From Daniel T.V. Huntoon's 

History of The Town of Canton, Massachusetts (1893)

CHAPTER XXI

THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION (continued)

The first notice that the people of ancient Stoughton received that hostilities had actually begun between the king's troops and the patriots, was on the afternoon of the 19th of April, 1775. It was lecture-day, and Parson Dunbar was exhorting his people and preparing them for the next Sunday's service, when suddenly the door was thrown open and Henry Bailey marched up the broad aisle and said there was a'larum. In an instant, all was confusion. A small boy, Lemuel Bent, seized the bell-rope, and soon the jangle-reached the ears of the neighboring farmers. Israel Bailey conversed for a moment with Capt. James Endicott, and then the captain said, "Take my colt that is fastened outside, ride through the town, and warn the company to meet at May's tavern with arms and ammunition ready to march toward Boston at a moment's notice." Captain Endicott returned to his home, obtained his accoutrements, and started down the road toward Boston, leaving his company to follow as soon as they could be collected.

And so from the towns which composed ancient Stoughton, stalwart men, with sturdy sons, left their homes at the sharp clang of the alarm-bell, or the hurried words of the orderly, "To arms! To arms! The war has begun," and hastened to the rallying-place. These minute-men marched directly to the coast, and their fellow-townsmen followed them with provisions and supplies. Abel Puffer, Roger, John, and Isaac Billings, Ebenezer and William Shaller, Abner Crane, Jonathan Kenney, Israel Bailey, and Lemuel Davenport did all they could to make them comfortable.

^{1 See Appendix XX}

James Endicott, captain of one of the companies that marched from Stoughton at the first alarm, was born in Stoughton in 1739, and died in Canton, April 4, 1799. He was the son of James and grandson of Gilbert Endicott, one of the first settlers. March 5, 1761, he was married by Rev, Samuel Dunbar to Abigail Puffer. During the war, Captain Endicott was several times called into active service; on the afternoon of the 4th of March, 1776, he went to the assistance of the Continental troops when they fortified Dorchester Heights. They made a lodgement on the ground unmolested, but were drenched with a most dreadful storm of rain. Endicott led his company to Ticonderoga, and in 1778 was again in the service at Roxbury, nor were his patriotic services confined to the field only. In 1778 he made frequent journeys to Boston to enlist and muster soldiers into the Continental army. By order of the town, he employed Hannah Endicott to weave thirty-seven yards of blanketing and to spin thirty-two skeins of yarn. Mrs. Lemuel Stone, Mary Goodwin, and Mrs. Deborah Patrick were also employed in making the soldiers comfortable. In 1780 Mr. Endicott was chosen Representative to the General Court, but refused to serve, although he accepted the trust during the years 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1790. He served the town as its treasurer two years before his death. From ancient documents in the possession of his descendants, it would appear that he was commissioned by John Hancock, Feb. 11, 1785, as justice of the peace for the county of Suffolk, and on Sept. 24, 1793, as one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Norfolk. He was a very prominent man in town affairs, and was universally respected. He occupied a house which formerly stood on the spot where the Endicott homestead now stands, but which was destroyed by fire, Oct. 29, 1806.

When the captain, afterward known as Judge Endicott, left his home to join his company at the time of the Lexington alarm, his son John - born Feb. 4, 1764, died Jan. 31, 1857 - was in his twelfth year. The following day, this lad started with a supply of food for the support of the company, all the able-bodied men being in service. In time, he reached Roxbury with his load of provisions; meanwhile his father had been ordered in the direction of Cambridge. Not discouraged, the lad proceeded after him, and delivered the provisions at the encampment at Prospect Hill. So successful was this enterprise that in after years, during the continuance of the war, he was sent on expeditions to a greater distance,— to Hartford and Norwich in Connecticut, and other places. In the winter of 1780, when John Endicott was only sixteen, the roads being obstructed by snow and the cold intense, he started for Boston with an ox-team loaded with wood, and entering on the Neponset, which was hard frozen, at Milton Mills, he followed the course of the stream down, and crossing over the harbor near William Castle, now Fort Independence, entered the town near the point where Craigie's Bridge was afterward erected. Discharging his wood, he thence crossed over to Cambridge and took a load of damaged gunpowder, which he was to carry to Canton, to be worked over at the powder-mill then in operation here. On his return over the Neck, such was the condition of the road that he repeatedly overset, - four times, he said,— and was obliged to re-load. He reached Roxbury near midnight, where he stayed until next morning.

On the opposite side of the street from the May tavern, in the house built by John Withington, Jr. lived one Armstrong, a tailor, who had recently taken an apprentice, named Henry Perley, to learn the trade. The young man came from Boxford, and was a steady and industrious youth. As he beheld from the shop-window the uniforms and bristling guns of the patriots, a desire seized him to go with them; and business being dull, with no prospect of improvement, his master consented, whereupon the young-hero, approaching the officer in command, said to him, " If you will get me a gun, I will go with you." The supply of guns being limited, the officer was not able to furnish him with one like those carried by the soldiers, but gave him what was called an "Indian gun." Perley made preparation and started with two companions toward Boston, the company being an hour in advance. On the way down, they met a gentleman in citizen's dress, riding a beautiful horse, and followed by a servant, also well-mounted. No sooner had this gentleman passed our three friends than one of them said to the others, " That was a British officer." Simultaneously they turned, followed, and overtook him, and ordered him to dismount and surrender. The officer inquired in forcible language: "Who in hell are you, banditti? " " We'11 let you know who in hell we are," said the recent apprentice, and forthwith began to pull the officer from his horse. The servant, seeing this, immediately drew his pistol from his holster, and was in the act of cocking it, when a well-directed blow from the butt-end of Benjamin Bussey's queen's-arm sent him sprawling on the ground. Deeming discretion the better part of valor, the young Englishman gracefully surrendered, and the twain were escorted to Boston in triumph, - Bussey on the officer's horse, Dickerman on the servant's, while Perley, with the Indian gun, marched as rear-guard. The arrival of the prisoners created a sensation among the troops encamped in the vicinity of Boston, and praise was showered upon the three raw recruits.

Henry Perley was soon lost sight of. He served faithfully throughout the war, and that was all that was known of him. About the year 1825, a stranger entered the village store at Canton Corner. His form was bent, and his hair silvered by the snows of many winters. Around the stove were gathered, as was usual fifty or sixty years ago, all the men in the neighborhood, - some smoking, some drinking, and some talking of the crops, the state of the farms, the political situation, and such topics as were in vogue before the daily newspaper entered every household. After looking around for a moment, the venerable stranger approached Joseph Downes and said to him," I have lived down in Maine almost all my life, and I am getting to be a very old man; but I thought before I died I would like to return and see some of my old comrades that were with me in the army, and so I have come back to Canton to see them. Where is Jim Fadden?"

" Oh ! " said Mr. Dowries, " he died forty years ago." "And where is Bill Currill? " "Oh, he has been dead over twenty years." And so the old man went on enumerating the names of those who, half a century before, had assembled with him, to fight for liberty; but of all the early companions whose names he could remember, not one was left. Death had ushered them into the hereafter, and this weary old man now stood alone upon its threshold. He was turning sadly away, when one of the idlers suggested that he might know Elijah Crane. "Yes, yes," said the veteran with enthusiasm, "take me to him ! " The next morning he was taken into the presence of the general. "Do you know me? " said the stranger. " You are Henry Perley," replied the general. " Thank God ! " said Perley, while the tears trickled down his cheeks ; "I am paid for coming."

Benjamin Bussey, one of the young men mentioned in connection with the exploit of Henry Perley, was in due time to be remembered as one of the most distinguished philanthropists of his time.

William Bussey, the first of the name, was an early immigrant. Here he found his sweetheart in the person of Olive Jordan, and on the 6th of June, 1728, they were married. We hear no more of him for some years ; he probably followed the sea. He conveyed land near the present Turnpike in 1731. In 1756 he built the little house now standing near Reservoir Pond, which he sold to Dr. Crosman in 1763. His son, Benjamin Bussey, born in 1734, bought twenty acres of a farm at Ponkapoag, originally owned by Elias Monk, but at that time unoccupied, its owner, Shubael Wentworth, having died in 1759. Bussey received the deed from Philip Liscom, Jr., in 1760. He also bought at the same time one acre from Eleanor Shippy adjoining his Wentworth land, " with an old dwelling-house upon it." This was the rear part of the house that was burned, Nov. 5, 1882. Deacon Samuel Andrews built it in 1711.

Benjamin Bussey, the rich Boston merchant, was not born in this house, but here he spent his early life, from the age of three to that of nineteen, when with his knapsack on his back, he stood on the step and bade good-by to the mother he was never to see again. While he was fighting for his country, the cold form of the loved one was borne by tender hands through the narrow doorway, a victim to that scourge of those days, the small-pox. To this house, in the days of his wonderful prosperity, Bussey returned. It was old, low-studded, and forlorn, but he did not want it destroyed.

In 1802 Benjamin Bussey repaired the old house and placed in front cf it an addition more in keeping with the architecture of the new century. The rooms were high-studded, which was then the fashion ; the stairs ran at angles, with landings, through an ample hall. The woodwork was ornamented, and sufficient room provided for a small family. The front door was protected by a wooden canopy with iron supports, curiously wrought. Trees were planted ; side fences that came down from the corners of the house to the front fence were built; and here was laid out a "front yard," the pride of the farmers' wives, planted with bouncing Bet, London pride, peonies, and old-fashioned roses. Then, good son that he was, he gave the house to his father and his father's wife, that they might enjoy the remainder of their lives with no fear lest the wolf should come to the door. But the old-time gentleman lived only six years to enjoy his son's kindness. On the 15th of August, 1808, having lived nearly three quarters of a century, he was laid in the Canton Cemetery.

Colonel Benjamin's first wife, the mother of Benjamin, who died at Jamaica Plain, was Ruth, daughter of Deacon Joseph and Mary (Tolman) Hartwell, and was born Sept. 3, 1738, on what is known now as the Kollock farm. Her sister Elizabeth married Roger Sherman, Nov. 17, 1749. Ruth was married to Bussey, Nov. 26, 1755, and died Dec. 5, 1776. Colonel Bussey's second wife was Ruth, daughter of Zebediah Went-worth, who was born in 1751, and died Dec. 31, 1839. She was the last of the name that occupied the Bussey house, and many who read these lines will remember her.

The property was sold to Zachariah Tucker — the famous school-master, and in 1829 post-master at North Canton, as Ponkapoag was then called — during the old lady's life, but provision was made for her maintenance. From his possession it passed through the hands of Elisha Mann, Sr., and Jr., into those of Josiah Broad, and has sometimes of late years been known as the Broad house.

The younger Benjamin Bussey was born near Reservoir Pond in Canton, on the 1st of March, 1757, and died at his residence in Jamaica Plain, Jan. 13, 1842. He began life in poverty. His father gave him but the rudiments of an English education. He was fond of reading, had a retentive memory, and gathered a vast fund of information. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted as a private soldier in the War of the Revolution. He joined the company of Captain Stow, of Dedham, and went to Ticonderoga, and at nineteen became quartermaster of the regiment. The following year he accepted the same position in the regiment of Col. Benjamin Gill, of Stoughton, and joined the troops who marched to arrest the progress of General Burgoyne. He was at the battles of Saratoga and Bemis Heights, and in the successful discharge of his duties met the approval of his commander and officers. At the termination of the war, he learned the trade of silversmith from a Hessian soldier, and began business in a small shop at Ponkapoag, Aug. 24, 1780. Being then twenty-two, he was married to Judith Gay. He opened a little shop in Dedham, and at length acquired so much credit as to warrant him in removing to Boston in 1792, where he enlarged and extended his business. By steady gains he became very wealthy, and retired from business. By his will, his property, which, by accumulation, in 1861 amounted to $413,000, passed to Harvard College, to be held, one half " for instruction in practical agriculture, in useful and ornamental gardening, in botany and in such other branches of natural science as may tend to promote knowledge of practical agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto and connected therewith." A portion of his vast property he devised to be used for the support of the Law and Divinity schools of the same University. The trustees erected in 1870, upon what was his farm in West Roxbury, a building containing class rooms and laboratories for professorships in " Farming,"

"Applied Zoology," "Agricultural Chemistry," " Horticulture," "Botany," and " Entomology." This is known as the "Bussey Institution."

There has been preserved a diary kept during the early period of the war, by Ezekiel Price, Esq., Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas and Sessions, and for many years chairman of the selectmen of Boston, who came to the Doty tavern before the 1st of May, 1775, and remained during the occupation of Boston by the British troops. The following extracts are especially interesting, as showing the daily excitements and alarms, the rumors and conversations, which took place at the old tavern during the troublous times of the Revolution : —

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