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Topsfield MA

Topsfield, Massachusetts
Town
Topsfield’s Town Hall
Seal
Location in Essex County and the state of Massachusetts.
Coordinates: 42°38′15″N 70°57′00″W / 42.63750°N 70.95000°W / 42.63750; -70.95000Coordinates: 42°38′15″N 70°57′00″W / 42.63750°N 70.95000°W / 42.63750; -70.95000
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Essex
Settled	1635
Incorporated	1650
Government
• Type	Open town meeting
Area
• Total	12.8 sq mi (33.2 km2)
• Land	11.9 sq mi (30.9 km2)
• Water	0.9 sq mi (2.3 km2)
Elevation	63 ft (19 m)
Population  (2010)
• Total	6,085
• Density	470/sq mi (180/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (Eastern)
ZIP code	01983
Area code(s)	351 / 978
FIPS code	25-70150
GNIS feature ID	0618312
Website	Topsfield, Massachusetts, Official Web Site

Topsfield is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,085 at the 2010 census. Topsfield is located in the North Shore region of Massachusetts. Now, the town’s population is near 7,469. Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Topsfield.

History

Colonial period

The Agawam tribe inhabited Topsfield prior to and during the British colonization in the early seventeenth century. They were one of the Algonquian peoples. They claimed the land north of the Danvers River, the whole of Cape Ann and from there to the Merrimack River. However, the first European explorers had brought smallpox to New England, decimating all the shore tribes from the Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay in 1616.

Chief Masconomet, for whom Masconomet Regional High School is named, was the sagamore or chief of the Agawam at this time. He welcomed Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor John Winthrop on his arrival in Salem Harbor in 1630. Masconomet deeded all the Agawams’ land to Winthrop in 1638 in exchange for twenty pounds sterling. The English had settled within the bounds of modern-day Topsfield by 1643. They originally named their settlement New Meadows. Tradition has long held that the Agawam called the place Shenewemedy, meaning “the pleasant place by the flowing waters.” More recent historians believe that Shenewemedy was how the Agawam pronounced New Meadows, rather than a word in their own language.

The General Court of Massachusetts renamed the place Topsfield in 1648, undoubtedly after Toppesfield, England, a small parish in the county of Essex north of London. Topsfield was incorporated as a town in 1650. Masconomet died in 1658 and was buried on Sagamore Hill, now in Hamilton. Nine years later, two young men were punished for digging up the grave of the sagamore and carrying his skull on a pole. Native Americans were held in low regard and were poorly treated by the colonists. There is no record of hostilities between the colonists and Native Americans in Topsfield, however, even during the French and Indian Wars, which covered the period 1689-97. The Topsfield town records last mention Native American residents in 1750.

The Salem witch trials of 1692 touched Topsfield directly. Belief in witches was normal in the seventeenth century. People were accused of witchcraft in Europe and the colonies during this time, but executions were relatively rare in the colonies. Historians conclude that only fifteen people were executed as witches in the American colonies before 1692. In that year alone, however, over 160 people, mostly from Essex County, Massachusetts, were accused of witchcraft. Of these, nineteen were hanged and one was pressed to death for refusing to plead. In July 1692, Rebecca Nurse of Salem Village (then part of the town of Salem, now part of present-day Danvers) was hanged at Gallows Hill in Salem. She was the daughter of William Towne of Topsfield. Young Salem Village girls allegedly possessed by the devil – the source of Rebecca Nurse’s witchcraft accusation and most others – also named as witches Rebecca’s Topsfield sisters, Sarah Cloyce and Mary Esty; while Sarah was eventually set free, Mary was hanged in September. Sarah Wildes and Elizabeth Howe from Topsfield were hanged along with Rebecca Nurse. Many other Topsfield residents were accused of witchcraft until the hysteria ended in May 1693, when the governor of Massachusetts set free all of the remaining persons accused of witchcraft and issued a proclamation of general pardon. While the causes of the 1692 witchcraft episode continue to be the subject of historical and sociological study, there is a consensus view that land disputes and perhaps economic rivalry among factions in Salem, Salem Village and Topsfield fueled animosity and played an underlying role.

The witchcraft delusion is an extreme example of how religion is alloyed in Topsfield history, but other examples abound. Indeed, Topsfield was founded in part based on “alarming” 1633 news that the Roman Catholic French had planted settlements nearby and intended to send settlers “with divers priests and Jesuits among them”. Governor Winthrop and the Puritan establishment (who believed a Protestant theocracy was proper), countered the perceived Catholic threat in March of that year by sending English men and women into the wilderness that would become Topsfield. Among the first group was William Perkins, a preacher. From the beginning, Topsfield residents made provision for “the publicke worship of God”. In 1684, they hired the Reverend Joseph Capen, whose Parson Capen House still stands as the town’s most notable historical landmark. A successor to Capen’s original Congregational Church building overlooks the Topsfield common. Its white steeple graces countless postcards. Topsfield’s preeminent historian, George Francis Dow, tells us: “No minister of those early days left a deeper impression on the town than Reverend Joseph Capen, who wisely led the minds of the people along the varied paths of knowledge until his death in 1725.”

No minister in those early days may have left a deeper impression on Topsfield religious history, but it was a contemporary of Reverend Capen whose family has best connected Topsfield to the religious history of the world. Robert Smith settled in Topsfield in 1638. His descendants extended through five generations in Topsfield. They were respected townspeople and members of Capen’s Congregational Church. Joseph Smith Sr. was born in Topsfield in 1771, and his son, Joseph Smith Jr., founded the Latter Day Saint movement. The younger Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805, not long after his family moved from Topsfield. Mormons point out Topsfield in their church history books and continue to visit the Smith ancestral hometown today.

Revolution and New Republic: Minutemen, turnpike, gerrymander and the fair

The population of Topsfield grew slowly in the eighteenth century, reaching only 773 by the year 1776. Topsfield was much smaller and more agrarian than other Essex County towns by the time of the Revolution and perhaps for these reasons the town seemed a bit more conservative and less ardent for independence than its Essex County neighbors. Nonetheless, as tensions between crown and colonists mounted in the years before the American Revolution, Topsfield joined the network of committees dedicated to preserving the rights of the people. On June 8, 1771, the town voted to stand ready “to preserve and Defend Our Own Lawfull Rights Libertys and propertys even to the last Extremity”. Topsfield sent two militia companies numbering 110 “Minute Men” under the command of Capt. Joseph Gould, to answer the Lexington Alarm on April 19, 1775. As Dow tells us, “The news from Lexington, spreading like wildfire in every direction, reached this place at about ten o’clock in the forenoon. The farmers were busy in their fields, but there was no hesitation. The plough was stayed mid-furrow, and within an hour, many were on their way to the scene of the conflict.” Topsfield men participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, and were part of General Washington’s Continental army throughout the remainder of the American Revolutionary War.