The real history of Southern Massachusetts began in June, 1664, when the General Court of the Plymouth Colony passed an order that “all that tracte of land called and known by the name of Acushena, [1] Ponogansett, and Coaksett, is allowed by the court to bee a townshipe, and said towne bee henceforth ... called and knowne by the name of Dartmouth.” In November, 1652, Wamsutta and his father, Massasoit, had signed a deed conveying to William Bradford, Capt. Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke, and their associates all the land lying three miles eastward from a river called the Coshenegg to Acoaksett, to a flat rock on the western side of the said harbor, the conveyance including all that land from the sea upward “so high that the English may not be annoyed by the hunting of the Indians, in any sort, of their cattle.” The price paid for this tract was, thirty yards of cloth, eight moose-skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes, fifteen pairs of breeches, eight blankets, two kettles, one cloak, two pounds wampum, eight pairs stockings, eight pairs shoes, one iron pot, and ten shillings in other commodities. This immense tract had twenty miles of sea-coast, not to mention harbors, etc., and represents, besides the present township of Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fairhaven, Westport, and Acushnet. [2]
the head of the river.
In a brief article it is impossible to give more than the cream of the whole story of the growth and existence of this settlement. It experienced the vicissitudes of Indian depredations and wars. In the King Philip war it was nearly obliterated, only the little settlement of Apponegansett surviving. But at the return of peace the settlers took up their old avocations, and gradually, but surely, made the old town of Dartmouth. The story of nearly every other outlying settlement in those days is the story of this one, so that all that concerns us are the historical events peculiar to this.
relics of the last century.
These early inhabitants combined tilling the soil and extracting the wealth of the sea, only, however, as shore fishermen, and an occasional off-shore whaling voyage in small boats. One event in early history shows that the people were possessed of something more than the traditional courage and bold seamanship for which southern Massachusetts was ever famed, and shows a spiritual courage as well as that deliberate manly determination to overcome all physical obstacles to existence with which the early settlers were permeated.