History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 128

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 128

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).

Colonel Baldwin's second wife, Margaret, died October 8, 1799. He survived her eight years and died October 20, 1807. From manuscript notes of William R. Cutter, the librarian of Woburn, we are permitted to take the following :

"A marble tablet on a granite obelisk surmounting a tomb of probably later constructiou on the highest

Loanmi Baldwin

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summit in the Woburn first burying-ground, contains the following inscription, put in place, it is supposed about 1810, after the town had granted permission that such a tomb be built.

" To the memory of the Honorable Loammi Bald- win, who died October 20, 1807, æt. sixty-three. Erected by his children.

" For a long period this monument was the most imposing structure of the kind to be seen in the town. It is about ten feet high and is constructed of nine courses of granite ashlars, crowned by a pyramidical granite cap. The entrance to the tomb beneath the obelisk is concealed with earth."

GEN. ABIJAH THOMPSON.1

Not many men have lived in Woburn more favor- ably known and respected in the world of honorable and successful enterprise than the man whose once familiar name is at the head of this sketch. De- scended from the emigrant, James Thompson, who, in 1630, came in Winthrop's choice company to the new world and settled, first in Charlestown, and, in 1642, became one of the first settlers and magistrates in the newly incorporated town of Woburn, General Abijah Thompson could trace his line of descent hack through six generations of men, all of whom lived , and died in that part of the town now known as North Woburn. His father, Major Abijah Thompson, was the oldest son of Sheriff. Abijah Thompson, in whose large house, formerly a public-house, but now owned and occupied by the heirs of the late Oliver Fisher, the subject of this sketch was born May 20, 1793. In 1800 Major Ahijah Thompson built a house a few rods north of the old homestead. In this new house, now owned and occupied by Henry Thompson, he reared his young family and had his home till his death, in 1820. Besides his business as a mechanic he kept, in a part of his house, a country store. But, though highly respectahle in character and comfort- able in circumstances, he could afford to give his sons only the very limited opportunities, common at the time, for educational culture. The wide world was before them as they grew to manhood, and they had to find their way through it. At the early age of seventeen, Abijah, the oldest of the children, em- barked, without experience and wholly unaided from without, upon the tumultuous, and, to him unknown sea of business life. In a loose paper, discovered after his death, was found, in his own handwriting, the following condensed account of what followed this first step in his career : "In 1810 I left home at the age of seventeen to become an apprentice in the business of tanning and currying leather, and served four years. At the age of twenty-one I commenced business for myself, buying leather in the rough and dressing it with my own hands, in Medford. I began

with two dollars capital, selling in small lots, from one to six sides, to shoemakers from adjoining towns, for one year. I then left and built a small tannery with sixteen vats, in the west part of Woburn, grind- ing my bark with a horse and stone, and tanning what few hides I could find among the farmers,- from one hundred to one hundred and fifty a year.

"I had two apprentices. Buying leather from the tan- neries in the county, and dressing it, I then took my horse and went to Reading, Stoneham, Malden and other adjoining towns, where I sold to shoemakers from four to five sides each about every other week. At the same time I picked up the hides among the farmers as they killed their animals in the fall of the year. Thus I increased my business, as capital increased, for about ten years. I then bought a tract of fifteen acres of land, with a small water privilege, near the centre of the town. It was a very rough place, but I commenced clearing it up, built a dam, and erecting a building, put down twenty vats, enlarging by de- grees my business as I gained in capital, and each year putting down more vats. In 1835, finding my water-power not sufficient for the business, I put in steam-power and other machinery, and, in 1836, I took in Stephen Dow as a partner."

This short account involves details which a stran- ger to the husiness would not even suspect. From these small beginnings General Thompson's business went on increasing in its extent and importance until he was one of the largest and most successful mann- facturers of leather in the United States; and by all who knew him he was ever regarded as no less honor- able than he was successful. And when, in 1866, he retired from active participation in the business, though tanning and finishing leather at the rate of fifty thousand sides per annum, and having a large leather store in Boston, not one unpleasant word and not one suspicious look had ever occasioned a jar be- tween him and his partner, or between him and any man with whom he was concerned. No suspicion of trick, or unworthy resort to any species of sham, ever rested upon him for a single day. He well knew what "the day of small things" meant; and he had his trials, sometimes numerous and severe. But whatever else he sacrificed, he never sacrificed a prin- ciple nor had a principle for sale.

In the early days of his enterprise General Thomp- son was obliged and not ashamed to practice rigid economy. When his young wife, then in very poor health, needed a nurse, which he was not able to employ, he cheerfully became nurse himself, but re- moved his carrying-beam from his shop to the sick- room, so that he could perform the double duty of shaving leather and caring for the sick one until her recovery.

Immense as his business finally became, and great as was the burden of care and responsibility resting upon him, no man was ever further removed from bluster or noisy pretence than General Thompson.

1 By Rev. L. Thompson.

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With wonderful equanimity he always seemed calm, self-contained and unpretending. His speech never betrayed a loss of balance or self-respect. Seeing and deploring the evils of intemperance and low and profane talk around him, he, for years, made it a law of his establishment that no intoxicating liquors and no profane language should be used by men in his employ. Those who were addicted to either and un- willing to abandon the bad habits, need not apply for employment. Yet the law was madeand enforced so quietly, so wisely and so kindly that there was never any "strike" and never any serious difficulty. To some of his workmen the measure was the means of permanent reformation and very manifest benefit.

Though General Thompson was one of those men who never sought and apparently never desired office -offices from all quarters sought him. He had an inherited fondness for military life and early joined a company of artillery in Lexington. From the office of sergeant, in 1824, he rose, in 1826, to that of captain, in 1828 to that of major and in 1835 to that of brigadier-general - the last-nientioned commission being given by Governor Armstrong and the two former by Governor Lincoln. In the town he served several years on the Board of Selectmen. He was for many years president of the Woburn Bank, and also of the Woburn Five-Cent Savings Bank; one of the original directors of Faneuil Hall Bank, of Bos- ton, a director of a bank in Charlestown and, for many years, one of the active managers of the Mid- dlesex Insurance Company in Concord.

General Thompson was unquestionably one of the most public-spirited men ever resident in Woburn. No great and important enterprise failed to enlist his sympathy and aid. He was among the first, if not the first, to move in the effort to secure the Woburn Branch Railroad, the Woburn Gas Company and the bank, of which he was long the president. In his relations to the parish and church of his choice, he was also ever ready to help on every good work. And always regretting his own early lack of educa- tional advantages, he evinced a like interest in the schools, and especially the academy of his native town, of which he was a trustee and the treasurer, and to which he left, in his will, a considerable sum of money, as he did also to the First Congregational Church, of which, from his early manhood, he had been a member. Of his large fortune, accumulated by his own honest industry and enterprise, it is pleas- ant to know that a large number of worthy objects received a share.

In his domestic relations General Thompson was peculiarly happy. On the 29th of April, 1814, when he was not quite twenty-one years of age, he married Celende, daughter of Captain William and Arethusa (Munroe) Fox, of Woburn. The mutual experiences of joy and sorrow, of adversity and prosperity, con- tinued through more than fifty years of married life, proved that she was one of the best of wives and mo-

thers, and he one of the best of husbands and fathers. Of their "golden wedding," observed April 29, 1864, the local papers gave a deeply interesting account. After various appropriate exercises, including music, addresses from Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a former pastor of the family, and Rev. Dr. J. C. Bodwell, the pastor at the time of the festival-the latter read a beautiful poem, suited to the occasion and subse- quently published.

General Thompson survived his wife nearly two years, she dying September 11, 1866, and he June 7, 1868.

They had four children : 1. Celende, born Febru- ary 13, 1816, married Stephen Dow, May 24, 1836, and had seven children ; 2. Abijah, born June 13, 1818, died September 11, 1826; 3. Julia Ann, born September 16, 1827, married J. B. Doyle, June 1, 1854, and died in 1867-bad two children; 4. Abijah Franklin, born September 17, 1829, married Mary E. Wyman, May 15, 1851, and died August 5, 1861, leaving one child, Arthur Abijah, now of Brooklyn, New York.

Of the business firm of which General Thompson was the founder, it is proper to add to the foregoing sketch that, though represented from time to time since his death by various other names, it is still in existence and still vigorously prosecuting its appro- priate enterprise under the names of his grandsons,- . Messrs. Alfred Abijah and Edward Augustus Dow.

JONATHAN B. WINN.1 .

Jonathan Bowers Winn, to whose liberality and property the Woburn Public Library owes its exist- ence and its present extensive endowment, belonged to a family which had contributed to Woburn, from the period of the town's first settlement, many of its most prominent and influential citizens. The first- born child recorded in Woburn was Increase Winn, born December 5, 1641, the son of Edward and Joanna Winn, the ancestors of all the Winns of Woburn. Edward Winn was of Woburn, 1641 ; made freeman 1643, and taxed in Woburn, in the rate for the county, September 8, 1645. His daughter Ann, the wife of Moses Cleveland, of Woburn, is the ances- tor of Grover Cleveland, ex-President of the United States. Edward Winn, the family ancestor, died in Woburn, September 5, 1682. From Edward Winn, the early settler, the Hon. Jonathan Bowers Winn traced his descent, through Edward's son Joseph, who was born in England, and who, known as "Eu- sign Joseph Winn," died in Woburn on February 22, A.D. 1714-15; and Timothy Winn, son of Joseph, born in Woburn, February 27, 1686-7, died January 5, 1752, aged sixty-five. His gravestone is standing in the Woburn first burying-ground. His son, Tim- othy Winn, born about July, 1712, was a gentleman

1 By W. R. Cutter.

John Johnson

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Timothy Mim

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of note and of much influence in his day. He was a native of Woburn, and his place of residence falling within the bounds of Woburn Precinct, he joined the Precinct Church May 4, 1740, and was chosen a deacon of that church December 26, 1752, an office which he held during life, and hence came the reason why he was better known and generally recognized as Deacon Timothy Winn. He was a man noted for liis industry, economy and success in amassing wealth. He was chosen one of the selectmen of the town in 1756-57, and again in 1773-74-75. He rep- resented Woburn in the General Court 1787-88 and 1791; and in December, 1787, he and James Fowle, Jr., were chosen delegates for Woburn to the conven- tion which met in Boston, January 9, 1788, respecting the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. In all the early attempts to set off Woburn Precinct as a separate town, he was opposed, it is said, to the measure; but he favored, it is understood, the last attempt, which proved successful. But he did not live long to enjoy the success of it. He died March 3, 1800, aged eighty-seven years and eight months, a few days more than a year after the act of Court incorporating the Second Precinct as a town, by the name of Burlington. By his wife, Mary (Bowers) Winn, Dea. Winn had two children that lived to mature age, viz., Timothy, born at Woburn December 20, 1740 ; and Mary, born June 21, 1743, and married, January 2, 1777, to Col. John Waldron, of Dover, N. H. Dea. Winn's son Timothy, distin- guished in Woburn records as Timothy Winn, Jr., and as Ensign Timothy Winn, was a gentleman highly respected and esteemed. He married for his second wife Mary Bridge, daughter of Rev. Ebenezer Bridge, of Chelmsford. By her he had, among other children, the late Col. William Winn, of Burlington and Woburn, who was the father of the Hon. Jona- than Bowers Winn, of Woburn. Among other fami- lies descended from the first settlers of Woburn, Mr. Winn traced his descent to those of Reed and Brooks and Walker.

Hon. Jonathan Bowers Winn was born in Burling- ton, August 24, 1811, a son of Col. William and Abi- gail (Walker) Winn. As we have shown, he traced his lineage through Col. William6 (his father), and Ensign Timothy5, Deacon Timothy4, Timothy3 (died 1752), and Ensign Joseph2 (died 1715), to Edward1 Winn (died 1682), one of the first settlers of Woburn. He was, therefore, in the seventh generation of the family in this country. His father died April 13, 1856, aged seventy-one; his mother, May 11, 1826, aged forty .- Family monument. Hon. J. B. Winn, in early life, taught school at Wilmington and North Woburn, and, after learning the currier's trade, be- came a partner of the leather manufacturing firm of John Cummings & Co., and in 1837 started in busi- ness for himself, and in 1841 established the leather- manufacturing firm of J. B. Winn & Co. In 1843-44 he commanded the local military company known as

the Woburn Mechanic Phalanx. He filled many minor offices in the town, and in monetary and other institutions. He was elected delegate to the State Constitutional Convention in 1853, and, as already shown, gave the money he received for his services to establish the Woburn town library. During the Civil War of 1861-65 he was the most active citizen in raising money for furnishing soldiers, and became re- sponsible for large sums of money, when the town was in doubt about their legal right to pay bounties to soldiers enlisted by the town. He was one of the founders of the present Woburn National Bank, and was elected president of that institution at the de- cease of General Abijah Thompson. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Governor's Council of Massa- chusetts, and was re-elected to that high executive office till the year 1873, when declining health ad- monished him to retire from public life. He was a liberal supporter of the Unitarian Church in the town of Woburn, and appeals for assistance by other churches seldom were unheeded. He was a man of strong will and unswerving integrity-his word was as good as his bond, and his death was deeply felt by the citizens of Woburn. He died at his residence, on Pleasant Street, in Woburn, at one-and-a-quarter o'clock. Friday morning, December 12, 1873, aged sixty-two years.

His funeral was a notable event in Woburn; attended by the Governor and Council, and a large company of strangers and citizens.

The Hon. J. B. Winn married Nancy W. Cum- mings, daughter of Deacon John Cummings, of Wo- burn, born December 16, 1814. She died at Woburn, March 24, 1863. By her he had two children only, both born at Woburn, viz. :

Marcia Ann, born August 25, 1836; married Hon. Edward D. Hayden, of Woburn, and died at Woburn January 8, 1862.

Charles Bowers, born May 15, 1838; unmarried; died December 19, 1875. A notice of him is given under the title of the Woburn Public Library, of which he was the generous benefactor.

TIMOTHY WINN. 1

Timothy Winn, a brother of the Hon. Jonathan Bowers Winn, was the son of Colonel William and Abigail (Walker) Winn, and was born in Burlington, September 25, 1817. He was a partner of the firm of J. B. Winn & Co., leather manufacturers, and by his ability and strict attention to business contributed much to the success of that firm. He commanded for many years the military corps known as the Wo- burn Mechanic Phalanx, which, during his captaincy became one of the best drilled companies in the State. By a coalition of the Democratic and Free Soil parties in 1851, he was elected as a representative

1 By W. R. Cutter.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

to the Legislature of 1852, and in 1860 he was chosen a delegate to the National Republican Convention, held at Chicago, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. Although not holding any local town office, and always declining every attempt to put him in nomination for one, he was always active, by influence and vote, for all those measures which tended to elevate and improve the town.

He had a more extensive acquaintance with the leading military and public men of the county, and was probably better known to them than any other person in Woburn. There was a magnetism about him that seemed to inspire others with the energy and spirit which animated him. In the caucus, at the military parade, in the social circle, his presence was a power which largely contributed to success.

He married Abigail Maria, daughter of Ezra and Susanna Kendall, April 20, 1843, by whom he had two children-Otis Kendall, born June 17, 1844, mar- ried Addie B. Norris, June 17, 1866, and died Janu- ary 23, 1868; Susan Maria, born May 1, 1849, mar- ried Daniel H. Lane, of Boston, January 11, 1871. About eight years before his death he was attacked with a disease which the best medical skill was pow- erless to cure, and at times his sufferings were intense ; yet he bore them all with a brave and manly spirit. He died in Woburn, November 28, 1873, aged fifty- six, and his funeral services were held in the Unitar- ian Church, Tuesday afternoon, December 2d.

In his charities he was generous without parade, and there were many in the community whose bur- dens in life were made lighter by his timely bounty. He left a property estimated at a large amount. He gave, among other bequests, $3000 to the town library, $3000 to the town for the cemetery, and $5000 to the Unitarian Church.

COL. MOSES F. WINN.

Col. Moses F. Winn, son of Moses and Sally (Johnson) Winn, was born in North Woburn, March 5, 1806. He married Abigail, daughter of Stephen and Abigail (Tidd) Nichols, August 30, 1830, and died August 8, 1875. Onthis father's side he was a descendant of Increase Winn, the first child born in Woburn, and on his mother's, from Edward Johnson, author of a rare work entitled "The Wonder-Working Providence." Mr. Winn was so largely identified with the growth and progress of the town that a men- tion of the public places he has filled will suggest the respect and esteem in which he was held by his fellow-townsmen. He was one of the select- men in 1855 and 1856, for several years an overseer of the poor, one of the committee to lay out the cemetery in 1844, and the beauty of the "city of the dead " is largely due to his good taste. He retained his position on the cemetery committee up to the time of his death, a period of thirty-two years. He was prominent as a member of various committees for

public buildings and other purposes. He was elected one of the directors of the Woburn Bank at the time of its incorporation in 1853, director of the Woburn Agricultural and Mechanics' Association in 1841, and trustee of the Woburn Five Cent Savings Bank in 1854. All of these positions he held at the time of his death. He was also president of the North Woburn Street Railroad Company and one of the firm of Nichols, Winn & Co., shoe manufacturers, and Winn, Eaton & Co., leather manufacturers at North Woburn. He was colonel of the Fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, and was the predecessor of Colonel Green, commanding the regiment at the muster at Groton. But he excelled mainly in the sweet and unostentatious charity of his neighborhood life. He was foremost in everything that tended to develop the natural beauty of the town or promote the good morals of the community.

He aided largely in building the Congregational meeting-house.

The poor and suffering found in him a sympathiz- ing friend. He felt a tender interest in young men, and counseled them to manliness, honesty, sobriety and economy, that they might win for themselves the respect of their fellows and live lives of real value to the world. Colonel Winn was one of Woburn's most esteemed citizens, and his many good works are held in grateful remembrance.

JOHN JOHNSON.

Mr. John Johnson is the eldest son of John and Sarah (Kendall) Johnson, and was born in that part of Woburn known as Cummingsville, Feb. 12, 1814. He is a lineal descendant, in the eighth generation, of Capt. Edward Johnson, the line of descent extend- ing through Edward1, William2, Edward3, Samuel4, Reuben5, Reuben6, and John7. According to the will of George Johnson, who died in Maryland in 1681, Capt. Edward Johnson was the son of William John- son, who owned property "in Canterbury, Kent County, Old England, in a parish called Alfidge, over against the Bishop's Palace."1

As a boy, the subject of this sketch attended the ' Mountain School " in Burlington, and the " West- Side School" on Cambridge Street, in Woburn, for about three months in winter and six weeks in sum- mer, In Oct., 1831, he took charge of his grandfather Kendall's farm, receiving for his services seven dol- lars a month in winter and twelve dollars a month in summer. Being under age, he gave his father one- half of these wages, and with the residue, in Dec., 1832, he paid his tuition at the Warren Academy for the winter term of 1832-33. It was his intention and ambition to educate himself for the Universalist min- istry, but, frustrated in this purpose and dissatisfied with farming, he resolved to learn a trade. His

1 See the Woburn JJournal, Jan. 31, 1890.

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friend, John Cummings, urged him to become a cur- rier, but the manufacturer of whom he sought employment was unwilling to accept him as an apprentice unless he would attend either the Baptist or Orthodox Church, a condition with which he would not comply. In April, 1833, he went to West Cambridge (now Arlington) and became apprenticed to his uncle, Isaac Hall, a wheelwright, whose wife, née Hannah Keudall, was a sister of Mr. Johnson's mother. He remained with Mr. Hall as an appren- tice for two years, receiving thirty dollars the first year and thirty-five dollars the second year for his services. In the spring of 1835, about six weeks after he had attained his majority, he left West Cambridge and went to work for Thaddeus Parker, whose shop stood at the junction of Pond and Cambridge Streets, in Woburn. He afterwards worked at his trade for Oliver Parker, and in 1839 he built a shop and exca- vated the mill-pond on Burlington Street, in Cum- mingsville, and engaged in business on his own account. He followed his trade here until 1854, doing more or less of a farming business during that period on land purchased of his father.

On March 1, 1854, he was elected treasurer of the Woburn Agricultural and Mechanic Association at an annual salary then of $300 only. He still retains this position.

In Nov., 1864, he succeeded Bowen Buckman as a director of the First National Bank of Woburn, and subsequently became vice-president of that institu- tion, a position which he still holds.

In the administration of municipal affairs he has been somewhat prominent. With the exception of the year 1854 (when he was one of the selectmen ) he held the office of town auditor for the twenty-nine successive years beginning in 1847 and ending. April, 1876. He was a member of the Board of Selectmen in 1854, an assessor in 1851, 1852 and 1860, and has served on the School Committee seventeen years in all, being a member of that board as early as 1848 and as late as 1880. In April, 1873, he was chosen to succeed Nathan Wyman as town clerk, but declined to serve. He was an executor named in the will of Charles B. Winn, and was one of the committee who had in charge the building of the Woburn Public Library. In politics Mr. Johnson has been a Whig and a Republican, although he voted for Greeley in 1872. He was an active member of the First Universalist Society of Woburn so long as it retained its separate organization, and since its union with the First Uni- tarian Parish he has been prominently identified with the latter body, and has been one of its deacons for many years.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 128

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