History

The Founding of Somerset I
By
Albert S. Johnston
Chapter One:
The city we now know as Somerset can trace its origins in the humble collection of cottages built by the first Anglo-Saxon settlers to brave the three week voyage from ’Mother England’ to this, then remote outpost of the new world. The readers must remember this was before the puritans had braved there crossing to settle in the rugged coastline in the land that is now called the ’United States of America’.

The dwelling of these first peoples was nothing grand. Nothing but simple wooden box house’s made from locally produced lumber and hammered in with nails that where brought from home. Records from this period are scarce and hard to find. Indeed what little we do know comes from private dairies and letters.

The letters and dairies paint us a picture of a collection of houses that seemed to center at a large wooden building. This building is often referred to as the ‘Meeting House’. Here the first charter naming collection of houses and the few shops the village of ‘The Village of Somerset’.

At the time of the Charting the village could boost a population of around five hundred people. Most of whom where Anglo-Saxon. Once the settlement had been reward the statues of a village. A mission from the ‘Church of England’ arrived. The group of four monks, two laymen was lead by a young Priest by the name of Fr. Burns.

Fr. Burns played a critical in not only building up the newly created Parish of ‘Manchester’ but also devoted his time and effort into schooling the young men of the village in the classics. One might even say the foundation of proud school system was birthed in the cold, one room cabin that was donated to the church by a unknown benefactor.

Doctors, layers, and skilled workers followed the mission. After all building a church required a number of skills, stonemasons where needed to lay the foundation and build the walls, silver and blacksmiths where needed to forge the tools, and above all men where needed to handle the other task that are to many to list here. These men where all paid in ready cash. And many of those workmen spent there hard earned money at local shops, thus keeping the money in city if will.

Though vices follow people, and once such vice is the love of drinking and women. Now some miles from the booming settlement was a low laying area. Here the first taverns where built, these first taverns where nothing more than shacks, some where a little better than others but for the most part they where shacks.

The area was given the name ‘Hemlock Lane’ due to the vast amounts of Hemlock leafs that could found growing in the area. Its also a play on words. Becomes Hemlock is a poisons plant, and the area was so filled with vice and sin, the name hemlock seemed to suit, because in words of one Fr. Burns, ’The place is nothing but a collection of sin and vice, a open wound that will one day poison the youth of this city and become a stain that will not be cleansed from its moral fabric’.

Now a article on the history of Somerset would not be completed dear readers without a look at the origins of the small, but noticeable Scot-Irish population that has added so much Celtic charm to are little community over the years.

Following the defeat of Charles Edward Stuart at the battle of Culloden in the year Seventeen forty three by the British government who was then ruled by the House of Hanover caused a number of rebel Scotsmen called Jacobites to fall under there care. Fearing another uprising the Hanover Government ordered a large number of them to be transported to the new world. There far away from there native land they hoped to ‘Reform’ them and make them into half decanted members of the budding British Empire.

The first boatload of these transplanted Scotsmen landed in the spring, they where marched off the boat and right out of town. They where not thrown to the dogs as one popular poetic as put it, in fact if I might so bold I think they where treated quite well. Records from the time show that small tracks of land was given to them, course they had to clear and built there own homesteads, but that is after all the natural order of things.

As the seasons passed, the new settlers tried to built a new life for themselves. Crops where sewn and harvest, small dirt roads where laid, and the few tradesmen among them returned to there calling. Soon a little hamlet was charted, the hamlet was christened ’Scotia’ In honor of there native land.

Even now the little hamlet is a thriving little point of commerce in the rural lands north of Somerset. The town at present can boost a population of seven hundred people living within the two square miles that make up Scotia popular. The main business section can boost a Methodist Chapel, a tavern called ‘Bucks’ and small Laundromat and two little shops and at last a little café called ‘The Dove Café’. The Great Western Railway even has a small halt in the village. The local farmers use the branch line to ship crops to local a local farmers market.