LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 208 389 9 
 
 rirtTl<nnA«t 
 
^<A^i^yi_ti, 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 SOUTHOLD. 
 
 By George Rogers Howell. 
 
 \ 
 
p 129 
 .S74 H8 
 
 Copy ^ 
 
 ■ 
 
 SHE Settlement of §outhold. 
 
 GEORGE EOGERS HOWELL. 
 
 We liave received and read at this 
 late date the accouut of the 
 250th anniversary of the settle- 
 ment of Southold in October, 1G40, 
 or 1641, which was celebrated on the 
 27th day of August, 189ii. It makes 
 a handsome octavo of 220 pages, 
 and aside from a few what we may 
 charitably term errors, is a work 
 creditable to all concerned But 
 these errors are, as it happens, of 
 vital importance if you have any 
 care for a correct history of the 
 town. It is well that the statement 
 was made in the introduction that 
 the 27th of August was selected for 
 anniveisary diiy as a matter of 
 convenience. It certainly repre 
 sents nothing in the history of the 
 settlement of Southold, for on the 
 27th of August, 1640, not one of 
 the settlers of the town was in the 
 bounds of Yennicott. 
 
 According to Trumbull and the 
 historians Thompson, Wood, Lam 
 bert, Hollister and Palfrey, who all 
 followed Trumbull, the town was 
 settled in October of that year. 
 
 A continous clamor for an earlier 
 date is a useless expenditure of zeal 
 and nothing else, liepetition of 
 what is false is neither fact, nor 
 argument, nor good taste. I 
 challenge the world to find evidence 
 of a settlement of Southold bj' 
 Europeans previous to October, 
 164'. 
 
 Now let us see what that careful 
 historian, Mr. Charles B. Moore, 
 says. To know Mr Moore was to 
 love him. He was careful, tender 
 of the truth, and I prized his friend 
 ship beyond all expression But, 
 like other men, he was not infalli- 
 ble. He was also a lawyer, and in 
 this case was retained by his native 
 town, and his plea was special 
 
 pleading, that of a lawyer making 
 out a case, not of a judge balancing 
 evidence. 
 
 On p. 142, for instance, he says : 
 "We have the notice that Rev. 
 John Youngs was forbidden to sail 
 from Great Y'armouth, the port of 
 entry and departure for that region. 
 This was dated 1 637, but may have 
 occurred earlier." 
 
 How could there be a mistake 
 when the iransaction was entered 
 in an official book of entries of 
 passengers with continuous dates 
 from year to year and from month 
 to month, page after page ? The 
 six entries previous to the one 
 where it is recorded that Mr. John 
 Youngs and his wife Joan and six 
 children were forbidden to leave 
 England was of the same date, May 
 11, 1637, and the next following 
 entry was dated May 12, 1637, and 
 the record explicitly adds : "He 
 went not from Yarmouth " But all 
 the historians say that he did come 
 ove)- in the summer of 1640. As he 
 led the colony and is called the 
 first settler, he certainly could not 
 have been there previous to Sep- 
 tember of that year There were 
 five Englishmen in this country at 
 that time, apparently of the same 
 generation, scattered over New 
 England including the Southold 
 minister, by the name of John 
 Young, or Youngs One of these 
 was in Salem in 1637, and him Mr 
 Moore has, without warrant and 
 against fact, selected as the South 
 hold leader (p. 145) The Salem 
 John Young of 1637, however, died 
 at CharlestownDec.29. 1672, accord 
 ing to Savage, who traced his 
 career, and the Southold pastor 
 died Feb. 24. 1672. 
 
 And now we have an instance of 
 
liow unsafe it is for a writer to 
 trust to his memory for dates and 
 things It will occasionally lead 
 him to make statements very far 
 from the truth — unintentionally, no 
 doubt, but still none the less false, 
 and misleading the innocent and 
 uninformed reader Take this 
 statement, for instance, on page 6 : 
 ''The Hon. Henry P Hedges was 
 invited to address the meeting in 
 the afternoon, as the representative 
 of the sister town of Southampton, 
 which is not greatly younger than 
 Soutliold, having become organized 
 and united to Connecticut in 1641 " 
 
 Men and brethren, Southampton 
 celebrated her 250th anniversary on 
 June 12, 1890 — the anniversary of 
 the second deed of sale of the land 
 from Lord Sterling's agent, and Dr. 
 Whitaker was present at that cele- 
 bration And yet he appears to 
 have forgotten this, and if his 
 language, quoted above, means 
 anything it conveys the impression 
 that the town of Southampton was 
 settled in 1644 And so anyone 
 unacquainted with the facts would 
 understand him 
 
 Furthermore the town was settled 
 in June, 1640 Governor John 
 Winthrop, the careful and accurate 
 historian of New England and a 
 contemporaneous witness to the 
 event, affirms it and the town 
 rscords contain a paper dated in 
 and at Southampton in the month 
 of June, 1640 '-Not greatly 
 younger than Southold ?" How 
 could he publish such an absurdity? 
 It is useless to quibble on the word 
 "organized," so nearly synonymous 
 with the word "settled," It was 
 organized when it was settled. It 
 had all the machinery of a munici- 
 pality, such as laws, courts, church 
 and school from the beginning in 
 1640 The union with Connecticut 
 did not give it any organization 
 which it ha'l not before By that 
 union an organized town went 
 from an independency to a con- 
 federacy ; it simply changed its 
 political relation Well, the state 
 ment was so astounding that I 
 wrote to Dr. Whitaker, asking him 
 who wrote the introduction to this 
 book, which contains the paragraph 
 quoted above I was told by him 
 that it cam-^; from his pen Then I 
 wrote again asking him what he 
 meant by the statement To this 
 he sent me the following explanation 
 which needs another letter to ex 
 plain : 
 
 "Wliat you quote was written to give the 
 reader iutorniation respectini; the preparations 
 for the ci'lchratioti, just as (ithcr parts of the 
 iiitroiluctiiin were. The intention was to say 
 notliinj; specifically aliout the time at which 
 fSoutlianipton was settled. IJy the revolution 
 there in l(;(;4 Soutliampton was organized and 
 united to Connecticut and so beeain'e an acquir- 
 ed part of the United Colonies of New Kngland 
 as Southold had become earlier througli Its 
 union with New Haven. Thus Southampton, 
 and Southold liecanu' organically related to 
 each other. Hence the mention of tlie 
 slgnifleant tiansaetion which nuide Southamp- 
 ton a sister town of S'outhold. lam happy to 
 give you the Information which yon request." 
 
 I am sure I am grateful to re- 
 ceive information But this "in- 
 formation " varies widely from the 
 statements of all the early New 
 England historians What really 
 did happen was this: New Haven 
 bought and settled Southold (we 
 say for the present) in October, 
 1640 But Southold ceased to be a 
 dependencj' to New Haven town 
 within two or three years, for 
 (Col Rec. of Ct. Vol.1, p Uo) at 
 a General Court held at New 
 Haven Oct 23, 1643, this language 
 is used : " A.nd whereas Stainiorde, 
 Guilforde, Yennicock, have upon 
 the same foundations and engage 
 ments entered into combination 
 with vs, &c " Southold from at 
 least 1643 to 1662 was, therefore, on 
 a parity with these towns and New 
 Haven, sending representatives to 
 the latter town to General Court as 
 Southampton did to Hartford of 
 the Connecticut Colony from 1645 
 to i662. when occvirred ttie union of 
 the New Haven and the Connecticut 
 Colonies In 1662 Southampton 
 and Southold became " organically 
 sister towns " of the same Colony 
 
 But even when we have got the 
 Doctor out of this muddle, how 
 does the exjilanation explain ? I 
 am afraid tliat as often as I see 
 this preposterous claim of superior 
 antiquity put forth for Southold 
 the spirit within me will be stirred 
 to rise and smite it with the truth 
 It is a small matter, anyhow, but if 
 a man attempts to wiite history 
 let him be reatly to give up an old 
 belief when truth demands it 
 
 So far I have supposed that 
 Southold was settled in October, 
 1640, accepting the long line of 
 historians who followed Trumbull 
 But Trumbull wrote one hundred 
 and fifty years after 1640, and niaj' 
 be wrong himself Indeed Mr. 
 William Wallace Tooker, of Sag 
 Harbor, has made it quite i)robable, 
 in an article of his in the Magazine 
 of New England History for 
 Januaiy, 1892, that it was not until 
 
October, 1641, that Southold was 
 settled And after examining liis 
 authorities I agree with his con- 
 clusions But 1 did more Per 
 plexed on all sides to learn the 
 facts pertaining to the settlement 
 of Southold, I turned to Dr 
 AVhitaker's history of the town. I 
 found there, to my amazement, a 
 list of names to the number of one 
 hundred and forty — the author 
 says, but incorrectly, one hundred 
 and thirty-eight — heads of families 
 as the settlers of the town A 
 mighty strong settlement ! — in fact 
 unequalled by any settlement on 
 these sUoi'es from 1620 to date 
 
 They are very justly eulogized as 
 the Puritan ancestors of the town. 
 JStill I was so skeptical as to the 
 numbers that I looked over the 
 earliest rate list in the JState Li- 
 brary — that of 1683 in the second 
 volume of the Documentary His 
 tory of the State Of the ninetj' 
 family names in the one hundred 
 and torty settlers of Whitaker we 
 tind forty -one on this rate list of 
 1663. Where are the missing forty 
 nine ? Where ? Some of them 
 not yet in Southold — some were 
 transients and some were probably 
 Servants. 
 
 13 Lit we want something more 
 accurate than this. Let us compare 
 the list of Mr Whitaker with 
 Moore's Index of Soutnold and tlie 
 two volumes of the liecords of 
 Southold in print We classify 
 the llu names in various classes 
 according to information derived 
 fiom those two authorities of 
 Muore and the Southold town 
 records: 
 
 (hisses, 
 ] Sons or grandsons of first settlers, 
 
 iniuors or not born in 1G41 
 2. Those wlio came between 1G50 and 1656 
 .i. Tiiose WHO came later tiian 1656 
 
 4. Transients or removed by 1657 
 
 5. Silt mentioned by Moore or tiie Sonth- 
 old records— no evidence of be.ng resi- 
 dents 
 
 6. Mentioned as being here in 1649 
 
 7. Here in 1645 
 
 «, I'irst liere in 1642 
 
 ii. First mention of being here in 1641 
 
 10. .Never residents 
 
 Number in Whitalcer's list 140 
 
 Male heads of families are 
 generally considered the first 
 settlers of towns, because for the 
 most part they are responsible for 
 the existence of the settlement. 
 But taking the evidence of Mr. 
 diaries B. Moore and the printed 
 records of Southold themselves, 
 we tind that we must reject forty- 
 six, at the start as being t^liildren or 
 
 yet unborn in the year 1641 This 
 leaves us ninety-four adults. Now 
 we must deduct classes 2, 3, 4 and 5 
 to eliminate late comers This 
 leaves eleven. I am responsible 
 for the tenth class. I can account 
 for four men on his list that never 
 could have been residents They 
 lived elsewhere. They are Benoni 
 Flint, Jeremiah Meacham, George 
 Miller and Francis Nicholls De- 
 ducting these from the last remaiiir 
 der, we have seven There were 
 two or three transients who were 
 here at least as early as 1649, per- 
 haps earlier. So we will say the 
 number of settlers safely to be 
 reckoned is ten. How the " men 
 in buckram " have dwindled ! But, 
 then, we have saved ten. And 
 that is about all there were in 
 Southold in 1649 Perhaps some 
 denizen of that village thinks such 
 a statement almost sacrilegious or 
 idiotic. Wait a bit. Look in the 
 account of the anniversary, in the 
 address of Mr. Moore, pages 131 
 and 132, and notice the words of 
 Secretary Van Tienhoven, written 
 in 165U. He says : "The English 
 of the colony of New Haven 
 settled two villages at the bight of 
 the aforesaid inland sea, about 
 three leagues from the east point 
 of said island : one called South- 
 ampton, containing about ten or 
 twelve houses ; the other Southold, 
 about thirty houses." 
 
 This was written in 1650 and on 
 May 1", 1649, Southampton had 
 twenty-nine male heads of families. 
 At least four other men were liv ng 
 there— Kev. Kobert Fordham, 
 Tristram Hedges, William Barnes 
 and Arthur Bostwick, who are not 
 on the list of townsmen in that 
 year. These families can all or 
 nearly all be located as living in 
 separate houses, each on its own 
 homestead. So that Secretary Van 
 Tienhoven was right in his 
 figures, only he has given Sovitli 
 hampton's number of houses to 
 Southold and Southold's to South- 
 ampton 
 
 Now let us investigate the Jack- 
 son and the Sunderland bogies. 
 The printed records of the colony 
 of Massachusetts Bay have the 
 name of this same Richard Jackson 
 living in Cambridge and a repre 
 sentative at the General Court 
 from that town in 16-57, 16:<8, 1639, 
 1641, 1648, 1653 and 1661. As Mr 
 William Wallace Tooker writes, 
 Thomas Lechford, in his Note 
 
Book recently printed, saj's Jack 
 son was residing in Cambridge up 
 to Aug 7, 1641', and again ISept 21, 
 1640. He got a deed of land in 
 Hashamomock of date Aug. 15. 
 1640. He was then under sentence 
 of a fine imposed on May 22, 1639, 
 and in trouble and disgust left the 
 Massachusetts Colony for a short 
 time until justice was done him. In 
 September, 1640, his tine was re 
 mitted, and in October he sold to 
 Wetherby his land and what little 
 log hut he may have constructed 
 there in a month's residence. 
 Wetherby was a sailor and his home 
 the sea, and no evidence can be 
 found of his personal residence on 
 the Ja3kson shack for even a week. 
 All this is no orderly organized 
 settlement of Southold. 
 
 Now as to Sunderland. Mr. 
 Tooker shows that the first 
 mention of Farrett's being in 
 America was, according to Lech- 
 ford, on June 7, 1639 Farrett says 
 himself that Lion Gardiner's 
 purchase of Gardiner's Island from 
 the Indians, May 1". 163!', was 
 previous to Farrett's coming to 
 America. Sunderland obtained his 
 deeds for Oyster Bay lands June 18, 
 1640. There is no evidence that 
 Sunderland ever held in fee an 
 acre of land in Southold. Lechford 
 mentions Sunderland as a resident 
 of Newport, R I., on Aug. 20. 
 16jtO. The Colonial records of 
 Kliode Island also show that Sun- 
 
 derland, with fifty-eight others, was 
 admitted to be inhabitants of 
 Aquidneck (the island of Rhode 
 Island) on Oct 1, 1640. He may 
 have stopped on the north shore of 
 Southold a few days or a few 
 weeks as the agent of Farrett to 
 look out for his interests, but he 
 never can be considered a resident, 
 and, what is essential, is shown to 
 be living elsewhere when he is 
 needed as a settler in Southold. 
 
 Now in all this we uttei-iy dis- 
 claim all hostility to Southold, her 
 people or her interests. We have 
 none but the friendliest feeling 
 toward them all. We are only in- 
 terested in this matter as an his- 
 torical question. I was as much 
 surprised as any good loyal South- 
 holder could be when, in 1865, I 
 began to study the settlement of 
 Southampton critically, and dis- 
 covered that all the previous his 
 torians had been wrong, because 
 they had not seen the evidence 
 which had come to light subsequent 
 to thsir life and woriis I was the 
 first, so far as I know, to find evi- 
 dence tliat the settlement of this 
 town antedated that ot Southold, 
 and also the first to publish it, and 
 this publication was in my history 
 of Southampton. It is therefore on 
 account of this interest in main- 
 taining the truth that I have made 
 a special study of these points 
 again, and again come before the 
 public. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 BABYLON, N. Y. 
 
 THE SIGNAL STEAM "print. 
 1894. . 
 

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