Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts 9781501725036

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Map & Graphs
Tables
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Problems, Sources, and Methods
Part I: The First And Second Generations
2. Life and Death in a Wilderness Settlement
3. Land for Families: The Formative Decades
4. Patriarchalism and the Family
Part II: The Second And Third Generations
5. The Expanding Population in a Farming Community
6. Control and Autonomy: Families and the Transmission of Land
Part III: The Third And Fourth Generations
7. Change and Decline: Population and Families in a Provincial Town
8. Independence and Dependence in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Families
Part IV: Conclusion
9. Historical Perspectives on the Family
Appendix: General Demographic Data
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

FOUR GENERATIONS Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

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The Eastern Part of Massachusetts Bay Colony, I755· Reproduced from Thomas Jefferys' "A Map of the most Inhabited part of New England, containing the Provinces of Massachusets bay, and New Hampshire, with the colonies of Conecticut

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and Rhode Island. November 29, 1755"; in Jefferys' A general topography of North America and the West Indies (London, 1768); courtesy of the Map Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

FOUR GENERATIONS Population, Land, and Family in Colonial cAndover, Massachusetts ~~-.~PiliP

Philip J. Greven, Jr.

Cornell Paperbaclu Cornell University Press ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright© I970 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 5 I 2 East State Street, Ithaca, New York I485o. First published I970 by Cornell University Press. First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1972. Seventh printing 1995· International Standard Book Number o-80I4-9I 34-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-87oi8 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

€9 The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-I984.

For Helen

Preface History is subject to generational changes; our perspectives and our understanding of the past tend to shift as successive generations of historians come to maturity. The changing circumstances of society alter the formative experiences of historians, whose subsequent work often reflects their changing assumptions and values. The particular questions asked, the particular types of research undertaken, the particular forms of evidence used, also have much to do with ways in which approaches to the past are transformed. The choices and decisions that individual historians make about their researches may seem to reflect only their private interests and predispositions; yet when it becomes evident that such choices have much in common with the choices being made by other historians as well, one can begin to speak meaningfully about the emergence of a generation. The appearance of a number of studies by younger historians, sharing many premises similar to my own and providing new and distinctive perspectives upon early American history and society, suggests that a significant change in the way historians study the past may now be taking place.1 Although our particular studies differ in many respects, it is becoming apparent that we hold certain convictions in common. Our 1 1n particular, see the following: John Demos, A Little Common'IJ1ealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (New York, 1970);

viii

PREFACE

works reflect the belief that historians must seek to explore the basic structure and character of society through close, detailed examinations of the experiences of individuals, families, and groups in particular communities and localities. We share the assumption that historians must use the techniques and questions of other disciplines, including historical demography, sociology, and psychology, whenever they are pertinent to an analysis and an understanding of the past. We share a common conviction that social historians in the past have made too many unfounded assumptions about many basic elements of experience and behavior. In seeking more reliable answers to questions about the nature of early American social experience, we have become aware of the value and the importance of quantifiable data. Yet none of us would be inclined to underestimate the importance of subjective factors in recreating the past. For our generation, at least, the old argument over History as an art or as a science has little relevance to what we are actually trying to do. We have come to believe that the historian must count and quantify data whenever possible and use them as fully as he can; at the same time, we believe that the historian must also use imagination Kenneth A. Lockridge, "Dedham, 1636-1736: The Anatomy of a Puritan Utopia" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1¢5), which is to appear in a revised form as A New England To'W'Il: The First Hundred Years, Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1736 (New York, 1970); Sumner Chilton Powell, Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England TO'Um (Middletown, Conn., 1¢3); Darrett B. Rutman, Winthrop's Boston: Portrait of a Puritan To'W'Il, 163o-1649 (Chapel Hill, 1¢5); Stephan Themstrom, Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (Cambridge, Mass., 1¢4); and John J. Waters, Jr., The Otis Family in Provincial and Revolutionary Massachusetts (Chapel Hill, 1968). I was fortunate to be able to read Demos' study in manuscript, thanks to the kindness of John Demos and Arthur Pyle, of Plimoth Plantation, Inc.

PREFACE

lX

and intuition continuously in the reconstruction of the past. In this study, at least, I have tried to do both. Younger generations are always influenced by the generations which precede them, as this study itself amply demonstrates. My own work has been profoundly influenced at every stage by the teaching and the scholarship of Bernard Bailyn, who guided my initial research and directed the writing of my doctoral dissertation. The stimulating hypotheses first sketched out in Bailyn's essay, Education in the Forming of Americm Society: Needs and Opportunities for Study (Chapel Hill, 196o), shaped the direction of my research and exened a considerable influence upon my growing awareness of the central role which the family has played in molding American experience and society. The earlier pioneering study by EdmundS. Morgan, The Puritan Family: Religion & Domestic Relations in Seventeenth-Century New Englmd (rev. ed., New York, 1966), also had an impact upon my awareness of the family as a subject for historical inquiry. Oscar Handlin's course in American social histo~y transformed my awareness of the nature and the potential importance of social history, just as Bailyn's course on colonial America converted me to a field which had previously held no interest for me. Teaching and scholarship serve different purposes, no doubt, but both can exen an extraordinary influence upon the directions which are to be followed by younger generations. During the past decade, I have become indebted to many people who have contributed in many different ways to the work which I have done. Among those who criticized and commented upon an earlier version of the manuscript or upon ponions of it which have been published, I wish to thank William W. Abbot, Bernard Bailyn, John Demos, Oscar Handlin, Thomas Leavitt, H. Roy Merrens, Margaret

PREFACE

Ormsby, and Walter Whitehill, for their many helpful suggestions. I also owe a particular debt toP. M.G. Harris for his acute and thorough commentary. In addition, my former colleagues in the History Department at the University of British Columbia raised many cogent questions about the chapter on the seventeenth-century family. I am also most grateful to Darrett B. Rutman and to Richard P. McCormick, for the comments, criticisms, and suggestions which they provided for an earlier draft of the manuscript for this book, and to the staff of Cornell University Press. Their efforts made this a better book, and any deficiencies or errors which remain are entirely my own responsibility. The research for this book would not have been possible without the kind cooperation of many people. Irving Piper, Town Oerk of Andover, and his secretary, Annetta Wrigley, provided me with ready access to the original town records, and working-space in their office, courtesies for which I have always been most grateful. I also appreciated the hospitality of the staff of the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum in North Andover, and of Bruce Sinclair and Rex Parody in particular. Over the years, the staff at the Essex Institute in Salem has been unfailingly helpful and gracious in permitting me to explore and to use their superb collection of manuscripts. Leo Flaherty was also most helpful in finding manuscripts in the Massachusetts Archives in Boston. The staffs at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, Widener Library at Harvard University, and the Memorial Library in Andover provided access to the countless local histories and genealogies which were so essential to me. Mrs. Sessions, of the Andover Historical Society, made accessible to me the typescripts of the Abbott genealogies as well as the manuscript collections of the Society. I am particularly indebted to the custodians of the seventeenth- and

PREFACE

xi

eighteenth-century records of Essex County-the Oerk of the County Couns, the Clerk of the Registry of Deeds, and the Oerk of the Probate Records, and their staffs-for their generous assistance and for providing me with the opportunity to use these historically invaluable records. I have also appreciated the financial assistance which I received during the course of my work on Andover. The Nonh Andover Historical Society provided funds for typing; the University of British Columbia Research Council and the American Association for State and Local History both provided funds for research; and the Charles Warren Center, Harvard University, provided funds for microfilms. For permission to draw upon portions of earlier versions of chapters in this book, I wish to thank the Essex Institute for the use of "Old Patterns in the New World: The Distribution of Land in 17th Century Andover," Esse:r Institute Historical Collections, CI (1965), and the Editor of the Willimn tmd Mary Quarterly, for the use of "Family Structure in Seventeenth-Century Andover, Massachusetts," W MQ, XXIU (1966). For their couneous permission to quote from the following books, I wish to thank: Little, Brown and Company (The Atlantic Monthly Press), and Collins-KnowltonWing, me., for Oscar Handlin's The Americtms: A Nerw History of the People of the United States (copyright® 1963 by Oscar Handlin); Charles Scribner's Sons, for Peter Laslett's The World We Have Lost; Routledge 8t Kegan Paul Ltd. (London), and Humanities Press Inc. (New York), for W. M. Williams' A West Country Village, Ash'Worthy:

Family, Kinship and Land. Debts of another, but no less important, kind are owed to friends and to members of my family. Lawrence Bonaguidi, Thomas Condon, Thomas Davis Ill, John Demos, Jane and Wendell Garrett, Kenneth MacRae, Preston Munter, Grady

PREFACE

McWhiney, Harold Poor, John Schott, and William Slottman provided over the years friendship, counsel, and encouragement which I have greatly appreciated. My parents, Sarah H. and Philip J. Greven; my grandparents, Julia 0. and Harry H. Hawkins; and my parents-in-law, Gurney F. and J. Tyson Stokes, have all provided me with countless reasons to acknowledge my indebtedness to them. Above all, though, it is my wife, Helen Stokes Greven, who has made this book possible. The extent of my debt to her is immeasurable; but it can be acknowledged, as I have done in dedicating this book to her. Throughout the book, I have retained all dates as they appeared in the original records, except that I have assumed that the year began on January 1 rather than on March 2 s for the period prior to •752· Accordingly, I have altered all double dates, so that a date such as February s, 1722/3, becomes February s, r 72 3, in the text. I have also retained the highly individualistic spellings of the original documents, except for altering the archaic "u" to "v" and "f" to "s." Otherwise the citations are as they appeared in their original forms. In order to avoid the necessity for including long lists of citations of probate records and deeds for each of the four generations studied, I have deposited a fully annotated copy of the manuscript for this book in the library of the Merrimack Valley Textile Museum, North Andover, Massachusetts, where it will be accessible to anyone who may wish to use it.

P. J. G., JR.

Highltmd Park, New Jersey June ''6'

Contents Preface Abbreviations I

Introduction: Problems, Sources, and Methods

vii xvii I

PART I: THE FIRST AND SEOOND GENERATIONS

Life and Death in a Wilderness Settlement 3 Land for Families: The Formative Decades 4 Patriarchalism and the Family 1

11

PART II: THE SEOOND AND THIRD GENERATIONS

5 The Expanding Population in a Farming Community

I03

6 Control and Autonomy: Families and the Transmission of

Land

I15

PART III: THE THIRD AND FOURTH GENERATIONS

7 Change and Decline: Population and Families in a Pro17 5 vincial Town 8 Independence and Dependence in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Families 111 PART IV: CONCLUSION

9 Historical Perspectives on the Family

Appendix: General Demographic Data Bibliography Index

16I

Map frontispiece The Eastern Part of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1755

Graphs Second-generation marriages in consecutive five-year intervals 38 1 Third-generation marriages in consecutive five-year intervals 117 3 Average value of mixed land per decade, 16~1789 130 4 Annual births, marriages, and deaths in Andover, 165o1799 181 5 Fourth-generation marriages in consecutive five-year interVals 105 1

Tables I Births per marriage, I65o-I684 2 Age at death of persons born between I 640 and I 669 and surviving to age 20 3 Age at marriage of second-generation males and females 4 The settlers to whom house lots were given prior to 1662 and the sizes of their lots 5 Allotment of ]and in successive divisions to 1662 6 Births per marriage, 168o-I724 7 Age at death of persons born between I67o and I699 8 Age at death of persons born between I670 and I 699 and surviving to age 20 9 Family size of completed second-generation families IO Age at marriage of second- and third-generation males I I Age at marriage of second- and third-generation females u Males on tax lists, by families, 1705-I730 13 Rate of population increase, 168o-I8oo, based upon estimated total population I4 Rate of population increase, I65o-I799, based upon the town records 15 Births per marriage, 172o-1794 16 Mortality rate for persons born between 1670 and 1759 and dying before age zo I7 Rate of survival to age 10 for children born between 1640 and 1759 18 Age at death of males born between 1640 and 1759 and surviving to age 20

23 27 34 46 58 105 108 I 10 I I2 119 1z 1 I40 I 79 18o 183 189 191 192

TABLES

XV1

19 Age at death of females born between 1640 and 1759 and surviving to age zo zo Average family size in the first, second, and third genera-

tions 2.1 Average size of completed families, by date of marriage, 1685-1744 u Number of children born to completed first-, second-,

and third-generation families

195 2.01 2.02. 2.03

2.3 Number of children living to age 2.1 in completed first-,

second-, and third-generation families

204

2.4 Age at marriage of second-, third-, and founh-generation

males

207

2.5 Age at marriage of second-, third-, and founh-generation

females

209

z6 Residential origin of marriage partners, by date of mar-

riage, 165o-1749 17 Geographical mobility of second-, third-, and founhgeneration males living to age 2.1 2.8 Males on tax lists, by families, 173o-1767 2.9 Total value of estates in inventories for four generations of men

211 2.12. 2.16

2.2.5

cAbhreviations AHR AQ EHR EIHC Essex Deeds

Americtm Historical Rwie