History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 153

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 153

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He was very inventive, and constantly at work with mind or hands upon something to the advance- ment of science, as his improvement of Dr. Arnott's Hydrostatic Bed, upon one of which he died. He had, that very week, given instructions to a mechanic for additional improvements to it. The rubber air pillows and beds used at the present day take its place. Tubes for the introduction of fresh air from the window to the bed of the patient. The making of zinc paint. The coupling of railroad cars while in motion. Object cards and letters to place upon the blackboard in our schools while upon the School Committee, of which he was for many years a mem- ber. In this connection it is proper to state that he made the first move for the establishment of the High School within the town.

He was one of the founders of the First Unitarian Congregational Society of Danvers (now Peabody), and was a sincere friend and helper to all of its pas- tors from the first to the last. The Rev. Frank P. Appleton truly said of him, "His heavenly Father was a dear and sacred presence to him." In all the brighter scenes of life he saw that Father's love ; and he laid his soul meekly, cheerfully before that infinite Friend . .. His was a guileless worship. He was open-hearted to God, as he was to man. No fear mingled in his communion ; his cheerful love cast out all fear, or rather his unselfishness made fear of God impossible. ... To serve his Father and to help his brethren, this was the aim of his life. He never lost his love for his fellow-beings,-they were always God's children ; and the deep interest in others which rose uppermost in his heart during his last sickness, the sacred counsel, "to live for man, to work for humanity," which, with faltering lips, but unfal- tering soul and faith he gave, were only simple repe- titions of what his whole life had said.

His monument in the Monumental Cemetery in

Peabody has the expressive inscription, " Erected by the friends of Humanity to Humanity's Friend."

An intimate friend of George Peabody from his boyhood, in the apothecary shop, when he removed the wen from his forehead, to his success as a London banker, and corresponded with him until the time of his death.

He married his cousin, Ruth Nichols, daughter of Deacon John Nichols, of Middleton, and wife of Sarah Fuller, the 1st of June, 1809; she died without issue, March 31, 1832.

He married secondly, Mary Holyoke Ward, daugh- ter of Joshua Ward, of Salem, and wife Susanna Holyoke, daughter of Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke, the 3d of October, 1833.

He died the 30th of March, 1853, and his widow the 15th of April, 1880.

He left two children, Andrew Nichols, civil engi- neer, who now occupies the northwesterly corner of the Robert Prince farm, which, to this time, has never been out of the ownership of his descendants, though for one hundred years in the name of Nichols, and a daughter, Mary Ward Nichols.

Of the next generation four sons and three daugh- ters are living children of Andrew Nichols and wife, Elizabeth P. Stanley, of Salem. The eldest Andrew inherits his grandfather's taste for Natural History.

HON. ELIAS PUTNAM.

Elias Putnam, son of Israel and Anna Putnam, was born in Danvers, Mass., June 7, 1789, and was descended from John and Priscilla Putnam, who, in or about the year 1634, as stated in a previous page, came from England to America with their three sons, and settled in Salem village. The second of these sons was Nathaniel, whose son John had a son, also named John, the father of Edmund and grandfather of the above mentioned Israel. Through the various matrimonial alliances of this line of ancestors, Elias might trace his pedigree back to many others of the emigrant colonists whose history has more or less been made known to us, and whose progeny is now very numerous throughout the country. Edmund Putnam dwelt for the greater part of his long life, and died in the year 1810, at the old Daniel Rea house, which still stands at the north of the Plains, and at a little distance east of the direct road from Salem to Topsfield, and which, having been the property and home of four successive generations of this branch of the Putnam family, passed many years ago into the possession of Mr. Augustus Fowler, who now occupies it. He was commonly known as " Deacon Edmund," having served as deacon of the First Church from 1762 until 1785, when he became a Universalist. While holding this office, he was unanimously chosen captain of a Danvers Alarm List Company, March 6, 1775. In 1776 he was made selectman and assessor, and in 1778 was appointed

Elias Intrum

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one of a committee of the town to consider and report upon the New State Constitution then proposed for adoption. Israel, the third of his five children, was born November 20, 1754, at the old Rea place just referred to, and his wife, Anna, was a daughter of Elias Endicott, Sr., and lineal descendant of the old Puritan Governor, John Endicott, whose "Orchard Farm " was her father's native spot. Immediately after their marriage, in 1788, they began honsekeep- ing on another farm owned by the family, situated at a point on the road two miles farther north and about a third of a mile south of the Topsfield line. The house, which is still standing, was built during the last century, and marks the site of one of the earlier Porter homes, which was destroyed by fire. There Elias, and also two of four other children, were born, the family then removing for a time to the New Mills (Danversport), and next to the original homestead, where they might have a more immediate care of the grandparents in their de- clining years. It was here that Elias took his first real lesson in mannal work, serving about the house and in the field in such ways as New England lads were then generally expected to learn and practice. Mean- while, the short winter terms of the rural district schools, located about midway between the upper and lower farms, afforded him about all the opportunities for education, which he enjoyed in his boyhood. Early in 1812, in company with several other young men of the neighborhood, he entered Bradford Academy, but had not long been a student at that institution before he gave much offence to its teachers and offi- cers by a composition which he prepared and pre- sented as one of the required exercises, and in which he ably and boldly advanced views at variance with the theology there dominant and almost everywhere prevalent. Unwilling to remain where he found that he could not enjoy full religious freedom, he with- drew from the school and repaired to Topsfield for private instruction under Mr. Israel Balch, and there finished the one short term that was to end his school-day life. His classmates or companions from Danvers sympathized with him, approved his action, and all joined him at once in his new scene of study and endeavor. Their concurrent and life-long testi- mony, as well as his own subsequent career, bore abundant witness to the fidelity with which, at both places, he improved his all too limited advantages, and to the rapid progress he made in his work. De- siring to qualify himself especially for the plain, practical pursuits that engaged so many of his fel- low townsmen, he devoted himself to the common English branches, and gave particular attention to the art of surveying, which he so mastered that he subsequently made his proficiency in it, very useful to many others as well as to himself. But however much he might have been indebted to books and schools, nature gave him a still better outfit in a strong mind, in excellent judgment, good common

sense, a high moral purpose, indomitable energy and a spirit of industry and activity that never seemed, from first to last, to crave, or even need, relaxation or rest.

He was now twenty-three years of age, and was asked to teach the school of his native district for the following winter of 1812-13, and this he did. The old school-house had been condemned, and a new brick one had just been erected, of whose long line of "masters " he was to be the first, as a youngest son was to be the last, about forty years later. Hav- ing married Eunice Ross, daughter of Adam Ross, of Ipswich (who had been a soldier at Bunker Hill and in the Revolutionary War), he and his bride com- menced housekeeping, like his parents before them, at the upper farm. His father had offered to send him to college, or to deed to him this estate, as he might choose. Too distrustful, perhaps, of his chances of success in professional life, and fond of agricultural pursuits, he decided to hold. to his ances- tral acres. Soon after he had served out bis single term as a teacher, he concluded to unite with his occu- pation as a farmer, the business of manufacturing shoes. Amongst the intelligent and sturdy inhabit- ants of the district and its vicinity, this industrial interest, which was destined to be of prime import- ance to the town, had already attracted the attention and engaged the enterprising spirit of such men as Caleb Oakes, Zerobbabel Porter, Moses Putnam, Elias Endicott, Jr., and a few others of like charac- ter. Elias Endicott, Jr., was a near neighbor as well as an own uncle of the subject of our sketch. The latter had learned not a little from him about the art of the "gentle craft," and now wished to set up busi- ness on his own account. He bought the old aban- doned school-house, moved it up near his own home, reconstructed and enlarged it, and began in it what was to be the chief avocation of his life. Not, how- ever, without serious discouragement at the very out- set ; for, through the insolvency of a Southern trades- man to whom he had sold a large lot of goods, he lost the first thousand dollars he had earned by hard and patient work. But the misfortune only nerved him to greater exertion, and his shop, as well as his land, became ere long still more the busy scene of labor.

In 1814, or about that time, "Deacon Edmund " and his wife having died, Israel returned with his household to the scene of his early married life to spend the remainder of his days with the son and his family, enlarging the habitation with a northern " L," the future birth-place, it may be noted by the way, of that distinguished soldier and civilian of the West, Major-General Granville M. Dodge. Israel, like his father Edmund, was a Universalist, and soon began, with -ome of his neighbors, to take the necessary steps for the promulgation of the doctrine within the district. He presided over a meeting, held at the school-house, April 22, 1815, at which the friends of the new move- ment presented a declaration of their principles and

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made arrangements to secure preachers. Here was the origin of the present Universalist Church of Danvers. Israel and Elias, both, were among the signers of the declaration, and the active participants in the enterprise, and they subsequently welcomed to their home many of the early apostles of the faith who came from time to time to expound it to such as were willing to hear, Hosea Ballou, Charles Hudson, the Streeters and many others. As the father was prominent in the society in its infant history, so the son was a staunch supporter of it in its more prosperous years, both of them being identified with its fortunes as long as they lived. Farmer Israel was a deeply religious, as well as a very intelligent man, and in his zeal for Universalism he wrote able sermons in its advocacy and defence, several of which were published in pamphlet form for circulation. He died in the summer of 1820, at the age of sixty-five, and the Essex Register, in announcing his decease, referred to him as "a highly respected and worthy citizen." His wife, who was characterized by a full share of the traits and qualities of her race, died long years afterward, at Danversport, at the residence of her only surviving daughter, Mrs. Mary P. Endicott.

In 1832 Elias, finding that shoe manufacturing was, and was likely to be, a more lucrative calling than farming, and that the prospective needs of his family of ten children, to which one other was added in the following year, required him to engage in it more ex- tensively, let out his house and land and moved down once more to the ancient homestead on the lower and smaller farm, where he could be nearer the heart of the town, and enjoy ample facilities and opportunities for the end in view. Building for him- self, ont hy the road-side, a more commodious fac- tory than he had thus far occupied, he embarked more and more largely in business, furnishing em- ployment to increasing numbers of workmen in Dan- vers and surrounding towns, and supplying with the products of their labor the markets of still other cities in the Middle, Southern and Western States.

The qualities of character which distinguished him had a long time before fixed the attention of his fel- low-citizens, and he had already received not a few marks of their confidence and respect. He had again and again been chosen moderator of the annual town meetings, and had repeatedly been a member and also a chairman of the Board of Selectmen, in years when such offices were posts of honor more than they are now. In 1829 and also in 1830 he was elected as Representative to the General Court, and served for the two years. In 1833 he was chosen Senator and served for one term in that branch of the State Legislature. Here he had the great pleasure of renewing his former friendship with that sterling man, Charles Hudson, who had been an inmate of his home while preaching in Danvers ten or twelve years previously, but who had now entered political life, and was destined to high civie honors. The two

men were the members from the Senate of the joint standing committee on railways and canals. It was at an important juncture in the history of such inter- nal improvements in the old commonwealth. The Boston and Lowell Railroad was the only one then in existence in Massachusetts. The eastern com- pany was now fighting, against much opposition and under many difficulties, for a charter. Mr. Putnam was very earnest and active in his efforts in behalf of the measure, and his zeal for it, taken in connec- tion with his acknowledged ability to deal with such matters as these, and his position as a leading mem- her of the committee, and the only member of it from the county which he represented, and in which the line was to have one of its immediate termini, and with the interests and needs of which, so largely to he affected by a successful issue, he was quite well acquainted, enabled him to exert, as the late and lamented Mr. Joshua Silvester and others testify that he did, a very controlling influence towards the fav- orable result that was finally reached. In like man- ner he defended and supported other measures of public utility while thus at the capitol.

More and more, as life went on, Mr. Putnam had at heart the prosperity of his native town, and gave to it, in no stinted degree, his thought and care, his time and his means. With that object still in view, he was, as Mr. Silvester again remarks, in a recent biographical sketch of him, accompanied with some personal reminiscences, the first to propose the es- tablishment of a bank in North Danvers. The two men were near neighbors, had already known each other for some years, were both engaged in the same kind of business, and were associated intimately in political, religious and other relations, and were on terms of mutual trust and friendship which con- tinued to strengthen and ripen with each advancing year. " During all this time," says the account or tribute of the revered and veteran survivor of his long since departed companion and co-worker, "scarcely a day passed that we were not together. I can safely say that I knew the man perfectly. One day he asked me if I did not think we needed a bank in North Danvers? I told him, yes, I thought we did. We then called a meeting of the business men of the town at the old Berry Tavern to consider the matter. It was unanimously voted that applica- tion should he made for a charter, and that other necessary steps should be taken." The end was at length accomplished. The bank was duly incor- porated in 1836, and Mr. Putnam was chosen the first president, and held the office to the close of his life. Mr. Silvester, who was made one of its directors, adds,-"the bank immediately went into a success- ful business, which was soon checked, however, by the general crash of 1837. Nearly all the banks of the country suspended specie payment, and well nigh all the business houses failed or asked extensions, in consequence of the embarrassments occasioned by the

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removal of the government deposits and by the destruc- tion of the National bank. There followed the greatest depression and stagnation ever known before or since to the industry and trade of the people. But under the management of Mr. Putnam, the village bank was safely carried through it, and to the most perfect satisfaction of the stockholders." And, notwith- standing great personal losses, the business of his own manufacturing establishment was conducted with like wisdom and success.

In 1842, with the view of extending still more his operations, he built in the village of the Plains, at a distance of about a mile south from his home, a dwelling-house, aud a much larger factory than his last one, on land he had just purchased of Mr. Jonas Warren. Thither he moved his family in the follow- iug January, and soon took into business with him as a partner, his son, Elias E., giving to the firm the name of " Elias Putnam & Co."

It was in the summer of 1843 that he united with others to promote the plan of purchasing and laying out the beautiful grounds of the Walnut Grove Cemetery as a new aud fitting place for the burial of the dead. In pursuance of the object, a suitable organization was formed at successive meetings of citizens, and on the 18th of October, the first regular officers of the corporation were chosen, Mr. Putnam being elected president. The consecration services took place June 23, 1844.

He was a warm friend of the cause of education. While in the Legislature he had made the acquain- tance of Horace Mann, then aud for a long time a member from Dedham, and was deeply interested in the better system of common schools which the future renowned philanthropist had already there advocated and urged. He became a diligent reader of his writings upon the subject, and especially of his long- continued and most useful Common School Journal. Some trace of this influence may perhaps be seen in the part which he took in causing the large amount of surplus revenue that was apportioned to Danvers in 1838, to be set apart as a permanent fund for the benefit of her schools. The proposition encountered much opposition, but it was finally carried a few years later, and John W. Proctor, Esq., in his Cen- tennial address of 1852, says,-"Considering the many jealousies brought to bear on this topic, the act whereby the investment was made will ever re- main most creditable to the town. No man did more to bring this about than the late Elias Put- nam who, in this as in all his other public services, showed himself a vigilant friend of Danvers." If, in the same connection, Mr. Proctor, long after Mr. Putnam's death, allowed himself to indulge so pub- licly in a less just and generous word, those who were then conversant with affairs, were not slow or mistaken in referring it to the old frequent contro- versies between the northern and southern sections of the town, in which these two men not seldom

stoutly and uncompromisingly antagonized each other, and in which the able and distinguished law- yer, as he could but remember, was not always suc- cessful, even as he was not always in the right.

Mr. Putnam was also among the very first to de- vise and agitate the project of a railroad that should connect Danvers and other towns north of it with the seaboard and more populous and commercial places at the south. One of his sous-in-law recalls a ride which he was early invited to take with him through Middleton to Andover, and the pleased in- terest with which the latter sought out and discovered a feasible route for the proposed line. Along that way the Essex Railroad, extending from Salem to Lawrence, was constructed at length, but compara- tively few to-day are aware what a protracted and determined struggle it cost to give it that directiou, and thus to ensure to Danvers the increased facilities and advantages for transportation and inter-commu- nication which she has consequently so long eu- joyed. The road was chartered in 1846, though not opened until 1848, and Mr. Putnam was one of the several persons in whose names the grant of in- corporation was vested, and subsequently, at the organization of the Board, was made one of the direc- tors, though he was not to live to see fully com- pleted the enterprise which had commanded so much of his interest and energy, and which he had done so much to put into the way of success.

Among the numerous offices which he held at one time or another, was that of county commissioner, and on various occasions he was appointed a delegate to county, State and National political conventions. He was a member of the Whig party, and few felt more keenly disappointed than himself at the defeat of Henry Clay in 1844. As a personal friend, he had often taken counsel and been much associated in these relations, with such men as Daniel P. King, Rufus Choate, Leverett Salstonstall, Stephen C. Phil- lips and others of like repute in Danvers, Salem and vicinity, sharing fully their Whig principles and sympathies, and working with them to supplant the Democracy. He had a deep and abiding interest in political and national affairs, and kept himself well informed in regard to what was going on at Wash- ington, as well as to matters of legislation nearer home. He had a natural and instinctive abhorrence of the system of slavery, and greatly desired to see it brought to an end, but he was opposed to all rash and violent measures to compass the result, and was persuaded that the best good of the country and the higher interests of freedom itself, would most surely be realized through the triumph and continued supremacy of the party with which he was connected and whose illustrious leaders and statesmen he sin- cerely trusted and honored. He was fond of argument, had debated similar questions long before in the old Danvers Lyceum, and still liked to discuss subjects of this kind with his friends and neighbors, and such

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was the intelligence and candor of the man that they were equally ready and glad to exchange views with him, however much they might differ with him in opinion. Whatever his prepossessions, he was a lover of the truth, had an inquiring mind, aimed to get at the reasons of things, and was most conscientious and deliberate in arriving at his convictions. We quote again from Mr. Silvester,-" He had supreme control of himself under all circumstances, and was a deep thinker and reasoner. Every question, or new movement, presented to him he traced out in all its bearings to the end, after which he was ready to ex- press his feelings on the matter, and when you got his opinion on any subject, you could rely on it as his best candid judgment and most likely to be cor- rect." Nor is it difficult to say where he would have stood had he lived somewhat longer, only to see his old party utterly recreant at last to its better principles and high trusts, and men taking sides anew for the momentous conflict at hand.

Mr. Putnam was, morever, a person of rare in- ventive skill. As he was one of the early shoe- manufacturers of the town, so he was one of the very first in the country to invent machines to facilitate the various processes of the art, and to economize, in connection therewith, labor, time and material. It is a curious circumstance that when, in 1833, his neigh- bor, Mr. Samuel Preston who, like Mr. Silvester, was engaged in the same business, had invented a ma- chine for pegging shoes and had got out a patent for it, Mr. Putnam had at the same time and in the same quiet or secret way, been studying and toiling to ac- complish a like result, and had actually constructed a machine of his own that did the work. In a letter which he addressed to a friend, and a copy of which, in his own handwriting, lies before us, he manifests a desire to know more fully the principle of Mr. Preston's invention, having received an intimation that it was essentially the same as that of his own, yet suspect- ing his own might have certain merits which the other had not. Doubtless the discovered resemblance was such as to discourage him from applying for a patent in his own case, since, as a matter of fact, the two machines worked about equally well, though poorly at best. But neither of these gentlemen fol- lowed up his advantage so as to make his achieve- ment practically useful to himself or others. It was reserved to men of a later time to bring to wonderful perfection what they had created as only humble be- ginnings. Mr. Putnam turned his attention to other contrivances, and a few years later obtained a patent for a machine which he had invented for splitting leather, and which was found to be of so much bene- fit to the manufacturers, that it commanded a brisk sale amongst them, far and near. Two others, of like utility, were soon afterward invented and patented, both ingenious, yet simple in plan. The inventor had connected with his shop a private apartment to which few were admitted, and in which, amidst a

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 153

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538