Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

20 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BARNSTABLE FAMILIES.
tor and a teacher, and both were called ministers. Mr. Hull was
probably pastor, and perhaps Jenner and Lenthal were successively
teachers of the same church.
"Weymouth was early settled, and its population was scattered
over a wide extent of territory, and there may have been
two churches. In early times there were men in that town of almost
every shade of religious opinion, and it is probable that
there were two churches or religious societies therein before 1639
when Mr. Samuel Newman, one of the ablest and learned of the
divines who came to New England, was settled as the successor of
Mr. Hull, and under his ministry all the people were united.
Mr. Hull came to Barnstable in May, 1639, Elder Thomas
Dimmock was there in the preceding March. To them the Plymouth
Colony Court granted the lands in the town, on the customary
conditions and making the usual reservations. They were
the founders of the town, and Mr. Hull, being the minister, on
him devolved the greater responsibility.
At that time the woodman's axe had seldom resounded
through the forest. The country, excepting a few fields which
had been cleared by the Indians, was a vast wilderness. The old
common-field, which still retains its name, had only a few scattering
trees thereon, and the new common-field, which extended
from the old to the bounds of Yarmouth, contained little forest.
There were planting lands near Goodspeed's, now Meeting House
Hill, at the Calves Pasture, and on some of the sandy soils at
West Barnstable. Near the Indian ponds there were large tracts
of lands, called by our fathers plain lands, by which I understand
cleared or planting lands. At Chequaquet and at Hyannis there
were also Indian fields.
In 1639 the Indian population probably exceeded five hundred.
They were a quiet inoffensive race, with whom our ancestors
ever lived in peace. Though all were Pokonokets and acknowledged
the supremacy of Massasoit as their great sachem or
chief ruler, they were divided into numerous tribes, each of which
was ruled by its own sagamore.
lyannough, the sachem of the Mattakeset Indians, had been
dead fifteen years, and his territory was divided among many
claimants. He had no children of suflScient age to succeed him.
Nepoyitan was the sachem of the northeasterly part of the town.
He had given half his lands to Twaeonniecus, and there were
other claimants. The sachem of the Indians at Hyannis, was
called by the English John Hianna, for what reason I cannot decide.
The Indians of Chequaquet and in the southwest part of
the town, belonged to the Massapee or Marshpee tribe, and their
sachem, Paupmunnucks, resided on the neck of land at the Indian