History of Westminster, Massachusetts (first named Narragansett no. 2) from the date of the original grant of the township to the present time, 1728-1893, with a biographic-genealogical register of its principal families, Part 25

Author: Heywood, William S. (William Sweetzer), 1824-1905
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Lowell, Mass.: Vox Populi Press : S.W. Huse & Co.
Number of Pages: 1082

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westminster > History of Westminster, Massachusetts (first named Narragansett no. 2) from the date of the original grant of the township to the present time, 1728-1893, with a biographic-genealogical register of its principal families > Part 25

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The Hessian Prisoners. After the battle of Benning- ton, Aug. 16, 1777, mentioned on page 164, the captured officers and privates were sent to the neighborhood of Boston for safe keeping, being put in charge of the Legislature of Massachusetts and made subject to its disposal. They were divided into small companies and distributed under parole to different localities among the inland towns. One of these companies, consisting of fifteen Brunswick and Hessian officers with their servants, thirty-one persons in all, was by order of the General Court sent to Westminster, as the following communication addressed to the selectmen shows :

"Sept. 9, 1777. Gentn. You have herewith the Parol of sundry Officers lately taken at or near Bennington which the Council have assigned to your care to remain in such parts of your town as you shall assign them. You will have a particular eye to their conduct and in case they in any way or manner break their Parol you will make an immediate report thereof to the Council."

These men were probably taken in charge by the town authorities, though there is nothing in the general records relat- ing to them, and were placed in the families of Joshua Everett, Stephen Sawin, Daniel Walker, Nathan Whitney, and perhaps elsewhere. Within the memory of the writer, some mementoes of their residence here in the form of autographs or other in- scriptions in the German language were to be seen upon the walls of the dwellings where they boarded -which are still standing - but probably ere this are wholly obliterated or hidden from view.

How long these persons remained in town is not known, nor whither they went. It is supposed they were exchanged for prisoners taken by the British the following year at some of the battles near the city of New York. It is proper to state that one of them, probably a servant of Captain Freike named below, Abraham Scholt, was pleased to take up his abode in the vicin-

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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.

ity, marrying and settling in Petersham, where he lived to be, as is claimed, 105 years of age. His daughter, Marrie, married for a second husband Abner M. Drury of Westminster, and had three children, of whom A. Evander Drury of Harrisville, N. H., is the only survivor.

The following is a list of the officers under notice, with their rank respectively, and the number of their servants, among whom there was one woman :

De Meibon, Major of Dragoons .

3 servants.

Freike, Captain of Dragoons . Schlagenteuffel, Lieutenant of Dragoons De Reckrodf, Lieutenant of Dragoons De Bolkman, Lieutenant of Dragoons Schoneweldt, Cornet of Dragoons

2 66

Thomas, Auditeur of Dragoons, 1

Vorbundt, Surgeon of Dragoons

De Bartling, Captain of Dragoons

Dommes, Captain of Light Infantry .

I 66

Fahndr Specht, Captain of Light Infantry

Andrae, Ensign of Light Infantry Bach, Lieutenant of Artillery

Town of Gardner. The first movement having in view the excision of a portion of the original territory of West- minster, arose as early as the year 1774, when an article ap- peared in the warrant calling a meeting of its citizens on the 16th of May, as follows :

"To hear the petition of a Number of Inhabitants in the Westerly part of the Town To Know whether they will Vote off the Westerly part of the Town as a precinct or Destrict."

At that date there were scarcely more than a dozen families so located as to be in any wise benefited by the proposition, and it was very properly "Voted not to act on this Article."

At a meeting held May 9, 1785, eleven years afterwards, a similar proposition came up for consideration. The town at first voted adversely to it, but referred it to a committee con- sisting of Elisha Bigelow, Elisha Jackson, Abner Holden, Seth Heywood, John Miles, and Nicholas Dike, who looked the mat- ter over, viewing the line of division asked for, etc., and at an adjourned meeting, held May 17th, reported in its favor. The report was accepted and it was

"Voted to sett of the westerly part of the Town beginning att the South-Easterly Corner of Lott No. 32 third Division on Huburdston Line then Runing North-Easterly to the South-westerly Corner of Lott No. 91 Second Division from thence on the Line between Lotts No. 91 & 92 to the Town Line."

Corresponding action having been taken by the citizens of Ashburnham, Winchendon, and Templeton, upon request of parties interested, the General Court, in answer to a petition to

Burzhoff, Lieutenant of Dragoons Mayer, Lieutenant of Dragoons

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PROJECT FOR A NEW TOWN.

that effect, passed an " Act of Incorporation " for the town of Gardner on the 27th of the month following, June, 1785. It may be observed that the division line between Westminster and Gardner, indicated above, was, by the consent of the Legis- lature, so far modified in the final adjustment as to allow each real estate owner, whose farm it divided, to have his lands assigned to whichever town he might elect. This accounts for that irregular, jagged boundary now existing between the two towns, which is the wonder of uninformed observers and the plague of surveyors. If Westminster ever regretted its action in this matter, it has had abundant occasion in these later days to reverse its judgment and to rejoice in a daughter-town, whose marked and meritorious prosperity has not only been a sufficient ground of motherly pride and satisfaction, but a source of profit and a blessing in many other ways to itself and its inhabitants.

The Proposed Town of Belvoir. In the warrant call- ing the meeting at which final action was taken in regard to the setting off territory for the purpose of helping to form the town of Gardner, an article was inserted upon the petition of a num- ber of the inhabitants of the northeasterly part of the town, to know whether the voters would set the petitioners, with their estates lying within certain boundaries to be subsequently given, to the town of Fitchburg. It was summarily voted to dismiss the article.

But this was not the end of the matter. Nor, indeed, was it the beginning of it. It was an incidental part of a plan pre- viously concocted by interested parties living in the same gen- eral neighborhood, which included contiguous portions of the towns of Fitchburg, Westminster, Ashburnham, and Ashby. The plan in its ultimate purpose contemplated the formation of an entirely new township in the locality designated, and origi- nated with those of the parties referred to, belonging to the first of the towns named. The whole history of the affair from the outset would occupy too much space to be given here - only its most salient points will therefore be noted.

Fitchburg at the time was a settlement of but a few hundred inhabitants, the great majority of whom were scattered sparsely over its wide territory. There was a small cluster of houses near by where the railroad station now is, in the vicinity of which stood the meetinghouse. The next most thickly set- tled portion of the town was in the extreme northwest corner, on what was called Deane Hill, some four miles away and diffi- cult of access. Very likely this was the most enterprising and prosperous part of the town. At any rate, it had a commanding position, the soil was fertile, and the people there prided them- selves upon the favorable circumstances in which they were sit- uated, constituting, as they did, a little community of their own, isolated for the most part from the rest of their fellow-citizens, but having a goodly number of neighbors in adjoining towns.

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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.

The time came at length when a new meetinghouse was to be built, and the location of it was a question of great interest to all the population. The old one had stood at a point quite away from the center of the territory, in a direction opposite that of the Deane Hill residents. While some were tenacious of the old site, many were earnestly opposed to it and demanded a new one. There was much controversy upon the subject, engendering strong and bitter feeling, especially on the part of the residents just referred to. To end the strife on their part, and to be altogether rid of their troublesome fellow-townsmen, as well as for the sake of better accommodation, the idea of a new township sprang up among them, as a practicable and desirable thing to be consummated. Another consideration tending to confirm this idea in their minds and to induce. them to strive for its realization, grew out of the fact that the river, which has since been a most important factor in the increasing prosperity of the place, was regarded by them as very much of a nuisance-as a curse rather than a blessing to the people. Their taxes were largely increased to pay damages to roads and bridges, caused by the freshets that from time to time occurred by reason of it, for which they received no adequate returns. From this burden they would be relieved by being incorporated as a separate municipality.

A new town then was the panacea for many of their ills, and to the formation of a new town they directed their efforts. They enlisted in the project their neighbors in Westminster, Ash- burnham, and Ashby, hoping by the co-operation of all three to secure the end in view. They fancied they had a good case. They believed they, with their coadjutors, possessed the requi- sites of an independent, self-supporting community -a suffi- cient population, ample territory, financial means, enterprise, etc. They had, too, in their midst two taverns, Jacob Upton's in Fitchburg and Jedediah Cooper's in Westminster, a store kept by Capt. John Upton, and a blacksmith's shop. A Doctor Ball practised medicine in the vicinity, watchful of the various ills that flesh is heir to. Only a meetinghouse and minister were wanting to make their equipment for a town complete, and these were to be provided at an early day, as will soon be seen.

And so in due time these people came before their fellow- citizens with their project formulated as follows: "to see if the town will set off the inhabitants of the North-west part of Fitchburg with their lands and privileges free and clear to join the extreme [north] part of Westminster with the South-east part of Ashburnham to be incorporated into a town to have town privileges as other towns." The other parts of Fitchburg rallied in full numbers and "voted to dismiss the article." Baffled in this attempt their fertile minds invented another expedient to secure the end in view. It was to have a strip of

201

OPPOSITION TO A NEW TOWN.

Westminster with some twenty families annexed to Fitchburg, hoping, no doubt, that if they could carry this proposition they would so increase the number of their friends on the voting list as to have a majority on their side, and thus get leave to form a new township when they should see fit to ask for it again. But this failed as did the previous effort. Their oppo- nents probably understood the attempted game, and did not suffer themselves to be caught in the trap set for them. More- over, Westminster had a voice in that matter and, as has been stated, refused to let a portion of her people and their posses- sions go, as petitioned to do.

Although there was agitation in Fitchburg all the while as time went on upon this matter, it was not till Dec. 20, 1790, that it came before the citizens of Westminster a second time for consideration. The request at that date on the part of "a number of inhabitants in the North-east part of the town " was "to be set off (with lands as described measuring 4231 acres) and to unite with others in forming a separate town." It was

again voted "to dismiss the article." Whereupon, the inter- ested parties, acting conjointly with their Fitchburg coadjutors, who had been similarly treated by their fellow-townsmen, appealed to a higher power-the Legislature of the Common- wealth - in a petition signed by Jacob Upton and sixty-three others, presented to the Senate Feb. 1, 1791. This petition can not be found, but some indications of what it was have come to light. It set forth the great disadvantages under which the signers of it labored by reason of their isolated posi- tion, distance from the place of worship, etc., and also the advantages to be derived from being incorporated as a distinct township by themselves, painting in extravagant and glowing colors the natural beauty and fitness of the locality for the pur- pose desired.

The citizens of Westminster apprised of what was going on, at the annual March meeting chose Captain Edgell, Abner Holden, and Captain Bigelow a committee to confer with com- mittees of the other towns concerned and unite upon some uniform plan of opposition to the project. The result of this action was an agreement that each town should send a remon- strance to the General Court and also secure as many protests as possible from individuals residing upon the territory pro- posed to be set off to form the new town. Pursuant thereto, Josiah Puffer and Abner Holden were appointed a committee to prepare a remonstrance and submit it to the citizens for approval. This was done at a meeting held May 19th, the action of the committee being satisfactory. The document was a lengthy one, covering four large, closely written pages of the clerk's records, and so can not be inserted here. It was thorough and exhaustive, and, withal, somewhat crisp and spicy.

This remonstrance, with others equally expressive and urgent

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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.

from other towns, settled the matter with the legislature and the petititioners had "leave to withdraw." There the matter of a new town in the locality designated rested for twenty-four years, coming up again in 1815, as will be noted in proper place and time.

The Lord's Barn. Simultaneously with the movement for a new town just described, there arose and was carried for- ward to partial completion a project for the building of a house of worship in the same neighborhood. Indeed, this project was a part of the same general plan, and was no doubt designed to exert an influence in favor of a separate municipality. This, the following agreement, found among a large collection of papers relating to the matter, very clearly shows.

" We the Subscribers are desirous to be set off from the several towns to which we belong and join mutually with each other and build a meeting- house near the Laws' corner by the County Road."

This paper was signed by fifty-seven persons; thirty-three from Fitchburg, sixteen from Westminster, six from Ashburn- ham, and two from Ashby, showing the relative interest of the several towns in the general object designed to be secured. The Westminster signers were Capt. Joseph Flint, Thomas Laws, John Martyn, Porter Flint, Thomas Laws, Jr., Saml. Martin, Jedediah Cooper, James Laws, John Ward, Aaron Bolton, Mr. (Nathan) Wood, John Goodale, Jonathan Smith, John Hadley, Lieut. Jonathan Flint, Isaac Brooks.

This agreement has no date, but is presumed to have been drawn in 1785 or early in 1786. On the 31st of May in the last named year the subscribers, and probably others, met at the house of Jacob Upton in Fitchburg and voted "to build a meeting-house near Mr. Thomas Laws corner." At a subse- quent meeting it was "voted to set up the frame 45 feet square with a hipped roof," and Captain Flint, Reuben Smith, and Abraham Willard were made a committee "to draw an obliga- tion for those persons to sign that are disposed to assist in building said house." The result appears in the following paper :

" We the subscribers do obligate ourselves to get such a number of Lots of Timber for a Meeting-house frame such as we shall subscribe against our names and likewise stone in order to underpin the same and such parts of labor as shall be necessary to effect said building and likewise bring the timber and stone to the spot where said frame is to stand by the first of May next."

This paper was dated Aug. 15, 1786. Of the forty-nine names attached to it, fourteen belonged to Westminster; those of Jonathan Sawyer, Nathaniel Sawyer, Josiah Wheeler, and William Kendall appearing here, though they were not on the previous agreement. Some of the signers contributed material, some labor, and some rie-each according to his disposition,

203

BUILDING OF A MEETINGIIOUSE.

ability, and convenience. Having proceeded so far, the ques- tion of a location for the structure was in order. Mr. David McIntire offered to donate a piece of land for the purpose lying just within the Fitchburg boundary, opposite the house of Thomas Laws, lately occupied by Israel N. Carter. The offer was accepted and security for the land was taken. The work of collecting material for the building went on slowly, and it was not till the spring of 1788 that it was ready for use. On the 19th of April the framing began and continued during the summer. Having been completed, a meeting was held Oct. 24th to prepare for the raising. It was a great undertaking and due provision in the way of facilities and help was to be made. A subscription paper was started to secure pledges for the same. It is still extant, and is an interesting and suggest- ive document as some of the items indicate. One Westminster signer promises " 10 men and their board and 2 gallons of rum"; another, " 10 men and 10 quarts of rum"; another, " I barrel of Cyder"; another, "2 men"; another, " 4 quarts of rum." One will furnish "6 spike poles, 18 feet long"; another, "6 spike poles, 15 feet long"; another, "6 spike poles, 20 feet long." It was agreed that the raising should take place October 29th, beginning at sunrise, and it is presumed this was done, though there is no documentary evidence of the fact.

There is no record of another meeting of the proprietors of the building for nearly a year. On the 9th of September, 1789, they came together and it was voted "to sell the pues." A seemingly strange proceeding, when it is remembered not only that there was not a "pue" in the house, but that there was little more than the skeleton of a house yet standing, the frame having been only partially covered and enclosed, making it nec- essary to advertise for boards, shingles, nails, and men to finish the same. Nevertheless, out of the thirty-six "pues " provided for in the plan of the building, nineteen were speedily sold. The only Westminster purchasers were John Goodale, Jedediah Cooper, Isaac Brooks, and Joseph Polley. So far as the records show, these were the only sales of the property that were ever made.

At length the building was so far completed as to afford some degree of protection from the weather, and warrant the attempt to hold religious services in it. At a meeting of those inter- ested, held July 7, 1790, it was voted "to have preaching in the new meeting-house as soon as may be." It was also voted to have Mr. Payson, Mr. Rice, Mr. Cushing, and Mr. Adams, ministers of the several towns to which the proprietors belonged, preach. It was also at the same meeting agreed "to have some seats prepared," "to hear Mr. Garner," and "to send for Mr. Brown." Later in the season, the following letter was written by a com- mittee of the proprietors to Rev. Mr. Whitney, minister of Shirley :

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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.

"FROM THE PROPRIETORS OF THE NEW MEETING-HOUSE IN FITCHBURG. "Reverend Sir. It is our desire that you would extend so far your Piety [pity?] towards us as to come and give us a Day's preaching in the New Meeting-house that we have lately set up on purpose for the publick wor- ship. And we humbly hope that our gratitude therefor will be no disagree- ble return for so great a favor.

"Sept ye 7th 1790."

Whether or not the several clerical gentlemen named re- sponded favorably to the invitations proffered them does not appear. Probably some of them did, if not all. But these pro- prietors probably found that something more than gratitude was needed to secure ministerial services, and hence on the 18th of August, 1791, a committee was chosen "to carry a Subscription paper around to get money to hire preaching with." It was afterward agreed "to send for Mr. Fuller [of Princeton] to come and preach a day and also for Mr. Davis to come again."

Records of several unimportant meetings of the proprietors, held during the year 1792, have been preserved in a little im- provised manuscript book still extant, after which time nothing was inserted therein till "Apr. ye 12, 1799," when it was "voted that a Committee consisting of Dr. Benjamin Marshall, Mr. Jackson Durrant, and Lieut. John Goodale," be appointed "to git subscribers." And there the record abruptly comes to an end.

All that is known of this meetinghouse subsequent to the date last named, and that is very little, is derived from tradition and the memory of some of the older inhabitants of the neigh- borhood. It was never finished as a place of worship, never had a pew put into it, never dedicated, and never represented in any proper sense any parish or organized body of Christian believers. So far as has been learned, no regular religious ser- vices were ever held in it for a single year. In its later history, its doors were opened to preachers and exhorters of any and every form of religious doctrine, and to those of no form of doctrine, who might desire to occupy it, or whom any in the vicinity might wish to hear. But the calls for such desultory use gradually decreased with the passing years, finally ceas- ing altogether, when it became a storehouse for lumber and whatever trumpery residents in the vicinity might be pleased to place within its walls. Severely plain in architectural form, unfinished from the beginning, suffering by neglect and the ravages of time, it early won the expressive sobriquet of "The Lord's Barn," the name by which it was generally known for many years previous to its destruction, about 1830. No memo- rial marks the spot where it stood for more than a generation.

It has been often supposed that this meetinghouse was erected originally by a set of free-thinking heretics, or friends of irreligion and infidelity, for the sake of propagating views hostile to all forms of Christian faith, and so obnoxious to the community at large; or by persons who cared nothing for any

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ATTEMPTS TO DIVIDE WORCESTER COUNTY.

of these things, who devised this undertaking as a means of getting rid of supporting the established religious institutions of the towns to which they respectively belonged. Attention to the facts presented in the accompanying narration will sat- isfy any one that such was not the case, though some of the later occurrences connected with the use of the building may have furnished some ground for such a conclusion. The house was the work of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, irrespec- tive of creed or opinion, and there is no good reason for doubt- ing that at the heart of the movement, of which it was a marked feature, there was an honest purpose to bring the opportunity of Christian worship and the privileges of religious education within easy reach of the people in whose midst it stood, so far removed were they from all existing meetinghouses. As regards those engaged in the movement residing in West- minster, it may be said that they were mostly connected with the town church and contributed to its support, and it is to be presumed that the same was true of the others. Besides, the ministers invited to preach at the outset, according to the records, were men not only of acknowledged piety but of the soundest faith, according to the standard of the times, being of good repute and holding high positions in the religious com- munity.

Division of the County. During the period of thirty years now under review, Westminster was called upon to partici- pate in several movements designed to effect a division of the County of Worcester. Indeed, as early as 1763, as previously noted, one of the items of business at a meeting held July 26th, was "to Know the minds of the District about Petitioning the General Court to be sett off with the Westerly part of ye County of Worcester and Easterly part of ye County of Hampshire [which then included what is now Franklin and Hampden] and to be erected into a Distinet and Separat County." The vote on the question "passed in the Negative."

In the year 1784 the subject was again agitated, and on the 23d of June the town voted "that a Division of the County of Worcester is necessary," and Col. John Rand, Abner Holden, and Elisha Bigelow were chosen a committee to act with com- mittees of other towns in reference to the matter. Nothing further is reported of this effort at the time, but the following year it was renewed, and a petition was sent to the Legislature by interested parties praying for a new county to be formed out of contiguous parts of Worcester and Hampshire Counties, as contemplated twenty years before. The town sent in a remon- strance to that petition in which the views of the citizens were very fully expressed. They confess to "the truth of many or most of the facts set forth in the petition and beg Leave to observe that all the Northerly part of the County of Worcester are at an Extreordinary Expense and Trouble to obtain Justice

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History of Westminster, Massachusetts (first named Narragansett no. 2) from the date of the original grant of the township to the present time, 1728-1893, with a biographic-genealogical register of its principal families, Part 25

Author: Heywood, William S. (William Sweetzer), 1824-1905 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Lowell, Mass.: Vox Populi Press : S.W. Huse & Co. Number of Pages: 1082

Author: Heywood, William S. (William Sweetzer), 1824-1905
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Lowell, Mass.: Vox Populi Press : S.W. Huse & Co.
Number of Pages: 1082