USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 9
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At the meeting in the auditorium of the Taunton high school building, October 13, 1919, the opportunity was accepted to affiliate with the Massachusetts Teachers' Federation. President, P. Byron Reid, Taunton; Vice-Presidents, Albert H. Coch- rane, Taunton, Miss Mary W. Hart, Fall River, and Miss Harriet Fogg, Attleboro; Secretary, Miss Addie F. Hopkins, Taunton; Treasurer, Charles E. Reed, Fall River. The B. M. C. Durfee high school, Fall River, was the place of meeting, October 22, 1920. Speakers of prominence: Commissioner John H. Finley, Dr. John M. Thomas,
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Dr. M. Andress, Deputy Commissioner Robert O. Small, Oscar G. Gallagher. Presi- dent, Miss Mary W. Hart, Fall River; Vice-President, Miss Bessie A. Verder, Fall River; Treasurer, John . E. Robinson, Fall River. October 28, 1921, B. M. C.' Durfee high school, Fall River. New officers: Vice-Presidents, C. E. Prior, Fairhaven, Miss Abby Hill, Attleboro, and Miss Mary Hoye, Taunton; Secretary, Miss Grace C. Moore, Fall River. Principal speakers: Professor Dallas Lore Sharp, Boston University; Thomas H. Briggs, Columbia University; Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education; Frank W. Wright, Deputy Commissioner State Board of Education; William L. Phelps, Yale University.
October 27, 1922, at New Bedford high school building, with eighteen hundred teachers in attendance. President, Miss Mary E. O'Connor, Taunton; Vice-Presidents, Miss Helen Thomas, Fall River, and Edward T. N. Sadler, New Bedford; Secretary, Miss Elsie A. Salthouse, Taunton; Treasurer, Louis D. Cook, New Bedford. Promi- nent speakers: Dr. Walter E. Fernald, Professor Leonard V. Koos, Frank W. Wright, Laura Zerbes, Thomas H. Quigley, Dr. William McAndrew.
BRISTOL COUNTY W. C. T. U.
For the organization of the Bristol County Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union, delegates from the different unions throughout the county convened in Taunton March 27, 1885. Miss Tobey, State President, ex- plained the need and use of a county union. The latter was formed with the following named officers: President, Mrs. F. K. Chase, North Digh- ton; Secretary, Mrs. Henry Rice, North Attleboro; Treasurer, Mrs. W. W. Waterman, Taunton, and the unions represented were those of Attle- boro, North Dighton, Raynham, Taunton, North Attleboro, Fall River, New Bedford, Nantucket. The following-named officers were elected in September : President, Mrs. Eliza Gifford, New Bedford; Secretary, Mrs. E. D. Horton, Attleboro; Treasurer, Mrs. William B. Durfee, Fall River. At the meeting of September 16, 1885, Cottage City. Union was added, and Mrs. Aydelott of Fall River was elected president. During this time there were four meetings a year. March 10, 1886, two other unions sent delegates-Fall River and New Bedford. On January 12, 1887, Attleboro and North Attleboro sent delegates.
March 9, 1887, Mrs. H. E. Hall, of Taunton, was made treasurer. December 4th that year it was announced that the annual meeting would be held in September; other meetings, the second Wednesday in January and May, instead of quarterly. September 12, 1888, Mrs. Montgomery, was elected president; Mrs. Ruth Murray, secretary; Mrs. H. E. Hall, treasurer. September 11, 1889, Mrs. J. D. Weeks was elected secretary; September 22, 1893, Mrs. R. F. B. Rounds, treasurer; September 11, 1896, Mrs. Rounds was chosen secretary, and Mrs. Myra Higgins, treasurer. September 24, 1900, Mrs. Julia F. Weeks, treasurer; November 6, Mrs. E. B. Lamb, secretary; September 27, 1907, Mrs. Myrtie A. Spooner, treasurer. September 25, 1908, Mrs. E. B. Lamb was made county vice-president ; Mrs. Myrtie A. Spooner, secretary; and Mrs. Cora Boodry, treasurer. September 21, 1911, Mrs. Lamb was made president, and Mrs. Mont- gomery was made honorary president. October 27, 1911, Mrs. Ione E. Pitts was recommended as county treasurer. September 25, 1914, Mrs. Jennie Gifford was appointed county vice-president at large; September 16, 1915, the county dues were raised to ten cents per capita ; Mrs. Irene Bliss was appointed vice-president at large; September 18, 1918, Mrs. Nel- lie W. Benton was appointed county vice-president at large, Mrs. Irene
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Bliss, assistant secretary. September 16, 1920, Mrs. Myrtie A. Spooner was elected president; Mrs. Irene Bliss, secretary. The county officers at the present time (1923) are: Mrs. Myrtie A. Spooner, president; Mrs. Nellie W. Benton, vice-president; Mrs. Irene A. Bliss, secretary; Mrs. Ione E. Pitts, treasurer.
CHAPTER VI THE STEAM RAILROAD WITHIN THE COUNTY, PUBLIC UTILITIES, ETC.
The steam railroad story of Bristol county can be traced back by means of some of its ramifications almost a century, to the time when wood-burning engines were in use, and the first of the passenger cars were in shape and size like the stage coaches that themselves were slowly giving way to the iron rail and the more modern mode of travel. The history of the railroad companies here had beginnings in the early thirties, and has progressed to the present hour, but only through a most intri- cate network of changes, transfers and consolidations; wherein a score of old railroad institutions have altogether lost their former title, and be- come amalgamated with those successive companies that have eventually merged with the later corporations. No comparative figures are at hand, but it is doubtful if any other county in New England has a record at all similar to Bristol in this one regard.
In the following statistical narrative, no special effort has been made to recount the history in detail of any one railroad, nor that of any of the branches of the county railroads that have shared in the transportation record of the State outside these bounds-like the Granite and the Agri- cultural lines, for example. Such a narrative would be voluminous. En- deavor has been made to recall those lines, solely, that have operated within the county; and it is through the courtesy of Mr. A. P. Russell, Valuation Counsel of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and of Mr. H. E. Astley, superintendent of the Taunton Division of that road, that the following facts have been ascertained.
The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company is now the controlling corporation of the steam railroad institutions of this county; and the following, singly and in groups, are the smaller rail- roads that, after many changes in their own names and organizations, form, some of them, links in the chain, most of them separate chains, but all finally to be attached to the present central organization.
First, let the present-day statement of basic fact be made that the Old Colony Railroad Company, a title that will most frequently appear, is leased to and operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, that lease expiring in the year 1992, the date of the present incorporation being March 7, 1872, and of the organization, Oc- tober 1, 1872. The present road was operated by the Old Colony Rail- road Company until March, 1893, and from that time to the present by the company now in control.
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The Old Colony Railroad Company that was chartered March 16, 1844, to build a railroad from Boston to Plymouth, was first opened for traffic, November 10, 1845. During a succession of years a number of roads were built by it outside this county; and eventually, on March 26, 1854, when the Fall River railroad became consolidated with it, the former name was changed to Old Colony & Fall River Railroad Company. Again, on March 27, 1872, the old name, Old Colony Railroad Company, was the one used for incorporating, when the Old Colony & Newport Railway Company and the Cape Cod Railway Company united and formed the one corporation. Previously, in 1838, an Old Colony Railroad Corpora- tion had been formed, and its name had been changed in 1839 to the New Bedford & Taunton Railroad Company, and this road will be referred to later.
The Taunton Branch Railroad Company, one of the earliest, was incorporated in 1835, its road from Mansfield to Taunton, about ten miles, being operated in 1836, when joint use was obtained, with the New Bed- ford and the Fall River corporation, of the road from Mansfield to New Bedford. The road from Attleboro to Attleboro Junction was opened under this control August 1, 1871. The railroad of the Weir Branch Corporation (incorporated 1847) and its own properties consolidated in 1874 with the New Bedford Railroad Company (No. 1), as New Bedford Railroad Company (No. 2).
The New Bedford Railroad Company (No. 1), incorporated in 1873, was that year deeded to the New Bedford Railroad Corporation, that, incorporated in 1839, first opened its road from Taunton to New Bedford, July 2, 1840. In 1873 also, lease was given the Boston, Clinton & Fitch- burg Railroad Company, and the extension of the road was made in New Bedford to the steamboat wharf.
The New Bedford Railroad Company (No. 2) was also incorporated in 1873, and it was that year leased to the Boston, Clinton & Fitchburg Railroad Company; and it was consolidated with it in 1876 as the Boston, Clinton, Fitchburg & New Bedford Railroad. This road, January 31, 1879, leased its property to the Old Colony Railroad Company for 99 years from that date; and on March 6, 1883, it was united with the Old Colony Railroad Company under the name of the latter.
The Fall River Branch Railroad Company, incorporated March 4, 1844, opened its branch from Central street in Fall River to Myricks (about 10.8 miles), June 9, 1845, this road consolidating in 1846 with the Middleboro Corporation as the United Middleboro Corporation. Mean- time the Fall River Railroad Company (No. 1) had opened its branch from South Braintree to Myricks, and from Central street, Fall River, to the steamboat wharf (about 30.5 miles) December 21, 1846.
The Fall River Railroad Company (No. 1), incorporated April 16, 1846, authorized the United Corporation of the Middleboro Railroad Cor- poration with the Fall River Branch Railroad Company and the Randolph & Bridgewater Railroad Corporation. These old Middleboro companies were the predecessors of the Middleboro and Taunton Railroad Corpora- tion, incorporated in 1853, which owned and operated the road extending from Middleboro to Middleboro Junction, eight miles in length; it con- veyed its property and franchise to the Old Colony Railroad Company in 1874.
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By an Act of March 25, 1854, the Fall River Railroad company (No. 1) was authorized to unite with the Old Colony Corporation, under the name of the Old Colony and Fall River Railroad Company, and August 5, 1863, the Old Colony and Fall River Railroad Company and the Newport and Fall River Railroad Company (incorporated in 1846) united into one company under the name of the Old Colony and Newport Rail- way Company. Its road, extending from Central street, Fall River, to Newport (about 19 miles), was opened February 5, 1864. Three years later, the Fall River and Warren Railroad Company was incorporated, which authorized the construction of the road from the Rhode Island State line in Swansea, to Fall River. This road united with a road of reversed title, the Warren and Fall River Railroad Company, in 1862, as the Fall River, Warren and Providence Railroad Company; the latter was deeded to the Old Colony Railroad Company in 1875.
The Dighton and Somerset Railroad Company, that was incorporated February, 1863, opened from Mayflower Park to Stoughton Junction, and from North Easton to Somerset Junction (about 32.8 miles) September 24, 1866. Operated by the Boston and Providence Corporation in 1855, it was deeded to the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company in 1879. A short road that had been deeded to it'in 1872 was the Easton Branch Railroad from Stoughton to North Easton, that had been opened May 16, 1855.
The Fairhaven Branch Railroad Company, incorporated May 1, 1849, began to operate its road, Fairhaven to Tremont (about 15 miles), Oc- tober 2, 1854; and the next year, the proprietors of the New Bedford and Fairhaven Ferry (incorporated 1832) opened their means of travel. The Fairhaven Branch was merged with the New Bedford and Taunton Rail- road Corporation July 1, 1861.
The Attleboro Branch Railroad Company was incorporated March 19, 1870, and constructed a' road from the Boston and Providence railroad to North Attleboro. The road was operated in January, 1871, and was leased to the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation. This lease was transferred to the Old Colony Railroad Company in 1888, and it ceased to operate as a steam railroad in 1903. The Boston and Providence itself was leased to the Old Colony in 1888, and that lease was assumed by the present railroad corporation.
In brief, these are the main facts concerning other smaller lines that have been absorbed: The Mansfield and Framingham Railway Company Mansfield to South Framingham (about 21 miles), was operated May 1, 1870; and the New Bedford Railroad Company, Wamsutta street to Steamboat wharf, was opened July 1, 1873. In 1881 the Old Colony Railroad Company constructed the branch from Whittenton Junction to Whittenton Mills, and in September, 1882, an extension was made from Whittenton Mills to Raynham. On April 1 of that year the Old Colony Railroad Company leased the railroad and property of the Fall River Railroad Company (No. 2), from Watuppa to Mount Pleasant, for 99 years; and on November 12, 1896, the latter company conveyed its property and franchises to the Old Colony Railroad Company-the branch from Matfield to Easton having been opened January 1, 1888. A branch was opened for travel by the Old Colony Railroad Company from Walpole Junction to North Attleboro, December 1, 1890.
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One of the early connecting links of the seventies, and that much interested the county, was the following: In 1872 the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company, mention of which has been made, was au- thorized to construct a joint highway and railroad bridge across Taunton Great river, known as Slade's Ferry bridge, from Fall River to Somerset; and the Fall River, Warren and Providence Railroad Company was also authorized to extend the railroad in Somerset to the west end of the bridge. Later, the bridge was constructed by the Old Colony Railroad Company, and opened December 6, 1875; and the railroad from the west end of the bridge to the Fall River, Warren and Providence railroad was also constructed by the Old Colony Railroad Company, and opened at the same time. The old ferry from Brayton Point to Fall River, operated by the Fall River, Warren and Providence Railroad Company, was then discontinued. All the stocks and bonds of the latter railroad were pur- chased in 1873 by the Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation, and these were transferred to the Old Colony Railroad Company December 1, 1875, and the legal title was passed to the latter company in 1892.
As to the merging of the railroad with various steamboat interests: In 1874, the Old Colony Railroad Company was authorized to hold shares in the capital stock of the steamboat companies (in connection with its railroad) to the islands in Vineyard Sound, or to New York City. There- fore, in 1886, the Nantucket and Cape Cod Steamboat Company was con- solidated with the New Bedford, Vineyard and Nantasket Steamboat Company, under the name of the New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamboat Company. In 1893, upon the lease of the Old Colony Railroad Company to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, the former owned four hundred shares of the stock of the steamboat company. This stock was sold in 1910 to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, which then acquired the balance of the stock of the steamboat company, and it is now owned by the New England Navigation Company.
Again, in 1874, the Old Colony Railroad Company purchased 7500 shares, more than a majority of the capital stock of the Old Colony Steam- boat company; and on March 1, 1893, at the time of the transfer of the interests of the old road to the new, the former secured 9673 shares of a total of 12,000 shares, and the balance of the stock being acquired by it, on November 13, 1903, it was sold to the New England Navigation Com- pany.
Steamboat service between Fall River and New York was established in 1845 by Colonel Durfee and his brother, of Fall River, the title being the Bay State Steamboat Company. In 1863 the Bay State Steamboat Company transferred its interests to the Boston, Newport and New York Steamboat Company, the terminal of the new company being New- port-this being the year the Old Colony and Fall River Railroad Com- pany completed its extension to Newport. After the Civil War, Fall River was again made the terminus of the route, when the Boston, Newport and New York Steamboat Company and the Bristol Line consolidated. In 1874 the Old Colony Steamboat Company took control, and direction of the New Bedford line was secured in 1879. These, in their turn, were taken over by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
PART II.
HISTORY OF TAUNTON
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TAUNTON-THE COMMON, WITH OLD COURT HOUSE
HISTORY OF TAUNTON
CHAPTER I.
FIRST SETTLEMENT
Upon the gradual effacement of Indian village and encampment, there presently began and throve within the present county bounds of Bristol the villages and the towns of a race that should soon dominate here, as their Aryan forefathers had done in the course of scores of other migra- tory eras in Asia and Europe, ages before America was dreamed of by Europeans. As the white race, ever restless, swarmed from overseas and sought out places here and there for their western homes, it came about that a place should soon be secured for Taunton of New England.
Yet the Taunton settlement was not made by seizure or conquest, but by peaceful purchase and occupancy, and there is no record nor tradi- tion extant of any antagonistic measures taken by the Indians to prevent the founding of this town. And it is true, also, that the original dwellers here avoided, even during the Indian wars, such disastrous dealings to people and property as were the rule in other sections of the county. The Indian had diminished in numbers hereabouts-a recurring plague, whether or no of influenza, as some believe, that had prevailed about the year 1617, being assigned as the principal cause-and the menace of any native dis- approval, en masse, was still nearly forty years in the future.
Old Colony lands had been bargained for and bought for practical valuations satisfactory to the original holders-clothing, farm tools, hunt- ing and fishing implements that the Red Men valued more than they did their lands; and the Plymouth General Court had established laws that should prevent indiscriminate buying of lands, by any one, without the sanction and advice of that body of law-makers. Where Taunton now is, and near the falls of Mill river, the Indian encampment of Cohannet, or Quahannock, meaning "the river falls," awaited the inevitable exchange, where the first holders should give way, and the new-comers occupy.
The reason for the immigrants' town-building here had to do with the result of the general search for new homes and more lands by those in- creasing arrivals at Dorchester and near-by new settlements. Several towns were founded at about this time, and for the same cause, the Euro- peans pushing their way into the wilderness for an independent means of living. Other solutions than that of the desire of independence, either for industry or religious worship, can be only conjectural. Mostly of Non-conformist groups while in England, the settlers had come to New England in the hope of bettering their condition, both secular and religious.
The immigrants to the Taunton or Cohannet neighborhood halted at or near the river and the ponds. Where the bordering lands were of proven fertility, the Indians had been used to raising corn, the river itself providing vast quantities of herring in their season, that were made use of both as food and as means of fertilizing still further the land. The late Senator George N. Goff often told the writer that credible traditions of
Bristol-5
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his family had it that the first comers along the river found no trouble in securing literally tons of fish in the spring, which, either ploughed into the ground, or set into the hills with the beans and corn, was the source of the production of rich crops. But, as the years passed on, the too abundant use of such fertilizer became the cause of the deterioration of the primitive value of the soil. Then, besides the fish, the river was the known means of transportation; water power was available for mills in prospect; timber grew in abundance; and there was plenty of wood for the winter fires. These, taken together, are not mere hearsay reasons for the coming of the white man, but the practical, established report of the warranted traditions of three hundred years.
We are aware of the presence here of John Winthrop, Jr., in 1636, and of his letter to Governor John Winthrop, his father, in regard to his exploration of the Tetiquet river and adjacent country. We do not know what his errand here was, but records of New England industry show that he was a leader in bog-iron working at Lynn and Braintree, and that he had prospected to a great extent that part of the country for possible iron- working. History has not revealed the cause of his brief sojourn along the Tetiquet, neither can we conjecture here; but we do know that in about fifteen years from that time, Taunton's early settlers had formed a company here for the manufacture of iron. In his letter, Winthrop re- ported "very fertyle and rich ground here," and within three years the settlers had assured themselves that that statement was true. We have told in the general history of the county how Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins, with the Indian Squanto, on their way to Montaup (Mount Hope), had passed through the future Taunton lands in 1621, and of their particular satisfaction with the appearance of the country.
But at length we peruse the most vital and interesting record of those times, as regards the founders. It is in Governor John Winthrop's "His- tory of New England," dated 1637, that he has set down this statement: "This year a plantation was begun at Tetiquett, by a gentle woman, an ancient maid, one Miss Poole. She came late thither, and endured much hardships, and lost much cattle." And this statement in the Winthrop letter is confirmative, too, of the "Poole Family Records," still preserved at Taunton, England, which inform us that in 1635, "Elizabeth, ninth child, third daughter of Sir William Poole, and aged about 50 years, is now in New England."
Such, in their original brevity and not to be gainsaid, constitute the announcements of the first arrival here, that of Elizabeth Poole, daughter of a baronet, and whose brother William was later to train Taunton men in the use of arms. No one can with certainty state what was the motive for her removing in this direction from Dorchester-whether religious or industrial. Yet there is an authenticated record that Elizabeth Poole and members of her family, while residing in England, were interesting them- selves in certain salt-works in New England. Among the "Uncalendared Proceedings of the Court of Charles I." is that to the effect that Miss Poole and her brothers, Sir John and Periam, were among the associates of Rev. John White of Dorchester, who had some interest in salt-works at Cape Ann during the years 1623 to 1628. Eventually, then, she had arrived at Tetiquet, and there bought lands of the Indian owners, known as
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FIRST SETTLEMENT
Josiah, Peter and David, for a jack-knife and a peck of beans, as tradition has it. The lands thus purchased she designated as her Littleworth and Shute farms, named for English estates in possession of her family. Money had no currency value to the Indians, though money was also paid them from time to time by the Europeans; a jack-knife, to them, was a sign of riches; beans meant more food for the nomad. The phrase "Taunton was bought for a. jack-knife and a peck of beans" is often made use of today, but usually without a conception of the originating circumstances.
The bounds of Miss Poole's property are not exactly known, with the exception that the brook called Littleworth bounded the Littleworth farm on the west, and that it was joined with the Shute farm on the south. Another tradition has pointed out the Cain house, on Precinct road, near the foot of Caswell street, as the site of the first home of Miss Poole, and a hillock to the west as the site of the place where she kept her cattle that first hard winter. It is understood that the boundaries of Miss Poole's properties encroached upon lands of an Indian reservation as set aside by the General Court at Plymouth, though it is also known that at the time of the Poole purchase there had been made no formal recognition of the reservation on the part of the Indians. As time went on, portions of these lands, for this reason, gradually passed from her possession, and she was given certain allotments in Cohannet.
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