USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Athol > History of Athol, Massachusetts > Part 15
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Little freight came within or went from our borders but the few essentials like sugar, salt, and rum were brought over all but impassable highways by the ox team. When during the Revolution salt became scarcer then gasoline was a few years ago, State authorities doled it out to the towns, our quota being brought hither by ox team from Boston.
At length we became so far advanced that some roads were passable by the one horse shay. This conveyance came into limited use by the more aristocratic, most homes of the gen- try having a chaise house in its complement of buildings. Dr. Holmes asserts that the deacon built his chaise in 1755, but it was many a decade after that before these vehicles came into general use here.
During the Revolutionary War, General Washington pro- posed a canal across New York State from the Great Lakes to the Hudson as a military necessity, but in his life time the de- velopment got no farther than the agitation stage. In the years of his retirement at Mt. Vernon he reflected much on the needs and advantages of this mode of transportation and soon foresaw that should his proposed York State Canal be- come a reality it would make New York City the great sea- board terminus of a huge traffic from the vast interior of our continent. With his inherent love for his native Virginia he conceived another scheme to bring this great boon of a na- tional seaport to the Old Dominion by developing a canal route up the Ohio to its headwaters, thence by canal and locks over the Alleghanies and down the James to the sea at Nor- folk. It is entirely possible that had this plan been carried
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out the position of being the greatest port on our Continent might well have fallen upon Norfolk rather than New York. Eventually the idea of water borne transportation became quite a factor in all internal developments.
General Henry Knox of Revolutionary fame, a Boston book seller, first proposed a canal from the Great Lakes to Boston. His great service in the Revolution was in the transportation of supplies and munitions. Thus he came to know the topog- raphy of both New York and New England. He is immortal- ized by a series of granite markers far south of us on a long route which he took in carrying cannon and other equipment from subjugated Ticonderoga to besieged Boston. I cannot dispute the fact that he undoubtedly did occasionally take the long route from Lake Champlain southerly to Albany, thence over the southern Berkshires to the Bay Path, but I am also convinced that at other times he took the Crown Point Road built many years before which took him through our imme- diate region. There are well authenticated traditions that General Knox and his cannon passed through Richmond, New Hampshire, through North Orange, and through Athol.
When in 1790 the Erie Canal was again seriously proposed, General Knox advanced the idea that Massachusetts should not "miss the boat" but should bring this boon to freight carry- ing across the Commonwealth to Boston. A progressive Legis- lature heeded his suggestions and incorporated his "Proprietors of the Massachusetts Canal." General Knox saw, as he had seen in land transportation, two possible routes, the one lead- ing through the more populous areas of Worcester and Spring- feld, and the other through this northern area. I do not know that his canal get beyond the exploration stage, but his plans and data were turned over later to another commission which actually laid out a canal across Massachusetts passing directly through our town.
General travel became somewhat more frequent in the days of prosperity which our nation enjoyed during Washington's administration, and the exigencies of the times demanded a public transportation system. Then it was that a network of turnpikes was gradually established. Over Hoosac Mountain the second of these was chartered, the third from Northampton to Dalton, the fourth in northern Berkshire, while the Fifth or Brattleboro Pike was a material factor in the development of Athol by making possible a regular schedule of stages through here.
The Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Corporation was char- tered in 1799 to build a highway from Leominster to Brattle-
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boro, with a branch from Athol to Greenfield. The road up to the Sentinel Elm was once a part of this turnpike, the regular travelled toll road from Boston to Brattleboro. At the foot of the hill by Mr. Zack's the route crossed Tully and then fol- lowed what is now a meadow road to Pequoig Avenue, then by that avenue, Fish Street, Crescent Street, School and Main Streets it passed through the town to the Templeton Road. At about 1650 Main Street, just south of the former Boutelle's grist mill, was the toll gate and mile board, sixty-nine miles from the Boston Stone near Hanover Street in Boston's north end.
At Athol Center Common, now Phillips Park, the Greenfield Turnpike branched and ran down the entire length of Chest- nut Street, Chestnut Street West, and over a section now abandoned to South Athol Road near Mr. Waite's. Just below there may be seen the old abutments where it crossed the river, ran through "Hog Island," close to the Proctor home at 1116 South Main Street, and then over that street into Frank- lin County.
By act of the legislature in 1814 the two branches were abandoned in what is now the thickly settled portions of our town and the new route established from the old Methodist Church at Crescent Street west over Main Street to and across the river where the Brattleboro branch turned north on Mt. Pleasant Street, while the Greenfield branch turned west over South Main Street.
Chartered on February 29, 1804 there was also the Monson and Petersham Turnpike coming into Athol over the New Sherborn Road and Pleasant Street, having its northerly term- inus just south of the Toll Gate.
By another legislative act the Fifth Massachusetts Corpora- tion was authorized to extend from the main location a branch across Millers River just below Athol Manufacturing Com- pany's present dam and extending up Chestnut Hill Avenue and Old Keene Road, and on north through Royalston to New Hampshire line where another road extended this route to Keene, the whole route from Connecticut line in Monson to New Hampshire line in Royalston making a no inconsiderable portion of a much longer route form New York City to south- western New Hampshire.
The Leominster-Brattleboro road prospered for many years but the Keene-New York route was less patronized, although stages were run over it on a regular schedule and it bore a heavy freight traffic by ox team which delivered our products
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to the seaboard and secured from there the luxuries from many lands. This, however, was both slow and expensive.
Athol had become a real transportation center by the early nineteenth century. To the north the road to Keene was part of a great through way from New York into Cheshire County, to the east the road led to Boston, and to the south Monson Turnpike continued the northern road. Branching off this at Ellinwood Country Club was the Worcester route. To the west the Greenfield Pike connected with the Second Pike over the mountains while to the northwest the Brattleboro Road led to Vermont and parts of Canada.
The hub of this activity was Col. Samuel Sweetzer's tavern at Athol Center Common. Here the stages from all points of the compass made connections; here were held conventions and conferences galore.
"What stages they were with their heavy wheels and flex- ible gearing! They were painted green and yellow, with sign letters in red and the State of Massachusetts coat of arms or other seal on the door. The middle seat was supplied with a broad leather band for a back, which was unhooked while the passengers of the back seat found their places. The driver's seat was high and grand, with a black leather boot, under which were placed the mail bags, and a dog that hed been versed in the school of growls, was sure to check any imper- tinent curiosity in the conscientious exercise of his office. A tall whip cut the air above the seat, protruding out of a round pocket near the one high step. A tally-ho horn found a place between the driver's legs, and when it was lifted into the air, its blast caused the dogs to drop their tails, and the hares to prick up their ears, and the partridges to whir away, and the farm hands to take breath amid their work." What powers of description had Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth when he wrote this for the Ladies' Home Journal some years ago.
Far-seeing citizens watched America developing and ex- panding and saw that New England must make physical con- tact with the Far West or lose her supremacy. New York State, feeling this urge, revived the plan for a waterway from the Great Lakes to her navigable Hudson River and led by her Governor DeWitt Clinton began the actual building of the Erie Canal. This created nothing short of hysteria around Boston, then the home port of ships sailing to many lands, and she cried loudly for help to save her prestige.
An aroused Legislature in 1825 heeded her cry and created a Commission to devise a means of tapping the large commerce
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which seemed destined to find tidewater at New York. The Commission engaged the outstanding engineer of that genera- tion, Col. Loami Baldwin. Fresh from his achievements in de- veloping the Locks and Canals of Lowell, which were expand- ing that municipality from an insignificant village into a great hive of industry, he secured the maps and plans of General Knox and essayed his explorations. Not only was the State in- terested but Athol citizens became aroused and on June 13, 1825 a committee was chosen to aid in "exploring a route for a contemplated canal through the town."
Like General Knox, Col. Baldwin was impressed with the de- sirability of serving the more populous area along the suggest- ed southern route, later the general route of the Boston & Albany Railroad. As an outstanding engineer, however, he weighed the practicability of both routes and decided on the more northern one. This he recommended to the Commission- ers and under their orders completed a survey of the entire route beginning at tide water and ascending on the general course of the Concord River, over the intervening space to the Nashua near Ayer; thence along the general course of that stream to its headwaters; thence but a few miles to the Millers at Winchendon; down our river to the Connecticut; from there up the Deerfield to Florida Town; thence by a tunnel through the Hoosac Range to the waters of the Hoosac; and down that stream to the Hudson River.
His plans and details are still preserved in the archives at Boston where I have recently examined them. They show 178 miles of canal with 3.281 and 34/100 feet of lockage at a total cost of $6,024,072. With hand power only and black powder for explosives one wonders if the future years of our land would have been long enough before the end of the age to complete this stupendous project. But sane men believed in it and Athol became mildly enthusiastic over the prospects of having this waterway pass thorugh her town.
A kind Providence intervened and ere a dollar had been spent on actual construction of this canal another means of transportation was conceived. The Bunker Hill Monument was begun by the laying of the corner stone by the Marquis de LaFayette on June 17, 1825. Gridley Bryant of Quincy con- tracted to furnish the granite for this memorial. Irked by the expense of the long haul by wagon from his quarry in Quincy to Charlestown he sought means of water transportation and as an easier way of getting the stone over the few miles from quarry to tidewater he devised a tramway which should carry ·especially designed wagons drawn by horse power. He pre-
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sented his scheme to the Legislature and in March, 1826 se- cured a charter for his Granite Railway, generally recognized as the first American Railroad. This innovation instantly squelched all canal projects.
Quickly the new idea caught the public imagination and in a short time the Legislature was besieged with requests for railway charters. The original proposition was to have the cars drawn by horses, although some radical individuals proposed a steam locomotive-an engine with two eight-inch cylinders weighing about five tons-that would carry forty tons' weight at the rate of four miles per hour. This particular steam engine had been invented in England and was first put into use there in 1825, at the very time when our canal route was being sur- veyed.
Because of the public demand, the legislature appointed a committee to consider the advisability of building a railway from Boston to New York State line and on January 19, 1827 the committee reported unanimously in favor of the project. Amid much dissension as to the location of the proposed road, surveys of every possible route were made.
Then came the charter granted to the Franklin Railroad pro- posed to extend from Boston to the Brattleboro area. This route was to be along the general course of the canal survey and at least one Athol real estate owner granted some rights of way across his land for in a deed of the so-called Jotham F. Haven place on Royalston Road (which then extended to the river) dated November 16. 1829, there is reserved "the right previously sold for a railroad."
There was much consideration given to the advisability of a single or double track line, that is two or four parallel rails, but it was finally decided that two rails (one track) would be adequate with turn-outs every three and one-half miles.
No mention is made in the record of the motive power pro- posed but as the contemplated speed was 8 miles (per hour) empty and four miles loaded it is quite clear that only horse drawn vehicles were thought of.
I cannot find that any construction work was done on this railroad and its charter must have soon lapsed.
The first railroad built for general use in Massachusetts was the Boston & Lowell opened for traffic a few days before the Boston & Worcester road.
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That first road was built by or under the direction of Mr. Baldwin who made the mistake or providing too rigid a road- bed. He provided "fishbelly" rails laid on stone sleepers which were supported on parallel walls of masonry. It was not long before wood had to be substituted for the stone sleepers and gravel for the masonry.
Practically co-incident with the opening of the Lowell and the Worcester roads, a Stephenson engine was shipped here and set up by the Englishman who came here to drive the con- traption, and proving satisfactory in a limited way steam loco- motion soon was adopted by the few roads already operating.
The passenger cars used were adaptations of the stage coach and the cab for the protection of the operators was non-exist- ant, that luxury having been introduced about the time the first train came into Athol.
Some written notes indicate that there was often between 1830 and 1843 agitation in Athol regarding railroad matters. This was undoubtedly occasioned by the fact that railroads nearby were being granted. When a railroad was finally built here there was much criticism about its extending from a con- siderable distance on the south side of the river, while the original survey had placed it in Athol on the north side of the river. The northern or Millers River route was reported by the investigation committee to be some ten miles shorter than the southern route through Worcester and Springfield, but the Hoosac Mountains were such an obstacle that the southern route was first adopted. Nearly two decades passed, however, before the Millers River Valley was assured of railroad facili- ties.
Alvah Crocker of Fitchburg was the promoter of our entire railroad system in this part of Massachusetts. Born in Leomin- ster he early became a paper mill operative and in young man- hood began the manufacture of that product on his own. Eventually he owned in whole or in part some eight industries in Fitchburg and had wide outside interests. He found time to serve in the Massachusetts Legislature around 1836 and actively endorsed the railroad projects as they came before that body. How much of a vision he had at first of a trans- continental railroad I do not know, but certainly in his later years he dreamed of such an enterprise.
His first railroad venture was the Fitchburg which was chartered in 1842 and completed from Charlestown to Fitch- burg in March, 1845. This, the first railroad in the nation to be built without State aid, covered a forty-nine mile route and
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was laid in twenty-one and one-half months at a cost of $1,132,000.
Hardly had work on the Fitchburg begun before we find Mr. Crocker travelling through this area seeking to arouse interest in an extension through this locality. In 1842 he argued two weeks at Brattleboro before he gained a single dollar for support of his road but he triumphed and got a few subscriptions before he left. His first charter of our road came from Vermont in October, 1843, when the Brattleboro & Fitch- burg Railroad was legalized. This was followed by a charter in Massachusetts to the Vermont & Massachusetts in March, 1844.
As a substitute for the defunct Fifth Massachusetts Turn- pike this line was projected and was to extend from its junction with the Fitchburg Railroad at Fitchburg to Brattleboro, Ver- mont, with a branch extending to Greenfield. From Fitchburg to Greenfield the location eventually chosen followed in the main the canal route laid out by Loami Baldwin twenty years before.
At one time a route seriously considered for the Brattle- boro connection was to turn northerly at Athol passing through Tully and Blissville to Winchester, New Hampshire, and then up the Connecticut River to its northern destination, but care- ful consideration eventually decreed the route finally chosen. The extension northerly from Athol required negotiations with another State government (New Hampshire), then material financial inducements were offered by South Orange, Ervings Grant, and Grout's Corners (Millers Falls) to extend the main line through those villages rather than leave them on the Greenfield Branch. At length the Millers River Valley route was chosen. The engineers, enthusiastically endorsed by citi- zens, wanted to build the road through Westminster Center thus avoiding the horse-shoe curve at South Ashburnham and saving approximately 100 feet in elevation.
But Mr. Crocker dictated that the road must go near Ash- burnham Center where he had considerable interests. Thus a line was projected from Fitchburg to South Ashburnham and thence to Winchendon Village. Actually this was an economi- cal move as the Cheshire Railroad was being built at the same time and the identical track could be used all the way to Win- chendon. Then the Vermont & Massachusetts could turn southerly around Lake Dennison and join the route eventually chosen at New Boston. The directors clearly realized that the proposed route through Winchendon was not in conformity
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to the charter granted by the Legislature but they seem to have expected that their political influence and arguments of economy in construction would bring speedy change in the legal location, but they under-estimated the power and in- fluence of the aggrieved towns. Westminster, while not getting the location desired, yet had several miles of the right of way within her borders so could not legally complain, but Gardner and Templeton had a real grievance and they really made their grief known on Beacon Hill with the result that a non-cooperative legislature refused to amend the location as laid down in the charter.
Before the final legislative decision came, the road was built from Fitchburg to South Ashburnham and another section under a different contract was built from South Royalston northeasterly to New Boston.
When the railroad officials finally became convinced that they could not carry out their projected location they decreed the present location over East Gardner Hill, and also a route running almost directly south from New Boston to beyond Baldwinville.
When in the early eighties the road was double tracked, the New Boston loop to the north was abandoned and a new way opened south of the river where it has recently been moved a little farther south. But the climb over East Gardner Hill was retained and is still one of the major operating hindrances of the system. I have felt for many years that it was probably to emphasize a bad course that the engineers who laid out this enforced detour through Gardner planned and actually built this operating monstrosity. It was no less than a turn around at South Ashburnham by means of an inverted Y. The trains came up from Fitchburg head on into South Ashburnham sta- tion. Then the engine was uncoupled, taken onto the turntable, and after being turned around was attached to the other end of the train. Thus it proceeded towards Gardner. With the eastbound trains this procedure was reversed, which necessi- tated turning all the seats in the passenger cars. My first real experience in railroading was when the brakeman allowed me to go through the car to help him turn the seats, of course disturbing all of the passengers in so doing.
But this is ahead of my story.
These railroad charters did not come without much effort mostly put forth by Alvah Crocker alone. I know of at least two old Athol families who to this day retain in their strong boxes some of this original issue of Vermont and Massachu-
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setts stock. Mr. Crocker tells in his diary that on Tuesday, October 31, 1843 he spent the forenoon at Athol with Esta- brook, Kendall, and Jones and then went to South Orange where he "lectured to a full house in the evening" adding tersely, "The good people here have hardly thought upon the subject." This was soon after his return from England where he went to buy iron for his Fitchburg Road.
A convention at Brattleboro on November 5, 1843 was at- tended by men all along the proposed line. After quite some discussion this was adjourned to Athol on December fourth where much enthusiasm was shown and real progress made. For fifteen years any railroad project favorable to Athol existed only on paper. Finally enthusiasm for it gathered momentum and so impressing Esq. Thorpe that in his mill book against that December date he noted a "great railroad meeting.
Those men of Athol with whom Mr. Crocker conferred that late autumn day in 1843 were much aroused and interested. Undoubtedly the Estabrook referred to was "Uncle Ben." a leader here for some time, who lived at 2094 Main Street near the present Hamilton Greenhouses. The Kendall was probably Lyman Kendall who lived at 1220 Main Street and owned the mills where Athol Manufacturing Company stands. The Jones was Esquire Theodore Jones of 1591 Main Street, where Jennie Lawton now lives next to the Congregational Church. He was a power here for many years.
Apparently these three men arranged for the depot location near where the A. F. Tyler Company Shop later stood at 896 Main Street as most easily accessible to the Center Village. But their plans were doomed to be disrupted by enterprising citizens of the outlying "Factory Village," the name given to the immediate section centered about the Athol Cotton Fac- tory, built in 1814 on the site of the Starrett Plant.
Those who lived within this village were most loyal to it. Nathaniel Richardson, living where the Starrett Block now is, had his factory on the Y.M.C.A. site. He served the town in many capacities over a long period and his diary of events here from 1826 to 1883 is of great value to the historian. In collaboration with J. C. Hill, another pioneer in this community for nearly a half century, he conceived the idea that the depot had better be located somewhere contiguous to the "Factory Village" and to that end they interviewed the all powerful Alvah Crocker who gave an attentive ear to their plea but desired more concrete suggestions. So they went home and after consultation bought the James Young property at 573 Main Street, until recently the Dr. Bowker home. With this
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Cape Cod house they acquired several acres of land extending well towards Pine Street and some distance south of Hapgood Road and secretly offered it to the railroad officials for a depot site. But another objection was raised, i.e., that the site proposed by Mr. Estabrook and others had apparently an adequate water supply from a spring situated on land now owned by the Catholic Bishop and said to be designed for a Church School. There was presumably no water in sight for the more westerly location.
Resolutely Mr. Richardson went to the owners of the land in the general area of Hapgood Road and Fletcher Street and sought to buy the right to erect a dam which would take water from Mill Brook to the barren waste of the Young land for irrigation purposes. The owners readily consented to this sale. Then another interview was held and the new site formally accepted. Mr. Richardson says in his journal under date of Friday, July 2, 1847, "News having arrived that the railroad depot was to be located in our village, the inhabitants thereof assembled at Phillips Hotell and had Supper & fired cannon in commemoration thereof." Wild with rage, the residents of the Center could scarcely believe the trick that had been played on them.
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