USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Petersham > One hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Petersham, Massachusetts, Wednesday, August the tenth, 1754-1904 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Gc 974.402 P44S 1789065
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
Go
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 1952
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/17541904onehundr1754pete
1754-1904 150 th One hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE
TOWN OF PETERSHAM
MASSACHUSETTS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST THE TENTH 1904
محـ
1789065
PETERSHAM MEMORIAL LIBRARY
F 84467 .67
Petersham, Mass.
1754-1904. One hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Petersham, Massachu- setts, Wednesday, August the tenth, 1904. [Boston, Printed by the Everett press company, 19041
60 p. front. 22}em
SHELF CARD
1. Petersham, Mass .- Centennial celebrations.
12-14975
A 847
er
COMMITTEE
*EDWIN C. DEXTER, Chairman CLARENCE S. FISKE, Secretary
GEORGE AYRES FRANCIS H. LEE
JAMES W. BROOKS
WILLIAM SIMES
FREDERICK BRYANT
BENJAMIN W. SPOONER .
CHARLES S. COOLIDGE
WILLIAM W. STEWART
CHARLES A. FOBES CHARLES. S. WALDO
ALLEN FRENCH CHARLES K. WILDER
MERRICK E. HILDRETH ROBERT W. WILLSON
BENJAMIN W. SPOONER, Marshal
*Mr. Dexter, to whose judgment, energy, and tact the successful ar- rangements for the celebration were largely due, is the present owner of the farm on which the rebel Shay is said to have been overtaken by General Lincoln (see page 34). The old house has disappeared, but an old-fashioned sweep overhangs the well which was under the L of the house. The farm. was for many years, and until his death, owned and occupied by the late Deacon Cephas Willard, referred to on page 39.
[3]
PROGRAM
MORNING
The procession, planned for the morning, had to be dispensed with on account of the weather.
AT TEN O'CLOCK
MUSIC. The Salem Cadet Band.
PRAYER. Rev. Alfred W. Birks.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Mr. William Simes, Chairman of the Meeting.
ADDRESS. Mr. James W. Brooks, President of the Day.
POEM. Mr. Francis Z. Stone.
SINGING. "America." By the Public-School Children and Audience.
BENEDICTION. Rev. Preston R. Crowell.
AFTERNOON AT TWO O'CLOCK
MUSIC. The Salem Cadet Band.
ADDRESSES BY
His Excellency, JOHN L. BATES, Governor of Massachusetts.
Hon. FREDERICK H. GILLETT, M. C., of Springfield.
Hon. JAMES J. MYERS, of Cambridge.
Hon. STEPHEN SALISBURY, of Worcester.
Mr. J. HARDING ALLEN, of Barre. Rev. ALVIN F. BAILEY, of Barre.
Mr. HENRY S. BENNETT, of New York.
Mr. ABIATHAR BLANCHARD, of South Norwalk, Conn.
Rev. FRANCIS E. TOWER, D.D., of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
Mr. GEORGE W. HORR, of Athol.
AND OTHERS.
SINGING. "Old Hundred."
[4]
1
NOTE
I HE township of Petersham was granted, under the name of Nichewaug, in 1733, and incorporated, un- der its present name, in 1754. It celebrated the cen- tennial anniversary of its incorporation on July 4, 1854, and the sesquicentennial on August 10, 1904. Its people made generous preparation for this occasion, in which they were very deeply interested. A large tent, for accommodation of the many who were present, was spread over the lawn in the rear of the Memorial Library. The celebrated Salem Cadet Band discoursed delightful music. Ample arrangement was made for refreshment of the inner man and beast, and at- tractive fireworks were provided to prolong the celebration into the evening.
Among the guests in attendance were the distinguished gentlemen whose names appear upon the order of exercises, and whose interesting and eloquent addresses - referring to the exceptional beauty of Petersham, to its happy relation- ship to its neighboring towns, to the prominence of its early settlers and the noteworthy part they played in the early his- tory of the Commonwealth; to the State, her illustrious men, her institutions, industries, and schools, her world-wide fame in every department of human activity, and her high rank in the great sisterhood of the Republic; and to America's fore- most place among the nations of the world -were heard with rapt attention and received the intelligent and grateful appre- ciation of a crowded and enthusiastic audience.
The following letter from the late Senator Hoar had led the committee to hope for the honor of his presence:
[5]
1
WORCESTER, June 14, 1904.
Dear Mr. Brooks:
I should like very much to visit Petersham at the time of your celebration. But I have been directed by my doctors to make no engagements which will involve any speaking in public for more than five minutes for some months to come, And I cannot now tell where I shall be on the tenth of August. Perhaps you will permit me to reserve my reply, therefore, until the time approaches.
I have very pleasant recollections of Petersham. I had many strong friends and clients there, including the town itself.
I am, with high regard, faithfully yours,
GEO. F. HOAR.
Unhappily, as the day of celebration approached, it be- came evident that the illustrious man's last word in public had already been spoken.
The day was unfortunate. A pouring rain-well calcu- lated to revive the waning faith in the Noachian deluge- sadly interfered with the day's proceedings and deprived the people of much of the pleasure the town had hoped to afford them. They proved, however, to have inherited the pluck and hardihood of their ancestors and bore their misfortunes - and even the morning address - with the heroism that characterized the earlier New England "days that tried men's souls." J. W. B.
[6]
1
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY MR. SIMES:
Citizens, Friends, and Lovers of Petersham : -
W HEN our fathers came into the wilderness, almost before they sowed the seed for the harvest they built with devoted hands their church. The first church of Petersham, the Town Church, stood at the south end of the Common, on the east side. In those days every one went to church, and soon the little building became too small and a new and larger one was built about where the flagstaff now stands. In the belfry of this church was placed a bell cast by Paul Revere. They continued to go to church, and in 1842, about the time of the town's greatest prosperity, the present church was built on the west side of the Common and Paul Revere's bell found a new resting-place. For over one hun- dred years it has sounded through the clear air of our hills its call to worship, its summons to the grave, its notes of joy, its notes of sorrow. It has called us here to-day, and its note has been a joyful one. I will ask the Rev. Alfred Birks, the pastor of the First Church, to invoke the divine blessing.
AFTER THE PRAYER, MR. SIMES CONTINUED AS FOLLOWS:
The story is told that in a Chinese city a native was asked where he lived. He replied, naming a small village many miles away. His questioner said, "But you do not live there now." "No," replied the Chinaman, "but the old root is in that village." Nineteen centuries before, his family had moved away, but in their hearts, for those nineteen centuries, had the root been kept alive. We know to-day what the Chinaman felt; for deep down in the heart, among its sacred things, lies the love for our birthplace, the love for the home of our
[7]
fathers. Distance does not weaken it; it grows stronger as we grow older.
We are met to-day to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Petersham. In 1733 or 1734 the first settlers came into this then unbroken forest. In 1754 the infant settlement petitioned the General Court to be incorporated and was christened Petersham.
To you whose roots go down to the earlier days of Peters- ham, whose ancestors lie under the quaint stones of its silent graveyards, to you who here first saw the light of day, the oc- casion is of the deepest interest.
But if in a less degree, yet still in full measure, is it a joy- ful one to those who, like myself, have come from without its borders to find its soil an easy one to take root in.
To you, our neighbors, who are bound to us by so many ties of kindred, by so many associations both of war and peace, who have always rejoiced when we have rejoiced, we bid a hearty welcome.
Especially do we welcome the distinguished guests who have honored us with their presence. To-day we claim you all as citizens of Petersham.
In these times when we spell the United States with very large letters, may it not be that the story of our old Massa- chusetts town teaches more than a local lesson? For the story of Petersham is the story of Massachusetts; the story of Massachusetts is the story of the influences that have made our nation great, and by which it must ever be guided if it is to remain great. It is the story of the industry, courage, and fortitude that conquered the wilderness; of the love of educa- tion that placed the schoolhouse by the side of the church; of the love of liberty that gave to Massachusetts Samuel Ad- ams and Samuel Hoar and Charles Sumner, and to Peters- ham Jonathan Grout, Col. Ephraim Doolittle, Capt. Park Holland, Capt. Wing Spooner, Capt. Ivory Holland, Capt. Asa Howe, Capt. John Wheeler, and Capt. John Mudge, and the glorious list of soldiers of the wars of the Revolution and Rebellion inscribed upon the tablets of its Memorial Building.
[8]
It has never been questioned who shall tell our story. But one name has been thought of. He is the nephew of him who fifty years ago, told the story, and whose saintly face and charming presence are among our pleasantest memories. He was born of ancestors whose names are written upon every page of our town's history. He left Petersham in early manhood, but his roots held tenaciously to his native soil, and he returned to it to give freely of his time, his taste, and his means to make it a place worth living in, and to do a lov- ing work in preserving and revealing the beauties of its woods and streams.
I have the pleasure of introducing to you the President of the day, Mr. James Willson Brooks, who will deliver the address.
ADDRESS BY MR. BROOKS:
I T is not definitely known how our township came by its name. In England, near London, is an interesting little parish called Petersham-the ham, or home, of St. Peter. So far as we know, ours is the only other ham, or home, of that name on the planet.
Whether St. Peter really officiated, visibly or invisibly, at the birth or baptism of these places, or how far residence in either may improve one's chances at the gate of which he is said to hold the key, is not yet revealed to us. The thing certain is that, by some decree, celestial or terrestrial, our Pe- tersham is here, has been for one hundred and fifty years, and is our theme to-day.
In the little time afforded us, we can note these many years only as one sees the country from the window of a railway train or regards the landscape from a hilltop. There can be no : stopping at stations-hardly time to count the mile-stones along our way. Persons and things nearest and most inter- esting must be swept by or overlooked, and our attention mainly bestowed upon the more prominent objects and out- lines in the dimmer and more distant view.
[9]
What can be offered in response to the manifold interest that has brought you here to-day? What can be said to our friends from the neighboring towns, whose kindly regard for us always brings congratulation for our happy days and sym- pathy for our days of trial ? What to the long absent who re- turn to find the old home painfully crowded with those no longer here ? What to those drawn hither by desire to see the former abode of some honored ancestor? What to you who come wondering what the little old town can have left to say for itself ? And to you, veterans of the Civil War, comrades of our departed Captain Mudge, whose names, with those of our heroes of the Revolution, are on the tablets in Memorial Hall, and who, with many more of us, must too soon join
"The innumerable caravan that moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of Death "?
What grateful word of appreciation have we for our wor- thy chief magistrate, who, engrossed with the weightier in- terests of the larger towns of the Commonwealth, has not disdained a generous consideration for one of these little ones ? What shall we say to you, our summer friends, who come with the laurel, the caddy, and the bobolink to make our long- est days too short and few, and, with the first frost, put your houses in curl-papers and migrate with the other birds of passage? And what to you, our good people here throughout the year, except what, in to-day's celebration, you are say- ing to yourselves and bidding me say to all,- although it goes without saying, - Here are our homes, our fields of labor, and our loved ones, and the homes of those who here have lived, labored, loved, and gone before us? Here many of us had our first waking and are to lie down in our last sleep. Here rest our sainted dead. Here are our old meeting-houses, rich in hallowed association with friends and days that will return no more. Here are our playgrounds, alert with the life and ringing with the mirth of expanding youth, as the generations succeed one another and write their chapters in
[ 10]
the story of the town; and here are our everlasting, ever- changing, never-changing hills-dumb witnesses of events that have stirred and must ever stir to patriotic thought and deed-mute emblems of sublimity unutterable-silent mon -. itors of the all-embracing might and mystery that ever invite and forever baffle all finite comprehension.
Our records are few and dim and the tooth of Time is gnawing the once potent names from the stones where,
"Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
We love the old town. We honor the men and the deeds that have wrought our inheritance, and we could not suffer the rounded period of one hundred and fifty years to steal into the shadows of the past without meeting with one another and asking our friends to join us in celebration of our fair fame and in the pious resolve that our bequests to the future shall not be altogether unworthy of our inheritance from the past.
It is said that our intelligent and devoted friend, the dog, finds in the long way around the short way home. Let me imitate that faithful fellow creature so far as to approach our subject of Petersham by way of Maine and New Hampshire.
In the town of Wakefield, in the latter State, near Lake Winnepiseogee, is a small sheet of water known as Love- well's Pond; and in Fryeburg, Maine-once a part of Massa- chusetts -the little town in which the great Daniel Webster once taught school and copied papers in the local registry of deeds, is another pond bearing the same name. In both cases the name was bestowed in honor of Captain John Lovewell, of Dunstable. From the border of the former, in February, 1725, he brought away the scalps of ten Indians. On the border of the other, three months later, he laid down his life.
Captain Lovewell, a sturdy and fearless man, was a famous fighter in our wars with the Indians, whose depredations, in the early part of the eighteenth century, had become so cruel and disastrous that our general court offered a bounty of
[11 ]
£100 for every Indian-man's scalp brought in. Captain Love- well, whether inspired by this bounty or by more patriotic motives or by both, gathered a band of resolute men to share with him the dangers and profits of Indian-hunting. In December, 1724, they captured a scalp and a living Indian near Lake Winnepiseogee, and received their reward. In February following they made another excursion to the same region. On the easterly side of the lake, on the twentieth of that month, they found a trail, and, just before sunset, de- scried smoke which indicated an Indian encampment.
Careful to avoid discovery, using no fire for cooking their supper lest the smoke might betray them, muzzling their dogs to prevent barking, the next day, cautiously watching, they waited in silence for the dead of night. Then, stealthily creeping near and perceiving ten Indians asleep around their camp-fire, they fired upon them, instantly killing seven. Two of the remainder fell as they started from sleep, and the third and last, badly wounded and trying to escape, was seized by a dog and instantly killed.
These Indians had with them shoes, moccasins, blankets, and other equipments provided for the use of captives they expected to take from some settlement of white men and drive or drag with them over the ice and snow to Canada. :
Thus, after a short absence, Lovewell and his band re- turned to Boston with ten scalps, and received, in addition to their daily pay of two shillings and sixpence, a thousand pounds of prize money.
This exploit, on the border of the little sheet of water in Wakefield, gave to it the name of Lovewell's Pond.
Having settled the affairs of this expedition, Lovewell im- mediately recruited a company for another campaign, and, on April 15, 1725, wrote as follows to the governor:
Sir,- This is to inform you that I marched from Dunstable with between 40 and 50 men on the day above mentioned, and I should have marched sooner if the weather had not prevented me. No more at present, but I remain your humble servant. JOHN LOVELL.
[12]
0
1
He wrote no more then -and, so far as we know, no more ever.
Of this expedition we learn from a sermon preached by Thomas Symmes, at Bradford, not long after, that Love- well, starting with forty-six men, travelled a little way when one, falling lame, had to return. Later another, disabled, had to be dismissed with a kinsman to accompany him. Again, another falling ill, the captain halted, built a fort, and left his doctor, a sergeant, and several others to care for the sick man. With his company thus reduced to thirty-four men, he then travelled on forty miles to Pequawket, now Fryeburg, Maine. On Saturday, May 8, 1725, while at prayers very early in the morning, they heard a gun and saw an Indian. Perceiving that the enemy desired to draw them on, they de- bated whether to fight or retreat, when the men in general said, "We came out to meet the enemy, we have all along prayed God we might meet 'em, and we had rather trust our lives to Providence than return without seeing them and be called cowards for our pains."
Lovewell led them on, to find they were ambushed and greatly outnumbered, but they fought desperately from morning to night. About the middle of the afternoon Jon- athan Frye, for whom Fryeburg was named, a young man of liberal education, chaplain of the company, who had fought with undaunted courage, was mortally wounded, and, when unable longer to fight, was heard praying for his comrades. After sunset the enemy withdrew, Lovewell and many of his men dead, and nearly all the others wounded. In the night the scattered men got together. One, unable to proceed, said, "Load my gun and leave it with me, for the Indians will come in the morning for my scalp, and I'll kill one more if I can."
Another, having fallen from loss of blood, crawled up to one of the ensigns in the heat of battle and said, "I'm a dead man, but, if possible, I'll get out of the way and save my scalp."
Another, left behind, said to a departing comrade, "I shall
[ 13 ]
1
rise no more. Go to my father and tell him I expect i hours to be in eternity and am not afraid to die."
Once, during the fight, the Indians asked if the would take quarter. "Only at the muzzles of the gun: the answer. The preacher, in closing, says, " I have'c add that, whoever considers the distance our people w from any white settlement, in the howling wildernes very far in the country of the enemy, who were at hom more than double our number, how they fought from [. ing till night without any refreshment, and the number l and wounded, will doubtless grant that this action m. room in the history of our new English wars whenev continuance of it shall be published."
This forlorn fight with the Pequawket Indians, in wh though a drawn battle, their chief was slain and they v driven to Canada, gave once more the name of Lovewel a little pond on the border of which it occurred. On the sh of this pond, in Fryeburg, Maine, on the 17th of June of t the year of our one hundred and fiftieth anniversary, the ‘ ciety of Colonial Wars unveiled a rough field-stone beari a bronze tablet to the memory of Captain Lovewell and t. men who there died with him.
Why these details? Partly because of our general inte est in the exploits of the daring men who had to clear ou primeval forests of savages before they could clear them fo peaceful settlement, partly because it is pleasant to note tha societies and individuals are increasingly interested in pre- serving the records and honoring the memories of those who have bravely wrought in any field for the welfare of their fel- low men, and partly because these narratives take us back to and reanimate the men and times to which they relate, show us their environment, and tell us the story of those fearless, fighting, scalping, praying, preaching ancestors of ours, and teach us something of their character, spirit, faith, and courage, and of what they had to dare, do, and endure to prepare the way for us, their more fortunate descendants. But the principal reason is that, six years after this fight with
[ 14 ]
W S S
)
the Pequawket Indians, John Bennett, Jeremiah Perley, and some threescore more, from Dunstable, Lancaster, Groton, Concord, Worcester, and other places, who had fought under Captain Lovewell and were with him when the ten scalps were taken by the pond in New Hampshire, and who, in earlier campaigns in search of Indians, had scouted with him over these hills of ours and thus discovered their beauty and fertility and conceived a desire to make their homes among them, in the spring of 1731, the year before George Wash- ington was born, petitioned the governor, Council, and the Great and General Court of His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay for the grant of this township, which they asked for and, two years later, obtained in consideration of hardships endured, dangers incurred, and services rendered under the leadership of Captain John Lovewell, of Dunsta- ble, and Captain John White, of Lancaster, in their warfare with the Indians.
These, then, were the men to whom we trace our local be- ginning. Si monumentum queris, circumspice! If you seek the monument unveiled to them here, look about you. You will not find their names on the tablets of our Memorial Hall among those of the later patriots who have rendered us sig- nal service, but you can well afford them a grateful place on the tablets of your memories.
Look back for a moment to this first period of our history. No town in this vicinity was then in existence. There was no Petersham, Athol, Phillipston, Barre, Dana, or. New Salem; no Worcester County, no State of Massachusetts, and no United States of America. There was no settlement nearer than Rutland, Brookfield, Deerfield, and Lancaster, and these were aflame and bleeding in their deadly conflict with the Indians. There was no road over our hills and no bridge across our streams. No mill here had ever ground a bushel of corn or sawed a log or helped to full a yard of homespun. No wheel had ever left a track upon our soil, and no stone had found a place in the many miles of moss-grown boundary- walls that mark the toil and ownership of our living and dead.
[ 15 ]
There was here no hearthstone, no horse, ox, cow, sheep, nor domestic fowl. The whole region was still an unbroken wilderness, the abode of rattlesnakes, wolves, bears, wild- cats, and wilder men. But the hour had struck for a change of scene. The descendants and followers of the Pilgrims, aflame with the love of civil and religious liberty -for them- selves, if not for the Indians-and resolute with the energies, convictions, and courage which had brought them over seas or through the struggles and trials that equip for high achieve- ment, were rapidly increasing in number and crowding back from the seacoast, up the navigable waters of the rivers and across the intervening hills and valleys, in that restless, on- ward movement which has overspread the continent and has not been stayed by the waters of the Pacific ocean.
The time had come for wild animals and wild men to dis- appear, for the streams to turn the wheels of the pioneer, for the forests to fall before his axe and be cleft into his abode, his meeting-house, his schoolhouse, and his storehouse; for his clearings to become seed-places for his harvests, pasture- grounds for his flocks and herds, and dwelling-places for him- self and his descendants.
These lands were still a part of the kingdom of England. Our governor was a British governor and our people were British subjects; but Washington was in his cradle and Lib- erty was in hers, and great questions were stirring great men to great deeds and great chapters in human history.
Work- serious, unselfish, dangerous, and bloody work - was preparing for this hill, for Bunker Hill, for Bennington and Saratoga and many an elsewhere for this brave and sturdy pioneer who must back his faith and courage with his bay- onet and flintlock.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.