History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 18

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 18

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Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland was a man of large stature, and of erect, dignified and commanding as- pect. A tall stripling of sixteen, he attended his father upon his service as chaplain during the siege of Boston, and in 1777 enlisted in the army as a com- mon soldier. The stress of war deprived him of the collegiate training to which he had looked forward fondly, and kept him, during his minority, either in the camp or at the plow. Having subsequently mas- tered the science of medicine he began practice at Topsfield in 1783, purchasing the stock of a suc- cessful predecessor, as well as his library of just two volumes. He was soon after complimented with a commission as Justice of the Peace, and began to in-

terest himself in the public affairs of town and coun- ty. As a politician he was earnest, ardent and patri- otic. He was chosen, through Federalist support, to the State Senate in 1811, and lost his seat next year, under the operation of that famous districting sys- tem known as the "Gerrymander." From 1815 to 1819 he was re-elected, and then withdrew. In 1814 he was a Sessions Justice of the Circuit Court of Com- mon Pleas. From 1820 to 1822 he was an Associate Justice of the Court of Sessions for the county, and in 1823 became its Chief Justice. This station he filled with ability and firmness until 1828, when he retired from public business, receiving at the same time from Harvard College the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine.

With an iron constitution and health, up to his fiftieth year, nntouched by disease, Dr. Cleaveland never laid aside the practice of his profession, how- ever interrupted, but had extended it to all the neighboring towns. And until his death, in Febru- ary, 1837, at the age of 77, he continued to serve, as their trusted physician, the community with which he had for fifty years identified himself by rare activity in every enterprise of moment. As a neighbor he was sought for his willing and judicious counsel, while his public career was marked throughout by good judg- ment, sound sense and solid worth.

He was twice married and left five children, among whom the eldest son, an honored graduate of Bow- doin, a distinguished educator, man of letters and Doctor of Laws, perpetuates his name and title.

Dr. Cleaveland's was one of those monumental characters which deserve study both for themselves and because they are typical of their times. Formed in our Revolutionary period, it was consolidated like the arch by the pressure which events imposed upon it. If his principles were austere, he applied them as rigidly to his own conduct as to his judgment of others. Thus he could in youth forego, without a murmur, the college training he had been promised, and, at the last, reject narcotics which would have spared him excruciating torture, because they might deaden his mental and moral sensibilities. Says the late Dr. Peirson, of Salem, in the Medical and Surgi- cal Journal, "He was a much respected member of the Essex South District Medical Society. No man amongst us set a better example of professional integ- rity and honor. The few who could boast of his friendship will long remember with pleasure the vir- tuous and kind-hearted old man, whose influence was uniformly and efficiently exerted in support of good order and the truc advancement of society."

Colonel Henry Whipple, the second and last presi- dent of the Eastern Stage Company, has left us so lately that the mention of his name is enough to re- call a venerable presence and an exemplary life. He was born at Douglass, in Worcester Connty, June 24, 1789, and died in his eighty-first year, December 2, 1 1869. He served his apprenticeship with his brother

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OLD MODES OF TRAVEL.

Charles, at Newburyport, and opened a book-store in the Franklin (then Archer's) Building, in Salem, Oc- tober, 1810. For three-score years from that time, including part of that golden era when the story of Salem Commerce reads like an eastern fiction, Colonel Whipple was constant at his post, supplying our dar- ing navigators with charts and books of travel,-our busy thinkers and bold projectors of enterprises dis- tant and domestic with the best intelligence of the day. Said the Danvers Wizard, in July, 1861 : " It would be difficult to point to a man now living so identified with the social, literary and denominational interests of Salem as is Colonel Whipple. In almost all the societies of a social and benevolent character he has been prominent and active. With the grace of native dignity and the bearing of a gentleman of the old school, the suavity of his manner attracted to his place of business the elevated and refined of Salem. His store was the resort and lounging place of all the eminent men of the past who have given a name to Salem in its modern history. Here met Bowditch, Story, Prince, Pickering, the elder Wor- cester, Barnard and Hopkins. Here Cummins dis- cussed politics with Glen King and Saltonstall, while Dr. Flint aud Judge White made criticisms on the last new book."

It was well said of Colonel Whipple that in his death Salem had lost one whom slander never touched, and who had probably never made an enemy,-his religious persuasion a consistent sup- porter,-the militia a veteran whose commissions bore date and expired before those of any officer now living,-and the Masonic body its oldest member. First from seniority on the roll of the Active Fire Club, and lately President of the Salem Dispensary, -a promoter in 1821 of the Salem and Danvers Asso- ciation for Mutual Protection against Thieves and Robbers, as well as an active militiaman from his en- listment in the ranks of the Salem Light Infantry in 1811, until he resigned the command of the Artillery Regiment of Southern Essex, he was, in earlier as in later life, ready at all times for whatever service de- volves upon the good citizen and Christian neighbor. At the close of the year 1869 he fell peacefully asleep at his home in Salem, alter enjoying for a while a tranquil retrospect of the memories he was to leave behind.

The good old days of stage coach travel are over. Gone, too, are most of those to whom they owed their charm. The stage-driver,-that next best man, it was quaintly said, to the minister, out of jail,-we have no longer. The old stage houses are for the most part, as in London, closed and deserted, or stand, like the old Bell Tavern, "with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst the modern innovations which surround them." Never again shall

" The windows of the wayside inn Across the meadows, bare and brown, Gleam red with firelight through the leaves

Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves, Their crimson curtains, rent and thin !"

Even the Ann Street Stage-House,-the very focus of New England travel,-has vanished, and the name of the street it stood on is fading ont of mind ! Never again, about its hospitable hearth, that well known company of " whips" shall gather for a parting pipe, when guests are dreaming, and night coaches in, and horses well-bestowed, and smouldering embers, in its ample fire-place, give a fitful, flickering light. I see them now, in their quaint old chairs, whiff's of smoke curling lazily about their cheerful, ruddy, weather- beaten faces,-heavy, wet jack-boots steaming on the hearth,-ample capes and top-coats flung dripping on the benches,-while they chat by turns and stir the fire and laugh at the storm. There sits burly Sam Robinson, telling how he served the sneak who stole a ride on the trunk-rack every day as the noon coach passed through Wenham, by driving into the pond at Peter's Pulpit, under pretence of watering his horses, and then making such vigorous application of the lash that whoso rode behind was glad to escape his par- thian blows by dropping off into the water! Or lit- tle Jack Mendum mounts a chair to tell how he drove the "mail," and "something broke," and the hungry passengers were all out hurrying him on, and the neighbors bustled about, and he lost his patience, and making up in oaths what he lacked in stature, bid them all stand aside and let him manage, " for while I drive that mail, I am the United States of Amer- ica!" Or Peter Ray recounts the driving of the first steel spring coach to Boston on its trial trip, freighted with the mechanics who were its builders, and what a stir it made on 'change! Or Major Shaw, blinded by his great popularity, utters his famous threat of ron- ning the railroad off the route, by opposition coach- es! Or Woodbury Page enjoys the discomfiture of the Charlestown driver, who roughly asked him to "get his bean pot out of the way," when he was tak- ing up a passenger from that city for Beverly, and he replied, " wait till I get the pork in !" Or they all debate, with the warmth of conviction, the relative merits of the northern and southern routes to the eastward, until Alex. Brown declares that stage routes to the east are like different creeds in re- ligion, for all creeds lead to heaven, if faithfully fol- lowed,-upon which reticent little Conant taps his pipe on the great iron fire-dog, and as the ashes drop upon the hearth, puts it tenderly away in his waist- coat pocket, remarking that he would rather not go to heaven at all, if he must go by the Dover route, and retires to bed.

" Each had his tale to tell, and each Was anxions to be pleased and please, With rugged arte of humorons speech."

Never again, in that quaint old hostelry, shall

" The fire-light on their faces glance, Their shadows on the wainscot dance." 4

And the coaches which once, says a writer in the

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Lynn Reporter, "raised such a dust on the turnpike, night and day, that Breed's End knew no rest, and the road seemed made for their accommodation, so much at home were they on it in their day of glory," are all gone now. Over Essex Bridge, over the turn- pike, through Salem streets, horse-cars now rumble and rattle with their growing freight. And at last the single coach, which brought us daily the dust and mail bags of Cape Ann, has disappeared forever. Never again shall we gather at the cottage gate, as the clatter of wheels and the cloud of dust approach, to welcome the aged parent,-the coming guest,-the daughter home from school. Never again shall we linger in the open doorway of a New England home- stead, in tender parting with the young son setting out for sea, or on some distant westward venture,- to speed the lovers starting together on the life-long journey,-never again cast longing glances after that receding freight of dear ones, until at last the wind- ing road and over-hanging elm trees part us, and we sit sadly down to listen,

" While faint from farther distance borne Are heard the clanging hoof and horn."

Never again will the midnight watcher by the si- lent bedside hear the mail-stage arrive and go, leav- ing its messages of love and sorrow for the sleeping townsfolk, and sing, with Hannah Gould,

" The rattling of that reckless wheel That brings the bright or hoding seal To crown thy hopes or end thy fears, To light thy smiles or draw thy tears, As line on line is read."

Famous levelers were these old stage coaches and masters in etiquette also! What chance-medley of social elements they brought about! What infiuite attrition of human particles,-what jostling of ribs and elbows,-what 'contact inconvenient, nose to nose' ! What consequent rounding and smoothing of angles and corners,-what a test of good-nature,- what a tax on forbearance,-what a school of mutual consideration ! For how else could a dozen strangers consent to be boxed up and shaken together for a day, but upon condition that each was to exhibit the best side of his nature and that only !

To the next generation the old stage coach will be as shadowy and unreal a thing as were those which appeared, musty and shattered, to the uncle of the one-eyed Bagman in Pickwick, while he dozed at midnight in the Edinboro' courtyard. "My uncle," says the Bagman, in telling the story, "rested his head upon his hands and thought of the busy, bustling people who had rattled about years before in the old coaches and were now as silent and as changed. He thought of the numbers of people to whom one of those crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night af- ter night, through all weathers, the anxiously ex- pected intelligence, the eagerly looked for remittance, the promised assurance of health and safety, the sud- den announcement of sickness and death. The mer-

chant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the school-boy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman's knock,-how had they all looked for- ward to the arrival of the old coach ! And where were they all now !"

CHAPTER IV.

SCIENCE IN ESSEX COUNTY.

BY JOHN ROBINSON.

IN the sketch here attempted of a collection of subjects which may be classified under the general head of scientific, no pretence is made of complete- ness of detail, or even that many points are not omitted which are as well worthy of notice as some others which are included. The breadth of the term scientific might easily be made to embrace much mat- ter which can he more properly treated under the separate histories of this volume by writers more fa- miliar with the individual worker or his special sub- ject; nor will space be given to the scientific institu- tions of the county or their work, as they will be fully treated elsewhere. It will, therefore, only be under- taken to show, before directly taking up the subjects of natural history, the principal ground intended to be covered by this article, that in science of almost every sort Essex County has produced workers, and workers, too, of no mean order. In the special field of natural history a very remarkable amount has been accomplished, especially in the direction of local investigation, and, besides, the county offers notewor- thy inducements to encourage students of the natural sciences.

There are many names, to which we may point with pride, of men who, at home and abroad, have received high honors, and, either by birth or residence, have added to the fame of Essex County. In medi- cal science the name of Edward Augustus Holyoke, and in mathematics and astronomy those of Andrew Oliver, Nathaniel Bowditch and Benjamin Pierce, are remembered with gratitude and respect. In connec- tion with the early established scientific institutions Essex County held a prominent place. The original membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences included seventeen names, which may be claimed as belonging to Essex County, and the initial volume of the memoirs of that institution published in 1785 was very largely composed of papers and communications from Essex County scientists. In chemistry many workers might be enumerated who have contributed their share towards the increase of general knowledge of the subject.

Dr. James R. Nichols of Haverhill, well known through his long connection with the " Boston Journal of Chemistry," of which he was the editor, has been a worker in science and a writer of note. Among his

SCIENCE IN ESSEX COUNTY.

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published works are "Fireside Chemistry " and "Chemistry of the Farm," but the one which has probably arrested the most attention is a little volume printed in 1882, entitled "From Whence, What, Where?" which has already passed through several editions.

Mr. Chas. Toppan is conspicuous as the inventor of a very successful process for bleaching, and for the new products of petroleum which he has introduced, having also published accounts of his experiments. In this place should be mentioned the name of Fran- cis Peabody, a patron of the sciences, who was among the first to become interested in the establishment of the "Lyceum" system of scientific lectures, and whose valuable library, ever open for the use of the earnest student, now enriches the shelves of the Essex Institute, of which, as well as the Peabody Academy of Science, he was president. Iu physical science the record is interesting. Moses G. Farmer, of Salem, the well-known electrician, was for many years con- nected with the United States Government torpedo station at Newport, R. I. Prof. Charles Grafton Page, in 1837, made experiments with magnetic currents and musical sounds, which excited much attention both in this country and abroad, and which paved the way to that great invention, the speaking telephone, which Prof. A. Graham Bell, a resident of Salem during the years of his experimenting, first publicly exhibited before a meeting of the Essex Institute in that city in 1877.

With these brief references to other branches of science, we will proceed to consider the natural his- tory of the county and the work of students in its va- rious departments.

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY .- The entire absence of fossils and the obscure nature of the rocks of the county render the study of these branches of science uninteresting to the beginner, who is usually attracted at first, and led to more serious study, by the beauty of the minerals or the curious forms of petrifactions It is, therefore, easy to explain the rather limited number of students of geology and mineralogy, as compared with those interested in zoology and botany. The work, too, in the county, although in many cases emanating from prominent sources, has been carried on by many different persons, no single student having attempted any general survey of the whole county, so that a thoroughly satisfactory account of the geology and mineralogy of the region cannot as yet be given.

A great number of papers and notices of local inter- est have been published in the scientific journals and proceedings of scientific societies ; but as the larger portion of these refer to a region of which Boston is the centre, most of the work only covers the southern and eastern portions of Essex County. A very full list of published articles referring to the region of Eastern Massachusetts, collected by Professor M. E. Wadsworth and printed in the "Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History " (vol. xix. p. 217),

includes upwards of ninety titles of articles in the "Memoirs and Proceedings of the American Academy," " Boston Journal of Philosophy and Arts," "American Journal of Science and Arts," " Proceedings of the Bos- ton Society of Natural History " and the " Proceedings" and "Bulletin of the Essex Institute," of greater or less length, which relate more especially to the geolo- gy and mineralogy of Essex County. Many of these, articles are of course very brief and possess only a negative value, while others are communications of much interest and importance.

The list of writers of the earlier articles include the names of Dana, Agassiz, Hitchcock, C. T. Jackson, W. B. Rogers and Chas. Pickering, while the papers and notices of more recent date, outside of the local work- ers, include the names of N. S. Shaler, Alpheus Hyatt, T. Sterry Hunt, W. O. Crosby and M. E. Wadsworth. Among the residents of Essex County who have made these subjects a study and who have published the re- sults of their work are Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Dan- vers ; B. F. Mudge, Esq., and C. M.Tracy, of Lynn ; J. J. H. Gregory, of Marblehead ; Rev. S. Barden, of Rockport ; Dr. H. C. Perkins and Alfred Osgood, of Newburyport ; Rev. G. F. Wright, of Andover, and D. M. Balch, of Salem.

Taking the more recently published work as a guide, the following synopsis of the underlying rocks has been prepared by Mr. J. H. Sears, of the Peabody Academy of Science, as a provisional arrangement, but one which, however, a more careful study of the rocks of the county now in progress may in some respects require to be changed :

NORIAN. I Naugus Head Series.

HURONIAN.

Syenite, Hornblendic and Binary, Peabody, Salem. Feldsite, Marblehead Neck, Lynn, Newbury. Dioryte, Salem, Danvers, Peabody, Nahant, etc. Hornblendic Gneiss, Salem Neck, Danvers, Beverly. Limestone, Lynnfield, Danvers, Newbury.

Gneiss, West Danvers, Andover.

MONTALBAN. Mica Slate, Merrimac, Amesbury, Haverhill. Argillite, Middleton, Topsfield.

SHAWMUT. - Amygdaloid, Saugus, River Parker, Newbury.

PRIMORDIAL.

Slate, River Parker, Newbury. Conglomerate, River Parker, Kent's Island. Trachyte, Marblehead Harbor.

The most conspicuous geological features of Essex County are the trap-dykcs, of which fine specimens are to be seen at Nahant, Marblehead and Cape Ann, and the curious drift boulders which are met with in almost every part of the county, and which, to- gether with the many wonderful glacial scratchings and groovings, offer a most favorable opportunity for the study of this epoch in geology.

Many of the drift boulders are of great size and are often found in most remarkable situations, pro- jecting over ledges, mounted upon other stones or crowning the summits of the hills. Among the most noted boulders are Ship Rock, in Peabody, the estimated weight of which is eleven hundred

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

tons; Agassiz Rock, in Manchester; and Phæton Rock, in the woods between Peabody and Lynn. Many of these, including some of several tons in weight, perched upon the bare hill-tops, may be rocked by the hand, some even by a child. Were some of these erraties in the grounds of any popular summer re- sort their fame would be heralded abroad and thou- sands flock to see them ; but, as it is, the country boy, with his bare feet and berry pail, or the infrequent pedestrian on his woodland rambles are their only visitors.

Careful study is continually bringing to light minerals previously unknown in the county. Many of these, although insignificant in appearance, are of great interest to the student, and serve to show the relations between the characters of the Essex County rocks and those of other regions. The number of known or authentically reported minerals may be placed at fifty-nine species.

The most general interest is naturally attached to those minerals, chiefly the metals, of value in com- merce or the arts. In the earliest colonial times bog iron was worked at Saugus, and later, at Topsfield and Boxford, it was taken out in two or three places for mechanical purposes. The history of the old iron-works at Saugus River is a very interesting one. They were started in 1643 and continued in opera- tion under many difficulties until about 1688, but now only cinder-heaps, covered with soil and herbage, remain to tell of their existence. At these works labor- ed Joseph Jenks, a native of Hammersmith, Eng- land, the founder of a prominent New England family. Jenks was an inventor of considerable note in his day and deserves to be remembered as one of the earliest men of scientific tendencies in the county. A bit of romance attaches itself to him as the en- graver of several of the dies from which the famous Pine Tree shillings were struck off in 1652 and later. Iron pyrites had been mined in Boxford, and gold was at one time found in small quantities near Hood's Pond. The so-called Governor Endicott copper mine in Topsfield, has been worked within the century ; but, probably, at a profit too small to warrant a continu- ance of operations. Serpentine at Saugus, Lynnfield and Newburyport has been quarried in small quan- tities for ornamental purposes and for the manufae- ture of magnesia.

But the most conspicuous effort, however, to turn our mineralogical resources to account was that at Newburyport, when the wave of speculation in lead and silver passed over the once valueless pasturcs of that locality. The result, not unexpected to the miner of more practical experience in other regions, although it may have placed profit in the hands of some of the original land-owners or speculators in land, proved of greater interest to the student for whom specimens were brought to hand without cost, than to those who were unfortunate enough to invest their capital in the enterprise with the hope of large

financial returns. All attempts thus far made in the direction of working our precious metals have re- sulted, as similar attempts in the future are likely to result, in small profit, if not actual loss. But aside from this, there is left, however, as the pride and prize of Essex County's geological and mineralog- ical resources, the solid granite whose mass not only assure us an enduring foundation and probably ex- emption from natural convulsions, but which, un- questionably, is to be looked upon as the mineral pro- duct of the greatest commercial value in the county.

OUR SCIENTIFIC FRONTIER .- From the fact that the geographical boundaries of Essex Co. are largely natural ones, it is possible to study its flora apart from that of surrounding regions, with much more satisfactory results than is usually the case in small areas of territory bounded by arbitrary lines. Indeed, with the exception of Barnstable Connty, Mass., where the ocean marks nearly its entire outline, no county in New England offers better opportunities for such work than our own. For the botanist, the Merrimac Valley to the northwest and the ocean on the northeast and southeast form most natural limits, while toward the south a solid mass of cities separate the county from the region beyond Boston, the flora of which shows many immediate and marked changes in char- acter from that of Essex County. The southwestern boundary is, however, a less natural one, although the line of hills beginning at Chelsea and running through Melrose and Saugus to Wakefield and Read- ing forms a natural division between Essex and Mid- dlesex a portion of the distance. The dividing line between these counties, where Andover and Methuen join Tewksbury and Dracut, is less satisfactory. This is but a short distance, however, and there is no marked difference in the character of the plants on the opposite sides of the line at this point.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 18

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