History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 128

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 128

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The ministers of the town have taken from the first the active lead that was their duty in the matter of public instruction, and have had in it the full con- fidence of the public. Dr. Allen, for example, "served as chairman of the school committee for fifty-one successive years, omitting only a season of two years, when a change was tried that seemed like- ly to do better without his aid." To this task he gave especial zeal and energy, the more efficient from the hold he had by natural temperament upon the affection of the young. The " district school as it was "-that is, with the advantage as well as dis- advantage of bringing together pupils all the way from five to twenty for the winter's school-compan- ionship-held, as is generally claimed, exceptionally high rank in Northborough : there was one season,

1 The present pastors of the above churches are, First Parish, Obed Eldridge, settled io 1884; Baptist, Rev. C. D Swett, settled io 1884; Second Congregational, Edward L Chute, settled in 1885 ; St. Rose, James McCloskey, appointed November 1, 1886.

2 The names of his children are Many Ware, wife of Dr. J. J. John. Bon, now of Northborough ; Joseph Heary (the writer of this sketch), now of Cambridge, Mass. ; Thomas Prentiss, died at West Newton, No- vember 26, 1868 ; Elizabeth Waterhouse, now of Northborough ; Lucy Clark, wife of A. E. Powers, of Lansiogburgh, N. Y .; Edward A. H., head of a private school in Northborough ; William F., Professor in the State University at Madison, Wisconsin.

3 The following is a list, nearly complete, of ministers of the several churches : 1st Parish-T. B. Forbush, 1838-63; H. L. Myrick, 1866-68 ; F. L. Hosmer, 1869-72; C. T. Irish, 1873-76 ; H. F. Bond, 1877-81 ; Obed Eldridge, 1883. 2d Congregational-S. A. Fay, 1832-36 ; D. H. Em- erson, 1836-40 ; Joshua Bates, 1840-42, W. A. Houghton, 1843-51 ; S. S. Ashley, 1853-64; G. E. Sanborne, 1865-70; H. Dutton, 1870-79, (author of a sketch of Northborough in a history of Worcester County, published . by C. F. Jewett, Boston, 1879) ; G. B. Adams, 1879-81 ; E. A. Adams, 1881-85 ; E. L. Chute, 1885. Baptist-(after several short terms of service), Charles Farrer, 1848-55 ; Silas Ripley, 18:5-65 ; D. F. Lam- son, 1865-73; W. K. Davey, 1873-77: E. A. Goddard, 1877-78 ; J. Tillson, 1878-82; C. Titus, 1883-84 ; C. D. Swett, 1984.

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NORTHBOROUGH.

for example (1831-32), when the five district schools were manned by five very distinguished students from Harvard College, including three of the four highest scholars of the senior class and the first junior scholar (now Professor Bowen). Under such a dispen- sation it may be fairly claimed that the district school, in its three summer and three winter months, and re- lieved in the interval by all the variety of country occupations, had a far higher educational value than the more perfect mechanism that has taken its place. The old way, it is true, had become outgrown and im- possible through the change in population and man- ners of life; but the change that came about has brought with it some regrets.1 The country school has had the merit, among other things, of training and sending out a large number of young men and women to the work of education elsewhere, many of them to advanced instruction in the State Normal Schools. I have a list of twenty-one of these pupils (female) of the Normal School which was established successively at Lexington, West Newton and Fram- ingham.2

I copy here the following memoranda from a record in the handwriting of Rev. Dr. Allen :

In the Laws of Massachusetts it is enacted (1641) that "If any do not teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them to read perfectly the English language, [they shali] forfeit 20 shillings; and the Selectmen of every Town are required to know the state of the families," etc. Io 1770 there were 85 families in North- borough. These were divided into four "squadrons," and a vote was passed to build four school-houses, which cost each in our currency $150.40. One of these carlicst school-houses is described as "rough- hoarded, without plastering or paint, with one door, a very large chim- ney in one corner, three small windows, and furniture to correspond ; yet from this building graduated a Recorder of the City of New York, and here was partially educated a missionary to India, who was also a Founder of the college io Georgetown, D. C., and a Doctor of Divinity."

In 1742 a new school-house was built in the North District (to take thu place of the old one, destroyed by fire), at a cost of $517.95 ; the annual cost of the school was here 886. " The wood was furnished by individuals, and cut by the boys, who made the fires. The teacher was at his desk as often before as after sunrise, ruliog the books, setting copies, mending the goose-quill pens, and preparing practical sums for the scholars to work out and copy into their manuscripts. School kept five aod a half days in the week, withi 15 minutes' recess forenoon and afternoon, and 30 m. for dinner; the rest of the time was devoted to

1 Another illustration of "how we did it " in those days may be not out of place here. It is in a letter from the admirably skilled and suc- cessful master of a singing-school : "I think it was fifty-two years ago this coming fall (1888) that I attended & singing-school here [in his na- tive town]. Your father sent for me to do his chores and study. I went, and, heing interested in music, I commenced to teach the boys in the study from the blackboard. The boys from the town heard of it. and, by your father'e advice, I adjourned to the vestry [in the basement of the towo-house], where I had abont fifty pupils, and taught twenty four evenings, charging nothing. The pupils paid for the lighting. It was thought to be a success." This teacher (Joseph A. Allen, of Medfield) was afterwards superintendent of schools in Syracuse, N. Y., where he had high reputation as an instructor ; and he was for some years the superintendent of the State Reform School at Westborough.

2 A list is mentioned hy Dr. Allen "containing the names of fifty-seven teachers, male and female, whose education was obtained princip ally in our public schools, who found employment as teachers, in this and other places, during the first thirty years of the present century." Since then "the onmber must have been much larger, as more than thirty have graduated at our Normal Schools, most of them at the one in Bridgewater."

business. Imperfect lessons, whispering aod mischief, cost too much among that pioe shrubbery."

A brick school-house was built in 1837 for the Centre District (estah- lished in 1811), at a cost of $223/1 (afterwards repaired and refurnished at an expense of $1000). The entire cost of school buildings for 100 years, not including repairs and incidentals, was $24,262. The appro- priations in the same time for schools, including the above, amounted to §83,908.

As supplementary (it would seem) to the public schools, to secure more advanced instruction, there was organized, in May, 1780, by pri- vate subscription, a "Seminary," at a cost of ninety-six pounds, sixteen shillings, three pence and three farthings, which sum was divided into 35 shares ; shareholders to have their children's education at an assessed rate, and others to pay 4s. per month for each scholar. At a meeting of the Proprietors, held Monday, December 4, 1781, it was " Voted to give Master Flint five pound per month for the following three months." The Seminary building was "upon the common near the pond-hole." How long the plan was continued does not appear.

About 1825 or 1826, courses of public lectures began to be given by the minister of the town, on astronomy and similar topics, supplementary to the common school course of popular education. The neat town- hall, built in 1822 (near where the high school now stands), gave convenient accommodation, and the lectures ripened into a "Lyceum " (organized in 1828), one of the first in the country, where for more than thirty years free lectures were given and debates in the earlier years were held once a week in winters. The coming together of so many college-men as teachers added greatly to the interest of these debates, which brought out, too, no little native talent. Mr. John C. Wyman, that prince of story-tellers, now of Boston, would probably say that some of his earliest lessons in oratory were received in our modest town-hall. The Lyceum, in course of time, degenerated to courses of paid lectures, as in other places; but in its day it was a much-prized adjunct to the district school.

A Juvenile Library was created by annnal contri- butions in 1824; and a "Social Library," founded as early as 1792, was incorporated with the Parish "Free Library," in 1828. A Public Library, established in 1866, by uniting seven existing libraries, and with the aid of a donation of one thousand dollars from Hon. Cyrus Gale, is kept in the new and commodious town- ball (built in 1867), and now contains something over seven thousand volumes.

The following memoranda of local incidents during the period 1823-45 may here be found of interest :

1823, Nov. Toted, " not to permit Asaph Rice to use the School-house for religions meetings." Voted, " to provide means to warm the meet- ing-house, [for the first time!] by a stove or otherwise."

1824, May. "Chose a committee of 13 to investigate means to sup- press the great and growing evil of intemperance ; and that a committee of 6 be chosen to assist the Selectmen in selecting intemperate persons to be posted up, according to law." In the same year a new hearse is bought, at a cost of $88.82 ; and the sum of $300.36 was paid for a fur- nace for the meeting-liouse.

1826, March. At the request of Joseph Davis and others, a committee was chosen to see if the town will purchase the several libraries, and have a Town Library. A School Committee was for the first time ap- pointed, the charge having hitherto been horn by the minister and selectmen.

1827, April. A committee was chosen " to investigate the subject of encouraging the singing in this town." May. The sum of $100 was ap- propriated for a Singing-School ; any surplus to be disposed of to the choir through Thaddens Mason. Many of our older inhabitants will re-

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

call the rich and bold tones of Mr. Mason's fine tenor voice in the village choir. We find it later (1829) " recommended that $50 be appropriated ae compensation to Mr. Thaddeus Mason as leader of the singers for one year, and $19 to Anson Rice for using his viol for one year."

1828. The First Report on Town.Schools speaks of their "high repu- tation io past years," hut says their "multiplication of studies is a very serious evil, " that " more attention should be paid to writing," and that good order should be maintained "by persuasive and gentle measure, so far as may be practicable. ' The next year the number of pupils reported is 349.

1829. It is voted " that the Northborough Branch of the American Lyceum may hold their meetings in the town hall ; " also, " to refund to the members of the Baptist society their proportion of expenses of painting the meeting-house, the singing, &c. ; " to procure a map of the town ; and "that it is inexpedient for the Town to take measures to be- conie a Parish."

1831. Toted to accept the Gassett Donation,-a sum of $3,000, " pre- sented to the Town by Henry Gassett, Esq., of Boston, -one of its pro- visions being that after the income has reached a certain amount, fifty dollars shall be bestowed, once in three years, upon "the most worthy and best Mother, to be selected by five mothers and five fathers chosen by the Towu." A portion of the income is devoted to the support of the First Parish Church. Also to expend $40.10 for school apparatus ; to purchase a Poor Farm ; and not to grant a petition that the Schools be uoder the sole control of the people of the several districts, according to law ; 80 the schools are left in charge of the general town committee.

1832. Voted aot to grant the use of the town-house for public worship, and the following year the First Parish pay $20 rent for its use as a " vestry," or lecture-room.

1835. The committee io a long report recommend the establishing of a High School ; measures are taken looking to this, but the plan is abandoned in 1837, when a school building is erected in the centre dis- trict for two schools, a higher and a lower. In 1837 it is also " voted to purchase four acres of land of Lowell Holbrook for a burying-ground," -the beginning of the present cemetery of about ten acres (the old burying-ground of about 3 acres was laid out in 1729, and cleared of wood in 1804). A poor-farm was purchased for $4150. In 1838, number of paupers, 16; in 1840, 20.

1×40. Number of enrolled militia-men, 128 ; two years later, 189.

1843. The first fire-engine is purchased (at second-band) by the towo for $171.75.

HEALTH, &C .- When the "Second Precinct" of Westborough was organized in 1746, there appear to have been forty families in the place.1 In the autumn of this year, and for seven years following, particu- larly in 1749-50, " this society was visited by a very mortal sickness among children, hy which the growth of the society must have been very sen-ibly checked, and which must have been attended with circum- stances of peculiar distress. The sickness in the earlier season appears to have been dysentery ; the later, throat distemper, better known now as scarlet fever. Sixty children out of a population which could not have much exceeded three hundred were victims of the disorder. Still, in 1767 the number of families had increased to eighty-two, and in 1796 to one hundred and ten. In 1810 the census gives the entire population as seven hundred and ninety-four, and in 1820 as ten hundred and eighteen, which seems to have heen a slight over-reckoning.

Since the mortality of 1749-50, the general health of the town has been exceptionally good. For forty- six years, beginning with 1780, the deaths were four hundred and fifty, not quite ten a year (less than one

and a half per cent. of the population), more than half of them from old age. I recall a succession of years when (if my memory is right) the annual deaths did not exceed seven in a population of full one thousand. The growth of little manufacturing centres, with their varieties of a crowded foreign population, has, of course, much changed this ratio. Some seasons of scarlet-fever epidemic (especially one short but severe in 1839), and scattered cases of typhoid, have affected the health-list, but have not altered the general good reputation of the town. In- creasing frequency of drought 2 and low wells had begun to be felt as a serious inconvenience; and in 1882-83 (in good part by the urgency and liberality of Mr. D. B. Wesson, a wealthy Springfield manu- facturer of fire-arms, and of Hon. Cyrus Gale, an aqueduct was laid from a reservoir constructed at Straw Hollow, just over the Boylston line, at a cost of $58,150.44, and since then the village has been amply supplied with pure and wholesome water. The engi- neer's report gives the following description of the work :-

The length of the dam ou top is 625 feet, the greatest height in the middle 20 feet, in the area of the pond created about nine acres. The greatest depth of water is 15 feet, and the total storage capacity is ap- proximately 30,000,000 gallons, or a supply for your population equal to at least six months' consumption. The waste gate was closed early in December, 1882, and the pond was first full to high-water mark on June 14, 1883. This level gives a head of 145 feet at the railroad track, which is sufficient to throw fire-streams at that point 80 feet high. The head at Woodville is 193 feet, and at Chapinville 205 feet. Fire-streams can be thrown at these pointe 100 feet high.

Ia regard to the nature of the water secured by your plan, your peo- ple have already expressed satisfaction with its soft qualities, and ua- doubtedly storage in the reservoir will tend to remove its slight color. On sanitary grounds, its use should become general for domestic pur- poses, as no well-water jo your village will be found to be its equal in purity.

PERCY M. BLAKE, Civil Engineer.

PHYSICIANS .- The first physician of the town was Stephen Ball (born about 1730), descendant of one of the early settlers of Concord, Mass. His son Stephen ("Old Dr. Ball," 1767-1850) had a wide and long- continued practice in Northborough and its vicinity, and was a physician of high repute; he married (about 1800) Miss Lydia Lincoln, of Hingham. The second of their thirteen children, "young Dr. Stephen " (born 1802), settled here about 1825, earning special reputation as a surgeon ; he removed to Boston in 1837, where he continued an extensive and successful practice till his death, in 1871. A youuger brother, Abel (1810-76), was also a practitioner in Boston. 1n 1836 Dr. Joshua J. Johnson (1809-84) settled here in practice, removing afterwards to Worcester (1857) and to Keene, N. H. (1858), returning to North- borough in 1865, having married (1840) the eldest daughter of Rev. Dr. Allen. Their only surviving child, Mrs. William H. Johnson, lives in Westborough. In 1848, Dr. Henry Jewett became a resident of this town,

1 The householders, who were also church members, were the follow- ing: Ephraim Allen, Samuel Allen, John Carruth, Gershom Fay, Silas Fay, Jonathan Livermore, John McAllister, Mathias Rice, Jacob Shephard, Joshua Townsend. (May 21, 1746).

2 The most formidable drought recorded is one of three months, from March 20 to June 20, 1826. The coldest season known was that of 1816, when there was frost in every month, and the corn froze unripened in the ear.

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NORTHBOROUGH.

where he still enjoys an excellent practice. Other physicians have been Henry Barnes, who married a danghter of Dr. Ball, Sr., died 1879, and his son, Heury J., practices in Boston; Dr. I. C. Guptill and Dr. Chas. Oakes (homeopathic).

TEMPERANCE .- The evil of rum and cider-drink- ing (for in those days brandy, whiskey and beer were less popularly known) had become a general vice during the generation following the Revolutionary War. It was partly outgrown before the War of 1812, but had come in again as a result of camp-life in that war; and many strong, substantial and prosperous men in this town of the generation next following drank themselves to poverty, their farms into debts, and their families to distress. As early as 1817 the following testimony is found-one of the very earliest symptoms of the great temperance movement that has come since-showing a practical sense of the harm and a desire to abate it. Its signers were among the leading citizens of the town, and there is no indica- tion of its having been urged from any outside source, though the minister's hand may possibly be traced in it :-

Impressed with the belief that the practice of using wine or ardent spirits on funeral occasions is attended with needlees expense, which, to the poorer class, is no inconsiderable burden ; and, moreover, that it has a tendency to interrupt those devout feelings and pious meditatious which such occasions ought to call forth : We, the undersigned, are willing to use our influence to discontinue such practice; and we engage for the future to allow of no wine or spirituous liquors to be carried to the mourners at our own houses, but if any of the mourners or others think it necessary or expedient to use it, to cause it to be placed in a separste apartment for the use of such persons .- (Signed by Samuel Sever, William Eager and others, 30 iu all.)

Northborough was thus very early in the field in movements looking to the temperance reform. A society "for the suppression of intemperance " was formed May 30, 1823. The record of temperance organizations since this date has probably been about the same with other places in the vicinity; and, while the town has had a good repute for order and sobriety, there is nothing especial in this respect to distinguish it from the rest. A half-century ago or more, it is said, each week three wagon-loads of pro- duce went to Boston, and each return-load included its barrel of rum. Since the railroad was built, with its vastly greater freighting facilities, there is little perceptible change in the outward look of things ; under "local option" there has generally been no license for legal sale of liquors ; the native popula- tion is said to have largely outgrown its old drinking habit; and such drunkenness or other disorder as there may be prevails more, it is likely, among the foreign or vagrant population.

During the war of secession this town furnished to the service one hundred and forty recruits, being nine over and above all demands of the general govern- ment. Of these, two were commissioned officers ; the record of one of them, Capt. S. Henry Bailey, is given below. Appropriations for the public service were made by the town to the amount of $10,647.57, in

addition to $8,840.70, which was afterwards refunded by the State.

BUSINESS, &C .- Most of the manufacturing and other enterprises of the first century of the town's ex- istence have been already noted. Wool-carding, the making of potash, and the working of bog-iron began before or about 1800. The manufacture of horn- comos, introduced by Haynes & Bush in 1839, was extended in 1860 into the tortoise-shell manufacture of jewelry, &c., by Hon. Milo Hildreth, who has had about twenty hands at one time in his employ. Two smaller establishments, Farewell's and Whittaker & Proctor's, have been started since. Ornamental combs, chains and large quantities of horn buttons are included in these industries. The tortoise-shell comes from Zanzibar, the Fiji Islands and other tropical regions. The old cotton factory, built in 1814, was burned down in 1860, but has been rebuilt, and has since 1866 been carried on by Daniel Wood as a woolen-mill for the manufacture of blank- ets, &c., employing now about one hundred and twenty-five hands, half of them Canadian French1 and the rest Irish. The other factory is owned by Ezra Chapin, and since 1869 is used for making satinets. The manufacture of corsets has made a flourishing trade since 1877. A shoe-shop was con- ducted here for a few years, though not on a large scale, and a valuable bone-mill, established in 1860 by J. B. Root, employs the water-power of the Assabet.

The agricultural branch of the then Boston and Worcester Railroad, running from South Framingham, was completed to Northborough in 1855, It has since become the property of the Old Colony Railroad, and in 1866 was opened through to Fitchburg. It gives at the present time five passenger trains each way between this place and Boston ; direct connection also with Taunton, Providence and New Bedford.

FAMILIES .- The family names most conspicuous in the early history of the town have appeared from time to time in the foregoing notes. These names have more significance than might appear to one who has been familiar only with the more changing population of a later day. To quote from a memor- ial discourse before cited :

It is said that the New England population of 60 or 70 years ago were

1 There are in Northborough some three hundred of these Canadian French, seventy-five families, adults and children, most of them con- nected with the two factories, the larger number in "Chapinsville." In the Factory School, established 1880, almost all the children are French, and in their homes use their native language, which is, however, drop- ped in a few years, the parents continuing to use it. These people come from below Moutreal, on or near the St. Lawrence. One of the earliest comers, Oliver Contois (here called Counter), came in 1850, and has lived here ever since. Their names often undergo odd transformations, thue M. Pierre becomee "Mr. Stone; " M. Rivière, " Mr. Brooks ; " M. Sarracin, " Mr. Rice," &c. About a dozen of them ouly have become citizens, and these, mostly, a little before the late election. Not till within a year or two have any Freuch children attended the high school ; at present there are two, hut none have completed the high-school course of study.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the purest blood, or had the most of a certain family likeness, of any community speaking the English tongue. They had grown into it by Dearly 200 years of close association here, and wide separation from the rest of the world; and nothing, certainly, could do more to bring out and invigorate that quality than the independence of the town life, and the habit of acting together in their own little public, to decide all matters of common interest or duty. . . . I think that until within 50 years it was rather uncommon to know a family that was not boro, bred and married within the town boundaries; and the few exceptions only made the general fact stand out more sharply.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 128

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576