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 37
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Wool Carding. An industry closely related to the last- named, and one, like that, dependent upon the home manufac- ture of cloth and kindred goods, was that of carding wool by machinery, which superseded the old, tedious, hand working method of pristine days. The first authentic knowledge ob- tained of the carding mill, which was located opposite the saw- mill at the head of Wachusettville, dates back to the year 1805, when Eleazer Rider of Holden sold it, with the right to draw water to run it from the pond on the other side of the road, to Joseph Rider of Westminster. In 1819 Mr. Rider sold to Joel Merriam, who carried on the business for some years. Subse- quent owners were Asa Farnsworth, Jr., Benjamin Wyman, David Wyman, and finally Franklin Wyman, under whose direc- tion the building, after being used awhile as a satinet factory and chair shop, was at last removed.
Getting out Lumber. Full particulars of the building of the first sawmill in the township, at the locality where the Wachu- settville reservoir dam now stands, were presented in some of the earlier pages of this work. This was but the first of a long list of similar establishments that in after years were set up in different parts of the town, in order to convert the immense existing forest growths into lumber for building and other uses at home and abroad, as the demand might be. Space will allow little more than the name and situation of these, as they have been found at different periods of the township's history.
As carly as 1762 there was a mill of this sort on the privilege in the rear of the Nichols Bros.' chair manufactory. It was probably built by Benjamin Bigelow, who owned the lot on which it stood, No. 5, some ten years, and who sold it, at the date given, to his brothers, Elisha and Jabez Bigelow. The power available at that point has been utilized with occasional intervals from that to the present time. In 1765 a sawmill stood upon the site of what has been known for two or three gen- erations as the "Raymond Mill." It was no doubt erected by Philip Bemis, Jr., oldest son of the third settler in the township. It was successively owned after he sold it by Daniel Munjoy, William Baldwin, Thomas Brigden, Nathan Howard, and his son, Joseph Howard ; also in part by Joseph Howard, Jr., Benja- min Howard, Jonas Cutler, David Wyman, and perhaps others, and finally by Maj. Nathan Raymond, and his sons Nathan Raymond, Jr., and Abijah H. Raymond, its last active proprie-
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LUMBER-PRODUCING ESTABLISHMENTS.
tor. It has been repeatedly remodeled, and once, at least, re- built during the long period of its existence-one hundred and twenty-five years.
About the same date, Dea. Joseph Miller put up a sawmill on land owned by him in the easterly part of the town, which included the lower end of the village of Wachusettville. It stood a few rods above the site occupied more recently by a mill of the same kind belonging to Benjamin Wyman, and near a blacksmith shop still extant. It was owned afterward, and probably operated, by Asa Farnsworth, Ephraim Robbins, and Phineas Leonard under whose administration it ceased to be. At a later and unknown date, a mill was established half a mile below the last, near the town line. by a Mr. Goulding from Phillipston, as tradition reports it. Among its owners were Benjamin Glazier, Ezekiel Sawin, Ebenezer Sawin, and Joseph Brown. Attached to the gristmills of Dr. Harvey and John Goodale in the northerly part of the town, of which mention will soon be made, there were sawmills which were in more or less active operation for the greater part of a century. The former of these . was destroyed by a fire about 1812, and the latter by a flood in 1850.
A sawmill built probably by Elisha Bigelow in the latter part of the last century, and afterwards owned and run by Liberty Partridge whose name it bore, was located on the old County road to Templeton, half a mile west of the well-known Bigelow place. Joel Baker and his son Eber had a mill on the Mare Meadow stream three-fourths of a mile west of the residence of Daniel Harrington, into whose possession it ultimately passed. In 1842 John and Caleb S. Merriam built a sawmill in connec- tion with a chair shop near the present dwelling of Oliver M. Merriam. After experiencing several changes of ownership, it was many years since surrendered to the needs of the chair business, to which it had always been largely tributary. Jona- than and Zachariah Whitman had a sawmill on a small stream coming from the easterly part of Gardner, near what was called Benton's crossing, and also one on the river near their resi- dence in Scrabble Hollow, which was converted into a chair factory and became the center of a prosperous business con- ducted for many years by Franklin Lombard, and more recently by Daniel C. Miles. Half a mile below, James Puffer had a mill which was ultimately sold to Wilbur F. Whitney and moved to South Ashburnham. The mill of Whitman and Hall, which stood for a few years on the Town Meadow stream below Raymond's, and the well-known George Smith mill near Theodore S. Wood's, built by William Wiswall, completes, it is believed, the list of this class of woodworking establish- ments. It is proper to state that in several of them the pro- duction of shingles formed a not unimportant part of the busi- ness pursued.
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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.
Grain Grinding. At the outset the inhabitants of Nar- ragansett No. 2 were obliged to go to Lancaster in order to have their corn and other cereals converted into meal for the making of bread and other uses as an article of food, or resort to the slow processes of the "pestle and mortar," the use of stones selected for the purpose, or other rude methods of pioneer life. The inconveniences and difficulties thus experi- enced were obviated and overcome by the erection, in 1741, as elsewhere narrated, of a gristmill at the outlet of Meetinghouse Pond, near the residence of the late John K. Learned. Seth Walker, who put up the structure and became the first "miller" of the township, sold to Andrew Darby in 1748, in whose pos- session, and that of his son John, it remained about seventy years, serving well the needs of the community until too old and dilapidated for further usefulness. In 1766 a similar mill, in connection with a sawmill, was built on North or Whitman's River, by Dr. Zachariah Harvey from Princeton. This estab- lishment was afterwards known as Taylor's mill and Sawyer's mill, and yet more recently as Brooks' mill. Some years sub- sequent to the erection of this last-named mill one was put up in the extreme north part of the town on Phillips Brook by John Goodale, and run by him for a long time. He was suc- ceeded in it by Abijah Lewis, Ai Osborne, Allen B. and George Wood.
About 1790 the Narrows or Wachusettville gristmill was crected. This served the needs of the greater part of the town for half a century or more, when it was converted to other uses and finally removed, as hereafter noted. A few years later one was put up by Ezra Taylor on the brook that crosses Bacon Street, at the site of the "Red mill." It had but a brief exist- ence. The property passed out of Mr. Taylor's hands in 1816, though grain grinding may have been carried on there awhile by the next owner, Arna Bacon.
A gristmill was run in con- nection with the Whitman sawmill at Scrabble Hollow for a while, but by whom it was put in has not been ascertained. It was in operation during the ownership of Merriam and Whitney, 1831-1833, and of the Monroe brothers afterward. In or about the year 1872, the building erected some sixteen years before on the stream running near the railroad station by Caleb S. Merriam for a chair manufacturing establishment, was converted into a grain grinding and flour making mill. It soon passed to the ownership of his son, Eli H. Merriam, who has built up an extensive and prosperous business in connection with a general grain and flour trade.
Brickmaking. The presence of clay in different locali- ties within the limits of the town made the production of brick possible, and that industry has been carried on until a recent date to a sufficient extent to supply the home demand, with an excess for the outside market. The first manufacturer of this
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BRICK, POTASH, IRON GOODS, ETC.
article here appears to have been Joseph Hosley, on the farm now owned by Doctor Liverpool. He furnished brick for the first schoolhouse, built in 1767. The business was continued for many years by his successor in the ownership of the place, Timothy Heywood, who purchased it in 1777. Richard Graves and his son Levi, in the same neighborhood, were also brick- makers, as were Richard Baker, his son Deacon Joel, and grand- son Eber, the last of the trade in town. Brick were made somewhat extensively by Benjamin Bigelow on the Job Seaver estate, and by Reuben Sawin near the residence of his late grandson, Luke Sawin. It is said that the brick in the house now owned by William H. Benjamin were manufactured on the place a few rods in the rear of the site which the building occu- pies.
Potash Making. An important article of commerce in the olden time was potash, for the production of which, first started in this country by Joseph and Caleb Wilder of Lan- caster, there have been at least six manufactories in town : one on the southerly part of the farm lately owned by James Puffer in Scrabble Hollow; one where the house connected with the bakery now stands, in the central village ; one on the easterly slope of Meetinghouse Hill, near the old common ; one in the lot oppo- site the residence of Hobart Raymond; one on the Williams farm, near the southeast schoolhouse; and one in the lower part of Wachusettville. It is not known by whom these were operated, except that Nathan Corey did business in the last, after purchasing that and the adjacent property in 1812.
Mill- and Wheelwrighting. Reuben Sawin, who came to Westminster with his father Stephen in 1760, was a mill- and wheelwright, and constructed most if not all the water wheels that were built in the town and vicinity during the remainder of the century. He was also a maker of spinning wheels, and probably of looms and many other articles of a like nature. His nephew, Sullivan, who lived where Samuel Bridge now does, was for many years engaged in the same line of business.
Iron Manufactures. The production of various kinds of iron goods,- nails, scythes, hoes, etc., was carried on, as else- where detailed, at Wachusettville, where buildings were erected and equipped for the purpose about the year 1780. They occu- pied very nearly the site of the present lower paper mill. A dozen years later a trip hammer with accompanying appliances was established near where the upper paper mill now stands, for the prosecution of the same general kind of work. This last establishment was managed for some time by Joseph Dale, as is well remembered by the older inhabitants of the neigh- borhood. In 1792 Edmund Barnard, who seems to have been the founder of "The Forge," so-called, first referred to, having sold out his interest in that enterprise, built a dam on the Meet- inghouse Pond stream some fifty rods below the old gristmill
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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.
site, and put up a shop of a similar nature, which he probably run while he lived. Remains of the dam are still to be seen there. So far as can be ascertained the last manager of the concern was a Mr. Farwell, a scythe manufacturer, also remem- bered by a few of the oldest inhabitants. Samuel Mosman, Jr., was an ironworker of a varied sort, having a shop at Scrabble Hollow for many years. His kinsman, Abel, was skilled in the same craft, carrying on business in a small establishment locat- ed below where Silas Mosman now lives, on a stream of water flowing from Beech Hill. Several of the common blacksmiths of the town, in connection with their ordinary lines of work, engaged in some special manufactures of the same general character. Philip Amsden, for instance, who some seventy or eighty years ago had a shop in the southwest part of the town, opposite where the widow of Norman Seaver resides, is said to have made steelyards and screw augurs, the first of the latter produced in this part of the country; and Greenleaf Lamb in the central village acquired a somewhat extensive reputation for the excellence of the carriage springs, hay and manure forks, edge tools, etc., sent out from his establishment.
Charcoal Making. To supply the several shops and manufactories just mentioned, and others like them in this and neighboring towns, the production of charcoal from the ample forests formerly existing once gave employment to a consider- able number of men.
Cabinetmaking. In 1786 Silas Perry from Leominster bought the small house lot now occupied by the widow of Mar- shall Eaton in the center of the town, and, having erected a dwelling and a shop adjacent, commenced the making of cabin- et ware, continuing the business for ten or twelve years, when he sold out to John Miller and Edward Kendall. Mr. Kendall afterward purchased Miller's interest and went on with the bus- iness there awhile, but finally transferred it to a building which stood on the corner diagonally opposite the chair factory of Nichols brothers. His successors in the same locality were his two sons, Edward and George Kendall, well and honorably known in town a generation ago. Jonas Cutting was also a cab- inetmaker of long standing and good reputation, having a shop 186 attached to his dwelling house located on the easterly corner of Main and Bacon streets. Church pulpits were his speciality. Specimens of his work are still extant in this and other towns, attesting to his superior skill and conscientious fidelity in the production of that line of goods. Samuel Brooks, son of Isaac, in the extreme north part of Westminster, was also a cabinet- maker, doing an extensive business for many years and induct- ing many apprentices into a knowledge of the trade. His shop, with a dwelling near by, was located on a small stream flow- ing from the north into Phillips Brook, whence he derived power to run the machinery employed in prosecuting his work.
€ 1790
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COOPER-WARE, CARDBOARDS, AND OIL.
His son, Ira, had a similar establishment on the main stream below. Both finally went to Ashburnham.
Coopering. Early in the history of the town a consider- able number of its inhabitants supplemented their farming operations by the manufacture of pails, noggins, tubs, butter- boxes, barrels, and other forms of cooperware, partly to supply their own wants and partly as a source of income by outside sales. Such work could be done in the winter time or on stormy days at other seasons of the year, without interfering with their customary occupation. So generally did this prac- tice prevail at one time that more than forty cooper shops are known to have had a place in town, scattered in all directions among the rural population. In some instances coopering came to be the leading, or perhaps the sole, employment, as the use of such goods increased and the demands of the general market multiplied. Franklin Wyman gave particular attention to this line of manufacture at one time, carrying on a business requir- ing many workmen and occupying several of the buildings orig- inally designed for other uses in the village of Wachusettville.
Cardboard Making. A few farmers also to fill up the vacant spaces of the year and augment their annual income, slender enough at the best, engaged in the work of getting out cardboards, as they were termed, to be properly mounted else- where and fitted either for grooming purposes or for making rolls of wool or other material as a part of domestic cloth man- ufacturing. Usually some otherwise unoccupied room in the dwelling was devoted to this craft, but buildings were now and then erected for its especial benefit. One of these stood on the east side of the road nearly opposite the Wachusettville reser- voir dam. Simple machines were frequently devised in aid of the work, run by hand or foot power. In some families, more- over, the setting of card teeth, before the invention of machin- ery for the purpose, constituted a by no means unimportant ad- junct to the regular calling in life; men, women, and children uniting therein to obtain means sufficient for the needs of the household, or to add thereto some desired comfort or luxury otherwise unattainable.
The Manufacture of Oil. About the year 1790, Eben- ezer Jones from Princeton came to town, and having estab- lished himself in trade, as is believed, at the old Marsh house on the common, purchased a water privilege on the small stream which the highway crosses north of the residence of the late James F. Bruce, and erected upon it a mill for the manufacture of oil, which he presumably run while he remained here. After he left, it passed into the hands of his nephew, Farwell Jones, who sold it in 1802 to Rufus Dodd, then in business at the Bradbury store, recently occupied by Jerome Whitman. The building was eventually removed by Asa Farnsworth. Rem- nants of the dam are still extant.
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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.
Tanning and Currying. There have been no less than five tanneries in Westminster during the past hundred years, though the precise dates at which the earlier ones were started have not been ascertained. July 16, 1764, Joshua Everett, who had been in the place several years, bought the property in the central village afterwards known as the "Penniman tavern" estate, now owned by Edwin L. Burnham, and probably not long after began the tanning business. He was succeeded in 1782 by Wm. Penniman, and he in 1827 by David Forbush, whose son Jos. W. Forbush, continued the business on the premises till 1856, when he gave way to Joseph Pierce, the last of the trade there. For some years, Mr. Forbush had, as a tributary to his regular calling, a mill for grinding bark by water power, located a few rods from Main Street on the north side of the Fitchburg and Leominster road. About the year 1790, Phineas Gates of Stow, the brother-in-law of the senior Asa Farnsworth, located near him in the lower part of Wachusettville, his house being on the south side of the stream, nearly opposite the present dwelling of Samuel H. Sprague. He was a tanner by trade and had a yard with needful appliances on the intervale below. The business was probably given up there at the time of his death in 1803. A tannery once existed on the present Andrew C. Ham place, half a mile north of the town hall, where rem- nants of the vats were to be seen a generation or two since. It was started and carried on by Jacob Brown, the first resident on the premises. He is supposed to have been the only man in the business there. Early in the century, David Forbush estab- lished the tanning trade in Scrabble Hollow, having for a part- ner for a few years his brother, Manasseh S., who subsequently purchased his interest and continued the manufacture of leather as sole proprietor and manager. Otis Titus came to town in 1813 or 1814, and, having purchased land in the central village of Timothy Doty, erected a dwelling house and started a tannery adjoining that of Mr. Penniman just men- tioned, where he carried on business during the greater part of his active life.
Saddle and Harness Making. The manufacture of saddles was an important industry in days when horseback riding was the principal means of conveyance, and from this harness making was naturally evolved at a more recent date. Lieut. Peletiah Everett, also an innholder, was engaged in the occu- pation as early as 1784 and perhaps earlier, having then been a resident here for several years. Very likely there were those who worked at the trade before him, though no records appear to that effect. William Whiting was carrying it on at one of the Woodward houses, half a mile northwest of the center, in 1795. At a later day Alvin Upham located on Main Street and had a shop where George W. Bruce's store now is, in which he was engaged in the same kind of manufacture for many years. He
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HATS, TAPE, CLOTHING, BOOTS AND SHOES.
was succeeded by Milton Joslin, who, after a time, transferred his business to the opposite side of the street.
The Manufacture of Hats. Nehemiah Shumway, son of Doctor Shumway, was a hatter of some note, and had a small factory in the little valley twenty or thirty rods southeast of his father's house, now the residence of Charles Mosman. The same trade was carried on more recently by Gilman Thurston, in a well-remembered building which stood on the south side of the street, opposite Thomas S. Eaton's dwelling house.
Tape Making. One William Huddlestone, who lived in the old house on the southwesterly border of the common, below the Abraham Wood place, early in this century, was a manufac- turer of different varieties of tape, having for his use a machine, presumably of his own invention, that antedated, if it did not suggest, those of more recent construction and of greater capacity for the production of that kind of goods.
Tailoring and Dressmaking. In the olden time the manufacture of clothing for men's, women's, and children's wear, was done for the most part, as already stated, by the wives and daughters of each household, whose training for domestie duties included this special branch of handicraft. As the years went on, however, there appeared a class of persons, women usually, who made a definite calling of this kind of work, serving a regular apprenticeship to it and supplying the public needs in regard thereto. Professional dressmakers and tailor- esses there were, going from house to house as their labors were required, and fitting out the family in their particular line of usefulness. Later on rooms or shops were established for the production of garments for male or female use respectively, to which people resorted as necessity or occasion required. Many still living will readily call to mind different persons, who, a generation or more ago, were provided with the proper varie- ties of material and other equipments, and who possessed the skill needful to repair, remodel, or replenish and amplify, as the case might demand, the wardrobe of the feminine portion of the community, and also those who stood ready to answer the corresponding call on the part of the sterner sex. Among the latter were Jacob Ames, who had for a term of years a tailor's shop at the so-called Doty store; and Nahum B. Howe, whose place of business was in the second story of what is now the engine house at the center of the town.
Boot and Shoemaking. Similar is the history of the boot and shoemaking industry in Westminster, though there were trained "cordwainers " among the first settlers, as there were carpenters and weavers who had served a regular appren- ticeship in their respective vocations. The usual method by which this class of artisans served the public to begin with, and even during the first quarter of the present century, or later, was that of visiting the families in which their labors were
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HISTORY OF WESTMINSTER, MASS.
needed once or twice a year, and stopping long enough to sup- ply all the members with the requisite outfit in this particular, using material derived from the employer's own flocks and herds suitably prepared by the tanners and curriers of the town -a method or practice familiarly designated as "whipping the cat." Shoe shops were a thing unknown in the early days. The first one reported was that of Bezaleel Baker, located some- where in the village, about the year 1785. It was not of long continuance, as Mr. Baker left the place for Marlboro', N. H., in 1790. Reuben Fenno, Dea. John Foskett, and Newell Young have had shops more recently, in which only custom work has been done. The only manufactory of boots and shoes for the trade ever established here was that of Aaron Smith, just referred to, in which about a dozen men were employed, turning out some twenty thousand dollars' worth of goods a year, and yielding profits sufficient to enable the proprietor to set up and carry on a larger business elsewhere, in which an ample fortune was ultimately realized.
Manufacture of Bass Viols. Somewhere about the year 1820 Joseph Minott, who had previously been associated with his brother, Jonathan, in common joinery and house build- ing, began in a small way the manufacture of bass viols in a shop near his residence, on the site now occupied by the Bap- tist Church. Though doing most of the labor himself, with the assistance of his sons, he yet built up a very respectable and remunerative business, turning out upon the market a class of goods whose excellence in tone and workmanship reflected much credit upon the maker, and gave him a wide and an enviable reputation among musical people.
Straw Braiding and Bonnet Making. An important industry in its day and time, giving employment to many women and children in the community, and aiding very essen- tially, in many cases, in adapting family resources to family needs, was the production of straw braid and the attendant manufacture of bonnets for both domestic use and the general trade. By whom the first work of this kind in town was done is not known, nor the date of such work. In the Massa- chusetts Spy of Oct. 4, 1809, Mrs. Persis (Miles) Sweetser ad- vertised for 20,000 yards of straw braid, but whether for the purpose of making it into bonnets herself, or for other parties to work into marketable goods, does not appear. It has been thought that the daughters of Abel Wood, Esq., were among the earliest braiders here, the results of their labors being pur- chased by the enterprising wife of Joseph Mudge, who run a small store in the house now owned and occupied by Mrs. Joseph Woodbury, then the residence of the Mudge family. Whether bonnets were ever made by her, or under her super- vision, has not been ascertained, but it is hardly probable. The industry started by these women was taken up and developed
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