uh we're all interested in different aspects of this time period and um that just adds a a richness to to what we're doing. Um so I'm hoping that local historians can just comment and and
share their interests and and their questions. So it's this is this is not a formal presentation. It's not as if we all know um what what happened. So, it's kind of an exploratory discussion. Um so, my my goal for the historical
society is to gather information that will inform an exhibition next summer at the handy house. Okay. So, that's my goal. Uh and I know other people have other other goals. Um
I want to mention that this project is co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Historical and Arts Society and without them uh we wouldn't be able to do this project. Uh and there is one person that I need to mention and who is not with us uh that
is Bob Harding. Um thank you both for uh digitizing the town meeting records putting them on on the website. that is how we know that they existed and how I have been able to access them. So Bob is very much uh with
us uh this morning. So uh let's see the plan for today is I I'm going to make some introductory comments. Uh then I'm going to hand over to Richard and I have asked Richard to prepare you know some some comments because he is someone who has really dug
into the town meeting records. uh and then we'll sort of pass the mic over to some other local historians and then we'll open it up to general discussion and then at a certain point um I will
then uh talk about the process of transcribing the records and the rather the good news bad news share some good news bad news with you but it's most mostly good news okay so um probably Like many of you, I've
been watching the Ken Burns American Revolution series. Um, and I've been learning a lot. I'm I'm wondering whether you also feel you've been learning new things from from that. >> Yes.
>> Yeah, definitely. Um, and so I've been connecting a lot of the themes that I have learned about in that series to to our story here in in Westport and Dartmouth. So I'm wondering, you know, what what
was happening here in in our own community? Um what was the town of Dartmouth at at that time? And and whenever I'm saying Dartmouth, I'm also meaning Westport. So Dartmouth is Westport. Dartmouth as we know it today,
New Bedford, Fair Haven, and the Kush. Some of you know that many of you know that. So when we're referring to Dartmouth, we're referring to Westport as well. So, um, as I look at this story, uh,
what I find are some stories that have been handed down, uh, through the generations that have no particular source. Uh, for example, there's the story of the, uh, militia
soldiers stopping by Bread and Cheese Brook, stopping to have a bite to eat. some bread and some cheese and supposedly that is how bread and cheese got its name. I'm not sure where that story comes from. Another
story that is handed down is uh Lafayette's soldiers coming down old county road walking down the hill stopping off at a house at the head of Westport uh for a bite to eat. And that
that's quite a a sto a story that's described in considerable detail. Again, I have no idea where that comes from. So, but I always feel there's a kernel of truth in in in some of these stories. Uh and another story is that of Abnner
Brownell. Um he is Westport's Paul Rivere galloping around Westport to to warn everyone. You know, where where do these stories come from? But if they are repeated enough they become history.
Okay. So um even more uh important to return to the original documents to the the town meeting records and the project is called in our own words you know so we need to examine what was being said in this town what was the debate. So I
think there's a huge value in in doing this wordbyword uh transcribing. I'm interested in how decisions were made by the town. I'm interested in, and this is our particular story, how the
Quakers responded to the um call to arms and how were the Quakers perceived by the rest of the community, knowing that Quakers, of course, um are pacifists um and neutral. Some of them, most of them were neutral, but not all. You know,
that that what was that dynamic like in the town? And I do believe the town records can reveal some of that. um why did Westport break up with Dartmouth um in 1787? What was going on? And and
Dartmouth broke up into all of its little pieces um you know during during that era. Is that connected to the war and what was going on in this community? Why did Dartmouth vote against uh
ratifying the Constitution while Westport voted in support of the Constitution? That's a question that I have. Um, and how did the religious divisions, which hopefully Richard will talk a little bit more about, the religious divisions that um are very
apparent geographically, Westport, Dartmouth's being dominated by Quakers, um, New Bedford, Fair Haven, congregationalists. How did that play out in all of this? Um, so as I understand it, during the
revolution, every town had to make a decision and every individual had to make a decision. And so we're we're looking at this from a very m micro mic small scale level, but it informs um
the the the wider issue of of the war. Um, and it's not as if no one has looked at the town meeting records. We do have, of course, the work of Henry Worth. Henry Worth was a historian that we all
looked to. He was um he did his work in the early 1900s. Henry Worth did look very carefully at the town meeting records and he did write about it. And again, Richard will will talk probably a little bit about that. Um, but I'll give you a brief history of
the the town records themselves. Okay. So, uh, in 1888, and this is courtesy Bob Harding, 1888, uh, the city of New Bedford formed a committee to investigate the condition
of the town meeting records. Um, these were the physical records and they found the records uh, I guess in the Dartmouth Town Hall uh, in an iron safe and they found that the records were in very poor
condition. And these were two large books bound in raw hide. Imagine that they probably still exist, I suppose. Um, of 400 pages each. the years 1776
to 1779 were lost. So we don't have those years unfortunately. Okay. So in 1888 this uh group recommended that the records uh should be copied and this is the handwriting that you will see um when you look at
the town meeting records. Um it's the handwriting of um Eta Martin. Okay. So she copied them I guess soon after 1888 I suppose. >> Her name
>> okay >> Martin. So she this is her lovely handwriting um easy easy to read and she did a great job. uh and until 1969 her transcriptions were only available
in the New Bedford City Hall. In 1969, the records were microf filmed by the Mormon Church 1969, so converted to microfilm. But it wasn't until 2014 that Bob Harding found them and it was Bob
who got the microfilm digitized. That's right. Yes. Um, and it was Bob who then got them uploaded to the Dartmouth Historical and Art Society website and that's how we all became aware of them I
I believe. So um, and so currently they yeah they are as PDFs on the Dharm Historical and Art Society. So I'm I will stop there. Um I do have more information that I'll give to you at the end of this about um how the
interface that we are using to transcribe these records, how that works and and where we are with with the project. So uh at this point I'm going to hand the mic over to Richard. >> Good morning. Um, as Jenny hinted at, I
think the the thing that makes Dartmouth >> Richard could put the phone off the close to your microphone so we can hear you. >> Um, the thing that makes um Dartmouth distinctive compared to the experiences of other communities is its uh
prepoundonderance of of Quakers. Henry Worth estimated that at the time of the revolution there's probably between 60 and 70% of the population was Quaker with a smaller group being congregationalist
and yet smaller group being Baptist. Um they were not evenly distributed throughout old Ireland. The one congregational church was located in a Kushnet. Um, and the congregation was
tended to be from a Kushnet in Fair Haven and from kind of the north end of New Bedford, which back at that time was very thinly settled. Um, the south end of New Bedford, all of Darvis was
solidly Quaker. Um when you get to Westport, it's again mostly Quaker. Uh the exceptions being there's some people out in the far western end of town like along Sodom Road maybe and up into like Sanford Road who attended what's now
Holstone uh Baptist Church in Adamsville and a few congregationalists particularly from the coax section of Westport and um a few at Westport Point like the Corey's who attended uh the
congregational church at Little Compton. Being predominantly Quaker was unusual in Massachusetts for any town. Probably Dartmouth, Rochester, Sandwich, Nantucket, and Swansea would be the only towns that had
a really significant Quaker population. Um, and this presented some problems for the town during the revolution. Each town was um required to maintain by what they
call the committee of safety in Boston, which essentially is the state government. Uh required to have certain numbers of militia members based on their population and because the Quakers when I mean you're automatically
dismissed if you were a Quaker and you participated in a militia. never mind actually go out and fight somewhere but just a just a drill. Uh that was an automatic disowning a dismissal. You were you you were kicked out. Uh so that
was out for the Quakers. So, but since the total total population was the number on which the militia quota was based, um the town had to um they could pay a fine if they went
under. They underperformed, but the fines were enormous. And what they did in practice was actually to get militia members from outside of Dartmouth. They brought in some, you know, ringers by paying big bounties. We know a whole
company of militia in Dartmouth uh was the captain was a guy named Amassa Soer who wasn't even from Dartmouth. He was from Freetown but uh Freetown with predominantly congregationalist population. Probably the remainder of that whole company came from Freetown as
well. But that cost uh a lot of cash and that cash uh to get them to sign up uh for bounties and that cash came ultimately from the taxpayers uh of Dartmouth. And this is one of the reasons why
after the revolution um when the breakup comes in 1787 it is according to Henry Worth and I think there's some merit to this point of view that there's a lingering resentment
of the eastern part of town the part of town that was predominantly congregational specifically fair haven and a Kushnet uh against the uh the remaining in the sense that the predominantly Quaker part didn't really pull their weight and um it didn't provide militia
enlistments that caused their tax bills to go up and and aside from that there were other factors as well. with the Quakers. The Quakers were, as Jenny mentioned, officially, and this came from Quaker doctrine, they had to be neutral. They were not allowed to say,
"We're on the patriot side, on royal side." They were they were neutral. Now, some of them in real life weren't. We know of a couple that that weren't. Um, but they would get in trouble. They would get in trouble with the meeting if they they came down on on one side or
the other. But obviously the non-quaker members who were patriots of this town uh would have looked very suspiciously on the Quakers and say, "Oh, well, they say they're neutral, but you know, why aren't they why won't they just say they're on our side on the revolutionary
side?" Um, so that also leads to some uh dissent and division in Dartmouth. And another thing that the Quakers had uh along with that neutrality, they had a belief that their um they
should be able to keep on trading with the British or with anybody as if nothing had happened. Um they were above the war. The war was the Quaker phrase they called up the world. the world they make the non-Quaker world and whatever
was going on in terms of revolution was was outside of the Quaker uh the Quaker rule and so they should be being allowed to trade with anybody and there were some efforts um mostly involved members of the Sloan
family who was a Quaker family and um involved taking sheep. Remember the British were occupying Newport at the time. They had about 5,000 troops there to feed and it was profitable to get them ffected. And
they would take mostly sheep and other cattle, these local Quakers, and put them out on Cuddy and Nash, which were owned by the Sloven, and they would leave them out there. All of a sudden, all the cattle were
gone. The sheep were gone. And they actually some people I just saw the British ships come take them away and restock them again you know just days later well they're not foolish enough to just keep putting cattle out there just to be just to be taken off. So the committee of safety got very suspicious
and the selectman got very suspicious and they said uh uh well what's going on here? because obviously there's a quit pro program or somehow they're getting paid in order to go out and leave these cattle on the islands and which provided fresh meat for the 5,000 or so uh
British and Hessen soldiers who were located at Newport who otherwise could only be supplied all supplied for Newport would come from Halifax and to get fresh meat there in the ships of the day non-refrigerated ships was just
something that was impossible. So, it was a real uh problem. And generally, even when they were in New York and Charleston, which were about the only other places the British held for a significant amount of time during the war, it was always a problem to get things like firewood, fresh food,
because they had to go into the land uh to do that. Uh and it's probably one of the reasons behind why the British uh eventually uh evacuated uh Newport. Um so the the biggest single uh issue I
think that that divides the doctrines is that um is that religious issue between the Quaker and um the congregationalists. So that's something to keep an eye on. Traditionally, you know, you're talking in more general
terms about a revolution. In a way, the revolution is not the first insurrection to happen in Massachusetts. Back in 1689, I think it was, there was a governor, Sir Edmund Andros, who was governor not
just of Massachusetts, but of all the called the United Colonies. It was all of the New England states plus New York, plus New Jersey. And this was an effort by the uh later steward kings to start to to gain uh control over the colonies.
The colonies were kind of grown wild at first, you know, from 1620, the first generations. But England's policy really was is just get settlers over there. don't worry about anything else because they're competing against the French in French Canada and the Dutch who in New
Amsterdam, New York and his priv and his claims go as far east as the Connecticut River and also include Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket. So the idea was to get kind of just get boots on the ground, get settlers on the ground over here and everything else can take a back seat.
And by the end of the 1600s, well, maybe this maybe we need to take more control over these colonies. But they did have the insurrection against Andros that coincided with what they call the glorious revolution in England. Another factor as you mentioned that
both leads to a lot of immigration from England to the colonies and which keeps the British government occupied is the English revolution which is going on fullcale warfare in the 1640s and 50s but then
continues in a lot of political turbulence that goes all the way up to 7 1689 and of course revolution when James II is forced out and uh William of Orange comes in no longer William and Mary
will come. So and William and Mary uh in the the the House of Orange is willing to pursue again a more kind of hands-off policy towards the colonies um
and and not things like taxation, things like that. They they just didn't worry about again they just wanted to force stall uh French and Dutch incursion which they did quite successfully the Dutch were kicked out of New York and
held off the French in Canada. Then we get to the seven Years War, which is is usually called here the French and Indian War. And there was a royal governor of Massachusetts named William Shirley. He was not elected. He's appointed by
Britain. And um but he is also the commander-in-chief of all military British military forces in North America for most of that war. And he's a man with no military experience. Uh, and he gets enormous amounts of money coming
over from London to Massachusetts, which is supposed to be used to fund military efforts against the French, but it's actually used for political payoffs, just general craft,
which is eventually found out and Shirley is recalled to London. and Massachusetts gains a good measure of its prosperity in the 1750s and60s because of that. But
he's recalled to London and he's dumped and they put a professional military men. First Lord Louden and then Lord Ammerst are put in charge of the British forces in North America. But one of the consequences of that of the recall of Shirley
is that the young king at the time who had just taken the throne was King George III and he was a man who looked closely after his not only his household accounts but after the accounts of his country and he don't like the idea of getting ripped off and George III from that moment
became they have too much power over in the colonies. They're doing things. They're they're they're ripping us off. Uh and this ain't going to happen again. And that starts, I think, in motion things like this later, the Stamp Act, the Townsen Act, and things like that
that leads to this kind of taxation uh crisis. So it doesn't just spring up suddenly, but it's kind of a a consequence of really many decades, even a century and a half of kind of push and pull between London wanting to exert
more authority over the colonies and the colonies almost uniformly wanting to have uh less authority and more self-governance. And it goes back in Massachusetts particularly goes back a long time. Even though Massachusetts does right up until the time of the
revolution, they have a governor who is an appointee of London of the English. He's he's not elected. Rhode Island always has uh elected governors right up until the time of the revolution. Um so this this conflict usually the conflict
that Dartmouth had was not with London. It wasn't with the royal house. It was usually with Boston. uh and it was mainly again another Quaker issue uh this idea of the minister tax and in those days the the state of
Massachusetts and the colony of Massachusetts before that uh had um a statute which required the um the salaries of congregational ministers
to be to be paid. It had an established state religion and a taxpayer funded one. And there were select men of Dartmouth who refused to collect that tax who were imprisoned. One of whom died at birth. Uh and that was a huge many decades. A real bone for contention. That law by the way remained
in effect in Massachusetts until I believe it was 1842. And I said, "Well, wait a minute. What about the US Constitution? That first amendment prohibits the establishment of religion." Yes, it does. But remember the first amendment only applies to the federal government until the 14th
amendment is passed which is I believe 1867. So and that it was not an issue of many states not just Massachusetts had established state religions but Massachusetts was the last state to do away with with an established state religion. So a lot of these both issues
during the revolution, after and before the revolution have uh an awful lot uh uh to do with uh religion by one more than it actually does that I'll throw in when I talked about the prior insurrection against Governor Edmund Andrews. His his biggest sin remember
he's ruling here from Boston is allowing an Anglican church to be established in Boston. Anglican church. That's the official and remains the official state church of Great Britain. What's wrong with that? Not in Purit and Boston. They didn't
want anything to do with the Anglicans. And that was really the precipitating factor that uh uh that led to his problem. So there is a history of of conflict that goes on. But but nobody even in the it was sort of an insurrection, but don't don't get the
wrong idea. Nobody in 1689 was thinking about independence for the colonies. that that was never mentioned that was off the table. They just wanted to get rid of that particular governor. >> Okay, that was a great history lesson.
>> Yes. >> May I ask a question? This is being videotaped. So, are we going to be able to get access to this? >> Yes, I will talk with the town and make sure. Okay. So, I'm going to keep an eye on the clock, but I wanted just to give
some of the local historians a chance just to talk very briefly about what what are your interests? What are you hoping to discover um during this project? So, can we start with Diane? >> Sure.
I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. Um, the nonprofit that we manage is the Dartmouth Heritage Preservation Trust and we are the
stewards of the 1762 Aken House and we've been at it for over 20 years and um with the Aken descendants and developing a relationship with them,
which I have done for many years. Uh, I have, excuse me, I have access to a lot of the Aken family history going back to when they came over from Aberdine, Scotland,
and then went to the Newport area and then settled in Dartmouth. So, I've been studying the Aikens for a long time and I have access to their
family trees that were done by their ancestors. So, we form quite a nice group of ancestors plus myself and others to really learn all we can about the Aikens.
So, fast forward to this project. I will say that the Aken House built in 1762 by British subjects of course um is also a witness site to the revolution because there aren't that
many of those left around especially an intact Georgian cape style house. And what can you sure >> explain what you mean by a witness site? >> Oh yes,
>> sure. A witness site to the revolution. Uh so that uh people in Massachusetts uh and other obviously colonies
um still have these sites that are still are extent um that witness the revolution and the activities that went on and that's particularly true of the Aken family
because the Aens were ship builders and they ran a tavern in what is now Ptonire Village which was known as Akens War or Akens Landing
uh after the Aikens lost everything during the British raid in September of 1778. So my goal is to work towards
events related to September of 1778. Hopefully I'll still be here to work on this and that will also include the other communities that make up Old Dartmouth.
So, we're part of a group that are, you know, the group is working on a bunch of other things which you'll learn about here um a little bit in the immediate future like next year, but my focus has been on
that and in developing a relationship and I encourage you to look him up, Jonathan Lane, some of you know him, who's the executive director of Revolution 250. Find the website. I share it every
chance I get. Uh, it's chalk full of information about the revolution leading up to the revolution and all of these mind milestone events that they're working on
such as now um commemorating the Henry Knox trail uh which started over the weekend as Jonathan was up in uh Tyonderoga in the cold talking about Henry Knox and
the fact that he brought all of this hardware. Um, >> I'm I'm losing the name of the cannons. >> Thank you. Can >> How many cannons are going to be reenacted to be brought to Dorchester
Heights >> there? Well, I don't know. We'll have to talk learn more from Jan uh from Jonathan about that. So, I mean, that's going on now. leading up to next year, evacuation day. But getting back to the
Aikens, so they were they maybe they were Quakers, you know, some people who are ancestors of um who are descendants rather of the Aens talk about their Quaker lineage,
but then it's not that clear really because um Ellieu, the namesake of the house that we manage on the corner of Dartmouth and Rockland Street. And his brother James
um ran that ship building business and the tavern and you know they they had a huge family uh that you know were entrepreneurial. But when they banished the loyalists,
which were still in Dartmouth Village, those loyalists wanted to get their revenge. And of course, the British were only too happy to collaborate with them because they needed to know how to get to
the Aponagans River. uh because they were busy also destroying Bedford Village and other parts of Old Dartmouth. So, I'm thrilled about all of this
because it allows me uh to dig even deeper into the Aken family. So I'm deep into the Aens but I want to learn more about their role during the revolution
especially Benjamin Aken because he's mentioned a lot in because in these transcripts or in the town meeting minutes because he was the justice of the peace
and he was a town clerk just like his father John Aken was. And by the way, John Aken was one of those selectmen who did not want to pay the minister's tax,
so he was jailed, but he survived um until about maybe 1743. I didn't bring all my genealogy info. He was born in 1663.
Uh so they had a pedigree these people of resistance. But with Benjamin, he was out there, you know, the committee of safety. He was part of state, you know, the state
legislators at the time. And uh he was Lu's older brother. And so, uh, my hope is to just learn more about Benjamin in particular
because I can guarantee you that, and he outlived Lu because he Lu died in 17 90 in the Aken house that we manage because he was obviously uh after the British destroyed Peyton
Arum, what is now Pton Um he had this little house up the hill >> that he purchased as an investment in 1769 uh which his brother Benjamin also was
the justice of the peace for those transactions. I mean this guy was everywhere. So um so the things happened in that little house. Now, we can only imagine, we can only speculate,
but you know that that phrase that we like to use now in the room where it happened, things happened at the Aken House that's still standing. Um, so before I bore all of you with
more stories, I'll stop it here. I I'm happy to take questions later. Just so one question that I have had is where were the town meetings held in the 1760s7s8s >> maybe a townhouse I'm not sure does it
does it say that it's not specific >> the townhouse would have been on halfway road um around where country club is for how long >> we have we have when it was beginning when they purchased the land and built
townhouse >> townhouse. >> Uh, one thing you have to keep in mind as you look at uh, not only that um, period of revolution but also the whole history of the area is to keep in mind
that uh, the uh, Dartmouth proprietors who own the land were separate from the town government. But the town of Dartmouth never owned land
unless they bought it or somebody donated it. >> So I believe the original town meetings were held at mills or any other at houses, private houses or any other um
convenient meeting meeting places. Uh generally not in Quaker meeting houses. In fact, the Quikers, I believe, prohibited that. Um, but the I believe that the first town meeting uh house
was, as Richard said, at the end of in the area of New Bedford Country Club at the end of Slogum Road where it hits Hathaway Road and it was like a quarter acre that was donated by one of the proprietors in order to build um a town
house. And I think um everybody knows in Dartmouth the progression of town meeting houses um what's now the Dartmouth um uh DCTV the um community television
um u structure was a town hall at one time. The old police station was a town hall at one time. The pool school is now the current one and that's just in Dartmouth. Um if if I may I wanted to
hit a couple of uh points which are disjointed um the um the first one is to just mention um in accordance with what Diane said um the
DHA which is the Dartmouth Historical and Art Society and it's nice to see so many directors here today um is researching Dartmouth houses which are still standing that were um built um in by
1770 and I believe Westport Historical Society is doing the same for theirs. So we are certainly have an eye out for what what those um sites were that witnessed the American Revolution and
that'll be an ongoing thing. Um, the second point I wanted to make to what Richard said is to point out that Plymouth Colony was absorbed into Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691.
And um so um that really was part of that early history of of tugging uh to and fro where where Plymouth was sort of forgotten in the 1600s. But then um the
um English king decided it was it was time to send Andros over to to govern Boston and at that time uh Massachusetts grabbed to Plymouth and we were all part of Plymouth Colony. So I wanted to point
out that milestone. Um the third thing is to um mention um as I actually have already said um that the town the old town meeting records
are different from the proprietors uh meeting records. The proprietors meeting records were about uh the land management whereas the town meeting records had to do with the appointment of the officials who um who took care of
the roads and the assessments and the constables and all the other town offices. Um the next point is to mention that Bob Harding blessed us with a very complete index to go with those records
of individuals. And Bob Harding also blessed us with a very comprehensive index in the two Quaker books that were printed by the uh
Colonial Society of Massachusetts in um collaboration with DHS. I believe Westport uh library has a copy of those two printed volumes. Uh they're also available for um if you give a
donation to us of uh DHS of $100, you can acquire a set or you can buy them on Amazon. The two volume set is $100. But anyone whose interest has a particular ancestor or interest in in a family
might find some interesting examples uh by looking at what um the Quaker books say about this person and also what the town meeting records say about their public um um appointments or maybe
their opinions expressed at at town meeting. And um the next point I wanted to make is that I think that as part of the this whole project, we ought to go beyond the town
meeting records and we really ought to try to get a handle on the geographical features of the old Dartmouth and include the maritime areas, the bay which was filled with
British ships often and the Elizabeth Islands. Um and then to some extent the traffic going to um Nantucket and in that um context there was the
first maritime battle which occurred off Haven. Um there was what Richard mentioned about the um the Sloum family owning several of the Elizabeth Islands. Slokum family being very much Dartmouth
uh residents and putting cattle out there which may disappear into the hands of the British. There's also an area of Dartmouth called the cowyard. And the cowyard was frequently an area in which the British could come send
some boats ashore between Micham and Little River and pick up some nice cattle uh that are uh clandestinely u either trans uh sold to them probably
sold to them by the Quakers. Um, but I think we should not eliminate the role of the Elizabeth Islands in this history because they really are tied to Dartmouth. Uh, I believe the Forbes family put out two books of the history
of the islands. Unfortunately, they are they were a private um publication. I have at least one and I think probably a library can track down another one. But there were settlements out there on the Elizabeth Islands. As you probably know,
the Elizabeth Islands with the exception of Kyhack, they're owned by the Forbes family. Most of them are conservation areas. They have a caretaker generally on Non and they have got Hadley Harbor and where the Forbes family has their main
mansions. They have some ties to Woods Hole. But there are some fascinating stories that involve um this area and also Tarpalen Cove was very very active during this period. Um, they not only
had an inn on the island, they had a lighthouse and that was approachable from Vineyard Sound, it was out of sight of say New Bedford, but that was heavily traffked by all kinds of um maritime
trade and um there were all kinds of deals going on and and many of them were done by Dartmouth residents. So there there's individual stories um by Dartmouth residents who who owned not only Kadihawk and Non but I think they
owned Mas which is where um uh there was a settlement and then uh and then Nashan. So I think that should be um um really explored. And also the whole geographical setup of Dartmouth is so
different from any other town um with our with our peaks and you know our ridges running north and south and our and our wetlands um in between. Look at look at the road the current roads which pretty well reflect what it was
300 400 years ago original Indian paths but um they didn't have cars or any other mode of transportation they were on foot and they were on wagons and I think the whole road development of how these communities interacted with each
other is really ought to be um explored. I know both Westport and and and Dartmouth and the DHS are exploring putting together maps so you can see where people were living at the time um
in the early days, but also you to think about how they were traveling from one place to another which led to the separation of the three um areas. Uh because um um before I go to that point,
I just want to say Paul Cuffy had a important role in the American Revolution. As David Cole points out, he was operating from Russell's Mills village. Um the Waiter family had a tannery there. You can see Tannery Lane
still maintains its name. He was sending shallops out to Nantucket and to Tarpalan and so on to to um to uh resupply the Nantucketer um Nantucket Quakers who were considered
to be outcast by both sides. But I think that whole that whole industry um relative to Dart was was um really important because always in Dartmouth traveling by water is the easiest way.
And you had um uh you had um routes to the south to um Newport, but you had no Cape Cod Canal and you couldn't get to Plymouth unless you went around Cape Cod, which is really affects our history
of why we were not part of Boston or Plymouth for so many years. And finally the the final uh point is um that um the federal census of 1790
is a very important piece and it's very much available >> and um it will show um a listing of people in the different communities. By 1790 the three communities had split. When I say three communities, New
Bedford, Fair Haven and Kushner were one, current Dartmouth was another and Westport was the other one. And if you look at them, and I think you'll you'll see from the Oldtown meeting records, there was always friction as to one part of town
not wanting to send stuff to the other, you know, school masters or uh other people to um other parts of the town. uh they wanted to have um that they were
equal in uh geographical size. They were equal be before Whailing took off in New Bedford after um after 1790. Um they were equal in population. They
were equal in being agrarian. There were no cities. Um there were three distinct areas and it was inevitable in addition to the uh religious um
aspects which Richard has has uh explained so clearly that physically there was no way they were going to stay together. So they um they separated
and it and then it took another century until the 1880s when New Bedford who became the civic proud city that it became um suddenly took an interest in its
history and looked at the records and they did two things. They um under a guy James Congden who was a commissioner reg register of deeds or some important city official looked at the records and then did two
important things. He um transcribed the he had a transcribed the old town meeting records on the one hand, but he also had um the land records
going back to uh 1660s preserved to the extent that they could be despite the fact that the proprietor's records had burned in 1725 and had tried to be um reconstituted after that date. All the records they
could find they did preserve and it's a guy named James Congden who did that and he was a a New Bedford city official. That's my Okay. Thank you. That was Sally Old. Um so keep an eye on the clock. Um,
Betty, do you want to say a few words and then I'll probably talk a little bit more about the actual transcribing part and some of you may need to leave and but we can continue the discussion as well. >> Hi. >> Hi.
>> Well, this basically set up what um I'm interested in. I have been through the records, the um Dartmouth uh town records and have also been through the uh Quaker the Quaker records. Um I was
looking for the role of Paul Cuffy, uh John Cuffy, uh Walter, I mean um all of the people that had within the native community and also African community,
African-Americans. Um I guess basically we we have found very little in the records about John and Paul Cuffy. Uh but we do have two sites that show that they did play a role and one of them was
the issue of taxation without representation. uh they got into that and that's mentioned and then in the end when the question of whether um sport should remain uh in the uh the Dartmouth John
Cuffy was very in favor of that was one thing. So we will be celebrating Sally uh the role of Paul Cuffy and uh going over to Nantucket. Uh we will have a the Mayflower 2 uh shallop come and we will
do that whole trip. The other thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Westport Point was really the result of the war because in 1776 you had the uh Wayne you had the Cory's
and the Wilbur moving over to the point and that began to develop. So it's very it was also a witness uh and and and a result of the um revolution. So these are the things we're interested in.
>> Okay. So uh I will talk a little bit about uh how this project moves forward and here's some good news bad news or bad news good news. So we're using a it's a project it's a website called from the page and this allows
transcribers to transcribe documents wherever they are. So you create a um account, you create a username, give them your email, you create a password and you're in. It's it's pretty straightforward. >> Um so uh what I did a month ago wanted
to be prepared and understand the system. I uploaded the documents and it's um it's about so the documents the pages it's 230 pages left and right pages but uh they
were scanned left to right was scanned as one document. So it's 130 pages as uploaded to the website. >> So it's not a lengthy project and the pages are short. It's good. So I uploaded it and almost immediately I
started seeing ah people are transcribing this. I don't know who they are but these are people who love to do this kind of work not necessarily locals. Um who knows who who they are. So um we are 100%
transcribed by people that I do not know generally. So, but the good news is there this is a much more interesting and easier phase of the project. We have to review what
has been transcribed and we as locals are much better at doing that and I have found a way of um controlling who can review this. So, it's going to be us. It's not going to be unknown strangers um doing it. So um
so so that's the the good news bad news. Now um I want to talk a little bit more. I have some instructions. So if you are interested in doing the review process, it's a matter of just reading the the
easy handwriting cursive handwriting of eta comparing it to the transcription which in most cases I mean I I've looked at a few pages. It's really quite good. I have noticed some errors with names
and I think we are all more familiar with some of the the people's names and place names a few just minor errors some definitely some minor errors of just misreading a word so I think all of you
here are fully equipped to do the review process okay so as I said you you navigate to from the page page. You create your own account. Then there is an extra step. I you have to
let me know that you have created an an account because I have to then add you give you authority to review the pages and so I need to know that you have stepped up and and done that step. Okay.
>> Question. The it's a verbatim >> Yes. >> transcription. It is. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. So, you're not making you're not correcting oddly spelled personal names. You're following how the transcriber has
spelled them because we want that authenticity and accuracy. You're not trying to correct that sort of thing. Um, you're not trying to add punctuation. Don't do that. Just keep it really simple. And it's it's pretty straightforward, I must
say, compared to many other um transcribing projects. So, you you're going to create your user account. Uh you are going to let me know you've done it. I'm going to add you as a reviewer.
You're going to receive an email from uh from the page that will give you a link that takes you directly to the project. And the project is called, in our own words, Dartmouth Town Records. And Westport Historical Society's name is
there. So you click going to take you directly to the project page. I do have a handout on that page. Don't worry, you don't have to remember this. Um, in the top right corner of
that page is a box that says pages that need review. You're going to click on that and that's just going to give you a whole list of the pages that have yet to be reviewed. And that's all pages except one. I reviewed one of them. Okay. Um it
might take I don't know 10 minutes to review a page. Okay. When you've done it, you click complete and it's done. Okay. And it just uh it's pretty straightforward
uh in some ways, but it is a always a bit of a hurdle, you know, whenever you're getting used to any kind of new interface, but it's some of you are going to enjoy it and some of you you may decide, no, this is not for me. Okay.
>> How do you control for the same person reviewing the same page? >> Yeah, don't worry about that there. It's not that it's pretty clear. Um once it's reviewed, it's reviewed. You you can't go back. >> Okay. >> Review it again.
>> I click on a page to be reviewed. Nobody else is. >> No. >> Okay. >> No. I mean, that's right. I suppose there is a possibility that you're both reviewing a page at the same time, >> but don't worry about that. Okay. Um,
so, uh, my hope is to get this done by mid January. I'd like some of you, if not all of you, to step up and say you're going to be a reviewer. I'm going to ask you to sign. You know, if I can get your name and email, that's how I
can can communicate the whole process better to you. It means that you do not have to go and find from the page. I can send you the link and I will you know just make it easier. Uh so I'm looking to get this done by mid January and I
think that can be done really easily. It's not a huge amount of time for any of you but we just need your eyes and you know few minutes of your time and some of you can really bring you know a lot of expertise and then I would like
to meet again in late winter to talk about what we discovered. Okay. So that's that's the plan. Uh so I have some information to hand out.
I don't have enough for everyone. I would like those of you who feel interested in doing the review process or at least trying trying it to sign up here. Okay. So are there any um
any questions at this point >> if a correction needs to be made? Yes, you can go right into the text and just make that change. >> Change is um going to you couldn't be able to see that. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Well, okay. Now, I won't actually be
able to see exactly what you've edited. I'm going to trust that you you know, you do as as well as you can. Um I did download all of the text as it stands now. So, if you do something like
delete, you know, a page, it's okay. But we're working online at the time. >> Yes. >> Yes. Yes. I mean, it's a great interface in that it lets many people work on this. There's really no other way >> to do it. Uh that's as easy for for me.
Okay. >> I created an account yesterday. >> That's right. And I made you a reviewer. I added you. >> I created an account yesterday, too. >> Okay. >> But you didn't make me do anything. So, the thing is I you need to let me know.
Send me an email you signed up. Otherwise, >> Well, that's fine. I'll do that. But I have another question. >> And maybe this is too complicated because I tend to do that. But I've read whailing log books
as a volunteer at the Whailing Museum. So, when we uh when we read the log books, we didn't really transcribe them. We just read them. Then we had uh
a page of notes that we could enter that would strike us as particularly interesting as we read the log book. So this was all right. There is there is a
place to put notes uh you'll see it on the page itself. So anything that you find interesting just put it in there and that all gets somehow shared. Uh I certainly see them and so we can go through them uh when we meet again. Just anything that you question or are unsure
of or curious. >> Cool stuff. >> Yes. So definitely do that. >> Any other questions at this point? Um you may I'm sure you may have when you start working you may have questions. Um, but I do hope that you'll give it a
try. I'm going to send this round and you can always call me or email me at the historical society. Uh, I hope you really enjoy it. Oh, one more question. I I haven't worked on this yet, but I did work on the from the page at the Whailing Museum on the log books that
they were doing. I went through the process of learning everything from scratch cuz I' never done anything like that before. It was very straightforward and uh I did also learn in the process because there's sort of a structure there of of of of transcribers and
reviewers and then watchers of the reviewers also there's I think that if a mistake is made from from the page works well it basically unwind anything. So that was sort of a comfort in case you screw up either as a transcriber or as a
reviewer. Uh you have have the power to basically fix any problems. So yes, not to worry. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a really good interface. I'm really pleased with it. Uh and it lets us we can index things. There's there's a lot of more
sophisticated things that we can do, but uh I'm just interested in getting the project transcribed and accurate transcription. Okay, thank you. Uh you're welcome to talk more amongst yourselves. Please do sign
up if you want to try being a reviewer and uh stay in touch with the project. We will meet again in in late winter.