USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. II > Part 86
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a hare's tail on the other. These were to keep the people awake. If any woman went to sleep, the constable touched her on the forehead with the hare's tail ; but if a small boy nodded, he was rapped with the other end not quite so gently."
The church at Weston, at a meeting held April 27, 1726, voted that " turning ye back towards ye min- ister to gaze abroad, and laying down ye head upon ye arms (in a sleepy posture) in ye time of public worship (extraordinary cases excepted) are postures, irreverent and indecent, and which ought to be reformed, where any are faulty therein, and carefully avoided."
In March, 1718, a motion was made in town- meeting to build a new meeting-house, but the matter was deferred. October 23, 1721, a vote was passed by the town to build a new meeting-house, and to appropriate their proportion of the bills of credit issued by the General Court to this object. In the summer of the following year the new house was raised. It stood a little to the rear of the first one, and was more commodious, with square pews and galleries, and seats on hinges, to which the name " slam-seats" was sometimes given. This house was repaired in 1800, a steeple and two porches erected, and a bell procured. About fifteen years later the pews were altered from the square to the modern long form. It remained in constant use until 1840, reaching the good old age of one hundred and eighteen years, and every pas- tor of the society had ministered at its altar, " when it was pulled down, and the present Unitarian house erected still farther back and across the county road, which intersects our common." It is said that when the din and clatter of the " slam-seats," at the "amen " of the devotional service, was loud and universal, it was specially pleasing to the min- isters of those days, as indicating a full and earnest congregation.
The Rev. Samuel Woodward succeeded Mr. Williams as pastor of the church. He was ordained September 25, 1751, and held the position mitil his death, October 5, 1782. Allowing eleven days for the change from Old Style to New Style be- tween his ordination and death, his pastorate con- tinued thirty-one years less one day. Dr. Samuel Kendal, his successor and son-in-law, says of him, " He died greatly beloved and lamented by the people of his charge, by his brethren in office, and by an extensive circle of acquaintance. He was a serious, sensible, practical preacher ; cheerful and facetious without lessening his dignity as a minis-
ter, or Christian. No man could more happily blend the cheerful with the grave in conversation, and yet preserve their exact bounds. .. .. Few men seem to have inspired a profounder respect or a warmer love." He was born February 1, 1727, and graduated at Harvard College in 1748. He was the son of Deacon Ebenezer Woodward, of Newton, who occupied the original homestead near the Upper Falls, grandson of Jolin Woodward, an early settler of that town, and great-great-grandson of Richard Woodward, a freeman, and one of the earliest proprietors of Watertown and a grantee of one hundred and twenty-five acres iu the distribu- tion of the " Farine Lands."
Rev. Samuel Kendal, D. D., was ordained suc- cessor to Mr. Woodward, November 5, 1783, just thirteen months after the death of his predecessor. In his century sermon, delivered at Weston, Jann- ary 12, 1813 (to which the writer of this sketch is greatly indebted for important material), he says of himself that he had " not been kept from the house of worship but one Sabbath, either by sick- ness or inclemency of weather, for thirty years ; nor had he left the pulpit without a supply, on his own private business, but two Sabbaths within the term."
Dr. Kendal was greatly respected and loved, not only in his own parish, but in all the neighboring churches. "He was," says Rev. Edmund H. Sears, " the friend and associate of the elder Ware, at a time of unparalleled religious activity in Mas- sachusetts, and when the spirit of sect was begin- ning to divide the churches asunder. Dr. Kendal preached the great truths of Christ, free of scholas- tic dogmas and the spirit of sect and party, and he enforced them with a power and fervency which met the deeper wants of the spiritual nature. No schism took place. The pews were filled full, both on the floors and in the galleries, and persons still living speak of the stillness that pervaded them under the ferveut appeals of the pulpit. His style of composition was easy and flowing, his person large and manly and expressive of the vigor of his mind, and his voice, of unusual compass and power, searched every corner of the house and com- manded audience. He lived through times of the hottest political strife, had very decided opinions on questions which agitated the country, and preached them without reserve. His influence ex- tended much beyond his parish. His century ser- mon, preached near the close of his life, re-echoes and prolongs the strain of Phillips at Watertown,
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near two hundred years before." He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1782, and the honor- ary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by Yale in 1806. He died February 16, 1814.
After the death of Dr. Kendal, Isaac Fiske, then chairman of the parish committee, invited Joseph Allen, who had not completed his course of studies at Cambridge under the elder Ware, to supply their vacant pulpit as a candidate for settle- ment. Shortly after Mr. Allen's health broke down, and he took a long journey on horseback to the medicinal springs at Ballston, New York, return- ing late in the summer with health still impaired. Finding, as winter set in, that he could not fulfil his engagement, he requested and obtained a release from it. Accordingly, the committee sent for young Joseph Field, a graduate of Harvard in 1809, still pursning his studies in theology, and after hearing him a few Sundays gave him a call, which he accepted. He was ordained February 1, 1815, President Kirkland, of Harvard College, preaching his ordination sermon. Mr. Allen and other fel- low-students rode over from Cambridge, though the mercury was eight degrees below zero, to wit- ness the ceremony and to congratulate him on what they considered, and what proved to be, liis good fortune. The same day Professor Henry Ware, Sr., rode from Cambridge to Lunenburg in an open sleigh, setting out, accompanied by his son and eldest daughter, that bitter cold morning before daylight, reaching Lexington before sunrise, driv- ing a distance of some forty miles, and preached the sermon at the ordination of David Damon at Lunenburg, returning to Cambridge the same day. Allen and Damon were college classmates of Edward Everett, all being members of the class of 1811 at Harvard.
Dr. Joseph Field was born in Boston, December 8, 1788, fitted for college under Dr. Gardner, and pursued his theological studies under Dr. Kirk- land. He served as chaplain in the army in 1812, in the 3d regiment of infantry. He was the first distinctly Unitarian minister in Weston, and remained at this post for fifty years, till 1865, when he resigned as active pastor, but, at the ear- nest request of his people, continued to be their senior pastor till his death, November 9, 1869. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Di- vinity from his Alma Mater in 1840. He was at one time a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. He was greatly honored and loved by his people, " and by a wide circle of friends,
for his genial spirit and amiable social qualities. He wrote with ease ; his sermons were terse, clear, and compact; and in the day of his highest intel- lectual vigor he was regarded in his own vicinity as among the favorite preachers of his denomination. . He was not a man to be ever forgotten by those who knew him in his best days." The semi- centennial of his settlement was celebrated with appropriate ceremonies, and the proceedings, in- cluding his sermon on the occasion, were pub- lished.
Rev. Dr. Edmund H. Sears, born April 6, 1810, graduated at Union College in 1834, and at Cam- bridge Theological School in 1837, was the suc- cessor of Dr. Field. He was settled in Wayland, February 20, 1838, removed to Lancaster, Decem- ber 23, 1840, and returned to Wayland in 1848. In May, 1865, he was installed as colleague pastor with Dr. Field in Weston, where he remained until his death, January 16, 1876. His last sickness began with a fall, October 19, 1874, while work- ing in his garden, by which he received injuries from which he never recovered. He was " a most fascinating writer," and is widely known by his books, of which The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ, is perhaps the most popular. The exqui- site poems, beginning, "Calm on the listening ear of night," and "It came upon the midnight clear," will be held as classics of our language, and are "enough to make a poet's reputation." No stronger eulogy could be pronounced over any man than is given by Dr. Chandler Robbins in his commemoration sermon, in which he says he yet speaks " by the memory of his lessons, by the force of his example, by the total impression of his life, by the concentrated influence of his char- acter."
From the settlement of Mr. Williams in 1709, to the death of Dr. Sears, a period of one hun- dred and sixty-seven years, there have been only five ministers settled over this ancient church, all of whom died here, where they so faithfully toiled and lived, and now lie buried in our grave- yards, almost within a stone's throw of each other.
The first Baptists in Weston began to gather together in a small company about 1776, mecting at each other's houses, mutually encouraging and exhorting each other, when no preacher could be had, under the lead of Deacon Oliver Hastings, who was baptized in Framingham in 1772. March 29, 1784, four young men - Justin Harrington, Samuel Train, Jr., James Hastings, and Joseph
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Seaverns - contracted to erect and cover a frame building thirty-one feet square. The building, though unfinished, was first nsed October 1, 1784, and was finished in 1788. July 14, 1789, a church of sixteen members was recognized by an ecclesiastical council. They had no settled min- ister till January 30, 1811, when they united with the church in Framingham, and Rev. Charles Train was ordained as pastor of the Baptist Church of Christ in Weston and Framingham. They separated, May 3, 1826, Mr. Train re- maining with the Framingham church, the Wes- ton church numbering at this time about forty members. The present church-building was ded- icated October 8, 1828. June 30, 1830, Rev. Timothy P. Ropes, a graduate of Waterville Col- lege in 1827, was ordained as pastor, aud remained three years. The parsonage was erected from the material of the old church-building during the latter part of his stay. From small beginnings the church has grown to be the largest in the town. Since Mr. Ropes the successive pastors have been : Rev. Joseph Hodges, Jr., a graduate of Waterville Col- lege, 1830, settled in 1835, resigned in 1839; Rev. Origen Crane, educated at Newton Theologi- cal Seminary, settled in 1840, resigned in 1854; Rev. Calvin H. Topliff, graduated at Brown Uni- versity, 1846, settled in 1854, resigned in 1866; Rev. Luther G. Barrett, graduated at Harvard Col- lege, 1862, settled in 1867, resigned in 1870 ; Rev. Alonzo F. Benson, settled in 1870, died July 15, 1874; and Rev. Amos Harris, the present pastor, settled January 1, 1875.
In 1798 a Methodist meeting-honse - simply a boarded enclosure, with a platform for the preacher, and rough board seats - was put up in the north part of the town, "about sixty rods northeast of the present Methodist Church, on the Lexington road. . . . The circuit to which this chapel belonged comprised, besides the town of Weston, the towns of Needham, Marlborough, Framingham, and Hopkinton ; the whole at first under the charge of one preacher, Rev. John L. Hill. The number of preachers was afterwards increased to three. The first trustees of the Meth- odist Church of Weston were Abraham Bemis, Habakkuk Stearns, Jonas Bemis, John Viles, and Daniel Stratton. Their present church-building was erected in 1828, and dedicated in 1829." By an act of the General Court, approved by Governor Lincoln, February 28, 1829, the trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Society in Weston were
incorporated. In 1833 this church was consti- tuted a station, with a regularly appointed preacher, Waltham and Lincoln being included in the station for a few years. Waltham became an independent station in 1839, and took away some sixty members of the church, reducing the number of members to about eighty.
A century ago there was thought to be more travel over the "great road " from Waltham through the middle of Weston, -it being the post-road from Boston to New York, -than on any other, of equal distance from any capital city, in the Union. For many years this was the great thoroughfare over which passed the supplies and manufactures sent in from the northern and west- ern sections of New England to Boston. By the old meeting-house passed large droves of cattle on their way to Monday's market at Brighton. Large teams transported several hundred thousand chairs annually to the city, and thousands of loads of all kinds of country produce. The number of inns is an index to the amount of travel through the town, and of these there were four in the group of houses that, straggling along both sides of the road, constituted the " Road Town " of early times. It was not until after the opening of the West Boston Bridge to Cambridge, and the Mill-dam Road, and the establishment of railroads, that this stream of travel was diverted to other channels, and with the change the business of the taverns ceased to be profitable, and they were closed.
When Washington visited the Eastern States in October, 1789, he lodged and breakfasted at the tavern of Captain John Flagg, where he was called upon by several prominent citizens. Here Captain Fuller's company of horse met him, and escorted him through Waltham and Watertown to Cam- bridge.
October 25, 1765, the town voted not to give any instructions to its representative to do any- thing concerning the Stamp Act, but later the people became fully aroused. " At a Meeting of the People of Boston, and the neighboring Towns, at the Old South Meeting-House in Boston, on Tuesday, December 14, 1773, and continued by adjournment to Thursday, 16th of said Month, occasioned by the perfidious Arts of our restless enemies, to render ineffectual the late Resolutions of the Body of the People, Mr. Samuel Phillips Savage, a Gentleman of the Town of Weston, was chosen Moderator." Samuel Hobbs, of Weston, a farmer, and also a tanner and currier by trade, while
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working as a journeyman in the employ of Simeon Pratt, of Roxbury, joined the famous party which, in disguise, threw overboard the tea in Boston Harbor.
Samuel Phillips Savage owned and occupied at this time " the house standing on the Deacon Bige- low farm, so called, in the north part of Weston, near Daggett's corner." He was commissioned a judge of the Court of Cominen Pleas of Middle- sex County, November 2, 1775. He and Josiah Smith represented the town in the Provincial Con- gress held at Concord, October 2, 1774. He was the president and an active member of the Massa- chusetts board of war during the Revolution.
His father, Arthur Savage, married a daughter of Samuel Phillips, distinguished among book- sellers in Boston one hundred and eighty years ago. Thomas, the father of Arthur, was born in 1640, the second child of Thomas Savage who emigrated from England, and his wife, Faith, daughter of William and the famous Ann Hutch- inson. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Joshua Scottow, a merchant of Boston, and the author of two curious tracts in the latter part of the seven- teenth century.
The growth of the town in population after its incorporation was very slow, but the farmers in- creased in wealth and prosperity. It has always been a farming town, and retains its primitive condition to a more marked degree than any other within the same distance from Boston. A chair manufactory and a machine-shop are the only in- dustrial establishments within its borders. Many of the farms, in whole or in part, remain in the possession of the original settlers. The schools have always been good, and a new high-school house has been erected, within two years, at a cost of $15,000. There has been but one store in the town for a portion of the last century. Two or three blacksmith-shops have been in the Upham family for a hundred years. Excepting the old tavern bars there has never been a dram-shop in the town, nor an apothecary shop, the physicians carrying their drugs and potions in their saddle-bags.
In September, 1735, Francis Fulham, James Jones, and Josiah Brewer, "in the names and behalf of the town of Weston," made answer to the petition from John Flint and others, of the north part of the town, for a separate township, and claimed : " 1. That the said Town of Weston is but small, Tho' about Seven Miles in Length from North to South, yet scarce Three Miles wide in
the Centre & in considerable parts not above half so much, & great part of the land very poor, rocky and barren not capable to be inhabited. That there are but about a hundred families in all, & many of them in Low Circumstances. 2. That the Said Town hath lately been at great Cost and Charges to build & finish a Decent Meeting house for the publick worship of God not only of suffi- cient Dimensions for the whole town, but it is not near fild when assembled together and this Meet- ing-house stands by the great Road & as Survey- ors find by the Platt within a few Rods of the Centre of the Town. So that the Petitioners have little more Reason to complain of the Distance or Difficulty than their Neighbors who live at the South End of the town. That the Petition afore- said Takes from Weston near Twenty families (tlio' severall of them do not subscribe) & Some of the best livings in the town." The remon- strants carried their point at this time, but nine- teen years later, by the incorporation of Lincoln, April 19, 1754, Weston lost a good slice of its territory.
" A large part of the farm of Mr. Alonzo S. Fiske, in the north part of the town, was conveyed, October 1, 1673, to Lieutenant Nathan Fiske, his direct ancestor, ju whose family it has since then remained."
" The house of Mr. Oliver R. Robbins, in the south part of the town, is supposed to be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred years old, and is probably the oldest house in Weston."
The residence of Mrs. A. H. Fiske was built in 1753 by Mr. Woodward, the minister, and occu- pied by him and his family. Two houses near the Weston station of the Fitchburg Railroad have been in the possession of the Hobbs family for many years. Next to one of these -the house of Mrs. Samuel Hobbs - was the old tan-yard, car- ried on by members of this family for a century and a quarter. The business was given np, and the tannery removed in 1862.
Abram Hews, in 1765, started a pottery on the site of the house opposite the present black- smith-shop, and for three generations his descend- ants carried on the manufacture of earthenware at or near this place. His great-grandson, a few years ago, removed the business to Cambridge.
In the southern part of the town is an old house, built probably in 1787, or earlier, standing upon the farm formerly owned by Lieutenant- Governor Moses Gill, that has belonged succes-
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sively to Joseph Curtis of Roxbury, Ward Nicholas Boylston, and John Quincy Adams, and is now owned by some of Mr. Adams's great-grand- children.
In the southeastern part of the town, near the present residence of Mr. Frederick T. Bush, are still to be seen the remains of the foundation and cellar of one of the first houses built in the town. It was without doubt built by Samuel Seaverns, who was baptized in Watertown, November 28, 1686, and who married, December 20, 1699, Rebecca Stratton. . His son Samuel, born July, 1706, used to tell his grandehildren that when he was a boy, and was sent by his father to get the cows at night, he was accustomed to climb the trees and stumps and cautiously watch for Indians, before ventur- ing into the clearing. His great-grandson, Mr. William Seaverns, narrates this incident to the writer as he has heard it frequently told by his grandfather, Joseph, sitting in whose old rush- bottomed chair the writer pens this account. One corner of the residence of Mr. Bush can be traced baek more than one hundred and fifty years, having been built probably by Samuel Seaverns. Dr. Josiah Starr, of Weston, was born in this house, and married (published October 6, 1762) to Abi- gail Upham. In 1773 he was the owner of two slaves. This house was remodelled in 1856 and in the walls was found a copper coin of the reign of George II.
Samuel Seaverns, born October 30, 1779, was so bitterly opposed to the passage of the Boston and Albany Railroad through his farm, that for nearly forty years after the road was built he could not be persuaded to enter the cars, and as they passed through his farm would turn his head to avoid seeing them. Mr. Hale, superintendent of the road, once attempted in vain to put him aboard a train.
In 1753 one Prince Jonah, a slave of Abraham Biglow, of Weston, found in Waltham a leather pocket-case, with tickets of land lying in Gardner, Canada, east of Northfield, belonging to Joe Wil- liams; also one dollar, one pistareen, and two cop- pers, and an empty money-bag. This was so extraordinary an occurrence that it was entered upon the town records, and there stands a wit- ness to the sterling honesty and integrity of the fathers.
In 1773 sixteen slaves were owned in the town, and the number of polls was two hundred and eighteen.
In response to the alarm, "The British are com- ing ! " sounded from town to town and from house to house, on the morning of April 19, 1775, " Capt. Samuel Lamson hastily forms his company from those who offer themselves for this emer- gency, among whom is Mr. Woodward, who shows by this act that he means to put his preaching into practice." They started for Concord and joined in pursuing the retreating regulars as far as West Cam- bridge. The muster-roll of this company is given in Lexington Alarms, Vol. XII. p. 170, headed by Samuel Lamson as captain, Jonathan Fiske and Matthew Hobbs, lieutenants, four sergeants, two corporals, a drummer, and ninety-three privates, - a total of one hundred and three, nearly one half of the number of polls in the town. The majority served at this time for three days, some for two, and a few joined their comrades for one day.
Captain Lamson became major of the Middlesex regiment, under the command of Colonel Eleazer Brooks, of Lincoln. The Weston company was attached to this regiment, with Jonathan Fiske promoted to the captaincy, and was in the service at Dorchester Heights, White Plains, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and other places, and " was probably in the service till the elose of the war." Matthew Hobbs was eaptain for a while, with two Liver- mores as lieutenants. The muster-roll shows that Captain Fiske and fifty men served five days in the public service " at ye Heights of Dorchester."
General Burgoyne and his army, while on their way to Cambridge as prisoners of war after their surrender, are said to have encamped one night along the old stage road in Weston. These Con- vention troops, five thousand strong on the day of their surrender at Saratoga, October 17, 1777, worn out by their long march, shoeless, footsore, and decimated by desertions along the route, must have been a motley array when they reached their destination.
That the town had no sympathy for those of its citizens who were of Royalist proclivities, is shown by their vote of October 15, 1778, instruct- ing Mr. Joseph Roberts, their representative, to use his best endeavors in the Great and General Court to have such laws made as may " prevent ye return of any of those persons into this Town or State who have sought and received protection from the British army."
"In 1787 a military organization in Weston was chartered under the name of the Company of Light Infantry in Weston, which, under this and
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the successive names of Independent Weston Com- pany and Weston Independent Light Infantry, con- tinued till May 13, 1831, a period of almost half a century, when it was disbanded. It was attached to no regiment, reporting only to the commander of the brigade." Its successive captains were Abraham Biglow, Artemas Ward, Jr., William Hobbs, Alpheus Bigelow, Nathan Fiske, Josiah Hastings, Isaac Hobbs, Thomas Bigelow, Nathan Upham, Isaac Childs, Isaac Train, Charles Strat- ton, Henry Hobbs, Luther Herrington, Marshall Jones, Sewall Fiske, and Elmore Russell. The company attended the reception given to General Lafayette at Concord, September 2, 1824, and was especially noticed by him.
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