Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

And sorrows fall on an Indian’s tomb.”

With regard to Cole’s Hill, the impression has prevailed that burials there were confined to the winter of 1620 and 1621. After a somewhat thorough examination of evidence and probabilities, I have reached the conclusion that this impression is not correct. I have already stated that no record exists of the discovery of the remains of white men except on Cole’s and Burial Hill. Pretty thorough explorations beneath the surface of the ground, in or near the main town settlement, prove with reasonable certainty that one of these two places was during the early years of the Plymouth Colony the place of burial. It is an interesting fact that the Pilgrims, unlike the Puritans, followed the English custom of burying their dead in the church yard, a spot as near as possible to their place of worship. In Duxbury the first meeting house was built near the shore, not far from the base of Captain’s Hill, and the first burials were made immediately about it. In Marshfield the first meeting house was built near the tomb of Daniel Webster, and what is called the Winslow burial ground, which incloses that tomb, was the church yard. There is every reason to believe that the same custom prevailed in Plymouth. The Common house was for many years used for public worship, except in times of impending dangers when resort was temporarily had to the fort, on what is now Burial Hill, and Cole’s Hill, sloping down to that house lying directly at its base was the church yard. As long then as the Common House was the place of public worship, I cannot doubt that Cole’s Hill was the burial place, and that when the first meeting house was built on the North side of Town Square, Burial Hill sloping down to its walls, became the church yard and the place for depositing the bodies of the dead.

In this view of the case it becomes important, in deciding when burials ceased to be made on Cole’s Hill, to ascertain when the first meeting house proper was built. Upon this question there has been a difference of opinion, some writers saying 1637, and some 1647. Those fixing the time at 1647 have based their opinion, so far as I can discover, on the historic record that the town meeting held in May, 1649 was held in the meeting house, and on the fact that the meeting house was then for the first time mentioned as the place for holding town meetings. The meeting held on the 10th of July, 1638, is recorded as having been held in the Governor’s house, and it is asked by the advocates of the later date why should that meeting have been held in the Governor’s house if the meeting house was built in 1637. It must be remembered that the purpose of the meeting house was not to furnish a place for civic meetings, but a place for religious worship, and that only the increasing numbers of the settlement in 1649 outgrew the capacity of the Governor’s house, and rendered the use of the meeting house at that time one of necessity. And again it must be remembered that with the single exception of the meeting, July 16, 1638, no meeting place is mentioned until May 17, 1649, and for all that is known to the contrary, meeting after meeting before 1649 may have been held in the meeting house without any record of the meeting place. Mr. Goodwin in a foot note on page 231 of the “Pilgrim Republic,” makes it appear that the record states that the meeting of May 17, 1649, was held in the new meeting house, but the word (new) is not in the record, and therefore adds no weight to the argument in support of the date of 1647. The question may be pertinently asked, “Why, if the meeting house was built in 1647 was its occupation for town meetings delayed until May 17, 1649?” and this question is as difficult to answer as the other, “Why was it not earlier devoted to civic uses if it was built in 1637.”

The probabilities in favor of 1637 are too strong to be overcome. Until 1636, after the settlement of Duxbury was made, it was a mooted question whether the meeting house should not be built in some place midway between the two settlements. A decision was reached in that year, and at once the meeting house in Duxbury was built in 1637, making it probable that Plymouth followed and built its meeting house in the same year. It would be a severe reflection on the religious spirit and enterprise of the Plymouth people to suppose that Duxbury built its house of worship in 1637, and Marshfield in 1641, while the erection of the meeting house of the parent church of which Wm. Brewster was the Elder, was delayed ten years longer.

But we are not left alone to probabilities. In the will of William Palmer, executed in November, 1637, and probated in the following March, is a clause providing for the payment “of somewhat to the meeting house in Plymouth.”

Thus then in my opinion Burial Hill became the church yard in 1637. It retained its name of Fort Hill many years, and under that name extended across what is now Russell street along the rear of the estates on the west side of Court street. At a town meeting held on the 14th of May, 1711, it was voted to sell “all the common lands about the fort hills reserving sufficient room for a burying place.” From that time Burial Hill has remained practically within its present limits. But it is asked why is the headstone of Edward Gray bearing the date of 1681 the oldest stone on the hill. The answer is to be found first in the undoubted fact that for many years it was not the custom to mark the graves with stones, and second, in the depredations to which stones were subjected by neglect and rough usage. In the early days of the Colony slate stone was not found within accessible distances, and when they were finally imported from England, their cost undoubtedly precluded their general use. Many of those imported were creased and opened to the weather, and finally were disintegrated by frost and broken up. I, myself, by the permission of the selectmen, and of course at the cost of the town, devised a kind of hood made of galvanized iron with which I have protected seventy or more from both the influence of frost and the no less destructive invasions of relic hunting vandals. So far as neglect of the hill is concerned, I can find no suggestion in the records of any proposition to protect the hill until 1757, when it was voted to fence it. Nothing was done, however, until 1782, when it was voted to permit Rev. Chandler Robbins to fence and pasture it with the right at any time to remove the fence and possess it as his own. Then for the first time the hill was fenced, and Mrs. Robbins, after the death of her husband petitioned the town to buy the fence. In 1800 it was voted to permit Rev. Dr. Kendall to pasture the hill and build a fence on condition that no horses be permitted within the inclosure. Before that time it is evident that horses were permitted to pasture it, and the treatment to which the stones were thus exposed, is easily imagined. In later times, decayed and fallen stones have been piled up behind the hearse house, where masons in want of covering stones have taken them at their pleasure. Of late years, however, the hill has had better treatment, and the stones which have fallen have been reset at the expense of the town. It is unnecessary to say that the most vigilant care on the part of the town should be used, for aside from all sentimental reasons, and aside from the duty of the town to realize that it holds the hill in trust for all our country, the hill and its stones form a commercial asset of incalculable value. An attempt was made in 1819 to plant ornamental trees on the hill, but either nothing was done, or the attempt to carry out the vote of the town proved a failure. In 1843 another more successful attempt was made, and a large number of trees were planted, and the duty of keeping them well watered was assigned to the scholars in the High school. Many of these survived, and others have at various times been added.

Among the conclusions to which I have been led by the foregoing review, is this, that Elder Brewster, Governor Bradford and John Howland, and the other Mayflower passengers who died in Plymouth after 1637, were buried on Burial Hill. With regard to the burial of the Elder, I am obliged to reverse the opinion heretofore expressed by me, that he was buried in Duxbury. There are on record two inventories of the property of Brewster, one of his house and its contents in Duxbury, and the other of his house and its contents in Plymouth. The contents of the former are so meagre and unimportant as to make it certain that the Duxbury house was only an occasional residence, while those of the latter, consisting of clothing and a full household equipment, prove that he died in Plymouth, and that there was his permanent home. Besides Brewster was the Elder of Plymouth church, and of course lived among his people, and further, Bradford says in his history, that Mrs. Brewster died before 1627, before the Duxbury settlement began, and of course was buried in Plymouth, near whose grave the Elder would have sought for himself a final resting place.

The inscriptions on the gravestones, though not quaint, are interesting to others besides the antiquary, and a few of them I shall include in this chapter without either alphabetical or chronological order as follows:

“Priscilla Cotton, widow of Josiah Cotton, born September 30, 1860, died October 4, 1859.”

Mrs. Cotton lived and died in a house which was removed when Brewster street was opened, and now stands on the North side of that street. She told me that at the time of the Boston tea party in 1773 she attended a boarding school a little below the Old South Meeting house, and remembered some of the incidents attending the destruction of the tea. A man servant brought home some of the tea, but some of the scholars refused to drink it. After her husband’s death in 1819, she bought an annuity at the office of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, which after forty years of payment was terminated, much to the satisfaction of the company.