USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 25
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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
The Whig nominee, as it turned out, was John P. Robinson, of Lowell, later immortalized by James Russell Lowell in The Bigelow Papers:
Fer John P. Robinson he
Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!
Robinson was opposed by a Democrat, Joseph Mansur, and also by John Greenleaf Whittier, representing the Liberty Par- ty, which had no chance of succeeding. On election day, Robin- son had 4,019 votes to Mansur's 4,928, but there were so many "scattering" ballots that another deadlock ensued. Robinson had proved to be such a weak candidate that on February 7 the Whigs replaced him with our Amos Abbott, who, in a special election on February 12, received 4,391 votes against 3,620 for Mansur-still not enough for a majority. Essex North was main- taining its reputation for nonconformity.
On the following March 4, when Cushing was nominated by Tyler as Secretary of the Treasury, he was promptly rejected by the Senate, not once but three times. With his path blocked in Washington, he was now urged by his friends to declare himself
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openly as a Democrat and break the deadlock in Essex North. Troubled as to a decision, he kept silent while another special election proved to be futile. Then, on May 8, he was rewarded for his loyalty to Tyler by being appointed Minister to China. At the next Congressional election in the district, Cushing's fol- lowers, who had displayed an amazing devotion to him, had to make another choice. Amos Abbott was at last successful, and peace was restored in Essex North for some years to come.
At the moment when this broader opportunity opened for him, Abbott was Andover's representative in the Massachusetts lower house. He took his seat in the Twenty-eighth Congress a little late, for it had convened on March 4, 1843, before the Es- sex North contest had been settled. Among the Massachusetts delegation were Robert C. Winthrop and John Quincy Adams, but it was not regarded as a very able body, and Abbott was not a man likely to assume leadership. He made no important speeches and contributed almost nothing to debates, but he did at least vote consistently as a loyal Whig.
Abbott was a homespun, plain-spoken, reliable member who had reaped the reward of party loyalty. After three terms in Washington, he retired in 1849 to his business activities in An- dover. He was a deacon of the South Parish Church for thirty years, from 1826 to 1856, attending every church service when he was at home. At his death on November 2, 1868, at the age of eighty-two, he was buried with his forefathers in the South Church Cemetery. He was succeeded in Congress for the district by James H. Duncan, a Haverhill lawyer, who remained in of- fice for two terms.
During the second quarter of the nineteenth century Abbott was Andover's most conspicuous political figure. The town did, however, have several state senators, among them William John- son, Jr., Amos Spaulding, Nathan W. Hazen, Samuel Merrill, and George Hodges. The list of representatives, too long to print here, includes, besides Joseph Kittredge, Gayton P. Os- good, and Amos Abbott, such other figures as Abraham J. Gould,
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Thomas C. Foster, Nathaniel Stevens, Solomon Holt, Benjamin Jenkins, Joshua Ballard, William Stevens, Merrill Pettingill, Henry Osgood, and John Marland. These were men whose names carried weight in their day, and they represented all phases of the town's varied activities.
During this period political sentiment in Andover largely favored the Whigs, who included the more conservative classes of society. For sixteen successive years, from 1828 to 1843, the pertinacious Marcus Morton was the Democratic candidate for governor, being elected only twice-in 1839, when he defeated Edward Everett by one vote, and in 1842, when the election was thrown into the legislature and he was chosen by the Senate. His son, Marcus Morton, Jr. (1819-1891), moved to Andover in 1850 and represented the town in the constitutional convention of 1853. He was one of the original ten members of the state Superior Court, organized in 1859. He was appointed a judge of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1869, and served as Chief Justice from January 16, 1882, until August 27, 1890, when he resigned because of ill health. As a nisi prius judge he has had few equals in the history of the Commonwealth.
In the 1850's a brief but startling political cataclysm took place in Massachusetts. The so-called American Party, based on anti-alien and anti-Catholic prejudice, began to move covertly into state politics, operating through subterranean channels. When gossip began to spread about what was occurring, the members, in response to questioning, usually replied, "I know nothing about it," and accordingly were soon described as "Know Nothings." The movement, like the later Ku Klux Klan, relied largely on mystery, held secret conclaves, and had its peculiar ritual and passwords. Many citizens must have partici- pated in this crude mumbo jumbo, but they kept their feelings and principles to themselves, and the strength of the movement was not fully realized even by the members. Henry G. Pearson has written, "Most of the members of the American Party were propertyless, in the State Street sense, and nonentities to the
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eye of Beacon Hill." It really came as a surprise when, on No- vember 18, 1854, the Andover Advertiser reported, "The result of the election on Monday last was wholly in favor of what has been called the Know Nothing Party."
This was almost an understatement. Henry J. Gardner, a for- mer Whig and antislavery man, was chosen as governor, receiv- ing 81,000 votes to 26,000 for the Whigs and 13,000 for the Dem- ocrats. Never had such a political landslide been seen in Massa- chusetts. The Know-Nothings, without any open publicized campaign, had actually elected all but two members of the legis- lature and every member of Congress in the state. Andover's two new representatives in the General Court, William Jenkins and Daniel Carlton, were avowed Know-Nothings and unversed in the mysteries of practical politics. Gardner was to win also as governor in 1855 and 1856, but was defeated in 1857 by the Re- publican Nathaniel P. Banks, when the fanatical movement had run its course and the state had resumed its sanity.
So far as Andover and the Commonwealth are concerned, this sudden, transient manifestation of bigotry is explicable only as an explosion of pent-up resentment against the intrusion of for- eign elements. A Yankee community found itself invaded, so to speak, by aliens, with too little time for adjustment. The bitter- ness passed quickly, like the witchcraft delusion of the 1690's, and was fortunately unaccompanied by violence. It was like a thunderstorm after a humid day, which clears the air and brings with it a salutary cool breeze. As a sociological phenomenon, it is worth more study than it has been given by historians. It must be regarded as a phase of xenophobia, a venomous compound of ignorance, hate, and fear.
By a strange coincidence, at precisely the moment when the forces of religious and racial prejudice were corrupting even our old New England town, the North and South Parishes were pre- paring to split apart. Over the years the South Parish had devel- oped a strong feeling of local unity. It had the Seminary and two academies, the banks and the chief stores, and it had been
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one of the chief beneficiaries of the railroad. Many of the resi- dents did not like to take the long drive to the North Parish Hall for town meetings. Although the inhabitants of the South Parish were not precisely smug, they were perhaps too conscious of their achievement and prestige, and felt entirely competent to run their own affairs. Fully conscious of the historical priority of the North Parish, they were equally aware of the increasing power of their own south end.
Contributory to the separatist movement was a dispute over new high schools. Benjamin H. Punchard, who had married the daughter of the wealthy manufacturer, Abraham Marland, and had become his partner, left at his death on April 4, 1850, a be- quest of 50,000 dollars for the establishment of a free school in the town. A committee headed by Squire N. W. Hazen drafted resolutions expressing gratitude for this generous donation, and the citizens proceeded with plans for a school building in the South Parish, in accordance with Mr. Punchard's known wishes. Early in 1854, a group of North Parish residents, headed by Horace Dennett, apparently disgruntled because the town would not support a high school in their area, petitioned the General Court to set off to the city of Lawrence what was known locally as the Merrimack School District. On February 18, 1854, the Andover Advertiser, commenting on this petition and its mo- tives, said:
Some have thought that at some future period, with the growth of our town, a division might become desirable, and two towns formed. But in that event, a natural line of division would be sought.
A week later the Advertiser returned to this very live topic and expressed an even more positive opinion:
Present movements on this subject seem to indicate that the time has arrived, which has been long anticipated, that our large and an- cient town should be divided into two. .. . We have six considerable manufacturing villages, in different parts of the town, and our ter- ritory reaches 10 or 12 miles from the northwest to the southeast.
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The villages referred to here must have been Frye Village, Marland Village, Abbott Village, Ballard Vale, North Andover, and South Andover-all identifiable today. The Advertiser also pointed out that the population of the area in 1850 had risen to 6,945, and would have been even much larger if a part of the town had not been cut off and added to Lawrence.
In the negotiations which followed, the initiative was taken, as might have been expected, by the South Parish group. A cru- cial town meeting was held on March 6, 1854, with Benjamin F. Wardwell as moderator. After some spirited discussion and some inevitable charges of bad faith and evil motives, the citizens voted, 408 to 102, that it was "expedient to divide the town ac- cording to the boundary line between the North and South Par- ishes, or thereabouts." The vote of exactly four to one seemed to be decisive; and at the same meeting the town was almost unanimous in opposing Dennett's request to have certain terri- tory in the North Parish ceded to Lawrence. The committee ap- pointed to appear before the appropriate committee of the legis- lature consisted of the following very responsible leaders of pub- lic opinion in the town:
Samuel C. Jackson (Chairman) William Chickering Marcus Morton, Jr. Solomon Holt John Aiken Benjamin F. Jenkins Samuel Carleton
Mr. Jackson and his "Committee on the Division of the Town" were forced on April 3 to submit a report indicating no progress. Because they had not been able to get prompt action from the legislative joint committee on towns, the entire sub- ject had to be referred to the next General Court. The truth is that the legislative committee, taken somewhat by surprise and wishing to test the sentiment of all the Andover groups, used
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technicalities to bring about postponement. Before the matter could be taken up again the new Know-Nothing legislature had been elected and had begun its strange session without any ex- perienced members to guide it.
Meanwhile the necessary bill for the division of the township had been prepared by the Honorable Amos Abbott, now a re- tired Congressman but still the community's most respected citi- zen; and the customary hearing was held on February 19 and 20 before the newly constituted legislative joint committee on towns. The members were novices, but they were quite willing to listen to a veteran legislator like Mr. Abbott, and he made a convincing impression.
The annual Andover town meeting was held on March 5, 1855, in the "Parish Hall in the North Parish," with Dan Weed, Jr., of the North Parish, as moderator. After this regular meet- ing was adjourned to the first Monday in April, the voters of the North Parish remained in the hall for a further discussion of the proposed separation. George Hodges, a manufacturer of flannels who had served in both branches of the legislature, was chair- man, and several leading citizens, including Nathaniel Stevens, James Stevens, Farnham Spofford, and George W. Gould, ex- pressed their views. Opinion was apparently about evenly di- vided; but a formal motion that the Committee of the Parish be instructed "to further strenuously oppose the division of the town" was carried, 59 to 44. Actually only a small proportion of the citizens of the north end were sufficiently interested to cast a vote.
At the next meeting of the senate committee on towns, Na- thaniel Stevens, Frederic Noyes, and George L. Davis, respon- sible North Parish citizens, opposed the measure; but that com- mittee, after careful study and consideration, were unanimous in the feeling that a division of the town would be for the public good. It was pointed out that Andover, with its thirty-eight thou- sand acres or approximately sixty square miles of territory, was much larger than the average Massachusetts township and that,
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President Calvin Coolidge at Andover in 1928
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Brigadier General Marlborough Churchill, 1878-1931
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in valuation, it was second in Essex County. In their final report the committee said, "At present Andover is divided into three parishes, well defined, and of sufficient extent of territory to make two respectable towns." They were impressed by the fact that a considerable majority of the voters favored the proposal -"And also the larger part of the property, by representation, in each section of the town." Evidently the committee did not accept the conclusions of the North Parish meeting as properly representing the sentiment of that area.
In its final draft the legislative act provided that a certain district, very carefully defined, "is hereby incorporated into a separate town by the name of North Andover." Nobody seems to have suggested that the North Parish, in view of its historical precedence, should retain the original name and that the South Parish should become South Andover. The south end, richer and more populous, would not have listened to any such proposal.
The bill had passed its third reading in the Senate and was about to come up for engrossment on March 14, when Mr. Un- derwood, of Worcester, unexpectedly moved its indefinite post- ponement. The motion was carried, 17 to 9, and the proponents of the measure were stunned by the maneuver. It turned out, however, that some minor changes in the legal phrasing satis- fied the objectors, and the act in its changed form passed the Senate on April 3. The House, under a suspension of its rules, gave its approval on the following day, and Governor Gardner signed the bill on April 7, 1855. Thus the "Know-Nothing" leg- islature, a little over a century ago, created the Andover of today.
The people of the North Parish, after an adjourned town meeting on April 2, again remained in the hall for a consulta- tion. There the Honorable Gayton P. Osgood, somewhat feeble but still articulate, expressed himself "in favor of the division of the town" and remarked generously that the South Parish had been "honorable in the matter."
For purposes of organization both towns, Andover and North Andover, held meetings on the same day, April 23, 1855. At this
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time the Andover citizens elected Marcus Morton, Jr., as mod- erator, with Varnum Foster as town clerk and Enoch Frye, 3d, James Holt, and George Foster as selectmen. These new names emphasized the change which had taken place. The decision was accepted as final by both sections; and from that moment the history of the town of Andover, in its modern phase, begins.
"The Act to Divide the Town of Andover, and to Incorporate the Town of North Andover" was recorded as "Chapter 150 of the Acts and Resolves of 1855" and contained ten sections. The first outlined the boundaries of the new town of North Andover. The second provided that the inhabitants of North Andover should "be holden to pay all arrears of taxes legally assessed upon them before the passage of the Act." The third stipulated that North Andover must pay its proportion of the debts existing against the town of Andover. The fourth declared that the two towns should be respectively liable for the support of paupers or persons on relief. The fifth settled a disputed question by stat- ing that the Punchard Free School, in Andover, should be open to all youth residing in North Andover. Section six provided that in case of any disagreement on these or other matters, the Court of Common Pleas for Essex County should appoint "three dis- interested persons" as commissioners to "hear the parties and award thereon." The seventh merits some direct quotation:
The said town of Andover, in consideration of the various disad- vantages arising to North Andover from the division thereby made, shall pay to the said town of North Andover, such sum as the Com- missioners above provided for shall determine. ... and the said town of Andover shall ... furnish for the town of North Andover a full and correct copy of all the records kept by the Town Clerk of the town of Andover, now in existence, up to the time of the passage of this Act. ...
Section eight declared that North Andover should remain as part of Andover until after the next decennial census, so far as the election of state officers was concerned. Section nine author-
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ized any justice of the peace for the County of Essex to issue a warrant calling for a North Andover town meeting, and section ten made the act effective from and after its passage.
The Act of Separation made provision for a committee to cor- rect any inequities which might arise in connection with the di- vision. This committee, after surveying the situation, prepared a report which was presented at later meetings of the two towns and adopted by both. In accordance with this amicable settle- ment, the town of Andover relinquished to the town of North Andover "all right, title, and interest in two fire engines, called the Cochichawicke and the Merrimack, now located in North Andover, together with the equipments and houses connected therewith." The town of North Andover was to assume all lia- bility resting upon the town of Andover "for contract between Andover and Nathaniel Stevens to maintain a fire engine in North Andover." Andover was to retain the fire engine called the Shawshin. Just why North Andover should need two fire en- gines to Andover's one is left unexplained!
Andover was to hold possession of "all the Town Farm known as the Alms House or Poor Farm," and was not to charge North Andover anything for paupers previous to June 25, 1855. Final- ly, Andover was to pay North Andover the sum of 6,500 dollars, with interest from June 25. These were minor details, involving few complications. The transition to two townships instead of one was followed in some quarters with regret, but it was accom- plished with a minimum of disagreement.
On June 11, 1955, North Andover held a celebration com- memorating the division of a century before and the creation of the present town. One feature was a delightful re-enactment of a special town meeting in the Parish Hall, still in use, with present-day residents taking the parts of their direct or collateral ancestors. Among those represented were the three 1855 select- men-Daniel Carleton, James C. Carleton, and Farnham Spof- ford-with the Honorable Gayton P. Osgood as moderator. Part of the discussion was reproduced as follows:
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Rev. Bailey Loring (rising): "As pastor of the North Parish Church for forty years, and as a resident of this town for an additional five years, I still say I see no reason for the division."
Daniel Rea (jumps up): "Some of the folks in Andover claim it's too far to come over here to transact town business."
The Moderator: "Captain Hodges?"
Hon. George Hodges: "I was on the Remonstrance Committee, and we went over all the arguments. I say we were winning our case, we had people pretty fairly convinced that it would be better to leave well enough alone, when some of our friends in,-er,-'Andover' sly- ly came up behind us and tripped us up. Now we've got to show them we can be knocked down and get up again with a grin on our faces."
Jacob Farnum (rises): "Mr. Chairman, what I don't see is,-what's going to happen at election time?"
The Moderator: "Your point is well taken, Mr. Farnum (looks at papers). As I understand it, however, North Andover will continue to vote with Andover until there is a new census,-in 1860, that is." Nathan Foster: "Who's going to look after the paupers?"
The Moderator: "According to the Act, Mr. Foster, each town will look after its own poor."
John Barker: "How are we going to look after them without any Town Farm?"
George L. Davis: "Mr. Moderator, it is my understanding that by the terms of the bill the committee appointed by the Court of Common Pleas will determine upon a sum to be paid to the Town of North Andover by the Town of Andover. With that sum we might buy a Town Farm."
Daniel Weed: "We may be short a poor farm, but remember, North Andover has two fire engines, one downtown, one right up here on the Common."
The Moderator: "That is correct, gentlemen. Captain Stevens?"
Captain Nathaniel Stevens (rising): "Mr. Moderator, as a member of the Committee of Remonstrance, I believe my former sentiments
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are well known to this company. However, may I point out that we are living in a time of great changes. We must look to the future; I now believe that we have no choice but to concur with the Committee of Towns, which, after due consideration, decided that the public good would be promoted by a division of the town."
The Moderator: "If the Chair may be allowed to express an opinion, I would say that North Andover is a fine name for a fine town, and I for one have no wish for any other. And now, if there is no further discussion, we shall proceed to the reading of the Act by the Town Clerk and will be dismissed with a prayer by our pastor."
This re-enactment gave the spirit, if not the exact words, of fine North Andover citizens more than a century ago. Since then the two towns have gone their separate ways, but neither has had any reason to regret the separation carried out so amicably. The number of residents was reported in 1855 as 4,810 for An- dover and 2,218 for North Andover.
The confusion created by these events was soon cleared up. In the autumn of 1856, the towns repudiated the Know- Nothings and came back to normal politically by electing to the House of Representatives two tried and trusted conservatives, Gayton P. Osgood and Moses Foster, Jr. In 1858-two years be- fore the national census which, under the Act, was to determine each town's political status-an arrangement was perfected un- der which Andover, with 757 legal voters, was allowed its own representative in the lower house, while North Andover, to the expressed disgust of many citizens, was joined with Bradford and Boxford, the number of voters in that district being 896. In 1859, accordingly, Andover, left "on its own," chose William Chickering as its representative and in 1860, George Foster. Thus a long-standing political association for the time disap- peared, and the complete independence of each town was estab- lished without any real dissension.
The two towns in some respects took different directions. North Andover, in the second half of the nineteenth century,
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became a popular summer resort for Bostonians attracted by its lake and restful countryside. In the 1920's, Phillips Academy, at Andover, developed what is probably the most beautiful school campus in America and became an institution of nation- al importance. But these developments had little effect on the comity of the two towns. The Andovers, even in our present era of rapid industrial expansion in both, can never be quite sepa- rated. They are linked together by many ties, historical, eco- nomic, and social. They still face the same problems and, with the coming of the automobile, have been brought closer and closer together in space and time. Friendships have never stopped at the boundaries! And, by a strange irony, the current move- ment towards urbanization may overwhelm both, destroying the unique qualities which have given them personality and distinction.
When a movement was started recently to change the name of North Andover to Old Andover, supporters of tradition strong- ly favored it. It would have revived a difference which ought not to be forgotten. It was voted down in North Andover, but it would have been a contribution to accuracy which no Ando- verian of today would have regretted.
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