History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 247

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 247

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In 1828 the first steamboat on the river-the "Merrimack "-began running between Haverhill and Newburyport. But after several years the en- terprise was abandoned as unsuccessful. In fact, steamboating on the Merrimac has never been a pros- perous business for a great length of time. The building of a railroad between Haverhill and New- buryport ruined it. But it is being again taken hold of by keen business men, and it may be inferred that the amount of pleasure travel on the beautiful stream has and will be sufficient to warrant proper boats being run in a decent and comfortable manner.

The Merrimack Bank was incorporated in 1814, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. The Haverhill Institution for Savings was organized in 1829.

Haverhill has had its full share of charitable, edu- cational and literary institutions. The women of the town have been especially active and successful, these many years, in organizing, conducting and support- ing, worthy enterprises of all kinds. In connection with such affairs, the names of Mrs. James H. Duncan, Mrs. Rufus Longley and Mrs. Isaac R. How, were long prominent. Thus, in 1829, they were managers of the Infant School Society, for the instruction of very young children. The work was successful.

The Haverhill Lyceum was formed February 25, 1830, with James H. Duncan, Esq., president; James Gale, Esq., recording secretary ; and Isaac R. Hlow, Esq., corresponding secretary. This was succeeded by the Haverhill Atheneum, in 1852, and that by the Haverhill Library Association.

In 1834 agitation commenced abont continuing the railroad from Andover to Haverhill. The first meet- ing was held January 5th, at the Eagle House, James 11. Duncan, chairman ; Alfred Kittre lge, secretary. October 26, 1837, the road was open to the Merrimac, at Bradford.

The first anti-slavery society was organized April 3, 1834. Hon. Gilman Parker was president; A. W. Thayer, recording secretary ; John G. Whittier, cor-

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responding secretary. A female anti-slavery society was formed soon after, and before long similar societies were formed in other portions of the town.

The Essex County Anti-Slavery Society was formed June 10, 1834,-Rev. G. B. Perry, president, and John G. Whittier, corresponding secretary. The American Anti-Slavery Society was organized in May, 1833.

These movements did not pass unnoticed and un- opposed. One Sabbath evening, August, 1835, an anti-slavery meeting, which was to have been ad- dressed by Rev. Samuel J. May at the Christian Union Chapel, was broken up by a mob.

After 1836 the first parish bell ceased to be regu- larly rung at noon and nine o'clock in the evening. To some of the old people, the tongue of time seemed to have stopped.

The Haverhill Female Benevolent Society was in- corporated as early as January 13, 1818. It has done, and still is doing, a noble work.

The " Fragment " Society was organized 1825.

In 1816 one wrote : "Haverhill is not so handsome a town as its local situation deserves. But the chief care of its first settlers was to shelter themselves from the severity of the climate and to defend themselves against their savage enemy, and it is not strange that they did not consult the beauty of their settle- ments. The river or Water Street, is too near the bank. The number of ordinary buildings on the lower side of the street interrupts the view from the houses, and injures the appearance of the town from the opposite shore. A road parallel to the river might be laid out on the brow of the hill, which would open a range of beautiful house-lots overlooking the street below and commanding a most extensive prospect. This has long been wanted, for building lots are scarce."

Such a road or street was opened soon after, when Summer Street was begun from Main. In November, 1836, it was extended from Kent to Mill Street, and Webster Street was laid out.

When, in 1837, the town appropriated one thousand dollars to obtain a quit-claim of the interest of the First Parish in the common, an additional sum was made up by subscription. The parish sold the land " for the use of the town, as an ornamental common." But the ladies of the place had much to do with its final inclosure and improvement. Unworthy as it is of an enterprising town, it is much better than nothing.

In the same year there was a great agitation about the disposition to be made of the surplus revenue to which the town was entitled. It was about twelve thousand dollars. Three thousand dollars was ap- plied to the payment of the town's dents; one thou- sand dollars was loaned to the First School District ; and the balance being invested in stocks of the Mer- rimac and Haverhill Banks, the interest was annual- ly apportioned to the districts for the support of com- mon schools.

In 1838 many new streets were laid out and named. Mr. Moses E. Emerson began doing an express business to Boston every day, and in a small way, in the autumn of the same year.

Rev. William Miller produced a deep excitement in this town and its vicinity in 1839 and '40, by his lectures, predieting the destruction of the world by fire in 1843.

In 1855 a large school building was built on School Street. Judge Isaac Ames, afterwards judge of Pro- bate for Suffolk County, taught in a former building on this spot, and later Dr. John Crowell was happily and successfully associated with the school for a num- ber of years.

In 1841 the town accepted the act of the General Court establishing a Fire Department.

January 24, 1842, John Quincy Adams presented in the National House of Representatives the peti- tion of Benjamin Emerson (2d) and others, of Hav- erhill, for the peaceful dissolution of the Union. The object of the movers in the affair is stated to have been a desire to expose the hollow character of Southern threats of disunion. The petitioners ob- tained abundant notoriety and the ultimate effect was excellent, as establishing the right of petition.

In 1846 Linwood Cemetery was bought and laid out by a company. This led to efforts by ladies, prominent among whom were Mrs. Dr. Longley and Mrs. Jeremiah Stickney, by which more than one thousand dollars was raised to beautify and improve the old burial-ground. The money was admirably expended, and perhaps the suggestion may be par- doned that there is ample room for another genera- tion to do likewise.

The fraternity of Shenstones, of which Isaac Ames was president and Thomas M. llayes secretary and treasurer, was organized in October, 1847.

The name of Rev. Arthur S. Train, a beloved min- ister of the Baptist Society, is often mentioned as active in this work.

In 1854, on motion of Hon. James H. Duncan, the town adopted a preamble and resolutions, protesting against the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

In 1858 the streets had been lighted for the first time by gas. Merrimac Street was paved from Main to Washington Square in 1858. Soon after the pav- ing of Water Street began.

In 1859 the old Fish House lot at the Great Pond was beautified and the sheet of water re-named in accordance with the suggestion of John G. Whittier, who had been asked to select a new name, which he did in his well-known and charming poem of " Kenoza."

It has already been mentioned that David How was at the battle of Bunker Hill, not yet quite seven- teen years old. He was born at Methuen in 1758. The gun which it is understood he carried at Bunk- er Hill, is in the possession of a relative in Haver- hill. David How was always a strenuous advocate

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of the merits of Colonel Prescott as the real leader in the battle.

December 27, 1775, David enlisted in the Conti- mental army for one year. He was at Harlem Heights and at Trenton, where he took from a Hes- sian soldier his gun and knapsack ; the spoils of war are still in the possession of his descendants.

After the war young How, who had married, went to New London, N. H., where he bought and partly cleared a piece of land, intending to be a farmer; but as his wife was dissatisfied, he gave it up and came to Haverhill. He had learned something about curry- ing with his grandfather Farnham at Andover, and in the basement of a small shop on Water Street he began that business, in a very humble fashion. But he was polite, honest and industrious, and he is said to have been ready, from the days of his soldiering, to trade in anything. He was sure to succeed and he did succeed. Gradually he began to deal in other things besides leather, and eventually he was the largest trader in the town.

From Water he removed to Merrimac Street. Then he built stores for himself on Main Street. Finally he went back to Merrimac, where he super- intended building the Bannister Block, in which he owned two stores himself.

He kept leather and exchanged it for shoes. Then he manufactured shoes himself. In the War of 1812 he sent his own team to Philadelphia with a quantity, making a handsome profit. Perhaps as much as anybody, he is entitled to be called the father of the shoe business. During the second war with Great Britain, it is said, he was offered one hundred thou- sand dollars for the goods in his store and refused it.

When he got rich, Mr. How bought lands and farmed them himself. He was too busy to oversee his laborers and his great farming operations were carried on at a loss. Then he took other people's money to invest and did not invest it profitably. People had unlimited confidence in him and said he was good " as the bank." When they had money they took it to David How to keep for them He allowed interest on money which brought no increment to him. He gave twenty-five thousand dollars, it is said, for a great river farm in Bradford.

Thiscondnet of farming operations was useful toothers if not to himself. Heloved to see the grass grow. Heused plaster abundantly and was proud of his green fields, and of the great fatted oxen he sent to market. There are many old orchards' of his planting. In old age he has still loved to ride out in his antique chaise to his farm in the West Parish.

Along with his pride in his farms, was his pride in his stores. " You can get anything at David Ilow's," was the proverb of the country side. "You cannot buy a hog-yoke there !" was the retort of one to an- other. " I'll bet yer on't," was the ready response and they adjourned to try their fortune. "Bring down them hog-yokes from the attic," was the prompt

response to the unwilling buyer, and several different patterns were submitted to his inspection.

The beginning of the end came at last. David How had been rich, as people supposed. He had made his money legitimately ; but when he received all the money brought to him and invested it in un- productive property, rather in expensive farming operations, whilst he was expected to pay interest ou the principal, the result was certain whenever people should press for their money. Probably there was some sudden call, an estate to he settled, a sum to be made up in haste. When there was delay, a cry went up the country-side that David How had fail- ed. Then there was a panic, attachments and execu- tions.

It is said that there were a hundred suits, with heavy attendant costs. And so the fruits of a long and successful period of prosperity were wasted. But no one lost confidence in the old man himself. People never forgot that he had been liberal, charitable, the friend of the poor in the best sense, by employing them.

Mr. How was the first president of the Merrimack Bank, a large stockholder in the Haverhill Bridge and was generally interested in business enterprises. He never advertised. Probably his reputation was worth more to him than his neighbors' advertise- ments to them. A moderate Federalist, he repre- sented the town for years in the Legislature. Appar- ently he was elected when nobody else could get through. Ile was illiterate, for want of early educa- tional opportunities, but respected for his shrewdness and good qualities. He lived to a great age-almost till the famous monument upon the battle-ground was finished, where he fought-dying in 1842, at eighty-four years.

David How sent one son to college ( Isaac Redding- ton How), who graduated at Harvard in 1870, and was a good classical scholar. He studied law with Hon. George Bliss, of Springfield, and Hon. William Prescott, of Boston. He practiced in Haverhill, and was regarded as a well-read lawyer. He was for some years partner with his brother-in-law, John Var- num. But son was never so unlike father. He was unpractical, was at first indifferent to his profession, then took a positive dislike to it, and would have nothing more to do with its engagements. His tastes led him to literature and speculative thought. Ile was a socialist before there was any socialism. His sympathies were with all reforms, but he was not suffi- ciently aggressive to be dangerous. His aspirations were ardent for the progress and happiness of all men. He wrote much, had a good deal of miscellaneous in- formation, was highly upright, and, with a more posi- tive character, would have been an eminent citizen. flis two sons-Nathaniel S. Howe, known as Judge Howe, and Francis S. Howe (Harvard, 1852)-both lawyers, are freshly remembered in Haverhill.

Bailey Bartlett was a conspicuous man in Ilaver-

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hill for many years. He was descended from the | murs. In 1781-84 he represented the town in the Bartletts of Newbury. His maternal ancestor was State House of Representatives, and declining a re- election, he received the townsmen's thanks for faith- ful service. In 1789 he was in the State Senate. He was a member of the convention that ratified the Constitution of the United States and of the famous Constitutional Convention of 1820. July 1, 1789, Governor John Hancock presented him the commis- sion of sheriff of Essex County in a very complimen- tary manner, and he retained that office for the re- mainer of his life, except for a little more than six months, from December, 1811, to June, 1812, when he was superseded by Governor Gerry, who was him- self removed as soon as the people got a chance at him. Even during this interval, the people of Essex County elected Mr. Bartlett treasurer of the county. During his shrievalty of forty years he always eu- joyed the reputation of being a faithful, efficient, considerate, charitable and humane officer. He was liberal in hospitality. A warm partisan, he was also a warm friend, capable of magnanimous acts to politi- ical opponents. In 1797 he suceeded Judge Brad- bury, of Newburyport, as Representative in Congress of Essex North -serving in the last Congress hohlen at Philadelphia and the first in Washington. He witnessed the contest between Jefferson and Burr for the Presidency. Isaac Parker, after justice and chief justice of the Supreme Court, was a fellow-member and room-mate of Baily Bartlett. Sheriff Bartlett, at the age of eighty, was in attendance upon the Supreme Court at Salem in 1830, in the famous White murder trials of that year. Excessive fatigue was thought to have hastened the death of both the chief justice and his faithful executive officer. Nineteen days after the death-sentence of Knapp, the sheriff was no more. that John Johnson who came to Haverhill to be its blacksmith, and was killed in his old age by the In- dians, on the famous Sunday morning in August. John Johnson, oldest child of William Johnson, was born in England in 1633, and came in his mother's arms to Charlestown, Mass .. in the following year. He was twenty-six years old when he removed to Haverhill. August 29, 1708, he was in his seventy- sixth year. His third wife was seventy years old, and Ruth Johnson, wife of Thomas Johnson, son of John Johnson, Jr., was with the aged conple, having in her arnis her baby, Lydia, one year and six months old. Her husband was absent, and so escaped. Lieutenant Johnson and his wife were shot down at once in the doorway, or just outside of it. Ruth Johnson fled through the house, pursued by an Indian, and in the garden the savage cleft her head with his hatchet. The child escaped observation, apparently. Perhaps it was concealed in the folds of its mother's dress. When search was made after the fight was over it was discovered unharmed, and at the dead mother's breast. Growing up, Lydia married Jeremiah Gile, of Haver- hill. She died in Enfield, N. H., at the age of seventy- four years, leaving descendants. Ruth Johnson, the mother, was the child of Daniel Bradley, who, with his wife and two children was killed in the Hannah Duston raid, in 1697, when she herself was carried away a captive, being about nine years old. A de- scendant of John Johnson writes in the " Genealogi- cal Register :" " In the Haverhill old cemetery, called Pentucket, the writer, some forty years ago, after long search, found and kneeled at Ruth's humble grave. The gray, moss-covered head-stone bore the following simple but touching inscription : 'Ruth ye wife of Thomas Johnson, died Ang. ye 29, 1708, and in ye 21 year of her age. Once wt ye Indians in captivity, after 'twas her lot in their hands to dy.'"

John Johnson's granddaughter, Elizabeth, married Dr. Joshua Bailey, whose daughter, Anna, the wife of Enoch Bartlett, gave her family name to her only child. Bailey Bartlett was born in Haverhill about 1750. His father kept an English goods store and so did the son till 1789. Hle received only the ordinary common-school education of the times, which was poor enough ; but he was very fond of reading, and must have improved his leisure with no common zeal. He must also have been a man of good manner and possessed of tact, for we always hear of him in good company. He loved agriculture and mechanics, and was an early member of the State and County Agri- cultural Societies.

We hear of him as an early and devoted friend of John Adams, a fellow-boarder with him and with Sam. Adams, when the Declaration was adopted. He heard it proclaimed in Independence Yard, July 1.1, 1776, and long afterwards used to relate that it was received by the crowd, not with cheers, but mur-

It should be added that he was a Federal candidate for elector in 1824, and served in that capacity in 1828. He had fifteen children, of whom eleven sur- vived him and one is living still in Haverhill, who several years since noted the centennial of her father's marriage to Peggy White. One danghter married Consul " Jarvis," of Wethersfield, Vt., noted many years ago as the importer of merino sheep ; another married Dr. Rufus Longley, the eminent physician of Haverhill for many years; two dangh- ters were the first and second wives of Hon. Joseph E. Sprague, of Salem, well-known as a politician and writer; Gen. William F. Bartlett, the gallant soldier of the Rebellion, was his grandson.

Bailey Bartlett's life was spent conspicuously be- fore the public, and it would be indeed astonishing if he had entirely "'scaped calumny." But all men seem in conspiracy to speak well of him, and cer- tainly his activity in town affairs entitles him to generous treatment in any historical sketch of Haver- hill.

Dr. Rufus Longley, just men tioned, entered but not graduate at Harvard College, receiving his medical degree at Dartmouth. He began to prac-

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tice medicine in Haverhill in 1812 and was very successful. He was forty-three years a doctor and it is rather remarkable that his very first patient in the town was also his last one. Probably it is not invid- ious to say that he was more distinguished as a phy- sician than any other who has practiced in the town. His professional engagements did not permit him to be a candidate for political office, but he was neverthe- less Federal elector in 1840. He was an active and zealous Federalist and Whig. He held some busi- ness positions, as president of the Savings Institution, and he was president of the Merrimac Bank at the time of his death. He was Master of the Werrimac Lodge of Free Masons from 1817 to 1826; and from 1852 to his death, in 1854. Dr. Langley was much re- spected by his juniors in the profession.

JIon. Israel Bartlett was a cousin of Sheriff Bart- lett. He was a goldsmith by trade. He was a mem- ber of the Artillery Company, saw some service in the Revolution, was in early life active in military mat- ters and always prompt and faithful in town, office and business. In 1810, and from 1816 to 1821, he served the State in the Senate. He was a worthy man, if not a strong one; for many years a member of the First Church, and taken away at last at the great age of ninety.

General Brickett was regarded as an excellent phy- sician, and his son, Dr. Daniel Brickett, was a highly respectable one. Almost all these men lived on Water Street in their day, still the important one of the town.

IIon. James H. Duncan was son of James Duncan, the merchant, but through his mother a descendant of William White, the pioneer of Haverhill. He was born, and always lived in Haverhill, and for a long period was probably estimated abroad and at home as its first citizen. An extended notice of him will be found in another part of this book. He was always a person of some distinction, entering life un- der favorable auspices; and when he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, no less a person than Daniel Webster stood sponsor for him. He was Representative three years in the General Court, State Senator three and member of Congress from 1848 to 1852. In manners, Mr. Duncan was very courteous. He was always highly esteemed by his fellow-townsmen, and exer- cised, it is said, an almost unequaled influence as a debater in the often turbulent town-meetings.

The Marshes have been a numerous and highly re- spectable family, individuals of which deserve par- ticular mention. Some notice has been taken of them in another place. In the public library are several sermons occasioned by the death of Rev. John Marsh, pastor of the First Church in Wethers- field, Ct., who was born in Haverhill, and died in 1829, in the seventy-ninth year of his age and forty- eighth of his ministry.

Moses Atwood was, at the close of the last century,

a large and much respected merchant, who lived in a house just west of the Unitarian meeting-house. Hlix daughter, Harriet, was born there October 10, 1793. When a little more than eighteen years of age she married, here, Rev. Samuel Newell, one of the first missionaries sent out to India by the American Board. As Harriet Newell, she has been an object of interest all over the world to many thousands who never heard the name of ber birthplace. Dying in the Isle of France, when little more than a girl, her monument proclaims truly, " her name lives and in all Christian lands is pleading with irresistible eloquence for the heathen." Seventy-five years after the death of Harriet Newell, her memory was strangely revived to the public by the death of her brother, Charles At- wood, born at Haverhill in 1803, and graduated at Yale in 1821, who was admitted to the Boston bar more than sixty years before his death. A learned lawyer in certain specialties, he was also in certain directions an accomplished scholar.

John Varnum, born in Dracut in 1778, is under- stood to have been of the same family with the eminent Senator and Speaker Varnum, whose por- trait has just been presented by Massachusetts to Congress and received with distinguished honor. Graduated at Harvard in 1798, he was a law student with the famous Judge Jeremiah Smith at Exeter and commenced to practice in Haverhill in 1802. 11e was soon successful. Generous in temper, honorable in practice, and unaffected in manners, he conducted lawsuits withont asperity, neither giving nor taking wounds that festered. Though an ardent Federalist, he escaped much of the personal bitterness which characterized the politics of that day. He served in the State Senate in 1811, and in Congress from 1826 to 1830. Isaac R. Howe was his law partner at this time. They had married sisters, daughters of Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall.

The impression one gets of John Varnum is that though a man of excellent qualities he had not quite enough iron in his composition. Yet he participated in one acrimonious political campaign when Caleb Cushing attempted to defeat him for Congress. The brilliant young aspirant was himself over- whelmingly defeated as a rebuke for his unscrupulous political methods. This was one of the most famous Congressional contests in the famous Essex district. After his Congressional career closed, Mr. Varnum removed to Lowell and thence to Michigan, where he died, 1836.

Leonard White was the son of John White, the merchant, and was born about 1767, dying October, 1849, at eighty-two. "Leonard White, ejus Liber 1782," written in his own beautiful copper-plate, is the legend in his "Thesaurus Lingua Latina," upon which the eye rests whilst the hand traces this line. lle was then fitting for college with Parson Shaw, and William Cranch was one of his fellow-students. They graduated at Harvard in 1787, and John Quincy

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 247

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