“Tradition has handed down the story of a fight over the grass growing on these disputed meadows”

This quote, seen on page 143, describes a battle between the hard working men from Amesbury and Haverhill. There was confusion about the barrier between the two towns, and since the line was drawn through hay fields which were very valuable back then, a battle broke out between the men of the two towns. Haverhill was the aggressor. When Amesbury claimed that there land was further west than originally thought, the men from Haverhill cut down the hay growing on the land before Amesbury could get to it. It only lasted one day, but there was no gunfire between the townsmen. The Haverhill men were instructed to hold their ground and with a large gang of hands, met the Amesbury men in the disputed hay fields. A violent exchange of scythes and pitchforks occurred. There were no lists of the wounded or killed handed down, but it is known that the land was granted back to Haverhill, but was not a result of the fight.         

Coming across olde events similar to this one in The History of Amesbury and Merrimac is what keeps me reading. After taking down a solid chunk of this book, I have learned about a surprising amount of these disputes, most of which occurred between fisherman. It interesting how this can seem uncivilized to us now, but be such a regular part of life back then. Issues similar to the ones explained in the book don't tend to happen that often anymore in such a nation like the one we live in,  however in many other societies that may be considered third world or simply just rural, people tend to act in a more radical way between each other when solving problems. 

Survival

While reading through “The History of Newburyport” I have come to realize that there is a strong theme of survival, and especially how the definition of that word as it relates to everyday society has changed over the years since the book was written. Today we think of survival as maybe getting by and making enough money to support a family, or maybe getting yourself out of a risky situation you got into accidentally. As I am just getting into the book and reading about the earlier years of the town of Newburyport I am getting a whole new look on the term survival. The founding of the town was a tough process, from fighting off the natives to getting swept out to sea from the harbor, the average man inhabiting the new area used to face challenges that threatened his wellbeing almost daily. Keep in mind, today, we think of this area as a relatively tame environment.

 Plum Island during these times was locally known as one of the most treacherous places. Back then it was still an island, or when the 113 bridge wasn’t present, there was no way to get back to the mainland through the cold waters and frozen marsh during the winter. While importing materials from well established places like Boston and Gloucester via ocean ships would often wreck on the island’s sandbars during harsh New England winter storms with east winds. Where do they go from there? The shore. Unfortunately, there’s not too much going on the island during this time. In fact, it’s about 2 miles until there is anything involving humans. Survival was failed more often than not.

 

 I have always felt as if it would be a life changing experience to experience real survival. Not only would it be life changing but I feel like it would teach me so much. I have my own personal theory that when the human race no longer fights for survival, that is the end of the original human race and we would then be on to a different category. The willingness to survive is a natural instinct, but I feel like it is so rarely triggered in today’s society that it may be dying off in a specific crowd of people.

At ye water side next Merrimack river over against Newbury landing place from Mr Goodings bound tree to a white oak stump about nine or ten rods and so runeing up ye hill on ye lower side to a walnut tree marked with A over a small white oak marked with an A about four rods wide ranging up ye hill between two small black oaks marked about four rods apart and so upward to a great rock on ye lower side in baileys hill two rods wide and so e town ward two rod wide through ye land of ye sd Bayley being one hundred and ten rods and one half in length so through ye land of john weeds between two great rocks about fifty three rods and half in length two rod wide and so to ye land of Goodman Haddens next ye street as witness our hands the 17th 1670. This is the plotting of a “highway” back in 1670 which is similar to the present day 95, running by then same landmarks as the new road. This part of the book stood out to me because it seemed very unlikely that anyone would be able to follow these directions. I do understand that that is how people used to talk but the fact that they were using trees and rocks as points to follow just seemed interesting to me. Whenever my father is starting up a new development he and I always go over the road plan just because I’ve always been interested in how it affects the overall look of the subdivision. Legally he and the other developers have to create a written statement similar to this on where it will run and where all of the lots will be. Instead of landmarks, they use specific GPS coordinates because it is easier for them to write those down simply because they script will in fact never be read and they already have that information in front of them. Instead of looking at the script, there large blueprints of the desired path all with specific measurements put together by the zoners.