USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Athol > History of Athol, Massachusetts > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63
Previous to 1900 the telephone subscribers were almost ex- clusively for business use, but with the close of the last cen- tury the telephone company began an expansion program seek- ing to educate the general public in its value in the home and to that end offered to install its equipment free of charge for a time, reasoning as it proved correct that once a family be- came used to the phone in the home it would be reluctant to allow its removal. This expansion brought need for larger quarters and these were eventually found in the Academy of Music Building in rooms then recently vacated by Poquaig Club, a business office being soon established in old Millers River Bank Building just south of the exchange.
212
CHAPTER XIV THEY BECAME AFRAID OF CARS
A PPARENTLY Athol was in 1847 so overjoyed at the com- ing of the railroad through the town that the engineers located the right of way as they thought expedient, perhaps for the Company alone, giving scant attention to the safety of our people. Eleven times this location crossed highways of the town, nine of them being grade crossings and only two, the Beardson Road and Kennebunk Street, being at a separate grade. In the former case the deep cut through the ledge at that point of crossing admitted only a bridge high over the rails. Likewise at Kennebunk Street the grade of the road had to be raised only a few feet to admit of an overhead bridge.
It was well towards fifty years before all these grade cross- ings were eliminated. In the process and by the changes, Athol suffered much inconvenience.
The first crossing encountered as the work proceeded down the hill from South Royalston was over a little used road that led to Jonothan Wheeler's saw mill on the "Oxbow" above Bearsden Road. After paying damages for several fires set by the engines on this area, the Company purchased the entire tract and by common consent the crossing was closed and the road abandoned.
The Lewis Bridge over Millers River went with the 1936 flood and had never been replaced, thus the "dry" bridge across the railroad was of next to no use after that date but the railroad was not able to get the town to agree to the re- moval of this dry bridge until 1952.
A long mile above Athol Depot, Kennebunk Street crossed the railroad by an overhead bridge to the Amsden, later the Bragg mills, but the mills were burned, the water power aban- doned, and the bridge long since removed.
The next road encountered was less than a mile above Athol Depot at the foot of the "Long Hill" which led from Athol Common to the river just below the present Athol Manufactur- ing Company dam, crossing the river by a covered bridge, and then proceeding up the hill to Keene by the west branch and over Chestnut Hill to Royalston by the east branch.
213
HISTORY OF ATHOL
In less than a year after trains began to run on regular schedule the grandparents of the writer returning from church to their Chestnut Hill home failed to notice an approaching train and were in a serious mishap. About the same time Asa Hill, who lived on Townsend Road, met with a similar acci- dent. For each of these mishaps the Railroad Company paid substantial damages.
As a result of these accidents both the town and the Rail- road Company agreed that a change must be made. The County Commissioners were appealed to and on July 5, 1848 that board decreed that the old "Long Hill" road with its dan- gerous crossing on a blind curve should be abandoned and a new road and bridge be built some distance farther west. Yet the real danger of grade crossings seems to have been neg- lected for this new route down "Block Hill" still retained the grade crossing feature but at a point where there was a much clearer view of the railroad. This condition continued until the general and final crossing abolition of 1894.
Proceeding down hill on the railroad it was no great distance before another highway was met. This was laid out by the County Board in 1832 as a substitute for the steep grades of School Street, and not many rods below that was the School Street crossing approximately where the foot underpass is lo- cated. These two crossings were on the main travelled ways through the town, between the two principal villages in it, and were the scenes of numerous accidents.
Sometime previous to 1880 a flagman was stationed there. with his little hut just west of the School Street crossing, on the north side of the road. Here for some years Alphonso Priest kept guard to warn with his red flag or red lantern at the approach of a train. About the middle eighties crossing gates were established at both the Main and School Street crossings, operated from a tower between the two, manned by Stebbins Elmore as gate operator.
In 1891 George W. Bishop, Road Master of the Fitchburg Railroad, was elected one of the Board of Selectmen and chosen its chairman. Whether of his own volition or in obedience to the dictates of his railroad employer I never knew, but prompt- ed by some motive he set the machinery in motion to abolish the three grade crossings remaining on the Fitchburg Railroad in Athol, taking advantage of a then comparatively new stat- ute which provided for a special commission to decree what should be done, and apportioning the cost at 65% levied on the railroad, 25% on the Commonwealth, and 10% on the
214
THEY BECAME AFRAID OF CARS
town. The town appointed a special committee to look after its interests and that committee engaged Hon. Sidney P. Smith as its counsel. The Civil Engineering force of the railroad rep- resented its interests.
There was little disagreement as to the Chestnut Hill cross- ing, the raising of the southerly approach and the building of a bridge being the solution there. But as to Main Street and School Street there was a wide disagreement. The town asked to have Main Street pass under the roadbed at practically its old location east of the location of the present School Street Underpass. The railroad proposed to unite the two ways at the old School Street location and there pass under the rail- road.
Long and sometimes acrimonious hearings were held, but in the end the commission decreed that Main Street should bridge the right of way some distance east of its old crossing paralleling the railroad by a fill into the Factory or Starrett's Pond, and School Street should pass under the railroad where it now does, the School Street foot way and sewer, water and storm drainage rights being retained by the town at both old crossings.
This procedure entailed quite substantial property damages which were not wholly settled for several years. The School Street roadway was begun early in 1894, the filling taken out being utilized to grade the Lake Park School House lot which had just been acquired by the town. It was several years be- fore the Main Street overpass was attempted and before it was done there was a vigorous attempt to change the plan so as to. provide a roadway from Gay & Ward's (now Union Twist Drill Company) to Main Street at Crescent.
The present generation accepts these travelling conditions as unavoidable but some of us oldsters still regret that a more desirable solution of the problem was not then found.
Below the depot about where the present freight office now stands was a private crossing, but in quite general use from South Street to Hapgood Road. We seriously regret that this was not retained, made public, and finally provided with an underpass which would have extended Hapgood Road straight to the south end of Exchange Street. This would have been accomplished long ago had our County Commissioners pos- sessed a little more vision or possible courage.
In 1871 a group of interested citizens petitioned that august body to lay a new road "from the Upper to the Lower Village.'
215
HISTORY OF ATHOL
Complying with this request the Commissioners laid Hapgood Road from Chestnut Street by the old match factory to Cot- tage Street. Then their courage failed them and they made a leap to South Street and relaid Exchange Street from South Street to Main Street, leaving the long gap between Cottage Street and South Street for the wisdom of future ages to bridge in some way.
Freedom Street was the ancient road to New Salem via a now abandoned section across the railroad yard to South Athol Road and then continuing by Fairview Avenue and Chase Road. But the railroad desired to utilize the old Freedom Street loca- tion for yardage, turntable space, and the like, and a compli- ant County Board assisted it by discontinuing the desired sec- tion and laying a portion of South Street and Pine Street as a substitute road. Pine Street was the scene of innumerable ac- cidents for it crossed some eight tracks, two at least of which led to the engine house just west of its location.
I cannot refrain at this point from telling the story of Lysander Richardson's remarks concerning this crossing. Mr. Richardson in coming towards Athol had tangled with the cars, his horse had freed himself, and Mr. Richardson had in some way escaped injury, but his vehicle was a wreck. As he was gathering up the wreckage of his wagon a woman, driving alone, came to the crossing and seeing him inquired, "Mister, is it safe to go across here now?" Whereupon Mr. Richardson replied, "Just as safe as it ever will be, madam. They keep an engine in that house there all steamed up ready to start for you if they see you coming. I don't think they are looking just now so if you drive fast you can beat them to it." And the lady crossed in safety before the engine crew spied her.
The County Commissioners in 1882 discontinued Pine Street within the limits of the railroad and as a substitute laid out Carbon Street to just across Mill Brook and that section of Tunnel Street from there to the present Hapgood Road loca- tion south of the railroad. Although the private crossing ex- tending Exhange Street was closed at that time yet the Com- missioners failed to provide access from Exchange Street to the new underpass and the town had to lay out Tunnel Street to meet this need.
At one time the present Morton Street crossed the right of way of the railroad, made a loop, and returned across it within a short distance. This loop around a sizable sand hill seems to have been abolished as an incident to the building of the railroad, the excavated material of both the road and the rail-
216
THEY BECAME AFRAID OF CARS
road being used in the rather substantial fill between there and the river.
West of the river was a crossing of the Greenfield Turn- pike, but apparently the river bridge on this turnpike had been removed previous to 1848 so the only need for the crossing was to serve a Stratton house which stood on the present "Hog Island" lot within less than five feet of the railroad. The Com- pany bought that property and when they resold it, they pro- vided a right of way around by Brookside Road, crossing the present cemetery there. Eventually Mr. James Barrett who long lived there took the buildings down and rebuilt them west of Fielding Way.
The most westerly crossing in town was the so-called "Brick- yard'' crossing just west of the present Brookside Road. At this crossing was a siding where the Smith Brickyard loaded its shipments on the cars.
This Brookside Road and its extension in Franklin County was laid by the joint action of the County Commissioners of Wor- cester and Franklin Counties in 1832 to avoid the heavy hills and uncontrolled sand along the present Route 2. The grade of the road was depressed some three or four feet to accom- modate the railroad grade which made somewhat of a hazard. It was only some five years before our people were demanding a separation of the grades there. This was accomplished by de- cree of the County Commissioners on July 19, 1855. With the coming of the electric railroad and the through state road which was first built around that loop some minor changes have been made in the location there, but the present "dry bridge" stands much as decreed in 1855.
Again when the Enfield Railroad came in the early seven- ties we were so anxious to get the improved transportation that we submitted to unnecessarily hazardous crossings. The traf- fic over that road, however, was never heavy and accidents were so infrequent that no effort was ever made to abolish any of these hazards, except that the road also crossed Pine Street and added to the confusion there. With the abandon- ment of this Boston & Albany branch line all crossing haz- ards have been eliminated, and with the passing of the horse the railroad is no longer feared.
We daily suffer inconvenience because of the bungling way by which the danger was eliminated, but we have become used to it and make very little complaint.
217
CHAPTER XV AIRPORT FACILITIES
A RTHUR L. TWICHELL and his son, N. Hastings Twichell, secured in the autumn of 1928 some control of about one hundred acres of land on Orange plains and made a start to- wards developing a landing field there. Previously Levi Flagg of New Salem and William E. Taft had made abortive attempts to operate airships in this territory.
All signs indicated to the rapid development of air trans- portation, and both Athol and Orange felt that they should make preparation for it. A group of enthusiasts was gathered together, a corporation was formed, and stock sold in the Air- port Company. The officers of the corporation were:
President-Dr. Clarence M. Taft of Athol Secretary-Roland A. Frye of Orange Treasurer-William F. Cass of Athol Directors-Clarence M. Taft of Athol Eben E. Gridley of Orange Howard P. Warren of Orange Carl C. Harris of Orange Frank A. Howe of Orange Dwight S. Davis of Orange Arthur H. Starrett of Athol William H. O'Laughlin of Athol William G. Lord of Athol Joseph S. Wilcox of Athol William F. Cass of Athol Roland A. Frye of Orange
Being located in Orange but with the management about equally divided in numbers and responsibility between Athol and Orange, it was known as Orange-Athol Airport Corporation, chartered on May 28, 1929, and operations were actually be- gun on runways on June 28, 1929.
Progress was made on this airport and several local men be- came quite proficient in the operation of airships, carried on under the general leadership of Dr. Clarence M. Taft. On July 26, 1930 he and his student pilot, Wayne M. Thatcher, made a trip by plane to Springfield, Vermont, with Thatcher at the controls. Through some fault in connection with landing at Springfield, both of these men were killed.
Following this, Mr. Winfield W. Woodward became Presi- dent of the Corporation, and Bud Russell of Petersham was put in charge of the port. Mr. Woodward was president but three
218
AIRPORT FACILITIES
years for on March 14, 1933 when President Roosevelt called in the gold, Mr. Wodward took his from the safe and started for the bank. While driving there he died at the wheel of his car with the gold on the seat beside him.
The Directors loaned the Corporation funds to build a hangar and to make material improvement on the field. But the much anticipated fleet of planes that would land there failed to appear. However, those were the days when Govern- ment money was available for any worthy project so the Fed- eral representatives were induced to make material changes and improvements at the port. Various and sundry allocations were made, much work was done, and before the Federal ap- propriations ceased there were three five-thousand-foot run- ways and much surrounding territory freed of brush and other obstructions. That the Government could make its large ex- penditures here it was necessary for the municipality to be in control. To that end the port was leased to the Towns of Athol and Orange, the lease taking effect on December 11, 1933. Before the termination of this lease it then became evident that the port should be municipally owned. Athol had not forgot- ten its misfortune in the street railway system and the failure of Orange in any way to contribute towards these losses. Therefore it was very evident that no financial assistance could be obtained from this town. Consequently the port was taken over by the Town of Orange in 1936, much additional land being acquired.
After Mr. Woodward's death, Dwight S. Davis, Principal of Orange High School, was President until he took a position in Leominster. Arthur H. Starrett succeeded him and remained in office until the entire control of the port passed to the town of Orange and the Airport Corporation dissolved.
There were also some changes in the other offices. William G. Lord of Athol succeeded Mr. Cass as Treasurer, to be event- ually succeeded by Roland A. Frye of Orange.
In the dissolution the directors were repaird the principal of the loans made some years before and a dividend of some 22 percent paid the stockholders.
Though entirely within the limits of the Town of Orange yet the airport is but a short distance from the Athol line and is available to Athol citizens, a decided asset to our community. In the great distress of the hurricane of 1938, for a time bread and other necessaries were brought into town by air, the only means of transportation, and were landed there. Because of impassable roads, however, Athol was compelled to take a twenty mile detour through Petersham to reach the port.
219
CHAPTER XVI TAVERNS
I ONG before a church was established here our forefathers took measures to provide for the accommodation of tran- ient travellers who passed through this region on horse back, by ox cart, and eventually in the mid-eighteenth century by stage. Probably from the beginning some log cabin in each "street" found room to accommodate the few wayfarers whom night overtook here. For over a century after the settlement of the town, innholder and retailer licenses were issued by the county officials, from whose records most of our information comes regarding these public houses. Such were the licenses granted from 1743 to 1878, when the authority to grant them was by statute transferred to the town officials. (29)
It is probable that John Smeed, one of Pequoig's five pio- neers, kept the first hostelry on his house Lot No. 5 on West Hill. East of the Sentinel Elm, it was also on the east side of the road, near where the Moore Hill Road reaches its most westerly point and turns north. Possibly Mr. Smeed continued as the town's landlord until the Indian uprising of 1746 when he was captured by General DeVeudreuil at Fort Massachu- setts. His tragic death occurred the following autumn when by the hands of Indians he was killed near the mouth of Mill- ers River.
In August, 1746 when the Smeed family was taken captive to Canada and another Pequoig settler, Ezekiel Wallingford, was killed by the Indians, Jason Babcock became an innholder. Babcock had a good location for an inn at about No. 90 Pequoig Avenue on the County Road through the town and approximately midway between the two settlements of the township. Though he renewed his license the following year, it was but a few months before he, too, was the target of In- dian assault and was taken captive to Canada.
No one appears to have kept an inn here in either 1748 or 1749. As Babcock went to Westboro immediately following his freedom and did not return to Pequoig until 1758, it is probable that there was no public house here for a year or two.
About 1750 Robert Marble of Marlboro acquired lot No. 1
(29) See Appendix 3
220
TAVERNS
WE and lots No. 4 and 5 EE. In 1751 he was licensed to keep a hostelry here, probably at about No. 500 Pleasant Street.
George Cutting, who lived in Cambridge and then Worcester during the middle 1700s, acquired some considerable land in Pequoig. In 1744 he bought lot No. 6 EE "With the frame of a house standing on the same," then in 1750 lot No. 7 ad- joining, and in 1753 lots 3 and 4 EW "with buildings and houses thereon." Here on lot No. 7 he opened a public house as early as 1754. The cellar hole where this famous Cutting's Tavern stood was until recently to be seen at about No. 775 Pleasant Street, just north of the fort where an old roadway marked the beginning of a road to the west.
Here John Murray found refreshment when he came to Athol to preside at the first town meeting and to assist in get- ting the new municipality started right.
Not until four years after Cutting's Tavern opened did a competitor appear. Then in 1758 Richard Morton established the second hostelry, concurrent with the laying out of a county road from Petersham to what is now North Orange and another from Athol meetinghouse to New Salem. Tradition places the inn at No. 1307 Pleasant Street, while what available records we have locate it at about 581 Pleasant Street.
Two years later a third license was granted to Ichabod Dex- ter, then of Hardwick, who had established himself a few rods south of the west end of Moore Hill Road. Born in Roch- ester, Ichabod Dexter lived for a time in Warwick, and later came to Athol with the Hardwick group. He took up the lands of Ezekiel Wallingford, and there on West Hill south of the Sentinel Elm, he carried on a pottery. Evidently one of his activities for some seven years was keeping a public house, for on January 14, 1759 he was granted an innholder's license. Captain of our Company of Minute Men, he led his band to Cambridge after the Lexington Alarm. By 1782 he was back in Hardwick and from there went to take a prominent part in Shays' Rebellion.
Leaving the field to Cutting and Dexter located in widely separated sections of the township, Richard Morton had dis- continued his operations as a landlord by 1762. Upon Cutting's death "at Rutland on his way home from a journey" on December 29, 1765, his son-in-law, Abner Graves, contin- ued the tavern until 1770 when the Cutting heirs sold it in June at public vendue to David Goddard. This purchase in- cluded lots numbered 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 E. W.
221
HISTORY OF ATHOL
Three months later, on September 24, 1770, Goddard sold it to Beriah Ward of Petersham who operated it until his death on October 23, 1772, when his kinsman, probably his brother, took over the management continuing some twenty years. In 1783 he acquired the interst of a son of Beriah Ward, Dr. Wil- liam Ward, and in 1790 the widow, Hannah, with her son, Jabez, Jr., and her daughter, Sally, wife of John Oliver, Jr., likewise deeded their interest to Alpheus Ward.
Alpheus Ward and his descendants gradually disposed of this real estate but it is well within the memory of this writer when Daniel Ward (whose relationship to Alpheus is not traced) resided and eventually died at 483 Pleasant Street.
The deed from Beriah's son, Dr. William, to Alpheus, seems to fix the location of the road originally laid out from near the second meeting house westerly, for the description begins on the north side of the road laid westerly and adjoining Joel Morton's land and runs W. 11 1/2° N. 236 rods to a stake in a swamp which must be in the Sanders Street area.
Abner Graves immediately bought of Silas Marble a tract near the East end of Main Street at approximately 108 Tem- pleton Road, and removing there, soon opened a hotel. Graves was one of the most active men in Athol during the Revolu- tion. In 1778 while he was with the army at Valley Forge, the house was burned. Obtaining his discharge he returned to Athol and rebuilt his home which continued to be Graves Tavern until about 1812 when he was succeeded by his son- in-law, Jonathan Orcutt. The westerly section of the road from Templeton to Athol in 1785 is described as "thence by the house of landlord Graves to Athol meeting house." On an elm tree at the road junction just south of his house swung for many years Jonathan's sign, "Orcutt's Tavern."
About 1773 David Fiske and Asa Waters, both of Sutton, settled in the northeast part of the township near the present "High View" in Royalston. Waters for some reason soon dis- pensed of his holdings to Fiske, who in 1773 was licensed as an innholder. His inn, the first in South Royalston, was prob- ably on the road from Templeton to Royalston. Fiske disposed of his holdings to Oliver Holman of Templeton in 1776 and removed from town. Whether Mr. Holman continued on with the operation of this inn during the war years is not recorded but there is reference to his obtaining an innholder's license in 1779.
Probably because of disturbed conditions prior to the Rev- olution, there is no record of innholder licenses being granted
222
TAVERNS
between 1774 and 1778. Immediately thereafter a number of new taverns opened. Leading the list in 1778 was Daniel Lam- son, located on lot No. 14 EW, who removed to Castleton, Vermont by 1788 and to Andover, Vermont in 1790.
Moses Goddard, a fifer in Capt. Lord's Company, bought on March 28, 1778 the east ends of house lots Nos. 12, 13, and 14 WW, and opened a public house there on the west side of North Orange Street.
On the east side of North Orange Street, Sherebiah Baker became a landlord in 1779, where our North Orange Road and Brooks Road come together. At this time Bartholemew French opened an inn probably at South Royalston, then a part of Athol.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.