History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 214

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 214

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" I propose to be in Boston the beginning of the week, so that you need not give yourself the Trouble of a Letter to me. " I am, Sir, yr. very humblo Servant,

" PETER OLIVER.

" p. s. I have sent

"320 6 in. Shot. "589 8 do. Do. "383 10 oz. Do."

Mr. Oliver's fourth letter :

" MIDDLEBORO', May 21, 1756.

"GENTLEMEN,-I received your Letter 19th instant this Day. I had already given my reasons for not writing, wch, whether they are sufficient or not, I must Leave to you gentlemen to judge of.

" The Carcasses are shipped, & I hope will be with you by the Time this Letter arrives, which I suppose are not engaged. As to the Granadoe Shells & Mortars, I have quitted them, & have lent Mr. Barker my Pattern for the mortars, who no doubt will send them soon, & had it been in my power to have forwarded the matter I should not have been wanting, but I have sent vessel after vessel, at great Expense, and have been daily ex- pecting one after another with one proper to have a Furnace in order for stores of such Consequence, which, had they arrived, a few Days would have conveyed to New York sooner than they could be any other Way, unless they were made to Hand, for I had procured a Vessell to carry them.

"I am, gentlemen, with great esteem yr very hum? Servant, " PETER OLIVER. "To the Honble Committee of War."

This lower dam continued to be the property of the Oliver family until the war of the American Revolu- tion, and the industries carried on there thus eame to be familiarly known as Oliver's works.

The position taken by the Oliver family in the war of the American Revolution was such that it was foreed to leave the county, and the far-famed Oliver works passed into other hands, and for a time were conducted by a Mr. Leach, followed by Capt. Nathaniel Russell, who removed to Plymouth, and was sueeeeded by Mr. Hushia Thomas.

Then Gen. Abiel Washburn beeame much the largest of its numerous owners, his share in the prop- erty amounting to three-fourths of the entire interest, and an old-fashioned saw-mill was added, and in 1810 a new slitting-mill built, and at a still later period a shovel-factory that run up to the time Gen. Wash- burn died, viz., June 17, 1843.

For several years a grist-mill was also in operation here.

We will now return to the consideration of the history of the first damn erected upon the Nemasket River.

That grist-mill, erected in Middleboro' (near the present site of the Star Mills), a little before the breaking out of King Philip's war, was burned by the Indians in that confliet, and rebuilt soon after the return of peaec.

Prineipal among the proprietors of the new grist- mill appears to have been Franeis Coombs, who was a seleetman of Middleboro' in 1674 and 1675, and re-elected in 1680-82.

Franeis Coombs was also the tavern-keeper at Middleboro',1 his license to furnish entertainment for man and beast bearing date of Oet. 30, 1678; and he continued thus to provide food and lodging, eom- fort and rest to wearied travelers and tired beasts until his death, Dec. 31, 1682. The tavern lieense was renewed to his widow, Mrs. Mary Coombs, July 1, 1684, and his daughters elaimed the grist-mill.2

The present mill-dam, although near to, does not oeeupy precisely the same site of that erected more than two hundred years ago, on which to operate a grist-mill.

Some eighty years ago a cotton-factory was ereeted upon a new dam near and perhaps in part joining the old one.

This cotton-factory came to be owned and run by the firm of Peirce & Wood, who subsequently added upon the new dam a shovel manufactory ; and part of the water-power was devoted to carry a grist-mill.

The firm of Peiree & Wood consisted of Col. Peter H. Peirce and Deacon Horatio Wood.

Wool-eards were here operated for a time by a man named Bennett. These wool-eards went under the name of earding-machine, as wool had formerly been carded by hand.

These wool-eards of the machine turned the raw material into rolls suited for spinning upon a wheel at the owner's home, for few houses at that time were destitute of a spinning-wheel.

Of pianos they had none; of spinning-wheels, many. But although the buzzing sound of the wheel was less harmonious, it is by no means certain that families generally were less happy.

The " Star Mills," so called, now occupy the point at or very near which the waters of the Nemasket River were first utilized as a motive power, the Star Mill or Mills being quite a large and extensive woolen- factory that has been in operation something more than twenty years.

On the 31st day of May, 1762, Ignatius Elms, for and in consideration of the sum of forty-two pounds, sold to Samuel Thateher, Elias Miller," Nathaniel

I That tavorn was probably kept, where, about half a century ago, Capt. Abner Barrows kept a public-houso or hotel.

2 Tho daughters of Francis Coombs (deceased) took possession of tho grist-mill March 13, 1697. (Soc Proprietors' " Record of the Town of Middleboro',") Ono of those daughters married a Barrows, and had a son named Coombs Barrows.

3 Elias Millor at that date kept an inn or tavern.

Then Bond was

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1025

HISTORY OF MIDDLEBORO'.

Southworth, and Silas Wood land bordering upon the Nemasket River at the place where the upper dam upon that stream is located, and where that dam was soon after built, and the water-power thus created utilized for operating a forge.

April 17, 1777, Silas Wood sold one-eighth of the forge to George Leonard, and a few years later, viz., in or a little before 1785, this forge was wholly or in part destroyed by fire, as upon the 27th of May, 1785, George Leonard charged for what he had expended in repairing the forge after it was burnt. but the re- pairing was so near a rebuilding that the structure came afterward to be called and familiarly known as the " New Forge," and in 1796 was owned by Benja- min Leonard, Abiel Washburn. George Leonard, and Abner Bourne. Three years later the proprietors were Benjamin Leonard, George Leonard, Abner Bourne, and Levi Peirce.

In 1801 the owners appear to have beeu Bourne & Peirce, Benjamin Leonard. George Leonard, and Abner Bourne & Son, and in 1809 George Leonard, Maj. William Bourne, and Maj. Levi Peirce.

This forge continucd in operation some seventy years. but a part of the water-power at this upper dam was from 1813 or 1814 used to carry a cotton- factory, and subsequently here was also added an old- fashioned saw-mill and a grist-mill.1

At a later period, the manufacturing of cotton cloth being abandoned, the water-power was utilized to carry the machinery of a shovel-factory.

In what was Middleboro' (but since 1853 in Lakeville ), and in the locality familiarly known as the "Tack-Factory Neighborhood," a mill-dam was erected about one hundred and eighty years ago, and a forge located thereon that was operated nearly or quite eighty years .? The site has recently been oceu- pied by a tack-factory.

A blast-furnace was in successful operation at Mid- dleboro in, and perhaps a little before, 1756. The blast-furnace was quite different from the cupola-fur- nace, as the latter was only capable of melting pig-iron and pot-metal, while the former smelted iron ores that were then in large quantities dug in Middleboro', and also taken from the bottom of Assawamsett Pond.3

Ores taken out of the ground were designated by the name of " bog ore," and those taken from the bottom of the Assawamsett Lake, " pond ore ;" and another kind was also used that received the name of " moun- tain ore," which seems to have been brought from afar, requiring transportation in vessels or water craft. How long previous to the year 1756 Peter Oliver's blast-furnace was in operation is not now knowu, but that it was then doing quite an extensive business and was one of the leading manufactories of its kind in the then " Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England" is most clearly shown from the writ- ten correspondence that Peter Oliver at that date had with the committee conducting the war then being waged, and which, to distinguish it from other con- flicts, has come to be called and known in history as the " French and Indian war."

A furnace was erected and for many years operated upon the Fall Brook, so called, from which circum- stance it came to acquire the name of Fall Brook Furnace. Soon after the close of the war of the American Revolution, Capt. Joshua Eddy put up a furnace upon Whetstone Brook. Neither of these furnaces continue to exist,-that at Fall Brook hav- ing been taken down many years ago, and the Eddy furnace demolished more recently.

THE STRAW BUSINESS .- This industry, now so extensively and successfully conducted at Middleboro', had its origin in that part of the town that has since become Lakeville. To Ebenezer Briggs, Jr., who resided upon the southerly shore of the great Assa- wamset Pond, in what was then West Middleboro' and now Lakeville, is due the honor of having intro- duced this business, that has since grown to be lucra- tive and furnished employment to a large number of operatives, in a word, thus putting the latter in pos- session of the opportunity and power of earning an honest living, and for which Mr. Briggs is justly entitled to the enviable appellation of public bene- factor. Mr. Briggs commenced this, which was then generally called the bonnet business, in or near the year 1828, or some fifty-six years since, and he con- tinued his manufacture of straw goods in what is now Lakeville about seven years, when deeming the facili- ties for trade and manufacture afforded at the Four Corners Village more numerous and superior to those he enjoyed or could command in West Middleboro', he removed to what still continues to be Middleboro', and here carried on the business about nine years, when he sold out to the firm of Pickens, King & Co. A year later Mr. King withdrew, and the name of the firm was changed to that of Pickens Brothers, and i this continued two years, when Mr. J. M. Pickens

1 The forge was seriously injured by fire about the year 1818, but was repairel or rebuilt soon after.

2 Maj. Thomas Leonard, of Taunton, was the projector of that enterprise. He died Nov. 20, 1713. He was father of Ensign Elkanab Leonard and grandfather of the lawyer, Maj. Elkanah Leonard.

" The right to take this ore from the bottom of the Assawamset Pond was divided into shares among a kind of stock company that used to hold regular meetings to regulate what for a time continued to be a productive industry.

1026

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

dissolved his connection, and the business was for a time carried on by Capt. Andrew J. Pickens. The main building of the straw-factory was ereeted by Pickens Brothers in 1855.

In 1858, Capt. Andrew J. Pickens sold the factory and business to Mr. Albert Alden, the present pro- prietor.

The straw braid that was at first used was all made in this country, but that now used is imported. This business, that for a time did not amount to more than ten thousand dollars a year, has steadily increased until it is estimated at a quarter of a million, and gives employment to nearly four hundred operatives. In the early years of this enterprise all the sewing was done by hand, but is now almost entirely accomplished by machinery.

The house in which Mr. Ebenezer Briggs eom- menced to make straw braid into women's bonnets is still standing upon the Assawamset Neck, in the now township of Lakeville, and does not give very strong or unmistakable marks of age, and yet here it was that those very small beginnings were made, the legitimate results of which have successfully ripened and brought forth increase until as a final eonsumma- tion is realized an industry employing more operatives than any other in the town of Middleboro', thus proving that truth is sometimes more strange than fiction, and teaching us not to "despise the day of small things."

For these faets presented in the history of this en- terprise the writer of this sketch is mainly indebted to the kindness of Capt. Andrew J. Pickens, of Middleboro', who was born and passed his boyhood days in that part of the town which, in 1853, beeame Lakeville, and was for many years constantly and in- timately connected with this straw business, first as an operative and afterwards as a manufacturer.

THE SHOE BUSINESS .- The first or earliest shoe manufacturer at Middleboro' appears to have been Mr. Stephen B. Piekens, who carried it on in a small way compared with the present manner of conducting this industry, and having for a time Capt. Earl Sproat for a partner in business. Their workshop was in the building still standing upon the northeast eorner at the Four Corners Village.

The next manufacturers were Leonard & Eaton, who occupied a rather small one-story wooden build- ing that was removed to Court End to give place to the ereetion of Murdock's Bloek, as it is now ealled, but then known as Wells' Block, as Dr. W. R. Wells was the original proprietor. The building removed had sometime been painted green, and at Court End was used by a Mr. Thomas for a grocery store.

Next the firm of Ward & Doggett commenced the manufacture of boots and shoes, and both proba- bly became rich from the profits that they thereby realized. These partners were Maj. George Ward and Mr. William Elkanah Doggett. Ward & Dog- gett sold out to Bassett & Dunbar, and they in turn to Sampson & King, these three firms earry- ing on the shoe business in the then Wells' Block but now Murdock Bloek.

Sampson & King removed with this business to the " American Building," so ealled. This firm eon- sisted of Maj. Joseph Sampson, Jr., and Col. Nathan King. The next firm engaged in the business in the then Wells' (now Murdock's) Block was that of Leon- ard & Barrows, who were subsequently joined by Mr. Calvin D. Kingman, and at about the same time Leonard & Eaton eommeneed in the building just northerly of the hotel.

Mr. James Allen Leonard also went into the man- ufacture of boots and shoes at the Leonard place on Centre Street.

This business has also been earried on quite exten- sively in the Titicut part of Middleboro', and by the following-named persons and firms : Deacon Elijah E. Perkins, Lysander Richmond, Philo S. Murdoek, Keith & Pratt, Stetson & Hammond.

The firms now engaged in the shoe manufacture at the Four Corners Village, in Middleboro', are those of Leonard & Barrows and Calvin D. King- man & Sons, both of which are carrying on an exten- sive business, and thus greatly adding to the pros- perity of the community and town generally.

THE HAT BUSINESS .- In or near the year 1830, Jabez Sherman employed some six men in the labor of making men's hats, and he was succeeded therein by Henry H. Robbins ; but this business here has long sinee been abandoned.

Newspapers .- The first or earliest newspaper ever printed in Middleboro' was known as the Old Col- ony Democrat, and was started in Plymouth but re- moved to Middleboro' just about half a century ago. Maj. Benjamin Drew, Jr., a practical printer, was editor, printer, and proprietor. This did not prove a success, and ere long it was discontinued. Maj. Drew owed his military title to the fact that upon the 14th of February, 1835, he was promoted to the office of major of the First Regiment of Plymouth County Brigade. Charles Sonle, late of Middleboro', was then colonel of that regiment, Joshua Brewster (2d), of Duxbury, lieutenant-eolonel, and Thomas F. White, of Duxbury, adjutant.

The Nemasket Gazette was the next Middleboro' newspaper, and, like the other, this was started by a

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Fe fo ti

1027

HISTORY OF MIDDLEBORO'.

printer. This paper was first issued Oct. 7, 1852, householder should be amereed in and compelled to Samuel P. Brown, editor and proprietor. The size of its sheet was seventeen by twenty-four inches. Some time in 1854. Mr. Brown sold the Nemasket Gazette to Rev. Stillman Pratt, who changed its name to Middleboro' Gazette and Old Colony Adver- tiser. Mr. Pratt died Sept. 1, 1862, after which the paper was for a time published by his son, Mr. Still- man B. Pratt. In February, 1869, Mr. James M. Coombs. the present proprietor. purchased the paper, and at different times has enlarged it until now it has reached the size of twenty-seven by forty-two inches, and has become a representative local paper, published in the interests of the town of Middlehoro', and one of the oldest and best in the county of Plymouth.

The Middleboro' News was established in October, 1881, by Mr. H. H. Sylvester, its present proprietor. It is Republican in politics and a forty-eight-column sheet. It has an extensive circulation.

CHAPTER VII.

EDUCATIONAL HISTORY.

pay a fine. But lest blackbirds in some sections should prove too scarce to furnish six heads as pro- piciating sacrifice for the relief of each householder, the heads of crows might, to some extent, be made to take the places of blackbirds, and when it is thus shown how careful those early pioneer settlers were to provide for the punishment of crime, the killing of crows and blackbirds, confinement of brutal men and breachy beasts, it does seem not a little strange that the records fail to show them to have been care- ful to provide for the education of children, to teach their young ideas how to shoot in a proper direction, and bring them up with such nurture and admonition that the whipping-post and stocks might soon have proved useless appendages and obsolete superfluities.

The neglect, too, was something more than seem- ing, but real, as the grand jury of Plymouth County, in 1709, found a bill against the town of Middle- boro', for not having, or rather being provided with, a schoolmaster according to law.

The legal authorities now so bestirred themselves that we find conclusive evidence to prove that as early as 1716 four schools were established in as many dif- ferent parts of the town, each school to continue a part of the year, and all to be taught by Thomas Roberts, who iu town-meeting had been elected as the town's schoolmaster.

THIS history. were we to go minutely into its numerous details, would therehy be shown to be very similar to that of other New England towns, How long Thomas Roberts continued to perform that " delightful task" at Middleboro' it is now diffi- cult to determine, but the following extracts from the public records of the adjoining town of Freetown serve to throw some light upon that subject, for the legal voters of Freetown, being assembled upon the 15th day of May, 1718, took public action, of which the following was the record : for the educational story of one is, with slight varia- tions, that of all the others, and those variations have generally been the results of the dates of their occurrence rather than a great or essential difference in the real character, modes of thought or action, of the several communities or towns, and the school- marm's story of " Cape Cod Folks" might with equal truth have been applied to many other communities, " At a legual town-meeting in freetown, Voted to set up a school to learn children to read and right, and made choyce of Jacob hathway to seek for a schoolmaster." and as justly described other localities in Barnstable or Plymouth County towns. Our educational chapter will, therefore, be chiefly remarkable on account of its brevity. Soon after the resettlement of Middle- boro', just after King Philip's war, at a town-meeting held Aug. 30, 1686, the town " made choice and ap- proved of Isaac Howland to keep ye ordinary," which in modern parlance would have been rendered the hotel, and at the same time " made choyce of Mr. "Oct. the 8 day, voted to allow thomas roberts 36 pounds for one year's service to keep the school at three several places,- the public meeting-house, Walter Chase's, also at or near to John howland's." John Tomson and Isaac Howland, to agree with Jonathan Washburn, or any other, to make a pound, whipping-post, and stocks," and at about the same "february the 14th day, 1720-21, voted and agreed to seek out for a schoolmaster, as the last year's schoolmaster, Roberts, and the town did not agree." date went so far as to define the duty of each house- holder as to the number of blackbirds that he should kill, and present the heads of the slain birds to some This schoolmaster, Roberts, was probably a kind of the town authorities, failing to do which said of moving planet, or rolling stone, contented to re-

And he sought in such a manner as to find and induce the Middleboro' schoolmaster to change the fields of his labors to Freetown, and thus did Hatha- . way prove himself to have been not only a wrestling Jacob, but a prevailing Israel. The same record fur- ther testified :

1028

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

main in no one place very long at a time, belonging to a class that in those days tried to get a living by teaching a little and preaching a little, but doing nothing a great deal, and to whom might properly be applied,-

" Wandering Through the country teaching, Gallant and gedly, making love and preaching."

It is not reasonably to be supposed that Thomas Roberts was Middleboro's first or earliest schoolmas- ter, but the earliest who has come to the knowledge of the writer of this sketch, and because the earliest, rather than for anything about him good or great, he has received this particular notice.

Peirce Academy .- This once flourishing and still widely-known institution of learning took its name from Capt. Job Peirce, the founder and donor, who, when in his generous heart he devised this liberal act, was a man of more than threescore years, and made his son, Maj. Levi Peirce, to be the dispenser of the benefit, and which act last named has of late years led some to suppose that the son was indeed the giver instead of the distributor of his father's gen- erous gift.

The original cost was two thousand five hun- dred dollars. The formal act of dedicating the academy building to its intended use was upon the 18th of August, 1808; but no act of incorporation was obtained until 1835, or nearly twenty-seven years after. In 1850 the original building was sold and removed and converted into some kind of a manufactory, and subsequently burned. A new academy building was erected in 1850, and ten thousand dollars raised to aid this institution, which was mainly a result of the unyielding and untiring industry, indefatigable energy, and great enterprise of Professor John W. I. Jenks, then the principal of this school, but now a professor in Brown Uni- versity, at Providence, R. I.

The academic school is not at present in operation, and some of the building is used by one of the town schools, and a large part of the second floor by E. W. Peirce Encampment Post and Grand Army of the Republic.

The Pratt Free School is a flourishing institution of learning, founded by the liberality of a son of Middleboro', Mr. Enoch Pratt, of Baltimore, Md. The school building is pleasantly located near the green at Titicut, in North Middleboro'.

The High School .- At a town-meeting holden Aug. 6, 1849, " Voted to establish an High School as the law directs."

" Voted to choose a committee.

" Made choice of Richard Sampson, Capt. Jonathan Cobb, Harrison Staples, Arad Bryant, and Zattu Pickens, and on the 1st of October, 1849, it was fur- ther voted to locate the High School in the five selectinen's districts to be kept alternately in eachı district two months, and that the school committee select the place and district where the school is to commence, and that the school be commenced on or before the first Monday in December next."

The selectmen's districts referred to were at that time as follows : Sampson's district, Eddyville dis- trict, Fall Brook, Titicut, and Beach Woods, the last named being now in Lakeville, and the Titicut was to include the village known as Four Corners.

This high school was commenced in the Eddyville district, kept in the chapel at the green, and taught by Rev. Ephraim Ward, Jr., a graduate of Brown University, at Providence, R. I. He continued to teach the school two months each in four of the five districts specified, but the last, kept near the Rock station, was taught by Rev. Thomas Symonds, a grad- uate of Waterville College. This high school was soon after discontinued, and was not revived or re- established for the to. n of about seventeen years, and owing, probably, mainly to the fact that, by the set- ting off that part now Lakeville, this town became so reduced in the number of its inhabitants as to be no longer by law required to support a high school.

CHAPTER VIII.

LAWYERS AND PHYSICIANS.

IT is not an easy task always to determine pre- cisely who were the lawyers of a Plymouth Colony town, nor did that degree of obscurity which veiled this matter and led to the uncertainty entirely cease when those towns came to constitute parts of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. And there is no disguising or mistaking the fact that in the earliest years of the history of Plymouth Colony professional lawyers were by many, if not indeed by most, of its inhabitants regarded with dis- trust, which in some instances amounted to a repug- nance, that caused lawyers to be characterized as even Worse than useless appendages to civilized society ; in short, mischief-makers, and hence the general sen- timent of Old Colony communities doubtless was " woe unto you lawyers ;" and a very general belief entertained tlrat the greater the number of the law- yers in any community the more numerous, as a

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History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 214

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1706

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706