Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 67

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 67

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by the major assent of the present inhabitants, members incorporated together into a town of fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto themselves, only in civil things."

On July 27, 1649, he and thirty-eight others signed an agreement for a form of govern- ment. On September 2, 1650, he was taxed one pound. In 1652 to 1657 and 1661 to 1663 he was commissioner; in 1654, lieutenant ; 1655, freeman ; 1656, juryman. Bishop's "New England Judged," published in London, in 1703, has the following with reference to July, 1658:

"After these came Thomas Harris from Rhode Island into our colony, who Declaring against your pride and oppression, as we would have liberty to speak in your meeting place in Boston, after the priest had ended. Warning the people of the Dreadful, terrible day of the Lord God, which was coming upon that Town and Country, him, much unlike to Nineveh, you pulled down and hall'd him by the Hair of his Head out of your meeting, and a hand was put on his mouth to keep him from speak- ing forth, and then had, before your Governor and Deputy, with other Magistrates, and com- mitted to Prison without warrant or mittimus that he saw, and shut up in the close room, none suffered to come to him, nor to have pro- visions for his money ; and the next day whipped him with so cruel stripes, without shewing any law that he had broken, Tho' he desired it of the Jaylor, and then shut up for Eleven Days more, Five of which he was kept without bread (Your Jaylor not suffering him to have any for his Money and threatened the other Pris- oners very much for bringing him a little water on the day of his sore whipping) and all this because he could not work for the Jaylor and let him have Eight Pence in Twelve pence of what he could earn ; And starved he had been in all probability, had not the Lord kept him these Five Days and ordered it so after that time that food was so conveyed him by night in at a Window, by some tender People, who tho' they came not in the Profesion of Truth openly, by reason of your Cruelty, yet felt it secretly moving in them and so were made Serviceabale to keep the Servant of the Lord from Perishing, who shall not go without a reward. And tho' he was in this state of Weakness from want of Bread, and by tortur- ing his body with cruel whippings, as a foresaid, and tho' the Day after he was whipped, the Jaylor had told him that he had now suffered the Law, and that if he would hire the Marshall to carry him out of the Country he might be

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gone when he would; Yet the next Sixth Day in the Morning before the Sixth Hour, the Jaylor again required him to Work, which he refusing, gave his weak and fainting body Two and Twenty Blows with a pitched rope; and the ninettenth of the Fifth Month following, Fifteen cruel stripes more with a three-fold- corded whip knotted as aforesaid. Now upon his Apprehension. your Governor, sought to know of him who came with him (as was their usual manner) that so ye might find out the rest of the company, on whom ye might Exe- cute your Cruelty and Wickedness, and your governor said he would make him do it; but his cruelties could not. Nevertheless they soon were found out (who hid not themselves but were bold in the Lord) viz: William Brend and William Ledd, etc."

In 1664-66-67, 1670-72-73, he was deputy to the general court ; in 1664-65-66-69 member of town council, and February 19, 1665. drew lot 7. in division of town lands. In May, 1667, he as surveyor laid out the lands. August 14, 1676, he was on a committee which recom- mended certain conditions under which the Indian captives, who were to be in servitude for a term of years, should be disposed of by the town. April 27, 1683, he made the state- ment that about 1661, being then a surveyor, he laid out a three acre lot for his son Thomas, at Pauquchance Hill, and a twenty-five acre lot on the south side, etc. June 3, 1686, he made his will, which was proved July 22, 1686, his son Thomas being appointed executor, and his sons-in-law, Thomas Field and Samuel Whipple, overseers. Thomas Harris married Elizabeth who died in Providence, Rhode Island; children: Thomas, William, Mary and Martha.

(II) Thomas (2), son of Thomas ( 1) and Elizabeth Harris, died February 27, 1711, always lived in Providence, Rhode Island. February 19, 1665, he had lot 49 in a division of lands. In 1671-79, 1680-81-82-85, 1691-94- 97. 1702-06-07-08 and 1710, he was deputy of the general court ; and in 1684-85-86 member of town council. July 1, 1679, he was taxed eight pounds nine pence and September I, 1687, fourteen shillings, nine pence. June 21, 1708, he made his will which was proved April 16, 1711, the executors being his wife Elantha and his son Henry. He married, November 3, 1664, Elantha Tew, born October 15, 1644, died January 11, 1718, daughter of Richmond and Mary (Clarke) Tew, of Newport, Rhode Island ; children : Thomas, Richard, Nicholas,

William, Henry, Amity, Elantha, Jacob and Mary.

(III) Richard, second son and child of Thomas (2) and Elantha (Tew) Harris, was born October 14, 1668, in Providence, Rhode Island, and resided in Providence and Smith- field. He deeded to his son Richard in 1725 one hundred acres of land in the latter town, and died there in 1750. He married (first) a daughter of Clement and Elizabeth King, and his second wife, Susanna, born in 1665, was widow of Samuel Gordon and daughter of William and Hannah (Wicks) Burton. She died in 1737. Children, all born of first mar- riage, were: Uriah, Richard, Amaziah, Jona- than, David, Preserved, Amity, Dinah and Elantha.

(IV) Jonathan, third son of Richard Harris, was born June 12, 1710, in Smithfield, where he died September 24, 1785. These dates are found in the records of the Quaker church, and lead to the assumption that his wife was a Quakeress. No record can be found of his marriage in either town or church records. He resided in Providence.

(V) Abner, son of Jonathan Harris, was born before 1740, and died between 1785 and 1789. No record can be found of his marriage, but the vital records of Smithfield show that he had sons David, Jonathan and William.

(VI) William, son of Abner Harris, was undoubtedly born in Smithfield; was married in that town, by Rev. Edward Mitchell, Octo- ber 24, 1789, to Barbara, daughter of Water- man Allen, of Cumberland. He settled in Hiram, Ohio, about 1812.

(VII) Allen, eldest son of William and Barbara (Allen) Harris, was born in Smith- field, Rhode Island, May 16, 1790, and died in Worcester, Massachusetts, February 3, 1864, aged seventy-four. In 1800 he moved with his parents from Smithfield to Plainfield. He was well educated and when very young taught district school two winters, and not far from 1810 was a clerk in a store at Union Village, Connecticut. After that came a great prostra- tion in business, which left him and his family comparatively poor. In 1817, the year after his marriage, Mr. Harris removed to Provi- dence, Rhode Island, and went into partner- ship with a Mr. Richmond, in the dry goods business. Not succeeding in that, he removed to Sterling, Connecticut, in 1820, and for sev- eral years was agent in the old stone mill, on a salary of $600. In 1824 he moved to Union Village, Plainfield, and afterward to Central

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Village, where he built a cotton factory for making bed ticking. He also built a double house, part of which he rented. He kept a village variety store in connection with his factory, to supply the factory hands. In his new business he invested all of his funds, so that for a few years he had to work hard and practice the closest economy in order to make his business successful. He was connected with Arnold Fenner in the factory at Central Village. In 1840, after manufacturing became very much depressed owing to the condition of the times, he sold his interest to Mr. Fenner, to whom he gave two thousand dollars to be released from the debts of the factory and the obligations he had entered into in connection with the business. In 1843 he moved to Wor- cester and commenced business as a com- mission merchant, and in which he continued to the time of his death in 1864. His son Will- iam H. was associated with him for many years. He was successful and accumulated considerable property. He bought a large and substantial house at the corner of Elm and Chestnut streets, where his widow continued to reside after his death. Allen Harris was a dignified, courteous gentleman, conspicuously neat in personal appearance, and exact in every business transaction. He had great pride of family, and spent money freely for the edu- cation of his children and for all his relatives. He desired to have all of his relatives prosper, live in good houses, and rise to positions of trust and honor. He frequently helped them in business, and to buy themselves homes. He was fond of genealogical research, and the deeds of his ancestors, from Thomas Harris down, were in his possession, and he had them framed and kept as precious relics of the past. He delighted in hunting after family relics of every description. His sister Sophia, who did not share her brother's antiquarian spirit, once remarked of him: "There is Allen; he is always bringing home some old furniture. As for me, I wouldn't give him two cents for Adam's old bureau." When the rebellion broke out he was very patriotic, and as none of the family had gone to war he enlisted (at the age of seventy-one years) in the Worcester State Guard, which did escort duty on various occa- sions. Late in January, 1864, he marched about five miles into the country with his com- pany, to do honor to the remains of a soldier brought home for burial, and, taking cold, died four days afterward. After his death his com- pany made his son Daniel an honorary mem- ber. He was a member of the Old South

Church in Worcester, and at his death its oldest deacon. He taught a Bible class in its Sunday school for many years, and a member of it once said: "He was the best teacher I ever had ; he made everything so plain." When the Old South celebrated its one hundredth anni- versary in 1863, he was one of the committee of arrangements and chairman of the finance committee. 'As the oldest deacon he was selected to "line off the hymn," as customary in the olden time, which he did with precision and zest. A gentleman who had attended the exer- cises said the next day: "It was announced that the oldest deacon of the church would 'line off the hymn,' and I went to hear him ; but was surprised to find that he was only the merest boy." This was related to Mr. Harris, who, on hearing it, drew himself up in his usual dignified manner, and exclaimed, "Did he ! Did he !" His precision and self-possession were not easily lost. Allen Harris's letters show that he was high sheriff, justice of the peace, and postmaster in Connecticut. From 1832 until 1841 he was engaged with others in manufacturing. He was always a very busy man and one who was much looked up to for advice. He was full of good Christian work, and his many letters, which have been pre- served, abound in good counsel and kind admo- nition. He made many loans and handsome gifts to friends, for one who had so many discouragements in business to contend against. But with all his business cares and perplexities he never neglected his sons, whom he wished to train to be useful men. He had great energy. and was a very close economist. He had faith that virtue would bring its reward, and he was not disappointed. He said, "I never will fail in business as long as I have my health." He was very kind to his sisters, always providing for them when any of them were left widows with children, and he remembered them all in his will, as well as the established benevolent associations. He was a pure, upright man, so faithful to a promise that an old friend wrote of him. "I would as soon take Allen Harris's word as a note well indorsed." He was so very conscientious that he thought every one must do what was right ; and he died greatly beloved by all his relatives and friends. Allen Harris married ( first) May 7, 1816, at Plain- field, Hart Lester, daughter of Colonel Timo- thy Lester, of Shepard Hill, Plainfield. She was born at that place, December 23, 1789, and died at Central Village, August 24, 1826. He married (second) in 1827; Almira Vaughn, daughter of Russell Vaughn, of Plainfield.

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Children by first wife: Daniel Lester, born February 6, 1818; William Henry, in Sterling, Connecticut, March 7, 1820; Joel Benedict (named for the pastor, Rev. Joel Benedict), Plainfield, November 5, 1822. By second wife : Mary Gladden, born in Plainfield, April 17, 1829; Emma Colwell, in Plainfield, August 13, 1836. William lived in Brooklyn, New York, and Joel in Rutland, Vermont. Mary married Edward Marsh, of the firm of Lazell, Marsh & Gardner, 8 Gold street, New York, and died July 1, 1854. Emma, died March 12, 1845, of scarlet fever.

(VIII) Daniel Lester, eldest son of Allen and Hart (Lester) Harris, was born in Provi- dence, Rhode Island, February 6, 1818, and died in Springfield, Massachusetts, July II, 1879. His birthplace was a brick house on High street, which was afterward bought by Governor Knight; his residence in Springfield for years before his death was No. 2 Pearl street. He worked in his father's mill to secure means of education, attended Plainfield Acad- emy, and spent three years in the scientific de- partment of Wesleyan University at Middle- town, graduating August 23, 1837, delivering an oration on "The Progress of Experimental Sciences." He adopted the profession of civil engineer, and was employed on the Norwich & Worcester railroad, with James Laurie, the famous Scotchman, acting as rodman for five months. He also went with Mr. Laurie in 1839 to take part in one of the early surveys of the Erie railroad, in the then wilderness of Allegany and Steuben counties, New York. From 1840 to 1843 he was assistant on the Troy & Schenectady railroad, and in the latter year went to Springfield, Massachusetts, to survey the proposed railroad to Hartford. He was scientific and accurate as a civil engineer, ranking with the leaders of his profession in the Connecticut Valley. He was marvelously industrious and pushing, and foresighted enough to graduate into the wider and more profitable field which he came to fill. He was a "self-made man," and the professional civil engineer developed into the railroad president and influential and wealthy citizen by force of his own ability and character. In 1843 he resigned his position as engineer and took a part in the contract for building the Hartford road. As railroad contractor and bridge- builder he made his fortune. He was asso- ciated in the latter occupation with Amasa Stone and A. D. Briggs, continuing it up to three years before his death. He built the bridges on the New London Northern railroad,

and the old wooden bridges (before the present iron structures were put up) at Warehouse Point, Connecticut, and over the Connecticut river in Springfield. The latter task was com- pleted without interrupting the travel of the road. Mr. Harris was one of the owners of the Howe truss bridge, and was interested in railroad and bridge contracts all over the coun- try. He built twenty-seven bridges over the Hartford, Providence & Fishkill road, includ- ing the bridge over the Connecticut, and one of the works in which he always took pride was the great truss roof over the depot in Springfield. He was also instrumental in pro- curing the improvement of Bridge street, by raising the railroad, an enterprise which he repeatedly urged upon President Bishop, of the Southern road. He was elected a director of the Connecticut River Railroad in January, 1855, and its president, to succeed Chester W. Chapin, in March. He was equipped for this position by a thorough acquaintance with the technique of railroading, and brought to it also a mind broad enough to command its wider office relations and complications. Ex-Presi- dent Chester W. Chapin said that in his work Mr. Harris "had few equals and no superior," and none will dispute the claim that he was one of the leading railroad men of the country. President Harris was economical, foresighted, failing, when he failed, on the side of caution and conservatism, rather than of speculation ; but his wise prudence was justified by its fruits. When he took the Connecticut River railroad its stock was quoted at fifty, and at the time of his death it sold for more than any other railroad stock in the state. Though content with the control of the railroad from Spring- field to Greenfield, Mr. Harris by no means limited his work to it. In 1859 he was selected to inspect the railroads of Russia, which work he performed with such characteristic thorough- ness and honesty as to be made the recipient, beyond his salary, of a valuable jewel from the Czar. During the civil war it will be re- .membered that at one time the United States felt compelled to take possession of the rail- roads near the seat of operations, and Mr. Harris was selected as government manager, a post which he declined. His administrative ability was further recognized by General Grant, who induced Mr. Harris, as a personal favor, to become a government director of the Union Pacific railroad. He held the office but a short time, however, being entirely dissatis- fied, as Charles Francis Adams Jr. afterward was, with the hampering restrictions put upon

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these representatives of the government. He was also a director of the Vermont Valley rail- road, and was interested in the Ashuelot road and other local enterprises. He was a director in the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company, the Chapin Bank, the Holyoke Water-Power Company, and other corpora- tions. But the highest service which Mr. Harris rendered to his business associates over the country, and the best monument to his catholic sagacity in railroading, remains in the Eastern Railroad Association. This grew out of a conversation with lawyer N. A. Leonard, and was developed entirely at Mr. Harris's sugges- tion. Railroad men were greatly annoyed by suits for patent infringements, brought against individual corporations ; the companies rather than be put the expense of fighting such suits would yield to the demand for a small royalty, and great abuses were developed. Through Mr. Harris's efforts the eastern railroads com- bined into an association, not only to resist improper suits, but to introduce useful patents. The value of such a combination was seen by the western railroads, and the two associations resulted, one with headquarters in Springfield and later in Boston, and the other in Chicago. Perhaps the crowning service of this association, and peculiarly the personal triumph of its long- time president, was the defeat of the Tanner brake suit for infringement. This was decided against the patent by the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Harris organized the opposition and carried the fight from a defeat in the lower court. How near the railroads came to yielding few know. When the Tanner people won their case in the court at Chicago, some of the roads were ready to make terms. Mr. Harris went to New York and spent days in fighting this sentiment in the western man- agers. Having a few minutes on his hands before returning, he visited Commodore Van- derbilt in the Grand Central Depot, and he too was ready to compromise for $30,000, on the ground that the other roads were cutting to get good terms. Mr. Harris challenged the statement in his positive fashion, hard words were bandied for the moment, but within ten minutes the New York railroad magnate had agreed to stand out, Mr. Harris was on his way to Springfield, and thirty millions were saved to the railroads of the United States.

The statement will be made that Mr. Harris, in the face of all crises, often became heated to the extent of losing his power of calm judg- ment. This is perhaps true in a small sense, but a candid survey of the results of his life

will not bear out this estimate. Mr. Harris was a strong fighter, who sought to carry the point in hand, but he was possessed of powers of penetration singularly far-reaching. He was an early and always strong opponent of the Hoosac Tunnel, and the Franklin county idea that the finger of Providence had marked out a great railway line up to Hoosac mountain via the Deerfield Valley and beyond it along the valley to the Hudson river, never impressed him. He felt, with another ancient doubter, that Providence left the greatest work undone when it refrained from putting the aforesaid finger through the mountain. If there was any man in the commonwealth who saw the end of the Hoosac Tunnel enterprise from its beginning, it was Mr. Harris. Twenty years before he died he predicted that the great bore would dissipate as many millions of dollars before it was available for railroading. Another saying of his later had sterling verification. "When it is done," said he, "they may call the money spent on the tunnels sunk, and the Fitchburg railroad cannot compete with the well-equipped and organized Boston & Albany road." President Stearns afterward made this admission about his property, finding that the rent paid Massachusetts for the tunnel is just about what his road ran behind in the year 1878. Mr. Harris took a prominent part in the continuous war over the state appropria- tions for the tunnel, and not even Frank Bird was so thoroughly posted in every phase of the history of the progress of the great enter- prise. Mr. Bird owed him the celebrated ex- pression "demoralized rock," which constituted one of the great difficulties of the work at one time. Mr. Harris, describing to him the pro- gress of the enterprise, stuck at the word he wanted (disintegrated), and finally in an em- phatic way brought out "demoralized rock," which was hailed with delight by the ardent pamphletcer as just the expression he wanted. Mr. Harris is believed to have bound every document relating to the tunnel, making a valu- able collection. On all New England railroad matters, including the complicated Vermont chancery questions, Mr. Harris was good authority. He held his own opinions, but his own statements of fact were strictly accurate. As a pleader, whether in private conversation or public debate, he had a marvelous power of comprehension, clear statement and the art of presenting his points powerfully. This was strongly illustrated in the plan before the rail- road committee of the legislature in 1869, when Mr. Harris successfully opposed the petition

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for a charter for the Holyoke railroad to Westfield. Mr. Harris disdained the resort to lobbying, which was then common, and relied on his presentation of the case in person to the committee, in which he excelled all the parliamentary attorneys. Intense in his con- viction that a community could support one railroad more easily than two, he over-per- suaded both the committees and himself of the impossibility of building the completing line. His understimate of the force arraigned against him in this case was perhaps the most striking error of his railroad management. In all his public career as a public man and a citizen with political duties, Mr. Harris was an ordainable representative of the class of men who study to serve the people. Like the late Samuel Bowles, he studied public affairs, made up his mind what ought to be done for the public good, and went forward to do it, often in advance of the suggestion of the peo- ple themselves, careless whether he met oppo- sition or sympathy, never courting approval demagogically, and firm in the consciencious- ness that he knew, better than those whom he would serve, what was needed for their wel- fare. The people never know what such men have done for them until long after the strife and controversy of the moment, when they begin to reap the fruits of the superior fore- sight by which they had reluctantly been guided. Mr. Harris's services to the people were peculiar and various. In material inter- ests he always opposed the efforts of coal, oil and telegraph speculators to get a hold in Springfield and prey upon the community. He was solicitous to give the city's material, no less than its moral, interests, a substantial char- acter. In politics he was a Republican of inde- pendent breadth. In the early days of the party, he rendered efficient service, with his partner, Mr. Briggs, in the effort to save Kan- sas as a free state, and was an active member of the Kansas Emigrant Aid Association. Their office was at one time the depot for arms for the Kansas settlers, which were sent out in detached parts, the gun-barrels at one time, the locks at another, so that if either consign- ment fell into the hands of "border ruffians" the booty would be useless. Knowing the Springfield wool dealer, John Brown, Mr. Harris was naturally one of the first to engage in raising money for his assistance in Kansas. Mr. Harris served with credit in the legisla- ture of 1859-63-69, and as mayor of Spring- field in 1860. In 1872 he was elected one of the first board of water commissioners, and he

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Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 67

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924