History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I, Part 66

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 560

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 66

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codfish, Indian corn, rye, barley, etc. So there were causes enough why short-sighted and passion- ate men, who were penniless from little fault of their own, should be hurried to violence.

The principal scene of the Middlesex branch of Shays' Rebellion was Concord. The first mutter- ings of discontent were heard in 1784, when Groton and Shirley appointed delegates to meet with other towns at Concord. What became of this proto- convention not even tradition tells. The attempt was renewed on June 29, 1786, when Groton, Shirley, Pepperell, Townsend, and Ashby met at Groton to call a convention. These towns occupy that little corner which on the northwest projects from the main body of Middlesex County. Here the Middlesex rising began. All the leaders were from it ; all the followers too. What produced this result may be uncertain. Perhaps the influence of two or three popular men ; perhaps a peculiar burden of debt. But when in 1787 the state par- doned political offenders, one hundred and seven from Groton, sixty-two from Shirley, sixty-seven from Townsend, thirty-nine from Pepperell, three from Ashby, ten from Westford, which touches Groton, one from Chelmsford, and one from Fram- ingham took the oath of allegiance, and from the rest of the county not one. On August 23, 1786, twenty-one of the forty towns met by delegates at Concord. The northwest towns created this convention. The central towns sent delegates lim- ited by prudent instructions. The southern towns refused to have anything to do with it. After brief deliberations the convention adjourned, to meet October 3; it gathered then with shrunken ranks, passed resolutions, fewer and more moderate than similar bodies had adopted, and. then dis- solved.

The courts were to meet in Concord early in September. Naturally enough its people wished to avoid scenes of violence. They chose a com- mittee, of which Major Joseph Hosmer was chair- man, to call together influential persons from all parts of the county who might be able to restrain the people. How sharp the emergency was the town record vividly reveals. "The town proceeded to choose a committee to write several coppys, as many as they possibly could, and to send them to as many towns as they could by any means."

But affairs were beyond the control of conven- tions. On the afternoon of September 11 a body of a hundred men and boys, swelled in the course of a few hours to three hundred, marched

into the little public square of Concord. The real leaders of this party were Job Shattuck of Groton and Nathan Smith of Shirley. Job Shattuck was a man past mid-life, the son of a respectable farmer, and himself a large land-owner. At nine- teen he went in the expedition against the Aca- dians. He was a minute-man at Concord Fight, a captain at Bunker Hill and in the campaign against Burgoyne. He was strong and athletic, skilful in the use of the broadsword, and proud of the accomplishment, and utterly insensible to fear. His position and means, his r .. . rkable bodily vigor, his good war record, and hij, un- doubted honesty gave him great influence. But he was uneducated and obstinate, with the broad- est ideas of personal rights. Already he had been the leader in " the Groton Riots," when, to prevent the collection of the silver tax, he and sixteen com- panions, armed with clubs, for two mortal hours had hustled some unfortunate tax-gatherers. Na- than Smith was a man of a lower grade. He, too, had been a Revolutionary soldier, and a bold one. A great pugilist, he counted skill in that art the highest proof of manliness. In one of many fights he had lost an eye. He was quarrelsome, coarse in speech, and given to drink. Tradition, which seldom fails to preserve the salient points of char- acter, remembers him as a glutton, who used every Thanksgiving to eat a whole goose and wash it down with its own oil. A dark stain was on his reputation. In 1783 he was indicted for having in possession counterfeit bills. He disappeared and was outlawed. The neighborhood story is that he had a secret closet in his own house. After the rebellion he lived in his native town. His dis- sipated habits clung to him. At ninety-six he died in miserable solitude, possessed of but the remnant of a pension paid him by a forgiving country.

At night on the 11th a rain set in, continuing the next day. The insurgents found shelter in the court-house, in neighboring barns, and in shanties made of boards stripped from fences. On Tuesday morning they assumed military array, occupying the square, setting guards who treated with inso- lence those who attempted to pass, making wanton thrusts with bayonets at men and horses. Barrels of rum were on tap, and hay was procured for those who should come from a distance. At nine o'clock Smith bestirred himself and thus addressed the bystanders : " I do not know who you are, or whence you have come. I am going to give the court four hours to agree to our terms. I and my

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party will force them to it." By twelve the mob had increased to three hundred ; at half-past two a man acting as sergeant, with a small party with drum and fife, went up Main Street, and returned with ninety Worcester and Hampshire horsemen under Captain Wheeler of Hubbardston. What with rum and what with natural temper, Smith now became outrageous; he beat round with a drum for recruits; with horrid imprecations he declared that " any person who did not follow his drum should be driven out of town, let them be court, town committee, or what else." Later, with still greater violence, he cried out, " As Christ laid down his life to save the world, so will I lay down my life to suppress the government from all trian- nical oppression. And you who are willing to join in this here affair may fall into our rauks. Those who do not after two hours shall stand the monu- ments of God's saving mercy." At last his own party had to stop his brutal raving.

The Peace Convention had meanwhile come to- gether at Brown's tavern and adjourned to the meeting-house. The justices were notified that the convention had met not to encourage violence but to dissuade from it. A committee was sent to confer with the insurgents. Dr. Josiah Bart- lett of Charlestown, an old army surgeon, father of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, so long a physician of Concord, was at its head. Its members were Major Joseph Hosmer, then the most influential man in Concord, General Eleazer Brooks, equally prominent in Lincoln, Colonel William Prescott, name indisso- lubly connected with Bunker Hill, Colonel John Buttrick, the man of the Old North Bridge. If these men could not influence the mob nobody could. They could not. At one o'clock Job Shat- tuck issued an order forbidding the justices to enter the court-house ; a little later another, per- mitting the Court of Sessions to open and adjourn until November. Then it was that the committee, with an evident sense of humiliation, waited upon the justices and recommended the adjournment of the court. The judges hesitated. They desired the committee to return for answer, "that as the jus- tices were held in duress they neither could nor would act." "The Doctor declined, assuring us that he was afraid, and told us, as did the rest of the committee, that such was the temper of those people, that, unless something was done, they feared that the house in which we were would be torn down." Still the justices lingered. To quicken their motions the Worcester horsemen and a hun-

dred footmen marched up Main Street to Jones' tavern, where the justices were; halted, and faced the house in a stern and menacing manner. The justices assured them that they should not attempt to open court. " Having given this humiliating answer," they called for their horses and rode away in time to escape a second visit. It is admitted that the mob at Concord was the poorest which had appeared .in any shire-town. The Worces- ter horsemen were well equipped, but the foot- men were a motley crew. Forty or fifty were boys. The rest, poorly clad, drenched with rain, bespat- tered with mud, were as much objects of pity as fear. Two thirds had muskets, half of which were furnished with bayonets. The remainder had swords and clubs. By five o'clock most of the guns were useless from, the rain, and three quarters of their owners from rum. At sundown not fifty of them could have been brought into ranks. Four com- panies of trustworthy militia could at any time during the day have swept them away like chaff.

Government determined that the Supreme Court should hold its fall term at Cambridge. Early on the morning of October 31 more than two thou- sand soldiers poured in. Not an insurgent ap- peared. Court was opened. Governor Bowdoin reviewed the troops. "It was like a brilliant pa- rade," says an eye-witness, and, waxing humorous, adds, " our military were like Cæsar, veni, vidi, vici, - came, saw nothing, couquered everything." Concord lost one man, the single casualty of the Middlesex rising. William Heywood discharged his musket before cleaning it, when it burst and a fragment lodged in his skull.

The insurgents had promised not to interfere with the November session of the Court of Com- mon Pleas, but Parker and Page, with a small party, came as far as Concord. Shattuck was at Weston with fifty more. Four hundred Worcester men collected at Shrewsbury. Warrants were is- sued for the arrest of Job Shattuck, Oliver Parker, and Benjamin Page of Groton, and Nathan Smith and John Kelsey of Shirley. Resistance was ex- pected. Colonel Hichborn of Boston, with seventy horsemen, volunteered to aid, and at Concord was joined by Colonel Wood of Pepperell with forty more. Smith and Kelsey fled. Parker and Page were arrested near Concord. Shattuck for a few hours evaded pursuit, but the next morning a dozen horsemen followed his track through the new-fallen snow and overtook him near the Nashua. With that reckless courage characteristic of him,

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he resisted, -the story of the day was, attacked his pursuers with a broadsword. A frightful wound, running obliquely aeross the knee, brought himn to the ground. Even then he would not yield. Only after his right hand was disabled by a cut was he captured. He was a pitiable sight, stained by the mire of the swamp through which he had waded, and covered with blood. He was put in a sleigh and brought to Concord jail, and from thence transferred to Boston. Shattuck was placed in an upper room in Boston jail, had a fire, good bed- ding, and the best care. But his health suffered, and he was released on bail. He was tried May next for treason. There could be but one verdict. He was sentenced to be executed, twice reprieved, and finally pardoned. Ever after he was a good citizen, and respected by his townsmen, no doubt with reason ; for he was brave, sincere, and, accord- ing to his light, patriotic. He paid the penalty of his errors ; for the fingers of his right hand were useless, and he always carried a erutch.

Concord and the vicinity furnished sixty-four men, under Captain Roger Brown, to that armny with which General Lincoln crushed the rebellion. They made that wonderful winter's night march of thirty miles from Hadley to Petersham, when a furious north-wind, whirling the snow over the bare hills, obliterated every vestige of a path. A Concord sergeant used in his old age to boast that he ate Shays' breakfast, which that arch-rebel in his hurried departure left outspread. The head- long flight of the insurgents ended the greatest peril which constitutional government in America encountered previously to the Southern secession of 1861.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF REST. 1787-1812.

TIME, prudence, wise legislation, brought, as they only could bring, relief to the distresses con- sequent upon the War of the Revolution. Soon the tide of a new prosperity began to rise. Then came in Concord a period of almost universal quickening.

The first forty years had been a simple struggle for existence. One half of the next one hundred and twelve were given to wars, whose cost in life, in destruction of property, in interference with profitable industry, and in military expenses can never be computed. But peace and larger free- dom brought confidence and energy, and in every direction there were signs in the town of fresh life

and enterprise. The avenues of communication were greatly enlarged and increased. For one hundred and forty years the only ways of reaching the outer districts, and much of the country north, south, and west, were over the old North and South bridges, in many cases adding distance and pro- ducing serions inconvenience. But between 1792 and 1802 three new bridges - Nine Aere, Red, and the bridge which preceded the three-arched stone bridge - were built, and new roads over them constructed. The first stage-coach, and apparently the first public conveyance of any kind, appeared in Concord in 1791. There was no post-office until four years later than that. Family tradition says that Cyrus Stow, about the year 1800, built the first market-wagon ever seen in the town, the whole of the moderate amount of produce carried to the city previously having been borne thither in panniers. The spirit of progress reached the buildings. In 1788 the old jail, which stood on land now belonging to Mr. R. N. Rice, and which was nothing but a two story log-house, with great spikes driven through the logs to resist any tools which might be conveyed to the prisoners, was replaced by the strong stone building which within the memory of this generation stood back of the county-house. Three years later the old meeting-house, till then absolutely destitute of porch, spire, or any kind of ornament, was so enlarged and beautified as to have the effect of a new building. Three years more, and the dingy little court-house, built of the materials of the first meeting-house, was replaced by a new one of four times its capacity erected on the opposite side of the square. Finally, in January, 1798, the town voted to build seven new school-houses, and appro- priated $2,200 to pay for them. The incapacity of building committees to keep within appropria- tions does not seem to be of modern origin. For the record states that four months later $500 additional were raised to complete the school- honses, that six months after that $ 600 more were found to be needful, and that at the end of two years it still took $200 to pay the bills.

Nor was progress seen simply in external im- provements. Societies and organizations, some of which continue to our day, came then into existence. In 1794 a fire society was formed and a fire-engine bought. The same year a society, which was afterwards merged in the Middlesex Agricultural Society, began its work. The Corin- thian Lodge of Freemasons received its charter

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in 1797. In 1804 the Concord Artillery was in- corporated, and for thirty years divided military honors with the company of infantry which was nearly as old as the town. Music had its repre- sentation from 1800 to 1830 in the Harmonic Society ; and May 23, 1795, a library society be- gan, from which, through various changes, has come the free public library of our own time. So, if we except the Social Circle, a society believed to have originated in the Committee of Safety in 1752, there is no organization in the town of any kind which dates back of the period we are con- sidering.

The appointment of a committee, March 4, 1799, to frame rules and regulations for the schools marks an epoch in the history of education in the town. Shattuck calls the period from 1680 to 1710 the dark period of education in Massachu- setts. But the dark age was longer than that. It is at least doubtful whether any generation pre- ceding the Revolution had as great advantages as the first. As late as 1767 all schools were merged in one perambulating school, which was to teach twelve weeks in the centre and six in each of the outer districts. The conclusions and recommen- dations of the committee were in advance of the times ; and, as a result, the schools were arranged on a uniform plan and a general school committee chosen.

These things mark a social revolution scarcely less important in its influence than the political one which preceded it. Men were coming into closer relations, and having a wider range of thought and sympathy, than the hard-pressed life of thic past had permitted. In short, the town was be- coming even more than of old one of those pro- vincial centres with its own activities, its own institutions, and its own circle of influence, and of whose characteristics fifty years ago we have such pleasant traditions, but which the rapid communi- cations of our time are making so largely a thing of the past. That Concord was becoming a con- venient and pleasant place to live in, and a place, too, of no inconsiderable law business, is evident from the number and ability of the lawyers who now made it their home. Before the Revolution we have record of only three Concord lawyers, - John Hoar, who came there from Scituate in 1660 and remained until his death, in 1704, and who is honorably remembered for his humane and reso- lute defence, in the face of popular prejudice, of the forlorn Praying Indians of Nashobah ; Peter

Bulkley, the son ot the first minister, a good law- yer, a prompt soldier, deputy, assistant, speaker of the house, agent of the colony in England, and so in all respects a man of mark; Daniel Bliss, son of the minister of the same name, a good lawyer and a great tory, who left the country in 1775, and became chief justice of New Brunswick. The town after his departure remained in " a deplorable condition of legal destitution " until, towards the close of the Revolution, Jonathan Fay opened an office. Mr. Fay was a man of ability, whose legal attainments were sufficiently high to bring him many students. He was district-attorney, the leader of the bar in the county, and one to whom younger men " were taught to look up with profes- sional awe and respect." John L. Tuttle came to Concord in 1799. His biographer pronounces him to have been "a man of unequalled wit." He was a strong supporter of Jefferson, more of a politician than lawyer, and held many political offices. In 1812 he left the courts for the camp, was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and, as it was believed, was poisoned at Sackett's Harbor, New York, by persons who wished to get possession of United States funds which he had in charge. Wil- liam Jones, who practised about the beginning of the century, was a pupil of Mr. Fay, and a native of the town. After a somewhat wild youth he settled down to his profession, then moved to Maine, where he became clerk of the courts and judge of probate. Thomas Heald was a man of infinite humor, of whom innumerable good stories are told. He came from New Ipswich, studied with Mr. Fay, practised law in Concord from 1800 to 1813, and died in Alabama, holding the position of judge. Samuel Hoar came from Lincoln, and was a lineal descendant of the first lawyer of the town, John Hoar. He rose to eminence in his profession, and, both ou account of his legal ac- quirements and power, and his integrity and weight of character, secured universal confidence. His name became of national reputation through his experience at Charleston, South Carolina, when, having been sent, November 25, 1844, by the gov- ernor of Massachusetts to secure in South Carolina for our colored seamen their legal rights, he and his daughter were forcibly removed from the city by a respectable mob. John Keyes was a native of Westford. From the beginning he was successful in his profession. But he had that temper of mind to which the excitements and contests of politics are attractive, and that energy and determination which

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fitted him for success. He was representative, senator, postmaster, connty treasurer for twenty- four years, and to the close of life exercised great influence in Middlesex County. Nathan Brooks, like Mr. Hoar, was from Lincoln, and a descendant of that Thomas Brooke who sailed in the same ship with Peter Bulkley to America. Mr. Brooks was a man of excellent legal ability, whose gentle and winning manners and quaint humor made his society always delightful. He was the Whig can- didate for Congress in that famous contest of 1839- 40, when on the fourth trial Mr. William Parmenter was elected by thirty-five majority, a contest which did much to produce that change of law by which a plurality instead of a majority elects. To these we might well add the name of Dr. Abiel Haywood, for thirty-eight years town- clerk, and whose records, so orderly, legible, and complete, are a comfort to eyes worn and brains tired by the crabbed chirography and meagre re- ports which in too many towns are called records. For, though Dr. Haywood was educated to the practice of medicine, he was so early appointed justice, and continued one so long, that his affini- ties became quite as much legal as medical. This array of legal talent, respectable for any time or place, and strangely contrasting with the meagre- ness of the ante-Revolutionary period, shows what new elements of life were developing. And it can- not be doubted that the presence of these persons in the town largely added to its social resources and increased its influence in the neighborhood.

THE WAR OF 1812.

FROM the close of Shays' Rebellion to the year 1812 only one little cloud of war rolled up. Con- gress, moved by the aggressions of the French Directory, authorized in 1798 President Adams to form a provisional army. And a body of troops, known as the Oxford Army, encamped in 1798-99 in Oxford, in Worcester County. To this place William Jones of Concord led forty-one men, and was himself made major in the 15th United States Regiment.

In the War of 1812 the town took very little part. A few men were enlisted, one or two officers commissioned, and in the fall of 1814 both of the military companies went to Boston and remained there two months, guarding the port and building fortifications. One result, however, of considerable importance can be traced directly to the influence of

that war and of the condition of things which pre- ceded it, and that was a large increase of manu- factures. Up to that period a few hats and caps and a few clocks made np the whole product. The interruption of foreign business greatly helped the old industries. For many years a large number of clocks, timepieces, and even watches were made by Nathaniel and Daniel Munroe, Samuel Curtis, Joseph Dyer, and Thomas Whiting; while the hat business grew to considerable dimensions. The war created new industries. Early in 1812 William Munroe, a cabinet-maker by trade, observing what high prices were paid for lead-pencils, said, " If I can make lead-pencils, I shall have but little fear of competition and can accomplish something." He set to work. A hammer to crush the plumbago, a tumbler in which to float the powder, an iron spoon in which to mix it, constituted his whole ma- chinery. On July 2 of that year he carried thirty pencils to Boston to Benjamin Andrews, who en- couraged lim to persevere. Twelve days after he appeared with five gross. This was the beginning of lead-pencil making in the United States. With many experiments and some discouragements, and one long period of cessation from the business, from inability to procure lead, Mr. Munroe pressed forward until he achieved a high reputation and established a large business. Others commenced manufacturing, and Concord became a centre for that branch of industry, and continued such until about 1853, when the German pencil-makers estab- lished themselves in New York. In 1810 Wil- liam Whiting began carriage-making, as he records, with a capital of twenty-one dollars, which grew into a large business, occupying extensive build- ings on Centre Street, and employing many hands. As early as 1660 there was in the southwest cor- ner of the town an establishment for smelting bog-ore. On the same site, at the close of the Revolution, there was a little fulling-mill for the finishing of home-made cloths, owned and carried on by Lot Conant. This mill a little later fell into the hands of Colonel Roger Brown, who alternated farm and mill work. The condition of the times encouraged his son Jolm, with an uncle, Hartwell, to build a factory in 1808, in which they made cotton goods and satinets, supplying the state for several years with the dingy red and blue cloth in which it arrayed its convicts. Mr. Ephraim H. Bellows succeeded Messrs. Brown and Hartwell, and in 1832 manufactured 188,000 yards of cotton eloth. In 1833 the mill fell into the hands of

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James Derby of Exeter, who turned it into a machine-shop, but in the latter part of 1834 sold it to Calvin C. Damon. Here in 1835 was origi- nated what is known in trade as the Domett, a kind of cotton and wool flannel. The old wooden mill was burned on the 19th of June, 1862, and has been replaced by a fine brick one of four times its capacity, having 9 sets of cards, 1,432 cotton- spindles, 118 looms, and capable of producing 4,500 yards of cloth a day. The mill is now owned by Damon and Almy. When Mr. Brown began business, where now there is a thriving vil- lage there were only four or five honses. Early in the town history, at what is now the pail fac- tory, there was a saw and grist mill, succeeded by a little fulling-mill. The water privilege was bought in 1819 by David Loring, who made lead pipe and then sheet lead. In 1848 his son in the same place made wooden-ware, but sold out to M. F. Hobbs, who in turn sold to Ralph Warner, who has built up a large business. In 1812 Elijah Wood began the manufacture of boots and shoes, There has been in the town a considerable manu- facture of soap, bricks, and other articles. But as Concord, with the exception of the moderate water- power in the southwest part, has no advantages for manufacture, most of these industries perished be- fore the rising fortunes of Lowell.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I, Part 66

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat Number of Pages: 560

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 560