History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 80

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 80

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Ammiruhammah Faulkner, son of Francis, came from Andover and settled in " Concord Village," in 1735, at the "great falls." of the "Great Brook," where he erected the mills which have since been owned and occupied by his descendants, where he died Aug. 4. 1756, aged sixty-four.

Col. Francis Faulkner, son of Ammiruhammah,

was born in Andover, Mass., Sept. 29, 1728, and died in Acton Aug. 5, 1805, aged seventy seven, He mar- ried Lizzie Mussey April 29, 1756. He was a member of the Provincial Congress held in Concord, 1774, and represented the town of Acton in the Legislature of 1783-4-5. He had a military commission under George III., but the oppressive and arbitrary acts of Great Britain induced him to renounce his allegiance to the crown. In 1775 he was elected major of a reg- iment organized to "oppose invasion."

On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, he marched with the Acton patriots to the Concord North Bridge, where he engaged the British, and with his men pursued them to Charlestown. He was sev- eral times engaged in actual service during the war, being lieutenant-colonel in the Regiment Middlesex Militia called to reinforce the Continental Army at the occupation of Dorchester Heights, in March, 1776. He was in service when Burgoyne was taken, and commanded the regiment which guarded the prison- ers on that occasion. He was a courageous officer, an able legislator and an exemplary Christian. He built the mills which for a century and a half have been known as the Faulkner Mills, now of South Acton. They were first only a saw and a grist-mill, the two most indispensable agents of civilization and comfort in a new country. To these was added in due time a fulling-mill, which was among the very earliest efforts at the manufacture of woolen cloth in this country.

There was first a carding-machine, which changed as by magic the wool into beautiful rolls. They were distributed to many houses to be spun and woven into rough woolen cloth and returned to the mill. Here the cloth was fulled under stampers with soap, which made it foam and helped cleanse and thicken it up. The process of raising nap with teazles was exceed- ingly interesting. The teazle was a product of nature and seemed expressly and wonderfully created for that very purpose. Then came the shearing off in- equalities by the swift revolving shears and the final finishing up into cloth. When the wool was of fine quality and evenly spun the result was a passable broadcloth of great durability.

In order to encourage wool production and skill in using it, prizes were offered for the finest specimen of home-made broadcloth- that is, the wool, the spin- ning and weaving were of home; the rest was of the fulling-mill. This spinning and weaving were the fine arts of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and noble women were proud of the prizes they won. A prize to a spinster was sure to attract the most flattering attention and take her speedily out of spin- sterhood.

Colonel Faulkner was not only an active, energetic "clothier," but also a leading citizen in all public in- terests. For thirty-five successive years he was chosen towu clerk, and the records are kept with neatness, clearness and order. (See Cyrus Hamlin's

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Historical Sketch, read before Historical Society at Lexington.)

Winthrop Faulkner, the son of Francis, was born in Acton March 21, 1774, and died in Acton March 17, 1813. He received a justice's commission at the age of twenty-three. He was a man of cultivated mind and sound judgment, and his advice was gener- ally sought for all important town matters. Hc was one of the original members of the Corinthian Lodge of Masons in Concord.

COLONEL WINTHOP E. FAULKNER .- He was the son of Winthrop Faulkner, born April 16, 1805, and died March 25, 1880. He was initiated into the Co- rinthian Lodge of Masons in 1854. He married Martha Adams Bixby, of Framingham. He was noted in all the relations of life. He was an enter- prising miller, an enthusiast in music, dancing, mili- tary, civil, social and parish activities. He was a pushing man, forward in all enterprises for the pub- lic improvement. He was one of the prime movers in projecting the Fitchburg Railroad, and but for his enterprise in controlling the first plans, the road would have gone in another direction. He was for a long run of years one of the most active directors.

THE ROBBINS HOUSE. - Returning from the Fletcher homestead to the main road, and proceeding direct by the cemetery and beyond till we reach nearly the brow of the hill on the left, we come to the site of what was for so many years called the Robbins House. The land on which it was located was pur- chased of Captain Thomas Wheeler, whose house (the first in Acton) was located a few rods to the south, near the little brook before described in this narra- tive. When the latter house was taken down the timbers were found to be in good condition, and were used iu the construction of the L part of Nathan Robbins' house.

It was an historic structure from the start, and was emphatically so after the 19th of April, 1775. "Be- fore light on that eventful morning, hours before the British entered Concord, a horseman, whose name was never known, going at full speed (they spared neither horseflesh nor manflesh in those days), rode up to this house, then occupied by Captain Joseph Robbins, the commissioned officer in the town of Acton, who lived nearest North Bridge, and struck with a large, heavy club, as they thought, the corner of the house, never dismounting, but crying out at the top of his voice, 'Capt. Robbins! Capt. Robbins ! up, up! The Regulars have come to Concord. Ren- dezvous at old North Bridge! quick as possible alarm Acton.' "

His only son-afterwards a venerable magistrate- John Robbins, Esq., was then asleep in the garret- a lad ten years old.

But "those rappings"-and there was no sham about them-and that cry brought him to his feet instanter and every other living man in that house. It waked the babe in the cradle. In a few minutes

he was on " father's old mare," bound for Captain Davis's, not a mile off, who commanded the minute- men, and then to Deacon Simon Hunt's, in the west part of the town, who commanded the West Company as first lieutenant, Captain Francis Faulkner having, a few days before, been promoted to be major, and the vacancy not having been filled.

" The hurrying footsteps of that steed The fate of a nation was riding that night."

The locality where this house stood is easily recog- nized from the indications on the ground. It was a two-story building. The barn was struck by light- ning in the year 1830, and was rapidly consumed. The citizens rallied to save the building, or at least part of it, but Esq. Robbins shouted out with his stentorian voice : "Boys, save your fingers. There is plenty of timber in the woods where this came from !" He knew how to shout, for he was often moderator of the Acton town-meetings, which gave him a good chance to drill in that line of practice. The house stood afterwards for years unoccupied, but at last it yielded to the destiny of flames, supposed to have been an accidental fire, from the carelessness of tran- sient occupants. The old door-stone still remains in position, battered somewhat by relic-hunters, who have chipped from it for the sake of a memento. A tablet memorial will some day be erected on this ground befitting its historic interest.

The report of this house having been haunted in former years is easily credited by the superstitious, but denied by the more phlegmatic crowd. That those April rappings should have reverberations long continued is credible, and any one going by of an imaginative and appreciative turn of mind can hear them still ringing in his ears.

CAPTAIN DAVIS' ROUTE TO THE NORTH BRIDGE .- The 19th of April, 1775. It was a bright, genial morning. The sun was up at a good, cheery height of an hour and a half. The birds were chanting the very best songs of the opening spring. The men were drawn up in line. The captain at last gave the word "march." Luther Blanchard, the fifer, and Francis Barker, the drummer, struck at once the stirring notes of the "White Cockade," and forward they moved with a quick, brave step. They soon reached the homestead of Parson Swift. They could not stop for the greetings or the partings of the good man, but on they pressed, with their faces set for Mother Concord. They moved along over the old and only road leading from the present site of Deacon W. W. Davis' cross- ing in a straight line through to the meeting-house on the "knowll."

The road struck the other road just below Dr. Cow- dry's barn, where now stauds Deacon John Fletcher's barn, just relocated by Moses Taylor, Esq. The old road-bed was found when recently digging the cellar for the barn.

They could not stop for the silent benedictions of the old church, but the prayers and blessings of the

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pastor they could hear, and march all the faster for the memory. The handkerchiefs waving from the Brooks Tavern doors and windows helped the thrill of the hour. Down the hills they moved by the present site of Mr. McCarthy, np the ascent to the right, over the heights on the road path, now closed, but still a favorite walk down the hill, across the Revolutionary Bridge, west of Horace Hosmer's present site, the road leading by the spot where the elms south of his house now stand.

This bridge stood very near the spot where the railroad bridge now stands. Some of the stone which formed the abutments of the old bridge were used in the construction of the railroad bridge. The bridge, a few rods to the south of the original, has been sketched hy Arthur F. Davis, Acton's young artist, and it is a favorite landscape etching on sale in the cities.

Up the hill they hasten and turn to the right, going by Mr. Hammond Taylor's present residence, the old Brabrook homestead, on the south side, which was then the front side, the road on the north being a comparatively new opening; there they left the main road, struck through the woods, taking a bee-line to their destined point. After passing the woods, the march is by the Nathan Brooks place, now owned and occupied by Mr. H. F. Davis. The passage then was by the nearest way to Barrett's Mills, as then called, not far from the North Bridge.

LUTHER BLANCHARD .- He was born within the limits of what is now Boxboro', a part of Littleton at the time of the Concord Fight. He was a favorite young man, tall, straight, handsome and athletic. He was living at the time with Abner Hosmer, a mason, whose residence was the site of Mr. Herman A. Gould, on the Sonth Acton road, from the West, making him a near neighbor to Captain Davis. He was learning the mason's trade. He was a notable fifer, and his skil) and zeal on the morning of the 19th had much to do with the spirit of the whole occasion. The scene was just adapted to wake the musical genius to its highest pitch, and if there were any white feathers around they soon changed to fiery red at the signal from Luther's fife. When they began firing at the bridge, the British at first used blank cartridges. Captain Davis inquired if they were firing bullets. Luther said " Yes," for one had hit him and he was wounded. "If it had gone an inch fur- ther one way it would have killed me, and if an inch in the opposite direction it would have not have hit me at all." He followed on in the pursuit of the British on their retreat to Boston, fifing with all the vigor of his manly strength, which grew less as the excitement of the day began to tell upon his wasted forces. The wound, which he did not think serious at first, grew worse as he proceeded, and on reaching Cambridge he was obliged to be taken to a hospital, where he died.

Mrs. Jonathan B. Davis, a daughter of Simon Hos-

mer, often told these facts to Mr. Luke Blanchard, now living. It was the statement of Mr. Luke Blanchard's father, who was always careful in what he affirmed, that Luther died from the effects of his wound. Luther Blanchard's brother Calvin died from the fall of a tree. He helped tear down barns to build the fort on Bunker Hill. He would carry one end of the timber while it would take two men at the other end to balance.

Luther and Calvin Blanchard's father was in the fight at Quebec, and lost his life on the Plains of Abraham. There must have been patriotic gun- powder iu the very blood of the Blanchards at the original start.

Aaron Jones was near Captain Davis when he fell, and followed in pursuit of the British on their re- treat. He never could forget that morning or speak of it without a changed tone and face. He thought much of Luther Blanchard as an associate on that eventful day, and of his fifing march. He named one of his sons Luther Blanchard in memory of the martyr fifer. As the first blood shed on the 19th at Concord antedated the fall of Davis, in the person of Luther Blanchard, there ought to be a tablet, somewhere, memorizing the fact.

THE JAMES HAYWARD HOUSE .- The house in West Acton, formerly the residence of Hon. Stevens Hayward and in later years known as the Leland Place, now occupied by Mr. Kraetzer. Mr. Wood- bury, in his legislative speech, thus relates the cir- cumstances of James Hayward's fall on the 19th of April, 1775 :

" At Fiske's Hill, in Lexington, they had, as some, thought, the severest encounter of all the way. The road ran around the eastern base of a steep, thick- wooded hill. James Hayward, who had been active and foremost all the way, after the British had passed on, came down from the hill and was aiming for a well of water-the same well is still to be seen at the two-story Dutch-roofed red house on the right from Concord to Lexington, not two miles from the old meeting-house. As he passed by the end of that honse he spied a British soldier, still lingering behind the main body, plundering. The Briton also saw him and ran to the front door to cut him off. Lifting up his loaded musket he exclaims, ' You are a dead man.' Hayward immediately said, 'So are you.' They both fired and both fell. The Briton was shot dead, Hayward mortally wounded, the ball entering his side through this hole," holding up the powder-horn, "driving the splinters into his body. He lived eight hours ; retained his reason to the last.

" His venerable father, Deacon Samuel Hayward, whose house he had left that morning in the bloom of vigorous manhood, had time to reach Lexington and comfort him with his conversation by reading the Scriptures and prayer. 'James, you are mortally wounded. You can live but a few hours. Before sunrise to-morrow you will no doubt be a corpse.

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Are you sorry that you turned out ?' 'Father, hand me my powder-horn and bullet-pouch. I started with one pound of powder and forty balls, you see what is left,'-he had used all but two or three of them,-' you see what I have been about. I never did such a forenoon's work befcre. I am not sorry. Tell mother not to mourn too much for me, for I am not sorry I turned out. I die willingly for my country. She will now, I doubt not, by help of God, be free. And tell her whom I loved better than my mother-you know whom I mean-that I am not sorry. I never shall see her again. May I meet her in heaven.'

" Hayward had lost, by the cut of an axe, part of his toes on one foot, and was not liable to military duty. He 'turned out' that morning as a volunteer in the strictest sense-as hundreds did. He was one of the earliest at Davis' house, belonged to the same school district and born aud bred by the side of him, their fathers being next-door neighbors. He was twenty-eight years old, one of the most athletic, fine- looking, weil-informed, well-bred young men in town. He had been a schoolmaster, he knew the crisis, he knew what he was fighting for and what was to be gained. He came early to Davis' house and acted with his company. He was seen to go to grinding on the grindstone the point of his bayonet there. On being asked why he did it, 'Because,' said he, 'I ex- pect, before night, we shall come to a push with them aud I want my bayonet sharp.'"

A fine stone tablet has been erected by the town of Lexington opposite the house where Hayward fell, in honor of the man and the event.

ABNER HOSMER HOUSE .- Abner Hosmer, a pri- vate in Davis' company of minute-men; only twenty-two years old; unmarried; the son of Dea. Jonathan Hosmer, of the Acton Church. A friend and neighbor of Davis fell dead at the same volley- shot through the head. He lived where Mr. Gould now lives, half-way between South and West Villages, nearly a mile from either.

MRS. MEHITABLE PIPER (Acton's centenarian) .- She was the daughter of Joseph Barker (2d) and wife of Silas Piper ; born Jan. 24, 1771. She died March 25, 1872, at the age of 101 years and two months. Her funeral took place at her residence on the 28th. The house was filled with relatives and friends. After prayer and touching words of consolation a solemn funeral procession followed the remains to the church at the Centre. The house was filled in every part. Rev. Mr. Hayward, Universalist, and Rev. F. P. Wood, Orthodox, officiated.

Her existence was contemporaneous with that of the nation itself. She saw her mother weep in her father's embrace when he tore himself from the bosom of his family to take the part of a patriot in the Concord fight. She was living at the time where Moses Taylor, Esq., now lives, and went up to the top of Raspberry Hill, back of Rev. F. P. Wood's present

residence, to see or hear something from Concord. She had seen every phase of her country's wonderful growth, and to perpetuate and promote it had sent her descendants into the War of 1812 and through the streets of Baltimore to the terrible War of the Re- hellion.

She was the last of the devoted band of Puritans who had worshiped God in the town at the time when religious differences were unknown. She was the relic of other days and the wept of many hearts. Though older than the nation, she did not live long enough to make a single enemy, and her friends were those who at any time had known or seen her. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery by the side of her partuer.

Some of her ancestors were remarkable for their longevity, her father being upwards of ninety-nine years of age at his death.

She lived eighty years in one spot. She had twelve children, forty-two grandchildren, seventy great- grandchildren, and two children of the fifth genera- tion. Her father stood beside Captain Davis after he fell, and exclaimed to his comrades, " Boys, don't give up !"

REV. J. T. WOODBURY'S SPEECH .- Who was Cap- tain Isaac Davis? Who was Abner Hosmer? Who was James Hayward? And what was Concord fight ? What did they fight for, and what did they win ? These were Massachusetts Province militiamen ; uot in these good, quiet, piping times of peace, but in 1775, at the very dark, gloomy outbreak of the Amer- ican Revolution.

Let us turn back to the bloody annals of that eventful day. Let us see, as well as we can at this distance of three-quarters of a century, just how mat- ters and things stood.

General Gage had full possession of this city. The flag that waved over it was not that of "the old pine- tree"; nor that one, with that beautiful insignia, over your head, sir-with the uplifted right hand lettered over with this most warlike and, to my taste, most appropriate motto in a wrongful world like this, " Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quietem." No, no ! It was the flag of that hereditary despot, George the Third !

And if there had been no Isaac Davis or other men of his stamp on the ground in that day, the flag of the crouching lion, the flag of Queen Victoria-due successor to that same hated George the Third; first the oppressor, and then the unscrupulous murderer of our fathers! Yes ; I know what I say-the un- scrupulous murderer of our fathers -- would still wave over this beautiful city and would now be streaming in the wind over every American ship in this harbor. Where, in that case, would have been this Legisla- ture? Why, sir, it would never have been ; and my conscientious friend from West Brookfield, instead of sitting here a good "Free Soil" man, as he is, would have been called to no such high vocation as making

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laws for a free people-for the good old Common- wealth of Massachusetts; voting for Robert Rantoul, Jr., or Charles Sumner, or Hon. Mr. Winthrop to represent us in a body known as the United States Senate, pronounced the most august, dignified legis- lative assembly in the civilized world. Oh, no! Far otherwise! If permitted to legislate at all, it would be done under the dictation of Queen Victoria; and if he made laws it would be with a ring in his nose to pull him this way and that, or with his head in the British Lion's mouth-that same lion's mouth which roared in 1775-showing his teeth and lashing his sides at our fathers.

This city was in full possession of the enemy, and had been for several months. Gen. Gage had con- verted that house of prayer, the Old South Church- where we met a few days since, to sit, delighted auditors, to that unsurpassed election sermon-into a riding-school, a drilling-place for his cavalry. The pulpit and all the pews of the lower floor were, with vandal violence, torn out and tan brought in; and here the dragoons of King George practiced, on their prancing war-horses, the sword exercises, with Tory ladies and gentlemen for spectators in the galleries.

At the 19th of April, 1775, it was not " Ense petit placidam, sub libertate quietem." "Sub libertate!" It would have been, rather, "Sub vili servitio"-sub anything-rather than liberty under the British Crown !

Informatiou had been received from most reliable sources that valuable powder, ball and other munitions of war were deposited in Concord. Gen. Gage determ- ined to have them. Concord was a great place in '75. The Provincial Congress had just suspended its session there of near two months, adjourning over to the 10th of May, with Warren for their president, and such men as old Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Adams and James Otis as their advisers. Yes, Concord was the centre of the brave old Middlesex, containing within it all the early battle-grounds of liberty-Old North Bridge, Lexington Common and Bunker Hill --- and was for a time the capital of the Province, the seat of the Government of the Colony of Massachu- setts Bay.

And Concord had within it as true-hearted Whig patriots as ever breathed. Rev. Mr. Emerson was called a "high sou of liberty." To contend with ty- rants and stand up against them, resisting unto blood, fighting for the inalienable rights of the people, was a part of his holy religion. And he was one of the most godly men and eloquent ministers in the Col- ony. He actually felt it to be his duty to God to quit that most delightful town and village, and that most affectionate church and people, and enter the Conti- mental army and serve them as chaplain of a regiment.

What a patient, noble-hearted, truthful, loyal, con- fiding, affectionate generation of men they were. And remember, these were the men, exasperated be- yond all further endurance by the course of a deluded

Parliament and besotted ministry, who flew to arms on the 19th of April, 1775. These were the men who then hunted up their powder-horns and bullet-pouches, took down their guns from the hooks, and ground up their bayonets, on that most memorable of all days in the annals of the old thirteen Colonies-nay, in the annals of the world-which record the struggles that noble men have made in all ages to he free !

Yes, to my mind, Mr. Speaker, it is a more glorious day, a day more full of thrilling incidents and great steps taken by the people to be free than even the 4th of July, itself, 1776.

Why, sir, the 19th of April, '75, that resistance, open, unorganized, armed, marshaled resistance at the old North Bridge-that marching down in battle array, at that soul-stirring air, which every soldier in this house must remember to this day, for the tune is in fashion yet-I mean "the White Cockade "-was itself a prior declaration of independence, written out not with ink upon paper or parchment, but a decla- ration of independence made by drawn swords, up- lifted right arms ; fixed bayonets ground sharp, crack- ing musketry, a declaration written out in the best. blood of this land, at Lexington first, and finally all the way for eighteen miles from Old North Bridge to Charlestown Neck, where these panting fugitives found shelter under the guns of British ships of war riding at anchor in Mystic River ready to receive them ; a declaration that put more at hazard, and cost the men who made it more, after all, of blood and treasure, than that of 1776.

It cost Davis, Hosmer and Hayward and hundreds- of others, equally brave and worthy, their hearts' blood. It cost many an aged father and mother their darling son, many a wife her husband, many a Middlesex maid her lover.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 80

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