History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 142

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 142

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Mr. Sears' ministry at Wayland continued for sev- enteen years. In 1865 he was installed as colleague of Rev. Dr. Joseph Field, pastor of the Unitarian Church in the adjoining town of Weston, and upon the death of Dr. Field, in 1869, he became the sole minister of the church. The ten years he spent at Weston were exceedingly pleasant and happy ones, and were enriched by one of the most delightful ex- periences of his life-a tour to Europe in the summer of 1873. He died at his residence in Weston on Jan- uary 16, 1876, after a long and painful illness.

Mr. Sears is well known as a writer upon religious themes, and, besides many sermons and discourses, he published the following volumes: "Pictures of the Olden Time," 1853; "Regeneration," 1853; " Ath- anasia, or Foregleams of Immortality," 1858; "The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ," 1872; " Fore- gleams and Foreshadows of Immortality " (revised from " Athanasia "), 1873; "Sermons and Songs of the Christian Life," 1875; "Christ in the Life," 1877. Some of his lyrical pieces are well known, and are to be found in many hymnals, especially the two Christmas lyrics : "Calm on the Listening Ear of Night," and " It Came Upon the Midnight Clear."

In anti-slavery and war times he composed several stirring songs which were then often quoted, particu- larly the one written upon the death of John Brown. Mr. Sears was also senior editor of the Monthly Reli- gious Magazine for many years, and contributed to that periodical numerous articles upon a great variety of topics. His volume " Pictures of the Olden Time" is an historical romance founded upon some old family traditions, and contained as an appendix a genealogy of the Sears family. His other works were, as their titles indicate, of a religious nature. The catholicity of his spirit is revealed in the wide circu- lation which his writings obtained. " More than any other man of his day," said the New York Evening Post, " he held convictions and made statements

which commanded the assent of considerable numbers of thoughtful and cultivated persons outside of the religious body to which he belonged."

He received the degree of D.D. from Union Col- lege in 1870.

Such is the brief and meagre record of a remarkable life and a remarkable man. For Mr. Sears was re- markable, not because his gifts were great, but be- cause they were unique. In the elevation of his Christian character, in his piety and his unswerving loyalty to the truth as he saw it, in his courage, his honesty in the smallest things, his thrift, his shrewd- ness and his firm grasp upon the practical side of life, he did not differ materially from many eminent di- vines who have adorned the history of New England from the earliest Puritan times; but in the depth of his poetic and spiritnal insight, he stands as a marked and unique figure among them. His gift of poetic utterance, though unusual, was yet very limited, and his best poems are remarkable for melody, feeling and lyrical fire rather than for rich- ness of poetic phrase; but his insight as a poet was exceptionally profound. In was first developed in his boyhood amid the Berkshire hills he loved; it was cherished and fed at Lancaster by the elms and the clear-flowing Nashua; at Wayland by the fair river landscape that reveals itself from the high hills of the town ; it was qnickened by the lake seenery of Eng- land and the rugged mountains of Scotland ; and finally it received its fullest and highest inspirations when applied to divine and spiritual things. Mr. Sears was like an Oriental in his readiness to apply it to such things, and was always a little impatient with the practical and prosy bent of the European mind, which he termed " our freezing Occidentalism," He was ready to see spiritual things through natural things, and grasped eagerly at the great fact revealed by Saint John, by Swedenborg, and by Wordsworth, that the outward universe is but a veil that dimly hides the Divine and Eternal Mind. And so quite naturally he loved Wordsworth more than any other poet, and found in him unfailing delight.

Yet Mr. Sears was not a visionary. His mind was severely logical. His insight divined truth, both na- tural and spiritual, with wonderful quickness, but he never trusted what he thus apprehended until his reason had confirmed it. Hence his religious works have a unique and peculiar character, especially the one on the Fourth Gospel. The style is fervid and poetic ; the religions feeling is strong and even in- tense ; and yet no conclusions are reached that are notdogically defended and maintained.

This poetic nature that was so marked in Mr. Sears affected his character profoundly, giving to it great fineness and some limitations also. It made him sensi- tive, gentle, winning, so that he was beloved by the various peoples to whom he preached as a minister is seldom loved. But his sensitiveness was extreme, and though he was unusually firm, fearless and decided,

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and possessed, too, uncommon force, it prevented his character from having that robustness and complete . ness that belongs to men of a different mould.

Mr. Sears was in sympathy with the earlier leaders of the Unitarian movement, yet it could hardly be said that he followed them, for he reached his most cherished convictions by his own independent think- ing. To him the one central idea of Christian the- ology was the " Logos doctrine," that " the Word was made flesh and dwelt among" us, and hence that there was in Christ the Divine nature in its fullness as well as the human. In maintaining this view he found himself ont of sympathy with the newer, hu- manitarian school of Unitarians; but in the preface to "Sermons and Songs," the last of his works pub- lished during his life, he affirmed his loyalty to the Unitarian hody and his gratitude to it for the freedom it had always allowed him.

As a citizen he was prominent and active, taking a keen interest in town affairs as well as those of the State and the Nation. Especially did he labor in be- half of education, and not only did he raise the stand- ards of the schools, but he gave to the more intelligent young people of his different pastorates most valuable mental stimulus and help. He did not often intro- duce secular topics into his sermons, but in great crises, as at the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, he did not hesitate to declare from the pulpit that when the human and the Divine law were in conflict it was the duty of all to obey the latter. After the assault upon Charles Sumner he preached a sermon entitled " Revolution or Reform," which so commended itself to the anti-slavery leaders that they had a large edition printed and many thousand copies were cir- culated throughout the North.

For thirty years, including the greater part of his active life, Mr. Sears was a citizen of Middlesex County, where his influence upon the intellectual and spiritual life of his time was deeply felt.

BRADDYLL SMITH, son of William Smith, born in 1715, married in 1736 Mary Hager. He was captain of the Weston Company of minute-men and made colonel of militia in 1776-77. He represented Weston in the General Court in 1775, and in 1776-77 was a delegate to the Continental Congress at Concord and Watertown ; he held all the important offices in the town and church ; he had eight children and died in 1779.

SAMUEL SEAVERNS, baptized in Watertown in 1686, married Rebecca Stratton in 1699; his son Samuel, born in 1706, when a boy, before going for the cows, would climb a tree and look out for Indians before venturing away from his father's house-a part of the Starr house, now of Bush heirs, was probably built by Samuel Seaverns. Dr. Starr was born in this house and married Abigail Upham in 1762. The house was repaired in 1856, and a copper coin of George II. found in the walls.

SAMUEL SEAVERNS, born in 1779, was so much op-

posed to the Boston and Worcester Railroad passing through his land, that during his life he could not be induced to enter the cars, and would turn his back on the trains as they passed along in sight. The compen- sation he received from the road was not considered by him as any equivalent for the intrusion upon his property.

EBENEZER STARR, M.D., born in 1768 ; graduated at. Harvard College in 1789. He was made M.D. in 1825. He died in 1830. He was a member of the Legislature in 1815, 1817, and justice of the peace.

EPHRAIM WOOLSON, son of Thomas Woolson, of Weston, born in 1740 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1760. He settled in New Hampshire.

SAMUEL WOODWARD, sou of the Rev. Samuel Woodward, born 1756; graduated at Harvard College in 1776. He was a surgeon in the Continental Army, and settled in Newburgh, New York. He died in 1785, leaving one son. His brother, Cyrus Wood- ward, born in 1764, died in 1782, while in the Sopho- more class at Harvard.

SAMUEL WOODWARD, fourth child of Ebenezer and Mindwell Stone Woodward, was born in Newton in 1726 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1748 ; or- dained pastor of the Weston church in 1751 by a unanimous vote of the town. In 1753 he married Abigail, daughter of the Rev. Wareham Williams, of Waltham, and had twelve children. Abigail, the third child, born in 1759, married the Rev. Samuel Kendall in 1786. Miranda, the fifth child, married Mr. Kendall for his second wife, in 1794. Mr. Wood- ward was a strong Liberty man throughout the Rev- olution, and he joined Captain Lamson's company as a private on the march to Concord, in 1775. He died October 5, 1782, having been pastor over the Weston church for thirty-one years. His death was greatly lamented. His widow married Col. Thomas Marshall in 1795.

REV. WILLIAM WILLIAMS was born in 1688, the son of the Rev. William Williams, of Hatfield. He graduated at Harvard College in 1705 and was or- dained pastor over the church in Weston November 9, 1709 ; he married, in 1710, Hannah, daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton. She died in 1741, leaving eight children ; Lucy, his fifth child, born in 1721, married, in 1743, the Rev. Joseph Buck- minster. Mr. Williams organized the church in Weston. Mr. Williams died in 1760, aged seventy- two years.

PHINEAS WHITNEY, born in 1740; graduated at Harvard College in 1759; ordained in 1762 the first settled minister in Shirley, where he remained over fifty years-his salary was £66 13s. 4d. He was trustee of Groton Academy from its foundation till his death, in 1819, in his eightieth year.

CHARLES TRAIN, son of Samuel Train, of Weston, born in 1783; graduated at Harvard College in 1805; ordained a Baptist minister in Framingham in 1811, over the united churches of Weston and Framing-

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ham. They separated in 1826, Mr. Train remain- ing in Framingham, which position as pastor he held until 1839. He was preceptor of Framingham Academy in 1808 and afterwards a trustee. He rep- resented the town in 1822 for six years at the General Court and was afterwards a State Senator. He was active at that early date in the cause of temperance, and it was by his active initiation that we owe our State Library. In 1833 he met with an accident which incapacitated him from active life until his death, which occurred September 17, 1849. His son, Charles R. Train, graduated from Brown University in 1837; he was a prominent lawyer, at one time district attor- ney and State Senator.

ARTHUR TRAIN, son of Samuel and brother of Charles, born in 1772, married Betsey, daughter of Joseph Train, of Weston, November 30, 1797.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NATICK.

BY REV. JOHN F. NORTON, A.M.

NATURAL FEATURES AND PRODUCTIONS.

THIS town is situated in the southern part of Mid- dlesex County, seventeen miles west of Boston and twenty-three miles east of Worcester. Its boundaries, which have been repeatedly changed since 1650, when it became an Indian plantation, are somewhat irregu- lar. On the north lies Wayland, on the northeast Weston, on the east Wellesley, on the south Sher- born, on the southeast Dover, and on the west Fram- ingham. In shape the town forms an irregular tri- angle.

The name Natick is doubtless of Indian origin and signified, in the language of the aborigines, as is gen- erally supposed, " The Hilly Place." If so, it was ap- propriately given to this locality, where the hills are so numerous and so prominent a feature of the land- scape. These hills are by no means as long and steep as are found in the mountainous portions of our Com- monwealth ; still not a few of them are notable for their size and height, and, interspersed as they are between the lakes, the plains, the valleys and water- courses of the town, greatly diversify and beautify its scenery in almost every direction. Of these, Peagan Hill is the best known and the highest. This lies in the southern part of the town and commands a magnificent view of the valley of Charles River and extensive regions beyond, while from no other height in this vicinity is the general prospect so grand and imposing.

Walnut Hill, upon the southern slope of which a considerable part of the large central village of Natick is built, gives from its summit the best view of the thickly-settled portion of the town, as well as of picturesque Lake Cochituate, and of the regions at the north, including Mount Wachusett and "Grand Monadnock," the great isolated mountain of Southern New Hampshire.

Other hills of less uote are found in almost every section of the town, and the drives to the summits of and among these are remarkably pleasant.

There are three plains in the town, originally named Eliot Plain, upon the banks of Charles River, in South Natick; Peagan Plain, where the central vil- lage is chiefly located, and Boden Plain, in the north- west part of the town, so named to perpetuate the memory of William Boden, Esq.

The soil of Natick is fairly good, and, fifty years ago, nearly all the people were frugal and thriving farmers. Some of the most productive farms of that period are now covered by the populous central vil- lage, particularly those of Rev. Martin Moore, Dr. John Angier, Ruel Morse, Abel Perry and Capt. David Bacon.1 At the present time the manufactur- ing interests of Natick render farming a matter of secondary importance in the public estimation, but its farms are not neglected and cannot be without af- fecting adversely the town's prosperity. The land pro- duces large crops of grass, of the cereal grains and of potatoes, all of which find here a remunerative market.

Much attention has been given of late years to the cultivation of fruit. The apple orchards are gener- ally prolific, while the soil and climate seem espe- cially adapted to the growth and perfection of pears and grapes. All kinds of pear trees grow luxuriantly and nearly every year bear heavily. Nearly all the newer varieties of grapes are found in the yards and gardens, and climbing the sides of the houses and barns of Natick, while the older varieties, like the Concord, are still valued highly and largely culti- vated. The small fruits, like the strawberry and rasp- berry, abound here in great perfection.

The rocks and ledges of this town afford material for roughly constructed walls, but nothing sufficiently fine for ornamental and monumental purposes. The quarries of Milford and Holliston are chiefly de- pended upon to furnish underpinning stones for the public buildings, the business blocks and all the bet- ter class of dwelling-houses, while those of the Con- necticut Valley and of Southern New Hampshire afford the finer material for the numerous and large brick structures that have been erected during the last fifteen years.

Originally Natick was covered with a heavy growth of forest trees, among which the oak, the walnut, the chestnut, the elm and the maple were conspicu-

1 Bacon's " History, " page 149,

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NATICK.

ous. Some trees are now standing in this town that have acquired not a little notoriety, the chief of which is " the Eliot Oak," that stands a few rods east of the Unitarian Church in South Natick. This is a white oak and of great antiquity. A century ago there were three large oaks in the centre of that village forming a triangle. Under one of these Eliot gathered the Indiaus together and preached to them in 1650, as we shall presently see. One of these three trees, which was a red oak, was removed, probably near the opening of the present century. The second of these trees, which grew near the site of the drinking foun- tain in that village, was a very large tree and con- siderably decayed fifty years ago. This was a red oak and was cut down May 25, 1842.

Whether the last-mentioned tree was the real Eliot Oak, or this name properly belongs to the immense and venerable tree now standing, is a question that has been much discussed, but apparently decided in favor of the latter tree, for the following reasons : The red oak is well known to be a tree of rapid growth, and it has been computed that it comes to its growth in about one hundred years, and that in one hundred additional years it may be expected to fall from decay. On the contrary, the white oak grows very slowly, and does not reach its full size in less than three hundred years, and will remain in this condition of apparently perfect or nearly perfect health for three hundred years longer, and may be expected to live nine hundred years.

The tree now standing is doubtless the real Eliot Oak, for its competitor for this honor, the second of the red oaks, could hardly have been more than a sap- ling two hundred years before it was removed.1

The Charles River is the only river of Natick. This flows through the southern part of the town, and has been computed to cover in its course through Natick about one hundred acres of territory. At the rapids in South Natick it has long furnished valuable water privileges. Much of the water is taken from this river below Natick, before it reaches the ocean-as much, it is thought, as it receives from the brooks flowing into it in that part of its course. Broad's Hill divides the waters emptying into Charles River from those that reach Lake Cochituate, and these meet in the Atlantic through the channels of the Charles and Merrimac.

None of the brooks of Natick are large, but some of them, like Sawin's and Bacon's, have long fur- nished sites for mill purposes.

The Sawin saw-mill (the location of which was once changed because its dam injured the great mea- dows in Medfieid) was built by John Sawin about 1720. This was a great boon to the Indians, especially after there was added to it a corn-mill. Peagan Brook, which coming from the east, and, flowing

through the central village nearly parallel with the track of the Boston and Albany Railroad, empties into Lake Cochiluate near its south-eastern corner, has acquired not a little notoriety by the recent litiga- tion between the city of Boston and citizens of Natick touching the alleged pollution of the waters of the lake through the discharge of sewers into this stream.

Lake Cochituate, a large part of which lies in Natick, and from which the city of Boston receives much of its water supply, covers about six hundred acres of territory, and, with its windings, is nearly seven miles in length. Its opposite shores, in some places, approach within a few rods of one another, and while certain parts of it are comparatively shallow, in other places the water is nearly or quite seventy feet deep. The water from this lake is conveyed through , the north part of Natick in its course towards Boston, while through the south part of the town and by means of another aqueduct the supply from the Sudbury River reaches the same city. In the latter structure is a very long tunnel under the high hill northwest of South Natick village. Lake Cochituate is a very attractive sheet of water.

South of Cochituate lies Dug Pond, so named, doubtless, because of its abrupt and regular shores, giving it the appearance of having been excavated by human processes. In extent it covers not far from fifty acres. From this pond, which is deep and clear, the water supply of Natick is taken, the steam pump- ing machinery on its northern shore raising the water and driving it through the village into a spacious reservoir upon a high hill east of the same. The water in Dug Pond is the product of springs in it, and not of streams emptying into it from the adjoining terri- tory. The pond is separated from Lake Cochituate by a very narrow neck of land, but the water in the former is some feet higher than that of the latter. Less public interest attaches to the other ponds in Natick, of which there are a number.

The waters of Natick formerly supplied the in- habitants of the region with various kinds of fish, which were taken in great numbers. When Rev. Mr. Eliot established the Indian Plantation at South Natick he found that the fishing interest of the abo- rigines around the rapids of the Charles River had become a business of considerable and acknowledged importance. Before dams were built across the Con- cord River, and the city of Lowell grew up around the rapids of the Merrimac, the shad and some other kinds of fish that live a part of each year in the ocean, found their way into Lake Cochituate, and were taken from it in large quantities. Animals were fed with them, as well as men, we are assured, and the ancient records of Natick show that officers were annually chosen to superintend the fisheries of the parish, a part of whose duty it was to prevent strangers and all un- authorized persons from taking fish from the lake.

Among the destructive wild animals that were found in this region two hundred and fifty years ago

I See the pamphilet issued by the Historical, Natural History and Li- brary Society of South Natick, 1881, p. 56.

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the bear and the wolf were the most common, but, as these had no strongholds in the sides of precipitous mountains, to which they could flee when pursued by hunters, they were easily and quickly exterminated.

Among other animals which the region pro- duced when white families began to settle in this place, the deer, the moose, the fox, the otter and the beaver may be mentioned, and the hunting and trap- ping of the fur-clad portion of these had furnished for a number of years before a somewhat lucrative em- ployment for the Indians of the Natick Plantation. Waban, the chief, who removed, with a large part of his followers, from Nonantum to Natick in 1650-51 (as we shall presently see), was an Indian trader-in other words, a dealer in furs and skins-and in the first public building erected on this ground, a portion of the second story was used for the storage of Waban's merchandise. And later, when a new meeting-house was erected for the Indians, in 1721, we learn that the workmen were "payd every Saturday," and for their labor "recd 213 Beavers." Sometimes the skins appear to have been counted in the process of trade, and sometimes sold by weight; and, certainly, the animals that furnished such quantities as we read of must have been numerous. .

CHAPTER XXXVI.

NATICK-( Continued).

INDIAN SETTLEMENT, 1650-1700.1

NATICK is a historic town, and its early history, for the space of nearly one hundred years, is almost wholly unlike that of any other town in the Common- wealth.

In the charter of the Massachusetts Colony that came to New England in the year 1630, we are told that one of the objects which it was expected would be accomplished by this movement was the physical, mental and moral elevation of the ignorant and bar- barous Indians who inhabited the region. Other matters occupied the attention of the Colony for a number of years, but in 1646 an act was passed by the

General Court of Massachusetts, which was designed to promote the evangelization of the aborigines of the Commonwealth. This matter was commended par- ticularly to the pastors and leading men in the churches that had been organized.

The man before all others to take the lead in this movement was Rev. John Eliot, the minister in Rox- bury. Born of religious parents at Nasing, Essex County, England, in 1603, he had been educated at the University of Cambridge, where he was matricu- lated in 1619, with the reputation of being an excel- lent grammarian and fond of philological studies in general. His purpose at that time was to enter the Christian ministry as soon as might be, but he was a non-conformist, and non-conformity in those days sub- jected a man who would be a religious teacher to the most severe disabilities. Rev. Mr. Hooker, who, at a later period, was the eminent first pastor at Hartford, Ct., had recently been silenced for non-conformity. Mr. Eliot was taken into Mr. Hooker's family, and made an usher in a grammar school which the latter, had established ; but, according to the historian Neal, Eliot was "not allowed to teach school in his native country."

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 142

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