Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

228 GENEAL(JGICAL, NOTKS OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES.
and on the 30th they reported at an adjourned meeting, "that the
affair between Dea. Bacon and the Brethren, styled petitioners,
was happily accommodated." Dea. Bacon returned to the discharge
of his office, and harmony once more apparently prevailed
in the councils of the church.
In the language of the town records, "the dissentions which
divided our once happy town" were so intimately blended that it is
difficult now to draw the distinguishing lines between them.
"The Crocker quarrels" were two in number, one between Col.
Nathaniel Freeman and others, and the family of Cornelius
Crocker, and the other between Abigail Freeman* and Samuel
Crocker and others. It was the latter that the town refused to
take action on, on the ground that it was a private matter, and
that the settlement of the questions involved, belonged to the
Courts and not to the town.
As references will be made to localities in vicinity of the
Court House, a brief description will not be out of place. The
second Court House has been remodeled and is now known as the
Baptist Meeting House. It was built about the year 1774, and
stands on the north side of the road. At that time there was on
the east, where Judge Day's house now stands, an ancient two
story house, probably built by one of the Lothrops of the first
settlers, and then occupied by the widow Abigail Freeman as a
dwelling house and grocery store. The house on the east,
between the Court House and Rendezvous Lane, said to have
been built of the timber of the old meeting-house, is yet standing,
and is occupied by the Baptist Society for a parsonage. On the
west side of the lane, there was air ancient two story house, probably
built by Thomas Lothrop, a brother of Joseph. This house
was then owned by Cornelius Crocker, Jr., and occupied as a
public house. In front of these buildings, excepting that
occupied by the widow Freeman, there was a narrow green, on
which the militia company often paraded during the Revolutionary
struggle. In front of the Court House, and on the south side of
the street, stood the public house of Mr. Otis Loring. Between
the Court House and Loring's tavern was his blacksmith shop,
*Some of the essential features of this transaction have been the subject of controversy
between the writer of these sketches and the author of the "Hist, of Cape Cod." The
latter, writing with much apparent feelinff, and in a tone of bitter denunciation, (See Hist.
C. C, Vol. 11, pp. 305-306,) controverts the assumption of Mr. Otis, that this outrage was
committed by Whig sympathizers, upon a Tory lady, but charges its commission upon the
Tories and their loyalist associates, against one who sympathized with the Whigs. The
fact that the outrage was committed upon Mrs. Freeman is not disputed. In support of
his views, Mr. Freeman quotes Dr. James Thacher, a native of the town and a contemporary
of the events in controversy. It seems very singular that two such well-infonaed
writers as Mr. Otis and Mr. Freeman should have taken such entirely opposite views of
a transaction of which it would seem that the truth could easily have been arrived at by
men of their opportunities of jud^ng; and it has been the purpose of the writei- of this
note, to investigate the subject, with a view of endeavoring to set the transaction right;
but documentary evidence in the case has not been available to him. He deems it
proper, however, to here remark upon this strange contradiction, with an expression of
the hope that future investigation may place the matter in controversy in its true
light. [See pp. 2334.] S.