USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Ancient Middlesex with brief biographical sketches of the men who have served the country officially since its settlement > Part 2
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Among other things of interest in connection with the court records of ancient Middlesex, it is recorded in 1640 that Charles- town possessed "a Water-Mill near Spot Pond."
The County Court held in "Charles-Towne" June 9, 1656,
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Mr. Bellingham, Deputy Governor and Captain David Gookin, Majors Willard and Appleton sitting as assistants, entered up the following judgment in the first divorce proceedings com- menced in the courts of Middlesex :-
"William Clemence craving a divorce from his wife; do judge it not meet to grant them a divorce at present, but do order that they both owne each other according to their marriage covenant, and that upon complaint made such party as shall be found faulty in refusing so to do shall be severally punished."
December 27, 1659, the court fixed the County Recorder's salary at £6 13s 4d for the year !
April 2, 1661, the keeper of the County Prison was allowed €5 per annum !
April 3, 1660, "In presence of the court," one Thomas Browneing, a burglar, was branded in the forehead with a let- ter B.
June, 1657, the Court passed an order directing the "com- mittee on erection of Misticke Bridge" to "impress any car- penters or sawyers for a fortnight's labor or less." This must have been identical in location with the bridge now existing at Medford square, over which the travel of northeastern Middle- sex and most of Essex and the province of Maine passed in colo- nial times.
It is very evident that the custom of illegal voting is not of recent origin, as the General Court more than 250 years ago found it necessary to enact the following order : "It is ordered, if any person shall put in more than one paper or bean for the choice of any officer, he shall forfite ten pounds for every offence. and any man that is not free, puting in any vote shall forfite ten pounds." It was a common custom with our forefathers to use Indian corn and beans as a substitute for written or printed ballots in voting for candidates at town and other elections; if the kernels of corn were in the majority it indicated an election, otherwise a defeat : in this manner the voting continued on one name at a time until someone was elected. The General Court also enacted the following : "Noe person, either man or woman. shall hereafter make, buy, or wear, any apparell with any lace on it, gold, silk, or threade, or any gold or silver girdles, etc," de-
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claring that the "excessive wearing of lace and other superflui- ties" tended "to the nourishing of pride and exhausting of men's estates." The "eating of cake or buns except at burials, mar- riages, and such like occasions" was also prohibited by statute, and so was the wearing of "short sleeves" by women, "whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered." and the wearing of "longe hair" by men, being "prejudicial to the public good, any one persisting therein should be presented to the next Court." The observance of Christmas was looked upon as a species of idolatry, punishable as a crime similar to those convicted of the "throwing of dice or the playing of cards !" It is a matter of in- terest to the present generation to know that flesh as an article of food, except in the form of fish or game, was practically un- known to the common people of New England, until after the ex- piration of the first century of immigration; their oxen were necessary as beasts of burden, their cows indispensable for milk and the reproduction of their species, and their sheep for wool. Fowl were scarce and useful for their eggs, so that no domestic animal could be spared for slaughter. Hasty pudding, hominy, milk, and a sort of porridge, or compound of odds and ends, con- stituted the ordinary meal, baked beans and brown bread having been introduced at a much later period. Cooking utensils were few and simple, while knives and forks were not in common use even in the old country, until many years after the settlement of Middlesex ; the fingers of our Puritan ancestors being quite as handy as forks for the solids, while rude wooden spoons answered for the liquids and for other purposes. As late as the days of Queen "Bess," it was expected that each guest at an English- man's feast would bring his own knife, with which to carve from the food furnished by the host, eating the pieces from the fingers. Wooden ware was in common use, the well-to-do using pewter. Tea and coffee were not imported to any extent for several gener- ations after the advent of the first settlers. Coffee was not intro- duced into the mother country until more than thirty years after the landing of the Pilgrims, and tea as late as 1728 was selling at a price which prohibited its use except by the nobility or others of great wealth, viz .: at from eight to ten dollars a pound. The capacity of the farming community for the consumption of cider
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about the Revolutionary period must have been prodigious; in- deed, many of them could have drank but little else. It was un- doubtedly used at every meal. Most of the farms during the later Colonial days were overrun with wild apple trees, the fruit of which was fit only for cider. It is related that a Carlisle far- mer rolled into his cellar one hundred barrels of cider every fall, taking them out to be re-filled the next season. As this large amount was all consumed by his family, it would furnish each member thereof with two and one-half gallons every day in the year! We have also the evidence contained in ancient wills, where provision was made for the support of widows, that about that amount of cider per capita was considered a necessity. In June, 1777, the Selectmen of Concord fixed the prices to be charged for all commodities, including labor. Common laborers were allowed sixty-three cents per day, and carpenters sixty-seven. As early as 1741 the Selectmen of Chelmsford es- tablished a similar code for the regulation of wages and prices of almost every article in common use. As an illustration of values 164 years ago, wood could be bought at that time in that town for thirty-seven cents a cord! All who varied the rates established by the Selectmen were deemed "monopolists and public enemies," and prosecuted accordingly. Legislation to restrict and punish monopolies is nothing new.
Middlesex County, since the days of the Spragues, of Winthrop, and other pioneers of the Western wilderness, has become a mighty power in this Commonwealth. The dawn of the twentieth century casts its refulgent splendor upon more than five hundred and sixty-five thousand souls, scattered over an area of eight hundred square miles within its forty-three towns and eleven cities ; a population nearly equalling that of the County of Suffolk, its only rival within this Commonwealth; greater than that of any city save New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis, and outstripping the recent census of twenty-two of the states and territories of our Union! The waters of its four prin- cipal rivers, the Charles, Concord, Nashua, and Merrimack, from their sources to the sea, probably drive more spindles than all others in America, and, it may be, than those of any four rivers in the world. Her first court house was burned in Cambridge in
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1671. History gives no intimation as to the erection of this building, but as early as March 3, 1635, Cambridge was desig- nated as one of the four towns in Massachusetts Colony where courts should be held, Ipswich, Salem, and Boston being the others. While it is certain that the Cambridge Court House was the first erected, it is equally certain that Charlestown also pos- sessed County buildings of some kind at a very early period, the location of which cannot be definitely fixed, but it is believed that they were on the east side of the present City Hall square. Con- cord was a shire town from 1692 until 1867, a period of one hun- dred and seventy-five years, and Lowell has been thus honored since 1836. For a brief period courts were also held in Groton. Her population is increasing with greater rapidity than any other county, two of her municipalities, Everett and Melrose (now a city), showing the largest gains in the Commonwealth by the last state census, and she has within her borders one-third of all the cities of the Commonwealth .*
*It is interesting to note that no attempt to disrupt the territory of Ancient Middlesex through the formation of a new county has been suc. cessful, although the scheme was attempted as early as 120 years ago The following communication, never heretofore published, was and is to-day a convincing argument against such action. The insatiate and overpowering greed of the city of Boston, however, swallowed up the town of Brighton in 1874, and the historic municipality of Charlestown disappeared from Ancient Middlesex and from the map the same year, from the same cause, after an honorable existence of almost 250 years .- [Ed.
Cambridge, 10th May, 1784.
Gentlemen: The subscribers being appointed by the inhabitants of this town, a committee for taking all proper measures to prevent a divi - sion of this county, as requested by the inhabitants of the towns of Hop- kinton, Holliston, Sherburn, and Natick, beg leave to lay their reasons before you for your consideration, and to desire your co-operation either by a communication of your sentiments to us, or by an instruction to your representative.
There are already as many terms of the supreme judicial court as can be attended with any tolerable convenience to them or the people at large, during that part of the year which is suitable for traveling. To multiply counties is therefore only increasing the evil and multiplying the embarrassments of a law suit, so far as respects an appeal. It is evident that the multiplication of counties necessarily increases the influ-
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The suly. inon Bragtwho
All the glamor and all the weird and fancied charms of the dim and distant past are with us as we speculate upon the pro- found mysteries locked up within the relics of that amphitheatre on the banks of the Charles, where the hardy Norsemen are said to have builded a city and worshipped their Deities almost a thousand years ago ; or, as we conjure up the illustrious names and the glorious records of those pioneers of American civiliza- tion who with their descendants in many generations have adorned the bench, pleaded at the bar, or left the stamp of char- acter upon the institutions of this grand old county of ours : Thomas Dudley, Simon Bradstreet, Peter Bulkely, Increase Nowell, Simon Willard, of the long ago, and Edward Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry D.
ence of government, by increasing the number of commissions in their gift. We do not mean that it gives the laws greater energy, for, if that was the consequence, we should not object. But it increases that kind of influence by which any measures of government may be enforced, whether constitutional or not. It appears to us equally true that two courts cannot sit for the same expense as will suffice for only one court. Not only two sets of judges are to be paid, but all the inferior officers and attendants on a court, as well juries as others. Admitting that by the division there will be less business for each, yet there will be, upon the whole, an increase of travel and every other charge incident to the holding of a court, and, at the same time, a greater probability of the business being imperfectly done, there being in the case of little business but small encouragement to study and to understand the laws.
You will also recollect that the support of county buildings and other charges of that kind will necessarily be increased by multiplying coun- ties. We cannot think that the increase of charge by an unnecessary, even granting it to be a convenient, multiplication of offices is wisely contrived at a time when the necessary expenses of government are as great as can easily be borne. There is undoubtedly a time when divi- sions of this kind may with propriety take place. That time will be when the business of the counties cannot be done in their present form. While it can be done, and through the neglect or incapacity of any offi- cer is not done, there is another and it appears to us a much less expen-
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Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Henry W. Longfellow, all na- tives or residents of Middlesex County, with scores of others liv- ing and dead, whose brilliant thoughts in later years have en- riched the literature and ennobled the art of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Poter Bulkeloy. 16Ag. EnTEN afo Blowoff 1649 simon willand 165%.
A brief review of the life work of a few of the early settlers, as well as that of some of the natives of Middlesex who have ad- vanced to a foremost rank in public service or in the develop- ment of commerce, mechanics, science, literature, or art, is in- teresting and profitable. Among the first is
sive remedy. Upon the whole, if these or any other reasons which you may think of are convincing to you, we shall hope for your support, and whether your sentiments be for or against the proposed division, we are desirous of a friendly communication of them.
We are, gentlemen, with respect,
Your very humble servants,
To the Selectmen of Littleton.
JAMES WINTHROP, CALEB GANNETT, WILLIAM WINTHROP,
James Winthrop was a graduate of Harvard in 1767 (son of Profes- sor John); Register Probate from 1775 to 1817. He was fifth in descent from Governor John Winthrop.
William Winthrop was a graduate of Harvard in 1770 (son of Pro- fessor John, of Harvard); Register Deeds, 1784 to 1794. He was a brother of James.
Caleb Gannett was a public-spirited citizen of Cambridge .- [ED.
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Rev. John Harvard,
1635
Whose name is as common as a household word, yet of whom little is known save that he was born near St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, a suburb of London, where the entry of his baptism still exists in the church register, with the date, Novem- ber 29, 1607. His father seems to have "purveyed meat until the plague removed him." The son matriculated at Emmanuel Col- lege, Cambridge, married Anne Sadler, and became a Puritan minister, but does not appear to have had a settlement. He was possessed of a modest inheritance, and came to this country ac- companied by his wife in 1637. He was a young man of not more than thirty years, and in delicate health. Shortly after his arrival, he united with the First Church in Charlestown, and died of consumption the following year, September 14, 1638, leaving one-half his worldly estate, viz., f ?? 9, and a library of three hun- dred volumes to a school which the General Court had previ- ously agreed to establish and endow with the sum of £400. This "school or college," was ordered by the Court on November 15. 1637, to be established at "Newe Towne." With the money, of which it is doubtful if the college received more than one-half. and the library thus donated, buildings were erected and fur- nished, and a career initiated which, in the Providence of Al- mighty God, has advanced this humble "school or college" to the front rank of educational institutions in America. In grateful remembrance of its benefactor, the name of "Harvard" was at- tached to the infant institution, and that of "Cambridge" to the little hamlet of "Newe Towne," in token of the famous English university from which he graduated. In the Phipps-street burial ground at Charlestown, an interesting relic of Colonial days, the curious may view a modest monument, upon which is inscribed the name of this foremost American benefactor of science, litera- ture, and the arts. Many have and others may excel the sum of his dowry, but none can ever approach the mighty influence which has resulted from that timely, though humble, contribution to the majesty of education and the dignity of human attainments.
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Col. Loammi Baldwin,
Zoommi Baldwin Sheriff
Third in descent from Henry Baldwin, a subscriber to the "Town Orders" for Woburn in 1640. He was born in North Woburn, January 10, 1744, and died there October 10, 1807, aged sixty-three. From an enlisted man in 1925, he was rapidly pro- moted to the colonelcy of the Twenty-sixth Massachusetts Regi- ment, in the command of which he participated in the re-crossing of the Delaware and in the Battle of Trenton. He was in 1780 the first Sheriff of Middlesex County after the adoption of the constitution, and it was while he held this office that his duties called him to an obscure section of the little town of Wilmington, where his attention was attracted by an extraordinary gathering of woodpeckers upon an apple tree which stood by itself in an open field. On investigation, he discovered that the fruit of the tree was of an excellent, but unknown, variety. Gathering scions, he not only grafted them upon his own trees, but scat- tered them broadcast throughout the County of Middlesex. In this way was brought to public notice the "Baldwin" apple, un- surpassed in hardihood and productiveness, which has added mil- lions to the farmers' revenue throughout the North, and after the expiration of a century of cultivation, stands without a peer as a winter fruit. The original tree was destroyed by a severe gale in 1815. It was a chance production without the intervention of man, and may be claimed as indigenous to the soil of ancient Middlesex and a veritable boon to the science of pomology .* He was Representative from 1128 to 1729 and from 1800 to 1805.
*In a letter written by Colonel Baldwin to Count Rumford Novem- ber 4. 1799, is the following interesting reference, viz .: "In the cask of "fruit . . . there are half a dozen apples of the growth of my farm. "wrapped up in papers with the name of Baldwin apples written upon "them. . . . It would gratify me much to know the true English name "for them. However. I rather doubt whether the nice character of this "apple will answer exactly to any particular species of the English fruit, "'as it is (as I believe) a spontaneous production of this country."
.
BENJAMIN THOMPSON, COUNT OF RUMFORD. See page 31.
HON. LOAMMI BALDWIN, JR., " FATHER OF CIVIL ENGINEERING IN AMERICA."
In 1825, Designer of the Shaft Erected on Bunker Hill, and from 1827 to 1834 Builder of the Famous Dry Docks at the Charlestown and Norfolk Navy Yards. Born in Woburn, May 16, 1780. Died in Charlestown, June 30, 1838, aged 58.
Photographed by Baldwin Coolidge of Boston from a Painting by Chester Harding, the Property of Mrs. Wm. A. Griffiths of Quebec, Canada. See page 29,
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Colonel Baldwin is also noted as a promoter and one of the principal constructors of the famous Middlesex canal (the first of its kind in America) which connected the Merrimack with the Charles. It was commenced in 1794 (Colonel Baldwin digging the first spadeful of turf September 10), and completed in 1803. October 3, 1859, the Supreme Court declared the franchise for- feited, the canal having been abandoned.
He was the friend, companion, and schoolmate of Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford, elsewhere mentioned, and was lionored with a degree by Harvard. The Baldwin ancestral man- sion is now standing, and is pronounced one of the finest exam- ples of colonial architecture in New England. It is said to be the oldest house in town. Colonel Baldwin was the father of
Hon. Loammi Baldwin, Jr.,
L Baldiom.
Born May 16, 1780, fitted for college at Westford Academy, and graduated at Harvard, class of 1800, in which was Wash- ington Allston, the artist (a bosom friend), and Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw. He essayed the profession of law, but while studying with Hon. Timothy Bigelow, at Groton, was confronted with a new light, which changed his whole course in life, and gave to his country the services of one who has been proclaimed by competent authority as the "Father of Civil Engineering in America." The incident at Groton was as follows: A disastrous fire having occurred in the village, which might have been pre- vented by suitable fire appliances, the young student went to work and constructed with his own hands in 1802 a fire engine, which Dr. Samuel A. Green, the eminent historian of Groton, as- sitres us was in perfect working order, and could throw a stream over any building in town eighty-seven years after its construc- tion, and it is in active commission to-day, after the expiration of one hundred and two years of service.
Relinquishing the study of law, he devoted himself to me- chanics and engineering. Two noted memorials to his skill in constructon have stood the test of time, viz., the dry docks at the
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navy yards in Charlestown and Norfolk, both of which in their class are unexcelled to this day. When consulted regarding the former, he was in doubt, and said to the Secretary of the Treasury : " What if I should fail?" "Then we will hang you," was the laconic reply. These docks were built between 1827 and 1834.
With Professor George Ticknor, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Samuel Swett, and Washington Allston, he served upon a committee, of which he was chairman, and reported to the monument associa- tion on July 1, 1825, a specific plan for the building of an obelisk on Bunker Hill, which plan was adopted and the shaft erected. He was Treasurer of the town of Cambridge in 1816, Councillor in 1835, and Presidential Elector in 1836, casting his vote for Daniel Webster. He died in Charlestown June 30, 1838, aged fifty-eight.
Hon. Richard Sanger of Sherborn
Ismael Langer 1775. Sam: Porter,.
Deserves more than passing notice, and so also does Rev. Samuel Porter, who was settled in that town as its third minister in 1134. Upon the farm of Captain Samuel, a son of Richard, originated the famous "Porter" apple, second to none of its class. Some accounts state that it was a product of the farm of Mr. Porter, who perhaps lived upon the property at that time, but all agree that the name came from him, and that both he and the captain distributed the scions from the tree both far and wide. As late as 1830, the stump of the original tree might still be seen upon the Sanger estate. Richard Sanger was elected a Repre- sentative to the Continental Congress, convened in Cambridge February 1, 1775. With Rev. Samuel Locke, president of Har- vard from 1:20 to 1473, and Jedediah Phipps, who manufactured saltpetre for the Continentals, he was of the committee of corre- spondence. His son, Captain Samuel, was an inn keeper, and is represented to have been a man of deep piety. He had the honor of entertaining General Washington while passing through Sher- born. Like the "Baldwin," the "Porter" apple was indigenous
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to the soil of ancient Middlesex, although it originated at the op- posite end of the county. As a favorite autumn fruit, it has maintained a commanding position for more than one hundred and fifty years, and honored the pomological standing of the town and county which gave it birth.
Sherborn is an ancient settlement, to which was called as the first minister in 1679 Daniel Gookin, Jr., a graduate of Harvard, and son of Major-General Daniel Gookin, Superintendent of the Praying Indians of the Apostle Eliot. The town was settled in 1652 and incorporated in 1644. It is said that the first cider-mill in the colony was established here, and it is also claimed that the most extensive one in America is in operation there to-day.
Among the many who have broadened the avenues of science, we may point to
Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford*
Rumford. hele fifteenth 197.
A Middlesex boy of the Colonial period, born March 26. 1753, in a Woburn farmhouse now standing. A descendant in the fifth generation from Lieutenant James Tompson, who came over with Winthrop in 1630, was a member of the first Board of
* Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford. Knight of the illustrious orders of the White Eagle and of St. Stanislaus, Lieutenant-General in the service of His Majesty the King of Bavaria.
Note .- The foregoing titles were attached to Rumford's will, wherein Harvard College was made his residuary legatee, and out of which was established the "Rumford Professorship." The signature is a fac-simile of the one attached to a gift of $5,000 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It has been truly said that to the country of his birth he bequeathed his fortune and his fame .- [Ed.
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Selectmen of Woburn in 1644, and died September 14, 1693. The mother of Benjamin was left a widow when her child was less than two years old. She was descended from William Si- monds, an original settler, her father being Lieutenant James Simonds, who served with great bravery in the French and Eng- lish wars.
Games firmante
Her boy had but brief opportunities for schooling, but at the age of fourteen, according to his own statement, he had calculated a solar eclipse within four seconds of accuracy. At the age of thirteen he had left school and was bound out as an apprentice, but used every available moment to improve his mind. In 1768 and 1769 he was teaching school in Wilmington, and in 1770, at the age of seventeen, he also taught at Rumford, N. H., now the city of Concord, where his friendship with Wentworth, the Royalist governor, caused him to become an object of sus- picion to the patriots, by whom he was placed under arrest, but reluctantly released through the efforts of his bosom friend, Loammi Baldwin. Later on he was proclaimed as an enemy to his country, and his estate was sequestered. Protesting his inno- cence, and stung to the quick by these accusations, he hastily and perhaps unwisely left for England just prior to the Revolution, where his skilful address and superior abilities attracted the at- tention of George the Third, by whom he was knighted, and later on he became Minister of War and Grand Chamberlain to Charles Frederick, the Elector of Bavaria, and finally, as Count Rumford "of the Holy Roman Empire," a title conferred by his friend, the Elector, became renowned the world over as an en- lightened philanthropist and a most eminent man of science. His death occurred at Auteuil, in France, August 21, 1814, aged sixty-two. While he was still living, the citizens of Munich erected a beautiful cenotaph, surmounted by a statue, commeno- rative of his distinguished services in behalf of the people of Bavaria. It is erected upon a spot which his genius had trans- formed from a repulsive waste to an earthly paradise, and bears upon its several sides these inscriptions :-
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