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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 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01101 6513
THE STORY
OF
ESSEX COUNTY
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/storyofessexcoun01fues
Claude M. Fress
THE STORY
OF
ESSEX COUNTY mars,
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CLAUDE M. FUESS, PH. D., LITT. D. Headmaster, Phillips Academy, Andover
COMPILED BY SCOTT H. PARADISE, M. A., OXON. Instructor in English, Phillips Academy, Andover
VOLUME I
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. NEW YORK
Copyright THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC. 1935
FOREWORD
1140283
$5.00 (4 mal.)
SSEX COUNTY has been called "the most historic county in America." And, indeed, within this small territory on the eastern seaboard many of America's typical institu- tions and accomplishments have their roots. Perhaps no other county in America has produced so many men of high intellect, of sound leadership, of sturdy character, and of constructive states- manship. Naturally with such men have been linked events which have had an abiding influence on the history of our Nation. In Gloucester and Salem is found the real nucleus of the Bay Colony and thus of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. From Salem, Roger Williams, driven out by the Puritan fathers, made his way to Rhode Island, there to establish a new community dedicated to reli- gious toleration and the separation of Church and State. Two months before the Battle of Lexington British troops were turned back from the North Bridge at Salem and were prevented, without bloodshed, from seizing the arms stored there. Essex County fur- nished the swarm of privateers which preyed on British commerce during the Revolution and the War of 1812. Essex County ships later flew the American flag in every port in the world, opened Japan and China to Western commerce, carried the first missionaries to India, and their owners, with true Yankee ingenuity, found a market for New England ice in the Far East and the West Indies.
Essex County has truly been first in many things. Here the first great woolen mills in America arose, the first experiments with steam driven vessels were made, the first temperance newspapers were pub- lished, the first Greek and Hebrew type used in America was set. In Essex County Mary Baker G. Eddy developed the theory behind the Christian Science Church, and here the first great impulse to foreign mission work was given. No one interested in the events and influ- ences which have made the America of today can afford to neglect the history of Essex County.
New England
vi
FOREWORD
There have been several excellent histories of Essex County writ- ten in the past. The intention of the present volumes, however, is to present a more general picture than that of the earlier ones. While they have dealt with the county from the point of view of the indi- vidual towns, this work considers the county as a whole. We feel that something is lost in, for instance, dividing the story of shipping between Salem, Newburyport, and Marblehead, or in dealing in sepa- rate chapters with the manufacturing of Lawrence, Haverhill, and Lynn. After all, these activities are indistinguishable parts of the story of the county as a whole; moreover, most towns have printed their own histories, describing their past in far greater detail than it could be reproduced here. It is believed that this plan presents an account lacking nothing in its record of events, great men, and activities within the county, but gaining a unity in the telling which could not otherwise be secured. It is only thus that the great contribution of this small section of Massachusetts to the history of the United States can be made manifest. Many references have been made to the sources of our information, not to give an exaggerated impression of scholarly accuracy but in the interest of those who may wish to read further on the subject and to give due and grateful acknowledgment to all whose resources have aided us.
Our gratitude goes out wholeheartedly to each one who has given us personal assistance -- and how real that gratitude is can only be appreciated by those who have borne the responsibility of complet- ing a work of this scope. First we should like to thank the members of the Advisory Council who courteously lent the prestige of their names to our endeavors, as follows : Hon. A. Piatt Andrew, Glouces- ter-Congressman, Sixth Massachusetts District; Albert L. Bart- lett,* Haverhill-Genealogist and Historian; Hon. Louis S. Cox, Lawrence-Justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts; Law- rence B. Cushing,* Newburyport; Edward W. Eames, South Byfield -Headmaster, Governor Dummer Academy; Fred H. Eaton, Esq., Lawrence-President of the Bay State Merchants' National Bank: William C. Endicott, Danvers-President of the Massachusetts His- torical Society; Lawrence W. Jenkins, Salem-Assistant Director, Peabody Museum; Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Beverly-Representa- tive in the Massachusetts General Court; Rev. Glenn Tilley Morse, B. D., Newburyport-President of the Historical Society of Old
vii
FOREWORD
Newbury; Rev. Carroll Perry, Ipswich; Dr. John C. Phillips, Wen- ham; James C. Sawyer, Andover-Treasurer of Phillips Academy; Nathaniel Stevens, North Andover-President of the Stevens Mills; Harriet S. Tapley, Salem-Librarian of The Essex Institute; Henry S. Baldwin, Swampscott-President of the Swampscott Historical Society; Rt. Rev. Joseph F. McGlinchey, D. D., I. P. P., V. F., Lynn-Parish Priest of St. Mary's Church, Lynn, and Dean of Essex County; Hon. Charles I. Pettingell, Amesbury; Hon. Alden P. White,* Salem-Judge of Probate and Insolvency Court. Then to those who collaborated in writing the various chapters, and, more- over, completed all the work by the time it was due, goes our most appreciative thanks. Of these writers the majority are our colleagues on the faculty of Phillips Academy. The only exceptions are: Mr. E. T. Brewster, who for many years has been an authority on local geology; Mr. Miner W. Merrick, formerly of the Phillips Academy staff, but now at Episcopal Academy, Overbrook, Pennsylvania ; Mr. Robert K. Vietor and Mr. Edwin B. Mudge, residents of Amesbury, both deeply interested in local history; Katharine (Mrs. Lovell) Thompson, of Beverly, whose experience as a writer is extensive and whose interest in Essex County is great; and Messrs. Ernest S. Dodge and Elroy S. Thompson. The editors particularly wish to thank Miss Harriet S. Tapley, Librarian of The Essex Institute, Salem, who on many occasions graciously put the invaluable material under her care at their disposal. Miss Ruth Alexander has been of invaluable assistance to us in the search for material, and Mrs. Helen Cannon has skilfully done the thankless task of making illegible manuscripts fit to send to the publishers.
CLAUDE M. FUESS, SCOTT H. PARADISE.
*Deceased.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter I-Geologic History
3
Chapter II-Essex County in Indian Times 35
Chapter III-Daily Life and Social Customs in the Early Settlements 73
Chapter IV-Relations Between Indians and White Men. .
125
Chapter V-Natural History 159
Chapter VI -- Witchcraft Hysteria 181
Chapter VII-Early Industries
237
Chapter VIII-The Fisheries of Essex County 275
Chapter IX-Ships and Shipping
339
Chapter X-Agriculture
387
Chapter XI-Later Industries
4II
Chapter XII-The Story of Transportation and Communica- tion in Essex County 457
Chapter XIII-The Military History of Essex County 515
Chapter XIV-Education 547
Chapter XV-Museums and Libraries 593
Chapter XVI-Religion 633
Chapter XVII-Literature in Essex County
689
Chapter XVIII-The Bench and Bar. 743
Chapter XIX-The Political History of Essex County 793
Chapter XX-Medicine and Public Hygiene 829
Chapter XXI-Banks, Banking and Insurance . 881
Chapter XXII-The Press and Publications of Essex County 915
Chapter XXIII-Fraternal Organizations 941
Chapter XXIV-Great Disasters and Strange Phenomena 973
Chapter XXV-Scenery and Sports 1031
Chapter XXVI-Arts and Crafts. IO51
ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUMES I AND II
PAGE
Manchester-Smith Point, Red Cedar
6
Manchester-House Island 13
Magnolia-Under the Pines. 26
Salem-A Section of the Pioneers' Village 42
Salem-Wigwam, Pioneers' Village.
60
Salem-Thatched Frame House, Pioneers' Village
76
Salem-Reproduction of Governor Endicott House, Pioneers' Village on
Riggs Brown House, Riverdale, Gloucester
98
Salem-Philip English House
108
Ipswich-Whipple House
II5
Andover-Historical Map 134
Lynn-Storm Surf
162
Lynn-Lookout Tower, High Rock.
173
"Trial of George Jacobs for Witchcraft' 182
Execution of Mrs. Hibbins. 185
Salem --- Jonathan Corwin House, "Witch House" 196
Arresting a Witch. 222
Saugus Centre-Old Iron Works House 238
Haverhill-Early in the Last Century 253
Gloucester-The Fishermen's Permanent Memorial 280
Gloucester -- Thatcher's Island
300
Gloucester --- A Bit of Waterfront
323
Newburyport-Brown Square
342
Salem-Chestnut Street 367
Salem-John Ward House, Essex Institute Garden 390
Lawrence-Oldest House 404
Lawrence-Lawrence Dam, The Foundation of Lawrence. . . 413
Lawrence-View of City from Reservoir on Tower Hill 441
Public Notice of Stagecoach Service 461
Danvers-Rebecca Nourse House 480
xii
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Salem-Leslie's Retreat at North Bridge
518
Amesbury-High School 522
"Washington's Visit to the First Cotton Mill, Beverly, Octo- ber 20, 1789. 532
Training School-State Teachers' College at Salem.
555
Andover-Phillips Academy ( Portico of the Addison Gallery of American Art) 568
Andover-Phillips Academy ( Interior of the New Chapel) . .
572
Andover-President Coolidge in Academic Procession at Phillips Academy in June, 1928
575
State Teachers' College at Salem
586
Lynn-Looking East
603
Salem-Essex Street, West.
614
Salem-First Church
635
Salem-Pickering Dodge House
662
Salem-Captain John Turner House.
691
Salem-Nathaniel Hawthorne's Birthplace. 708
Amesbury-New (Second District) Courthouse. 751
Newburyport-Michael Dalton House (Dalton Club) 774
Essex Sanitorium, Middleton 831
Lawrence-Masonic Temple 943
Geologic History
Essex-1
CHAPTER I
Geologic History
By Edwin Tenney Brewster, A. M.
It is the fate of a sandbank, especially if it gets buried in the earth, to have its grains cemented one to another by whatever mineral chances locally to be dissolved in the ground-water. It then becomes a sandstone, hard enough ofttimes to quarry out and use. But sand grains are mostly pure quartz. If the mineral in the ground-water chances also to be quartz, this dissolved material may build out each sand grain into a more or less complete crystal. The result is a solid mass of nearly pure quartz, very hard. Such a sandstone is called a quartzite.
Much the same thing may happen to a mud-flat, especially if it is buried deep and heated under pressure. Soft mud, hardened some- what, becomes a shale. Hardened still more, it is a massive slate. Beyond this stage, some of the minerals latent in the original mud begin to separate out in minute crystals, oriented according to the direction of the pressure. The rock is now a roofing-slate, in which one can just see the sparkle of the crystals. The final stage is a schist, in which the crystals are larger, their sparkle is obvious, and the rock tends to be crumbly. A limestone mud goes through much the same processes, ending as marble.
A mixture of sand and mud alters to rocks intermediate between the sandstone-quartzite series and the shale-slate-schist series. The final stage is a gneiss, that looks much like a granite except that it is banded. But a gneiss that originally contained much sand approaches an impure quartzite. One with much clay shades off into a schist. In fact, gneisses and schists are likely to occur together, as the original soft strata varied in the proportions of their material.
4
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
But earth-stuff may melt as well as harden. Such "igneous" rocks may make their way through cracks to appear at the surface as lava flows. Or still remaining deep underground, they may melt their way into surrounding rock, incorporating this into their own mass. Such a fused rock, freezing slowly, forms much larger crystals than does a quick-cooling surface flow.
If the original melt contained much quartz and feldspar, the result, after freezing, is one of the light-colored rocks of which granite is by far the commonest. Much iron and manganese forms a dark gabbro. Between the two lie what are commonly thought of as dark granites that should more properly be called diorites. But there are whiter igneous rocks than granites, and blacker ones than gabbros. Moreover, the series is continuous, each named sort shading both ways into the next with only arbitrary lines between.
Unfortunately, the character of a rock is so much determined by its chemical constitution that a granite, not too cold, squeezed under the load of a mile or two of the earth's crust, may recrystallize into a banded rock hardly to be distinguished from a gneiss that was once an impure sand. In the same way, the darker igneous rocks, diorites for example, may be squeezed over into schists. One cannot, then, always be sure that any particular schist of gneiss was ever sandbank or mud-flat or gravel bar. Both sorts of gneisses and schists occur in Essex County.
Rocks older than Paleozoic form the axis of the Berkshires; for the interior of a mountain range is commonly older than its flanks or the lowlands nearby. Smaller masses of very ancient rock, strung along from Rhode Island northward, help to form the highland of Worcester County, and appear in Essex as some dozen isolated patches, at most a mile or two their longest way. The largest of these in Essex County is two miles southeast of West Newbury vil- lage, about midway between the Merrimac River and the railway. The one easiest to locate underlies the village of Georgetown, taper- ing off to the southwest. A similar patch, a mile south, just touches the north edge of Boxford.
These old rocks are partly quartzites; but Essex County runs more to schists, with some conglomerate and almost the only lime- stone anywhere in the district, the amount much too small to affect the water. Part of the schists are altered slates; but part are still
5
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
more altered volcanic tuffas and lava flows. The original bedding, where it appears at all, has the layers standing almost on edge, and striking generally northeast and southwest, parallel to the Appalachian mountain system to which, in fact, the rocks belong. The beds con- tain no fossils, and their age is not certainly known. They are quite certainly younger than the oldest rocks of the Berkshires, and they may turn out to be early Paleozoic. Little, really, can be made out concerning them. Their area in Essex County is small.
Through much of Middlesex County, from Lowell across to Con- cord and thence southwestward into Connecticut, lies a mass of gneiss the age of which is not known. If, as there is good reason for think- ing, it also is older than Paleozoic, then it is but an outlier of the main mass of the Laurentian Highlands of Canada, which are among the oldest rocks on earth. On the other hand, as New England rocks become more completely known, the general tendency has been to bring down their age. So these gneisses may possibly be late Paleo- zoic, no older than Pennsylvania coal. But whatever their age, they have the proper Appalachian strike, northeast and southwest.
Much of Southern New Hampshire is of this same gneiss. There is a triangular patch of it, five miles on a side, east of Cochichawick Lake in North Andover. A larger strip extends from Southern New Hampshire north of Haverhill well down to North Chelmsford. A still larger mass, coming down from Southern New Hampshire, peters out at Ayer. There is more of it south of Essex County from the Ipswich River almost to Holliston. Everywhere the trend across country of these somewhat narrow strips of gneiss is parallel to the Appalachian folds.
Most persons, seeing this gneiss in fields or by the roadside as they drive by, take it for granite. In truth, it has just about the granite color and texture, so that the weathered surface of the two rocks can hardly be told apart. But in large masses or on a fresh surface the gneiss shows its characteristic banding. The same formation includes also some quartzites and some schists, but not limestone anywhere in Essex County. The rock was once sand, mud, and gravel, and though now greatly altered, it still shows in spots something of the original bedding, even after its millions of years.
The earliest beds of Eastern Massachusetts that contain fossils are of Cambrian age, at the bottom of the Paleozoic. All these fos-
6
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
MANCHESTER-SMITH POINT, RED CEDAR
Courtesy of The Essex Institute
7
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
sils are marine, for the most part shells of molluscs. Little of these rocks remain; in Essex County only three or four small patches of limestone, the largest at East Point at the end of Nahant. There, in 1851, Louis Agassiz found Lower Cambrian fossils. It may well be that those other limestones of the county in which no fossils appear are also Cambrian and not pre-Paleozoic as supposed. Western Mas- sachusetts has limestones, outliers of New York systems, that are certainly Lower Paleozoic.
From near the beginning of the Paleozoic to about its middle was a quiet time in Southern New England. Rocks weathered away, as rocks do. Their fragments washed down the rivers to the sea, form- ing lake floors and flood-plains and deltas on the way, and mud-flats and beaches after they arrived. Little sign of this long history remains in Eastern Massachusetts.
But with the Devonian, just after the middle of the Paleozoic, or somewhat earlier, there are no fossils to date it, came large-scale igneous activity. Vast masses of liquid rock, deep underground, melted their way into the earth's solid crust, and cooling became our familiar granites, or more often in Eastern Massachusetts the some- what darker diorites and related rocks. The results of this outburst, sometimes overlain by younger formations, now appear from Buz- zards Bay to Southern New Hampshire and from the ocean well into Worcester County. All these diorites and granites are not quite the same age, for the heating and the flows were intermittent. Neither are they all alike, for the underground reservoirs had from the begin- ning different materials in their different parts, and later as they melted their way into the surrounding rocks they incorporated these into their own mass and altered to correspond. Different parts, therefore, of original magmas now have somewhat different compo- sition and texture and have to be called locally by different names.
This igneous rock, Devonian or older, underlies the middle por- tion of Essex County in a north and south strip that is in places some fifteen miles wide. At the New Hampshire line, it extends from Amesbury to salt water; its southern limit for the county is at Swamp- scott and Wakefield; Reading, Middleton, and North Andover touch its western edge.
Mostly, the rock is a diorite, medium gray in color, but weather- ing lighter and easily mistaken for a granite. The "soapstone" once
8
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
quarried near Jenkins Corner in Andover appears to be a local variant of the general mass.
After the close of the Devonian, but earlier than the Pennsylvania coal, came another plutonic outburst. This gave to Essex County the hundred square miles of granite that lies east of the Devonian diorite from Ipswich and Danvers to the tip of Cape Ann. There is, besides, an outlier, five miles across, west of Salem, underlying Lynnfield; and another, slightly larger, the other side of Boston and twenty miles away, at Quincy. There is still another patch in Rhode Island, ten miles south of Providence.
This rock, early Carboniferous in age, is the famous Quincy gran- ite that has been quarried both at Quincy and Rockport. It varies greatly from place to place, and may be gray, pink, red, green, or purple.
Late in the Carboniferous, or possibly just after its close, still younger granites invaded the west side of Essex County and the dis- trict beyond as far as Ayer. The youngest important rock of the county is the Andover granite, light colored, that has both white and black mica, and often garnets up to nearly an inch across. It forms Andover Hill, touches Lowell, Lawrence, Middleton, and Wilming- ton, and sends a long and mile-wide tongue clear to Marlborough. Other long tongues invade that gneiss of unknown age already dis- cussed that looks so much like the granite that few indeed ever notice the difference.
In general, then, we have in Essex County three main igneous rocks. On the east, forming Cape Ann and its roots, is the familiar Quincy granite, early Carboniferous in age. Through the middle are diorites and granite-diorites, Devonian or earlier, distinguished from the granites by their darker color, especially on a fresh surface. In the western parts and beyond, are light-colored granites, late Car- boniferous or younger, that are distinguished from the abundant gneisses of the same areas only by the banding of the gneiss. But most of these rocks occur also as outlying patches, a mile or two across, scattered more or less at random, and sometimes five miles from the general mass. One must, therefore, not be surprised at anything.
Two non-igneous rocks, also of the Coal Period, underlie parts of Essex County.
9
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
A hard, gray quartzite floors the Merrimac valley in a strip three and four miles wide, from Lowell northeastward across New Hamp- shire, to reach the sea at Kittery, Maine. In fact, in Maine and New Hampshire, the formation is mapped as Kittery quartzite. Dover touches its edge, and it appears on the coast and inland almost to Portland. It holds up the falls at Lowell and Lawrence, the dams of both cities resting on it. It underlies Lowell, Lawrence, Methuen, Haverhill, Groveland, West Newbury, Merrimac, and part of Ames- bury. Lowell and Haverhill have quarried it.
Naturally, being gray, this Merrimac-Kittery quartzite gets taken for granite. But it shatters differently, into smaller blocks, than a granite. Moreover, in many places there is still visible the original bedding of the ancient sandbank which the formation once was. East- ward, the original sand contained more clay; and the quartzite here approaches a slate. No fossils are certainly known.
Across Worcester County, from New Hampshire into Connecti- cut, in an irregular north-and-south strip, lies one of the most inter- esting and most recognizable formations of the State, the Brimfield schist. A long projection from the main mass extends to Lowell. Small outliers occur as far east as North Andover.
It also is of the Coal Period, an ancient mud-flat, related to the Rhode Island coal and graphite somewhat as the slates of Pennsyl- vania are related to Pennsylvanian coal. It is a beautiful stone, green where fresh-broken, weathering quickly to reds and browns and yel- lows. Alas, it is for the most part too soft to form hills, so that our landscape is dull where it might be gay.
The Brimfield schist contains much iron pyrite, which weathers to copperas. In fact, in Colonial days, this schist was the main source of copperas' for the district; and most Colonial black dyes hereabouts, and the black ink of most Colonial records as well, were compounded from the leachings of this stone. John Winthrop, Jr., about 1640, mined the formation for graphite; others since have tried it for iron. Essex County has only small patches of Brimfield schist, much invaded by later granites.
With the end of the Paleozoic Age, Eastern Massachusetts was virtually complete as to its hard rocks. In fact, the whole of New England was about done, except for portions of the lower Connecticut valley. After the deposition of our eastern coal, came an Ice Age
IO
THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
comparable with that later one which immediately preceded the human period in North America. Unmistakable glacial drift, identi- cal with that formed in Switzerland and Scandinavia now, except that it has become solid rock, occurs at Squantum. There was high land to the east where Massachusetts Bay now is, and the glacial ice flowed westward over the lowlands of Southern New England very much as the Alaskan glaciers flow down to the present-day Pacific. In fact, all the eastern side of the United States, Paleozoic in age, is built of sediments washed westward from a long-departed continent that once lay where the North Atlantic now is. But the lost continent may have been Europe, from which North America floated away sometime after the close of the Paleozoic. In any case, the sedimen- tary rocks of Massachusetts and New York are the wash of rivers that flowed westward, or beaches and mud-flats that were the coasts of a land further east, where there is ocean now.
The Paleozoic Age in North America closed with the uplift of the Appalachian Mountains. The thrust which upheaved these came from the southeast. Therefore, the mountain folds, always at right angles to the force that makes them, trend northeast and southwest, occasionally in New England becoming almost north and south. From this follows the north-and-south course of Hudson River, Berkshire and Green Mountains, and Connecticut Valley. Conspicuous in Essex County and nearby-and even, indeed, to Northern Maine-is the marked northeast-southwest direction of all exposed rocks. But Eastern Massachusetts, though part of the Appalachian system, is much more complicated in its rock structure than, for example, Penn- sylvania, because of the vast amount of granite and other igneous rock in New England. All the rocks of Eastern North America, igneous and stratified alike, which are older than the end of the Paleo- zoic, were mashed and folded by the same Appalachian thrust. But the igneous rocks, and the stratified rocks baked and altered by the hot magmas, behaved most irregularly. Therefore, even now, is the stratigraphy of Eastern Massachusetts not completely made out. .
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