Duxbury Town Landing Collection

Duxbury Town Landing Collection
DAL.SMS.358

Scope and Content:
The Duxbury Town Landing Collection comprises 53 items (1870-1903). The collection includes diagrams and sketches of roads and landings in Duxbury, MA. Also included are letters, handwritten copies of earlier 19th-century documents, correspondence, and handwritten notes, mostly by Laurence Bradford, who was a Civil Engineer.

Much of the correspondence between Laurence Bradford and Robert S. Gorham concerns property boundaries near the Bluefish River and the town landing on St. George Street on the Millpond, which Duxbury sold but later claimed rights to.

Biographical Note:
Laurence Bradford (1842–1909), the youngest son of Rev. Claudius Bradford and Maria Weston Bradford, was born in Hubbardston, Massachusetts. He went to sea as a young man and, during the Civil War, served in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he became a civil engineer and eventually settled in Duxbury, where he inherited the Bradford family homestead in 1893. Deeply interested in local history, Bradford wrote Historic Duxbury in Plymouth County, Massachusetts (1900) and designed the Town of Duxbury seal, which is still in use today. He and his wife, Hattie Phipps Bradford, were the parents of Gershom and Edward Bradford, who later donated the Bradford House and its collections to the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society.

Folder 1 Plans

  • Plan of Landing by Clark Peterson’s on Powder Point Ave., 1893
  • Plan of Landing by Clark Peterson’s on Powder Point Ave., 1898
  • Plan of Landing by Simeon Soule’s, 1898
  • Sketch of Duck Hill River and roadway to landing, 1898
  • Plan of town landing at Power Point end, 1898
  • Sketch of wharf property south of Bluefish River, c. 1900
  • Plan of town landing at Millpond by former residence of Samuel Frazar, 1898
  • Plan of lots of Charles F. B. Thomas et al, (1901)
  • Sketch of old roads on record, c. 1900
  • Plotting road by Millpond, c. 1900
  • Sketch of Briggs marsh property, c. 1900

Folder 2 Correspondence

  • Edward E. Hobart (Plymouth, MA) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1893
  • Jacob W. Wilbur (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1897
  • Jacob W. Wilbur (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1897
  • Jacob W. Wilbur (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1897
  • George Hearn (Duxbury, MA) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1897
  • W. H. Adams (East Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1899
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1897
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1901
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1901
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1902
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1902
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1902
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1902
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1902
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1903
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1903
  • Robert S. Gorham (Boston) to Laurence Bradford (Duxbury, MA), 1907

Folder 3 Document Copies

  • Copy of Old Cove Road layout in 1831, c. 1900
  • Copy of Point Road layout in 1807, c. 1900
  • Vote relocating town landing, 1893
  • Town meeting vote on town landings, 1893
  • Copy of Town Road from Cable Office layout from 1804, c. 1900
  • Copy of Town landing by Simeon Soule’s from 1803, c. 1900
  • Copy of Town landing near Percy Loring’s, Kingston, c. 1900
  • Copy of votes about Town landings, 1899
  • Copy of deed relating to Duxbury Town landings, c. 1900
  • Copy of deed of James Kilean, 1900
  • Deeds relating to Mill privilege and wharf, c. 1900
  • Notes on Town meeting in 1803, c. 1900
  • Notes from mid-19th-century town landings, c. 1900

Folder 4 Document Copies

  • News clipping re: land sold in Duxbury, 1897
  • Notes on roads in 1834, 2 pages, c. 1900
  • Copies of notes on Samuel A. Frazar’s property, 4 pages, c. 1900
  • Copy of deed from A. A. Frazar to Emily Howard in 1870, c. 1900
  • Copy of deed from Jonathan Ford to Ocean Telegraph Co. in 1870, c. 1900