USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Millbury > Centennial history of the town of Millbury, Massachusetts, including vital statistics, 1850-1899 > Part 34
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Catalogue of Master Workmen belonging to the Armory and state- ment of their work and prices for doing same.
1829 Jan'y 8, Forgers
No. 1. Peter Pierce for welding barrels and finds helper 31 cents No. 2. Capt. Charles Hale, bayonet, helper found 9 cts. Capt. Charles Hale, lock plates, helper found 3 cts.
12 cents
No. 3. Lettes Hammond for cocks, finds helper, ham- mers sett springs, sett swivels, sett butt screws triggers, cross pin, sett side pins, sett band springs, spring vice, 5 cts. ball screws 5 cts. wipers 312 cts. driver, 8 mills
22 cents
No. 4. Jonathan Trask, U. bands, M. bands, L. bands, tumbler, bridle, Sear, cock pin, 1312 cents upper chop, sett of small lock pins.
No. 5. S. A. Newton, Butt plates, guard bows, guard strap, breech pins, sett of guard screws, making rod heads, rounding ditto.
1314 cents
No. 6. Jesse Peirce, tempering rods 2 cents
Filing & Finishing &c.
No. 7 & 8. Asa Andrews and Calvin Barker For filing locks and making springs, $1.30 $1.32 For making side pins .02
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HISTORY OF MILLBURY
No. 9 & 10. Harvey Park and Samuel Lothrop For stocking muskets 75 cents
No. 11. Samuel Prescott, for boring barrels
25 cents
No. 12. Zadock Sibley, for turning, grinding and brush- ing 29 cents
No. 13. Jotham Gale, for filing and fitting bayonets and sighting barrels
-
23 cents
No. 14. Benjamin Flagg, Filing a sett of mounting 38 cents
No. 15 Luke and Thos. J. Harrington, polishing
& 16. muskets 16 cents
No. 17. A. P. Benchley finishing musket
18 cents
No. 18. Joseph Torrey Browning 14 cents Filing sett of Ball screws 2.00 and wiper.
$2.14
No. 19. Col. F. J. Barton Grinding sett of mounting 6 cts. grinding bayonet 8 cts. grinding rod (1612 cents 212 cts.
By month
Lewis Lilley, Abraham Peirce, John Warner,
Samuel A. Waters, Preston Ray, Amos Peirce,
Andrew Leonard, Rivarius Hooker.
Scythes
Perly Whipple, making scythe plates
Grains,
$2.25
Phila
1.33
Yorks
1.20
Eastern
1.12
$5.90
Simon Dudley, grinding
Grains
$ .75
Phila
. 621/2
Yorks
.371/2
Eastern
.371/2
$2.2112
Charles Hale, turning ditto
Grain
$1.25
Phila
. 83
Yorks
.75
Eastern
.67
$3.50
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Jesse Peirce
tempering, strat. and straining complete
Grain .75
Phila . 45
Yorks .35
Eastern .30 $1.85
Mr. Waters developed four water powers on the Blackstone river, viz .:
1. The Stillwater, which successively gave power to the "flan- nel mill," the Stillwater Mill, the sash and blind shop, etc., and where the Felters Works and Millbury Machine Shop now stand.
2. The Armory, later the Atlanta Mills, etc., immediately west of South Main Street.
3. The Cordis Mills.
4. The Wilkinsonville.
For all of these Mr. Waters built dams and water ways.
He founded the Millbury Bank in 1825, was its largest stock- holder and its first president. He was a representative to the Legislature in 1823. He was one of the largest land owners in the county, and gave the site for the Academy at the northwest corner of Elm and Waters Streets. This deed was conditioned upon its continued use for educational purposes.
The residence Mr. Waters built for himself was the stateliest in the county. A fine colonnade of the composite order distin- guishes the entrance front, and its carved entablature is carried about the main house, with pilasters at the corners. Above the main cornice a third or attic story is crowned by another carved cornice and an ornamental fence. All is most unusual in its aca- demic correctness and skillful treatment. This is one of the latest examples of the colonial period, that is, of the English Georgian style adapted to a wooden architecture. The two neighboring residences are in the Greek temple fashion which prevailed through- out New England five years later. The architect was Mr. Bryant of Boston, who the same year built the first railroad in America, that for carrying granite blocks to be used in the Bunker Hill monument. Capt. Louis Bigelow of Worcester was the master builder. Two years were taken for gathering materials. The frame was raised in June, 1826, and a large company collected,
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HISTORY OF MILLBURY
the Rev. Mr. Goffe offered a prayer, and a collation was served. The reader should recall that this was before railroads existed or even the slow moving canal boat. Everything brought into Millbury came by wagon. Hence the use of hard pine from the South, mahogany from Central America, marble from Italy and brick from Baltimore was an unprecedented proceeding so far from tide water. Woodworking machinery had not been invented, therefore boards and mouldings, joinery and carving had all to be slowly wrought by hand. The finishing lumber was made of pumpkin pine from Maine, an ideal material for the purpose, the clear wide soft pine, no longer found in our markets. Mr. Waters enjoyed his Thanksgiving of 1829 in his new house, but its com- pletion was not celebrated until 1832, when numerous musicians, vocal and instrumental, were engaged, an original ode written by the host was printed, and was sung by a choir led by Capt. Tim- othy Longley. A general invitation was extended, and large numbers attended from this and neighboring towns. Mr. Waters always regarded Christmas with great veneration and hence the day was selected for his house warming. Visitors flocked to the completed house as to a wonder. Gov. Levi Lincoln invited Daniel Webster and a party of prominent officials to ride down from Wor- cester to see the house. When Henry Clay, the great apostle of a protective tariff, visited New England in 1835, he held a reception in the east parlor and the manager of the Cordis Mill presented him with a roll of fine broadcloth made in Millbury. During the palmy days of the New England Lyceum lectures, Agassiz and other famous lecturers were entertained here. It has been a hos- pitable household to which gathered kindred scattered from the Bosphorus to the Pacific. In later years the granddaughter of the builder of the mansion has there entertained a President of the United States, William Howard Taft, and the inventor of that most marvelous of inventions, the telephone, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell.
"Asa Waters possessed a mind of uncommon strength and com- prehensiveness. It was a mind conscious of power and delighted in its own activity. It was always at work and always bringing out some result indicative of itself. And there was always about it something noble and far reaching. No one could listen to his conversation without being struck by it. And it was especially apparent in his business. These qualities of his mind enabled him
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THE ASA WATERS MANSION, ABOUT 1860
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to transact such an amount and variety of business and to do it with propriety. To his enterprise especially is to be attributed the manufactures which constitute the chief support of the village in which he lived and indeed the village itself of which they were the origin. He was distinguished for his energy and perseverance. Obstacles which anyone else would have deemed insurmountable, it seemed to be his delight to conquer and overcome. It is no small praise to say that a man of such extensive business transactions, and extending through so long a period, had the confidence of all with whom he had dealings as a man of strict honesty and upright- ness. When came a reverse in his business under circumstances which would have enabled him to effect a favorable compromise with his creditors, he refused to avail himself of such an advantage but resumed business with the encumbrance upon him and paid to the full every such claim. Such an act of integrity deserves to be published as a tribute to the memory of the dead and for the imitation of the living. His public spirit which made him the efficient friend of whatever related to the good of the community, his attachment to the institutions of religion and the cheerful and liberal support which he always lent to them, his generous and open hearted hospitality, those who knew him will long remember." (The Rev. S. G. Buckingham, his pastor, in the "Worcester Palladium," December, 1841.)
Asa Waters married May 19, 1802, Susan Holman, daughter of Col. Jonathan Holman.
Asa Waters, the second, died on Christmas Eve, 1841. His last words were: "I am going from this room to one above."
ASA HOLMAN WATERS (1808-1887)
The third Asa8 Waters (Asa7, Asa6, Jonathan5, Nathaniel4, John3, Richard2, James1) was born in the north parish of Sutton, now Millbury, February 8, 1808. His mother was Susan Holman, daughter of Col. Jonathan Holman, commander of the Sutton regiment in the war of the Revolution. Christened simply Asa, to distinguish his name from that of his father and grandfather, in 1833 he added a middle name by authority of the legislature and became legally Asa Holman Waters.
He prepared for college at Munson Academy and entered Yale with the class of 1829. He took high rank in scholarship, was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and secretary of its Yale
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HISTORY OF MILLBURY
chapter. At commencement he was orator. Soon after graduating from college he became associated with his father in the gun business. Later he studied at the Harvard Law School, was admitted to the bar in 1835 and had arranged to open a law office in New York City, when his father's ill health made necessary his return to assist in the Armory business. He became a partner with his father in 1837 under the firm name of Asa Waters & Son.
This continued until the death of the father in 1841. Asa Holman Waters then organized the firm of A. H. Waters & Co., to continue the armory business. This partnership lasted many years. The policy of the national government since 1808 had been to supplement the manufacture of fire arms at the two arsenals, Springfield and Harper's Ferry, by contracts with six private armories of which the Waters armory was one. Suddenly with- out proper warning the system which had prevailed for thirty- seven years was abandoned in 1845, no more contracts were made with the private armories, and their proprietors found their estab- lishments without government employ, their invested capital useless, and the body of skilled mechanics without work in their special trade. This was a serious blow to the prosperity of Mill- bury. Colonel Waters had to find other uses for his shops, his water power and his plant. The explanation of this unexpected conduct on the part of the United States ordnance department, a story of scandal in high places, is given in the History of Sutton, p. 575. But other uses were found for the property, and the old Armory grounds continued the busy center of Armory Village. At the outbreak of the Civil War the national government had urgent need of additional gun factories and Colonel Waters was given contracts which kept the old armory again busy days and nights, with a force of about two hundred men, making parts of guns, ramrods and bayonets to be assembled in complete guns at Springfield. Colonel Waters took financial risks, but the contracts were profitable.
Where Asa Waters the Second had what was called his "flannel mills," Colonel Waters built the Stillwater Mill which in 1851 consisted of three buildings on ground now occupied by the Millbury Machine Shop and the brick portion of the Felter's Works. The mill was burned in 1868. Following the loss of the government arms contracts in 1847, Colonel Waters built and operated the Waters Cotton Mills, the buildings now used by the Linen Mills.
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The old Armory was again metamorphosed at the close of the Civil War, and Colonel Waters as president organized the Atlanta Mills for the manufacture of woolen goods. He was president and long a director of the bank founded by his father. Like his father and grandfather he was a large owner of real estate. His commission as postmaster of Millbury ran from 1836 to 1848. Postage stamps were introduced by the British post-office in 1840, and by the United States in 1847. For a few years preceding the latter date several local offices printed what are called postmasters' stamps. One of these Millbury stamps (1846) has been sold for $1500.
Mr. Waters gained his title of colonel by appointment on the staff of Gov. Marcus Morton in 1843. During the following years he passed from the Democratic party, through the Free Soil party, to the Republican, with which he remained until his death. He represented Millbury in the General Court in 1848-49 and in 1853 was a member of the Constitutional Convention for the amend- ment of the state constitution. He took an active part in the debates where figured Isaac Davis, Richard Henry Dana, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson and other distinguished publicists. Through the years of the great anti-slavery struggle preceding the war, he was a frequent and persuasive speaker at political meetings through- out the county. He vigorously participated in the efforts to preserve Kansas from the slave power in 1854 and 1855. He was always interested in town affairs and for many years took a prom- inent part in them.
April 15, 1861, President Lincoln called for troops to defend the Union. On the 19th, the Sixth Regiment Massachusetts Militia was attacked in the streets of Baltimore and the first blood of the great struggle between the states was there shed. The blanks printed by the Commonwealth for the enrollment of additional volunteers are dated April 23. Colonel Waters promptly took measures to raise a Millbury Company and met the necessary outlays. April 27th and 29th, one hundred and seven names were affixed to the enlistment paper. (See p. 154.) However, the company was not accepted because then and for some time afterward only companies belonging to the militia regiments already organized were taken into the war service. Many names on this early roll were of men who enlisted in later regiments, served valiantly in the field and are found on the Millbury Roll of Honor. (p. 161.)
474
HISTORY OF MILLBURY
Colonel Waters occupied a leading position in the business of Millbury for nearly forty years, passed successfully through the trials of the two great panics of 1837 and 1857 and was one of the very few who in those times of financial distress paid all his debts in full. He retired from active business about 1870 with a good property. In the calm of advancing years he found delight in his pen and did excellent work with it, contributing to the daily press and to the magazines. He maintained a spirited controversy with Oliver Johnson, the noted abolitionist of New York, as to how much influence Garrison and his partisans exerted in the destruc- tion of human slavery in the United States. His articles in "Har- per's Monthly" and elsewhere first brought Thomas Blanchard and his wonderful inventions to a wider popular understanding.
In 1874, Colonel Waters, his wife and two unmarried daughters, went abroad to visit his married daughter, the wife of Professor Grosvenor of Roberts College, and spent two years in Constanti- nople and Egypt, at a time when such travel was much less com- mon than it has since become.
Colonel Waters delighted to trace the steps beginning with the use of his father's inventions and Blanchard's eccentric lathe in the old armory, through successive stages, to the development of the peculiarly American system of the interchangeability of parts in machinery, that is, where each piece of a machine was so exactly duplicated that all the various parts could be assembled complete without further fitting.
He prepared several articles for the "History of Sutton," published in 1878, including "Sutton in the Revolution," "Gun-making in Sutton and Millbury" and the records of the Waters Family. He was also much interested in the preparation of the "History of Worcester County," printed in 1879.
Retired from business he had leisure for entertaining his friends and exercising hospitality. From his youth up, he was gifted with fine conversational powers. His sense of humor was keen and comprehensive and as a story teller few could surpass him. His conversation was always bright, entertaining and instructive.
Colonel Waters married June 27, 1849, Mary Elizabeth Hovey, daughter of Daniel and Susan (Jacobs) Hovey of Sutton. He died January 17, 1887.
COLONEL ASA HOLMAN WATERS 1808 - 1887
MRS. ASA HOLMAN WATERS 1829 - 1892
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CHARLES H. WATERS
Charles H. Waters, son of Horace Waters, was born in Millbury, in 1828. He received his education in the district school and at Wilbraham Academy. He entered a factory at the age of fifteen and devoted himself with such zeal to his work that he soon became a skillful workman, with a good understanding of the processes of manufacture. At the age of eighteen, he was overseer in a cotton mill, of which he later had entire charge. In 1848, at Little Falls, N. Y., he was engaged in manufacturing articles from flax. In 1851, at Jewett City, Conn., he started mills for the manufacture of rope and twine.
When the wire cloth mill was started at Clinton, he went there as agent and he did the same work for this industry that H. N. Bigelow had done for the manufacture of Brussels and Wilton carpeting, that is, he adapted the inventions of E. B. Bigelow to the weaving of wire cloth. He also added much directly to these inventions and obtained many patents. Indeed, it has been said that "the Clinton Wire Cloth Mills were created by Mr. Waters," for he was the central force in the corporations, serving twenty- two years as manager, and later as president. He superintended the construction of the works of the Avery Lactate Company at Littleton.
Mr. Waters married Mary Farnsworth of Groton, in 1853. Though he was engaged in business in Clinton, his home was at Groton, where he was a foremost citizen, devoted to the interests of the community. His death occurred March 13, 1883.
DEACON ELIJAH WATERS
Deacon Elijah Waters, son of Asa Waters, senior, was born in Sutton, in 1767, and for many years he was one of the chief manu- facturers and business men of the town. The various business enterprises with which he was connected appear under the indus- tries mentioned elsewhere. His success in the iron and gun indus- tries show that he was a man who pushed to completion the task in which he was engaged. Contemporary with him were his broth- er Asa, junior, Joseph Farnsworth, Aaron Trask, and John B. Blanchard, a brother of Thomas, the inventor. His home was at the corner of Main and Elm Streets.
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HISTORY OF MILLBURY
HARVEY WATERS
Millbury has been the birthplace of many ingenious and useful inventions and, among others, those of Harvey Waters justly deserve mention. Mr. Waters, son of Dea. Elijah Waters, of armory fame, was born July 11, 1804. He resided here, when making many of his inventions, but later moved to Boston, where he was recognized by the courts as an expert of superior merit in litigation concerning patents. One of his inventions has been thought worthy to be classed with "Babbages's Calculator," pronounced by British critics to be the nearest approach to the human intellect of anything ever created by man.
Pins were formerly made in England by hand and their manu- facture had been repeatedly attempted in this country, but unsuccessfully, until Mr. Waters invented machinery for making them. His first machine made them with solid heads but when these were taken to market, he was told that his pins would not sell, because they were not like the English pin, which had a fine wire head. When he asserted that his style was the best, the reply was given that, "'Tis not in fashion, and 'tis useless to argue or contend against fashions." He then devised and built a machine to make the English pin at one motion from wire of two sizes. When he took these newly devised pins to market, he found it flooded with English pins selling far below cost. Knowing that it cost the English much labor to stick pins to the paper by hand, he determined to stick them by machine, for he knew that then his two machines would defy all competition. Accordingly, he contrived and built such a machine. Into the top of a large hopper the pins were poured, shaken down through an opening which arranged them in parallel lines, forty-eight pins in a row, all point- ing the same way. At one motion the whole was thrust into paper, in less time than is required to read this description. Like Babbage's calculating machine, this was taught to count rapidly and correctly. By this triumph of American genius, the manu- facture of pins became permanently established in this country. Mr. Waters sold his machines and they were moved to Derby, Conn., where the business was continued. While experimenting on his pin-machines he occupied a room for a year in one of the armory buildings of Asa Waters at Millbury Center.
Mr. Waters next turned his attention to the manufacture of scythes. Hitherto the blades had been drawn out under trip-
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hammers, but he conceived the idea of rolling them out between grooved rollers and although the curving of the scythe presented an obstacle, after years of persistent effort and the trial of many ingenious contrivances, he overcame this difficulty and made scythes cheaper, if not better, than they had ever been made before.
When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Waters invented a machine for rolling bayonet blades which saved grinding and the weapon only required buffing. This machine was adopted at once at the U. S. Armory in Springfield and by many private contractors. Of the bayonets made during the war hundreds of thousands were rolled out on Mr. Waters' machine.
HORACE WATERS
Horace Waters, son of Elder Samuel Waters, who was a man- ufacturer and agriculturist, was born in Millbury, in 1799. He received his education in the schools of his native town and assisted his father on the farm and in the mill. In 1831, he became con- nected with the firm of Waters & Goodell, manufacturers of broadcloth, and continued with them for some time. In 1856, he succeeded to the business in partnership with the Hon. Hosea Crane. For nearly half a century he was connected with the business and religious affairs of the town, being a strong advocate of temperance. His residence on Rhodes Street is now owned by Francis. H. Rice, of the firm of Edward F. Rice & Co.
JONATHAN EDWARDS WATERS
Jonathan Edwards Waters was born and resided on the farm which had been settled first by his great-grandfather, Jonathan Waters. This was situated at the top of the hill which rises from Singletary Lake and descends again to the Ramshorn Stream (in 1915, owned by Clifford R. Harris). This homestead, so long in the possession of the Waters family, was also the birthplace of Asa Waters, senior, the Revolutionary gun-maker. Though descended from that line of the family which had as its ancestor, Richard Waters, gun-maker, of Salem, Mr. Waters, with the exception of a short period spent at making shoes at Grafton, was engaged in farming. He was a nephew of Elijah Waters, the benefactor of the First Congregational Church.
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HISTORY OF MILLBURY
For many years he was active in church and town affairs, often acting as moderator in the town meetings. He served as select- man and as highway surveyor. He was one of three who surveyed the roads of the town and placed markers at the angles.
As a farmer he was the most extensive fruit raiser in the town and in particular he raised a great number of apples.
Genial and courteous, a man of strong convictions, he was one whom it was well for the town to have as a citizen.
OSGOOD H. WATERS
Osgood Herrick Waters, son of Horace Waters, was born in Millbury, Oct. 13, 1835. He was named for the Rev. Osgood Herrick, one of the early ministers of the First Church. After receiving his education in the public schools he entered the knitting mill of his father, in which he worked thereafter. He was an active member of the Republican party and was honored by its members with many positions of trust. He represented his native place in the legislature of 1884. He was a member of several town committees, and the building committee of the present schoolhouse at Bramanville. He was a director of the Merchant's & Farmer's Insurance Company. As a deacon of the First Con- gregational Church he sought to advance religious work in the community and for a long time he was a teacher in the Sunday School of the Church in which one of the Bible classes still bears his name. Mr. Waters married Miss Ellen Crane. They had one child, Miss Carolyn Waters. He died in August, 1895, and Mrs. Waters in January, 1912.
SIMEON WATERS
'Squire Simeon Waters, son of Abram Waters, was born in Sutton, in 1775. He married Sarah, daughter of Asa Waters, Sr. From early deeds and records we find that he was consulted for neighborly advice and that he exerted a strong influence in the community. In religious matters he ever showed a loyal interest. He was contemporary with Stephen and Thomas Blanchard, Capt. Joseph Griggs, Capt. Amasa Wood, and General Burbank. His son, Simeon Sylvester, was for many years a resident of the West Village, but the later years of his life were passed in Wellesley. (See Genealogy.)
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