USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Athol > History of Athol, Massachusetts > Part 24
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In 1837 a brick factory was built for the manufacture of boots at the Main and Chestnut Street corner, and in 1844 a sizable wooden addition was erected. Co-incident with this 1844 expansion there came into his employ one Milton Baker, then thirty-two years old, a native of (North) Orange, and a son of Sherebiah Baker.
This employment continued until the death of Mr. Simonds, May 15, 1850. In the readjustment made necessary by this death, Mr. Baker became a member of the firm, the name being changed to Jones & Baker.
About 1870 this partnership was dissolved and Mr. Baker removed to Worcester where he died in 1876.
In 1872 our County Commissioners decreed a widening of the "Narrows" and in accomplishing this, the entire Jones buildings at the corner of Main and Chestnut Streets were demolished.
Prescott Jones built, and he and his family occupied as a home, the house now standing at 1249 Chestnut Street, but originally it stood more than its width west of that location,
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it having been moved to the east in 1887 in connection with the erection of the brick factory adjoining it. When Milton Baker came into the business he took up his residence there, continuing until his removal from town in 1873.
E
CORNER MAIN & CHESTNUT STREETS ABOUT 1860
After the old factory building was demolished, this Main Street corner was soon acquired by James M. Cheney and by him sold to George S. Brewer who in 1883 built the present block standing there.
During an industrial boom in 1887 a group of citizens or- ganized Athol Building Company and speedily removed the Jones-Baker house which was followed by the erection of the present brick factory on that site. This was built for the use of F. W. Breed of Lynn who operated only a few years when he discontinued, and Hill & Green, who had originally located farther west on Mill Brook adjoining Riverbend Street, took over the plant.
After successful operation for ten years, this last named business removed to Dalton and the brick factory was speedily taken over by Joseph Wilcox who brought here from Leomin- ster in 1900 a celluloid business which developed rapidly. In four years the business had outgrown the old Hapgood
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Match plant and this brick factory, being idle, was speedily taken over by him. Later the business was moved again, this time to the former Brewer location at Main and Pleasant Streets, and Athol Board of Trade early in 1916 induced Fess Rotary Oil Burner Company to locate in the brick factory. The owners of this business had a vision of the day when oil burners would be a standard equipment for homes as well as industries but they were unable to develop a burner satisfactory for domestic use and the competition in the industrial oil burner line was too keen for them, thus after a short period the attempt was abandoned and the machinery removed.
Next at this plant was Keeler & Company who bought the real estate in January 1920, and for a few years manufactured shoe findings there.
In 1923 the occupancy of this plant was taken over by George H. Webster Sole Company, the local manager being Mr. Oscar L. Horton. Eventually the factory was purchased by this company and Mr. Horton was until recently the sole owner of both the business and the factory. He has now sold the factory, retired from business and died February 5, 1953.
Mr. Horton acquired the homestead at 1192 Main Street, built in the Civil War period by Lewis Thorpe, subsequently owned by Sereno E. Fay, Marshall B. Waterman and Leland B. Taylor and in 1937 demolished the dwelling and erected his residence there, the outstanding dwelling in our town. Inter- ests far from Athol in later years took much of Mr. Horton's attention but he found time to participate in local affairs in many ways.
One particular mill can never grind again with the water that is passed but this truism does not prevent other mills from utilizing the waters.
The laughing water of Mill Brook would seem to be tired after its many labors in its course from Phillipston Reservoir to the Webster Company tail race, but as it sped down the valley it recuperated its energies so that when it met another task at its Chestnut Street crossing it was a more powerful stream than when it left its head waters.
Here just east of Chestnut Street the waters were again impounded and put to work.
If we construe the chain of title correctly, Samuel Kendall considered this immediate area a part of the Corn Mill Lot allotted to him October 18, 1738, and conveyed by him April
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10, 1746 to his son (in-law), John Brooks of Lancaster. Feb- ruary 19, 1771, John Brooks conveyed by the same descrip- tion to Seth Kendall. Neither of these deeds make any mention of any mill on the lot but the later deed does say "there is a way three rods wide through said lot."
In 1785 title passed to Joel Kendall. From various allusions on these deeds it is apparent that a saw mill stood there and that as early as 1811 it was known as Kendall & Graves Mill, although we find no Graves name in the chain of title.
In 1834 Joel Kendall conveyed this water power, taking however precaution against competition in his own business by stipulating that the power shall never be used for a saw mill or a grist mill. The grantee in this transaction was Dr. George Hoyt who proceeded to build and equip a mill for the manufacture of matches in which he was actively engaged until his plant was wiped out by the flood of December 18, 1845.
After some three years of idleness the location was acquired by Lyman Hapgood who had previously been engaged in wood- working business on Petersham Road and later on Upper Main Street. Mr. Hapgood installed a forty-foot overshot wheel,
LYMAN W. HAPGOOD 1811 - 1874
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thus utilizing all the available head there, and erected a mill for the manufacture of match splints which he continued until his death October 18, 1874. Following his demise his son, Herbert L. Hapgood, and his son-in-law, Almond Smith, continued the business, part of the time as managers for a non-resident owner, until 1892 when a sale was consummated
HAPGOOD & SMITH MATCH SHOP
to one Edson Fitch. Mr. Hapgood soon retired from the busi- ness but Mr. Smith remained with it as long as it continued in Athol.
Mr. Fitch soon conveyed the entire works to Diamond Match Company who in 1898 built a new plant adjacent to the Rail- road at the end of Electric Street and removed thither, thus abandoning the Hapgood Street plant.
This match plant has furnished a ready market for untold millions of board feet of lumber cut from a wide area surround- ing Athol, most of this acreage having little or no value except for timber growth. In the years of its activity here the manage- ment repeatedly stated that on an area extending from around Keene, New Hampshire, southerly, to some miles beyond Athol, grew the most desirable pine timber in all New England. Their activities not only created a ready market for lumber but kept the market price for timber above that paid in other New England areas.
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Mr. Almond Smith continued with the company as a lumber buyer until its removal from the State. For several years Mr. Fred M. Clough was the local manager for this large corpora- tion, removing from town in the early nineteen hundreds to become manager of a shredded wheat factory on the Pacific Coast. The last manager here was Joseph J. Dearborn who at the time of his death April 26, 1923, was Chairman of our Board of Selectmen.
For about four years following June, 1900 the plant was occupied by Joseph W. Wilcox as stated in the previous page. This was the last industry to occupy the old plant.
Hardly had the waters performed their task at the match shop before they were seized and conveyed along the hillside in a canal to fall upon another forty foot water wheel carrying more machinery. This mill privilege was developed on the southerly part of a large tract once including the match factory which came down in the Kendall family to one Rebecca C. (Kendall) Alexander.
In 1866 her heirs sold this location to Lyman W. Hapgood, Jonathan Drury and Artemas B. Conant. These partners built a sizable wooden factory there just east of a new street pro- jected by Mr. Drury and named Riverbend Street its entire length from Main Street to this location. It was extended southerly along what is now Fletcher Street to Hapgood Road after that thoroughfare was laid out by the County Commis- sioners in 1871.
Mr. Hapgood and Mr. Conant later retired from this venture but Mr. Drury continued with it until he became financially involved in the later seventies. He operated under the name of Union Furniture Company and Co-operative Furniture Company.
In the later years the active manager was Fred Allen who had years before come here from Westminster and had been operating as a baker here. He built for a home the house stand- ing at No. 561-3 School Street, with a bakery just east of it, and later he built the large house at 38 Allen Street. Following Mr. Drury's financial reverses the business continued until 1883 when the entire plant was destroyed by fire. The business removed to the James Munroe Cheney mill where the Union Twist Drill Company is now located, but before long Mr. Allen removed to Boston where he became associated in the whole- sale furniture business, his sons operating at West Concord under the name of Allen Chair Company absorbing whatever was left of the Athol business.
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For some five years this power remained idle and then in 1888 it was acquired by an organization promoted by Athol Board of Trade named Citizens' Building Company and a three- story wooden factory erected there with a commodious boiler house and a massive chimney. This was named Green Mountain Shoe Shop and was leased to Hill & Green who began the manu- facture of shoes there. After a few years this concern moved to the brick factory on Chestnut Street vacated by F. W. Breed & Company and another firm, Munroe, Elkins & Smalledge took over the Green Mountain Shop.
In the launching of the enterprise, Athol Savings Bank made a substantial loan on the Green Mountain Shop and when it became vacant no tenant was forthcoming and the bank took over the plant.
After a few years the bank induced Orrin J. Powers and his sons, Arthur I., and Ernest O. Powers, to remove here from Palmer and lease the plant. The Powers family, straw hat manufacturers, had long done business at North Dana but had then recently moved to Palmer.
For upwards of thirty years this family carried on business there, first as tenants, later as owners, but they became finan- cially involved in the great depression of the early thirties and eventually were adjudged bankrupt.
In the liquidation of its affairs the plant was bought by Sidney Ansin who was doing a shoe manufacturing business in the Lee plant on Main Street, and he began the manufacture of shoes, there under the name of Monarch Shoe Company, eventually removing that business to Fitchburg.
In 1945 the plant was acquired by D'Etremont & Punis who, incorporated as Eastern Furniture Company, thoroughly over- hauled the plant and are manufacturing furniture there. The controlling interest in the company, however, is now owned by Chester C. Carbone. Early in the Powers ownership, the water power was utilized but of recent years no use has been: made of it.
As an incident to the building of Green Mountain Shop, the town extended Riverbend Street south to Hapgood Road in practically a straight line, changing the name of the former southerly end of that street to Fletcher Street. This left a: sizable triangle of land bounded by Riverbend and Fletcher Streets and Hapgood Road.
William Fletcher, who was associated with Timothy Hoar long ago at Water Street, had two sons, Allen Florentine and
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Americus Vespucius, both of whom spent their lives in Athol. In 1859 these brothers bought a tract of land at 1477 Main Street of James M. Lee and, acquiring the Josiah Goddard buildings on Chestnut Hill and utilizing this material, built a shop and barn thereon, carrying on a hardware and tin shop. This building, somewhat modernized, is standing there today occupied by Highland Hardware.
In 1870 this partnership was dissolved, A. V. Fletcher con- tinuing in the tin shop, while A. F. began the manufacture of pumps first at Cheney's Pond, later in Exchange Street, then at 263 Hapgood Road. His son, Edgar A. Fletcher, worked in Bates Bros. Wallet Shop for a time and then cast in his lot with his father in the pump business.
In 1891 this family bought the triangle made by the new location of Riverbend Street, and mostly by their own labor built a small factory there, eventually building a sizable foundry as well as a shop.
Early in this development they built a dam across Mill Brook which ran through their land and installed a water wheel under their shop. This was the last development in point of time of any power on Mill Brook.
In 1926, some years after A. F. Fletcher's death, the family sold the corporation with all its assets to Leavitt Machine Company wihch speedily removed the business to Orange, selling the factory to a group headed by William E. Taft, in- corporated as Taft Oil Burner Company.
After a few years operation this company became involved and Athol Co-operative Bank took over the property as mortgagee.
The foundry was leased to Elroy P. Hickman and Alfred P. Ollari, doing business as Highland Foundry Company, and the main factory to Herman A. Gauthier and George M. Beal, both of Gardner, who did business as Mohawk Upholstering Com- pany. After a disastrous fire, the entire plant was sold to Belle Schuloff who continues the tenancy of the Foundry Company and rents the remainder of the plant to Frank W. Grandell operating as General Manufacturing Company, but the water power, like all the others on the stream, is now idle.
Crossing Hapgood Road on our way down the hill we come to a small dam impounding the brook waters and diverting a small portion of it into a water main which conducts the water to our railroad station.
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The origin of this dam and connecting conduit is a story true to the acrimony and practices of a past generation.
A short distance below this railroad company dam, John C. Hill long ago acquired a considerable frontage on the brook with a view to development, but that never materialized and his heirs eventually sold their holdings to Joseph Musante who has made little if any use of the land.
Cottage Street was an early development of the Lower Vil- lage and its extension southward was gradual as the owner of most of the lands, Amos Leander Cheney, extended his devel- opments.
Just northeast of where Cottage and Chestnut Streets cross, a water power was developed well over a century ago.
March 12, 1835 (307-551) the heirs of Joel Kendall con- veyed practically all the Cottage Street area to Joel Kendall, Jr.
Soon after acquiring this area, Mr. Kendall built the dam and a saw mill (an old up and down saw) at this point on the brook.
January 22, 1848 this mill was sold to Charles Bancroft, James Lamb and Ethan Lord. June 5, 1855 it was acquired by John F. Humphrey who built a mill there and manufactured sash and blinds for some ten years.
When the War Between the States broke out, Joseph Pierce and Henry R. Stowell were operating a furniture factory at Furnace Village (now Tully) under the name of Pierce and Stowell. Mr. Stowell and several of the employees of this mill enlisted in the United States Army, leaving Mr. Pierce to carry on in a small way.
After the soldiers returned from the war the Pierce & Stowell partnership was dissolved, Mr. Stowell continuing at Furnace Village while Mr. Pierce purchased the Cottage Street saw mill and factory. Mr. Pierce discontinued the saw mill and converted the shop into a furniture shop. This was operated by Mr. Pierce and his family until 1887 when it was purchased by a group of Athol citizens, the Pierce factory was demolished and a new factory built in its place. This was for some years occupied by Herbert S. Goddard and Robert Manning as a piano case factory. This business prospered for a time and seemed to justify the investment made in promoting industrial ex- pansion by our citizens, but Mr. Manning died March 16, 1895, thus taking away from the business the operating manager.
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This, with the severe industrial recession of the period, was the undoing of the company. The business was acquired by Warren D. Lee who operated only a comparatively short period when on December 8, 1897 the plant caught fire and was badly burned. The ruins stood unoccupied a few years and then were bought by O. J. Powers & Sons who utilized them largely for storage. When the Powers Company became bank- rupt, Sidney Ansin became the owner, later selling it to Nor- man J. Boyer who completed the razing of the piano factory and built there a comfortable home.
Directly west from the Piano Shop dam and east of Cottage Street, Amos L. Cheney built a low dam which diverted the waters into a canal built paralleling Cottage Street and extend- ing northerly several rods; thence they passed through a pen- stock under Cottage Street to a wheel under a one-story factory built on the west side of the street.
Joel Drury fell from a load of hay and broke his neck July 22, 1865. This happened on his home farm on East Hill. The following year his buildings were sold and the farm disposed of in several pieces.
The house was moved south onto the old Joseph and Jon- athan Stockwell farm on Gulf Road and the barn was sold through an intermediate purchaser to Mr. A. L. Cheney who tore the building down and utilized the lumber in building the factory west of Cottage Street. This mill was never a hive of industry but was used for various purposes, principally as a cotton batting mill.
Before Mr. Cheney's death, title to this mill passed to his son, Fred H. Cheney, who operated for a time when he, too, became bankrupt. His real estate was sold by the Assignee appointed by the Insolvency Court and Fred H. Cheney re- moved to Great Barrington.
The "batting mill" fell into disuse and was eventually de- molished and its site utilized as house lots.
In 1846, shortly after the Hoar's dam disaster, the so-called Cheney's Pond development was begun. This was a short furlong west of this last mentioned factory.
There, at what is now a few rods southeast of the junction of Hapgood Road and Sanders Street, Mr. Cheney erected a sizable dam flowing several acres. North of this dam he in- stalled a water wheel and built a mill which, like the one east of it, was used as a "batting mill."
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In 1873 this mill was rented to "Sloan & King," undoubtedly Jonathan W. Sloan and John Morrison King, near neighbors on lower Main Street and emigrants here a few years previous from the New Salem-North Prescott area.
In Norwich, Connecticut, was a company known as Upham Machine Company, manufacturing force pumps, gears, etc. This company felt that its situation would be improved by removal to Athol and, attracted by this opportunity to enhance the prosperity of this town, a group of local men became as- sociated with them.
On June 17, 1873 an organization meeting was held at the Pequoig House when the following officers were elected: Pres- ident, N. Upham; secretary and treasurer, A. N. Upham; di- rectors, N. Upham, Lysander Richardson, James Oliver, 2nd, J. E. Gillespi, A. B. Folsom, A. L. Cheney, James W. Hunt.
Arrangements were made to take over the Cheney plant and to build the brick factory now standing at 167 Hapgood Road, the construction work to be done under the supervision of Lysander Richardson and his son-in-law, Benjamin Franklin Bullard.
The financial crash of 1873 overtook this Upham Company before it could get into operation but it carried on with little success for nearly five years when it ceased operations and some of its promoters returned to Connecticut.
After some three years of idleness, arrangements were made with Mr. J. Wesley Goodman to move his business here from North Dana and occupy this rather pretentious factory. This business, which was the manufacture of billiard and pool tables, prospered for several years and was a decided asset to our in- dustrial life. Mr. Goodman died May 15, 1893, and his three sons soon made an alliance with others, forming Goodman- Leavitt-Yalter Company, which continued for a time but at length they disagreed and the business was liquidated about 1906.
We mention in passing that a portion of this plant was oc- cupied by the local wallet shop for some three years after early 1880, removing later to Island Street. The story of that in- dustry will be told in another paragraph. Incidentally, its Hap- good Road factory is now the dwelling at No. 136 Sanders Street.
Refusing to heed the warnings of several expensive ex- periences in "buying" business into town, our people rallied
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once again and entered into agreements with a group of men who came here to do business under the name of National Printing Machinery Company. This company began operations in early 1911 but after a year or a little more it became evident that the business was not likely to be a success and its affairs were liquidated. Although far from a financial success, yet none of us suffered any crippling loss from it.
Henry Marshall Peckham, a native of New Salem, came here from Furnace Village about 1892 and bought a wood working business which George B. Thompson had bought the year be- fore from George S. Brewer. He soon acquired the Dea. Samuel S. Tower Blanket Mill on Canal Street and removed his business there, continuing as a cabinet maker for several years.
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With the adjoining Cass Toy plant expanding rapidly and a modest expansion of the Peckham business, the time eventually came when Mr. Peckham thought it wise to look elsewhere for a factory. In due time he negotiated with Mr. Levi B. Fay, who had for some years owned most if not all the Upham Machine Company real estate, and acquired the property. There he did business until his death in 1945, being succeeded by his son, Harold L. Peckham, who as will be told elsewhere in this history has recently sold his plant to Arthur F. Tyler Co. and retired from active business. The water power was discarded years ago but the pond was kept flowed until the 1938 flood weakened the dam so that it became useless.
This Cheney's Pond flowed southeasterly from its impound- ing dam to approximately Chestnut Street over land of low value and a very uncertain title, but when Mr. Cheney deeded away his mill he included in the sale all the land lying under the pond and similar conveyances were made by his successors in title although a careful search of the title falls far short of confirming this assertion. However, as no disputants to Mr. Peckham's claim appeared he was the acknowledged owner of an area materially shrinking in size from year to year as abutting owners extended the higher land into the old pond area. At a special town meeting held October 30, 1950, the plight of the attendants at Sanders Street School was pre- sented to the town, there being but little playground area ad- jacent to the school, and the town authorized the purchase of the entire pond area for a recreation ground. The Selectmen eventually acquired Mr. Peckham's title and seem to have, by liberal allowances to abutters, adjusted boundaries so that the entire remaining area is now under control of the town.
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In 1952 a substantial area of the southern section of the old pond was filled with earth taken from a hill adjoining Lombard Avenue. This reclaimed section is appropriated by the School Department but the remaining land (some two-thirds of the whole) falls under the control of the Park Department.
Closely co-incident with this sale by Mr. Peckham came his transfer of title to his mill and millyard to Arthur F. Tyler Company in 1951 who erected a substantial addition to the plant and moved that business there.
And now we come to the point where the waters of Mill Brook were augmented by the diverted waters of Millers River and a water power created along the lines many decades later of the Lowell Locks and Canals and the Holyoke Water Power Company.
The location of the grist mill built here in 1737 by Samuel Kendall has long been in dispute but some written data in the Kendall family, supported by positive traditions in the Lord family, seem to locate the original grist mill in an area adjacent to the present Memorial building.
Clarke, in his 1850 discourse, places it near the "Y" site, but in excavating for the present Memorial Hall in 1922, Mr. L. B. Taylor reported uncovering in the old river bed (south branch) piling or sheeting and mud sills.
From the action of the proprietors it would seem that where- ever the grist mill stood, its power was inadequate for the needs of the community, for after twenty years we find them negotiating with Mr. Kendall to provide a mill adequate "to grind ye grist of all ye proprietors."
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