USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 38
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
Peirce advertises for sale at public vendue, Novem- ber 3, "a valuable Farm in Groton, in the County of Middlesex, pleasantly sitnated on the great County Road, leading from Crown Point and No. 4 [Charles- town, N. Il.] to Boston : Said Farm contains 172 acres of Upland and Meadow, with the bigger Part under improvement, with a large Dwelling House and Barn, and Outhouses, together with a good Grist Mill and Saw Mill, the latter new last Year, both in good Repair, and on a good Stream, and within a few Rods of the House. . . .. Said House is situated very conveniently for a Tavern, and has been improved as such for Ten Years past, with a number of Conveniences, too many to enumerate." November 18 appears a notice adjourning the sale to December 1 ; and November 23, according to the record in the Middlesex Registry of Deeds, George Peirce conveyed some land to Abram Ansden, which is described as lying "Easterly of my Dwelling House and Easterly of the Brook called Coicus Brook and Bounds Westerly by said Brook Northerly by Thomas Park's Land Easterly by the County Road leading to Lunenburg and Southerly by or near the path that leads by said Peirce's Mills so as to include the Barn and Yeard before the Barn."
The oldest house now known in the neighbor- hood used to be called the "old red house," though it has turned yellow with age. It was bought by the late Calvin Fletcher forty-five years ago, and was then reputed to be more than one hundred years old. It is now thought to be more than one hundred and fifty years old. As Mr. Fletcher once owned a saw-mill where Balch's grist-mill now stands, the " old red house " was doubtless the Peirce Tavern of 1773. The house of Mr. Gilson it is also said was once a tavern.
The next reliable antiquity of Ayer is the old brick house with a stone back, on Park Street, where Mrs. Lydia Stone now lives. The stone back of the house and the great elms which over- shadow it are its most conspicuous features as seen by one entering the town from the north by the Worcester and Nashua Railroad. John (or James) Park, with his son John, both stone-masons, settled in Sonth Groton as early as 1775, and built a stone arch for a dwelling in the bank baek of this house. The only light came from the front. The son, Jolin, subsequently built the brick and stone house which he afterwards sold to his brother- in-law, Nathaniel Stone. Near the southwest cor- ner of the house a block of slatestone about thirty inches long by eight inches wide is inserted in the
brick wall, just below the chamber window. One end of the block is marked for a sundial, and on the other end are the initials of the builder, " J. P." and under these the date 1791. The same initials appear on the old slate milestones which still stand near the turning of the road towards Ayer at the south end of Groton Street.
This old Park house stands on the same spot where stood the house in which Colonel William Prescott, the hero of Bunker Hill, was born, Feb- ruary 20, 1726. His father, Benjamin Prescott, was born in Lancaster, January 4, 1695, and moved to Groton. Colonel William Prescott moved to Pepperell before his twenty-first year.
The earliest reference in the records to the settle- ment in the southern part of Groton, which after- wards was known as South Groton and Groton Junction, and subsequently became the nucleus and business centre of the town of Ayer, appears to be made in the vote of the town of Groton, passed in 1742, designating seven places where schools should be kept, one of which (either at Eleazer or John Gilson's) was probably in the southern part of the town. After 1758, says Butler, " one quarter part of the time, the grain- mar school was sometimes kept in the north part of the town, and sometimes in the south." In 1760 a school-house in the south part of the town was burned. Thirty years later a school census was taken which gave the number of children (boys under twenty-one and girls under cigliteen years of age) in Jonas Stone's District (No. 12), as thirty-nine. A more accurate division into school districts was made in 1805, and revised in 1826, according to which revision District No. 12, the school-house in which was situated at the Junc- tion, contained forty-three scholars, - not six per cent of the whole number in the town.
In 1844 there were on Main Street but four houses, and a small brick school-house (situated near where Wood's block now stands), in which were gathered, to attend a winter term of school, some sixteen children. At the date of incorpora- tion the number of school children had increased to nearly six hundred, owing to the rapid growth and development of Groton Junction.
The Fitchburg Railroad was opened March 5, 1845; the Peterborough and Shirley, to West Townsend, in February, 1848; the Worcester and Nashua in 1855; and these were followed by the Stony Brook Railroad, now a branch of the Boston, Lowell, and Nashua. At the point of intersection
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of these four railroads grew up the enterprising village of Groton Junction (at first called South Groton), rapidly increasing in population, and by its unequalled railroad connections speedily becom- ing a manufacturing town of considerable magni- tude and importance. Here were situated the large works of the Ames Plough Company previous to their removal to Worcester.
Where Page's mill now stands there was, in 1845, one of much smaller capacity, only one story in height, built as an oil and batting mill, owned by Abel Morse, and long called Morse's mill. It was made into a grist-mill some years later, and passed into the hands of Mr. Whiting. On a road which led by the mill, and wound its way over the hill near where the Catholic Church now stands, and through the woods to Shirley, stood an old house. On Park Street there were four houses ; on Main Street four, as mentioned above. Fletcher's saw-mill and the house opposite, with three or four others across the brook, in connection with those named, constituted the village of South Groton. A road from Harvard passed Balch's mill and the old brewery, and wound through the woods and over the rocks to Groton. Near this road, op- posite the old steam-mill, the first railroad sta- tion was situated, and for ten years, or until the Worcester and Nashua Railroad was built, this was the station for all passengers from Groton, Harvard, and other places. The house now owned by Mr. John H. Sanderson was the old station building, which was removed when the new station was built.
Lumber, gravestones, and corn-meal were the earliest articles of manufacture in South Groton.
The post-office of South Groton was established the Ist of June, 1849, with Andrew B. Gard- ner as postmaster ; Henry A. Wood was appointed August 11, 1853, George H. Brown December 30, 1861. The office was changed to Groton Junction March 1, 1862, with George H. Brown as postmaster ; William H. Harlow was appointed December 5, 1862, George H. Brown January 15, 1863, William H. Harlow July 18, 1865. The office was changed to Ayer March 22, 1871. Wil- liam H. Harlow, then appointed postmaster, was followed March 31, 1873, by Leonard A. Buck, the present incumbent, who was reappointed Jan- uary 20, 1879, by President Hayes.
The first resident minister in South Groton was a Rev. Mr. Cooper of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who in 1849 or 1850 held meetings in a
small school-house near where the high school- house now stands. Rev. Amasa Sandersou (Bap- tist) held mectings occasionally in the same house. In 1853 Rev. J. M. Chick was settled over a Bap- tist Church, which held its meetings in a hall built, where the Union House now stands, by Jolin Pin- gry, who lived near Sandy Pond, and who was afterwards one of the first deacons in that church. The Union society was organized about the same time, with David Fosdick, Jr., as pastor, and in 1854 and 1855 erected a church where the town- house now stands. Their new church, on Waslı- ington Street, was built in 1873. The church of the Baptist society was begun in 1855, and dedi- cated in 1856, with Rev. J. M. Chick as pastor. The Congregational society opened public meetings in Union Hall in 1862, on Merchants' Row, but their church was not built till several years after.
The first newspaper printed in Groton Junction was Number 9, Volume III. of the Railroad Mercury. It is dated January 2, 1854, and was issued at irregular intervals. It was begun in Groton in June, 1851, as a monthly sheet called The Groton Mercury, by George H. Brown. The publication of the Railroad Mercury as a weekly newspaper was begun at Groton Junc- tion, September 15, 1859, by Brown Brothers, George H. Brown being the editor. In the first number the editor says: "Mr. H. A. Woods, trader, Messrs. J. and J. Hill, blacksmiths, and ourselves, were the first to establish business in this village. The population was then [1854] less - than one hundred. It is now rising nine hundred and eighty, and daily on the increase." "We have many stores and shops of various descriptions. There are other branches still carried on in the place, - an extensive steam tanucry, an iron fur- nace, two market houses, etc .; besides we have three churches [Baptist, Union, and Catholic] and a fourthi [Orthodox] in contemplation. A fine new brick school-house has just been completed." At that time, by actual connt, there were one hundred and forty-five honses at Groton Centre and one hundred and forty-six at Groton Junction.
In 1853 Martin & Co.'s works for the mannfac- ture of ploughs and other agricultural implements were moved from Blackstone to Groton Junction. Ross's transparent soap was made here; J. M. Hollingsworth's paper-mills had just been built and put in operation, and six railroads centred at this point, running from thirty-eight to forty trains daily. The plongh-works were purchased in 1856
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
by Noursc, Mason, & Co., afterwards the Ames Plough Company.
The publication of the Public Spirit newspaper was begun at Groton Junction by John H. Turner, May 13, 1869, and is still continued.
On the 15th of July, 1870, a fire broke out in the hotel stable of Mr. Samuel Reed, in the rear of Merchants' Row, and in a short time this and five other buildings on the Row were entirely consumed, and one residence partially. The railroad station canght fire several times, but was saved. This was something of a blow to the prosperity of the grow- ing village, but it speedily recovered.
August 5, 1869, a communication appeared in the weekly Public Spirit, advocating the secession of Groton Junction from the parent town, on the ground that citizens had to go four miles to town- meeting, and that while the numerical majority of the voters of the town resided at the Junction, they did not receive a fair proportion of the offices in the government of the town. November 10, 1870, the same journal gives expression to a grow- ing public desire to have this place set off and made a new town. A week later a correspondent advocating the retention of the old name for the proposed new town says: "Groton Junction is one of the most important railroad centres in the country. As such it is known far and wide. Its existence as a place of population and of busi- ness is owing to the fact of its being a railroad centre, -- that it is Groton Junction ; " and this was followed by other communications of the same tenor.
In December following the number of inhabi- tants in this village, as furnished by the census marshal, was 1,600. At a town-meeting held Jan- uary 3, 1871, it was unanimously voted that there would be no opposition to the separation, and a committee of threc, Henry A. Bancroft, Willard Torrcy, and John Gilson, was appointed to meet a committee of the petitioncrs to arrange a boundary line, etc., and report at a town-mecting to be held in three weeks. At a meeting called by the citizens of this village, Peter Tarbell, R. R. Fletcher, and B. L. Howe were chosen to take the census of the proposed new town. They gave the following figures as their result : "Shirley, 90; Littleton, 31; and 1,890 in Groton Junction, which is a total of 2,003 inhabitants. The new town will then have more inhabitants to start with than any town adjoining it now has, with a much greater chance for growth. The valuation [less than
$800,000] of the district to be set off is about once quarter that of the present town, and it is estimated that the new town will owe the old about $10,000 toward the debt;" the new town taking nearly one half the inhabitants of the whole town of Groton.
As the committees could not agree on the ques- tion of boundary, a town-meeting held at the Cen- tre January 16, 1871, voted to reserve all right. to oppose any measures not consistent with the interests of the town ; but two days later another town-meeting voted by a large majority to adopt the dividing line established by the committee of the petitioncrs.
January 20 a correspondent in the Public Spirit suggested the name " Ayer, as easy to spell and speak; not likely to be confounded with that of any other town in the state, associated in the mind of every one with the sweet strains of Robert Burns," and relieving citizens of the old town of their objections to the new town keeping the name of Groton Junction. At a meeting of the citizens held February 1 they unanimously voted that the name of the new town be Ayer; but this name did not suit all, and at a subsequent town- meeting held on the 7th a resolution was passed silencing all opposition.
In town-meeting the people of Shirley consented to the division, making the middle of the Nashua River the dividing line, on condition that the new town of Ayer pay to the town of Shirley $500 as its share of the town debt, which condition was accepted in a town-meeting held February 8.
January 27 the hearing was had before a legislative committee, attended on the part of the new town by the committee (chosen to lay the case before them), and about thirty or forty peti- tioners. The committee on the part of the old town stated the different views respecting the boundary lines, showing the one agreed upon by the two committees to be different from that asked for by the petitioners.
On the 14th of February the act of incorpora- tion was passed, and received the approving signa- ture of the governor the succeeding day. By the provisions of the bill the 6th of March was assigned as the day for holding the first town- meeting. February 21 John Spaulding, justice of the peace, issued his warrant to Peter Tarbell "to notify and warn the inhabitants of the town of Aver, qualified to vote in town affairs, to meet in Union Hall, in said town, on Monday, the sixth
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day of-March next at ten o'clock in the forenoon," to choose the town officers required by law.
At a town-meeting held at Groton Junction on the 14th it was voted to make a division of the town library. On the 15th and 16th a public levee was held for the purpose of raising funds for the benefit of the new town, the net proceeds of which amounted to $225, and some $300 additional were raised by private subscriptions.
At the first town-meeting held pursuant to the above-named warrant E. Dana Bancroft was cho- sen moderator, A. W. Felch, town clerk, and E. C. Willard, first selectman. The meeting then ad- journed till the following morning, when Lewis Blood and O. K. Pierce were chosen the second and third selectmen ; Dr. Gibson Smith, J. E. Fletcher, and Alfred Page, assessors; G. W. Stu- art, treasurer; Nathaniel Holden, superintendent of roads, with Emerson Hazard and Alfred Page as assistants ; Peter Tarbell, Emerson Hazard, and C. D. Reed, constables ; and Charles Brown, E. H. Hayward, and Dr. B. H. Hartwell, school committee.
At the next town-meeting, April 3, $7,000 were appropriated ; $3,000 for schools, $500 for roads, $3,500 for incidental expenses, - including $100 for a town library. A committee of three, John Spaulding, Robert P. Woods, and B. F. Felch, was chosen to adjust, in connection with a committee from the old town, an equitable division of the property, debts, state and connty taxes, etc., between the two towns. These committees agreed upon $13,000 as the sum to be paid by Ayer to Groton, the latter town allowing $700 for the Ayer portion of the public library.
The name of Ayer was given to the new town, not from the Scottish river (Ayr), " associated in the mind of every one with the sweet strains of Robert Burns," but in honor of Dr. James C. Ayer of Lowell, as appears from the following letter :
LOWELL, February 6, 1871.
"Abel Prescott, Esq., for the Committee of Peti- tioners, etc., Groton Junction, Mass.
" DEAR SIR: I have the honor to receive your favor of the 2d inst., informing me of the action of your fellow-citizens in the adoption of my name, ' Ayer,' as the name of your new town, with Mr. Felch's certificate as clerk of the meeting.
" I pray you, Sir, to convey to your fellow-citi- zens my appreciation and acknowledgment of the high honor they seek to confer upon me, and my sincere hope that the future will present no occa- sion to regret the choice which they have made.
"I should be insensible to the influences that govern men, if the partiality of your citizens did not awaken in me an interest in the well-being of 'Ayer,' and I assure you, Sir, that I shall wait with readiness to aid therein as opportunity or oc- casion may arisc.
" With sentiments of personal esteem, I have the honor to remain,
" Your obedient servant, " JAMES C. AYER."
Dr. Ayer stated to some members of the com- mittee that when this matter was first opened to him by a resident of Groton Junction, he answered that he knew what was due from him in case such an honor should be conferred upon him while liv- ing. That he wished to define what sum he should give, to prevent rumor putting him in a false po- sition in the future ; that he had submitted a doc- ument to the committee to that end; but he protested in the beginning, and protested still, against either favor being as a consideration or trade, the one for the other.
September 26, 1871, Dr. Ayer forwarded to the selectmen of Ayer a letter expressing his desire that the town should choose three trustees to receive and invest the sum of ten thousand five hundred dollars, which he proposed to give to it, the interest to be devoted to "promoting the education of youth" in the town. This proposition not being entirely acceptable, October 21, 1871, he addressed another letter to E. Dana Bancroft, Esq., in which he sub- mitted his " readiness to pay over the amount to the selectmen of Ayer, or any person authorized by them, upon call, for the benefit of the town, its schools, or whatever its people shall direct."
October 24, the town voted to accept the money, and authorized the selectmen to instruct the treas- urer to receive it. November 7, Robert P. Woods, Lewis Blood, and H. C. Rolfe were chosen trustees to invest the money safely. In April, 1872, the treasurer was instructed to borrow the Ayer fund and pay it to the old town towards cancelling the debt.
This disposition of the fund was not satisfactory to all the citizens, a number of whom had sug- gested the building of a town-hall as the best dis- position to be made of the gift.
Dr. Ayer readily accepted the proposition of a town-hall, and offered on the following conditions to build one, making use of the amount already given to the town, and paying the balance himself. His conditions, expressed in a letter dated June 11,
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
1872, were: "To restate my suggestions per- haps more clearly : you provide and prepare the land and foundation up to the level of the first story, including fence, stone walks, etc., according to the requirements of architects ; I build the walls of the first story and a town-house above and upon them. The whole to be done in conformity with the requirements of the architects." Four years after the building was completed, and the new town-house was dedicated October 26, 1876.
On the night of Saturday, April 13, 1872, a fire occurred which destroyed between thirty-five and forty buildings, including the Unitarian Church, Union HIall building, a four-story brick block (the upper part of which was arranged for a hotel), a new engine-house belonging to the town, etc., involving a net loss over and above insurance of $100,000 besides the loss of business for a time. This fire rendered houseless thirty or more fami- lies. A relief committee was appointed to solicit aid. The several families of the neighboring Ilarvard Shakers were among the first to offer aid by sending money and provisions, and by cancel- ling bills due them from parties who suffered loss by the fire.
About seventy-five volumes of the town library were saved from the fire, and in a short time one hundred and thirty-five new ones were added, thus forming a nucleus for a new collection. May 15, the town voted to build a new brick school-house at a cost of $12,000.
New buildings were immediately begun upon the burnt district; among them brick blocks by Messrs. Nutting, Page, Harvey A. Woods, Mead, Waters, Spaulding, and others.
April 27, 1872, the towns of Ayer, Groton, Pepperell, Townsend, Ashby, Shirley, Westford, Littleton, and Boxborough were constituted a judi- cial district under the name of the First District Court of Northern Middlesex.
At a town-meeting held in March, 1873, it was voted "that the taxes on all manufacturing capital, hereinafter invested in this town within five years, exceeding in valne $3,000 shall be abated for five years from this date, provided that said manu- facturing capital shall apply only to buildings and machinery," and a committee of three, Peter Tarbell, G. C. Brock, and B. II. Hartwell, was ap- pointed to advertise the facilities that exist in this place for the various manufacturing industries.
From the fortieth and forty-first annual reports of the Board of Education the relative position of
Ayer as compared with the other three hundred and forty-one towns of the state is as follows: In the amount of money appropriated for each child be- tween five and fifteen years of age Ayer stood No. 160 in 1875-76, No. 227 in 1876-77. According to the percentage of taxable property appropriated for public schools, Ayer in 1875 - 76 was No. 161, in 1876-77 No. 189. According to the average attendance of children upon public schools, Ayer in 1875-76 was No. 29, in 1876-77 No. 62.
The following description of the town is mainly from the pen of the late Judge Bennett : -
The town of Ayer is in form a parallelogram, averaging about four miles long from east to west and about two miles wide from north to south. The Nashua River flows northerly along the west- ern border. The land along the river is either of a high and dry soil, mostly of a fine gravel, and known as pine-plain land, or else, as just north- west of the village, it is made up of projecting granite ledges with intervals of sandy loam. In the extreme northwest James' Brook, from Groton, runs near the northern boundary for about a mile to its mouth at the very corner of the town. The principal stream in the town, the Nonacoicus, on which is the mill-pond, flows through a narrow sandy flat, commencing just west of the village, into the Nashua. On this flat, which it enters soon after leaving the mill, it has a sharply de- fined course, with a rapid current and a width of about twenty feet. It flows over a pebbly or sandy bottom. The northerly part of the town is hilly. The hills are high, and full of granite ledges. Most of them are covered with a growth of wood and timber. The southeast and south parts of the town are nearly level, the plain coming up to the foot of the abrupt hillsides.
The water-system of the town is constituted as follows : Besides the Nashua River and James' Brook, mentioned above, and a small brook running along the eastern border and across the southeast corner of the town, there is a continuous line of moving water sweeping around from the northern boundary to the village, and thence to the river. Up among the granite hills, in a perfectly wild and wooded country, and partly in Groton, lies Long Pond, a sheet of water covering many acres, and fed by springs. From this a clear, cold brook is- sues, and after a circuit of more than a mile falls into Sandy Pond. Sandy Pond is nearly circular, with a sandy shore and bottom, except on part of the northerly shore, where it is rocky. Here thou-
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BEDFORD.
sands of tons of the finest ice are annually cut and housed. By a branch of the railroad running up to the pond this ice is shipped in every direction. No water is purer than that of Sandy Pond, and no ice is clearer or bluer. From Sandy Poud is- snes a very considerable stream already named, the Nonacoicus. Sweeping around near the Harvard line this stream receives two others, -one from Bear Hill Pond in Harvard, and Cold Brook from springs at the foot of Hell Pond, in Harvard, a clear basin without inlet or visible outlet, like Wal- den Pond in Concord. Now running westerly and northerly between raised gravel plains and over a stable bed, the stream near the general railroad station at the village is again interrupted and made to furnish water-power for a saw-mill, planing- mills, and other machinery. The Worcester and Nashua Railroad crosses the mill-pond about the middle, on an embankment having a suitable cul- vert over the channel. At the saw-mill the water is uniformly clear and cold, - many degrees colder than the Nashua River a mile off. The remainder of its course to the river has been already described.
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