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This page is a part of the Lynn & Nahant town site. Not for Commercial use. All rights reserved. |
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Lynn in the
Revolution |
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A Very Special Thanks To The Lynn Public Library
For The Use Of This Important
Resource. |
and we are eager to share with others our pleasure and our
enthusiasm. Such, at least, was the experience of him who gathered the material
for the local story of the Revolution, which is told in the pages of this book.
The
discovery that in the hands of a descendant of the Revolutionary soldier, Henry
Hallowell, of Lynn, there was a complete narrative of the experiences of that
patriotic townsman as a soldier, written by himself, a narrative which had
never been published, - suggested to Mr. Sanderson the idea that there might be
enough of interest in it to warrant its publication. That alone was the extent
of the plan which at first presented itself to his mind. But a careful reading
of the manuscript revealed the fact that names and events were mentioned
which were not commonly known, and which led to inquiries and the gleaning
of additional facts, until paths for investigation seemed to open in all
directions and it became an absorbing interest to follow them. As new facts
came to light, the conviction grew that these, added to the Hallowell narrative,
would make a story of unusual interest to the descendants of old Lynn. For three
years Mr. Sanderson employed the leisure snatched from a multitude of cares in
gathering the material for this story, and it was with untiring interest that he
searched the records of the nation, the state, and the neighboring towns for the
names of Lynn soldiers. Many of the descendants of the soldiers themselves were able to give him much desirable information
regarding them, and a few individuals aided him constantly in his
work, - notably Miss Harriet L. Matthews, the city librarian, who with
unfailing courtesy and sympathy not only placed at his disposal the valuable
historical records of the Lynn
[ vi ]
Public Library, but also often added data which she herself
had gathered. Mr. Frank E. Swain frequently accompanied him on his
pilgrimages, and by his work with the camera made it possible to obtain the
hitherto unpublished portraits and the facsimiles of documents which are
now presented for the first time.
When the autumn day came, in 1904, when he
who had planned so much must lay down his pen for the last time, the work which
had become so dear was unfinished, the purpose which had grown so full and
clear was unfulfilled, and had to be laid aside with all the plans and purposes
of a strong and active life. The abundant sheets were put away for many days,
but, when at length they were again gathered together, it was found that,
incomplete though the work must now be, it was not impossible that
something of the original plan might still be carried out. The first draft of
the Lexington Chapter and the Captain John Mansfield Chapter had been made,
many of the biographical sketches had been written, the Lexington companies
had been completed, and multitudes of notes were ready for arrangement and for
verification, together with a clearly indicated outline for the completion of
the work. That outline has been as closely followed as possible, and the story has
been woven together as connectedly as might be in the book which is now given to
the public. It is inevitable that some inaccuracies should creep into a
work of this kind. A few dates may be found which are incorrect, but they are
such as could not be corrected until their publication discovered the few
persons who might be able to make them right.
If in the reading of the book
there is awakened some
[ vii ]
slight degree of the interest and
pleasure which were its inspiration, the reward will be sufficient for thus
putting into enduring form the result of many days of patient research and
labor given by one who loved Lynn, the city of his adoption, and who died here
on the fourteenth of December, 1904.
[ viii ]
Introduction
STANDING to-day upon one of the pleasant hillsides of Lynn and looking
out over the busy and populous city, we realize how great have been the changes
since the first five families came from the mother country and took up their
abode on the "faire level plain" before us. Our city lies close to the sea,
facing the waters of Massachusetts Bay, and stretches back to a range of heavily
wooded hills, covered now, as in the days of the first settlers, with a growth
of oak, pine, and maple. From these hills, the highest in Essex County,
the eye reaches westward to Mount Wachusett, south to the Blue Hills of Milton,
and northeast to the headlands of Cape Ann. In front the winding shore reveals
Hull, Scituate, and Hingham. Boston, to the southwest, is distinctly located by
the glittering dome of the State House; and the islands which dot its harbor,
even to Minot's Ledge, are within view, their numerous lights at night
gleaming with kindly beacons to the ships coming in from the sea. It is only as
we look out over the unchanging waters of the Atlantic that we can think of the
scene as the same which met the eyes of our Puritan ancestors. There Nahant,
with the same long sandy beach which New England's first historian, William
Wood, mentions as sheltering the little harbor of Lynn, and old Egg Rock, lie as
peacefully before us as when Nahant was only used by the white settlers for the
"pasturage of young cattle, goats, and swine."
Turning from the sea and
glancing landward, to the
[ xv ]
right, the winding Saugus River still follows its ancient
course and, bordered by hill and valley, flows down to the bay. At the back of
the city, nestled among the wooded hills, are its series of pleasant ponds and
lakes.
It is not the purpose of this book to enter into
a description of the early settlement of Lynn in detail, but, that there
may be a background for the narrative which is to follow, it may be well to
sketch briefly a few outlines. We may take it for granted, perhaps, that
while various motives may have led our forefathers to cross the Atlantic and risk
life and fortune in a new and untried country, the one which stood before
all others was the desire to found an asylum where religious liberty might
be enjoyed. Why this should have seemed to them necessary, why it was not
possible for them to remain in old England, dear to them through
every association, is a story which has been often told, and would take us
back through a hundred years and more of the history of Europe. It is enough
that through many troubled years a readjustment of religious thinking had been
taking place in England, together with the advance in science and art and letters.
The number had been growing constantly larger of those who felt that they could
no longer conscientiously conform to the usages of the Church. Non-conformists
they became, perforce, and the most radical among them chose exile rather than
submission to requirements which savored to them of popery and idolatry.
Thus some of these people, at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
were to be found in Holland, and a little later, braving the hardships of
winter, on the shores of America, encompassed about by famine, disease, and
a savage foe. They were separa-
[ xvi ]
tists in thought and reality from the Church of their native
land. Fanatics, persistent and disloyal, they were considered, although some
of them were among the most learned and heretofore most honored
among their countrymen. Only a few, however, were in that brave
little band at Plymouth. The great majority of friends and sympathizers to some
extent in the new movement remained in England, not yet ready to
separate from the mother Church. It is plain, however, that for long there was
in the minds of these earnest men the purpose to some day plant in America another
colony where they themselves might put into practice, unmolested, their religious
views. Not that none came to these shores with the idea of settling.
From the time of the planting of the Plymouth Colony until the foundation of the
one which most nearly interests us, - quoting from Mather's "Magnalia,"
- "There were more than a few attempts of the English to people and improve
the parts of New England which were to the northward of New Plymouth.
But the designs of these attempts being aimed no higher than the advancement
of some worldly interests, a constant series of disasters confounded
them, until there was a plantation erected upon the nobler designs of Christianity."
He refers, no doubt, to those settlements which were made to further
the fishing interests of the London merchants, the chief of which, probably,
being the one at Cape Ann, and which lasted for a year or more. A few of
the more industrious and honest of the men of that plantation did, indeed, remain
and become permanent settlers, although not at Cape Ann, but "some four
or five leagues further south to Nahum-Keike," - a quaint rendering
of our familiar "Naumkeag."
[ xvii ]
The little company of men who established themselves at
Nahum-Keike laid the foundation on which the next colonies were built; yet
because they came unofficially as it were, and were overshadowed by the superior
condition of those who soon followed them, it is not the name of their
governor, Roger Conant, which stands out most prominently in the records, but
that of "Master Endicot a man well known to divers persons of good note,"
appointed and sent over a little later by the Massachusetts Bay Company, in
England. Master Endicott with his men arrived at Naumkeag in September, 1628,
and, uniting with the planters already there under Roger Conant, made a
company of "not above fifty or sixty persons," who were the pioneers of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. The next year, 1629, a much larger company came
with their minister, Francis Higginson, and a colony of some three hundred
persons began taking up land and making homes. It was from this band that the
first five families came who are recorded as being in that year at "Saugust, now
Linne." Their names are given by the historian Alonzo Lewis as Edmund Ingalls,
Francis Ingalls, William Dixey, William Wood, and John Wood. Of these, William
Dixey, who came from England in the employ of Mr. Isaac Johnson, gives us,
according to Mr. Lewis, the authentic statement in regard to their
settlement at Lynn. In a deposition in Essex Court, in 1657, he says that
upon his arrival at Salem "application was made by him and others' for a place
to set down in; upon which Mr. Endicott did give me and the rest leave to go
where we would; upon which we went to Saugust, now Linne and there we met
Sagamore James and som other Indians, who did give me and the rest leave to
[ xviii ]
dwell there or thereabouts; whereupon I and
the rest of my master's company did cutt grass for our cattell, and kept
them upon Nahant for som space of time; for the Indian, James Sagamore and the
rest did give me and the rest in behalf of my master Johnson, what land we
would; whereupon we set down in Saugust, and had quiet possession of it by the
abovesaid Indians, and kept our cattell in Nahant the sumer following.'"
Our imagination lingers over
those earliest comers longer, perhaps, than over any others who in
later days walked the familiar streets of our home town. They came, indeed, to
an unknown wilderness, yet we can but think that there was happy expectation along
with the undaunted courage which has always been ascribed to them.
The company which came with Francis Higginson, viewing the shore from
Cape Ann to Salem, must have felt quite differently from that other company which
landed at Plymouth on a bleak December day a few years before. This was
June, - a New England June, - and in the interesting account
which Higginson has left us we read that the little fleet sailed along the coast
and saw every hill and dale and every island full of gay woods and high trees.
He says: "The nearer we came to the shore, the more flowers in abundance,
sometimes scattered abroad, sometimes joined in sheets nine or ten yards long, which
we supposed to be brought from the meadows by the tide. Now what with fair woods
and green trees by land and these yellow flowers painting the sea, made us all
desirous to see our new paradise of New England, whence we saw such
forerunner signals afar off. "
Thus, in a word, was the first colony established, -
two
[ xix ]
hundred at Salem and the rest disposed about the
bay. Those settled at Salem made haste to build houses, and within a short time
they had, indeed, "a fair town." Very quickly they formed their church under the
good offices of their pastor, Higginson, who says that their greatest comfort
and means of defence was that "they could have the true religion, and holy
ordinances of Almighty God, with plenty of preaching, diligent catechising,
with strict and careful exercise."
The same year of the coming of Higginson and the
beginning of Lynn, it was voted by the Massachusetts Bay Company, in England,
to transfer the chief government of the colony from England to New England, and
preparations were begun for so doing. In another year Governor Winthrop came
with his great fleet, - fifteen ships, and not far from fifteen
hundred persons, very many of whom were "people of rank and good
circumstance." Many of these, we know, went to make up the first
settlements, in Charlestown, Dorchester, and Watertown, but some tarried at
Lynn; and we find for the first time, in 1630, some of the names familiar in the
old-time records and no less familiar in our annals to-day. Inasmuch as some of
these family names will appear frequently in the succeeding pages, it will be of
interest to note here these emigrant ancestors. Edmund and Francis Ingalls, the
first settlers, came in 1629. Allen Breed, William Ballard, George Burrill,
Edward Baker, John Bancroft, Nicholas Brown, Thomas Chadwell, William Edmunds,
John Hall, Adam and John Hawkes, Thomas Hudson, Christopher Lindsey, Thomas
Newhall, Robert Potter, John Ramsdell, Edward Richards, and Thomas Willis came
in 1630. There arrived in the early
[ xx ]
succeeding years Edmund Farrington, Abraham
Belknap, John Pool, Thomas Townsend, Richard Johnson, Samuel Aborn, Hugh
and John Alley, Lieutenant Thomas Bancroft, and Andrew Mansfield.
While plantations
sprang
up around the bay and grew apace, Lynn remained a little community of
farmers, and grew but slowly, possibly because there were few "of rank and
good circumstance" who made their homes here. Indeed, we know that the men of
large estates and those holding office settled elsewhere, - in Salem,
Charlestown, Dorchester, and Watertown. William Wood, referring to Boston, in
1632, says that "this town although it be neither the greatest nor the richest,
yet it is the most noted and frequented, being the center of the
plantations where the monthly courts are kept. Here likewise dwells the
governor." Johnson, in his History of New England, published in London in 1654,
speaks of the imposing edifices of the "city-like town of Boston" and of the
orderly and comely streets "whose continued enlargement presageth some
sumptuous city," while of Lynn he says, at the same time, "Their streets are
straight and comely but yet thin of houses." He tells us, in fact, that there
were only about a hundred houses for dwelling which were" built remote."
For
one hundred and fifty years Lynn continued to be a village of yeomen, who feared
God, tilled the soil, and were content with the returns yielded from their
labors.
[ xxi ]
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