USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Spencer > Historical sketches relating to Spencer, Mass., Volume III > Part 18
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After giving up teaming he went to work in his father's store, employing his every leisure moment in the study of law. At twenty-one he left the store and devoted himself chiefly to the practicing of law without ever having taken a regular course of study. He was, however, successful in his law practice and has undoubtedly done a larger law business than any other man in his immediate locality. He was elected as one of the selectmen of Spencer in 1854, before he was thirty years old. In 1860 he was again elected a selectman and held the office by successive re-elections until 1869, covering in this service the years of the war. In 1871 he was again one of Spencer's select- men, and he also served the town in this position in 1872 and 1883. All told he has been a selectman of Spencer thirteen times.
Mr. Hill began a legislative career in 1863 that has included five terms in the House and one term in the Senate. His first term in the lower branch of Legislature was in 1863, when the Rebellion was at its height and John A. Andrew was Governor. His second term in the House was in 1865. In 1867 he was elected to the Senate, serving one term, for at that time the cus- tom of returning a senator for a second term was not in vogue. In 1870 he was again elected to the lower branch of the legisla-
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ture, as he was also in 1881 and 1888. During his long legisla- tive career he served on the committees on bills in third reading, constitutional amendments, claims, criminal costs, manufactur- ers, probate and chancery, railroads and towns.
For thirty years he served as moderator of the annual town meeting in Spencer. His record of thirty years' service as a moderator is a notable one, even for a New England town, where it is the frequent custom to select the same man for this dignified office in successive years. He took special interest in the local camp of Sons of Veterans, which bears his name.
Judge Hill's residence is on the pinnacle of High street and its site is one of the most attractive in Spencer.
Mr. Hill was married in 1856 to Miss Louise A. Granger of Spencer.
It was as a trial justice that Mr. Hill became most widely known, for in the many years he held his office he had tried more than 8000 cases. His appointments as a trial justice have been for terms of three years each, and but twice since his first appointment did he fail of a reappointment. Judge Hill served as deputy under Sheriff Estabrook and he was also Spencer's post- master under President Lincoln, making in all eight years that he filled this position.
Nearly two years before the fact of a branch road being built, it had been talked up by the citizens of Spencer; the first time the road was mentioned was upon the coach by a party of gentlemen on their way to Boston. There were fifteen or twenty mien aboard of her, and on the outside were five or six, among whom was Mr. Hill.
Mr. Hill made an appointment for a meeting of the citizens of Spencer and it was thought a road could be built for $50,000, the town to take $25,000 and the citizens the balance. An arti- cle to that effect was placed in the warrant but could not be car- ried, so another article was placed in the next warrant for town meeting ; it was not carried at this time and the same article was placed in the warrant until it was carried by a two-thirds vote. On the thirteenth day of April, 1878, a paper was drawn up at a meeting and he signed for 250 shares for the town and the bal- ance, 250 shares, by the voters of Spencer. The cost of the road was $62,000; the $12,000 was paid by bonds.
On June 23, 1879, the road commenced running; April 13. 1885, a new board of directors was chosen and Judge Hill was made president of the new one. By the sale of some land near the car-house a note was paid, and dividend of four and six per cent were paid for the next three and a half years. In 1888 there was a motion in town meeting to sell the town stock at par, the
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highest bid being seventy per cent; this vote was carried. Noth- ing was done about it until in the spring of 1889 when Mr. Hill called on the cashier of the bank with $25,000 to pay for the stock ; the balance of the stock was bought by the Judge at par with interest.
Mr. Hill inaugurated and with Mr. Sugden pushed to com- pletion the Spencer water system and after a few years of private ownership the system was sold to the town for $240,000, the in- debtedness being funded in a loan of thirty years.
On the day made memorable by the gift to the town of the Sugden library and the David Prouty high school Mr. Hill gave to the town the land which comprises the Spencer public park.
He was a born and natural leader of men. During the Civil war he was particularly active in securing recruits for the army and in carrying supplies to the boys at the front.
He formed the company which constructed and managed the Spencer gas works and was its controlling factor until a few years ago. He was also in similar capacity with the Williman- tic Gas and Electric Company, the stock in which he sold a year or so ago. In his business ventures he was not quite as success- ful as in some other lines of activity, his inclination to gener- osity and lavishness not being in accord with the close figuring and economies of the modern business hustler.
He arranged the formation of the Ne Plus Ultra Yeast cor- poration and has been a controlling factor in its operation since.
He was a total abstainer from liquors, lived very regularly, going and coming from his office as regularly as the clock. Some years ago he bought the old Kent shop, now known as Hill's block, and as was customary in his style of doing business, em- bellished and improved it and filled it with tenants.
Whatever those not his friends may say, it can be said that no man in Spencer's history ever made so great an impression upon its public affairs as did Luther Hill. He was an unusually strong man in nearly every particular.
Resolutions.
At a meeting of citizens in Caucus hall Tuesday evening Aug. 5, 1902, the following resolutions were adopted :
Resolved: That in the death of Hon. Luther Hill, the town of Spencer mourns the loss of one who for half a century was its most prominent and influential citizen. For many years he stood at the helm of public affairs guiding and directing them as seemed to him best for the general good. As postmaster, deputy sheriff. chairman of the board of selectinen for eight years, including all the dark and troublous days of the Civil war, as moderator of the
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town meeting for twenty-five years, as trial justice for thirty-three years, as representative to the general court, as senator, and above all, as a public spirited man, interested in all that concerned his native town and zealous of its good name and prosperity, we honor and cherish his memory.
To him, more than any other one man, is due the credit for the many improvements we enjoy. The town's water works, the sewer- age system, the branch railroad to South Spencer, the gas and electric lighting, the beautiful park that he purchased and presented to the town, are all monuments to his love of liis native town, and to his tireless energy and determination of purpose
As trial justice he always stood for temperance and good order; before his court, offenders dreaded to appear, and his name was a terror to evil doers.
Extremely kind in disposition, and charitable to the last degree, he gave liberally to every worthy object, but to the individually poor and troubled or disheartened he especially delighted to give his best counsel and suggestion, and all the aid in his power. His ear has listened to more tales of. woe and his helping hand relieved more distress of mind than will ever be known.
His heart was always warm to the old soldiers, and from them he would never accept any fee for any services he might render.
It is meet, therefore, that we, citizens of Spencer, record our tribute of honor and respect to his memory, and extend to his family our sympathy in our common loss.
Hon. John R. Thayer's Estimate
*Luther Hill, son of Washington and Almira Kent Hill, was born in Spencer, Nov. 22, 1825 and has lived here ever since. He obtained his early education in the district school at Hillsville and one term each at Wilbraham and Leicester acad- emies. From the time he left school when fourteen years old till he reached his majority, he worked in a Worcester store one year, then drove a team to Boston three years, then a clerk in his father's store until twenty-one; since then he has owned a store in Hillsville, one at Main and Pleasant streets, one at Main and Elm streets, one in Springfield, one in Kansas and two in Colorado. During all this time he has been active in practicing law. Without ever studying law, he has done a larger and more successful business than any attorney in this vicinity.
He served as Trial Justice forty-six years and tried more than eight thousand cases. His law came to him by intuition, his decisions reaching to the justice of a case trimmed of all tech- nicalities and quibbles.
His attitude on the temperance question has been highly satisfactory to the friends of law and order. They relied on him with implicit confidence to execute the law. He was resource- ful and found ways to bring criminals to justice when others de-
* This sketch was written with the consent and aid of Mr. Hill and revised by him for this work about a month before his death. Presumably it represents his own estimate of his ability and work.
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clared it could not be done. He was the first man to have rumsellers who had fled from the state brought back on requisi- tions and had four such serving long sentences in the House of Correction at one time. He went personally to the Governor of Connecticut and Rhode Island and got them to honor requisi- tions from the Governor of Massachusetts.
Soon after his majority he was appointed postmaster by President Jamies Buchanan, Democrat. He was a Jeffersonian Democrat in those days, and a leader in that faith up to the breaking out of the Civil War. The writer has heard him tell the day and hour when he first becanie a Republican. It was in 1862, the second year of the war. He was interested in busi- ness at Lawrence, Kansas. A band of bushwhackers commanded by Quantrell from Missouri raided Lawrence, killed his partner and burned their store Aug. 13, 1862. He got an account of the raid by telegraph and with a pass from Governor Andrew started for Kansas. Arriving at Quincy, Ill., on the eastern line of Missouri, he found the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad ob- structed by rebels and no trains running. After waiting four days, and it being reported that the road was open, he started with eighty other passengers, getting to the Platte river, ten miles from St. Joseph, at midnight. The rebels had burned the bridge and the train fell thirty feet, killing twenty-three and wounding nearly all the others.
There was but little water in the river, but the banks were steep and none got out till help came from St. Joe, and then it was daylight. Mr. Hill was badly cut and bruised about the head and lost so much blood that he was almost helpless, and declares that he would have died had it not been for Congress- man Sydney Clark, who once lived at Southbridge, Mass. They had become acquainted while waiting at Quincy. Clark pulled him out on to a sandbar and kept him covered with clothing from the killed. And so Mr. Hill says that it was in the Platte river on the nineteenth day of August 1862, between the hours of midnight and four o'clock a. m., that he changed his politics and has been a partisan Republican ever since.
Mr. Hill has represented the town in the Legislature six years, has been selectman of Spencer thirteen years and modera- tor of town meetings thirty years. He was the leading spirit of the town during the war. He filled the calls of President Lin- coln for volunteers until more than three hundred were enlisted for his town, and then he assisted the selectmen of Oxford, Lei- cester and North Brookfield to fill their calls.
He was a natural born leader. No man ever lived in the town who could influence as many voters. He always was distin-
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guished for his public spirit and among the foremost to advo- cate liberal appropriations for schools and public conveniences, like water, sewers and street lights, all of which are the result of his public spirit in the town.
His daily life was active and vigorous. Few men at half his age worked so many hours; breakfast at six, summer and winter ; in his office at seven; to bed at nine; no tobacco, rum, tea or coffee, meat once a day, fruit without stint, Guernsey milk, lemon- ade and Appolinaris water, kept him in the best of health. Weiglied 225 pounds; height, six feet, straight as a post. He worshiped with those who lived to help each other.
Not knowing what the future had in store for the Northern States and as a matter of precaution, in 1864, the state was divided into militia districts and all men between the ages of sixteen and forty-five ordered to meet and organize military companies. Spencer and Charlton formed districts No. 194 and the men called for met in Town Hall, Spencer, January 7, 1865 and elected Luther Hill captain. He was commissioned by Governor An- drew on January 24th, but nothing further was done because peace was declared in April following.
Mr. Luther Hill was, in my judgment, possessed of more natural ability and gifts than most of the prominent men of Wor- ester county. He had not the advantages of a collegiate educa- tion, but he did have a natural grasp and intuition which en- abled him to solve ordinary problems of business and social re- lations more correctly than is given to most inen.
In the early practice of my profession I was frequently called to his court in civil and criminal matters. I was impressed with Mr. Hill's ability to grasp the salient point in a case. He was not easily misled. He had never studied law, so far as I know, except as necessary for a presiding justice of a court, where small matters are determined. He seldom referred to a decision in the books, and probably knew but very few as they appear in the Reports, but he could take the main bearings of a case, solve its intricacies, get at the meat, and arrive at as correct a conclu- sion of the merits of the case as most any judge of the Inferior Courts before whom I have ever appeared.
And while some people have been prone to state, and possibly to believe, that he was harsh and severe in his treatment of those charged with an offence, who came before him, I bear willing testimony to the fact that my experience in witnessing his hearing of cases warrants me in stating that, to a remarkable degree, his sentences upon the unfortunates displayed his kind- ness of heart and showed that he tenipered justice with mercy.
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I was also somewhat acquainted with his history in civil and municipal affairs, more particularly as applicable to Spencer, where his efforts were mostly applied, and with whose growth and development he was most deeply interested. Perhaps in this capacity he appeared to his fellow-townsmen and neighbors as grasping, radical and dictatorial; but what man is there among his fellow men who towers above his fellow-citizens in intellec- tual attainment and strength of mind, who is not liable to be looked upon by the strugglers in the marsh, the lesser lights around him, as attempting to direct and impress his personality too much upon the matters which engross his attention? I am of the opinion that had Mr. Hill been liberally educated he would have taken a position in the first rank among the most in- fluential and prominent citizens of our county during the last thirty years.
Nature had been prolific in her gifts to him .-- John R. Thayer.
Jeremiah White Drake.
Life on the farms in the old days was hard, but its product was a strong enduring race. The boys and girls were trained to simple living, sensible thinking, and independent work. Four generations of Drakes occupied the old farm in the extreme west- ern part of the town on the border of East Brookfield. Jeremiah was the oldest of the five children of Elisha and Betsey (White) Drake. The boy had no opportunities for schooling beside those the town offered, and the school terms were short in those days. But the working days were long, and he enjoyed the kind of lib- eral education that the farm life gave. He had a keen mind, a memory almost faultless; and all his life he was an authority on the genealogies of Spencer, Brookfield, Oakham and New Braintree families.
When he was twenty-five he left the farm to work in the boot shop of Joseph H. Walker in Worcester; but a restricted, indoor life was unsuited to him. He was glad to return to Spen- cer in 1853 to run the gristmill at Hillsville. He and his brother-in-law, Chas. F. Delvey, were in partnership there for five years. In 1858 his only brother, Elisha Jr., died and Jeremiah went back to the farm to the care of his father and mother. He had married in 1853 Ellen Lavinia Prouty, a woman of re- markable strength of character. She was born in Spencer, but her father, William, went to Worcester to live when she was a
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little girl. The wife's cheerfulness and thrift, the husband's strict but genial rule made the farm a happy place for the six children born of the marriage. Ella died in childhood, Nellie in young womanhood. Mary, Mabel ( Mrs. Chas. R. Barker, ) Wil- liam and Grace (Mrs. Wm. B. Harding) are living.
JEREMIAH W. DRAKE
Born in Spencer, Aug. 12, 1824. Died in Worcester, Jan. 31, 1896.
In 1871 Mr. Drake sold the farm and the family came to the village to live in a cottage on High street on the site of Noah Sag- endorph's present home. He hired the gristmill of Lorenzo Bemis on Mill street and was miller for the next four years. In 1875 he moved his family to Worcester where he lived till his death in 1896.
He was a man well known and universally liked, a man with a ready laugh, a keen friendly wit, a cordial good fellowship, showing freely all his life his hearty interest in men and things. --- Mary A. Drake.
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Joshua Bemis.
Joshua Bemis was the great grandson of Samuel Bemis, sec- ond settler and founder of Spencer. He was born on what is now known as the Hiram Howe farm and his father was consid- ered at that time to be the wealthiest man in town. In his younger days he followed railroad construction in Connecticut but returning to Spencer engaged in farming on the Sprague place and later bringing into a fine state of cultivation the farm
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JOSHUA BEMIS Born in Spencer, July 31, 1822. Died in Spencer, May 7, 1903.
now owned by G. Henry Wilson. Here he had a saw mill and spent his winters lumbering. He had quite a reputation as a road builder and during the town's greatest prosperity after the Civil War he built the large house and barn on Pleasant street, now occupied by his son Lewis D. Bemis and removed to the centre, where work in his line was not only abundant but profit- able. A Universalist in faith, he was a man of the strictest in- tegrity and despised meanness beyond the conception of most men. He was the father of nine children, grandfather to twenty and great grandfather to nine.
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Dexter Bullard
Was born in Oakham March 9, 1816 and is now one of the oldest men in Spencer, where he settled Aug. 26, 1833. His parents were William and Rebekah (Clark) Bullard. His early life in Spencer was spent bootmaking and many years of it as an upper leather cutter for E. Jones & Co. In 1867 a partnership was formed for the manufacture of boots consisting of Mr. Bul- lard, John Boyden and Isaac Prouty Co., under the firm name of
DEXTER BULLARD
Bullard & Boyden. The factory was at the corner of Main and Grove streets, which was destroyed by fire Oct. 7, 1900 but long after it had ceased to be used for its original purpose. In 1869 J. W. Temple purchased the I. Prouty & Co's interest and the firmi name was changed to Bullard, Boyden & Co. In 1876 Mr. Boyden retired and the concern became known as Bullard & Temple. In 1883 Mr. Temple withdrew and a new partnership was formed by Mr. Bullard, Frank G. Mullet and Frank A. Rice, which made goods for a few years and then closed up the busi- ness and the factory. Mr. Bullard proved himself to be a good stayer for he alone was with the business from start to finish.
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When Mr. Bullard came to Spencer, the town fire apparatus consisted of what was then known as a bucket machine. In 1848 a Hunneman hand fire engine was purchased, and Mr. Bullard elected as the foreman. When Spencer celebrated its one hun- dred and fiftieth anniversary as a town in 1903, no more inter- esting spectacle was witnessed in the parade than that of Dexter Bullard driving a pair of horses attached to the old Hunneman fire engine No. 2, of 1848.
Mr. Bullard has always been a public spirited citizen and
JOSIAH GREEN, JR.
has been much in public life. He was an efficient member of the war board of selectmen and at other times has served the town in that capacity. He was in the legislature of 1867. When the town purchased the water works in 1884 he was chosen water commissioner and has been in continous service since that time. He is as active in the performance of his duties as most men would be at half his age. Mr. Bullard has buried two wives. He has four children living, two sons and two daughters, all res- idents of the town.
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Josiah Green, Jr.
Josiah Green, Jr., was born in Spencer Dec. 16, 1823, on his father's farm in the east part of the town, known in recent years as the Thomas Leonard place. At the age of twenty-four he married Sarah Elizabeth Nichols. They at once commenced housekeeping in what is now the Moose Hill Farm house, corner of Main street and Wire Village road, owned by Rufus A. Sibley, proprietor of Moose Hill farm. There eight children were born, only two of whom are now living. Mr. Green continued to be a farmer until his death, but was also engaged in bootmaking some twenty years prior to that time, succeeding to his father's inter- est in the firm of Josiah Green & Co., boot manufacturers, in 1866, his father then voluntarily retiring on account of age. He was elected Selectman in 1861 and thus became a member of the famous "war board." In religious faith he was known as a strong Universalist. He died March 5, 1887. His widow and one daughter, Mrs. Southwick, are now living on East Main street.
History of the Old Spencer Depot,
located on the Western Railroad, now called the Boston & Albany Railroad, and mentioned elsewhere in this work. When the first lines were run for this railroad, one at least, passed through Spencer village, it is said, along the eastern side of Cidermill pond It was desired by the management to have the road come through the center village, but violent opposition to this plan having been made by influential citizens, other lines were run and the course through Charlton selected. This route left the village two miles away, to the northeast of the railroad, and the management were so incensed at the attitude of the leading citizens noted above that as a punishment they decided to leave Spencer without a passenger station. They built a small freight house and such passengers as wished to travel on tlie steam cars could use that building; "it was plenty good enough." But Captain Jeremiah Grout and Colonel Alonzo Temple did not coincide with that view, nor did the "common people." These two citizens raised the money, built the Old Depot, socalled, and presented the same to the railroad company, who were wise enough not to refuse such a gift. The depot did duty from about 1840 until long after the Civil war had closed, and was the scene of great activity from 1861 to 1865. Search for a view of this old structure has proved a failure.
MAJ. WM. C. WILSON
Maj. Win. C. Wilson, son of Dexter Wilson and Rhoda M. Cheever, was born in Rutland, Mass., Sept. 11, 1841. His early years were spent on a farm, and at about the age of fourteen he entered a book store in Worcester, where he remained two years. In the meantime his father died and his mother married a second time Dea. Wmn. G. Muzzy of Spencer, thus transferring the home of the young man to this town.
He began fitting for college at the Spencer high school, where he ranked specially high in mathematics. He engaged in a chess tournament with two college champions of New England, and won the game blindfolded.
Receiving an invitation from his great uncle, Judge Samuel Cheever of Waterford, N. Y., to reside with him while prepar- ing for college, he accepted and took up the work of market gardening, to acquire the means for acquiring an education. The tide of war, however, swept him from these plans, and led him to recruiting a company in the early winter of 1861. He was commissioned 2nd Lieut. of Co. K, 104th N. Y. Vols. and was attached to the regiment known as the Wadsworth Guards, quartered in barracks at Albany, in March 1862.
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