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SKETCHES OF
FRAMINGHAM
by lohn M. Merriam
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Gc 974.402 F843m 1152397
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
at
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 0400
Contida
Please check map in pocket on back cover of book.After each circulation
SKETCHES OF FRAMINGHAM
OUR SOLDIERS LOT
THE TABLET IN HOUSE JOHN NIO
THOMAS NIXON COLONEL IN FIS KROTHE SUGARE
COST AT SAA AUGUST 2 1000
THOMAS NIXON JR FIREN AT CONCORD AND BUNKER HILL ENLISTED SOLDIER SIX YEARS
BORT FRAMINGHAM MARAH 19:1/0 DISC JANUARY 4. 1443
The Nixon Memorial in Edgell Grove Cemetery.
OUR SOLDIERS' LOT "This Tablet in honor of JOHN NIXON Captain of Minute Men at Coucord Colonel at Bunker Hill Brigadier General at Governor's Island and Saratoga ou Council of War with Washington Born Framingham March 1, 1727 Died Middlebury, Vt. March 24, 1815 THOMAS NIXON Colonel in his brother's brigade Born Framingham April 27, 1736 Lost at sea, August 12, 1800 THOMAS NIXON, JR. Fifer at Concord and Bunker Hill Enlisted Soldier six years Captain of Militia, Selectman Boru Framingham March 19, 1762 Died January 4, 1842"
SKETCHES OF FRAMINGHAM
by
JOHN MCKINSTRY MERRIAM Past President of the Framingham Historical and Natural History Society
FRAMINGHAM HELPERS IN THE PERIOD OF REVOLUTION
FRAMINGHAM 100 YEARS AGO from the Massachusetts Tercentenary, 1930
FIFTY YEARS MORE 1900-1950
1950 BELLMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. BOSTON
Copyright, 1950 JOHN M. MERRIAM
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS 1152397 ACTIVE HELPERS FROM FRAMINGHAM IN THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION 11
FRAMINGHAM ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO 77 (Written as of June, 1930, the Massachusetts Tercentenary Anniversary)
Town Meeting of 1832 80
A Stroll About the Common 87
Prominent Buildings in the Square 91
Along Main Street at the Centre 95
Trip through Hastingsville 98
Southwestern Section of Town 100
The Salem End District 103
Homes of Reverends Muzzey and Train 107
Active Citizens of the Time 110
FIFTY YEARS MORE (1900-1950)
119
By Way of Reminiscence 121
I gode pred- 6.0
BOOK I
ACTIVE HELPERS FROM FRAMINGHAM IN THE PERIOD OF REVOLUTION
The Warning - Outbreak - Preparation Struggle - Victory
resulting in
Independence under State and Federal Constitution; with ex- hibits of local interest from the libraries of the American Antiqua- rian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Bostonian Society, the Yale School of Fine Arts, official records in Washing- ton, local histories of William Barry and Josiah H. Temple.
PREFACE
I have offered the manuscript of this study, prepared some years ago for our local Historical Society, to the Committee on the Celebration of the 250th Anniversary of our Act of Incorporation for publication as a part of the program of celebration in such form as the com- mittee may approve, the proceeds, if any, to go toward celebration expenses, and this as a token of gratitude for the blessings of citizenship during the nearly ninety years of family residence.
J. M. M.
Art of Incorporation
Upon a full hearing of the matters in difference be- tween the town of Sherborn and the inhabitants of the plantation of Framingham, containing all that tract of land formerly granted to Thomas Danforth, Esq., next adjoining to Sherborn upon the North and Northerly
ORDERED That the said Plantation called Fram- ingham, be from henceforth a Township, retaining the name of Framingham; and have and enjoy all privi- ledges of a town according to law: Saving unto Sherborn all their rights of land granted by the General Court to the first inhabitants, and those since purchased by exchange with the Indians of Natick, or otherwise, and all the Farms lying within the said Township according to former grants of the General Court.
Consented to
BELLOMONT
(Royal Provincial Governor)
June 25, 1700
ACTIVE HELPERS FROM FRAMINGHAM IN THE
PERIOD OF REVOLUTION
TI HE period of the American Revolution, summarized in Ploetz' Epitome as a "War for Independence" begins with the "Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775," and ends with the "Treaty of Peace signed at Paris and Versailles, September 3, 1783." But the his- tory of the Revolution, as told by Edward Channing, opens with "The Beginning of an Era" in 1760 when William Pitt ordered the enforcement of the Sugar Act of 1733, restricting the trade of the Colonies with the West Indies, and concludes with adoption of our Na- tional Constitution in 1789 "At the End of the Era." The American Revolution was an Era of State Develop- ment rather than a Period of Military Strife.
But I think Channing has not recognized the real beginning. There was an earlier date, which to me marks the beginning of this era and a certain associa- tion with Framingham within the scope of my subject. The annulment of the Colonial Charter with the right of election of magistrates in 1684, and the substitution of the hated Provincial Charter with royal governors appointed by the Crown, planted the seed of revolution, and Thomas Danforth, the grantee of this area which later became our Framingham, was among the first to give the warning. Among the Danforth papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society following the restora-
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ACTIVE HELPERS
tion of Charles II in 1660, I have found a statement written at length in Danforth's hand and signed by him, as follows :-
"Before I take the oath of Allegiance to his Majesty, which I am ready to do, I do declare that I will be so understood as not to infringe the liberty and privileges granted in his Majesty's royal char- ter to this colony of the Massachusetts Bay. Thomas Danforth.
When the oath was given me, I thus openly de- clared, and a copy hereof is left on file under my hand." In this grave crisis Danforth has been refer- red to as "the idol of the people."
But such warning was in vain. Year after year brought increasing discontent, repressive measures were adopted, condemned even in England by Edmund Burke in his "Conciliation with America," and finally British soldiers were sent here under the presumed necessity to preserve internal order. Two regiments of Red Coats arrived in Boston September 28, 1768. Their presence added fuel to the smouldering fire, and the explosion came March 5, 1770. The weather was cold with snow on the ground. The sentinel at the Customs House near the Old State House was pelted with snow balls. He called for aid. Soldiers arrived with loaded guns. Threats were exchanged with taunts. Finally a volley was fired at close range and three men, one of them Crispus Attucks of Framingham, were killed on the spot, and two were fatally wounded. Attucks was a slave owned by William
៛
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The Arms picture of the Boston Massacre; Crispus Attucks is central figure.
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
Brown, a leading citizen of Framingham to whom I shall refer later. He ran away from his master in 1750 and is thus described in an advertisement in the Boston Gazette: "a mullato fellow, about 27 years of age - 6 feet 2 inches high." There is this further description in Temple's history, Crispus was "well informed, and ex- cept in the instance referred to in the advertisement was faithful to his master. He was a good judge of cattle and was allowed to buy and sell upon his own judgment of their value. He was fond of a sea faring life, and probably with the consent of his master was accustomed to take coasting voyages." And here is what John Adams said of him in the trial of Captain Preston, "Attucks was seen about eight minutes before the firing at head of twenty or thirty sailors in Cornhill, and had in his hand a large cord wood stick. He was a stout fellow, whose very looks were enough to terrify any person. When he came down upon the soldiers at the sentry box they pushed him off, but he cried 'Don't be afraid of them. They dare not fire. Kill them! Knock them over!'" This photostat of the original picture by Thomas A. Arms, in the Library of the Bostonian So- ciety, justifies this description.
The significance of this event is evidenced by the successive celebrations of the fifth of March. In every year until 1783 this day was observed very much as the Fourth of July in later years. In 1771 James Lovell was the orator, in 1772 Joseph Warren, in 1773 Benjamin Church, in 1774 John Hancock and in 1775 Warren delivered an impassioned address which we read today with genuine admiration. Listen to this passage:
"You will maintain your rights, or perish in the generous struggle. However difficult the combat, you will never decline it when freedom is our prize.
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ACTIVE HELPERS
An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No: our wish is, that Great Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength together. But, whilst the infatuated plan of making one part of the empire slaves to the other is persisted in, the interest and safety of Britain as well as the colonies require that the wise meas- ures recommended by the honorable the Con- tinental Congress be steadily pursued, whereby the unnatural contest between a parent honored and a child beloved may probably be brought to such an issue as that the peace and happiness of both may be established upon a lasting basis. But if these pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from our foes, but will undauntedly press forward until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adored goddess, Liberty, on the American throne."
The erection of the Boston Massacre monument on Boston Common in 1889 caused a discussion at a meet- ing of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester in October of that year at which I was present, and I well remember the occasion. Dr. Andrew Preston Pea- body, beloved by a long procession of Harvard gradu- ates, presented the report of the Council. This included an obituary notice of Peleg W. Chandler. He gave credit to Mr. Chandler for his "American Criminal Trials," containing authentic reports of the most important criminal cases and conspicuous among them, the trial of Captain Preston and his soldiers, "for what (and I quote Dr. Peabody's words) is miscalled the Boston Massacre, which was very plainly proved by abundant
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
and uncontradicted evidence to have been an act of self-defence against a drunken and brutal mob. Had our Governor or the Chairman of the Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives taken the trouble to read this narrative, we should have been spared the hideous monument on the Tremont street side of the Boston Common, which commemorates equally the degradation of art and the falsification of history." A footnote states that "for the opinion here expressed the writer of the Report assumes the sole re- sponsibility."
Dr. Lucius R. Paige, Historian of Cambridge, moved that the report of the Council be referred to the Com- mittee of Publication, adding, "While I do this, I wish to avail myself of the privilege that Dr. Peabody grants to every member of the Society, to say that while I have been very much interested in his report generally, I still, in regard to the 'Boston Massacre,' adhere to the opinion which I believe was the universal opinion for the first hundred years after the events occurred. I wish to be considered as dissenting from what has been said in regard to that. As long as no argument was offered on that side, I offer none on the other. I merely state my dissent.' "
And then Senator Hoar, Vice President of the Society, added these impromptu words, speaking with unusual earnestness:
"There are two things, which, it seems to me, the critics who condemn the people of Boston so severe- ly fail to understand. I do not doubt they all under- stand as well as those who differ from them, what Dr. Peabody understands better than most men, that there is a difference in the government of States between righteousness and wickedness, be-
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ACTIVE HELPERS
tween freedom and tyranny, between usurpation and law. But they do not reflect that there are oc- casions when tyranny and oppression get possession of the forces of government and the forms of law. What are you to do then? Are you to wait till you have converted the tyrant to your side by pacific argument? Should our Fathers have waited till they had brought George III to change his policy by reasoning with him? I do not think much progress would have been made in that direction. There is a time when men, knowing perfectly well that all the dominant forces of the world, the constable, and the crown, and the throne, and the judge are on the other side, take their lives in their hands and pre- cipitate themselves against the cannon or the bay- onet in the hands of their antagonists. Nothing else will so arouse the world to the issue. The deed they do is under seal. That is what our people did at the time of the Boston Massacre, with the deep unerring instinct which the common people of New England have always shown when questions of liberty were in issue. The crown had, in strict law, undoubted right to put those regiments on Boston Common. But it was as gross an insult to the people of Massachusetts to do it, as it would be today should the government of the United States muster the regular army on Boston Common as a threat to the people when they were pursuing their peaceful way. The men in the ropewalk and Cris- pus Attucks and those who fell with him felt the presence of these troops as an insult, which they were ready to resent at whatever cost.
"Now there is one other thing that these critics do not understand. That is, how keen and suscept-
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
ible a sense of honor they have, whom we sometimes call the lower classes, and how sensitive they are to a public insult. They have not the satisfactions of property, of wealth, of letters, of education. But they have a supreme satisfaction in the honor of their country. They have, as the history of the late Rebellion shows, as intense a suffering and shame when it is disgraced, as ever dwells in the heart of the child of fortune or rank. These people, when the fist of the British government was thrust against their noses, felt the insult. They resented it in the only way they had to resent it. They ex- pressed their love of freedom in a way that could not be mistaken, and at the risk of their lives."
So much for the signs of the approaching conflict. Let me now turn to matters of preparation. Changes in the agencies of government are matters not as well known as the military events. The Royal Governor was no longer obeyed. Thomas Hutchinson, bereft of power, left his beautiful estate of Milton and went broken- hearted back to England in 1773. General Thomas Gage, the Civil Governor in name was obeyed only by the English soldiers. The General Court under the Provincial charter, assembled in Salem October 5, 1774, waited a day for the Governor to appear and then or- ganized as a new body with the name Provincial Con- gress. This Provincial Congress is aptly described by Abner W. Braley in Hart's Commonwealth History of Massachusetts as a "hold over government." Here is
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ACTIVE HELPERS
the record. "The First Congress established at Salem October 7, 1774, met once at Concord, twice at Cam- bridge and was dissolved December 10, 1774. The Sec- ond Congress met at Cambridge February 1, 1775, twice at Concord and finally at Watertown, when it dissolved May 29, 1775. The Third Provincial Congress met at Watertown May 31, 1775, and dissolved there July 19, 1775." These successive Congresses were the real local government. Appointments were made of Council, Com- mittee of Safety and other Committees and a Collector Treasurer.
Lorenzo Sabine in his address "Framingham in the Revolution" before our Middlesex South Agricultural Society, March 14, 1853, published by our Historical Society in 1933, gives credit to Framingham for work done by our delegates in the Provincial Congress, Josiah Stone, William Brown and Joseph Haven. Josiah Stone was one of the most active delegates. He was placed upon important Committees. Deacon William Brown, the owner of Crispus Attucks, was a delegate to the First and to the Third Congress. Sabine, however, has found no particular record of his service there, but he states that previous to 1774 he had taken a prominent part in the Revolutionary controversy and was con- nected with the most important measures of the town. He' adds, "More fortunate than either of his associates, he lived to see the Independence of his country ac- knowledged, and the Union of the States, under the present Government. He died at the close of the year 1793, aged 70." Joseph Haven, an aged man, was less active than his colleague Mr. Stone. He had represented the town in the General Court as early as 1754. In 1774 he was a member of the Committee of Correspondence and in the same year of the Convention of Whigs of
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
Middlesex County, at Concord, to consider the state of public affairs. In Congress he was excused by his advanced years from the deliberations of the Committee room. He died early in the year 1776 at the age of 78.
In this period of preparation there was a Committee of Safety of the Provincial Congress with Committees of Correspondence in each town. The Framingham dele- gates to the Congress were members of the local com- mittee and, in addition, we find the names in 1775 of Ebenezer Marshall, David Haven, Maj. Trowbridge, Capt. Daniel Stone, Lt. Lawson Buckminster, Gideon Haven and John Shattuck. The committee was con- tinued from year to year in about this same manner.
The Provincial Congress, October 26, 1774, provided for the enlistment of soldiers under the term "minute men." Here is the form of enlistment circulated in Framingham with Simon Edgell as the first signer:
"We, the subscribers, from a sense of our duty to preserve our Liberties and Privileges; And in compliance with the Resolves of the Provincial Congress, together with the desire of our superior officers, voluntarily enlist ourselves Minute-men, and promise to hold ourselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice, if requested by the officers we shall hereafter elect."
Two companies of Minute Men were organized in Framingham in December, 1774, one of 68 with Simon Edgell, Captain; Thomas Drury, First Lt .; Lawson Buckminster, 2nd Lt .; and the other of 60 men with Thomas Nixon, Captain; Micajah Gleason, Ist Lt .; and John Eames, 2nd Lt. There was also a Militia company with Jesse Eames, Captain and John Shattuck, Lt.
We are told by Temple that:
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ACTIVE HELPERS
"These companies at once put themselves in active drill in the manual, and field manoeuvre. Each man was required to provide himself with a musket, bayonet, cartridge-box, and thirty-six rounds of ammunition. The companies met as often as once a week; and squads of the men, by arrangement, would meet at the houses of the officers, and spend evenings going through the man- ual exercise. Says one of them: 'I have spent many an evening, with a number of my near neighbors, going through the exercise in the barn floor, with my mittens on.' "
There is this interesting record of one of these drills as recorded in a diary by Ensign DeBernier, a spy with Captain Brown, sent out by General Gage:
"We arrived at Buckminster's tavern about six o'clock that evening. The company of militia were exercising near the house, and an hour after they came and performed their feats before the windows of the room we were in; we did not feel very easy a't seeing such a number so very near us; however, they did not know who we were, and took little or no notice of us. After they had done their exercise, one of their commanders spoke a very eloquent speech, recommending patience, coolness and brav- ery (which indeed they much wanted); particularly told them they would always conquer if they did not break; and recommended them to charge us coolly, and wait for our fire, and everything would succeed with them - quotes Caesar and Pompey, brigadiers Putnam and Ward, and all such great men; put them in mind of Cape Breton, and all the battles they had gained for his majesty in the
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
last war, and observed that the regulars must have been ruined but for them. After so learned and spirited harangue, he dismissed the parade, and the whole company came into the house and drank until nine o'clock and then returned to their re- spective homes full of pot-valor."
And Sabine adds:
"As Capt. Simon Edgell had command of the 'minute-men' at that time he was probably the offi- cer who addressed them on this occasion. His critics may be dismissed with a smile. Within two months of the parade and speech at Buckminster's the en- terprise into the country projected by Governor Gage was undertaken by a different route, and the Captain and his 'pot-valiant' men met the King's troops at Lexington."
With such preparation Framingham responded to the call which came on the morning of April 19, 1775. The alarm was given here before eight o'clock by the ringing of the church bells and the firing of guns. With- in an hour, our soldiers were on the way led by Captains Edgell, Micajah Gleason and Jesse Eames, some prob- ably assembling on the training field near the Buck- minster Tavern, others leaving their homes to join with companies along the way. The probable route was by the Old Connecticut Path, through East Sudbury or Wayland to the Concord-Lincoln line. Temple records:
"Our companies reached Concord, not in season to join in the fray at the North bridge, but in sea- son to join in the pursuit of the flying British col- umn. From the evidence preserved, it appears that a part of our men participated in the daring as- sault at Meriam's corner, and that all had arrived
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ACTIVE HELPERS
and were active in the more successful attacks in the Lincoln woods."
The total of men on the official list as responding to the Concord alarm is 153 out of a total population of 1,500, practically every available male of serviceable age.
In Allen French's "The Day at Concord and Lexing- ton" one of the most authoritative of the Concord studies, I find this reference to the Framingham men. "Before the British were well in'to Lincoln, through a corner of which the road runs, the men of Framingham from the South, and the men from Woburn on the East were taking part."
The Provincial Congress on April twenty-third called for 13,500 men to enlist for eight months' service. The leaders of the Framingham men immediately were com- missioned officers, John Nixon, who, though living in Framingham, had led the Sudbury minute men to the Concord south bridge, was tendered a commission as Colonel, April twenty-third, and had nine sets of beating papers put in his hands, each one calling for the enlist- ment of "56 able bodied and effective men," including sergeants, as soldiers in the Massachusetts service for the promotion of American Liberty! His brother Thomas was Lt. Col., Micajah Gleason and Thomas Drury were among his captains. Out of the 153 men who had left their homes the morning of the nineteenth, only eight returned the next day, all of the others re- maining in the service for longer or shorter periods.
And at this time Jonathan Brewer, born in Framing- ham but living in Waltham, was made a Colonel with ten sets of beating papers, and David Brewer, a brother, also born in Framingham, but living in Palmer, was
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FROM FRAMINGHAM
commissioned Colonel with beating papers for nine companies.
And on June sixteenth and seventeenth came the Battle of Bunker Hill, and among the soldiers 'taking part there were three Regiments commanded by natives of Framingham. Furthermore Col. John Nixon was Field Officer on the seventeenth and as such was among the first to start for the battlefield and take his position near the rail fence.
Temple says that Colonels Brewer and Nixon were among the first to arrive. Frothingham in his Siege of Boston says that the original detachment under Colonel Prescott was at the redoubt and breastwork, and was joined, just previous to the action, by portions of Massa- chusetts regiments under Colonels Brewer, Nixon, Woodbridge, Little and Major Moore, and one com- pany of artillery, Callender's. Colonel Swett states "that previous to the action Colonels Brewer, Nixon, Wood- bridge, and Major Moore brought on their troops, each about three hundred men." Judge Needham Maynard, who was with General Warren as an aide, says that Nixon was stationed at the hay breastwork below the gap. Temple says that Nixon's men had thirteen rounds of ammunition. As the British came on for the first attack Prescott moved among his men cautioning them to hold their fire, to wait for his order, and then to "fire low," to "aim at their waistbands" and to "pick off the commanders." After the repulse the British re- formed and advanced for the second attack. In this advance at least one shot was fired as if a similar com- mand had been given by a British officer, and Colonel Nixon had been selected as the mark. He fell "severely wounded," as Temple puts it, "and had to be carried off the field." Lossing states that he received a wound
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