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Mr. History Person's
Fairhaven, MA, Timeline
The 1600s & 1700s
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The 1600s
1652, November 29: Thirty-six Plymouth colonists buy the territory that makes up present-day Fairhaven, Acushnet, New Bedford, Dartmouth, Westport and parts of Tiverton, RI, from Wampanoag chief Massasoit and his son Wamsutta. The tract is divided into thirty-four shares. Each share equaled more than 3,300 acres. One of the purchasers was John Cooke, who had come to America with his father Francis aboard the Mayflower in 1620. For several years the territory, known as “Cushena,” remains unsettled.
1660: Three men pay taxes in “Cushena”--Arthur Hathaway, James Shaw and (probably) Samuel Cuthbert. Arthur Hathaway, a son-in-law of John Cooke, settles on the east side of the Acushnet River in present-day Acushnet.
1661: Arthur Hathaway buys one-half share of land from Samuel Cuthbert. Massasoit dies. Wamsutta becomes sachem.
1662: Taxes are paid by Arthur Hathaway, James Shaw, Samuel Cuthbert, William Spooner, Samuel Jenney, John Russell and (probably) Ralph Earle. Samuel Jenney is appointed constable of “Acushena.” It is probably in this year that John Cooke, his wife Sarah and three unmarried daughters move here from Plymouth. Wamsutta dies. His brother Philip becomes sachem.
1663: It is likely that by this year (Lt.) Jonathan Delano, son of Philipe De La Noye, has settled in the Nasketucket area, where he built a mill on the Nasketucket River.
1664, June 8: The territory is incorporated as the township of Dartmouth.
1666: William Palmer is appointed constable. He is said to have lived in the vicinity where Fort Phoenix was later built. John Cooke is appointed Representative to Plymouth Court, a position held by either Cooke or John Russell during the town’s first twenty years.
1667: Arthur Hathaway, John Russell and Samuel Hickes are selectmen. Hester Cooke, daughter of John and Sarah Cooke, marries Thomas Taber.
1670: John Cooke is elected selectman and will serve in this office nine times between now and 1683, with consecutive terms broken only by the destruction of the town during the King Philip War.
1672: By this year, Thomas Pope and his wife Sarah (Jenney) had moved here, settling near Sconticut Neck. John Cooke is given Ram [Pope’s] Island by the town in return for services.
1673: Jacob Mitchell, son-in-law of Thomas Pope, is appointed as constable and is named an ensign-bearer of the militia.
1675, June 20: The King Philip War begins when hostile natives controlled by Wampanoag sachem Philip attack and kill settlers in Swansea. In July, Dartmouth is attacked and all thirty homes within the township are destroyed. William Palmer, Jacob and Susannah Mitchell and John Pope are killed. The town is abandoned for about three years. (Lt.) Jonathan Delano serves under Benjamin Church during the war.
1678, June 20: Dartmouth holds its first Town Meeting since the beginning of the King Philip War.
1685: Plymouth Colony is divided into three counties. Dartmouth is part of Bristol County.
1695, November 23: John Cooke, the last surviving male passenger of the Mayflower, dies at the age of 88. Cooke’s grandson, Thomas Taber Jr., inherits Ram [Pope’s] Island.
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The 1700s
1713/14, March 25: John Jenney deeds land to “the people of God called Presbyterians” for a burial ground next to the meetinghouse at the village of Acushnet.
1724: A road is laid out from Susannah Hathaway’s orchard to the vicinity of Lt. Seth Pope’s house. It will be known as the Back Road and Head-of-the-River Road before getting the name Alden Road.
1726, March 17: Lt. Seth Pope dies at the age of 79.
1728, February 25: A road is laid out from Susannah Hathaway’s orchard southward along what is now northern Main Street and Adams Street to about Spring Street.
1760, October 20: Elnathan Pope sells twenty waterfront acres of his farm to Noah Allen and thirteen other investors. Divided into 40 lots, the “Twenty-Acre Purchase” develops into Fair-Haven Village.
1760, December 12: William Wood sells Elnathan Eldredge 6 acres of land on the Acushnet River west of present-day Cherry Street. This “little town at ye foot of William Wood’s homestead,” with its thirty lots, becomes the nucleus of Oxford Village.
1765, May 30: Elnathan Pope sells whaling merchant Joseph Rotch about 86 acres of farmland directly east of Fair-Haven Village. The Rotch family will keep this land off the market for about 65 years.
1775, April 21: Two days after the “Lexington Alarm,” three companies of Dartmouth militia march to Roxbury to join forces from throughout New England who are gathering outside Boston.
1775, May 13-14: Under the command of Nathaniel Pope and Daniel Egery, a group of 25 Fairhaven minutemen aboard the sloop Success capture two British vessels in Buzzards Bay. This is the first naval battle of the American Revolution.
1775, June: Construction begins on a fort at Nolscott Point under the supervision of brothers-in-law Eleazer Hathaway and Benjamin Dillingham.
1778, September 5-6: The British land 4,000 troops on the west side of the Acushnet River. They burn ships and warehouses in Bedford Village, skirmish at the Head-of-the-River bridge, and march through Fairhaven to Sconticut Neck, burning several homes along the way. The fort is abandoned and it is destroyed by the enemy troops. An attack on Fair-Haven Village is repelled by militia under the command of Major Israel Fearing who had marched from Wareham with additional militiamen.
1787, February 23: The town of New Bedford, including Fairhaven and Acushnet, is incorporated.
1790, June 7: The proprietors of a Congregational meeting house purchase a lot on the northeast corner of Main and Center streets from Benjamin and Joseph Church for the construction of a church. The Second Church of Christ is built in 1794.
1795: A bridge is built across the Herring River and Main Street is extended northward from Fairhaven Village to Oxford.
1796: Construction of the first Fairhaven-New Bedford Bridge begins.
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Comments or Corrections: FhvnHistory@aol.com
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Other Links
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Copyright 2003 by Navigator, Fairhaven, MA, Lori and Christopher Richard, publishers.
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