Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 129

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 824

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I > Part 129

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Luther Hale, son of Oliver and Catherine ( Bout- well ) Hale, of Leominster, Massachusetts, removed from that town about 1788 and settled in Hubbards- ton, where his descendants have since resided. He was born about 1765. He married (first), Jan- tary 16, 1787, Joanna Carter, who died July 30, 1803, at the age of thirty-three years. He mar- ried (second), April 8, 1804, Phebe Wyman, who died July 23, 1826, aged forty-seven years. He married (third). October 23, 1834. Phebe (Kimball) Upham, who died March 8, 1846, aged eighty-two years. He died February 7. 1845, aged seventy- eight years. His children were: John, born June 24, 1787, died January 7, 1850. Lucy, born Au- Clara, born June Otis, born March gust 23. 1789, died May 3, 1805. 12, 1791, died January 14, 1860.

16, 1793, died April 13, 1822. Luther, born January 19, 1795, married Melinda Goodspeed, January, 1823, . removed to Vermont. Roland, born December 28, 1796, married Clarissa Rice, of Templeton, June 13. 1833, died July 29, 1861. Esther, born Febru- ary 17, 1799, dlied about the year ISS5; she mar- ried James Newton, and removed to Greenfield, Massachusetts. Laura, born January 1, 1801, died June 1, 1815. Oliver, born September 28, 1804, was drowned on the voyage to California, February 16, 1853; he married March 18, 1830, Sarah D. Parker, who died May 3, 1891. Thomas, born July 6, 1808, married, March 20, 1831, Mary Pond, died April 2, 1861. Lucy, born February 13, 1810, died about the year 1883; she married Daniel Wilkinson, of Templeton, July 11, 1833. Joanna, born Mareh II, 1812, died about 1886; she married Benjamin WV. Fletcher, of Worcester. Susan, born April 2, 1814. died 1891 ; she married Amasa Hyde, and re- moved to Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Charles, born September 5, 1816, died December 30, 1818. Luke, born August 21, 1818, died 1896; he married Sophronia Wyman, of Winehendon, Massachusetts, and resided there. Thomas, above mentioned, and his wife, Mary (Pond) Hale, were the parents of the following children: Louisa Minerva, born September 30, 1832, died February 13, 1854. Thomas Irving, born October 9, 1838, married (first) Martha A. ( Thompson) Hale, November 29, 1865; married (second) Helen D. Pond, January 16, 1878. Luther Hobart, born February II, 1841, married Martha A. Thompson, March 28, 1862, enlisted September 3, 1862, in Company H, Fifty-third Regiment Massa- chusetts Volunteer Militia, and died at Cleveland, September 13, 1863, on liis way home from the hospital. Merrill, born November 25, 1845. Luke, born July 15, 1850, died October 3, 1862.

Oliver Hale, son of Luther Hale, was born at Hubbardston, Massachusetts, September 28, 1804. He resided in Hubbardston until the gold fever of 1849, and was drowned on the voyage to California, February 16, 1853. He married, March 18, 1830, Sarah D. Parker, and their children were: John Otis, born April 2, 1831, see forward. Sarah Maria, born August 3, 1833, died August 2, 1898; she married Luke Davis, of Boston, August 31, 1862, and his death occurred August 31, 1883; they resided at Newton, Massachusetts. Minerva Florilla, born June 27. 1837. resides in West Newton, Massachu- setts. Catherine Swan, born June 8, 1841. Clara, twin of Catherine Swan, born June 8, 1841, resides in West Newton. Seth P. H., born February 12, 1846, married, December 2, 1867, Abby Bennett, who died March 8, 1888, leaving one son, William B., born May 14, 1871; he married (second), Feb- ruary 12, 1894, H. Gertrude Powers, and they are the parents of one daughter, Gladys, born Deeem- ber 26, 1899. Seth P. H. enlisted in Company G, Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, January 4. 1864, and was honorably discharged from the service on June 7, 1865.

John Otis Hale, son of Oliver and . Sarah D. ( Parker) Hale, was born at Hubbardston, Massa- chusetts, April 2, 1831. He settled in his native town, and was a manufacturer of chair stock and chair seats in Williamsville, a village of Hubbards- ton. He was a capable, energetic man and was chosen to represent the district in the general court during the years 1868 and 1869. John O. Hale and J. D. Williams were instrumental in getting the Ware River Railroad through Williamsville; they authorized costly surveys to be made at their own expense, and created so great an interest that the Burnshirt Valley line was adopted. Construction was begun on this road in Hubbardston, November,

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1870, and passenger trains commenced running upon the entire road in November, 1873, only a few days prior to the death of Mr. Hale. Mr. Hale was also , calipers, and of late years has carried as a side instrumental in securing the valley road from line the agency of the Walter A. Wood harvesting machinery, with a repair shop designed to handle mowing machines and in fact all kinds of harvesting machines. Templeton to Barre. He was a Free Mason and a Knight Templar. Mr. Hale married, November 7, 1860, Lucy Browning, daughter of Joshua and Laura (Morse) Browning, of Hubbardston, and He married. September 14. ISSI, Catherine I. Devine, daughter of Daniel and Ellen Devine, form- erly of Auburn, Massachusetts. The children are as follows: Edward D., born September 1, 1882; Nellie G., born July 20, 1884; Thomas F., born Sep- tember 25, 1886: John J., deceased, born March 16, 1888: Charles H., born October 29, 1890; Isabella C., deceased, born December 14, 1893; and Mary E., deceased, born November 20, 1896. sister of Mrs. Robert H. Chamberlain, of Worces- ter, and Mrs. Wheelock A. Cheney, who resides at No. 15 Bowdoin street, Worcester. Their children are : Abby Calista, born July 21, 1862. died May I899. Oliver, born December 12, 1863. Joshua Browning, born June 14, 1865, married, August, 1890, Nellie MI. Lewis, and their children are: Robert B., born June 13, 1891, and Roger W. L., born December 29. 1902; the family reside in Provi- dence. John Otis, born December 1, 1866. Lucy THE HARLOW FAMILY BY MAJOR WILLIAM T. HARLOW. Dorritt, born August 18, 1868. John O. Hale, the father of these children, died December 8, 1873. His wife died January 28, 1878.

John Otis Hale, son of John Otis and Lucy (Browning) Hale, was born at Williamsville, Hub- bardston, Massachusetts, December 1, 1866. His father died when he was only seven years old. He was educated in the public schools of Hubbards- ton, and during his early life worked on a farm. At the age of eighteen he accepted a position as steward of an institution at Barre, Massachusetts, and was there employed for about five years. He then came to Worcester, Massachusetts, entered into partnership with his brother in the manufacture of chains. and at the expiration of four years pur- chased his brother's interest in the business. This enterprise was started in a shop at No. 65 Beacon street, but the steady growth of the business neces- sitated its removal in 1901 to the present location at No. 42 Lagrange street. The business was in- corporated January I, 1905, as Hale Bros. Com- pany, John Otis Hale being the chief owner and president of the company. The product of their plant consists of jack and ladder chains, which they manufacture in a variety of styles of all sizes, and their trade extends throughout all the states of the Union. Mr. Hale is a member of the First Universalist Church.

Mr. Hale married, April 26, 1904, Josephine Ann Aldus, of Belfast, Maine, daughter of William S. and Jane (Robinson) Aldus.

THOMAS F. EAGAN, a successful hardware manufacturer of Worcester, was born in county Kerry, Ireland, March 25, 1850, and came with his parents to America in 1853.

His childhood was spent in Worcester, where his father settled. He was educated in the public schools. He went to work first for Salem Copeland, a mann- facturer of firearms, and learned the trade of ma- chinist. After three years he accepted a place with the firm of Amesbury & Harrington, makers of the Union Mowing Machine. After three years he went to the machine shop of L. W. Pond and there served a regular apprenticeship to perfect him- self in his trade. He next was employed by the Kniffin Mowing Machine Company in Worcester, and for nearly twenty years remained in various capacities with this company. In 1892 he bought the business of the owner, Charles W. Chamber- lin, of Worcester. A year later he bought the Copeland Hardware Manufacturing Company of Worcester. His business for nine years remained in the old location in the N. A. Lombard build- ing. In 1901 he moved to Blithewood avenue, where he built a shop for his use. Mr. Eagan has a well equipped machine shop, in which he carries on

the manufacture of Copeland's and Cook's extension dividers, window springs, storm window fasteners,

In a book on Derivation of Family Names, by Rev. William Arthur, it is said that the name Harlow is derived from the town of Harlow in England. The modern town of Harlow is situate on the east bank of the river Stort in the county of Essex, twenty-three miles north of London, on the high road to Newcastle, and is a station of the Great Eastern Railway. Terri- torially, the town is only a small fraction of, and nominally it is the last surviving relic of, a much larger tract of land, once called the Half Hundred of Harlow, or Dimidium de Herloua and by the latter name many times mentioned in Domesday Book. It extended twelve miles from north to south, and six miles in width, along the east side of the river Stort, and contained seventy-two square miles. As to the identity of the Dimidium of Domes- day with the Half Hundred, and of the names of Herloua and Harlow my authority is Morant's His- tory of the County of Essex,-an elaborate work in two ponderous volumes, wherein the learned author traces everything in the county back to Saxon origins. The Half Hundred of Harlow contained eleven par- ishes, of which one was called the Parish of Harlow, which parish included six manors (landed estates), of which one was named Harlowbury. The term hundred, originally used by the ancient Saxons to mean one hundred men, assigned with their families, under a quasi military form of organization, to occupy a large tract of land, in time became the name of the tract itself, and later came to signify an intermediate territorial division, now obsolete, between town and county.

Mr. Arthur classifies Harlow with names of local origin, i. c. names derived from places and leaves his derivation of the name from the town of Har- low to rest on unsupported assertion. This is not the place to discuss at length the learned opinions of accepted authorities. But I beg to suggest, what in the absence of proof to the contrary seems to me the more probable supposition, that Harlow was originally the name of a man of whom the town is the namesake. Towns, always the products of men, not infrequently take their names from those of men, of which one may recall very numerous instances, capable historically of easy proof. As to the re- verse derivation of English family names, from those of towns, I make bold to challenge proof of a single instance. I limit my challenge to English names, in which I do not include titles of rank, nor names with the prefix De, or its equivalent. But my pur- pose in referring to the origin of our family name is to show its high antiquity and to suggest to others, where with time and opportunity for foreign research, which the present scribe hath not, they may look for light upon our earlier family history.

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(I) William Harlow, the first comer of the Harlow name from England to New England, was unaccompanied by wife, parents or kindred of any degree. His name appears here first in a list of resi- dents (1029-1700) of Lynn, Massachusetts. In 1637 ten men of Lynn, originally called Sangus, had leave granted them to take up and settle land in Sandwich, and nine of the ten, with forty-six others, of whom William Harlow was one, removed from Lynn to Sandwich and settled there. The same year one Thomas Hampton, of Sandwich, not one of the new comers from Lynn, died without family or kindred, leaving a will, of which William Harlow was both an attesting witness and legatee, colony law allowing such attesting. The same year also he was fined ten shillings for keeping "3 hogges un- wringed." In 1639 he was proposed for admission as a freeman and took the preliminary oath of fidelity. In 1640 he had assigned to him at a town meeting of Sandwich four acres of meadow. I men- tion these rather unimportant items because of their bearing upon the question of how old he then was, to which I shall recur again.

William Harlow removed to Plymouth later. He was a cooper by trade. He built several houses in Plymouth, of which one, built in 1667 on a lot granted him by the town and described, as a "little knoll, or parcel, lying near his now dwelling house on the westerly side of the road to sett a new house upon," still stands where it was built on the road to Sandwich (now named Sandwich street ), about a quarter of a mile southerly from Plymouth postoffice. Another house built by him in 1660, re- ferred to in the above description, called the Doten House, stood on the casterly side of the same road a few rods further south till 1898, when it was taken down. The house, still standing, was framed out of old timbers of the Pilgrim Fort on Burial Hill in Plymouth. As sergeant of the South Company Will- iam Harlow had had charge of the old fort for many years, and after King Philip's war (1675-6). he bought it of the town and used the old timbers in the construction of his new house. In 1882, when some repairs were being made on this house, a ponderous iron hinge of the Fort Gate, attached to a timber, was discovered, and may now be seen with other Pilgrim relics in Pilgrim Hall.

Sergeant Harlow, so-called in many records of the time still preserved, did military duty at a period when the Home Guards were not a laughing stock, ready day and night withont compulsion or compensation to defend home and country against the savage foe. No details of his military service are preserved, but there can be no doubt of his employment in the Indian warfare of his time, of which the chief event was the great Narragansett fight, when both the Plymouth companies were pres- ent under the command of Major William Bradford. Doubtless, Sergeant Harlow was with his company when every able-bodied man in the colony was there.

In civil affairs, William Harlow, having been ad- mitted as a freeman (1654), served as juror or grand juror every year, was rater (assessor) and excise man many years, deputy to the general court two sessions (Josiah Winslow being then governor), a member of the board of selectmen fifteen years and its chairman at the time of his death. He was also active in the church affairs, and his name is of very frequent occurrence in the records of the colony, town and church.

The inventory of his estate, real and personal, foots up to 234 pounds, 16 shillings, II pence, and it was "ordered by the court that his four sons have all his lands, the eldest to have a double

portion according to our law, saving to the widow her thirds, the remainder to be divided among the seven daughters."

What was William Harlow's age at his death ? According to the town records he died August 26, 1691, aged sixty-seven years. This would fix his birth in 1624, and his age at thirteen years when he removed from Lynn to Sandwich and witnessed Hampton's will, and was mulcted for keeping swine contrary to law, and at fifteen when he applied for admission as freeman, and took the oath of fidelity, and at sixteen when he had a parcel of land as- signed to him by public authority. And still earlier he must have crossed the sea without care of parents or other kindred. Everywhere apparently treated as a man after his appearance here, we can have little doubt that he was at least twenty-one years old when he left England and that he must have been at least seventy-five years old when he died.

He married, at Plymouth, December 30, 1649, Rebecca Bartlett, who bore him four children and died 1657, aged twenty-eight years. He married (second), July 15, 1658, Mary Faunce, who bore him four children and died October 4. 1664. He married (third), January 15, 1665, Mary Shelley, who bore him five children and survived him. Of his thirteen children, all but the first born, lived to grow up. The children of the first wife were: William, born and died 1650; Samuel, see forward; Rebecca, born June 12, 1655; William, born June 2, 1657. The children by the second wife were: Mary, born May 9, 1659; Repentance. born November 22, 1660; Jolin, born October 19, 1662; Nathaniel, born September 30, 1664. The children by his third wife were: Hannah, born October 28, 1665: Bathsheba, born April 21, 1667: Joanna, born March 24. 1669; Mehitable, born October 4, 1672; Judith, born August 2, 1676.

William Harlow's first wife was a daughter of Robert and Mary (Warren) Bartlett, and grand- daughter of Richard Warren, the Pilgrim. The name of her grandmother (Warren's wife) was Eliza- beth Juat Marsh, and she was, when she married Warren, the widow of one Marsh, Juat being her maiden name. She did not come over in the "May- flower" in 1620 with her husband, but later in 1623 in the ship "Ann," in which at the same time came Bartlett and Mary Warren, not then married, and two other daughters of the Pilgrim and his wife.

(II) Samuel Harlow, son of William (I) and Rebecca ( Bartlett) Harlow, was born in Plymouth, January 27, 1652. He followed his father's calling of cooper and received as his double portion of his father's estate the house built out of the old fort timbers, and lived in it during the remainder of his life. He was admitted a freeman in 1689 and held divers minor offices. Like his father he bore the prefix of sergeant, having succeeded him as orderly in the South Company. At the time of King Philip's war Samuel was twenty-three years old and it is more than probable that he took part in the Narra- gansett fight.

He married (first) Priscilla - and (second) Hannah -. whose parentage .and surnames are unknown. Their Christian names were common among the Pilgrims and that Samuel's wives were botlı of Pilgrim descent is little short of certain, considering that in his time there were few Plym- outh families without at least one "Mayflower" an- cestor. He died March 2, 1734, aged eighty-two years. His second wife survived him. His chil- dren, by his first wife, were: Rebecca, born Janu- ary 27, 1678; by his second wife: John, born De- cember 19, 1685; Hannah, born November 15, 1688; Samuel, born August 14, 1690; William, born July

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26. 1692; Eleazer, see forward; Priscilla, born Octo- ber 3. 1695.

(III) Eleazer Harlow, youngest son of Samuel (2) and Hannah Harlow, was born April 18. 1694, and lived in Plymouth, though not in the house built by his grandfather, that having passed to his older brother John. Eleazer died suddenly in 1728, aged thirty-four years, but his grave has not been found. His brothers, John and William, each have good headstones on Burial Hill, Plymouth, that of Will- iam who died April II, 1751, being the earliest stone with the Harlow name upon it on the hill. I have counted the names of eighty-eight Harlows on stones mostly in the vicinity of the Cushman monument, all doubtless descendants of the first William. At the time of his death the hill was already in use as a place of burial. The earliest date on any original stone on the hill is 16SI, that of Edward Gray. Elder Cushman's original stone gives as the date of his death 1691. The hill was used until the close" of King Philip's war for mili- tary observation and fortification, but it doubtless began to he used for a burial place soon after the war. So there can be little doubt that Eleazer Harlow, his father Samuel, and his grandfather Will- iam, are all buried there, though no visible memorials mark their graves.

Eleazer Harlow married, October 5. 1715, Hannah Delano, daughter of Dr. Benoni Delano and grand- daughter of Dr. Thomas Delano, both of Duxbury. She died October, 1719. Eleazer married (second), 1720, Hannah Pratt, who survived him. Dr. Thomas Delano was the son of Philip Delano (De la Noye), the Huguenot Pilgrim, so-called, who came over from Holland to Plymouth in the ship "Fortune" in 1621, and settled on a forty-acre lot by Mill Brook in' Duxbury and there lived the remainder of his life. The wife of Philip Delano and mother of Dr. Thomas was Hester Dewsbury, supposed to have come from England with the Quakers and to have been of their persuasion. The wife of Dr. Thomas and mother of Dr. Benoni Delano was Mary Alden, daughter of John and Priscilla (Mullens) Alden, and granddaughter of William and Alice Mullens, all "Mayflower" Pilgrims. Nothing is known of Dr. Benoni's wife, not even her given name. The children of Eleazer and Hannah (Delano) Harlow were: Eliphas, born March 5. 1716; Lemuel, born November 29, 1717; Eleazer, see forward. The chil- dren of Eleazer and Hannah ( Pratt) Harlow were : Elizabeth, born October 21, 1721; Patience, born October I. 1722.

(IV) Eleazer Harlow, Jr., son of Eleazer (3) and Hannah (Delano) Harlow. was born at Plym- outh. October 17. 1719. Left an orphan at an early age, his mother dying shortly after his birth and his father when he was only nine years old, he was brought up by his grandfather, Dr. Benoni Delano who, evidently designing him to be his successor, began early to teach him the healing art. But the doctor died April 5. 1738, before his pupil was out of his teens. Nevertheless, having come by inherit- ence into possesion of his 'granfather's medical and surgical effects, books, drugs, recipes, panaceas. lancets, forceps, old mare, and saddle bags, all and singular. and no rival putting in an appearance to dispute his title to inherit also his grandfather's patients, young Doctor Harlow married a wife three years younger and started out as his grandfather's successor, about fifteen months after his death. In due course of time, the young doctor succeeded to the old doctor's place in the confidence and patron- age of the people of Duxbury. In 1765 his house in the village of Millbrook, Duxbury, was burned and two children, his own daughter Abigail, aged thirteen

years, and his step-daughter, Polly Dabney, aged eleven years, perished in the flames. His wife, mother of Polly, saved herself by jumping from a chamber window. The doctor had another house on or near the same site burned in 1797; after which, being seventy-eight years old, he gave up his medical prac- tice and went to live with his son Gideon at Crooked Lane, near Marshfield line, and died there August 5. 1812, aged ninety-two years, seven months, eighteen days. In his last years his eyesight failed and he became entirely blind, though he retained his memory and mental faculties to the end of life.

The estate of Dr. Harlow, valued at $3.994.85 in the inventory, was settled by his son Asaph, then living in Cambridge. The graves of the doctor and his third wife, marked by large headstones with well cut inscriptions, are in an old and much neglected graveyard, about a mile from his son Gideon's farm at Crooked Lane. The grave of his first wife is at Cedar Grove in Marshfield, near the Congregational church, with those of her father's family. The site of Dr. Harlow's burned houses was near "Ford's Store" in Millbrook village, which is partly within the forty-acre farm settled by Philip Delano. Here also lived and died Philip's son, Dr. Thomas, and his grandson, Dr. Benoni Delano. Dr. Harlow was their lineal descendant and successor and the united terms of the trio as practitioners in Duxbury extends from Pilgrim times to within the memory of the writer's father, who was in his four- teenth year at the death of Dr. Harlow, his great- grandfather.

He married (first). November 9, 1739. Abigail Thomas, daughter of Gideon and Abigail (Baker) Thomas, of Marshfield. The bride's age on her wedding day was sixteen years, eleven months, five days; and the groom's age was twenty years and twenty-two days. She died November 24. 1743. He married (second), September II. 1745. Abigail Clark, of Plymouth, and (third), about 1760, Mrs. Elizabeth Dabney, widow of Charles Dabney, of Boston. The only child of Dr. Eleazer and Abigail ( Thomas) Harlow was: Gideon, see forward. The children of Dr. Eleazer and Abigail (Clark) Har- low were: Asaph, Thomas, Abigail, William, Arunah, Hannah, Elizabeth, Patience.

(V) Gideon Harlow, son of Dr. Eleazer (4) and Abigail (Thomas) Harlow, was born in Duxbury, October 28, 1743. He was brought up by his mother's parents. Gideon Thomas and wife, who lived in Marshfield very near the line between that town and Duxbury. His mother, Abigail, was the eldest of their seven daughters, and, after her death, her son seems to have taken her place in the hearts of her parents. The Gideon Thomas homestead has never passed out of the possession of his de- scendants, and is now the property of his great-great- great-grandson. P. Foster White, of Worcester. Through his grandmother Thomas. Gideon Harlow was descended from Governor William Bradford, the Pilgrim, and also from Ellen Newton, another of the English exiles in Holland who followed the "Mayflower" two years later in the ship "Ann" and rejoined their fellows at New Plymouth in 1623. His grandmother Thomas was the daughter of Kenelm and Sarah (Bradford) Baker, granddaughter of Major William Bradford and great-granddaughter of the Pilgrim governor by his second wife, widow Alice (Carpenter) Southworth, who was also a passenger of the "Ann." Kenelm Baker was the son of Samuel and Ellen (Winslow) Baker. and grandson of Ellen Newton by her second husband, KeneIm Winslow, who was a brother of Edward and Gilbert Winslow, the Pilgrims. Kenelm came over in 1629 from Droitwich near Worcester, England,

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Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 129

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 824

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 824