Dighton's “Richmond Hill” and Colonel Silvester Richmond

Colonel Silvester Richmond was a noted early Dighton settler, active in matters both military and domestic, yet his most enduring contribution to the town of Dighton is his name on the high hill that overlooks our entire area and continues to play an important part in our history. That hill will forever be known as Richmond Hill, across and through which the Old Bristol Path, now better known as Elm Street, passes into Somerset.

The following story includes many excerpts which are quoted from
Hurd's HISTORY OF BRISTOL COUNTY, 1883:

“The most considerable eminence in this township is Richmond Hill, in the southeast part.” “. . . Its elevation is very moderate, being little more than two hundred feet.” “. . . The view from its rocky summit takes in the Blue Hills on the north, Mount Hope on the south and the Cumberland Hills in Rhode Island on the west. Portions of the cities of Taunton, Fall River and Providence are visible, as well as the towns of Somerset, Freetown, Berkley, Attleborough, Norton, Raynham and Rehoboth. On a clear day in winter and with the aid of a glass, more than forty church spires can be counted, and the windings of the Taunton River can be traced for several miles.”

A natural gorge for a roadway:
“The singular gorge through the rocks on the top of the hill seems made on purpose to accommodate the road that runs through it.” (Elm Street) “It is evidently one of the furrows made by the great ice plow that tore its way over the hill from the northward in the last glacial period, and which must have reduced the height of the hill very materially. The marks of glacial action are very distinct here. The rock-in-place, a gray-wacke conglomerate, or puddingstone, has been ground down, polished and grooved by the stones imbedded in the ancient glacier.” “. . . Huge masses of rock were torn from this hill and shoved along to the south, in some cases, for several miles. The large boulder in Somerset known as the Hanging Rock or Toad Rock and which weighs probably more than a hundred tons, was originally part of this hill.”

An amazing Tree: (This was written in 1883; this tree is no longer there.)
“In a pasture on the southern slope of the hill is a curiosity of the vegetable kingdom. This is a prostrate juniper, Juniperus communis. It is nowhere more than two feet in height, while its branches extend outward from the centre a distance of a dozen feet on all sides, making the tree resemble a large green mat. Smaller specimens of this tree are not uncommon, but it rarely grows to so large a size as the one on Richmond Hill.”

A bit on Colonel Silvester Richmond's military and community service:
“Colonel Silvester Richmond of Dighton commanded the Bristol County regiment that went with the expedition that captured the fortress of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island in 1745. Born in 1698, he was then forty-seven years old. This was the same expedition where Colonel Ebenezer Pitts, also of Dighton, lost his life. The circumstances of this successful expedition have been questioned by historians. There was much bravery, but there was also unsoldierlike and unmilitary action by some of the force's men, and it is believed that such conduct and tactical errors on both sides were what brought it to a successful conclusion for the expeditionary forces. Louisburg surrendered to the New England troops on the 17th of June, 1745, but one historian of that time has been quoted as saying: “If any one circumstance had taken a wrong turn on our side, and if any one circumstance had NOT taken a wrong turn on the French side, the expedition must have miscarried.”

“After his return from the French war, Col. Richmond took a prominent part in town affairs and was soon appointed High Sheriff of Bristol County, holding the office for many years.” He was a justice of the peace and married many couples in this town. In a time when marriage was considered only a civil contract, “justices of he peace enjoyed almost a monopoly of the splicing business.”

Home, Farm, Family, Slaves:
Col. Richmond's father's name had also been Silvester and he had a son and a grandson of the same name. The Col. and his wife, Elizabeth (Talbot) Richmond, had eight children. Elizabeth Richmond died in 1772 at the age of seventy-two, and the Colonel died at age eighty-four in 1783.

Col. Richmond's house and farm were on the northwest slope of of the hill to which his ownership gave its name. By the year 1883, when Hurd's HISTORY was written, it reads as follows: “only a part of one of the chimneys of the house is now standing to mark its site.” That chimney is now gone. Hurd tells us that “the house was a picturesque, gambrel-roofed old mansion. . with an immense fireplace in the kitchen where, it is said, the Colonel's slaves were wont to gather in cold weather. For many years it was inhabited by two old maiden ladies, granddaughters of Col. Silvester, who made some pretense of carrying on farming.

“The cart path from the road to the rear of the house was a thoroughfare for the school children while going to and from the huckleberry pastures during school vacations, and they could not always resist the temptation to pocket some of the red-cheeked lady apples and luscious sugar pears that often strewed the path, for which pilferings they were generally roundly scolded by the watchful guardians of the premises, whose names were Sally and Nancy.

“In return for those jobations, one of the older boys, who had a reprehensible propensity for punning, was wont to speak of the scolding Sally as “Sally-rate-us,” while an admonition from her sister was termed the “Edict of Nance.” An allusion, probably, to the historical Edict of Nantes.”

And now to that ghost story –just in time for Halloween, 2024:
“The house had the reputation in its later years of being haunted; stories of strange sights and sounds seen and heard by some of its tenants are still current in the neighborhood.” (1883)

“One of these stories, related to the writer (Hurd) by an Irishman who is known by the sobriquet of 'Sleepy Bill,' and vouched for it as true by his wife, was to the following effect: 'Let it be promised that the house stood six or seven rods from the nearly disused road that leads over the hill, and was approached by the cart path already mentioned, which was closed at the road by bars. This cart path ran along within a foot or two of the south side of the house, on the lower floor of which was the bedroom occupied by the Irishman and his wife, Kate, the head of whose bed was against the south wall.'

“The somnolent William said that one night about one o'clock he and his 'old woman' were awakened by what seemed to be a long procession of carriages that appeared to have come up the cart path from the road and go past the house down into the swamp at the rear. Having previously heard unaccountable sounds in and about the house, they were much too frightened to get up and see what was going on, while the twenty or more carriages rumbled and jolted over the frozen ground, close to their heads. They appeared to move slowly, like carriages in a funeral procession.

“Another night, they were awakened by a terrible crash in the front hall, as if the whole staircase had fallen and been broken into fragments, but no assignable cause for the racket could be found in the morning.

“A boarder of theirs related that, coming home rather late one moonlit evening, he was astonished and very much frightened to see several people, dressed in the costume of long ago, dancing what he termed to be a 'breakdown' in the front yard. He did not tarry to make the acquaintance of these ancient disciples of Terpsichore, but beat a retreat in double-quick time, and found a lodging elsewhere.

“The uncanny reputation given to the old house by these stories and others of a similar nature, together with its dilapidated condition, made it difficult to find tenants who would stay in it long, and it rapidly went to ruin.
While it was tenantless, the cellar was dug over more than once in the night-time by parties acting under the direction of clairvoyants, who professed to see large sums of money buried there. Whether any pot of doubloons or of Spanish dollars ever rewarded the diggers is unknown but, judging from the ill success that has attended the long-continued search for Captain Kidd's buried treasure, it is probable that the search in the old Richmond cellar was unsuccessful.”

Sally Richmond's Brook – a Few Facts:
Before we close this little history story, let’s quickly address the brook which bears the name of Col. Richmond's granddaughter, Sally. It has been mistakenly referred to as “Muddy Cove Brook” on some early maps, but it was, indeed, named for Miss Sally Richmond. Hurd tells us that “This stream takes its rise in the swamps northwest of Hunter's Hill (an area at the southwesterly top of Richmond Hill,) runs at first a northeasterly course, crossing the road leading to Pitts Corner (Elm and Main Streets today,) skirting the base of Richmond Hill,” where there was a small pond which was later “dammed and provided the water for the color grinding works of J.C. Jessup and Co.” From there Sally Richmond Brook continued its easterly flow downhill, losing itself in the oozy flats of Muddy Cove, where its name became changed to Muddy Cove Brook, and flowed on, into the Taunton River.

Author's note: www.findagrave.com  tells us that Silvester Richmond 's mother, Elizabeth Rogers, was the great-granddaughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins and the great-granddaughter of Thomas Rogers, all of whom arrived in America aboard the Mayflower.