Millend,
Ipswich,
1635-1640
HISTORIC
GROUND: MILL STREET
LOCATED:
WHY SO CALLED: MILL STREET PEOPLED: DENNISON’S LOT BELCHER - SALTONSTALL DEED
SALTONSTALL
AND WHIPPLE HOUSES: REMARKS AND REMARKS
PORTSMOUTH,
N. H.:
PUBLISHED
BY M.
V. B. PERLEY.
1901.
———————
Other
Publications by the same Author :
Author
of
Ipswich
History in Essex County History. pp. 2130. Set for sale.
History
of Topsfield Academy. 8Vo, price 75 cts.
History
Sketch of Linebrook Parish. Price 10 cts.
Editor,
with J. W. Nourse, C. E., of
Inscriptions
of High-street Cemetery. Soon in press.
Proprietor
of
Ipswich
Directory. Triennial, or as business demands.
Publisher
of
History
of Perley Family. 8vo, pp. 500 to 600, soon in press.
Essex
Co. Hist. and Geneal. RegIster. Vol.I. 833 pp. $2.25.
Subject to advance. Few copies left.
Pictorial
Ipswich. A beautiful souvenir of the town. 8Vo. 95 illustrations. Price 75 cts.
Scriptoprint.
No.13531, Ipswich Public Library.
MILLEND
HISTORIC.
MILLEND was located about the Saltonstall Mill. The ground has become historic. There planted the first Appleton, a name that has been among the foremost in military art, learning and business, during the centuries; there was Whipple, a name having many military titles and of martial prowess and service; there was the castle of Dennison, a man who enjoyed the highest military rank in the colony and who taught the town's young men in the science of martial defense; there lived Saltonstall, a scion of knighthood, the first abolitionist, a name luminous, down the years, with eloquence and patriotism; there the river was first dammed for grist and saw mills; there was planned the first resistance to tyrannical taxation; there lived Sewall who did business in ships; and there is the Ipswich Historical Society's home, a house redolent with age, problematic in its history, and interesting in its composite architecture.
MILL
STREET LOCATED.
In locating the map, the reader will note that the Quilter house stood where now (1901) stands Burke's shoe-findings factory. The Quilter cellar was filled, when the ground was prepared for that building in July 1893. Waite's house stood not far from the present house back of Brown's gristmill, and Scott's Lane has become Washington Street. Baker's house was the old house that stood on High Street at the corner of Mineral, and was razed in 1849. "The lane that runs from High Street by Mr. Wm. Baker's quite into Scott’s Lane” is the present Mineral Street. "Manning's lot,” in the middle of the map may include the site of the present Manning school-building. A house-lot, one acre, “lying in the swamp near the Mill Street having one acre of ground of Hugh Sherratt's on the northeast and a highway on the southwest," was granted to Susan Manning, 15 Feb., 1638.
Looking now at the map along Scott's Lane, our Washington Street, we
find, in this order, the Houselots of Lumas and Rogers, of Stace and Waite, of
Quilter and Wyatt, and the pasture of Norton. Between Waite's and Quilter's is
the right of way in question, which is now the right of way from Brown's
grist-mill, over the railroad, by Burke's factory, Messrs. Barton and Williams'
marble and granite works, the residences of Messrs. Martin or Amazeen and of Mr.
Aaron Wells. The right of way from Central Street to the Baptist church is
doubtless a part of that ancient highway, located as at present to accommodate
the house-lot of Messrs. Martin or Amazeen, or the lots of both. With these
facts in mind, we turn to the town-records, and read as follows:
1637, granted William
Warner, "a house-lot, one acre more or less, in the Mill Street, bounded
east by another houselot as yet ungranted, northwest by a highway leading from
the Mill Street to the High Street, butting upon the Mill Street upon the
southwest end, at the north end butting upon a swamp." [Note from this and
Miss Manning's grant above the nature of the ground all along the brook
there-“a swamp." The sites of Mrs. Josiah Lord's house and many of the
houses along Central Street were, in the beginning of the town, only a swamp.]
"1638, granted Marke
Quilter a houselot in the Mill Street, one acre, having John Wyatt's houselot
east, on the northwest a houselot ungranted, at the south end butting upon the
street over against Allan perleys. “
In these two grants to
Warner and Quilter, it is noticed that the houselot northwest of the latter's
and east of former's, was at that date ungranted,” which fact the following
record explains :
1537, "assigned"
[not granted] to Goodman Stace a houselot between Goodman Warner's and Goodman
Quilter's.
1638, granted John Norton
three acres on the lower side of Mill Street [how characteristic is “lower
side!” the other side being a hill”] having the said street on the
southwest, and the northeast a houselot of Christopher Osgood, on the northwest
the houselot of John Wyatt, on the southeast by several houselots of Richard
Lumpkin, Robert Crane, and a third lot not yet granted.
Thus by the records the lots
are in this order: Warner, Stace, Quilter, Wyatt, Norton;
by the map: Rogers, Stace,
Quilter, Wyatt, Norton.
The identification is ample
and beyond controversy. The Warner lot of 1637 had become Rogers in 1717. The
houselots drawn on the map butting on Scott's Lane are the same as those
described on the records as butting on Mill Street; and therefore, the Mill
Street of 1635-40 was the Scott's
Lane of 1717, and the Washington Street of the present day.
The answer is in the
theorem: It was the street, and the only one, that led to the mill, at that
early period. The road that led to the west now known as Willowdale Road was
called "highway to the common" land, and there was no street
corresponding to our Market street. There was doubtless a footpath through the
swamp, where now are Russell's, Spiller's, the ancient Peabody house, and the
vacant shoe factories, but there was no street till 1640 or later .
Says the record: "Jan.
11, 1639, Mr. Appleton shall make a sufficient cartbridge over the swamp toward
the mill and maintain and repair the same at his own charge for seven years next
following, and have added to his six acre lot above the mill one and a half
acres, to begin where that begins and end at the brook where that ends.”
That the area about the
proposed Appleton bridge, and between it and the river, was a swamp no one of
the older generation of the present time, acquainted in his youth with the upper
portion of the brook, will question for a moment. A gentleman told me he had
fished from the guard-rail of the Heard Brook bridge, where now the vacant
shoe-shops are.
The Appleton bridge and the road leading to and from it, over the swamp, where now are Spiller's, the Peabody house, and the vacant shoe-factories, was, no doubt, the beginning of our Market street. From the opening of that bridge and street, the importance of Mill Street began to decline and its name to change.
All roads then led to church and to mill, the two prime factors in
Puritan living. The Appleton bridge would be an expeditious connecting of
Meetinghouse Green and the mill by opening a way into Mill Street. “The
highway to the common” led from the mill direct; there was no road over the
hill along the upper part of our Market street; none there was needed.
Along our Market street by
the railroad station was a high hill in 1635-40. The elevation of it, where Mrs.
Bancroft's residence is, has been very much lowered. There is a deep cut abreast
the railroad station and a terraced embankment further on. The surface contour
argues the absence of a street there. Our fathers had no time then to cut down
the hill for a highway, when a road already skirting the hill, by the frequented
mill, served them better. Every traveler that way went to mill.
There are vestiges in the
row of elms that guard the road abreast the railroad station, that the fence and
wall between the water-tank and Mr. Mayes' boarding-house sometime extended
straight to one of those elms; in fact, we understand, that there is a
foundation-stone of that wall, or a corner bound, clutched and held by the elm's
roots. A street there would have prevented the wall. There was no street.
Again, if we carefully
examine the map made in 1717 in the south corner, we can not help noticing that
the curve on the south side of Scott's Lane turns toward the northeast, whereas
if the street opened into a street coinciding with our Market street over the
railroad, that curve would have bent towards the southwest. It is clear, then,
from this, there was no street there, in 1717.
Incidentally, it may be
remarked, that that curve determines for us the course Mill Street took at that
point.
But further, as if anything
further were needed, the record reads :
1635, granted William Fuller "a house-lot bought of John Saunders, lying on Mill Street, having Mr. Seawell's houselot on the east and Mr. Saltonstall's garden at the mill on the south."
So we see that following the same law that gave names to other streets
and parts of the town at that time, Mill Street was characteristically named.
They had to traverse the street to get to the mill; it was the only one leading
there.
The Quilter grant is said
above to have been "over against Allan Perley's," which would make
Perley's lot about identical with the Banner lot, now owned by Dea. J. I.
Horton.
1639, granted Thomas Scott*
* * *houselot in the Mill Street, about three acres, half bought of Richard
Haffield, the whole bounded southeast by the houselot of Thomas French,
northwest the houselot of Allan Perley.
1635, Robert Mussey was
granted a houselot in the Mill Street between Thomas French's and Richard
Jacob's.
"1638, granted Richard
Jacob* * * *houselot upon the mill street about one acre, a half and eight rods,
having a houselot of Robert Mussy on the northwest, the highway to the common
bounding it upon the south and southeast."
The proprietors on Mill
Street before 1640, were Warner, Stacy, Quilter, Wyatt and Norton on the lower
side, and on the upper and south side Perley, Scott, French, Mussey, Jacob,
Fuller and Sewall.
In this view, which seems to
us to be sustained by the records, the Jacob lot included the ground now owned
by the Ipswich Historical Society; Fuller, Sewall and the Mill garden occupied
the hill between Union and Market streets, ground that has been mentioned as
Gen. Dennison's paled-in houselot.
WHERE
WAS GEN. DENNISON'S LOT?
This
question is not pertinent to the locating, naming and peopling of Mill Street;
but since "Mr. Saltonstall's garden at the mill” has been located on land
between the mill and the present Choate Bridge-land which our interpretation of the records denominates a swamp, and
since the
records, as we understand them, place the mill garden where Gen. Dennison's
paled-in lot has been located, it may be slightly obligatory upon us to say
where, in our view of the records, the General's lot was.
It is agreed, we presume,
that, as the records state, John Fawne's lot of 2 ½ acres lay at the southwest
of Gen. Dennison's paled-in lot of 2 acres, and at the northeast of Samuel
Appleton's lot of 8 acres [not at or near, but] above the mill. That would place
the three lots on a line running southwest in this order: Dennison's, Fawne's,
Appleton's. But southwest is everywhere within the province of this
investigation, and we must look for some more tangible evidence.
In the paragraph above
referring to Mr. Appleton's building a bridge “over the swamp toward the
mill,” we note that Mr. Appleton's grant of 1635 was bounded, on the further
side, by a brook, and the record of the original grant reads that "the
highway to the common" bounded it on the northwest.
Looking now along "the
highway to the common" for those conditions, we find them in the field
opposite Mr. Brown's new houses on Willowdale Road, the field contiguous to, and
west of, A. H. Peatfield's residence--Saunders' brook on the further side and
Willowdale Road on the northwest. Over the old cellar down near the brook may
have stood the house of the first Samuel Appleton.
Now if, northeast of the lot
we call Appleton's, we place Fawne's 2½ acres including probably A. H.
Peatfield's estate and Rev. John C. Kimball's, and then northeast of what we
call Fawne's, place Gen. Dennison's 2 acres including probably the Brownes'
homesteads and the homestead lately owned by J. Choate Underhill, we are brought
to the dividing line back of Scott's, French's and Mussey's as shown on the map.
This view locates Gen.
Dennison on a hill (as he has been thought to have been located) away from the
dirt and whir of log-sawing and the grinding thunder of whirling mill-stones.
The location was quiet, picturesque, and handy to business. Now imagine this lot
of 2 acres paled in, the paling running down one side of what is now Mr. Mayes'
boarding-house to the elm that clutches the stone referred to above; then
running southwest perhaps by the elms; then on around the lot to the
point of beginning, and there is a miniature castle, suggesting the taste and
genius of the martial mind that selected and constructed it. Dennison and Jacob
were thus contiguous, with a paling between.
A
deed just before 1650, conveying land adjoining the above-mentioned parcels of
ground, mentions, in the boundary, "land of Sergt. Jacob," which
phrase argues very conclusively that Jacob's lot of 1638 was in the Jacob name
at that time, about 1650.
A score of years later, or
more, in the light of the records, standing upon the Jacob lot and looking
eastward, I observe the mill and the foot-bridge--the many patrons of the former
on horseback and with wheels, and of the latter, some turning towards
Meetinghouse Green and others hurrying over the hill on my immediate left hand,
towards our Washington street, making a well-worn path or highway; I observe, in
the light of my own experience in similar cases, the extensive filling-in and
grading about the mill and bridge, to make the approaches to them easy; turning
northward I realize how handy the gravel of the hillside in front of me was for
this purpose and observe the extensive excavation, where gravel had been dug;
turning to the westward, I observe, in the light of the records, a portion of
the old paling that once separated the Jacob lot from Gen. Dennison's. Then
keeping these observations in mind and taking up a deed dated 1672, whereby
Belcher conveyed a parcel of ground near unto the mill to Saltonstall, to set a
house on for his miller, I read in the description: “Bounded by a fence of
pales toward the west, the barn of Jeremy Belcher to the south, down to a rock
near the end of the said barn toward the east, and common land, or highway where
gravel hath been digged toward the north," and I am persuaded that such
identity, if only seeming is very extremely rare.
A pardonable reference may
now be made to the name Whipple House as supplanting the traditional,
time-honored name of Saltonstall House. I will recall the statements of
"Maj. John Whipple, Esq.," who is said to have owned the house and
lived in it, and died in 1722; the sworn statements of the appraisers of his
estate; and the expert testimony of Rev. T. Frank Waters, pastor of the South
Church and president of the Ipswich Historical Society.
The
Traditional Saltonstall House
THE MAJOR'S WILL. A copy of a “horribly” mutilated copy of the
Major's will has appeared in print, but a reasonably correct copy has never been
published. I give here such parts of his will as serve the present purpose:
In the name of God, amen.
The Thirtieth day of August, 1721, I, John Whipple, of Ipswich,********* give to
my daughter Mary Crocker* * * my now dwelling house and homestead with all the
buildings upon the same, also all the furniture both of the parlor and
parlor-chamber, all the utensils of the kitchen and leanto, also my neb oxen and
all my utensils for husbandry , also one old common right and my negro-man and
two cows.
I
give to my son-in-law Benj. Crocker my rapier and fowling-piece.
I
give to my grandson Wm. Brown my pistols and holsters.
I
give to my granddaughter Martha Brown forty pounds.
I
give to my daughter Rogers my negro woman Hannah.
I
give to my grandson John Rogers twenty pounds.
The residue and remainder of
the estate was to be equally divided between his daughters Martha, Mary and
Susannah, and their husbands were the executors.
INVENTORY OF MAJ. JOHN
WHIPPLE'S ESTATE. A pitiful epitome of the inventory of his estate has been
printed, but the inventory, as it really is, never. The following is a copy from
the probate files:
£
s. d.
Books,
4
Bills
and bonds,
182 14
6
1
horse,
10
1
mare and colt,
2
1
fat cow,
4
5
cows @ £3 10s.,
17 10
2
4-year old stears,
7 10
1
3-Year ---stear,
3 10
4
2-Year old heifers
7 12
2
yearllng stears
3 10
5
calves,
3 17
Household
stuff in the hall :*
1
clock,
12
1
pr. andirons,
12
Tongs
and firepan,
4
7
leather chairs,
2 2
3
wooden chairs,
8
2
tables, a glass-case, and joined stool,
1 8
In
the bedroom below:
2
bedsteads,
10
2
cupboards,
5
2
chests,
4
1
" cloose" stool,
5
In
the chamber:
1
chest,
8
2
baskets,
3
6
old chairs,
6
1
looking-glass,
4
In
the bedroom above:
———————————————————————————
*The
Tall Alder of the Abeth fabricated in the Ipswich Chronicle of Sept. 15, 1899,
the following :-“Observe in looking over the inventory of Major John Whipple,
that nothing appears, either collectively or in detail, under the head of
kitchen or dining room furniture. The 'household stuff in ye hall' included all
that. Mr. Perley should study the dictionary more."
The
doughty echo fabricated? Why, his ambition must equal the desperation of his
client.
NOTE.-"Tall Pine of the Merrimac",
"Tall Sycamore of the Wabash", tall Alder of the Abeth are forfeits
some men have to pay for being great.
£
s. d.
1
bedstead,
5
3
chairs and a stool,
8
2
old chests,
2
In
the kitchen chamber :
1 bed, bedstead and bedding, 1 10
1 bed and bedding in the narrow chamber, 1 10
1
chest,
3
1
bed, bolster and coverlet,
4
5
11
prs. sheets,
5 10
6
prs. pillow-beers,
1
16
26
napkins,
1
6
8
table cloths,
2
10
towels,
10
12
yds. linen cloth,
2
12
yds. drugett,
2
12
yds. cotton and linen,
2
1
suite of yld curtains,
6
2
blankets, 1 coverlet and 1 rug,
3
1
basket,
10
Linen
and worsted yarn,
1
18
Combed
wool,
10
10
lbs. cotton wool,
1
10
4
doz. bottles,
1
1
plush saddle,
1
10
1
old saddle,
6
12
barrels,
1 4
2
tubs,
6
5
swine,
6
1
calash and tackling,
7
1
sleigh,
18
The sum total is
£350
6 8
As
witness our hand, 7 Aug., 1822,
Edward Eveleth, Moses
Kimball, Edmund Heard.
Added
11 Dec., 1722:
An
old saw mill standing on Ipswich River with all the appurtenances belonging to
the mill without the privileges of the stream,
£15
1
yearling heifer, 30s., I yearling heifer,
26s.,
2 16
Counting now the rooms
mentioned in the will and inventory , I find a parlor, a parlor chamber, a
kitchen, a leanto, a hall, a bed-room below, a bed-room above, a chamber, a
kitchen chamber, and a narrow chamber--l0 in all, without duplication-ten rooms
in the Whipple House.
The following is from
President Waters' history of his official home, page 26:
This quotation above has too many errors to have historical value, but
the expert opinion of the President concerning his official home serves our
purpose here. If I understand the President correctly, his best judgment is,
that there was only one addition to the old house, in 1722. He is in doubt if it
were the small one built first on the northeast (north- west?) corner, marked A
in the several pictures, or the larger and later one marked B. He makes no
mention of the addition marked C; neither would I; for it is evidently the
product of some subsequent year. Now granting, in the light of the President's
best opinion, the rooms A or B, D and E, Figs. 3 and 4, below and above in his
official home, there are six in all, and the question of the identity of the
Whipple house and the Saltonstall House resolves itself into putting the ten
rooms of the former into the six of the latter,--which cannot be done, and the
identity fails. Again, changing the little word "or" above to and, his
official home is like "Fig. 2," and the question of identity resolves
itself into putting the ten rooms of the former into the (rooms A, B, C and D)
eight rooms of the latter,--which still cannot be done and still the identity
fails. Thus it appears that neither the land nor the house belonged to the
Whipples during the earlier years.
I apprehend what may now be
said upon this question, but what may be said can have no effect upon the
question in its present status. All I have ever claimed in relation to the
question is, that the identity of the two houses has not been proved beyond a
reasonable doubt. That I now claim.
I wonder if it has ever
occurred to another that the historical house is a product of two houses abutted
together .
There are remarks and
remarks that might be made on this phase of the question; but when the
record-mooring is severed, one can hardly tell "where he is at." For
instance, it can be said that Warner's lot above-mentioned passed to Lummas,
afterward to Rogers, but the writer can not say that Warner sold it, much less
can he say that Warner sold it to Lummas; for Warner may have given it up or
returned it to the town. Fawne might have relinquished his lot; a committee of
the town afterward deeding it to Whipple, who, learning that Fawne once owned
it, required of him a quit-claim.
Again, many realties were
sold and delivered by witnesses to the transaction; as Jacob to Whipple, which
sale was confirmed by deed four months afterwards. Allan Perley bought a lot of
land by witness, and some time afterwards was obliged to go into court to prove
his title; he proved it by those witnesses.
There were, too, divisions
of lots that were never recorded which have become a source of great perplexity
to the careful record-reader.
Probably half the transactions in real estate at that time were never entered upon the records. It is unsatisfying to theorize, for no one can tell how soon a record may be discovered that will neutralize or destroy the most pleasing theory. So as regards the ownership of the Ipswich historical house by Mr. Saltonstall, there is theory against theory; but one is consonant with tradition, seemingly supported by records, and rational withal, and that is ours.