James Blake III
Silvio A. Bedini. “The History Corner: James Blake 3rd (1688-1751) The Poetic Surveyor of Dorchester, Part 1” Professional Surveyor. (July 2003) Volume 23 Number 7
The annals of early American settlement are filled with names of countless surveyors, among whom were occasional adventurous, heroic, and innovative practitioners of the art. An early surveyor described as having outstanding unusual abilities was James Blake 3rd (a.k.a. James Blake, Jr.) of Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was self styled “The Annalist,” because he maintained a comprehensive record entitled Blake’s Annals of Dorchester, in which he noted public events occurring in the region, details of his own wide-ranging public service, and records of his surveys. It was a title by which he became known locally.
Descended from John Blake, “Gentleman, of Little Baddow, County of Essex, England, who had been the first of four generations living in that county, the grandfather of the subject of this account was William Blake (1594 – ?) who emigrated to New England in 1630 with his wife and children. His father, Deacon James Blake 2nd (1623-1700), was among the earliest residents of Dorchester, having emigrated from England in 1635. He became very active in the community’s public affairs, serving as constable, town selectman, Elder of the church, and Deputy to the General Court. He died in Dorchester on June 28, 1700. In his last will and testament he bequeathed to his eldest son, James 3rd, ” … All my land at Dorchester Neck adjoyning to his house that he dwells in.” Dorchester Neck is now South Boston. To his second son, John, he left his own dwelling, known locally as the Blake House. It had been built in about 1651, and is one of the two oldest buildings in Boston, and it is now a history museum. It is recorded that when the building was moved to Edward Everett Street, it was the first historic structure known to have been moved to avert demolition.
James Blake 3rd was born on April 30, 1688 in Dorchester, the eldest son of James and Ruth (Batchelder) Blake. He was married to Wait Simpson of Boston and they were parents of eight children, of whom five survived. As his father before him had been, virtually the whole of the mature life of James 3rd was devoted to public service, as was reflected in the Town Records of Dorchester and in the many survey plans that he produced of lands in Dorchester and neighboring towns. These plans, in addition to one of the dialling instruments he had made, had been deposited originally in the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society. They are now among the Blake Papers in the New England Historical and Genealogical Society.
Held Many Public Offices
Over the course of years, Blake 3rd occupied a number of public offices in Dorchester. He served as a Selectman, Assessor, and Town Treasurer for twenty-four years, from 1724 to 1748 inclusive, and in 1743 he was a member of the Committee for building the meeting house. He maintained the Dorchester Town Records, in which was reflected the range of his public service. As he wrote in his Annals:
“I have in that time wrote in the second Book of ye Town Records, 208 pages, which finishes the Book; and have begun the third Book of Records, & wrote therein 119 pages; besides making Tables for both of the two first Books of Records, in an intire Book by itself. I have also in the Treasurer’s business made, begun, & wrote out two large folio Books of Accompts, Containing about 224 folios or 448 Pages each; and the major part of the Third Folio Book of about ye same bigness. Besides large Bundles of Tax Lists, Tables to make Rates by, Warrants for Town Meetings, Divisions of ye Highways, Plans of Land sold by ye Town, &c. All which is more, I suppose, by many times over, than any one man before me has wrote & done for the Town.”
James Blake 3rd also was a successful farmer, developing part of the same land at Dorchester Neck that had been granted to his great-grandfather, William Blake. His valuation in the Dorchester tax list for 1727, made when he was 39 years of age, was impressive. It included “1 house, 24 acres land, l horse, 7 cows and 2 swine.” In addition to his other talents, Blake was said to have been well versed in astronomy. This was confirmed by an insert he had added to his cadastral map of Dorchester, and confirmed as well as by a letter found among his papers. It was written by a young man inquiring whether Blake would again take him (after the haying season) to learn the science of astronomy. Blake also was skilled in the construction of sundials, of which he produced a number. One of the dials he had made was the ancient wall sundial formerly seen on the old Town House at the head of State Street in Dorchester. Or, the reference may have been to the wall sundial on the Old State House, formerly designated the Old Town House, at the head of Boston’s State Street.
Seven years after the first settlement in 1630 of the community of Dorchester, a grant of land south of the Blue Hills known as the Dorchester Waste Lands, was made to the proprietors of Dorchester, not to the town, so that Dorchester then extended to the then still undetermined Colony Line and close to Rhode Island. At one time it included Milton, Stoughton, Sharon, Canton, and Foxborough, as well as itself. It also contained a hill called Dorchester Heights southeast of Boston, the fortification of which resulted in the evacuation of Boston by the British on March 17, 1776. In 1868 the former town became a ward of the city of Boston.
The “Twenty-five Divisions”
In 1713 the town proprietors, known as the Dorchester Proprietors, were owners of the wild lands in the territory now comprising the communities of Stoughton, Sharon, and Canton. These lands remained uninhabited until late in the seventeenth century, during which period such persons to whomever they were assigned or sold, became the lawful owners. Thus was established a system of small freeholds. In 1713 the Proprietors were incorporated as a distinct body, and thereafter the town of Dorchester had nothing further to do with their affairs. It was at that time that a survey was ordered of the lands that remained unsold and undivided south of the Twelve Divisions, and which were to be known thenceforth as the “Twenty-Five Divisions.” These lines were run parallel to the old Braintree line, and were approximately a half mile distant from each other. The towns included, at least partly, in the area covered by the map of the Twenty-Five Divisions were Canton (which formerly was the first precinct of Stoughton), Sharon (the area which was formerly the second precinct of Stoughton, Stoughton (which formerly was the third precinct of Stoughton), Avon, Foxborough, and a part of Plainville lying south of the old Dedham Line. Only a small portion of these lands presently are included in the town of Canton. The earliest map of the territory that is now known as Canton as a town was produced in 1696 and 1697 and was known as the “Map of the Twelve Divisions.” It was produced by John Butcher during a survey on which he had spent forty-five days and on which Thomas Vose spent fifty-three days.
In 1713 Blake reported in his Annals, “This year Majr. Robert Spur, Roger Billing, Capt. Oliver Wiswell, Capt. Thos. Tileston, & Capt. Sam.l Paul, Committee, & James Blake Jun.r Surveyor, began in ye month of May to measure ye Cedar Swamps, &c. This year ye Proprietors, Incorporated into a distinct Body from ye Town, And ye Colony Line Run & Settled by ye Gen. Court.”
Blake “the Annalist” was well known in his region in his time as a land surveyor, and he produced an actual survey of the whole of the then-extensive town of Dorchester. The earliest record of surveying by Blake was of the road leading by the property of Deacon Silas Crane property and through the land of Dr. John Sprague and Isaac Royall by the Royall House to the country road. It was an ancient road, having been laid out in 1704 by Blake and Samuel Capen of Dorchester, and described in 1763 as the road “leading by Deacon Silas Crane’s and through Dr. John Sprague’s land, and Isaac Royall’s by the Royall House to the country road.” The road is not far from the boundary line between the towns of Canton and Milton leading from modern Washington Street to Green Street. It begins nearly opposite Blue Hill Street, upon a level tract of land which since 1769 when Colonel Doty came from Plymouth to Canton, has been known as Doty’s Plain. For many years it was known as Woods Lane because Edward Wood lived in a house upon a corner of the lane. In 1881 it was changed to Royall Street.
In addition to his many other public responsibilities, Blake was Proprietor’s Clerk for the owners of extensive tracts of land in the town of Stoughton, In 1726, he recorded in his Annals:
“Punkapaog or ye South Precinct with ye Lands beyond it in ye Township of Dorchester, were sett off a Township by themselves, by ye name of Stoughton, leaving Dorchester but a small Town, being narrow, and but about 9 or 10 Miles in length, ye upper part being woodland and unsettled; which before was about 35 miles in length, & in some places 6 or 8 miles wide; the length being Reckoned from Dorchester Neck to Angle-Tree, as ye Road goeth.”
These maps, contained in the two volumes of the original records of the Proprietors of Dorchester, now much worn, are preserved in the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds in Dedham.
Many of Blake’s invaluable plans of the lands in this town of Stoughton were extant as late as mid-century, but they have been missing since early in the nineteenth century. They were judged to be not only fine specimens of artistic skill but also correct in execution. In cases of litigation, relative to the early boundaries of lots in his native town, his plans were judged to be of the highest authority. More than a thousand folio pages of his Town Records have survived.
(To be continued)
Silvio Bedini is an Historian Emeritus with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., author of more than 20 books, and a Contributing Writer for the magazine.