or any two of them are nominated & impowred a Comittee to run the ancient bounds of Nashobah Plantation, & remark the lines, as it was returned to the geñall Court by said mr flynt at the charge of the Indians, giving notice to the select men of Grotton of time & place of meeting, wch is referred to mr flint, to appoint, & to make return to next Coun Court at Cambridge in order to a finall settemt

Again, under date of October 3, 1682 ("3. 8. 1682."), it is entered that—

The return of the committee referring to the bounds of Nashobey next to Grotton, was prsented to this Court and is on file.

Approved

The "return" is as follows:

We Whose names are underwritten being appointed by ye Honrd County Court June: 20th 1682. To ruñ the Ancient bounds of Nashobey, haue accordingly ruñ the said bounds, and find that the town of Groton by theire Second laying out of theire bounds have taken into theire bounds as we Judge neer halfe Indian Plantation Seuerall of the Select men and other inhabitants of Groton being then with us Did See theire Error therein & Do decline that laying out So far as they haue Inuaded the right of ye Indians.

Also we find yt the Norwest Corner of Nashobey is run into ye first bounds of Groton to ye Quantity of 350 acres according as Groton men did then Show us theire Said line, which they Say was made before Nashobey was laid out, and which bounds they Do Challenge as theire Right. The Indians also haue Declared them Selves willing to forego that Provided they may haue it made up upon theire West Line, And we Judge it may be there added to theire Conveniance.

2: October: 1682.

Exhibited in Court 3: 8: 82:

& approved T D: R.

JOSEPH WHEELER

JOHN FLINT

A true Coppy of ye originall on file wth ye Records of County Court for Middx.

Exd pr Samll: Phipps Cler

[Massachusetts Archives, cxii, 331.]

Among the Groton men who had bought land of the Nashobah Indians were Peleg Lawrence and Robert Robbins. Their names appear, with a diagram of the land, on a plan of Nashobah, made in the year 1686, and found among the Massachusetts Archives, in the first volume (page 125) of "Ancient Plans Grants &c." Lawrence and Robbins undoubtedly supposed that the purchase of this land brought it within the jurisdiction of Groton. Lawrence died in the year 1692; and some years later the town made an effort to obtain from his heirs their title to this tract, as well as from Robbins his title. It is recorded at a town meeting, held on June 8, 1702, that the town

did uote that they would giue Peleg larraness Eairs three acers of madow whare thay ust to Improue and tenn acers of upland neare that madow upon the Conditions following that the aboue sd Peleg larrances heirs do deliuer up that Indian titelle which thay now haue to the town

At the same meeting the town voted that

thay would giue to robart robins Sener three acers of madow where he uste to Improue: and ten acers of upland near his madow upon the Conditions forlowing that he aboue sd Robart Robbins doth deliuer: up that Indian titels which he now hath: to the town.

It appears from the records that no other business was done at this meeting, except the consideration of matters growing out of the Nashobah land. It was voted to have an artist lay out the meadow at "Nashobah line," as it was called, as well as the land which the town had granted to Walter and Daniel Powers, probably in the same neighborhood; and also that Captain Jonas Prescott be authorized to engage an artist at an expense not exceeding six shillings a day.

Settlers from the adjacent towns were now making gradual encroachments on the abandoned territory, and among them Groton was well represented. All the documents of this period relating to the subject show an increased interest in these lands, which were too valuable to remain idle for a long time. The following petition, undoubtedly, makes a correct representation of the case:—

To his Excellency Joseph Dudley Esqr Captain Genll & Governour in Chief in & over her Majesties Province of the Massachusets Bay &c: togeither with the honourable Council, & Representatives in Great and Genll Court Assembled at Cambridge October 14th. 1702.

The Petition of the Inhabitants of Stow humbly sheweth.

That Whereas the honourable Court did pleas formerly to grant vnto vs the Inhabitants of Stow a certain Tract of Land to make a Village or Township of, environed with Concord, Sudbury, Marlbury, Lancaster, Groton, & Nashoby: And Whereas the said Nashoby being a Tract of Land of four miles square, the which for a long time hath been, and still is deserted and left by the Indians none being now resident there, and those of them who lay claim to it being desireous to sell said land; and some English challenging it to be theirs by virtue of Purchase; and besides the Town of Groton in particular, hath of late extended their Town lyne into it, takeing away a considerable part of it; and Especially of Meadow (as wee are Well informed) Wherefore wee above all or Neighbour Towns, stand in the greatest need of Enlargement; having but a pent up smale Tract of Land and very little Meadow.

Whence we humbly Pray the great & Genll Court, that if said Nashoby may be sold by the Indians wee may have allowance to buy, or if it be allready, or may be sold to any other Person or Persons, that in the whole of it, it be layed as an Addition to vs the smale Town of Stow, it lying for no other Town but vs for nighness & adjacency, togeither with the great need wee stand of it, & the no want of either or any of the above named Towns. Shall it Pleas the great & Genll Court to grant this or Petition, wee shall be much more able to defray Publick Charges, both Civil, & Ecclesiasticall, to settle or Minister amongst vs in order to or Injoyment of the Gospel in the fullness of it. Whence hopeing & believing that the Petition of the Poor, & needy will be granted. Which shall forever oblidge yor Petitionrs to Pray &c:

THO: STEEVENS. Cler:

In the Towns behalfe

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, 330.]

This petition was granted on October 21, 1702, on the part of the House of Representatives, but negatived in the Council, on October 24.

During this period the territory of Nashobah was the subject of considerable dispute among the neighboring towns, and slowly disappearing by their encroachments. Under these circumstances an effort was made to incorporate a township from this tract and to establish its boundaries. The following petition makes a fair statement of the case, though the signatures to it are not autographs:

To His Excelcy: Joseph Dudley Esq: Capt: Generall & Govr: in Chief in and over Her Majties: Province of Massts: Bay in New-England, Together with ye Honble: the Council, & Representatives in Genll: Court Assembled on the 30th of May, In the Tenth Year of Her Majties: Reign Annoq Domi: 1711,—The Humble Petition of us the Subscribers Inhabitants of Concord, Chelmsford, Lancaster & Stow &c within the County of Middx in the Province Aforesd.

Most Humbly Sheweth

That there is a Considerable Tract of Land Lying vacant and unimproved Between the Towns of Chelmsford, Lancaster & Stow & Groton, as sd Groton was Survey'd & Lay'd out by Mr. Noyce, & the Plantation Call'd Concord Village, which is Commonly known by the Name of Nashoba, in the County of Middx: Aforesd. & Sundry Persons having Made Entrys thereupon without Orderly Application to the Government, and as we are Inform'd, & have reason to believe, diverse others are designing so to do.

We Yor Humble Petitioners being desirous to Prevent the Inconveniences that may arise from all Irregular Intrusions into any vacant Lands, and also In a Regular manner to Settle a Township on the Land aforesd, by which the frontier on that Side will be more Clos'd & Strengthened & Lands that are at Present in no wise beneficiall or Profitable to the Publick might be rendred Servicable for the Contributing to the Publlick Charge, Most Humbly Address Ourselves to your Excy: And this Honourable Court.

Praying that your Petitioners may have a Grant of Such Lands Scituate as Aforesd. for the Ends & Purposes aforesd. And that a Committee may be appointed by this Honble: Court to View, Survey and Set out to Yor. Petitioners the sd. Lands, that so Yor. sd. Petitioners may be enabled to Settle thereupon with Such others as shall joyn them In an orderly and regular manner: Also Praying that Such Powers and Priviledges may be given and confered upon the same as are granted to other Towns, And Yor Petitioners shall be Most ready to attend Such Directions, with respect to Such Part of the sd. Tract as has been formerly reservd for the Indians, but for a Long time has been wholly Left, & is now altogether unimprov'd by them, And all other things which this Honble: Court in their Wisdom & justice Shall See meet to appoint for the Regulation of such Plantation or Town.

And Yor: Humble: Petitioners as in Duty Bound Shall Ever Pray &c.

Gershom Procter

Samll. Procter

John Procter

Joseph Fletcher

John Miles

John Parlin

Robert Robins

John Darby

John Barker

Saml: Stratton

Hezekiah Fletcher

Josiah Whitcomb

John Buttrick

Willm: Powers

Jonathan Hubburd

Wm Keen

John Heald

John Bateman

John Heywood

Thomas Wheeler

Samll: Hartwell, junr:

Samll: Jones

John Miriam

In the House of Representatives

June 6: 1711. Read & Comitted.

7 … Read, &

Ordered that Joa. Tyng Esqr: Thoms: Howe Esqr: & Mr: John Sternes be a Comittee to view the Land mentioned in the Petition, & Represent the Lines, or Bounds of the severall adjacent Towns bounding on the sd. Lands and to have Speciall Regard to the Land granted to the Indians, & to make report of the quantity, & circumstances thereof.

Sent up for Concurrence.

JOHN BURRIL Speaker

In Council

June 7. 1711, Read and Concurr'd.

ISA: ADDINGTON, Secry.

[Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, 602, 603.]

The committee, to whom was referred this subject, made a report during the next autumn; but no action in regard to it appears to have been taken by the General Court until two years later.

THE NEW ENGLAND TOWN-HOUSE

By J.B. Sewall

A Recollection of my boyhood is a large unpainted barnlike building standing at a point where three roads met at about the centre of the town. When all the inhabitants of the town were of one faith religiously, or at least the minority were not strong enough to divide from the majority, and one meeting-house served the purposes of all, this was the meeting-house. To this, the double line of windows all round, broken by the long round-topped window midway on the back side, and the two-storied vestibule on the front, and, more than all, the old pulpit still remaining within, with the sounding-board suspended above it, bore witness. Here assembled every spring, at the March meeting, the voters of the town, to elect their selectmen and other town officers for the ensuing year, to vote what moneys should be raised for the repair of roads, bridges, maintaining the poor, etc., and take any other action their well-being as a community demanded; in the autumn, to cast their votes for state representative, national representative, governor of the State, or President of the United States, one or all together, as the case might be.

Many such town-houses, probably, are standing to-day in the New England States,—I know there are such in Maine,—and they are existing witnesses to what was generally the fact: towns, at the first, when young and small, built the meeting-house for two purposes; first, for use as a house of worship; second, for town meetings; and when in process of time a new church or churches were built for the better accommodation of the people, or because different denominations had come into existence, or because the young people wanted a smarter building with a steeple, white paint, green blinds, and a bell, the old building was sold to the town for purely town purposes.

When the settlements were made, the first public building erected was generally the meeting-house, and this in the case of the earlier settlements was very soon. In Plymouth, the first building was a house twenty feet square for a storehouse and "for common occupation," then their separate dwellings.

The "common" building was used for religious and other meetings until the meeting-house with its platform on top for cannon, on Burial Hill, was built in 1622. "Boston seems to have had no special building for public worship until, during the year 1632, was erected the small thatched-roof, one-story building which stood on State Street, where Brazer's building now stands."1 This was in the second year, the settlement having been made in the autumn of 1630. In Charlestown, "The Great House," the first building erected that could be called a house, was first used as the official residence of the governor, and the sessions of the Court of Assistants appear to have been held in it until the removal to Boston, but when the church was formed, in 1632, it was used for a meeting-house.

Dorchester had the first meeting-house in the Bay, built in 1631, the next year after settlement, and by the famous order passed "mooneday eighth of October, 1633," it appears that it was the regular meeting-place of the inhabitants of the plantation for general purposes. The Lynn church was formed in 1632, and the meeting-house appears to have been built soon after, and was used for town meetings till 1806. It was the same in towns of later settlement. In Brunswick, Maine, which became a township in 1717, the first public building was the meeting-house, and this also was the town-house for almost one hundred years. Belfast, Maine, incorporated in 1773, held its first two town meetings in a private house, afterwards, for eighteen years, "at the Common on the South end of No. 26" (house lot),2 whether under cover or in open air is not known, after that, in the meeting-house generally, till the town hall was built. In Harpswell, Maine, the old meeting-house, like that described, when abandoned as a house of worship, was sold to the town for one hundred dollars and is still in use as a town-house.

The town-house, therefore, though it cannot strictly be said to have been coëval with the town, was essentially so, the meeting-house being generally the first public building, and used equally for town meetings and public worship.

How early, then, was the town? When the settlement at Plymouth took place, in one sense a town existed at once. It was a collection of families living in neighborhood and united by the bonds of mutual obligation common in similar English communities. But it was a town as yet only in that sense. In fact, it was a state. The words of the compact signed on board the Mayflower were, in part: "We, whose names are underwritten … do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, … and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

These words were the constitution of more than a town government. They erected a democratic state—a commonwealth. It was a general government separate from and above the town governments which were afterwards instituted. It enacted general laws by an assembly of deputies in which the eight plantations in the colony, which afterwards became towns, were represented. These laws were executed by a governor and an assistant, and were of equal binding force in all the plantations after, as well as before, these plantations became towns.

The Massachusetts Colony came over as a corporation with a royal charter which gave power to the freemen of the company to elect a governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, and "make laws and ordinances, not repugnant to the laws of England, for their own benefit and the government of persons inhabiting their territory." The colonists divided themselves into plantations, part at Naumkeag (Salem), at Mishawum (Charlestown), at Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and Saugus (Lynn), and while the General Court, as the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants were called, made general "laws and ordinances" for the whole, the plantations were at liberty to manage their own particular affairs as they pleased. They called meetings and took action by themselves, as at Watertown, when, in 1632, the people assembled and expressed their discontent with a tax laid by the court, and at Dorchester as previously referred to. To Dorchester, however, belongs the honor of leading the way to that form of town government which has prevailed in New England ever since. It came about in this way. The settlement was begun in June, 1630, and for more than three years the people seem to have managed their affairs under the administration of the Court of Assistants by means of meetings. At such a meeting, held October 8, 1633, it was ordered "for the generall good and well ordering of the affaires of the plantation," that there should be a general meeting of the inhabitants at the meeting-house every Monday morning before the court, which was four times a year, or became so the next year, "to settle & sett downe such orders as may tend to the general good as aforesayd, & every man to be bound thereby without gainsaying or resistance." This very interesting order is given entire in the Memorial History of Boston. 3 There were also appointed twelve selectmen, "who were to hold monthly meetings, & whose orders were binding when confirmed by the Plantation."

Here was our New England town almost exactly as it is to-day. The inhabitants met at stated times and voted what seemed necessary for their own local order and welfare, and committed the execution of their will to twelve selectmen, who were to meet monthly. Our towns now have an annual meeting for the same purpose, and elect generally three selectmen, who meet at stated times,—sometimes as often as once a week. Watertown followed, about the same time, selecting three men "for the ordering of public affairs." Boston appears to have done the same thing in 1634, and Charlestown in the following year, the latter being the first to give the name Selectmen to the persons so chosen, a name which soon was generally adopted and has since remained.

The reason of this action it is easy to conjecture, but it is fully stated in the order of the inhabitants of Charlestown at the meeting in which the action for the government of the town by selectmen was taken: "In consideration of the great trouble and charge of the inhabitants of Charlestown by reason of the frequent meeting of the townsmen in general, and that, by reason of many men meeting, things were not so easily brought into a joint issue; it is therefore agreed, by the said townsmen, jointly, that these eleven men … shall entreat of all such business as shall concern the townsmen, the choice of officers excepted; and what they or the greater part of them shall conclude of, the rest of the town willingly to submit unto as their own proper act, and these eleven to continue in this employment for one year next ensuing the date hereof."

Town government, thus instituted, was recognized the next year—1636—by the General Court, and thereafter the towns were corporations lawfully existing and endowed with certain fixed though limited powers.

The plantations of the Plymouth Colony followed the example. In 1637, Duxbury was incorporated, and at the General Court of the colony, in 1639, deputies were in attendance from seven towns.

"Thus," says Judge Parker, 4 "there grew up a system of government embracing two jurisdictions, administered by the same people; the Colonial government, having jurisdiction over the whole colony, administered by the great body of the freemen, through officers elected and appointed by them; and the town governments, having limited local jurisdiction, such as was conceded to them by the Colonial government, administered by the inhabitants, through officers and agents chosen by them."

By this change,—the invention of the colonists themselves without copy or pattern,—the colonies were transformed from pure democracies into a congeries of democratic republics; and each town-house, or whatever building was used for such, became the state-house of a little republic. And this is what it is in every New England town to-day.

Was not, then, the New England town-house a thing of inheritance at all? Yes, so far as it was a building for the common meeting of the inhabitants of the town, and so far as it was a place for free discussion and the ordering of purely local affairs. The colonists came from their English homes already familiar with the town-hall and its uses so far. If one will turn to any gazetteer or encyclopædia which gives a description of Liverpool, England, he will find the town-hall described as one of the noble edifices of that town. The present structure was opened in 1754, but it was the successor of others, the first of which must have dated back somewhere near the time when King John gave the town its charter—1207. Or he may turn to the town of Hythe in the county of Kent. In its corporation records, it is said, is the following entry, bearing date in the year 1399: "Thomas Goodeall came before the jurats in the common hall on the 10th day of October, and covenanted to give for his freedom 20d., and so he was received and sworn to bear fealty to our Lord the King and his successors, and to the commonalty and liberty of the port of Hethe, and to render faithful account of his lots and scots 5 as freeman there are wont." In another entry, in the same year, the building is mentioned again as the "Common House."

We may go further back than this. History tells us that "the boroughs (towns) of England, during the period of oppression, after the Norman invasion, led the way in the silent growth and elevation of the English people; that, unnoticed and despised by prelate and noble, they had alone preserved the full tradition of Teutonic liberty; that, by their traders and shopkeepers, the rights of self-government, of free speech in free meeting, of equal justice by one's equals, were brought safely across the ages of Norman tyranny."6 The rights of self-government and free speech in free meeting, then, were rights and practices of our Anglo-Saxon ancestry, and we are to go back with them across the English channel to their barbarian German home, and to the people described by Tacitus in his Germania, for the origin, as far as we can trace it, of this part of our inheritance. These people were famed for their spirit of independence and freedom. The mass are described as freemen, voting together in the great assemblies of the tribe, and choosing their own leaders or kings from the class of nobles, who were nobles not as constituting a distinct and privileged caste. "It was their greater estates and the greater consequence which accompanied these that marked their rank." When we first learn of these assemblies, they are out-of-doors, under the broad canopy of heaven alone, but the time came, as the rathhaus of the German town to-day attests, when they built the common hall or town-house; and we, to-day, in this remote and then unknown and unconjectured land of the West, are in this regard their heirs as well as descendants.7

In what, then, is the New England town-house more than, or different from, the English town-house? In this, that it is the state-house of a little democratic republic which came into existence of and by itself of a natural necessity, and not merely governs itself, making all the laws of local need and executing them—levying taxes, maintaining schools, and taking charge of its own poor, of roads, bridges, and all matters pertaining to the health, peace, and safety of all within its bounds, in a word, all things which it can do for itself,—but also in confederation with other little democratic republics has called into being, and clothed with all the power it has for those matters of common need which the town cannot do, the State. The State of Massachusetts, from the day that the people created the General Court the body it still is, by electing deputies from the towns,—representatives we now call them,—to sit instead of the whole body of freemen, with the governor and council, for the performance of all acts of legislation for the common good, is the outgrowth of and exists only by virtue of the towns. The towns created it, compose it, send up to it its heart-and-life blood. This it is which makes the New England town unique, attracting the attention and interest of intelligent foreigners who visit our shores. Judge Parker says: "I very well recollect the curiosity expressed by some of the gentlemen in the suite of Lafayette, on his visit to this country in 1825, respecting these town organizations and their powers and operations." In the same connection he adds that "a careful examination of the history of the New England towns will show that," instead of being modeled after the town of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, or the free cities of the continent of the twelfth century, "they were not founded or modeled on precedent" at all. Mr. E.A. Freeman, however, puts it more truthfully in saying: "The circumstances of New England called the primitive assembly (that is, the Homeric agora, Athenian ekklesia, Roman comitia, Swiss landesgemeinde, English folk-moot) again into being, when in the older England it was well-nigh forgotten. What in Switzerland was a survival was in New England rather a revival."8