Taunton, Massachusetts

“ Aug. 1, '63; trans. to V. R. C., March 21, '65; des. from 22d Co. Second Batt. V. R. C., June 28, '65.
Wright, Robert, 23, —; boiler maker, Ashfield; July 26, '63, in Twelfth Infty.; trans. to Thirty-ninth, thence to Thirty-second and M. O.
COMPANY F Taunton
Captain
Joseph J. Cooper, 34, M.; nailer, Taunton; Aug. 22, '62; wd. Feb. 7, '65, Hatcher's Run, Va.; bvt. Major, [402] April 1, '65; M. O. June 2, '65; b. May 8, 1828, Preston, England; came to America, when three years old; as a boy, worked in Taunton Cotton mill; as a young man, worked at tack making ”

“ During King Philip’s War, Taunton was a base of operations for Plymouth Colony troops under Gov. Josiah Winslow. In 1686 Taunton was one of the towns which refused to comply with Sir Edmund Andros’s demands for a tax levy. For some years Thomas Coram, the philanthropist and founder of the London Foundling Hospital, was engaged in the shipbuilding industry here. In 1774, after the passage of the Boston Port Bill, the people of Taunton showed their sympathy for Boston by raising on the Green a red flag on which were inscribed the words “Liberty and Union.” ”

“ I have no clear memory of Taunton, except that it was full of people, mostly women. There were little crowds in the streets, little crowds of women, surrounding muddy, tired men who had come in from the Duke. People were going about in a hurried, aimless way which showed that they were scared. Many houses were shut up. Many men were working on the city walls, trying to make the place defensible. If ever a town had the fear of death upon it that town was Taunton, then. ”

“ By six o'clock every capable citizen of Taunton was armed and equipped. Those who had horses were already talking of going forth to meet the Duke and escort him to the loyal town. Women were hanging their windows with the costliest stuff their stores contained; children were going forth, as from Ilminster a few days before, to get flowers for garlands and green boughs for arches. ”

“ Taun′ton, Mass., county-seat of Bristol County, on Taunton River, 35 miles south of Boston. The falls of the river furnish water-power for its many factories. Taunton has long been noted for its manufacture of stoves and printing-presses, brick and iron, and its copper-works are the oldest and largest in the United States. Other products are tacks, machinery, firebrick, crucibles, cotton, flannel, silver-plated ware and solid silverware. Taunton River is noted for its herring and shad fishing. ”

“ It was a prosperous place, with a great woollen and kersey trade, which gave occupation to as many as seven thousand inhabitants. It stood high, therefore, amongst English boroughs, being inferior only to Bristol, Norwich, Bath, Exeter, York, Worcester, and Nottingham amongst the country towns. Taunton had long been famous not only for its own resources and for the spirit of its inhabitants, but also for the beautiful and highly cultivated country which spread around it, and gave rise to a gallant breed of yeomen. ”

“ While the Parliament was devising sharp laws against Monmouth and his partisans, he found at Taunton a reception which might well encourage him to hope that his enterprise would have a prosperous issue. Taunton, like most other towns in the south of England, was, in that age, more important than at present. Those towns have not indeed declined. On the contrary, they are, with very few exceptions, larger and richer, better built and better peopled, than in the seventeenth century. ”

“ Taunton was a pure pot-walling borough, and one of the most corrupt in the kingdom. It is only very recently that the pot-wallers there have been convinced that they are not entitled—as of right—to a sovereign a-head at every election! ”

“ Human nature is weak, and a man may have many faults and many weaknesses and yet be the idol of the people for many a long day.
It was at this time that I grew better acquainted with several of the families in Taunton. I was in great request when the weekly news-letter came to my uncle's house—he had one of his own as well as that which was brought to the Mayor; for, as I have said, the Mayor was a bitter enemy to the dissenting portion of the towns-folk, and that was a very large section, as the well-filled building, Paul's Meeting, bore witness Sunday by Sunday. ”

“ If one King can pull down fortifications, surely another can build them up! Taunton has held her own gallantly in times of war, and has stood notable sieges in a good cause; nor has the temper of her citizens changed. Give her but walls and towers and a few good soldiers to lead and direct her citizens, and she would hold out as gallantly as ever. ”

“ All Taunton is rejoicing. All Taunton will stand by His Majesty to the death!"
"Is that so, Dicon? thou wilt see erelong. I think it would not take much misfortune to turn Taunton back to her grudging loyalty to the present King."
"O my lord, Taunton has ever been true to the cause of liberty!"
"Ay, but not to the cause of monarchy. There is the rub. The King is now pledged to rule as a monarch; and methinks Taunton has been dreaming all this while of a Commonwealth." ”

“ The young men remained in Taunton two weeks after the funeral. We all went on a little excursion to Buzzards Bay and to Cape Cod. I never saw better behaved men, even those that come down from Boston, than those two miners. They received a great many attentions, too, here in Taunton and every day were obliged to decline invitations to dinner. ”

“ I think I have said before that Master Hucker—as we had hitherto called him—was a great serge-maker of the town of Taunton. He had his mills in the fair valley of the river Tone hard by the town, and he had a fine house within the city, where he lived with his wife and his daughter Eliza, who was one of the maidens of Miss Blake's school, and had been engaged upon that goodly task of working the colours for the Duke's army. ”

“ My heart was in Ilminster, but I was kept at Taunton by my work in my uncle's house. Life was beginning to move in its accustomed grooves again, and I had my set duties to attend to, and could not rove about almost at will, as I had done during the months of distraction and excitement during which life seemed to have entirely changed its conditions. I could run to and fro in the town, and visit friends there at leisure moments; read or tell the news to poor Will; and make a little boyish love to Lizzie, who grew dearer and dearer to me every week. ”

“ The grave, square-bearded, broadclothed burghers, and their portly dames in velvet and three-piled taffeta, looked down from every post of vantage, while here and there a pretty, timid face peeping out from a Puritan coif made good the old claim, that Taunton excelled in beautiful women as well as in gallant men. The side-walks were crowded with the commoner folk—old white-bearded wool-workers, stern-faced matrons, country lasses with their shawls over their heads, and swarms of children, who cried out with their treble voices for King Monmouth and the Protestant succession. ”

“ I tell you, sir, that it would not take more than a few words from some amongst us to get you stripped and set where that poor lad is now; and there's not a man amongst us but would be glad to lay lashes on your back—ay, and we would too, if once our blood was up. So if you value a sound skin, go while there is yet time! Taunton Town is not trodden so much in the dust yet that she cannot rise in revolt against a monster like you! ”

“ I know more of the forces at the King's disposal than the country folks here seem to do, and my fears are therefore greater, and my hopes less strong, than those which fill the breasts of the citizens of Taunton. If ill betide this rising, there will be evil days to follow; and those who are most known to have taken a part in it will be subject to most danger. I have no right to counsel you, madam; but I have that claim upon Mary which bids me warn her what she is doing. ”

“ I certainly knew that, for I had a calendar of mine own, and studied it with care; but why Taunton should be so joyful on that account I did not know, and my puzzled face said as much.
"Why, boy," he said again, "thee such a scholar and [Pg 40] not to know how the good folks of Taunton suffered and starved when holding the town for the Parliament against that villain Goring, who sought to win it back to its allegiance to a traitor King? Hast never read that page of history, nor how it was relieved on the eleventh day of May? ”

“ They appertain to the State sovereignty as exclusively as powers exclusively delegated appertain to the general government.
The license acts of Massachusetts do not purport to be a regulation of commerce. They are essentially police laws. Enactments similar in principle are common to all the States. Since the adoption of its constitution they have existed in Massachusetts. A great moral reform, which enlisted the judgments and excited the sympathies of the public, has given notoriety to this course of legislation, and extended it, lately, beyond its former limit. ”

“ So the Viscount went off down the street on foot, followed by the admiring glances and the reverences of all the people. He replied to these very courteously; but I was grieved that all the brave show at Taunton and the welcome received did not make him more hopeful of the result of the great rising. However, there was but little time to think of these things, for already a mighty muster of towns-folk was assembling about the open space at our corner, and I well knew for what purpose they had thus assembled, and was in no mind not to be in the foremost rank of the spectators. ”

“ All Taunton and the West Country would rise for him, as they rose for the rights of the nation against the King's father. The poltroons of London may lick the dust before a Papist usurper, but not we of the free West Country! We will know the reason why before we bow to a Papist, be he never so much the King's brother! ”

“ It really seemed to me as I rode into the town that Bridgewater had striven to outdo Taunton in the welcome she gave the Duke. I heard that already he had been proclaimed King there; that the proclamation had been [Pg 293] read in great state, the magistrates in their gowns standing by, and, as I also heard, not unwillingly either. Flags were flying, and windows and balconies were decked as in our town, whilst the faces of the people looked as gay and happy as though no such thing as doubt or fear existed. ”

“ Arrests had been made of certain persons, and the Duke had fled and hidden himself.
Mr. Vincent also told us, with great seriousness, that rumour had already been forward to declare that an insurrection had commenced, with Taunton as its centre; and counselled us, as we valued the peace of the realm and our own safety, to avoid any cause of offence, and to remain perfectly quiet and tranquil. The time might come in the future when it would be a righteous thing to rise up and strike a blow for the liberty and the faith of the country, but certainly that day had not yet come. ”

“ The grant was for all the lands lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, extending westwardly from the ocean. On the 19th of March, 1628, the council of Plymouth made a grant to the Massachusetts settlers, of the territory destined to form the colony of Massachusetts. This grant was of all the lands lying between the Merrimac river on the north, and three miles south of Charles river, from the Atlantic or Western Ocean, on the east part, to the South Sea, on the west part. ”

“ Sir William Portman often appeared in the city, and stayed for a few nights in his fine old timbered house, with its many gables, that is still the pride of Taunton [Pg 147] amongst those who are learned in the matter of domestic architecture. He frequently appeared in the streets, and when occasion served spoke to the people in such a way as to encourage them to maintain tranquillity and avoid giving cause of offence. ”

“ What do you say, fellow-townsmen? Shall not Taunton be restored to her former glories? Can she not do even as she did before?"
"Ay, ay; that she can."—"Give us walls and soldiers, and we will show the usurping tyrant what Taunton can do."—"Where is the King? Let him but give the word, and every man among us will become for the nonce a stonemason, that we may begin to build our walls afresh!"
Such were the cries of the citizens, and such their enthusiasm in the cause. There is nothing so catching as the martial fever, except it be the panic which sometimes sets in afterwards. ”

“ It is obvious from these public papers, the effect of which is admitted by both parties, that the southern boundary of Massachusetts was described with sufficient accuracy; and the only matter to be done to fix it with perfect certainty, was to run on the earth, and through the then uninhabited wilderness, the line described in the charter.
The bill proceeds, after referring to the surrender of the letters patent of the council of Plymouth, in 1635, 17th June, and the planting and purchasing of what now is the territory of Rhode Island; which facts are not material or controverted ”

“ We were assured by this time that all England would declare for the Duke, and that he would make Taunton his capital in the West, and perhaps even allow himself to be crowned here (so fast did our imaginations and our tongues outrun reason and sense) ; that his enemies would fly before him, and be scattered as we heard the forces of the Duke of Albemarle had already been. In our great joy we were like men intoxicated, and every sense was strained to catch the first tread of approaching horsemen, which should betoken the coming of the deliverer. ”