USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 28
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ANDOVER IN THE CIVIL WAR
high. Each summer the three private educational institutions held their annual exhibitions and awarded diplomas to their graduates in the traditional fashion. If any Copperheads dwelt in the vicinity, they did not raise their voices, and the communi- ty worked with singleness of aim. A visitor would have been im- pressed by the number of flags along the street; and if he lin- gered, he would have been aware of ladies meeting to sew on garments and of a sense of expectancy at any public gathering. But all the bloodshed was on distant soil, and the horrors of war were evidently chiefly when the wounded returned or the dead were brought back for honorable burial.
The termination of hostilities was greeted with relief and celebration, broken by the tragic news of the President's assas- sination, which was mourned in every church in town. Gradual- ly, with the discharge of soldiers, the town returned to normal. The Grand Army of the Republic was formed in 1866, and An- dover soon had its General William F. Bartlett Post, Number 99, which, until the turn of the century and after, was a potent influence in town affairs. After the inauguration of Memorial Day in 1868, the graves of veterans were annually decorated by the G.A.R., and the patriotic parade was headed by ex-soldiers in the blue uniforms. With the passage of time many of these found their uniforms tighter and less comfortable, and some were content to ride in carriages-later in automobiles-to the cemeteries. After 1918, most of the responsibility for Memorial Day was taken over by the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The last recorded Civil War veteran in the town, Henry L. Clukey, died in 1922, but he did not enlist originally from Andover.
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CHAPTER XXI
Places and Personalities
SF YEPARATED geographically from the parent settlement, the once quiet South Parish along the Shawsheen and down from the Hill, already an educational center, now became also a lively industrial community with traits peculiarly its own. North An- dover, with its attractive lake, changed as the century went on into a place of large estates and impressive mansions, owned by Stevenses, Suttons, Russells, Mifflins, Kunhardts, and others, most of them manufacturers. Bostonians who didn't like the seashore or the mountains used it as a summer resort for relief from city heat. Bishop Phillips Brooks found a refuge there in the home of his nieces, the old farmhouse once occupied by their ancestor, Esquire Phillips. North Andover was largely open country. Andover, with its busy stores and nearness to the rail- road, seemed to the casual visitor much more "citified."
Andover's actual population increased from the close of the Civil War to the Spanish War of 1898, but slowly and somewhat inconsistently. From a total of 5,314 in 1865, it had fallen off by 1870 to 4,873, for reasons related to the expansion of the neighboring city of Lawrence. By 1875, however, it had in- creased to 5,097, and in 1880 it was 5,171. Not until 1885, how- ever, did it surpass its size of twenty years before, with a reported population of 5,711, which by 1890 had grown officially to 6,142. The United States census for 1900 gave the figure for Andover as 6,813. During the period of thirty years from 1860 to 1890 the property valuation had increased from 2,339,977 dollars to 6,376,182 dollars, a much greater percentage increase
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than that in population. Andover had become a wealthy and prosperous industrial community.
Although the town had been outclassed in size and business interests by Lawrence, with its abundant water power, it had its own mills, several of which have been mentioned in an earlier chapter. The Marland Mills were acquired in 1879 by M. T. Stevens and Sons Company, but continued to be operated as a separate unit. The newest factory in 1865 was the Tyer Rubber Company, founded in 1856 by Henry George Tyer, a native of Hackney, England, who had come to the United States in 1841 as a young man of twenty-nine. Alert and imaginative, he ex- perimented with rubber compounds, eventually patenting the "Compo," a gaiter in which the upper and lower sole were fas- tened together by a rubber cement. He started a plant in An- dover very modestly with only six employees, but within two years he was using twenty-five men and seventy-five girls on a ten-hour shift. The firm was incorporated in 1876, and six years later Horace H. Tyer, son of the founder, became president, serving in that capacity until 1907. By that date the original plant on Main Street had been expanded until it had five hun- dred employees and sales amounting to nearly a million dollars a year. It was chiefly a family business until 1912, when its capi- tal structure was reorganized and the number of stockholders enlarged. By this date the trademark "Tyrian" had acquired nationwide significance.
After the war Andover could be counted in the Republican camp, casting its majority vote as decisively in 1900 for McKin- ley as it had done in 1868 for Grant. It was a period when no single one of its citizens achieved any real prominence in state or national politics. For reasons of expediency, Andover, in elections for the Massachusetts lower house, was usually includ- ed in the same district with North Andover and Middleton, and a rotation of representatives was informally arranged among the three towns. Thus no Andover representative, however capable and popular, could remain very long in that office. Among the
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Andover men who from time to time served in the House were George B. Foster, John B. Jenkins, Henry S. Greene, Edward Taylor, Augustine K. Russell, George H. Poor, Samuel H. Bout- well, John L. Smith, William G. Donald, John Cornell, Charles Smith, Albert S. Manning, William Odlin, and Charles Greene -a succession of sound, conservative Yankees.
The town suffered also by being placed, under legislative de- cree, in the same Congressional district with the cities of Law- rence and Lowell, which made it difficult for ambitious young statesmen to compete with politicians from the larger communi- ties. From 1867 to 1875 the Seventh District was represented in Congress by the notorious Benjamin F. Butler, of Lowell, who, once a "Northern man with Southern principles," had become a nominal Republican. Rather significantly, he was defeated in 1875 by John K. Tarbox, a Lawrence Democrat, but he was re- turned again in 1877, for one more term, this time as an "Inde- pendent Greenbacker." He was elected as governor in 1882. William A. Russell, a Lawrence paper manufacturer, was the district's Republican representative for three terms, from 1879 to 1885. Then came Charles H. Allen, of Lowell, for the Forty- ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (1885-1889), and Frederick T. Greenhalge, also of Lowell, for the Fifty-first Congress (1889- 1891), both of them Republicans.
Then in 1890 came an unexpected shift with the election of a Democrat, Moses T. Stevens, member of the well-known man- ufacturing family of North Andover. The story of his political adventures has its humorous and illuminating aspects. He had earlier served acceptably in both branches of the state legisla- ture, but in his sixties felt that he should devote himself to his industrial interests and to the Andover National Bank, of which he was president. During his convalescence from a severe at- tack of pleurisy he was asked by managers of the Democratic Party to offer himself as a sacrifice and run for Congress in what had become the Fifth District, regarded as irrevocably Republi- can. He replied that he would allow his name to be used on the
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assurance that he could not possibly be elected. His reputation for integrity and efficiency, however, was such that he attracted many Republican votes and won a majority of 454 over Green- halge. As might have been expected, Stevens took his job seri- ously and moved to Washington with his family. He became a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, helping to frame the Wilson Tariff Bill. He retired after two terms, at the age of seventy, leaving a fine reputation behind him. His successor, the Republican William S. Knox, was a Lawrence at- torney who held the office for eight years, from 1895 to 1903. In his career, as in that of Stevens, Andover could claim a small share, for during the closing years of his life he made his home in the town. He died on September 21, 1914.
The physical aspect of the town changed considerably from 1865 to1900. In 1866, a fortunate conflagration destroyed some unsightly old buildings on the northwest side of Elm Square, in the center of the business district; and John Smith, maintaining his record as a man of generous vision, persuaded his partners, Peter Smith and John Dove, to join him in pledging 35,000 dol- lars towards a Memorial Hall, Library, and Reading Room, to be erected in that excellent location, in honor of the Andover men who had given their lives in the War Between the States. The three donors stipulated that an additional 15,000 dollars should be raised by popular subscription; and Francis Cogswell, still a leader in all good works, was appointed chairman of a commit- tee of seven to carry the project through. The building, of brick with granite trimmings, was completed at a total cost of 43,000 dollars, including the land. It was formally dedicated on Friday, May 30, 1873, with appropriate ceremonies, including an ad- dress in the South Church by Phillips Brooks, not yet a bishop but even then one of the country's most eloquent orators.
Although the dedication was mainly of local interest, Brooks gave to his address a broader relevance and significance. He ob- viously had many reasons for wishing to signalize an important event in the community where his Phillips ancestors had been
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among the leading citizens. The opening paragraph, although subdued in tone, set the mood for the talk:
The employment to which this Decoration Day is dedicated, and in which many of you have been occupied this morning, is the noblest in which a free and grateful people can engage. The graves of the soldiers all over the land have once more burst into flower with the honor and affection of devoted hearts. Once more the stately obelisks and the little hillocks that are fast sinking back to the common level of this mother earth have become the flower-decked monuments of the truths and principles for which they died whose bodies lie below them. It is not the least of the debts that we owe our Union soldiers that their very graves are vocal,-that though dead, they speak to us still. The soldiers who survived the war have passed into other occu- pations. It is the lives that stopped at loyalty and freedom that have left the strongest emphasis upon those sacred words. The men who from the bloody shore of the Rebellion embarked into the other life have left footprints ineffaceable upon the margin where they plant- ed them, and made it recognizable and dear forever.
Brooks then continued with references to incidents in An- dover history, pointing out that "the soldier and the scholar came forth together from the culture of our town" and continu- ing, "A powder-mill and a paper-mill were its two first indus- tries, and the same gentle Shawshin turned the wheels of both." In words which no Andoverian is likely to forget, he spoke of "the truly American character of Andover" and described her in an oft-quoted sentence, "Everywhere and always, first and last, she has been the manly, straight-forward, sober, patriotic New England town." With pride and sympathy he spoke of the fifty-two whose names were on the Honor Roll. "They did not merely clear the field of treason," he said. "By the same labor they built up a new possibility of national character and life." Then, as he drew to a close, he spoke movingly of truth:
It is truth that we want in every department of our life. In State and Church we need it, at home and on the street; in the smallest
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fashions and in the most sacred mysteries; that men should say what they think, should act out what they believe, should be themselves continually, without concealment and without pretense. When we have that, we shall have at least a solid basis of reality on which to build all future programs. It is the benefit of great and solemn crises that they give us some characters which manifest this simple truth, that they make it to some extent the character of all the time. We lay our wreaths upon the graves of our Union soldiers because they were such men of truth; and we pray that their memory and influence may be strong among us so long as the nation lasts for which they lived and died.
When I first came to Andover in 1908, this address was still remembered, although it had been delivered thirty-five years before, and one veteran, trying to describe it to me, said, "Mr. Brooks spoke like an angel direct from Heaven, and I wanted to shout and weep at the same time."
Designed and erected at perhaps the lowest period in Ameri- can architectural history, Memorial Hall to later generations seemed more useful than beautiful. Some later alterations, how- ever, have left it less conspicuously ugly than it was originally. In 1866, the same generous trio of Scotch immigrants-John Smith, Peter Smith, and John Dove-had given to Andover Theological Seminary a library which was christened Brechin Hall, after their native village. This, too, in the light of modern architectural developments, came to be regarded as in atrocious taste, and the dwellers on the Hill felt relieved when its mottled walls were torn down in 1926. But the spirit which prompted the gifts of Brechin Hall and Memorial Hall is part of Andover's splendid tradition.
The huge, flamboyant Memorial Hall on the Harvard College campus is perhaps the most depressing example in New Eng- land of how insidiously decadence may creep in. But the con- trasts between good and bad designing are perfectly demon- strated also on Andover Hill. In the spring of 1880 an old farm-
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house on the corner of Main and Phillips Streets was moved half a mile to the north side of Morton Street-where it may still be seen-and in its place was erected a "Queen Anne" dwelling, with many gables and dormer windows, much “gim- crackery" and fancy colored glass. The cost of this residence, giv- en by members of the Jewett family as a home for Professor Wil- liam Jewett Tucker, was about 18,000 dollars, and it was called at the time of its completion "the finest house on Andover Hill" -this with the lovely Phelps House, one of Bulfinch's best, standing only a few yards away.
Andover never had the architectural unity and distinction which characterized Salem and Newburyport. In those coastal towns wealth derived from shipping came almost simultaneous- ly to families at precisely the period when excellent architects were available. Hence the fine Georgian Colonial mansions which lend charm to the older areas of those cities. Andover too has its beautiful houses, not only on the Hill but also on School and Central Streets; but they are somewhat scattered and too often in the vicinity of other buildings less attractive.
All this, however, is digressional, and we must return to the Andover of the 1870's and 1880's. On the opposite side of Elm Square from Memorial Hall stood the village's best-known inn, built in the closing years of the eighteenth century and operated through many vicissitudes and under several names and propri- etors until it was torn down in 1894 to make room for the new brick Musgrove Block. Known under various regimes as "Ye Ames Tavern," "Mayo's Tavern," and the "Eagle Hotel," it was finally acquired by Samuel G. Bean, known locally as "Uncle Sam," and rechristened "The Elm House." "Uncle Sam," not to be confused with quite a different "Uncle Sam," the domi- neering principal of Phillips Academy from 1837 to 1871, was also an auctioneer and livery stable keeper, drove his own four- in-hand attached to a tallyho, and was a colorful figure with his white beaver hat, frock coat, and whip. Under him the Elm House enjoyed for some years a moderate degree of prosperity.
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The Elm House faced the village green, which in those days was a rallying point for town activities, especially those spon- sored by the G.A.R., whose members on July 4 never failed to fire there their sunrise salute. The boarding and livery stables at- tached to the hostelry were of much convenience to local resi- dents before the coming in the 1890's of the electric trolley cars, which made transportation easier. The opulent manufacturers of North Andover drove their own carriages to the Andover railroad station in order to catch the early morning train for Boston, but ordinary people had to hire their rigs; and on Sun- day afternoon in spring and summer every vehicle in the stable was likely to be rented for pleasure excursions.
On the long porch of the Elm House were usually to be found John Pray, another livery stable keeper, moving slowly back and forth in his rocker, and also the colored boy, in uniform, who acted as bellhop and clerk. The lobby was long an informal gathering place for the discussion of town affairs, and "Uncle Sam" had his difficulties in keeping out the loafers who found there a congenial refuge without contributing to the running expenses of the inn. Huge brass cuspidors were placed here and there for the convenience of the guests. The smell was an unmis- takable blend of stale cigar smoke and odors from the kitchen. In short, it was a genuine old-fashioned country hotel.
More expensive and exclusive was the Mansion House at the top of the Hill, which sent its own horse-drawn "bus" to meet the trains. After its transformation into a tavern, chiefly for guests of the Academy and the Seminary, it welcomed many dis- tinguished visitors, including not only Lafayette and Webster, already mentioned, but also Emerson, Andrew Jackson, Wen- dell Phillips, James G. Blaine, Henry Ward Beecher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mark Twain, Phillips Brooks, and William Dean Howells, as well as other darlings of the lecture platform in the golden days of the Lyceum. Over the years the huge square building had weathered storm after storm, while around it other apparently less perishable structures had gone up in flames or
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been moved away. Its second century was hardly well started, however, when, on the early morning of November 29, 1887, an incendiary, possibly a disgruntled employee or Academy stu- dent, kindled fires in different parts of the tavern.
When the alarm was sounded, the proprietor, Charles L. Car- ter, rode on horseback, like Paul Revere, from his estate on Carter's Hill; but although firemen and the inevitable excited crowd of Academy students rushed at once to the scene and the Andover fire engine performed valiantly, the flames had too good a start and could not be extinguished. By morning nothing was left of the historic mansion but the tall brick chimneys loom- ing up like weird apparitions in the midst of charred beams and debris. The huge lock and key, rescued by Dr. Bancroft, the Academy principal, himself, were preserved and so was the chair in which George Washington had sat. Most of the valuable con- tents, however, were consumed, including the register with its autographs, although various miscellaneous items, such as sec- tions of paneling, may still be found in the homes of old Andover citizens. The longest sofa I have ever seen was rescued, stored in the Phelps House garden shed, and handed down from one Acad- emy principal to another.
The destruction of this edifice so familiar to many generations of students left the Hill temporarily without an inn, but the Academy trustees allowed Mr. Carter to lease the stone Stowe House on Chapel Avenue, and he remodeled it as a hotel, retain- ing the old but now rather inappropriate name of Mansion House. In 1892 a wooden wing was added to the building in or- der to enlarge the accommodations, which, especially at Com- mencement time, had been quite inadequate. Mansion House it was until 1908, when it became the Phillips Inn.
On December 21, 1864, while the war was still on, the Stone Academy on the corner of Main Street and Chapel Avenue was so damaged by fire that it had to be demolished. The Academy trustees promptly voted to erect a new Academy Hall, and a building fund was started, to which several of the townspeople
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gave generously. This was dedicated on February 7, 1866. Some years later, on October 2, 1878, the stone Seminary Church, placed where the Addison Gallery of American Art is now situ- ated, was dedicated with a sermon by Professor Smyth.
The story of the town at this period cannot possibly be made complete without constant reference to the three private edu- cational institutions with which the fortunes of the citizens were so closely interwoven. On the Hill events occurred which gave Andover prestige throughout the country. The eminent scholar and theologian, Professor Moses Stuart, died in 1852, and Pro- fessor Stowe and his world-famous wife moved in 1864 to Hart- ford, Connecticut. But in what was known as the President's House dwelt Professor Austin Phelps (1820-1890), a brilliant preacher and writer, and his talented daughter, Elizabeth Stu- art Phelps (1844-1911), whose book, The Gates Ajar, in 1869, brought her a literary reputation almost overnight. The Madon- na of the Tubs (1886) added to her fame. In 1888, when she was forty-four, she married Herbert Dickinson Ward and moved to Newton Center, Massachusetts. The scene of her novel, A Singu- lar Life, is laid partly in Andover, only partly disguised as Ce- sarea, and she had this to say of the Seminary:
Nature had done a great deal for the Christian religion, or at least for that view of it represented by our Seminary, when that institution was established at Cesarea, a matter of nearly a century ago. But art had not in this instance proved herself the handmaid of religion. The theological buildings, a row of three,-Galilee and Damascus Halls, to right and left of the ancient chapel,-rose grimly against the cold Cesarea sky. These buildings were all of brick, red, rectangular, and unrelieved; as barren of ornament or broken lines as a packing-box, and yet curiously possessed of a certain dignity of their own; such as we see in aged folk unfashionably dressed, but sure of their local po- sition. Not a tremor seemed ever to disturb the calm, red faces of these old buildings, when the pretty chapel and the graceful library of modern taste crept in under the elms of the Seminary green to console the spirit of the contemporary Cesarean, who has visited the
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Louvre and the Vatican as often as the salary will allow; who has tickets to the Symphony Concerts in Boston, and feels no longer obliged to conceal the fact that he occasionally witnesses a Shake- spearean play.
These comments on what Mrs. Ward called the "old red boxes" speak volumes regarding the architectural taste of the 1890's. An even more illuminating picture of life on Andover Hill in the midcentury is that offered in her autobiographi- cal Chapters from a Life (1896), which is realistic as well as sentimental.
The outstanding figure on the Seminary faculty after the death of Professor Stuart was unquestionably Edwards Amasa Park (1808-1900), professor from 1836 to 1881 and editor from 1844 to 1884 of the theological magazine, Biblioteca Sacra. He was conceded by his colleagues to be the ablest preacher on the Hill, and several of his sermons, notably those on Peter and on Judas, were frequently repeated, not only for the benefit of the "Theologues" but also in the South Church in the town. At- tacked in his younger days for being a defiant heretic, he was reproached as an old man for being a stubborn reactionary. Passersby gazed at him with awe as he paced for an hour at a time up and down the path from his front door to the street, his brow knit in what must have been profound reflection on the mysteries of the universe.
Although Professor Park formally retired in 1881, he spent the remaining years of his life in his Andover home on South Main Street, having promised the trustees to put into published form his system of theology. Year after year went by, however, without any addition to the manuscript. The supreme tragedy of his career was his recognition that his ideas were outmoded, that he had nothing to contribute of any importance. His biog- rapher said of him, "His mind dwelt on high themes, and his religious life centered in God"; but for permanent record he had really nothing to say.
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Meanwhile the personnel of the Seminary faculty had been changing, and a new liberalism was being espoused and ex- pounded by a group of younger scholars, Egbert C. Smyth (1829- 1904), William J. Tucker (1839-1926), John W. Churchill (1839- 1900), George Harris (1844-1922), and Edward Y. Hincks (1844- 1927). Their teaching, preaching, and writing aroused the ire of some ultraconservative Seminary alumni, who brought charges against them seeking their removal on the ground that their theological views were not consistent with the "sound doc- trine" of the founders. The so-called "heresy trials" of the 1880's focused public attention on the Seminary, which was for some months the center of one of those most violent of all controversies -a dispute over religious orthodoxy. Fortunately four of the five professors were completely exonerated; and when the fifth, the mild-mannered, self-effacing Smyth, was removed from his chair of Ecclesiastical History, he appealed to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, which after a delay of some years, referred the matter, because of technical details, back to the Board of Visi- tors, who had created all the trouble in the first instance. By then, men's passions and prejudices had cooled, common sense took control, and Smyth remained unmolested at Andover until his death.
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