USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Andover: symbol of New England; the evolution of a town > Part 31
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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
Annie Sawyer Downs's poem, composed with unusual versa- tility in several different meters, dealt with various episodes in town history, ending with the dramatic story of Walter L. Ray- mond, who was captured on August 16, 1864, by the Confeder- ates near Malvern Hill, Virginia, and died on Christmas Day of the same year, a prisoner-of-war at Salisbury, North Carolina. While the verses limped at times, they did fulfill a commemora- tive purpose, read as they were with moving fervor by Professor Churchill.
Among the speakers at the banquet were acting Governor Roger Wolcott; Congressman William S. Knox; Hollis R. Bai- ley, who paid a tribute to Simon Bradstreet; Captain John G. B. Adams, a Civil War veteran; and in conclusion the inimitable Professor John Phelps Taylor, who in his customary compre- hensive fashion, called the roll of virtually everybody who had at any time made a contribution to the evolution of Andover. And then Professor Churchill, the perennial and always acceptable toastmaster, closed the proceedings in appropriate words:
As we part, thinking perhaps of the three hundredth anniversary, when the sons and daughters of Andover shall assemble on a similar occasion to this, happy is the thought that many of the boys and girls present today will participate in that far distant scene. Then, as now, may the sons and daughters of Andover look backward with exulta- tion and thanksgiving, and forward with confidence and anticipa- tion. Let us remind ourselves, as we separate, of the words of one of Andover's most illustrious kinsmen, Wendell Phillips: "To be as good as our fathers, we must be better!" Imitation is not discipleship.
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Let us part, as we began the festivities of the afternoon, by singing a song, "Auld Lang Syne!"
It must be repeated that this two hundred and fiftieth anni- versary, so carefully planned and effectively carried out, sym- bolized a fresh interest in local history. Exhibits of portraits and pictures of Andover men and women attracted much attention. Tableaux made even the children aware of famous names. Old traditions and anecdotes were revived. The modern Andover, once the remote South Parish, had become fully conscious of its blessings and distinction.
Another indication of the same spirit was the adoption of a distinctive town seal. Before 1889 a plain sticker seal, without any decoration or impression, was used on official documents. In that year, however, a legislative act was passed authorizing towns to prepare and employ their own legal seals; and accordingly, on October 21, 1889, under an article in the town warrant, a de- sign was chosen bearing simply the words, "Town of Andover, Massachusetts, Incorporated 1646." Before the seal was actually cast somebody inserted "May 6" between the word "Incorporat- ed" and the date "1646." Just who assumed the authority to do this nobody now remembers; but the act must have had the approval of the town fathers, and no objection has since been raised.
In 1900, under the direction of the Secretary of State, a com- mission offered prizes for drawings of city and town seals, and a design was submitted for Andover, presumably by William Herndon Foster, an artist who was a resident of the town. This showed an Indian, undoubtedly Cutshumache, Sagamore of Massachusetts, in full headdress, with outstretched right arm and hand, evidently pointing to the broad domain which he had just sold to John Woodbridge, of Newbury, for six English pounds and a coat. It has been suggested that he may be thought of as standing on Holt's Hill, from which most of the real estate involved could be seen. On March 5, 1900, under article 16 of
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the town warrant, the citizens, without debate or dissent, voted "to adopt the new town seal as recommended by the State Com- missioner of Public Records." It has been in use ever since.
These events and incidents towards the end of the nineteenth century marked a transition from one era to another. Changes were taking place with startling rapidity, and the townspeople had to move fast to keep up with current progress. For many years Andover had had its own police and fire departments; and in 1886 the town voted, on the recommendation of a special committee headed by John L. Smith, to spend 10,000 dollars in making the so-called "Trustees' Pond"-now Rabbit Pond-at the top of the Hill available for fire protection. About seventy- five hundred feet of piping was laid from the little pond to the center of the village, and sixteen hydrants were installed. This was helpful, of course, in the control of fires, but, as everybody familiar with the situation knew, the water was certainly not potable. To provide a drinking water system, another special committee was created and advised the pumping of water from the two hundred and twenty-acre Haggett's Pond, in the West Parish. By the date of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, Andover had all the clear, uncontaminated water it required, and one by one the wells fell into disuse.
Transportation meanwhile was becoming easier and more rapid. The first electric railway in Massachusetts ran in 1887 down one of the streets of Lynn; and by 1890, all of the cities and fifty-eight of the three hundred and fifty-four towns in the Commonwealth were served by "trolley cars." The electric road between Andover and Reading was opened in 1900, and that from Andover to Haverhill a year later. Meanwhile the bicycle had encouraged the mobility of all but the aging, and the horse- less carriage, or automobile, completed what the bicycle had be- gun. I have tried unsuccessfully to ascertain who owned the first automobile in the town. But before 1900, Andoverians were get- ting around, as well as out and back again, with speed and some degree of comfort.
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Better roads and improved sidewalks were more and more es- sential as traffic of all kinds increased. The old oil lamps lighting the streets gave way to gas lights, and these in turn to electric bulbs. In 1898 the town voted to spend 20,000 dollars for a sew- age system. A telephone exchange was opened in 1898, and it was rather proudly reported in 1900 that there were about sev- enty-five subscribers. The earliest gas ranges came to kitchens in 1901. The town tax rate in 1897 was 15 dollars a thousand, and the valuation was reported as 4,677,611 dollars. The total town expense of administration, estimated in 1672 at 300 pounds, had now grown to more than 70,000 dollars, but the citizens were obviously getting more and more for their money in the way of protection and comfort.
The instruments of so-called civilization came so gradually that their significance, and the easier daily routine which they made possible, were not fully appreciated at the time. The world of the twentieth century had a much more rapid pace, a grimmer tension, than that of two hundred years before. Wells and soapstone stoves and kerosene lamps had disappeared almost before housewives realized what had happened. The telephone and the electric light, now taken for granted as merited bless- ings, were installed as a matter of course by those who could afford them. Early in the new century people had ceased to won- der at a mechanical contrivance like the lawn mower or the re- frigerator or the carpet sweeper and began to think of hand- looms and scythes as old-fashioned. This happened all over New England, beginning in the more thickly populated areas and spreading rapidly to the rural districts. Man's inventive genius was pulling him more and more towards materialism, expensive, perhaps, but exceedingly pleasant.
Although this is not an industrial history, it may be illumi- nating to note the various services required in the increasingly complex Andover community of the 1890's. The chief manufac- turing plants then in operation were the Marland Mills, the Ballard Vale Mills, the Smith and Dove Mills, the Tyer Rub-
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ber Company, and J. W. Barnard and Company, which made shoes. Among the leading merchants any list must include, as grocers, T. A. Holt and Co. (picturesquely located in the base- ment of the Baptist Church like the markets under Faneuil Hall), Smith and Manning, Valpey Bros., and J. H. Campion and Co .; Allen Bros. and Arthur Bliss, druggists; Barnett Rogers, real estate; J. E. Sears and Benjamin Brown, shoes; Thomas J. Farmer, fish dealer; P. J. Hannon and Burns and Crowley, tai- lors; H. F. Chase, athletic goods, with a large trade at Phillips Academy; Frank E. Gleason, coal and wood; Moses V. Gleason, mason and builder; J. E. Whiting, jeweler; Frank H. Messer, undertaker (before the days of morticians); and Thomas P. Har- riman's blacksmith shop and Poor's wagon shop, survivors of an age soon to be left behind.
These were real names and flesh-and-blood people, not ano- nymities functioning under the broader title of "A. & P." and "Stop and Shop." The proprietors greeted personally everybody who entered the store and inquired about family affairs. Indeed the town even in 1900 was so small that nearly everybody knew everybody else; and most of the old-timers were on a first-name basis, even including some of the more austere professors on the Hill.
One imaginative project of this period was the acquisition by public-spirited citizens of Indian Ridge, the extraordinary geo- logical kame which extends through a considerable section of the township and is actually the remnant of an ancient terminal moraine. One of its features is the Red Spring, out of which a steady stream of iron-stained water flows from under the glacial deposit. When the heirs of Hartwell Abbot, who had inherited the ridge, decided to cut down the stand of timber which so much enhanced its natural beauty, some good citizens who re- garded this as sacrilege tried to get a motion through town meet- ing to appropriate the money necessary to buy the land for public use. Economy-minded taxpayers rejected this proposal; whereupon the undiscouraged group undertook to raise by pop-
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ular subscription the 3,000 dollars required. This they succeeded in doing; and on December 16, 1897, the Abbot heirs signed the deed transferring twenty-two acres of land to its new owners, who promptly established the area as a reservation. Fortunately the tall pines were undisturbed, and the walk along the crest in their shade is one of the loveliest within the boundaries of the town. This is one of a few instances in town history when an oligarchy accomplished privately what a democracy failed to do. To this day school children uncover arrowheads along the ridge which the aborigines used as a conveniently marked trail; and older citizens on spring afternoons stroll along its paths with gratitude in their hearts.
Such peaceful and profitable activities were briefly interrupt- ed by the Spanish War, probably the most needless military un- dertaking in our national annals. Following the blowing up of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, Congress, stimulated by the bellicose Theodore Roosevelt and the unprincipled yel- low press, on April 21, 1898, declared war against Spain. The first shot against a Spanish fort is said to have been fired by Cadet Charles Boone, a native Andoverian who was aboard the flagship New York, at Matanzas, Cuba. He received plenty of publicity, but I have been unable to find anything about his later career. With the outbreak of hostilities, military training was started once more at Phillips Academy; but a mass meeting on April 25 nearly ended in a riot because of a speech by an instructor who condemned American foreign policy in scathing, courageous words. At a flag-raising outside of Brechin Hall on June 1 Pro- fessor George Harris, of the Seminary, delivered a patriotic ad- dress, urging his hearers to support our government; and Pro- fessor Churchill, nearing the close of his public-spirited career, read Mrs. Stowe's Banner Hymn, which had been written for a similar occasion a quarter of a century before. Three town vol- unteers, Raymond L. Buchan, George M. Henderson, and John Henderson, left promptly for the front, and two or three others followed, but the war was fortunately soon over. So far as is
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known, only one Andoverian, Charles Barney Gould, saw any real action. Adventurous in spirit, he joined Roosevelt's Rough Riders and went to Cuba. He died in 1902, of disease contracted in service. Brief though the war was, it left the United States with "imperialistic" problems which still trouble us. Andover residents went about their daily duties, disturbed at times by Hearst's "yellow journalism," watching and reflecting, but un- aware that they were citizens of what would shortly become a world power.
Between the close of the Civil War and the Spanish War, a period of thirty-three years, Andover had been divested of its rural aspect. More and more mill executives in Lawrence were buying or building homes in Andover, commuting back and forth to their offices. Indeed the area between Andover and Law- rence, through Frye Village-soon to be rechristened Shawsheen Village-was being heavily built up. Helped by the trolley, An- dover housewives were doing some of their shopping in the near- by city. That the country village was destined, or doomed, to be- come just another suburb was predicted by many pessimists. Indeed some doubt was expressed as to whether the historic town could long maintain its identity. Would not the metropo- lis swallow it up, as had happened in many similar cases? The new century opened up new problems, for nobody, however well informed, could be sure what direction American civilization would take.
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CHAPTER XXIII
Happy Days Before the Storm
T THE Golden Days at the opening of the present century are remembered nostalgically by Andover's old-timers as a pe- riod of blessed calm and prosperity, not without disturbing epi- sodes, such as the Lawrence strike of 1912, but nevertheless comparatively untempestuous. Crime still existed, of course, and rotten politics and epidemics and human misery, but they didn't always make the big black headlines on the front page. Andoverians, like a majority of their fellow Americans, lived comfortably, enjoyed themselves in moderation and with dis- cretion, feared no other country, and had a quiet confidence in the future of the United States. Professors on the Hill went around quoting, as one did to me in 1909, "Time's noblest off- spring is the last!" Lost Generations and Beat Generations were far in the future. The unforeseen outbreak of a war in Europe in the summer of 1914 interrupted what had seemed like prog- ress towards a millennium. That interruption was catastrophic -and it was not temporary. It has lasted to the present moment, with cumulative anxieties and tensions.
Andover's mood was that of the nation, indeed helped to cre- ate it, for it was the summation of similar communities across the continent. It was a mood which was optimistic, or at least melioristic, and with justification. Leaving aside the natural ills to which human flesh is heir, sickness and old age, life was agree- able for most of the residents. The population which in 1900 was 6,813 had grown slowly to 7,301 in 1910, and by 1916 was 7,975. The percentage of farmers had decreased, while the num- ber of mill workers and tradesmen was much larger. Though
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the town was less homogeneous than it had been in the 1860's, the census still showed a high proportion of descendants of what were called "old families." The changes were more in buildings and roads, in transportation and household gadgets, than in peo- ple. Most of the local mills were prosperous from year to year, and wages kept pace with profits. No perceptible inflation was felt. The tax rate, even up to 1904, was only 16 dollars; and the town treasurer received a salary of just 600 dollars, on which, he once assured me, he lived very comfortably. Improvements were not neglected. High Street was macadamized in 1906. In the same year the old railroad station, with its covered train shed, was removed, and a new one, regarded as architecturally an im- provement, was erected further down the hill. The cornerstone of a new brick Free Church was laid in 1907. These were nor- mal improvements, not like the sudden, comprehensive "de- velopments" of recent years.
By the 1900's, man's mechanical inventions had transformed the village economy as well as the daily routine of every man, woman, and child in Andover. In the summertime the open trol- ley, with its seats stretching from one side to the other, was a means of recreation. Housewives went for five cents by streetcar to Lawrence. To Reading the cost was ten cents, and the remain- der of the trip to Boston could be made by railroad for fifteen cents more. Walking was, of course, much more widespread than it is today. The trolley was the transportation symbol of an age when mere speed seemed unimportant and unnecessary, except in emergencies, and when Americans of all ages and occupations had not yet been afflicted by a frenzied mania to go somewhere, even if there was nothing to do when they arrived. Business could now be transacted by telephone, with a consequent saving of long and tedious trips to offices and stores. In short a new era, a little faster in pace, had opened for every American family.
The increasing popularity of the automobile forced the se- lectmen in 1904 to adopt a speed limit of ten miles an hour for thickly settled districts and fifteen miles for other areas. In 1908
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several demon motorists were arrested for tearing along at twen- ty miles an hour. Although it was reported in that year that there were six hundred and two horses in Andover, the number was diminishing; and "Billy" Higgins turned part of his stable into a garage for the convenience of automobile owners. By 1914 the parking problem in the center of the town had become annoying.
The American passion for "joining" had already shown itself in various profitable ways. Andover women could hardly have been submerged while Mrs. Stowe and Miss Phelps were around; and even when these two estimable ladies had departed, their successors organized and made themselves felt. On November 7, 1889, a group met at the home of Miss Elizabeth L. Handy, at 126 Main Street, "to discuss the desirability of a Woman's Club in Andover for social and literary advantages." The fifteen pres- ent unanimously elected Mrs. Edward G. Coy, wife of the Pro- fessor of Greek at Phillips Academy, as their president. Within a few weeks the parliamentary framework was perfected and the name "November Club" adopted. The official Records, carefully preserved and later summarized by Miss Bessie Goldsmith at a fiftieth anniversary luncheon on November 6, 1939, reveal a varied program of entertainment under seven different depart- ments, with a list of outside speakers including some of New England's most highly regarded celebrities; and the members themselves represented a high quality of talent in music and the other fine arts. Early meetings were held at Abbot Hall, at Abbot Academy, but the club, through ingenious projects, soon raised the money to build a club house on what is now Locke Street but was then known as Love Lane. This was dedicated on February 22, 1892. By 1912 the regular members numbered one hundred and twenty, and there were ten associates.
The lectures and discussions which took place offer an inter- esting picture of a period which valued intellectuality without neglecting humor and whimsey. The subjects considered ranged from "The Pyramids" to "The Language of Flowers," from
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"English Cathedrals" to "Historic Andover"-the last being a perennial and apparently a fruitful topic. On one famous occa- sion a guest was introduced by a hastily summoned vice-presi- dent as being about to speak on "Trelawny, the Friend of Sheets and Kelly." Plays were often presented, some of them original; and it was whispered about at masculine gatherings that some of the more shapely females enjoyed donning men's costumes. Once, when Miss Pond read the Ballad of Vinbrig, the audience was "startled to see crossing the platform a procession of the women of Vinbrig, each carrying upon her shoulders her great- est treasure, her husband!" At the meeting on February 22, 1904, Miss Mary Alice Abbot caused a sensation as the Goddess of Liberty marshaling the company to pay their respects to Mary Ball Washington and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Among the more conspicuous members were Miss Agnes Park, Mrs. Edward Y. Hincks, and Mrs. Warren K. Moorehead; but it was Mrs. Mat- thew S. McCurdy who was for many years the choicest spirit, ready to meet any occasion with originality and imagination.
Andover was symbolic also of the philanthropic and fraternal mood that led so many American towns to try to improve them- selves. Andover Grange, No. 183, was started on February 17, 1890, with Samuel Boutwell as master, and shortly built its own hall in the West Parish, where so many of the farms were lo- cated. The "Society for Organized Charity" was the conception of a few warmhearted and determined ladies who, in a year of depression, sponsored a movement for relief work in the com- munity. As their group took on additional activities, the select- men assigned them a room in the town hall for an office. Soon a more appropriate name, "The Andover Guild," was adopted, and a headquarters, complete with a gymnasium, was opened in December, 1896, with facilities for basketball, gymnastics, bowl- ing, and other healthful forms of recreation. As a means of pre- venting and combatting the symptoms of juvenile delinquen- cies, it was an enterprise of notable importance. A Boy Scout troop was formed in 1910, with Jesse Billington as scoutmaster;
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and shortly a similar organization of Girl Scouts supplemented this training of the young. Eventually on the shore of Pomp's Pond, Camp Maude Eaton took shape, in memory of a charm- ing lady, Mrs. Fred T. Eaton, who was the first Council treas- urer. The more strictly fraternal groups, like the Masons and the Knights of Columbus, which brought men into a closer and more understanding relationship, were phases of the American scene. These have animated and enriched the lives of many An- doverians and fulfilled an important function in unifying the community. With them must be mentioned the Andover His- torical Society, founded in 1911, with Dr. Charles E. Abbott as its ardent promoter and first president. To this society we are indebted for its assiduity in preserving records and relics and re- minding the citizens that the past has contributed much to the present.
Essex County, meanwhile, had become irrevocably, almost boastfully, industrial, and machinery had replaced both the plow and the sail. The smoke from chimneys, the hum of looms, the workmen riding back in the afternoon on the streetcars- these were signs of the change. The Haverhill which in John Greenleaf Whittier's boyhood has been a marketing center for farmers was, before he died in 1892, sending millions of shoes out all over the world. Villages like Andover felt the pressure from foremen and executives who wanted to get back home to quiet at night. Whether it liked it or not, Andover was to become another suburbia.
Consequently this period cannot be understood in its Ameri- can background without a consideration of the influence, direct and indirect, of the city of Lawrence on Andover affairs. The General Court had created Lawrence in 1847, quite arbitrarily, by taking three and one-half square miles from Methuen and two and one-half from Andover. But although it geographically was partly Andover's child, it rapidly outgrew both its parents. In 1847 it had been a pleasant rural settlement on the broad Merrimack, as yet uncontaminated by man's financial ambi-
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tions, which as usual disregarded all natural beauty. The open- ing of the textile mills after the construction of the Great Dam has already been described; and some of the consequences have been pointed out by Donald B. Cole, in an article entitled "Law- rence," published in the Essex County Historical Collections for October, 1956:
The impact of industry and immigration had transformed the model town into an immigrant city. Of the two influences immigra- tion was the more important because without it there would have been no city. By 1855 native and Irish migrations had brought 16,000 residents to Lawrence. Half a century later in 1905 74,000 of the city's 86,000 were first or second generation Americans. Law- rence was artificially created to lure immigrants and produce tex- tiles and down to 1912 it was supremely successful in both.
Up to 1890 the population of Lawrence consisted largely of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, England, and Canada. By 1895, however, the new arrivals were Lithuanians, Poles, Syri- ans, and Armenians; and Lawrence led all the cities in Massa- chusetts in the percentage of foreign-born to native residents. By the end of the century the municipality was polyglot, and one could hear on the streets the accents of almost every dialect on earth. The uneducated workmen in the Wood Mills seemed even less cooperative because of their inability to read notices or un- derstand their Anglo-Saxon neighbors. This alien horde in- creased so rapidly that the city could not properly assimilate it, and it was accurately described as "a mobile, migratory crowd, with no permanent interest in any industry." Unlike the Scotch immigrants who had built up the Smith and Dove mills in An- dover, these Lawrence newcomers had at first no stake in the community.
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