USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Marlborough > Historical reminiscences of the early times in Marlborough, Massachusetts : and prominent events from 1860 to 1910, including brief allusions to many individuals and an account of the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town > Part 14
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CHAPTER IX.
THE CALEB BRIGIIAM HOMESTEAD.
The old Homestead on this spot, Elm street, was in former years a one story dwelling which was taken down by Mr. Caleb Brigham 2d who erected the above. The latter was a man celebrated for many miles as a talented violin player, and a popular dancing master. His discipline was wonderful. He always kept the best of order and at no time during his lesson hours was laughing or whispering allowed. As soon as any noise was heard, up came the old violin turned bottom side up which he would strike with his bow and making such a noise that you would think he was about to smash the whole thing. Thus he would awe his pupils. But he was a veritable gentleman, a most popular teacher, and a strict tem- perance man. He married Martha Brigham who lived where Sidney Glea- son lately resided. Her father and mother both died with the small pox and were buried in the night in the Brigham Cemetery. They were the first ones buried there. Mr. Brigham gave the land for a burying place. When her parents died the youngest daughter was only twelve years old. She grew to be a smart, capable woman. Her husband Caleb 2d, earned
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the money and she aided him in the keeping of it. Of their sons and daughters who lived there, Francis Dana because President of Hudson's Bank, Charles went into railroad business in Fitchburg, Tileston lived at home with his parents, Martha married Mathias Rice, Laura married Alden Brigham, Angenette married Burleigh Morse, son of Lyman. Caleb Brigham died a number of years before his wife who suddenly one morning at her son Dana's after a pleasant day of apparent health, passed away.
One hundred years ago when the cotillion dances were held every Thurs- day night for several weeks at Cotting's Hall, Mr. Caleb Brigham and Mr. Pliny Witherbee with instruments in hand would mount the rostrum and the couples arm in arm take their position on the floor. Mr. Brigham was a fine looking portly man, a perfect Chesterfield in manners and of such character and standing in society that parents were glad to place their children under his instruction. His voice was clear and strong and few were his superiors in drawing music from the violin. Said an old gentleman : " We shall always hold in highest esteem the memory of Mr. Caleb Brigham, so kind, so jovial and so desirous of making us all happy. We remember well in school the charge he would give to his scholars in leaving the hall : 'Now boys, remember in going away from here that you avoid rude and boisterous language. Be gentlemanly in your deportment for there are ears open to hear you, and I want you to convince all critics that you come here for a good purpose, not merely to learn to dance but to be civil, courteous, and polite." Oh the cotillion parties, when the Bakers, the Barretts, the Barnes, the Barbers, the Bigelows, the Browns, the Boyds, the Brighams, the Fays, the Feltons, the Gibbons, the Gleasons, the Howes, the Holyokes, the Morses, the Phelps, the Priests, the Rices, the Stevens, the Woods, the Wilsons and so on, all made merry and after the dance went into the magnificent suppers prepared by Aunt Cotting herself !
Among the children of Ithamer Brigham was Eli, who married Lydia Howe, and their son Jonas built the following pretty Homestead. Jonas Brigham was a man of unimpeachable integrity, and respected by all who knew him. His son, Edward A., and daughters, S. Eliza and Hattie, still reside in this old home standing at the foot of Mt. Sligo, the highest elevation in Middlesex county, where on a clear day, a lovely view is always before the visitor, and the most exquisite sunsets to be enjoyed. Marlborough has the beauty of hill and dale, and from Mt. Sligo, Mt. Pleasant, Boyds, Prospect, West or Chesnut Hills, you will ever find
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TIIE JONAS BRIGHAM HOME.
stretching out before you as pretty a picture as anywhere to be found. In reference to "Sligo " we will say that John Bowker came to Marl- borough in 1675 and resided northwest of the pond. He married senior Abraham Howe's daughter Mary. He was a carpenter, a prominent man, and one of the selectmen six or more years; being one when the new meeting house was built ; and was on important committees. He at that time owned land on both sides, the western and eastern of Mt. Sligo and lived near the now Tileston Brigham place. Ensign Bowker had 11 or more children, among whom was Rachel who in 1754 gave a silver tankard to the church in Marlborough. Mr. Bowker probably owned the whole hill, which was then called Bowker Hill within the four streets Elm, Winter, Lincoln and French Hill streets to Tileston Brigham's.
His son Ezekiel who married Capt. Peter Rice's daughter Mary, resided on his fathers' place. The heirs of Ezekiel Bowker owned the land on the east side of the lane, Zerubabel Rice, Abraham Williams and Aaron Eager on the western side. Ezekiel Bowker's daughter Abigail married Silas Wheeler in 1758 who bought of the heirs, the Bowker land includ- ing Bowker's hill as it was called in 1777. At time of the Revolution there was a man living near by who being called into service did no military duty but evaded the service and found a hiding place during the
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day, only coming out at night. For this, in derision, they named him " Old Sligo." From that time the legend goes, the name was changed from Bowker's Hill to Sligo Hill, and to this day is known as Mt. Sligo. We have heard also that one gave it the name Sligo from the pretty hill Sligo, Ireland, of which we give a view, and think the last supposition to be more correct than the former village story. In early days Bowker lane extended from Main street to Elm street, a few rods east and nearly parallel with Broad street. When the Bowker land was sold, Lieutenant Ephraim Barber the celebrated clock maker bought a portion of the highest part of the hill and used to say he " could get as near Heaven as any person on his own land." It stands six hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea. Only two hills higher in Middlesex County-one in Hopkinton and the other in Nobscot near the boundary line of Sud- bury and Framingham.
SLIGO, IRELAND, FROM WHICH OUR OWN POINT OF LAND WAS NAMED.
" Sweeping around a wide bay, the land draws nearer again, the far away blue darkening to purple and then to green and brown. The sky is cut by the outlines of the Leitrim and Sligo hills, a row of rounded peaks against the blue, growing paler and more translucent in the south- ern distance. The whole colored circle of sea and land, of moor and mountain is full of the silence of intense and mighty power. The waters
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are tremulous with the breath of life. The mountains in their stately beauty rise like immortals in the clear azure. The signs of our present works are dwarfed to insignificance. Everywhere within that wide world of hill and plain, and hardly less ancient than the hills themselves, are strewn memorials of another world that has vanished, sole survivors of a long hidden past. All the islands have gently rounded backs clothed in pastures nearly to the crest with purple heather lying under the sky upon their ridges. There are flowers everywhere, even to the very edge of the whispering sea. White daisies and yellow dandelions star all the pastures, and on the green ruggedness of every hillside, or along the shadowed banks of every river and every silver stream, amid velvet mosses and fringes of new born ferns in a million nooks and crannies, are strewn dark violets and wreaths of yellow primroses, while above them the larches are dainty with new greenery and rosy tassels, and the young leaves of beach and oak quiver with fresh life. "
THE SAMUEL HOWE HOUSE.
This was removed to Elm street to make way for the Charles Frye house erected on the same spot at the corner of Elm and Pleasant streets where there used to stand the old home of Jonah Rice, father of Martin, Nathan, Harvey and Luke. Jonah Rice was at one time reckoned among
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the largest land holders in the town and reputed a wealthy man, but riches took wing and this large house became the property of Mr. Joseph Howe, Jr., who as time went on and his daughter Charlotte married Samuel Howe, son of Abraham Howe, sold the place to his son-in-law. Samuel Howe took the house down and built a new one on the same spot. The latter was an upright citizen, a shrewd business man and a keen lover of a good joke. He and Stephen Rice had a law suit at one time over a certain matter. Well, Sam'l fixed it all up, got out papers and made a receipt which was well worded and replete with all flourishes and Stephen was more than pleased. Some one asked him how it came out. "Oh, all right. Sam fixed it all up and made out a paper." After showing it they found it was not receipted. Well, Stephen went hopping mad and ran to Sam for his signature. But Sam wouldn't sign and said, " Oh, let it stand, 'twill do for everybody." Another time a man sent his boy over to him for some money. Sam told the boy to run back and tell his father he hadn't any money. The boy returned. " Father says he must have some money. " "Well," was Sam's reply, " You go back and tell your father if he gets it before I know it to let me know. " Lucas Bigelow and he were driving to Boston one day and a man ran into them, broke his wheel down and then drove off. Lucas was raving. "The old rascal, he ought to have had a grand walloping !" he cried. " Yes, I know it, " answered the witty Howe, " but you see I couldn't stop just then to give it to him." He would tell of Luke Rice who supplied mirth for the neighborhood. The boys used to like to see him coming into town with his team of two oxen led by a horse, and would remember the twinkle in his eye when as they ran out to meet him he would crack his whip and shout, "Woap, whoap, Jim Crow ! God knows you. " Luke had a queer taste for extravagant and mal- apropos language, as when he said to his man Shurtliff : "Joe, you take the fork and explode around those haycocks and make them look a little more tryannical. "
In the house we give was born S. Herbert Howe, the son of Samuel and Charlotte (Howe) Howe. Samuel was a cooper and carried on that business in Marlborough until he retired in 1842. After graduating from the High school at the age of twenty, Herbert with willing hands and active brain commenced the manufacture of shoes in the old cooper shop with his elder brother Lewis. During the odd hours of his school days, he had learned many of the important parts of shoe manufacture, and making shoes for John W. Stevens, he not only learned the trade, but made enough to pay his own board during his school days. Soon the
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two young men became factors of consequence in the shoe business which as it increased resulted in adding more room to the old cooper shop. Shortly after, Herbert bought out the interest of his brother Lewis, and as business continued to increase he purchased a shop on corner of Pleas- ant and Elm streets and moved the old cooper shop up beside it. Here he remained until he formed in 1861 a co-partnership with Allen D. Howe which continued into 1865 when Herbert practically began his business career. Ever prompt to meet all financial obligations, the following story is told as illustration : It was in 1857, the time of the great snow storm when all public conveyance was blocked for several days, that he had a note falling due in a Boston bank. Two or three days of grace had passed when he decided he could wait no longer, so walked through the drifts to Cordaville, six miles distant, where the road had just been opened through to Boston where he arrived a trifle late, but through the courtesy of the cashier, who admired the pluck of this man who could overcome all obstacles, he obtained the paper which for the first and only time in his financial career came so near being dishonored.
The shoe business of S. H. Howe increased year after year. The shop standing on the spot where he commenced business is an ornament to the town, and this in connection with his two other shops, Diamond F and Diamond O, have for many years given employment to hundreds of workmen. A stock company was formed with Mr. Howe as principal stockholder and president and his son Louis P. Howe as vice-president of this corporation known as the S. H. Howe Shoe Co. 2,500,000 pairs of shoes are turned out annually by this company, and Marlborough work- men are fortunate indeed that generous, loyal hearted S. Herbert Howe still lives " to make the wheel go round."
Mr. Howe is of the Unitarian faith and possesses by inheritance an active well balanced brain. He married Harriet A., daughter of William Pitt and Lavinia (Baker) Brigham. Four children, Alice and Annie, who have passed on ; Louis Porter [m. India, daughter of Loren Arnold] and Charlotte A. [m. Oscar H. Stevens, box manufacturer ; ch. Herbert H. and Louis W.]
S. Herbert Howe was president of the Savings Bank nearly twenty years ; was one of the original incorporators of the Peoples National Bank and has been on its board of directors uninterruptedly since that date. He was one of the earliest advocates of our system of water supply and drainage and served on both boards of construction with zeal and vigor. He was for many years a member of the school board and still retains an active interest in its work. Of republican convictions, he has represented
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Marlborough in the General Court and has been connected in countless town affairs and offices. He was a member of the Governor's Council four years with Governor Wolcott and Governor Crane. In 1889 he was elected first Mayor of Marlborough. His charities and gifts to the city are many and he has done much to beautify Maplewood cemetery and other public places. In fact his benevolence and great interest in all pertaining to the good of his native town, together with his public offices, have resulted in his well merited title. "Father of the City of Marlborough. "
HOME OF DEACON ISAAC HAYDEN.
Deacon Hayden who died in Marlborough aged 90 years lived in the above house. He was a descendant of John Alden, the Mayflower Pilgrim, and was born in Quincy. He moved in 1810 to Boston and while there married Martha Cunningham of Marlborough and in 1813 removed here where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a carpenter by trade and many are the houses built under his supervision. His first carpentering in Marlborough was for " Squire Pope at the Mills." He was a member of the Legislature 3 years, selectmen for 22- liberal in his views and a member and deacon of the Universalist church where for many years he was an enthusiastic singer. He had a sunny, even temper which endeared him to all with whom he came in contact.
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He sang all his days and ceased only when he began to die. For sixty- six years he lived among us a model man.
Of the eight children of Martha (Cunningham) and Dea. Isaac Hayden two only are living. Ellen, and Emily Frances who married the late Frederic H. Morse, son of Lyman and Lydia (Brigham) Morse. Frederic II. Morse, will long be remembered as a local and political agitator, and was for many years a political factor in Marlborough. Born in Framingham, at 6 years of age he moved to Southborough. At the age of 16 he went to Concord where he was numbered among the particular friends of Thoreau with whom he took frequent excursions into the surrounding country. He was also intimately. associated with Haw- thorne and Emerson. Later he came to Marlborough and found employ- ment in the store of Lambert Bigelow. In 1852 he went to California where he became identified with the political movements of the pioneers and also became a close friend of Bret Harte. Soon after his return to New England Fort Sumter was fired upon and he joined the 13th Mass. Infantry, Co. F, and served until March 1863 when in battle being deprived of hearing through the roar of cannon and musketry he was discharged. In 1869 he was elected as member of Legislature and remained with the Democratic party until 1884 when he became a Republican. He was an insatiable reader and in general debate he was regarded as almost invincible. They tell us he attended 25 State Conven- tions since 1880 and assisted in the nomination of every Republican candidate for Governor for nearly quarter of a century. Ch. Edward S. [m. Mary Hill, ch. Frederick L. ] Genevieve [m. Walter E. Priest, ch. Genevieve m. H. G. Adams] and Ex-Representative to Legislature I. Porter, the witty contributer to L'Estafette in whose columns one may read frequent hits and points on local affairs. He m. Lelia Bruce of Berlin, ch. George V., Frances A., Walter P.
Near by is the residence of Mr. John P. Brown, the builder of the block on Main street, in which the Scenic Theatre affords chief place of amusement. Mr. Brown, who recently gave our Library $125, is a self- made and well known, successful business man of this city, who attributes much of his success in life to the Marlborough Public Library. As a boy he was put to work in a shoe factory a year or two after the library was opened. One day he went in out of curiosity and took out a book. Liking it, he took out another. This soon created a taste for reading which became a delight. To-day he is a well informed man on all cur- rent topics, and ancient and modern history. He m. Helen McDonald, sister to Judge McDonald, (children Elenore G. and Robert F.)
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HOUSE OF DR. JOHN BAKER.
Few doctors were needed in the good old days when exercise and early hours and simple diet was the medicine. Doctor Hildreth at the east, and Doctor Baker at the west part dispensed pills and emetics from their well filled saddle bags, and when the patient was in a dangerous condition, old Dr. Ball of Northborough in his sulky, drawn by a jaded steed, would be seen approaching the dwelling of the sick ; and when all hope had fled, Doctor Kittridge of Framingham must come to confirm the wisdom of the others' treatment and assure the relatives that all had been done that human wisdom could do.
Who has not heard of the celebrated Kittridge? As kind-hearted and tender as a child to the really sick, but rough and irritable when called to a spleeny and hypochondrical person. He had no patience with feigned sickness, and when one woman of Marlborough, whose case the Doctor penetrated at once, asked him imploringly what could be done for her, he answered : "Nothing at all. Get up off your bed and go to spinning !" " Oh, Doctor, but I should fall right down if I got up. " " Well, dash it, get up again !" said he, and off he went riding.
Old Doctor Baker was full of stories. "Why, " said an old gentle- man, " he'd have to tell his story before he prescribed and I don't know but that his stories did nearly as much good for the patient as did his medicine. " Down in the old Mill Village, now the further part of Hudson, there lived many Nourse families. There was A. Nourse and
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B. Nourse and C. Nourse. "If you were ever sick and wanted a nurse," Doctor Baker cried, "he knew where there was a whole nest of 'em." Well, one night a wayfarer came along to A. Nourse's house and asked to be put up. As they sat around the fire the subject of gratitude came up. "I tell you, " says Nourse, " the words, 'I thank you, ' are worth 12} cents. 'I thank you kindly' are worth 25 cents. 'I thank you very, very kindly ' are worth 37₺ cents. " The next morn as the stranger started to go on his way, old gentleman Nourse cried, "Twenty-five cents, if you please." "Sir !" smiled the traveller, " for your hospitality I thank you. For your bed and board I thank you very, very kindly and"-" Hold ! " cried his host, "I'm in your debt already. Say no more, but get you gone quickly or I'll be bankrupt. "
This matches the story of when Jabez Witherbee kept the old tavern over by the Pond. One evening when the usual bar room loungers were sitting around, a woman came in and going up to the bar said to Jabez, " I'll thank you for a good mug of toddy. " "All right, " replied Jabez and mixing it, placed the mug of good hot toddy before her. "Thank you, " said the woman as she drained the cup and started to leave the room. "Hold on!" cried Jabez, "you've forgotten to pay for the toddy." The woman turned : " I said I'd thank you for it and I have thanked you for it, " and she went out followed by the laughs of the merry crowd. From that day on, Jabez every now and then heard from some one of that party, " Jabez, I'll thank you for a good mug of toddy. "
Doctor John Baker was a man respected by all. Coming from Hancock, N. H., from which place he married Martha Dennis, he came in 1812 to Marlborough and built the house above. Nine children had been given him : Adaline Felton, Sullivan, Harriet and Lavinia who married William Pitt Brigham, son of Major Jedediah Brigham, and born on the old homestead, Boston Road.
William Pitt Brigham learned the wheelwright trade and established himself in business in West Acton in 1840. In 1849 he went to Califor- nia and crossed the Isthmus twice, once before the railroad was built, in the building of which he had a part. Returning from California he was engaged for about fifteen years in the meat business under the Morse & Bigelow store and was associated a part of the time with Lyman W. Howe in the same line. He was a man of excellent judgment, modest and unobtrusive to a marked degree. He died in 1884 and his widow in 1907. Their children were Harriet, married S. Herbert Howe ; Henrietta married Freeman Holyoke ; Henry Augustine, Helen Adelaide m. Allen
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D. Howe, ch. Bertha M. and Alice L .; William Frank, who died in Washington, D. C., in 1864, was Corporal in Co. F, 13th Mass. Inf. and served three years in Civil War; Albert Quincy, twin to Alfred A. ; Emma Baker, m. Herbert W. Brigham, son of Rev. Willard and Betsey (Russell) Brigham; Herbert is foreman in S. H. Howe's shoe factory ; their daughter Maud married Warren Cushing; Edwin Eugene, an engineer, m. Hattie I. Johnson.
H
HOMESTEAD OF LAMBERT OR EDWARD L. BIGELOW.
Passing along to the corner of Pleasant St. and "old Mulberry Lane" now called Lincoln St. we come to the above house standing on what was long ago the "Village Green;" the old trees of which in early days of the Village Improvement Society had been shouldered by Rev. Asa Packard himself, who, bringing them one by one from the forest not far away had planted them exclaiming as he wiped his dripping brow: "There, down you go! Up may you soon grow, and long may your old boughs wave!" It was Rev. Levi Brigham, son of Willard B. and Betsey Russell Brigham, who exclaimed as the lane grew to a street : "oh this is pleasant!" and Pleasant St. was the name permanently adopted. Here on this spot used to play their games the boys and girls who were long time ago laid away in the ancient burying ground of this old town risen from the Christian Indian Village of Okommokamesett, colonized
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by the Sudbury people in 1655. And under the broad spreading boughs of the old trees many Grandfathers' stories of King Philip's warriors attacking this place in 1676 were related, intermingled by those of the old pastor, Rev. Mr. Brimsmead, who out heroded Herod by invoking a peculiar curse upon all poor babies who were so irreverent as to be born upon a Sabbath, uniformly refusing to baptise them. Quite often Father Brimsmead's name would be unconsciously perverted when the young folks persistently clamored : "And tell us Grandpa about that time when the Indians used to set fire to Mr. Brimstone's house."
When Lambert Bigelow's family and business increased, his ambition grew to the building of the above old Homestead and up to this place he moved with his family, from the "old long house." Aged people have told us it seemed an immense building in those early days. Here was the first hall in town for the Odd Fellows and "Well do I remember the night I was initiated to Odd Fellow- ship in this hall" cried good old Burleigh Morse, father of our Ex- Mayor; and many others could have told of the time here when they were accustomed to the secret slides and knocker. Secret societies were then a novelty to the village and for many a day did the people make it a topic when Lambert Bigelow first built a place of meeting for the I. O. O. F. In this house was built the first "swell" Ball Room and here the maids and matrons of old time used to assemble at five o'clock in the afternoon and taking off their warm wraps would pass up as to a Shaker meeting. For they would ascend one stairway and the "gude men" would take the other, and many a laugh would be heard as they hastened to the dance hall above where on the built in benches on each side would the beaux bashfully sit until the sound of the fiddle and bow and the call :
" Lads and lassies to your places, Up the middle and down again."
made the old rafters ring with laughter and good mirth.
There is a sadness that always comes to one upon seeing a fine old Homestead falling to decay, but still sadder it is to see the blinds closed, the doors barred and the house empty. The old walls mutely appeal to our sympathy in suggestions of the Past and the very trees seem to whisper of souls who have lived here, and loved here and then passed into eternity. Happily the knocker still sounds on the above old house which undoubtedly has received more
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