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[No. 3.]
Weymouth Historical Society.
WESSAGUSSET AND WEYMOUTH,
AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS BY
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.,
DELIVERED AT WEYMOUTH, JULY 4, 1874, ON THE OCCASION OF THECELEBRATION OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETHANNIVERSARY OF THE PERMANENTSETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN.
WEYMOUTH IN ITS FIRST TWENTY YEARS,
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY BY
GILBERT NASH,
NOVEMBER 1, 1882.
WEYMOUTH THIRTY YEARS LATER,
A PAPER READ BY
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,
BEFORE THE
WEYMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
SEPTEMBER 23, 1904.
PUBLISHED BY
THE WEYMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
1905.
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CONTENTS.
| Wessagusset and Weymouth | 5 |
| Weymouth’s First Twenty Years | 87 |
| Weymouth Thirty Years Later | 114 |
| Index | 157 |
| Appendix | 164 |
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS
BY
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, Jr.,
JULY 4, 1874.
Full in sight of the spot where we are now gathered,—almost at thefoot of King-Oak Hill,—stands that portion of the ancient town ofWeymouth, known from time immemorial as the village of Old Spain.When or why it was first so called is wholly unknown,—scarcely atradition even remains to suggest to us an origin of the name. Nonethe less Old Spain well deserved a portion at least of that familiartitle, for, next to the town of Plymouth, it is the oldest settlementin Massachusetts. And when we speak of the oldest settlements inMassachusetts, we speak of communities which may fairly lay claim toa very respectable degree of antiquity; not of the greatest, it istrue, for all antiquity is relative, and that of America scarcelydeserves the name by the side of what England has to show; but whatis the antiquity