The Creation of Bourne
By Kaethe Maguire
When Sandwich was founded back in 1637 it was a vast town geographically. As time passed, various villages were formed: Sandwich Village, South and East Sandwich, Cataumet, Pocasset, Monument, Scusset, West and North Sandwich, etc. As early as the late 1700s proposals to divide the town were made.
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But not everyone was in favor of separating from Sandwich and creating a new town. A specific debate for many years was creating a new town by breaking off West Sandwich and part of North Sandwich.
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As a matter of fact, in the middle to late 1800s, 45 West Sandwich families opposed this division. It was well known Ebenezer Nye headed the opposition. Also, many Swifts, the earliest settlers to the area in the 1600s, opposed it. The first William Swift arrived in the area in 1624. He had been driven out of London, where he was a leather worker, when he lost his whole family to the plague, save for one son. He was one of my great-grandfathers.
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A map depicting part of West Sandwich in 1880.​
Also opposed to this division were the Crowell and the Gibbs families, who lived in West Sandwich. This area represented vast numbers of people. The only person in all of Sandwich Village who has been recorded as in favor of this division was Benjamin Cook, a high school teacher. Perhaps his reasoning was that the distance to travel between schools was so great. ​
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Another argument for division was the traveling distance to Sandwich Town Hall (built in 1834) for town meetings and voting. This was especially difficult after sunset. It was said that Sandwich Village people purposely postponed important decisions on town meeting nights to exclude the whole west side of Sandwich who had to leave the meeting early to make it safely home on the dark rural paths and roads. Sometimes privately paid wagons would transport people to and from town meetings.​
The railroad’s arrival to Woods Hole in 1872 brought a whole new level of construction to the western side of Sandwich, especially along the waterfront of Buttermilk Bay and Buzzards Bay.
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Also, on the western side, many attempts had been made to dig a canal, all unsuccessful. Some thought this idea not only pathetic but laughable. Someone had the idea of importing Italian laborers with pick axes and wheel barrows to dig. The result of this effort was a disaster of penniless men wandering the streets of Sandwich looking for food and shelter and unable to speak English.​
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The Crowell, Charles Dillingham, Swift, H.G.O. Ellis, and Pope families continued to protest against division. This must have been very frustrating for the West Sandwich and North Sandwich people. It was not just annual town meetings that were difficult for them to attend. The selectmen and all board and committee members met every week. Consequently, this whole population of Sandwich was excluded from regular participation in town government. ​
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The petitioners for separation had a piece of luck. The senators and representatives brought the petitions down from Boston that supported the division of Sandwich. They arrived by train on February 7, 1884 to Cataumet and then boarded carriages. The weather was awful, and lines of carriages had to slog through the harsh weather from Cataumet to the Central House in Sandwich Village for the meeting.
The trip took 4 hours. David Nye, selectman from Cataumet, reminded all in attendance that this type of trip was constant for West Sandwich residents who had to travel to weekly meetings. The argument being that it was simply unfair to have the central government of Sandwich located so far from so many of its citizens.
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But, despite arguments for division, it may not have happened if it were not for severe weather that emphasized the difficulty in traveling from West and North Sandwich to Sandwich Village. As the hearings to consider the division of Sandwich continued, the weather and resulting road conditions persisted, making it nearly impossible for men to attend. It was a major topic in their discussions. By the end of the hearings, the legislative committee was in favor of division.
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On April 2, 1884, the new town of Bourne was founded. By April 12, town officials of Bourne, including the familiar family names of Nye, Eldridge, and Knowlton, were meeting to discuss the proper assessment of taxes. To help make an equitable divide, Isaac Keith, famous for the Keith Car Works, loaned Bourne $74,000.​
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There was much to be done as Bourne had no high school, no town hall, no town government at all. They began by creating seven telephone lines, four churches, two foundries, eight village schools, eight cemeteries, and one axe factory. Initially, high school students went to Wareham or Sandwich Academy.
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Bourne was quickly becoming its own a town.
Kaethe Maguire is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives.
Ella & Jerome Holway’s children: Left to right – George, Alvah, William & Amy.
Photo credit: A Sandwich Album by Rosanna Cullity and John Cullity and The Nye Museum