USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Topsfield > History of Topsfield Massachusetts > Part 38
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In general, the phraseology of all the petitions for turn- pike roads was the same, namely, the great expense of keeping ordinary roads in good repair, and the relief it would be to taxation if those who wished better roads should themselves pay the cost of building and maintaining them. But when Micajah Sawyer, William Coombs, Nicholas Pike, Arnold Welles, William Bartlett, John Pettingill, William Smith, John Codman, and James Prince petitioned the General
1 This chapter is reprinted in part from a paper by Henry F. Long in Topsfield Hist. Coll., Vol. XI.
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Court for a turnpike road to be laid out between Newburyport and Chelsea Bridge, said company to be known as the New- buryport Turnpike Corporation, they based their claim upon the advantage of connecting our own town with the capital of the state by an air line - the shortest possible route. As a matter of fact none of this road was laid out in Newbury- port, but was built in the town of Newbury, but now a part of Newburyport. While the plans for its construction did not assume definite form until 1800, the subject of such a road was agitated some time before. March 8, 1803, Caleb Strong, then Governor of Massachusetts, approved the charter of the corporation. This was the first road of its kind to be chartered in eastern Massachusetts. The Salem turnpike, chartered about the same time, was the first to be opened. The critics maintained that it was a much wiser plan, to build the road from Newburyport to Salem, thus connecting with the turnpike which was to be built from there to Boston. The proposed road was to start from the head of State street, in what is now Newburyport, and run in as nearly a straight line as possible, to Chelsea Bridge. As the road stands today, in the distance of thirty-two miles it deviates only eighty- three feet from a straight line, and most of this is at the ledges in Saugus, near the Lynnfield woods, where a great deal of heavy blasting was necessitated in order to get through at all. The cost of the road was nearly half a million dol- lars,-far greater than any public improvement in New Eng- land up to that time.
The stock of the corporation consisted of one thousand shares, more than half of which, or five hundred and ninety- eight shares, was held in Boston. Newburyport men held two hundred and ten shares. With the exception of Danvers, the citizens living in the towns through which the road was to pass took no stock in the road, in any sense. The first meeting of the corporation was held in Boston, April 14, 1803, and on April 20, 1803, the directors met and chose the follow- ing officers :- William Tudor, of Boston, President: Gorham Parsons and James Prince, Vice Presidents, and Enoch Saw- yer, Treasurer, all of Newburyport. During the summer, the directors, with their engineer, travelled on foot three times over the entire distance. Rocky heights, bogs, briars, thickets, and all the unpleasant obstacles of an unfrequented tract of country, rendered these pedestrian journeys slow and fatigu- ing. The survey required three weeks' time, the expense being about two hundred and fifty dollars, including five dol- lars paid Michael Hodge for making a plan of the road; and
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Theophilus Parsons was paid two hundred and fifty dollars for legal services. The settlement of the land damages was not an easy matter, for those who derided the scheme were not averse to plundering its promoters.
Work on the turnpike was begun Aug. 23, 1803, on High street in Newburyport. Messrs. Prince and Young, two New- buryport men, had charge of the building of the first eleven miles, reaching from the head of State street to Peabody's mills in Topsfield, receiving $18,850. for their part of the road. Capt. Jonathan Ingersoll had charge of the next nine miles to Malden, and Gorham Parsons superintended the con- struction of the bridge over the Parker river. The building of the roadbed was in general given to contractors, who, in many cases, hired men from each locality for the work in their vicinity and often times each man furnished his own wheelbarrow, cart, pick and shovel. Peleg Slocum of Lynn, built three and one half miles of road from Peabody's mills to Joseph Chaplin's house in Rowley, for eight thousand dollars and a hogshead of rum. The grade was not to exceed one foot in twenty and the road was to be covered with gravel ten inches deep. For building another part of the road Richard and Ebenezer Kimball, both of Lebanon, N. H., agreed to furnish sixty men, blacksmiths, five yoke of oxen, and ten horses. They were to work as many days on the road as the directors thought necessary, until July 1, 1805. Each man was to receive one dollar a day and board, and half a pint of West India rum. The Company itself was to furnish two or three ox carts, and so many horse carts and wheelbar- rows as are necessary. Those men not working under contract received $1.25 per day, for ditching; a laborer with pick and shovel received 5 or 6 shillings, and $1.57 was paid for a man, cart and oxen. Masons, carpenters, and painters, employed in constructing the toll-houses, hotels, and bridges, received an average of nine shillings per day. These days of course were reckoned from sun to sun.
At one place near the Newburyport end, the road was made twenty feet high and twenty-five rods long, far above the mud of the swamp through which the road passed. The workmen at the close of the last day's labor, on this part of the road, looked with a sigh of relief on the well finished roadbed, but to their surprise on the following morning when arriving at the scene of their previous day's labor, in place of the great embankment was an enormous hole thirty-six feet deep and twelve rods in length. The slippery mud of the meadow had allowed the heavy mass of gravel piled upon its surface to
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settle until it was stopped either by the hardpan of clay or by the rocky crust of the earth. The accident however turned out better than was anticipated, for the big hole furnished an excellent depository for the vast amount of dirt and rocks removed from the neighboring hills which otherwise would have been difficult to dispose of, finally making an excellent and solid foundation for the road across the swamp.
The construction of bridges over the rivers and brooks was an item of great expense in building the road. Sixty-two bridges were built by Prince and Young over the first dozen miles between High Street in Newburyport and Peabody's mills in Topsfield, and sixty-nine other bridges were necessary in the remaining distance. A large number of these so-called bridges were nothing more than culverts, three or four feet wide, but several expensive bridges were built over the rivers which the road crossed. At Little river in Newbury, a bridge of timber thirty feet in length was required, built upon stone abutments ten feet high with wings of stone one hundred and thirty feet long and six feet high. Another expensive bridge was erected over the Parker river, and the bridge over the Ipswich river, with a span of seventy feet, was built at a great cost, owing to the hill on the south and the long marsh on the north, and three hundred feet of abutments were constructed. The only entry in the Topsfield town records concerning the turnpike appears under date of Apr. 1, 1805 when it was voted: - To grant liberty to the Newbury- port Turnpike Corporation to erect a dry bridge across the road near Joseph Andrews, provided it is done to the reasonable satisfaction of the Selectmen and Sylvanus Wildes, Isaac Averill and Joseph Andrews and all persons immedi- ately concerned or the major part of them.
Work on the turnpike began Aug. 23, 1803, and was con- tinued until November of that year, four miles of road having been built. In the spring of 1804, it was deemed advisable to push the work ahead with rapidity and accordingly five hun- dred men with oxen and horses, were employed. The most ex- pensive as well as the most difficult part of the road was from Peabody's mills to Malden. To complete this section three hundred men, eighty yoke of oxen and twenty horses were employed for seven months, through the summer and autumn of 1804. Accidents were frequent on this section of the road, two fatalities occurring on River hill in Topsfield. At the close of 1804 the road was completed to Malden and early next year work was extended to a mass of rock in Malden, called in good reason, as the turnpike men thought, - Tophet ledge.
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While the charter of the Company called for a road to Chelsea Bridge, the damages seemingly were to be so excessive that some other means of reaching Boston was sought. The first plan, which was strongly contested and at last rejected by the Legislature, was to construct a bridge across the Charles river to Barton's point. Then another petition was presented whereby the Newburyport Turnpike Corporation was to join with the proprietors of the Middlesex Canal and build a bridge over the Charles river, the last named company to use the bridge as a tow path. This also was refused. But Feb. 2, 1805, an Act was passed allowing the corporation to build to Jenkins Corner so called in Malden, from Malden Bridge, instead of to Chelsea Bridge.
Not only were men employed upon the roadbed, but a large number were employed in other work connected with the turnpike, which progressed rapidly as the roadbed was com- pleted. Three toll houses were constructed, with large gates which swung across the way. The first house was in Newbury, and is still standing. Another was erected in Topsfield, and a third one in Chelsea. In Lynnfield, fifty-three acres of land were purchased, and a large hotel constructed. The Tops- field Hotel was built at a cost of $22,296. and the furniture cost $713. This was considered the best tavern on the eastern roads. The turnpike having been completed to Malden, was opened for public travel on Feb. 11, 1805. At this time, the cost of the road, with its fences, bridges, three toll gates, etc., was $282,936.38. Another item of expense was $1,878. for constructing a road from the hotel in Topsfield to the meeting- house, and $560. for five acres of additional land in Topsfield.
The first man to collect toll in Topsfield was Moses Pills- bury, and he was followed by Leonard Cross and Moody Morse. These toll collectors were each required to furnish bonds at one thousand dollars. After it was discovered that the road would not pay large dividends, the toll collectors' salaries were reduced to $100. a year. The toll rates for each person passing over the turnpike were one and sixpence, or twenty-five cents, for a carriage with four wheels and drawn by four horses. Carts and wagons with two horses paid half this amount, or nine pence. A one-horse chaise paid ten cents; a man on horseback, five cents; neat cattle, one cent and sheep and swine, three cents a dozen. Accord- ing to the general turnpike laws no toll could be collected from a passenger on foot. At the time of the Irish famine, a great many Irish immigrated to this country, and in order to save the charge of immigration, they shipped to Nova
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Scotia and New Brunswick, crossed the line into Maine and then made their way to Newburyport. As the turnpike was the direct way to Boston, parties of ten or twelve, men, women and children, passed over it, stopping at the farm houses along the way wherever night overtook them, in this way avoiding the entrance fee into the country. No toll could be collected from anyone going to or from public worship within the limits of any town, nor from any person passing to his daily labor or upon the ordinary business of family concerns, nor from a person passing on military duty. This law gave the people in any town the right to travel anywhere within the limits of the town free of charge. These privileges were surely very liberal when the amount of money expended in building the road is considered. Without doubt both corpora- tion and public evaded the law.
The amount of toll taken at all the gates during the first twelve months was $2,485. and the gross amount received for toll from the time of the opening of the road until 1818 was $51,612. The care and maintenance of the road cost from two to three thousand dollars each year, so that the net income for the first fifteen years was only about four hundred dollars a year. It is the general impression that dividends were never paid by the corporation, but this is erroneous. The first divi- dend was paid Jan. 6, 1806, upon the earnings for nine months, and was at the rate of $2.25 per share, less than half of one per cent. The second year's dividend of $2.00 a share was declared July 17, 1806. The third dividend, of $2.70 a share, was declared Jan. 5, 1807 and was the largest of any paid. In 1819 the nineteenth dividend was declared for the amount of $2.50 a share, and in 1820 the twenty-second divi- dend of fifty cents a share was declared. In July, 1823, the hotels were sold and five dollars a share was returned to each shareholder. The Lynnfield hotel brought $2,550. and Cyrus Cummings of Topsfield paid $3,035. for the hotel in that town. There were very few transfers of stock and they were mostly forced sales for the settlement of estates. In 1814, two shares sold for $63. each; in 1831, fifty shares brought $525. that is, $10.50 a share; and in 1841, seven shares sold for fifty-seven cents a share.
The stage coaches which ran over the turnpike were not owned by the corporation and great difficulty would have been experienced in paying the running expenses had it not been for the tolls collected from the Eastern Stage Company. The old line of mail stages started by Ezra Lunt in 1774 was suc- ceeded in 1794 by Jacob Hale's four-horse coach, which was
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run until the Eastern Stage Company was incorporated in June, 1818. Starting from Newburyport the stage line fol- lowed the old post road which wound about from one post office to another, forty-three miles to Boston, and required eight hours to pass over its devious route. Later the time was shortened to six hours. The owners of the turnpike saw that the carrying of mail over their road would be an item of in- come so in 1817, Nicholas Pike and others sent a petition to the Postmaster General, stating that the Newburyport Turn- pike Corporation had built a turnpike from Newburyport to Boston, at a cost of nearly half a million dollars, generally supposed to be the best in the United States, by which they had shortened the distance between these towns about eight miles. By the present mail route six hours are required for the passage of mail, by the Turnpike it can be done in four, said the petitioners. Another appeal to Congress was made in 1818, setting forth that the road was a great public con- venience, but that the cost of building had been so large that the owners had suffered great loss from the investment and asking assistance from the general government. It was a great question, which for many years was a bone of contention be- tween political parties, whether Congress had the right to spend any part of the revenue of the country upon internal improvements, such as canals, roads, bridges, etc. It was within the power of Congress to help, however, to the extent of ordering the United States mail to be carried over this turnpike, which was finally done. This was brought about by the organization of the Eastern Stage Company of which Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland of Topsfield was the first President. The toll paid for the privilege of passing the Newbury gate was $365. a year, which gave the use of the road as far as Topsfield where the stage turned off at the half-way house in order to collect mail in other towns. As the business of the stage coach increased the toll paid for the use of the road also increased. In 1824 the Company paid $800 .; in 1830, the sum of $900. ; and in 1834, the charges were increased to $1000. a year, but this included the privilege to run all stages, car- riages, post chaises, and wagons, over the entire length of the road. The great ridges at Topsfield were very trying to the strength of weary horses, as well as dangerous to passengers. Accidents were not uncommon and some of the best stage drivers refused to drive coaches over the turnpike. Some of the best known drivers, over this route, were Ackerman, Barn- abee and Forbes. The stage that carried the great eastern mail, at first turned off at the half-way house in Topsfield,
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thence going to Danvers and to Salem, but afterwards it fol- lowed the air line to Boston. This coach ran light. In the ordinary coach there was always room for one more; in the mail stage only four passengers were allowed to be carried. The fare from Boston to Newburyport was two dollars by the ordinary stage, but by the mail stage it was two dollars and fifty cents. The Stage Company carried the mail from Ports- mouth to Boston and a passenger travelling between these points paid four dollars for his transportation. Drivers of the old stage coaches, to be accommodating, sometimes carried express parcels, but after some owners had tried to obtain damages from the Company for parcels which had been lost it was voted at a meeting of the Directors that drivers are expressly prohibited from carrying any money or packages not accounted for to the Company's agent, and at a later meet- ing it appeared that a committee is considering the subject of drivers carrying provisions from sundry places to Boston for sale, contrary to a vote of the directors.
The Eastern Stage Company was very prosperous and paid good dividends on its stock, which in 1834 was worth over two hundred per cent. In 1825 the company owned two hundred and eighty-seven horses, thirty-five coaches and twelve chaises. The stables and workshops were located in Newburyport and covered a large area. The Wolfe Tavern, at Newburyport, was purchased by the Company in 1828 and became the headquar- ters and starting point and also the home station of the coaches of the Company. The Eastern Stage Company flour- ished for about twenty years. After the advent of the railroad the coaches became few in number and at last, Major Samuel Shaw put on a coach with the fare at one dollar and fifty cents to Boston and the Stage Company ran a coach in opposition with the fare at one dollar.
The necessity for the turnpike having passed away, it seemed desirable that portions of it should become public highways and therefore in 1850 the County of Essex paid to Richard Stone, the last treasurer of the corporation, the sum of one thousand dollars and in 1851, twelve hundred dollars was also paid for a portion of the turnpike which was laid out as a county road. That part of the road extending from Row- ley to Lynnfield, was accepted as a County road on May 10, 1849. The toll houses were sold prior to 1851 and probably no toll was taken after 1847. For many years the turnpike was a narrow, grass-grown road but with the coming of the automobile it has been widened and resurfaced and is now the main artery to Maine and New Hampshire.
CHAPTER XXVII THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD
The first activity for a railroad through Topsfield to Dan- vers was launched in earnest, on March 16, 1844, when the Georgetown and Danvers Railroad Company was chartered by thirteen Danvers and three Georgetown citizens to run from some convenient point in the central part of the village of Georgetown, thence southerly through the villages of Tops- field, Danvers Plains and South Danvers, and thence to Salem, to unite with the Eastern Railroad. This enterprise apparently did not extend beyond the initial movement, for we hear no more of it though it was originally promoted to run in con- nection with the Georgetown Branch Railroad.1
On May 7, 1851, the Danvers and Georgetown Railroad Company was chartered by John Wright and Asa Pingree of Topsfield, and Samuel Little and Henry Poor of Georgetown. These men and their associates were given the power to con- struct and maintain a railroad commencing at some conve- nient point in Georgetown, thence running through Rowley, Ipswich, Boxford, Topsfield, Wenham, or any of said towns to the village of North Danvers, there to enter upon and unite with the Essex Railroad at some convenient point. The capital stock was to be $130,000, and the road must be completed by May 7, 1854. From the fact that the incorporators were given the right to run through Rowley and Ipswich, we have reason to believe that, as is commonly understood, the first intention was to run the road across Hood's Pond in Topsfield. This plan was favored by those who felt sure that the harvesting of ice and its transportation by the cars would prove valuable. The road was to cross the pond from the Boxford and Ips- wich side and strike Topsfield at what is now known as Kim- ball's Point, thence to Bixby's Corner, so called, across Gal- lop's brook and under Great hill, passing through the village back of the Academy hill, and so along to Danvers. When this route was abandoned, numerous Topsfield citizens who
1 This chapter is taken in part from an article by Henry F. Long in Topsfield Hist. Coll., Vol. XV.
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owned land over which the road was to pass, refused to pay for the stock to which they had subscribed. Considerable trouble was occasioned by their action and in order to discover its legality, those who refused to subscribe, paid twenty dol- lars each for a legal decision which was apparently favorable to them. The next plan of location was through the village of East Boxford, but as the people here failed to subscribe as freely as those near where the road now passes, the route was changed. Singularly enough, the man who promised to pur- chase the largest number of shares, if the road went as he wished, failed in the end to purchase any, and adding insult to injury, received an enormous damage for his land. The total land damages of the Danvers and Georgetown Railroad amounted to $15,473.42.
During the month of September, 1851, several capitalists of Salem and Danvers made advances to the Danvers and George- town to procure an alteration in their charter to build from Georgetown to South Reading, and this was favored as it would give Salem the third line of railway from that city to Boston. This suggestion was not adopted by the directors of the Danvers and Georgetown, which had been organized in September with William D. Northend of Salem, as president, and William L. Weston of Danvers, as treasurer and clerk, but it was the beginning of the movement for the Danvers Railroad Company which was incorporated the next year.
Various citizens of Georgetown not satisfied with their share as individuals in the construction of the Newburyport Railroad, in their zeal and anxiety for more railroad con- nections, called a special town meeting for August 4, 1851, to see if the town will vote to authorize their treasurer to sub- scribe for fifteen shares in the Danvers and Georgetown Rail- road and appropriate the stock now owned by them in the Manufacturer's Bank in payment, the dividends of railroad stock to be appropriated for the support of schools. It proved to be a very lively meeting, but as the plan was favored by the more wealthy and influential citizens, the motion was carried and the subscription accomplished. This stock was carried as an asset of the town till 1862, when it disappears from the town accounts, without comment. It was not uncommon for towns to subscribe to stock, for it was argued that railroads were but modern highways, and that no one ever doubted the rights of towns to construct highways, and that what is to be for the benefit of the whole community, should be paid for by the whole community. Encouraged by the action of the town, many private citizens subscribed to the stock, and in most
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cases lost their entire savings. Numbers of people in the towns along the line took one or two shares, many with the idea that they would lose their investments, but satisfied to spend that amount for the benefit to come from the railroad. Many farmers believed that the coming of the road would put an end to their market at Salem, believing that they would sell nothing, and that in addition other towns would compete successfully for the home market. In a poem by Stephen Os- good of Georgetown, supposed to be the interpretation of a dream, wherein he saw many different individuals pass before him, occur the following lines:
Then came with slow and lingering walk Signers for the Georgetown Railroad Stock.
With careworn looks and hair turned grey,
(They'd hoped in vain, the road would pay)
And sung as they passed,-with voices faint, 'Bad is the Road' and 'Old Complaint.'
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