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Freetown Historic Districts Database >
Federal Period (1775-1830)
View Federal Period (1775-1830) Properties
Assonet Village Historic District On the eve of the American Revolution, the Town of Freetown, led by Assonet residents, placed itself firmly in the Tory or Loyalist camp. In 1774 it instructed its General Court Representative Col. Thomas Gilbert to prevent repetitions of the Boston Tea Party. The staunchly anti-Whig Colonel took command of Loyalist sympathizers in southern New England, making Assonet the hub of pro-British resistance. In 1775, at the direction of British General Gage, Col. Gilbert stored muskets, powder and bullets in his house at 1 Elm Street, (c. 1744-1745, Map # 2, MHC # A-15). He also collected three hundred Bristol County men to quell the impending insurrection of the area. However, on April 9th and 10th, just a week before the battles of Concord and Lexington, a superior force of two thousand Minute Men marched on the "detested" Loyalist village, seized twenty-nine Tories and the munitions in Gilbert's house, and dispersed the Tory leaders, forcing them to flee. Gilbert escaped to a British man of war at Newport but his son in law, who was found hiding in the Elm Street house was not so fortunate. After being discovered hiding in his in-law's oven he was placed backwards on his horse and started for the Taunton jail. When the Colonel and his slave Pompey, who had returned from Newport, intercepted the group and demanded his release, the crowd, too respectful of the old soldier's power and reputation to oppose him, let the younger man go. The wealthy, older residents of Assonet continued to be strongly Loyalist. They had done well under the British and were afraid to risk their property in a war. Their stance was in contrast to the Whig or Patriot sentiments of many of the residents of New or East Freetown, who were neither as rich nor conservative as their longer established neighbors in Assonet. It was only after the leading Tories had been driven away in 1776 that Assonet came under the control of the Patriots. After the departure of most of Assonet's Loyalist leaders, Colonel Joseph Durfee, a Patriot who had served in the Battle of White Plains, returned home to re-organized the militia. On May 25, 1778, the British moved across Mt. Hope Bay to attack the southern part of Freetown (now Fall River). They had begun to move inland when the troops were met by Durfee and the Freetown militia. Out-gunned, the locals retreated towards Fall River's Main Street, but regrouped, killed two Redcoats, and drove off the enemy without a single loss of their own. Durfee later owned the house at 8 Water Street (c. 1799, Map # 59, MHC # A-43) built by blacksmiths, brothers Eleazer and Peter Nichols, Durfee's father-in-law. While the Battle of Freetown did not actually take place in present-day Freetown, its leader was an important resident of the district. Durfee served as Selectman in 1780. The majority of the Tories did not leave town, and in May 1777, Town Meeting sent to trial twenty-eight of the accused Loyalists, most from Assonet. The quirky local historian Gen. E. W. Pierce described how the Tories continued to make every possible trouble for the patriot cause. Before the end of the war, the Tories had allowed residents who were ineligible to vote but Loyalist to vote, creating "anarchy and confusion", and requiring an appeal to State authorities. Assonet residents, like many in the area, continued to vigorously resist the centralized authority of the American government. During Shay's Rebellion of 1786, Freetown resident David Valentine led the pro-British rebels, and the town became Bristol County's Tory headquarters. Freetown's stock of munitions, vulnerable to the "mobcrats", was saved by Captain Benjamin Weaver and the First Company, (Assonet) militia. Manufactured in Freetown, the rescued bullets were carried by Assonet's men in the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The period between the end of Revolutionary War and the opening of the railways in 1835 was perhaps Freetown's greatest period of growth and evident prosperity for its citizens. The cessation of hostilities allowed industries, trade and shipping to flourish, while the introduction of the more efficient rail transportation damaged the town's boat building and shipping trades, and the commercial activity based upon them. Between 1776 and 1790, when the town's population was 2,220, Freetown had grown by 301 people. By 1800 it had added another 333. Even though the Town of Fall River was set off in 1803, by 1810 Freetown population was reduced by only 657 residents. And in spite of the annexation of part of the town by Fairhaven in 1815, in 1820 Freetown had regained all but fifteen of its 1810 number. Indeed, its population steadily advanced until 1830, when it began a decline which was to continue throughout the nineteenth century. The town could support the burgeoning population during this period in part because of the growth of its ship building, shipping, commerce and industry, much, though by no means all of it focused in Assonet. The first record of ship building in town dates from 1782, the last was constructed in 1848. At first only small ships were built, but after the Revolution, Freetown yards built vessels of 100 tons or more. Ship building in Freetown reached its pinnacle about 1834, and towards the end of the period, about forty to fifty men were employed in this trade. One of the prominent dry docks in town was Welcome Hathaway's on Water Street, now Hathaway Park (c. 1790s, Map # 66). A ship yard was located at about the site where John Deane moved the old Dean Homestead now 19 Water Street (c. 1750, Map # U 64) after ship building had ceased. It had stood on the site of 16 Water Street. The only building in the ship yards was generally a storage shed, but a saw pit over a trench, and a steam box for bending wood were usually constructed on the site. The men of Assonet earned their livelihood in a variety of ways connected to the industry: they were the ship builders, sailed the vessels, imported and exported goods and sold them as well. "It was said of Welcome Hathaway, who in his day was largely interested in shipping and ship building, that he could model a vessel, build her, rig her, make her sails, and sail her". [Pierce, Palo Alto, A History of Freetown, Massachusetts, J. Franklin and Co., Fall River, 1902, p.173.] His house, (Map # 66.3) located in what is now Hathaway Park was built ca. 1800. Many were simply investors. John M. Deane listed over 300 vessels hailing from Freetown from 1792 to 1902, most dating before 1830. He counted 254 which were built wholly or partly for citizens of Freetown, most of these built by residents of the town. The small vessels carried local wood, cut lumber and other cargoes to the cities of the eastern seaboard as far away as Baltimore, but larger ships engaged in the "southern carrying trade", ferrying cargoes of rice, cotton and seed between southern ports as early as 1811 and perhaps earlier. These ships were refitted in Assonet during the summer, giving employment to many men. Many of the people involved in the ship building and importing trades lived in Assonet, and more specifically in the district. Their houses stand as records of the vigor of the industry and of their owner's desire to use the often considerable wealth it created for their dwellings. The house at 2 Water Street (c. 1792-1797, Map # 53, MHC # A-16) was the home of mariners Jonathan Bowen, Thomas Valentine and Capt. James Burr; 5 Water Street (c. 1790s, Map # 56, MHC # A-45) belonged at one time to Capt. George Pickens. Investor Josiah Paddock, who put money in the 37 ton Sloop Eliza, (1799) built the house at 6 Water Street (c. 1796, Map # 57, MHC # A-46); Jason Hathaway who built 28 Water Street (c. 1809, Map # 69, MHC # A-37), was both master and part owner of Sloop Rosette (1816); blacksmith Peter Nichols, of 8 Water Street (ca. 1799, Map # 59, MHC # A-43) partly owned Sloop Two Peters (1795); Elder Philip Hathaway built the house at 36 Water Street (c. 1800, Map # 72, MHC # A-34, Photo # 3) later altered by master mariner Captain Washington Read. Philip Hathaway, who had money in many vessels, also lived in 23 South Main Street (1792, Map # 94, MHC # A-26). His son who followed him there was Captain Edmund, a master mariner and owner of several ships. This represents only a partial description of the major impact of ship building and investing on the district's buildings. Assonet's active and successful participation in shipping and commerce is attributed to its location at the head of navigation on a river of easy approach and ascent. Teams arrived from surrounding towns with manufactured articles, wood and agricultural produce and left the wharves with sugar, molasses, salt, flour, and rum. "Occasionally the river would be dotted with pine apples, oranges, limes and other decaying tropical fruit that had been thrown overboard from vessels engaged in the West Indian trade." [Deane, John M., in Palo Alto Pierce, A History of Freetown, Massachusetts, J. Franklin and Co., Fall River, 1902, p. 192.] So extensive was Assonet trade that Captain and ship investor Edmund Hathaway was told that he himself paid more customs duties than any other three towns combined in the Dighton Customs District. During this period Assonet developed its wharves, having 26,720 superficial feet of wharf land listed in the 1831 census. Scores of local, coastal, and foreign vessels tied up at the now mainly demolished wharves. A stout stone river retaining wall remains at the Lower Wharves at the west end of Water Street: Nichols Wharf Site, now 39 Water Street (c. 1790s, Map # 74.2), and the Cudworth Wharf Site (c. 1790s, Map # V 5). Other wharves were clustered near what is now Hathaway Park, Hathaway's (c. 1790s, Map # 66.5 on the west and Chase/Rodman/Vaughn's (c. 1790, Map # 66.6) on the east. The vessels were met by ox teams from Fall River, Taunton and Middleborough carrying manufactured articles and raw materials for shipment to Providence, New York, or foreign ports, or raw materials for export. The iron products from East Freetown's furnace were shipped from the port at Assonet and after 1818 iron "pigs" arriving from New Jersey were shipped here as well. Other industries contributed to the wealth. Grist mills continued to run in season, perhaps at the Winslow Mill, Mill Street (Map # O 31.2) which had the first machine to grind corn and cob together; the Forge, run by the Hathaway family until about 1820 and by Josiah Winslow until about 1845. The Tisdale Mills on Mill Street continued to grind corn (Map # 18.3) and saw wood (map # 18.4), as did Henry Porter's now demolished mill just outside the district. The remains of the abutments and access road (Map # 18.5) to the now demolished house which went with the mill on the northwest side of the river are still clearly visible. Joseph Winslow erected a Grist Mill at a tide mill just east of the South Main Street bridge in 1784, (Map # 83.2). The Briggs Tan Yard located next to the river on the property now 10 Elm Street (Map # 8, MHC # A-54) may have opened, as evidenced by the valuation list of Freetown in 1831 which cites four tan yards. It was sold as a working yard in 1840. Farming continued to play a role in the local economy, producing either for home consumption or for export to Fall River or Boston. The 1831 valuation of the town shows 220 houses and 158 barns, suggesting that most of town's residents were still involved in food production. About commerce during this period in Assonet we know relatively little, but Freetown is said to have had fourteen stores in 1800. The Sampson and Nichols Store (1810, rebuilt 1820, demolished 1995-1996, Map # V 6, MHC # A-18) served the surrounding towns as well as Assonet folk. Sampson also owned the Forge off Richmond Road and the Dogget Store at 7 Elm Street (c. 1750, Map # 5.3, MHC # A-53) the later possibly owned by Ephriam Winslow in 1822. Another smaller, gambrel roofed store, now attached as an ell to the Elder Philip Hathaway House, 23 South Main Street (house c. 1792, store ca. 1796, Map # 94, MHC # A-26) stood on South Main Street at what is now Simpson Lane. It catered to sailors as they came off the wharf on The Lane. The institutions of the town grew to accommodate a population which was enlarging in size and outlook. The controversy between Assonet's Loyalists and Patriots, far from being a purely political matter, had a role in the creation of new institutions. The quarrel invaded the Congregational congregation to such an extent that its much beloved minister, Silas Brett, abandoned the church and town in 1776, leaving the congregation in disarray. To satisfy the religious needs of the citizens, the Baptist Church organized before 1781 in Assonet. Between 1793-96 the Baptists erected a Meeting House. It was located at 30 South Main Street adjacent to the South or Christian Church (1833, Map # 96, MHC # A-27) now St. Bernard's Church. Demolished for the construction of the 1833 building, its the outline of its foundations were still recognizable in the early 20th century. Without a functioning Congregational Church, the Baptist Church became the center of Assonet's religious life. In 1807 the town was swept by the "Second Awakening", a religious revival movement which invigorated the new nation in response Unitarian theological ideas originating in Boston. Under the leadership of its respected leader, Elder Philip Hathaway of 23 South Main Street (c. 1792 but possibly earlier, Map # 94, MHC # A-26) the Baptist congregation church discarded its strict Calvinist and orthodox Baptist views and adopted those of the "Christian Connection" movement. In 1803 the seaport town of Fall River was set off from Freetown. This required a reorganization of the now leaderless Congregational Church, whose old meeting house and cemetery was now in Troy, Fall River's original name. The defunct congregation had a strong tradition of rejection of quasi-theocratic requirements for local support of the clergy, and willingness to seek religious life elsewhere if the those requirements were too invasive. In the decades after the Revolution when alternate sects such as Quakers and Baptist challenged the monopoly of the Congregationalists, Unitarian ideals softened religious dogma, and revivals reintroduced positive religious experience, Assonet's Congregational community reconstituted itself. In 1808-1809, galvanized by the "Great Awakening", the remnants of the Congregational congregation were able to build a church at Assonet, the new focus, although not the geographical center, of the re-drawn town. Its location near the Four Corners reinforced the ascendancy of the crossroads as the locus of the public life of the community. The church's size and up-to-date elegance reflected the energy, wealth and sophistication of its largely Assonet congregation. The carpenter of the new church building was Ebenezer Pierce of Middleborough and Assonet. To erect the structure he imported timber from Maine in his sloop. Pierce probably built his large, Georgian-Federal style house (c. 1814, Map # 90.1), which equaled or exceeded the church in refinement. It was demolished for the original St. Bernard's Church, now altered as a restaurant at 19 South Main Street (1937-1938, Map # HH 90). In 1798, probably in response to recent population growth, the Assonet school district was divided into two. A small schoolhouse, possibly built in 1798, was located next to the 1793 Baptist Meeting house. Its hearthstone was discovered in the late 19th century under the church walk. Later the school was moved across the road from the Cattle Pound, High Street (c. 1705, Map # 106). In 1794, William A. Leonard, a lawyer from Raynham, erected a large office building that later became the Village School, 5 North Main Street (Map # 53, MHC # A-16, Photo # 7). It probably continued as an attorney's office until about 1830. The building was used later by the Assonet Academy, a private high school. In 1854 it was purchased by a School House Committee, and three years later the Town bought it for the village elementary school. It continued as the Assonet School until 1950. In 1906 it was remodeled in the Colonial Revival style, orienting the entry to face the street rather than the church. To adjust to the town's new boundaries, in 1805 Assonet was divided into east and west to form two of the town's eight school districts. The 1773 schoolhouse on South Main Street was sold at auction. A re-drawing of the districts in 1814 resulted in three new Assonet districts using the "Four Corners", as a diving line. One of the schools stood on the south side of Water Street east of the Hathaway Park (Map # 66). In 1823 the triple or three arched Elm Street Bridge (Map # 7, MHC # A-900) over the Assonet River was erected by order of the Town Meeting. The earlier bridge at the site may have been stone, as Town records indicate rebuilding. Perhaps the heavy traffic to and from the port required that the bridge be strengthened, and Elm Street itself may have been improved by this time to transport the iron products manufactured by the East Freetown Furnace. While it is not shown on the map of 1784, it appears on that of 1831. A public right of way along its margins may indicate the site of the original ford. A coach between Fall River and Boston passed through Assonet once a week, probably stopping at the now demolished Green Dragon Tavern on South Main Street, (c. 1773, Map # 79.2). At some point, perhaps during this period, Water Street was a driftway, and a gate or bars was maintained at end of the street. Driftways were paths for driving cattle, so perhaps the bars were removed after the closing of the abattoir in the Benjamin Dean Sr., later the John Dean barn. The barn was demolished in 1865. The post Revolutionary period saw perhaps Assonet's greatest residential development. Scores of houses were built along the already existing roads to distant destinations: North Main Street was called the Taunton Road, South Main Street the Fall River Road and Mill/Richmond the Plymouth Road into the twentieth century. Water Street, too saw an enormous amount of new home building, remodeling or additions. top East Freetown Historic District Before the Revolution the residents of East Freetown were mainly Whigs while the generally wealthier residents of Assonet were conservative Tories/Loyalists, ready to resist the growing nationalism of the Patriots. In 1768 Levi Rounsevell (1739-1815) was a Tory, but before 1775 he became a Whig, politically active as a member of the Committee of Correspondence and an Inspector of Safety. As Captain of the Minute Men, (all from East Freetown) he "responded to the "Lexington Alarm", April 19, 1775, though the company mainly served in the area. Levi, who lived at 16 Washburn Road (ca. 1735-1739, Map # 22, MHC # C-115) had two wives and six children. His war record probably earned him a seat as Representative to the Massachusetts General Court for Freetown in 1784. He also served as Moderator of Town Meeting and Selectman in 1786 and 1787. About 1784 Capt. Levi, a third generation resident of the district, with his uncle Philip Rounsevell, Capt. Abraham Morton of an old East Freetown family, and several investors from nearby communities built a Blast Furnace, Washburn Road (Map # 27.1, MHC # C-116) at the Dam on the Fall Brook (Map # 27). The industrial complex was to have enormous impact on the small community which developed around it. The furnace smelted iron ore, which was used in the manufacture of a variety of hollow ware products such as pots and kettles. Power for the factory came from the brook, while the raw materials were also local. Iron ore was dug at Assawamsett Pond in Middleborough and brought by cart. The wood or charcoal for the furnace from the surrounding forests was abundant and cheap. The map of 1794 shows a pair of saw and grist mills located at the Furnace site (Map # 27.6) and another pair at the Rounsevell/Allen site (Map # 14.1). The Mill Pond itself seems to have been narrower than it appears on the 1871 map. It is said to have flooded an existing peach orchard on the site. The Rounsevell family soon began purchasing that part of the furnace which was not already in their hands, and it became known as the Rounsevell Furnace. However, in 1811 the company went out of East Freetown control when James Alger and Salmon Forbes of Bridgewater, and Gen. Cromwell Washburn of Taunton bought three-quarters, and by 1814 it was wholly owned and managed by Alger and Forbes. The firm also ran two Saw Mills perhaps those at Map #s 27.2 and the Rounsevell/Allen Saw Mill (Map # 13.1), a Grist Mill (possibly Map # 27.6), a blacksmith shop and the Furnace/Washburn Store on Washburn Road, (c. 1784, Map # 26.1). It was under this vigorous ownership that the firm employed about fifty workers. In 1818 the furnace again changed hands, going to Samuel Slater and others of Providence and Cranston, R. I. Slater, famous as the originator of the cotton mill industry in the Untied States, and his firm, the Providence Foundry Company, took the wise step of employing Capt. Calvin Thomas from Pembroke as their superintendent. Thomas bought the old William Rounsevell House, 32 Washburn Road (c. 1767, Map # 32, MHC # C-102) and became a part owner of the company. Born in Pembroke in 1791, he had trained in the iron foundry business, perhaps in Bridgewater and Providence In 1822 he married Louise Washburn and they had at least five children, descendants of whom still live in the house. Calvin also purchased the granite quarry in Rocky Woods just north of the district. The granite foundations, industrial structures and bridge materials so distinctive of the district were probably quarried at this location, while the granite characteristic of the Assonet Historic District was quarried near Assonet Village. In 1833 and 1835 Calvin served as one of three Freetown Assessors. The firm demolished the original furnace and built a cupola furnace, probably reusing the stones. It also abandoned the use of the local iron ore, and began importing already refined iron "pigs" from New Jersey which were brought by water to Assonet, then carted by ox team to East Freetown. One of its best known products was the iron rail for America's first interior mall, Bucklin and Warren's 1828 Arcade Building in Providence. Power for the forge and bellows was produced by water wheels. The "New Bridge" over Fall Brook at Gurney Road (c. 1823, Map # 40, MHC # 826) may have been built to take the heavy pig iron loads. Perhaps before, but certainly by 1771, the Philip Rounsevell House, 170 County Road, c. 1727, Map # 10, MHC # C-110) had become a tavern. A sign attesting that Sally and John Rounsevell offered civil entertainment was dated that year. It provided a stop on the stage coach line that ran from New Bedford to Boston once a week. Another commercial establishment was the Company Store on Washburn Road, (c. 1784- demolished ca. 1949-1950, Map # 26.2). top |
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