I led a walk
last weekend at the John Little Conservation Area in North Marshfield. In
preparation, I spent some time reviewing the history of that particular part of
town. Things have changed, of course, since North Marshfield was developed in
the 17th and 18th centuries, yet because certain aspects
of this village remain unchanged – especially in comparison to other parts of
our region – it’s easy to image what life was like when the European settlers
first arrived.
The John
Little Conservation Area, located at 905 Union Street, was established in 2009,
thanks to Community Preservation funds to purchase an initial 25 acres. The
following year, additional CPA funding permitted the acquisition of an
additional 49.8 acres. In the past several years, Marshfield has created trails
and boardwalks within the property, as well as a long, beautiful walkway that
leads to a dock on the North River. The 75 acres include pasture, forest, and
marsh, along with some gorgeous views of the river. Walking the trails, one
encounters old stone walls and cart paths, which offer a glimpse of the property’s
agricultural past.
The North
River valley was populated well before European settlers arrived in the
mid-1600s. Native American tribes considered the North River a major highway. The
Wampanoag traveled regularly along a network of waterways from Narragansett Bay
to Massachusetts Bay -- from the Nemasket and Taunton Rivers, to the ponds of
Pembroke, to the North River and out to sea. Numerous archaeological sites
along the hillsides of the river valley reveal evidence of their summer camps.
The first
European settlers to put down roots in North Marshfield were from Scituate and
South Scituate (now Norwell). According to the book Marshfield: A Town of
Villages, by Cynthia Krusell and Betty Bates, families who worshipped at the
Quaker meeting house across the river near Wanton Shipyard began arriving
around 1649. These included the Tildens,
Rogers, and Oakmans.
Sometime
before 1700, Elisha Bisbee began running a ferry at the site of today’s Union
Street Bridge, followed by the Oakman and Tolman families. In 1801 the town
erected a toll bridge at the site. In 1850, when sufficient tolls had been
collected to pay for the construction costs, they celebrated by holding a
jubilee, and making the bridge a “free” one going forward. Subsequent bridges
were constructed in 1889, 1917, 1972 and 2010. From the ferry/bridge site, a
cart path extended south for several miles. Portions of it still remain –
particularly within the conservation lands that border the river.
It is said
that if it weren’t for the salt hay along the rivers, the European settlers
would not have survived here. There was very little unforested land, and what
they managed to clear, they needed for growing crops for human consumption.
Thus they fed their livestock salt marsh hay. (It was also used for roof thatch
and wall insulation.) By the late1600s, land rights had been granted to all of
the area’s salt marshes. Ditches were cut to serve as property boundaries. Thus,
Two Mile, the village just south of North Marshfield, earned its name. From
1640 to 1788, a parcel two miles long and one mile wide (measured from midstream
in the river to the upland) was deeded to South Scituate, for salt haying
rights.
Driving
through North Marshfield today, it’s easy to imagine the village’s agricultural
past. Many open fields and stone walls remain, as well as the occasional working
farm. The John Little Conservation Area was named for the family who operated a
dairy farm there. Jack and Grace Little’s Little Jersey Farm offered milk and
cream from the 1930s to the 1950s. Jack’s son Christopher still operates the
family farm, on the parcel he retains, across the street, raising cattle for
beef. Indications of the village’s other industries are harder to come by.
Other than the dam that forms Rogers Pond on Cove Creek, one might never know
of the grist mill, fish hatchery, or blacksmith shop, nor the tannery, rivet
factory or box/shingle mill.
A more
prominent industry, by far, in this area was shipbuilding. The North River was
known nationwide for its ships. From 1645 to 1871 there were 24 shipyards along
its banks, producing more than 1,000 vessels. There were two major shipyards in
North Marshfield. From 1790 to 1819, the Rogers Shipyard operated at Gravelly
Beach, at the end of present-day Cornhill Lane. And just downstream, at what is
now the Union Street Bridge, was the Brooks-Tilden Shipyard (1837-1847).
Because the lands along the rivers were richly forested, there was plenty of
timber available. Teams of oxen dragged oak and pine to the Hatch sawmill nearby,
or to saw pits at the shipyards themselves. Today all that remains of the
shipyards are metal historic markers erected at some of the sites. Once the
forests were stripped bare, and the greater world sought ships too large to be
built on this particular river, the local industry faded out.
Last
weekend’s event at Little Conservation Area was the first of what I hope will
be a series of walks I’ll be leading this winter and spring for the North and
South Rivers Watershed Association (NSRWA). If you’d like to be in the loop, I
recommend signing up for NSRWA’s weekly e-newsletter. For details, visit: http://www.nsrwa.org/.
by Kezia
Bacon
November 2017
Kezia Bacon's articles appear courtesy of the
North and South Rivers Watershed Association, a local non-profit organization
devoted to protecting our waters. For membership
information and a copy of their latest newsletter, contact NSRWA at (781)
659-8168 or visit www.nsrwa.org. To browse 20 years of nature columns, visit http://keziabaconbernstein.blogspot.com
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