History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 221

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 221

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The Kilbourne family were residents for many years. The name of Daniel is found in 1730, Jedediah and Samuel in 1735, and David in 1737. Their house or houses must have been on or near Searl Street.

Richard Easty was living here in 1736.

Robert Moors troubled the parish in the spring of 1738. After the death of Samuel Spofford he rented the west-parish half of the farm and cut wood con- trary to the provisions of the lease, and other delin- quencies. Prosecution was threatened.

Before 1740 Amos Pillsbury was here. He is sup- posed to have built the house on the plain near Mr. Humphrey Nelson's. He appears in 1740 as parish clerk and John Pillsbury appears in 1743. These two carried on blacksmithing. The buildings were re- moved, some by Mr. Nathaniel Nelson, to what is now Chestnut Street, aud the shop to Boxford more than sixty years ago by Daniel Davis, the father of Mrs. Francis Marden, who converted it into his dwelling.

In 1742 John Bayley and Mary, his wife, admitted to church. The name of Stephen Bayley recorded in 1746. Supposed to have lived on Bailey lane.

In 1747 Mr. Moses Hale was treasurer of parish and quite prominent for some years. The constant use of the title of Mr., indicates a mau of importance.

Samuel Johnson's name, in 1730, recorded. This family lived on Searl Street, on the Benjamin Merrill place. His son Samuel sold, about 1800, to Dudley Stickney, who again sold to Merrill Johnson, remov- ing to Winthrop, Me.

The first mention of Crombies is in 1742, when Re- becea, the wife of Benjamin, and Peter, a negro serv- ant of Jeremiah Harriman, in Christian equality, owned the covenant (the half-way covenant, so-called) the same day.

On the church records in 1764, the name of David Tenney is recorded as a "Student of ye College, aged fifteen years and almost seven months." Jonathan Searl, also a student, received to church same year.

In 1760, the name of Benjamin Wallingford first seen. He, and a son of the same name, lived on An- dover Street, where John Pickett's house now is. The Wallingford house was demolished abont 1825 by Benjamin S., father of John Pickett. The junior Mr. Wallingford was a lame man, a maker of saddle bags, etc.

About 1760 Captain Benjamin Adams' house on Central Street, now owned by S. K. Herrick, was built. Was the first house in the parish to be painted white, and was considered rather aristocratic. Capt. Adams was a large land-holder, both in this town and Boxford.

Other surnames found are as follows :- Mary Blais- dell was received from the Byfield church in Decem- ber, 1732, and Elijah Blaisdell was admitted to church in 1736. Dr. Fowler and Margaret, his wife, were doubtless of Linebrook, Ipswich. Joseph Dickinson, Caleb Foster and his wife Priscilla, James Foster and his wife Anna, in 1737. Stephen Cross, Thomas Cross and his wife Mary, in 1742, and Abigail Jackson, in 1743, were of families living within Rowley or Ipswich limits of to-day.

lu 1746 Eleazer Burbank, who doubtless built the Burbank house of sixty years ago, which stood where the Samuel Little shoe factory now is, removed into this town from East Bradford, now Grovelaud. The yard in front of the house at a later day extended into the road and enclosed the corner of the street where the pump is now seen.

Moses Tyler built his house about 1700 on land given to Thomas Nelson's children by Gershom Lambert, of Connecticut. This house was taken down about 1792, and Mrs. Edward Poor's house on West Street built on the same site.

The house of Lieutenant Abel Spofford was on Spof- ford Street, and built about 1745. Here was born, in 1792, Paul Spofford, a grandson, afterwards of the firm of Spofford and Tileston, New York city. Mr. Spofford, now deceased, was for more than half a cen- tury a leading merchant, and amassed a large fortune. He supplied the government with vessels for trans- portation of troops during the Rebellion. He bought shoes for many years of the manufacturers in this town. His son, Paul Nelson Spofford, is the owner of the summit and much of Baldpate Hill. This house, removed about 1830, is now the original part of Little's shoe factory. The house on West Street, now owned by James McLain, the birth-place of Dr. Jeremiah Spofford, was built about the commence- ment of this period. The Esquire Moody Spofford honse on the same street, was burned about 1780, and the house now owned by James Grimes was built on the same site. The present or the original house, doubtless the original, has associated with it a veritable witch story, in the noted meal-chest which, without hands and apparently possessed with occult power, travelled about the attic of the house, to the horror of all beholders. The "Esquire" was away from home at the time the excitement began, engaged in meeting-house building, and was hurriedly sent for by the alarmed family. Nothing nnusnal occurring, with some misgivings, perhaps, he started on his jour- ney to complete his unfinished work, and had only reached his brother William's house when a messen- ger came to inform him that this humble but erratic

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chest was again in motion. There was an immediate necessity then for some check to be placed on such Satanic action, and, it is said, that it was only by the prayers of Mr. Chandler that this chest was restored to its normal condition. The story is often ridiculed, but good authority states that the " Esquire," Major Asa Nelson, the great-grandfather of the writer, and another townsman, two of whom were men of unusual weight, placed themselves upon it, and yet, in utter disregard of all known laws of natural philosophy, this chest still continned those gliding, sinuous move- ments along that attic floor. However, quiet finally came, and the cause, if possible, was then to be un- raveled. This, the witnesses and investigators of these uncanny acts, attributed to a young girl living in the family by the name of Hazen who, it was said, had been daring enough to experiment with the black art. To-day, with many, a search for the cause would be in the direction of abnormal, electric or magnetic power. It is claimed that this veritable chest is still in existence, and in the possession of a relative of the original owner. In Mr. Spofford's shop who, besides a carpenter, was a noted bridge-builder, Timothy Palmer, also noted in this same work, aided in construc- ing the model of the first bridge that spanned the Mer- rimac, Piscataqua, Kennebec, Schuylkill and Poto- mac Rivers. The latest mention by tradition of a wild bear in this town was in 1791, when one of the sons of Esquire Spofford is said to have seen one in the forest, not far from his father's house. Wolves, down to a century ago, during some winters were quite numerous. Mrs. Huldah Harriman, who lived on Nelson Street, had known them, as late as 1770, to prowl around her father's barn at night. The swamp easterly of the house was a lair for them, and was then and still is known as "Wolf Swamp." There were several other Spofford dwellings built early in the "Spofford hill" district; some are still occu- pied and in good condition. Col. Daniel Spofford's, now owned by Charles S. Spofford, a great-grandson, is the most ancient. The venerable-looking cottage where the first Spofford families dwelt, near the Colo- nel Spofford house, was taken down about 1866. It is said that Dr. Amos Spofford, the first physician to practice in New Rowley, who was a son of "Colonel Daniel," occupied this place, and once, as was an oc- casional occurrence among farmers, exchanged farms for a time with his brother William, who lived a short distance at the westward. At one time there were ten or twelve houses, occupied by Spofford families, almost in sight of each other. The house of Dr. Moses D. Spofford, a son of Dr. Amos, now owned by J. E. Johnson, was ,owned a century ago by David Thurston, who sold and removed to Maine.

In Bailey lane there may have been two or three houses built at an early day and demolished before the present century. Weird tales anciently clustered around this locality. One of a dismal nature was told of a negro boy, who was seen in company with several

strange men to enter the shadows of the woods near Rock Pond, but was not with them when they again appeared, and from the cries of terror which were heard, it was feared that a foul murder had been com- mitted, and other equally dark and mysterious stories of a later day. A house built on this road by Dr. Amos Spofford, was removed about 1800 by Joseph Nelson to Baldpate Street, and is now owned by Henry K. Kennett.

The Dodge house, where the mother of George Pea- body was born, was northerly of the house above named. The mansion of Silas Dole, for many years the home of Major Paul Dole, the millwright, and his brother, Edmund, the inventive genius, almost a re- cluse, who devised a machine for making shoe pegs, which he kept secluded from mercenary eyes, must have been built, in part at least, prior to 1770. It was taken down with timber still sound by Samuel Little some ten or twelve years ago.

There were doubtless one or more houses built in "Hampshire," or " Federal City," at an early period. About 1800 Stephen Hardy lived there, who removed to Henniker, N. H. This locality has had more than a town fame, rather, has had a sort of immortality confer- red upon it by the genius of our native Burdette, the lamented Solomon Nelson. He had the talent which gives prominence in certain fields of literary labor. His descriptive record of war experience when in the southwest with the Fiftieth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, published in the Advocate as a serial was a rare picture. Wit and pathos, with exact fact, were delightfully commingled. Many of the roads were, in 1770, but partially opened. West Street to the old Salem road had four gates as late as 1797. Nel- son Street as late as 1770 had its cross fences, and also North Street near the Plumer House. The farmer-boys had many a penny given them by travelers for opening the gates.

The Sherman Nelson house, on Elm Street, was early occupied by William Chandler, who doubtless made it in part what it now is from another house, about 1770. The Sylvanus Nelson house now owned by L. P. Tidd, was built before 1747, by Joseph Nel- son, the great-grandfather of the late owner. Other ancient houses are that of James Gordon, on North Street, known as the Wood house, but perhaps originally a Pearson house, and another upon the site on which Eben Poor's small house was built. This was owned early in the century by Paul Stickney, previously by Benjamin Chaplin, and had the reputa- tion in those days of being occasionally haunted. Next was the Peter Clouglin house, now owned by Mr. Virgin. This "Clouglin," from the name, was evi- dently of the Irish race. Near by was a Cheney house, and beyond was a Pearson house, probably Jedediah's, the parish petitioner. This was owned about 1800 by Henry Hilliard, and was accidentally burned in 1806. Still further eastward, on Jewett Street, there were two or three houses in 1800, built

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before 1750, owned by members of the Poor family. The Jonathan Harriman house, on Pillsbury Street, was built by Leonard Harriman, the great-grandfather of Mrs. O. B. Tenney of this town and Jesse P. Har riman, now an octogenarian in his western home. Nathaniel, the aucestor of Charles A. Harriman, set- tled on Poud Street.

In 1713 a road had been granted by Rowley to ac- commodate the "Weelers and Brownes," and "other inhabitants there about," which is thought to have been North Street, from No. 6 school-house (or Ten- ney's as it would be fitting to call it), to some point near Newbury line. Some years before Jonathan Look's house had been the only one named. Some of the earlier built houses ou Warren Street, and in that part of Byfield near the Jackson and Cheney neighborhood, must have been built before 1750. Several have been leveled within twenty years. The Paul Pillsbury house, with the jutting second story, the only building of this architecture in the towu, is unquestionably very ancient. Mr. Pillsbury, nearly related to Parker Pillsbury, until recently the owner 4 · was very ingenious. He made the first shoe pegs ever used in the town.

The Massachusetts Legislature offered, thirty or more years ago, ten thousand dollars to any one producing an infallible remedy for the potato disease. Mr. Pillsbury claimed that he had found it, in the planting of an oyster shell in each hill. For a second wife he married a widow, the mother of the gifted poet and Confederate general of Arkansas, Albert Pike, who visited his old home a few years ago. In 1744, among the surnames in this locality, were Joseph and Josiah Smith. Their home was ou War- ren Street. Some of this family removed to Hopkin- ton, N. H., in 1768. An ancient Chute house, per- haps that of James or Lionel, his son, was situated west of the church. The venerable trees which over- shadowed it have been felled, and desolation reigns. Ariel P. Chute, a teacher and clergyman, was born here about 1805. One other house of this family, on Chute Street, still exists, with marks of age and the wasting tooth of time. James Chute Peabody, a native of this town, is another in this honorable line of descent. The author of a volume of poetry with the title " Keynotes," which is to be found in the Peabody library in this town, and as a translator of Dante, he is said to have produced a work of rare merit. Dr. Parker Cleaveland occupied, as early as 1775, a house on Warren Street which is supposed to have been built long before that time. Parker, a son, was a graduate of Harvard in 1799, and became a professor of mineralogy in Bowdoin College. He was also an author in his favorite science. A brother, John P., was a Congregational minister of prominence. The descendants of Maximillian Jewett of Rowley have been in this neighborhood since abont 1700. A house of considerable age which bears the Jewett name is still standing.

The Pike family, originally of Salisbury, Mass., or Newbury, were in the Rowley part of Byfield, as early as 1750; "they were prominent in military and civil affairs. Nicolas Cheney, Timothy Jaekman, Jona- than Thurlow, Nathan and Moses Wheeler, Abraham Brown, Joseph Searl, Daniel Chute, Thomas Lull, Jr., Jedediah, Jonathan and David Pearsou, and Amos Pillsbury are supposed to have been all Byfield house- holders in 1744, in what is now Georgetown.

On East Street the Piugree house built about a century ago, was the birth-place of the Pingree brothers, David, Asa aud Thomas, who were the heirs of their opulent uncle, Captain Perkins, of Topsfield. David, who lived in Salem, was rated as the only mil- lionaire in the State, and perhaps in New England, forty years ago. He owned immense tracts of wild land in upper New Hampshire, and the Aroostook, Maine, of which some is being surveyed at present. Very costly agricultural improvements were made by Mr. Pingree on the old homestead, forty years ago, but through neglect everything has relapsed to more than its original wildness. Twenty years ago about five hundred acres of forest, belonging to this estate, were cleared of its wood and timber by Lamprey and Eaton, of Haverhill, employing in the work a large force of French Canadians.

Several houses, then standing, were occupied by the workmen. Now all the houses, excepting the farm- house, are gone, almost dropped piecemeal, and it is indeed a solitude. Here were the Hazen clearings, and here were Nathaniel Burpee, the drummer of the Revolution, returned to New Rowley in the dead of winter, from Lunenburg, about 1795, with an ox sled and his family upon it, a cottage was built, and here they found a home.

At the corner of that part of East Street leading past the school-house, which road was opened in 1829 at a cost of three hundred dollars, was a wide, low house, which crumbled to a ruin one-third of a cen- tury ago. This, for many years, was known as a Merrill house, but perhaps built by a Hazen. Here Charles Wheeler lived in boyhood, and went from here South, to the presidency of a college. The house on Nelson Street, owned by Henry C. Perley, was built about 1780 by Nathan Perley, the maternal grandfather of Sherman Nelson. The Dea. Solomon Nelson house was built in 1803. The south roof is still covered with the original shingles laid eighty- four years ago. About 1740 the section of . Main Street from the "Corner" to M. G. Spofford's, began to be traveled. Previously the circuit is supposed to have been made over Pillsburys' plain, and the high- lands at the east of the village. Where the Pentucket house now stands, and some portion of the hotel, may be of this original house, one of the brothers of John Brocklebank, by whom the Brocklebank house on Central Street was then owned, built a house about 1765. Job Brocklebank lived there for some time. and John Pillsbury was living there before 1800, and

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blacksmithing near by. His widow kept a tavern there for many years, which became somewhat noted as a halting-place for travelers.

From about 1780 the "Corner," a point of land largely composed of loose sand, and in its subsoil for- mation the base of the Baldpate district, and bnt slightly elevated above the adjoining meadows, then in many places covered with a dense growth of maple trees, began to show its probable future, as the centre of the village. Several other localities for a time had the start, like Elm Street, near the meeting- house, bnt circumstances unthought of, soon turned the tide in the direction of " Burbank Corner." Some years later, it has been said, that Mr. Bartlett, of Newburyport, while contemplating the founding of the theological seminary looked with especial favor on the extended tract of Spofford's hill as well adapted for the site, but the owner could not be induced to sell. Had Georgetown been selected instead of Andover how different our surroundings might have been from what they now are.

David Tenney was living before 1800 in a cottage on Main St. He was the grandfather of Hon. O. B. Tenney, of this town, and of D. B. Tenney, city clerk of Haver- hill. This house was doubtless built by him. It was removed some fifteen years ago to the court not far from the Clark house, on Main Street.

Others living at the village in 1800 were Daniel Clark and Samnel Norris, tailor. The honse occu- pied by Mr. T. J. Elliott, and removed in 1843 or 1844, to a site near the corner of Library and Cen- tral Streets was then standing at the corner, upon the site of which Mr. Elliott built his present house.

The Dresser honse has for a part of it the building occupied from about 1770 to 1800, by Major Asa Nelson, on Nelson Street, as a grocery, and was situated in front of Deacon Solomon Nelson's house. This, was, perhaps the first grocery store in the west parish. The New Hampshire farmers of those days would make trips in the winter to the sea-board at Salem and elsewhere, with loads of pork, poultry and other farm products, and return with West India goods and other necessaries. Ezekiel, the father of. Daniel Webster, made it his stopping- place with Major Nelson when on those journeys, who would often buy his load of meats and sell him other goods in return. Mr. Webster would freqently speak of his boys, and wonld say, "Ezekiel is smart and I think will be somebody, but of Daniel I am a little doubtful."

An Adams house, owned by "Newtown Ben," was situated at the entrance of what is now Nelson Avenue, and was destroyed by fire under rather mys- terious circumstances about 1800. Other surnames in town at about this time were those of Lincoln, and a few years later that of Lowc. At about this date, and for half a century afterwards, many of the farm- ers owned large tracts of pasturage in New Hamp- shire, and other land in the northern part of Worces-

ter County. Nathaniel and Jonathan Nelson, in partnership with Captain Chaplin, owned a large pasture in Warren, N. H .; Moses Nelson was an exten- sive owner in Danbury, N. H. ; Deacon Asa Nelson, at a later day, owner in Dunbarton, N. H. Annually, in the middle of May, with a large drove of their own and their neighbors' cattle and sheared sheep, parties wonld start as drovers on their journey of seventy-five or one hundred miles. In October the fall trip would be made, and the stock returned, often half-wild, but in good condition. The Mighills were possessors of many acres in Lunenburg, Mass., on which Samuel C., the father of L. P. Tidd, who married Ruth Mig- hill, lived for some years. On returning, he built about 1819 the house on Baldpate Street, now owned by J. A. Hoyt. This land in Lunenburg became in late years very valuable, and sales have been made from it in the aggregate to the amount of forty thonsand dollars. The tide of emigration prior to the Revolu- tion was generally to Northern Middlesex and Wor- cester. The writer has found the names of several West Parish or Georgetown natives, at dates of emi- gration from 1730 to 1750, recorded in the register of deeds office in the city of Worcester. Sterling, with its Nelson Hill, named for a New Rowley Nelson, Leominster and Lnnenburg, in Worcester County, Groton, Townsend and Templeton in Middlesex, and other towns near by, are the localities to trace many of the families of this town. Some at one time, however, removed to Killingly, Conn.

From 1800 to 1810 there was but little change. At about the last-named date, Benjamin and Joseph Little moved into town from West Newbury. They opened a store and shoe factory in a long extension, built eastwardly from the old tavern stand of Dudley Tyler and Solomon Nelson, near the meeting-house, and began, by various devices, one of which was to have the roads opened as soon as possible after a snow-storm, to attract the travel from the old Haver- hill road over Uptake to this central road. They kept an extensive stock of salable goods; were ready to barter, taking in exchange odd lots of coarse shoes by the dozen pairs, which the farmers brought from Newbury and other places, some coming a long dis- tance on foot, with the shoes under their arms, the work of their off-hours, rainy days and evenings; they were ready to encourage young men to start business, and made the parish generally lively.

With good roads, better both in summer and winter than in Boxford, and fewer hills to climb, the travel was soon turned toward the centre of New Rowley. We can hardly realize the serious loss the change must have caused to the tavern-stands of Capt. Batch- elder, now the summer residence of Mr. Ballou, and of Dea. Spofford's, burned some years ago.

Solomon Nelson, the father of Nathaniel Nelson, who was to a marked extent a central figure in the growth and general life of this community, died in 1821, just as the energy of the people was assuming a

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new phase. His second son, Jeremiah, was a member of Congress, and elected as a Federalist, and his father was so unflinching a Republican that he always voted for his son's political opponent.

Everything indicated that the junction of the roads would be the village centre, and a removal was made by the brothers Little from their first locality to this centre, where they built, about 1814, the store build- ing which was used for that purpose about sixty years, and upon the site of which the Odd Fellows' Block was erected in 1871. The house now owned by W. K. Lambert was also built at this time. They carried on a large trade, and continued the manufacture of shoes in a building in the rear.

Three or four years later, Benjamin Winter and William Perley opened a store in a building which was situated near where the new business block now is. This building, which was removed across the street, is thought to be that now occupied by John W. Bailey as a stove store. Mr. Perley went to Virginia, where he died many years ago.

Where now is the Main Street extension of Little's shoe factory, Robert McQuestion kept a store for some years, from about 1820. The whole community was astir. The industries of New Rowley were all sus- tained, rapidly advancing, and general prosperity prevailed. About 1830, several of the houses on Elm Street, near the meeting-house, were built. In 1836, a bank of issue was established, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, with Benjamin Little, President, and George Foot, Cashier. It was styled the Manufacturers' Bank of Rowley. The rapid growth after 1830 gave anticipation of a more rapid increase, and separation from Rowley began to be discussed.

Not very many years after the young and rising business men (who, coming here as strangers, were in- different to the sentiment that made an attachment to the name of Rowley and all connected therewith, a sacred thing), began to demand and even clamor for a separation. The distance between the two parishes disturbed their business interests. Letters intended for New Rowley were addressed to Rowley, and were delayed in the delivery, often resulting in trouble and difficulty. A meeting in 1837 was called to consider the question and arrange for a division. This was the prelude for a succession of meetings, the west parish demanding a division along the parish line, east of the Phillips' house in Dodgeville, and the first parish declaring that if a division must take place it shall be west of Phineas Dodge's honse.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 221

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