History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 85

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 85

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" O God, we give the praise to Thee, The honor of our nation's birth ; It was Thy power that made us free- The power that guides the rolling earth.

As on this pile, beneath those skies, The peaceful light of heaven shall play, So the Heroic Past shall rise And meet the glories of that day.""

The oration, poem and speeches then followed, which were eloquent and stirring with patriotic senti- ment and fully appreciated by the responsive crowds in attendance.

The closing words of Governor Boutwell .- " To-day the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the town ot Acton dedicate this monument to the memory of the early martyrs of the Revolution and consecrate it to the principles of liberty and patriotism.

"Here its base shall rest and its apex point to the heavens through the coming centuries. Though it bears the names of humble men and commemorates services stern rather than brilliant, it shall be as im- mortal as American history.

"The ground on which it stands shall be made clas- sical by the deeds which it commemorates, and may this monument exist only with the existence of the republic : and when God, in His wisdom, shall bring this government to nought, as all human governments must come to nought, may no stone remain to point the inquirer to fields of valor, or to remind him of deeds of glory.

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"And finally may the republic resemble the sun in nis daily circuit, so that none shall know whether its path were more glorious in the rising or in the set- ting."

Judge Hoar's sentiment (of Concord) .- "The mem- ory of Davis and Hosmer and their brave companions in arms: The men who fell at the Old North Bridge, of Concord, and the men who avenged their fall : the first who received the enemy's fire, and the first officer who returned it. One in purpose, one in patriotism : separated by the fortunes of that day-united forever in the gratitude and admiration of their country- men."

Rev. Mr. Pierpont, the poet, gave this as his senti- ment, alluding to the slight interruption by the noise of knives and forks near the close of his poem, and saying that, having pitted his tongue against a bul- lock's, and been most terribly worsted, a speech could not be expected of him.

" Let Poets learn at dinner to be brief,

Else will their tongues be beaten by the beef."

Daniel Webster's sentiment, forwarded from Marsh- field .- " Isaac Davis : an early grave in the cause of liberty has secured to him the long and grateful re- membrance of his country."

The Davis Monument was honored by a visit of the State Military Camp, of Concord, under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler, in the fall of 1870. The noon hour in camp was a scene of bustle in preparation for the afternoon march to Acton. While dinner was yet in a state of service at division quar- ters, the drums of the First Brigade were heard in the far distance to the right and the long line was marked by its dust, wending its way by a circuitous route to the review field. In half an hour the other brigades were on the march and at quarter of two o'clock five thousand men were in line. The infantry were on the right and centre, and the whole artillery and cavalry were massed on the right.

Promptly at two o'clock General Butler, mounted on a white horse, and with his full staff, took his place at the head of the division and rode out at the north corner on the Concord Road. He wore no plume. The marching columu was about a mile and a quarter in length. The road from Concord to Acton was largely the same as the Acton troops took in the Revolution, the division marching in column of fours. At frequent intervals groups of men, women and children were gathered to witness the pageant.

The head of the column reached Acton at ten min- utes after four o'clock. The selectmen, W. W. Davis, Elbridge J. Robbins, Jr., and Charles Robinson, with a committee of citizens and ladies, headed by John Fletcher, Jr., had made ample preparations to wel- come the troops. Houses were decorated and barrels upon barrels of lemonade and apples had been got ready.

The monument was elegantly decorated and also the town hall adjacent. The streets were crowded

with people in holiday attire. W. W. Davis, chair- main of the Board of Selectmen, addressed General Butler in an eloquent and earnest mauner. The gen- eral responded : " In behalf of the soldiers of Massa- chusetts gathered here in your good old town, I thank you for your earnest welcome and for your offered hospitality. It seems most pleasant to us to find so beautiful a resting-place after our long and weary march. You have referred to the services of the militia in the late war, and you will allow me to say that the character and conduct of Co. E, of Acton, evidenced that the spirit of the Revolutionary sires has not died out of the good town of Acton.

" You have the honor of having erected the third monument of the War of the Revolution, and of having suffered among the first in that struggle. You have earned the right to say that the sons will, by deed and work, keep green the memories of this his- toric spot. You and they have made a noble record, and, as it has been in the past, so may it be in the future.

" I doubt not that the sight of this monument, and the thought that we stand on the ground made sacred by the ashes of heroes, will be of value to the Military of Massachusetts, in increasing in their bosoms the holier emotions of patriotism, and inspire them to be able defenders of the institution for which Davis, and Hosmer and Hayward fell.

" We rejoice that we are able to be here and thank you again for the welcome and the bounty with which you greet us. We propose to close our response by a salute of thirteen guns, which will be fired by one of our light batteries, as a further tribute of respect and affection for the men of Acton living and dead." The event was a lively one, and a feature of the week that will long be remembered by those who partici- pated in it, and by those who witnessed it.

THE WAR OF 1812 .- The War of 1812 was not popular in this part of the country, but in the begia- ning of the war several men were enlisted in the army. In 1814 the military company called the Davis Blues was ordered into service as a body and was despatched to Boston to assist in the defence of that place against a possible attack. Hon. John C. Park, of Boston, a native of Acton, and a grandson of Rev. Moses Adams, thus writes, describing the event :

"1 well remember the commotion in Acton on the day when the Blues met to take up their march to Boston. We boys were wild with excitement, but when the large doors of the meeting-house were thrown open and it was understood that the company would have prayers offered for them, we were so- bered at once. I thought the prayer was very earn- est and appropriate, and was indignant when after- wards, among the gatbered knots of men in front of the porch, I heard some criticising it as being too much tinctured with the good old minister's anti-war sentiments. In a few days the fifer returned and

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gave glowing accounts of their enthusiastic reception and the march of the Blues through Boston. It seems that at every street-corner the men and the boys would cheer, and the drum and fife were ex- pected to respond with a triple roll and salute. The poor fifer was so exhausted with his untiring efforts, to pipe shrill for the honor of his corps and the town, that he was taken with spitting of blood and had to return home. This I believe was the only blood shed during the campaign."

The enemy kept away from Boston, otherwise the " Davis Blues " might have patterned after the style of the. Davis minute-men thirty-nine years before at Concord. John Fletcher, afterwards captain of the company, was then clerk and went to Boston as clerk. Silas Jones, the son of Aaron Jones, was the captain. His company was the first to report at headquarters (after receiving the orders) of any in the regiment. Three times since the existence of the nation a com- pany from Acton has been summoned at the outbreak of war,-the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the War of the Rebellion-and in each case has been the first to appear on duty.

A list of Acton Davis Blues who went to South Boston in the War of 1812, whose names have been copied from the original-pay roll, in the handwrit- ing of the clerk of the company, Deacon John Fletcher, now in possession of Deacon Samuel Hos- mer :

Captain, Silas Jones, 30D of Aaron Jones ; 1st Lieutenant, James Jones ; 2d Lieutenant, Aaron Hayward ; Ensign, Jonathan Hoemer, Jr .; Clerk, John Fletcher ; Samnel Conant, John Hendley, Silas Piper, Jr., fifer; Paul Conant, bass drum ; Abner Wheeler, small drum; Luke Hayward, James Fletcher, Jr. (brother to the clerk) ; Jonathan B. Davis, Jamee Hayward, Josiah H. Adams, Joseph Barker (2d), Jonathan Billings, Jr., Ephraim Billinge, Josiah Bright, Jr., James Conant, Joel Conant, John Conant, John Chaffin, Joseph T. Chamberlain, Ezekiel Chamberlain, Ebenezer Davis, Luther Davis, John S. Fletcher, Abel Forbush, Silas Hosmer, Mosee Hayward (shot accidentally), Nathaniel Hapgood, John Harris, James Keyes, George Robbine, Joseph Robbins, George W. Robbine, John D. Robbins, William Reed (3d), Allen Rich- ardson, Jonathan Wheeler, Samuel Whitney, Oliver Wetherbee, Nathan D. Hosmer.

SCHOOL-HOUSES .- There was a movement in 1740, soon after the town was organized, to obtain an appro- priation for school purposes, but the movement failed. At a meeting in 1741 the town voted that a reading, writing and moving school be kept for six months.

This early action in favor of a school on wheels shows that the idea is uot original with the present generation.

1n 1743, at a special meeting in December, the town voted £18, old tenor, for a reading and writing school and to divide the town into three parts.

This division continued until 1751, when the dis- tricts were increased to six, in 1771 another was add- ed for a few years.

From 1790-1800 there were five districts, then four for nearly thirty years, when the present division into six districts began. When there were only four districts the inhabitants of the southeast part of the

town received their school money from the town and united with certain inhabitants of Sudbury and Con- cord, and had a school in a house which was just across the Sudbury line. This was called the School of the Three Friends. At this time the North and East Districts were one. Previous to the organiza- tion of the town there were buildings erected for school purposes at private expense, and the schools kept according to the circumstances then existing in differ- ent localities.

The first schoolmasters were mostly residents of the town. As late as 1771 there were four school- houses which were private property. The first appro- priations for schools were very small-not more than £12.

But few studies were taught and the teachers but poorly paid. The schools were called reading and writing schools, and none but the simplest rudiments of knowledge were taught before the present century.

A master in the winter received but little more per week than a day-laborer, and the teacher of a "woman's school " but little more than a servant girl.

In 1760 an order was drawn to pay a master fifteen shillings for keeping school two weeks and a half, and another drawn for his board for half that sum.

An aged resident of the town said that when she was a girl the lady teacher had one dollar per week for her services and her mother received one dollar per week for boarding her. The grant for schools was greatly supplemented by donations and subscriptions by the citizens for private schools.

For several years a private school was supported in the autumn at the Centre of the town. Rev. Asa D. Smith, D.D., late president of Dartmouth College, was one of the teachers of that school.

The town records give the following items : "October 14, 1796, it was voted that there shall be five districts in this town, and the school-houses shall be built on the same places that was agreed upon by a former vote of the town, viz .: One of the said houses to be built near Mr. John Dexter's Paster bars on the road leading from the meeting house to Dr. Abraham Skinner's.

" One on the hill West of Jonathan Tower's house.

" One on the crotch of the road West of Samuel Wheeler's house (where Mr. Cyrus Wheeler's house now stands nearly).

" One where the school house near Samuel Tuttle's now stands (in the East District, near Horace Hos- mer's present residence). The other house to be built where the school-house now stands near Johu Harris.

" January 21st, 1797. To see if the town will agree to build a school-house to accommodate the District where the school-house was consumed by fire.

"To see if the town will agree to form themselves into a certain number of school districts and provide each District with a school-house and divide the school money into so many equal parts."

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In 1797 a town-meeting was called "to see if the town will reconsider all former votes respecting building school-houses, if any there be on record, and see if the town would build a school-house in the district that had the school-house burnt." (This house that was burnt stood at the turn of the road beyond Mr. Charles Tuttle's site leading to Mr. Thomas Hammond, in the south corner).

" Voted to reconsider all former votes respecting dis- tricts for seven years past. Voted that there be a com- mittee of five men to fix a place for a school-house in the North District to which Lieutenant Noyes belongs, and that Jonas Brooks, John Edwards, Esq., Aaron Jones, George Robbins and Edward Wetherbee be the Committee.

" Then voted fifty pounds to build said house and that said committee build such house as they think Propper for said District and the best way they can."

In November, 1798, the committee appointed by the town reported they had " attended to the service and soaled four of the old school-houses, viz .: one by Mr. John Adams, Jr., one by Oliver Jones, one by Hezekiah Wheeler's, and one near the meeting- house. The whole of which was soaled for Fifty- five dollars and approved notes given to the Town Treasurer for the same payable within nine months from the date."

The school-house located and built by this com- mittee, of which Jonas Brooks was chairman, was the old red school-house which stood for the next forty years a few rods north of the parsonage, then newly built, on the same side of the road. The frame of this school-house is now the substantial part of Mr. Cyrus Hale's house. It stood on rising ground facing the east. It was well built, square, with a high desk in the centre of the west side and rows of double desks rising on the north and south sides, the highest row on a level with the windows, styled the back seats, where the oldest scholars sat. This was the model for the school-houses built at that time.

It answered the purpose of a grand amphitheatre for the development of the muscle and brain of Acton's near future.

Here the Tuttles, Taylors, Joneses, Fletchers, Hosmers, Conants, Stearnses, Richardsons, Davises, Parlins, Handleys, Browns gathered for their daily tilt with themselves, their mates and their masters.

They came in groups from all parts of the district, ranging out a mile and a half and numbering in some winter terms nearly a hundred, all grades in charge of one teacher. The elements which collided and har- monized in this arena during a single day, and day after day, was a miniature picture of Acton's liveliest town-meeting.

The story of this one-school-house would fill a vol- ume, but we have no space for the romance here,-

" Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way With blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay,

There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,

The village master taught his little school ;

A man severe he was and stern to view- I knew him well, and every truant knew."

BY-WAYS AND NOOKS OF ACTON.1-There is a de- serted farm lying to the southeast of Nagog Pond which many years ago was the home of a family named Chamberlain. The house and other buildings are now gone, but their location may be determined by the remaining well and cellars.

This place suggests the stanza in one of Miss Chandler Moulton's poems :

"The cowslips spring in the meadow, The roses bloom on the hill

And beside the brook in the pasture The herds go feeding at will."

It exactly answers to all the particulars. Ifthestanza had been written especially for this place, it could not have come nearer to reality.

There is a profusion of cowslips in the meadow, an abundance of old-fashioned damask roses on the hill near the well and a pretty brook, and almost al- ways there are cattle pastured there.

The house, if it was still standing, would add greatly to the quaintness of the place. It is a quiet nook, away from all traces of civilization. There is an abundance of wild fruits in their season, and a rare place for boating or fishing on Nagog Pond.

In a northerly direction from Strawberry Hill is where the Indians, once inhabitants of this and the neighboring towns, used to go to manufacture their arrow-heads. They would never tell the early settlers definitely where they went, but would indicate that direction. Some years ago a hunter's dog while dig- ging for a rabbit or a fox, cut his paws badly. His master found he had dug into a great quantity of very small sharp-edged, flint-like rocks, which, without doubt, were the remains left by the Indians from mak- ing their arrow-heads.

Probably the first settlers of South Acton were Nathan Robbins and wife, who came from East Acton and located at a site now owned by Mr. James Tuttle on the road to Stow, called the Bright's House. They started from their home beyond the cemetery in East Acton. Mr. Robbins drove the team loaded with the household goods and the wife took charge of the baby and also the family pig. In her journey she came to the big brook, which the pig would not cross. He seemed to have some premonitions of his fate and that of his descendants, should he head for that part of the country, but the woman was as resolute as the pig. She landed her most precious freight across the stream first, and then returning, pigged it over all safe, and at last reached their new home. The story is that Mrs. Robbins and freight reached the spot first. At any rate, for some unexplained reason, the ladies in that part of the town have always been a little ahead.

THE OLD CHESTNUT-TREE .- If you have not seen that chestnut-tree don't miss the next chance. It is

1 By Bertha H. Hosmer. .

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one of the original settlers of the town. Its birth record is not on town-books, but some think it is well on to two hundred years old. It was in a flourishing condition when Captain Davis and his company passed that way in 1775. It was a large tree when Simon Hapgood, father of Benjamin, was a child.

Thoreau and his sister came up from Concord to visit it before he died, and he made it twenty-two feet in circumference then. It is now more than that. The interior of the tree is hollow. The cavity is cir- cular, sixty inches in diameter and twenty-five feet in height, through which one may look and see the sky beyond. An opening has recently been cut at the bottom and entrance can be easily made. There are worse places for a night's lodging. A good crop of chestnuts is yearly produced by its living branches. The town should get possession of this luscious tablet of the bygones and see that no ruthless axe take it too soon from the eyes of the present generation. If

you wish to find it, go to the residence of Benjamin Hapgood, on Strawberry Hill, turn in from the road to the southeast from Mr. Hapgood's barn a few rods to a piece of woods, and you will easily find the venerable specimen.

GEOLOGICSKETCH OF ACTON.1 -- Acton, unlike some of the neighboring towns, owes the principal part of its natural scenery to the irregular surface of the rock strata which form its foundation. The contour, through the action of the various atmospheric agen- cies, had nearly reached its present form before the glacial period, and it was but slightly modified by the action of the ice during that period. Rising to its greatest elevation near the centre of the town, the slope to the northward received the greatest force pro- duced by the motion of the ice toward the south, which resulted in grinding down and polishing the surface of the rock and in making the slope to the north more gentle, while the slope to the south was left steep and often ragged.

The rock is a micaceous gneiss, often merging into mica schist firmly stratified, with a strike north 60° east, and a very steep dip to the northwest. This rock is a member of that crystalline series which forms the oldest portions of the earth's crust. Above this solid rock is the loose material known generally as earth-that is, the accumulation of gravel, sand, clay, loam, etc., which was brought to its present position and deposited by the agency of the ice sheet. Portions of this material were accumulated under the ice in a comparative thin layer over nearly the entire surface of the country. In certain places, however, it was built up, hy a process not yet understood, into lenticular masses, with their longer axes parallel to the motion of the ice or nearly north-south. This gave rise to a prominent feature in our topography, the class of hills known as drumlins, and of which the

1 By George Barton, a native of Acton, and geologic teacher in the School of Technology, Boston.

hill just west of West Acton Village, the two south of South Acton, and Strawberry Hill, toward the north- east part of the town, are typical examples. On the surface of the ice and throughout its mass was a large amount of earth and rock, which was scattered over the surface of the country as the ice disappeared. This being in loose form, and easily acted upon by the floods produced by the melting of the glacier, was washed over and separated into distinct areas of sand, gravel and clay. These washed-over portions natur- ally accumulated in the lower levels, giving rise to the sand and gravel plains which extend along the courses of Nashoba and Fort Pond Brooks, and to the southeast merge into the larger areas bordering the Assabet River. Another and very peculiar feature of the washed-over material is the kame. This was formed by the small boulders and pebbles accumulat- ing in the channels of rivers running upon the ice, and which, upon the disappearance of the ice sheet, were deposited upon the surface of the country, form- ing long, narrow, winding ridges of coarse gravel. A very fine example of this occurs in Acton, extending from the extreme southeast corner of the town, near the powder-mills, with occasional gaps by the ceme- tery near the Centre, and thence nearly parallel to and just west of Nashoba Brook, nearly to Carlisle line.

The streams which flow through the town still fol- low generally the valleys formed by them before the advance of the ice sheet, but in a few cases their courses have been slightly changed by the accumula- tions deposited by the glacier. The larger ponds oc- cupy pre-glacial valleys ; but the smaller ponds, like Grassy Pond in the north and Sinking Pond in the southeast, simply occupy small depressions in the surrounding sand plains.

THE ARTIST'S VIEW OF ACTON.2-The surface of Acton, like that of most Middlesex towns, is suffi- ciently broken and varied in its character to possess a fair share of picturesque localities. With the neighboring towns of Westford and Littleton, it forms an elevated range of hill country similar to that formed by Harvard and Bolton, only of lesser height. Within its boundaries and those of its neighbor towns are found some of the largest ponds of Middle- sex. Although unlike Concord or Sunbury, which are flat and meadowy, and which have the benefit of a river to supply their most beautiful points, this town may be said to possess a landscape not inferior to them.

From a picturesque point of view, the near vicinity of running water is most favorable for producing in- teresting places. The variety of tree forms found in such localities, with the different crops on the culti- vated lands adjoining, are enhanced by the winding course of the stream. Though without a river, this town has two mill streams which in a great degree re- place one. Two sections of the town are crossed by

" By Arthur F. Davis, resident of the town.

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large brooks. Both West and South Acton are tra- versed by Fort Pond Brook, and the frequent dams erected for mill purposes create a succession of charming ponds.

The finest stretch of this stream is perhaps that from South Acton Village to the road leading to Concord Junction at Hanson's. There it bends and twists its way through a fine succession of rocky and woody hollows, with here and there an interruption in the shape of a mill. In this section we are sure it is equal to any similar water-course in Middlesex in beauty. Through West Acton it creates by its way- ward course many interesting places, but is not so picturesque as the locality just mentioned.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 85

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