History of New Bedford

Contents

Page CHAPTER I— The Beginnings— An Old-time Picture 5

CHAPTER n — Early Days and Doings — Settlement of Old Dartmouth — Attack by Indians — Military Records 8

CHAPTER HI— New Bedford as a Village— Joseph Rotch 13

Introduction

A reason for this work may be found in the fact that it is twenty-five years since a history of New Bedford was written. In that period New Bedford has advanced industrially until it is the first city in the United States in the value of textile products turned out by its mills, which supports the claim that New Bedford now takes first rank among all the cities in the country in the cotton manufacturing industry. This position was achieved in the last quarter of a century and the wonderful story of industrial development, with a record of the men of this generation who have wrought the achievement, should be made a matter of record.

In the period, furthermore, a vast quantity of material relating to our early history has come to light. Records have been discovered which have never appeared in any of the earlier histories, which should be preserved in permanent form. For example, only a few years ago William W. Crapo came across a portfolio written by his father, the late Henry Rowland Crapo, a New Bedford man who became Governor of Michigan. Its contents had not been disturbed for more than fifty years. It turned out to be a transcript of narratives received at first hand of the story of the British raid upon the village of Dartmouth in 1778. This record is now in the custody of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, which has accumulated thousands of pages of local history that have never appeared in print outside of the bulletins of the society. Much material from those virgin sources are incorporated in the pages which follow.

New Bedford has been particularly fortunate in men and women whose interest in the affairs of the community have led them to contribute to treasures in manuscript stored in the archives of the Free Public Library and the Historical Society. Of published histories, there are two of pretence. The first is that by Daniel Ricketson, published in 1857. This small volume grew out of a paper prepared by Mr. Ricketson for the local Lyceum in 1831. Mr. Ricketson subsequently wrote a series of historical articles for the New Bedford "Mercury," which were later published in book form. The mass of material is not presented with much regard to sequence or balance. None better realized this than Mr. Ricketson, who in one of his earlier prefaces claimed the chief value of the publication to lie in the preservation of fragments, "so that those who come after us," he wrote, "may have a nucleus round which to form a full and complete history when our youthful city shall take its place, as it is evidently destined at no very distant day to do, if it has not already, among the chief cities of the country.' All subsequent historians have drawn upon this source. It was a long interval before a second history appeared, which was that compiled by Leonard B. Ellis and published in 1902. These histories are now out of print, and it is interesting to consider that the little volume to which Mr. Ricketson gave loving care and cherished with pride now brings five dollars a volume at old book shops, whereas in Mr. Ricketson's day he could not dispose of his edition at a dollar and a half a volume.

But while the number of published histories is so limited, there is the mass of vagrant material to which we have alluded. It is constantly revealed in ancient attics and other fascinating places. Old manuscripts record not only matters of great historical value, but little details, as well as stories of men and women who lived in the high and far-off times. Through this habit of a group of narrators, we have preserved to us such information as the identity of the first man who drove a horse on Purchase street, and the first man in the town to wear suspenders, and similar annals of the days when this was a quiet neighborhood.

William Logan Fisher, who married a daughter of the late Samuel Rodman, wrote reminiscences in the later days of his life, and the manuscript is still preserved. The late James B. Congdon was an indefatigable recorder of quaint and curious events in connection with our early history, making a specialty of incidents which would otherwise have been overlooked ; and it is the judgment of historians that he used rare good discrimination. One of the most delightful of these records, only a chosen few have been permitted to read, but it will one day, it is trusted, find a repository with the Historical Society. At present its custodians are opposed to its publication, since it touches the innermost affairs of some of ow old families. This is a diary kept with the faithfulness of Mr. Pepys, and not without the charm of that famous recorder, by the late Joseph R. Anthony, in the period of 1820. It contains a record of the business of the day, including statistics of oil receipts and shipments, and stories of daily incidents, such as the journey of William Rotch in his chaise to take the boat at Newport for New York. But more important than all, is a social record. Mr. Anthony was a companion of James Arnold, and married Catherine Russell, who was one of three sisters who were the belles of the town in an older day. Lydia Russell married Governor Swain, and Sarah Russell married Joseph Grinnell. These young women loved dancing and music, and they were disciplined therefor by the Society of Friends to which they belonged. There are intimate Quaker records, and the diary is a fascinating chronicle.

The addresses of William W. Crapo, who enjoys the title of our First Citizen, made on various public occasions, are full of grace and charm, as well as historical lore: and Henry H. Crapo, his son, is a contributor to local hist(jrical literature. The community is deeply indebted to the indefatigable work of Henry B. Worth along many lines of research, and he has assembled a great deal of material representing great labor and painstaking.

From all these and many other sources we have drawn. While there cannot be variety in the bare facts of early history, we have pursued the policy of treating with less detail and circumstance the events in early Indian and colonial history which the historians who have preceded us have covered, elaborating on the personal side of events and episodes where new material has been available to supplement and embellish the older histories. Zephaniah W. Pease.

Chapter I

The Beginnings. — An Old-Time Picture of New Bedford.

The stranger within the gates of the city is quickly impressed by its contradictions of aspect. If he comes by train, his first glimpse is of stretches of great mills, congeries of tenement blocks in garish new streets — all modern. There is nothing in the first appearance that suggests tradition, or a city of mature and mellow charm.

But later, when he walks about the old town, he comes upon the great estates of a far-of¥ day, when men of fortune and taste could command room to indulge their spacious fancies. Stately mansions of stone and wood, set back from the street, surrounded by extensive lawns and ancient trees, with old-fashioned gardens, the flower beds bordered by box, and arbors overgrown with roses. These mansions are places of distinction, suggesting caste, aloofness and tradition. In the ancient days County street, or County "road," as it was called, was lined with patrician homes. Great elms towered in cathedral arches above the street, crowding into a shade ; the lindens were sweet with blossoms and musical with the hum of bees ; the birds sang in the branches ; the grass was green in the wayside ; in the pleasant gardens the flowers grew sweet and fair in the sunshine, and when the day was done

Softer than sleep — all things in order stond

A haunt of ancient Peace.

The sight of these manifestations of wealth and culture beguiles us into telling the story of the romantic age of New Bedford's history, when it led the world in the fascinating industry of whaling, and to continue the tale to the present day, a story of brave men who turned from a unique industry supplanted by modern discovery to a manufacturing avocation, in which it achieved first place. Thereby, New Bedford possesses the unusual distinction of being a city in which the clock has struck twelve twice in succession.

Since we have started with description, we may continue for a while. New Bedford has been fortunate in having admirers from early times who left records behind. Bartholomew Gosnold came in 1602, bringing a group of gentlemen adventurers, among whom was an accomplished journalist, as well as a historian who wrote an account of the voyage, which he presented to Sir Walter Raleigh. Gosnold was searching out a direct course to Virginia, and he discovered the group of islands at the mouth of Buzzards Bay. building a fortification on an islet in a fresh water pond on the island of Cuttyhunk. This was Gosnold's rendezvous.

He crossed the bay and discovered the Acushnet river, on the west bank of which New Bedford was built. Here Gosnold found "stately groves, flowery meadows and running brooks." Even at that day the hospitality of the people was conspicuous, for it is recorded that "on the shore he was met by a company of natives, men, women and children, who with all courteous kindness entertained him, giving him skins of wild beasts, tobacco, turtles, hemp, artificial strings colored (wampum) and such like things as they had about them."

Skipping over many periods, to be filled in in succeeding chapters, we come to the golden age of whaling, when Herman Melville, whose story "Moby Dick" is the finest contribution to the literature of whaling, preserved to us a description of New Bedford in the late '50s which whets interest. Writes Melville :

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets. Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays ; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees who have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water street and Wapping. In these last mentioned haunts you see only sailors but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chattering at street corners ; savages outright ; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.

But besides the Feejeeans, Tongatabooars, Erromangoans, Pannangians, and Brighgians, and. besides the wild specimens of the whaling craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames ; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there ! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor belt and sheath knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.

No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean a downright bumpkin dandy — a fellow that, in the dog days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the sea-port. In bespeaking his sea outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats ; straps to his canvas trousers. Ah, poor Hay Seed! how bitterly you will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, button, and all, down the throat of the tempest.

But think not that this famous town has only harpooners, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses ; parks and gardens more opulent, than in

New Bedford. Whence came they ; how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?

Go and gaze on the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes ; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like this?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales fiir dowers to their daughters, and portion ofif their nieces with a few porpoises apiece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see ; full of fine maples — long avenues of green and gold. And in April, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, profifer the passer-by their tapering upright cones tif congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art, which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles oiT shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

Those who visit New Bedford to-day will see such a city as Melville saw not, albeit a few of the fine mansions and opulent gardens remain. The city has now made the land tributary to her wealth. The old ships that crowded the wharves have gone. So have the industries allied to whaling — the oil refineries, the candle works, the cooper shops, the shops where harpoons and other articles of whalecraft were made. A new city has been builded. We shall tell the story of what New Bedford was and what it has retained and what it has become, a story of brave associations in which the past and present are inextricably blended, for it was the fathers who laid the foundation for the achievements which are the pride of the people of New Bedford.

CHAPTER II. Early Days and Doings

When in 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold discovered the group of islands known as the Elizabeth Islands (which he named in honor of his Queen), he left his men to build a fort and storehouse upon one of the group, while he crossed the bay (Buzzards) and discovered the mouth of the river (Acushnet) on the west shore of which later arose the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts. This was in March, and in June of the same year he sailed for England with his ship loaded with sassafras root, furs and other commodities purchased from the Indians, who had treated the strangers with "all courteous kindness." This is the first recorded commercial intercourse between New and Old England, and indicates the friendliness that at first existed between the English and the Indians. In 1620 came the "Mayflower" with her immortal body of men and women, who amid hardship and suffering founded a new nation. Other vessels with their bands of colonists anrived ; Plymouth Colony became an established fact, Salem was settled in 1628, and Massachusetts Bay in 1630. From these and from later settlements went forth the pioneers who invaded the interior and forced their way up and down the coast, founding communities, and in due time Scituate, Middleboro, Taunton and Dartmouth became known as trading points and centres of civilization, with civic government schools and churches. It was not until 1652 that Dartmouth was purchased from the Indian, Sachem Massasoit, and his son Wamsutta, the old Indian deed naming as the purchasers, Mr. William Bradford, Captain Standish, Thomas Southworth, John Winslow, John Cooke, and "the rest of their associates or old comers."

The owners of the whole township of Dartmouth, which was divided into thirty-four shares, were named in Plymouth Colony records. Book 2, page 107, where the boundaries of the purchase are also set forth. The owners were : Mr. William Bradford, one whole part or share ; Captain Standish, Mr. John Alden, Mr. Collyer and Sarah Brewster ; Mr. Howland and William Bassett ; George Morton, Manasses Kempton, James Hurst, John Dunham, Sr., John Shaw, Sr., Francis Cooke, John Cooke, Joshua Pratt, George Soule, Constant Southworth, Thomas Southworth, Miss Jennings, Steven Tracye, John Faunce, Henry Sampson, Philip Delanoye, Miss Warren, Robert Bartlett, William Palmer, Edward Dotye, Samuel Hickes, Peter Browne, Francis Sprague, Moses Simons, Samuel Eaton, Thomas Morton, Samuel Cutbert, Edward Holman, Edward Bumpus. While these were the owners of thirty-four shares into which the purchase was divided, there were other settlers in the township prior to 1652.

The town of Dartmouth was incorporated in 1664 and sent its first representative, John Russell, to the General Court at Plymouth. John Cooke, one of the boys of the "Mayflower,'' and the only one of the original grantees of the town who became a resident, located his home in Oxford Village, Fairhaven. He was a Baptist preacher, represented the town at Plymouth court six years, was authorized to make contracts of marriage, administer oaths, perform various legal duties, and was one of the important men of the town. He died in 1694, and was buried at Burial Hill. Fairhaven. The will of William Wood, when probated, was found to contain this bequest: "And whereas the bodies of some persons that were of good account in their day were buried on the little hummock or island in the meadow at the foot of my homestead commonly called 'Burial Hill,' and I not willing that their graves be any way defaced do therefore in this my will hereby give the said hummock or island to or for a burying place forever." During King Philip's war the township of Dartmouth was laid waste by the Indians, many of the settlers lost their lives, homes were abandoned, and those who escaped death sought safety at the garrison houses located, one at Fairhaven, just north of the present site of Riverside Cemetery, at the home of John Cooke, and known as Cooke's Garrison ; another on the north bank of the Apponagansett river, known as Russell's Garrison ; the third on Palmer's Island. The demoralization of the township was so complete that for three years thereafter taxes were suspended, and the unfortunate settlers were relieved of other burdens. With the death of King Philip the difficulties with the Indians ended, the courage of the settlers revived, and the town again resumed its prosperous way. The Indian wars which wrought such damage might have been avoided, but the difficulties that beset the Pilgrims must be considered ; and now, with the world in arms, no criticism is just that lays the blame for those years of sufifering upon either of the parties thereto ; both had provocation, both erred, and both suffered.

The devastation of the town of Dartmouth was so thorough and complete that for three years no attempt was made to reorganize and establish the government. At the town meeting held May 17, 1675, only a month previous to the destruction of the town by the Indians, "John Cooke was chosen deputy; John Russell, constable; Joseph AUinne, grand juryman ; John Cooke, Arthur Hathaway and James Shaw, selectmen ; William Earle, John Hawerd, Jr., and Thomas Briggs, surveyors." The first recorded town meeting after the war was held June 20, 1678. Seth Pope was chosen constable, and Arthur Hathaway grand juryman. Full town government was resumed in 1679, when John Cooke was again chosen deputy, and the town resumed an orderly permanent form of government. In 1685 the town was summoned to Plymouth court to explain why they had been remiss in providing for the support of a mmister of the gospel amongst them. The outcome was that in 1686 it was ordered by vote of the town that a meeting house be built that "shall be 24 feet long, 16 feet wide, 9 feet stud." Meetings of the Society of Friends were established in the township about the same time ; the Dartmouth monthly meeting was organized in 1699, the first meeting house built on the site now occupied by the one in Apponegansett, and records of the society from that date until the present have been preserved. A little later the cause of education was given public attention, and in 1704-05 Daniel Shepherd was chosen schoolmaster, his salary "eighteen pounds and his debt." In 1728 it was voted "that there shall be two schoolmasters upon the town charge besides the grammar schoolmaster." The following record, passed in 1733, shows the manner and amount of compensation : Voted "that William Lake as grammar schoolmaster paid forty-five per annum;" voted "that all people who receive benefit of the said schoolmaster by sending their children shall frankly give said master their proportional part of his diet, washing and lodging as he shall be removed by order of the selectman." In 1730 two ministers, Philip Taber and Nicholas Davis, "were chosen and approbated as ministers to dispense the word of God and promote the gospel of Christ." At the town meeting held November 23, 1730, the town by vote placed itself on record against the sale of ardent spirits. In 1736 the bounds between Dartmouth and Tiverton were defined by the selectmen of the two towns. In 1739 a new town house was ordered built. Captain Samuel Willis, George Lawton and John Rowland being chosen a committee to superintend its erection. In 1747 an effort was made to have Acushnet Village set off from Dartmouth, but it failed. In 1758 the township was compelled to furnish its quota of soldiers as follows :

Return of the men inlisted or impressed in Dartmouth for His Majestys Service within the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the regiment: Whereof: Ezra Richmond by — 5 col, to be put under the immediate command of His Excellency Jeffrey Amherst. Esq.. commander-inchief of His Majestys Forces in North America, for the Invasion of Canada. Samuel Tripp, aged twenty-four ; James Salter, seventeen ; George Hack, thirty: Corn's Spooner, twenty-six; George Jenne, twenty-four; Josiah Warren, seventeen; Zernal (?) Haskell, thirty-four; Nathaniel Haskell, twenty-seven; Thomas Wilwoks (?), seventeen; Gideon Sherman, sixteen; Joseph Caswell, nineteen; James Jones, (Indian), twenty-three.

P. S. These men marched to Lake George. 1758.

A Muster Roll of the Company from Dartmouth in His Majesty's Service under the command of Baeachiah Bassett Captain 1760; Samuel Tripp, Joseph Caswell, Josiah Drew, George Hack, Jehazael Jenny, James Jones, Gideon Sherman, Thomas Willcoks (all served seven months).

A Muster Roll of the Company of Foot in His Majesty's Service under Command of Captain James Andross in a regiment raised in Dartmouth by the Province of the Massachusetts Bay for the Reduction of Canada, Whereof: Thomas Doty, Esq; Colonel; Privates, John Rouse,

NEW BEDFORD ii

James Spooner, William Willcocks, Aholiah Washburn, Philip Washburn, Isaac Wickom, John Peagon.

1760 — Stephen Bennett inlisted March 10, aged twenty-two; Benjamin Brownell inlisted March 20, aged twenty-seven ; Gideon Bennit inlisted March 17, aged eighteen; John Tucker born at Dartmouth, residence at Boston.

In this connection the following further extracts from the military records are of interest :

Pay Roll of the Company in His Majestys Service Under the command of Captain Josiah Dunbar, Esq; 1763; John Tobey (Fathers name Timothy) served from March 20 to November 19, Silvanus Tobey Bazeliel Washburn. Thomas Washburn, Richard Charles Waist, (probably Waistcoat, as that name is found in the Roll), served from March 24 to November 19, as privates; George Hack served from March 22 to November 19.

List of officers Commanded for the end. Regiment of the Militia, First Company in Dartmouth in the County of Bristol, July, 1771 ; Captain Elnathan Tobey, First Lieutenant Samuel Pope, Second Lieutenant Elnathan Sampson, Ensign Chillingworth Foster (since made a lieutenant).

List of officers Commanded for the Second Regiment of Militia in the County of Bristol Zaccheus Tobey, ist Major 1762.

First Company in Dartmouth ; Captain Ebe'r Akin, Lieutenant Jona Winslow, Ensign Elnan Tobey.

Second Company in Dartmouth ; Captain Job Almy, Lieutenant James Wilkev. Ensign Joshua Richmonds, Ensign Jerh. Giff<-ird.

Third Company in Dartmouth : Captain Ezek Cornell, Lieutenant William Hix, Ensign Samuel Brownell. Lieutenant Benj. Davall.

Fourth Company in Dartmouth : Captain Benjamin Sherman, Lieutenant Thomas Dennes, Ensign John Babcock.

Fifth Company in Dartmouth : Captain Hezh. Winslow, Lieutenant Benj. Terry, Ensign James Clark.

During the first century of the history of the town of Dartmouth, many settlers had located in the town, not attracted by its fertile soil, but had made their homes there far away from the large centres that they might enjoy religious freedom. The growth of the township was necessarily slow, and the events recorded in the foregoing pages comprise about all of public importance that transpired. Agriculture during the first century was the principal employment, and the land appears to have been taken up by a class not particularly Puritan, many of them Quakers whom the government at Plymouth, if court orders are an indication, found it difficult to control. A frugal and industrious people, the early settlers of Dartmouth do not appear to have been guilty of any other ofifense than the want of obedience to the rigid requirements of the court in regard to the support of a minister and the observance of the Sabbath. The efforts of the court were baffled with steady perseverance, and in 1691 the payment of taxes was refused, and the town sent no representative to the General Court. There was the usual amount of friction between the religious sects, the Quakers coming in for their full share of persecution in Dartmouth as elsewhere. In 1724 John Tucker and Peleg Slocum refused to pay a tax for building a Presbyterian church at Chilmark, and their property on Elizabeth Islands was seized. Yet to the Quakers of Dartmouth and Tiverton, aided by the Baptists, must be given the honor of the first successful appeal for justice to the English government.

In 1723 John Atkins and Philip Tabor, of Dartmouth, Joseph Anthony and John Sisson, of Tiverton, were assessors of their several towns. Being Quakers and Baptists, they refused to collect the taxes imposed by the General Court of Massachusetts for the support of ministers, for which act of insubordination they were imprisoned in the common jail at New Bristol. When the case was argued before the King's Privy Council, it was decided that the officials must be released and the taxes remitted — a notable decision for the Society of Friends, as it marked the termination of the persecutions to which they had previously been subjected. The people of the town were frequently under rebuke of the General Court for negligence in military affairs. The chief military officer of the colony, writing in 1690 of Dartmouth, said : "They have not a man in the town that seems in the least to be concerned whether we have any military officers or no." A postscript to a general return of arms and ammunition indicates the same condition in 1757: "The four companies of the town of Dartmouth are deficient, and the biggest part of them are Quakers." In the years that followed, this same loyalty to their religious principles caused the Friends great distress and loss of property, as well as a charge of disloyalty to the government during the Revolution ; but. notwithstanding their refusal to pay military taxes and to bear arms, they were as a people loyal in their sympathies for the cause of freedom, and there are several recorded instances of their having borne arms. In 1716 Dartmouth monthly meeting bore strong testimony against slavery, and a century and a half later New Bedford established a noble record as a city of refuge for the runaway slave and as a station on the "Underground Railroad."

Krcirn an did PaiTiting by William A. Wall.

was Main (now Union, at tlie corner of Water). Opiiosite the store I is tlie sign of .faliaziel Jenney. .lenney is represented as conversing rnev. tlie next on tlie ripht: and near tlie stone post at tlte norlliwest .> tifiures intended for Abraham Russell and Williani Rotch. Jr-. .'^ull right, and opposite the barber's shop of Nathaniel Rogers, are Samuel lid I'apt. liowlaml R. ("roclier. In front of them and near the nortlieast

more figures, one intended for Mr. Wall's father: and the otlier. leanorner of the store, was intended for no one in partieular. Still furtlier in rront and near the group of etdoreU persons, is Barnabas I'aber; aufl in the chaise near the center of the picture, is William Rotcli, Si-. The female near is Pattv Hussey. The man by the side of the team mav luiss for Caleb Sherman. The boys in the five-wheeled cart were playmates of .\Ii. Wall, one of them (ieorge

I-T..1I-I.1 n.l If Ml- W..11 it- fiiiii-iiL'^ri t Q.l o l? *\m .li.ii-ui .:. . , f tli.. tlit.ti.i tit.ort-f-.iiu in t ll il i-laml. .Ir. M three negroes in the