USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Watertown > Historical sketches of Watertown, Massachusetts > Part 15
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Abraham Sanger, the boatman, who early in the pres- ent century, twice or more each week, was accustomed to row upon the river to and from Boston as a pas- senger and express carrier.
Hunt, representative from the town to the General Court in 1741, 1751 to 1758 ; a farmer of the excise in 1752, and retail trader from 1740 to 1770. Jonas Coolidge in 1745 sold him eleven acres with the old mansion built and occupied by James Barton. It was built about 1715. It was from the windows of this house flashed the light long past midnight that told that Adams, Warren and Gerry were in counsel, an-
swered back from a score of farm-houses where the women were busily engaged in b~1-ing and cooking for the soldiers in camp. · General Jo- seph Warren lodged, and in stern corner room on the first floor ate June 17, "e he gave
1775, going directly to Bunkerhil his life for his country, Befor he urged 'e lint and ould want e-back he
upon the ladies of the househo chi
them all before night." Slow) went down the hill to the bridge and again bade them all farewell
Had he a premonition 'that H them again ?
uld never see
William Hunt, son of John, a vard in 1768, a lawyer and justic: resentative in 1784-1794; 1800- Mary Coolidge, the daughter of 2 thy. When Washington first ca. she was about twenty-one years
zate from Har- the peace, rep- ', had married niel and Doro- to Watertown, 1, and probably
ri
Mistress Hunt then lived, on the west side opposite ¡ the Spring Hotel, and as the sick matron appeared at the window of her mansion he politely raised his hat as she courteously saluted him.
the incorporation of that town. In fact, this was the birth place of all Mr. Nathaniel R. Whitney's child- ren, and was occupied by him until his removal to East Cambridge on being apppointed clerk -of the
A few rods south upon the same side of the road ; formed with great pomp and solemnity. A negro once stood an old house, the mansion house of John ; slave, who, when Washington had been a guest at his
The death of Washington wa greatly mourned in this town and a funeral service to his memory per- master's house, had served him, wore as his emblem of mourning an old scarlet coat worn at the Battle of Bunker Hill, trimmed with crape, and stood thus ar- rayed in the meeting house during the service on suc- cessive Sabbaths to the great amusement of the worshippers.
Watertown square aud the main street for many years was a lively spot and the merchants did a thriv-
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
ing trade. Money was scarce, but barter and ex- change was carried on with the farmers for miles around.
"Angier's Corner," (Newton) was named from Oakes Angier, the son of the Rev. Samuel Angier, a saddler by trade.
In 1742 he met with Samuel Jackson and Daniel Cooke, purchased from Jonas Coolidge 11 acres with an old house. He erected a tavern on the site of the present Nonantum House which he kept for many years.
It was a small hamlet with about a dozen houses, two taverns and a small store. It was nicknamed " Hell's Corner" from the disreputable orgies that frequently took place in one of the taverns. Some of the more progressive citizens deemed it would be more advantageous if the territory was annexed to Watertown, and in March, 1779, a committee was chosen on the part of the town to join with some of the inhabitants of Newton in a petition for the an- nexatiou to Watertown, but the movement was unsucces ful. In March, 1782, the attempt was again undertaken with like result.
The records show that in April 1781, the town voted to establish a poor-house upon the south bank of the river, but this vote was never carried out.
A few years later Esquire Wm. Hull, afterwards General Hull, undertook the scheme of having a large towu or village at Newton Corner to include the greater part if not all the territory on the south side.
In September, 1794, he purchased from Stephen Cooke some fifty acres with dwelling-house and barn -- including the Phineas Cooke house, with the right to improve the upper mill-pond (Boyd's), for fish-ponds, baths, etc., and mortgaged the same to Cooke for £1211. He was living io the Phineas Cooke house, while building the Nonantum House which he afterwards occupied, and had a wharf on the Charles river near the Watertown line. The present Wilham Street leads direct to the spot, near which was his malt-house. He became somewhat financially em- barrassed and in 1805 conveyed all his interest in this Cooke tract to Eliakim Morse, a wealthy merchant in Boston, who paid the mortgage and released the Phineas Cooke homestead.
Dr. Eliakim Morse studied medicine with his uncle in Woodstock, Conn., came to Boston, engaged in foreign trade and accumulated a large estate. He built the colonial mansion that stands upon the most elevated spot of the Cooke estate. It was built by days' work and when finished was the finest mansion in style and situation for miles around. It was through his efforts the country road was named Galen Street in honor of the father of medicine among the ancients, the road having been widened and made more uniform and beautified with trees. After his death the homestead passed into the hands of Mr.
Harrison Page, while the meadow-land near Newton was mapped out into building plots. Morse and Chestnut (now Boyd) Streets, were laid out, and the land thrown into market, and settled upon mostly by persons allied in all respects to Newton. On this tract formerly stood a fine grove of handsome chest- nut trees. Back of the Morse estate near Watertown Street, stands the homestead built by Capt. Samuel Somes who married one of the daughters of Stephen Cooke. Somes was a handsome, vivacious man of free and convivial habits and the captain of a "crack" military company in Boston known as the Fusileers. Once the company had a field day on this territory which attracted a great crowd from the surrounding villages.
Next northerly to the Dr. Morse estate stands the Abraham Lincoln house built 1824-26 by Stephen Cooke. On the easterly side of Galen Street, adjoin- ing Water Street, the early portion of this century was built what is at present known as the "Stone house." It was built before 1768 by John Hunt, either for himself or his son John, who was his busi- ness partner. Ile sold it to Josiah Capen in 1772.
In 1832 it was kept by Nathaniel Broad, as a tavern, who died there. Rev. Theodore Parker in the month of April of that year opened a school in an old bakery that stood in the rear of this mansion, formerly Hunt's shop, but since removed to the corner of Maple Street, (opened within a few years) and Galen. Having leased it he personally assisted in flooring it, made a rude wainscot, a dozen desks, and opened school with two pupils one of whom was a charity scholar. Ilere he met Lydia D. Cabot, his future wife, who was boarding in the same family. He taught school for two years with great success until he had earned money enough to permit him to pursue his theological studies. He preached occasionally on Sabbaths in the town-hall and elsewhere during this time, and enjoyed the friendship of the Rev. Convers Francis.
Close by the division line, on the corner of Galen and Williams Streets, stands the old Segar house, built by Ebenezer Segar in 1794. Connected with it in the rear was an extensive building and a brick shop where, in 1820, the New England Lace Company had their factory. The street was called Lace Fac- tory Lane. In 1823 the factory was removed to Ips- wich. The originators of the factory with some of the workmen came from Nottingham, England, as their factory there had been broken up by those who were opposed to lace being made by machinery in- stead of by hand, under the Heath coat patent. Many of the leading young ladies found pleasant and con- genial work in the factory and the departure of the works from the town was regretted.
Subsequently the property belonged to Stephen Perry, and was the boyhood home of William Stevens Perry, the present Episcopal Bishop of Iowa. In this house were held the first services of that denomina-
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tion gathered in Newton, and the parish of Grace Church organized.
On the opposite corner stands the house of Rev. A. B. Earle, the well-known evangelist, occupied during his life-time by lawyer Alfred B. Ely, of Newton, known in civil and military life, who died July 30, 1872.
In March, 1827, the Newton and Watertown Uni- versalist Society was organized, and on August 15th it dedicated a house of worship, situated on the corner of Galen and Water Streets.
It was dissolved in 1866 and the town purchased the building for a school-house, the present Parker School, named in honor of the late Rev. Theodore Parker. The people of the town of that time remem- ber the frequent town-meetings necessary to secure this building to the use of the schools. The tactics of 1695 and of many another time, when public im- provements have been finally voted against the wishes of conservative opponents were used, yet without an appeal to the Governor.
From Galen Street by the bank of the Charles River next to the Coolidge tavern is an ancient way, a little lane, a gangway as called in early deeds, run- ning a short distance to Hunt's wharf, then turning abruptly into Factory Lane, running westwardly up the steep hill to Galen Street by the Parker School - now known as Water Street. By and upon the river bank there have been and are located many indus- tries. Besides the ship building before mentioned, was the potter's shop of Samuel Sanger in 1771.
Beyond Brigham's lumber yard and wharf was for- merly a hat-factory,-afterwards a wire-factory,-now occupied by the Warren Soap Works, commenced in 1868. Next are the works of the Newton and Water- town Gas Light Company, with the electric plant lately located. Beyond was the wharf and warehouse of Samuel Hunt, which came into the possession of John Hunt. At the end of this lane stood the dis- tillery and store of John Hunt, which he sold to his son Samuel, with his wharves and dwelling-house, in 1768. Some fifty years later it was changed into a starch-factory, which business still thrives under the management of H. Barker & Co., though the build- ings are of later date. Factory Lane was a private lane that led by the distillery through Mr. Hunt's estate to the Samuel Hunt wharf.
Among the other factories may be mentioned the wool factory of Capt. Joseph Crafts, later John W. Hollis's on Galen Street; the knitting-factory of John W. Tuttle, succeeded by the Porter Needle Company, later by the Empire Laundry Machinery Company, on California Street; the bicycle factory of Sterling Elliott and the Stanley Dry-plate Company on the river bank south of Maple Street.
Ths ice business of Howard Bros. is located on Cali- fornia Street. The White and the Derby type factories, no longer in existence, were in the vicinity of Watertown Street. On Morse Street, near the
ponds, still remains an old silk-mill, now a paint-mill, and the factory of knit and woolen goods of Mr. Thomas Dalby, while on the same street near Galen is Sanger's sash and blind factory.
In 1871, by Chapter 184, the Legislature granted the right to the Massachusetts Central Railroad Com- pany, to extend its tracks from Weston through Wal- tham, Newton, Watertown, Cambridge and Brighton, or any of them to some point adjacent to the location with the Boston and Albany Railroad Company, and it was expected that the site would be laid out along Water Street to Faneuil to connect with the Boston & Albany Railroad.
In 1868, Chapter 151, the " Nonantum Horse Rail- road Company " was chartered by the Legislature. Miles Pratt, Nathaniel Whiting and James F. Simons, Jr., were the incorporators, and they were empowered to build and maintain a track from the flag-staff op- posite the Spring Hotel, Watertown, to Lowe's apothe- cary store in Newton ; the capital stock being fixed at $50,000.
In 1874 commenced the agitation and petitioning for various causes, for the annexation of the whole or part of this territory to Newton, and ten times has this effort been made without success, though in 1889, fifty-nine ont of one hundred and twenty voters were petitioners, with only eleven neutrals.
This territory financially is valuable to the town as it consists of ninety-four acres, valued with the factories and buildings for taxable purposes at eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
In 1888 there was completed in conjunction with the City of Newton, a system of surface drainage for Morse Field. The sewer system known as " Charles River Valley," adopted in 18>9 by the State Legisla- ture, will pass through this territory along the banks of the Charles River through Faneuil and Brighton into the main sewer in Boston and out into the har- bor.
This territory well drained, supplied with pure water, electric lights, good municipal privileges at low taxation, in a few years will be covered with the homes of law abiding citizens attracted by its superior advantages.
Whatever in the future may be its municipal government-town or city-one thing is certain, the south side of Watertown has been no unimportant factor in the history of the old town of Watertown.
CHAPTER XXXII.
WATERTOWN-(Continued).
MILITARY HISTORY.
Indian wars-The Revolutionary Period-The Civil War.
THE military history of this town has never been written. Perhaps it is yet not time to separate this
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
important part of our common history and trace from Captain Patrick of the early train bands to Com- mander Edward E. Allen of the Ancient and Honor- able Artillery, all that brilliant list of names of men who were so essential to the mere existence of society and who so abundantly filled the important civil posts of duty. The pages of our history are thickly strewn with military titles.
The original danger from the Indians, and during the first 150 years, is shown in the following article on the Indians by Rev. Mr. Rand. Something of the condition of military affairs can be seen in the article on the Revolutionary Period by Mrs. Bradford. The contribution of our town to the great Civil War is seen in Mr. Ingraham's record.
But the war of 1812, the Mexican war of 1845-18, and the dread of war at other times have kept alive the military spirit and brought out and trained those fitted to command or willing to serve their county in this way. These always have the respect and the gratitude of their more quiet neighbors.
THE INDIANS OF WATERTOWN.1-Cotton Mather who is never dull says of the Massachusetts Indians: "Know then that these doleful creatures are the ve- riest ruins of mankind which are to be found any- where upon the face of the earth. . . . One might see among them what an hard master the devil is, to the most devoted of his vassals. These abject creatures live in a country full of mines ; we have already made entrance upon our iron; and in the very surface of the ground among us, there lies copper enough to supply all this world; besides other mines hereafter to be exposed. But our shiftless Indians were never owners of so much as a knife till we came among them. Their name for an Englishman was a knife- man. . . . They live in a country where we now have all the conveniences of human life. But as for then, their housing is nothing but a few mats tied abont poles fastened in the earth, where a good fire is their bed clothes in the coldest seasons. . . . In most of their dangerous diseases, 'tis a powow that must be sent for ; that is, a priest who has more famil- iarity with Satan than his neighbors. This conjurer comes and roars and howls and uses magical cere- monies over the sick man, and will be well paid for it when he has done. If this don't effect the cure, the man's time is come, and there's an end. . . . Their way of living is infinitely barbarous. The men are most abominably slothful, making their poor squaws, or wives, to plant and dress and barn and beat their corn, and build their wigwams for them."
One other thing this versatile pen has placed on record, that the Indians in their wars with the Eng- lish, finding inconvenient the yelling of the English dogs, "sacrificed a dog to the devil; after which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers months ensuing. This was the miserable people
which our Eliot propounded unto himself the saving of." [Life of Eliot].
The inquiry arises when in Watertown's history do we first meet with Indians?
If Professor E. N. Ilorsford be correct, it was in that memorable battle which Thorfinn and his brother Norsemen fought with the Skraelings, this side of Cambridge Hospital, a battle field which justly can never belong to any other than the children of Nor- umbega. It was then about the year 1000 that the Watertown Indians loomed up above the misty hori- zon-line of history.
We have, however, in the seventeenth century a sight of the Indians that cannot be questioned.
C'apt. Roger Clap (so printed in Shurtleff's " Bos- ton ") came to this country in the year 1630. He arrived at Hull May 30th, in the ship "Mary and John," which " Great Ship of Four Hundred Tons," as he calls it, did not bring the colonists any farther than " Nantasket Point." There the hard-hearted Captain Sneb left them to shift for themselves, "in a forlorn place in this Wilderness." The colonists, though, " got a Boat of some old Planters " and toward the west they went sailing. They came to Charlestown, which had "some Wigwams and one House," and may have been a mighty city, but all in embryo.
This did not satisfy their ambition. Capt. Clap says that they " then went up Charles river, until the river grew narrow and shallow, and there we landed our goods with much labor and toil, the bank being steep, and night coming on, we were informed that there were hard by us Three Hundred Indians. One English Man that could speak the Indian language (an old Planter) went to them and advised them not to come near us in the Night; and they harkened to his Counsels and came not. I myself was one of the Sentinels that first Night. Our Captain was a Low Country Souldier, one Mr. Southcot, a brave Souldier. " In the Morning some of the Indians came and stood at a distance off, looking at us, but came not near us, but when they had been a while in view, some of them came and held out a great Bass toward us ; so we sent a Man with a Bisket and changed the Cake for the Bass. Afterwards they supplied us with Bass ; exchanging a Bass for a Bisket Cake, and were very friendly unto us.
" O Dear Children ! Forget not what Care God had over his dear servants, to watch over uy, and protect us in our weak beginnings. Capt. Squeb turned ashore Us and our Goods like a mercyless Man, but God, even our merciful God, took pity on us; so that we were supplied, first with a Boat, and then caused many Indians (some Hundreds) to be ruled by the Advice of one Man, not to come near us ; Alas, had they come upon us, how soon might they have de- stroyed us ! I think we were not above Ten in Num- ber. But God caused the Indians to help us with fish at very cheap rates."
In this account which Capt. Clap addressed to his
1 Condensed from Rev. Edward A Rand.
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children a short time before his death, he proceeds to say that the party did not stay there on the banks of the Charles many days. They had "orders to come away from that Place (which was about Water- town) unto a place called Mattapan (now Dorches- ter)."
When Capt. Clap told his simple, touching, rever- ent story, little did he think that his item about the bass would suggest to some ingenious mind a scene for our picturesque town seal.
The inquiry arises who were these Indians found on the banks of the Charles?
A part of the aboriginal population called the Massachusetts Iudians. Drake, in his work on the Indians, tells us that it has been affirmed that Massachusetts means, " An hill in the form of an arrow's head." Roger Williams said that the Massa- chusetts were called so from the blue hills.
Gookin, in his Historical Collections, says :
"The Massachusetts, being the next great people northward, inhab- ited principally about that place in Massachusetts Bay, where the body of the English now dwell. These were a numerous and great people. Their chief eachem held dominion over many other petty governours as those of Weechaga skas, Nepobsitt, Punkapaog, Nonantum, Nasha- way, some of the Nipmuck people, as far as Pokomtakuke, as the old men of Massachusetts affirmed. This people could, in former times, arm for war about three thousand men, as the old Indians declare. They were in hostility very often with the Narragausitts ; but held am- nity, for the most part, with the Pawkunnawkntts, who lived oo the Bouth border, and with the Pawtucketta, who inhabited on their north and southeast limits. In An. 1612 and 1613, these people were also sorely emitten by the hand of God with the same disease before mention- ed in the last section ; which destroyed the most of them, and made room for the English people of Massachusetts colony, which people this country and the next called Pawtuckett. There are not of this people left at this day above three hundred men, besides women and children."
The Indian names occurring in these " collections " have all the peculiarity of Indian pronunciation. Some of the words have a sound as easy, sonorous and musical as a brooklet's flow, and to pronounce others, one fears he must lose his teeth before he gets through.
We recognize Nonantum in the quotation as a name preserved to-day in this neighborhood.
The Indians, naturally, would be attracted to the Charles River Valley. Here they found a water-way for their canoes. Here in this neighborhood were unfailing and abundant fisheries. It was a loamy land for their corn. It sparkled with springs. We then can readily imagine how its smoke from their fires were mingled with the haze hanging above our beautiful fields. I recently visited the land in the rear of Mr. Cassidy's residence and on the banks of the Charles River. That industious historical stu- dent, Mr. Jesse Fewkes, has told me of a bluff once in that neighborhood, but now removed. His testi- mony is that " the verge of the bluff about 300 or 400 feet to eastward from the southeast corner of Mason's land " contained many Indian relics. " After the black loam had been removed," there were found by him " nearly one hundred implements of stone."
Indians once peopled all this land, as has been
shown. What was our beautiful winding Mount Auburn Street but an ancient Indian trail ? That trail, with its picturesque turns through forest and across meadow, only needed to be widened and leveled that our ancestors might use it.
We have an Indian name associated with the town in the title Pequossette, or as in the town records, Pequussett.
One summer day in 1630, into this Indian land came the head of that long column of civilized life that has been streaming through Watertown for over two hundred and fifty years. Those first settlers came up the river iu boats, landing somewhere on the present Arsenal grounds, it has been asserted, but more recent opinion favors the old landing-place in the rear of Cambridge Hospital. They must speedily have come in contact with Indian life, and it is a very interesting question whether there may have been auy meeting for a land-trade with the old occu- pants of the soil, aud whether the men paid anything for the land they took. As far as we have any written evidence, it was squatter sovereignty of a very bad, bold kind that was practiced, and to-day we are living on ground that, in one sense, has never been paid for. It will interest us to know that in the early history of the Colony an interesting controversy raged on the subject of the purchase of land from the Indians. Roger Williams was astorm centre of that controversy.
He didfered with the General Court of the Colony in several particulars. In one he questioned and denied the right of the civil power to say what a man should believe, or how he should worship, or whether a man should worship at all. That very convenient as- sumption of power on the part of the King to grant and distribute Indian territory as he might please, Roger Williams also disputed. He prepared a docu- ment in which he defined his views on ownership and soil.
No Indian, though, ever closed his wigwam door on Roger Williams. Providence Plantation was paid for when the exile started his new home.
If the first Watertown settlers, unlike Roger Wil- liams, took the land they found, but made no payment for it, the conscience of the public was not entirely at ease upon the subject. We find a spasm of repentance in an act of the General Court, Sept. 6, 1638 : " It was agreed that the Court of Assistants should take order for the Indians, that they may have satisfaction for their right at Lynn and Watertown." This seems to have been only a preface to other action. March 12, 1638-39, "the Court desired Mr. Gibbons to agree with the Indians for the land within the bounds of Watertown, Cambridge and Boston." Still again on May 13, 1640, the Court took action : " it was ordered that the £23-8-6 laid out by Captain Gibbons shall be paid him, vidt. £13-8-6 by Watertown and £10 by Cambridge; and also Squa Sachem a coat every win- ter while she liveth."
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