Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

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.