By Erin D. Caldwell, Special to the Reporter
On first blush, there don’t appear to be many commonalities between Dorchester, Mass. and Dorchester, UK. One is a bustling, modern neighborhood in a former British colony; the other is a pastoral market town and the county seat of Dorset, just seven miles from the English Channel.
But beneath the surface, the communities share an important historic bond that goes deeper than a shared toponym. In 1630, the first Dorchester, UK, colonizers left their town and sailed off to establish a town of the same name across the Atlantic.
I visited Dorset’s Dorchester last month and was warmly received by Anthony Harrison, the Town Crier, a post he has held for 18 months after it was vacated by the previous crier, who served 26 years in the role.
Yes, the crier actually says “oyez” and dons a ceremonial jacket about twice a month while ringing his bell and announcing important news. But on this Friday afternoon, Harrison wore plain clothes, and walked with me past the mix of Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian buildings that adorn High Street to the Dorchester Archives, which hold an array of items mostly from the early- to mid-twentieth century, including a booklet from the tercentenary celebration in Boston in 1930.
The key to our towns’ connections is John White, a Puritan minister who brought order to Dorchester UK after a fire burned about a third of the village in 1613. He was the driving force behind the Dorchester Company, and the ultimately successful Massachusetts Bay Company’s expedition to the New World.
As the evening approached and the jetlag kicked in, on the advice of Harrison, I made my way to The Blue Raddle, a pub dedicated to Dorchester’s history of beer and wool, for a pint and a venison stew made by the proprietor’s wife. I’ve never tasted venison stew meat that tender.
On day two, I was met at my hotel by Michael Rice (above), the secretary of the Dorchester Association and a history enthusiast with a specific interest in the Neolithic period, which wound down circa 2,000 BCE. Rice picked up where Harrison left off on the walking tour from the previous day, citing residual Roman walls and an excavated town house from the time of the Roman Empire.
Signs of John White are plentiful. There are the two churches he served (Holy Trinity and St Peter’s, where he is interred under its porch), the almshouse turned retail space that housed ten poor men in the 1620s, and the rectory where he lived that now is the John White Learning Center at the Dorset History Museum and Art Gallery.
The museum has a cross section of the “Mary and John,” the third ship that was acquired by John White and his investors on which to send colonists to create a Puritan community in the New World, one that reflected the principles of “commonwealth” – shared wealth and assets to the good of all – that White had instilled in Dorchester in the aftermath of the fire.
History tells us that John White had one big concern, and that was the spiritual fate of the local fishermen and the crews responsible for salting down and preparing the fish for transport who spent about nine months of the year catching fish and selling them to Spain. He felt that by creating a colony in New England that would reflect the principles of commonwealth as demonstrated in Dorchester, as well as those in the Puritan covenant, the crew could stay in the colonies and be attended to spiritually.
A combination of rocky soil and a plummeting fish trade with Spain, then at war with England, doomed this original settlement, which was established in Cape Ann in 1623 on the northern shore of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Some of those settlers relocated to Salem, and White stayed connected to them over the next year or so.
The third expedition, which set off in 1630, was successful. White had commissioned the Mary and John, which held about 140 settlers. When they reached Boston, one group split off and went up the Charles River, while the second group continued down the harbor to the mouth of the Neponset.
“They were a mixture of merchant-type people and folks who were looking for work,” said David Cuckson (above), author of “Dorchester’s New World,” the definitive work on John White.
The biggest catalyst for departure may have had less to do with religion and government and more to do with family logistics: Several who took passage on the Mary and John were third, fourth, and fifth sons, and so had little future to look forward to in England, where they would not inherit businesses or land. Still, it was no easy decision.
“You’re sinking your whole life into this project, and how can you go back?” said Cuckson. “For most people there wasn’t a way back – the family would have taken over the farm or hotel or the business. So there’d be nothing for you there. The only option was to soldier on and do the best you can.”
The colonists were lucky in finding a friendly and helpful indigenous population around the Neponset River, because winter came early, the waters froze solid, and supplies were hard to come by. They traded for fish and learned the native methods for clearing the ground and growing crops, which activity supplemented their meager provisions of turnips and other root vegetables intended to feed the population long term.
During that first winter, most people lived in makeshift tents that were pitched over dug-out patches of soil. A few high ranking folks had so-called “kit homes” that had been brought over on the ship. To a person, they were cold and hungry.
Meanwhile, back in England, White was hastily provisioning a supply ship, which arrived ahead of schedule and provided life-saving relief beginning in February 1631. I asked Cuckson how, after two previous expensive attempts had failed, White was still able to fund these voyages. He was now into his 60s and still running two churches in Dorchester while traveling back and forth to London (a journey that took me some 400 years later three hours by a mix of train and coach bus) to raise investors in his company, which continued to send settlers and supplies to the new world.
“He was clearly quite a striking individual,” said Cuckson. “He was right at the heart of things. He was trying to get people to follow this vision and develop it and learn from the mistakes. By putting more money in, they’d have a greater chance of success.”
In time, colonists like Israel Stoughton flourished in their new setting. He erected a mill at present-day Lower Mills and had income from both the mill operations and the fishing rights from that section of the river. The settlers built a meetinghouse and a church, and their houses had paddocks for animals or crops, with common pasture available around the town. Eventually, they founded a third Dorchester, in Connecticut, as part of an attempt to beat the Dutch at settling the territory – which is now the town of Windsor near Hartford.
For later settlers, religion and government played important roles in colonists’ decision to make a life-changing journey. King Charles I assumed the throne in 1625 from his father, the Scottish King James I, who believed that kings were divinely ordained, and carried on his father’s line of thinking. He sought to unite England, Scotland, and Wales under a divine monarch – a plan that Parliament, which had strong representation in Dorchester, UK, greatly opposed. All of this sparked the English Civil War, with Dorchester playing periodic roles in fighting the Royalists, that eventually saw Charles losing both the fighting, and then his head in 1649.
Today, Dorchester, UK, is shaped by a mix of ancient and modern: Neolithic and Roman sites live side-by-side with buildings from the 1400s through to today. There are markers for other notable events in Dorchester history, including the Monmouth Rebellion that ended in mass executions and sites relevant to the town’s other famous son, the author Thomas Hardy. And throughout the town, there are points of pride pointing to its part in the formation of Massachusetts, and many sites honoring the minister John White.
“I would hope that John White’s legacy is his concept of commonwealth, that everyone has a contribution to make to each other. They looked not just to their own interests but had regular collections for charitable purposes. It’s that kind of wider concern for people that I see as his greatest legacy,” said Cuckson.
Erin D. Caldwell is the creator and host of DotLife, a weekly podcast that focuses on news, commentary, and music in Dorchester, Mass. Listen to more about her visit to Dorchester, UK in the current episode, available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. The Reporter is a media sponsor of the DotLife podcast.
