crossed Taunton territory;* and to know that Miles Standish, in company with one of the purchasers, was the surveyor who laid out its borders; that Taunton's first minister became afterwards a court chaplain and walked in the same procession with the poet Milton at the funeral of Oliver Cromwell; that Thomas Coram, who established the Foundlings' Hospital in London, where visitors go to hear Professor Momerie preach and the choir of orphan children sing, was a Taunton shipbuilder, and still lives in Taunton in the name of one of the streets; that on one memorable occasion, King Philip, who made matters so dangerous and interesting for this region, attended a conference in a Taunton church (a political, not an ecclesiastical affair, by the way); that the first permanent settlement in Vermont was made by pioneers from Taunton; that * See article, "Did John Hampden come to New England?" by Edwin D. Mead, in the New England Magazine, September and October, 1889. two of Washington's aids and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were citizens of Taunton; that the anchor of the famous frigate Constitution, requiring ten yoke of oxen to transport it to tide water in Dighton, was of Taunton manufacture; that the first company to set foot on rebel soil in response to the call of Abraham Lincoln was composed of Taunton men; that on one occasion a Taunton soldier, Major-General D. N. Couch, was called to assume command of the entire army of the Potomac; that Taunton has furnished a governor, a lieutenant governor, and chief justices for every court in the commonwealth; and, finally, that the iron and silver manufactures of Taunton have acquired almost a worldwide reputation. The territory of Taunton lay in the direct path between Plymouth and the region about Mount Hope; and the first white men to tread its soil, so far as known, were Edward Winslow, afterwards governor of the Colony, and his companion, Stephen Hopkins, when they went on their friendly visit to Massasoit in the summer following the landing of the "Mayflower." Guided by the Indian Squanto, "the same who MORTON HOSPITAL. taught them the still prevailing custom to Massasoit in his sickness, and this ground on both sides of the river as being very good and for the most part cleared. Thousands of Indians had lived there, but had been carried off by a great plague a few years before; "and pity it was, and is, to see so many goodly fieldes, and so well seated, without men to dress and manure them." He refers also to the much good timber which he saw oak, walnut, fir, beech and "exceeding great chestnut trees." All this neglected region had become infested with wolves. The traditional founder of Taunton, as of ancient Carthage, was a woman. That accounts for the adoption of the Vergilian phrase, "Dux femina facti," in the city seal. But a very different woman she was from the one to whom the phrase was first applied. It is needless, perhaps, to say to anyone belonging to this sceptical generation that the story of her buying the territory NECK O' LAND BRIDGE. from the Indians for a jackknife and a peck of beans is not as true as it is interesting. It may be pious enough to represent such a transaction on the corporate seal, so long as the confession has been made that the story itself as a historic fact has gone to the limbo to which all good stories go when they Titicut was the Indian name of Taunton River, on which the "ancient maid" had settled. The place was outside the present limits of Taunton, in what is now North Middleboro, and the original name still survives. Taun of Taunton the stream. As the re markable woman who thus acted the part of pioneer was, and is, and will continue to be, the patron saint of Taunton, we cannot dismiss her without a further word. Miss PUBLIC LIBRARY AND BRISTOL COUNTY SAVINGS BANK. ton Great River-the "great" being used relatively to the smaller Mill River-and its branch the Namasket may be compared on the map,-if you do not look at the map too closely,to a fishing rod and line at the moment when the rod is bent and the line hauled taut in the act of landing a large fish. The thick part of the rod. extends from Mount Hope Bay Hope Bay through Taunton, the thin end is at Titicut, while the line runs down into Assawampsett Pond. The plantation at Titicut, somewhere in the angle between rod and line, prepared the way for the purchase and settlement Poole (or Pole), called Mrs. Poole by courtesy, was forty-eight years "ancient" at the time Governor Winthrop heard of her. She and her brother William, five years her junior, were born and christened at Shute, Devonshire, England. They belonged to a gentle family, inherited, it would appear, considerable property, and, like many others, doubtless came to the New World for conscience' sake, reaching Taunton by way of Dorchester and Titicut. The sister's early prominence is shown by the fact that in the order of the General Court directing that lands be "layd forth" for the Rev. William Hook, the first minister, and the Rev. Nicolas Street, the first teacher, the name of Miss Poole was specially added-the three adjoining estates occupying the whole southerly side of the present Main Street. She was a woman of affairs and good judgment, as is evident from her numerous business transactions, and from her having been appointed at one time an appraiser of an estate. She was a woman of piety, for she declares in her will that she wishes to set "her house in order according to the direc of Bristol County in 1746, some of the honors of which it now divides with New Bedford and Fall River; and it arrived at the dignity of a city in 1865.* Every foot of the soil was fairly bought and paid for, and Massasoit's son after word, as sometimes explained, means "the place of snows," for the annual snowfall is rather slight, and sleighing in Taunton for more than a few days at a time is uncommon. But the place has had its great snowstorms, as in 1717, when citizen lost his life in one. As recently as 1886 the melting snows and continuous rains caused Mill River to overflow its banks and render some of the streets impassable except in boats. This is spoken of as the Flood. Another and perhaps better explanation is to identify the body of the word with the Algonquin term hanna, meaning river, as in Susquehanna. Cohannet would then be a place characterized in some way by the river. TAUNTON BOAT CLUB HOUSE. wards confirmed the original purchase. In the list of the forty-six appears the name of a "Widdo Randall," of whom nothing more is known; that of John Brown, who with Miles Standish did the surveying; and William Poole. The territory was a diamond-shaped tract, measuring eight miles on each side. This Eight Mile Purchase was increased on several occasions afterwards-as by the North Purchase in 1668, which more than doubled the original tract and made Taunton and Dorchester adjoining towns, and by the South Purchase in 1672-until Taunton covered an area of one hundred and fifty square miles, and comprised either wholly or in part the present towns of Norton, Easton, Mansfield, Raynham, Dighton and Berkley. This territory, considerably larger than the District of Columbia, remained intact until 1711, when Norton was incorporated, and then began the slicing off and cutting in which has left Taunton on the map almost in the shape of an hour glass, two miles across at the narrowest part. The Indians described the locality as Cohannet. The reason is not clear, if the The city charter was accepted June 6, 1864, and the first organization of the city government occurred January 2, 1865. But however the name Cohannet arose, the settlers almost immediately certainly as early as 1640 TAUNTON HERRING FISHING. |