Danvers, Massachusetts : a resume of her past history and progress, together with a condensed summary of her industrial advantages and development : biographies of prominent Danvers men, 1899, Part 4

Author: Moynahan, Frank E., 1865-1917. 4n
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: [Danvers, Mass.] : Published in the interest of the town by the Danvers Mirror
Number of Pages: 224


USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Danvers > Danvers, Massachusetts : a resume of her past history and progress, together with a condensed summary of her industrial advantages and development : biographies of prominent Danvers men, 1899 > Part 4


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As to school education in the Salem Village of yore and in the Danvers of sub- sequent time, much could be written to show what progress has been made from the very rude, humble beginnings of two centuries ago, to the extensive and highly developed public system of to-day. Doubtless pedagogues at the outset taught the children in little groups in. private houses. Thus it was with Daniel Andrew at first and Caleb Clark afterward. Felt, in his "Annals," makes mention of the " New England Primer" and other old text books which were used in the time of the earlier settlements, and has numerous jottings like these : " 1698, Mar. 15. The Village ask aid in support of their school ;" " 1701, May 30. The Village had chosen a committee to hire a school mas- ter for their children ; " " June 16, 1712. It was voted that the old watch-house should be used for a writing school ;" " Dec. 16, (1712). The people at the Village, voted £5 to widow Catharine Dealland for teaching school among them


and invited her to do the same service, another year, for the like sum. She ac- cepted ; " " 1714, Nov. 8. Samuel An- drews gave a receipt as an instructer at the Village ; " " 1724, Jan. 10. The Village school master was to instruct one month at a time, in four different places, namely, at Will Hill, (Middleton) and three posi- tions ' in the plantation.' " These " three positions " were plainly at the Village proper, at the Middle Precinct and at Ryall side, east of Porter's River, as it was with reference to schools in these places, that, during the years above indicated, grants of money were made to the inhabi- tants for " learning their children to read, write and cipher." As early as 1708, Rev. Joseph Green, minister of the Village church, himself built a small school-house within the present limits of Danvers. It stood at the upper end of the com- mon, or Training Field, at the Centre ; and it has been claimed that it was the first in town. But from an interesting article by Mr. Eben Putnam, in his " His- torical Magazine " for October, 1897, it appears that one was standing, as far back as 1701, " on the line of the old road, long since abandoned, which runs through the old Thomas Putnam farms, perhaps near the Jesse Putnam place." More and more attention was given to the matter of edu- cation as years advanced, other little nurseries of knowledge were opened from time to time, and in 1777 it was voted that " there be ten schools set up in the town for three months each, and that the selectmen regulate the schools and pro- vide proper persons for school masters." In 1794, a district system was established. It was about that year that there were 800 children in ten districts, and in 1852 there were about 2000 in fourteen dis- tricts. At this time, the surplus revenue of 1844, invested as a permanent fund for the benefit of the schools, amounted to $10,000. In 1850 were opened the two High schools of the town,-the Holten high school in North Danvers, named for Dr. Samuel Holten ; and the Peabody high school in South Danvers, named for George Peabody. But of these, and the two Peabody Institutes which some years later the renowned London banker and


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DANVERS.


philanthropist established and liberally en- dowed in the two sections in honor and love of the old undivided town of his na- tivity ; and of the churches of Danvers, and its many other institutions and socie- ties,-suitable accounts or descriptions may be expected in subsequent portions of this book.


We have referred to the first highway opened through New Mills, near the mid- dle of the last century. A much more noted one was the " Old Ipswich Road " which was in existence as early as the year 1634, and which ran from Medford into Danvers, through what are now Ash and Elm streets at the Plains, and thence on by Conant street to North Beverly and so to Ipswich (or Agawam). Of early date, also, was the direct road from Salem,


OLD IPSWICH ROAD.


leading through the Port, the Plains and Putnamville, to Topsfield and Haverhill ; and many now living recall the stages that regularly passed over it to and fro be- tween the termini, and how, as school children of District No. 3, they were year after year, early and late, taken aboard " without money and without price " by the ever kind and cheery old driver, Isaac Pinkham. The Boston and Newburyport turnpike, which ran through Lynnfield, Danvers, and Topsfield and was once so famous a stage-road, was incorporated in March, 1803, and the Essex turnpike, or " Andover turnpike, " which extends from New Hampshire to Salem, Mass., and also passes through Danvers, was incorporated, June 22d, of the same year. Thorough- fares like these have a history well worth the study, but what with new openings and other modes of travel, the inevitable change long since came, and with it van- ished most of whatever charm belonged


to the old system of wayfaring and trans- portation.


One of the writers remarks upon the great number of burial places in old Dan- vers, public and private. Of these the most noteworthy are the Endicott family lot, in which repose descendants and rela- tives of the Governor, from an early date ;


READ-PORTER HOUSE.


the Wadsworth burying ground, in which lie the remains of Elizabeth Parris (wife of Rev. Samuel Parris), who died July 14, 1696 ; the Plains graveyard, in which there are stones that date back for more than a century and a tasteful marble monument for the family of Capt. Benja- min Porter, a prominent citizen of New Mills ; the Tapleyville burying ground, in which is the grave of Dr. Samuel Holten ; the Catholic Cemetery ; and the Walnut Grove Cemetery, which was consecrated in 1844 and is the largest and fairest of these sacred enclosures. One of the ear- liest occupants of the last-named was Hon. Samuel Putnam, an eminent Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massa- chusetts, of whom the land was purchased, and whose home, near by, on Holten street, was also the home of his ancestor of the second generation, Nathaniel Put-


080


JUDGE PUTNAM HOUSE.


nam. The above receptacles are all in the present town of Danvers. In Pea- body (formerly South Danvers), are the


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DANVERS.


old South Burying Ground, in which are the graves of Rev. Nathan Holt and Rev. Samuel Walker, once pastors of the Second church (the original church of the " Mid- dle Precinct "), and of Captain Dennison Wallis, and the frail, yet accomplished Eliza Wharton of Bell Tavern memory, whose sad story of the long ago touched the hearts of so many New England peo- ple ; Monumental Cemetery, " beautiful and commodious," in which is the simple, but shining epitaph of Master Benjamin Gile, " I taught little children to read ; " Cedar Grove, whose one hundred and thirty acres, more or less, of diversified and lovely scenery are now in principal use with the families of the town for the interment of their dead; and Harmony Grove, whose shaded and extensive slopes and levels are the resting-place of Pea- body's greatest son and benefactor and of a numerous train of her departed worthies, though, not as formerly, nearly the whole now belongs to Salem. Even the dust of George Peabody himself no longer lies within the present limits of the town that gave him birth and that bears his name, but within the boundary line of the ad- joining city .- Yet, most touching of all are the many, many scattered graves which, in Danvers and Peabody alike, are strewn with flowers of Memorial days and thus tell where the brave men sleep, " their country's hope and pride."


Of inestimable advantage to both parts of the old town have been the newspapers that have been published within their bor- ders during the last fifty or sixty years. In 1844, the " Danvers Whig" was pub- lished in South Danvers for a time as a political campaign paper. From Aug. 28th, 1844 to April 16th, 1845, Samuel T. Damon conducted a very spirited sheet, "The Danvers Eagle." "The Danvers Courier " was established, Mar. 15, 1845, and was edited by George B. Carleton. The first number of " The Wizard " edited by Fitch Poole, Esq. and published by Charles D. Howard, was is- sued Dec. 7, 1859, and was a remarkably bright, humorous and entertaining visitor at many a shop and home. In 1869, the year after the town of South Danvers took the name of Peabody, Mr. Howard estab-


lished " The Peabody Press," and was its editor as well as publisher, supplying the same paper from week to week to Danvers subscribers under the old name of the " Danvers Courier," until H. C. Cheever, as editor and proprietor, started in Dan- vers, 1871, the " Danvers Mirror." Charles H. Shepard bought the Danvers Mirror and job printing business of Mr. Cheever in 1875 and conducted the same until 1890, when, with an associate for a time, the present editor and publisher, Frank E. Moynahan, came into possession. While yet he was editor of the Mirror, Mr. Shepard was for several years Secre- tary of the Massachusetts Press Associa- tion, and in 1889 was chosen representa- tive in the Legislature for Danvers and Middleton ; and then from 1890 to 1893 was United States Consul at Gothenburg, Sweden. In 1895 he purchased the two newspapers then published in Peabody- the Press and the Advertiser-and con- solidated them into the " Peabody Union," which sometime afterward he discontinued, to devote himself more ex- clusively to job printing at the old stand where books and papers have been pub- lished in Peabody for fifty years. Mr. Shepard's able care and management of the Mirror and of its accompanying work have been vigorously sustained under the energetic and enterprising superinten- dence of Mr. Moynahan, a native of the town and graduate of its High school, who had been associated with Mr. Shep- ard for six years when he succeeded to the business in 1890, and who has since supplied Topsfield with his paper under the heading of "The Topsfield Towns- man," and contributed largely to several daily newspapers and various trade publi- cations, meantime winning the prize of a gold eagle offered by the Boston Post for the best letter of less than two hundred words on " How to run a newspaper." Other sheets have been published for a brief time, in both Danvers and Peabody ; and since these pages have been given to the printer, the first number of a daily paper, " Danvers Evening Press " (May 27), has been issued.


For well nigh a century the Fire De- partment has also rendered efficient ser-


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DANVERS.


vice to the town. On the 25th of August, 1800, Robert Shillaber, Israel Putnam, and Edward Southwick were elected to purchase two engines, one to be placed near the Bell Tavern in South Danvers and the other near New Mills, in North Danvers. " Fire-wards," six in number, were first chosen in 1801. In 1815, there were ten, and in 1840, twelve. In 1830, the Department was duly established by an Act of the Legislature. In subse- quent years, additional engines were located in other parts of the town, as at Wilson's corner, the Plains, and Tapley- ville. These were days of full companies, drills, fire-buckets, apparatus, miscella- neous service, rival entertainments and sportive performances, such as are quite unknown to our own time and methods. " Only certain grandfathers," says Mr. White, " remember the halcyon days." Days they were, however, which vividly call to remembrance most terrible confla- grations that defied the prowess of the brave men who dared the flames; as the great fire of Sept. 22, 1843, which swept through what is now Peabody Square, consuming the South meeting-house, the old Essex Coffee House, and a large number of stores, dwellings and other structures ; or the equally destructive fire at the Plains, June 10, 1845, which broke out in the very heart of the village and reduced to ashes the fine residences of Joshua Silvester and Samuel Preston and their shoe manufactories, with many shops and the Post Office besides, and ruined beyond repair the old Village Bank build- ing at the north-western corner of the immediate intersecting streets.


Danvers has been benefited greatly by its railroads, however inadequate the management and accommodation. The Essex Road was chartered in 1846 and was opened to South Danvers, Jan. 18, 1847, and through Danvers, Middleton and Andover to Lawrence, Sept. 5, 1848. It was built by, and leased to, the Eastern Railroad Company and has long been the Lawrence Branch of the Eastern Division of the Boston & Maine system. Among those who were first and foremost in the enterprise was one of whom the Mirror's account of Danvers, Feb. 19, 1876, said :


" Hon. Elias Putnam was most active and influential in procuring its charter and location. He had in previous years been anxious that Danvers should have con- nection by railroad with Boston and other places, and various routes were surveyed and considered before the Essex road was finally located. He had hoped to see the road completed and the trains passing over it, but this was not to be, as he died in the summer of 1847." He was one of the Corporators and one of the first Board of Directors, and Joseph S. Cabot, of Salem, was the first President .- The Danvers and Georgetown Road was char- tered, May 7, 1851, and the Danvers Road extending from Danvers to South Read- ing and thus connecting with the old Boston and Maine, was chartered, Mar. 15, 1852. The present " Nestor of the Essex Bar," Hon. Wm. D. Northend, of Salem, was the president of both these roads, and with remarkable ability and energy overcame manifold difficulties, and achieved success, making the continuous Branch of the Western Division, running through Lynnfield, Danvers, Topsfield and Georgetown, to Newburyport, his lasting debtor. By an Act of the Legis- lature, May 2, 1853, both of his roads were authorized to unite with the New- buryport & Haverhill Road, under one company, and a year or two later they were all duly open to the public. By these various lines which have been men- tioned, Danvers was favored, for travel or business, with railway communication with Salem and the seaport, and with Boston and the northern and western interior towns and cities, near and far.


It was after much debate that Salem Village and the Middle Precinct had been incorporated as one District in 1752, and were constituted a Town in 1757. A full century had witnessed to their united growth and prosperity. But as time wore on, it was more and more felt and found that each of the two sections had circum- stances and needs of its own and that it was quite inconvenient to hold town meet- ings now in one and then in the other ; so that, after much discussion and con- tention among the inhabitants as to the matter of separation, the petition of many


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DANVERS.


of them for a division was granted by the Legislature, in " an Act to incorporate the town of South Danvers," passed May 18, 1855. North Danvers remained, as now, the town of Danvers, and of course re- tained the records, having a population of about 4000, while that of South Danvers was 5348. The dividing line at the east corresponded in the main with Water's river, but gave to Danvers about fifty acres south of it, near the Iron Works, while from the head of that stream it ran west, with a northerly inclination, to the boundary line of Middleton. On the 27th of April, 1857, an Act was approved, which set off to Danvers a certain part of Beverly, lying east of Porter's river and


ever, to take note only of the northern town. On the 16th of April, 1861, an immense assemblage of the citizens gath- ered at the Town Hall and was presided over by Arthur A. Putnam, then a young lawyer of the place. After much earnest, but perhaps also rather aimless talk, a modest but unfamiliar voice reminded the crowd that " the meeting was not for elo- quence, but enlistment." It was the voice of Nehemiah P. Fuller, who had al- ready seen service in the Mexican war and who was a grandson of the Major Ezra Putnam, before mentioned as having been in the French and Indian war, at Bunker Hill and in the Revolutionary struggle, and also as an emigrant, in his


BIRTHPLACE OF GEN. ISRAEL PUTNAM.


including Browne's Hill, and land imme- diately north and on the other side of the old Ipswich road, between Cherry Hill farm-house and Frost-fish Brook. South Danvers changed its name for Peabody, April 13, 1868.


But old Danvers, however divided by the act of May 18, 1855, or by sectional feeling before and after, was one in thought, spirit and purpose, at the fall of Sumter and in the mighty conflict which at once ensued. The fire of patriotism that burned in the hearts of her people in the days of the Revolution, still lived in the souls of their descendants and burst forth anew at the first tidings of actual rebellion. It is our province here, how-


advanced years, to the colony of Marietta on the Ohio. Fuller himself proposed to enlist and called on others who were present to do the same. His example, and that of Ruel B. Pray, who is said to have been the first to sign the roll, were not in vain. " Others fol- lowed that night and in six days the roll was full and ready for organization." At the election of officers, Fuller was chosen captain of the company which soon took the name of the Danvers Light Infantry. During the war he was promoted to be Major of the Second Heavy Artillery, and after it he removed to Missouri, but re- turned to Danvers to die, Feb. 3, 1881.


A day or two after the war meeting of


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DANVERS.


April 16th, some young men of the Plains, Arthur A. Putnam, George W. Kenney and others, agreed to form another com- pany and the law office of the first-named was opened for recruits. Says the " Put- nam Guards " pamphlet, " The volunteer- ing was at once gratifyingly brisk. In the course of a week, the requisite number of names for a company (50) was enrolled, nearly all the signers being residents of the Plains village." At the election of officers on the 30th, Mr. Putnam was chosen captain, and for weeks that ensued the company drilled in the Bank hall and in " Berry's pasture," under the direction of Major Foster of the Salem Ca- dets, as under that of Benjamin E. Newhall they had previously done in the un- finished first story of the grammar school house on Maple street. It was later made known to them through Mrs. Julia A. Phil- brick, that a ban- 1 ner would be presented to them by the ven- erable Miss Catherine Put- nam of Peterborough, N. H., on condi- tion of their taking the name of " Putnam Guards." The condition was unanimous- ly complied with, and at a great throng of people in the public square of the Plains village on the 22d of May, Mrs. Phil- brick's husband, Hon. John D. Philbrick, on behalf of the donor, presented with eloquent words the beautiful and precious gift, Capt. Putnam making a fitting re- sponse and others following with appro-4 -. priate addresses. On the 20th of June,


JOHN G. WHITTIER.


the welcome government order came, to report on the 24th, as Company I, of the Fourteenth Regiment of Infantry, " at the capitol on Beacon hill in readiness to go that day into camp at Fort Warren." After seven weeks at the fort and after much delay and discomfort in leaving it, they were at length on their way to New York and were soon at Washington and " on Meridian Hill near the war-bristling capital of the nation."


Besides the two companies of early vol- unteers that have been mentioned, there were thir- ty-two more men from Danvers who enlisted about the same time in the two Salem compa- nies assigned to the Fifth Regi- ment, twenty in Company A and twelve in Com- pany H. " They bore an honored part in the dis- astrous battle of Bull Run, July 2 Ist, exactly three months af- ter the regiment left Faneuil hall." The next year a third Dan- vers company was formed, of which Albert G. Allen was captain. It was Co. K of the Eighth Regiment, which " sailed from Boston, Nov. 7, 1862, under Col. Coffin of Newburyport for Newbern, N. C., and in June, 1863, was transferred to Baltimore, thence to Maryland Heights, and experienced hard service in the pur- suit of Lee after the battle of Gettys- burg."


But space forbids details respecting all the enlistments that went on in Danvers during the four years' war, as often as calls were made by the government ; the


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DANVERS.


steady and faithful encouragement and support rendered in all this time by the men and women at home to their absent ones who thus offered themselves for the Union's sake ; and the many and widely- scattered battle-fields of the country where these sons or citizens of the old town fought and suffered for the cause and so many of them gave to it their lives in courageous and holy self-sacrifice. The best history of Danvers that has yet been published is that which was written by Hon. A. P. White and was included in the History of Essex County in 1888. We take from it, also, the impressive state- ment, that " Danvers furnished in all seven hundred and ninety-two men for the war, which was a surplus of thirty-six over and above all demands. Forty-four were commissioned officers." The later " Sol- diers' Record " says that there were " 796 separate individuals, who served in the Rebellion," credited to this town. Thir- ty-seven, at least, were in the naval ser- vice. One of them was Dr. Warren Por- ter (son of Col. Warren Porter of the war of 1812), who, as an experienced and competent sailor, was commissioned at Washington as acting ensign, Oct. 26, 1863, and who shortly after distinguished himself while cruising in the Gulf of Mex- ico in the frigate Magnolia. One after- noon, about three o'clock, was discovered in the distance the rebel steamer " Mata- gorda," and chase was immediately given. For a time she was lost to view, but only for a time. Porter, with permanent in- jury to his eyes, sighted her long and in- tently through the hawser-hole as the pursuit was continued, until about eleven o'clock in the evening, when she was final- ly overtaken and when he was the first to board her. As prize master, he took the ship and its cargo to Boston where she was sold for $355,000, and the treasury of the government thus received a hand- some sum of money through the vigilance and energy of this son of Danvers. He was straightway promoted to be com- mander of the " Nita" and afterward captured several smaller vessels, still scouring the seas until his discharge, Aug. 26, 1865, when the war had ended.


It would be most pleasant to make par-


ticular mention of many others who thus reflected honor upon the old town in this tremendous contest. We have space for only two or three of them .- Daniel J. Preston, a well known and highly re- spected citizen, enlisted as Ist lieutenant at the age of 45, was afterward promoted to be captain, and was later commis- sioned, Dec. 6, 1863, as Major of the 36th U. S. Colored Infantry .- Especially should we name in this connection, Maj. General Grenville M. Dodge, who, while he hailed from his adopted state of Iowa, was yet a native of Danvers, born in Put- namville, April 12, 1831, within a half mile of the Topsfield line and in a house that was the early home, and also the birthplace of Elias Putnam, though many years ago the part in which the former


ELIAS PUTNAM HOUSE.


first saw the light was detached from the main and older portion of the building and now stands about an eighth of a mile south of it and on the opposite or eastern side of the road. General Dodge, having


BIRTHPLACE OF GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE.


graduated at Norwich University, Vt, early devoted himself to civil engineering, surveying lands in the north-western


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DANVERS.


states and the vast regions between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. At the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, he enlisted in the Union service, rose rap- idly to high commands and exalted mili- tary rank, was terribly wounded in the battle of Pea Ridge, in the siege of Atlan- ta, and in other engagements, and became the intimate and trusted friend and asso- ciate of Lincoln, Grant and Sherman. He was afterward, for two years, a member of Congress from his Iowa district, and then was very active and most indefatigable as the chief builder of the Union Pacific Railroad, while since that time, as Presi- dent, Vice President or Director of great railroad companies, he has tirelessly busied himself in projecting enormous lines that now belt the immense territory of the far West and Southwest, and in thus develop- ing its meas- ureless re- sources and possibilities. - Another of the same family name is Major Francis S. Dodge (son of Francis Dodge of Danvers), who was born o n Hathorne Hill, Sept. 11, I 84 2, enlist- ed in the Civil War, Oct. 9, 1861, was repeatedly promoted for meritorious con- duct, received a medal from Congress for his brave rescue of Major Thornburg and his cavalry troops from the Indians in Colorado in 1879, was made major and paymaster in 1880, and is still winning fresh honors from the government.


In 1870, a noble granite monument was erected in front of the Town House to " all Danvers soldiers and sailors who fell in the late war for the Union," it being dedicated on the 30th of November of that year. Thirty-three and one quarter feet high, and seven and three-quarters feet square at the base, it bears the names of Major Wallace A. Putnam, Lieutenant James Hill, and ninety-three others who died in the nation's defence. Around it,




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