Swansea Stagecoach Master Document

The Swansea Stage Coach
Robert N. Cool Editor
Steering Committee
Mrs. Ellis A. Waring Chairman
Miss Rachel L. Gardner
Mrs. David F. Pierce
Published by The Swansea Historical Society
Post Office Box 67
Swansea, Ma. 02777
1976
Articles were transcribed by Claire Dietz and posted on rootsweb
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/RIGENWEB/2004-04/1080835236
Table of Contents
PREFACE..................................................................................................................................................4
Explorers by Robert N. Cool.....................................................................................................................5
A Pilgrim's Choice by Robert N. Cool......................................................................................................6
Monsters from the Past by Marjorie E. Walkden......................................................................................8
First Inhabitants by Charles R. Loverin...................................................................................................10
We are a New Frontier by Robert N. Cool..............................................................................................12
John Myles, A Founder by Harold C. Riendeau......................................................................................14
Colonists and Indians by Robert N. Cool................................................................................................16
WEETAMOE by Robert N. Cool............................................................................................................19
Farewell to Plymouth Colony by Robert N. Cool...................................................................................21
In and Out of School by Rachel L. Gardner............................................................................................23
A Colonial Farmer Writes His Will by Ruth A. Waring and Louis F. Fayan, Jr......................................25
Again in Revolution, A Key Area by Robert N. Cool............................................................................27
Swansea in the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 by Constance M. Rose............................................29
To The Sea by Ruth A. Waring................................................................................................................31
A Busier, Noisier Swansea by Barbara N. Ashton...................................................................................33
The Luthers and Their Corner by Ferdinand J. Loungway.....................................................................36
Samuel Miller's Diary by Helen R. Pierce...............................................................................................39
Ghosts by Robert N. Cool........................................................................................................................41
A Remarkable Man by Mary E. Nottingham...........................................................................................42
REFORM AND CIVIL WAR by Robert N. Cool...................................................................................44
Faster and Faster by Helen Pierce...........................................................................................................47
HURRICANE!! by Irene S. Myles..........................................................................................................49
Naming the Schools by Catherine C. Shea..............................................................................................51
Swansea Grows by Helen R. Pierce........................................................................................................53
Places Then and Now..............................................................................................................................56
Sources.....................................................................................................................................................58
................................................................................................................................................................58
Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................59
PREFACE
The articles in this book were first published as twenty-four issues of a weekly
newspaper, providing lively segments of local history to stimulate pride and
interest in the Town of Swansea. These papers were distributed to the sixth,
seventh and eighth grades of the Swansea Public Schools as a Bicentennial gift
of the Swansea Historical Society to these young people.
The material presented is not intended to be an all-inclusive history of the town.
It is rather a study of the lives and surroundings of some of the inhabitants from
the first settlement to the present time. The text has been prepared with great
respect for accuracy and proper documentation. With the publication of ”The
Swansea Stage Coach" in book form, the information becomes available to a
wider circle of readers. It is hoped that the book will serve as an impetus for
further study of the history of Swansea.
Explorers by Robert N. Cool
"In this exciting school term of 1975-6, will you, perhaps sometime remember
this Bicentennial year as the one during which you discovered the historic
character of your home town? If so, you will be in good company. For the uneven
shores of these points of land between the Taunton and the Seekonk Rivers,
fronting southward at the very head of Narragansett Bay, are rich in historical
events and meanings. Many an early explorer, his ship blackened by months at
sea, entered this bay as in a New World paradise and fetched up sharing the
sunlight with wooded Gardner's Neck, spectacular Mount Hope, the inviting
Kickemuit, and those Rhode Island lands which the Indians prized, and once
formed part of Swansea. Going ashore, Indian trails beckoned the seafaring
strangers into shady forests, noble uplands--always contained by the region's
many rivers.
We believe that Viking sailors 1000 years ago probably saw this Swansea
waterfront. Navigators from Portugal at the crest of its 16th Century glory, could
easily have been here.
While the Spaniards were busy in the Caribbean where Columbus had pointed
the way to a rich and helpless continent, what is now New England received
more casual attention. Among those who came and saw and reported favorably
on prospects for settlement or trade was the Venetian sailor Verrazzano, an
Italian in French employ. Cruising northward along the coast in 1524 he marked
Block Island and entered a great bay. So clearly that it can be recognized did he
describe Newport harbor.
Now these discoveries may seem rather far back in time but they aren't. Every
generation discovers anew its place of living. And the young person of average
curiosity soon finds a real interest in his area's past. "The Swansea Stage
Coach" is based on the idea that local history belongs naturally to the young, in
and out of school. Climb aboard!
A Pilgrim's Choice by Robert N. Cool
Early in April 1621, the Mayflower prepared to return to England. This sturdy little
ship had brought the first group of European settlers to Plymouth on Cape Cod
Bay. All winter, since they were put ashore at Plymouth Rock in December, 1620,
the men, women and children had suffered from cold and hunger. Many perished
from sickness and were buried on the high hill overlooking Plymouth Harbor.
Now 14 year old Elizabeth Tilley stood on that hill watching the Mayflower's crew
shake out the sails. There was still time to return with the ship to Europe as
several had urged her to do. For the first winter had struck very heavily at this girl.
Both of her parents and her uncle had died. An orphan, stilll shaken, Elizabeth
calmly decided to remain. So did all the others who had survived.
Perhaps they dreaded the idea of another sea voyage back across the Atlantic
Ocean. Perhaps the warm promise of spring in the air of this new continent
stirred hope in hearts which had almost lost the high confidence that brought
them here. Elizabeth belonged to the close religious group of Pilgrims who had
fled from England to Holland to escape repression by the King and his state
Church. After a dozen years in Leyden, Holland, they had migrated again –
landing in a wilderness where they hoped they would be free as English
colonists.
Elizabeth Tilley was somewhat shy. But her pleasant face reflected a certain
stubborn courage born of innocence and quiet thinking. Two ideas had led to
her decision not to go back to relatives in England. One was something that
happened on the voyage out. She had often remembered how one of the
footloose young adventurers, a servant boy and no Leyden Pilgrim, had fallen
overboard from the pitching ship in a great storm. But the Lord had saved the
youth, John Howland, by letting him grab one of the topsail halyards as he
struggled in the water. Sailors on deck had been able to haul John Howland out
of the sea even as the Mayflower staggered on past him.
This clear case of a divine providence watching over them had been confirmed,
Elizabeth recognized, by the fact that the young man, John Howland now
promised to be a very useful leader among the men.
She could hear the faint sounds of commands and the seamen's familiar cries
drifting from the Mayflower's anchorage. For a moment she hesitated. The other
idea which led her to remain was the progress that had suddenly been made in
friendly relations with the Indians. These copper colored native Americans of
the region had seemed hostile back in December when Elizabeth's father and
uncle had both been with Pilgrims who exchanged shots for arrows in a fray on
Cape Cod. That was still talked about as the First Encounter.
But, during March, less than a month ago, the long uncertainty of the winter had
dramatically ended when a stalwart brave, "stark naked, only a leather about this
waist", walked into the Plymouth street.
"Welcome, Englishmen" he called out. This Indian was Samoset, a chieftan
from the north who had learned English from fishermen on that coast. A few days
later Samoset introducted Squanto, the only local Indian left aftter a plague
had wiped out his tribe. Soon afterward, the great Wampanoag sachem
Massasoit arrived from his town of Sowams. He made a treaty of peace with the
gun-bearing white men.
Elizabeth Tilley about 1624 married John Howland. Serving Plymouth well, he
later became a pioneer among new settlements in the colony. One of the
couple's children became firmly linked to the founding of Swansea in 1667. It was
the Howland's youngest girl Lydia who married James, the capable son of John
Brown, an original Swansea purchaser. This elder Brown bought Wannamoisett,
a part of Massasoit's Sowams that is now Riverside, R.I. There he and his
descendants lived and Swansea developed with early centers there at Nort
Swansea and Gardners Neck.
As the colony grew, many new towns sprang up. The original Swansea included
all that we know now in addition to what is now Somerset and much of present
eastern Rhode Island. Swansea extended from the Taunton River to the west
channel of Narragansett Bay until after 1700. At least three Howland daughters
seem to have married men identified with the town.
In 1672 John Howland died. The book Saints and Strangers by George F.
Willison lists him as dying in Swansea. We know his wife was living there with
their daughter Lydia Brown at her death in 1687. Swansea town records say she
passed on "aged 80 years" on the 21st of December. That was almost exactly 67
years after she stepped ashore from the Mayflower, presumably on Plymouth
Rock. She was one of the last three survivors of the Mayflower Pilgrim company.
Elizabeth shared in plenty of history around here. Though not famous, she can be
seen as a young person whose choice proved very sound.
Monsters from the Past by Marjorie E. Walkden
A large boulder north of Swansea Village is known as Abram's Rock. The tall
oak treees at its base whisper of the Indians who once trod the ground beneath
them or rested in their shade. King Philip might have rested here when hard
pressed by his enemies. Farther than the eye can reach were the lands of
Massasoit.
Swansea has many huge rocks that are named for their weird shape, location,
or legends told about them. One has only to know the story and then visist
them to realize their importance in the history of the town. "There is hardly a
rock, hardly a stone but which is breathing forth history," wrote Orrin
Gardner.
The most familiar legend handed on to us about Abram's Rock is that he was a
poor Indian who had deserted his tribe, coming to this settlement where he
made his living in peace. But King Philip of the Wampanoags decided to take
Abram back, fearing his friendship for the white men. Abram found this towering
rock as a hiding place. On the west side is a room formed by boulders. It is
still called "Abram's Bedroom"-- after 300 years. He is said to have lived
there for several months until tracked down and captured. He was given a
chance for his life. The sentence was death or three leaps from the top of the
rock to the ground below. Abram took the chance and tradition says that his first
and second leaps from the towering rock were safely made but the third jump
killed him.
Another legend is that about the middle of the 19th century a poor family
made its home in "Abram's Kitchen" and under the roof of rocks a child was born.
Abram's Rock, as well as other "pudding-stone" formations in the area having
names like Lion Rock and Wildcat Rock may be visited by following the trail
and cart path from the Town Hall or Christ Church car lots.
Another impressive one, Hiding Rock, may be seen by following a stream off
Wilbur Avenue, west of Pearse Road and about 100 feet north of Route 103. In
this cave, Corbitant, son-in-law of King Philip is supposed to have taken refuge
when ill. The story is that when knowledge of his sickness reached the Plymouth
colonists, women were sent with remedies which cured the chieftan.
It is also told that during the Revolution about 1776, some loyal Englishmen
(Tories) hid here to avoid fighting the American rebels. Their wives brought
them food while they hid in the cave to escape arrest.
Uncle Jeremy Brown chose a large rock in the same area on which compose the
verses that made him famous in this part of Massachusetts more than 200 years
ago. He would stand on the topmost pinnacle and recite them in a booming
voice, then rush home to write them down.
In North Swansea, off Route 6 east of the Martin House and west of Bushee
Road is an interesting group of ledges. One is known as Spinning Rock--a large
flat-topped boulder where colonial wives used to gather on summer afternoons.
In the cool shade they would work their spinning wheels and talk.
Devil's Walk is a Rock that bears many impressions on its surface. Local
folklore has it that these prints, much like human footprints, are those of the
Devil. Nearby looms an immense flat rock called the Devil's Table. Ghostly
"feasts" were held there by moonlight,to terrify children who heard such tales
when the only light came weakly from tallow candles in lonely farm houses.
But this rock had another use: Indians and soldiers of the Revolution used its
height as a platform for signal fires.
Farther to the south can be seen Margaret's Cave, or "Meg's Cave" as it is
sometimes called, where an Indian by that name lived with her only son, a boy
whom she loved as warmly as any English mother lover her son. But some
European voyagers wanted to take back across the sea a sample of the natives
here. Meg's only child was captured and taken off to England. She became bitter.
But in 1636 it was Meg who sheltered Roger Williams on his mid-winter trek from
Salem where he had been banished to Providence which he founded.
On the west side of Market Street, Route 136 near the Swansea-Warren line may
be found King's Rock where Indians from all over New England used to
celebrate their victories in tribal wars and talk about their peace treaties. In this
rock can be seen a hollow where Indian women ground their corn for the feast.
Some of these great rocks of Swansea are boulders deposited by glaciers
thousands of years ago. When the ice melted it left these huge chunks of stone
poised on hilltops or deep in what are now woods. Others are broken ledge
formations of "pudding-stone"--mixtures of stones and fragments pressed into
tremendous masses as if made with cement. They come to us from early ages,
often to play a spectacular or merely curious part in our local history. Thereafter,
generations of young people find a special interest in the odd stories that
haunt these natural "wonders" of Creation. Swansea provides good specimens of
quartz, flint, shale, feldspar, granite and conglomerates. These are mixtures
fused together.
First Inhabitants by Charles R. Loverin
The Sachem was the leader of the Wampanoags. Sub-Sachems and Sagamores
were lesser leaders of smaller groups. The Sachem did not make decisions of
great importance without first seeking the opinions of the other Indians. No
decision was his alone to make if it affected all the people under his leadership.
The most noted Sachems of Wampanoags who were important in Swansea
history were first, Quasamequin later known as Massassoit who ruled from the
time the settlers arrived until his death in 1662. His son, Wamsutta ( who was
given the English name of Alexander) ruled briefly in 1662 until he met his death.
His royal village was Kickemuit (Swansea). Some historians think that he may
have been poisoned by white men. His brother, Pometeron (King Philip) rule from
1662 until he was slain in 1676 at Mount Hope by John Alderman, a Sakonnet
Indian under the leadership of Captain Benjamin Church.
Philip's death ended King Philip's War (1675-1676) or, as I wish to call it "The
War for Indian Independence" One hundred years later, the colonists
fought their "War for Independence".
Another important leader, a Sagamore and chief of the Mattapoisett and
Pocasset tribes of the Wampanoags was Corbitant. His tribes were native to
Swansea, Somerset, Fall River and Tiverton, Rhode Island. He is believed to
have been the father of Weetamoe, wife of Wamsutta and later the Squaw
Sachem of the Pocasset Wampanoag tribe. Corbitant very early was unfriendly to
the English settlers.
The Wampanoag Tribe with its main town of Sowams located not far south of
Barneyville, occupied all of the lands that finally became Swansea and much
more. In looks, the first people were not red but actually brownish or copper in
color. They varied in body size and structure as did the white man. It is
also worth noting that they did not suffer from Measles, Scarlet Fever, Smallpox
or any other disease until the white man came and infected them.
The natives of Swansea were also strong and physically adept at running.
They liked to play all kinds of games, many of which have been adopted by our
own society (dice, Lacrosse, hide and seek) and they also loved group singing.
The male seldom worried about baldness or shaving. What little hair came to
his face was pulled out with clam shells. Children were never in need of
spankings or discipline. They grew up with too much pride and respect for the
family to bring them discredit. Perhaps this is something we could learn from the
early natives.
This time in history - the 17th Century --found the New England tribes a
stationary people on their own tribal lands. They did shift their homes within
these tribal boundaries during the year, depending on the seasons and sources
of food. They had winter homes, one for autumn hunting and a summer
residence. Each site was built for permanent living.
The home of Wampanoags was called a "wetus" and was built large enough for
their needs, to house a family or several families. It was made of saplings
stuck at one end in the ground in a circular or oval form. These saplings were
bent over to form a rounded roof and tied at the top. Some had an opening at
the top, in the center, to allow smoke to escape, but, admittedly, not always
large enough to do an adequate job. Around the inside were bench-like
structures made of soft boughs and furs. These were used for beds. There were
hook-like objects for hanging foods and utensils used in cooking. A hole in the
center of the floor was made for the fire. The wetus had openings for entrance
and exit through its bark or mat covering.
The cluttered wetus in the Wampanoag village were surrounded by cleared
fields where the Indians raised their food. All land was held in common use by the
tribe. The native American never understood the white man's concept of land
ownerhip and wealth.
The Wampanoag dressed according to rank, need and climate. During warm
weather, the men usually wore moccasins and breechcloths. The women- bare to
the waist- wore an apronlike article of clothing. In colder weather, they all wore
a poncholike covering, leather leggings and breeches. Furs (worn on the inside)
were added as it became colder. Some men wore turkey feathers braided in their
hair and belts or straps of wampum which distinguished the leadership
role. The Wampanoags did not wear the elaborate headdresses that are
characterized in films and on television.
We are a New Frontier by Robert N. Cool
In every life, we like to think that there is a time of innocent beauty when
the present is unmarred and the future lighted by hope. Every day - particularly at
sea or in the country--the moment of dawn lifts the spirit with such a feeling of
newness.
Swansea' peaceful, unmarked period--when far- travelling Europeans and the
hospitable Indians shared a paradise together--lasted about 50 years. During
that time, before 1675, Swansea was Plymouth Colony's southwestern frontier. It
was the Wampanoag Indians' capital and main garden spot.
We are talking about a series of beautiful peninsulas, bold and some gentle,
which reach out southward into island-studded Narragansett Bay. Now we know
them as Brayton Point (Somerset), Gardner's Neck, Touisset, Mount Hope or
Bristol, New Meadow Neck, Barrington and Riverside, R.I. At first, of course,
these points had Indian names as did the half dozen rivers which separate them.
Indian trails through the forest were the only highways.
Occasionally, the babbling headwaters of a river or an open hillside gave a
lonely traveler some idea of where he might be. In the earliest days, journeys
were made on foot. A felled tree trunk, a dugout canoe or perhaps a small
raft-- but more often wading got one across the many streams.
Because our present Town of Swansea lay between Plymouth where the Pilgrims
had settled in 1620 and the main town of Massasoit who was the chief of all the
Indians in the region, white men came here almost immediately. But not
until later did they decide to live so far from Plymouth.
In late June 1621, two Pilgrims came out of the woods on the east bank of the
Titicut (now Taunton) River. Finding the wading place well north of here,
they crossed over and plodded southward. Then the path swung sharply
westward,taking then along what is now Marvel Street, Cummings Road, Locust
Street, Vinnicum Road. It was the same wooded, hillly land that we know today.
And the reason the path ran so far north was to avoid the rivers and swampy
meadows near the bay.
Edward Winslow, a young printer and Stephen Hopkins, a servant youth who had
visited theNew World before were on their way to Sowans. They had been sent
to repay the friendly visit to Plymouth of the great chief Massasoit. Of course,
these two Englishmen had no idea that they were also making themselves
Swansea's pioneers.
Winslow had already become the first man to marry at Plymouth and soon he
was to be chosen its governor. The next recorded visit to what is now Swansea
took please rather suddenly. Squanto, one of Plymouth's two helpful resident
Indians, was reported to have been killed by Corbitant somewhere near our
present Town Hall. Corbitant a minor chief, lived at Mattapoisett (Gardner's Neck)
and was slightly suspicious of the Pilgrims 30 miles to the eastward. On
hearing that he had murdered Squanto, several Plymouth soldiers rushed to the
scene. Fierce Myles Standish wanted to punish Corbitant but after a brief fight,
Squanto appeared unharmed.
More typical was the third known visit to Swansea Town. In 1623 Edward
Winslow hurried westward with a companion when Plymouth learned that
Massasoit was very sick at Sowams, where a Dutch ship lay at anchor. This time
the hikers crossed at what later became known as Slade's Ferry. It is interesting
to note that the Indians ran a ferry boat of some sort there long before white men
came. The bridge appeared in 1876.
From the bank of our Taunton River, the two men climbed the long hill, now in
Somerset, and walked on to where now is Swansea Village. Corbitant was not
home and word came that Massasoit had died and the Dutch ship had sailed. But
the Englishmen did not turn back. Reaching Sowams, where Warren and
Barrington face each other across an interesting harbor formed by the Palmer
River entering Narragansett Bay, Winslow quieted all the Indian witch doctors
and grasped the feeble hand of his old friend . Massasoit thought he was about
to die but Winslow's simple "medicine" brought him around. Lost eyesight came
back and he lived for many years, ruling the Wampanoag federation with trust in
the whites.
John Hampden is said to have been Edward Winslow's companion on this
successful mission on the Swansea frontier. Hampden was an English Puritan
gentleman who resisted the long efforts of King James and Charles I to govern
England without Parliament, by "divine right". He might have been interested in
the New England experiment. But he was busy in Parliament as early as 1621
and after refusing to pay "ship money" - an illegal tax- he gave his life fighting
against Charles I in 1643. His name was given to Hampden Meadows in R.I.
Edward Winslow, whose visist led Massasoit to cry "Now I see the English are
my friends and love me" must have carried back to Plymouth a clear impression
of this land and it s varied attractions. He saw towns spring up west of Plymouth.
But he left New England in 1646 before settlers reached here.
John Myles, A Founder by Harold C. Riendeau
This is primarily the story of John Myles. He and Captain Thomas Willett are
credited with being the founding fathers of Swansea.
A Puritan, Tom Willett came to the New World from Leyden, Holland to make his
fortune. Here he worked hard as a trader, shipper, real estate operator,
politician--and prospered. When not serving as the first mayor of New York,
Captain Willett lived on Wannamoissett Neck and present Barrington, R.I. which
became part of Swansea when the town was organized in 1667. He died in 1674
and is buried in Riverside, R.I.
Reverent Myles, on the other hand, lived a far different sort of life. He
was born in 1621, son of Walter Myles of Newton, Hertfordshire, England. He
graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford University in 1636 at the age of 15.
Nothing more is recorded of his life until he began to preach in Wales as an
Independent at the age of 23.
To understand John Myles and his influence on life in New England we must
glance at the religious climate of the times. This was the reason for his
emigration to America. People took their religion very seriously in those days.
Dissedents were harrassed and sometimes hanged. Government and religion
exerted a direct influence on each other.
John Myles became a Baptist after visiting a church of that sect in London
in 1649, when Parliament had overthrown the king. Myles returned to Wales and
started a Baptist church in Ilston, just outside of Swansea. The ruins of
this church are still there, down a narrow country lane. On the wrought iron
fence surrounding the granite ruins a bronze plaque is attached. It says that
this was the first Baptist church in Wales, led by John Myles from 1649 to 1660.
When in 1662 the new King Charles II resumed the royal drive against
dissenters, John Myles and his Baptist friends left Ilston with their church records
and sailed for America. In Boston they found that Baptists did not fare too
well with the Puritans so they travelled down to Rehoboth. There they held a
Baptist meeting at the home of John Butterworth. But soon they were fined for
having an unauthorized meeting. Rev. Myles and his flock then moved south of
Rehoboth to the upper part of New Meadow Neck, and there built their first
church. A house for the minister stood nearby later to be called the Myles
garrison house.
In 1667 Plymouth Colony granted to Thomas Willett, John Myles, Stephen Payne
and two others the right to establish a new town south of Rehoboth at the end
of Mount Hope Bay. It contained parts of present East Providence, Barrington,
Warren and Somerset. Pastor Myles was given the privilege of naming the new
town after his beloved Swansea, Wales.
A small market town and coal port, that Swansea had been given its name by a
Danish king, Sweyn, in the 11th century. He conquered and ruled much of
England and called this town Sweyn's Ei or Sweyn's Harbor. The English
pronounced it "Swansea".
Captain Willett and Pastor Myles now had their new town, Willett for trading
purposes and Rev. Myles to lodge his flock of Baptists. They were good
friends and the town motto became "Toleranace Wins Prosperity" John Myles
was not only the founder of the first Baptist church in Swansea which survived
and grew. In 1673 he also became the town's first school teacher. He spent a
month in each section of the town, which had no special school houses at that
time. Only six years after the founding of the town, a town meeting set up a
school for the teaching of grammar, rhetoric and arithmetic and the teaching of
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Oxford graduate Myles received the sum of 40 pounds
per year.
King Phillip's War found the pastor preaching in Boston but he was called
back to Swansea in 1678 when a new meeting house and parsonage were built
at Tyler's Point in present Barrington. This location is about three miles south of
Myles Bridge. In a cemetery there, stands a boulder to signify that presumably
John Myles, who died in 1683, is buried nearby. One of the pastsor's sons
became the first rector of King's Chapel in Boston. Another John, Jr. lived in
Swansea, serving for years as town clerk.
John Myles and Tom Willett were two strong personalities who literally carved
Swansea out of a wilderness. Willett, the trader, the real estate operator,
the politician and Myles, the example of religious tolerance and the
intellectual. Both were needed. Both worked in harmony to build this town where
people could live in comfort, beauty and brotherly love. Who can say who was
the most important?
I like to think that Swansea' s history of tolerance, respect for the rights of others
and its reverence for qualilty education began with John Myles.
Colonists and Indians by Robert N. Cool
In 1643 Roger Williams,who visited the Wampanoags in what became Swansea
and Seekonk before he founded Providence, wrote the best book about these
Indians. Here are parts of "A Key Into the Language of America"
"The natives are of two sorts (as the English are) Some more rude and
clownish who are not so apt to Salute, but on Salutation re-salute lovingly.
Others, and the generall, are sober and grave and yet chearful in a meane, and
as ready to begin a salutation as to re-salute which yet the English generally
begin, out of desire to civilize them.
What Cheare Netop is the generall salutation of all English towards them.
Netop is friend. They are exceedingly delighted with Salutations in their own
language. Cowaunkamish, my service to you, is a special word of salutation.
They are remarkably free and courteous to invite all strangers in and if any
came to them upon any occasion (business) they request them to come in if they
come not in themselves.
I have acknowledged amongst them an heart sensible of kindnesses and have
reaped kindness again from many, seven years after, which I myself had
forgotten. There is a favor of civililty and courtesy even amongst these wild
Americans, both amongst themselves and towards strangers.
Of eating and entertainments, parched meal (Nokehick) is a ready and very
wholesome food, which they eat with a little water, hot or cold. I have
travelled with near 200 Indians 100 miles through the woods, every man carrying
a little basket of this (Nokehick) at his back, and sometimes in a hollow leather
girdle about his middle sufficient for a man three or four days. With this
ready provision (food) and their bow and arrows are they ready for war and travel
at an hour's warning. With a spoonful of this meal and a spoonful of water
from the brook, have I made many a good dinner and supper.
They generally all take tobacco and it is commonly the plant which men labor
in, though women managing all the rest. They say they take tobacco for two
causes, first, against the rheum which causes the toothache, which they are
impatient of, and secondly to revive and refresh them, they drinking nothing but
water.
Whoever comes in while they are eating, they offer them to eat that which
they have though but little enough prepared for themselves. It is a strange
truth that a man shall generally find more free entertainment amongst these
barbarians than among thousands that call themselves Christians. Howling and
shouting is their alarm, they having no drums or trumpets; but whether an enemy
approaches or fire break out this alarm passes from house to house.
They lay wood on the fire plentifullly when they lie down to sleep winter and
summer-----their fire is instead of our bedclothes. And so themselves and
any that have occasion to lodge with them,must be content to turn often to the
fire, if the night be cold and they who first awake must repair the fire.
When they have a bad dream which they conceive to be a threatening from God,
they fall to prayer, at all times of the night, especially early before day.
I once travelled to an Island of the wildest in our parts, where in the night
an Indian had a vision or dream of the Sun darting a Beam into his Breast,
which he conceived to be the Messenger of Death. This poor native called his
friends and neighbors and prepared some little refreshing for them, but himself
was kept waking and fasting in great humiliations and invocations for 10 days
and nights.
Nature and custom give sound sleep to these Americans on the Earth on a board
or mat.
Having no letters nor arts, 'tis admirable how quick they are in casting up
great numbers with the help of grains of corn, instead of Europe's pens and
counters.
They hold the band of brotherhood so dear that when one had committed a
murder and fled, they executed his brother; it is common for a brother to pay the
debt of a deceased brother.
Their virgins are distinquished by a bashful falling down of their hair over
their eyes.
There are no beggars amongst them, nor fatherless children unprovided for.
Their affections, especially to their children are very strong so that I have
known a father take so grievously the loss of his child that he hath cut and
stabbed himself with grief and rage. This extreme affection together with want
of learning makes their children saucy, bold and undutiful.
Home is a solemn word amongst them and no man will offer any hindrance to
him who after some absence is going to visit his family. Two families will live
comfortably and lovingly in a little round house of some fourteen or sixteen
feet over and some more families in proportion. They point with the hand to
the sun, by whose height they keep account of the day, and by the moon and
stars by night, as we do by clocks and dials.
They are as full of business and as impatient of hindrance as any merchant in
Europe. Commonly they never shut their doors, day or night and 'tis rare
that any hurt is done.
From thick warm valleys where they winter, they remove a little nearer to
their summer fields; when it is warm spring, they remove to their fields where
they plant corn. Sometimes, having fields a mile or two, or many miles apart,
when the work in one field is over, they move their house to the other. If
death fall in amongst them, they presently remove to a fresh place. If an enemy
approaches, they remove into a thicket or swamp, unless they have some fort
to move into. Their great remove is from their summer fields to warm and thick
wooded bottoms for the winter. They are quick, in half a day, yes, sometimes
a few hours' warning, to be gone and the house up elsewhere, especially if
they have stakes ready pitched for their mats. The men make the poles or
stakes, but the women make and set up, take down, order and carry the mats
and household stuff.
The sociableness of the nature of man appears in the wildest of them. Their
desire of and delight in news is great as in the Athenians, and all men, more
or less. A stranger that can relate news in their own language, they will
call Manittoo, a God. Their manner is upon any tidings to sit 'round, double or
treble, or more as their numbers be. I have seen near a thousand in a round
(circle) where English could not well near half so many have sat. Every man
has his pipe of their tobacco and a deep silence they make and attention they
give to the speaker. Many of them will deliver themselves either in a relation
of news or in a consultation with very emphatic and great action, commonly an
hour, and sometime two hours together.
Canounicus, the old high sachem of the Narragansett Bay (a wise and peaceable
Prince) once in a solemn oration to me, in a solemn assembly, using the
Indian word ll'unnaumwayean (if he say true) said "I have never suffered any
wrong to be offered to the English since they landed, nor never will. If the
Englishman speaks true, if he means true then shall I go to my grave in peace
and hope that the English and my posterity shall live in love and peace together."
I replied that he had no cause (as I hoped) to question the Englishmen's
faithfulness, he having had long experience of their friendliness and trustiness.
He took a stick and broke into ten pieces and related ten instances (laying
down a stick for every instance) which gave him cause thus to fear and speak. I
satisfied him in some matters and presented the rest to the English
Governors, who, I hope, will be far from giving cause to have barbarians question
their faithfulness.
The strawberry is the wonder of all fruits growing naturally in these parts.
It is of itself excellent, so that one of the chiefest doctors of England
was wont to say that God could have made but God never did make a better
berry. In some parts where the natives have planted, I have many times seen as
many as would fill a good ship, within a few miles' compass.
The Indians have many Gods; they have given me the names of thirty-seven,
which I have, all of which in their solemn worships they invocate; as
Kautanatowit, the great South-West God, to whose house all souls go and from
whom came their corn and beans.
WEETAMOE by Robert N. Cool
When the English wanted more grass for their animals, the young Sachem
Wamsutta, chief of the Wampanoags, gave them rights to all the shore from
Taunton River around to Waypoiset. Soon the Indians' stronghold at Mount Hope
was fenced in by the English fields of Swansea.
Metacomet or King Phillip, second son of great Massasoit, succeeded Wamsutta
in 1662. Here is tells what led to the Indian uprising of 1675:
"The English who came first to this country were but a handful of
people, forlorn, poor and distressed,. My father was then sachem. He relieved
their distresses in the most kind and hospitable manner. He gave them lands to
build and plant upon. He did all in his power to serve them. Others of their
countrymen came and joined them. Their numbers rapidly increased. My father's
counsellors became uneasy and alarmed lest, as they were possessed of
firearams, which was not the case of the Indians, they should finally undertake to
give law to the Indians, and take from them their country. They therefore
advised him to destroy them before they should become too strong, and it should
be too late. My father was also the father of the English. He represented to
his counsellors and warriors that the English knew many sciences which the
Indians did not; that they improved and cultivated the earth, and raised cattle
and fruits, and that there was sufficient room in the country for both the
English and the Indians. His advice prevailed. It was concluded to give victuals
to the English. They flourished and increased. Experience taught that the
advice of my father's counsellors was right. By various means, they got
possessed of a great part of his territory. But he still remained their friend until
he died. My elder brother became sachem. They pretended to suspect him of
evil designs against them. He was seized and confined and thereby thrown into
sickness and died. Soon after I became sachem they disarmed all my people.
They tried my people by their own laws and assessed damages against them
which they could not pay. Their land was taken.
Sometimes the cattle of the English would come into the cornfields of my
people, for they did not make fences like the English. I must then be seized and
confined till I sold another tract of my country for satisfaction of all damages and
costs. But a small part of the dominion of my ancestors remains. I am determined
not to live till I have no country."
Swansea's "Dark and Bloody Ground"
There were warnings which struck fear into the settlers' cabins all that
spring. Young men whose families had been firm friends of Sachem Massasoit,
visited now his son in desperate hope of warding off the horrors of a frontier war.
Philip seemed to promise peace but his younger warriors called for blood.
Runners raced through forests to other tribes. Plymouth authorities hadn't
helped much by hanging two of Philip's men for murdering Sassamon, an
English-speaking Indian who probably had revealed the Wampanoags' war
plans.
Excellent studies have been published of the conflict which broke out when
braves from Mount Hope began their attack on Sunday, June 20, 1675. It took
the form of robbery raids on farms, until William Salisbury shot one warrior at
Kickemuit.
Then, fearing the worst, all whites streamed toward three garrison houses in
the sparsely-settled town. On Gardners Neck, near the cemetery stood the
Bourne fortified dwelling. By the Palmer River in later Barneyville was anotherthe Miles house. A third stood near Narragansett Bay, where the Browns and
Willetts long had lived.
Before the week ended, nine had been killed in Swansea and tribes were
preparing for the warpath all over New England as the news reached them. The
English, too, sent forces immediately from Boston and Plymouth to assist the
town which throughout later American history was to be identified far and wide as
the place where King Philip's War began.
Weetamoe was the widow of Wamsutta, and her sister the wife of King Philip.
As chieftan of the Pocasset Indians who inhabited the slopes of present
Tiverton, R.I., Weetamoe reluctantly joined her powerful kinsman. In going to war,
she created for herself a peculiarly sad but somehow heroic role. For in the
end, attempting to return home, she drowned off the Swansea shore while being
persued by colonial soldiers. Her body washed up on Gardners Neck amid the
salt meadowlands so freely given away by her kingly husband, Wamsutta.
IN THE MEANTIME when the Englilsh advanced from Miles Garrison to Mount
Hope-- and found no Indians there --Weetamoe and her braves joined Philip in a
move up the Taunton River and westward across Rehoboth and the Blackstone
River into Nipmuck country. In northern Rhode Island they narrowly escaped a
battle. Weetamoe moved south to refuge among the neutral Narragansetts while
Philip continued to spread havoc among western Massachusetts towns.
On December 18, 1675, Plymouth, Massachusetts and Connecticut forces
invaded the Narragansett Country of Rhode Island and practically wiped out the
Narragansett Indians in the terrible Great Swamp battle and massacre in South
Kingstown, R.I.
Thereafter Weetamoe became a fugitive. She lost her life early in the summer
of 1676 about the same time as King Philip's death in the shadow of Mount Hope
at the hands of whites and Indian allies led by Benjamin Church. Soon
afterward, Church surprised old Annawan, Philip's chief lieutenant, at Annawan
Rock off present Route 44 in Rehoboth.It is all told in the book later dictated by
Church and recently published.
Weetamoe left no record of her life. She was, however, described as proud,
loyal -- somehow ever young.
Farewell to Plymouth Colony by Robert N. Cool
One of the few battles of King Philip's War was fought in both Plymouth
Colony and Rhode Island territory. Its memory comes down to us quaintly called
"the battle of the plain", but it would be more accurate to say "the battle on
both sides of the Blackstone River." For this fight and massacre of colonial
soldiers by Nipmuck Indians started one Sunday morning in March 1676 on the
east bank of the river.
The unfortunate Captain Michael Peirce of Scituate then led his force of 70
men, under fire, across the river at a wading place significantly known as
"many holes". They thought they would take high ground in what is now Central
Falls, R.I., while awaiting help from Providence. But the Indians had laid a trap
for them,and all but one or two or Peirce's Plymouth colonists and Cape Cod
Indian allies were slaughtered as they fought back-to-back in an ever
tightening circle.Like Custer, two centuries later, Captain Peirce was among
those killed. A boulder marks the site just east of Macomber Stadium in Central
Falls, As the sad news spread from nearby Rehoboth Village, those who
remained in the Old Colony were stunned and shaken. Most of Swansea's
women and children, for instance, were among the refugees on Aquidneck Island
at that time.
After the destructive, bloody one-year war in Southern New England, Plymouth
felt entitled to claim Mount Hope. That 9-mile-long peninsula, heartland of
the Wampanoag chiefs, extended south from Swansea which also ran beside it
on the east and west. The admired peninsula seemed to have been earned by
Plymouth. Now empty, it was also claimed by Rhode Island under terms of its
royal charter. To complicate all, in 1679 King Charles II awarded to one John
Crowne a "small tract of land in New England, called Mt. Hope".
Finally the prize was definitely awarded to Plymouth Colony,but instead of
it being added to adjacent Swansea, investors from Boston were allowed to start
there a town which they named Bristol. Later it joined Rhode Island.
All the way from Diamond Hill to Sakonnet Point, Rhode Island claims
conflicted with those of Plymouth-- for its charter gave Rhode Island a border
three miles inland from Narragansett Bay.
Anyway, big changes were shaking Britain itself. She actually lumped all
theNew England colonies into one with a single hated Governor Andros. In 1689
a London revolt brought in William and Mary as rulers in Parliament. By then,
in 1691, Plymouth was merged with Massachusetts. To the shaky Rhode Island
colony this meant that now she would have to deal with a single much-larger
commonwealth on both her northern and eastern borders. Massachusetts had
been a less friendly neighbor than Plymouth, the original refuge of wanderers for
conscience' sake.
Of course, by 1691, the first generation of leaders--Bradford, Williams,
Myles, Willett had passed from the stage as had the Indians. A new, more
humane day dawned. To her credit, the Old Colony took no part in the deathdealing "witchcraft" madness which raged around Boston and old Salem for a
couple of years starting in 1693.
In Swansea, that same year, Samuel Gardner bought from Ebenezer Brenton for
1,700 pounds "all that certain neck or tract of land commonly called
Mattapoisett." These were Newport people, originally or once removed, actually
settling now on the choice shores at the head of Mt. Hope Bay. Similarly, at
Slade's Ferry on the broad Taunton River in what is now Somerset, an
Englishman started operating boats from one shore to the other for travellers.
Before William Slade commenced this operation in 1680, it is said that the
Indians maintained a ferry service there.
More significant as a sign of the new progress was Swansea on wintery Jan. 1,
1684. Farmers and sailors gathered indignantly to vote an end to the curious
"three-rank" system of admitting new families to the town. They were
allowed to purchase land according to a system which rated and established
newcomers according to their presumed wealth, social class and character. No
other town seems to have thought of such a scheme. And when, now, it was
discovered that some sought to make this status and privilege hereditary, the
freemen balked. This was in the spirit of England's "glorious revolution" of 1689
and of what the Old Colony stood for.
In and Out of School by Rachel L. Gardner
Swansea was taking its present shape. In 1717 most of the old Indian region
vanished when our farthest-west peninsula became Barrington. Thirty years
later, in a grand boundary settlement with Rhode Island, Swansea was left with
only a small triangle of land west of the Palmer River. Warren got the historic
Kickemuit.
But while this change was taking place Swansea people, in their progress, were
setting a second stamp even upon the lands they were losing. The first stamp
had been the badge of religious liberty planted by Pastor Myles and his outcast
Baptist flock. The second now became a tradition of good teaching without
cost.
Though started earlier, well-organized public education reached an effective high
level during a 33-year period, from 1702 until 1735, when Swansea's travelling
schoolmaster was John Devotion.
No painting shows us the face of this man who gave such good service that his
last contract was for twenty years. But without doubt he ore closely resembled
the entertaining, helpful and bright “brisk wielder of the birch and rule” who
helped with the chores in Whittier's poem Snowbound than that easily terrified
schoolmaster, Mr. Ichabod Crane, of Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Yet John
Devotion resemble both as he rode with his few books across Swansea, living
with one family after another.
We have to imagine him in the unlikely classrooms of those pioneer times when
girls and boys of all ages hiked miles to learn in a crowded kitchen, barn or shed.
The scene must surely have been located, also, in the great new meeting house
in North Swansea, shown here.
John Devotion was more than a worthy teacher. His name is one of a group of
trusted Swansea citizens who in May, 1721, negotiated with Barrington men to
divide up the “Pastors & Teacher Lots” as the two towns went separate ways.
In the well-written town records, we glimpse the character of the young man hired
for 17 pounds to keep school each year from October through February “in four
quarters of ye town.” Young people would be taught “to read Inglish & Lattin and
wright and sifer as there man be occasion.” He was well-educated.
John Devotion first lived near the Willetts and the Browns and Butterworths in
what is now Rhode Island. He surely moved nearer the center of Swansea later
on. His early timetable called for one month to be spent in each of several
localities as he slowly crossed the countryside. We feel that he was a welcome
visitor.
A few years after his long rule, Swansea began to build schoolhouses. Each
would have its own teacher.
An extract from The First Americans, by Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker.
“The home life of the average New England rural family was wholesome,
practical, arduous. With the first steaks of gray in the east the father was out of
bed, to strike a light with flint and steel and kindle a fire in the huge stone
fireplace. As the others arose, they took their turns at the wooden basin, perhaps
to break the icy surface before washing their faces and hands. The father and
older sons then went to the cow yard to milk the cows, while the younger boys
fed the hogs. In the meantime, the mother and daughters had been cooking the
porridge, and when the reading of the Scriptures and the family prayers had been
concluded, breakfast was ready. The family gathered around the long, narrow
table board, perhaps by the light of candles, and reverently gave thanks. After
the porridge had been dealt our in small wooden bowls, all sat down to enjoy this
early repast.
“The father and the sons then went forth to the fields for the day's work. If it was
spring or early summer, they armed themselves with hoes and brought out the
wooden plow, drawn by slow-moving oxen; if late summer or autumn, they
carried scythes and two-pronged pitchforks. While they labored, breaking the
soil or mowing wheat or stacking corn stalks, the women of the family were busy
at home. One cleared the table and washed the dishes, one labored at the
washtub, another at the soap kettle, another prepared the midday meal. The
cooking was done over the log fire in the huge fireplace. Here the skillful cook
boiled her Indian corn and kidney beans, flavored with a slice of salt venison;
here she made her pumpkin pie, slicing the ripe fruit, boiling it in a little water,
and adding butter, vinegar and spice.
“At noon the table board was set for dinner – the high saltcellar at the center,
then clumsy wooden trenchers, round pewter platters heaped with delicious
succotash, a great sooden noggin, several wooden tankards, a number of pewter
spoons, but no forks, no glassware, no china, no covered dishes, no saucers. At
the summons of the horn the worker hurried in from the fields, and the family
seated themselves on long, narrow benches on each side of the table to help
themselves to the plain but bountiful food.
“The midday mean over, the father and the boys returned to the fields for five
more house of labor, while the mother and daughters resumed their separate
tasks. As evening approached the hogs and sheep were driven into their
enclosures near the barn, where the faithful dog could guard them throughout the
night. Supper was simple – for the children, milk porridge or hasty pudding; for
the father and mother a slice of cold pork, brown bread and a mug of beer. Once
more the Scriptures were read, while the family sat with bowed heads. By eight
o'clockall were in bed.”
A Colonial Farmer Writes His Will by Ruth A. Waring and Louis F.
Fayan, Jr.
It was a hot still day in July of the year 1789. Colonel Peleg Gardner sat
alone inside the farm house where he had been born seventy years before. He
could hear the hum of the bees outside the open windows; the hens clucking as
they scratched in the dooryard. He could see the cows lying down in the far
pasture – a sign of rain maybe. He went to the door, but no farther. A year ago
he would have been out hoeing potatoes or riding down to the wharf to see the
day's catch of fish. Slowly he went back to his chair. He felt overcome by a
strange weakness. He knew he was in failing health and must write a will to
provide for his family, as his father and grandfather had done before him.,
In 1693 Peleg's grandfather, the first Samuel Gardner, with a friend, Ralph
Chapman, had bought the land called Mattapoisett Neck, from the head of Lee's
River to the head of Cole's River and south to Mr. Hope Bay for 1,700 pounds.
All the houses on the Neck had been burned by the Indians duringKing Philip's
War. So Samuel had to build a new house close by a stone wall that ran from
river to river and divided his property from Mr. Chapman's to the north. By
closing his eyes, Peleg could see that house with a fireplace so huge that a
team of horses was said to have been driven in one side of the house with logs
and out the other side.
A clock struck the hour. Peleg looked out at the tall elms shading the
house. They were a landmark of ships rounding Mount Hope and heading up the
bay for the Neck. He thought how wise his father had been to build on the high
land in the middle of the Neck where there was good farming and fishing nearby.
Many hands were needed to run a farm successfully and large families were
common. Peleg had been the third of ten children, nine of whom lived to grow up
on the farm. They learned how to clear the fields of rocks and to build stone
walls with them; how to raise cows and sheep; to grow vegetables and to plant
fruit trees. The farm was a community in itself. There was no neighborhood
store to supply its needs. What was eaten had to be grown. The girls learned
to weave cloth for their clothes from the wool of their sheep. The boys
learned carpentry in the cooper's shop and how to build boats for fishing. Peleg
was thankful his father, the second Samuel, had given him the homestead farm
when he divided his property. Peleg's older brother, the third Samuel, was
given the northern half of the Neck including the family cemetery; but
provision was made that Peleg and his family should be buried in it. Peleg
sighed. It would not be long before he would be resting there.
Enough of this day dreaming! Peleg picked up his pen and began to write.
First of all he would provide for his "well-beloved" wifeHannah who had borne
him sixteen children,of whom fourteen were living. To her he gave all the
household furniture, kitchenware, a spinning wheel and all the articles for
weaving cloth and a saddle for her horse. As long as she should remain a
widow,she would have the use of the old part of the dwelling house which had
been enlarged two years before. Now Hannah had a place to live but Peleg must
see that she was fed and clothed. He gave her a cow of her choice to be cared
for summer and winter by two of his sons. If the cow should not suit her, Peleg
instructed the executor of his will to find her another. Peleg knew she was
particular about the milk for her butter and cheese, which reminded him that he
must give her the privilege of using the cheese room. He gave her two of his
largest hogs, two pigs and the hogs' pen; a young bullock for beef each fall and
all wool and ten pounds of flax yearly and the privilege of using the weaving
room in one of the outbuildings. Now Hannah could make her clothes and
coverlets. She would need fruit for her preserving so he gave her one-half of the
quinces and as many apples in the orchard as she should want. In addition,
every year, his sons were to supply her with 4 barrels of cider and 4 barrels of
winter supplies, 20 bushels of Indian corn and 5 bushels of rye, 100 pounds of
brown sugar, 4 gallons of molasses, 200 weight of beef and 20 pounds of
tallow. Peleg was a methodical and fair man. He apportioned the amounts to be
given by each of his sons and named them in his will so there would be no
misunderstanding or backsliding.
Peleg thought for a moment. What had he forgotten? Oh, yes, wood for the
fireplaces so Hannah could cook and keep warm. He wrote down "ten cords of
wood delivered at the dore cut fitt for the fire" by five of his sons yearly. And
she must have some money. The farm couldn't supply everything. Hannah might
need a new loom, or a butter churn or maybe a new bonnet. Forty-five ounces
of silver each year should be enough. And his negro boy Pero must go to
Hannah. Peleg put down his pen satisfied that he had provided generously for his
wife of almost 50 years.
What should he do for his children? It was the custom when sons were ready
to marry to give then land on which to build and raise their families.
Daughters were given doweries of household goods and money. As for his sons,
he had already provided for Edward and James but he gave them a share of a
cedar swamp in Rehoboth and 30 dollars in silver to James along with his riding
saddle. To Peleg, Joseph and John, he left 35 acres of land apiece. Samuel
received 49 acres and Caleb 50 with all the land called Cedar Cove with the
wharf house and the fish house, the boats and all the fishing tackle. Alexander
was given 70 acres with the old homestead except for the privilges in it Peleg
had already given to his wife and unmarried daughters. Peleg turned over his
share in the fishing business to Alexander, also, and named him the executor of
his will.
Peleg was bone tired. He could do no more. On the eleventh of July 1789 he
signed his will and on the tenth of August of that year he died. He had
worked hard all his life and had prospered. He was a man of wealth when wealth
was measured not so much in terms of money as by the size of a man's farm and
the amount of his livestock. He had served in his country's militia. He had
been a devoted husband and father, and now he had shared all that he owned
with his family. Surely Colonel Peleg Gardner would rest in peace in the Gardner
cemetery on Old Gardner's Neck Road, Swansea, Massachusetts.
Again in Revolution, A Key Area by Robert N. Cool
The shores and islands of Narragansett Bay saw as much action in the American
Revolution as they had a century earlier in King Philip's Indian War. But
the center of the stage had shifted from Swansea and Mount Hope to Aquidneck
Island.
At first, all New England looked toward Boston. There the war for
Independence really began when , in the spring of 1775 the Minute Men resisted
the British troops who occupied Boston. Fighting flared at Lexington and Concord
and again at Bunker Hill, overlooking the Massachusetts capital. Finally, after a
siege which united all 13 colonies, the British withdrew at Philadelphia and
General George Washington moved southward with his raw Continentals.
The coastal people of southeastern New England were busy shipping out on
privateers, and building them in the forested coves and along the river banks of
our Great Bay. Then, in December 1776, enemy transports were sighted from
Point Judith and again from observation points on theKingstown shore. Guns
boomed futilely from a few cannon as the British ships moved toward Newport, at
the southeastern tip of strategic Aquidneck Island. Without much resistance,
thousands of red coated regulars moved into the once flourishing town from
which Tories and Patriots had fled in large numbers. The English soldiers and
their Hessian allies soon fortified Newport with a line across the island from
Tonomy Hill to First Beach. They then swarmed northward and built a fort on
Butts Hill, Portsmouth.
Shore towns fronting on Mount Hope and Narragansett Bay were seldom safe for
years after that. Enemy ships and raiding parties left their mark from Block
Island to Fall River, Bristol and the Narragansett country. In August 1777,
while Redcoats were raiding Narragansett, Americans took off from Tiverton to
attack Portsmouth. Meanwhile, a rising Rhode Islander named Nathaniel Greene
became General Washington's quartermaster general on his way to fame as the
most trusty aide of that commander and his second in command. And while Bay
youths signed on for privateering cruises, units of the first American navy were
being built and fitted out in local shipyards. Forges of the busy region
produced weapons; farmers produced food.
During 1777, also an American victory won at Saratoga, N.Y. turned the
adverse tide of war. France agreed to join the struggling colonists.
When 1778 came around, an early American goal was to drive the British from
their stronghold on Aquidneck Island. Enemy presence there seemed like a
dagger at the throat of New England. British naval attacks on the countryside
increased as if for an invasion. But two Continental frigates which had been
launched at Providence, the 32 gun Warren and the 28 gun Providence,
managed to pass the blockade and reach the open sea.
Unexpectedly on the 29th of July ,watchers saw a large fleet approaching the
bay. Powerful fighting ships and broad-beamed transports flew the flag of
France. The British even began to sink some of their ships trapped in the East
Passage as the mighty French frigates started to form an iron ring around
Newport.
American plans were under way to attack with a land force from the north. It
was a major effort under General Sullivan with assistance if needed from
Lafayette and Rhode Island's General Nathaniel Greene. As had been the case
three years earlier, troops moved to end occupation of a major New England
seaport and all signs pointed to a success that might end the war.
Unfortunatelly, August brought disaster. First, an English fleet under Lord
Howe came up from New York and disrupted French Admiral D'Estaing's
maneuvers. Then a tempest roared in from the sea, driving the French to seek
refuge and repairs at Boston.
In vain, Lafayette and Sullivan sought to bring the allied ships back. Under
stress of delay, storms and desertions, the land effort also collapsed.
Moving back up the island, a few battles occurred, but the big Battle of Rhode
Island (then the official name of Aquidneck) never took place. More than a year
later, the British left Newport of their own accord.
It went hard with some peaceful families and so-called "tories" during this
tense time. In a senior paper written at Bridgewater College, Kevin P. Austin
cites the ordeal of JERATHMEL BOWERS ESQ of Swansea who was jailed after
being cited by Gen. Sullivan himself as a danger to the patriot cause. PELEG
CHASE spent five years behind bars "from April 3, 1778 until the Peace for
refusing to take the oath of allegience to the State of Massachusetts".
Such incidents show the stress of nearby war.
Swansea in the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 by Constance
M. Rose
"What am I doing here?" the young man wondered. "Will I ever see my dear
family and home again?" His heart was filled with sorrow but his face gave no
hint to his captors of what he was feeling. For Obadiah Slade of Swansea was
on the last leg of his journey to a British prison ship anchored in New York
harbor.
While the Amercans used mines in Granby and Windsor, Connecticut for their
prisoners of war, the British kept a fleet of "hulks" in Wallabout Bay, Brooklyn
as floating dungeons. The port-holes of these old warships had been nailed
shut, and only small holes, ten feet apart, let in air for the unfortunate
prisoners.
In the most feared of all these prison ships, the Jersey, Obadiah Slade now
wondered if he could survive. The hardships were many. A few of his
companions had hammocks but most had to sleep on the hard wooden deck.
Food was poor and scant; moldy biscuits and rotten beef. Scurvy, even small-pox
struck them down. Every morning the guards called down into the hold "Rebels,
pass up your dead!"
Obadiah Slade, a patriot from the start of the war, had been captured in
Swansea where he lived with his family in a part of town that is now Brayton
Point, Somerset. When the Continental troops began massing at Tiverton for an
assault on Newport, Slade took it upon himself to help supply the troops. In
those days they had to provide for themselves on the march. Slade took his
wagons and travelled the countryside gathering everything that he could. His
actions came to the attention of the British who began keeping a watch on him.
His friends warned him that this was happening but he kept right on. The troops
had to be supplied.
On the night of April 19, 1779, a small British force came ashore at Swansea
and captured Obadiah Slade and Theophilus Luther along with four others whose
names are no longer known. As Slade was rowed down the river, he saw his
home go up in flames. This was the beginning of his journey to the "Jersey"
prison where he and Luther died for the patriot cause. Another Swansea man,
Joseph Brown, was serving as a sailor on a privateer when he was captured by
the British and condemned to the "Jersey" where he died also. Lt. William Peck
was the fourth from Swansea to give his life. He died in April 1778 while serving
under General Sullivan.
At the time of the Revolution, Swansea included the area of Somerset as well
as modern Swansea. This meant that the town had an extensive coastline.
With the British just across the Bay on Rhode Island, Swansea felt unprotected.
So, at the Town Meeting, it was voted "that there be a guard on each of the
necks for safety of the good people of the town." Twenty-two men were to guard
the shores at a pay rate of $4 per night of $2 per night with rations.
The British took possession of and occupied the island called Rhode Island.
Today it is called Aquidneck and contains the Rhode Island communites of
Newport, Middletown and Portsmouth. The Colonial leaders felt that a successful
attack on the British at Newport might be mounted from Tiverton. A large muster
of Colonial troops gathered there. These came from Providence, Rhode Island
and as far away as Connecticut. It was these troops that Obadiah Slade was
helping to supply at the time of his capture.
The travel route of the troops was through Swansea and across the Taunton
River at Slade's Ferry and then south to Tiverton. Many Swansea volunteers saw
duty at the Ferry where they were used to protect the Continental troops
crossing there by ferry boat. Slade's Ferry was just south of where the Brightman
St. Bridge is today.
With a popullation of only 1850, Swansea had on its muster rolls the names of
almost 450 men and boys who served at some time during the Revolutionary
War period. The rolls contain the names of Peck, Martin, Anthony, Bowers,
Kingsley, Pierce, Cole, Barney, Mason, Chase and Luther, names well-known in
Swansea history. The town militia had three Captains - Peleg Sherman, who later
became a Colonel; Philip Slade and Peleg Peck, who led the town troops in
engagements at Bristol, Tiverton and Warwick, Rhode Island. Some volunteers
served during the entire war, others for only a few days at a time. This last group
were men who were called for special duty at special times along the shores of
Narragansett Bay.
The Town Meeting records of Swansea show how the people of the town
supported the cause of independence from the earliest alarm. It was voted on
April 21, 1775 "that 40 guns, 250 lbs powder, 750 lbs lead and 600 flints be
provided. -- That 50 men be enlisted to be ready at a"Minute's Warning" and paid
3s a week for exercising two half days a week and 6 dolls bounty if called out of
town. -- the officers to have the same as Rehoboth pays their officers. -- that we
keep a post ride to Boston (and leave it to the selectmen how often) for the
best intelligence that can be had there." On June 1, 1778, it was voted that
"the selectmen shall provide warlike stores for every man in the town and
distribute the same at their discretion." In May 1779 "Voted that there be a
guard on each of the necks for the safety of the good people of the town; that
each man have four dollars for each night's service on guard."
From an inspection of the Town Records, it can be seen that Swansea, though
it was never the scene of any historic battle, supported the Colonist's cause
from the very beginning of the War to its successful conclusion.
To The Sea by Ruth A. Waring
Swansea faces south onto Mount Hope Bay. Small wonder then that Swansea
boys in search of adventure turned to the sea. Captain Henry Gardner, a
grandson of Col Peleg Gardner, spent his boyhood learning to sail in the fishing
boats that went out from the Gardner wharf in the Cole's River. He chose the sea
as his career. For many years he sailed his ships bound for the West Indies and
it was not all clear sailing by any means.
On Sept. 5, 1798 his ship, the Schooner Hannah, was captured on the way to
Barbados. Henry was twenty-five years old at the time. He managed to get home
over two months later in no way daunted by this act of piracy on the high
seas. In the summer of 1802 he sailed out of Bristol as Captain of the Sloop "The
Three Sisters" bound for Guadaloupe, St. Thomas and St. Croix, favorite ports
of the cruise ships of today. For some twenty years Captain Henry kept
recordss of his voyages on the ships that followed - The Schooner Eliza, the
Sloop Dolphin, the ship Fame,- the Brig Rambler, the Brig Eliza Ann.
From these records we find that a captain of a ship had to possess many
abilities. First and foremost he had to be a good navigator, since he could be
gone for months in unknown waters at the mercy of a sudd
en and violent storm. Many were the ships that were lost at sea and many
were the widows left to mourn at home. In the Gardner Cemetery on Old
Gardner's Neck Road, Swansea, there is a monument which starkly reveals the
tragedies that befell the family of Lydia Gardner Jones, a sister of Captain Henry.
She lost her husband and four sons to the sea.
In Memory of Captain Simeon Jones
and Mrs. Lydia, his wife.
He was lost at sea Sept. 1811 in his 43d year
She died May 27, 1835 in her 67th year
Also of their sons
Mr. Simeon Jones who died in Havana
Sept. 19, 1820 in his 21st year
Capt. LeRoy Jones in his 26th year
Mr. Henry Jones in his 20th year
Both lost at sea Sept. 1828
Capt. Peleg G. Jones
Lost at sea April 6, 1830 in his 35th year.
Secondly, a captain had to look after his crew as a father looks after his
family. He doled them money from their pay when they reached a port and
wanted to go ashore. If a sailor fell ill, it was Captain Henry who had the medicine
chest and dosed the patient with castor oil. His cure for the fever was to
take some onions and boil or roast them, put them in a cloth under each arm as
hot as could be borne. If a sailor died, it was Captain Henry who brought
out the bible and read passages from it when the deceased was committed to the
sea. It was up to the Captain to maintain discipline on his ship. On one
voyage, Peter Smith drank too much rum and upset the small boat he was in,
losing three dozen pineapples thereby. This disaster was followed by his mutining
on board ship. Captain Henry had to have him put in the stocks in Havana.
Thirdly, a captain had to be a shrewd business man. The ship's owners and
friends who had bought shares in the ship's cargo expected a good return on
their investment. "When my ship comes in" was an expression that meant profit
to an investor after a good voyage. It is an expression to be heard today.
On August 20, 1805 Captain Henry Gardner set forth from Newport in the Ship
Fame with Hamburg, Germany as his destination. On October 2nd, in the English
Channel, he was captured by an English cutter, the Lord Nelson and brought in
to Plymouth. From there, Captain Henry had to journey by mail coach to London
to plead his case before the High Court of Admiralty. He wrote the
shipowners that from the talk along the waterfront there was little hope of saving
the cargo. He was right. On Oct. 30, 1805 the Court refused his plea and
confiscated the cargo. From that time on Captain Henry kept to the trade route to
the West Indies. As the war of 1812 intensified, so did the British Blockade
of the Atlantic coast. According to family history Captain Henry was captured
once more before he retired from the sea to his farm in South Swansea where he
died in 1851.
He lived long enough, however, to see the mighty clipper ships sail to India
and China for the tea trade and to California and Australia with the discovery
of gold in those places. In the year 1849 alone, some 100,000 passengers
arrived by ship in San Francisco in search of gold. The clippers could get there
from Boston or New York in 100 days compared to the 120 or 150 of other
vessels. Captain Henry's son William Richmond Gardner, worked his way before
the mast and became captain of the clipper "The Monarch of the Sea" This was
built by Roosevelt & Joyce of New York in 1854. It was the pride of th U.S.
merchant fleet for many years under the command of "Captain Bill". With the
ending of the gold rush, the outbreak of the Civil War and the post-war
depression, the glorious era of the clippers came to a close. The invention of the
steamboat brought new and exciting prospects for trade and commerce on the
seas.
A Busier, Noisier Swansea by Barbara N. Ashton
If we could go back in a time machine to about 150 years ago, we would find
Swansea a very different place. For as strange as it may seem, there was far
more hustle and bustle that there is today. Far more. Let's go back. We will put
down in different places at different times and take a look at who is standing
there and what is going on. If noises or smells bother you, bring along some ear
plugs and nose clips. Parts of Swansea were noisier and smellier nack in the
1800's.
Where would you like to start? At Mason Barney's shipyard? At Dexter
Wheeler's cotton mill? At Abner Slade's tanyard? Maybe you would like to drop
in on a young woman braiding straw for bonnets that might be sold as far away
as China or as close as Israel Brayton's store at the corner of Main and Elm
Streets in Scrabbletown?
Let's put down in Barneyville just after 1800. For there, I think, is the most
amazing tale of all. So, we'll land by the Palmer River, up where it kind of
wanders around among the eel grass near Route 6. Today it's more like a wildlife
preserve than anything else. But once it was so busy and full of ship builders
there was a whole village clustered here. There was a hotel, stores, churches, a
dance hall, homes and Mason Barney's shipyard.
So, here we are in Barneyville, or Bungtown as it was called. It's 1803. What in
the world is going on? Who is that young man over there with a smile on his
face? What are they ever going to do with that three-masted ship?
The young man is Mason Barney. When he took over his father's ship-building
business a couple of years ago, he didn't even know how to use tools. But, he
has discovered he is very clever at organizing other people and getting them to
build ships. He is just about to launch the 200-ton ship his men have built for
Colonel Wardwell of Bristol. He is also launching a very profitable career.
Mason Barney's ships will sail all over the world. Let's just sidle over and take a
look at the man who will be in charge of building gun boats, whaling ships,
merchant ships, and barges that will sail to faraway ports. Using trees from the
forests of Dighton and Rehoboth, and planks from the sawmills of Attleboro and
Seekonk to fashion his marvelous ships, he will eventually employ as many as
250 people and own a shipyard that is known around the world. He is a very
clever young man.
But, as clever as he is, he will never quite master the winding, narrow Palmer
River. Look at him now. He's frowning. And time and again, until 1857, when he
will stop building ships, he will frown as his huge vessels inch their way along the
river's twisting, turning channel. More than once they will get stuck at the
drawbridge and tie up traffic for days and days. Let's leave him there, by the
bank of the Palmer River, frowning and wondering if his first ship will slip through
the water to Warren. We know the three-master will make it. And, all the others,
too.
Now, let's turn the dial on our time machine just a whisker to the right. Let's drop
in on another very, very clever man of his time, Dexter Wheeler. It's 1806 and
Dexter Wheeler is also standing by the water in a place that loks very, very
different today. Dexter Wheeler is standing by the stream at Factory Lane and
he's feeling pretty good. Dexter Wheeler, Oliver Chace, and some of their friends
have just started to make yarn in Swansea's first cotton mill. They know in their
bones they are on to a good things.
It was only 16 years ago that the Englishman, Samuel Slater, set up the first
successful cotton mill in America. He did this just up the road in Pawtucket.
Dexter's relative, David Anthony, went up there to work. Dexter, himself, had
already tried to spin cotton yarn using horse power instead of water power. He
had done this at his father's farm in Rehoboth. All of these men know the days of
the spinning wheel are over. In a few years they will all move over to Fall River
and start building cotton mill on the Quequechan River. They will be some of the
founders of an industry that will make Fall River the leading cloth manufacturing
city in the world. And, if you should read of their lives, you will almost think they
knew it. Well, anyway, today Dexter Wheeler is standing by the Swansea Cotton
Manufacturing Company on Factory Lane in Hortonville, that quiet little section of
town between the north and west forks of the Cole's River. In 1806 Hortonville
was called Swansea Factory and Hortonville Road was called Mill Road because
one of the Cole's River streams ran by that way and furnished power for grist and
yarn mills.
We'll leave Dexter Wheeler standing by one of the nation's first cotton mills
dreaming dreams that would turn to a reality almost too great to believe. But,
before we leave, let's ask if there are any other cotton mills in town? After all,
there are steams where grist mills have been in operation since Colonial time.
“Well, Dexter, are there any other cotton mills in town?” “Not yet,” says Dexter,
“but I wouldn't be surprised if someone didn't start one down by the grist mill at
Lewin's Brook.” Well, Dexter, of course, is right. He usually is. If we jump ahead
a few years we will find the Swansea Union Cotton Manufacturing Company
down by the grist mill on Lewin's Brook.
Lewin's Brook is at the site of the old Swan Finishing Company. If we stick
around here we will find the cotton mill becomes a paper mill and then goes on to
many other uses right up to the present day. This is one place in town that has
seen industry since earliest times. But, let's not stick around. We've seen a
cotton mill. Let's set the dial ahead a little and go up and visit Abner Slade's
tannery on Bark Street.
Well, here we are in all that bark. There is lots of oak and hemlock and other
bark as well. There is bark all over the place!! That is because Abner Slade, like
his father before him, is running a tannery. That is a place where you tan hides.
Maybe your father has told you he will tan your hide if you are not good. Well,
that is not the kind of hide Abner was tanning. Oh no, Abner was tanning sheep
hides, and cow hides, and all kinds of other hides. I think we will find Abner's
place a little smelly, and I wouldn't be surprised if we look carefully we will see
Abner's hands are reddish brown.
At any rate, Abner has prospered as a tanner. At first, he traveled around the
countryside on horseback buying hides from farmers. Then he sold them back to
the farmers or travelling shoemakers. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he has sold
some leather in Swansea village. For, by 1840, there were five shoemakers, all
doing business in the village. And Abner was up on the hill, tanning hides. Let's
shake hands with Abner and head back to the Swansea we know.
My, how quiet and pleasant it is. Do you think it is as interesting as when Mason
Barney built his ships and Abner tanned his hides?
The Luthers and Their Corner by Ferdinand J. Loungway
"Most people who know anything about Swansea know where Luther's Corners
and the Luther store are. This spot is one of the town's outstanding landmarks
located where Maple Avenue and Pearse Road come together on Old Warren
Road just south of Route 6 in Swansea Center. The old saltbox-type brick
building stands there with its shutters closed as though it had fallen asleep long
ago and might be dreaming of days past, even the most recent of which few of us
are old enough to remember. To be sure, on summer Sunday afternoons it wakes
up again for a few hours while open to the public as guests of the Swansea
Historical Society. Before the day is over, however, the old store is put to sleep
again for another week or when Labor Day comes, for another long winter nap.
Have you ever wondered who the Luthers were or what the Corners were like
when some of them were living there? The first Luthers came to the Corners as
early as 1747 and a century later members of the family were located on all
four corners. Joseph G. Luther, Sr. was operating the store on the southeast
corner, and lived diagonally across the street in what is now #2 Maple Avenue. A
tavern on the northeast corner, "a strictly temperance home" we are told,
was operated by James Luther until it was remodeled for a private home in 1857.
It is now #159 Old Warren Road. Henry Luther used a small building on the
southwest corner for making and mending shoes.
Captain John Luther was the first of the family to come to America. He came
to Boston from Germany by way of Dorset, England in 1635. He was one of the
original proprietors or founders of Taunton, where ninety acres of land were
assignd to him. Nine years later we find him master of a sailing ship belonging
to a company of Boston merchants and chartered to open trade with a colony of
Dutch and Swedes on faraway Delaware Bay. Sailing into the Bay for the first
time, his ship was boarded by a band of Indians for the supposed purpose of
trading. Instead, they had hatchets hidden under their blankets and murdered
the captain and two of his men. His young son and a Richard Rodman escaped;
made friends of some of the neighboring Indians and were later conducted safely
back to Boston in the spring of 1646.
From the two sons of Captain John, Samuel and Hezekiah, are descended all
the Luthers of this area, nineteen of whom are recorded as having served in the
Revolutionary War. Samuel lived in Rehoboth for a time and later joined in
the settlement of Attleboro. He sold out his interests in 1667 to join in the
settlement of Swansea. In spite of the fact that he had no formal education,
as few did in those days, he proved himself a man of such character and
leadership ability that he was ordained Elder of the Swansea Baptist Church to
succeed the dis-tinquished Elder John Myles. He became known after that as
Reverend Captain Samuel Luther.
Elder Samuel's brother Hezekiah was also among the first settlers of Swansea.
He was a carpenter which is always an important occupation in any growing
community. He took an active part in the town's public affairs. He is of
special interest to us as it was from this branch of the family that the Luther
store owners were descended.
Hezekiah's grandson, John Brown Luther, married a cousin Lydia Luther, the
daughter of farmer and tavern-keeper James Luther. It was John who had the
store built in 1815 by a young cousin Mace Luther, just beginning his trade. That
he built well is made clear by the fact that the store still stands more than
150 years later, a successful beginning as a merchant. He was succeeded as
store owner by his older brother, Joseph Gardner Luther. This accounts for the
two store signs still on the north and west corners of the buildidng, "J.B.
Luther & Co." and "J. G. Luther". Joseph was a captain in the State militia.
He also married a cousin, Tamer Luther. He served as town clerk for five
years and also as treasurer and collector of taxes. In his turn, he was very
successful in his business undertakings.
The youngest of Joseph's four children was Joseph Gardner Luther, Jr., who
succeeded his father as the last proprietor of the store from 1857 to 1903. He
served the same town offices as his father, being town clerk for fifteen years
and a Justice of the Peace for fifty-six years. He never married and so
became the last of his line.
In the early days, the store was the center of much of Swansea's social,
business and political life"the place that made the town tick", as it has been
described. It was on the main highway connecting Fall River with Providence.
Stagecoaches stopped across the street at the Luther Tavern. The day of malls
and shopping centers was still far off. The Luther store tried to provide for
all the needs of the neighbors. In such a store in 1832 you could buy
groceries, house-wares. sewing materials, clothing, hats, boots and shoes,
school supplies, medicine for men and animals, wine and spirits, farm
implements, and seed and grain. Your purchase might include 1 doz eggs at $.12
lb, butter at $.20; a ham $1.25, 7 1/2 lbs cheese $.62; 1 gal molasses $.32;
coffee pot $.25; 1 doz plates $1.00; a pair of suspenders $.08; a small pair of
shoes $.40; a pair of boots $1.25; 1 gal rum $.42; 4 pts of port wine $.64; 1 bu
corn $1.11
Mail was dumped into a large box and you picked over the pile to find your
mail. Money was scarce and customers often "bartered" or traded goods or
products of their own for needed items in the store. You might bring in a cheese
or onions from your farm and Mr. Luther would credit these to your account
against your purchases.
There was never an official closing of the store. After 1903 Mr. Luther
ceased to open up regularly. He or his housekeepter, Margaret Burns would
answer calls from customers who knocked on his door when they needed items
known to be still in stock. Mr. Luther died in 1925 at the age of eighty-six.A local
newspaper said of him " Mr. Luther's pathway through life has been a pleasant
one and he has endeavored by all means in his power to scatter sunshine among
those whose lives have come close to his." The store remained closed for the
next ten years during the last of which it was offered for sale by the Luther
heirs. At a Town Meeting in 1935 it was voted to accept the building from the
heirs as an historical monument. Two years later, it stood in the way of road
widening plans for the area and was in danger of being town down. Approval of
a WPA moving project was obtained in Washington to move the store back fifty
feet from what was then Milford Road. This proved to be a ticklish job for an
old building of plank construction under brick veneer and called for raising
additional funds among interested people.
At long last, January 18, 1941 an historical society was formed largely
through the initiative of Mrs. Marion D. Reilly of Old Warren Road, a descendant
in the tenth generation from the original Captain John Luther. The store was
deeded to the new Swansea Historical Society and Mrs. Reilly became the first
presidsent of the Society which she served for twenty-one years.
Samuel Miller's Diary by Helen R. Pierce
The weather was very important to Samuel Milller. His home was on Cedar
Avenue but his living came from the Bay. Every day in 1840 he recorded in his
book the gales, the ice, the heat and the cold. On New Year's Day the Bay was
frozen solid. He took 140 lbs of eels over the ice to Fall River and sold them
for $6.00. The next day he sold 120 lbs and bought a new eel spear. The
Whistlers and the Blue-bills were plentiful. His sons went afowling with him and
helped to dress the ducks to be sent to Boston.
By February the ice had softened. There was a southwest gale on the
fifteenth but son CALEB managed to get to Fall River for a trip to New York.
"Vessels are going up through the Bay, a passage being clear on some days,"
wrote Samuel. He painted his boat but it did not dry. However, the next day the
wind came arond to the northwest. The boat dried and the ice went out of the
Bay. It was a little too cold for the fish but clams,quahogs and sometimes
parsnips could now be taken to Fall River by boat.
March came in on a Sunday. Samuel went to meeting in Fall River and saw about
forty baptized. "Glorious Meeting"! The next day he sold 20 bushels of
clams to JONATHAN SIMMONS for $.25 a bushel. The weather was warm and
the flat fish were in. Saturday Samuel and his wife went to Fall River and stayed
until Monday. "A good time in Fall River" Twenty four were baptized" The revival
was going well. The following Sunday "our son MARTIN L. MILLER was
baptized."
April was a busy month. Samuel and his sons, MARTIN, WILLIAM and CALEB
were digging clams and fishing but now the garden must be put in. They plowed
on the fourth and finally found time to plant. Samuel took fish to market. One
day he bought 15 gallons of molasses at $.25 a gallon, 2 bushels of corn at
$.60, 2 bushels of rye at $.70 and a barrel of flour for $6.00. "Good Southern
Flour." On the last Sunday of the month they all went to meeting in Fall
River. This was a devout familly. In fact, son WILLIAM became a well-loved
minister of the Gospel and was known until his death as Elder Milller. "Blowed so
hard couldn't get home" until Monday night. Menhaden was sighted in the Bay.
May was warmer. Tautog was running. They caught 80 lbs on the twelfth. 700
cabbage plants were set out on the nineteenth. The boat-house was repaired
and they bought a new rope.
Crops were ripening in June. Lettuce and onions were carried to Fall River
with the bass and quahogs. On the thirteenth Samuel was in trouble. "Maggots
eat my cabbages. Very bad. Oh Grief." Altogether though, June was a good
month. The produce from the sea and land brought good prices in Fall River.
Samuel bought a pair of thin boots.
In July, beans and potatoes were ready for market. Haying began on the tenth.
On the eleventh "went to Spar Island with wife and sister after shells". On
the twelfth "Sister NANCY and I visited the graves of our forefathers at
Kickemuit in Warren" There was a trip to the Village to pay the postage on some
letters and the newspaper. They went out to Little Island to get seaweed for
the hog pen.
Samuel must have saved the cabbages from the maggots because he began to
market them in August. On Sunday, August 9th, the whole family went to the
funeral of JOHN GARDNER, the son of EDWARD; and on the eighteenth ,
WILLIAM WOOD, son of HALE was buried. It was hot and there were heavy
showers. Samuel concluded it was "a great corn year as ever known in Swansy.
Other produce full as good. Oh Lord, we lack thankfulness. Oh Lord, forgive us
our sins."
Grapes were ready for the market in early September. "Drawed brushwood for
T. LUTHER and C EASTERBROOKS. Once Samuel fished all night in Lee's
River and caught twelve bass. By the middle of the month the corn was safe in
from the frost. They had fetched the rolls from the carding mill. Crabs and
quahogs and scallops were in abundance and brought good cash. The first frost
came on September twenty-fifth.
Early in November the weather was awful. There were gales of wind every day
from the third to the twelfth. The Millers killed a hog on the eleventh. It
weighed 711 lbs. The meat was salted and sausage made. On the nineteeth
there were eight inches of snow but Samuel and his sons went to butcher
JOSEPH BAKER'S hogs. The tides were good for harvesting clams and scallops.
During the month there were eight snowstorms, plenty of rain and many gales.
In December, seaweed was spread on the garden. The Millers went afowling and
made clam baskets. The river froze over on the twentieth. A box of sea fowl
was sent to Boston. This is the entry for Christmas Day 1840: "Cold
continues,wind west to northwest, SIMMONS had ten bushels of clams." What
about Christmas? The place was secure for the winter. The gravel had been
spread around the house. The brushwood was at the door. The crops were
stored and the meat laid by. There was also cash. Thirty or forty dollars had been
cleared every month in the year. "The Lord be praised," wrote Samuel.
Ghosts by Robert N. Cool
Mystery, long-forgotten tragedy, drama and public spirit of a high order seem
to haunt Swansea Village as the knowing visitor glances once more at the big
Victorian mansion near the post office. Almost a year of glancing and
wondering has left me with the believe that we will never know its secret. But the
architecture of the Birch-Stevens gifts to town and humanity is so striking that
questions will be asked for many more years to come.
What sort of a girl was Miss Julia Chace who grew up in the one-story cottage
on Elm Street, so primly neat in the sun? Daughter of David and Mary
(Kelton) Chace at 24 she married a stranger who struck it rich in the gold rush of
California and died at sea after building the great house in central Swansea. I
have heard that when quite young Julia braided straw from nearby meadows into
hats for sale in the cities. Perhaps she was remarkable in being ordinary as some are.
Anyway, with respectful admiration I cross the street and stand in the wind
before her tombstone, one of two proud marble columns which flank an
expensive tomb with carved bronze doors. Seven people are memorialized on
these columns. Four of them I wish I knew more about: Julia, her two husbands
(all born in 1827) and the son Frank Stevens Birch, who had been born a year
before his father drowned in the sinking of the S.S. Central America on his way
home from San Francisco in September 1857.
A Remarkable Man by Mary E. Nottingham
James E. Birch was born Nov. 30, 1827 in South Carolina, and died 1857 just 30 years old but he had a wealth of experiences and adventure packed into
such a short life. Today we see the magnificent Birch- Stevens mansion on Main
Street in the Village and we think of this young man's career.
We don't know much about the early life of James E. Birch. It is thought
that he was poor and early went to New York before making his way to
Providence. There in 1847 he worked in a livery stable (where horses and
carriages were for rent) His employer was Otis Kelton, a Swansea man and Birch
met Kelton's half-sister, Julia Chace whose home was the small house which still
stands at 160 Elm Street, Swansea Village. It is just around the corner from the
mansion which later became Julia's residence.
About the same time, James Birch formed a friendship with Frank Shaw Stevens,
a young man who had come to Providence from his native Vermont. In 1848 gold
was discovered in far-away California. By the spring of 1849 thousands of
adventurous New Englanders were headed west on the dangerous 3000 miles
overland journey or the far longer but easier voyage around Cape Horn. Among
these travellers to the California "diggings" were Jim Birch and Frank Stevens.
They went by way of the Great Lakes and the roadless dessert-and-mountain
land route to the Pacific Coast.
James Birch, now 21 years of age, made a great deal of money in California
but not by digging for gold. A shrewd business man, he commenced to supply
one of the big needs in a new country--transportation. He started "driving stage"
with one wagon, carrying miners and their equipment from Sacramento to the
diggings 30 miles up into the mountains. Eager newcomers paid high rates to
reach the goldfields.
So great was his success that only a little over four years after that
morning in September 1849 when James Birch started driving, The California
Stage Company was sending its passenger-packed coaches on routes totalling
more than 1500 miles. The first president of this company was J. Birch and the
first vice-president was F. S. Stevens. Mr. Birch had contributed about $75,000
which he had earned in those four years. He had also put aside enough money to
establish himself and his bride in the mansion that had been built in Swansea.
All this brings us to his marriage in 1852 to Miss Julia A.B. Chace of
"Swanzy". So we know that James Birch had made the return trip to the East one
or more times. We know, also, that a daughter was born in 1855 but she died a
week later. A son was born in 1856 and he was named Frank Stevens Birch,
honoring his father's friend. This son lived in Swansea until his death in 1896
which ended the Birch line.
When he had cleared up his affairs in California, James Birch decided to
return to the East and devote his energy to the promotion of a trans-continental
stage-coach line to carry U.S. Mail. This time he chose to travel home to
Swansea by boat to the Isthmus of Panama and from there by steamship toNew
York. This was an expensive way but rather comfortable and supposedly safe
route.
All went well as far as Havana, Cuba after he had boarded the large new
steamer "Central America" at the Isthmus. The ship carried 626 persons and
more than a million dollars worth of gold. James E. Birch was listed as one of the
First Cabin passengers. Among his belongings was a silver cup, a gift for his
baby son Frank. When the Central America was one day out of Havana, she ran
into a tropical storm and sprang a leak. After those on board attempted
desperately to keep her afloat, the vessal sank. Some of the passengers and
crew were rescued by another craft but most drowned in the raging seas. Among
those lost was James Birch. Before he perished he managed to place the silver
cup in the care of a sailor who was rescued nine days later. The seaman
delivered the cup to Julia Chace Birch who had been waiting for her husband's
arrival on the Central America at New York. We can imagine her grief. James
Birch was not yet 30 years old.
Julia Birch, the widow, married Frank Stevens and they moved into the ornate
mansion on Main Street, now the Frank S. Stevens Home for Boys. From the
fortune built by the two men have indirectly come most of the public buildings in
Swansea Village; Town Hall, Public Library, Christ Church, Frank S. Stevens
School and the Joseph Case High School (now the Junior High), the Eliza Gray
Case Home and Rest Home. After Julia's death, Mr. Stevens married Elizabeth
Case,who lived in the great house until she died in 1930.
REFORM AND CIVIL WAR by Robert N. Cool
We now come to the third big military crisis that deeply affected Swansea:
The American Civil War, fought between the North and the South in 1861-1865
when Abraham Lincoln was President.
No great war comes out of nowhere. It develops over several years from
causes which can be seen, though there may not be agreement on them. Such
was the Civil War, a terrible event in American History--filled with interest,
heroism and tragedy which spread into the lives of people everywhere. It is still
"remembered" felt and studied. Its effects are part of our lives.
One thing that brought on the War between the States was the South's belief
that Negro slavery must be protected at all costs. Slaves, once imported from
Africa still cultivated cotton on great plantations long after other countries
had forbidden this forced labor.
All during the thirty years before 1860 a swelling reform movement, largely
stemming from Massachusetts had agitated against various wrongs that were
seen in American life, everything from overworking children in New England
factories to drunkeness and the "tight-lacing" which destroyed the health of girls
who wore hoop skirts. But the chief target of reformers, young and old, came to
be slavery. From Boston William Lloyd Garrison's fiery "Liberator" demanded
immediate freeing of the slaves. In the 1850s the gripping story of "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" moved readers and play audiences to cheer Eliza's escape.
But the southern planters had powerful friends particularly among northern
manufacturers who needed cotton and for years they managed to control the
U.S. government on this issue. When, however, Lincoln was elected President, it
became clear that times had changed. Recklessly, the states south of
Washington, D.C. withdrew from the Union. They set up their own "Confederate
States of America" with its capital in Richmond,Va. On the morning of April 12,
1861, Confederate gunners fired on Fort Sumter which flew the U.S. flag in the
harbor of Charleston, S.C. The bloodiest American war began, to preserve the
United States.
Swansea stood at the center of KingPhilip's War. In the American Revolution
the first scene of action was around nearby Boston and when the British held
Newport, the struggle was waged for awhile on our very door-step. The massed
cannon and rifle fire of the Civil War could not be heard in the ancient lands
of the Wampanoag where peaceful villages lay along quiet roads. But Swansea
soldiers and sailors took a full part in the bitter struggle. Every mail
brought anxiously awaited news to this rural countryside.
The names of 21 Swansea men who died in the war are inscribed on a marble
slab in the Town Hall. With a total population of fewer than 1,500 at that time,
Swansea was credited with sending 146 into the Union forces. Of these, 16
joined theNavy. Almost all who gave their lives were volunteers, many of whom
enlisted in Rhode Island regiments.
When the Town Hall was dedicated, the Honorable John S. Brayton gave a long
and complete historical address. Speaking of the Civil War, he said: "Write
down so that your children of coming time may read the story of their
sacrifices."
This we willinglly do, and in Mr. Brayton's own words of September 8,
1891,when he proclaimed that Swansea recruits "faced the nation's foe on most
of the battle fields of the Atlantic slope and of the Gulf. They helped to roll back
the haughty and desperate tide of rebel invasion that was twice shattered on
the glorious fields of Antietam and Gettysburg. They fought with Hooker at
Chancellorsville, with Burnside at Fredericksburg, with Sheridan in the
Shenandoah. They were with McClellaln in his march to Richmond by the bloody
peninsula, and they followed Grant through the Wilderness and beyond, to
Richmond and Appomattox. Others of them shared the fortunes of the forces
which captured the coast and river cities of the Confederacy, and raised the
blockade of the Mississippi." "Every man had his story. Each looked armed
battalions in the face and sustained the hostile shock of the assault. They heard
the whistle of the rifle ball which was seeking their life, the shriek of the exploding
shell, the clatter of galloping squadrons, the clash of sabres, the roar of the
cannonade, the cries of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the mournful dirge
over the dead. The blood of some of them was shed and that of them all was
offered in defense of the Union. Some languished and died in Hospital or
Southern prisons."
Hardly had military victory been won by the North when its triumph was cut
short by word that President Lincoln had been killed by an assassin. The body
of the fatherly Emancipator (for he had freed the slaves during the war) was
carried home to Illinois on a slow moving funeral train decked in black,
mourning men, women and children waiting and watching along the line.
Human Links between that time and this are difficult to find. In an effort
to reach back,I called on Mr. Leonard Maker who was born in 1885 not far from
the tree-hidden house on Bushee Road where he now lived in leisurely
retirement. I sought only to hear him say that all during his boyhood in Swansea,
the Civil War, its veterans,, memories, aching losses and perhaps its lessons had
been present - a real thing.
Mr. Maker later he got his first real job as a clerk with the Veterans'
Administration in Boston. He lived near Hezekiah Butterworth, an editor of "The
Youth's Companion" who also had been a neighbor in Swansea. The
Butterworths, like theMakers, had been settled in the Swansea-Warren section
since the time of King Philip's War.
In Boston, Mr. Maker as a youth took part in paying out the pensions to war
veterans and their dependents. Later he transferred to a federal office in
Augusta, Georgia where he observed the gloomy aftermath of war which still
lingered in the former Confederate states. He worked for the federal government
in dealings with the Shoshone Indians of Wyoming and the Sioux in the Black
Hills before being shifted to Washington, D.C. for WWI service. Finallly, in 1947,
Leonard Maker came back to Swansea to live. He is a friendly and observant
man and old enough to remember much that shouldn't be forgotten.
Faster and Faster by Helen Pierce
In 1621 when Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins went from Plymouth to
Mount Hope to call on Massasoit, they walked. In fact, for many years the
colonists walked long distances and only occasionally travelled by boat. After
awhile they built oxcarts and then began to afford the luxury of horses. Dr.
Ebenezer Winslow practiced in Swansea from 1765 to 1830 and always made
his rounds on horseback with his instruments and medicine in saddlebags. His
son, Dr. John and his grandson Dr. John W. did the same. A good saddle was a
prized possession. When Dr. John W. Winslow died at the age of thirty-two, he
willed his saddle to his father.
Finally, the stagecoach came into use. Not until long after the
Revolutionary War was there a regular service through Swansea. In 1825 Isaac
Fish was operating a line between Fall River and Providence by way of Slade's
Ferry. This meant leaving the stage in Fall River and boarding another in
Somerset. The next year a horse-boat was used at the ferry and the coaches
could be transported. A stop was made at Gray's Inn where the Case House is at
Gray's Corner. Here passengers could change to the Taunton Coach. Then the
stage went on to the tavern at Milford which stood until the K mart was built.
Luther's Tavern at Luther's Corners came next and there one could change for
Warren. Other stops in Swansea were at Short's Tavern and Graham's Tavern
near the Palmer River.
Crossing the river was no problem. A bridge had been there for many years.
In 1736 the towns of Barrington and Swansea were ordered by the Provincial
Government of Massachusetts to repair or replace theold bridge. Nothing was
done until 1749. Then Swansea petitioned the Court for permission to hold a
lottery to rebuild the bridge. Lotteries had been declared illegal by the
Provincial Government but this one was allowed because Swansea had recently
lost to Rhode Island the lands of Warren and could not raise the money by
taxation.
The next tavern was Monroe's just over the Seekonk line. These were
primitive accommodations and at times several people shared one bed. It was
unusual for ladies to travel far on the first coach lines.
It wasn't long before trains were envisioned. The first idea was a series of
horse-drawn vehicles,but the steam engine was invented and tracks laid to
carry trains. A charter was granted for a railroad between Fall River and
Providence in 1835, but plan after plan was discarded. At last in 1863 there was
action. Tracks were laid from Warren to South Somerset. From there the
passengers were taken acrosss the river on the Steamer Oriole to the station on
Ferry Street in Fall River. Now people in Swansea could journey to Providence or
Fall River in almost any weather. The Slade's Ferry Bridge was built in
1876,one of the last of the castiron bridges. It was eighteen feet wide with a
carriage-way below and an upper deck to carry the train across the river.
This same year, Mr. Edward M. Thurston of South Swansea petitioned the
General Court for permission to build a bridge over Lee's River. At a Town
Meeting in 1877 the vote went against the project because of the excessive cost
to benefit so few. Everyone from Touisset or Gardner's Neck must continue to go
through Swansea Village to reach Fall River until 1886. Then there was favorable
action on the petition brought by Andrew J. Borden for building the bridge.
Mr. Borden wanted to reach his summer home more easily. He owned one of the
original Gardner houses on Gardner's Neck, and the visists of the Borden family
to their farm in Swansea was part of the record of the trial of his daughter,
Lizzie Borden.
Mr. Thurston, in addition to a sincere wish to serve the needs of his
neighbors, saw the possibility of a larger attendance at the clambakes he served
at Point Pleasant, not far from the South Swansea railroad station. People
already came by train and boat to these gala gatherings.
The trains had improved the lives of the townspeople and increased their
numbers. The farmers now ship produce to Providence instead of carting it.
Many children went away to school, and a businessman could live in the country
the year round and take the train to Providence or Fall River every day. The
benefits the trains brought to the southern part of the town were at last enjoyed
by the people of Swansea Village, Swansea Center and North Swansea. The
Providence and Fall River Street Railway Company began to operate electric
trolley cars through these sections in 1900. The route was so winding that it was
known as the Snake Line. The original car barn is stil in use by the Gray
Chevrolet Company. Children on this route could go farther in school than the
nine grades taught in Swansea. Many went by trolley for four years to high school
in Fall River, Warren or East Providence. In turn, people from these centers
came by street car to the large public clambakes of the day, to plays and
dances in the Town Hall, and to skate at the Swansea dam. For several winters
the trolley company lighted the pond for skating. There was no other source of
electricity in town at the time.
Swansea began to grow. Gradually the streets were paved. The railroad
service was good. Then came the automobile, a luxury at first, to replace the
handsome horses and carriages of the well-to-do. Henry Ford's Model T changed
the situation. This type of mass production was followed by other motor
companies, and first the trolleys and then the trains became the victims of the
wide use of the automobile. There were motor busses for a long time, but now
they have almost disappeared. People do their rushing around in their own cars.
Later, with millions of Model T cars on the road, a new Ford touring car sold
for as little as $290- with canvas top.
HURRICANE!! by Irene S. Myles
If you were a Swansea student on September 21, 1938 you might have been
daydreaming by the school window remembering all the summer fun you had
swimming or boating on one of Swansea's three rivers. You would not have
expected those waters, driven by the force of nature to rise up ,threaten and even
destroy those who dared nature's power. Yet that is what happened that day, the
day of the most damaging hurricane ever to hit the area. The sounds of gentle
winds and waves changed to the roaring of winds, the breaking of glass, the
cracking of timbers and the crash of falling trees and of waves along the shores.
When you went home on that day, if you lived in Ocean Grove or Touisset, your
mother might have said that the water had crossed the high-tide mark three
hours early and that the waters were still rising. Yet tides are always higher
at full moon and you waited, securing boats and furniture until finally fear
of rising waters and the awesome roar of winds forced you and many waterfront
residents to move to higher ground.
In 1938 who worried about a small low pressurse area which started Steptember
fourth over the Sahara Desert in Africa? No one was really alarmed seventeen
days later until that low pressure area had grown into a hurricane which
created havoc along the southeastern New England coast, which had not had a
hurricane within anyone's living memory. The hurricane struck late in the day just
at high tide with gusts of wind recorded up to 180 miles an hour at the Blue
Hills Observatory near Boston. The combination of full moon tides and high
winds produced a huge tidal wave, 30 feet high, which swept away homes,
businesses, boats, wharves all along the shores. Entire houses disappeared
leaving only a few stones from foundation or chimney.
Two of the 84 deaths in the greater Fall River area occurred in Swansea where
100 homes were destroyed. One man drowned on Route 6 when three cars were
swept into the raging and flooding Coles and Lee's Rivers. Many lives were
saved there by three men in rowboats who evacuated drivers from cars stranded
in the swirling waters. The second Swansea life was lost in Ocean Grove where
most of the houses were swept from the low areas by the flood waters.
Damage from the three assaults - high winds, flooding and the great tidal
wave caused over $400,000,000 worth of destruction. It was two weeks before
electric power returned to the stricken area. Schools doubled up and shelters for
the homeless were set up at the Gardner School where they were fed and
clothed by their more fortunate neighbors. Boats of every size were destroyed by
the hundreds, blown ashore and washed inland. Most amazing was the huge oil
tanker, Phoenix, which was carried from the Shell Oil Terminal on the east shore
of the Taunton River to end finally yards inland on the west shore highway in
Somerset. It took two months for a plan to be implemented to get her afloat.
In 1635, William Bradford, the first Governor of Massachusetts, reported in
his diary "Plimouth Plantations" of the damage done by the September gales to
the few houses, boats and many trees. He noted that waves rose "to 20 feet up
and down" Much later the great gale of September 1815 is remembered from
graphic accounts of the experience of Samuel Gardner and his five sons who
fought for several hours to stay alive during that hurricane. Two of the boys
brought their sailboat home from Tiverton "with bare sticks"sails down. The father
and his other sons were washed ashore on Long Beach, now Ocean Grove,
when their dock and fishhouse were swept away. That storm was followed in
1816 by a summer when icy ponds in June were succeeded by July snows. No
crops were successful and food was scarce all the next winter.
Winter storms have left their mark as well. History records that in 1779 you
could drive a horse and wagon all the way to Newport on the Bay ice. The
temperature in 1857 went to 23 below zero and the Bay was frozen for six weeks.
Ice cutters had to cut channels through the ice for four miles for the Fall
River Line steamers. A storm in 1869 stranded a schooner which had unloaded a
cargo of nails on the Fall River Iron Works Dock, near where the Big Mamie is
now anchored. Kegs and nails were washed away and found all over the
Swansea shores. The worst of the great blizzard of 1888 spared this area but on
June 22, 1904, an ice storm bombarded Swansea with hailstones which broke
windows and destroyed crops.
It became the practice of naming hurricanes with girls' names. In 1954 the
area was visited by three mean ones - Carol -August 31; Edna, September 11;
and Hazel, October 15. Waters washed 100 yards inland. Evacuation centers
were set up at Case High School to help those who saw all their possessions
either swept down the Bay or buried under the debris of their homes. National
Guardsmen and Boy Scouts were called out to patrol to prevent looting. Luckily
none of these three storms struck at high tide or carried the tidal wave which
caused such damage in 1938.
Now everyone is paying attention to storm warnings. Neighbor pitches in to
help neighbor "get the boats out" at threat of a real blow. People living along
the shore leave for safer places. Thanks to the complete weather-warning
systems, there has not been any loss of life as in the hurricane of 1938.
Naming the Schools by Catherine C. Shea
Everything has a name! How did the Gardner School get its name?
Samuel Gardner was the first of his name to settle in Swansea. On December
30, 1693 he, with Mr. Ralph Chapman, purchased Mattapoisett Neck, now
Gardner's Neck.
One of many descendants was Job Gardner born in 1826. After attending town
schools Mr. Gardner learned the mason's trade. He found he was more
interested in books than bricks and prepared himself for Wesleyan University.
Upon graduation he was elected to teach school in Swansea Village. He loved to
read and write about the history of his town. Community and educational
interests led him into public office as Representative in the State Legislature; as
Town Selectman; as Superintendent of Schools; and for fifty years as School
Committeeman. No wonder District School #1 became the Gardner School.
Do you suppose the Luther School was named the same way? One of the
best-known citizens of his time Joseph Gardner Luther was born in 1836 in the
family homestead at Luther's Corners. After being educated at Classical Institute
in Warren, Rhode Island and at Kent's Hill School in Readfield, Maine, he
succeeded his father in the mercantile business at the Luther store. As he was a
careful business man and able financier, his store prospered. It became a
meeting and trading place for the townspeople. Mr. Luther endeavored to be
helpful, pleasant and honest in all his transactions. Today the Luther store has
become a museum, one again a meeting and remembering place.
Mason Barney was a shipbuilder and a great one. In 1802 when he was not yet
20, he inherited the shipyard from his father Jonathan. Although he found he
had little manual dexterity, he did know how to organize and teach others in
the use of tools. Not only did he direct the work in the shipyard but he
controlled all the business in North Swansea. He utilized his surroundings- the
river, the sea, the forest and the people to great advantage. He even minted
his own coins, called "Bungtown Coppers". He was postmaster, store-owner,
banker, shipper, lumberman, and shipbuilder. If you stand on Myles Bridge near
the Mason Barney School, you can see where the shipyard used to be. One of
Swansea's Bicentennial projects is the placing of a memorial boulder by the
Swansea Historical Commission to mark the Mason Barney shipyard.
All the schools we have talked about were named for people but the Bark
Street School was not. It was named for the street nearby.
The business of tanning hides began in that area prior to 1816. At that time,
Benjamin Slade owned a bark house and tanyard, situated on the east side of
the street. Strips of bark were laid out on the streets to dry and use in
tanning. Benjamin bequeathed his businesss to his son Abner who travelled
through the countryside on horseback purchasing hides to tan. Under Abner's
able direction, a large and lucrative business flourished on Bark Street. The Bark
Street School was built in 1905 and was the first of our present day schools.
Let us ask about the Brown School. Miss Elizabeth Brown was the daughter of
Henry Brown, the coachman for Mr. Frank Stevens of Swansea Village. He was a
freedman from Kentucky who, with his family, soon settled into Village life.
Elizabeth was educated to become a teacher. She was elected by the School
Committee to become primary teacher at District School #2 in the Village. She
continued in this position in the Frank S. Stevens School built in 1908. She
was later appointed the principal, becoming the first black person to hold such
a position in Swansea. Because of her devotion to the welfare of children and
her high ideals of citizenship which she imparted to them, it was voted by
the representatives of the townspeople to call the new school the Elizabeth
Stevens Brown School. She lived 1879-1941.
What about the Frank S. Stevens School? As the Frank S. Stevens, Joseph Case
Junior High and Joseph Case Senior High Schools have a sharing of their
history, let us start with the oldest, the Frank S. Stevens School.
Frank Shaw Stevens, born in Rutland, Vermont in 1827 lived a story-book life.
He early learned "the inestimable value of property" At five years of age
he was sent to Westfield, New York to live with an uncle and to earn his keep.
At thirty-one, when we first hear of him in Swansea, he was classed as a
millionaire. Between these years he had many adventures. He had been a
storekeeper, a grain merchant, a '49er in the California gold fields, a vigilante in
San Francisco, and a mail-coach driver. He planned and ran the first mail stage
between Sacramento, California and Portland, Oregon. Later he helped to
establish and manage the Consolidated California Stage Co. with James E. Birch
of Swansea as his partner.
Mr. Stevens and his wife, Julia Chace, the widow of Mr. Birch, arrived her on
Christmas Day 1858. During the next forty years Mr. Stevens greatly
influenced life in Swansea and Fall River as a banker, a manufacturer and a
State Senator. With his generous gifts to Swansea - Christ Church, the Library
and the Town Hall among many others, he had learned the lesson of riches.
Wealth is a trust imposing on him who has it a duty to use it to benefit all in his
community.
In 1908, ten years after he died, his second wife Elizabeth Richmond Case,
carried on this tradition by giving the Frank S. Stevens School in his memory.
Mrs. Stevens had long been interested in having a high school education
available to all students in the town. In 1926 Swansea accepted the gift of the
Joseph Case High School from Mrs. Stevens in memory of her father, who had
been one of the early graduates of Bridgewater Normal School. Thus were the
stories of these schools entwined and so were the schools named.
Swansea Grows by Helen R. Pierce
You could smell the celery! There were acres and acres of it in the fields
along Gardner's Neck Road. Leland Gardner had built huge greenhouses to start
the celery plants and grow other plants in winter. His sons, Frank and
Chester, carried on the business. The celery, all of it bleached, was shipped
almost continuously from July to January. Cucumbers were marketed in the
spring and tomatoes in the fall. Much of the produce was sent to New York City
on the boats of the Fall River line. Every night, when the boat sailed down the
bay, the retired Captain Danger Davis sat on his porch to listen for the whistle
blown in salute to him; and the Gardners knew that their vegetables would be
in New York City in the morning. At the Hotel Astor it was printed on the menu
that Gardner's celery was being served.
Strawberries were another important crop in Swansea. Probably the Chaces
were the best-known growers. When one said Chace, he might mean Charles
Enoch on Bark Street, Nathan at Bushee Corner or John at Two Mile Purchase.
All raised berries of superior quality. Many crates were sent to the Boston Market
on the evening train from Somerset and some were carted to Providence to be
sold at dawn.
Up to 1900 and for many years after, Swansea was an area of thriving farms,
varying from truck gardening and dairy farms to fine peach and apple orchards.
This was when the Portuguese settled in amongst us. Most were from the
Azores where they had farmed and fished. They had large families and were
ambitious for their children. The youngsters worked hard in the fields but they
also attended school regularly. Soon they were taking their places with their
Yankee neighbors in town affairs. However, in 1917 when the young men
registered for service in WWI, there were many not yet at ease with our
language. Mrs. Joe Rose acted as an interpreter for them.
By this time, most of the homes on the main roads were lighted by electricity
but it had not long been so. Miss Helen Reagan remembers that the power was
first turned on September 21, 1911. People gathered on lawns to watch for the
lights; and when Lizzie Kinney's baby was born that day, she was named
Electra.
Life in Swansea had not changed greatly in many years. Large, public
Clambakes served to a thousand or more were still being prepared by the
churches, the Rebeccas and the Swansea Brass Band, among others. Mr.
Edward Thurston, selectman and legislator, served his dinners at Point Pleasant
at the foot of Hetherington Drive. People came by steamboat, train and horse and
carriage at twelve o'clock on Tuesdays and Fridays; and for the fashionable hops
held on Wednesday evenings. There were many private parties as well.
Gradually some of these people built summer homes in South Swansea and
Touisset and then Ocean Grove. They found life very pleasant so when Route 6
was constructed, some decided to live here permanently. Route 6 was an
achievement, one of the first modern highways. There were land takings in 1926
and the work went on for years. At the Town Meeting of 1930, it was voted to
widen Gardner's Neck Road and install a traffic light on Route 6 - the expense to
be divided equally between town and state. Swansea was growing. Ease of
commuting on the new road made country life attractive. Not many years later,
The Firestone Company began operations in Fall River and we had many more
new neighbors. Of course, there had been the Swansea Print Works, a thriving
concern and the jewelry factory in North Swansea; but we had nothing to
compare with the great resources of Firestone. Swansea became a residential
town for people employed in cities.
During WWII, growth was somewhat slowed by the restrictions on travel. When
the young veterans returned, there was a new surge of home building. The rise
in population did not change the form of town government, but it increased
the work and required more people to administer the town services.
Probably the greatest change was in the provision for the care of the needy.
For years the Selectmen were also called the Overseers of the Poor.
Conformity to some state laws was required, but, on the whole, this was a local
matter. Families were given orders for the necessities to be paid by the town. In
1900 there were expenditures of $561.28 for groceries, coal, doctors' bills
and burials. When all else failed, one could go to the Poor Farm. This was a
working farm on Wood St. Those who were able worked in the house and the
fields with the superintendent and his family. Sometimes tramps were lodged
there. During one year, sixty worked for their keep and then went on. Some
homes took in tramps for the night or a meal. By 1921 there were no inmates at
the Town Farm, or Poor Farm at it was better known, and at the Town Meeting,
the vote was to sell it.
In the Town Report of 1900 there is an interesting table. The tax rate was
$15.30 per thousand. There were 386 houses, no autos, 568 horses, 852 cows,
179 neat cattle, 23 sheep, 438 swine and 14,810 fowl. Most of the swine were at
the Barney Farm in North Swansea. The total valuation for the town for tax
purposes was $942,150.00. This year it is $98, 242,860.00. The tax rate now
must be high enough to provide the funds for a modern school system, police
department, fire department, water department and a refuse collection. Most of
these services did not exist in 1900.
Today, even though our industriess have gone, we have two excellent shopping
malls, augmenting the income from the smaller enterprises in town. Many of
the farms have been sold but Swansea is still a good place to live. Open spaces
are being preserved and the quality of the waterways is carefully guarded by
the Conservation Commission. There is a pleasant variety of landscape amongst
the woods and fields and along the points of land extending between the
rivers to Mount Hope Bay.
Swansea still looks to the bay watching for tankers bringing oil to power
plants. Fisherman still make a living raking for quahaugs. Occasionally a
trawler is to be seen seining for menhaden. Sports fishermen catch striped bass
and bluefish. Sundays in summer, the Bay is dotted with sailboats, and
motorboats speed over the waves. On a calm day, a canoe may appear to remind
us that the natives of Swansea back to the time of the Indians, have always
made use of the bay for transportation, profit and pleasure.
Places Then and Now
MATTAPOISETT – Indian name for Gardner's Neck
THE POINT – Southern end of Gardner's Neck
POINT PLEASANT – On Lee's River at Hetherington Drive
LITTLE NECK – Former peach orchard, head of Lee's River
THE PLAINS – Flat land along Wilbur Ave., Ocean Grove
LONG POINT – Ocean Grove
LONG BEACH – Waterfront at Ocean Grove
GREAT ISLAND – Shady Isle, Ocean Grove
LEE'S RIVER – Named for Lee family, shipbuilders
SCRABBLETOWN – Swansea Village in the 1800's
THE SNAKE LINE – Local electric carline
THE SWITCH- Fare limit at town line on Elm St.
THE TANGLE – Gardens in the estate of F. S. Stevens
GRAY'S CORNER – At Elm St., Main St., and Stevens Rd.
CASE'S HOTEL – Now Case house
PAPER MILL LANE – Site of papermill, now Ledge Rd.
DEAD MAN'S COVE – South side of Swansea Dam
EBEN'S HILL – West side of Elm St., head of Lee's River
HOT AND COLD LANE – Now Swansom Rd.
BARK ST. - Formerly paved with bark from tannery
BRYANT'S CORNER – Marvel St. at Sharp's Lot Rd.
TWO MILE PURCHASE – Bounded by Baker Rd., Purchase St.
OWL SWAMP – On upper Bark St.
LEWIN'S BROOK – Meandering stream into Swansea Dam
SWAZEY'S CORNER – Cor. Hortonville and Milford Rds.
HOOPER'S CORNER – Cor. Wood St. and Hortonville Rd.
SWANSEA FACTORY – Site of cotton mill, now Hortonville
GIDEON'S HILL – (Gideon Mason) on Locust St.
MILFORD – Site of mill and ford on Milford Rd.
PHOEBE'S POND – Opposite Milford Pond
PEEK-A-BOO – Hairpin curve at Milford Pond
HICK'S HILL – Milford Rd. at Michael Ave.
GARDNER'S CROSSING – Milford Rd. and Route 6
SWANSEA CENTRE – At Luther's Corners
THE POUND – For stray animals, Milford Rd. at Cedar Ave.
TOUISSET – An Indian name said to mean “Land of Corn”
COLE'S RIVER – Names for the Cole family, early settlers
TOUISSET PARK – Former amusement park on Seaview Ave.
BUSHEE CORNER – At Bushee Rd. and Route 6
VINNICUM'S CORNER – Vinnicum and Old Fall River Rds.
THE MARTIN HOUSE – Built 1728, Stoney Hill Rd., Route 6
SHORT'S CORNER – Stoney Hill Rd. and Route 136
BARNEYVILLE – Site of shipyard on Palmer River
BUNGTOWN – Another name for Barneyville
Sources
Acknowledgements
Cover Design – Normand Gendron
Illustrations – Barbara B. Klatt
Helen R. Pierce
Anthony A. Waring
Photography – John L. Eddy
Production – The Observatory Press, Providence, R.I.
Cover Printing and Binding – P. D. Q. Printing Inc., Swansea, MA
Distribution Committee – Miss Rachel Gardner, Chairman
Mrs. Norman Altenbrand
Miss Avis Blackway
Mrs. J. Thomas Cottrell, Jr.
Mrs. Albert Deston, III
Mrs. Paul S. Vaitses, Jr.
“The Swansea Stage Coach” is indebted particularly to the following persons and groups for
their assistance on its journey:
The Swansea Historical Society
The Swansea School Department
The Swansea Public Library
The Fall River Historical Society
“The Spectator”, Somerset, MA
Mrs. Barbara Davies for help with publicity
Misses Eleanor and Rachel Emery for indexing “The Harvester”
Mr. Douglas E. Leach – for use of map from “Flintlock and Tomahawk”
Dr. Manuel L. DaSilva – for use of ship print from “Portuguese Pilgrims
and Dighton Rock”
Mr. Herbert Adams for field trips with Editor