History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 164

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 164

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In 1790 there were four families within the limits of what is now West Boylston, and all living in the same neighborhood, whose children, in the aggregate, numbered forty-five, all of whom, with two exceptions, lived to mature life, were married and had from five to ten children each.

On the farm of the late Addison Lovell, on Mal- den Hill, is an apple tree grown from a twig, which, with others, was bonnd to the yoke of a pair of oxen which came with the first Lovell to this spot, as its first settler, over one hundred and fifty years ago The tree is still in a bearing condition.

The location of the two old grants of land made by the Colonial authorities, more than two hundred years ago, were located as follows, it being under- stood that, owing to the imperfect compasses used in former times, as well as the taking of difficult measure- ments and the disappearance of the marked boundaries, an exact location cannot be now given of these tracts of land.

DAVENPORT FARM .- This was a tract of land of six hundred acres, granted to Capt. Richard Daven- port in 1658, who was at that time in the military employment of the government, and was afterwards killed by lightning at a fort in Boston harbor. This tract was a right-angled triangular shaped lot, with its longest line extending nearly east and west on the old sonth line of Lancaster, about two miles, with its western end somewhere between our present stone bridge and the central bridge, and with its two shorter lines, of about four hundred and forty and four hundred and seventy rods, meeting near the present boundaries of Boylston and West Boylston, and showing that this tract covered all of the large intervale farms on the Nashua River, be- ginning at the west end, with the old Beaman farm, in this town, and extending easterly over the inter- vening farms, with the old Davenport farms, in Boyls- ton, at its eastern extremity. After-surveys of this tract showed that it contained nearly nine hundred acres.

MALDEN FARM .- This was a tract granted to the town of Malden in 1665, of one thousand acres. This tract was about two miles long, two hundred and twelve rods wide at its northerly and three hun- dred and seventy rods at its southerly end. The tract was afterwards about equally divided from sonth to north by a line running on the present boundary line between Boylston and West Boylston, commenc- ing at the corner of Shrewsbury and running northerly, over Wellington or Bond's Hill, to the first angle on the old Dunton farm, thus showing that this tract was located, one-half in the present town of Boylston, the other half in West Boyls- ton, with a corner at its southwest angle extending into Worcester.

In looking back, at this day, to the time when these two tracts were located, with the idea that at that time both must have been in a complete wilderness, it seems wonderful that they should prove to be the best land in the region of their location. The Davenport tract covers what has proved to be intervale land, second to none in the State, except perhaps the Deerfield mead- ows.

The Malden grant, too, covers some of the best up- land and meadow farms in this town and Boylston, both showing that the men and explorers who located these tracts were men whose instincts and sonnd judg- ments were strong ones.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

LINUS M. HARRIS.

The subject of this sketch, Linus M. Harris, the senior member of the firm of L. M. Harris & Co., was the son of Henry and Waty (Smith) Harris, and was born in Scitnate, R. I., October 24, 1814. He was the eldest child of the large family of a poor man, who was only able to give him the benefit of what school- ing he conld get from attending the winter terms of a common country school until he was fourteen years of age, when he went into a cotton mill as " back boy,'' and commenced a connection with the cotton manu- facture which has continued to the present day. In addition to his boyhood schooling, he attended a school the winter after his eighteenth birthday. His experience in factory life, as a boy, was commenced in the Richmond mill in Scituate, R. I., where he worked three years; then in the Sprague mill, at Smithfield, R. I., one year; then with the Blackstone Manufacturing Co., at Mendon, Mass. (now Black- stone), two years; then at Woonsocket, R. I., ten years (up to 1845), when he came to West Boylston.

While living at Woonsocket he married Miss Armilla E. Rounds at Providence, R. I., October 24, 1838, it being the twenty-fourth anniversary of his birth. Before leaving Woonsocket they had three children, all of whom died before the family came to Massachusetts. In 1845 Mr. Harris came to this town and commenced business in the Holt Mill at Harris- ville, as noted elsewhere, where he remained about nine years, when he went into business with E. W. Holbrook at the Central Village, on the rebuilding of his mill in 1854. In 1865 Mr. Harris left the Hol- brook Mill and resumed the principal management of the mill at Harrisville, which he still retains, together with the Whiting Mill, built a few years afterwards. Of these two mills he is an equal owner with his brother, Charles M. Harris, and brother-in-law, Alfred Whiting. He is also one of the owners in the large mills at Oakdale, known as the West Boylston Manu- facturing Company, and also of two smaller mills in Holden on the Quinnepoxet River. Mr. Harris has

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been a very successful man in his business, having accumulated a handsome competence, and has ever been an active and influential man in public and town affairs, serving several years on the Board of Select- men and going to the General Court as Representa- tive, etc.

Both Mr. Harris and his wife are still vigorous after a married life of over fifty years. Since living in West Boylston, three daughters and one son have been born to them, all of whom are living and are active, influential members of the community where they live, the youngest being now about thirty-six years of age.

CHARLES M. HARRIS.

Charles M. Harris, son of Henry and Waty S. Harris, was born in Providence, R. I., August 3, 1822. The family moved soon after to Scituate, R. I., where, when old enough, young Charles went to school about eight weeks in the summer and winter, or as long as the money raised for schools would last, eked out by the teachers being hoarded around among the families who had children to send to school, the school-rooms being fitted up with oak slabs for seats, which were raised so high from the floor that the feet of the smaller children would hang several inches above it. This style of schooling continued until he was about thirteen years of age. After that time he was fortunate enough to get two short terms of school in the winter when a year or two older. This consti- tuted all the school attendance of the subject of this sketch. At six years of age he was put into the Richmond Cotton Mill at Scituate, to work between schools, where by working from fourteen to fifteen hours a day his services were considered worth fifty cents per week or a trifle over half a cent an hour. His wages gradually increased to seventy-five cents, one dollar and one dollar and twenty-five cents per week up to the time when he was fourteen years of age, and from that time they continued to advance until, at twenty years of age, he was receiving from six to seven dollars for a week's work.

From the Richmond mill he had gone to the Sprague mill at Smithfield, R. I .; from there to the Blackstone mill at Mendon, Mass .; then to Woon- socket, R. I. In the spring of 1842 he began the manufacture of thread in company with David S. Wilder at Woonsocket, and in the fall of that year they came to West Boylston, and buying the small mill at the central village, began the manufacture of satinet warps. They also leased a mill in Holden, in which they carried on the same business. In 1845 he sold out his interest in these mills and formed a part- nership with his brothers, who had bought the "Holt mill " at Harrisville. The next year he, with his brother Gideon, went to Scituate, R. I., and leased the old Richmond mill, in which he began work as a boy, where they remained about two years, when they returned to Harrisville, largely increased the capacity

of the mill there and were doing a good business up to the time when the mill was burned in 1851. The mill was rebuilt, the machinery was all in and work was resumed again in a year from the date of the fire. In 1857 Mr. Harris went to Poquonnock, in the town of Windsor, Ct., and run a mill three and a half years, and from there went to Savage, Howard County, Md., and, in company with another party, run a mill one year and a half, then came back to West Boylston, having been very successful in busi- ness at each of these places.

In 1861 he, with his oldest brother, Linus M. Har- ris, and J. H. Lane, of New York, bought the large mills of the West Boylston Manufacturing Company, at Oakdale, and he assumed the general management of the business. Here he has remained up to the present time. The history of these mills is given on other pages of this history, and does not need repeat- ing. There is little doubt that the growth and sue- cess of the business of this company is largely owing to the business talent and large executive ability of Mr. Harris since his connection with it. In Novem- ber, 1848, he married Miss Emily Dean, who is still living. They have had three children, all now living. Henry F. is a lawyer in Worcester; Charles M., Jr., is a superintendent in the mill, and Emily A. is the wife of Alonzo R. Wells.

SAMUEL R. WARFIELD.

Samuel Randall Warfield, son of Luther and Alcey Thompson Warfield, was born in Mendon, Mass., September 28, 1821. He received a good education in the common and high-schools of his native town and Millbury, Mass., his father moving to Millbury when Samuel was twelve years of age. He began work in a cotton-mill there and when twenty years of aye was a "mule fixer." Soon after he was promoted to overseer of the weaving-room. In 1851 he began business at Millbury for himself in the manufacture of thread or yarn, and continued it until 1856. In October of that year he went to Perkinsville, Vt., where he followed the same business eight years. He then went to Griswold, Ct., and remained in the same business about three years.

He bought the property in this town in 1868, his oldest son, Edwin R. Warfield, coming here to super- intend the building up and starting of the works. This son failing in health, Mr. Warfield came here three or four years afterwards and has ever since re- mained here.

Edwin R. Warfield died November 10, 1876, aged twenty-seven years. He was a very energetic and capable man, and his loss was a sad one to his father. It interfered much with the plans he had made for the future. Those plans, however, so far as they re- lated to the developing of the fine water-power in this town, have been since carried out, as is shown in the history of his mills on other pages of this history.

DR. Warfield

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Mr. Warfield has proved himself to be a very energetic and capable man of business, and has been a very successful one. He is still hale and hearty, promising to remain so for many years to come.

He married Miss Eliza Jane Maxwell in February, 1843, who is still living. They have had four children, two of whom died while young. The fourth, Austin H. Warfield, is now about thirty-six years of age, is married, and is an active business man, associated with his father in his present business.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

BLACKSTONE.

BY ADRIAN SCOTT, M.D.

1. PURCHASE OF THE TERRITORY .- The legal title to the soil of what now forms the town of Black- stone was passed from the aboriginal owners to people of the English name in the deed delivered to Moses Payne and Peter Brackett, of Braintree, by an Indian chief, on the 8th day of September, 1662.

To the whole of the purchase then made the name of Mendon was soon afterwards given. The town of Blackstone, the last of several towns carved, in whole or in part, out of that territory, was really marked out by the establishment of the so-called South Precinct in 1766, but it was nearly eighty years later before the town was incorporated.

It contains almost exactly one-fourth part of the land granted in that original deed, and its propor- tional price would be the sum of six pounds sterling, which we will trust was duly and faithfully paid to the natives in current coin of the realm of King Charles II.

2. ITS BOUNDS AND AREA .- The South Precinct of the town of Mendon was separated from the First Precinct by a vote of the General Court, November 8, 1766. The bounds are given as follows: Beginning at the southwest corner of Mendon, then on Uxbridge three miles one hundred and twenty-eight rods to a stake and stones on Capt. Daniel Taft's farm ; thence turning and running east eight degrees south to stake and stones by road leading from Thomas Taft's to John Boyce's ; continuing the same course to a stake and stones by road leading from Dam Swamp to Ens. Benjamin Darling's; continning the same course to a stake and stones on the east side of Rehoboth Road, south of Darius Daniel's orchard ; then the same course to a pine tree at Bellingham line, with Daniel Taft's and Joseph Day's farms on the north side of line.

The area thus included is stated to be 10,295 acres by Mr. H. F. Walling, who made a survey by order of the town in 1854. The westerly line, as stated above, is 3 miles 128 rods ; the northerly, 4 miles 248 rods ;

the easterly, 3 miles 100 rods ; and the southerly, abont 4 miles 230 rods. The latter line, as part of the disputed boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has fluctuated much.

3. TOPOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY .- The whole town lies in the valley of the Blackstone River, which flows through its sonthern section. Northerly from the river the surface rises - in some places with ab- ruptness-and continues to rise beyond the town's limits. Two-thirds of its area is included in this de- scription without much variation from the course of four or five small streams trending southerly into the river. Fox Brook, the largest of these streams, has its head-waters in several brooks issuing from the spurs of Chestnut Hill, the largest, or main stream, issuing from the extensive Pine Swamp between Caleb Taft's and the Uxbridge line. The eastern third of the town is occupied by the Mill River valley, itself a tributary of the Blackstone, but not reaching it within the town limits. This stream has also in much of its course steep, precipitous banks, the intervales being generally where smaller streams are received as tributaries. The largest and most im- portant of these is Quickstream, which rises in an extensive swamp beyond the town limits in Belling- ham. Second in size is the Hop Swamp Brook, ris- ing in Mendon, and in its southeasterly course drain- ing the locally famous Dam Swamp.

The town has no natural lakes or large ponds, and the area occupied by its streams is stated by Mr. Walling to be ninety acres. The highest land is found in the extreme northwest, in the hills collectively known as Chestnut Hill. More isolated are the Daniels Hill, north of the centre of the town, and Waterbug Hill, a little sonthwest of the centre. East of Mill River, Candlewood Hill stretches north and south a distance of about two miles. Pond's Hill overlooks the village of Waterford, and presents ab- rupt sides, both towards Fox Brook on the west and Blackstone River on the south.

The rocky bed underlying these hills is mainly gneiss, with some granite in the northwest. In all parts of the town granite boulders are found, and these afford material for walls. But no quarry of good granite is known to exist within the town limits. In the Mill River valley the hills in many places have the conical appearance of sand dunes near a sea-coast, and many of them are composed of quite pure white sand.

In the Mendon town records, under the year 1700, it is recorded that votes were passed in relation to iron ore and an iron mine in the southern part of the town. It is plain, however, after a careful considera- tion, that this must have referred to Iron Mine Hill in Cumberland. By records a little earlier and later it appears that even Woonsocket Falls were then claimed as within the town, and a similar exercise of squatter sovereignty claimed Iron Mine Hill. It does not appear that any metals have been found in the

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soil of Blackstone beyond the quantity known to chemists as " traces."

4. FLORA AND FAUNA .- The chestnut, birch, maple and walnut are the predominant forest trees in the town, although the pine swamps have been of great value in the past. Oaks of several species are found rather plentifully, and numerous other woods have representatives. The denuding of the forest surfaces, through the demand for fire-wood and lum- ber, has had its usual effect upon the streams and in- directly upon the fertility of the meadows and the quality of the crops grown upon them.

No larger game than the red fox now haunts our woods, although in colonial times wolves and deer were plentiful. Woodchucks and skunks are great pests to the farmers, and rabbits are still to be found in young pine and other undergrowth.

5. SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS .- The town offers a great variety of soils, from one of almost pure sand to rich, deep loam. Mill River Valley has in the northern end of the town light, sandy soil, free from stone, easily worked and giving early crops. But dry weather seriously affects and sometimes ruins crops, The lower end of this valley is now but little used as tillage land. Fifty years ago, by a system of trench irrigation, the meadows southward from the Old Forge Pond were made very productive. The central and western parts of the town present a better soil, but a very rocky one. The Chestnut Hill region, with its famous Benson Great Meadow, has some good farms, but they require on the part of their owners unremitting toil of the most arduous kind. South of the Blackstone River again the soil is lighter, but gradually grows stonier as one approaches the Rhode Island line.

The raising of cattle, hogs and sheep, once the pre- dominant farming interest of the town, has nearly ceased. The production of milk to sell in the villages and market gardening with the same end now occupy nine-tenths of the farmers. There are a good many orchards growing fine fruit, but the number of trees is slowly diminishing. There are a few good cran- berry bogs, but the crop is uncertain unless artifi- cially protected from the frosts.

6. THE EARLIEST SETTLERS .- The town of Men- don was settled under the proprietary system, each settler having his grant, his common right in all the unappropriated land, and his share when any section was divided. It is probable that the earliest settlers took up their abode here not far from the year 1700. They entered the town from two points-on the west at Chestnut Hill, whence they passed down to the Blackstone River at Millville; on the east they set- tled up and down the Mill River as far as Woonsocket Falls. Exact knowledge as to the earliest proprietors is perhaps unobtainable. Some who came very early, however, are mentioned in the records so definitely that we can grasp the fact.

In the Mendon records we find that Jonathan

Richardson had land laid out on the lower course of Mill River in 1700 and upon Quickstream in 1702. Of this man we know nothing further, save the fact that in 1699 he received the usual bounty per head from the town of Mendon for killing five grown wolves. It is probable that this pioneer in the pleas- ant fields of the coming East Blackstone was accom- panied by other proprietors and those who were not proprietors. Two years before, iu 1698, the Rehoboth road was laid out down through the Mill River Valley from Mendon town to the Dedham line, correspond- ing nearly to the Bellingham line. Elm Street in our days represents this most ancient of our legal high- ways. By family tradition rather than by any records we know that the founders of the two families of Daniels and Thayer were fairly settled in the north- eastern portion of the town about 1710, and owned and occupied the land in that section by proprietor's rights.

We find the heads of these families distinctly re- corded in 1718, when the selectmen laid out a road from the Coverdale place to Hop Brook, at the pres- ent residence of Sylvanus White, forming what is now the northerly half of Blackstone Street. Eleazer Daniels, Josiah Thayer and Lieut. Samuel Thayer asked land damages on account of this new highway, and were granted the same out of common land.

Two years before this, in 1716, the town appointed a committee to lay out a road from the iron works to Dedham. These iron works were probably the forge established by Jonathan Richardson at the easterly end of the Forge Pond, on Mill River, and the road then laid out would be the Bellingham Street of the present.

With the settlement of this Mill River valley, and its reduction to fertile fields, grew up the need of a grist-mill in the neighborhood. The first mention of this mill is in 1753, when it was spoken of as some- thing well known under the title of Cargill's Mill. James Cargill belonged to the Society of Friends, and in the lists of Quakers prepared for the town August 30, 1756, his name appears. Not far from this time the grist-mill became the property of Seth Kelly, who came to Mendon from Sandwich, in Barnstable County, and married a daughter of David Daniels, son of Eleazer, previously mentioned. This mill has since been known as Kelly's Mill, having remained in the hands of his lineal descendants. A saw-mill was added at an early date, and in the first quarter of the present century a cotton-mill was built to be run by the same water privilege. In 1809 Seth Kelly the younger and James Paine erected a wooden mill for manufacturing cotton goods on the south side of Park Street, just below the old forge. About 1823 was built the machine-shop of Paine & Ray, on the Quickstream, on the location of the satinet-mill at present owned by Mr. Perrin. Some four or five years later Caleb Colvin built a small cotton-mill of brick, and Messrs. Paine & Ray one of wood, locally

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known as the Squat Mill, near the junction of the Quickstream with Mill River. From about 1825 to 1835 this portion of the town was blessed with great business activity and success. Colonel Joseph Ray owed his military title to the fact that he was colonel of a militia regiment composed of companies from Mendon, Uxbridge, Milford and Douglass.

The first post-office in what is now the town of Blackstone was established in 1822 at Five Corners, with Samuel Allen as postmaster, and with the name of South Mendon post-office. Daniel Kelly was soon after made postmaster, and the office was transferred to his house at the foot of the Handy road. Upon Mr. Kelly's death, in 1826, Elbridge G. Daniels was appointed postmaster, and held the position until 1850, the post-office being kept in his house opposite the Coverdale stand. The name of the office was changed to North Blackstone in 1845.

The people of the Mill River section of the Mendon South Parish seem to have been largely Anabaptists and Friends. Until the beginning of the present century the latter had attended the meeting in Men- don village, where the Friends huilt a meeting-house in 1729. In 1799 Samuel Smith, a well-to-do farmer belonging to the society, conveyed a piece of land to trustees for the erection of a meeting-house on the southern margin of his farm. Here, in 1812, was erected the building still standing, and meetings twice in the week were held here with the greatest regularity for many years. This meeting absorbed the membership from Mendon Meeting when the latter was discontinued in 1841. The Anabaptists were associated with others of that view in the town of Bellingham, and never erected any house in East Blackstone.

Turning now to the westerly side of the town, we find that, traditionally, at least, the Southwick family is the oldest of the white settlers within the town's limits. That name is intimately associated with those of Aldrich and Taft in South Uxbridge, and un- doubtedly families of those three names owned land within our limits before the new settlers came down from Mendon way. South of the Blackstone River the Mendon proprietors, about 1700, found themselves in conflict with a proprietor, acting under authority from the Providence Plantation, of the name of Samuel Comstock. The Southwicks, it is presumed, were settled upon grants of land re- ceived from him.

North of the Blackstone, and at Chestnut Hill, the earliest names seem to be those of Benson and Dar- ling. In the village of Millville, encroached upon by Main Street, just beyond the residence of Willard Wilson, is a neglected burying-ground, containing seven tombstones, whose inscriptions are still legible in whole or in part. These bear the names of Benoni Benson, died in 1761, aged 71 years; Abigail Benson, died in 1751, aged 32 years; Hannah Goldthwaite, died in 1800, aged 70 years ; John Goldthwaite, died

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 164

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