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. II > Part 7
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He married, April 17, 1833, Abigail Bailey How, born at Holden, September 7, 1810, died there De- cember 14, 1858. She was the daughter of Jasper and Nancy ( Wilson ) How. Jasper How was born April 24, 1790, married, November 23, 1809, died November 2, 1826. Children of Nathan and Abigail Bailey Howe were: Edwin, born March 28, 1834, see forward; Hiram, born at Holden, July 30, 1836, resident of Holden, veteran of the civil war, served under General Butler; he married Eliza Cleveland, of Northborough ; Sarah, born at Holden, November 14, 1838, died at Westborough, February 19, 1873; married Emerson B. Wilson, born at Holden, Au- gust 20, 1820, died 1906 at West - Brookfield: Ade- line, born at Holden, December 22, 1840; Nathan, born February 13, 1847, manager of the Glasgow Thread Company many years; Harriet, born March 1, 1849, a nurse by profession ; Martha, born June 13, 1853, died at Holden, December 16, 1905, school teacher.
(VII) Edwin Howe, son of Nathan Ilowe (6), was born at Holden, Massachusetts, March 28, 1834- He was educated in the common schools of Hol- den and in what was known as the select school. He began to help his father in the mill when twelve years of age, worked out of school hours with his- father and continued in the mill after his school days and for some years after he attained his ma- jority. Ile left home to take charge of the saw mill and grist mill of Ira Broad. After eight years there he entered the employ of Russ & Eddy, Bridge street, Worcester, manufacturers of picture frames and moldings, where he remained for another eight years. Then he bought his father's homestead at Holden of John W. Howe, who became the owner after his father's death. He bought also. the saw mill and shoddy mill and conducted them for two years, when they were completely destroyed by fire. March 1, 1880. He rebuilt the mills on the same site, building the shoddy mill of stone, and the
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George
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business continued unde the firm name of Ilowe &
Pickles. Mr. Howe's partner was William HI. Pickles. About 1888 the firm was dissolved and Mr. Ilowe took up farming in 1889 on the Noyes place, Pleasant street, Worcester, for a year, and on the Muzzy farm, Salisbury street, the following year. In 1890 he came to his present farm of one hundred and twenty-five acres, known as the old Marshall Flagg place, on Richmond avemic, Worcester. Here Mr. Howe has an excellent dairy, having some forty cows to supply his customers in Worcester. He has taken many contracts for grad- ing and excavating in Worcester.
He attends the Baptist church. In politics he is a Republican and has served his party as delegate to various representative conventions. He is a prom- inent Free Mason, becoming a member of Morning Star Lodge, April 18, 1899; of Eureka Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, June 6, 1899; of Hiram Couneil, Royal and Select Masters, March 1, 1900; of Worces- ter County Commandery, Knights Templar June 14, 1900. He is a member of the Woreester Agri- cultural Society, He was a member of the military company at Oakdale in the fifties and later of the Holden Rifles. Mr. Howe is a man of integrity and enjoys the confidence of all who know him. He has a happy, sunny disposition and particularly en- joys a good joke. lle is fond of fishing and is well known among the older sportsmen of this section.
He ' married, April 7, 1858. Elizabeth Clarissa Brown. born December 12, 1838, daughter of Allen and Mary ( Stearns) Brown, of Holden. Their children: Edward Ellsworth, born September 1, 1861, married Nellie Stone, of Holden ; Mabel, born in Worcester, July 27, 1864, died April 25, 1899; Abbie Grace, born August 18, 1866; Cora Blanche, born October 13, 1868, married Albert E. Wood- ward, of Worcester ; she died December 20, 1893.
GEORGE PAINE ROGERS. Thomas Rogers (I), the Pilgrim, was the emigrant ancestor of George Paine Rogers, of Worcester, Massachusetts. He came in the "Mayflower" from Leyden, Holland, to Plymouth, in 1620, bringing with him his son Joseph. His other children came afterwards. He died in the first sickness at Plymouth, but his son Joseph was married and had in 1650 six children, In that same year the remainder of his children were married and had many children according to the Bradford History. Among his children were: I. Joseph. 2. John, weaver and planter, of Dux- bury, Massachusetts, taxed there in 1032 and ad- mitted a freeman on March I, 1641-2; town officer. commissioner of jurors; married, April 16, 1639, Ann Churchman; lived at Scituate about 1647; re- moved to Marshfield, where he died; 'will dated February I, 1660, and proved June 5, 1661; wife Frances. 3. William. 4. Noah.
(II) Lieutenant Joseph Rogers, son of Thomas Rogers (1), was born in Leyden or England, came in the "Mayflower" with his father to Plymouth. He was married and had six children in 1650. He had lands assigned to him in 1623 and was made a freeman in 1033. He removed to Duxbury, Massa- chusetts. He was given permission by the colony to keep a ferry over Jones river near his house, March 2, 1635-6. He and his brother John had a grant of land April 6, 1640. He removed to East- ham, Massachusetts. He was appointed lieutenant of the military company at Nawsett in 1647. His will is dated January 2, 1677-8 and probated March 5th of that year. He bequeathed to his sons, Thomas, John and James, daughters Elizabeth Higgins and Hannah Rogers, and to his wife, He gave Beriah Higgins a share with the children because he had
lived with him a great while, etc. Ilis children were: Sarah, born August 6, 1633, died young; Joseph, born July 19, 1035, died 1060; Thomas, born March 20, 1637; Elizabeth, born September 20, 1039; John, born . April 3, 1642; Mary, born September 22, 1044; James, born October 18, 1648, married Mary Paine, in 16;0; Hannah, born August 8. 1652. ( See sketch of Milton P'. Higgins for Iliggins an- cestry. )
(III) John Rogers, son of Joseph Rogers (2), was born in Eastham, April 3, 1642. fle married at Eastham, Elizabeth Twining, daughter of William Twining, of Eastham, who served in the Narra- gansett campaign in 1645, removed from Yarmouth to Eastham, was able to bear arms in 1043, and was made a freeman June 3, 1652. He chied at Eastham, April 15, 1659. John Rogers lived in Eastham. Ilis children were: John, born November 4, 1677: Judah, born November 23, 1679; Joseph, born February 22, 1670; Elizabeth, born 1002; Eleazer, born May 19, 1685: Mtbitable, born 1687; Hannah, born 1689; Nathaniel, born 1693.
(IV) Eleazer Rogers, son of John Rogers (3),) was born in Eastham, Massachusetts, May 19, 1685. He married Martha - about 1712. The children of Eleazer and Martha were: Henry, born August 19. 1713; Elizabeth, born 1715; Mercy, born 1718; Moses, born Match 13, 1720; Martha, born 1723; Eleazer, born November 15, 1726: Ensign (sic), born July 9, 1729; Daniel, born March 16, 1032.
(V) Moses Rogers, son of Eleazer Roger; (4), was born in Eastham, Massachusetts, March 13, 1720. He married Elizabeth Smith, of Chatham, Massachusetts. He appears to have been a soldier in the revolution in a Barnstable company. Moses Rogers, of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, was in Captain Timothy Park's company, April 19, 1775, and re- sponded to the Lexington alarm. Several of his children went to Holden to settle after the revo- lution. Abner and Aaron had large families there. Moses had fifteen children: Jerusha, born Septem- ber 19, 1749; Martha, born March 25, 1751; Abner, born November 6, 1752: John, born December 5, 1755; Moses (twin), born April 16, 1757: Aaron, born April 16, 1757, (twin) married Hannah Rogers and moved to Holden, Massachusetts; Daniel, born October 30, 1760; Milford, born October 4, 1762; Betsey, born August 8, 1764; Elizabeth, born June 22, 1766; Enos, born February 14, 1768; Mercy, born September 12, 1769; Mehitable, born February 9, 1771; George, born November 18, 1772; Reuben, born May 27, 1775.
(VI) Abner Rogers, son of Moses Rogers (5), was born in Eastham, Massachusetts, November 6, 1752. He was a soldier in the revolution, served in Captain Daniel Grout's company, Colonel John Rand's regiment, in 1780 after he went to Holden, Massachusetts, to live. lle went there about 1779, probably with his brother Aaron, as a son was born i11 1783 to Aaron in Holden.
lle married Anna Rogers, of Eastham, by whom he had one daughter. He married (second) Pris- cilla Paine, and had two children. He married (third), September 29, 1782, 'Dorothy Nichols ( spelled sometimes Dolla on the records), and had two children. She died in Worcester, March 19, 1841, aged eighty-eight. The child of Abner and Anna (Rogers) Rogers was: Anna, born August 2, 1775, married Allen; the children of Abner and Priscilla ( Paine ) Rogers were : Nathan, born October 26, 1778; Priseilla, born in Holden, December 13, 1781; the children of Abner and Dolly (Nichols) Rogers were: Abner, Jr., born in Holden, June 21, 1785 : Dolly, born in Holden, March 8, 1791.
(VII) Nathan Rogers, son of Abner Rogers
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(6), was born probably at Eastham, but removed when very young to Holden, Massachusetts. He married Phebe Boynton, April 16, 1801. She died November 11, 1815, soon ofter the birth of her eighth child, Phebe. He married ( second) Mary Cheney Moore, of West Boylston, Massachusetts, May 22, 1816. They had one child. She died August 1I, 1828, aged forty-eight years, five months. He mar- ried (third) Sally Blair, of Worcester, (intentions August 20,) 1829. He was a farmer at Holden. The homestead comprised the land of his father. In 1835 he bought a farm in Worcester. The chil- dren of Nathan and Phicbe ( Boynton ) Rogers were : Jeremiah, born December 11,. 1801, died January 31, 1870; Nathan, born October 15, 1803, a provision dealer, who died in middle life leaving two daugh- ters; Priscilla, died young ; Abner, born March 8, 1807, worked in the Usgood Bradley car shops, Worcester. later was a manufacturer of shovels in Bridgeport, Connecticut ; left two daughters; Susan Fay, born April 27, 1809, married Stillman Ilub- bard; William Boynton, born March 22, 1813, was a farmer; Elizabeth Smith, born October 22, 1813, married Abraham Wilson; Phebe, born October 31, 1815, married Artemas Howe. The child of Nathan and Mary C. (Moore) Rogers was: Thomas Moore, born April 10, 1818. The children of Nathan and Sarah ( Blair) Rogers were: Horace Blair, born September 28, 1830, (twin), farmer, resides in Worcester; Maria Stockwell (twin), born Sep- tember 28, 1830, died December 12, 1831; Sarah Maria, born October 14, 1833. All the children of Nathan Rogers were born in Holden.
(VIII) Thomas Moore Rogers, son of Nathan Rogers (7), was born in Holden, Massachusetts, May 10, 1818. He was the only son of Nathan and Mary Cheney (Moore) Rogers, but his mother had children by a previous marriage and his father had, as will be seen by referring to the record above, twelve children. The necessity for work came to him early. He had to do a man's work at the age of twelve, but in winter he took advantage of the district schools and attended the Westfield Acad- emy one term. When he was seventeen he bought his time of his father for one hundred dollars, which he paid when he reached his majority and had saved a considerable sum besides. In 1840, when he was twenty-two, he came to Worcester and went to work for Blake & Trumbull, grocers, who then had a store in the Butman block. Next year, 1841, he went into business for himself with a partner under the firm name of Smith & Rogers in the manufacture of goatskin shoes. The building in which the firm began business, at the north corner of Main and Mechanic streets, was burned in two months after they started, and they could not go on. He was in business for a time in Oswego, New York, as a shoe dealer. In Jan- uary, 1842, he returned to Worcester and engaged in the manufacture of shoes again. In 1844 he entered into partnership with John P. Southgate in the leather and shoe findings business. Their first store was at the corner now occupied by the Piper block, and in 1850 they removed to the present loca- tion of the Rogers block at the corner of Main and Pleasant streets. With several changes in partners, Mr. Rogers remained in business in this location until he retired from business in 1873.
His real estate interests in Worcester had grown so large at that time that they demanded all his attention. He purchased the Deacon Brooks farm at South Worcester, through which he laid out Southgate and Canterbury streets, now largely built etp. He also bought valuable lots on Front and Trumbull streets when land was very cheap. In
1863 he built the first large brick block on Front street west of Church street and east of Harrington corner. In 1869 he built the Rogers block, the estate where it stands having been bought three years before. In 1880 with the late Edwin Morse he built the Odd Fellows building on Pleasant street. He built a large business block in Salem square in 1883 and had many other real estate deals and buildings to engage his attention. He built his man- sion house at the corner of High and Chatham streets in 1868. He became a very wealthy man, largely through his energetic and shrewd conduct of his business and careful investment of his savings in real estate that not only produced revenue but increased greatly in value as the city grew.
Mr. Rogers was president of the Worcester Elec- tric Light Company until his death. He was in- terested in several banks and corporations and an officer in several of them. He was a member of Union Congregational Church. He was always a Republican in politics after the party was organized. He served the city in the common council in 1877 and 1878 and was in the board of aldermen in 1886 and 1887.
Mr. Rogers died July 9, 1901, at the age of eighty-three years, having retained his health and mental ability to the very end of life. His has often been called a well rounded life. He started in life without means, acquired wealth in legitimate business and pursued his business activities to the advanced age of eighty-three years. At the same time he built well in the confidence and respect of his neighbors. He was honored by his fellow citi- zens and his private character was stainless. As a citizen he did his full duty, and as a financier he was among the most prominent men in the city.
Mr. Rogers married, April 19, 1843, at Worces- ter, Mary S. Rice, daughter of Israel and Char- lotte Rice, of Shrewsbury. Their children were: Ellen Frances, born in Worcester, July 7, 1841, re- sides at the homestead in Worcester; Walter Thomas, born September 23, 1847, died February 12, 1865.
(VIII) Jeremiah Rogers, son of Nathan Rogers (7), was born in Holden, Massachusetts, December II, 1801, died in Boston, January 31, 1870. He lived in Rutland till 1837 or 1838. He married (inten- tions November 2) 1832, Sally Paine Meade, born in Holden, Massachusetts, November 2, 1804, died in Worcester, December 9, 1897, aged ninety-three years, one month and nine days. Their only child, George Paine, was born there May 12, 1834. Her parents, William and Phebe ( Paine) Meade, always lived in Holden. They had three children: Sarah, Edwin, Elmer.
(IX) George Paine Rogers, son of Jeremiah Rogers (8), was born in Rutland, Massachusetts, May 12, 1834. He attended the Worcester schools and Worcester Academy. After leaving school he began to teach, and while working with his father on the farm in North Worcester during the summer he taught school for six terms in the winter. In 1865 the farm was sold and he went to Worcester to work in the grain store of Francis Harrington. After four years he went to farming again, having bought the place in Shrewsbury where the late Philip L. Moen subsequently built his magnificent country home. He worked for Mr. Harrington again and in 1881 bought the business and has ever since carried it on. He has built up one of the largest and best grain stores in this section, and stands well in the business world. In politics he is a Republican, and earnest in support of all tem- perance and reform legislation. He is a member of the Old South (Congregational) Church, and was
Thomas / Rogers
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deacon there for eight years. He was formerly an Odd Fellow.
lle married, March 6, 1855, Almira W. Knight, of Leicester. She was the daughter of Horace Knight, a lumber dealer and shoe manufacturer of Leicester, where she was born December 16, 1831. She died in Worcester, April 10, 1905. Her brother, Joseph A. Knight, of the leather firm of Graton & Knight, was born March 3. 1830, married Sarah E. Trowbridge in 1854. Horace Knight was born June 23, 1799, died May 2, 1855. He married Sally Part- ridge, who was born June 9, 1801, died September 6, 1833. Ile was a lumber dealer, bank director, selectman. His father was Jonathan Knight, Jr., and his grandfather Jonathan Knight, Sr., of Leices- ter and Paxton. Another son is Charles Brown Knight, of Worcester, by his second wife Hannah Brown. The children of George Paine and Almira WV. (Knight) Rogers were: I. Charles Elmer, born September 24. 1856, married Anna Nourse, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, 1882, and had Walter M., born June 3. 1887; he is a dealer in meats and provisions in Worcester. 2. Sarah Elizabeth, born May 28, 1859, graduate of State Normal School, teacher, married Edwin W. Sanderson, April 17, 1887, and had: Ilelen M., born January 12, 1890; Sibyl, born June 12, 1891; Katharine, born 1895; Sarah E., died June 8. 1905. in Brooklyn, New York. 3. Frank Knight, born in Worcester, Jan- uary 23, 1864, married, April 7, 1887, Jennie A. Houghton, of Worcester; he is a professor in the Hampton Normal Institute, Virginia, and one of the principal members of the faculty; their children are: Frances Houghton, born March 17, 1889: Helen Knight, born March 12, 1892; Mary Elizabeth, born February, 1894. 4. Josephine Almira, born August 14, 1865, married William F. Little, October 12, 1887, and had : Ruth MeLeish, born October 3, 1889. Mr. Little has for the past fifteen years been in business with Mr. Rogers. He was formerly di- rector of the choir at the Old South Church and other churches. He is a member of the Schumann Quartette, which is well known throughout the state.
CURTIS FAMILY. Henry Curtis, father of Ephraim Curtis, of Worcester, and the ancestor of those bearing this family name in the eighth and ninth generations now residing here, set sail from the port of London for New England, May 6, 1635, in the "Elizabeth and Ann," Roger Cooper, master. Through "Hotten's List of Emigrants to America" we learn that the age of Henry Curtis was given at twenty-seven years, and it is also stated that Mr. Curtis and his fellow passengers brought certificates from the ministers of their sev- eral parishes and from the justices of the peace of their conformity to the orders and disciplines of the Church of England, that they were no subsidy men, but had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy, showing that Henry Curtis was not strictly of the Pilgrim or Puritan type. We have no complete picture as to his traits and characteristics, but certain facts in his life are matters of record. He settled at Watertown, becoming a proprietor there in 1636, and also in Sudbury in 1641. May 2, 1649, he sold his house and lot in Watertown to Jeremiah Norcross.
He married Mary, daughter of Nicholas Guy, who with wife Jane and daughter Mary and two servants embarked in the ship "Confidence" of Lon- don, John Jobson, master, April 24, 1638. Deacon Nicholas Guy was admitted freeman May 22, 1639, and was a proprietor of Watertown, 1644, and died there July 6, 1649, and his widow, Jane Guy, lived
in Sudbury with her daughter, Mrs. Henry Curtis, where she died. Her will, dated August 16, 1666, and proved December 22, 1669, gave her estate to her grandchildren, the homestead going to her eldest grandson, Ephraim. Henry Curtis died in Sudbury, May 8, 1678, aged seventy years. Ephraim Curtis, the eldest child, was born in Watertown, March 31, 1642; John, born 1644; Joseph, born July 17, 1647.
(11) Ephraim Curtis was the eldest child of Henry and Mary (Guy) Curtis. In the spring of 1673, axe in hand, and with a long, Spanish rifle on his shoulder, started for Quinsigamond, as Worecster was then called, where he arrived after two days travel, and located on the spot still owned and occupied by the Curtis family. Of the early life of this Ephraim much of interest may be found, but of the later portion the record seems to be incom- plete. Previous to his coming to Quinsigamond, he had purchased of the widow of Thomas Noyes, for the sum of forty-three pounds lawful money, a title to two parcels of land, one of two hundred and fifty acres originally granted to Thomas Noyes,
CURTIS FARM, WORCESTER The Estate has been in the Curtis Family since 1672
of Sudbury, one of the committee appointed by the general court, and directed October 11, 1665, to ex- plore the country and report concerning the ad- vantages for a settlement at Quinsigamond Ponds, and two hundred and fifty acres originally granted to Mr. Norton, but assigned respectively to Jolin Payne and the said Thomas Noyes, who died before the committee of which he was a member took action. Supplied with this title, executed by the heirs of Lieutenant Thomas Noyes, who died De- cember 7, 1666, Mr. Curtis repaired to the site of the present city of Worcester and located his claim to five hundred acres on the right of Lieutenant Thomas Noyes, and in the fall of 1673 began the erection of a house on that portion of his claim originally granted to Noyes. October 8, 1673, Major Daniel Gookin, chairman of a new committee ap- pointed to settle the town, on learning of the action of Mr. Curtis, wrote him that the committee could not allow him to locate his claim of five hundred acres there, and the case was settled in the courts, the committee allowing Mr. Curtis to retain but fifty acres of the claim he had located. This fifty acre lot was in April, 1675, surveyed and located by order of the general court at a session held May 27, 1674, by the town's surveyor, David Fiske, and contained the house above referred to.
Here Mr. Curtis lived for a time, engaged in trading with the Indians. Other settlers came and
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the spring of 1675 found a half dozen or more houses marking the settlement of "Quinsigamond." But in the month of July the Indians began their movement of destruction planned against the white settlers throughout the colony. and the families who had established homes here removed to the larger settlements near the coast, leaving their buildings to become fuel for the torch of the hostile savages. It is recorded that when he was thirty-three, be- cause he was "noted for his intimate knowledge of the country, his quickness of comprehension and cool courage, and his large acquaintance with the Indians, whose language he spoke fluently," he was sent by the court as interpreter with an embassy from Cambridge and twenty men under Captain Ed- ward Ilutchinson and Captain Thomas Wheeler. On December 2, 1675, the heroic services of Mr. Curtis during this Indian war, more especially in connection with the attack on Brookfield, gained for him the honorable title of lieutenant, and the story as told by Captain Thomas Wheeler, who being de- sirous of getting word to Boston of the great dis- tress the little garrison was in at Brookfield. states how on the third attempt, at the solicitation of Cap- tain Wheeler, Curtis succeeded in making his way through the lines of the company of savages be- sieging the town by crawling on his hands and knees for a considerable distance, and proceeding to Bos- ton to deliver the message.
Before leaving Ephraim Curtis it might be well to quote a paragraph upon him by Senator Hoar ; from a note to the address delivered by Mr. Hoar at the celebration of the town hundredth anniversary in 1884 of the naming of Worcester. This note is of interest not only as showing Senator Hoar's opinion as to the rights of Ephraim Curtis in his controversy with General Gookin, but also for the high tribute which he pays to his energy, daring and courage. The note is as follows :
"The limited time allowed for the preparation of this address makes it necessarily extremely im- perfect. One defect, of which the author is espe- cially sensible, is the omission of any mention of Ephraim Curtis. He is entitled to be honored as the first settler of Worcester, notwithstanding the late discovery that a rude house had been built here prior to his settlement. It is clear that the owner of the house did not occupy it. What sort of a house it was, whether it was built for the surveyors or for the committee who inspected the place to determine its fitness for habitation, or as a shelter for trav- ellers on their way to Connecticut, does not appear. But it is unlikely that any permanent settler would have dwelt there without leaving some trace of him- self in the contemporary record. Curtis represented an element which has not received full justice from New England history, the brave and adventurous frontiersman. His exploit in saving the besieged garrison of Brookfield equals anything Cooper has imagined of the Leatherstocking. His descendants, a highly respected family, bearing his name, still dwell on the spot where he settled. He was the ancestor also of the famous and eloquent orator, George William Curtis."
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