Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1640s

Work

Farms before shipyards

The daily economy is land, stock, and crops: Duxbury was primarily a farming community¹ in this century, and the famous shipbuilding era came much later. The farms grew out of twenty-acre-per-person coastal allotments¹ made after 1627.

Faith

Meetinghouse at the center

The likely public center is the first meetinghouse on Chestnut Street³, with the burying ground beside it^1,3. Ralph Partridge is the settled minister through these years, so Sabbath, lecture, discipline, and town business all meet under one roof.

Law & power

Freemen and the court

Political authority runs through Plymouth: freemen governed through the General Court⁵ and owed allegiance by oath to the colony’s government and laws. In 1647, some oath-taking non-freemen over twenty-four gained limited town and jury powers⁶, but freemen retained the controlling majority.

What people feared

Every man counted

Militia duty is not abstract: in 1643 eighty-two Duxbury males aged sixteen to sixty were listed as able to bear arms^2,7. The count tells you both the town’s small scale and the expectation that ordinary men could be called out.

Money

Corn and falling cattle

Cash is scarce enough that colony prices matter in produce: corn commonly stood near three shillings a bushel after 1642⁴. As across Plymouth Colony, a cow worth about £28 in 1638 might be worth only about £5 by 1640⁸, a hard fall for anyone holding livestock.

Who lived here

Wampanoag land, English town

The English town stands on Mattakeesett, “place of many fish”¹, where Wampanoag people had cleared fields, hunted, and fished along brooks¹. The incorporated town was new, but the working landscape was not.

Roads & news

Plymouth by water

The first settlement center at the Nook was directly accessible by boat from Plymouth³. Plymouth is about six miles south⁹, so court orders, visitors, trade, and rumor can arrive by bay as well as road.

Home & table

Houses poorly described

The record is thin for ordinary interiors: no online source opened here gives a room-by-room description of ordinary Duxbury houses in the 1640s. What is clear is that the settlement clustered around farms, the bay, and the meetinghouse rather than a paved town street.

Year by year

1. 1637Duxborough became a separate incorporated town of Plymouth Colony. here^1,2
2. 1638The first Duxbury meetinghouse was probably built on Chestnut Street, and Francis Sprague received the town’s first tavern license. here³
3. 1640Bradford surrendered the Plymouth Colony patent to the body of freemen, tightening the colony’s government around its admitted political community. nearby⁵
4. 1642Civil war broke out in England between king and Parliament, news that would have mattered deeply to English settlers in Plymouth Colony. the world
5. 1643Plymouth Colony counted eighty-two Duxbury men aged sixteen to sixty as able to bear arms. here^2,7
6. 1643The New England Confederation was formed by Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven for mutual defense. the country
7. 1647Plymouth Colony widened some town and jury participation to oath-taking non-freemen aged at least twenty-four. nearby⁶
8. 1649Charles I of England was executed, and every English colony had to reckon with the overthrow of the king. the world

Pictures from the time

What the sources say

• The Wampanoag name recorded for the Duxbury area was Mattakeesett, meaning “place of many fish.” inferred¹
• Duxborough was incorporated as a separate Plymouth Colony town in 1637. from the sources^1,2
• The town then included a larger area than modern Duxbury, including land later in Pembroke, Bridgewater, Marshfield, and Kingston. inferred^1,3
• English families first used Duxbury lands seasonally after the Plymouth colonists’ seven-year common residence ended in 1627. inferred¹
• The 1627 coastal allotments gave each Plymouth man twenty acres for himself and twenty more for each person in his family. inferred¹
• By the 1640s Duxbury was primarily a farming community, not yet the shipbuilding town it became after the American Revolution. inferred¹
• The early settlement center was The Nook, a fertile, spring-fed area between Captain’s Hill and Bay Road, directly accessible by boat from Plymouth. inferred³
• The first Duxbury meetinghouse was probably built about 1638 on Chestnut Street. inferred³
• The Old Burying Ground stood beside the original meetinghouse site on Chestnut Street. inferred^1,3
• In 1643 the colony listed eighty-two Duxbury males aged sixteen to sixty as able to bear arms, implying roughly four hundred inhabitants in the town. from the sources^2,7
• Ralph Partridge became minister of the Duxbury church in the late 1630s and served through the 1640s. from the sources^2,3
• Duxbury’s first tavern license was granted to Francis Sprague in 1638. from the sources²
• Before English settlement, Wampanoag people in the area cleared land for crops, hunted, and fished along the brooks. inferred¹
• As across Plymouth Colony, corn was a basic measure of value; after 1642 corn in colonial money commonly stood near three shillings a bushel, though it could rise to six shillings. from the sources⁴
• As across Plymouth Colony, cattle prices fell sharply around the start of the 1640s: cows valued at about £28 in 1638 were worth about £5 by 1640. from the sources⁸
• Plymouth Colony freemen governed through the General Court, and the freeman oath referred to allegiance to the government and laws rather than explicitly to church membership. from the sources⁵
• In 1647 Plymouth Colony allowed some non-freemen who had taken the oath of fidelity and were at least twenty-four to serve on juries and vote in certain town affairs, though freemen still had to make up the majority of selectmen. from the sources⁶
• Duxbury was about six miles north of Plymouth and about thirty miles southeast of Boston by later county description. from the sources⁹
• No online source opened here gives a room-by-room description of ordinary Duxbury houses in the 1640s. not known
• No local online source opened here gives Duxbury wages for hired labor in the 1640s. not known

Sources

1. Duxbury in Brief: A Historical Sketch. Duxbury Rural and Historical Society
2. History of Duxbury Massachusetts. Access Genealogy; abstracted from Plymouth County Directory and Historical Register of 1867, 2011
3. A Brief History of First Parish Church. First Parish Church Duxbury, 1995
4. History of Wages in the United States From Colonial Times to 1928. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRASER, 1934
5. December Meeting, 1915. Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1915
6. Plymouth Colony voting and town-office provisions, quoted in U.S. Serial Set. U.S. Government Publishing Office
7. History of the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts. Justin Winsor / Library of Congress digitization, 1849
8. Plymouth Colony. Wikipedia
9. Historical Sketches of the Towns and Cities of Plymouth and Barnstable Counties, Massachusetts, Part 3. LDS Genealogy, 1873

Duxbury in other decades