History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 199

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 199

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Mixed Grammar and Primary School, one principal and an average attendance of 25; the Moultonville Mixed Grammar and Primary School, one principal and an average attendance of 28; the Bromfield Street Primary School, one principal and.one assistant and an average attendance of 55; the Jackman Boys' Primary School, one principal and one assistant and an average attendance of 56; the Johnson Girls' Pri- mary School, one principal and one assistant and an average attendance of 58; the Temple Street Girls' Primary School, one principal and an average attend- ance of 23; the Davenport Boys' Primary School, one principal and one assistant and an average attendance of 42; the Davenport Girls' Primary School, one prin- cipal and an average attendance of 26; the Kent Street Mixed Primary School, one principal and an average attendance of 29. and the Ashland Street Mixed Primary School, one principal and one assist- ant and an average attendance of 75.

For the support of these schools an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars was made in 1886, but this sum does not represent the cost of their mainten- ance, as the income of several funds is devoted to that purpose, among which are the Putnam and Brown funds, already referred to, for the support of the Putnam Frec School and the Brown High School, both of which are now merged in the Boys' and Girls' High School.

In 1856 the Public Library was founded by a gift of five thousand dollars from Hon. Josiah Little. This fund has been increased from time to time by gilts already described, and finally the library was established on a permanent basis by the gift of the Tracy mansion, to which reference has been made. The number of books in the library at the time of the last report, in 1886, was twenty-three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three. In connection with the library there is a free public reading-room, which is fully performing its part in making that institution an educating and elevating influence in the commu- nity.

The local press of Newburyport consists of the Weekly Herald, published on Fridays, the Daily Her- ald and the Merrimac Valley Visitor. The first newspaper started here was The Essex Journal and Merrimac Packet, or the Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire General Advertiser, by Thomas & Tinges, of which Isaiah Thomas was the senior partner. The first number was dated December 4th in that year. On Friday, June 30, 1775, its name was changed to Essex Journal, or the Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire General Advertiser. On the 4th of August, 1775, it was changed to Essex Journal, or New Hampshire Packet, and November 1, 1776, it was again changed to Essex Journal, or New Hampshire Packet and the Weekly Advertiser. The Impartial Herald, a Federal paper, was started in 1793 and was the parent of the present Newburyport Herald. The first number was issued May 17, 1793, and consisted of four pages of

1803

NEWBURYPORT.

four narrow columns each, and the price was nine shillings per year. It was published on Saturdays, in Market Square, "opposite the southeast corner of Mr. Andrews' meeting-house." The two proprietors were Edward M. Blunt and Howard S. Robinson. Mr. Blunt was the author of the "Coast Pilot," and served his apprenticeship with John Mycall, the successor of Isaiah Thomas in the Essex Journal. Angier March succeeded Mr. Robinson and became a partner of Mr. Blunt in 1794. On the 16th of De- cember in that year the Herald became a semi-week- ly and continued such until Friday, June 6, 1879, when it became again a weekly. On the 6th of November, 1795, the office was removed to Mr. Blunt's bookstore on State Street. On the 24th of September, 1796, Mr. Blunt retired and left Mr. March the sole proprietor. The price, which since Mr. March joined Mr. Blunt had been twelve shill- ings, was now fixed at two dollars and fifty cents per year. On the 31st of October, 1797, William Barrett became associated with Mr. March and the paper called the Political Gazette, which he had started on the 30th of April in that year, was merged in the Impartial Herald, under the name of the Newburyport Herald and Country Gazette. On the 22d of Decem- ber, 1797, the partnership was dissolved and Mr. March returned to his old quarters. On the 29th of November, 1798, he removed again to State Street and there remained until December 31, 1799, when he removed to the north corner of Market Square.

On the 1st of April, 1800, the price was raised to three dollars, and from April 11, 1800, to October 17, 1800, it was published by Chester Stebbins for the proprietor. On the 4th of August, 1801, Mr. March retired, the office having been previously removed to the south side of Market Square. The new proprie- tors were Ephraim W. Allen and Jeremy Stickney, who had been publishing a paper called the American Intelligencer, which was merged in the Herald. Their office was on Middle Street until December 4th, when it was moved to No. 7 State Street. On the 15th of June, 1802, Mr. Stickney retired, selling his interest to John Barnard, who remained until July 8, 1803, leaving Mr. Allen the sole proprietor, as he contin- ued during most of the time until 1834. At the time of the fire his office was on Middle Street, and was burned. Until December 13, 1811, Mr. Allen occu- pied a temporary office on Merrimac Street at Brown's wharf. His next removal was to No. 16 State Street in December, 1811, where the Herald has remained up to the present time.

Mr. Allen, at various times, had as associates Henry R. Stickney, his brother William B. Allen and his two sons, William S. Allen and Jeremiah S. Allen. On the 1st of June, 1832, Mr. Allen started the Daily Herald. In 1834 the whole establishment was sold to Joseph B. Morse and William II. Brew- ster, who conducted it until January 1, 1854, when the Daily Evening Union, which had for five years

been a competitor of the Herald, was united with it, and its proprietor, William HI. Huse, became part proprietor of the Herald. In 1856 Messrs. Morse and Brewster retired, and William H. Huse & Co. became the sole proprietors. Since 1856 Mr. Huse has had associated with him George J. L. Colby, from 1856 to 1862; J. Q. A. Stone, from 1856 to 1859; George Wood, from 1859 to 1866; John Coombs, from 1862 to 1871, and Arthur L. Huse and Caleb B. Huse from 1859 to the present time, and Arthur L. Huse from 1871 to the present time. In 1880 a Daily Ere- ning Herald was started, and the establishment now issues a Weekly Herald on Fridays, at $1.50 per year ; a Daily Herald at $6.00 per year, and an Evening Herald at one cent for each paper. The Daily Herald was the first daily paper in Massachusetts outside of Boston, and has always maintained a reputation for enterprise and for intelligent management.

The Merrimac Valley Visitor was established in 1872 and is published every Saturday by Colby & Coombs, with George J. L. Colby as editor. During the life of the Herald many papers have appeared and disappeared, but the Visitor, under its able management, long since found a firm footing and has established itself as a permanent enterprise.

Of the organizations not yet mentioned, now in ex- istence, there is the Cushing Guard (Company A of the Eighth Regiment). This company was originally organized October 24, 1775, as the Newburyport Artillery Company. In 1844 its name was changed to the Washington Light Guard, and in 1852, in honor of Hon. Caleb Cushing, it was changed to the Cushing Guard. Its service in the war has been al- ready referred to.

There is also Company Bof the Eighth Regimeut, called the " City Cadets," which did service also dur- ing the war.

In addition to the above is the "Newburyport Veteran Artillery Association," composed of men above thirty-five years of age. It was organized August 1, 1854, by ex-members of the Newburyport Artillery Company.

It will be proper to mention also among the organ- izations, Post 49 of the Grand Army of the Republic, named in honor of Capt. Albert W. Bartlett, who commanded the Cushing Guard in the War of the Rebellion, and also the Newburyport Commandery of Knights Templar, instituted in 1795 and chartered in 1808; the King Cyrus Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, instituted A.L. 5790 ; the St. Mark's Lodge, instituted A.L. 5803; and the St. John's Lodge, insti- tuted A. L. 5766.

Odd Fellowship was inaugurated in Newburyport, March 7, 1844, and now has the Merrimac Encamp- ment, No. 7, the Quaseacunquen Lodge, No. 39, and the Canton Harmony, No. 47, Patriarch Militant. There are also among the organizations and institu- tions the Merrimac Humane Society, incorporated in 1804; the Howard Benevolent Society, instituted in

1804

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

1818 ; the General Charitable Society, organized in 1850; the Royal Arcanum Council, No. 112; the United Order of the Golden Cross ; the Newbury- port Lodge, No. 512, Knights of Honor; the Knights and Ladies of Honor, Harbor Lodge, No. 260; the American Legion of Honor; the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Merrimac Lodge, No. 31; the United Order of Pilgrim Fathers, George Whitefield Colony, No. 68; the Improved Order of Red Men ; Monomack Tribe, No. 22; the Mountain IIill Lodge, No. 45 (a temperance organization ) ; the Woman's Temperance Union ; the Union Division Sons of Temperance ; the Young Men's Christian Association ; the Newburyport Mutual Benefit Association; the Newburyport Bethel Society ; the Old Ladies' Ilome; the Garfield Associates; the Anne Jacques Hospital ; the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ; the Freedman Aid Society ; the Merrimac Bible So- ciety ; the Women's Christian Association ; the New- buryport Female Charitable Society ; and the Father Lennon Benevolent Association.

No sketch of Newburyport could make any claim to completeness without a reference to the literary character of its people and to the writers in poetry and prose which it has developed. Few towns have manifested a love of home so strongly as that which characterizes the natives of that city, and the col- nmns of its press show that they never tire of recall- ing memories of the past and of the men who distin- guished it. The offspring of this love is always and everywhere discovered in a sentiment which finds its most fitting expression in verse, and in the city on the shores of the Merrimac, with a surrounding scenery which lends its inspiring aid, we find no exception to the rule. Though the list of writers and poets is long, it is worthy of a place in this record. Caleb Cushing and George Lunt and John Pierpont have been already referred to; but to these must be added the names of Susie W. Moulton, Ilannah F. Gould, William W. Caldwell, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Al- bert Pike, Robert S. Coffin, Samuel L. Knapp, George D. Wildes, Foster Sweetser, George Bancroft Grif- fith, Henry C. Knight, Frederick Knight, Anne G. Ilale, Ann E. Porter, Lucy Hooper, Anna Cabot Lowell, Mrs. George Lee, Daniel Dana, Thomas Tracy, O. B. Merrill, S. J. Spaulding, Mrs. E. Vale Smith and James Parton, a son of Newburyport by adoption.

The population of Newburyport by the census of 1885 was 13,716, and its valuation in 1886 was $8,523,113. The expenditures for 1886 were $167,- 666.26, and the debt of the city on the 18th of De- cember of that year was $384,243.46. The city prop- erty, at the same date, amounted to $331,100, made up of the following items: real estate, $94,400; school-houses, $97,500; engine-houses, $12,600; per- sonal property, $126,600.

With these few statistics, this history of Newbury- port must be brought to a close. Its many imperfec-

tions must he attributed to the fact that its author was not to the manor born, and has consequently encountered obstacles which it was by no means easy for a stranger to overcome.

NOTE .- The writer wishes to acknowledge the aid he has received in the preparation of this history from Hon. John James Currier, both per- sonally and as executor of the will of the late Ben : Perley Poore ; from William II. Huse, Esq., editor of the Newburyport Herald, and from the files of that journal ; from Hon. Eben F. Stone and Hon. R. S. Spofford, of Newburyport, and from George H. Stevens, Esq., the city clerk of Newburyport. W. T. D.

Plymouth, November 8, 1887.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

HON. WILLIAM BARTLET.1

Mr. Bartlet spelled his name with one t. He said there was no use in making two letters where one would do as well ; but as there have been several ways of spelling it, that is of little consequence. He was a great man and a good man, one of the greatest and best that Newburyport, so rich in distinguished citi - zens, ever produced. He was great physically ; great mentally ; great morally ; great in his conceptions and his power of executing his designs, having courage where ordinary men would have failed ; great in his influence and in his manner of perpetuating that in- fluence to succeeding generations, aye, adown the ages. All this will appear in any sketch of his life that does justice to the man. He was of gigantic form, endurance and strength. Tall, over-topping the average man by half a foot; full-chested, broad shouldered, firm-set, sinewy, weighing-as we call him to mind-about two hundred and fifty pounds. He moved lion-like among the crowd, not arrogant or proud, but seemingly as conscious of his ability as Napoleon was in riding into battle.

Thus William Bartlet could be and do, since he was born an athlete. Knowing him only in his old age, it seems to us as though he never was an infant, never had scen an hour of weakness. He was descended from the old Norman knights of the era of the Crusades; from the men who followed William the Conqueror into England, to give to that island, to be the cradle of the modern Romans, new life and new laws, new government and a new destiny ; creating for them that high place in history they have so nobly filled; moving them on to the empire so vast that the sun never sets upon it, whose morning and evening drum-beat is heard around the globe ; which empire may yet, for aught that now appears, hold universal dominion. The grand army that con- quered the world under Alexander the Great marched eastward, and have died ; the Anglo-Nor- mans marched west to greater victories, for they found other worlds to conquer.

The name Bartlet was originally Bartelot ; and the

1 By Goorge J. L. Colby.

1805

NEWBURYPORT.

first of the family in England, like the first man in the creation of the world, was named Adam; and as the human race dates not back of Adam, it is not well to go deeper into the mists of antiquity, for this fan- ily, than to Adam Bartelot or Bartlet. He, with sixty thousand other followers of the Conqueror, the Norman knights and their vassals, had the promise of the spoils of victory ; and from 1066, when the battle of Hastings was fought, the barons of England love to date their honors and names. In the pavement of the old stone church, on the ancestral estate of seven thousand acres, in Sussex County, in England, the Bartlets can trace their genealogy-the foot-prints of a noble family. It is one of the finest estates in Great Britain ; has been in their hands more than eight hundred years, and can never be sold or pass from them. Their coat-of-arms witnesses to the heroic deeds of men whose portraits hang in the halls of that ancient castle ; whose Christian names are the inher- ited appellations in our own country and age, as William, Edmund, Richard, John and Thomas-the names they brought over the seas and have trans- mitted.

The first Bartlet immigrants in America were three, -the sons of Edmund, whose landed estate was in Ernley, which, by the law of primogeniture, passed to their brother Edmund, and left them-Richard, John and Thomas-to inferiority or to make to themselves new homes elsewhere. They came to America in 1634. Thomas settled in Watertown and left no sons. John and Richard came to Newbury in 1635, with the first settlers; and two years later they had left the banks of the Parker and settled at " Bartlet Cove," in a beautiful bend of the Merrimac, nearly opposite the Powow, as it empties into the Merrimac. There they built themselves houses, and there their descend- ants have lived to this day. John had but one son, and Richard had three, with several daughters. It is with the latter and those of his lineage that we have to do.

Richard Bartlet, the shoemaker, was a man of sterling character and marked piety; and his son, Richard, Jr., was one of the leading men of the town; for several years Representative in the General Conrt.

A third Richard, son of Richard, Jr., born in 1649, married Hannah Emery; and as the Emerys have always been thrifty, she may have added to his real estate. Certainly she did to his personal estate, for she bore him ten children,-eight sons and two daughters, the latter beginning and ending the brood. Her last son was Thomas, and a grandson of that Thomas was the Hon. William Bartlet, whose por- trait we here give. He was born in 1748, and died in his ninety-fourth year; but his "eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated."

Already the Bartlets had become numerous and some of them distinguished. They had learning, energy, piety and patriotism. One of them, Samuel,

on the first intimation of the outbreak against Gov- ernor Andros, mounted his horse, started for Boston, and was there in time to participate in the arrest and imprisonment of the obnoxious chief magistrate. It is a tradition that he rode so fast that his long sword, dragging over the ground, left a stream of fire all the way.

Another was the celebrated Josiah Bartlet, from Stephen, the seventh son of Richard and Hannah Emery, a man of varied attainments. He stood in the first rank of his profession as a physician and was the founder of the Medical Society in New Hampshire, where he lived; was a member of the Legislature and of Congress; was the last President and the first Governor of the State ; was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a colonel in the Revolutionary army, serving with General John Starke; was a judge in the Inferior and Supreme Courts aud chief justice of the State.

But had the family made no record before, General William F. Bartlet, by his daring in the late inter- State war, would have redeemed them all. A student in Harvard when the bugle sounded, summoning the citizens to defend the Union and its flag, he at once enlisted and became a captain in the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment. Before Yorktown, Va., a rifle-shot required the amputation of one leg. Six months later he was again in the field, colonel of the Fifty-ninth Regiment, and at Port Hudson, leading the assault, the only man on horseback, and there- fore in the most hazardous position, he was again disabled by a shot in the wrist. A truce being declared to bury the dead, the first inquiry of the Confederate officer was, "Who was that man on horseback ?" Being told, he said, " He is a gallant fellow; a brave man; the bravest and most daring we have met during the war. We thought him too brave to die, and ordered our men not to fire at him !" Recovering from his wound, he was again in the field, colonel of the Fifty-second Regiment; was promoted to a brigadier-general ; captured in assault- ing the enemy's works at Petersburg; shut up in Libby Prison three months, and at the close of the war found him in command of the Ninth Corps, in Virginia. IIe was a soldier, a scholar and an orator ; magnetic in word and action.

Having glanced at the heroism of the Bartlets in war, we turn to their acts in peace, and these well prove that "peace hath its victories as well as war." We have stated their leading traits of character, thrift, enterprise, intelligence, piety and personal daring. They have been the accumulators of property It is their inherited tendency, though, like all trans- mitted faculties, it may not appear in every individual. Their intelligence comes from the high culture of the family for a thousand years, and beyond that to where the record reaches not. In America more than a hundred of them graduated from our colleges, and seven lineal descendants from Richard Bartlet have been judges

1806

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

in the courts of New Hampshire alone ; and it has been so in all the learned professions. They have always been religiously inclined, and not one of them more than William Bartlet, whose convictions were strong, and who freely gave thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars for religions purposes. This, too, has come down in the blood, the names of four of them in England, who suffered martyrdom for their faith, being given in Fox's " Book of Martyrs." For personal daring they have done no discredit at any time to him whose name is in the Battle Abbey roll, or those who won the honors indicated by their "coat- of-arms."

And now we come more particularly to William, the merchant, born in the eighteenth century, and living to the full age of ninety-three years. He was of con- paratively poor parents, and of little education ; but nature had done much for him, giving him what art cannot create-a level head, quick perception, sound judgment, and, what was more and better, a good heart, backed by a predominant will, which secured to him honesty and honor in his dealings.

We find him first with his father, learning the art of making shoes. He served his seven years' appren- ticeship, and then, at the demand of his father, six months more to make up any lost time. That was what apprentices then did under striet and "hard " masters. Perhaps it was here that he learned how to treat his own children, in whom he would not permit the least disobedience of orders, and absolutely re- moved his son William from the command of one of his ships because he went beyond orders, though he thereby made a prosperous voyage. The making or losing was not a question with him, but strict construc- tion of orders and energy in the performance of duty. When he reached manhood "he stuck to his last," his lapstone and his awl, and long years after, when he had done with them, he preserved them as memorials of young and happy days. There was then no discus- sion of the hours of labor, and the holidays were few and far between.

So great was his industry, in his humble occupation, that the first sunbeams found him on his "seat," the noonday saw him running to and from his dinner, for he could not stop to walk, and the night hours were struck high by the clock before he went to rest. person of less physical power and a lower ambition might have broken down and died, but he was ever fresh for another day. By his savings at " cobbling " he soon had a little money to invest in small matters, within arm's reach, for trade.

This was the beginning of the man, afterwards the greatest merchant Newburyport ever had, surpassed by none of his time in Massachusetts, unless William Grey, of Salem, and later of Boston, might have been the single exception. Ile gave away and lost at sea more property than any estate probated in the county of Essex to that date, and still was a millionaire, when there were not so many millionaires in the

whole country as can now be found in San Francisco alone, upon which an American eye had then never rested. So busy was this man, so indefatigable in his labors, that in a hundred years, save seven, he never, but once, was seventy miles from the house in which he was born. He had no time to travel, when his ships were in every quarter of the globe ; their car- goes were piled in the stores of the leading seaports of Europe, America, the East and West Indies ; and his name so familiar in Amsterdam or London that his credit would have been good with the English and Dutch bankers for a half-million.

But we are running ahead of our story. As soon as he was able, he tried an "adventure" at sea. An " adventure " was a small parcel of goods that a sea- man or officer on a ship might carry free. That brought him profit, and he took the return home on a wheel-barrow. There was no "quarter " for a dray- man when he could do the work himself. Next he purchased a part of a vessel, and then a whole one, and finally fleets of shipping that were bringing iron and hemp from Russia, carrying tallow from the Baltic to the Thames, coffee by the million pounds and sugar by the cargo from the East Indies to Ant- werp, when that was a great centre of trade ; salt from Cadiz to America, and molasses, coffee and other mer- chandise from the West Indies, South America and other parts of the world to his stores, which were first on the Long wharf, which he made longer by building further into the channel, now called Bartlet Wharf, at the foot of Federal Street, and then others below were added, covering the whole river-front, till he in - cluded the Coombs Wharf, below Lime Street. At one time he had three full ship-loads of coffee in Ilolland and two more in Boston, and two of tallow in London. ITis stores were full of hemp and iron, and other evi- dences of his great wealth and business. The gov- ernment decreed non-intercourse, embargoes and war, but they did not eheck his enterprise, exhaust his funds or shake his credit. Something may be learned of the man and the extent of his business by the dep- redations made upon his shipping by European bellig- erents in the last century and early in this, for which he had claims, some of which were paid, and some are held by his heirs to-day. His claims on France, prior to 1800, were $180,000; on Denmark, before 1812, $173,000; on England, before the War of 1812-15, $198,000. Here is a total against three governments for losses of ships and cargoes valued at $551,000. Other claims he had against Naples, Spain and Nor- way, which, without counting interest, would swell the whole to $650,000; but the exact sums against the three last-named countries we cannot give. More or less, they did not daunt him or impede his action.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 199

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672