Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 130

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 130

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

457

WORCESTER COUNTY

and settled in Marshfield, where the house that he built and lived in with his wife Ellen is still standing. Gideon Harlow has the addition of "housewright" in the deed of his farm, but except building a house on his own farm, he did not to much extent follow that trade. His house is still standing, though not on its original site, an excellent example of old colony architecture and handicraft. It contains ornamental work of no mean order, and lumber of choice character, such as one might now ransack all the forests of Massachusetts in vain to find. The great pines and oaks such as were wrought into that house are not growing now anywhere in the commonwealth.

He was a revolutionary soldier, serving first as a minute man at the Lexington alarm. He served several years as assessor and as selectinan of Dux- bury. His church relations, however, were with the Marshfield church, of which he was a regular attendant all his life and many years a deacon. He was a prosperous and well-to-do farmer. He mar- ried, January 4, 1770, Patience Ford Eames, widow of Abner Eames, of Marshfield. Gideon and his wife were both descendants of the widow Martha Ford, and of her son William, who came over in the "Fortune" in 1621, and of John Thomas, who came in the ship "Hopewell" in 1634. For more than a hundred years the Fords and Thomases of Marsh- field and Duxbury had been intermarrying and their descendants of the third, fourth and later genera- tions were all cousins of some degree.

The Ford line of descent from the widow Martha to Patience was by the widow's son William, grand- son Michael, great-grandson Thomas and great-great- grandson Thomas Ford, Jr., who was the father and whose wife Jane Thomas (daughter of Israel and granddaughter of John Thomas) was the mother of Patience. Gideon Harlow's grandfather, Gideon Thomas, was son of Samuel and grandson of John Thomas. The wife of Samuel and mother of Gideon Thomas was Mercy Ford, daughter of Will- iam Ford, Jr., granddaughter of the first William, and great-granddaughter of the widow Martha.

Gideon Harlow died a year and four months be- fore his father, April 9, 1811, aged sixty-seven years, five months, and thirteen days. His wife long sur- vived him and died December 22, 1840, aged ninety- seven years, six months and twelve days. His sons Abner and Elcazer settled his estate valued in the inventory at $19,105.49. The graves of Gideon and his wife are with those of his father and step- mother at the neglected old yard in Duxbury, be- fore referred to and are marked by good head- stones. Children of Gideon and Patience (Ford) Harlow were: Abigail, born November 26, 1771; Arunah, born January 29, 1773; Thomas, see for- ward; Lydia, born May 4. 1777; Elizabeth, born May 10, 1779: Abner, born February 1, 1782; Eleazer, born November 4, 1784: Gideon, born April 10, 1786. All of them except Lydia, who died in infancy, lived to ages beyond the average of human life.

(VI) Thomas Harlow, son of Gideon Harlow (5), was born May 17, 1775. He learned the tanner's trade at Weymouth by a term of regular apprentice- ship (seven years), which expired March 16, 1796. The very next morning, which was that of his twenty-first birthday, he made an early start to go on foot to Shrewsbury-fifty miles-for the purpose of buying the tannery of one Seth Pratt, who wel- comed his customer on the evening of the same day that he left Weymouth* and sold him the tannery

for $1,000. A house and twenty-one acres of land went with the tannery, of which no vestige now remains, but the house which Pratt built in 1775 is still standing, and the land was the nucleus of the farm, now owned by Henry Harlow, grandson of Thomas. There Thomas Harlow followed his calling about forty years and invested his gains therefrom in land, until he came to own at one time nearly three hundred acres. The only civil office that he ever held was, that of highway surveyor, to which he was elected in accordance with an under- standing in his highway district, that the taxpayers should each serve in rotation. Though a public- spirited man and regular attendant and voter at clections and town meetings, he never sought or de- sired public office. In the Congregational Church of Shrewsbury, of which he was a member, the office of deacon was thrust upon him and he served as such many years. He was a great reader of the Bible, and was accounted high authority on all Bible questions.

He married, May 17, 1798, Thankful Banister, daughter of Nathan and Sarah ( Whitney) Ban- ister. of the North Parish of Shrewsbury, now Boylston. Nathan was born in Brookfield, remov- ing in 1775 to Shrewsbury to live with his wife's father and mother on their farm in the southwest part of the North Parish. His father was Joseph Banister, son of Christopher, who came from Marl- boro to settle in Brookfield, and grandson of Nathan, Jr., whose parents, Nathan and Mary Banister, came from England in or before 1669 and settled in Charlestown. The first mentioned Nathan Ban- ister, Thankful's father, was a blacksmith by trade, and a soldier in the revolutionary war. Two of Thomas Harlow's brothers followed him later to Shrewsbury and settled there-Arunah (whose grandson, George H. Harlow, is the present register of probate for Worcester county) in 1798 and Abner in 1812. And most of the Harlows now living in Worcester county are lineal descendants of the three who a century ago came here from Duxbury. Thomas Harlow died November 20, 1865, aged ninety years; his wife Thankful died January 5, 1847. aged seventy-three years. Their children were: Gideon, see forward; Nancy, born July 25, 1802, died in infancy; Elmira, born April 23, 1805; Abi- gail, born April 25, 1810.

(VII) Giedon Harlow, son of Thomas Harlow (6), was born in Shrewsbury, February 17, 1799. He succeeded his father under the latter's will as owner of the home farm. He built the brick house now standing on the farm and occupied it with his family during his life, his father and mother continuing to occupy the older house built by Seth Pratt. Like his father, Gideon Harlow served his term as highway surveyor, and he was selectman several years, also assessor and member of the school com- mittee. He was elected deacon of the Congrega- tional church, but declined to serve. He did not like the tanner's trade in which he was brought np, and devoted his life with untiring energy and ap- plication to improvement of the homestead by good culture, and the planting of fruit trees. There was

*The writer well remembers how, if any one expressed aston- ishment at grandfather Harlow's great walking feat, he would im- mediately tell "a still more wonderful tale" of his nephew, Joshua Ford, who was sent up from Pembroke by his parents to

learn the tanner's trade with him at Shrewsbury and got so home- sick that he had to go home and ran all the way back (sixty miles) in a single day.

Many years afterwards I asked Joshua's sister, Mrs. Benjamin F. Gleason. of Worcester, (nee Mary Ann Ford) about ber brother's great day's journey on foot. She said there was no doubt at all about it. She was then a girl and late in the evening, when her father's family were about going to bed, Josh took them all by surprise, opening the door and coming into the room where they were. And so ashamed was he of his return that he did not tell them that he left his uncle's house in Shrewsbury in the morning. Nor did they know it till receipt of a letter from Uncle Thomas about it

458

WORCESTER COUNTY

a great quantity of wood and timber on the farm which he cut off and marketed chiefly in Worcester, where demand for firewood, telegraph poles, rail- road sleepers and lumber for building purposes in his time always seemed to exceed supply. Many years before his death, his father had by will de- vised the farm to him, and ever afterwards, with his father's consent and approval, he made the same use of it, as if the fee simple of it were already his.

No man ever did or could, with more persistent self-denial and conscientiousness than Gideon Har- low, devote himself to the welfare of his family. That his children should have opportunity by edu- cation and every other way to do better in life than he had himself, was the mainspring of all his con- duct. Often did he say in the presence of his chil- . dren : "I had rather lose a day in haytime than have a child of mine lose a day in school." The writer often recalls with gratitude his father's re- ply, now nearly sixty years ago, to the request of some friends for leave to start a movement in Shrewsbury to nominate him for representative to the general court. He thanked them, but instantly added: "No, I have so many things to do this coming winter that I cannot attend to it." One of the things he had to do was to haul to market in Worcester a lot of wood to pay his son's expenses in college.

He married, January 1, 1828, Harriet . Howe, daughter of Nathan and Mary (Parker) Howe. Her father was the son of Captain Nathan and Hepzibalı (Taylor) Howe, and grandson of Daniel Howe, who, with William Taylor, Hepzibah's father, and several others, came from Marlboro to Shrewsbury and settled there in 1717. Daniel Howe was the son of Josiah and grandson of John Howe, who was in Sudbury in 1638, when, or very shortly before, he is supposed to have come over from England. Mary Parker, wife of Nathan Howe, Jr., was the daughter of Simon Parker, who came to Shrewsbury from Groton in 1742, and was the son of Samuel and grandson of James Parker, both also of Groton. Simon Parker and both the Nathan Howes were soldiers in the revolutionary war. Of Nathan, senior, Ward says in his history of Shrews- bury: "He was an officer in the (British) service at Lake George in the French war and aided in the building of Fort William Henry. In 1776 he com- manded a company in throwing up works at Dor- chester Heights during the night (March 4-5). From an illness taken there he never recov- ered.

Nathan Howe, Jr., only fourteen years old in 1776, was not permitted by his father to enter the United States service until after the fatal nature of his own illness had unmistakably developed.

Captain Howe died March 21, 1781, aged fifty- one years, of a lingering consumption. His origi- nal commission as captain, dated February 5, 1776, at Watertown, and signed, not by Royal Governor Gage, who was then over in Boston with the Red- coats, but by William Sever, of Kingston, and four- teen others "Major Part of the Council of the Massachusetts Bay in New England," is in the pos- session of the writer.

Gideon Harlow, of Shrewsbury, died October 26, 1877, aged seventy-eight years and six months. His wife Harriet died March 15, 1870, aged seventy years and seven months. The children of Gideon and Harriet (Howe) Harlow were: William Tay- Jor, see forward; Thomas, born August 18, 1830; Henry, born October 13, 1833; Hiram, born No- vember 27, 1839. died October 5, 1858; Harriet Ann, born December 4, 1841, died April 2, 1883.

MAJOR WILLIAM T. HARLOW BY CHARLES NUTT.

(VIII) William Taylor Harlow, son of Gideon Harlow (7), was born in Shrewsbury, October 3, 1828. He was named for his great-great-grandfather, William Taylor, one of the first settlers of the town of Shrewsbury, and donor to the town of the site of the Congregational meeting house, originally fifteen acres of land, old style measure. His Ameri- can ancestry on the Harlow side, down to his grand- father, all belonged to Plymouth colony and included six "Mayflower" pilgrims and eight other exiles, three in the "Fortune," 1621, and five in the "Ann," 1623, who followed the pioneers of 1620 to New Plymouth, as appears in greater detail in the fore- going sketch of the family. His four great-grand- fathers and one of his grandfathers were soldiers of the American revolution, and brief mention of their service has been made above.

He received his early education in the district schools of his native town, supplemented by a few terms of private schools. When not attending school he worked with his father and brothers on the homestead. He continued his studies at hionie, and was prepared for college chiefly by himself without a teacher. He attended Monson Academy one term in the spring and summer of 1848 under the instruction of Principal Charles Hammond, and upon his recommendation was admitted to the sophomore class of Yale College in 1848, where he was graduated in 1851. He studied law with Thomas and Foster of Worcester (Benjamin F. Thomas and Dwight Foster, both afterwards justices of the supreme court of Massachusetts) and was admitted to the bar at the March term of the court of com- mon pleas, 1853. He opened an office for the pract- ice of law, first in Worcester, but. in less than a year removed to Spencer, where he practiced until the civil war.

He entered the United States service as first lieutenant of Company C, Twenty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, in August, 1861, having been occupied since the war began in April, mainly in recruiting and drilling recruits, first at Spencer and later at Camp Lincoln, Worcester. He took part in the engagements of 1862-at Roanoke Island, February 8, at Newbern, March 14, and at Camden Court House, April 19, in North Carolina ; at the second battle of Bull Run, August 28-31, and at Chantilly, September 1, in Virginia; at South Mountain, September 14, and at Antietam, Septem- ber 17, in Maryland; and at Fredericksburg, Decem- ber 12-15, also in Virginia. Ile was detailed and acted as regimental quartermaster after the battle of Newbern for about three months and was pro- moted captain July 29, 1862. The losses of his company by wounds, disease and death in the cam- paigns of 1862 were such that he had in his com- pany only nine men left for duty. One of his lieutenants was killed at Chantilly and the other at Antietam. Though so fortunate himself as to es- cape serious wounds, he suffered much from ma- laria. As the other companies of this regiment had suffered similar losses to those of. Company C, the colonel and several other officers, of whom Captain Harlow was one, resigned with the expecta- tion that the Twenty-first would soon be consoli- dated with some other regiment. He received an- other commission, as major of the Fifty-seventh Veteran Regiment, and assisted in recruiting it, but did not go with it to service in the field.

He returned to the practice of law in Worcester in October, 1863, and continued it there until Jan- uary, 1866, when he went to California with a view

TON PUBLIC LIBRARY

459

WORCESTER COUNTY

to locate there. At Red Bluff in the Sacramento Valley, (head of river navigation,) where his brother Thomas had been living for several years, and was then extensively engaged in wheat rais- ing, Major Harlow remained nearly two years. Soon after his arrival there he received appointments as county surveyor (Tehama county) and assistant assessor of United States internal revenue. With these offices and practice of law he did not lack employment, but suffered much from malaria con- tracted during the war, more, in fact, than he had ever suffered in the river valleys of the Neuse and Rappahannock. He finally on account of health decided to return to Massachusetts, reluctantly giv- ing up his business in California; for he said that like opportunity for doing well in the law and most other kinds of business he had never found else- where.

He was appointed, June 22, 1869, assessor of internal revenue for the eighth Massachusetts dis- trict, identical territorially with the eighth congres- sional district, then represented in congress hy Hon. George F. Hoar, through whose kindness he received the appointment. He held the office until it was abolished. It was laborious and responsible, but with the aid of assistant assessors and clerks, its duties were performed by him to the satisfac- tion of the government at Washington and to the taxpayers of the district. The four years employ- ment, during which he held this position, is said by Major Harlow to have been the most agreea- ble and remunerative of any of his life.

He again returned to the practice of law in Wor- cester, and continued in practice there until Jan- uary. 1877, when he was appointed by the justices of the supreme judicial court assistant clerk of the courts for the county of Worcester for a three- year term, and held the office by successive re-ap- pointments until January 1, 1904, when, pursuant to an intention of long standing to retire at the age of seventy-five years, and thereafter to take cum otio what of life might remain to him, he declined an- other appointment.

On retiring, he was surprised by his brethren of the Worcester bar by the tender of a banquet, whereat he was overwhelmed with expressions of their esteem, friendship and good will. And he has received not only from the bar, but from the justices of the courts, and the county commis- sioners of Worcester county cumulative assurances of their satisfaction with his discharge of his clerical duties.

Major Harlow spent the summer of 1904 abroad with his daughter. He is a member of the First Unitarian church of Worcester. In politics he is a Republican. He served on the school committee of Spencer and later at Worcester on the school board and as a director of the Free Public Library. He is a comrade of the George H. Ward Post, No. 10, Grand Army of the Republic, and a com- panion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Massachusetts Commandery. After his return form the war, at Spencer, May 31, 1863, Major Harlow married Jeannette Bemis, daughter of Lewis and Maria (Stearns) Bemis. Her father, a farmer, merchant and manufacturer, was born, lived and died in Spencer. He was the son of Joshua, grandson of another Joshua and great-grandson of Samuel Bemis, the second settler in Spencer, who came there from Watertown in 1721. Maria, wife of Lewis and mother of Jean- nette Bemis, was the daughter of Charles and Eliza- beth (McFarland) Stearns, of Worcester. Chil- dren of Major Harlow and wife, all born in Wor-

cester, were: Frederick Bemis, see forward; Gideon, died in infancy; Margaret, see forward.

(IX) Frederick Bemis Harlow, son of Major Harlow (S), and named after his uncle. First Lieutenant Frederick A. Bemis, of the Twenty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, who was killed September 1, 1862, at Cantilly, Virginia, was fitted for college at the Worcester high school and en- tered Williams in 1881. After remaining there two years he entered Amherst (junior class) and was graduated there in 1885. He studied law, and was admitted to the Worcester bar in the superior court, February 24, 1888. He opened an office in Worcester and remained there in practice until May, 1900, when he removed to Paris, France, where he has since been practicing his profession.

(IX) Margaret Harlow, daughter of Major Harlow (8), graduated from the Worcester high school in 1891. She then went abroad and spent most of the next two years in the study of the Ger- man and French languages. Returning to Worcester she taught German in the Worcester high school until her mother's death, when she resigned her place as teacher to become her father's housekeeper.

Mrs. Harlow died January 11, 1901. Younger than her husband by nearly eight years, he had not expected to survive her. A true helpmeet to him in life, her death, sudden and unexpected, by apopletic stroke, was to him an irreparable loss. "Her children rise up, and call her blessed,

Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying Many daughters have done virtuously, But thou excelleth them all." *

HARLOW FAMILY. George Herbert Harlow, the present efficient and popular Register of Pro- bate and Insolvency for Worcester county, is a de- scendant from William Harlow, who came to Mas- sachusetts, and was proprietor in Sandwich, March, i637, and removed to Plymouth, where he was a proprietor 1653. The line has been traced from this William through Arunah Harlow, of the sixth gen- eration, to the subject of this sketch. (See sketch of Major William Taylor Harlow.)

(VI) Arunah Harlow, son of Gideon Harlow (5), grandfather of George Herbert Harlow, of Worcester, was born in Duxbury, Massachusetts, January 29, 1773. He removed to Shrewsbury, Massa- chusetts, in 1798, where his brother had settled and where he became a prominent and highly respected citizen. He was a carpenter by trade and built the house, wherein he spent his remaining days, upon the lines of the Duxbury homestead. He married, June 27, 1799, Sarah Banister, who died September 1.4. 1841, the daughter of Nathan and Sarah ( Whitney) Banister, of Boylston, Massachusetts. Their chil- dren were: Sarah, born September 20, 1800, mar- ried. September 9, 1824, Nathan Pratt, Jr. Eliza, horn March 26, 1802, married, May 4, 1826, Samuel A. Knox. Patience, born March 1, 1804, married, March 18, 1834. John Barnes, of Boylston, Massachu- setts. Nancy, horn August 7, 1806. Nathan Bannis- ter. born September 2, 1808, married (intentions dated April 20), 1844, Louisa D. Kendall, of War- wick, Massachusetts. Clarissa, born May 2, 1811, married Christopher . C. Doty. Arnnah, Jr., born April 17, 1813, married, November 7, 1839, Maria C. Adams. Cleora Eager, born August 15, 1815, married Samuel G. Reed, of Worcester. John Thomas, horn May 29. 1818, married Laura J. Wood. George Henry, born June 18, 1820, see forward.

(VII) George Henry Harlow, son of Arunah

*Prov. XXXI, 28 and 29, Revised Version.

460

WORCESTER COUNTY

Harlow (6), was born at Shrewsbury, Massachu- setts, June 18, 1820. He received his education in the common schools of that town and at the Worces- ter Academy and the State Normal school at Barre, and became a popular and successful school teacher in several towns of Worcester county. He settled in Worcester in 1850, where he was a merchant and fire insurance agent, his place of business being on Front street in the block afterward owned by Dr. Frank H. Kelly, just east of William Bush's drug store, where Brewer & Company are now located. He continued in this store until 1861, when he re- turned to Shrewsbury and purchased the farm form- erly belonging to his wife's father and known as the Dr. Edward Flint place, situated near the centre of the village, on the old Worcester turnpike. The house was built in 1752, in 1768 was owned by Dr. Edward Flint and is at present owned by George Herbert Harlow, of Worcester. On this farm George Henry Harlow spent the remainder of his days, and died May 7, 1891. Aside from his merchant and farm interests he carried on a fire insurance busi- ness upwards of forty years, representing the Mer- chants & Farmers Worcester Mutual Companies of Worcester and others.

He was a member of the Shrewsbury Congrega- tional church. In politics he was a Republican from the organization of the party. Active, earnest and steadfast, prominent in the councils of the party and interested alike in town, state and national affairs, he was frequently elected delegate to important nominating conventions but never sought office for himself. He served on the school board of Worces- ter from ward four in 1855 and from ward six in 1856. After removing from Worcester to Shrews- bury, he represented the district composed of that town and Grafton in the general court of 1873, being elected by the largest majority ever given a candidate for that office in the district. He was trusted by all men, regardless of political beliefs. For more than twenty-four years he was president of the Farmers and Mechanics Club of Shrewsbury, and was for many years a trustee of the Worcester Agricultural Society. He was widely known among Worcester county farmers, who held him in high esteem, and his enthusiasm for the work of the Farmers Club was characteristic; he had the nature of a leader and organizer and stirred others to action by his energy and example, and his influence was shown particularly in the annual fairs of the Farm- ers' Club.

He married Jane Flint, who was baptized De- cember 22, 1822, the daughter of Major Josiah Flint, who was born December 15, 1775, and his wife, Mary (Stone) Flint, daughter of Luther Stone, of Southboro, Massachusetts. Jane Flint was a grand -. daughter of Dr. Edward Flint, who came from Concord, Massachusetts, to Shrewsbury in 1758 and bought the old homestead of eighty acres in 1768. She was a lineal descendant of Hon. Thomas Flint, who came from Mattock. Derbyshire, England, to Concord in 1638 and died there October 3, 1653, Dr. Edward Flint, grandson of the immigrant, Thomas Flint, was surgeon in the expedition to Canada in the French and Indian war in 1758, and served with the Massachusetts Troops at Cambridge in 1775 in the revolution. He died November 13. 1813, aged eighty-five years. The only child of George Henry and Jane (Flint) Harlow is George Herbert, see forward.

(VIII) George Herbert Harlow, son of George Henry Harlow (7), was born in Worcester, Massa- chusetts, educated there in the public schools, and at Shrewsbury and Worcester high schools. When a young man, he entered the internal revenue office

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 130

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