June 1, 2021
As the first town to break away from the Dedham grant, Medfield was founded in 1649 and incorporated in 1651 as the 43rd town in the then Massachusetts Bay Colony. Who were those first pioneers who moved westward into the wilderness to begin our town? A history of our town, state, and nation can be seen through the Plimpton family.
John Plimpton came from England in 1630 with the Great Migration of Puritans led by John Winthrop that settled Boston. Plimpton had little money. The only way he could afford to come to the New World was as an apprentice. Mr. Alcock put up the money to pay for his trip over on the ship Arbella; in return Plimpton worked as an apprentice for seven years for Mr. Alcock, who settled in Roxbury. In 1643, now as a free man, Plimpton moved further west out to the new town of Dedham, where he also was received into the church. The following year he married Jane Damon, sister of Deacon Damon of Reading.
After the founding of Medfield by the first 13 settlers, John Plimpton left Dedham the year after Medfield was incorporated, and he received a house lot along Main Street where Dunkin Donuts is located today. His field was on the opposite side of Main Street, where Spring Street and Cumberland Farms are located. John and Jane had 12 children, five of whom died very young.
In the spring of 1673, John left Medfield and emigrated to Deerfield, along the Connecticut River. Two years later, with the outbreak of the King Philip War, he was named the chief military officer of Deerfield.
In 1677, during the attack on Deerfield, John, two other men, three women, and 14 children were captured and taken as prisoners to Canada. Most of this party were later ransomed, but John was burned at the stake by Native Americans. After the report of his death reached his wife in back Deerfield, she returned to Medfield, and in 1679 she married Nicholas Hide.
A cenotaph monument describing John’s death is located in the old section of Vine Lake Cemetery, near the Kingsbury and Morse (Pilgrim) monuments (see photo).
In 1675, John and Jane’s oldest son, John, was one of 110 men who were mustered in the streets of Boston as volunteers under Captain Mosley to relieve the towns of Swansea and Rehoboth when they were attack by Native Americans at the start of the King Philip War. He stayed in service throughout the War, seeing action in Rhode Island, Plymouth County, Nipmuck country in and around Worcester, and in New Hampshire.
Captain Mosley’s company then traveled to Hadley, in central Massachusetts, where they were ambushed near a stream by a large number of Wampanoags and Nipmucks under the leadership of Monoco, also called One-eye John. It was Monoco who was also responsible for the attack on Medfield.
In this battle 26 of John’s fellow soldiers were killed. The slaughter was so bloody that the water in the stream turned red with blood, hence, the name Bloody Brook. John survived the attack. For the next two years he remained in service and was back and forth between Medfield and Deerfield. After the war, he returned to the Medfield homestead, where he married Elizabeth Fisher.
John’s brother, Joseph, was given a grant of land and built the second Plimpton estate on what is now Causeway Street, near the intersection with Main Street. John’s son Daniel (1721-78) left Medfield and settled the town of New Medfield, now Sturbridge, and became the town’s most prominent citizen, holding numerous town office positions there.
The fourth generations of Plimptons included William, a clothier by trade. In 1724 William was granted the right from the town of Medfield to build a dam across Vine Brook next to the meetinghouse for the purpose of establishing a fulling mill. The pond, now known as Meetinghouse Pond in the center of town, has been there ever since.
Nathan Plimpton (1711-81) was a weaver and owned a house on North Street, near Main Street. He was part of a group dissatisfied with the selection of the Rev. Jonathan Townsend as minister of the First Parish Church. For this he was forbidden to come to the communion or to take part in any action of the church. Nathan left the church and it was he who was largely responsible for the formation of the first Baptist Church in Medfield.
Amos Plimpton was the last of the Plimpton name to possess the original homestead on Main Street in the area of Dunkin Donuts. When he died in 1808, his grandson John Kingsbury came into possession of the place.
Wales Plimpton (1782 – 1851) lived on the “second” Plimpton homestead on Causeway Street. He had charge of all burials in town for many years, as his home was across the street from the cemetery.
Wales had 13 children by three wives. Thankful, his first wife, died in 1807; Sarah, his second, died in 1828; Lucy, his third, died in 1849. Along with much of the country, five of his children came down with Oregon fever and moved westward following the Oregon Trail out to the fertile lands of Oregon Territory. One son, Frank, went west to Wisconsin Territory. It was there during the Civil War he enlisted in the 28th Wisconsin Regiment, and he was killed in the war.