History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 9

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 9

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The French settlers in Canada occupy a large por- tion of what has been known as East Canada, along

Jonathan , Pholding

LOWELL.

the banks of the St. Lawrence and the lower courses of its tributary streams. They now number perhaps 1,000,000 souls and constitute more than one-third of the inhabitants of the Province. They have been left far behind in the race of wealth and progress by the settlers of English origin, and to a very great extent they live a laborious life upon small farms which are too often encumbered with debt. Their few cities have increased in inhabitants slowly, and there are few great manufactories of any kind in which the willing laborer can earn sufficient money to start in life or pay off the debt upon his humble farm.

In recent years it has come to these people like a revelation that such are now the facilities of travel by railroad that only a few hours will bring them to the great manufacturing towns and cities of New England, where they can readily exchange their labor for. ready money. With this incentive before them few at first quit their rural homes and more and more followed. Herein New England not only the father, but mother, son and daughter, found ready work for ready hands. Almost all came with the intention of return- ing to pay off their debt and spend their remaining days in their old homes. Very many actually do this. Others never return. Perhaps a son or a daughter marries in New England and their affec- tions are in their new home, or some profitable busi- ness invites them to remain. Many of them pay an- nual visits to Canada when business is less active, and it is an interesting scene when large numbers gather at our depots with baggage of every description to start for their old homes. To many the pleasing ex- citements of city life, or the facilities of reaching a church of their own faith, or the advantages of good public schools, present a powerful motive to remain in New England. Their old rural homes in Canada, where no church nor school is near at hand, and where business languishes, have by degrees lost their charm and so they never return.

Still they love their native language and are proud of it. They wish to learn the English, but not to give up the French. Above all things they hold fast to the religion of their fathers. They are mostly de- vout Catholics, and in their new homes they faith- fully follow and obey their religious teachers. They are often to be seen, even early in the morning, in long procession, men, women and children, with book in hand, thronging the sidewalks of our streets. Father Garin, the excellent and honored pastor of St. Joseph's Church, informs me that on every Sunday morning his spacious church on Lee Street is filled in succession with five different audiences. And so crowded has this church become that he is now erect- ing a new and very spacious church on Merrimack Street for the accommodation of the rapidly increas- ing number of French Canadian people. As laborers they prove to be an industrious and intelligent class. They perform a very large part of the manufacturing work of our city.

1863. Mayor, Hocum Hosford.

January 26th. First Sanitary Fair in Lowell.

September 9th. Lowell Horse Railroad Company began to lay tracks.

April 1st. Stephen Mansur, mayor of the city in 1857, died at the age of sixty-four years.

June 3d. Solon A. Perkins was killed in an engage- ment at Clinton, Louisiana, at the age of twenty-seven years. Major Perkins was son of Apollos Perkins, and a graduate of our High School. He was a superior scholar and a gallant soldicr. Lowell had no richer offering to make.

1864. Mayor, Hocum Hosford.

January 9th. Dr. John C. Dalton dicd, at the age of sixty-eight years. He was born in Boston, and graduated at Harvard. He was, for many years, a distinguished physician in this city and in Chelms- ford.

March 1st. Lowell Horse Railroad opened.

April 4th. George Wellman died, at the age of fifty-three years. He was born in Boston, May 16, . 1810. He came to Lowell when twenty-five years of age, and was for many years in charge of a carding- room of the Merrimack Corporation. He became distinguished as an inventor, and is especially known as the inventor of the self top-card stripper, which has become one of the most important factors in cot- ton manufacture.

April 23d. Celebration of Shakespeare's birth at Huntington Hall.

May 6th. Henry Livermore Abbott was killed in the battle of the Wilderness at the age of twenty-two years. Major Abbott was a son of Judge J. G. Ab- bott, a graduate of our High School and of Harvard College and was a young man of fine intellect and high promise.

May 16th. First National Bank incorporated.

June 7th. J. H. B. Ayer, mayor of the city in 1851, died at the age of seventy-six years.

July 17th. Thrce companies of the Sixth Regiment enlist for 100 days.

August 16th. Captain William Wyman, second postmaster of Lowell, dicd at the age of eighty-two years. He was the owner of the farm on the heights of Belvidere on which now stand many of the most elegant private residences of the city. Hc constructed many of the buildings of the city, one of which- Wyman's Exchange-still bears his name. He was, for many years, one of the most conspicuous and enterprising men of the city.

October 20th. John P. Robinson died at the age of sixty-five years. See Bench and Bar.

CAPTAIN JONATHAN SPALDING .- The high moral, intellectual and social culture of Lowell in its early days has been the subject of very common remark, and has frequently elicited the admiration of strangers. The celebrated Wendell Phillips, who, in 1833, was a citizen of Lowell, said of the city thirty years afterwards: "Lowell was then crowded with

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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

able men, and was rich in all that makes good so- eiety,-amiable, beautiful and accomplished women, -gentlemen of talent, energetic, well-informed, giving a hearty welcome to the best thought of the day."

This enviable condition of Lowell was greatly due to the humane and generous policy of the merchant princes of Boston who were the founders of the city. It was also partly due to the large number of men of talent and culture whom the new and magnificent manufacturing enterprise had attracted to the spot. But a third and very important factor was the high character of the people already living in the quiet village of East Chelmsford, where Lowell now stands. The fertile fields lying for miles around Pawtucket Falls were owned by thrifty farmers, whose spacious homes were the abodes of generous hospitality and of mueh social refinement. Among them were men of talent and high political position. On the north side of the river was General Joseph B. Varnum, who, for more than twenty years, was a member of Congress, for four of which he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and for one year President pro tempore of the United States Senate. On the south side was the sturdy young farmer, Benjamin Pierce, who gained an honorable name as an officer in the Revolutionary War, and who afterwards be- came Governor of New Hampshire and the father of a President of the United States. On these farms were the ancestors of many of the best families of our city, and the names of Varnum, Coburn, Spald- ing, Hildreth and others are still honored names. To this class of substantial farmers belonged Jonathan Spalding, the subject of this sketch.

Capt. Spalding was born at East Chelmsford (now Lowell), June 12, 1775, and died at his home, on Paw- tueket Street, Lowell, April 17, 1864, at the age of eighty-eight years. He was born at his father's farm- house,near Pawtucket Falls, but the home of his in- faney and childhood was situated near the junction of Merrimack and Central Streets. His father was Joel Spalding, a respectable farmer, and his grandfather, Col. Simeon Spalding, who lived near the centre of Chelmsford, was an officer in the Revolutionary army, and one of the most important and influential men of the town, being the trusted representative of Chelmsford in the Legislature of the State in the days of the Revolutionary War, a member of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1775, and a delegate to the convention for framing a Constitution of the State in 1779. Edward Spalden, the great- grandfather of Col. Spalding, was one of the earliest settlers of Chelmsford.

The father of Capt. Spalding spent his life upon his farm, if we except a short time in which he served in the Revolutionary army. He was present at the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. In 1790, just 100 years ago, the family removed from the house in which Capt. Spalding was born to the man- sion-house on Pawtucket Street, in which he spent

the remaining years of his long life, and which is still in the possession of Saralı R. Spalding, his only daughter.

Capt. Spalding owed his military title to his ap- pointment in his early manhood to the captaincy of a company of cavalry. Through life, he carried with him something of the positiveness of military discipline. Though he was very deeply interested in the promotion of the public welfare, he was never ambitious of political honor. He was, however, in 1833, a member of the Legislature of the State.

When it became evident to him that the city of Lowell was destined to cover his ancestral farm, lie sold the larger part of it to a syndicate of gentle- men, consisting of William Livingston, Sidney Spal- ding and others, and it was divided into house-lots for the homes of the people of the rapidly-extending city. He, however, retained as much . of the estate as would meet his wants and pleasures while living in retirement, and his last years were peace- fully and pleasantly passed at the old homestead.

Capt. Spalding was fond of books, and was happy in his domestic relations. He loved to rehearse to his family the events of early days, and tell of the simple scenes of rural life, when the good people of the town were wont to ride to church on horseback, keeping the Sabbath with the profoundest rever- ence, and devoting to the solemn service the entire day, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. He had the pleasure of witnessing, from their very inception, the rise and development of the great manufacturing enterprises which have made Lowell known the world around.

Capt. Spalding was a man of delicate sensibility and refinement of feeling, and possessed that union of gentleness and firmness which always gives grace to manners and dignity to character. He was of a social nature, and was upon terms of friendly inter- course with Mr. Boott and other distinguished men of Lowell's early days. Of the hospitality of his home a large circle of friends have many pleasant memories. His quiet and peaceful life was prolonged far beyond the allotted age of man, and it afforded a noble illustration of that pure and strong New Eng- land character to which is due so much of the sta- bility, prosperity and glory of our country. His wife, Sarah Dodge Spalding, died in 1837, at the age of for- ty-nine years. Of his two sons, who survived him, Dr. Joel Spalding will be probably noticed in this work among the physicians of Lowell, and J. Tyler Spal- ding, who was a member of the firm of Ward & Spalding, in Boston, died in 1872, at the homestead in Lowell, at the age of forty-two years.

1865. Mayor, Josiah G. Peabody. Population, 30,- 990. The effect of the War of the Rebellion upon the people of Lowell is indicated by the fact that just before the war, in 1860, the population was greater by 5837 than at its close, in 1865. But even before the war, such was the financial prostration

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and distress of the country, that the population of the city in 1860 was less by 727 than in 1855.

June 17th. The dedication of the Ladd and Whitney monument occurred. Lowell had never seen so splen- did a pageant. The procession before the dedication contained a vast array of high officials and organiza- tions dressed in uniform, too numerous to be men- tioned. The exultation at the successful issue of the war inspired the occasion, and men of every class delighted to honor the two young Lowell soldiers who were the first to shed their blood in the great civil conflict. The oratiou was delivered by Massa- chusetts' "War Governor," Andrew. The monument does honor to the city. The words of the finely ap- propriate inscription upon it, selected by Governor Andrew, are found iu Milton's Samson Agonistes, lines 1721-4, and are the words of Manoah, the father of Samson, as he contemplates the bravery and death of his son :

" Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame ; nothing but well and fair, And what may qniet ns in a death su noble."

December 11th. Elisha Huntington died at the age of seventy years. Probably no citizen of Lowell has filled so many offices, or has so long enjoyed, in political and municipal affairs, the favor of his fel- low-citizens.

1866. Mayor, Josiah G. Peabody. Population, 36,878.

January 17th. Chase's Mills burned. Loss, $173,- 000. Probably the most destructive fire that has oc- curred in Lowell.

August Gth. Music Hall opened.

September 3d. Perez Fuller died at the age of seventy years. He was born in Kingston, Mass., 1797. Mr. Fuller was a tailor by trade. He was a person of very unique character. While he was a quiet, thoughtful man, so sober in appearance as al- most to look sad, he possessed a vein of wit and humor which made him the delight of all who loved fun. For years no convivial occasion in Lowell was complete witbout a comic song from Mr. Fuller. As an ama- teur actor he exhibited remarkable natural talent. He was withal so genial a companion that he became a general favorite. It is hardly to the credit of the mirth-loving people of the city, whom he so often delighted, that in our cemetery there is no stone to mark his grave.

1867. Mayor, George F. Richardson.

February 4th. Young Men's Christian Association organized.

March 29th. St. Jobn's Hospital incorporated.

February 4tb. First fair in aid of the Old Ladies' Home.

April 21st. Joshua Swan died at the age of seventy- nine years. He was born in Methuen, Mass., and came to East Chelmsford (now Lowell) in 1824, and entered into the employ of the machine-shop, where

he served as a contractor till 1840. While Lowell was a towu no man probably received so many offices as Mr. Swau. He was ofteu selectmau and modera- tor of meetings, etc. He represented both town and city in the Legislature. He was in the Council and Board of Aldermen, and served as county commis- sioner three years from 1848.

July 4th. The statue of Victory, presented to the city by Dr. J. C. Ayer, was unveiled in Monument Square, in the presence of 15,000 or 20,000 spectators. This statue is of bronze and is seventeen feet high. It stands upon a granite pedestal. It is modeled after a statue in front of the royal palace in Munich. The figure is of a draped woman with wings, extend- ing the wreath of victory in one hand and holding a harvest sheaf of wheat in the other. It commemor- ates the success of the national arms iu the War of the Rebellion.

July 10th. Old Ladies' Home, ou Fletcher Street, was dedicated.

1868. Mayor, Geo. F. Richardson.

March 11th. Samuel L. Dana, LL.D., died at the age of seventy-three years. He was born in Am- herst, N. H., 1795, and entered Harvard College when ouly fourteen years of age. He served as lieu- tenant of the First Artillery in the War of 1812. He became a physician by profession, and practiced in Waltham, but his great attainments in the science of chemistry gained him the appointment of chemist to tbe Merrimack Manufacturing Company. He came to Lowell in 1834. Probably no citizen of Lowell has made so high attainments in science. He was an unassuming man of the most sterling worth.

May 30th. Decoration Day first celebrated.

December 4th. Gen. U. S. Grant visited Lowell. He came by invitation of the members of the City Gov- ernment, who met him in Boston and escorted him to the city. The general seemed desirous of avoiding display, and only three carriages were provided for the occasion. He visited the Merrimack Company's mills and the Print Works, the Carpet Mill and the Lawrence Mills. There was a display of flags, and crowds filled the streets, but the pageantry which at- tended the visits of President Jacksou and President Tyler was wanting.

December 21st. Old Residents' Historical Associa- tiou organized with Dr. John O. Green as president, and Z. E. Stone as secretary.

March 17th. Samuel Burbank died at the age of seventy-six years. He was born in Hudson, N. H., and came to Middlesex Village (now a part of Lowell) in 1823, where he engaged in trade. Subsequently he was a dealer in clothing and hardware on Central Street for many years. Few citizens of Lowell have been bet- ter known or more highly honored. He was twice in the Common Council, twice in the Board of Alder- men, three times in the State Legislature. He was also warden of St. John's Church. On the day of his burial, as if by a spontaneous movement, the

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

stores of the city were closed. So much do men honor integrity of character.

1869. Mayor, Jonathan P. Folsom.

May 26th. The Lowell Hosiery Company was in- corporated with a capital of $200,000.

October 15th. Hon. John Nesmith died at the age of seventy-six years.

December 27th. Masons celebrate St. John's Day in St. Anne's Church.

HON. JOHN NESMITH .- The ancestry of Mr. Nes- mith may be traced to that colony of sturdy Scotch- men who, in 1690, sought the fertile fields of northern Ireland, and settled on the River Bann, in the county of Londonderry. From this colony came his great- grandfather, Dea. James Nesmith, who, in 1719, set- tled in Londonderry, N. H., and was one of the pro- prietors of the town and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. Thomas, the eldest son of Deacon Nesmith, settled in the neighboring town of Windham, and ac- quired a large estate. John, the son of Thomas, and father of the subject of this sketch, was a merchant in Windham, and died at the age of forty-four years, leaving a family of nine children. John, the fourth child, who was born August 3, 1793, and at the time of his father's death was thirteen years of age, was put to service as a merchaut's clerk in Haverhill, Mass.

After five years in this position he formed a part- nership with his elder brother, Thomas, and engaged in trade, first in Windham and subsequently in Derry, N. H. During several of the later years of this part- nership the brothers also carried on an extensive and very successful commission business in New York. Mr. John Nesmith conducted this branch of the business of the firm and had his residence in that city.

Having acquired property in trade, they came to Lowell in 1831, and purchased of Judge Edward St. Loe Livermore his estate of 150 acres in Belvidere for $25,000, and sold it in house-lots to the citizens of the rapidly-growing town. This enterprise brought them still greater wealth.

But Mr. Nesmith was far from being contented with dealing in real estate. He aspired to intellec- tual achievements. His active mind enjoyed inves- tigation and experiment. He studied works of science, lic invented machines, he sought out new devices in the mechanic arts; as he walked the streets his brow was knit in thought, he peered into the future, and was known in the business world as a far-seeing man. It was he who, foreseeing the advantage of controlling the waters of Winnepiseogee and Squam Lakes, in New Hampshire, for the benefit of the Lowell mills in seasons of drought, purchased, on his own account, the right to use these waters-a right which the manufacturers were subsequently obliged to purchase of him. It was he who, discerning the fitness of the site of the city of Lawrence for manufacturing pur- poses, purchased large portions of the land on which that city stands.

Among the machines invented by Mr. Nesmith were one for making wire fence and another for weaving shawl fringe. He engaged in the manufac- ture of blankets, flannels, printing cloths, sheetings and other fabrics. He was either agent or owner of mills in Lowell, Dracut, Chelmsford and Hooksett, N. H.

He was a man of ardent, aggressive nature. His convictions were positive and he could not meekly bear opposition. His marked character brought him public distinction. He was elected to municipal of- fices. He was twice chosen Presidential elector and once Lieutenant-Governor of the State. However, he was not a politician, but a moralist. In political contests it was not the partisan, but the moral, aspect that moved him. The temperance and anti-slavery causes found in him a liberal contributor and a life- long friend.

In domestic life he spent freely from his large es- tate to make his home one of comfort and of beauty. His graperies and his hot-houses, his fruit-trees and his shrubbery, his fine lawn adorned with noble ornamen- tal shade-trees, all attest his refined taste, his love of the beautiful and his tender care for the happiness of those he loved. In his declining years he was not the man to retire to the ease and repose so often sought by the aged, but he worked while strength lasted. He died not so much from disease as because his physical powers could no longer endure the ac- tion of his mind.

In his will he made generous provision for the in- digent blind of New Hampshire, and for a park in the town of Franklin in that State.

His death occurred October 15, 1869, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

1870. Mayor, Jonathan P. Folsom. Population, 40,928.

Jan. 18th, Rev. Dr. Amos Blanchard died. A sketch of his life is found in Church History.

March 2d, B. C. Sargeant, mayor of the city in 1860- 61, died at the age of forty-seven years.

March 15th, Natives of Maine hold a festival in Huntington Hal !.

COL. THOMAS NESMITH .- Very many of the early settlers of New England were the choice spirits of the British Isles. It was their love of liberty, their superior enterprise, and, above all, their ardent desire for religious freedom, that compelled them to forsake their kindred and the land of their birth, and to welcome the hardships of a free life in the new world. Couspicuous among these brave and hardy emigrants. were the early settlers of London- derry, N. H., and the adjacent towns. In 1690 theis forefathers had removed from Scotland to find a fairer home and more fertile fields on the river Bann, in the north of Ireland, and had settled in the county of Londonderry. They were uncompromising Presby- terians, and the persecutions which in Scotland they had suffered from the English government and the

Johor Nesmith. esmitto.

Thomas Nesmith .

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Established Church had only confirmed their con- victions and inspired in them an ardent love for independence.

From these Scotch people in Londonderry in Ire- land came the early settlers of Londonderry in New England. Among them was Dea. James Nesmith, the great-grandfather of Col. Thomas Nesmith, the subject of this sketch. Dea. Nesmith came to America in 1719, and was one of the sixteen pro- prietors of the town of Londonderry, now in the State of New Hampshire. His son Thomas, from Thom Col. Nesmith received his name, was one of the first settlers of Windham (once a part of London- derry), and was an enterprising farmer who, for the times, acquired a large estate. John Nesmith, son of the latter, and father of Col. Nesmith, remained upon the homestead. The farm contained about 400 acres and the spacious farm-house had seventeen rooms and a store attached to it, together with a large hall, which was a famous place for balls and dances in "ye olden time." John Nesmith kept a country store and did a thriving business. When forty-four years of age he died suddenly, leaving a widow with nine children.

Col. Thomas Nesmith was born in Windham, N. H., Sept. 7, 1788. His early education was ob- tained in the district school and in the institution now known as the Pinkerton Academy, in Derry. When his father died he was eighteen years of age. His mother was a woman of remarkable ability for business, although from lameness she was able to walk only with a crutch. She resolved to retain the store and rely upon her sons to carry on the business and thus support the family. And doubtless it was in this school of necessity that Col. Nesmith learned those lessons of wisdom and foresight that made him in future years one of the safest of financiers, and one of the shrewdest and most far-seeing of the early founders of the city of Lowell. He learned to take and to bear the responsibilities which the large family of a widowed mother imposed upon an older son.

When twenty-four years of age he formed a partner- ship with his younger brother John, and started a store in Windham, in which they continued business for about ten years. During this time he carried on a very profitable business in the purchase and sale of linen thread, which in those days was manufactured on the small foot-wheel in private families. In 1822 the partners opened a store in Derry, where they con . tinued in trade for about eight years.

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History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 9

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