USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Eastern Worcester : its first settlers and their locations : historical and genealogical, in three chapters > Part 2
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1st .- Elizabeth4, born February 26, 1696, married September 6, 1722, Nathaniel Joslin.
2d .- Othniel4, born October 19, 1698, died July 29, 1779, was three times married, and succeeded to his father's estate south and west of Wigwam Hill, where he had seven children, of whom Othniel5, Jr., and William5 succeeded to different portions of the paternal estate; Othaniel5, Jr., taking the original homestead, and William" the coal mine or northwest section.
3d .- Sarah4, born August 26, 1700, married November 18, 1718, Benjamin Mills, and afterwards a Warren.
4th .- Amety4, born May 5, 1704, married Thomas Parker, whose farm, on Heard street, near New Worcester, was after- wards owned and occupied by his son William Parker, and subsequently by Deacon Nathan Heard, father of the late General Nathan Heard.
5th .- Hannah4, born April 10, 1706, married a Harwood.
6th .- James4, born Aug. 1, 1708, died June 31, 1730, aged 22.
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ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS.
7th .- Abraham4, born March 24, 1710, died 1739.
Othniel' Taylor, (son of James and Elizabeth) married first September 1, 1725, Mary Newton, born in Marlborough, May 10, 1702, daughter of Daniel and Susannah (Morse) Newton and he afterwards married Dinah, who died in 1746, and Han nah, who died in 1772. Othniel Taylor's children were :
1st .- Othniels, Jr., married Mary, and resided on the main part of the old homestead given him by his father, where Sam- uel G. Curtis now lives, where he had six sons, Samuel, Luther®, Daniele, William®, Simeon® and Eli®, born between 1768 and 1789.
2d .- Bridget,5 married Thomas Wheeler, deacon of the Old South church from 1783 till his death in 1795, she being his first wife. *
3d .- William5, died in 1808, married Lois Whitney, who died November 10, 1805, aged 69, and resided on the northern part of the old homestead given him by his father, since known as the old Coal Mine Farm, where he had James®, Hannah®, Molly®, William® and Lois®, born between 1755 and 1780, of whom James® and Molly® (who married in 1792 Timothy Bragg) suc- ceeded to the old homestead, where Lois died July 6, 1802, aged 22; Hannah® died June 13, 1759, aged 16 months ; and William6, Jr., died March 7, 1779, aged 11 years and 7 months.
4th .- Abraham5, married Rachel, resided on a portion of the father's homestead, south of his brother William5, and had there Sarah6, born March 29, 1762; Hannah6, born March 3, 1764 ; and Timothy®, born May 19, 1765, when the father sold his estate to Joseph Hastingst, and moved away.
5th .- Mary," married November 25, 1776, Wm. Johnson, blacksmith, from Westboro. -
6th .- James5, born 1731, was in the French war, and at the battle of St. George, September 8, 1755, and died February 26, 1756.
7th .- Isaac5, born November 17, 1745, died March 26, 1746.
James Taylor, born August 10, 1755, died July, 1814, (son of William® and Lois), and resided on the paternal estate with his sister Molly (Bragg).
* I give this on the authority of the late Mrs. Abigail W. Whittemore, whose mother was neice and adopted daughter of Dea. Wheeler, but I find no corroboration of such marriage on any records.
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t This Joseph Hastings came from Watertown to Worcester in 1753 and settled first on land purchased of one of the Rice's on Sagatabscot Hill. His son Ebenezer Hastings succeeded him on the estate purchased of Abra- ham Taylor on the west side of Plantation street, and Ebenezer's son Sim- eon Hastings succeeded him, and the latter's son-in-law, Daniel Sargent, succeeded him. In 1825 Sargent conveyed the estate to his son-in-law, the late Wm. Eaton, Jr., father of the present Wm. Eaton. The old house, torn down many years ago, stood opposite the south slope of Wigwam Hill, and the land has a long time belonged to the Swan farm, having been purchased of Mr. Eaton by Mr. Swan.
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AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS-EASTERN WORCESTER :
THE OLD MINE.
A long time before this portion of the old Taylor farm was sold in 1826, by the last heir, Mrs. Bragg, to Joel Putnam, attention had been called to the matter of utilizing the mineral wealth of black lead or coal, which gave the name to the farm, and more or less efforts had been made to work it or do some- thing with it. It was here before the white settlers came, and its fame may have led to their coming. The black lead was highly prized by the Indians near by on Wigwam Hill, before the white man came; it was here the Indian got his black paint for war dress and other purposes, fancy and domestic. The mine was early known and prized in Boston and other places for the value of its ore as a black lead. As it lay on the surface it was easily obtained by simply pounding it off and putting it in wagons, drawn to Boston and sold. As the demand increased it became more difficult to knock up a load, and there was some work attached to it. In 1803, Wm. Taylor sold two acres of his land, including this mine, to the brothers Ebenezer, Peter and Abel Stowell, at the instigation of parties in Boston, to operate for the utilization of the ore. These Stowell brothers were sons of Cornelius Stowell, who lived on the corner of Park and Orange streets .* They hired money of Amherst Eaton to operate with, mortgaging this land back for security. Eaton recovered the land on execution after the death of James Taylor in 1815, and sold it in 1818 to Carter Elliot of Millbury, who in 1825 borrowed money of the late George T. Rice of Worcester and Jabez Hall of Millbury, to operate with, giving a mortgage back to them on the property for security. After working it a couple of years, Elliot, too, failed in his enterprise, when a man of more enlarged means, or one who commanded more means with the assistance of others through his social influence, made his ap- pearance on the scene. This was Col. Amos Binney of Boston. He did not come here to live, but hired Col. Charles Brigham of Grafton, a sturdy and energetic practical business man and farmer, to act as his superintendent in the working of the mine for coal. He not only purchased the interest of Elliot and his mortgagees to the premises, but he purchased May 13, 1828, of Samuel Jennson and Francis T. Merrick, the assignees of Joel Putnam, for the consideration of $3500, the whole farm of 62 acres formerly belonging to William Taylor and his son James and daughter Mrs. Bragg. As evidence of the public confidence of the leading citizens of the time in the feasibility of the enter- prise, at the ensuing session of the General Court in 1829, after the purchase and beginning of operations by Col. Binney, a corporation was constituted, consisting of Samuel B. 'Thomas,
* See "Reminiscences," p. 54.
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ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS.
Asahel Bellows, Wm. E. Green, Isaac Davis, George A. Trum- bull, Nathaniel Paine and Benjamin Butman, with a capital of $600,000, and a charter was granted under the name of the " Worcester Railroad Company," with a capital of $50,000, for the construction of a railroad from this mine to Lake Quinsiga- mond, and also from these lands to the banks of the Blackstone Canal, then just opened between Worcester and Providence, of which the terminus or main basin in Worcester was on the north side of Central street, on the site of the present Holman machine shop. But what was done by Col. Binney, under the direction of his agent, Col. Brigham, during his two years of operations, was accomplished without the aid of either of these corpora- tions, which seem never to have gone into effect. A large force of men was engaged. The ancient looking structure which we now see in the rear, fast going to decay, was built for the accom- modation of the workmen, with a bell upon it to call them to their work and meals, and other arrangements were made for exploring and mining coal. An excavation was made to the depth of some 300 feet, for the ore, which was drawn upon small cars by a wind- lass. A road was also built from the mine to the highway, plat- form scales put in to weigh the coal, and the work went tolerably well for a while. But a great hindrance to effective operations was the water at the bottom, which had to be got rid of, very seri- ously delaying and impeding progress. An aged resident in the vicinity, well remembering the facts, tells me, "Two miners were imported to drive a tunnel from the bottom of the hill to the lead ore to relieve the mine from water. They labored some 18 months and worked a beautiful shaft some 7 feet high and 5 or 7 feet wide, into the rock, 300 or 400 feet deep, when all was quit. The tunnel or shaft was open for a number of years, until one day an unlucky colt went in exploring, and as he could not turn round and would not back out, he finally staid there. After this, the mouth was closed up, and this finished the old Coal Mine. It is said the black lead has some value, but for what I do not know, but I do know it puts a fine polish on those that work it, and it is hard to rub out. As to its burning qualities, I do not apprehend any spontaneous combustion in the mine, and if it should happen, it is lucky there is plenty of water handy to put it out."
The general result of these mining operations while they lasted, was, that several hundred tons of coal, such as it was, were mined and sold at some $3.00 per ton, a considerable quantity of it being used at the old Worcester Brewery of Trum- bull & Ward, on the corner of Washington square and Water street, for the manufacture of malt, and also at the Old Ex- change Hotel, then kept by Samuel B. Thomas, Capt. Joseph Sorell's Hotel on the corner of Main and Thomas streets, and a few other places in town.
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AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS-EASTERN WORCESTER :
The late Wm. Lincoln, brother of Governor Lincoln, in his- history printed in 1836, under the head of "Mines and Minerals. in Worcester," speaking of this deposit of Anthracite Coal about two miles northeast of the centre, says, "It was long converted into paint, under the name of black lead, and fur- nished a cheap and durable covering for roofs, and for the exterior of buildings exposed to the weather. In 1828, it was partially explored and began to be worked by Col. Amos Bin- ney, and was found to be a valuable combustible, suitable, even in the impure state presented by the upper strata, for furnaces and plates where intense heat and great fires were required. Engagements of business, and local circumstances, induced him to suspend the prosecution of the undertaking. Since his decease, the mineral which might be made to give motion to the wheels of manufacturing and mechanic industry to unlimited extent, has been permitted to rest undisturbed in its bed. The rock in which this Worcester anthracite occurs, is termed by Prof Hitchcock, in his Geology of Massachusetts, printed in 1833, an imperfect kind of mica slate, and called by Humboldt tran- sition mica slate, having a moderate dip to the northeast. Although the coal is considered by him as inferior to that of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, its specific gravity he said is greater than that from those States. Prof. Hitchcock ex- presses the opinion that "it will be considered by posterity, if not by the present generation, as a treasure of great value, and added, "I can hardly believe that a coal which contains probably not less than 90 per centum of carbon, should not be employed, in some way or other, as valuable fuel."
The late John Milton Earle, then editor of the old Massachu- setts Spy, who was well versed in matters of natural history, turned his attention to the subject of this old Coal Mine as early as 1823, when he said: "At the place where it is now open it appears above the surface, and may be procured in vast quantities at an expense almost nominal. It is of the species called anthracite, and is of the same kind as Liverpool glame coal, Rhode Island coal, and Schuylkill and Lehigh coal, etc. We have burned some of it, and found it to ignite readily and produce great heat. It is found to ignite easier than the Rhode Island and Lehigh, but leaves a greater residuum. The result of an experiment with the different kinds of coal mentioned, showed that the Worcester coal maintained its high temperature longer than the others."
The ownership of this old Coal Mine farm remained in the Binney family till 1841, when it was sold by the widow and other heirs of Amos Binney to Joseph Nichols, who sold it in 1850 to Elliot Swan, the latter having since owned it. Including several purchases subsequently made from the owners of surrounding estates, Mr. Swan's farm here now comprises about 230 acres, and is under lease to Mr. Charles B. Demond.
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ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS.
WIGWAM HILL.
Wigwam Hill, north of the original Taylor farm, and all the land north of it to Lincoln street, bounded by Plantation street on the west and the lake on the east, comprised a tract of 80 acres constituting the old ministerial and school land which was sold at public auction by the town in 1792, in five lots, to four different persons, for the sum total of £263 6s. 7d. About 152 acres of the northern portion on the corner of Plantation and Lincoln streets, including what is now owned by the city as a part of the Almshouse farm, was purchased at that sale by Capt. Samuel Brooks for £24 8s. 3d. The next lot south, com- prising 122 acres, was purchased by Capt. John Barnard, grand- father of the late John Barnard and the present Lewis Barnard, for £19 7s. 6d. The next two lots south, comprising 14 and 15 acres respectively, purchased by Wm. Mahan, 2d, for £97 13s., and released to Ignatius Goulding. The fifth and southernmost lot of 222 acres, comprising the " ministerial land " proper, as distinguished from the "School land," was purchased at that sale in 1792 by Ebenezer Hastings, for £91 2s. 6d. This tract of 80 acres includes the present Natural History Park of 40 acres.
Mr. Swan, after his first purchase here in 1850, bought this hill, or the greater part of it, of its then owners, and sold 40 acres of it in 1884 to the Natural History Society, this tract constituting what has since been known as Natural History Park. This hill received its name from the fact that it was once the seat of a tribe of Indians under a Sagamore or Chief named Pennasanet, whose heirs in 1677 sold their right here to Captains Gookin, Henchman and Prentice, the General Court's Committee having charge of the settlement here, then called Quansicamog, or Quansigamond, and numerous other aliases according to the ancient records. The two other tribes of Indians from whom titles to lands in Worcester were purchased by Capt. Gookin, in behalf of this committee, July 13, 1674, were, the tribe on Pakachoag Hill under Sagamore John, and that on Tatnuck Hill under Sagamore Solomon.
THE ADAMS-PORTER FARM.
The next original proprietor south of the old Taylor farm, above described, bordering on Lake Quinsigamond, was Moses Leonard, from Marlboro, and previously of Bridgewater, to whom 30 acres were granted in the spring of 1714, (at the time with the first grant to James Taylor, ) and in the spring of 1715 Leonard had 75 acres more granted him for a second division, which, with subsequent additions, comprised a total of 180 acres with the buildings thereon which he erected, standing on the easterly side of Plantation street, nearly midway between
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AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS-EASTERN WORCESTER :
the sites of the two State Lunatic Hospital barns now there. This estate of 180 acres, Moses Leonard sold in 1729 for £850, to Benjamin Townsend of Brookfield, and the latter sold the same in 1731 to Gershom Keyes of Boston, for £1100. Gershom Keyes conveyed the same estate in 1732 to Joshua Child,* from Watertown, who resided there till 1745, when he conveyed the estate to Nathaniel Adams, from Grafton, previously of Ipswich, the latter residing thereon till his decease in 1776, and his widow, Martha, lived there after him. After Joshua Child, senior, sold out his lake farm to Nathaniel Adams, he pur- chased in 1745 the Wm. Gray farm on Lincoln street, which he sold the next year to Joseph Wait, and the latter to Capt. John Curtis, and the latter to his son John Curtis, Jr., for the son's settlement in life, as elsewhere referred to.
Nathaniel Adams' grand-daughter Sarah, who married Sam- uel Porter, occupied the Adams farm with her husband till his decease in 1808, after which time the estate was owned and occupied by Samuel Porter's son, Rufus Porter, t till his decease in 1826, when the estate passed out of the family to the late Maj. Simeon Burt, who sold it in 1838 to the late Charles Bowen, from which time Mr. Bowen owned and occupied it with his family till 1876, when the estate was purchased by the Com- monwealth, and became a part of the State Lunatic Hospital estate, and the old house and barn connected with it were then torn down. [A photograph of this old house was here shown. ]
This Nathaniel Adams was son of Samuel and Mary (Burley) Adams of Ipswich. Nathaniel's mother died a widow in Wor- cester in 1772, leaving sons, Nathaniel, Andrew, James, John and Jonathan, and several daughters, most of whom settled in Grafton and vicinity.
Samuel was son of Nathaniel® and Mary (Dickinson) Adams of Ipswich, and grandson of Wm. Adams, who was of Cam- bridge from 1735 to 1738, when he removed to Ipswich .. John Quincy Adams is quoted as having claimed that this William Adams of Cambridge and Ipswich, was a son of his emigrant ancestor, the first Henry Adams of Old Braintree.
THE ANCIENT GATES FARM.
The next estate south, comprising about 180 acres, extending north nearly to what is now Belmont street, east to Lake Quin- sigamond, south beyond the Quinsigamond Boat Club House,
* This Joshua3 Child, born December 30, 1682, was son of Richard? and Hannah (Traine) Child of Watertown. He married Sarah Stearns, and had seven children born between 1721 and 1732, of whom Joshua", Jr., born September 26, 1723, married June 2d, 1748, Mary Hinds of Shrewsbury.
Rufus Porter was brother of Ex-Alderman Samuel A. Porter, and their mother, Sarah, was daughter of Nathan Patch, whose wife, Eunice, was daughter of Nathaniel Adams.
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ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS.
and westerly to Plantation street, was originally granted to Aeneas Salter, and afterwards purchased of his heirs by Capt. Nathaniel Jones, father of Noah and grandfather of Col. Phine- has Jones of the Old Jones Tavern beyond New Worcester. In 1731, Capt. Jones conveyed this 180 acres and buildings to Jona- than Gates, from Cambridge, whose great-great-grandson, Wm. Eaton, still owns and occupies a portion of the original estate, including the old ancestral homestead on Bloomingdale road, where Mr. Eaton's great-grandfather, Capt. William Gates of revolutionary fame, son of Jonathan, was born in 1735, and resided till his decease, July 11, 1811, aged 76 years. Capt. Gates had two brothers, John and Jonathan, Jr., who di- vided with him the 180-acre farm of their father, after the father's decease in 1756, aged 72, John's portion being on the north, and Jonathan, Jr.'s on the south or southeast side of their brother William, the latter taking the central portion, including the old home.
THE JOSHUA BIGELOW FARM.
The original proprietor of the estate next south of the above, was Isaac Leonard of Bridgewater, (uncle of the above men- tioned Moses Leonard, ) to whom 40 acres were granted May 20, 1714, with the right to 100 acres more for a second division, and south of Isaac Leonard, his brother Samuel Leonard had granted to him during the second unsuccessful attempt at settle- ment, a grant of 140 acres, extending south to the then town border, from which land he was driven by the Indians in 1697, this 140 acres being afterwards, November 18, 1718, taken by Rev. Benjamin Allen of Bridgewater, on Samuel Leonard's right. Isaac Leonard's grant in 1714, was described as bounded on the south by that of Samuel Leonard.
In June, 1724, a committee of the proprietors of the town, Nathaniel Moore and Moses Leonard, conveyed to John Kellogg 30 acres westerly of and adjoining the Isaac Leonard and Benja- min Allen land, above mentioned.
March 2, 1717, Isaac Leonard and his wife Deliverance, of Bridgewater, for £25, conveyed to Nathaniel Jones of Weston, the above mentioned 40 acres, "with the additional 100 acre right, which is already drawn or may be hereafter drawn or laid out, adjoining ye same," etc. The land thus conveyed by Isaac Leonard and wife to Jones, and by the proprietors of the town to John Kellogg, afterwards became the property of John Gray, one of the Scotch Irish Presbyterian emigrants of the name of Gray, elsewhere spoken of, and John Gray conveyed the same June 8, 1730, to his son Samuel Gray, and the latter June 22, 1739, for £750, to Samuel Andrews, with three dwel- ling houses and a barn thereon.
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AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS-EASTERN WORCESTER :
This Samuel Andrews, from Salem, who was father-in-law of Col. Timothy Bigelow, of revolutionary fame, sold this estate above mentioned, then comprising 100 acres, for £1,000, in 1745, (when he built his last residence opposite the Court House, on Main street, )* to Joshua Bigelow, who figured so prominently in a civil capacity in our town affairs during the revolutionary period, and until his death in 1792. This estate included the barn occupied for many years by Stephen D. Waite, east of the Boston & Albany Railroad, where "Bigelow Lane," so called, crosses it, including the land where are or were till very recently three old cellar holes, denoting where stood the three dwelling houses mentioned in the deed from Samuel Gray to Samuel Andrews in 1739, which were probably the houses they and the previous owners occupied.
The site of one of these old houses is just east of the west circuit around Lake Park, and just south of the old road in extension easterly of Bigelow Lane, through the Park, formerly an old bridle way leading to the Lake, and probably connecting with the old ancient road from Worcester to Mendon, mentioned in some of the oldest records.
October 22, 1724, Rev. Benjamin Allen, then also of Bridge- water, conveyed his title to the above mentioned 140 acres given to him in 1718, on the right of Samuel Leonard, to Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, pastor of the First Church in Boston, and in 1749, Mr. Foxcroft sold it to Joshua Bigelow, above referred to, who had previously purchased the estate adjoining it on the north. Joshua Bigelow's whole estate here then comprised an extensive farm of over 300 acres, extending from the original Jonathan Gates' farm on the north, to the then town line on the south, t and was bounded easterly on the Lake, and westerly on the farm of the first Francis Harrington, whose residence was on the estate, still owned and occupied by his descendants on Harrington Court. #
After the death of Joshua Bigelow in 1792, 180 acres of his large farm, comprising the more northern portion and including the old homestead, became the property of his son Thaddeus, and most or all of the remainder, or about 145 acres, became the property of Nathaniel Harrington, son of the above named Fran- cis, then deceased, whose farm it adjoined from some 130 rods on the west.
This Joshua Bigelow was cousin of Col. Timothy Bigelow, of revolutionary fame in Worcester, they being great grandsons of the emigrant ancestors John1, and Mary (Warren) Bigelow of Watertown, and grandsons of the Joshua2 Bigelow who received
* See "Reminiscences," p. 46.
t See "Reminiscences," p. 250.
# Ibid, p. 362.
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ITS FIRST SETTLERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS.
grants of land in Worcester and Westminster for his services in King Philip's war in 1675, and settled in Westminster, where he had numerous descendants, among them the late Hon. Abijah Bigelow of Worcester, representative in Congress from Worcester North, clerk of our County Courts, etc. This Joshua? Bigelow of Westminster, was father of Daniel8 Bigelow of Paka- choag Hill, Worcester, who was father of Col. Timothy and Dea. David Bigelow of our revolutionary times. Col. Timothy and Dea. David Bigelow's sister Mercy married in 1706, Lieut. Thomas Garfield of Weston, and their son Thomas Garfield, married in 1742, Rebecca Johnson of Lunenburg, the latter being great-grand parents of the late President James A. Garfield.
Thaddeus Bigelow removed to Rutland in April, 1798, (with his son Joseph, father of Ex-County Commissioner J. Warren Bigelow,) his farm of 180 acres in Worcester then becoming the property of Wm. J. Stearns and his son Thomas, who resided there till their decease, this Wm. J. being son of Capt. Thomas Stearns, keeper of the old "King's Arms Tavern," where the Lincoln House now is .* The late Wm. D. Fenno, jeweler, of Worcester, whose mother was daughter of Wm. J. Stearns, was born on this old Bigelow estate, one of the old cellar holes spoken of marking the site.
After the Stearns family, this Thaddeus Bigelow estate had sev- eral owners, until it passed, about 1850, into the possession of Hon. Isaac Davis, who became owner by successive purchases soon after, of all the land between the Lake and the Boston & Albany Railroad, extending south as far as the old road to Grafton and Shrewsbury, and extending north to Belmont street. This vast tract became in 1884, the property of Horace H. Bigelow, except about 60 acres reserved by Col. Davis' son, Hon. Edward L. Davis, who joined Mr. Bigelow in giving to the city in 1887,. the present magnificent Lake Park of 110 acres.
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