CHAPTER III.

LAND GRANTS

At this point perhaps you would be interested in how some families came into possession of additional lands and homesites beyond the central village such as the South Pond area. The thousands of acres of land surrounding the site of the original settlement were held in common by all of the inhabitants, or more accurately the free holders or proprietors. These lands were thus available for distribution and use, so that the colony could grow and support more settlers.

The General Court, the ruling body, was made up of the whole body of freemen. At first the freemen were signers of the Mayflower Compact and later such persons as new settlers or inhabitants from other towns moving permanently to Plymouth might be added by majority vote. In a sense the people of Plymouth were a legislative body in themselves.

The Court had power to elect officers, make laws, and after paying off the indebtedness owed the English stock company, Plymouth was recognized as a town in 1633. In the beginning land within Plymouth was considered as held in common until legally granted away to specific persons or users. The land in the center, commonly known as the mile and a half strip, was the first apportioned. Land grants were made at various times by the General Court. In 1702 it was voted that a thirty acre lot should be given to each proprietor and ungranted land in the mile and a half square tract should be held for the town and sold from time to time for its benefit.

As explained by Wm. T. Davis, all common lands beyond the central district were granted to the freemen of the town, two hundred one in number, who were called, after the town of Plympton was set off and incorporated, _Plymouth and Plympton Proprietors_. These proprietors organized with records and a clerk and recorded their grants and sales. “In 1705 they voted to grant each of their number a twenty acre lot and shortly after a sixty acre lot. In addition in the same year all the cedar swamps within the town were divided into thirty nine great lots which were subdivided into shares and distributed by lot.” These transactions can be examined today in the town records.

In 1710 it was voted to lay out the remainder of their lands, thirty thousand acres, into ten great lots, southwest and south of the central area. These boundaries are found in the records. There is a survey and map compiled in January, 1882 by C. H. Holmes, surveyor, on file in the Registry of Deeds concerning the shares in the eight great lots laid out beginning in 1712. These lots run north and south. On the west the first extends from West Pond south to the Wareham line. Proceeding eastwardly, the next seven lie southward to the Half-Way Pond River, the beginning part of Agawam River, area. The ninth is in the area of Mast Road, Halfway Pond, Long Pond, and the Herring Path. The tenth lies east and west of the Sandwich Road.

The size of the shares in the lots varied widely in acreage, being influenced by such factors as uplands, swamps, meadows, wood lots, accessibility and desirability in general. Desirable shares may be of thirty acres. Less desirable or remotely accessible shares might have a hundred acres or more.

Great South Pond was mostly in the fifth great lot. On the north, the first share was on its western shore. The second share is directly south of the first and includes land on the west and east shores of the present Boot Pond, extended south to approximately half of the Pond. The Burgess homestead is in this second share. Other Burgess lands were in the third and fourth shares of the fifth great lot and also in the sixth great lot to the east.

The thirty thousand acres involved in the distribution south to the approximate present southern boundaries of the town of Plymouth contain many large and lovely ponds, some of which were once collectively called the South Ponds. They are spring fed, with white sandy shores with a slight change in depth as the water table fluctuates. In the area are many streams and the Agawam River. Probably a large portion of the original distribution is now in the Myles Standish State Forest which goes to the Wareham line, with the waters of Buzzards Bay not far beyond.

It is pleasant to recall that Plymouth was once pristine and unsettled for the most part. In the natural state the early settlers could partake of such beauty, a compensation in part for the toil and effort and hardship put forth by them to provide a livelihood and increase what they called “improved” land.

It can be said that those who came to the outlying woodlands of the area to clear it, make homesteads for themselves and live lives as husbandmen and yeomen were not affluent central village inhabitants. They were young, able-bodied types who had a future vision of ultimate security and land owning from the result of their own laborious efforts. Owning land was the prime motive for security from the early beginnings. It is well to remember that these people were only a few generations from the poorer English classes and culture as were most people in the Plymouth settlement. A livelihood from the land by one’s own toil was the principal one open to them.

Access to the first homesteads in the South Ponds region from Plymouth was south by the South Pond Road, now called Long Pond Road. Leaving the road at a point where the watercourse crossed the road a further woods road slightly southwest, avoiding inclines for the horses where possible, lead past the Belcher Manter property and on to the Burgess homestead. For a long time it was called the Burgess Road and as it continued southward it was called Baptist Road. It continued on eventually to the Wareham and Rochester area. The Burgess and Baptist Roads are still basically woods roads and are most pleasant for walking.

It had been a custom one hundred years ago or more to refer to the region as that of the South Ponds. Beginning on the north the ponds would be Cook’s, Triangle, Little South, Great South, Negro, Hallfield, Hoyt’s, and Gunners Exchange. The original references to Great South Pond include its lower pond as “the southerly arm of Great South Pond,” as one reads the deeds of the time. There was a small stream connecting the two bodies of water when the water level was high enough. The variation can average about eight feet and seems to go in cycles of about twelve years. South Pond is about one hundred feet above sea level.

As far as I have been able to determine, the term “Boot Pond” for this southerly arm seems to have been originated later on, perhaps after the 1850’s. The map of Plymouth in 1830 drawn by the surveyor S. Bourne calls the lower arm “South Pond” as well. The use of the word “Boot” is realistic, for when accurately mapped the shape is like a high boot from a side view. Boot Pond is about 2500 feet in length and averaging 1200 feet in width, with the toe to the west in proportion. There is a high pine wooded ridge along the western shore. There is a small higher ground peninsula from the top of the pond on which the Douglas house was built in the 1870’s.

We now come to the first owners of the lands near South Pond, members of the Churchill family, who first obtained a grant from the town of Plymouth in 1670. The Churchill lands were held for 100 years and then bought by Henry Richmond, and to the south by Jonathan Holmes.

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