The Shawme Indians were Wampanoags, a subset of the Algonquins, and they lived seasonally in the area of present-day downtown Sandwich by the pond. They farmed the high land during the summer, moving inland to their permanent wigwams during the winter. The area teamed with fish, eels, and shellfish, ducks and geese by the thousands, and plenty of deer, rabbit, and other game. Importantly, pure springs fed Shawme Pond. In November, before they left for their winter wigwams, the Shawme people burned the brush from the woods to provide easy hunting. In fact, 60% of the Cape was a managed forest of fire-resistant pitch pine and oak with grasslands at the edges for deer and game birds. They left the low areas wild and tangled with briers. One percent was farmland. Their east-west trail followed present day Main and Old Main Street, joining what is now 6A at both ends. Heading south along the east side of the pond, a trail led along present-day Water Street to Nantucket Sound and on the west side of the pond, another path along present-day Grove Street led to Pocasset.
In 1637 the English moved in. First, the leadership of Plymouth Colony granted the Ten Men of Saugus, as they were known, land in Sandwich, and soon Plymouth Pilgrims joined them. The center of town was established by the spring, the cleared land, the access to the harbor via the river, the pond, and soon the gristmill (built by Thomas Dexter before 1640), and the church. Besides the Indian paths, the farmers from all points of the compass had to reach the mill with corn and grain, and their ox- or horse-drawn carts created cartways to the mill, eventually establishing other roads. The Puritan settlers built their first church here, a small, thatched, barn-like building, a short walk from the mill. In winter, the baptismal water iced over and had to be cracked to baptize babies. The church was enlarged and rebuilt over the years. Its last building stands still on the location, but it's now a private home.
John’s father, Seth Pope, was born January 13, 1648, in Plymouth, MA, the son of Thomas Pope and Sarah Jenney. Sarah had been born on the Little James as her parents sailed to Plymouth in 1623. John Jenney, her father, was half-owner of the ship, and he soon became one of the most important men in the colony. He was a brewer, and the malting floor of his house in Plymouth still exists and still sends out the scent of beer, and he was a miller, and his mill, the Jenney gristmill has been rebuilt on its old foundations. He ran a sort of bank, the corn exchange, a counting house, bake shop, and salt works, a very important commodity before refrigeration. He was chosen Assistant to the governor and held many important posts. He died at 47 and his very capable wife carried on his businesses. She was not called Goodwife Jenney, but Mistress Jenney, which
demonstrates her high social position Eventually, she and her two sons and Thomas Pope and her daughter, his wife, purchased land in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, in present-day Acushnet, where Thomas started a mill.
Seth’s relationship with Sandwich started in 1670 when he arrived as a traveling salesman, selling wares house to house. The leaders of Sandwich sent the constable to demand that he leave town. They feared he would become a “charge upon the town,” (The Genealogy of Thomas Pope of Plymouth by Thomas Leonard Pope, page 10) in other words, they were afraid he would be unable to support himself and they would have to feed and house him. How insulting that must have been for him, a competent and ambitious young man of 22. Perhaps, instead of selling his wares, he lingered each day to talk to Deborah Perry, his future wife, giving the impression that he was lazy trouble rather than an ambitious young man in love. He married her five years later, after he was well established. Lending credence to this theory is the fact that he left Sandwich at Monument, which is where Deborah lived with her parents Ezra Perry and his wife Elizabeth Burgess Perry. The Burgess family had a land grant that included the Apucxet Trading Post, no longer used, and Ezra bought part of it from his father-in-law. They lived in the building that housed the Pilgrim's trading post. See www.bournehistorical.org. It was when he left town, certainly shocked and embarrassed in front of everyone, especially, perhaps, Deborah and her parents, that he famously declared that he would “yet buy up the town.” (TLP, page 10)
As the story goes, instead of continuing to peddle his wares, Seth stormed off and procured “a boat at Monument” (the beach on Sandwich’s southwest, now part of Bourne) and “followed the coast to Acushnet, then a part of Dartmouth,” (TLP, page 10) returning to his family’s homestead. The homestead was a log house built by Thomas Pope on or near Sconticut Neck Road near the Mattapoisett Road. His father had built a gristmill there about 1652 (Judd, 1896:19). Were the Popes Quakers? No, but they were very familiar with them, because many of the families that left Plymouth to settle in Dartmouth were Quakers. Also Deborah Perry Pope's uncle's family were Quakers (her father's brother and his family). Seth and Deborah's sons and their families and Deborah's parents were buried with gravestones at the Old Town Cemetery on Shawme Pond, a Puritan congregationalist burying ground. Seth Pope, Jr., and his family were listed in 1730 by the Minister Fessenden as members of the Puritan Congregational church, as was the Widow Pope, Experience Jenkins Pope, John's second wife.
Seth and Deborah Perry Pope lived in Fairhaven, which was at that time another section of Dartmouth.
In the coming years Seth Pope became one of the wealthiest men in the province. He had a wharf and warehouse in Acushnet. He was part owner of two sloops. He was many times selectman of Dartmouth, chosen representative to the General Court at Plymouth, which was similar to our House of Representatives or Britain’s House of Commons, and chosen a magistrate of Bristol County—being a magistrate was like being in Britain’s House of Lords without the necessity of a title—and he was appointed Justice of the Peace of Dartmouth.
Seth maybe got his feistiness from his father and his self-control and business sense from his mother’s side. His father was Thomas Pope, born in 1608, who had arrived in America in May 1630, on the Mary and John with a group of Puritans and their ministers, Mr. Maverick (who was the original maverick from whence the word comes) and Mr. Warham for whom the town of Wareham was probably named. According to Thomas Leonard Pope, speaking of Thomas, “His promptness in resenting a real or fancied injury, and his independent expressions of personal opinion, more than once caused him to be arraigned before the magistrates of New Plymouth." Reading the old records, one discovers that this was true of many of the Puritans. They were independent and fought for what they believed was right or rightfully theirs.
After his first wife died, Thomas Pope married Sarah Jenney, daughter of John Jenney and Sarah Carey Jenny, on May 29, 1646, in Plymouth. Sarah Jenney gave birth to Seth. Her parents had married in Leiden in Holland, 1614, and were members, like many of the Pilgrims, of the Separatist (Puritan) church there. Tourists can visit the recreated mill on the original site in Plymouth, Massachusetts directly beside his first house. It's next door to the 1640 Sparrow House. www.jenneygristmill.org
At one point Thomas Pope was brought up on charges of slander but both sides were found equally guilty. Then he was arrested with Gyles Rickard, Sr., for fist fighting. They were fined and Thomas received an additional fine for striking Gyles’ wife. Thomas also had to find sureties for his good behavior for “other turbulent carriages in word and deed.” (Thomas Leonard Pope, The Genealogy of Thomas Pope of Plymouth, page 7, GEN. REG. xv. 266) He was again in court because of another fight over a boundary dispute. In 1668 he became a freeman, which meant he had land, money, and recommendations. In 1670 he was fined for “vilifying the ministry.” He was also appointed constable one year and was on at least a couple of juries. Vilifying the ministry was very common among the Puritans at this time.
Thomas and his family moved from Plymouth to Dartmouth around 1650, buying a large acreage on the east side of the Acushnet River. His wife Sarah’s mother and two brothers also each bought land, becoming the Popes’ neighbors.
According to R. A. Lovell in his book Sandwich, A Cape Cod Town, the Pilgrims had treated the Indian Massasoit (Great Chief) Yellow Feather with the honors due an English king, giving him respect and gifts, including a scarlet coat. Massasoit and Edward Winslow particularly trusted and respected each other. (Sandwich, A Cape Cod Town by R. A. Lovell, Jr, page 54-55) Reading Bradford and Winslow’s own accounts of their relationship with the Indians, one finds the Indians were frequent visitors. The Indian men brought their wives and children and would sometimes stay overnight as guests in the Pilgrim’s tiny houses, wearing out their welcome. The English would feed them food they could little afford to share, and they were nervous around the Indians. The Indians thought the English smelled horrible since the English seldom bathed, usually only in late May--the reason for June weddings--while the Indians swam frequently to bathe. They were often naked, even in winter, a shock to the Pilgrims, and even to us, shivering in our layers of winter clothing.
Massasoit Yellow Feather's family lived in Bristol, Rhode Island, and he was the massasoit to the tribes from Rhode Island, the Cape, and southeastern Massachusetts.
Upon Massasoit’s death, his son Wamsutta, also named Alexander, became the massasoit. Rumors arose that he intended to attack the English, so the new generation at Plymouth demanded his appearance. Instead of going, he asked for Assistant Governor Thomas Willett to come to him as he had once before. Willet wasn’t available, and when Wamsutta didn’t appear, Plymouth sent an armed force to drag him to Plymouth, an outrageous act. He was questioned and released but shortly thereafter died of fever. There were rumors among the Indians that the indignities heaped upon him had killed him or that he was poisoned. His brother Metacom became the massasoit. He was the one the English called King Philip. Resentful of his brother’s death and the number of English taking over the land and imposing their culture and religion, he turned on the settlers. Many Indians had long wished they had driven the English off or killed them all when they first arrived. King Philip gathered angry Indians from many tribes and began ambush attacks on the settlements.
July 1674, the Indians attacked Dartmouth. Seth Pope’s siblings, 22-year old John and Susannah with her husband Jacob Mitchell “were killed by a party of Phillip’s Indians ‘early in the morning as they were fleeing on horseback to the garrison, whither the Mitchell children had been sent the night before.’” (Thomas Leonard Pope, The Genealogy of Thomas Pope of Plymouth, page 8, GEN. REG. xv. 266). The settlement at Dartmouth was burned to the ground and for three years the inhabitants lived elsewhere, probably with relatives or friends.
It was on October 23, 1675, at the height of the war, that Seth and Deborah’s son, named John for his slaughtered uncle, was born.
John-num, one of the Indians, confessed to the killing and was executed. Another whom he accused, Popanooie, and his wife and children, were impressed in “perpetual servitude” with Popanooie being sold out of the country. (TLP, page 9)
It was common for a father to set up his sons with a farm or in business if he had the land and money in the same way that parents today send their children to college or training. The Puritans believed that God preordained certain favored people to go to heaven. An indication that one was heaven-bound was his success on earth, so, simply put, everyone strove to be successful. The Quakers focused on the gentle teachings of Jesus in the New Testament while the Puritans concentrated on the angry and punishing God of the Old Testament. Since over the years Seth had become “one of the most wealthy and influential members of the old colony,” (TLP, page 16), he and Deborah made sure their children were given a good start--Seth also made sure they spent no years as traveling peddlers such as he had. He set them up not only with houses and land to farm, but with businesses to run.
It could be speculated that he chose Sandwich for John in gleeful vengeance to prove to the town fathers how wrong they had been, but there were more compelling reasons. The Indians of Cape Cod had a good relationship with the English settlers, and a very good relationship with Elizabeth Bourne’s family, so Seth could feel his son and his family would be safe here. Another reason was that his son John’s wife, Elizabeth Bourne, was from Sandwich and may have wanted to live close to her parents and siblings, and a distant fourth was that John’s grandparents, his mother Deborah Perry Pope’s family, lived in Sandwich, although quite a trek from town.
Elizabeth Bourne Pope’s grandfather, Richard Bourne, trained as a lawyer in London and became the ordained minister (1670) to the Indians, which brought him great prestige among the Puritans in England and in the colonies. Later, his son Shearjashub took over his ministry and helped the local Wampanoags legally register their own land in Mashpee, safe from the colonists’ expansion. The Bourne’s attentions and protection brought them the respect and affection of the Indians. Elizabeth was the daughter of Elisha Bourne (brother of Shearjashub) and Patience Skiffe Bourne.
Elizabeth Bourne was born June 28, 1679. She married John on “January 2, 1699/1700” according to http://aleph0.clarku.edu~djoyce/gen/report. In the Internet genealogies there is much waffling between the dates. Did they marry in 1698/99 or 1699/1700? I chose the 1700 date because the clarku.edu site had more detailed research and because I assumed the old style of starting the year on March 25 may have confused earlier genealogists.
Seth built John’s house at what is now 110 Tupper Road in Sandwich on the rise of a hill overlooking valuable salt meadows. The marsh hay was harvested and fed to the animals in winter. The Pilgrims referred to the Cape as "the granary." The house was beautifully sited and included at least 40 acres of land for John to farm. From the hill behind the house, the family had inspiring vistas from Plymouth to Barnstable, and on a very clear day, Provincetown. At that time the road was known as “the road to Town Neck.” Town Neck was the communal cow pasture. Mill Creek zigzags through the marsh toward John Pope’s front door before veering off toward the gristmill on Shawme Pond downtown. Mill Creek spills over the marshes during high tide, so John had boat access to old Sandwich Harbor and Cape Cod Bay from his own land. There is still evidence of the town boat dock on what had been John's land and is now my neighbor's on the marsh side of the street. The creek was once a river. His father Seth Pope bought the Dexter gristmill on Shawme Pond, which had been rebuilt in 1654 and which still grinds corn for tourists today.
John’s brother, Seth Jr., was only 11-years old when John wed at age 23. Upon Seth Jr.’s marriage in 1710 to Elizabeth Bourne Pope’s sister, Seth appointed Seth Jr. to run the mill. He either built or bought a beautiful house equal to John’s for Seth Jr. (10 Grove Street) and more acreage, probably 40 acres. If the houses weren’t built as full upright colonials originally, the brothers and subsequent owners kept an eye on each other's improvements, because they look much the same. Seth Jr.s’ house was sited with a water view and with a hill rising behind it much like John's. The hill became known as Pope’s Hill until the Academy was built upon it at which point it became Academy Hill. Seth Pope acquired a fulling (wool processing) mill and weave shop nearby and appointed Seth Jr. to run them. According to Thomas Leonard Pope, he left them in his will to Seth with the provision that if Seth didn’t keep things up, the executors were to step in, repair them, and run them until the expenses were repaid. Pope also mentions that in 1734 a committee met with Seth Jr. to discuss improving his service at the gristmil. This wasn't unusual. Both his grandfather Jenney and his grandmother Jenney had been sued over the grinding of corn.
John and Elizabeth Pope named their first child Seth. He was born January 30, 1700/1 and grew up to marry Jerusha Tobey. You can see the beautiful 1690 Tobey house on Water Street a bit further on from the Hoxie house. Five more little Popes were born at 110 Tupper—Deborah on January 6, 1702/3, who married Cornelius Tobey; Sarah on March 35, 1704/5 who married Zaccheus Tobey; Elizabeth on January 3, 1705/6, who married Jethro Delano; Thomas 1708/9 who married Thankful Dillingham in Harwich, and Mary, December, 1712/13 who married David Finney in Barnstable. (aleph0.clarku.edu~djoyce/gen/report)
Elizabeth Bourne Pope died April,15, 1715, at “age 35 and about ten months,” according to her tombstone, when Mary was a toddler. She had lived for 16 years in her house. I often wonder how she felt when she looked out her front door onto the beautiful salt meadows flooded at high tide and lighted by the morning sun or rising moon. Elizabeth was buried in the old town cemetery, which is on a small peninsula that juts into Shawme Pond very close to her sister Hannah’s house. You can see her grave, her parents’ graves, and John Pope’s grave there, as well as some of her adult children's. Go to www.capecodgravestones.com/sandwich.html to see the graves of the people who lived in the house.
After her death, John married Experience Jenkins (her mother was a Hamblin) of Barnstable, age 24, in October, 1717, and three more little Popes were born in the house—Ezra who married Sarah Freeman, Joanna, and Charles. John Pope died in November of 1725 when his youngest was only a baby. According to Thomas Leonard Pope, his gravestone in Sandwich cemetery on the pond is probably the oldest gravestone bearing the name Pope in the New World (except Elizabeth’s!) Now the history of the house becomes clouded. Did Experience sell the house or did she raise her children here? She is listed as Widow Pope in Reverend Fessenden's list of Sandwich church members in 1730, so she probably raised the children in the house. Seth, the son of John and Elizabeth, most likely inherited the house. If his father made a will, he would have made sure Seth allowed Experience and the children to share the house with him. In Thomas Pope's book Seth is described as ". . . a respectful citizen of that town, and was frequently chosen to fill positions of public trust." All his children were born in Sandwich. In 1749 he moved his family to Connecticut where he bought a large farm. Did John Pope add the fancy front of the house while Elizabeth was alive? Or as a widower looking for a new wife? Or did Experience urge him to build it? Or did Seth Pope, her stepson, add the front rooms? When did Joseph Nye, Sr., buy the house? Was it in 1749 when Seth moved to Connecticut? Was Nye the one to add the front rooms? Or did he merely update them with dentil molding in the hall parlor?
The next recorded owner is Joseph Nye, and then his son Joseph Nye, Esquire. Benjamin Nye married Katherine Tupper (Tupper Road is named after Thomas Tupper and his descendants). Their son John married Esther (sometimes spelled Easter) Shedd (1653-1726). (His brother Jonathan inherited the Nye family homestead, which is open to the public in summer, and its gristmill.) John and Esther's son Joseph (1694-1775) married Mehitable Bourne, who was born in 1700, the daughter of Deacon Timothy Bourne and his wife Temperance Swift Bourne. So once again we have a descendant of Richard Bourne living in the house. Joseph and Mehitable had a son named Joseph who was born in 1740 and died in 1796.
This Joseph, who would become Joseph Nye, Esquire, married Catherine Sturgis (about 1751 to 1815), the daughter of Jonathan Sturgis (sometimes spelled Sturges) and Hannah Newcomb. Her mother Hannah was the daughter of William Newcomb and Bathsheba Bourne. Once again, a Bourne descendant enters the house.
Joseph Nye, Esquire, was named to the first Committee of Correspondence, as was his brother Stephen, and nine other residents. He corresponded with Sam Adams, the famous Patriot, cousin to John Adams, and Sam's letter thanking him for gathering money from the Sandwich churches for the Patriot cause still exists. These committees were set up to protest the British taxes and onerous laws and to advance the Patriot cause.
Dr. Freeman, a local doctor who had been severely beaten by Tories meeting at Newcomb Tavern (beside the Seth Pope house), and Joseph, Esq., were chosen as delegates to the Provincial Congress in July, 1775, during the Revolutionary War. Joseph Nye requisitioned 60 whaleboats the next year in Buzzards Bay as part of a detachment going to fight the British in Rhode Island. He served as selectman, during and after the war.
In 1784 "a group of three well-to-do men,'" which included Joseph Nye, Esquire, were asked to solve the problem of supporting the poor. R. A. Lovell in his book Sandwich, A Cape Cod Town, suggests that the wealthy, including wealthy selectmen, were voluntarily paying taxes and assigning amounts to the post-Revolution poor. All my information about Joseph Nye, Esquire's, activities come from this book. Lovell writes, "There was a weekly rider bringing and taking mail from Sandwich at least by 1775, using as his drop the residence of Joseph Nye Esq. .. " He also writes, "A large purchase at Fairfield, Maine was organized in 1781 by Joseph Nye, Esq., of Sandwich, the Revolutionary leader, and by Joseph Dimmick of Falmouth.
The 1790 census describes the family of Joseph and Catherine as comprised of three males over 16 and four under 16, five females, and two "others," probably servants.
You can also find the Nye gravestones at the above website.
Next, Ezra Tobey bought the house. He was born September 1, 1796. He owned a general store in Sandwich, and later bought a farm, which was the John Pope house and land. He was a Whig, then became a Republican. He served as Town Clerk for many years. He and his wife were active in the Unitarian Church which was housed in the church on the site of the first Puritan church. The original Puritan church split around this time into Congregationalists and Unitarians. Usually, the Unitarians, having more money and intellectual influence, got the original church building, which is why so many First Parish Churches in Massachusetts are Unitarian-Universalist. His wife was Elizabeth Basset, daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth Newcomb. So once again, a Newcomb descendant enters the house. She was born in 1799 and died in 1866, aged 66. They had ten children, one of whom was named Charles Nye Tobey, so they must have been related to the Nyes. When their oldest was 22, they had a newborn. Ezra Tobey sold some of the land to the new railroad (north of 6A) and he sold land to Captain Stephen Sears who built the house to the left of 110 Tupper Inn with the provision that Ezra would be able to cut through Sears' land to reach the well. He was quite busy selling parcels of land and marsh. Ezra died at age 54 in 1849.
William Spring bought it next. It was sold to Joseph Sargent Moody in 1878 and his family owned the house until 1971. They ran it as a boarding house for about 30 years, starting in 1913, and then as a beloved vacation home.
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