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 21
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A little way from the Allen house was the home of the oldest person ever connected with the Robin Hill school, Lebbeus Cook, who died aged ninety-one years. This venerable patriarch who lived to a sturdy and vigorous old age was enabled before his death to give many interest- ing reminiscences connected with his alma mater. The first school house was erected in this district in 1762, though schools had been kept at various private houses some five or six years previously. Mr. Lebbeus, called the nonegenarian, although he had lived in Marlborough from the time he was five years of age, was a native of Cumberland, R. I., where his grandfather who came from England, was long settled as the Baptist minister of the town. The old oak meeting house is still standing on Cumberland Hill, and occasionally occupied for services. In his early days in Marlborough, Mr. Cook's father bought this place of 175 acres of Jonathan Brigham. The small pox house was located on this farm three generations ago, and one or more of its victims were buried near by. The old red farm house was torn down years ago. Mr. Cook was a natural mechanic as attested by many articles in and about his house. He could make the best oak cabinet ever seen. His brushes show remarkable ingenuity. He took a pardonable pride in the Robin Hill school as it was in his boyhood days. In those days scholars had the option of attending any school in town that they desired and many scholars came even from the center. Often this school had sixty scholars and was exceeded only by the centre school. This district at that time produced more professional men than any other unless we except the centre. Among the more prominent students were five who became clergymen ; Levi Brigham and his brother Willard Brigham, George Fairbanks, Charles Hudson and Rufus Pope. Edwin Bigelow, the lawyer, Levi, Lambert and Lyman Bigelow, successful teachers were schoolmates here. Three families sent thirty boys to this school, to say nothing of the girl delegates. In the 1882 Robin Hill school reunion, Lebbeus Cook was the only surviving scholar who attended the old Robin Hill school house in 1796.
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Robin Hill was in early days a wide-awake district. There, as in various sections of the town, the lyceum was enjoyed and the younger members were called on to open the debate, followed by the older ones. These meetings were stimulating, instructive and profitable. The subjects were the live questions of the day, local, moral and political. " We dis- tinctly remember the discussion upon the question," said Deacon D. B. Goodale. " Ought the roads in winter to be broken at the public expense?" This had always been done at private cost, the people of the district hitching their oxen together and passing to and fro in jolly hard work, 'till all the roads were opened. Whittier's " Snowbound " beau- tifully tells the story. But even he could not put romance enough into it to satisfy the few to bear all the burden of work and cold alone, while others went free. This soon became a question in town meeting, when many of the citizens were mechanics, and when villages were springing up. Another question was: "Ought cattle to be restrained from run- ning at large in the highways?" This also became a question in town meeting and was one which elicited several warm debates as late as 1835. The well-to-do farmers were opposed to the practice. Colonel Ephraim Howe was foremost in opposition. Ichabod Dickerman and Isaac Hayden in favor of continuing the practice, as it was a great advantage to the poor man. These were some of the topics under dis- cussion : " Which is the more powerful motive to action, the hope of reward or the fear of evil?" Esq. Farwell, Hollis Tayntor. "Has a man a moral right to be a bachelor, or a female to be an old maid?" Alden Brigham, Mr. Barber; Rev. William Morse, O. W. Albee. " A man is at sea in a boat with his mother, wife and daughter. The boat is upset and he can save but one; which shall he save?" Dr. Hildreth and Stillman Borden, for the mother; Rev. William Morse and Mr. Barber for the wife ; and Rev. T. J. Greenwood and W. W. Witherbee, for the daughter.
" O sad were the homes on the mountain and glen When Angus Macdonald marched off with his men ; O sad was my heart, when we sobbed our good bye And he marched off to battle, may be to die."
While on the road so near to the home of Lieutenant Ivory Bigelow ancestor of so many Marborites let us ride to the homestead following. Ivory Bigelow son of Gershom of the "Farms " married Sophia Bannister, daughter of Lieutenant John and Martha (Hayward) Bannister.
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LIEUT. IVORY BIGELOW, FORMERLY THE BANNISTER HOMESTEAD.
Sophia was born in Marlborough 1747 and died at the good old age of 83. On the death of Ivory's father-in-law in 1779, the Bannister place passed into his hands and has until within a few years remained in the Bigelow family. Ivory Bigelow was one of the leading men of Marlborough. He served in the Revolutionary war and there received his title of Lieutenant. Thirteen children were born to Sophia and Ivory, among whom was Gershom the ancestor of so many Marlborough people. Like his grandfather, Gershom Jr., married for his first wife another Mary Howe and lived to be 80 years old.
" Oh the old house at home where our grandfather dwelt, My heart 'mid all changes wherever I roam
Ne'er loses its love for the old house at home. "
They tell us Gershom Bigelow was a quiet, low-voiced man of whom no one spoke ill. His legacy had been nothing but a hoe and to hoe his own row with no man's assistance was his accepted destiny. Pluckily shouldering this implement of labor, he marched out one day from the old homestead to begin life as a farmer, teaming his load each week down to the Boston market (there was no express delivery in those
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GERSHOM BIGELOW HOMESTEAD.
days) as did his son Lucas Bigelow in the years following. Building the little homestead above, Gershom and his wife lived happily with the seventeen children born to them here, until one evening after returning from a lecture in town. he passed away as peacefully as had passed the days of his whole life. Quoting old Uncle Charles Brigham, of Hudson, who in his writings for the Public exclaimed : "Our fathers, where are they? " They live in their children as we shall live in ours, and fortu- nate, indeed, will be any man or woman who can trace back their lineage with prouder satisfaction to the early settlers of this town than the child- ren of the Bigelow fathers and mothers. "
Near the Lebbeus Cook's Farm, we find the Esquire Bigelow homestead (known as that of Arthur Bigelow.)
Among Gershom and Mary Howe Bigelow's seventeen children was Levi who married Nancy Ames, daughter of Deacon Moses and Lydia (Brigham) Ames. Levi was born in 1792. At the age of 19 he com- menced teaching school and he followed that occupation winters, for about thirty years, the greater portion of the time in his own district. The remaining months of the year he devoted to farming. He was for some years in company with his brother Lambert in the old store on
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ESQUIRE LEVI BIGELOW HOMESTEAD.
Pleasant street (the so called " old long house ") where now stands the house of E. Irving Sawyer the late popular and much lamented citizen and Superintendent at S. H. Howe Shoe Co. Main factory. Levi Bigelow withdrew from the firm after a few years. The town gave him many positions of trust all of which he was known to fill with sterling integrity and steadfast opposition to anything vacillating or weak. Surveying, making out deeds, settling estates, Justice of the Peace, always active in the cause of education, representative to general court four years and one of the Assessors for 17 years. Firmness, perseverance and honesty were his methods He was distinguished as a school teacher and could not forgive Rev. Asa Packard when the latter called one day at the school in the West district and inspecting the copy books of the pupils of Levi, and finding every bird beautifully written heading each page, exclaimed facetiously : " These birds, Mr. Bigelow seem all to have been hatched from one nest." At that time it was the custom always to call upon the visitors for remarks. But this day every pupil and no doubt Mr. Packard himself was taken by surprise when the abrupt order came "The school is dismissed." In return for Asa's sarcasm which so provoked the ire of Levi, the following story is told of the former when a brother clergymen visited him to whom he confided certain little annoyances. "Now brother," he exclaimed. "You hold this faith do you not ? and you
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hold this and you hold that ? Well now its the same with me, but how is it you get along so smoothly with all in your Parish?" " Well, Brother P.," whispered the diplomatic preacher, " let me confess to you, there's one thing I hold that you have never learned to hold. I hold my tongue, brother mine."
Fourteen children were given to Levi and Nancy and many were the exchanges of friendship, when Nancy Bigelow and Levinah Russell, near neighbors and good friends, were bringing up their sturdy families of many boys and girls. For a number of years the record tells us, alternately as happened, these two friends would present, each to her own good husband, a new born child to their homestead, so that one year Levinah would go over the fields to nurse Nancy and the next year Nancy would run down to perform the same willing service for Levinah. The latter, after giving birth to 17 children, thought that Nancy " wasn't very smart " when she stopped at her fourteenth, so said "one of the children," Mrs. Abel Rice, whose brother Horace H. Bigelow of Worcester, Mass., should be mentioned here as the generous donor of our Maplewood Cemetery gates, and of whom one may truth- fully say the poor have no better friend than this helper of the deserving and defender of the right. One of the daring acts of his business career being the organizing of prison labor of several state prisons and in an incredibly short time setting hundreds of men at work to supply the demands suddenly forced upon him. Horace Bigelow's father Levi Bigelow, Esq., built the above homestead which has always been in the possession of Bigelows until the last few years. The late Arthur Bigelow who married Jane Carruth, inherited the place and lived here as did his son, Marlborough's Civil Engineer James F. Bigelow, who married Annie Wheeler, and second, Pansy, daughter of Ezra Cutting. Their children, Margaret, John, Robert and Florence.
Charles Howe, son of Capt. Abraham Howe and Elizabeth Wetherbee, married Lucy Rice, daughter of Jonathan Rice, and lived in this house, Many a quilting bee and ladies' meeting were held here, and Aunt Lucy and Uncle Charles were favorites in the community. Here were born Anna E., (married William J. Arnold ; children, Loren B., Howard W.) and Caroline R.
Uncle David says, " The first town meeting I ever attended was at No. 1 school house which stood between No. 1 engine house and the Union parsonage. " Public houses, he said, were different then from now. In the bar room there was a large fireplace, a large back log and
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THE CHARLES HOWE HOMESTEAD.
great andirons supporting a big front log and smaller wood piled on top. In this fireplace were kept three or four logger heads to make flip. Over the fireplace there was a shelf with a box of tobacco, a rack a little higher with a lot of pipes if you wanted to smoke. If you wished something better you could get a " long nine" from the bar by paying one cent. The long nines were 12 cents a bunch with 24 in a bunch. A single cigar is now sold for 5 to 10 cents. One could smoke then a hundred inches of cigars for the same money. Some who attended the town meeting and went down to cool the logger heads, when they came back inquired of the moderator the business of the meeting. The moderator said, "Motion made by Abner Brigham, seconded by Robert Hunter, and Jabez Stowe can't understand the motion. " That made the crowd shout and laugh. The school house was so small that the church was opened. In the entrance room, cakes and other eatables were sold by old Mr. Woodward. Mr. Howe, the collector, went up into the pulpit looking over his tax book. Mr. Cogswell called out to him, " I should like to hear you make a speech. " "Well, I will, " said Mr. Howe, and then he read quite a list of taxes against Mr. Cogswell, and ended by saying : "Now if you don't pay them at a specified time, I shall pro- ceed to collect them according to law." This made a great laugh and Mr. Cogswell soon left the church. Mr. Howe lived in the northwest
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part of the town called Robin Hill. He was father of William, Wind- sor, Winthrop and Jereboam, and grandfather of the two George Howes, living in the west part of the town. That school house and church are gone and most all those attending the meeting at that time. Later on the place for holding meetings was at John Cotting's hall, attended by another set of men led by Deacon David Goodale.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
The Baptist church in Fayville is generally conceded to be the
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mother of the Baptist church in Marlborough. The first prayer meeting was held at the house of W. D. Walker, July 1866. These meetings were continued for a year from house to house. The first public service of the new society was held in Sons of Temperance hall, July 21, 1867, and in 1868, the church was permanently organized at the house of W. D. Walker. The first pastor was M. R. Deming. The first baptism took place in 1868 at Gates Pond when Rufus F. Stowe, Dora Angier and Ella F. Grant were baptized by the above pastor. In August 1868, the Lord's supper was observed for the first time, using a communion set presented them by the Union Temple Sunday school, Boston, Mass. In 1869, the old Marlborough Town Hall was bid off at auction by Pastor Deming and was moved upon the lot owned by the society on Main street opposite the Old Colony R. R. station. The hall was then raised, stores finished off underneath to rent, and the upper story used to hold meetings at a cost of $8,500, and it was called Fulton hall. In 1887, this property was sold, a lot purchased at corner of Witherbee and Mechanic streets, and the present church built and dedicated in 1899.
List of pastors to date : Revs. M. R. Deming, J. T. Burhoe, J. H. Barrows, L. W. Frink, Charles R. Powers, C. S. Scott, U. S. Davis, J. M. Wyman, S. R. McCurdy, M. R. Foshay.
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MONUMENT SQUARE.
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Two more monuments should be erected in our city. One to keep in more loving rememberance the terrible sacrifice and suffering of two hundred years ago, and another in memory of our Revolutionary heroes. In the picture above we see the little house that over a hundred years ago was erected on what then was "School House Square" and used for a school house, the first half of it being called the "Centre School." For several years there were two prudential committee men chosen for this school, one for the east part and one for the west part of the district. After the school house was built in 1816, near Spring Hill meeting house and called No. 1 school and district, this little old red school house was "No. 2." In March, after the winter schools were closed, there was a " Brigham School " held here from two to four weeks, and schol- ars from the outside districts attended. It ceased to be a school house when the one was erected near the west church in 1829. This little house was twenty-seven feet square with nine and one-half feet posts and was the fourth school house standing on the spot where now is our Soldiers' monument. When Mr. S. H. Howe purchased and moved it to the corner above, the roof was raised and it was then used for a dwell- ing house and millinery shop. Later it was moved to the corner of Main and Pleasant streets. On the right-hand side near the Miles house stood the old Ben Rice store. This and the Gibbon store were in very early days the only two in the west part. The building was one story, like the Gibbon store and was kept by Nathaniel Hapgood, later by Amory and Mark Fay. The latter added another story to the building which was afterwards destroyed by fire. Daniel Parker, the wealthy man of Beacon street, Boston, who had his many ships at sea, used to be clerk in this store. The house above the little red school house in our picture was the Roger Phelps place or E. A. Gay's. The first house was burnt. Mr. Phelps built the Gay house and was a tailor by trade, and married Ben- jamin Rice's sister. They had six children, four sons and two daughters. Their sons were, Stephen R., Samuel, Marrick and Edward. Mr. Phelps had a small farm and meadow in the west part of the town called Millham, and it was a saying that when he cut the grass there it was very sure to rain, so often did he return laughing and thoroughly wet. He was a pleasant man, fond of telling stories, and was grandfather to the Messrs. Boyd, Mr. John Boyd having married his daughter. In later years, Edward A. Gay purchased the place and resided here, establishing the business of harness making. His shop stood on the land where the new Post Office is to be built. He was the first Noble Grand elected by the lodge of Odd Fellows in Marlborough. He was a genial man, serv-
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ing the town in many offices within its gift, a good singer, ever ready to join in song at call to church or wedding, a famous auctioneer and deputy sheriff. One of the largest petitions ever sent out of this town at that time was in June, 1860, to the Sheriff of Middelsex County, praying for the appointment of Edward A. Gay as deputy sheriff for our county. The petition was about ten feet long and contained nearly six hundred names, all legal voters, being about three-quarters of all the voters in town. He married Harriet Cotting and their son Ware Gay still resides in Richmond, Virginia. At his wife's death he married Sarah F., daughter of John and Sarah Hobart, the latter a dear old lady with remarkable knowledge of the planets, who lived to be ninety-two years of age. After Mr. Gay's death, the house was removed to make way for the government post office.
MARLBOROUGH SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY.
This building originally belonged to the First National Bank of Marlborough. In 1889, October 10th, a meeting in the selectmen's room at Town Hall was called for the purpose of forming a Natural History Society in Marlborough, by the following : Mr. and Mrs. D. B. Goodale, Mrs. J. M. Edwards, Miss Hannah E. Bigelow and Messrs. J. V. Jack- man, E. L. Bigelow, J. M. Giles. The project met with general approval and a society was at once organized and constituted. August
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1898 the society was incorporated. In May, 1898 Miss Hannah E. Bigelow died leaving among her legacies the sum of $2,500 to the Marl- borough Society of Natural History. After the Marborough Savings Bank had erected the present commodious and much needed building on Mechanic street, and later on, the First National Bank had secured and removed to the site on Main street, the above building, April 1907, was purchased by the Natural History Society which is steadily increasing in membership and its worthy educational work.
Officers 1910 : President, George W. Hager; Vice President, Miss E. W. Witherbee ; Secretary, Miss Harriet A. Rugg ; Treasurer, E. L. Bigelow ; Curator. J. W. Giles ; Custodian and Librarian, Mrs. J. W. Giles.
THE O. W. ALBEE HOUSE.
" Albee? He taught me all I ever learned or knew ; He was a quiet, thoughtful man, but made his influence felt Beyond the boundaries of the town in which he taught and dwelt, 'Till by sheer merit's gravity that triumphs soon or late, He settled down a Senator in our dear native State. "
Across the street from the " Preston " stands the above house built by
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Lucas Bigelow who resided here until he removed to the brick house, corner of Lincoln and Pleasant streets, when Mr. O. W. Albee, coming from Milford in 1833, bought this place and resided here until his death. O. W. Albee was to Marlborough what Dr. Arnold was to Rugby. Taking position as principal of the old Gates Academy, he dis- tinguished himself not only as an educator of indomitable perseverance and courage of convictions, but as a friend and moulder of character of the rising generation.
He served the town as Representative to General Court, Senator, Deputy Collector of U. S. Government Internal Revenue and in many other prominent positions. His life was respected and his death deplored. Aside from his public spirit, there can be no reasonable doubt that Mr. Albee in his day did more than any other man in town to awaken an interest in education. His children were Edward, Milton, married Sarah Kallen of Berlin ; Abbie married J. J. Smith ; Sarah mar- ried S. H. Loring ; Eugene married Mary Saunders, N. B. ; Charles H. married Alice McIndor, Charleston, S. C. (Their children are Orton married Ella Latelle, Newark, N. J. ; one child, Dorothy. Josephine married Sumner Willard, a prosperous dental surgeon ; Margaret married ex-Alderman Frederick W. Pratt.)
In regard to Marlborough's early schoolmasters, the first one was " Uncle" Benjamin Franklin, said to have been a relative of Doctor Franklin. He was employed here as schoolmaster at eight shillings per week, engaging carefully to teach all such youth as come or are sent to him ; to read English once a day at least and more if need require ; also to learn to write and cast accounts. This school was kept at Isaac Wood's house, which was then unoccupied, and for which he was allowed by the town, six shillings. They say that Chaucer's lines written about "Uncle" Franklin's ancestor could well have been applied to himself :
" This worthy Franklin bore a purse To help the poor-the doubtful to advise ; In all employments, generous, just, he proved, Renowned for courtesy, by all beloved. "
For he was a kindly man, helpful to the needy and well beloved by his pupils. They have said he resembled very much in face and figure his distinguished relative whose portrait at twenty years of age we copy from " Parton's Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin."
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The next school master was Jonathan Johnson, who was killed by the Indians in 1708. He also taught before 1700, and gave some account of William Thomas, who, coming here from Wales, Great Britian, mar- ried Lydia Eager in 1721, whose daughter, Levina, married in 1744, Benjamin Bigelow, and Mary who married Joseph Morse. William Thomas was grandfather of Robert B. Thomas, the author of the well- known Thomas' Farmer's Almanac. No school house was completed in town before 1700. In 1699, Jonathan Johnson commenced keeping school in his own house although the town had voted eight pounds to Eleazer How for building a school house and eight pounds more to finish, yet in 1701 the town was fined five pounds, five shillings, at the Justice Court at Charlestown for not having a school the last quarter. Immediately they chose two men to go forth with all speed to provide a school master, and to Jonathan Johnson they allowed ten pounds that year for keeping school. The teachers of the Marlborough schools were
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largely from its own families, some furnishing from one to as many as five or six ; as the Rices, Howes, Brighams, Bigelows, Goodales. Barnes, Witts, Ames, Barnards and Weeks Some of these studied pro- fessions, as Dr. Ames and Dr. Barnes, some went abroad as teachers. Among those later residents here were S. F. Whitmore, a man of much general information, though in teaching, eccentric in administer- ing chastisements, shread in reading character and severe in discipline. He taught several years in the centre and neighboring schools. W. H. Wood was a well-read man, ambitious, active and progressive. His teach- ing was mostly in the North Feltonville district Levi Bigelow, a man of great energy of character, positive in his views, very effective as a teacher, a leading man wherever placed and who always left his mark. His work was in the West district. And David Goodale, a man of much sagacity, prudence and integrity, an inate faculty for teaching and impressing his views upon others, and being a man of calm decision was therefore a natural leader among men. He taught thirty winters and thirty-six schools.
Just before the opening of the Revolution, Captain Ephraim Brig- ham, a prominent man, left by wil! to the town, 111 pounds, a con- siderable sum for those times, " to remain as a permanent fund, the in- terest of which was to be annually expended in hiring some suitable person to keep school in the middle of the town, to teach young people the arts of reading and writing." This fund enabled pupils of the pre- scribed age to obtain about one month's additional instruction after the winter term had closed, at the Brigham school, so called, kept in the centre district in town. By act of the Legislature years ago, this fund was made available for general school purposes.
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