History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 165

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 165

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in 1800, aged 69 years; John Darling, died in 1760, aged 75 years; Daniel Darling, died in 1745, aged 64 years ; - Darling, died in 1746.

These are said to be the oldest inscriptions upon gravestones in the town, and point to a settlement early in the eighteenth century. From the Mendon records, under date of May 16, 1732, we learn that Samuel Thompson then owned a grist mill on the isl- and, at what is now Millville. He bargained with the town to maintain the bridge from the island to the south bank of the Blackstone River, provided the town would build and maintain the bridge on the north side. From this will date the first lay out of Central Street, in Millville. Towards the close of the century a fulling-mill was built here, and in 1814 Esek Pitts built the first woolen-mill ever erected upon the Blackstone River. The Island Mill was erected in 1835. The Stone Mill, destroyed by fire in 1874, and since partially rebuilt, was erected by Collins Capron in 1825. The entire river privilege was bought out by Welcome Farnum in 1845, and the brick mill was added by him directly after to the com- bination already existing. The forging of axes and scythes was a Millville industry early in the century. A post-office was first established in Millville in 1827 and Willard Wilson was postmaster at three different times, viz. : 1827-42, 1845-19, 1853-61. Preston Warfield was the postmaster in 1842-43, and George Staples, 1843-45. Preserved L. Thayer was twice postmaster, 1849-53 and from 1861-73.

The first church erected in Millville appears to have been the one on Central Street, of which the base- ment is now occupied as a store by Thomas T. Smith. It was built in 1833 by the Methodist Reformed Church Society. In 1838 a second church was erected by the Presbyterians on Bow Street, but the society was short-lived and the church building became the property of the Methodist Episcopal Church about 1850.

It must be remembered that the original settlers of this section and their descendants were in general either Friends attending the South Uxbridge Meet- ing, or Presbyterians attending the Chestnut Hill Meeting. The latter was the religious centre of the South Parish, incorporated in 1766. Its substantial wooden meeting-house, built in 1769, is still stand- ing in a well-preserved condition. On the 14th September, 1768, Rev. Benjamin Balch was settled as its pastor ; but owing to disputes with his people about the " provisions and other necessaries of life," especially fire-wood, included in the loose end of the arrangement for his salary, he fell into the contempt of his parishioners and fled in the night, March 27, 1773, to the town of Dedham. No settled pastor was had after him until the Rev. Preserved Smith came in 1805. He remained seven years and his memory is blessed. The society became extinct be- fore the Millville Church was built.

The valuable water-powers at Millville and Woon-

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socket had been occupied and used for nearly a cen- tury each before a yet more valuable one, interme- diate between them, was taken advantage of and developed by tbe Blackstone Manufacturing Company. This company, consisting of Nicholas Brown and Thomas P. Ives, the surviving partners of the old- time commercial firm of Brown & Ives, with Samnel Butler, Cyrus Butler and Seth Wheaton, purchased some two hundred and sixty acres of land on both sides of the river about the year 1804. These men were all residents of Providence, R. I., and had made fortunes in commerce before turning their at- tention to manufacturing. The section of land thus purchased was practically uninhabited, and the first building erected by the new owners of the soil was a large building to afford shelter and cooking facilities for the workmen, known as the Cook House. It was long since demolished, but stood somewhat north of the present Arcade Building. Work was pushed upon dam, mill and tenement houses, but it was not until 1809 that the mill was completed and work was begun. At first and for a good many years the cotton was spun at the mill and the weaving was done on hand-looms in the lonely farm-houses scattered through the surrounding country.

A respected fellow-townsman, whose memory of Blackstone Village dates back to the year 1820, gives the following description of it as it was at that date. A street, corresponding to our present Main Street, crossed the mill-trench to the north of the site of the iron bridge, passing through the lower ground. The high bluff, now known as the New City and the High Rocks, was common land crowned with a thick growth of oak wood, but having no houses. Westward of our Mendon Street, from the company's barn northward to the tavern stand at the four corners, were very rough rocky pastures and wooded swamps. Eastward were heavy woods close up to the road, full of game in those days, wood pigeons, partridges, rabbits and gray squirrels. Yankee Yard was then an open lot without a house. Back Street (now Middle) had eight houses and Mill Street (now Church) was pretty nearly as now, save that no church was there nor Arcade, the site of the latter being a sand-bank. Farther down, from the site of Masonic Hall eastward to Fox Brook, Main Street became a mere cart-path through swamp and woods. The Rhode Island side of the river was reaclied over a wooden bridge occupying the site of the present one on Mendon Street in the rear of Blackstone Mills. As to the mill itself, only the old, or No. 1 Mill of the present buildings, existed. Where now stand the stone mills of later date were then sev- eral wooden buildings, containing a grist-mill, saw- mill, blacksmith-shop and machine shop with a wood- shop above it. Hereabouts stood also a gambrel- roofed house occupied as a residence by superintend- ents and overseers. This was . afterwards moved to the corner of Mendon and Canal Streets and is now the boarding-house. A little up the intervale stood

a house where the cloth was bleached and calendered, while the old brick tenement house with wooden ex- tensions, north of Main Street and beside the New York and New England tracks, was built and used for years as a dye-house, its location being determined by a fine spring of water in the rear of it. On the ground now occupied by the tracks of the Providence and Worcester Railroad, from the counting-room towards the iron bridge and on that occupied by the Black- stone Station, stood a row of buildings. First, a stone boarding-house nearly fronting the present counting- room site ; secondly, a stone store almost on the site of the railroad station-house; thirdly, a stone store- house; and fourthly, quite up under the bluff, were sheds for horses and the hand fire-engine. This row of buildings has entirely disappeared, but they played a very important part in the village life of 1820. The store especially was a depot of supplies for the country round about. Blackstone had its hotel at that date in the second house above the Arcade, on what is now called Church Street, and a landlord in the person of one William Bussey. The Cook house was occupied by one Southworth at this time, who made shuttles there. The old vestry building, now revamped to do service as a public library building, was both church and school-house. The school was kept in session for forty weeks in the year, the long winter term of six- teen weeks always being taught by a master. For text- books a full equipment numbered only a Webster's Spelling-Book, a Columbian First Class Book, a Da- boll's or Adams' Arithmetic, Morse's Geography (ab- ridged), Murray's English Grammar and a New Testa- ment. In the average New England winter the Black- stone Company used to have much trouble in keeping its great stone mill warm, although four-foot wood was crowded into its numerous fire-places without stint. A trial of box iron stoves gave not much better results, and the problem was not settled until Lehigh coal came to the rescue. The superintendent was a man named Tripp, who bad lost the sight of one eye, a driving business man, well-liked by the mill-help. As superintendents' names we find Tripp's succeeded by Whipple, Waterman and Hartshorn down to 1833, when Holder Borden came under the new title of agent of the Blackstone Manufacturing Company. He was succeeded by Silas H. Kimball in 1834, who remained in charge until 1853, and was succeeded by Henry C. Kimball, his son, the present agent. Four largeadditions to the mill-buildings, forming by them- selves a connected group apart from the No. 1 Mill. were erected in 1841, 1845, 1847 and 1854 respectively.

In 1820 no village existed in what we call Water- ford. Only three farm-houses were to be found in all that section-Peter Gaskill's (now David's), Cogswell Chase's, not far from the present residence of Daniel Chase, and Elisha Gaskill's, just eastward of Chase's, near the brook. Pond Hill was covered with a heavy forest growth, predominantly pine, in which the wild pigeons found a congenial home. The sharing of

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pigeons in the season for the market was an impor- tant business with Peter Gaskill, who even in those days was not unmolested by mischievous boys.

In 1825 Welcome and Darius D. Farnum built a satinet mill which in local terms was afterward known as Waterford No. 3. This mill was an extremely profitable investment from the start. The present No. 2 Mill was built iu 1828 to supply it with cotton warps, and was used for that purpose for ten or twelve years. No. 1 Mill, just across the town and State line, was built in 1835. The erection of these mills and their steady profitable manufacture of woolen goods soon produced a village of wage-workers in their im- mediate vicinity. Just at the time the Farnums began their local enterprise the canal from Providence to Worcester was being built. The only mention of this canal in the Mendon records is under date March 6, 1826, when it was " Voted that Washington Hunt be an agent to call on the Blackstone Canal Company to make good the damage done to the road between Fox Brook and Rhode Island line." The growth of Waterford village was rapid. A post-office was established there in 1831 with James Wilson, Jr., as postmaster. He was succeeded in 1833 by Darius D. Farnum, and the latter by Welcome Farnum in 1841. The office was discontinued in 1850, when the villages of Blackstone and Waterford, having coalesced by natural growth, united in a post-office on the "Square." Blackstone village had its first postmaster in 1825 in Daniel Kelly ; its second in 1831 was James S. Warner, and its third in 1837, and up to the union, John Cady.

In 1822 there was organized the Mendon Free- Will Baptist Church of Christ, which held its meetings in private houses and the old vestry at Blackstone until the building of the Blackstone Church in 1836, when it held its meetings for some four years in that build- ing. Finally in 1841 this society erected its own home in the Waterford Church, at the corner of Main and Blackstone Streets. Its first regularly settled pastor was Elder Maxcy W. Burlingame, who remained with the society from 1831 to 1846. In 1845 it was re-named the Free-Will Baptist Church of Waterford.

The old vestry at Blackstone has been twice men- tioned. This building, erected by the Blackstone Manufacturing Company some time previous to 1820, was used for many years as both school-house and church. In 1836 the company built a fine wooden church building, which was used by the Waterford Society for several years. In 1841 the Blackstone Congregational Church was organized with Rev. Michael Burdett as its first pastor and he remained with the society until 1852. The Blackstone Company has steadily sustained this church with liberal assist- ance, giving the use of its building to the society and maintaining it in repair.

thirteen districts, of which seven appear to have been in the South Parish. The following are the words of the report defining what is now the Five Corner Dis- trict: "Beginning at the Wid. Margaret Daniel's, excluding her, thence east on the Mill River to where David Handy lives, including him, thence to Hop Brook bridge (so called) on Smithfield road, thence to Benjamin and Nicholas Thayer's, including them, thence northward to the first bound." The East Blackstone and the Harris Privilege Districts were combined as follows : "Beginning at Hop Brook bridge, thence to Anthony Chase, including him, thence to Cumberland line, thence to Belling- ham line, thence to Jotham Pickering's, including him, thence to Ichabod Pickering's, including him, thence to Seth Kelly's, including him, thence to first mentioned bound." The Waterford and Blackstone Districts were defined thus : "Beginning at George Gaskill's, including him, thence to Cogswell Chase, including him, thence up stream to the Great River until it comes south of Matthew Darling's house, thence to Jacob Aldrich's, including him, thence to Gideon Thayer's, excluding him, thence to the first- mentioned bound." Millville District was divided in two by the Blackstone River. The southern section is bounded : "Beginning at Uxbridge line, where it crosses the Great River, thence down stream the Great River to the Colony line, thence west on said Colony line to Uxbridge line, thence on Uxbridge line to the bound first mentioned." The northern section was bounded : "Beginning at Uxbridge line directly west of the Widow Warfield's house, thence to Benjamin Blake's, excluding him, thence to Mat- thew Darling's, including him, thence south to the Great River, thence up stream said river till it comes to Uxbridge line, thence to first mentioned bound." The Chestnut Hill District, less extensive than at present, was bounded : "Beginning at Nathaniel Taft's, including him, thence to Col. Joseph Chapin's old house, including him, thence to Uxbridge line to Jacob Taft's, including him, thence to Levi Young's, including him, thence to Jesse Tourtelotte's, includ- ing him, thence to first mentioned bound," which ap- pears to be a section of the North Parish. Now Mendon : " Beginning at Timothy Alexander's, in- cluding him and Simon Alexander, thence to David Legg's, including him, thence on Uxbridge line un- til it comes directly west of the Widow Warfield's house, thence to Asa Blake's, including him, thence to Benjamin Blake's, including him and his son, Zac- cheus, thence to the first mentioned bound." Be- tween the Five Corners District and the district just described was another district now divided between them : "Beginning at Damp Swamp road, where the Parish line crosses, thence to Timothy Alexander's, excluding him, thence to Benjamin Blake's, exclud- ing him, thence to the road south of said Benjamin Blake's house, thence to Gideon Thayer's, including

Under date of August 22, 1791, the Mendon rec- ords contain the report of a committee of ten who had been appointed to redistrict the town into school districts. This committee reported the bounds of | him, thence east to Hop Brook bridge, thence up

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stream said brook to the first mentioned hound." As thus defined the school districts remained until September 2, 1811, when the town accepted the re- port of a committee, advising the union of the two sections at Millville into one district, and the con- stituting of the village property of the the Black- stone Manufacturing Company a new district. The first part of this change did not prove acceptable, for on the 5th of June, 1812, it was "voted to set off all the inhabitants on the west side of Blackstone River, except Esek Pitts, Daniel Southwick and Nathaniel Capron, as a school district." On the 28th of June, 1824, the school districts were again defined, but sub- stantially as already described. Prudential school committees were first chosen on 25th of Angust, 1827, and on that date the number of districts was un- changed, hut at their election, April 15, 1833, two new districts are added-Pickering's, or Harris Privi- Jege, and Waterford. A few years later we find the whole number of districts in the South Parish to be eleven, and with that number the town of Blackstone began its corporate existence. Both Chestnut Hill and the Five Corners had school-houses shortly after 1790.

THE DIVISION OF THE TOWN OF MENDON .- The question of the division of Mendon into two towns makes its appearance in a petition to the selectmen late in the year 1815. A town-meeting was desired-1. To see if the inhabitants will vote to have the South Parish set off into a town by itself. 2. To choose a committee to agree upon the division line of said town. 3. To act upon any other business relative to said division that the town shall see fit. Signed by John Pond, Henry Thayer, John Thomp- son, Smith Daniels, Elisha Thompson, Lewis Allen, Daniel Darling, Timothy Chase, Nicholas Thayer, Luther Warfield. A warrant drawn upon this peti- tion called a town-meeting at the South Parish (Chestnut Hill) meeting-house on the 1st day of Jannary, 1816, and on that day Joseph Adams was chosen moderator, and the proceedings were summed up in the one line of the clerk's record . "Voted to adjourn this meeting without day."

school money was raised to $1000. To the people of the North Parish this swelling of the taxes was un- welcome because the money raised extra went to the southern part of the town. From 1820 to 1840 the Mendon records show almost every year's action taken at town-meeting in relation to laying out new roads, relaying old ones, or building bridges in the South Parish. Sometimes this action was negatived. The older settled portion of the town frequently put a veto upon the schemes for improvement proposed by its growing southern half, and, when it did so, mur- murs of discontent and threats of secession would arise.

One improvement long struggled for was the section of Mendon Street between the town-house and the Samuel Verry homestead. For residents upon what is now known as Milk Street there was no means of reaching Blackstone village except hy coming east by the Five Corners or by going over Waterbng Hill. On the 5th of May, 1823, a committee of three was appointed to consider and report on a road between the two points named. At an adjourned meeting on the following 2d of June the road was rejected. It came up with ill fortune time after time, until on April 7, 1828, when it was " voted to accept of a road Jaid ont near Nathan Verry's house to near John Mann's house (tavern), provided the petitioners build the road and pay all land damages for the sum of three hundred dollars." From this hard bargain the town somewhat relented, for on May 4, 1829, an extra one hundred dollars was voted for completing this road. When the county road was in contemplation from the Uxbridge line to Blackstone Mills, at a town- meeting May 16, 1825, Warren Rawson was chosen an agent to oppose the new road "in every stage of it." This struggle to preserve the old order of things on the one hand, and on the other to create a new market and a new centre of human interest, conld have but one issue. But it was Jong delayed and the fight had many curious episodes. On the 26th of September, 1823, a town-meeting warrant had the article, "To see if the town will vote to be divided into two separate towns," and the vote as recorded was forty-five yeas and sixty-two nays. On the 1st of March, 1824, a similar article was dismissed the war- rant withont a test vote. September 12, 1825, it was voted to choose a committee of ten persons, five from each parish, to take into consideration and consult on measures relative to a division of the town and make report at the next town-meeting. On the part of the South Parish was chosen Ichabod Cook, Asa Kelly, Elijah Thayer, Nathan Verry and Esek Pitts. The appointment of this committee caused great excite- ment, and town-meetings were held October 3d, No- vember 28th and December 9th, remonstrating against division, appointing committees to oppose division before the General Conrt, and a committee " to take into consideration the inconveniences complained of

At this time Blackstone Village was beginning to exist, and its people felt it a hardship to be obliged to travel six or seven miles to reach the town-meetings when held in Mendon Village. On the other hand, the development of the new village called for increased ex- pense upon bridges and highways, as well as a new school. Thus, in the first ten years of this century, the town of Mendon raised an average of $580 a year for the repairs of bridges and highways. In 1810 it was $700, in 1812, 81000. and in 1816, $1200, and the average for the second decade was $930 a year. Similarly during the first decade an average of $460 was yearly appropriated for schools, and in the second $620. In 1820 the appropriation was $800, and it did not drop below that figure in the following years. When Waterford Village started into existence in 1828 the | by a portion of the inhabitants in regard to the at-

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tendance upou town-meetings and the transaction of municipal business." Finally, at a meeting held De- cember 15th, the committee appointed September 12th reported against division, and the report was accepted, one hundred and eighty-three yeas to seventy-eight nays. Meanwhile, June 30th of this same year, Seth Hastings and one hundred and eighteen others had put in a petition that Mendon North Parish be incorporated as a new town ; and on the 19th, 20th and 21st of October, 1825, a special committee of the General Court visited Mendon to give the subject a hearing. When this committee reported to the Committee on Towns, February 7, 1826, the report recommended that the petition be granted. Meanwhile the opponents of division had sent in four petitions against it, with the names of Joseph Adams, James S. Warner, Rufus Aldrich and Jesse Tourtelotte heading them respectively, and con- taining a total of about two hundred and forty names. In the records of Massachusetts General Court for 1826 is the following curious record :

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS In Senate, Juae Session, 1826.

Upoo the suggestion of the Committee oa Towns that tho Petition of Seth Hastings and others for a new towo, cannot he found, it was Or- dered, that the Committee have further time allowed them until the next Session of the Legislature to report on the subject zaatter of said Petitioa and that the Petitioners have leave to file a new Petition io the meantime.

Attest : PAUL WILLARD.

The friends of division did not hesitate to declare there had been foul play on the part of their oppo- nents, and that the petition of Seth Hastings had been stolen. But the outcome was so ludicrous, and the majority of the people so strongly opposed to dividing the town, that the petition was not filed anew. In the spring town-meetings of 1827 the matter was discussed somewhat and then allowed to die a natural death. The quarrel went on. however, in regard to new roads, the place of holding town- meetings and other subjects of public policy. The town-meeting question was compromised hy holding some of the meetings at the Chestnut Hill meeting- house, some at the Coverdale tavern, and the more important ones at the old meeting-house in Mendon village. When the latter building was sold and de- molished in 1843, meetings were voted to be held at Marsh's Inn instead. .

A new disturbing question arose the next year, when it was voted to build a town-house. Naturally, both ends of the town wanted it, but for it to be lo- cated in either end would entail great trouble and ex- pense in reaching meetings, upon a large proportion of the voters. The centre of the town was still a wilderness of forests and swamp,-the Dam Swamp heretofore mentioned. However, at a meeting on Dec- cember 2, 1843, it was " voted that the town-house be built in Nicholas Thayer's pasture, where a road from Samuel Very's cider mill will communicate with a road from Artemas Thayer's road to Millins Taft's." This

location would have necessitated building two new roads in order to reach the new town-house; so some half-hour later it was reconsidered, and then "voted, that the town-house be located at, or near, the corner of the roads by Samuel Very's cider mill." At sub- sequent meetings the same year this vote was attacked, and finally, when it came the turn to hold a meeting at Mendon village, the action taken December 2d was annulled. With the new year the fight was re- newed, and the frequent town-meetings held in differ- ent quarters of the town were a series of farces, each reconsidering what its predecessor had done, and an- nulling it. Before the middle of 1844 petitions were again in circulation, praying for a division of the town. The order of notice from the General Court was read before a town-meeting held January 30, 1845, and the meeting voted 239 to 168, not to oppose the division.

Welcome Staples, the town's representative to the General Court, was instructed to vote for division, and Washington Hunt, John G. Metcalf, Aaron Burdon and Henry A. Aldrich were chosen agents to defend the petition before the Committee on Towns. The body of the petition was as follows :

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 165

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