USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Chelmsford > History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts > Part 51
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On the same occasion, John A. Lowell claimed that Ezra Worthen was the first to recognize the value of Pawtucket falls for commercial use, and that the purchase of land, &c., was made before Kirk Boott set foot upon it. The accounts are conflicting.
February 6, 1822, the Legislature granted "An Act to incorpor- ate the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. Kirk Boott, William Appleton, John W. Boott, and Ebenezer Appleton were the persons named in the act. The capital was $600,000. Up to this time, they had purchased six hundred and thirty-nine shares in the Pawtucket Canal or Locks and Canals Company, for which they paid $30,607.62; the Tyler farm for $8,000; the
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Josiah Fletcher farm, for $6,860; the Joseph Fletcher farm, for $1,230.62; and eight-tenths of Cheever's land, for $1,605. These sums, with $2,700 paid to N. Wright, $647.80 paid to T. M. Clark, and other incidental expenses, amounted to $69,815.62.
Says Gilman: Thomas Hurd, reputed to be a shrewd operator, being in Boston about the time these lands were bought, overheard a conversation that led him to hasten back to Chelmsford, secure a refusal of the Bowers Saw Mill near Pawtucket falls, and of land in that vicinity. The Merrimack Company purchased of him the mill and land adjoining.
The dam across the Merrimack, at Pawtucket falls, was built in 1822. The main canal was enlarged, and the Merrimack and Hamilton canals begun.
The Merrimack Company completed the first mill and started the wheels on the first of September, 1823. Bedford and Merrimack, N. H., furnished the bricks used in the construction of this and other mills. Chelmsford furnished the lime. Kirk Boott was agent and treasurer.
The Lowell Machine Shop was started in 1824, by Paul Moody, who supervised the construction and setting up of most of the machinery for the mills, until his death, in 1831.
A good account of the beginning of Lowell and of the men who made the town, will be found in Drake's History of Middlesex Co., also in the Courier-Citizen's History of Lowell. Kirk Boott was, no doubt, the moving spirit and most prominent man in the early history of Lowell. Born in Boston, in 1791, educated at Rugby, England, and at Harvard College, he was a lieutenant in the Duke of York's regiment, in the Peninsular campaign under Wellington. He returned to this country in 1817, and soon became superintendent of the new mills at East Chelmsford. Lowell was named for Francis Cabot Lowell, the founder of the cotton manufacturing industry in America.
As early as November 22, 1824, a committee of the Merrimack Company was appointed to consider the matter of a new township for East Chelmsford.
In 1824, Mr. Jackson remarked that the purchase of real estate near the falls comprised about as many acres as were contained in the original territory of Boston. "If our plans succeed," he said, "we shall have as large a population in our territory in twenty years as we had in Boston twenty years ago." The population of Boston in 1804, was 26,000, and that of Lowell in 1844, was 28,000.
Where the first mills were built, four or five families moved off the land, and soon fifteen hundred people were at work.
In 1824, Ezra Worthen, superintendent of the Merrimack Company, died and was succeeded by Warren Colburn, of Arithmetic fame, who had taught school. Great numbers of his books were sold here and in Great Britain. He had great mathe- matical and mechanical skill.
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EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER PRINTED IN THE ESSEX REGISTER AND REPRINTED IN THE CONCORD GAZETTE AND MIDDLESEX YEOMAN OF AUG. 13, 1825.
We started from Salem, and took the road leading through Danvers, Lynnfield, Reading, Wilmington and Billerica. The usual silence and total destitution of incident worthy of remark on the roads through which we passed, afforded no topic for our journals. We could only observe the ruinous effects of the late drought in the withered cornfields, the crusty mowing grounds, the yellow potatoe patches, and the meagre hop-yards.
In passing through the town of Wilmington, "famous for hops," but not "of high production," unless the tall hop-poles will make the words of the poet good, we sympathized with an old farmer on account of the late drought, and the destruction occasioned by the Tornado, which had made sweeping work in his hop-yards. We then proceeded for Chelmsford. In Billerica, we observed that the Mills and Factories at the Falls of the Concord River, were stopped, in consequence of the deficiency of water occasioned by the dry season.
As we ascended the high grounds which lie on this side the Merrimack, the beautiful valley which has been chosen for the site of the Manufacturing Establishments, opened upon our view.
It is indeed a fairy scene. Here we beheld an extensive city, busy, noisy and thriving, with immense prospects of increasing extent and of boundless wealth. Everything is fresh and green with vigor of youth, yet perfect in all strength of manhood.
On the banks of the Merrimack are already erected five superb Factories, and two immense piles of brick buildings occupied for Calico printing. In front of these, and on the banks of the Factory Canal, which is fenced in, and ornamented with a row of elms, are situated the houses for the accommodation of those employed in the Factories. The houses are double, two stories high, and separated from each other by wide avenues. They are handsomely and uniformly painted, and are beautifully ornamented with little flower gardens in front, and are accommo- dated with out-houses in the rear. There is a beautiful Gothic Stone Church (St. Anne's) opposite the dwelling houses, and a Parsonage house (of stone) is erecting near the Church.
There are in the vicinity of the factories, two printing offices, from which weekly papers are published, a book-store, a book- bindery, a post-office, five taverns, one of which is a superb stone edifice, with out-buildings of the same material, eleven English and West-India goods stores, hat and shoe stores, various Mechanic shops and perhaps two hundred houses, all fresh from the hands of workmen, & many others building. The whole ground is scattered over with lumber and other materials for six other factories which are erecting on the other side of the Canal .- The ground is intersected with fine roads and good
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bridges. The whole seems to be the work of enchantment,-all is in motion-Labourers, interspersed in all directions, hewing timber, cutting stone, making bricks, and teamsters moving the materials to their proper places.
There are only two of the new Factories now in operation- another is nearly ready to put in motion. They intend to have six in operation in the course of the year.
About three hundred persons, two thirds of whom are young women from the neighboring towns, are employed in each factory. The women earn from a dollar to three dollars per week, according to their skill.
In addition to the Cotton Factories, there are already at Chelmsford two large Woollen Factories, a Glass-House, where they manufacture the cylinder window-glass, and a Gunpowder Manufactory.
We stood gazing at this fairy vision at the distance of a mile. The roar of the water-falls intermingled with the hum and buzz of the machinery. Sometimes it would raise its voice above the roar of the waters, and then die away, and be lost and mingled with them in harmony. It seemed to be a song of triumph and exultation at the successful union of nature with the arts of man, in order to make her contribute to the wants and happiness of the human family .-
In his oration, at the 75th Anniversary of the Incorporation of Lowell, Solon W. Stevens, referring to the mill life of the early days, said: "We shall notice, on the part of those who are promi- nent and influential, a strong desire to provide for both the physical and the moral well-being of the people who have left their homes on the farm to become workers in the mills. We shall find the boarding-houses where the mill people lived were, in reality, neat, comfortable and attractive homes; and among the female operatives, we shall see a remarkable degree of intelligence and refinement. The fact is, the New England women who came here to weave and to spin in those days were not degraded in the least by their employment or through their surroundings. They brought with them, their mental and religious training, and, as they grouped together, impelled by similar tastes, they naturally inclined to grow intellectually under the stimulus of association, rather than to deteriorate. They very often stepped out of the factory life into semi-professional occupations, and, in many instances, they left the loom and the spindle, to become the wives of self-reliant men of substantial means, to become the queens of homes of virtue and intelligence, and to become mothers of cultured daughters and sons, who, as they grew into the responsibilities of life, never forgot to honor the mother who taught their infant lips to pray, and who made their childhood happy with her sweet caress. It was in recognition of such conditions that Mr. Charles Dickens was moved to ask his country- men 'to pause and reflect upon the difference between this town
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(Lowell) and those great haunts of desperate misery' with which people living in the manufacturing districts of England were, at that time, perfectly familiar.
The founders of the factory system in the town of Lowell (East Chelmsford) were far-seeing men who knew full well that the population gathering here, with its varieties of social character and religious belief, could not be moulded into a well-ordered community without the benign influences of the schoolhouse and the church. The first edifice dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, within the limits of the territory which became the town of Lowell, was St. Anne's church, the corner stone of which was laid in 1824. (The Rev. Theodore Edson was the rector.) For nearly sixty years, until the hour of his death, this godly man went in and out before this people in the spirit of perfect conse- cration to his Master's service, leaving behind the record of a life woven into the very texture of the events which gave perman- ence of character to the community in which he lived."
For an account of Lucy Larcom, the mill girl of Lowell, see her Life by Addison. Her brother and sisters lived in Chelmsford.
On November 25, 1825, in Chelmsford town meeting, a committee consisting of Joel Adams, Caleb Abbott, Nathaniel Howard, Samuel Stevens, and Benjamin Chamberlain, reported favorably on a petition of Kirk Boott and others for a new town, the State and County taxes to be paid jointly by both towns, according to their present valuation, and all debts due from the Town, excepting the principal debt due on the poor farm be paid as above.
On an irregularly shaped piece of hand-made paper, seven inches square, is printed this
NOTICE
The Inhabitants of the Town of Chelmsford, qualified by law to vote in town affairs, are hereby notified and warned to meet and assemble at the Meeting house, in the middle of said town, on Monday the 2d day of January next, at one of the clock, P. M. to act on the following articles, viz.
1. To choose a Moderator.
2. At the request of Ephraim Spalding and others, to see if the Town will take measures to prevent the establishment of a highway from near the house of Willard Read to Golden Cove, so called, or act thereon as the Town may think proper.
3. At the request of Noah Spalding, to see if the Town will agree to alter the west line of the new or contemplated Town, so as to include the house and land now in the occupation of Osgood Worcester, or act anything thereon.
By virtue of a Warrant from the Selectmen, dated Dec. 28, A. D. 1825.
EZEKIEL BYAM,
Constable of Chelmsford.
[Owned by Miss H. M. Spalding.]
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January 2, 1826, in town meeting it was voted that the voters go out of the (meeting) house and be polled on the common. The west line of the new proposed town (Lowell) was to be altered so as to accommodate the estate on which Osgood Worcester resided, and the south line to accommodate the estates of Sprake and Benjamin Livingstone.
The original bounds of Lowell, as given in the charter, are thus described: Beginning at Merrimack river, at a stone post, about two hundred rods above the mouth of Pawtucket canal, so called; thence, running southerly in a straight course, until it strikes the Middlesex canal, at a point ten rods above the canal bridge, near the dwelling-house of Henry Coburn; thence southerly on said canal twenty rods; thence a due east course to a stone post at Concord river. The area thus lost to Chelmsford was 7,735 acres, or about twelve square miles. [See Map No. 6.]
"The town of Lowell was incorporated March 1,1826. For four years after the work on the Merrimack Mills was begun, the village retained the name of East Chelmsford. The number of inhabi- tants in this village had risen from 200 in 1820, to 2300 in 1826, more than eleven-fold. These twenty-three hundred people were compelled to go four miles-to Chelmsford Centre-to attend town-meetings and transact other municipal business. The two villages had no common business relations and no social sym- pathies. The taxes raised upon the valuable property of the mills could be claimed and expended by the town of Chelmsford. The schools of the new village were under the management of the town. Various motives conspired to make it the desire of East Chelmsford to become a town by itself." [Lowell, by C. C. Chase.]
A meeting of the voters of Lowell was called for March 6, at Balch and Coburn's tavern, the "Stone House" near Pawtucket falls, now the Ayer Home, and officers for the new town were elected.
On a piece of paper similar to the above mentioned, is printed, of the width of a newspaper column, this notice:
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Middlesex, S.S.
To KIRK BOOTT, of the Town of Lowell, in the County of Middlesex, aforesaid, Esq.
Greeting :-
Pursuant to a law of the Commonwealth, aforesaid, passed on the first day of March, instant; you are hereby authorized and required to notify and warn the freeholders and other inhabitants of the said Town of Lowell, qualified by law to vote in Town affairs, and for the choice of Town Officers, to meet at the Tavern of Messrs. Balch & Coburn in said Town, on Monday, the sixth day of March instant, at one of the clock, in the afternoon, to act upon the following articles, viz :-
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1. To choose a Moderator of said meeting;
2. To choose all such Town Officers, as towns are required by law to choose;
3. To give their votes for a Register of Deeds, for said County;
4. To agree upon the manner of calling future Town Meetings.
Given under my hand and seal, this second day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six.
JOSEPH LOCKE,
Justice of the Peace.
-000-
In pursuance of the foregoing warrant, to me directed, I do hereby notify and warn the inhabitants of the Town of Lowell to meet at the time and place therein mentioned, and for the purposes therein expressed. KIRK BOOTT.
LOWELL, MARCH 2, 1826.
[Owned by Miss H. M. Spalding.]
PART TWO. BRIDGES.
In 1656, the bridge between Chelmsford and Concord was "driven down by the violence of waters."
THE CONCORD RIVER BRIDGE.
Soon after the settlement of Chelmsford and Billerica, the County appointed a committee to locate a bridge at the most convenient point between the towns .* It was built at what was called the Fordway, about one half a mile above North Billerica. In 1657, the County Court ordered that this bridge and that at Misticke should be the only two to be finished at the County's charge, and afterwards to be repaired by the towns. Chelmsford was abated two pounds and Billirrikey one pound in their rates to the bridge on account of its benefit to the County. In 1658, the same Court ordered that warrants be issued to collect arrears due to be paid towards "Chenceford and Misticke Bridges." The next year the selectmen of Chelmsford sent a petition to the Court, which appointed a committee to investigate the cause of, and amount of, needed repairs, and ordered that the selectmen of Chelmsford, with those that covenanted to build the bridge, should forthwith repair and finish it, and "that the charges expended in repairing" it "be repaid to those that undertook the work in manner following, i. e., Joseph Parker for his neglect in not finishing it according to covenant shall bear forty shillings of it." The remainder, £12. 11.4, to be paid by the County Treasurer. The several towns to pay five shillings in the pound
*December 30, 1656, Thomas Adams of Chelmsford was appointed one of a committee to consider what bridges are necessary to be made and maintained in this county.
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for so much as they were behindhand to the workmen. Groton was also required to pay, as the bridge was a great convenience to the travel from that town. It was a crude piece of work, and was constantly in need of repair. The work was done by Chelms- ford and Billerica in conjunction. In 1660, the two towns were presented, on account of the insufficiency of the bridge. In 1662, Hazen records, Billerica furnished five hands and Chelmsford four, "a day in the water," charging 2s. 6d. per day. There is also a charge for two quarts of liquor, 4s. In 1666, Chelmsford refused to assist further in maintaining the bridge, and Billerica, "for the prevention of dangers and hazards," had some of the planks taken away, and provided danger signals, so that the bridge could not be used. A year and a half later, the three towns were obliged by the Court to repair the bridge. The County Court "did nominate and empower Mr. John Webb, alias Evered, Mr. Thomas Hinksman, Mr. James Parker & Jonathan Danforth, to agree with some able and honest artificer for erecting" a bridge. Job Lane was employed to do the work. He was distinguished as a contractor. The timber arches were to be sixteen feet wide, and the flooring of oak plank four inches thick. The cost was to be "seven score and five pounds sterling." This bridge seems to have stood about ten years without repair. In 1699, the records show that it had been carried away by a flood, probably in 1698, for, in December of that year, Chelmsford arranged with Billerica, Groton and Dunstable to erect a new structure to replace it. Groton would not co-operate until compelled by the General Court. Thomas Hinchman, Solomon Keyes, Sen., and Nathaniel Hill acted for this town. Billerica preferred to have the new bridge nearer the centre of the Town, and it was built at the "Corner." Farmer, in his Historical Memoir of Billerica, says the bridge was removed from the Ford- way (higher up the river, [Allen]), in 1663, at the expense of Billerica and Chelmsford, and that, in 1699, it was rebuilt con- siderably higher up the river, which made it necessary to alter the road between the two towns.
In 1716, the selectmen of the two towns met at the bridge and found it very defective, and took the advice of experts. They all agreed that a new structure should be built. In that year, Thomas Dutton of Billerica was voted twenty shillings "paid out of our (Chelmsford's) town treasury unto him in consideration of the loss of his cow at bilereca greit bridg." In the same year, Groton obtained a release from further expense for the bridge. This had been granted in 1699, but on the petition of the other towns, the General Court referred the matter to the Court of Sessions, with the result as above stated. Dracut, Dunstable and Westford were holden till 1737, and Chelmsford till 1792. [Allen.]
In 1737, the bridge fell down, and it was debated whether or not to build again in the same location, or further down the
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river, "near the fordway where the ancient bridge stood." Chelmsford preferred the latter place, but it was rebuilt at the Corner.
In 1768, it was voted to confer with the committee of Billerica about repairing the bridge, "to make the travelling safe for all his majesties subjects."
The dispute between Chelmsford and Billerica was renewed in 1787, and the records of the Supreme Judicial Court say, that "The Inhabitants of Billerica recover against the Inhabitants of Chelmsford the sum of £31, lawful money damage and cost Taxed at £15:1:8. Sept. 20, 1787.
In 1789, Chelmsford chose a committee to carry on a lawsuit with Billerica. The former town tried to get the Court to excuse them from further expense in relation to the bridge.
The committee received £6: 4:0: 0
An execution was levied, and some private property seized, as the following items from the Town records show.
To one hog that was taken to satisfy the execution that Billerica had against Chelmsford ...... £ 2: 8:3:0
To one horse and saddle and bridle that was taken to satisfy the execution that Mr. Smith had against Chelmsford. £12: 0:0:0
To Money Wm. Fletcher paid to Barthw. Richardson on account of the execution that Billerica had against Chelmsford and for his trouble when his oxen was taken with the said execution ... £15: 16: 0: 0 To paid to Richardson when Mr. Isaac Chamberlain's and Mr. Wm. Fletcher's cattel was taken . £17:13:1:0 To money which Seth Lovering advanced to satisfy part of Billerica's execution against Chelmsford to the Cost of Billerica great bridge over Concord River. £ 2:11:0:0
Money advanced by Wm. Fletcher for same £ 0:13:5:0
66 66
£ 0: 8:6:0
To more for time and expense at sundry times when contending with Billerica £ 1:11:9:0
To Mr. Willard Howard for money he let Mr. Saml.
Perham, Jr., have when he was town treasurer to satisfy a part of an action which the Town of Billerica had against Chelmsford £ 0: 9:0:0
Paid to Capt. Jonathan Stickney when Chelmsford and Billerica was in dispute £ 0: 4:6:0
In 1789, the records of the Court of Sessions show that a memorial of Chelmsford was entered, respecting Billerica. The case was called the next year, but neither party appeared. In November, 1791, Chelmsford was discharged from any further expense in building or repairing this bridge.
EAGLE MILLS, WEST CHELMSFORD, AS REBUILT AFTER THE FIRE OF 1863
METHODIST CHURCH, WEST CHELMSFORD
No 29
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In May, 1792, it was voted in Chelmsford Town Meeting that the Selectmen be a committee to see if they can make out what became of the money that was borrowed to pay the execution that Billerica had against this Town respecting the Bridge.
In 1873, the old wooden bridge was replaced by an iron structure.
BRIDGE AT THE MOUTH OF THE CONCORD.
Allen says the first bridge at the mouth of the Concord river was about twenty rods below the present. It was blown down by a gale of wind before it was entirely finished; and that the second bridge was just below the one now standing. The third and last bridge was built in 1810, at the joint expense of Tewksbury and Chelmsford.
An iron structure now spans the river at this point. Brown's ferry was at this point before the bridge was built. The bridge was rebuilt in 1819, 1835 and 1837. The first bridge was built in 1774.
PAWTUCKET BRIDGE.
The Proprietors of the Middlesex Merrimack River Bridge
were incorporated February 4, 1792. Their names were: Parker Varnum
Bradley Varnum
James Varnum
Jonathan Varnum
Thomas Russell
Benjamin Varnum
Jonathan Simpson
Nathan Tyler
Louis de Marisquelles
Eliakim Wood
Joseph B. Varnum
Daniel Coburn
Loammi Baldwin
Moses B. Coburn
William Blanchard
Asa Richardson
Solomon Aiken Samuel Cotton
Joel Spalding
William Hildreth, Jr.
John Ford
Jeptha Spalding
Jona. P. Pollard
Josiah Fletcher, Jr.
Thomas Beals Ebenezer Hall
Peter Coburn, Jr.
Oliver Whitney, Jr.
There is an interesting history of this bridge in Vol. IV, of the Old Residents' Contributions, which is used in this account.
The charter provided that, after fifty years, the legislature might alter the tolls, from time to time; and might authorize a canal on the bank, or under the bridge, for the passage of boats and rafts. But, at the end of four years, on petition, and repre- sentation that the tolls were inadequate for the maintenance of the bridge, the legislature allowed an increase of the tolls, on an average of about fifty per cent. The tolls were first designated in English money, but in 1796, they were changed to Federal money, indicating that the transition in the currency of this
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country was made about that time. The toll for a foot passenger was from two-thirds of a penny to one cent and five mills. Half cents were then in circulation.
In 1807, all persons were given free passage to any public meeting at the west meeting-house in Dracut. Reduced rates were allowed to those who used the bridge regularly and often. The next year, Ebenezer Griffin bought the toll of the bridge for one year, for nine hundred dollars, but found it unprofitable.
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