# Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1670s

> A small coastal farming town in Plymouth Colony lived by fields, fish, church rule, and wartime watchfulness.

- Place: Duxbury, Plymouth County, Massachusetts (42.042, -70.672)
- Years: 1670 to 1679
- Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1670s
- Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Duxbury%2C%20Plymouth%20County%2C%20Massachusetts%2C%20United%20States&at=42.0418,-70.6723&year=1675

## Looking around

You stand near the South Duxbury meeting-house and burying ground[1][2], where roads draw in from the farms. Turning toward the water, Duxbury and Kingston Bays[1] lie beyond scattered houses, with shore farms around Captain’s Nook and Island Creek[1]. Inland, the Boston-Plymouth path[1] runs north and south, with other ways leading toward Island Creek[1], Millbrook, and the Nook. The work close by is plain: fields, livestock, fishing, shellfish gathering, and salt hay from the marsh[1]. Grain can go to the gristmill on Duck Hill River[1], and small boats may be built on farms rather than in a yard. This is English-settled land, but not empty land: Mattakeesett and other Native use of the shore and ponds[1] belongs to the same ground. In the middle of the decade, the view tightens: wards, night watches, garrisons, scouts, and inspected arms[3] organize the town.

## Work: Fields, marsh, and bay

The main work is agriculture and fishing[1], supported by livestock, shellfish, fish, and salt hay from Duxbury Marsh[1]. Grain may pass through the Duck Hill River gristmill[1], while small vessels are built on farms[1] rather than in shipyards.

## Faith: Meeting house at the center

The church is not a side matter: the meeting house by the burial ground[1][2] is both a religious and civic center. Ralph Partridge’s ministry[2] links the town to Plymouth Colony’s older Separatist church world.

## Law & power: Freemen and town rule

Political power rests with approved men: freemen held voting and office-holding rights[4] in Plymouth Colony. In wartime, local commissioned officers can order watches, garrisons, scouts, arms, and ammunition[3].

## What people feared: War comes close

The decade is marked by King Philip’s War, when Duxbury prepared daytime wards and night watches[3]. For Native families, danger also came from colonial policy: Mattakeesett men and boys were forced to Clark’s Island[5].

## Home & table: Scattered wooden houses

Homes stand apart in a dispersed pattern, with South Duxbury, Island Creek, Captain’s Nook, Millbrook, and bayside houses[1] rather than one dense village. Buildings are modest seventeenth-century wood houses[1], but ordinary interiors are not clearly described in accessible local sources.

## Who lived here: English and Native ground

This is not an empty English frontier: Native use of the shore, ponds, and shellfish places[1] long predates the town. The English population was small; Old Duxbury counted about 400 inhabitants in 1643[1].

## Roads & news: Roads to Plymouth and Boston

News and officials move by road and water: the north-south Plymouth-to-Massachusetts Bay route[1] crosses the town, and the Nook was part of a shore-and-bay landscape[1] directly tied to Plymouth. Local movement follows the scattered settlement pattern[1] more than a single street.

## Money: Prices hard to recover

For Duxbury itself, no reliable 1670s wage or price table was found online in this quick search. The visible economy is therefore clearer in kind than in coin: fields, livestock, fish, shellfish, and marsh hay[1].

## Year by year

- **1671** (nearby): Plymouth Colony law tightened the qualifications for freemen, making religious orthodoxy part of political standing.[4]
- **1672** (here): Additional land dealings between Duxbury colonists and Native people took place in the years just before the war.
- **1673** (nearby): Plymouth Colony authorized colony-wide support for formal public schooling, though Duxbury’s first separate schoolhouses came later.[1]
- **1675** (here): King Philip’s War began, and Duxbury organized guards, watches, garrisons, scouts, and arms.[3]
- **1675** (here): Native people of the Mattakeesett community were forcibly removed to Clark’s Island during the war years.[5]
- **1676** (the country): Metacom, called King Philip by the English, was killed, and the main fighting of King Philip’s War in southern New England ended.
- **1677** (the country): English colonial governments and Native captives lived with the consequences of the war, including executions, enslavement, displacement, and land loss across southern New England.
- **1678** (the world): The Treaty of Nijmegen ended a major European war between France and the Dutch Republic, news that Atlantic merchants and colonial officials could have heard after delay.

## What the sources say

- Before and during English settlement, the Duxbury shore and inland ponds were used by Native people, with shell middens reported around Powder Point and High Pines and probable Mattakeesett concentration around the Pembroke Ponds area. (from the sources)[1]
- English Duxbury began as an offshoot of Plymouth; early settlers farmed across Duxbury Bay before the town was incorporated on June 17, 1637. (inferred)[2]
- In 1643, “Old Duxbury,” which then included later Pembroke, had about 400 inhabitants. (from the sources)[1]
- The first Duxbury meeting house stood by the first burial ground on Chestnut Street, with the first building dated by local church tradition to about 1638. (from the sources)[1][2]
- Ralph Partridge was Duxbury’s first ordained minister, officially leading the church from 1638. (inferred)[2]
- By the later seventeenth century, settlement was dispersed, with a South Duxbury node, Island Creek, Captain’s Nook, Millbrook, and scattered homes along Duxbury and Kingston Bays. (from the sources)[1]
- A main north-south route between Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay passed through Duxbury, later documented along the Summer Street or Route 53 corridor. (from the sources)[1]
- Agriculture and fishing were the primary occupations of English settlers, with cattle, sheep, swine, fresh and saltwater fish, shellfish, and salt hay from Duxbury Marsh all part of the local economy. (from the sources)[1]
- Duxbury had a gristmill on Duck Hill River from 1639, while grain had previously been ground at Plymouth. (from the sources)[1]
- Shipbuilding existed only occasionally in the seventeenth-century town, with small vessels built on farms and no formal shipyard yet. (from the sources)[1]
- In Plymouth Colony, adult men in good standing could become freemen by vote, and freemen held the colony’s core voting and office-holding rights. (from the sources)[4]
- During King Philip’s War, Duxbury officers were empowered to set daytime wards, night watches, garrisons, scouts, and supervision of the town’s arms and ammunition. (from the sources)[3]
- During King Philip’s War in 1675 and 1676, colonial authorities forcibly removed Native people, including men and boys of the Mattakeesett community, to internment on Clark’s Island in Duxbury Bay. (inferred)[5]
- The town’s seventeenth-century houses were modest wood structures, and surviving early examples include center-chimney and two-story houses associated with the First Settlement period. (from the sources)[1]
- No local online source found in this quick search gives a reliable 1670s Duxbury wage list or market price table. (not known)
- No local online source found in this quick search describes the interior furnishings of ordinary Duxbury houses in the 1670s. (not known)
- The town’s first separate schoolhouses were not built until 1714 and 1715, so schooling in the 1670s was not yet housed in those later district school buildings. (from the sources)[1]

## Sources

1. MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report: Duxbury. Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1981. https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/mhc/preservation/survey/town-reports/archives/dux.pdf
2. A Brief History of First Parish Church. First Parish Church Duxbury, 1995. https://uudux.org/home-2-4/history/
3. History of the Town of Duxbury, Massachusetts. Justin Winsor, 1849. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/historyoftownofd02wins/historyoftownofd02wins.pdf
4. Leadership & Governance in Plymouth Colony. Pilgrim Hall Museum. https://www.pilgrimhall.org/leadership-governance-in-plymouth-colony/
5. Mattakeesett: Native History of the Duxbury Shore. Duxbury Uncommon. https://duxburyuncommon.com/mattakeesett

## The same place in other decades

- [Duxborough in the 1640s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1640s/md)
- [Duxborough in the 1660s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1660s/md)
- [Duxbury in the 1730s](https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1730s/md)

## Nearby, about the same time

- [Plymouth County, Massachusetts in the 1680s](https://yorehistory.com/place/plymouth-county-massachusetts/1680s/md) (8 km)
- [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 1670s", https://yorehistory.com/place/duxbury-plymouth-county-massachusetts/1670s