A Brief History of the Town of Stoughton, Massachusetts
John E. Flynn
Including a review of the years 1954-76.
Published by
Stoughton Historical Society
[permission granted to www.StoughtonHistory.com to post on this website]
[p.
iii]
FORMER STOUGHTON HISTORIAN & AUTHOR
JOHN E. FLYNN
John E. Flynn was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts 13 October 1880; died 6 January 1964. He was the son of Patrick and Mary Flynn, who were married in Stoughton in 1878.
"Although he never completed public high school, having taken employment as a Postal Worker in Boston to help his family his historical knowledge of the Town of Stoughton is still unmatched. He concerned himself with his hometown, having little opportunity to travel Mr. Flynn served as a Town Meeting Representative, member and chairman of the Library Trustees from 1932-1946, a member of the Stoughton Musical Society, President of the Stoughton Historical Society from 1948 to 1954 as well as being the Town Historian. His writing began after his retirement in 1954. Within ten years he wrote histories of the Town, of the Catholic Church in Stoughton, of the Stoughton Public Schools and of the local newspaper which he had been compiling when he died on January 6, 1964."
[p.
iv]
PREFACE
TO 1976 EDITION
This
brief history of the Town of
the worthwhile past.” The title Beyond
the Blew-Hills has
been taken
from old charts which used the colloquial
spelling in referring to the
“New Grant” boundary. The “New
Grant” extended southerly from
Dorchester
and included the
Town of
The
first section of this booklet is a reprint of the original lecture
presented by Mr. Flynn in the 1950's. The
second section includes a
twenty‑two year update of the local
history obtained through researching local newspapers. The last section
contains the original chronology
prepared by the author and added to the
first edition.
The
Stoughton Historical Society is grateful to the family of the
The
Historical Society is also indebted to the following who
the incorporation of the Town of
Mrs. Angeline McEachern, Mrs. Fuchsia Young
and Mr. John Stiles,
photographs.
Edward N. Meserve
President
[p. v]
PREFACE TO 1956 EDITION
This
document was presented initially as a brief talk to a group
Day program at
about
our community as they viewed first-hand the functions of its
educational, social and political institutions.
It
has become apparent from our recent follow-up studies that
the vast majority of
live and work in
social and political heritage of our community would appear to be as imperative for our youth as an understanding of the larger world
around us. We are grateful, therefore, to Mr. Flynn for allowing us
Aaron Fink
Principal
January,
1956
[p.
vi]
ILLUSTRATIONS and PHOTOGRAPHS
Title Page
Map of "
Page
3
Marker at southwest corner of
Ponkapoag Reservation located off Deady Avenue. Photograph made about 1907 by George Gerard.
Page 5
Governor Stoughton.
Page 6
Doty Tavern at foot of Great Blue Hill. Photo by Baldwin Coolidge, courtesy of E.K.R. Revere.
Page 8
Swan's Tavern and
Wallace Capen Place. View from
George Gerard photo, circa 1908.
Page 9
Railroad depot, view from steps of
first Public Library.
Page
Page
Page 21
Scene of 1926 Pageant
looking towards site of present
Page 22
Scene of 1976 Country
Fair on same grounds as 1926
[p.
vii]
CONTENTS
John
E. Flynn .......................................................................................................
III
Preface
to 1976 Edition .......................................................................................
IV
Preface
to 1956 Edition .......................................................................................
V
List
of Illustrations and Photographs ..............................................................
VI
A
Study in Local History ....................................................................................
1
The
Years Beyond ..............................................................................................
13
Chronology
of
Bibliography.........................................................................................................
43
[p.
viii]
From map
of “25 Divisions”
[p.
1]
A Study in
Local History
T
IS the business of history to make people understand how things came
to be, what were the causes which influenced each
phase of change from the beginning
of recorded events almost to
which shall be looked upon
objectively at a later date and evaluated
that implement their living.
Our institutions, our laws, the instruments of handicraft, our
organization all
derive from the dynamic upheaval of European
Our particular concern in this talk lies in the area that stems
from the Bay
Colony and the Plimoth plantation and specifically,
of course, as
they relate to the history of our own town of
Hilarie Belloc has this to say regarding the study of history:
"Not to
understand the philosophy of history is to remain always a
child,"
though he warns further: "Modern custom demands that even the latest
things should be recorded but common sense requires that
they should be
only recorded, lest, in a few years the emotions
falsified in the
event."
The philosophy of history is the lesson that is drawn from the
logic of events.
However, it is relative as man himself is relative. It
would be an
error to assume that events repeat themselves exactly because the
influencing forces are never identical. Uncle Dudley in
the Globe has
said on the subject: "Why read history?" that - "It
described as an
imaginative guess as to the meaning of those lessons
faith or greed, to ambition or passion, to suffering or hope, to destruc-
[p. 2]
tive fears or
creative will. In the task of searching out and reflecting
social, sentient
human being is vastly aided. That is why the study of history is one of
the greatest of the humanities." Edmund Burke once
said: “He alone
deserves to be remembered who treasures up and preserves the memory
of his fathers.”
While
not completely agreeing with that dictum in its restrictive
sense it does proclaim that we should cherish the fine things that
they accomplished and avoid their more serious errors.
So
we now turn to our subject of
since the footsteps of the Pilgrims first echoed through the forest
Indian had lived undisturbed for centuries until he met head-on
with
This
could be a subject of vast interest but we can only consider
the last sad phase of the existence of the Ponkapoags as a tribal
unit.
The
Indians did not long
survive the bounty of the town of
acres of the Ponkapoag Plantation.
Epidemic
disease had decimated their tribe before the white men
further destroyed their morale. Here is a reference to the last of
power and the intellectual superiority of the newcomer all spelled terrible and inevitable doom. Not even that mighty element of life,
the Christian Bible, to which the civilized nations of the earth owe so much of their vitality, availed to prolong the red man's existence.
They diminished with each generation till in my boyhood I remember
lonely wigwam on Stoughton Pond and who used to come down once
strolled off into the woods and With
plaintive wailings cut away the
bushes from an ancient mound which, as he thought, covered the
ashes of his fathers, and then went back a silent, broken melancholy
[p. 3]
Not
for long did the Indian tribes impede the progress of the
Company was formed in
charter of 1620 was granted to this new corporation, bestowing upon it all the land between t e 40th and 48t degrees, North latitude.
Of
the land patents. granted by this Council for
trading company with a royal charter granted 1629.
When
the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth
they found Indian Chief
a treaty with the English there. In 1630 he consented to the occupancy
of
In
1691 the Bay Colony received a new charter by which it was
constituted a Royal Province and its jurisdiction extended over what
is today the states of
[p. 4]
The
ancient town of
firmed in 1720 by the General Court was all the undivided and
this was known as the "New Grant" and was proportioned in 12
Divisions to 480 members of the association known as the
Proprietors. It consisted of all the lands now comprising the towns
Dedham
and parts of Walpole, Norton, Wrentham, and
North
Bridgewater
now
The
original title to
right of discovery and possession. The king had unlimited power in its disposition. He claimed the right to establish local government
and conferred power of legislation on grantees. Only two of these
we will confine remarks on proprietary grants to them. These proprietors were the land speculators or capitalists of their day, having
initiative and desire for gain, and perhaps were greedy. But they performed a necessary groundwork, breaking through the wilderness
and maintaining a focal point where freemen in numbers could finally take over and establish orderly government on a democratic
basis.
This
is a rather neglected phase of life in the study of our colonial
history. It was a necessary step, maybe, from absolute power through
the feudal state to our New England Town Meeting,
recognized as a
The
inhabitants of the New Grant increased very
much in population and material prosperity after 1700
so that by 1726 the wilderness
was conquered and safe, civilized and
independent, or more properly
an interdependent society had been
established.
No
longer was a proprietorship necessary nor tolerable as it smacked of Old World
caste.
[p. 5]
[Lt. Gov. William Stoughton]
Consequently
on
Shepard and Ensign William Billings this area known as the South
of
profession,
graduate of Harvard and
The
incorporation of the "New Grant" or South Precinct as a
to the General Court soon
after
before this period of incorporation the 6000 acres of the Ponkapoag
exclusive use of the Indians at the insistence of John Eliot,
Missionary,
that a learned minister of good conversation should be required
first minister of the town. His successor was the famous Rev. Samuel Dunbar who made the flaming speech at Doty's Tavern that helped
turn the tide for the Suffolk Resolves, and his successor,
temporarily, was Aaron Bancroft, father of George Bancroft, the historian. He
was afterward the first President of the American Unitarian
Association.
The
town p[r]oudly boasts that it is the birthplace of American
liberty basing this on the fact that on
Tavern in Old Stoughton was held the first formal meeting or
American
[p. 6]
This
document was carried on horseback by Paul Revere
after a final meeting at Vose's Tavern in
Congress at
Cannon
was cast for the Revolutionary War in
Massapoag and in the vicinity of the Fowl Meadows.
men took part to the number of 596.
The
chief powder mill for the first three years of the war was
The
two outstanding men of the period in this area were undoubtedly General Richard Gridley and Roger Sherman. Paul Revere
came to live in Canton Dale soon after the town was separated from
General
Gridley was the first engineer of the
Heights of Abraham, and the
of
Hancock, and the Marquis de Lafayette.
[p. 7]
Roger
Sherman was two years old when he was brought to Stoughton
in 1723.
His
brother, Rev. Nathaniel Sherman was born here in 1726.
Treasurer of
of the Continental Congress, elected a member of the same; he
the others being John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin
He
was the only man in the country's history to sign all three
primary documents of our country's establishment; namely, the
Declaration of
Admiral
John Downes was born here in 1784. He commanded
the Pacific fleet, served on U. S. S. Essex, Constitution, and Wasp.