CHAPTER X. JOHN BURGESS

[15] Page 45--Here is some information I have been able to gather about the land transactions of John Burgess.

His uncle, also John Burgess, has recorded many land transactions in Rochester from 1765-1795. His nephew John Burgess, also of Rochester, at age 30 made his first purchase in the South Pond area on Feb. 5, 1795, Book 77, Page 145, of a lot of 40 acres from Joshua Wright to the south of Gunner’s Exchange Pond. Rochester is located on the southern boundary of Plymouth at the foot of the original second and third great lots. In this region is the Wankinquoh River which begins near the western end of Halfway Pond Road in Carver. In the center flows the Agawam River which comes from the Halfway Pond Brook flowing southwest from Halfway Pond. Much of the region is now in the Myles Standish State Forest.

Six years later, in 1801, he bought the Samuel Wright land and buildings on the east shore of the Pond, as recorded in Book 91, Page 78. He paid $600.00 for the property. He made his livelihood here until his death in 1850, a period of 49 years. In his family were 13 children.

John Burgess’s next major purchase was forty acres on March 7, 1807, 106-227, for $80.00 from Rossiter Cotton, a justice of the peace and land agent and member of the Cotton family. It was “on the southerly side of the southerly arm of Grate South Pond.” Some of this land was valuable land for cedar timber and is now cranberry bog land.

The next purchase was on June 18, 1821, 149-174, of one undivided half part of the third share of the fifth great lot laid out to Nathaniel Holmes and sold by his great grandchildren. The original deed of the transaction I have on the wall of the kitchen. It is signed by the heirs Ichabod Davie, Robert Davie, Samuel Talbot, Jerusha, his wife, Lydia Ryder, Josiah Carver, Josiah Carver, Jr., Elizabeth Carver, all of Plymouth. It was sold for $47.50, paid by John Burgess, yeoman. It contained thirty-eight acres on the eastern and western shores of the southern part of the southerly arm of the Pond. So at Boot Pond he accumulated during his lifetime some 250 acres. The area map on page vii shows the Burgess land holdings at their maximum amount.

John Burgess also had land holdings in other parts of Plymouth, such as salt hay marsh and land at Saquish Neck, where his father was located. He bought in 1819 three acres near the present park or Training Green and Town Office Building. He sold it in 1825 to Samuel Doten and became part of Doten’s Wharf estate. This is part of the land allotted to Governor Bradford in 1623. The present Burgess home on Union Street is in this area. Barnes Lane was the old name for Lincoln Street.

The ancient way south from Leyden Street in the center of town had a crossing by ford at low water to a beach on the southern side. There was lowland extending from Water Street through what was called Dublin to the springs in the rear of the houses standing on Sandwich Street opposite the Training Green (Wm. Davis, _Ancient Landmarks_, p. 294). The Burgess property was close to the springs. Even now they still have to be drained. In 1836 John Burgess bought a lot at the corner of Sandwich and North Green Street which the family kept beyond the 1880’s. In the same year he bought the adjoining lot on the west which he sold in 1848.

In 1831, yeoman John Burgess was sixty-six years old. This year he deeded his property at the Pond to his son, Phineas, 172-47. Phineas, 1807-1890, now aged 27, “in consideration of two hundred dollars ... make over and secure to them (his parents) ... the use and improvement of the whole of the homestead farm ... during the terms of their natural lives or to the survivor of them.”

In 1833, 177-97, John sold 70 woodland acres near the ponds to Samuel Leach and Daniel Gale. After his death in 1850, one of his sons and heirs, Nathaniel of Kingston, for $30.75, sold, 241-212, a total of one hundred assorted acres to Samuel and Thomas B. Sherman. The land was in the Half Moon Pond area and the southerly part of Boot Pond, not near the homestead.

[16] Page 46--According to a note I have seen in the handwriting of Ruth Burgess Manter, which she says is copied from the _Record of the Sprague Family_, she states:

“Jennie (Jennie, daughter of Isaac Burgess) has a Book with the History of the Sprague Family and Which I have been Reading.

“My Grandmother was the daughter of Mercy and Phineas Sprague. They had two daughters and one Son, named Seth and two daughters, Mercy and Ruth. Ruth was my Grandmother and she was a twin to Seth Sprague. They were Born on the 4th of July, and she used to go over to Duxbury and Celebrate the day with him. I find by the Records he was a very Business like man and is called Hon. Seth Sprague, he was a member of Massachusetts Legislator 27 yrs., sometimes in the House and sometimes in the Senate, he has several times been chosen one of the Counsellors of the Governor of the Commonwealth but always declined that honor.”