New Jerusalem During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods

A considerably younger town than neighboring Blaine’s Port or Sethwich, colonials settled the New Jerusalem area first in the late 17th century. They were 'liberal thinkers' fleeing the oppressive Congregationalists of Salem and Boston. Led by such educated men as Jeremiah Wantage, Jebel Wheatley, Tristram Colwen, Abel Peabody, and Joseph Noyes, these earliest settlers laid out the first streets on the slopes of what is now known as French Hill. Town meetings for "the Plantation of New Jerusalem" were held once a month in a small wooden hall on "the first wet day of the month when all are to appear there at the beat of a drum."
Among the least desirable of New Jerusalem's first generation were Hekeziah Massey and Goody Fowler, suspected witches who brought with them from Salem a dark and hideous cult. In 1692, Massey was apprehended by King's men from Salem and Fowler fled into the forests northwest of town. Massey was gaoled but soon mysteriously escaped, never to be seen again. When the New England witch-scare ended, Goody Fowler quietly returned to New Jerusalem and resettled in her cottage southwest of town. Here she indulged in evil until, in 1704, an angry mob dragged her to a hill west of New Jerusalem and there hanged her by the neck. Her murderers were never arraigned or punished.
Yet the dark cult remained active. One member is thought responsible for summoning or creating an Unnamable thing said to dwell in the attic of an old house on N Boundary Street. This thing supposedly later murdered 15 people in a nearby parsonage.
New Jerusalem grew slowly through the early 18th century, overshadowed by nearby Blaine’s Port's successes with fisheries and trade. New Jerusalem grew as a quiet farming community; when prices were good, a few fishing boats slipped down to the sea. For many years the only way to cross the Missituk River was by way of Evan's ferry, just large enough for a coach and four horses.
In 1761, Francis Derby and Jeremiah Orne returned to New Jerusalem following successful careers as Salem sea captains. They brought five ships between them, determined to turn New Jerusalem into another West Indies trade port. They built docks and warehouses along the north side of the river, in the area around Fish Row, and for a few years New Jerusalem was host to ships plying the triangular trade, moving slaves to the Caribbean and the South, bringing molasses, sugar, and rum to New England, and exporting skins and dried cod.
At the height of this trade the first permanent streets north of the river were established, and the first great New Jerusalem mansions—the Derby and Orne homes and those of their captains—rose in the area now called East Town. Orne and Derby built the first bridge to span the Missituk River, a wooden creation near the site of the present Peabody Avenue bridge.
Jeremiah Orne died in 1765, leaving a library of 900 volumes and a bequest that, administered by trustees Francis Derby and George Locksley, was used to found Missituk Liberal College. The school was housed in a large two-story building on the south side of College Street, overlooking the old Common.
A large second-story housed the Orne library and a small museum of oddities brought back from the West Indies and beyond by New Jerusalem ships. This collection can still be seen at the Missituk University Exhibit Museum. John Adams Pickering, Harvard-educated and of the New Jerusalem Pickerings, was chosen the college's first president.
During the Revolutionary War the Derbys and Ornes turned privateer. Operating mainly out of Blaine’s Port, they sank or captured 23 vessels under the British flag, turning handsome profits. After the war, the families subsidized the purchase and development of the old Town Common—previously used for pasturage and militia training—and soon installed a now-healthily-endowed Missituk College on the new campus. A new town square was laid out on the north side of the river, near the center of town, and, after much debate, named Independence Square.
The end of the war marked the decline of New Jerusalem's sea trade. Salem, Boston, and New York rapidly consolidated most of the China trade; the local remnant went to Blaine’s Port. In 1808, the Federal Customs Office in New Jerusalem was closed, and New Jerusalem lost its status as a port of entry.
Despite the loss of international trade, New Jerusalem grew rapidly in the first half of the 19th century, thanks to the vision of such men as Eli Saltonstall. Saltonstall, formerly a captain sailing for the Pitman family, foresaw the end of New Jerusalem's short-lived sea trade, opening in 1796 New Jerusalem's first textile mill, on the south side of the river at the foot of East Street. More mills opened soon after and, as New England farming declined, New Jerusalem grew industries.
The industrialists—the Saltonstalls, Brownes, and Jenkinnes—laid out new streets south of the college campus along the top of South Hill, and there constructed grand Georgian/Federalist mansions, financed by large textile profits.
In this period, in 1806, the town's first newspaper, the New Jerusalem Journal, was established, underwritten by the Federalist Derbys. Republican industrialists were later to help found the New Jerusalem Bulletin. By this time the Federalist sea merchants were dwindling. Their last building spree saw the construction of the mansions that border the Common along Federal and Colwen Streets.
By 1820, mills and supporting industries lined the south bank of the river, from Peabody Avenue east. New Jerusalem became increasingly urbanized. By 1850, a telegraph line linked the town with Boston. Reputable scholars, in part drawn by Missituk College's already famous library and by the proximity of the town to Boston, began to join the staff. Southwestern New Jerusalem took on the feel of an Ivy League town.
Industry continued to expand. By 1850, brickyards, leather shops, shoe factories, watchmakers and, later, costume jewelry manufacturers lined the shores north and south on the eastern side of town. A great string of warehouses, eventually reaching West Street, were constructed along the south shore during this period.