History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 84

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 84

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" Edward A. Adams, Dennis Bnckley, William S. Collins, James F. Edmands, Albert E. Farmer, Charles N. Fletcher, George C. Gilman, Reuben J. Gilman, Franklin Hanaford, William Hayes, Edwin W. Hnse, Ward Locke, Thomas H. Maxwell, Stephen H. Parker, Asa John Pat- ten, Joseph F. Richardson, Charles A. Sannders, James Shields, Pollard R. Shumway, John C. Stewart."

Four other names would properly have been in- scribed with their comrades' .upon the monument. It is due to them that they be honorably mentioned here :

Hiram E. Davis, Henry Newbury, Edward H. Persons, Calvin G. Tuttle.

The monument was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies and in the presence of a vast assemblage, Wednesday, 8th October, 1873. Hon. Thomas Talbot presided ; the prayer of dedication was offered by Rev. Mr. Hussey, and an oration given by Col. Russel H. Conwell, of Boston. Governor Washburn, Hon. E. R. Hoar, of Concord, ex-Gov. Onslow Stearns, of New Hampshire, a son of Billerica, and others par- ticipated in the exercises, which were held in a mam- moth tent south of the monument.

The "History of Billerica " records the names of 173 soldiers and sailors who represented the patriotism and sacrifices of the town in this great contest for our national life.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

GOV. THOMAS TALBOT.

Thomas Talbot was born in Cambridge, Washing- ton County, New York, Sept. 7, 1818. He was a lineal descendant of John Talbot, first Earl of Shrewsbury. His grandfather came from Ireland to America in 1807. His father, who was a practical woolen manu- facturer, dicd when the son was only four years of age, leaving a family of cight children. In 1825 the

family removed to Northampton, Mass., where Thomas, at the age of twelve years, found cmploy- ment in a woolen factory. At the age of scventcen " years he became an employce in the broadcloth factory of his elder brother, Charles, in Williamsburg, Mass., and after a service of three ycars he was made an overseer in the establishment. It was while em- ployed in the latter position that for two winters he attended the academy in Cummington, Mass. At the age of twenty-two years (in 1840) he entered into. a partnership with his brother Charles in the dye- wood business in North Billerica, where he resided during the remainder of his life.

So rapid and so remarkable was the success which crowned their first enterprise that the firm, from time to time, greatly extended their operations. They became very largely engaged in the manufacture of woolen fabrics, and also of oil of vitriol and other chemicals used in the arts.

These various enterprises, conducted with the energy and skill which distinguished the men, brought them an ample fortune. Few manufactories in the State have been managed with so much ability, or have met with so great success, or have gained for their owners so honorable a name.

The flowage of the meadows along the Concord River, deemed by the owners to have been caused by the dam belonging to this firm, brought on a long and bitter contest before the Legislature of the State. In this protracted and perplexing altercation, in which the firm were the victors, Thomas Talbot displayed a mental power, a firmness and manliness of character and 'a knowledge of men and of business, which gave him a high reputation and laid the foundation of his subsequent political advancement. From this time he took rank among the foremost men of the State. Political honors came to him. He was re- peatedly elected to the State Legislature. From 1864 to 1869 he was a member of the Governor's Council. In 1873 and 1874 he was Lieutenant-Governor of the State. In the latter year, Gov. Washburne having been elected United States Senator, Mr. Talbot became Governor of Massachusetts.

Governor Talbot was a firm supporter of the pro- hibitory liquor law of the State, and his veto of the legislative act repealing that law cost him the loss of many of his political supporters. On account of this veto and other similar acts of independence, he failed of re-election in the following year. But in 1878 popular favor returned and he was chosen Governor of the State by a large majority. After one year of highly honorable service he refused to accept fur- ther political honors.

But though Governor Talbot filled the chair of political office with dignity and grace, it was not in public life that the true noblencss of his character found its highest exhibition. It was as a high- minded man of business, as the liberal patron of enterprises of benevolence, as the bencfactor of his

Joshua Demiett

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town, as the generous friend of the poor and unfor- tunate, that his character shone most brightly. His treatment of the numerous workmen in his employ is above all praise. He took delight in making them happy. He paid them the highest rate of wages. He built for them convenient tenements, each with its garden for vegetables and flowers, and demanded for them only the lowest rent. Though not a Catho- lic, he generously aided the Catholics iu his employ in securing a house of worship. He was so charita- ble as to believe that any Christian church was a blessing to the community. Though not a Baptist, he, at his own expense, erected for the small Baptist society of the village a very tasteful and commodi- ous church. Though himself a Unitarian, he found in his generous heart a place for every Christiau man.

There is something very touching and tender in the love with which the employees and neighbors of Gov- ernor Talbot cherish his memory. He has left a very honorable name on the roll of the statesmen of Massa- chusetts, but a far more precious record in the hearts of his fellow-men.

While in the enjoyment of vigorous health, having before him a fair prospect of a prolonged life and a cheerful old age, he was suddenly arrested by a pain- ful disease, of which he died on October 6, 1885, at the age of sixty-seven years.

JOSHUA BENNETT.

Joshua Bennett was born in Billerica, Mass., Nov. 27, 1792, and was the son of James Bennett, a pros- perous and respectable farmer of that town. He passed his boyhood upon his father's farm, obtaining his education in the common schools of the town and in the academy at Westford, Mass. When about twenty-four years of age he engaged in teaching a grammar school in Dorchester, Mass. Although al- ways fond of books, he relinquished the work of teach- ing at the end of three years, and entered upon a business career in which few men have shown equal sagacity and few have met with equal success. Even while a teacher he devoted his evenings to trade.

As the leading partner of the firm of Bennett & Felton, in Boston, he early laid the foundations of his future success and fortune. His active mind fouud many sources of wealth. He became a very exten- sive dealer in hops, a business in which his father had preceded him. He had transactions with most of the hop-growers and brewers of the country. He became an exporter of hops and a distiller. It is told of him, as an interesting incident, that in 1849, being in Lon- don at a time when the hop trade was depressed, he actually purchased a large lot of hops which he had himself exported, and sent them back to America, thus making two profits upon the same goods.

It was by the skillful use of the property early ac- quired in trade, that Mr. Bennett amassed most of

his ample fortune. He was a very shrewd and a very successful dealer in real estate, making his invest- ments with distinguished sagacity. He became the possessor of a large amount of property in the city of Lowell, aud of a much larger in Boston.

Mr. Bennett was not a politician, and he only ac- cepted those offices which his compeers in the busi- ness world bestowed upon him on account of his ac- kuowledged ability to fill them with honor and suc- cess. He was a director of the Providence and Wor- cestor Railroad, and was on the first board of direc- tors of the Old Lowell Bank, the earliest of the dis- count banks of Lowell, having received its charter in 1828. This board consisted of men of high character, among whom were Kirk Boott and Samuel Batchel- der, two of the most distinguished founders of Amer- ican manufactures, and Josiah B. French aud Na- thaniel Wright, both of whom subsequently became mayors of the city. After a service of thirty-three years as director, Mr. Bennett was, in 1861, elected president of the bank. This office he filled with great ability through the entire period of the Civil War, resigning it on account of failiug health, only a few months before his death. As a bank officer he was conservative and sagacious, and was esteemed the highest authority upon the question of investing the funds of the institution. An excellent portrait of Mr. Bennett, the gift of his grandson and namesake, Joshua Bennett Holden, Esq., of Boston, adorns the directors' room of this bank.

As a citizen Mr. Bennett gained his highest honor by his patriotic conduct in the early days of the Re- bellion. When others faltered and held back he stepped boldly forward. Not only did he proffer to his country his own wealth, but he exerted his great influence as a financier to bring to the rescue the monied institutions with which he was connected. He had full faith in his country, and freely intrusted to her his wealth. It was the noble conduct of men like him who, in that hour of peril and alarm, in- spired new hope and courage in the national heart. Throughout the war his patriotism never faltered. To every soldier who enlisted from his native town of Billerica he gave, from his own wealth, a special bounty.

Mr. Bennett resided in Boston in his early business life, but in his later years his favorite residence was upon his farm in Billerica. Notwithstanding his in- tense and life-long devotion to business he was wont to take due time for national recreation, having made one visit to Europe and being accustomed to spend several weeks of each summer at Saratoga and Sharon Springs. In the culture of his farm of fifty acres he also took a special pleasure.

In his will he gave $25,000 to the Washingtonian Home in Boston, an institution in which he was greatly interested. He also gave $3000 to each church of the various denominations in the town of Billerica, as well as small legacies to their respective pastors.

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, HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

It is greatly to the credit of his heirs that, though this will was not signed, all the legacies for benevolent purposes were honorably paid in accordance with the known wishes of the testator.

On October 8, 1815, Mr. Bennett married Elcanor, daughter of Ebenezer Richardson, of Billerica. She still survives him at the great age of ninety-six years. Of his two children, Ellen, the older, became the wife of George Holden, Esq., of Boston, and Rebecca bc- came the wife of William Wilkins Warren, Esq., of Boston. The widow of Mr. Bennett, in honor of her husband, has given a library to the town of Billerica, erecting for it a substantial brick edifice.

Mr. Bennett died August 6, 1865, in the seventy- third year of his age, and was buried at Mt. Auburn.

ALEXANDER COCHRANE.

Alexander Cochrane was born in Neilston Parish, Renfrewshire, Scotland, August 11, 1813, and died at Swampscott, Mass., August 11, 1865. He was the son of John Cochrane and Isabella Ramsey, of Glander- ston House, and grandson of Hugh Cochrane and Bethia Douglas, daughter of Francis Douglas and Elizabeth Aucterlonie, of Inch Abbot. His family had been long settled in this country, and Crawford states in his "Description of the Shire of Renfrew," Edinburgh, 1710, that the name is of great antiquity in this shire. They had been among the earliest to en- gage in manufacturing in its infancy in this part of Scotland during the latter half of the last century, and it is stated by Taylor, in his "Levern Delineated," Glasgow, 1831, that Bailie Cochrane, owner of part of the lands of Ferguslie, and great-grandfather of the subject of our sketch, had built a flax or linen-mill called Fereneze, on the River Levern, in 1798. The name of this worthy Bailie appears on the fine mon- ument in Paisley to the memory of the Covenanters, erected during his magistracy. About the same time, 1798, Hugh Cochrane, son of the latter; built Gland- erston Bleachery, and planted additional trees about the house, and his son John, the father of Alexander, continued the business and died there in 1832.

Alexander lived with his mother and the family in Glanderston House until the failure of his elder brother, Robert, necessitated their giving up the place. There is a print of this ancient mansion in the "Levern Delineated " and it illustrates the te- nacity of custom and the resistance to change even in modern Scotland, that although long in ruins, this house still carries with it the right to occupy one of the two cushioned pews which are permitted in Neil- ston Church.

Thrown upon his own resources for support, he, in company with one of his brothers, essayed the new process of making starch from potatoes, but this cre- ated great alarm and disturbance among the peas- antry and poor people, who feared an advance in the price of one of their chief articles of food, and this

feeling resulted in an attack on and partial destruc- tion of the works by a mob. With our ideas of to- day an occurrence of this kind seems to belong in the Middle Ages, but it only serves to show the rapid strides we have made since these beginnings of mnod- ern manufacture; the old has passed and the new has come, in hardly more than a short hundred years. He had opportunity to observe, and, it is apparent, early took an interest in such chemical changes as took place in his father's works, and it is related that the ancestor of the since famous Tennant family here made some of his early experiments with bleaching chemicals. He took advantage of all this to enlarge his knowledge of chemistry, then just coming forward as one of the most useful of the sciences, and he more especially investigated its practical application in the manufacture and decoration of textile fabrics. He subsequently mastered processes for making Muriatic, Nitric and Sulphuric acids, Aqua Ammonia, Sul- phate of Copper, Extract of Indigo, Gum Substitutes, and learned the secret of making and using various mordants. Some of the information collected at this time and still extant among his papers is more curi- ous than useful. Empirical and rule of thumb meth- ods still had a firm hold, and the element of secrecy still lingered in chemical processes, allying them to Alchemy, their predecessor.

Amusing stories are told of the devices resorted to. in getting knowledge of one works from another,. much of which would excite only smiles of com- passion from the well-instructed student of to-day.

He was in the neighborhood of Manchester, Eng- land, in 1846-47, in charge of a branch of textile fab- rics, but while there still kept up his interest in and. added to his knowledge of chemistry.

He was engaged to come from there to the United! States to take charge of a similar industry, and ar- rived in New York September 27, 1847. He remained in charge of this work for rather more than a year, when he finally got an opportunity to put into practice. what he had been so long preparing for. April 1,, 1849, he entered into business with C. P. Talbot &. Co., of which firm the late Governor Thomas Talbot. was the junior partner. They wished to add chemi- cals to their manufacture of dye-stuffs, in North Bil- lerica. He was to plan and build a chemical works,. and take the conducting and management of manu- facturing the chemical products, and for this he was to receive one-thind of the net profits. He was in Billerica more than half the portion of his life spent. in this country, and he entered fully into the life of the New England village, half farming, half manu- facturing, in which his lot was cast. He assisted in the schools and in the church ; being Scotch, he natu- rally took an interest in the religious life of the com- munity, and although, like all his family, he belonged to the Church of Scotland, he herc found himself act- ing with the sect that would best harmonize the somewhat scattered elements; the minister filling at

Abi Cochrane

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times the double rôle of schoolmaster during the week and preacher on Sunday. His relations with his workmen were of the most friendly character even for those days of close contact between employer and employed, when he who gave the opportunity of work was looked upon for that very reason as the frieud of the workman, and as a manifestation of interest which they valued more than money, he gave an entertain- ment for them once a year in his own house. He kept up his connection with Europe by correspond- ence and by occasional visits, which in those days were still an event, and when he landed from those early side-wheel Cunarders, the " Canada," " Asia " or " Africa," it was subject for congratulation no longer thought of in these days when the Atlantic has be- come a ferry. The relations with the Messrs. Talbot while he was with them were mutually satisfactory, and it does them both credit that their personal re- gard stood the strain unusually well when he after- ward became their active competitor ; as an evidence of this Governor Talbot offered one of his family a position of high trust on one of the State boards, which for personal reasons was declined.

During his residence in Billerica the business of manufacturing a general line of chemicals gradually increased, and the articles produced early obtained the highest rauk for standard quality, including Muriatic, Nitric and other acids, Sulphate of Copper, Extract of Indigo, Aqua Ammonia and many other articles. When the Roxbury Chemical Works, whose tall chimney was so long a landmark in that part of Boston, gave up business, there was more room for competition, and in 1859 Mr. Cochrane erected works in Malden and began business for him- self and laid the foundation for the business subse- quently carried on by the corporation which bears his name. His business grew very slowly, as his pro- ducts were largely the same as were already produced, but without going into the details of the hard work involved in building up a business, which is so much alike in general characteristics in all fields of enter- prise and effort, suffice it to say that all these diffi- culties had been surmounted, and the business, which has since become the largest of its kind in New England, was successfully established before his death at the age of fifty-two, at Swampscott, where he was spending the summer with his family. An ac- count of the events of a man's life is incomplete with- out some hint as to the personality that marked him. Mr. Cochrane was tall, of fine presence, unassuming in manner, and in character was simple, sincere and kindly, winning and retaining affection and esteem. His generosity was proverbial and laid him open to imposition on this side of his character.

Although genial in feeling, he always preserved a touch of austerity that did not invite undue familiarity, and was an inheritance of his early training in the atmosphere of the Kirk ; as an instance of which he used to recall the line of children who, on Sunday,

walked from the house to Neilston Church under his father's eye, who always brought up the rear that no youthful escapades should interrupt the solemnity of the day. With no reading allowed on that day but the Bible and a few other books of religious charac- ter, it gives point to the observation that the Scotch- man is the New Englander of Europe.

His life, like so many other lives, was spent in the day of small things, in sowing seed for others to reap ; aud the parable of the sower was selected as best illustrating his life, when his family placed a window to his memory in Triuity Church. In a somewhat trying battle with fortune both in the Old World aud iu the New, he did what his hands found to do with true Scotch courage and perseverauce.

CHAPTER XXXV.

TYNGSBOROUGH.

BY CHARLES C. CHASE.

TYNGSBOROUGH is a small agricultural town, hav- ing for its northern boundary the State of New Hamp- shire, and upon the other sides the towns of Dracut, Chelmsford, Westford, Groton and Dunstable, and the city of Lowell. It is pleasantly situated on both sides of the Merrimack, and presents to the traveler, as he passes along the winding banks of the stream, an attractive panorama of rural beauty. The fertile soil, the well-tilled fields, the many signs of thrift and enterprise which meet his view, add to the uatural charms of the scene, while the graceful iron bridge which spans the Merrimack completes a picture of no ordinary loveliness. The placid scene, however, which meets the eye in these latter days of peace aud abounding prosperity, was, during the long years of Indian warfare, the theatre of many an act of blood- shed and cruelty, of dwellings from which the inmates have fled in terror, of households clothed in sackcloth for a father or a brother slain. When we add to these historic memories the fact that this rural town has been honored as the birthplace of many distinguished men of our country, its history becomes one of pecu- liar interest.

Its territory claims our attention. As the St. Law- rence is the outlet of a chain of magnificent lakes, so, in primeval ages, as geologists aver, the Merri- mack bore to the ocean the waters of a series of lakes, only a few of which, like Lake Winnipiseogee, any longer remain. By some convulsion of the titanic forces of nature their barriers have been burst and their basins are now the fertile meadows which lie along the stream. One of these primeval lakes, in whose basin were the fruitful fields of Tyngsborough, found its outlet at Pawtucket Falls. Perhaps the same convulsion which rent asunder the barriers of

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the lake also changed the course of the river ; for geologists find clear indications that the Merrimack, after passing the towns of Tyngsborough and Chelms- ford, instead of deflecting toward the cast, as it now docs, and reaching the occan at Newburyport, continued to pursue its direct southerly course, and had its mouth at the harbor of the city of Lynn.

To what extent this town, before it was scttled by civilized man, was the abode of the American Indian, it is impossible to tell. The nomadic character of those children of the forest, the facility with which they changed their frail and humble wigwams, the brief period which sufficed to obliterate every trace of their former habitation, and the utter absence of all written records, render it almost impossible to identify the place of their abode. And yet we are not wholly without testimony ; for in certain places along the banks of the Merrimack, the rude implements of the Indians, their arrow-heads and gouges and tomahawks, found buried in the earth, often mark the spots which they most frequented. Such buried implements have, in greater numbers, been found near the Paw- tucket Falls in Lowell, as well as upon Wicasuck Island, which is a part of the town of Tyngsborough. This island of sixty-five acres seems to have been a favorite possession of the red men ; and it is a fact of sad and peculiar interest that it was the last abode in New England of the Pawtucket tribe, which had once occupied so conspicuous a position, and to which the apostle Eliot had once preached the Gospel on the Merrimack. From this island in the town of Tyngsborough the feeble remnant of the tribe, prob- ably less than sixty in number, mostly women and children, took their sad journey to the north, and mingling with the St. Francis tribe, lost their honor and their name forever. Several years earlier Wan- nalancet, the powerless and disheartened chief, had gone before them. A few Indians, however, perhaps fifty in number, dispersed in various places among the white settlers, still lingered in New England.

Two causes served to make Wicasuck Island the favorite abode of the Indians. Here were the Wica- suck Falls in the Merrimack, at the foot of which the Indians found fish in abundance for their sustenance, and their crops of corn upon the island were safe from the inroads of bears and deer, being surrounded by the river.

It is an impressive proof of the humiliation of Wan- nalancet that about twenty years after his departure to Canada he wandered back once more to the spot where he once ruled as chief, and for two years, 1696 and 1697, lived in a condition not differing much from that of a public pauper. The General Court paid twenty pounds to Colonel Jonathan Tyng for " keeping him."

The record of the Pawtucket tribe, which for many years had mingled with the early settlers in the towns which lie along the Merrimack, is not without his- toric interest. The Pawtuckets embrace several other

subordinate tribes, having their headquarters far asunder-the Nashaways, in the fertile meadows of the town of Lancaster; the Nashobas, in the forests of Littleton ; the Pennacooks, on the rich, alluvial soil of Concord, N. H .; the Naticooks, near the junction of the Souhegan River with the Merrimack, a few miles north of the town of Nashua, and the Wame- sits around the Falls of the Concord, in Lowell ; while the controlling tribe, the Pawtuckets, had their ren- dezvous near the Pawtucket Falls in the Merrimack, also within the precincts of Lowell. At this rendez- vous were held the great councils of the tribe. Here every year they gathered to supply themselves with their annual quota of fish, and here, too, once a year, the devout apostle Eliot, of Roxbury, "spread the net of the gospel to fish for their souls."

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 84

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1226

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed. cn
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1226