History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II, Part 70

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 650

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 70

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The public schools of the town are all carefully graded, and their high rank and efficiency are a source of pride to the people.

The town supports eighteen schools, with nine hundred and twenty-one pupils, and twenty teachers.

Hon. Paul H. Sweetser, who died in 1872, was an especial and earnest friend of education in the town and commonwealth.

Libraries have been well sustained in this town. The people of South Reading have had the best reading in all the region round about.

The Social Library was formed in the last cen- tury, and discontinued in 1836.

The Franklin Library was established in 1831, and the Prescott Library about 1845, and were very useful in their day. In 1856 was established the Public Library of South Reading, now known as the Beebe Town Library of Wakefield, in honor of Lucius Beebe, Esq., its generous and constant friend, and, with its sixty-five hundred well-chosen volumes, is a radiating centre of good and precious influences. The number of accounts on which books are charged is six hundred and eighty-two, and the annual deliveries of books amount to thirty thousand. A new alphabetical and classified cata- logue of the library has just been printed.

The first regular weekly newspaper of the town was The South Reading Gazette, established by William H. Hutchinson in 1858, though for years previously a South Reading Department had been contained in The Middlesex Journal, printed in Woburn.

In 1868 A. Augustus Foster commenced the publication of The Wakefield. Banner, a weekly sheet and welcome visitor in the family circle, which was, September 1, 1872, merged in The Citizen, a newly established journal issued by the Citizen Newspaper Company, and which soon at- tained a high character and extended influence. A few months later, a new and struggling sheet, called The Wakefield Advocate, appropriated the old name of Wakefield Banner, and sought to divide the public patronage.

These rival newspapers were united, January 1, 1874, under the name of Wakefield Citizen and Banner. This consolidated paper is now the only one of the town, and under the enterprising manage- ment of William H. Twombly, editor and proprietor, has become one of the necessaries of municipal life.

A free lecture association was organized about six years ago, and, supported by the liberality of citizens, is still in operation. The association pro- vides an annual course of lectures, generally of a popular scientific character, free, or nearly so, to all inhabitants of the town.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

An adequate history of the town was projected in 1865.

By invitation of many prominent gentlemen, sup- plemented by vote of the town, Hon. Lilley Eaton, a valued citizen, long identified with the progres- sive institutions and best prosperity of the town, was intrusted with this congenial service, " to en- rich the Present from the gleanings of the Past." The labor grew upon his hands as his design for the book enlarged to embrace in its scope the whole territory and people of ancient Reading. His sudden death, in January, 1872, left the work nearly but not fully completed. A committee, of which John S. Eaton, Esq., was the efficient chair- man, acting under authority of the town, carried forward the work to its proper end, and in 1874 was printed, at the town's expense, the Genealogical History of the Town of Reading, Mass., including the present Towns of Wakefield, Reading, and North Reading, with Chronological and Historical Sketches from 1639 to 1874. This volume is oc- tavo in size, containing 815 pages, embellished with fifty portraits and engravings.

The Wakefield Band has become a valued insti- tution of this community, and worthily sustains, on public occasions, the musical reputation of the town in stirring and harmonious strains.

The cemeteries of Wakefield are very interesting in their associations and mementos.

The earliest graveyard was located in that por- tion of the new Park where lately stood the old town-house and the house of Yale Engine Com- pany.

Here for more than fifty years the first and sec- ond generations of settlers buried their dead. The present generation can easily recall the appearance of the antique monuments and tablets that marked the graves of the good and true fathers and mothers of the town; but now, alas, no trace remains to greet the fondly seeking antiquarian eye. The ruth- less hand of progress has levelled the hallowed site.

" Not even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh."

Yet a kindly solicitude and vigilance has pre- served in private archives most of the inscriptions upon these ancient stones. Following is one of them : -

" Here lyes the hody of Capt. Jonathan Poole, who de- ceased in the 44th year of his age, 1678.

" Friends sure would prove too far unkind, If, out of sight, they leave him out of mind ;

And now he lyes, transform'd to native dust, In earth's cold womb, as other mortals must.

It's strange his mateliless worth intomh'd should lye, Or that his fame should iu oblivion dye."

In 1688 the town erected its second house of worship, and located it a few rods northwest of the present Congregational Church in Wakefield ; and around this second church, soon after its erec- tion, in accordance with an ancient custom that has made churchyards and graveyards synonymous terms, the later inhabitants began to inter their dead ; and thus commenced their second burial- yard, in recent years known as the " old burial- ground." For more than one hundred and sixty years it was the chief place of sepulture for the town. Here rest the ashes of the greater portion of its former inhabitants. Consequently it pos- sesses a most lively though mournful interest, as the place where many a noble and revered friend, many a loved and beautiful form, has been covered from sight but not from memory.

Following is the epitaph inscribed upon the tombstone of one of the most eminent among the early lights of church and town : -

"In this Sepulelire is reposited the mortal part of the Rev. Mr. William Hobby, A. M., late Pastor (the sixth iu the order of succession) of the first church in the town of Reading,-learned, vigilant, and faithful; he was a preacher of the word of God, deservedly commended for his pure evangelical doctrine, replenished with erudition and piety, together with solid judgment and eloquence; being at lengthi woru out with studies and labors, and most acute pains of long continuance, calmly resigning to the will of his Almighty Father, and earnestly aspiring after the Heavenly Habitation and Rest, he breathed out his soul into the hands of his Savior, June 18, Anno Christi 1765, Ætat. 58 years. He left, to profit his bereaved flock, a written monument of sage advice, in which, though dead, he speaks, in solemu strains."

İn course of time the old burial-ground became so fully occupied that the selection of eligible spots for single interments was difficult, and for family lots impossible; and, in consequence, there was or- ganized in 1846 a private corporation under the name of Proprietors of Lakeside Cemetery, which purchased a tract of seven acres of land on the westerly borders of Lake Quannapowitt, and laid out the same in avenues, paths, arbors, bowers, and four hundred burial lots. On the 15th of October, 1846, the new Lakeside Cemetery was publicly and solemnly consecrated by appropriate services on the romantic grounds selected, including addresses, prayers, and original hymns. The following is one of the hymns sung on the occasion : --

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

Gym Wullofield

WAKEFIELD.

405

" Together we have gathered now Upon the fair lake-side, -

Old men and gray, with wrinkled brow, And youthful forms of pride, -

We've come with pleasing thoughts, though grave, This spot to consecrate, -

To bid the flowers their perfumes wave Above death's iron gate !

" And here we'll build for those we love A tomb beneath the trees; That nature's song may swell above In sweetest melodies ; -

For friends and for ourselves a tomb, When we are earth's no more,

When are exchanged its joys and gloom For brighter, fadeless shore.

" And here, as oft in coming years Our children's children tread, Glad thoughts will rise to quell their fears, Among the silent dead.

O hiallowed spot ! A cherished grave Beneath the flowery sod !

The form shall rest by sparkling wave, The spirit with its God !"

The cemetery has since been greatly enlarged and beautified, and is mournfully attractive by the quiet loveliness of its natural scenery, by its mar- ble shrines and graceful memorials.

The Jewish Cemetery, a smaller enclosure, also on the margin of the beautiful lake, and very near Lakeside Cemetery, is numerously occupied with graves and sepulchres, and is in general use by the Israelites of Boston.

Wakefield is signally rich in traces of the aborigines of America. They evidently found their favorite camping-grounds in this pleasant region, and large and valuable collections have been made of arrow-leads, lance-heads, pestles, knives, hatchets, bone implements, remnants of pottery, etc., the reward of patient and careful search on this prehistoric ground.

The public buildings of Wakefield are deserving of notice. The town-hall is an elegant and im- posing structure of brick, and Wakefield's Block and Beal's Block, in near proximity , are metro- politan in size and style and finish. The Baptist Church and high-school building are elegant and graceful specimens of exterior architecture.

There are many private residences in the town worthy of special mention, but the costly and elegant mansion-house on the westerly side of Main Street, erected by the late Mr. Wakefield, stands pre-eminent. This beautiful homestead is now owned and occupied, in fitting sequence, by Cyrus Wakefield, Esq., a nephew of the late pro-

prietor, and a gentleman of high character and liberal instincts.

The location of Wakefield is of exceptional beanty. From her hills scenery of rare loveliness delights the artistic eye. This spacious Common, with its stately waving elms, and the recent addi- tion of the new Park sweeping gracefully down to the southern shores of Lake Quannapowitt, are attractive features in a pleasing landscape. Lake Quannapowitt, with an area of two hundred and sixty-four acres, just north of the central village, and Crystal Lake, with a surface of forty-eight acres on the south, add much to the charms of nature's face, and furnish the convenient means of an ample and healthful supply of pure water for domestic and other purposes. The water of Crys- tal Lake is of unusual purity, as shown by recent analysis, which indicates only five parts of organic and inorganic residue in one hundred thousand parts of the water, and showing a superiority in quality over nearly every other utilized source of water- supply for cities and towns in the country. The Quannapowitt Water Company has been incor- porated in order to secure to the inhabitants of the town the priceless boon of a pure and abundant water-supply.

Saugus River has its source in Lake Quanna- powitt, and, forming the boundary between Wake- field and Lynnfield, pursues its serpentine course to the sea.

Wakefield has railway facilities afforded by three railroads passing through its centre, - the Boston and Maine, the South Reading Branch, and the Danvers Railroad, providing direct and frequent communication with Boston, Salem, Newburyport, Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Portland, Me., Man- chester and Concord, N. H. There are six pas- senger depots in the town. In 1848 the whole number of passengers during the year, for all points, was 45,574, or an average of 146 daily passengers. In 1873 the number of Boston pas- sengers alone was 320,172, or an average of 1,025 daily passengers. In 1848 the whole amount of passenger and freight receipts at South Read- ing was $12,532. In 1873 the Boston passen- gers to and from Wakefield furnished the sum of $53,186.

Wakefield is mainly a manufacturing town. First among her industries should be named the rattan- works of the Wakefield Rattan Company. This business originated in small beginnings by the late Cyrus Wakefield in 1856 ; under the infinence

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

of his continuous energy and perseverance it grew with remarkable rapidity to an industry of great magnitude and importance. In the last days of Mr. Wakefield the number of his employees ex- ceeded one thousand, and the monthly pay-roll $25,000. He erected numerous buildings, and introduced new and powerful machinery, and at last, by patient ingenuity and experiment, suc- ceeded in utilizing every portion of the raw im- ported cane. Just before the death of Mr. Wakefield, in 1873, he caused to be organized the Wakefield Rattan Company, to which corporation he transferred the whole of his vast rattan business and property, and of which he became the president and principal stockholder.

The affairs of the corporation have since been prosperously managed by its officers.

The present rattan-works, on Water Street, in Wakefield, include one brick machine-shop, 158 × 60 feet, of four stories, eight large work- shops and store-houses, and a number of smaller buildings, and occupy about four acres of ground. The works turn out, in great variety, productions of beauty, elegance, and utility, including cane for chair-seats, mats and matting, rugs and carpets, tables, baskets, chairs, car-seats, cradles, cribs, tête-à-têtes, sofas, baby-carriages, flower-stands, window-shades, brooms, brushes, table-mats, wall- screens, fire-screens, wall-pockets, slipper-holders, clothes-beaters, wood-holders, etc.

The Smith and Anthony Stove Company, the successors of the Boston and Maine Foundry Com- pany, lately organized on a new and strong founda- tion, has extensive buildings and ample appliances, admirably situated for business and markets, by the side of the Boston and Maine Railroad. The company employs many men, and manufactures stoves, ranges, and all sorts of hollow iron-ware.

The manufacture of boots and shoes has for two centuries been an important branch of industry in the town. As early as 1777 the town assigned Jonas Eaton " the privilege of wood and herbage on a tract of land, on condition that he remained in town, and followed the trade of a shoemaker." The honorable handicraft is still largely exercised in factories and shops numerously scattered through the town.

The Wakefield Shuttle and Needle Company, of recent establishment in Wakefield, carries on an extensive business in the manufacture and sale of sewing-machine needles, shuttles, bobbins, and every variety of sewing-machine attachments.

Richardson's sherry-wine bitters, first prepared about seventy years ago by the late Dr. Nathan Richardson, are still manufactured in the town by his highly esteemed and public-spirited grand- son, Dr. Solon O. Richardson, the second of that name.

The Citizens' Gaslight Company, organized as a corporation in 1860, supplies from its extensive works, on Railroad Street, the towns of Wakefield, Stoneham, and Reading with illuminating gas.

Many thousand tons of ice are annually cut on Lake Quannapowitt, stored, and exported by the Boston Ice Company.

The manufacture of Mckay sewing-machine needles, awls of all descriptions, and shoe-tools in endless variety, is carried on by James F. Wood- ward and Son at their factory on Albion Street.

Messrs. J. and W. H. Atwell still prosecute their long-established and successful business of razor-strop makers.

The bakery of Hosea L. Day has obtained a wide and high reputation for the quality of its crackers and bread.

The banking institutions of Wakefield are the National Bank of South Reading, with a capital stock of $100,000, the South Reading Mechanic and Agricultural Institution, an old-fashioned savings-bank with a capital stock of $ 10,000, and the Wakefield Savings Bank, of more recent origin.

The fire protection of the town is represented by the Yale Engine Company, so named for the late Burrage Yale, Esq., Chemical Engine Company, Washington Hook-and-Ladder Company, C. Wake- field Engine Company, and the Fountain Engine Company, with machines and appliances.

Many descendants from the families of this old town have become eminent in the nation and in the world, among whom may be mentioned as familiar names to this generation, Hon. George Bancroft, historian of the United States; the late General John A. Dix, ex-governor of New York ; Hon. George S. Boutwell, ex-governor and ex- senator of Massachusetts ; and the late Rev. Theo- dore Parker.

Wakefield is ten miles distant from the business centre of Boston, and includes the outlying villages of Montrose on the east, Woodville on the south- east, and Greenwood on the south, and is bounded northwesterly by Reading, northerly by Lynnfield ; easterly by Lynnfield and Saugus, southerly by Melrose, and southwesterly by Stoneham.

407

WALTHAM.

BY ALEXANDER STARBUCK.1

OR the first century after grants were made by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in that part of Watertown now known as Waltham, the latter town was a portion of the former, territorially and mu- nicipally. Numerous Indian wars forced the colonists to assume a semi-military state, and in the different towns the male inhabitants capable of bearing arms were supposed to be in a constant state of readiness to aid in repelling the predatory incursions of the savages on the frontier settlements. For mutual protection new settlers gathered somewhat in groups, each group forming perhaps the nucleus of some prospective town. As these groups increased in size they were each ex- pected to furnish their military contingent, subject to the order of the authorities of the town. In this manner Watertown became divided, in 1691, into three military districts or precincts, the East embracing substantially what is now Watertown, the Middle, or Captain Garfield's, embracing sub- stantially what is now Waltham, and the West, or Farmers' Precinct, known since 1712 -13 as Wes- ton. This was the entering wedge in the dismem- berment of Watertown.

Another element entering into the cause of the division of many early New England towns was ecclesiastical differences, - differences not as re- gards faith, for that was practically settled by stat- ute, but as regards accommodation as to the location of the meeting-house, the older portions of the various towns evidently regarding these buildings as fixtures, while the younger portion judged that the site should be changed to corre- spond with the changing centres of population. Attendance at divine service was as much a por-

| tion of the training of our forefathers as plough- ing their fields, sowing their seed, and gathering their harvests. The General Court never favored the erection of a second meeting-house where one would answer the needs of the people, and it sought to accommodate its location to the needs of the worshippers, rather than to increase the bur- dens of taxation by multiplying the number of churches to be supported. In due time, when the West and Middle precincts had advanced consid- erably in point of numbers, the complaint of re- moteness from their place of worship, particularly in the late fall, the winter, and the early spring, became quite a serious one. In 1692 an attempt was made to change the location of the meeting- house (then situated opposite the old graveyard just southwest of Mount Auburn) to some place " most convenient for the bulk of the inhabitants." The people not being able to agree upon a site, the selectmen applied to Governor Phips and his coun- cil to appoint a committee to consider the subject and make report; and December 27, the same year, the town voted to submit their questions re- garding the removal of the meeting-house and the settlement of a minister to such a committee. The gentlemen appointed (William . Stoughton, John Phillips, James Russell, Samuel Sewall, and Joseph Lynde) made their report May 18, 1693, recom- mending Rev. Henry Gibbs for the pastor, and the site afterwards called Commodore's Corner for the site for a new meeting-house, and also that the change in location be made within the next four years. This attempt at settlement was not entirely satisfactory, and a protest against the pro- posed location, signed by one hundred and eigh- teen persons, was presented on behalf of the Farmers' Precinct. Francis, in his sketch of Watertown, says (p. 60) that this protest asserts that the town had never "requested the inter- ference of the magistrates in this matter, notwith- standing that a vote to that effect is on record." Nevertheless, the building was erected, and on

1 In the preparation of the following sketch, the writer acknowledges himself under many obligations to Jonathan B. Bright, Esq.

408

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

February 4, 1696, was accepted by the town. Rev. Henry Gibbs, who had been employed as pastor for the town prior to the building of the new house, declined to accept the new order of things, and continued to preach in the old build- ing. All attempts at compromise proving not only abortive, but apparently more embittering, the new society called the Rev. Samuel Angier to officiate for them, and being by recognition of the local and colonial authorities the church, they en- dleavored to secure the records which properly became theirs. In the first measure they were successful, and Mr. Angier was duly ordained ; in the second they were not, and the records were still retained by the seceding organization. Mr. Angier was fully settled May 25, 1697.

On the 4th of November, 1712, the General Court passed an order that " whereas ministers of the Middle Precinct had been supported by volun- tary subscription," it was directed that the charges of supporting the ministers and repairing the meet- ing-houses be borne by each congregation sepa- rately. Furthermore, that both precincts should bear the expense of removing the Middle meeting- house to such a site as that precinct should deter- mine. This order was treated contemptuously by the majority of the town, and the General Court, in a burst of indignation at this act of rebellion, passed a supplementary resolve that the town should forfeit £50 for non-fulfilment of the order of November 4. This resolve the council non- concurred in, and a committec consisting of Sam- uel Sewall, Benjamin Lynde, and John Clark, Esq., was appointed to consider the subject. What con- clusion they came to we do not know.

On the 13th of May, 1715, the town passed a vote "to build a meeting-house for the accommo- dation of the inhabitants of the most westerly part of the town." The former West or Farmers' Precinct having been incorporated as Weston, that part of the town now called Waltham had become the most western division. The vote was not, however, carried into effect, and in September of the same year the Eastern Precinct petitioned the General Court for separation.

In 1719 Mr. Angier died, and was buried in the burial-ground set off to Waltham, and now called Grove Hill Cemetery.

In November, 1720, Joshua Eaton and forty- eight others of the West Precinct presented a peti- tion to the General Court, stating that by reason of doubt about the division linc assessments could

not be legally made in accordance with the court's order of the 4th of November, 1712, and they prayed that the line might be located. A similar petition was sent by Nathaniel Priest and others of the East Precinct. A committee was appointed, con- sisting of Isaac Winslow, John Cushing, and Sam- uel Thaxter, of the council ; and John Clark, William Dudley, John Chandler, and William Throop, of the house; and the line, which was surveyed by Thaxter, is described as starting from the Charles River, running " on a north course forty-nine degrees east," and ending at the south- western bounds of what is now Arlington (see Francis' History). The report, dated Decem- ber 17, 1720, further recommends " that the West Meeting-house be removed within two years to a spot about twenty rods west of Nathaniel Liver- more's house, and that the old, or East Meeting- house be moved or a new one built on School-House Hill," the West Precinct to pay its proportion for removing or rebuilding the castern house. This report was concurred in by both branches of the General Court. On the 24th of April, 1721, the town voted to comply with the recommendation of the committee.

The ecclesiastical divisions between the two pre- cincts were now practically settled. After the death of Mr. Angier the western meeting-house had quite a succession of ministers before any per- son became permanently settled. Of these were Rev. Hezekialı Gold, Rev. Timothy Minuet, and, according to Mr. Francis, Rev. Mr. Gibson and Rev. Robert Sturgeon. It would seem, however, that Mr. Francis must be in error in regard to Mr. Sturgeon, for the General Court, in November, 1722, accuses Robert Sturgeon of Boston of being privately ordained to a " pretended middle church," and the court appointed a committee which recom- mended that when the new West meeting-house was erected, the middle one be demolished or re- moved, and that the eastern one be moved or a new one built. In case the town did not remove or demolish the Middle meeting-house, it was recommended that the sheriff be directed to do so. The report further says that Sturgeon had been rebuked by two councils, and advises, that in case he persists in his course, the attorney-general be ordered to prosecute him. This report was con- sented to.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II, Part 70

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat Number of Pages: 650

Author: Drake, Samuel Adams, 1833-1905
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Boston : Estes and Lauriat
Number of Pages: 650