Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

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.