USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 26
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CHAPTER XX
Andover in the Civil War
F OR various reasons, some of which will become clearer as this chapter proceeds, Andover, more than most Essex County towns, had a conspicuous part in the events leading up to what was called, during the aftermath of hate, the War of the Rebel- lion, but is now termed, more gently, the Civil War or, even better, the War Between the States. Not all of Andover's citizens were in agreement on the issue of Negro slavery. Indeed some of the Seminary "Intelligentsia" were quite ready to justify the "peculiar institution" by Biblical quotation against the attacks on it by members of the Free Church. But the town was familiar with colored people and the problems which they sometimes caused. In the eighteenth century several socially correct An- dover families owned Negro slaves; and in 1766 the town fathers voted that "all the English women in the Parish who marry or associate with Negro or Melatto-men be seated in the Meeting House with the Negro-women." It would be interesting to know what specific incident or incidents precipitated this drastic reso- lution. Evidently miscegenation presented problems, even in New England.
Under the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 human servi- tude of any kind was forbidden, but several former slaves stayed on by preference in the households of their former masters. Pompey, once the servant of Captain William Lovejoy, built a rough cabin for himself and his wife, Rose, on the shore of the pond named after him, and there dispensed homemade root beer on election day. In 1824 he told some Academy boys that he was then over a hundred years old. A colored man named Cato Free-
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man died in North Andover, August 9, 1853, at the age of eighty- five years and three months. Born a slave, he had lived comfort- ably and happily in the families of Esquire Samuel Phillips and his son, Judge Phillips, meeting many distinguished visitors. When he became twenty-one, in 1789, he wrote a remarkable letter, fortunately preserved in the North Andover Historical Society. Its quality is such that it deserves quotation in full:
Being about to remove from the family where I have for some time resided, would, with the greatest respect I am capable of to the heads of each family, take my Leave. I desire, therefore, to return my hearty and unfeined thanks for your Care over me & your kindness to me. Also for your timely Checks, your faithful reproofs, necessary Cor- rections, your wise Councel, Seasonable advise, for your early en- deavors being yet young, and my tender mind, to frame it in such a manner, as to lay a foundation for my Present and Future happiness; and also, by the Blessing of Heaven, I hope your endeavors have, nor will not be fruitless. Being unable to make a Compensation either to you the author or instruments of the advantages I have been favored with, equal to them; I hope while in Life to do all I can to promote the glory of the former and the welfare of the latter. I hope you hav- ing not only the name but the Disposition of Christians & wishing to have your own imperfections overlook't, will I trust do the same by me.
Some of the Family being now in the Decline of Life and accord- ing to the Course of Nature, have but a few days to spend here, will ere long I trust be in the enjoyment of that felicity; which will be a full compensation for your kindness to me, & to others; whose De- parture hence by many that survive will be greatly miss'd, but while you tabernacle in the flesh, I would beg a remembrance of me, in your addresses, to the Throne of Grace. My present wish is, that the blessings of Heaven may attend each family and all their lawful un- dertakings, also their Children to the latest generation. And I hope that myself with the rest Shall be enabled to live in such a manner & being there made meet, may be admitted with you into that haven of rest, where there is no Distinctions.
Yours with respect Cato, May 24, 1789
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With all its incoherence, the intent and spirit of this letter are plain, and the writer emerges as a very real person. It throws a warm light on the pleasant relationship between master and servant-a relationship proving that some white Andoverians took a sympathetic interest in the training of the colored chil- dren in their households. The Yankee Puritan, as a matter of fact, was less concerned about the color of a man's skin than about his theology. The few Negroes, whether household serv- ants or free laborers, living in Andover in the nineteenth cen- tury, were well treated.
As the controversy over slavery became more violent, An- dover inevitably produced its abolitionists, chief among whom was William Jenkins, who, with his wife, Mary Saltmarsh (Farn- ham) Jenkins, lived in a farmhouse at what is still known locally as Jenkins Four Corners, not far from the present Andover- North Reading line, in the extreme southern part of the town- ship. In 1758, a certain Samuel Jenkins acquired about four hun- dred acres in that area originally granted to the Osgood family. This included a mill on the Skug River and a soapstone quarry which furnished the material for headstones in the local grave- yards. Seven years later, Jenkins built there a farmhouse which is still occupied.
Samuel's grandson, William, who inherited the place, was a well-intentioned idealist, very aggressive and obstinate, not un- like the agitator William Lloyd Garrison, whose friend he be- came. Elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1854 as a Know-Nothing, he rarely missed an opportunity dur- ing his single term in that body of sounding off on the question of abolition. How he reconciled his adherence to the bigoted and illiberal American, or Know-Nothing, Party with his views on Negro slavery is difficult to understand, but his attitude on all subjects was apparently more emotional than logical. Garrison often himself visited the Jenkins home and sat with its owner far into the night discussing reforms of every kind. Miss Bessie
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Goldsmith, who has investigated the matter, relates the follow- ing story regarding him and another agitator:
Once when Frederick Douglass, the celebrated negro orator, and Garrison were among the guests, the sleeping quarters were taxed to capacity. William Jenkins said to Garrison that he didn't know where to put Douglass. Garrison replied, "Put him with me. I shall be proud to sleep with Fred!"
Among Jenkins' other visitors during those turbulent days were the famous Hutchinson family-Judson, John, Asa, and Abby-a quartet of musicians who composed and sang songs dealing with freedom, temperance, and peace.
The William Jenkins farmhouse was well known as a station on the so-called Underground Railroad, along which fugitive slaves were transported by friendly coöperators on their way to Canada and safety. There were also other places of refuge with- in the limits of the town of Andover. Professor Ralph Emerson harbored several fugitives in his home on Andover Hill. In Frye Village, William Poor, who had a flourishing wagon factory, Elijah Hussey, who operated a sawmill, and William C. Donald, who ran an ink factory, were openly abolitionists and could be relied upon to assist runaways on their route to the north. Miss Marion La Mere, in a letter dated November 25, 1934, wrote:
When Mr. Poor heard a gentle rap on his door or other subdued sound in the night, he dressed quickly, went out, harnessed his mare Nellie into a covered wagon and started with his dusky passengers, probably for North Salem, New Hampshire. On the top of a hill at that place were several large excavations, lined and covered with slabs of stone, which had furnished retreat for the neighboring in- habitants when the Indians were on the warpath, but which now af- forded refuge to fugitive slaves. Mr. Poor was always back in time for breakfast.
Among the last runaways to pass through Andover were a col- ored man and his sister who had fled from Virginia and were re- ported in the Andover Advocate of July 7, 1860, as having lingered
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long enough during the previous week to receive substantial aid from many well-wishers.
Wilbur H. Siebert, in an article on "The Underground Rail- road in Massachusetts" published in the Proceedings of the Ameri- can Antiquarian Society for April, 1935, wrote:
The Underground workers at Frye Village disliked to keep their passengers over for a day or more, preferring to hurry them on. Nor did they always take them to North Salem, in view of the fact that there were stations in and near Haverhill, eight miles to the north- eastward. On Summer Street, near the bridge over the Merrimack at Haverhill, stands the house once occupied by David P. Harmon, who was a forwarder of slaves, probably to Plaistow, New Hampshire, only five miles distant. Outside of Haverhill, at the corner of Savoy Road and Saunders Hill, in what was then called Nicholsville, was the home of Daniel Hoyt, whither John Greenleaf Whittier some- times brought the seekers of freedom from Amesbury, eight miles to the northeast.
In this illegal transportation Jenkins and his family formed an important connecting link. Mrs. Butterfield, Jenkins' daugh- ter, well remembered George Latimer, a refugee from Norfolk, Virginia, who in 1843 had been arrested and held in Boston. Friends bought his freedom for 400 dollars, and he was assisted to the Jenkins home, where he remained for some days in seclu- sion. Mrs. Butterfield recalled how Latimer stood her on a table when she was only five years old to show how a slave girl was sold at auction. Several Negroes, once having reached the Jenkins farm, remained there until they died, working on the place. Not long ago, when some repairs were being made, loose boards were discovered in the attic floor and, when lifted, disclosed a small room next to the fireplace where fugitives could be secreted for a day or two and then sent along to their destination.
The interest of Andoverians in the slavery controversy was naturally heightened by the arrival in 1852 of Professor Calvin E. Stowe, as Professor of Sacred Literature in Andover Theological Seminary. He himself was a distinguished scholar, but his wife,
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Harriet Beecher Stowe, had just published a novel called Uncle Tom's Cabin, first as a serial in the National Era (June 5, 1851- April 1, 1852), and then in two volumes on March 20, 1852. It had created an immediate sensation, selling a million and a half copies in a pirated edition in England alone; and nearly everbody in the United States who could read had bought or borrowed a copy. In reply to the criticism evoked by her masterpiece, Mrs. Stowe wrote and published while she was in Andover her A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) and Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856). Two of her other books, both on New England themes-The Minister's Wooing (1859) and The Pearl of Orr's Island (1862)-also appeared while the Stowes were living on Andover Hill. In the years immediately before the Civil War, Andover was best known nationally in literate circles as the home of Mrs. Stowe, and people from all over the world came to see her there.
Everybody in Andover recognized that the Stowes were out of the ordinary, completely impractical and absent-minded, and in some respects downright "peculiar." Mrs. Stowe described her- self, with characteristic humility, as "a little bit of a woman . . . about as thin and dry as a pinch of snuff; never very much to look at in my best days, and looking like a used up article now." She did look quaint in her curls and old-fashioned gown. But nobody could be ignorant of her meeting in 1862 with President Lincoln, when he said, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!" With a worldly hospitality to which her staid neighbors were unaccustomed, she provided for her guests such entertain- ment as tableaux and charades, and even on one occasion a real Christmas tree-this at a period when Christmas was regarded as a "papist festival." Her twin daughters, named after herself and her husband's first wife, resembled each other so much that they were identified by red and blue ribbons; and when these were shifted in their baby carriage by a mischievous Academy student, the mother was puzzled for a time as to which was which.
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During their twelve years in Andover the Stowes occupied the stone structure which then stood on the site of the present An- dover Inn, but which has since been moved to Bartlet Street. It is still called the Stowe House. One of the rooms was used as a stage setting for a scene in the play "Harriet," in which Helen Hayes took the part of Mrs. Stowe.
In 1864, Professor Stowe, then in ill health, resigned from the Seminary faculty and moved with his wife to Hartford, Con- necticut, where they rounded out their lives, spending large sums on a house which they never occupied. He was still a patri- archal figure with a magnificent spade beard, who occasionally appeared at public gatherings. She survived her husband by ten years, during which, according to the Dictionary of American Bi- ography, "she lapsed into a dreamy state which lasted to the end." After her death in 1896, her body, at her own request, was brought to Andover and laid to rest in the picturesque Seminary Burying Ground, not far from the house in which she had dwelt happily at the height of her literary career.
William Jenkins and Mrs. Stowe, each in a different sphere, unquestionably expressed the majority opinion in Andover on the related problems of Negro emancipation and the preserva- tion of the Union. In November, 1856, the town voted Ameri- can (Know-Nothing) 102, Democratic 187, and Republican 690. In this, the first appearance of the Republican Party as a na- tional organization, Andover spoke out in no uncertain terms. It must be kept in mind that not a single township in Essex County went Democratic in the campaign in which James Bu- chanan was elected President.
The Andover of 1860, although somewhat depleted by the separation of North Andover in 1855, still had a population of 4,765 and a property valuation of 2,339,977 dollars. Politically it was strongly Republican and went by a large majority for Lin- coln and Hamlin. Its representative in the Massachusetts lower house in 1860 was George Foster, followed in 1861 by William Chickering, both staunch Union men. Equally loyal and trust-
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worthy was the state senator for the district, the Honorable George L. Davis, of North Andover. Well informed on the cru- cial issues of the 1850's, such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision, and John Brown's raid, Andover watched with anxiety the temporizing of President Buchanan and with approval the decisiveness of Abraham Lincoln. On April 18, 1861, six days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter and three days after the presidential proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers, a meeting of Andover citizens was held in the hall in Frye Village. There arrangements were made for a larger mass meeting in the town hall on the evening of Saturday, April 20.
The story of the happenings then and in the months and years following until the Confederate collapse was told in a memorial volume compiled by Samuel Raymond and published in 1875 from the press of Warren F. Draper. Entitled The Record of An- dover During the Rebellion, it gives all the essential facts and sta- tistics. From this somber, black-covered book, from contempo- rary newspaper items, and from some old letters this chapter has been compiled. It cannot adequately reproduce in words the quickened enthusiasms, the comedy and tragedy, the hysteria and hatred of those passionate days. But behind the names and the events we may, using our imaginations, feel something of the spirit of wartime.
At that first gathering some of the leadership on which the town would rely became apparent. With complete unanimity the voters chose as president of their Committee of Twenty-Five the Honorable Francis Cogswell (1800-1880), then in his sixty- second year. A native of New Hampshire, he was graduated from Dartmouth in the Class of 1822, had studied law and been ad- mitted to the bar in 1827. He settled as an attorney in Dover, New Hampshire, where he married Mary Sykes Marland, daugh- ter of the well-to-do Andoverian, Abraham Marland. In 1840 he joined his father-in-law in the management of the latter's fac- tory. Needless to say, he prospered and was soon able to buy the
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dignified mansion at the junction of Phillips and Central Streets -- one of the finest residences in the township, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Gibson Brown. Cogswell was not only a local magnate, cashier of the Andover Bank, president for a time of the Boston & Maine Railroad, and Treasurer of the Marland Manufacturing Company, but also for six years an overseer of Harvard College-a real tribute to a Dartmouth man-and a gentleman of scholarly tastes, who headed subscription lists for philanthropic causes. At seventy-seven he wrote, "I have passed smoothly and pleasantly along this, a long life, a full third of a century in a public or corporate employment, and have never had it in my heart to complain of any usage by this world. I have always thought that I had received all I deserved to have and am satisfied." A contemporary engraving shows a handsome, reso- lute face, with thick white hair brushed back from a broad fore- head. An earnest though not an eloquent speaker, Cogswell in- spired confidence; and again and again through the war period he was called upon to head committees and preside at public gatherings. He was representative of the new families which, in Andover, had taken over the control of local industry-men un- connected with the founders and early settlers. It was an infu- sion of fresh blood in the community.
Warren Fales Draper (1818-1905), the citizen most frequently selected as committee secretary, was, like Cogswell, what might be called a novus homo. Born in East Dedham, Massachusetts, he fitted for college at Phillips Academy and was graduated from Amherst in 1847. Failing eyesight compelled him to abandon his studies at Andover Theological Seminary, and in 1849 he en- tered the employ of Allen, Merrill, and Wardwell, printers, in the town. In 1854 he became the sole proprietor of this estab- lishment, developing it into an enterprise of national scope and reputation. His firm published more than six hundred separate titles, some of which had a very wide sale, as well as thirty-six volumes of the scholarly magazine, Biblioteca Sacra; and for fif- teen years he printed and partly edited the local newspaper, the
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Andover Advertiser. He was deacon and treasurer of the Seminary Church and treasurer of Abbot Academy, and out of his accumu- lated wealth he donated in all about 100,000 dollars to Andover institutions. Abbot Academy still has its Draper Hall and Phil- lips Academy its Draper Cottage and Draper Prize Speaking Contest. Even in that hirsute age, his long white beard and flow- ing hair were remarkable, putting him in a class with William Cullen Bryant and Walt Whitman; and his unusual appearance confirmed his natural dignity. Many Andover residents still re- call him and his wife, Irene Patience Rowley Draper, who did not die until December 26, 1916, in her ninety-third year. Iden- tified with the town in nearly every legitimate phase of its ac- tivity, Draper was a fine specimen of the unostentatious Chris- tian businessman.
The Committee of Twenty-Five, formed at a "large and spirit- ed" meeting in the town hall on April 22, included not only Cogswell and Draper but also Professor Stowe and William Jen- kins, whose records on the slavery issue were no secret. Among the other members, as might have been expected in Andover, were four Abbotts, including former Congressman Amos Ab- bott, and three Fosters, two of them, George Foster and Moses Foster, Jr., ex-representatives in the General Court. Another one-time member of the legislature was William Chickering. In the emergency Andover relied on its best.
For continuing substantial financial support the committee depended largely upon members of the manufacturing firm then called Smith, Dove, and Company. John Smith, the older of the two brothers, although unfailing in his generosity, was not ac- tive at meetings, preferring to work behind the scenes. Peter Smith (1802-1880), however, was an earnest supporter of all war projects. His life story has been well told by himself and his family in Memorials of Peter D. Smith (1881), which is both auto- biography and biography. It will be recalled that as a youngster in the city of Brechin, Forfarshire, Scotland, he learned the trade of wheelwright. In 1822, at the invitation of his brother, John,
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Thomas Cochran, 1871-1936
William Madison Wood, 1858-1926
The modern campus of Phillips Academy
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who had already settled in America, Peter sailed for the United States, arriving on September 3 in Boston, with just one cent in his pocket, given to him by a fellow passenger to show him what our currency was like. In 1825 he moved with his brother to An- dover, where in 1834 they entered into a partnership with John Dove (1799-1876), with whom Peter had worked in one of the Brechin flax mills. The three partners spun their first yarn in August, 1836, and Peter well remembered how they disposed of it:
I would here notice the first sale of shoe thread that I carried to market, making a bundle of thirteen pounds. I started in the stage- coach for Boston; made several attempts to expose the goods for sale, but without success.
I was getting somewhat discouraged, when, entering a store, I saw behind the counter a kindly looking man, and, watching the oppor- tunity when he was not engaged, I went up, opened my bundle, and asked him to examine the thread.
He pronounced it strong, but not very well finished; but said, if I could make it as good as that he had from Leeds, England, I could do well.
Thus, being encouraged, I went into other stores, and sold my package, this being the first sale, as far as we know, of shoe thread made by machinery, in the United States.
The partners distributed their responsibilities. John Dove, an inventive genius, designed, set up, and kept in operation the necessary machinery. John Smith took charge of the finances. Peter Smith was the administrator, who watched over the em- ployees, the manufacture of goods, and all mill supplies. The trio prospered greatly, especially during the Civil War, which gave a stimulus to their products. Peter Smith eventually built for himself and his family a large house dominating the mills and the village, on what was then called Forest Hill. A man of deep religious convictions, he was long associated with the West Parish Church, of which he was not only a deacon but superin- tendent of the Sunday School. He was president of the board of
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trustees of Abbot Academy and also a trustee of Phillips Acade- my from 1870 to 1880. The two Smiths and John Dove in 1866 gave 30,000 dollars for a library building for Andover Theologi- cal Seminary, called Brechin Hall, and later added 30,000 dollars for its maintenance. The three partners also made liberal dona- tions to their native Scotch city of Brechin.
These were indeed worthy citizens, and their descendants carried on the business for many years after the deaths of the three original partners, maintaining their sound tradition of in- tegrity, industry, and philanthropy. Here again, however, the old order is now gone, and not one of their close relatives lives within the limits of the town. Their great houses are either torn down or in other hands.
No description of the Committee of Twenty-Five would be ad- equate without some reference to Nathan Wood Hazen (1799- 1887), usually dignified by the title of "Squire." Born in An- dover, he was educated in the local grammar school and at Bridg- ton Academy, in Maine, and, after reading law in Salem with Leverett Saltonstall, was admitted to the bar in 1829 and became one of the best-known attorneys in Essex County. For several years he was president of the Merrimack Mutual Insurance Com- pany, and he served one term in 1856 as a Whig in the Massachu- setts Senate. His obituary noted that he was "a man of marked literary taste, a great reader, who performed innumerable acts of benevolence." Some of his historical addresses are of consid- erable importance because of the facts and anecdotes which they preserve. He married Mary Pingree, but they had no children to carry on his name in Andover.
Obviously the town, in facing the war crisis, called upon its men of experience and influence. The Mexican War of 1846- 1847 was a relatively brief episode with which the majority of the citizens were not in sympathy. Probably no Andoverian served in it, and it brought no tragedy to the citizens. But the "Rebellion" was very different, and its suppression soon became everybody's business. I cannot explain why the stalwart and vig-
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