Charles Francis Adams

“ No nation has any right to enter upon a war, domestic or foreign, unless it is ready promptly to meet the cost thereof in flesh and blood, as well as in money. It should not be a question of voluntary enlistment, or of mercenary service; but, if a community elects to fight, it should put its fighting force at the absolute disposal of its government. Conscription and the draft should be the order of the day,—the unmarried first, the married next; and, for the able-bodied, no exemption. Never, in the whole history of Massachusetts, was the ordeal of a war thus systematically met. ”

“ During the year 1775 ten town meetings had been held in Weymouth, and seven were held in 1776. And now we enter on a new phase of the struggle for independence. For us, with our recollections of the war of the rebellion still fresh in our memories, it is most curious to read these ancient records,—to observe how closely history repeats itself. We well remember the fierce, self-sacrificing patriotism of 1861,—how the country was all alive with eagerness, how money was poured forth like water, and how regiments enlisted faster than they could be put into the field. ”

“ That was by far the most cruel ordeal through which Massachusetts has ever passed,—one, of the deep agony of which it is not easy for us, removed from it by two hundred years of time, to form even a dim conception. I shall not pause to dilate upon it here, though, in a far less degree it is true than many of her sister settlements, Weymouth then tasted the horrors of savage warfare. Women were slaughtered and houses were burned within her limits, and the losses she sustained were sufficiently severe to induce the General Court to allow the abatement of a portion of her tax. ”

“ It smacks of the savage; it is racy of the soil; it smells of the sea. It begins with the flight of Phineas Pratt from Wessagusset to Plymouth, his loss of the way, his fear lest his foot-prints in the late-lingering snow [Pg 122] banks should betray him, his nights in the woods, his pursuit by the Indians, his guidance by the stars and sky, his fording the icy river, and his arrival in Plymouth just as Miles Standish was embarking for Wessagusset. Nothing then can be more picturesque, more epic in outline, than Standish’s voyage, with his little company of grim, silent men in that open boat. ”

“ We are always accustomed to regard the past as a better and purer time than the present,—there is a vague, traditional simplicity and innocence hanging about it almost Arcadian in character. I can find no ground on which to base this pleasant fancy. Taken altogether I do not believe that the morals of Weymouth or of her sister towns were on the average as good in the eighteenth century as in the nineteenth. The people were sterner and graver,—the law and the magistrate were more severe, but human nature was the same and would have vent. ”

“ Hull and his score of families introduced a new element of discord into the already divided community. The new comers, not in full sympathy with either faction, deemed themselves strong enough and of sufficient importance to have at least an equal voice in the councils of the town, and as there was no minister at their coming, and as they brought one ready-made at their hands, what better could they do than accept him for all? This at once aroused the opposition of the older settlers, and measures were immediately taken to prevent such a result. ”

“ That the old settlers eyed the new-comers askance is more than likely; but the enigma still awaits solution. All we know is that the little settlement, presumably at the foot of Great hill, and in and about Old Spain, was rent, not in twain, but in quarters; and soon their occupants were vociferously holding forth from no less than four rival pulpits. At last, so loud became the tumult of tongues, and so grievous was the state of spiritual affairs, that a delegation from the church of Boston made its appearance,—Heaven save the mark!—in the role of peacemakers. ”

“ The religious element which led to the settlement of New England still strongly asserted itself in the life and customs of the colony. Wealth had hardly yet begun to exercise its subtle influence upon it. Indeed, though almost all were prosperous there was little of what can properly be called wealth in the community, but there was equally little poverty. The people lived in rude abundance, and I do not believe that during the first hundred years of the history of Weymouth as many persons received public aid of the town. ”

“ He appears to have been a quiet, scholarly gentlemen, of cultivated tastes and refined habits, much better fitted for the duties and enjoyments of an English rectory, than to found and build up a church in the rough settlements of a new country. He could better enjoy the congenial society of his equals, at home, than guide the rude, independent minds of those who constituted his companions in this, to him, wholly unknown enterprise. ”

“ For, with inquirers into the events of a remote past, it is much as it is with persons looking for things in dark places. The intellectual perceptions, like the eyes, by degrees become accustomed to a murky environment; and when so accustomed, things quite invisible to others are by long-time investigators distinctly seen.
When that work of mine to which I have already referred,—the “Three Episodes of Massachusetts History,”—appeared, now ten years ago, the introductory part was entitled “The First Settlement of Boston Bay.” ”

“ Weston had organized his larger expedition, and it was already on the sea, having sailed from London about the 1st of April. Thus Thomas Weston played a very prominent part in the early settlement of Weymouth, as he had already done in that of Plymouth. He was always called a merchant, but in fact he was a pure sixteenth century adventurer of the Smith and Raleigh stamp,—a man whose brain teemed with schemes for the deriving of sudden gain from the settlement of the new continent. ”

“ The [Pg 60] continuous record of these meetings through more than a century, at once reveals the slow, unconscious growth of a great political system, and supplies the amplest evidence of the sameness of a colonial village life. To the student in the science of government these volumes of the Weymouth town records are replete with interest. In them the growth of a system from the root up may be studied. As an observing man turns over the ill-spelt, almost illegible pages, they grow luminous in their bearing on many of the most distressing problems of the age. ”

“ Two centuries and a half of municipal life are now completed, and in celebrating the event of to-day may we not fitly close with the earnest hope that the succeeding years may be as blessed as those which are past,—that unity, virtue and good-will may long find their abode within the limits of the ancient town, and that, even more in the future than in the past, “may peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces.” ”

“ Samuel Newman came to Weymouth in 1639, where he remained for four or five years, but the seeds of former troubles had not yet ceased to sprout; the difficulty was not wholly overcome; the spirit of unrest that had for some years so possessed the people would not so soon be quieted. He found his position anything but a bed of roses, and he was glad to emigrate to escape the labor of so hard a field; therefore, in 1644, he, with some 40 families, sought refuge in Seekonk, which, in memory of the occasion and its cause, he called Rehoboth, “The Lord hath made room for us.” ”

“ The Mount Wollaston settlement was, indeed, the first recorded instance of what in later Massachusetts history is technically known as “a liquor nuisance,” and the neighbors determined that considerations of public safety required that it should be abated. Those were primitive times. They enjoyed few of the advantages of our more developed civilization, and while there were no ladies of the vicinage to wait upon the then lord of Merry Mount in a spirit of prayerful remonstrance, there was also no State constabulary before whom the “rumseller” trembled and fled. ”

“ But, not since Miles Standish grappled with the savage Pecksuot in the wooden block-house at Old Spain on the 6th of April, 1623, has an armed conflict between hostile men occurred on Weymouth soil. Yet in every narrative of the town, accounts and details of its part in war, and of its contributions thereto, occupy the place of prominence. In point of fact, no war or its operations, its successes or reverses, since the death of the Wampanoag, King Philip, in 1676, has exercised any direct influence on Weymouth history, or affected to any appreciable extent the town’s development. ”

“ Then Mount Wollaston became Merry Mount, with Thomas Morton for its presiding genius. According to all showing they seem to have been a drunken, dissolute set, trading with the savages for beaver-skins, holding very questionable relations with the Indian women, and generally leading a wild, reckless existence on the bleak and well-nigh uninhabited New England shore. ”

“ Thus through eleven years, from 1624 to 1635, the early settlers of Weymouth only occasionally emerge from the oblivion of the past and are dimly shadowed on the mirror of New England history. But now, at last, in the year 1635, Wessagusset was by the order of the General Court made a plantation under the name of Weymouth, and the Rev. Mr. Hull, with twenty-one families from England, were allowed to establish themselves here. ”

“ None the less Old Spain well deserved a portion at least of that familiar title, for, next to the town of Plymouth, it is the oldest settlement in Massachusetts. And when we speak of the oldest settlements in Massachusetts, we speak of communities which may fairly lay claim to a very respectable degree of antiquity; not of the greatest, it is true, for all antiquity is relative, and that of America scarcely deserves the name by the side of what England has to show ”

“ It was shortly before this time that a Weymouth-born woman, writing from the next town of Braintree, thus described the aspect of affairs: “I am sorry to see a spirit so venal prevailing everywhere. When our men were drawn out for Canada a very large bounty was given them; and now another call is made upon us, no one will go without a large bounty, though only for two months, and each town seems to think its honor engaged out-bidding the others. The province pay is forty shillings. In addition to that this town voted to make it up six pounds. ”

“ Possibly the worthy Governor may not have been quite free from prejudice against the free-spoken, Independent minister, with Episcopal antecedents and tendencies, yet the frequent removals, numerous troubles, vexations and lawsuits, certainly give room for the Governor’s opinion. No fault seems to have been found with his moral or religious character, but he was certainly unfortunate while in this country by having circumstances so often against him, or in having so many bad neighbors. It is somewhat doubtful whether he was ever settled over the church in Weymouth. ”

“ In vain does Congress enact that whoever pays or receives the currency at a rate less than its nominal value shall not only be accounted a public enemy, but shall forfeit the amount involved in such unpatriotic transaction. In defiance of law prices steadily rise. In January, 1777, the Legislature of Massachusetts went even further, and passed a measure entitled “An Act to prevent Monopoly and Oppression.” Under this the selectmen of Weymouth, aided by a committee of their townsmen, proceeded to fix a tariff of prices at which articles were to be sold. ”

“ They have been years of great development and of healthy growth,—not such development nor such growth as is often seen in this country,—nothing, indeed, [Pg 84] which in our age may be called remarkable, for almost any active and bustling railroad centre in the Western States can boast of greater census figures; but the growth of Weymouth has been that of a thrifty, industrious New England town, and when, after the long lapse of ages, the final account is rendered, who shall say that the former growth will be found better than the latter? ”

“ Thus, through our town records, we are made to realize that republican government is in New England a product of the soil and not an exotic,—in [Pg 61] France it is a graft; with us it is the stem. The growth of this germ from the town-meeting to the General Court, from the General Court to the Continental Congress, and from that to the Government of the United States, and thence back to the great cardinal fact of force,—all this is for others to trace. ”

“ Fortunately the long trial now drew near its close. The towns of Massachusetts were thoroughly exhausted and neither men nor money could be procured. In spite of the large sums offered, recruits were no longer forthcoming, and finally Weymouth as one of many delinquent towns, became liable to a heavy fine. The wonder, however, was not that the towns were delinquent, but rather where they found so many able-bodied men as they then supplied. Weymouth, at that time, could not well have mustered over two hundred men of the age of military service. ”

“ When good old John Robinson, at Leyden, heard of the Wessagusset killing he was sorely moved. He [Pg 28] wrote out to his flock a letter of gentle caution in respect to the rough ways of Captain Miles Standish, who, though the aged pastor loved him, he yet intimated was one perchance “wanting that tenderness of the life of man which is meet.” He also referred to the Wessagusset settlers as “heathenish Christians,” and exclaimed in reference to Pecksuot and Wituwamat, “Oh! how happy a thing had it been if you had converted some before you had killed any.” ”

“ The settlement of Old Spain and of Weymouth is, therefore, [Pg 6] ancient only as things American are ancient; but still two hundred and fifty years of time carry us back to events and men which seem sufficiently remote. When the first European made his home in Old Spain,—when the earliest rude hut was framed on yonder north shore of Phillips Creek,—the modern world in which we live was just assuming shape. ”

“ In these records we see parliamentary institutions stripped of their non-essentials and reduced to first principles;—we see that the New England town-meeting democracy was the purest and simplest government of the people, for the people, which the world has yet produced. ”

“ Instead, bodily carried away, it has literally been cast into the sea; and the tide now daily ebbs and flows over the spot where, two hundred and eighty-two years ago last April, Thomas Weston’s “stout knaves” established themselves; and where, on April 6, 1623, that hand-to-hand death grapple took place between Miles Standish and the fierce Pecksuot, the result of which struck terror to the hearts of the Massachusetts savages, and gave immediate safety, and years of subsequent peace, to the infant Plymouth plantation. ”

“ Weymouth then, as now, had among its citizens a James Humphrey, and, under date of March 12th, 1781, I find this entry: “Voted—That the thanks of the Town be given to the Honble James Humphrey Esqr. for his faithful services as a selectman in the Town for more than forty years past.” Unlike so many of her sister towns, the Weymouth of to-day has never, even yet, learned enough of the science of true republican government to “rotate” its town officials. When they have had a man who was willing to serve them well and faithfully, they have actually kept him in office. ”

“ This is wholly different from colonization in good faith. Thomas Weston acted on a well-defined plan, when, early in 1622, he dispatched his company to establish themselves somewhere on the shores of Massachusetts bay. He himself expressed it:—“Families,” he said, “were an encumbrance in any well-organized plantation; but a trading-post occupied by able-bodied men only could accomplish more in New England in seven years than in old England in twenty.”
Nor was his, here at Wessagusset, by any means the earliest attempt of the sort. ”