Old Cape Cod

by Mary Rogers Bangs

II

The general grounds of contention, ecclesiastical and political,—questions of land tenure and fishing rights, the division and government of parishes,—remained for the children and grandchildren of the first settlers. It was not that they were a quarrelsome people, but, rather, that they had a healthy, vivid, proprietary interest in the civic and religious development of their common life. Every man in a town had his criticism for each act of the General Court, for the management of his neighbor, and the religious slant of his minister; every man expressed his personal view of the general comity in no uncertain words, with a result that sometimes presented a picture of confusion when it was in reality no more than the process of boiling down to a good residuum. Nor has this early spirit died. The strongly protestant temper of the Pilgrim Fathers has survived in their descendants; even to-day if one alien to the community penetrates beneath the tranquil surface of things commotion may be discovered. And from time to time, one may venture to suppose, a spirit of joyful wrangling has swung through this town or that when the pugnacious Briton has cropped out in men finer tuned by a more stimulating atmosphere, who waged the combat not always for righteousness’ sake, but for pure pleasure of pitching into the other fellow.

In the early days, at any rate, there was some scope for the talent of an arbiter, and in the Reverend Thomas Walley who, after a stormy interval of ten years, followed Mr. Lothrop in the pastorate of Barnstable, his people had cause for gratitude as “the Lord was pleased to make him a blessed peacemaker and improve him in the work of his house.” In 1669 Mr. Walley carried his peacemaking farther afield, and preached before the General Court a sermon entitled “Balm of Gilead to Heal Zion’s Wounds.” Among other wounds were listed the “burning fever or fires of contention in towns and churches.” Occasionally outside powers took a hand in these difficulties and the Boston clergy were called into council. And shortly after the incumbency of Walley, when one Mr. Bowles seems to have officiated at Barnstable for a time, John Cotton wrote thus to Governor Hinckley at Plymouth: “This last week came such uncomfortable tidings from Barnstable hither, that I knew not how to satisfy myself without troubling you with a few lines.... It does indeed appear strange with men wiser than myself that such discouragements should attend Mr. Bowles.... I need tell you, worthy sir, that it is a dying time with preachers ... and there is great likelihood of scarcity of ministers.” And so on, in favor of Mr. Bowles.

Schism, pure and simple, sometimes clove a church asunder, and the dissenters, under the man of their choice, retired to form a new parish; but natural division came about as a settlement spread to the more remote parts of a township. Such a group might remain a subdivision “within the liberties” of the mother town, but as frequently the younger parish became the nucleus of a growing settlement that might, in turn, be duly incorporated as a town. Nor was the process likely to be consummated without some heartburning. In 1700 the Reverend Jonathan Russell of Barnstable sent a tart communication to the town meeting that had divided his parish and desired his pleasure as to a choice of churches. “On divers accounts,” wrote Mr. Russell, “it seems most natural for me to abide in the premises where I now am; yet since there is such a number who are so prejudiced or disaffected or so sett against my being there”—in short, being a wise man, he elected peace and chose “the Western Settlement if it may by any means comfortably be obtained.” And Mr. Russell took occasion to remind the parish that he should require some provision for “firewood or an Equivalent, having formerly, on first settlement, been encouraged by principal Inhabitants to expect it.”

These early clergymen were usually Cambridge or Oxford men, the liberals of their time, sure to stand for the encouragement of learning among the simple people with whom they had cast their lot. And whether or not by their influence, the sons of those who had set their names to the Compact were ready in 1670 to make some provision for schools. Looking about for a source of revenue, they perceived that “the Providence of God hath made Cape Cod commodious to us for fishing with seines,” and thus encouraged the General Court passed an act that taxed the fishing, and, further, contained the germ of our public school system: “All such profits as may and shall accrue annually to the colony from fishing with nets or seines at Cape Cod for mackerel, bass, or herring to be improved for and towards a free school in some town in this jurisdiction, for the training up of youth in literature for the good and benefit of posterity.” And the colony continued its work by requiring that children should be taught “duely to read the Scriptures, the knowledge of the capital laws, and the main principles of religion necessary for salvation.” Idleness was punished as a vice; wilful ignorance was an offence against “the safety and dignity of the commonwealth.” Read into the simple precepts what modern interpretations you will, and one finds the elements necessary for training the citizens of a state to be justly governed by the consent of the governed.

Less significant laws reached out to regulate the personal life of the people: a talebearer was liable to penalty; a liar, a drunkard, a Sabbath-breaker, a profane man might be whipped, branded, imprisoned, or put in the stocks. It cost Nehemiah Besse five shillings to “drink tobacco at the meeting-house in Sandwich on the Lord’s day.” For the man taken in adultery there was a heavy fine and whipping; the woman must wear her “scarlet letter,” and for any evasion the device should be “burned in her face.” And to curb the spirit of “divers persons, unfit for marriage, both in regard to their years and also their weak estate,” it was decreed that “if any man make motion of marriage to any man’s daughter or maid without first obtaining leave of her parents, guardian or master, he shall be punished by fine not exceeding five pounds, or by corporal punishment, or both at the discretion of the court.” As a sequence, it is written that a Barnstable youth was placed under bonds “not to attempt to gain the affections” of Elizabeth, daughter of Governor Prince. In Eastham a man was mulcted a pound for lying about a whale; elsewhere one paid five pounds for pretending to have a cure for scurvy. Men were had up for profiteering when beer was sold at two shillings a quart which was worth one, and boots and spurs which cost but ten shillings were sold for fifteen. Certain leading citizens were licensed to “draw wine”: Thomas Lumbert at Barnstable, and Henry Cobb; Anthony Thacher at Yarmouth; at Sandwich Mr. Bodfish, and “when he is without, it shall be lawful for William Newlands to sell wine to persons for their need.” Constructive work was done in the way of building roads and bridges, for which Plymouth was willing the towns should pay; and a committee of the four Cape towns was appointed to draw therefrom, for such funds, “the oil of the country.” Representative government in the growing colony was practically coincident with the incorporation of the Cape towns, which sent representatives to the General Court and had local tribunals to settle disputes not “exceeding twenty shillings.”

The people neither had nor needed sumptuary laws: gentle and simple, they dressed in homespun. As late as 1768 a letter from Barnstable tells of the visit of some ladies “dressed all in homespun, even to their handkerchiefs and gloves, and not so much as a ribbon on their heads. They were entertained with Labrador Tea; all innocently cheerful and merry.” Men worked hard, and “lived” well: wild fowl and venison, fish in their variety throughout the year were to be had for the taking; and the farmers had homely fare a-plenty—seasoned bean broth for dinner, an Indian pudding, pork, beef, poultry. It was a life meagre, perhaps, in the picture of it, but all deep concerns were there—love, loyalty, birth, death, a conviction of personal responsibility for what should follow—and the whole web of it was shot through with a rich, racy humor. They could be neither driven nor easily led, these people; and justice they meant to exact and cause to be done. In the old time their fathers had turned misfortune to the profit of their souls, and in the new country the natural energy of the children led them to succeed in what they might undertake.

The Independents were men who, if they had not loved many luxuries, had loved one with a consuming zeal; and it was perhaps excusable that those of the second generation should dole out with a more sparing hand the freedom that had been purchased at so great a price. Yet were they, again, for their time, liberals; and it seems to have been true that the prospect of universal salvation brightened in proportion to the distance from Salem and Boston. Plymouth, at any rate, even in its “dark age,” between 1657 and 1671, was a bad second to Massachusetts Bay when it came to the persecution of heretics or witchcraft hysteria, although for the latter there might be people here and there who indulged themselves, without fear of molestation, in playing with the idea of magic.

There is a story of Captain Sylvanus Rich, of Truro, who, shortly before getting under weigh in a North Carolina port, bought from an old woman a pail of milk, and no sooner was he at sea than the ship was as if storm-bedevilled. The hag who had sold him the milk, declared Captain Rich, had bewitched him and his craft. Every night, he told his mates, she saddled and bridled him and drove him up hill and down in the Highlands of Truro. Far out of their course, they swept on to the Grand Banks and were like never to make port, when, by good luck, they fell in with a vessel commanded by the captain’s son who supplied their needs and as effectually broke the spell of the witch.

James Hathaway of Yarmouth was a stanch believer in “witchcraft and other strange fantasies”; but Hathaway was no puling mystic, and lived out ninety-five hale, hearty, vigorous years. A kinsman of his could give proof of the family strength by picking up a rum barrel in his own tavern and drinking from the bung; and the family eccentricity he evidenced by quietly dropping out of sight to save himself the trouble of defending a suit brought against him for embezzlement by a sister, and as quietly, after an interval of twenty-one years, returning to his wife and home. It had been thought he was drowned in the bay and to no avail “guns were fired, sweeps were dragged, and oil poured on the waters.” This same sister was a clever, well-read, witty creature, who married well, and for many years “associated with the intelligent, the gay and the fashionable.” She contributed to her popularity in the drawing-rooms of Boston and Marblehead by recounting with a lively tongue stories of witches she had seen and known, their tricks, their strange transformations. To the end, she vowed, she was a firm believer in witchcraft.