USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Ancient Middlesex with brief biographical sketches of the men who have served the country officially since its settlement > Part 4
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His deep piety is shown in the following sentence, whichi concludes his instructions to Captain Sill and his company of Charlestown, Watertown, and Cambridge men, when they were sent forth against King Philip November 2, 1675: "So desiring the ever loving Lord God to accompany you and your company with his gracious conduct and presence, and that he will for Christ's sake appear in all the mounts of difficulty and cover all your heads in the day of battle, and deliver the bloodthirsty and
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cruel enemy of God and his people into your hands, and make you executioners of his just indignation upon them and return you victorious unto us, I commit you and your company unto God." He was Selectman of Cambridge from 1660 to 1672: Representative from 1649 to 1651, being Speaker of the House during the latter year. He was an Assistant from 1652 to 1686, except in 1676, when he suffered defeat through his friendship for the "praying Indians," and his endeavors to protect them from a frenzied outburst of popular passion. He was also the confiden- tial agent of Oliver Cromwell, and entrusted by him with several important commissions especially relating to colonization of the West Indian Islands. He was a friend of both Goffe and Whalley, the regicides, and was accused of a desire to protect them from arrest. He died March 19, 1686-7, aged seventy-five years.
Deputy Gov. Thomas Danforth
Was born in Framlingham, Suffolk, England, in 1622, and came to Cambridge in 1634, where he became one of the wealthiest and most distinguished men of Middlesex. That he was a man of remarkable character, wonderful energy, and supe- rior abilities may be inferred from the broad range of his public services during a career of more than fifty years, all of which is related in detail under the caption of "Clerks of Court," he having been the first in the line.
His death occurred November 5, 1699, aged seventy-seven. He left no descendants in the male line.
There being "nothing new under the sun." it is fair to sup- pose that the "Ku Klux Klan" of the South must have been mod- elled from "Ye new society A. B. C. D." of Eliot's day. Listen to their warning: "Boston, February 28, 1675. Reader, thou art desired not to suppress this paper, but to promote its designe, which is to certify (those traytors to their King and country) Guggins and Danforth, that some generous spirits have owed them destraction, as Christians wee warne them to prepare for death, for though they will deservedly dye, yet we wish the health of their souls. By ye newe society, A. B. C. D."
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One of these warning hand bills is still in existence. When we turn to the record of the life work of both "Guggins and Dan - forth," it is needless to add that threats were of no avail against such men except to defeat Mr. Gookin's election as Assistant in 1676, a single instance, to be triumphantly vindicated at the next election. and to temporarily embarrass Mr. Danforth in a similar way. They had no fear of man. "the eternal God being their refuge."
In opposition to the common opinions and practices of the leading men of his day. Mr. Eliot was professedly a teetotaler. and without doubt the first apostle of temperance in America.
L'sing nothing but water himself, he said of wine: "It is a noble, generous liquor, and we should be humbly thankful for it ; but, as I remember, water was made before it."
Through his efforts, the General Court in 1651 was induced to grant 6,000 acres to the "praying Indians," at that time gath- ered at a place in Middlesex called Natick, signifying in their language "a place of hills." It mainly occupied the territory of the present town retaining that name. It is distinguished as being the first town government in North America, officered and solely managed for a term of years by the aborigines, and it is worthy of note that during many years after the whites had ob- tained the ascendency, the town records were kept in both the English and Mohican dialects. Natick was an Indian town from 1651 to 1262, a period of one hundred and eleven years. In 1826 the Natick Indians were extinct. Mr. Eliot not only framed a civil and judicial form, based on Mosaic law, for the government of this settlement, but spent much of his time among them. Under his spiritual advice and direction, many of these Indians developed into pious and devout teachers of the word of God. spreading far and wide the glad tidings of the gospel of Jestis Christ, until several similar communities were established and ministered to within the limits of Middlesex County. Most of them had unpronounceable, but appropriate. Indian names, and were located at places now known as Marlboro, Chelmsford, Groton. Littleton, Concord, and Ashland, with two settlements in Lowell, one known as Wamesit, at the junction of the Concord and Merrimack, at one time a portion of Tewksbury, and the
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other at Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack, at that time within the territory of Dracut. In 1653 Mr. Eliot remained several days with the "Pawtuckets," sometimes called the "Wamesits," administering to their temporal as well as spiritual needs. The "Eliot" Memorial Church in Lowell is said to occupy the iden- tical spot whereon he frequently preached.
Under his watchful care and parental guidance, they grew in grace and prospered, until their numbers in the "praying bands" had increased, in the aggregate, to about eleven hundred souls, and they had built some churches. But alas! there came a time when the poor savage learned to his everlasting sorrow that his designation as a "praying Indian" was to be used by unscrupu- lous and designing men only as a byword and reproach, and that the holy ways of the meek and sanctified Eliot were in no sense the ways of the world. Notwithstanding the fact that these "praying Indians" were often called upon by the authorities to act with the settlers against their own people during the bloody conflicts of King Philip's war, and many freely offered their lives in defense of English hearthstones, yet, through the overpowering avarice of some and the hatred and treachery of others, scores were driven out of their habitations and away from valuable lands coveted by their persecutors, to perish in the wil- derness through exposure, hunger, and disease, while others, de- prived of their most sacred rights by our Puritan ancestors, were sold into slavery, thrown into prison on the slightest pretext, or slaughtered in whole families without provocation. Occasionally some one was brought to the bar of justice and suitably punished for such unholy atrocities, but the cases were rare, although it is recorded by Daniel Gookin, heretofore mentioned as a bosom friend of Mr. Eliot, and who at that time was Superintendent of all "submissive Indians," in an "historical account of the doings and sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in 1675-6 and 7," that, on petition of "certain Christian Indians," one Daniel Hoare, a son of John Hoare, of Concord, ancestor of the present illustrious family of that name, was convicted in 1676 and sentenced to death, with three others, for the murder of three of the women and three of the children of the "praying Indians." Hoare was subsequently pardoned, but two of his associates in
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crime, Daniel and Stephen Goble, were executed. John Hoare, father of Daniel, was a consistent friend of the "submissive" In- dians. He was as potent, intellectually, in his day as are his de- scendants in ours, if we may judge of his merits from such frag- mentary evidence as exists in the history of Colonial times.
It has been estimated that the Indian tribes hereabouts in New England numbered nearly 3,000 souls, of whom about one- quarter had been influenced in the direction of Christianity by the efforts of Mr. Eliot. Had this large number given their fighting braves to the hostile tribes who were continually using their powers in this direction, it is doubtful if the whites could have escaped utter annihilation. Notwithstanding their atrocious treatment, many of these faithful Indians, true to the instincts of savage warfare, donned the moccasin, and in the habiliments of the seout stealthily tracked the warriors of King Philip, dealing death and destruction wherever they went. In this way alone, according to the records of General Gookin, more than 400 en- emies of the colonists were slain by men of their own blood. An lieroic example of fidelity, in contrast to acts of perfidy and treachery by the colonists.
In the words of the charter brought over by John Winthrop, these trusting children were to be guided by the settlers "to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of mankind." Let us hope that the persecutions they were forced to submit to at the hands of their white brethren, whose duty it was to teach them in the Christian graces, wrought out a more enduring and peaceful rest in the Father's kingdom than was ac- corded by their earthly guardians. This foul blot on the page of colonial history has repeated itself again and again under the civilization of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the treat- ment meted out in the South to our black allies of the Civil War.
Until the present generation shall purge itself, it may not raise the hand in horror at the fate which fell to the lot of so many of the trusting disciples of John Eliot. After the death of the apostle, and with well nigh every man's hand against them, one settlement after another gave way to the advancing tide of oppression, until the "praying Indians" of Eliot's time became
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but a memory of by-gone days, to be referred to only as an inci- dent in Colonial history.
As we consider the greatness and power of the Middlesex of to-day, may we never fail to do homage to the memory of those brave men and heroic women who came across the stormy seas and commenced that first settlement at the junction of the Charles and Mystic, and who finally, through their descendants. wrested a howling wilderness from wild beasts and savage foes. and, planting the church and schoolhouse side by side, reared a yeomanry so imbued with Christian courage, and so seasoned with unselfish, intelligent patriotism, as to make the glorious record of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill but natural in- cidents leading up to the surrender of Yorktown, and the inde- pendence of this republic. Hastily summoned by the warning voice of that peerless horseman in the cause of liberty, Paul Re- vere, men of Middlesex shed the first blood of the Revolution, offering their lives as willing sacrifices upon the altar of their country ; an act destined, in the Providence of Almighty God, to awake earth's slumbering millions and shake the firmament with their battle cries of freedom.
"By the rude bridge which arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here first the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world."
Foremost in the fierce and relentless wars of the Colonial period ; first in the opening scenes of the Revolution ; first on the field with her gallant Sixth at the dawn of the great Rebellion ; equipped again and sleeping on their arms, they were ready for the first signal of the Spanish war ; there her record stands in the teeming history of the past, pre-eminent in defense of the liber- ties of man 'and in all the duties of citizenship, as well as in con- merce, in manufactures. and in all the higher avenues of peace. Within her borders are the classic shades of Harvard, and the philosopher's retreat at Concord. Along her northern bounda- ries, skirting the limits of the granite hills of New Hampshire, her farmhouses nestle under the shadows of grand, silent, and
جهمروراب
خسعود
THE MINUTE MAN.
OLD NORTH BRIDGE, CONCORD. Scene of the Fight.
GOV. CRADOCK HOUSE, MEDFORD. Built in 1634. Probably the oldest house in the United States.
LEXINGTON COMMON.
WAYSIDE INN, SUDBURY.
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majestic Monadnock, while her eastern shores are gently bathed by the tides of the sea, or lashed into foam by billows from the Atlantic. On the banks of the Mystic, within the present con- fines of Somerville, and near the mansion of Governor John Winthrop, was constructed and given to the waters of Massachu- setts Bay in 1631. on a day ever to be remembered in the later annals of American history, the Fourth of July, a bark of thirty tons, called the "Blessing of the Bay." being the second vessel launched in America, the Virginia, built at Popham, being un- doubtedly the first, and it was her forests, resounding to the axe of the sturdy yeoman, which yielded the gnarled and twisted oak, hewn and fashioned in her shipyards into a thousand sail, which in the arts of peace have parted the waves of every sea under the sun, and in the smoke of conflict have carried the Stars and Stripes to glorious victory, or to honorable defeat. It is also an inspiration in patriotism to know that the white oak timber from which was constructed the ribs and keel of "Old Ironsides," the "Eagle of the Sea," which never lowered her "tattered ensign" to any foe, was cut from the farm of Captain Unite Cox in North Malden, now the city of Melrose, and by him hauled with great teams of oxen to the shipyard at Constitution wharf in Boston. Captain Cox was a minute man who marched at the Lexington alarm, and rendered other valuable service during the Revolu- tion. He married Hannah Sprague, a lineal descendant of Ralph, one of the three brothers who settled the territory of Mid- dlesex County, and the forest from which this timber came was identical with the land mentioned in the "Book of Possessions" as belonging to him in 1638 at "Pond Fielde." Thus the frame- work of this noble and historic ship was preserved and guarded by the best blood of ancient Middlesex, and finally applied to a providential career of heroic service. It is the priceless record of this peerless county, that in every crisis of the nation's history men of Middlesex have sprung to arms and freely shed their blood to defend that legacy of liberty bequeathed by those who fell at Lexington and Concord, or to extend its protecting aegis to souls bowed down in lands beyond the seas.
By the infinite wisdom of Almighty God, such men as the Spragues, Winthrop, Dudley, Danforth, Gookin, Green, and
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others of their company were directed to these rugged and in- hospitable shores to erect in Ancient Middlesex, through the ut- most extremity of faith and of long-suffering, a Commonwealth, wherein the life that led to rigid purity in thought and action was the essential element. Should we wonder, then, that they adopted as the groundwork of civil policy that "none should be admitted to the freedom of the body politick but such as were church members"? This declaration, in the light of the twen- tieth century, is freely denounced as narrow-minded and bigoted. Let us remember, however, that they were a deeply religious, quaint, and peculiar people, austere and inflexible in many ways, as shown in the severity which characterized their punishment of crime, it being a matter of history that as late as the eighteenth day of September, 1455, by order of the authorities, a woman was burned at the stake in public on the Town Common in Cam- bridge, in punishment of an atrocious crime, while her paramour was gibbeted within a few yards of the wretched creature. . \ century earlier, through uncouth behavior and intemperate speech, the Quakers invited, and possibly merited, a portion of the punishment which they received, some of their women even glorifying in the shame and pain of the lash applied by order of the court to the "naked body" as they were passed along from constable to constable through Cambridge, Watertown, and Dedham, beyond the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth. (See court records of Middlesex County, October 6, 1663, Elizabeth Howton.) Notwithstanding all this, they were neither visionary nor fanatical, but law-abiding, logical, courageous, honest, and faithful. The harshness of their methods in the administration of corporal punishment they justified under the Mosaic law, wherein "the way of the transgressor is hard." They endeavored to pattern their humble lives after the example of Him who died on Calvary, and the foundations of their law rested upon the divine message which thundered from Sinai. John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, once said : "I would rather have one drop of Puritan blood in my veins than all the blood that ever flowed in the veins of kings and princes." As time moves on, the sublime work of these pious and un- daunted souls shines forth in ever-increasing lustre, while the
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name of "Puritan," originally applied to dissenters from the es- tablished church as a term of scornful derision, is eagerly adopted by such as can trace their lineage back to the early fathers, as thie proudest symbol which can emblazon the family escutcheon. "Those only deserve to be remembered by posterity who treasure up the history of their ancestors."
RUINS OF THE VIADUCT OVER SHAWSHEEN RIVER - - MIDDLESEX CANAL. 1795.
It is by the right of ancient settlement that Middlesex County may, if in no other way, lay claim to a date preceding its legal act of incorporation.
At the date of its incorporation, 1613, Middlesex County contained Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Con- cord, Woburn, Medford, and Linn Village, afterwards Reading. Until February 20, 1819, the administration of county affairs was vested in the Circuit Court of Common Pleas; after that, and until March 4, 1826, in the hands of a Chief Justice and two asso- ciates of the Court of Sessions,
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COMMISSIONERS OF HIGHWAYS, MIDDLE- SEX COUNTY.
Under the Act of March 4, 1826, the Governor appointed five persons as "Commissioners of Highways" for the term of five years, viz .: Caleb Butler, of Groton, Chairman ; Augustus Tower, of Stow; Abner Wheeler, of Framingham; Benjamin F. Varnum, of Dracut (resigned in 1831 to accept the office of Sheriff) ; David Townsend, of Waltham.
On the twenty-sixth of February, 1828, this act was changed to four persons, to be appointed by the Governor as "County Commissioners." This law continued until April 8, 1835, when it was changed so as to elect three commissioners and two spe- cials. March 11, 1854, the present law was passed to elect one commissioner each year, to serve three years. Under these va- rious acts, covering a period of seventy-nine years, the follow- ing twenty-six gentlemen have served as commissioners, viz. :--
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COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, 1826 TO JANUARY 1st, 1905. (Commissioners of Highways from 1826 to 1828.)
Hon. Caleb Butler, Groton, 1826 to 1841.
Hon. Augustus Tower, Stow, 1826 to 1835.
Hon. Abner Wheeler, Framingham, 1826 to 1828, and from 1831 to 1841.
Hon. Benjamin F. Varnum, Dracut, 1826 to 1831. Resigned in 1831.
Hon. David Townsend, Waltham, 1826 to 1837. Died in office. Hon. Timothy Fletcher, Charlestown, 1837 to 1846. Resigned. Hon. Leonard M. Parker, Shirley, 1841 to 1844.
Hon. Seth Davis, Newton, 1841 to 1844.
Hon. Josiah Adams, Framingham. 1844 to 1850.
Hon. Josiah B. French, Lowell, 1844 to 1847.
Hon. Ebenezer Barker, Charlestown, 1846 to 1853.
Hon. Joshua Swan, Lowell, 1847 to 1850.
Hon. Daniel S. Richardson, Lowell, 1850 to 1856.
Hon. Leonard Huntress, Tewksbury, 1850 to 1876. Hon. John K. Going, Shirley, 1853 to 1860. Hon. Paul H. Sweetser. South Reading, 1856 to 1862.
Hon. Edward J. Collins. Newton, 1860 to 1872.
Hon. Joseph H. Waitt, Malden, 1862 to 1874.
Hon. Harrison Harwood, Natick, 1872 to 1882. Died in office.
Hon. Daniel G. Walton, Wakefield, 1874 to 1886.
Hon. J. Henry Read, Westford, 1876 to 1897. Hon. William S. Frost, Marlboro, 1882 to 1893. Hon. Alphonso M. Lunt, Cambridge. 1886 to 1889.
Hon. Samuel O. Upham, Waltham, 1889 to date.
Hon. Francis Bigelow, Natick, 1893 to date.
Hon. Levi S. Gould, Melrose, 1897 to date.
Chairmen and Time of Service.
Hon. Caleb Butler, 1826 to 1841, fifteen years.
Hon. Leonard M. Parker, September, 1841, to September, 1844, three years.
Hon. Josiah Adams, September. 1844, to September, 1850, six years.
HON. CALEB BUTLER, OF GROTON, County Commissioner, 1826-1841. Chairman, 1826-1841.
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Hon. Daniel S. Richardson, September, 1850, to September, 1853, and January, 1855, to January, 1856, four years.
Hon. Leonard Huntress, September, 1853, to January, 1855, January, 1856, to January, 1860, and January, 1862, to Janu- ary, 1876, twenty years.
Hon. Paul H. Sweetser, 1860 and 1861, two years.
Hon. Harrison Harwood, January, 1876, to August 27, 1882, six years. Deceased.
Hon. Daniel G. Walton, September, 1882, to January, 1886, four years.
Hon. J. Henry Read, January, 1886, to January. 1897, eleven years.
Hon. Levi S. Gould, January, 1897, to date.
The first meeting of the "Commissioners of Highways of Middlesex County" appears to have been holden at "Samuel Kendall's" tavern in Cambridge, August 1, 1826, to consider a petition for a new highway from "Alewife brook in Cambridge to the bridge over Miller's river in Charlestown."
The first meeting of the "Board of County Commissioners," as constituted under the Act of February 26, 1828, was held at Concord on the second Tuesday, being the thirteenth day of May. 1828, with Hon. Caleb Butler as Chairman. Augustus Tower. Benjamin F. Varnum, and David Townsend, being the remainder of the board, were also in attendance.
Hon. Caleb Butler,
Chairman, 1826 to 1841, Inclusive.
Gable Butter
Son of Caleb and Rebekah (Frost) Butler. Born in Pelham. N. H., September 13, 1426, and died in Groton, Mass., October 7, 1854, aged seventy-eight. The early struggles of Mr. Butler, and the success which crowned an honorable career, are an object lesson to the youth of New England. It should encourage them to persistent effort in the attainment of useful knowledge against apparently insurmountable obstacles. According to the custom
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of pious families in those days, his parents directed his youthful mind to the study of the Scriptures. In their lofty teachings his faith was firmly grounded, and from their minutest precepts he never knowingly deviated. In after life, a Greek Testament was a constant companion for familiar reference, and on the day of his death it was found lying by his side, with the book-mark placed at the last chapter of Revelations. His early schooling was to be obtained only by traveling a long distance from the farm, at such times as he could be spared from pressing duties at home, and was necessarily intermittent. His father was a hard- working farmer in quite moderate circumstances, who needed the help of his boy, and was unable to furnish financial aid to satisfy his constant thirst for knowledge. His only preparation for col- lege consisted in attending the Academy of Daniel Hardy in Pelham less than a year. This was in 1794, when eighteen years of age. By working hard, and teaching some, all the while studying Greek and Latin, he finally accumulated sufficient funds to enter Dartmouth, from which he graduated in 1800, deliver- ing the salutatory oration in Latin, which was the highest honor conferred by the faculty at that time. In his Junior year he joined the college society of "Social Friends," and wrote a drama in three acts, entitled "Triumph of Infidelity Over Supersti- tion." It was successfully performed August 26, 1799, by mem- bers of the society, Mr. Butler assuming the role of the Cardinal. Remaining in Hanover a year as tutor of an Indian school at- tached to the college, he was next employed by Isaiah Thomas, of Worcester, to correct the proofs of a Greek grammar he was publishing. He was appointed preceptor of Groton, now Law- rence, Academy in 1802. This position was congenial to his tastes and talent, and he soon advanced to the highest rank among the instructors of his period, serving until 1815, when he abandoned the profession of teaching and studied law with Hon. Luther Lawrence, of Groton. He had no desire for court prac- tice, but confined his legal employment principally to office work. He also became famous as a surveyor, and was relied upon in all difficult problems in those lines. His familiarity with the high- ways of Middlesex, upon the construction and improvement of which he was an authority, undoubtedly contributed to his selec-
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tion by the Governor, in 1826, as Chairman of the first Board of Highway Commissioners of this county.
He was much interested in the Masonic fraternity, and up- held the faith during the dark days of the anti-Masonic crusade. He held the position of W. M. of Saint Paul's Lodge, Groton, in 1807, and was at one time Iligh Priest of St. John's R. A. Chap- ter. He delivered many Masonic orations from 1811 to 1816, and was present with the fraternity when Lafayette laid the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument with Masonic ceremonies June 17, 1825, and also at its completion, June 17, 1843. He was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, A. F. and A. M., in 1841- 1842, having previously served as Senior Grand Warden in 1818-19, and as Deputy Grand Master from 1824 to 1826. A lodge in Ayer bears his name. One of his favorite studies was astronomy, and it was his delight on pleasant evenings to point out to those interested the wonders of the starry heavens. He also became quite an authority in forecasting the seasons, espe- cially the weather during haying, and was consulted by the farmers of his section with wondering faith in his predictions.
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