CHAPTER XIV.
Of the occupants of the houses not yet referred to on the south side of Leyden street at various times within my memory, the first to be mentioned is Robert Roberts, who built the house on the brow of the hill, now owned by Wm. S. Robbins. Mr. Roberts was for many years a substantial merchant, engaged in navigation and foreign trade, and was one of the founders of the Plymouth Bank, of whose Board of Directors he was a member from the time of its organization in 1803, to his death in 1825. His sister Mary married John Clark, whose daughter, Eliza Haley Clark, occupied the house in question many years, and died December 23, 1882. I remember hearing when young a story about the source of a part of Mr. Roberts’s wealth which may have been, like so many stories about others, without any foundation in fact. The story was that one of his vessels, either under command of himself or of another, was in a French port at one period of the French revolution and had taken on board the wealth of some refugees who had planned to escape from the persecution of the revolutionists, and sail for America, but that they were arrested and guillotined, and that their property never claimed by its owners, fell into the possession of Capt. Roberts and other owners of his vessel.
The only change within my recollection in the occupation of the next house, which has been for many years in the possession and occupancy of Salisbury Jackson, and his children and grandchildren, was the conversion in 1835 of one of the rooms on the street floor by Mr. Jackson into a store, which he opened in that year after having occupied for some years a store in the Witherill building on the corner of Main street and Town Square. In later years the store was abandoned, and the building restored to its original condition. I associate an old lady by the name of Johnson, who I think about 1830 occupied one or two rooms in the Jackson house, with a bonnet called the Navarino bonnet, which had a great run for a time among females everywhere, old and young. I wonder if any of my readers remember as I do the Navarino bonnet? The battle of Navarino, which secured Greek independence, was fought October 20, 1827, in which the Turkish and Egyptian navies were destroyed by the combined fleets of England, Russia and France, and so great an interest was felt at that time in Greek affairs that some ingenious originator of fashion invented a bonnet made of paper resembling cloth, and of the prevailing shape, with a crown a little turned up behind, and a front, which entirely concealed the face and chin from a side view, to which in order to attract attention and sales he gave the name of the battle. Every woman bought one, and every woman wore one, the streets were full of them, and in the meeting houses they were in their glory. But alas, they were fair weather bonnets, and like the feathers of a rooster, wore a most bedraggled and flopping appearance when exposed to the rain. The fashion was short lived, and went out like that of hoop skirts, as rapidly as it came in, while the world still wonders what became of them. If any one of my readers has one of these relics of bygone days, I would be glad to have it to help my memory in recalling the appearance of my sisters, when one day they reached home in a drenching rain.
Of Capt. James Bartlett, the occupant of the next house west of the Jackson house from 1801 to his death in 1840, and of Leander Lovell, his son-in-law, the next occupant, by whose heirs it was sold in 1880, to recent owners, mention has been made in previous chapters.
The site of the next house, owned and occupied by Mr. Wm. H. H. Weston, is an especially interesting one. For its early history, which it is unnecessary to repeat, my readers are referred to page 164 of the first part of “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth.” On that spot James Cole kept an ordinary, for which he was licensed in 1645. Judge Samuel Sewall refers to it in his diary under date of March 8, 1698, in which occurs the following entry: “Got to Plymouth about noon, I lodge at Cole’s; the house was built by Governor Winslow, and is the oldest in Plymouth.” The present house was built in 1807 by General Nathaniel Goodwin, and was occupied by him until his death, March 8, 1819. In 1827 it was sold by his heirs to Thomas Russell, who made it his residence until his death, September 25, 1854.
General Goodwin was born in Plymouth in 1749, and while engaged many years in iron manufactures, was more widely known as an officer in the militia and military superintendent for Plymouth county during the revolution. In the latter capacity he kept a record of enlistments in many of the towns in the county, including Plymouth and Kingston, which is more complete than the lists in the archives of the Commonwealth. This record was given to me some years ago by his grandson, the late Captain Nathaniel Goodwin, and has been given by me to the Pilgrim Society. After the battle of Saratoga, fought on the 7th of October, 1777, General Burgoyne and his army taken prisoners of war by General Gates, were marched to Cambridge and placed in barracks on Winter and Prospect hills, while Burgoyne himself was quartered in the Borland house in that town. General Goodwin was detailed under General Heath to command the guard having charge of the prisoners, and the following Plymouth men were enlisted to form a part of the guard:
| Nathaniel Barnes | Eleazer Holmes, Jr. |
| Wm. Bartlett | Samuel Holmes |
| Wm. Blakeley | Daniel Howland |
| Wm. Cassady | Edward Morton |
| George Churchill | Josiah Morton |
| Israel Clark | Levi Paty |
| James Collins | Ebenezer Rider, Jr. |
| Thomas Dogget | Benoni Shaw |
| Lemuel Doten | Nathaniel Torrey |
| Stephen Doten | Benjamin Weston |
| Thomas Ellis | John Witherhead |
| John Harlow, Jr. |
General Goodwin and General Burgoyne became friends, and as a memento of their friendship, Burgoyne gave to General Goodwin his rapier, which was also given to me by his grandson, and is now a loan from me in the cabinet of the Pilgrim Society. General Goodwin was like Mr. Roberts and Mr. Hedge, an original subscriber to stock in the Plymouth Bank in 1803, and was a Director from the date of its organization until his death in 1819.
General Goodwin, I have always heard, was a man of fine figure and bearing, and vain of his appearance, especially when in uniform. His grandson, Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin, told me the following story about him and his negro servant Pompey, a freed slave, which illustrates the familiarity of the slaves with their old masters and the characteristic vanity of the General. One muster day morning the General, wearing his regimentals, said: “Pompey, how do I look?” “You look like a lion, massa.” “Lion, Pompey; you never saw a lion.” “Yes I have, massa; massa Davis hab got one.” “That isn’t a lion, you fool, that is a jackass.” “I don’t care, massa, you look just like dat er animal.”
Thomas Russell, who bought the above mentioned Goodwin house in 1827, and occupied it until his death, was a brother of Captain John Russell, mentioned in a previous chapter as an enterprising ship owner, and married in 1814 Mary Ann, daughter of William Goodwin, and their children were Elizabeth, born in 1815, Lydia Cushing, 1817, who married Hon. Wm. Whiting; Mary, who married Benjamin Marston Watson of Plymouth; William Goodwin, 1821, Thomas, 1825, and Jane Frances, who married Abraham Firth of Boston. Of these children Mrs. Watson alone survives. Mr. Russell was for many years the treasurer and manager of the Cotton Mill at Eel River, established in 1812. After his retirement from that position, he was often the trusted adviser in the settlement of estates, and in 1837 Mr. Barnabas Hedge, supposing himself seriously involved in the liabilities of the Tremont Iron Works in Wareham, in which he was largely interested, made an assignment to his son-in-law, Charles H. Warren and Mr. Russell for the security of his indebtedness. Mr. Hedge was, however, under the management of his assignees extricated from his embarrassments, and was left with a handsome fortune. In accordance with the provisions of law then in force, Mr. Russell was chosen by the legislature in 1842 Treasurer and Receiver General of the Commonwealth, and again in 1844. It is worthy of mention that within eighty-five years from the adoption of the constitution in 1780 to 1865 three citizens of Plymouth should have served as treasurer during a period of fourteen years. These were Thomas Davis, from 1792 to 1797, Thomas Russell in 1842 and 1844, and Jacob H. Loud in 1853 and 1854, and from 1866 to 1871. If the term of Hon. Nahum Mitchell of East Bridgewater of five years from 1822 to 1827 be added, the county of Plymouth was represented in the treasurer’s office more than a quarter of the time.
The various occupants of the site on which the Baptist church stands, are deserving of notice. The house, taken down when the church was erected in 1865, was built in 1703 by Dr. Francis LeBaron, who was a passenger in a French vessel wrecked on Cape Cod in 1694, and settled in Plymouth. A family tradition says that he was a Roman Catholic, and was buried with a cross on his breast, but Mrs. James Humphrey of New York told me that her grandmother, Elizabeth wife of Ammi Ruhama Robbins of Norfolk, Conn., who was a granddaughter of Dr. LeBaron, told her that the Doctor was a Huguenot. It is a singular fact that one hundred years later in 1794 or 1795, another French vessel was wrecked on Cape Cod, on which there was a passenger named LeBaron, whose descendants are living in one or more of the southern states. From Francis LeBaron the house descended to his son, Dr. Lazarus LeBaron, who sold it in 1765 to Nathaniel Goodwin, the husband of his daughter, Lydia. From Nathaniel Goodwin it descended to his son, General Nathaniel Goodwin, who occupied it until, in 1807, he built and occupied the W. H. H. Weston house. The General leased the house to John Bartlett and William White, who occupied it as a tavern. I have no knowledge as to who John Bartlett was, but William White came from New Bedford, having married Fanny Gibbs of Wareham, and was the father of Arabella White, who married the late Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin. I have no means of knowing precisely when Bartlett and White terminated their lease, but it is certain that in October, 1818, John H. Bradford kept a tavern in the house, as on the 9th of that month George Cooper, clerk of the Standish Guards, notified the members of the company to meet on the 21st at the house of John H. Bradford. At first the tavern was called as above, “the house of John H. Bradford,” but later it came to be called Bradford’s Tavern, and was so called until it was sold in 1857. It was a stately mansion. Its broad front, its spacious doorway, its broad hall, and its large wainscotted rooms, told the story of its ancient grandeur. There the “daughters of Lazarus” reigned as queens, and the fashion of the town engaged in the minuet of the olden time.
John Howland Bradford, or Uncle Johnny, as he was affectionately called, the landlord during a period of forty years, perhaps more widely known than any landlord of his time, was born in Plymouth, July 14, 1780, and never married. He was an interesting character, such as only an old New England town could produce, with only an ordinary public school education, but under the moral influences of an enlightened Christian home, he grew into manhood with habits of truth, industry, kindness of heart, and correct living, which no worldly influences could weaken. No better man has within my observation ever lived. His sphere of life was narrow, but he filled it full. Let every man do this and the machinery of social life will run without friction or jar. I never knew of his attendance at any church, and I do not believe that any theological question ever presented itself to his mind. His character, however, was such as Christianity seeks to form, and as long as it is formed, it is not worth while to ask whether it be the result of the lessons of Christianity acting directly on the man, or on those under whose ministrations his habits have been formed. When he died, December 7, 1863, we may be sure that the promise made to the pure in heart was kept that “they shall see God.”
The hostess of Bradford’s Tavern was Mrs. Abigail (Leonard) Hollis, wife of Henry Hollis and daughter of Thomas Leonard, of Plymouth. Mr. Hollis came from Weymouth and married his wife in 1819. He died March 9, 1838, and his widow died September 27, 1859. Two of their children were John Henry, a merchant in New York at the time of his death, and our late townsman, William T. Hollis. I have no recollection of Mr. Hollis, or his occupation, but I have no doubt that he was connected in some capacity with the tavern. His wife was a strong minded, vigorous woman, and was the mainstay in everything connected with the domestic concerns of the house. Her oldest son, John Henry, was my schoolmate in the High school, and I can testify to the care she bestowed on his moral and intellectual instruction. The inscription on her gravestone:
“Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” was not only intended as the statement of a general truth, but also as a recognition of its truth as specially applicable to her.
Among the guests at Bradford’s Tavern the memory of some lingers in my mind. When I was quite young, perhaps about the year 1830, a stranger arrived at the tavern on the evening stage from Boston, who was destined to keep the tongue of gossip wagging for some time. He was somewhat portly, but moderate in height, and dressed in linen and broadcloth of immaculate neatness and fashionable in style. His name was Surrey, but the register contained no place of residence. Occasional visitors for a day or two were not uncommon, and excited no remark, but when this stranger remained for a week or more with neither acquaintance nor business to protract his stay, the gossips began to wonder who he was, whence he came, to what nationality he belonged, and what the purpose of his visit could be. In suitable weather he took his morning and evening walk about the town, making no visits, entering no store or church or public meeting, and asking no questions concerning the town or people. From his dignified bearing he won the name of Lord Surrey, and was never referred to by any other name. He made occasional excursions to Boston, where apparently he received funds, and bought new clothes. He paid his board promptly, and his habits and demeanor were beyond criticism. At the end of a year he left town and gossips were left to wonder where he had gone, whether he was a refugee from abroad, or whether he was merely an eccentric man who was floating about the world at the dictate of a capricious will.
I remember another visitor at the tavern quite as mysterious, a man of gentlemanly appearance, who could not speak a word of English, and who remained six months without disclosing his nationality, and went as he came, a stranger in a strange land. Mr. Salisbury Jackson, whose humor led him to speak of every day incidents in a manner to amuse his hearers, in describing a visit to the unknown, said that he tried him in French, but found that he was not a Frenchman. He then tried him in Spanish, but he was not a Spaniard. He then tried him in German, but he was not a German. He then, after failing to make him out an Italian, tried him in the original tongue and fixed him. No efforts of available linguists could fix his nationality more successfully than the humor of Mr. Jackson, and he went as he came, and was for a long time remembered as the mysterious stranger.
In 1857 the tavern house was sold to Wm. Churchill, who sold it to Wm. Finney, who resold it to Mr. Churchill, from whom it was bought by the Baptist Society in 1862. From 1857 to the date of his death, December 7, 1863, Mr. Bradford boarded with Jacob Howland, who occupied chambers in the Witherell building on the corner of Main street and Town Square.
I have spoken of Pompey, a colored servant, once a slave of General Nathaniel Goodwin, with whom he lived in the old tavern house. He died within my recollection, and I think he was the last of the old slaves living in Plymouth. I remember his living with Nathaniel Goodwin, Cashier of the Plymouth Bank, who lived in what was called the bank house, which stood on Court street, where the Russell building now stands. Prince, whom I also remember, was once a slave of Dr. Wm. Thomas, and lived until his death, after the death of Dr. Thomas, with his son, Judge Joshua Thomas, who died January 10, 1821, and afterwards with his widow, in the house now occupied as an inn, called the Plymouth Tavern. There is no reason to doubt that the institution of slavery was recognized, and as firmly upheld in Plymouth as in other considerable towns in the northern states. So far as the slave trade was concerned, though it was abolished by an act of Congress in 1808, there is reason to believe that in the town of Bristol, R. I., within the limits of the original Plymouth Colony, until by a Royal Commission in 1751, that town was taken from Massachusetts and added to Rhode Island, it was pursued until 1820. In that year Congress declared the trade to be piracy, and Captain Nathaniel Gordon, engaged in the trade, was in November, 1861, convicted and executed in New York. It was the generally entertained belief that one or more citizens of Bristol were engaged in the trade, which led Mr. Webster to make the following denunciatory reference to the trade in his memorable oration delivered in Plymouth on the celebration in 1820 of the anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. “It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer; I see the smoke of the furnace where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who by stealth and midnight labor in this work of hell foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and tortures. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified or let it be set aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it.”
Slavery existed in Massachusetts until the adoption of its constitution on the 15th of June, 1780. Article first of the “declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth” declared as follows: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
Whatever may have been the intent of the framers of the constitution in constructing the above article, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts decided as early as 1781 in the case of Walker vs. Jennison that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by the declaration of rights, and that decision has been repeatedly confirmed by later ones. But singularly enough, notwithstanding these decisions a slave was sold by auction in Cambridge as late as 1793. Precisely how many slaves there were in Plymouth when the constitution was adopted, I have no means of knowing, but it is certain that, as elsewhere at the North where soil and climate and public opinion were unfavorable, the number had been for some years gradually lessening. The growth of slavery at the south was however astonishing. It has been estimated that at various times forty million slaves were taken from the shores of Africa, and at the first census in 1790, there were 697,897 slaves in the United States. This number increased to 893,041 in 1800, to 1,191,369 in 1810, to 1,538,022 in 1820, to 2,009,043 in 1830, to 2,487,455 in 1840, to 3,204,313 in 1850, and to 3,953,760 in 1860.
I have seen an assessor’s record for the year 1740, which states that in that year there were thirty-two slaves in Plymouth between the ages of twelve and fifty, from which it may be fair to assume that there were at least fifty of all ages. The following were the owners in the above year:
Robert Brown, one; Samuel Bartlett, one; Timothy Trent, one; James Hovey, one; Hannah Jackson, one; Samuel Kempton, one; Isaac Lothrop, four; Thomas Jackson, two; Lazarus LeBaron, two; John Murdock, one; Thomas Murdock, one; Job Morton, one; Ebenezer Spooner, one; Haviland Torrey, one; David Turner, one; James Warren, one; John Watson, one; James Warren, Jr., one; Rebecca Witherell, one; Seth Barnes, one; John Bartlett, one; Stephen Churchill, one; Wm. Clark, one; Nathaniel Foster, two; Sarah Little, one; Joseph Bartlett, one.
The following slaves are mentioned in the town records at various dates:
Cæsar, Hester, Eunice, Philip and Esther, slaves of Edward Winslow in 1768; Cato and Jesse, slaves of John Foster in 1731; Britain, slave of John Winslow in 1762; Cuffee, slave of Isaac Lothrop in 1768; Nanny, slave of Samuel Bartlett in 1738; Hannah, slave of James Hovey in 1762; Cuffee, slave of George Watson in 1768; Dick, slave of Nathaniel Thomas in 1731; Phebe, slave of Haviland Torrey in 1731; Dolphin, slave of Nathaniel Thomas in 1731; Flora, slave of Priscilla Watson in 1731; Eseck, slave of George Watson in 1757; Rose, slave of William Clark in 1757; Prince, slave of Wm. Thomas in 1771; Plymouth, slave of Thomas Davis in 1753; Nannie, slave of Deacon Foster in 1741; Jane, slave of Thomas Jackson in 1760; Jack, slave of Thomas Holmes in 1739; Patience, slave of Barnabas Churchill in 1739; Pero and Hannah, slaves of John Murdock in 1756; Quamony, slave of Josiah Cotton in 1732; Kate, slave of John Murdock in 1732; Quash, slave of Lazarus LeBaron in 1756; Phillis, slave of Theophilus Cotton in 1751; Silas, slave of Daniel Diman in 1772; Venus, slave of Elizabeth Edwards in 1772; Pompey, slave of Nathaniel Goodwin in 1775; Cæsar, slave of Joshua Thomas in 1779; Venus, slave of Elizabeth Stephens in 1772; Quba, slave of Barnabas Hedge in 1775; Plato, slave of unknown in 1779; Ebed Melick, slave of Madame Thatcher of Middleboro.
Besides Pompey and Prince, Quamony Quash, an old slave, commonly called Quam, lived within my remembrance, and died April 18, 1833. Most of the slaves emancipated by the constitution, accepted their freedom, and so far as I know, only Pompey and Prince continued as servants of their old masters. A few of them squatted on land belonging to the town of Plymouth, which on that account took the name of New Guinea. Among these were Quamony, Prince, Plato and Cato, but it is probable that Prince divided his time between his home at New Guinea and the house of his old master, where I remember him a faithful servant of the widow of Judge Joshua Thomas.
It is not improbable that Plymouth was associated with the first claim made on a citizen of Massachusetts for the restoration of a slave to his master. Information concerning it I found among my grandfather’s papers. In 1808 the brig Thomas, Solomon Davie master, at some port in Delaware, received on board a slave who had deserted from his master, David M. McIlvaine, and until 1812 remained in my grandfather’s service, receiving wages as a hired man. In 1812 Mr. McIlvaine found the slave on board the brig in Baltimore, and a claim for his restoration being made, he was given up. In the meantime the slave who called himself George Thomson, bought a small house on the brow of Cole’s Hill, and in a settlement of a suit to recover wages, which my grandfather had paid to Thomson, Mr. McIlvaine, in consideration of the money paid, conveyed to my grandfather the house, and the following articles of personal property, which were in the keeping of a colored woman, named Violet Phillips, and were the property of Thompson—a blue cloth coat, fine; a black cloth coat, fine; one pair of ribbed velvet pantaloons; one black bombazet trousers; one white shirt; one white waistcoat; one black bombazet waistcoat; one black silk waistcoat; three yellow marseilles waistcoats; one pair white cotton stockings; two checked shirts; one new fur hat; one chest, and one trunk in which were the title papers to his house, and one silver watch.
Of many stories about these old slaves I have room for only one. When the use of biers, instead of hearses was universal, occasionally two of these freedmen would be hired as bearers. On one occasion, when Quamony and Plato were employed, they had heard that gloves were given to the bearers, and just as the procession was about to start, Quamony said to Plato, “Hab you hab’m glub?” “No,” said Plato, “I no hab’m no glub.” “Nor I hab’m glub nudder,” said Quamony, “We no bare widout glub, let the man in the box carry hisself.”