A History of Chatham, Massachusetts : Formerly the Constablewick Or

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES iiiiiuiiir 3 3433 07954422 1 immmm^^mm^^, ?M yVv^ v^^sa Hx '^0mm^&^ 1?^ ml k^ &*^ SffS^4 -j&^yS&MS^ The Eldredge Public Library, Chatham, Mass. The Chatham Lights, Chatham, Mass. • • ft fi*0 «1 A History of Chatham Massachusetts Formerly the Constablewick or Village of Monomoit WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS AND NUMEROUS GENEALOGICAL NOTES By WILLIAM C. SMITH, HTANNIS, MASS. F. B. & F. P. (;»)ss, publishers 190.) PUBLIC LI Br 458262 AITON, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNOATIC**. K 1909 L PREFACE The task of compiling a satisfactory local history is one requiring no little patience, industry and research, if prose- cuted under the most favorable circumstances, but it is rendered doubly difficult when, as in the case of Chatham, the loss of a considerable part of the public records usually consulted by the local historian and the brevity of those which remain, compel him to collect his facts from many scattered and not easily accessible sources. Few, if any, of the towns in the State have been more unfortunate than Chatham in respect to the preservation of historical materials. Not only has it suffered in common with the other towns of Barnstable county, through the destruction by tire on October 22, 1827, of all the county records except those of the Probate Court, but it has also lost all the early parish records by the burning of the Congregationalist parsonage in 1861. The town records still remain intact, but they do T not begin till thirty years after the place w as settled by the white man, and then the early entries are of the briefesl character. The births, marriages and deaths recorded therein before 1750 are comparatively few in number, and consequently there are doubtful points in the genealogy of nearly every Chatham family which no amount of research will ever settle and omissions which no investigator can ever hope to supply. vi . PREFACE. Out of the material which has been accessible to me, I have made no special attempt to produce a readable hook. I have sought only to collect and present the facts without resorting to traditional or mythical anecdotes to sustain the interest of the reader. The frequent references in the foot notes will he found valuable, I hope, to students of local history and to those who may be inclined to doubt the state- ments in the text. In order to avoid the circulation of false reports, I will state that my original purpose never contemplated bringing the history down to the present date. To do this merely requires time and patience in compiling from abundant and easily aecessible materials. I wish to express my obligations to Mr. Josiah Paine of Harwich, whose long and careful researches into Cape Cod history have made him the highest living authority upon that subject. I am also indebted to Mr. and Mr-. Osborn Nickcrson, Mr. James M. Young, and Miss M. (J uec for the privilege of consulting valuable family papers, and to Hon. dames W. Ilawcs of New York for encouragement and assistance in the collection of materials. The late Rufus Smith, Esq., also furnished me with valuable facts and papers. The work is not free from mistakes. If it be found to be a distinct advance over anything yet attempted in the line of Chatham history, it will fulfill all the claims of its author. January, 1909. W. C. S. MEMORANDA OF CHATHAM. Indian Name, Monomoyick, or Monomoil Named Port Fortune, October, 1G06 Named Sutcliffe's Inlets, About 1618 Called by the Pilgrims Monomoit, . 1621 Settled by the English, . 1664 Annexed to Yarmouth, June 7, 1665 Annexed to Eastham, June 3, 1668 Established a Constablewick, June 3, 167!) Boundaries Enlarged, February 11, 1691 Part Annexed 1691 included in Harwich, Sept. 14, 1694 Incorporated a Town, June 11, 1712 Named Chatham, . June 11, 1712 Strong Island and vicinity Annexed, February 7, 1797 Boundary Established, . April 14, 1862 CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA. THE southeasterly portion of the peninsula of Cape Cod was inhabited, long before its authentic history begins, by a small tribe of Indians, ruled by a chief or sachem of their own, living principally upon the fish so abundant in the numerous bays and inlets along their domain and upon Indian corn supplied by their squaws, and engaging occa- sionally in fierce and bloody quarrels with other tribes more or less remote. In their own language they called the terri- tory, over which they roamed, Monomoyick or Monomoit, 1 and they were accordingly styled by the English the Monomoyicks or the Monomoyick tribe. How long befoie the advent of the white man they settled in this locality is not known, nor, indeed, is anything of importance known concerning their early habits and life. Not until their relations with the white man begin is the veil of darkness and uncertainty lifted. In the case of Monomoit, these relations began at an early 1. This name Is spelled in so many different ways In early records and writings that It Is difficult to determine its exact form. Governor Bradford, Governor Wins- low and other early authorities give the name as Manamoiak, Manamoyack, Mana- moyake, Manamoycke, Monomoyick, Manamock, Manamoyick, Mannamoyk, Mono- moyack, Manamoick, etc. Later, however, the consensus of opinion seems to have been that the final sound in the word should be nearer the sound of the letter " t " than that of " k," and we find in the Plymouth Colony Records, in many early documents, and In the writings of the clergy, the following forms of the word : Mannamoite, Mannamoiett, Mannamoyett, Manemoyet, Mannonioyett, Monnamoyett. Monamoiett, Monamolt, Manamoit, Monomoit, Mannamoit, Monuamoit, Mannomoiett, Manamolett, Manomoytt, Manamoyet, Monamoyet, Mannamoyt, etc. The forms Monumoi, Mona moy, Mounamoy, Monemoy, Manamoy, Manimoy, Monomoy, Mannamoy, Manemoy, Manamoye, Manomoy. etc . are corruptions of the Indian name, which were used locally and colloquially, although sometimes found In the public records. The forms, Monnainoy and Mouamoy, appear in the town records. 2 HISTORY OF CHATHAM. period, as compared with many other localities along the coast. The situation of the place, on an exposed part of the seaboard in the vicinity of dangerous shoals and currents, tended to draw the attention of the earliest navigators to it, and it has ever continued a dreaded Landmark for the sailor. Whether it was known to the Northmen, who, in their excursions from Iceland in the early part of the Middle Ages, doubtless explored some portion of the Mew England coast, is difficult to determine. The accounts of their voyages preserved in the ancient Icelandic Sagas, are so vague as to render any satisfactory identification of the places visited by them practically impossible. Prof. Rafn of Copenhagen has, indeed, claimed to identify these places and has asserted, among other things, that the long and sandy strands mentioned in these Sagas, which the voyagers named Furdustrandir (Wonder Strands), "for it was long to sail by them," are none other than Nauset and Monomoy beaches, which protect Cape Cod from the ocean, but his conclusions arc not now regarded as sufficiently well founded to be ac- cepted as correct. 2 In the year 1498 the Cabots, John and Sebastian, Venetian adventurers under commission from the king of England, sailed along the North Atlantic coast from Lab- rador to Virginia, but as there is left to us no detailed ac- count of their exploit, it is impossible to state what points of the coast they actually visited. :i The first explorer from the East, whose presence in the vicinity of Cape Cod is established with substantial certainty, and who probably scanned the shores of Monomoit from his frail craft, was Giovanni Da Verra/.ano, a Florentine, who, under French auspices and with a French crew, put to sea in January, 2. Winsor, Narrative ami Critical History of America, I. Go et seq.; Voyages of the Northmen (Prince Soc. Ed.) 50. 3. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, III. Chap. I. A NEW ERA. 3 1">24, from ;i place near the island of Madeira, intending to find a westward passage to the Indies. Reaching North .'> America in latitude 1 degrees north, he proceeded lip the coast, arriving at a place in latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes, which appears from his description to be Narragansett Bay, where he remained fifteen days. Thence setting out on May 5th, he sailed east and then north one hundred and fifty leagues, always keeping the land in sight, but making no stops, the wind being fair. The coast, he says, ran east- ward fifty leagues, then turned to the north, and he saw many hills in the distance. Apparently he sailed around Cape Cod and in sight of its shores, reaching the coast of Maine, from which point he continued northward and then sailed for France. 4 There were other voyages of exploration to North America during the next seventy-five years,"' and ancient maps indi- cate that before the end of that time the general outline of the coast was understood by Europeans. The fisheries of Newfoundland and adjacent coasts, also, early attracted European mariners to that region, and "before the opening of the seventeenth century more than three hundred English, Portugese, Spanish and French vessels went home annually, laden with the treasures of the sea, from the American coast." 6 It is not unlikely, therefore, that during this period the shores of Cape Cod were more than once visited, accidentally or intentionally, but it is not until the year 1602 that we find another distinctly chronicled voyager there. On March "2<> of that year Bartholomew Gosnold, an Englishman, sailed from Falmouth, England, with thirty-two 4.

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