USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Rural retrospect: a parallel history of Worcester and its Rural Cemetery > 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 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
URAL RETROSPECT
Gc 974.402 W89t 1535252
NORTH STREET
M.
NORTH BOUNDARY
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
WOODSIDE AVENUE WEST BOUNDARY AVENUE
GROVE STREET
AVENUE
NORTH
AVE. SOUIT
CENTER
SOUTH BOUND
RURAL DRIVE
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 01068 4931
FERN AVENUE
MAGNOLIA AVENUE
PRESCOTT STREET
SYCAMORE AVE.
FERN AVENUE
33
NORTH AVE.
UPPER AVE.
50 ..-
>
F
TER Z
AVENUE
-. AVENUE NORTH
er
PARK AVENUE
BOUNDARY AVENUE
INIR
RY BLUE
10-
DWELT THEREIN IN TIMES PAST A PEOPLE GREAT
AND MANY
AND TALL"
Deuteronomy 2:10
Theresa DWelda. albert Pace.
RURAL RETROSPECT
A Parallel History of Worcester And Its Rural Cemetery
MILDRED MCCLARY TYMESON
WORCESTER - MASSACHUSETTS - 1956
1535252
A gesture toward the past
is singularly free from confused motivation.
There is first of all an ingenuous respect. We instinctively seem to know that before our feet can stride far ahead, our hearts must sometimes travel backwards. Combined with this respect is the wish to add something of significance to the sum of Man's knowledge about himself and his forbears.
It is in this spirit that this story of Rural Cemetery has been published as a personal venture by Albert W. Rice-for the city of which his family have long been residents, and for the corporation of which he serves as president.
At many points, this book will fill in the chinks of Worcester's history with a finality inherently its own.
U
10
ouais Dance
01 -8-9
Copyright 1956 by Albert W. Rice.
Contents
PAGE
FOREWORD
ix
Seven, Eleven Seven
1838
CHAPTER I
I
The Best Gift 1838
CHAPTER II
28
The Adopted Children
1838-1856
CHAPTER III
41
Twenty Acres
1838-1856
CHAPTER IV
62
Nothing Quite the Same
1856-1868
CHAPTER V
72
New Brooms
1856-1868
CHAPTER VI
84
A Fraternal Spirit
1 868-1888
CHAPTER VII
90
The Unsettled Years
1868-1888
CHAPTER VIII
102
A Bigger City, A Better City
1888-1925
CHAPTER IX
I16
Tradition-Heavy Years
1 888-1925
CHAPTER X
129
Search for Security
1925-1956
CHAPTER XI
141
Where Only the Past
1925-1956
CHAPTER XII
148
Is Always Near
The Rural Cemetery
1956
ROSTER
167
INDEX
259
vii
Foreword
LIMITED BY ITS OWN BASIC DEFINITION, Rural Cemetery can hardly serve as a living memorial to its occupants. But there is nothing I know of to prevent a story about the cemetery from becoming a "lively" memorial. Someone has even suggested that I give this book the cheerful title of Looking Upward. It was in the same frame of mind that Clarence S. Brigham ventured the opinion that perhaps we could translate the manuscript into one of the dead languages.
This, then, is no tale of concentrated tears. It tells of living men and women, in the setting in which they lived with their neighbor- friends, and in context with the epoch which they helped to create. This is also a story about a cemetery and the people who have been buried in it. This realistic approach should really not give offense, for what is history, after all, if not the story of people who have died?
With surprising parallelism the story of Worcester tells the story of Rural Cemetery, a statement that would be just as true if turned around the other way. The two-City and Cemetery-overlap to such an extent that sometimes it has been impossible to separate them, but for the sake of a literary device, I have divided the book into twin chapters. The first of each group gives emphasis to the City, the second to the Cemetery.
These pages literally tumble with names of Worcester people. These names fall in and out, sometimes touching each other in appar- ently meaningless fashion-as people do-and sometimes with reason. But even so, not everyone has been mentioned. More than thirteen
ix
thousand persons have been buried in Rural Cemetery, multiplying human significance thirteen thousand times, and bringing to a book of this kind a heavy burden of choice.
Part of that choice has been easy, because Rural Cemetery has been linked with more than the usual quota of distinguished persons- Governors, Mayors, educators, physicians, Congressmen, and indus- trialists-and with noticeable coincidence, many of these people have also been trustees of Rural Cemetery. These men have been remem- bered because of deserved distinction.
But distinction is one thing and importance quite another, and because I have known that Heaven would probably quarrel with my choices, mention has not depended on the deep definitions of impor- tance. On the contrary, mention has been based entirely on person- ality, on prominence-on any quality that would add vitality to the various periods of Worcester's history. It must also be emphatically noted that with very few exceptions, the individuals of this story are all buried in Rural Cemetery.
This is a record of civic life, yes, but also of family life, of individual life, with its staggering accumulation of work and laughter, of disap- pointment and accomplishment. The same names, generation after generation, weave the same colors into chapter after chapter, for Rural's history represents more than one generation and more than all of its generations. Its life has overlapped, dissolved, divided, and augmented until it is no more than the essence of one generation, yet no less than the sum total of all life.
This story has been based on resources of the American Antiquarian Society, on Cemetery records, and remembrances of individuals.
If nothing else, perhaps these pages will prove how Worcester has changed, and how it has changed not at all.
MILDRED MCCLARY TYMESON
x
'RURAL RETROSPECT
1838
Seven, Eleven Seven
CHAPTER I
IT WAS A LUCKY NUMBER-seven then eleven and seven again-and a proud one. Worcester's population, spilling over the seven thousand mark for the first time, gave distinction to the little Massachusetts town. No one, of course, was admitting the need of new prestige. Considered one of the wealthiest and busiest shire towns in New England, Worcester for many years had smugly wrapped its townsfolk in an enviable reputation.
But numbers were impressive. Comparative figures of the Register, published in January of 1838, were even more surprising. They indicated an increase of twenty-five hundred persons in less than five years. A little further figuring showed that in the previous ten years, Worcester had gained almost half of its total population.
Many of the new people were ambitious young men from neighbor- ing villages; they had come to find careers in the trades and professions. Others were laborers who had come because of the lure of the canal and the magnet of the iron horse. Still others were from far away- from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Canada-adventuring in a comparatively new world.
The town nevertheless continued to be molded by the firm, un- yielding hands of aristocracy, with the old families relinquishing few prerogatives to the newcomers.
An early Worcester minister had emphatically declared that inter- marrying "beyond the limits of the town would be a most unpardonable dereliction of duty." In completely cooperative compliance, the
I
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
1838
Jennisons had married the Flaggs, the Gouldings, the Stowells, and the Heywoods. The Chandlers had married into the Lincoln and Paine families. Rebecca Salisbury had married Daniel Waldo. Their daughter, Martha, had married Levi Lincoln, who became Attor- ney General of the United States. In turn, their son, another Levi, had married a Sever whose mother had been a Chandler.
Thus the marrying tradition had remained consistent. Other Lincolns had married into the Bigelow and Newton families. Curtis and Green clans had inter- Governor Levi Lincoln President of Rural Cemetery, 1838-1840, 1841-1868 mingled, while the Rices, descend- ants of Worcester's first permanent settler, had married the Gouldings and Trowbridges. Francis Blake, who has often been called the most brilliant advocate the Bar of Worcester County has ever produced, had married Elizabeth. Chandler of the famous pre-Revolutionary family.
More recently, George T. Rice had married a daughter of Francis Blake. Because her mother was a Chandler, her cousins were Mrs. John Davis (the Governor's wife) and Mrs. Levi Lincoln (the Ex- governor's wife). Henry Miller, the storekeeper, had not long ago married Nancy Merrick, sister of Pliny Merrick, the State's Attorney. Pliny himself had married Mary, the daughter of Isaiah Thomas. And Thomas Kinnicutt, State Senator, had married Harriet Paine Bradish, granddaughter of Judge Timothy Paine.
There had been a few notable exceptions. Stephen Salisbury, son
2
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
of Worcester's famous storekeeper, had three years ago married Rebekah Dean of Charlestown, New Hampshire. Frederick W. Paine, a native son, had married Anne Cushing Sturgis in a ceremony distinguished as being the first wedding in Boston after it became a city.
Perhaps each generation had its own patchwork design. But because each used the same colors and same fabrics, now even the patterns look alike. A name can often represent any one of five genera- tions. "Which Benjamin is this?", "Which Stephen?", "Which Daniel?", bewildered descendants ask as they read of their ancestors.
Records are confusing, with instance after instance of son, grand- son, and great-grandson having the same Christian name. Three Daniel Heywoods (the first had been Worcester's fourth settler) had kept the famous hotel in the center of town for one hundred years. Four generations of Doctor Greens comforted and "pilled" the town for well over a century. Three Benjamin Flaggs, one a leader of the Minute Men, had been active in town government before the Revolu-
Mansion built in 1836 on Highland Street for Stephen Salisbury II. Coach waits at the side door. The Memorial Auditorium is now located at right in what was once Mr. Salisbury's pear orchard
3
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN 1838
tion, and just as many of their descendants had governed it since. There had been four generations of Jennisons, each with a family of four, each having a William and a Samuel.
By 1838 the enormous holdings of the Chandlers, Worcester's most influential family before the Revolution, had been confiscated and unrecognizable distributed. The thousand acres of Jennison land at the west and east of Lincoln Square and the large Heywood lot in the center of town had also been portioned off into smaller lots.
Many new and pretentious houses were being built. American architecture had broken away from its English and colonial past and had adopted the ancient Greek temple as its symbol. This Greek influence affected the design of American furniture and clothing, and spread even to fire engines and especially to houses. Levi Lincoln, who had been Governor of Massachusetts for nine years, used this Greek Revival pattern for his mansion which he built in 1835 after pushing up a street from Main to the crest of the hill. The street was later named "Elm." Stephen Salisbury, in the following year, had put up another splendid house on Highland Street. This was soon after the birth of his son, who, naturally, had been named Stephen III. Daniel Waldo, Jr., had finished his three-story home on Main Street next to The Worcester Bank of which he was president. There, a bachelor, he lived with his unmarried sisters-Betsey, Rebecca, and Sally.
The Green estate on Green Hill was already a landmark. Three years earlier, the young fifteen-year old Andrew Green, who was later to become known as the Father of Greater New York, had left Worcester for the big city.
Henry Miller had been living at the corner of Chestnut and Pearl Streets since 1830, in the first home to be built west of Main and north of Pleasant. Its cellar boasted the first coal-burning furnace in Massa- chusetts, and upstairs, Mr. Miller had the first washbowl in town. When the Millers had moved to this "remote" location, Mrs. Miller's friends had warned her of the loneliness and danger involved in living so far from civilization.
4
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
George Richardson, a young lawyer and aide-de-camp for Governor John Davis, was living in an elegant house built in 1835 on the corner of Lincoln and Catharine Streets. In the following year, this house was to become the property of the Governor himself. Kendall Street had been opened through the estate of Joseph G. Kendall, Clerk of
-
-
Main Street, about 1838. At right is house of Charles Allen. Next, toward center of picture, is the Meeting House, then the Town Hall. The building at right center was known as the Old Compound, originally a store operated by the Chandler family, later housing several lawyers' offices, including Emory Washburn's. At the left, on Nobility Hill, from left to right are the homes of Benjamin Butman, Judge Ira Barton, Isaac Davis, and Nathaniel Paine
Courts, who had previously served two terms as United States Con- gressman. Ichabod Washburn, the wiremaker, lived in the famous house on Summer Street which had been "raised" in 1829 without "any ardent spirits." This was believed to have been the first instance of the kind in New England. Mr. Washburn, an ardent temperance man, had had to scour the countryside for workmen willing to substi- tute lemonade, crackers and cheese, for rum.
5
The home of Anthony Chase at the corner of what is now Chatham Street. Wall shows elevation of Nobility Hill from Main Street
Along Main Street there were many handsome residences. At the corner of Main and Pleasant lived Judge Nathaniel Paine, whose estate of one hundred acres ran as far as Fruit and Elm Streets.
Farther south, on the other side of the street, lived Charles Allen, the lawyer who was labeled the ablest man of his day, "not even except- ing Daniel Webster." His house was located just across the path from the Common, and was known as the Samuel Flagg place. Directly opposite the Allen home, on the high-browed Nobility Hill, rested a large two-family house. A few years later, by 1842, this home was to be converted into one unit and become the property of Anthony Chase. Mr. Chase was a prominent town officer, and since 1832 had been secretary of the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company. (Later he became its president for twenty-seven years.)
6
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
At the south of the Chase estate was a small path which later developed into Chatham Street. On the other side of this path, George T. Rice, the manufacturer, owned a house. It was at the top of Nobility Hill, a rise very similar in height and appearance to Court Hill at the other end of town.
Benjamin Butman, the wealthy merchant who originally had owned the land as far as what is now Austin Street, lived on the north side of the Chase estate. Next door to him, in one of the old Chandler houses, lived Judge Ira Barton, who had replaced Nathaniel Paine as Judge of Probate in 1836. In the north ell of his house, Judge Barton regularly held his court. His neighbor to the north was Isaac Davis who only two years before had built a resplendent, many- pillared mansion. Between the Barton and Davis homes ran a lane which was known by every child in Worcester as the best coasting place in town.
To all of these homeowners, horticulture was more than an interest. It was an obsession. Within Worcester's boundaries there were some
Town Hall on the Common, facing Front Street. This was Worcester's market place for many years
7
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
of the most beautiful gardens in the state. None of them could compare with the one cared for so attentively by William Lincoln, the tenth child of Levi Lincoln, Senior. Around his garden at the old Lincoln homestead on Lincoln Street, there evolved many romantic legends. Young people strolled through what was known as Lincoln's Grove, and in Lincoln's Pond, neighbors fished for pout and watched William Lincoln and his friends paddling his Indian birch-bark canoe. Close competition across from the Court House was the garden of Edward D. Bangs, the Ex-secretary of State. His garden stretched back across Mill Brook to Summer Street. Frederick W. Paine's garden at The Oaks, the family home on Lincoln Street, was another rival for this badge of beauty.
Although the professions were gaining popularity as means of making a livelihood, everyone was at heart still a farmer. The Agri- cultural Society, started in 1818, was without question the most promi- nent society in town. All of Worcester's leading men were its officers at one time or another, and in 1838, Ex-governor Levi Lincoln was president. William Lincoln, his brother, was chairman of the Com- mittee on Swine. This was considered a position of great dignity, and William Lincoln made the most of it. William, who had com- pleted the first history of the town of Worcester two years before, and was editor of the National Aegis, had a facile pen. His tongue-in- cheek reports for the Swine Committee were often hilarious, and his friends looked forward to them as occasions for hearing the best of wit. He selected his committee members from all over the county; each of them had the name of Bacon!
The most elaborate celebration of the town's year was the Cattle Show. William Lincoln, in a serious moment, wrote of this annual three-day affair: "This festival has given one quiet spot among the conflicts of excited times, when all sects and parties have met to unite closer efforts for the common good."
The Show itself was held on the Common, and the Agricultural Ball, which topped the social season, was held in the town's largest hall. Where to hold it would no longer be a problem because in 1837
8
.....
RICAN TIMITHANCF HOUSE
J PARKAKS INVIARE IL
American Temperance House, on the corner of Main and Foster Streets. This popular stopping place for the stages was originally the Foster home, converted into an inn by Alfred Dwight Foster in 1835
Brinley Hall had been erected on the west side of Main Street. This hall had been promoted by a Boston financier and by Benjamin But- man, a retired Worcester storekeeper who had turned to banking and real estate.
The Ball itself was a formal and festive occasion. An oldtimer later recalled: "I tell you there was very little of the 'Agricultural' about it. All the upper crust people of the village used to attend and the balls were of the gayest possible description."
In the old days, this gay atmosphere might well have been encour- aged by the quantities of hard cider consumed, or, as was once the case, by a "sillabub" party. The recipe for this drink was dramatic: "Put port wine and sugar into a pail and milk the cow directly into it."
It was a far different story in 1838. Three years before, the town had voted that no more licenses should be issued "for ardent spirits." Nine tavern signs had come down, to be replaced by names pro- moting temperance. The new regime presented no problem for the American Temperance House on the corner of Main and Foster. It had been opened in 1835 by Alfred Dwight Foster when he turned his house with the familiar big double piazzas into a public inn.
9
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN 1838
Worcester was but a mirror of other communities in this respect. Temperance was a country-wide controversy. The Minister's Oath, devised by a group of crusading clergymen, had been widely circulated and signed for several years. By subscribing to this document, a person promised to be drunk only on "Christmas Day, Sheepshearing, Inde- pendence Day, and Muster Day." (This last stipulation touched much of the population, because every man from eighteen to forty years of age was enrolled in the militia.) The Minister's Oath was but a first step toward the ideal of total abstinence, a subject thirstily and thoroughly debated.
Temper and Temperance were almost synonymous. One news- paper editor reported: "I perceive that whoever speaks upon the subject manifests his passions at once. In this respect the friends of temperance are as intemperate as their opposites." In fanatical and contagious unbalance, the farmers even began to cut down their orchards, the source of hard cider and apple brandy.
The old pioneers of the town would have been horrified. They had belonged to the age when a man's prosperity had been measured by the number of barrels of cider he kept in his cellar. But by 1838 there were few of the pioneers still living to see the transformation.
Levi Lincoln, Sr., and his wife, Martha, his brother, Abraham, the Bigelows, Stephen Salisbury and Daniel Waldo (the latter two were Worcester's first merchants)-all were gone. Isaiah Thomas, the dynamic leader of so many of Worcester's first enterprises, had died in 1831, and the eminent Judge Dwight Foster in 1823.
The most conspicuous profession in Worcester was that of the law, with an almost embarrassing preponderance of supporters. Statistics listed twenty-two counselors and attorneys, twenty-six Justices of the Peace, and twenty Justices of the Quorum. These included men who were well known in all parts of the nation and were destined for even greater prominence at a later date.
Among them were Charles Allen, Ira Barton, "Honest" John Davis and his nephew, Isaac, and Emory Washburn, who was later to become Governor. Emory Washburn's office in 1838 was in the Old Com-
10
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
pound on Harrington Corner where Judge Chandler and his sons had kept store in the early days of the town. Thomas Kinnicutt, William Lincoln, Pliny Merrick, and John W. Lincoln also represented this group of lawyers. There was, of course, the fearless Rejoice Newton, who reputedly delighted his fellow-lawyers by once telling the full bench of the Supreme Court: "May it please your honors, I have the greatest respect for the opinions of this court-except-except in a few gross cases." There was also George Richardson, who was called "Colonel" because of his being an aide-de-camp for Governor John Davis, and Benjamin Franklin Thomas, the grandson of Isaiah Thomas.
It was before the era of hair-stuffed rocking chairs, carved ma- hogany tables, and luxurious carpets. But the law profession was proud and arrogant, even though its business was dispatched in an atmosphere of flag-bottomed, straight-backed chairs, plain pine desks, and bare, unpainted floors. Law was a strange language to the ordi- nary citizen, and his exaggerated dependence on lawyers for interpreta- tion of it was characteristic of the period.
Although everyone, including the lawyers, thought of law as an extremely serious profession, its exponents apparently had their lighter moments. An old diary reports: "According to immemorial usage, the members of the bar in Worcester devote the afternoon to rolling nine pins."
Certainly nothing, professional or otherwise, prevented these Worcester lawyers from taking active leadership in civic affairs. Almost all of them at one time or another had been town officers, on the Board of Selectmen, State Senators, or Representatives. In January of 1838, Ex-governor Levi Lincoln was a member of the United States Congress. William Lincoln, Simon Gates, Ichabod Washburn, Nathan Heard, Lewis Chapin, and Stephen Salisbury were Representatives at the General Court in Boston. John W. Lincoln (another son of Levi, Sr.) was Sheriff, Artemas Ward was Register of Deeds, and Joseph Kendall, Clerk of Courts. After a spirited campaign between two Whig candi- dates, Thomas Kinnicutt had been elected State Senator over his opponent, Pliny Merrick. John Davis, who had been a United States
II
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
---
L
-
The State Lunatic Hospital in 1838
Congressman before succeeding Mr. Lincoln as Governor of Massachu- setts in 1834, had after two terms been elected Senator of the United States.
Almost without exception, Worcester lawyers were directors of the town's four banks. The oldest, incorporated in 1804, was The Worces- ter Bank. Daniel Waldo was its president. Thomas Kinnicutt had recently replaced Benjamin Butman as president of Central Bank (started in 1828) when Mr. Butman had become president of Citizens Bank at the time of its incorporation in 1836. The Quinsigamond had been founded in 1833; Isaac Davis was its president. President of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, the county's oldest savings bank organized in 1828, was also Daniel Waldo. Its treasurer was Samuel Jennison (he was also cashier of The Worcester Bank) and William Lincoln was its secretary.
The other profession inviting general respect was that of medicine. Medical traditions of the town were linked with names such as Elijah
I2
1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
Dix, William Paine, Joseph Lynde, and Oliver Fiske, but especially with several generations of the Green family. There had been long intervals in town history when a Doctor Green had been the only doctor in town. In 1838 the third Doctor John Green was in partner- ship with his brother-in-law, Doctor Benjamin Heywood, who had married in succession two of Doctor Green's sisters.
Doctor Green was more than six feet tall, as commanding in appearance as he was gentle in his manner. "Not to have seen him," wrote Benjamin Franklin Thomas, "as under that brown, broad- brimmed, soft hat he rolled from side to side in that old, time-honored gig through the streets of the village was to have missed one of the most striking institutions of Worcester."
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.