History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 104

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 104

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

It seems needless to go over the same ground so well and so ably covered by this report concerning

the period covered by the schools of the nineteenth century. A High School was organized and com- menced in 1852. The Warren Academy was founded in 1827 and incorporated in 1830. The sketch closes with a valuable list of a number of the male teachers in the town during the earlier part of the present cen- tury; to this list we would add two names of school- masters of the last century whose names are not there given, viz .: Joseph Burbeen, died 1794, sometimes styled Rev., a graduate of Harvard College, 1731, a schoolmaster and occasionally preached, but was never settled in the ministry, and Jacob Coggin, a graduate of Harvard College, 1763, a schoolmaster by profession and occasionally preached. His grave- stone in the second burying-ground calls him "a preacher of the gospel." He died in 1803, in his sixty-fourth year. Like Joseph Burbeen above, he was a native of Woburn. Jacob Coggin, A.M., and Abigail Blanchard, both of Woburn, were married by Rev. John Marrett, July 3, 1777.

A list of teachers of the grammar school in Woburn till 1771, with explanatory notes, is given in Sewall's Woburn, 586-87. See also ib. 545-46 for an orig- inal document; also ib., chaps. ii., vii., xiii., xvi.

This subject is also amplified in articles in the Winchester Record. Cf. vol. ii. 64-69, 304-15, 463. According to a statement in one of these articles tbe town had but one school-house till 1760, certainly in the part now Woburn and Winchester. School dis- tricts as such were first established in 1792, and these districts were not much changed till 1845.

The Medical and Legal Professions .- The material on this subject comprises a chapter by itself, covering the colonial, provincial and later periods.

The Military Profession .- The material on the sub- ject of the military history of Woburn is comprised in chapters by themselves, covering the colonial, the provincial, the revolutionary and later periods.

SOCIAL LIBRARY .- The history of a social library existing in Woburn prior to 1800 is included under the subject of LIBRARIES.

Catalogue of some interesting documents of the provincial period that have been preserved in the Wy- man Collection in the Woburn Public Library :

Giles Alexander, bouee formerly licensed fer an ion or tavera, pur- chased by Noah Wyman March 21, 1761, who petitione the General Court fer an innholder'e license on that date.

Samnel Blodget, letter to James Fowle, Ang. 26, 1771.

Nathaniel Felton and Joshua Hammond, heirs of the Rev. Edward Jackson, receipt to James Fowle, Dec. 30, 1755.

Thomas Fleet (printer in Boston), undated letter to, frem Samuel Coolidge.

James Fowle, unsigned receipt te, fer a horse to Cambridge com- mencement, killed by a chair. Receipt dated .July 2, 1760. (A chair, more recently called a "gig," was a two-wheeled vehicle, or chaise without the top. The body resembled a chair.)

Nathan Richardson, letter, Feb. 18, 1765.

Draft of a petition to the General Court by inhabitants of Woburn, and others, in behalf of the " fowls called pigeons," April 4, 1771.

355

WOBURN.

CHAPTER XXV.

WOBURN-(Continued).

CIVIL HISTORY FROM 1800 TO THE PRESENT TIME.

THE opening of the present century witnessed a very different Woburn in the general appearance of its buildings and dwellings than the one to be seen at the present time. The town then embraced all the territory which had been formerly included within the limits of the old First Parish, and both were, in the effect of much of their action, practically one. The number of houses in the town at this period was 156, scattered over the area now included principally in the towns of Woburn and Winchester. The pop- ulation of Woburn at the beginning of the century was 1228. An unfinished description of real estate in Woburn First Parish (October 1, 1798), intended practically to show the condition at the opening of the new century beginning with 1800, conveys an idea of the character of the houses and of the business resources of the inhabitants, and the extent of their property. From this description it would appear that the buildings, with scarcely an exception, were all of wood; that the greater portion of the dwelling-houses were of two stories, a goodly proportion of the num- ber being of the kind described as "two stories in front and one in rear," a number of which yet remain. A small number (21) are mentioned in the unfinished description as one-story houses, and in some cases the number of stories is not specified. As a general thing they were unpainted structures, with small pre- tensions to beauty. In the extant list, eighteen are described as " old houses ; " five as " very old houses ; " three as "old and poor ;" five as "not tenanted or tenantable;" three as "very poor ;" two as "out of repair ; " one was "part brick and part wood ; " one was "half old and half new, and unfinished ; " one was "in good repair; " three were new houses ; one was "almost new; " another was "not finished," while one only is spoken of as painted. The condition of some of the barns aud out-buildings in the town would appear to be even worse than some of the dwellings we have described. We have not space to go into an enumeration of further details concerning them, but the number of shoemakers' shops would give that busi_ ness a rank next to agriculture in the general occu- pations of the inhabitants. At the opening of the century there were, at least, twenty-two of these shops on the estates of those owning them. They generally stood near the dwelling-house, and were small build- ings, their average area being eleven by eleven feet. There were at that time two buildings used as curry- ing shops, the area of the largest being only 16x14 feet ; one tanner's shop, 16x12; two tan-houses, the largest 30x22; and one bark-house, 24x20 feet. There was certainly one store, kept in an unfinished

building, 24x18 feet, and having two windows of the largest size. There was another store of lesser value, in the present limits of Winchester, and this building was styled a " trading shop." There was a store at the Centre Village, kept by Zehadiah Wyman, as early as 1796, in his dwelling-house, and not in a building separate from it, as in the above instances. A store of the same kind was kept by Major Abijah Thompson at North Woburn, or New Bridge, in his dwelling-house. In 1802 Colonel John Wade, who died in 1858, began business in a store at the Centre, with a capital of $170. These appear to be all the stores then in the town.

Of shops devoted to mechanic trades, other than the leather trades, are the following: Wheelwright shop, 1; blacksmiths' shops, 5; saddlers' shops, 2; coopers' shops, 6 ; joiners' shops, 2; other workshops, 5. The saw-mills in the town were 3, and the grist- mills, 7. There were one cider-mill, three cider-mill houses, a bakehouse, a malthouse, and ten chaise or "shay" houses, for a vehicle of some note at that period. The saw-mills had one saw each, and each grist-mill had one pair of stones.

The situation was probably hut little changed till after 1825, about which time more houses were built around the Common at the Centre, and the village began to grow in that quarter. After the opening of the Woburn branch railroad, in 1844, the village in this part of the town received a second impetus in the way of increased building, particularly in the neighborhood of Academy Hill. A view of Wohurn from that height in 1820, by Bowen Buckman, Esq., gives a good idea of the appearance of the centre vil- lage at that date, before the marked changes of a later period had occurred. The Common at that date would appear to be destitute of trees, and in the im- mediate foreground no houses exist on the level tract easterly of Pleasant Street and southerly of the Com- mon, except a blacksmith shop of E. W. Reed. The other buildings shown in the sketch are less than thirty in number, and several of these are at some distance from the central point. One or more houses near the Common are not included in this pictorial representation, but the whole, we have been told by one who remembered and who was present with Mr. Buckman when the sketch was made, 1 gives a good illustration of the buildings near the Common as they were from about 1809 to 1820, and, with the exception of the large meeting-house in the foreground, and, perhaps, one or two other buildings, the same as they were in 1800, when the town meeting-house stood on the Common, and a town school-house stood on the spot where the large meeting-house stands, as shown in the illustration of 1820.

ANNALS .- Embracing some events of general im- portance. 1801, "New Century," writes Esquire Thompson. The same writer mentions the following

1 The late Colonel Leonard Thompson, of Woburn.

356

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

important incidents : Jacob Eames's house was struck by lightning July 3, 1801. Deep snow in February, 1802, " very difficult to pass the great roads." A boat and a large raft were afloat on the Middlesex Canal, at Wilmington, April 22, 1802, and on July 5th following, two hundred to three hundred people sailed on the canal, showing that its construc- tion was progressing, and the manner in which some celebrated the anniversary of American independ- ence, July 4th that year being Sunday. On May 29, 1803, Sunday, the diarist went to meeting in a boat by way of the canal, which appears to be open from North Woburn to Woburn Centre at that time. The canal was opened its entire length in this year. In February, 1804, the roads were obstructed with large snow drifts, and the traveling continued bad through- out March. In June, 1804, there was a conference with young people, probably on the subject of reli- gion, for, in August, 1804, near twenty persons of- fered themselves to the local church. Mary Ann, child of Zebadiah Wyman, was burned to death, Sunday, January 5, 1806. The almshouse is men- tioned in 1806. The mail stage, 1806. Esquire Clapp's house, July 14, 1807, was raised and fell, killing three and wounding twenty or more persons, some very hadly. On the day following were three burials of victims of this disaster-John Lyman, Sam- uel Wright and Joshua Richardson. On July 19th following, another victim, Nathan Parker, died of his wounds by his fall off this tumbling house-frame. An account of this distressing accident appeared in the Columbian Centinel, Boston, July 18, 1807. The frame of a house belonging to Major Jeremiah Clapp, of Woburn, was raised on Tuesday, July 14, 1807, a day fair and warm, and when the raising was nearly completed, the whole frame fell, carrying down with it all who were upon it. Two persons were killed outright and another died the night following. The newspaper sets the number of wounded at six- teen, and some, it feared, of these were " wounded mortally." One of the latter, Nathan Parker, died of his wounds on Sunday, the 19th instant, the day after the publication of the above newspaper notice, and was buried on the 19th. It was a sad disaster to all the participants, and made a profound impression on the community. Long and curious and quaintly eulogistic inscriptions on the gravestones of three of' the dead victims of the accident are to be seeu in the old second hurying-ground, on Montvale Avenue, and all state the cause of death to be " the fall of a house-frame." These were Parker, Wright and Richardson, no stoue to the memory of Lyman being found. Jeremiah Clapp, the owner of the house, was also buried in the same burying-ground. His gravestone there standing gives the date of his death as November 11, 1817, at the age of fifty-five. The late Colonel Leonard Thompson, in some facts published by the present writer. in the-Woburn -Jour- nal, February 6, 1869, states that the number of per-

sons on the frame at the moment of its fall was thirty or more. The house was to be a large, square man- sion of three stories, and when afterwards completed, stood a well-known object at Central Square till within thirty years. It was on the westerly side of Main Street, near the junction of Wyman Street. Mr. Charles Flagg's present house is near its former site. When it was erected it was the fashion to raise the frame of a side complete from the ground, and " raisings," as the performances of putting together a frame of this sort were termed, were popular, and a general entertainment of refreshments was provided for all persons present. The attendance on this oc- casion was unusually large, the house to be con- structed being of more than ordinary dimensions. Two sides were to be of brick, to be put in after the frame was erected. These, in this case, were not suf- ficiently provided with braces and occasioned the fall. Hence, when the framework for the crown-roof was put in place, the weight, with the large number of men upon it, was too great for the rest of the structure to sustain, and the frame was first noticed to lean, it then leaned more, and soon fell with a loud crash, followed by a cry of agony from the injured. The spectators were aghast. Then followed a rush to extricate those buried in the ruins. The confusion baffled description. The ruins had fallen in a west- erly direction. The hour when the disaster occurred was six P.M., when the raising was supposed to be about completed, and an entertainment was to be en- joyed. But instead of that occurred this fatality ! All efforts to avoid the result failed. The bodies of the killed were removed, horribly mangled. Lyman, of North Woburn, after excruciating suffering, died that night. Parker, residing near by, on the Black House estate, died, as we have before said, during the week. Thirty or forty of the "strong men " of the town were wounded in a variety of ways. Some of them lingered months and even years, even till death, before they were relieved of pain. Some were made cripples for life. Jonathan Tidd, of North Woburn, had his back broken, and never walked readily after- wards. Many recovered gradually from their hurts. Among the names of those injured were Captain Ish- mael Munroe, of Burlington, Deacon Benjamin Wyman, Captain John Edgell, Josiah Parker, Jona- than Thompson and Jacob Converse, of Woburn. Colonel Thompson said the funeral of Richardson, Wright and Lyman was held in the Third Meeting- house, which stood on Woburn Common. The pas- tor, Joseph Chickering, delivered an appropriate dis- course on the occasion to a large and sorrowing au- dience. The text was Job i. 19. Richardson and Wright were both about to be married, and their be- reaved ladies appeared with the chief mourners at these funeral ceremonies.

The next event of importance which occurred in Woburn was the burning of the town meeting-house on June 17, 1808-the anniversary of Bunker Hill

357

WOBURN.

Battle. On this date, " Woburn meeting-house was burned to the ground, at eleven o'clock at night ; thought to be purposely done." After the burning of the meeting-house, religious services were held in the school-house at the Centre. On July 17, 1808, oc- curred a storm of thunder and wind, very tempest- uous in its character. Stables were blown down, chaises were broken, glass windows also were broken in pieces, the destruction being the greatest in Wil- miington, Reading, etc. Ata town-meeting on the afternoon of August 1, 1808, it was voted to set the next meeting-house where the school-house then stood, or on the spot now occupied by the Unitarian Church edifice. A month later, on September 1, the timber for the new meeting-house arrived at Woburn from New Hampshire, by the Middlesex Canal, and on the 2d and 3d of that month it was drawn out of the canal and carried to the trainiog-field, or to the open spot easterly of the present Unitarian Church, now traversed by Winn Street. On the 23d, 24th and 25th of October, 1808, etc., the raising of the Woburn Meeting-house was in progress. On June 19, 1809, the meeting house pews were sold, and on the 28th inst., following, the new meeting-house was dedicated. This was a great occurrence for Woburn, The chronicler devotes the following paragraph to it : " June 28, 1809. Woburn new meeting-house dedi- cated. Ministers and people from the adjacent towns attended and assisted. A fine day, and all parts of the services were performed decently and in order."

On July 2, 1809, "Mr. Chickering," the parish minister, "preached in the new meeting-house the first Sabbath," or the first Sunday after its dedica- tion.

In December, 1809, there was some legal difficulty about the town common lands. In January, 1810, Joseph Brooks and Benjamin Brooks were both frozen and found dead in the woods ; both were buried the 23d of January. On January 18 the two went into the woods to cut wood, a little before noon, the weather then being very mild. In the evening it be- came excessively cold and they were supposed to have perished on that day, or the night following, from

its effects. They were found on the 20th. One was fifty, and the other was forty-five years old. Cf. Woburn Journal, August 6, 1870; N. E. Hist. Gen. Reg., xxix. 156. The weather on the 18th, was " fine morning, fair; cloudy, P. M."; on the 19th, Friday, " severe cold, fair ;" this was the memorable "cold Friday" of that year, concerning which much has been said and written by the people of that day ; the 20th was " fair and excessive cold ; " Sunday, the 21st, was " fair and very cold ; " the cold had "some abated " on the 22d, and the cold weather continued till the last day of the month. Asa G. Sheldon in his book (Woburn, 1862), has some account of the events on this "cold Friday " (January 19, 1810) ; the day before was unusually warm for winter, he says, but the next morning brought a great change " the

cold was intense." Cf. Woburn Journal, for January 16, 1885.

December 25, Christmas, was called by that name for the first time in these annals in the year 1810. February 2, Candlemas day, is named as such in 1811. On February 4, 1811, was a deep snow with great drifts ten feet deep. On the 11th of February the sun had not been seen for ten days past. On the 21st there was much snow on the ground. On June 30, 1811, there was a contribution in Woburn for New- bury (port), destroyed by tire.

In 1812, E-quire Thompson, the diarist, was eighty- one years old, and though his items are continued till 1814, there is a dearth of incident. In 1815 occurred an event of considerable interest to a large portion of the community, namely, the death of the wife of Mr. Chickering, the Congregational minister. Three of their children also died about the same time as their mother. Her age was thirty-one years. There has been preserved a paper containing the order of the procession at the funeral of Mrs. Chickering, which occurred on Monday, November 6, 1815. The pro- cession was to move from the house of the Rev. Joseph Chickering, precisely at half-past two o'clock P.M., to the meeting-house, in the following order :

First marshal. Members of the Female Reading Society. Second marshal. Corpse. Mourners. Neighboring ministers with their wives. Members of the church. Members of the society. Strangers. Third marshal.

A marble slab in the second burying-ground covers her "earthly remains" and those of her three chil- dren who died at nearly the same time as she did. She was Betsey White, of Concord, Mass.

At this period also was issued a license to a manu- facturer of leather, namely, to Abijah Thompson, afterwards General Thompson, to conduct a tannery of twelve vats in Woburn, owned by himself, for the tanning of leather for the term of one year. This license was given in conformity to a law of the United States, and was dated October 21, 1815. In 1815 oc- curred the famous September gale.

In 1815, also occurred some interest in the matter of public vaccination of the inhabitants. One Doc- tor Fansher proposed to vaccinate all in Woburn who needed it at the different school-houses at an ex- pense to the town of seventy-five dollars. He would attend also to see that each had the genuine " kine- pock " and insure their safety from the small-pox. The doctor called this a "general vaccine inocula- tion." He signed his name S. Fansher. Hc had the support of the two village doctors and the Congrega- tional minister. There is extant a petition to the se- lectmen, dated Aug. 9, 1815, for an article in town warrant, to see if the town will accept the proposals of the above doctor, " for a general inoculation of the kine-pock throughout the town," signed by Drs. Syl- vanus Plympton and Francis Kittredge and the Rev. Joseph Chickering, and others. Again, in 1823, Dr. Francis Kittredge and nine others petitioned for an

358

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

article in the town warrant concerning the purchase of one or more "bathing tubs " for the public use of the town. This was a species of sweating-box, or bath, used in connection with cases of malignant fever, particularly the spotted fever, a disease which raged with great fatality in this region in the earlier part of the present century.

In 1815, Mr. John Brooks Russell, a native of the town of Arlington, Mass., went to school in Woburn a couple of weeks to one Hall J. Kelley, who had started a school of half-a-dozen scholars at New Bridge. Mr. Russell says "I boarded with a Mr. Thompson in a house where Connt Rumford was born." His impressions of Woburn in 1815 are given in the following brief recital : "I recollect Woburn only as a terribly dull farming town, partaking largely of the depression that was pretty general after the war of 1812." It may be inferred that, at the time Mr. Russell describes, those who pursued mechanical trades, or even exercised their skill in the learned pro- fessions, combined with those employments the occn- pation of agriculture, which was one of the main sources of their support. Even the most well-to-do exercised themselves personally in the various duties of farming, such as baying, laying walls, planting, gathering crops, caring for cattle, cutting wood, etc., etc., and the situation remained apparently unchanged in 1837, when the shoe manufacture was an import- ant business in the place, as it had been at the begin- ning of the century, and the tanneries were only four in number. After the opening of the Lowell Railroad in 1835, which passed to the east of the main village, a community grew up at what was then called East Woburn, now called by the name of the village of Montvale, and here an India rubber factory was es- tablished and other business, with an attempt also to establish a "silk farm" for the prosecution of the silk industry, a subject then attracting considerable attention in the country at large, and also a building enterprise, the whole proving less of a success than its projectors expected. At the time of the opening of the Lowell Railroad the south village in Woburn, now the town of Winchester, began to show signs of growth, particularly in the vicinity of the railroad. Here a village grew up which was soon dignified with the name of South Woburn. The population of the whole town in 1837 was only 2600, of which number 383 males and 320 females were employed in the man- ufacture of shoes. The number of hands employed in the tanneries was 77. In the door, sash and blind manufacture were employed 17 hands in three facto- ries. The number of hands employed in the India. rubber manufacture is not given. The Middlesex Canal, which ran a little to the west of the main vil- lage, was in operation, and added an element of vari- ety and enterprise, but it was soon destined to fail, because of the superior advantages of the railroads. The main village was described, at that date, as con- sisting of about " 70 or 80 dwelling-houses, a number

of mechanic shops and mercantile stores, with 4 churches,-1 Congregational, 2 Baptist and 1 Univer- salist, and an academy." Horn Pond at that time was also a place of considerable resort, and in the warm season a house on its shore was well patronized by visitors, who came by boat on the canal, which had six locks at this place, the whole spot being made attractive by summer houses, bowling alley (on the island in the pond), boat-houses, fountain, groves and beautiful scenery.

In 1846, according to a writer in that year, after the Woburn Branch Railroad, two miles in length, to Wo- burn Centre, had just been constructed, Woburn was essentially a manufacturing town ; pleasant villages had sprung up in various parts ; the principal manu- facture was of shoes and of leather; besides these were manufactories of doors, blinds and sashes, mahogany veneers and knobs, furniture, tin and cabinet-wares, India rubber goods, sewing silk, files, saws and lasts. The houses of public worship were then 2 Congrega- tionalist, 2 Baptist and 1 Universalist. Warren Academy, opened in 1828, was flourishing, and de- lightfully situated near the centre on a beautiful emi- nence. The town contained some beautiful farms. Horn Pond was still remarkable for its rural beauties, and numerous visitors were still attracted to it from a distance. The hills, dales and woods of the town were exceedingly pleasant. To this period the in- habitants had been mostly of the original stock. The Rev. Mr. Bennett, in 1846, whose career as minister of the first Congregational Church in Woburn cov- ered the period from 1822 to 1847, speaks of them as a peaceable people, as a stable people,-not change- able nor fickle,-their habits were country habits ; like Mr. Bennett himself, they were born and brought up in the country, and were accustomed to industry, economy and plain manners. He was, he said, brought up to saw his own wood, to make his own fire; in a word, to wait upon himself; and in Woburn he was among a plain country people of similar habits and customs. With the opening of the railroads and the increase of manufacturing came persons who were natives of other parts of New England, and set- tled down among them, and with them also, in large numbers, came a body of foreigners, principally of Irish extraction, who readily found work in the shops and soon became an important element in the popu- lation of the place. This race was strong and willing to work, and became the owners, in time, of their own dwellings and of much real estate. They have furnished the community with many sober, industrious and patriotic citizens, and have borne well their share of the burdens imposed upon the community. The presence of this large body of strangers modified many of the customs and peculiarities of the older citizens, making them more cosmopolitan in their views and manner of life, and the contact of races, it may be said without prejudice, has been mutually beneficial, -the strangers adopting some of the better qualities

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 104

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034