# Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1640s

> A small farming town on Wampanoag land, tied by bay and court to Plymouth, governed through meetinghouse, freemen, and militia.

- Place: Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts (42.042, -70.672)
- Years: 1640 to 1649
- Known then as: Duxborough
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1640s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Duxbury%2C%20Plymouth%20County%2C%20Massachusetts%2C%20United%20States&at=42.0418,-70.6723&year=1645

## Looking around

You stand by the first meetinghouse on Chestnut Street[3], with the burying ground beside it[1][3]. Turning toward the water, the settlement pulls back to the Nook between Captain’s Hill and Bay Road[3], a place reached from Plymouth by boat across the bay. Around it are small farms on land first allotted along the coast after 1627[1], not a later shipbuilding village. The ground belongs to a town incorporated in 1637[1][2], but the older name beneath it is Mattakeesett, “place of many fish”[1]. There are brooks where Wampanoag people had fished[1], cleared fields, cattle, corn, and household labor. Power is close: freemen and deputies answer to the Plymouth General Court[5], and in 1643 eighty-two local men are counted as able to bear arms[2][7]. Plymouth lies about six miles south[9], near enough for court, trade, and news.

## Work: Farms before shipyards

The daily economy is land, stock, and crops: Duxbury was primarily a farming community[1] in this century, and the famous shipbuilding era came much later. The farms grew out of twenty-acre-per-person coastal allotments[1] made after 1627.

## Faith: Meetinghouse at the center

The likely public center is the first meetinghouse on Chestnut Street[3], 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 Court[5] 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 powers[6], 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 1642[4]. As across Plymouth Colony, a cow worth about £28 in 1638 might be worth only about £5 by 1640[8], 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 brooks[1]. 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 Plymouth[3]. Plymouth is about six miles south[9], 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

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

## What the sources say

- The Wampanoag name recorded for the Duxbury area was Mattakeesett, meaning “place of many fish.” (inferred)[1]
- 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. (inferred)[1]
- The 1627 coastal allotments gave each Plymouth man twenty acres for himself and twenty more for each person in his family. (inferred)[1]
- By the 1640s Duxbury was primarily a farming community, not yet the shipbuilding town it became after the American Revolution. (inferred)[1]
- 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. (inferred)[3]
- The first Duxbury meetinghouse was probably built about 1638 on Chestnut Street. (inferred)[3]
- 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 sources)[2]
- Before English settlement, Wampanoag people in the area cleared land for crops, hunted, and fished along the brooks. (inferred)[1]
- 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 sources)[4]
- 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 sources)[8]
- 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 sources)[5]
- 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 sources)[6]
- Duxbury was about six miles north of Plymouth and about thirty miles southeast of Boston by later county description. (from the sources)[9]
- 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. https://duxburyhistory.org/local-history/
2. History of Duxbury Massachusetts. Access Genealogy; abstracted from Plymouth County Directory and Historical Register of 1867, 2011. https://accessgenealogy.com/massachusetts/history-of-duxbury-massachusetts.htm
3. A Brief History of First Parish Church. First Parish Church Duxbury, 1995. https://uudux.org/home-2-4/history/
4. History of Wages in the United States From Colonial Times to 1928. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRASER, 1934. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/history-wages-united-states-colonial-times-1928-4126/fulltext
5. December Meeting, 1915. Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1915. https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/394
6. Plymouth Colony voting and town-office provisions, quoted in U.S. Serial Set. U.S. Government Publishing Office. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-09208_00_00/pdf/SERIALSET-09208_00_00.pdf
7. History of the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts. Justin Winsor / Library of Congress digitization, 1849. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/historyoftownofd02wins/historyoftownofd02wins.pdf
8. Plymouth Colony. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Colony
9. Historical Sketches of the Towns and Cities of Plymouth and Barnstable Counties, Massachusetts, Part 3. LDS Genealogy, 1873. https://ldsgenealogy.com/MA/books/Historical-sketches-of-the-towns-and-cities-of-Plymouth-and-Barnstable-counties-Mass-part-3.htm

## The same place in other decades

- [Duxborough in the 1660s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1660s/md)
- [Duxbury in the 1670s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1670s/md)
- [Duxbury in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s/md)

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Plymouth in the 1650s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plymouth-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1650s/md) (9 km)

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Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-12 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1640s", https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1640s