After Kamesit : $b A chronical of a local habitation and some names, with notes, maps and photographsDaley, Carroll F.
History
After Kamesit : $b A chronical of a local habitation and some names, with notes, maps and photographs
Daley, Carroll F.
Plymouth (Mass.) -- Description and travel; Plymouth (Mass.) -- History
The country about South Pond and the neighboring ponds in Plymouth,
Massachusetts was called by the Wampanoag Indians “Kamesit.” Although
the region began to be inhabited almost three hundred years ago, its
natural beauty abides and abounds. The many clear, bright, white sandy
ponds are clean and sparkling. The great white pine woods, the low
rolling hills, the bogs and old kettle holes maintain their charm. A
vast abundance of wild shrubs and native wild flowers such as trailing
arbutus (mayflower), sabbatias (marsh pinks), are about in many
places.[1]
What were once old logging roads can be walked for hours. In good
weather clear skies of clean air make the stars and planets appear very
close. I do not know the broad connotation of the word “Kamesit” in the
Indian language of the time and place. It does suggest great fish and
pine places and has a nice, pleasant sound.[2] For one who lives here
now, a countryman of sorts and is surrounded by Kamesit, the word adds
to a happy fate, my kismet.
I use the term “after Kamesit” because time has moved on and I would
like to give an account of some of the happenings here since those
Indian days; to tell about some of the people who have lived here and
what their activities were, and about the very old house I live in
now. It is an attempt to look at a segment of time, fleeting time, to
penetrate a few unknowns, to explore what has been passing. We seek
motivations and relationships in watching the continuum and haply some
pleasures will arise.
There are those who believe that there is a spirit of place which
provides a transcendence beyond the immediate reality around us. This
spirit enters our own inner selves and transports us so that we can go
beyond. Our transcendence is possible because the nature and special
power of that particular place gives off a unique illumination.
It has been my good fortune to live for fifteen years in a homestead
built by an early settler in this region, a house and site still not
readily changed from its beginning in 1769. It is five miles south
from the center of Plymouth on the eastern shore of Boot Pond. For
about a hundred years, 1770-1870, it was a working and providing farm,
originally ninety acres. Such activity used to be called husbandry. In
the early 1800’s acreage was added to a peak of 200 acres. Some acres
were cleared for dwelling, barn, animals and crops on the shores of
two beautiful ponds, one called Great South, the other the Southerly
Arm of Great South Pond, the latter eventually to be called Boot Pond
because of its true boot contour. A strip of meadow beside the pond is
mentioned in the first deed of sale. A meadow was always a thing of
value because it meant open, flat, grassy, rich soil, usually moist, in
contrast to the all pervasive woods. Now, for the last hundred years
with the ceasing of husbandry, the forest has reclaimed much of what it
once had before the fields were cleared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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