Unit Central Questions:
What do primary and secondary sources teach us about the characteristics of “everyday life” of individuals living in Deerfield at the four turns of the centuries? What do these characteristics reveal about changes in the town since its beginning as an English settlement?
Key Content Ideas Taught in this Lesson and Teacher Background
English colonists, Congregationalist descendants of the Puritans, settled in the Deerfield area in the 17th century. Their settlement – the way the town was set up and the land distributed, the way the governance structures were organized, and the ways people behaved – reflected their religious beliefs and interpretations of the Bible. They felt it was their moral duty to tame the wilderness, “civilize” the Indigenous peoples, and bring order to the environment.
The proprietors of this settlement carefully distributed the land to ensure that each family owned at least some, although the amount of land was not distributed equally. This was in contrast to many English villages of the time, where people often had no hope of land ownership. The plan of the town permanently transformed the land in Deerfield, from the source of livelihood for a mixed agricultural, hunting and gathering people without permanent dwellings or fixed claims to the land [the Native Americans], to an ordered and owned landscape of English agriculture and husbandry.
From 1680-1720, English settlers had individually-owned house lots in a nucleated village laid out along a single street, surrounded by long fertile farm fields which were commonly held and worked. Wood lots, separate from home lots, were used mainly for fuel.
For more information read:
The Landscape in the Colonial Period
Intended Learning Outcomes
Understandings:
Students will understand:
- That a group of English Congregationalists, descendants of the Puritans, settled in Deerfield in the 17th century.
- The original design of the English settlement at Deerfield.
- The reasoning behind the design of the settlement and distribution of land there.
- That the proprietors of the settlement carefully distributed the land to ensure that each family head received at least some land. In this way every family could provide for its own needs. However, the size of the lots was not the same for everyone.
- That elements of the early settlement of Deerfield can still be seen in the town layout and in some of the early 18th century houses which survive.
Skills:
Students will be able to:
- Read and analyze historical maps.
- Analyze a drawing of the period.
In Preparation for Teaching
- Read The Landscape in the Colonial Period
- Print map copies
- Print Woodbridge drawing copies
- Print modern images of the Severance-Hawks House (Lot 36), Wells House (Lot 18), and the Wells-Thorn House (Lot 26) –above.
Activities
Activity 1: The Original Layout of Deerfield
- Inform students that English colonists settled in Deerfield during the 17th century (1600s). Ask a student to point out the place on the Indigenous time line (constructed in the lesson titled Indigenous Presence in Deerfield) which represents when the English settled in Deerfield.
- Distribute copies of the 1996 plot map.
- Explain that this is a modern map of land lots in Deerfield.
- Instruct students to identify points of compass on map.
- Ask students to locate the buildings noted in the map key (they are identified by the letters a – j).
- Instruct students to write the names of the buildings (gas station, brick church, post office, etc.) on the appropriate places on the map (using abbreviations where necessary).
- Have students color these lots.
- Ask: What do you notice about most of the lots? (They are long, with some smaller lots clustering in certain parts. Main Street divides the town into two parts.)
- Distribute copies of the Lot Survey of Deerfield, which shows the original survey and laying out of Deerfield lots. Tell students that this is a fragment of the original survey map. It includes farm and wood lots, and also the northern section of Main Street from lots 43 and 1 extending south to lots 32 and 13, near the area of the Brick Church today. (Note: The Main Street section of the Lot Survey of Deerfield is in the far right quadrant of the map, near the center of the page.)
- Ask students to identify the northern section of Main Street, from lots 43 and 1, extending south to lots 32 and 13, on the modern map.
- Ask students to find the same section of Main Street on the old map and line it up next to the modern map, matching the compass points.
- Ask what they notice about the lots in the old map as compared to those in the modern map. (Many of the original long, narrow lots laid out in the 17th century remain.)
- Instruct students to notice the Deerfield River which meanders through the western part of town.
- Tell students that towns in New England didn’t just grow randomly. They were carefully planned communities, settled by people whose religious beliefs taught them that a well-organized, disciplined, and ordered environment was in keeping with the teachings of the Bible. The maps show the orderly plan of the town. Also, point out that the settlers believed:
- They had a right to what they considered “vacant land.”
- It was their moral duty to bring “order” out of the “chaos” of the wilderness by creating productive farms and towns.
- That they considered the Indigenous peoples to be “savages” because they lived in an untamed wilderness.
- Note that attendance at religious worship and at town meetings was required.
- English colonists were highly dependent on one another. Discuss. Ask students to speculate about the ways in which people were dependent.
- Using the Lot Survey of Deerfield, instruct students to identify a group of lots that all have the same number (e.g. all lots with the number 3). Ask students to color these in a single color. Instruct them to find another group of lots with matching numbers and color these in a different color. Through discussion and observation of the maps, guide students to understand that:
- Each number represents the land given to a particular family. Lands were distributed to the settlers for particular purposes (house lots along the street large enough for gardens, wood lots, farm lots). Note where these lands were located, lot size, proximity to water, and proximity of each family’s farm lots to their homes.
- Every family had land so that they could feed themselves, however, all families didn’t all have the same amount of land. Wealthy people had bigger lots.
- Unlike the Native Americans, English settlers believed in individual deeded rights to land. This means that each head of houshold owned and controlled the land he owned.
- Farmland was situated on the fertile flood plain. [Optional activity: Try to locate the main street and farm lots from the Lot Survey of Deerfield on the topographical map (from the lesson titled Topography and Geology of Deerfield).]
- The main street was situated on a higher area which would not be threatened by floods. Homes were arranged along this street, nearby one another, which encouraged the development of an orderly, interdependent community. People could watch to be sure neighbors were behaving as they should, and could see when others needed help.
- Ask: What is similar in the two maps? (The layout of the northern part of the town intersected by Main Street.)
- Ask: What is included in the old map that is missing from the new one? (The lots north of Main Street and west of the Deerfield River.) These are farm lots.
- Ask: Why do you think the farm lots were so long and narrow? (Oxen were used for plowing and it was hard to turn them, so having long, narrow lots, minimized the turns.)
- Distribute copies of Dudley Woodbridge’s 1728 drawing. Point out that Woodbridge drew this 57 years after the Lot Survey of Deerfield was made. Instruct students to study the drawing and write in their social studies notebooks three things they notice.
- Ask students what they think this drawing is. (It is something like a doodle.) Inform students that Dudley Woodbridge was a Harvard College graduate who visited Deerfield and stayed in Mehuman Hinsdale’s house (south of the common) from Oct. 3-10,1728 – lot 14I. The house is not there now.
- Ask: What does “Delineated at Deerfield” mean?
- Discuss elements of the drawing, such as the meetinghouses, the various sized houses, people, trees, and animals.
- Ask students if there are things on this drawing that are on the map fragment. (No – the drawing gives an idea of what houses on Main Street looked like, but according to the map,they aren’t situated where they belong.)
- Inform students that churches in New England were once known as meetinghouses. The buildings were used for meetings as well. At the time, “church” referred to those who attended religious services at the meetinghouse.
- Tell the students that although many things have changed since the time of the old map fragment and the drawing, there are some details (like the long lots and a few of the buildings) that you still can see in modern Deerfield. Pass out pictures of the Wells-Thorn, Hoyt, and Severance-Hawks houses (from the “Primary and Secondary Sources” section of this lesson.)
- Instruct students to consider the layout and distribution of land in the town, and to write a paragraph about this in their notebooks. Ask them to address these questions:
-
- Why was a map drawn in 1671?
- What did the English settlers believe about land ownership? (The English system of ownership called for clear division of land.)
- Did everyone have a similar size house lot? (Not completely.)
- Why were the houses nearby one another on the main street and not nearer to the farm land? (to encourage the development of an orderly, interdependent community)
- Did everyone have a similar amount of farmland? (Not completely.)
- Did every farm lot have access to water? (Yes.)
- Can you see an attempt at fairness in the distribution of land? (Every family had some land, although wealthy people had larger home lots.)
Homework
Complete the above paragraph, and make a “Dudley Woodbridge-type drawing” of your own neighborhood. Stand in front of your house and make doodles of what you see.
Assessment
Use student-generated paragraphs from step #17 and the homework from step #18.
