History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 194

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 194

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He at different times traveled in various parts of the country, and had a comprehensive appreciation alike of its resources and its need. He took special pains to familiarize himself with statute law. He wrote legal documents, and had charge of pecuniary trusts, and settled estates. He wrote many wills, and often, by wise suggestion, impressed upon men in the disposal of their property the importance of making liberal provision for their wives, a consideration which is too often found overlooked. Although never admitted to the bar, he was still a legal ad- viser, consulted by people of his own and neighbor- ing towns. This service was to a large extent gra-

1 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

tuitous. He was pre-eminently the friend and helper of widows and orphans, and of the poor. Men and women of all classes and different nationalities re- sorted to him for counsel and help. They came to him with their quarrels, their business perplexities, their financial troubles, their plans and enterprises and their sorrows; and found in him an attentive listener, a sound adviser, a generous helper and a sympathizing friend. He was, perhaps, more than any other person, familiar with the locations and his- tory of Leicester and the lives of its former in- habitants ; and to him, more largely than is gener- ally known, Gov. Emory Washburn was indebted for the materials of his excellent history of the town. His manuscript notes, his "Reminiscences of Leices- ter," published in the Worcester Spy, and his journal which is a record of passing events, are of great his- torical value. He may be truthfully termed the an- nalist of Leicester.

In 1874 he made a tour of Europe, which was a source of great profit and enjoyment to so intelligent and appreciative an observer. lle was especially interested in visiting the home of his ancestors and his relatives in England.

He united with the First Congregational Church in July, 1827, and through life was one of its devoted and helpful members and a constant attendant upon all its services. He was, for many years and at the time of his death, a teacher in the Sunday-school. He was interested in the great missionary enter- prises, both home and foreign, and contributed liber- ally to them. He set apart at the beginning of each year a certain portion of his income for benevolent objects, and regarded one-tenth of a successful bnsi- ness man's profits as too little to be thus employed. He was interested in young men who were struggling for an education, and gave liberal aid to those who were preparing for the ministry. He had a large circle of friends, and was widely known. He mar- ried, April 30, 1829, Mary Davis, the daughter of Major Joel Davis, of Rutland, Mass., who survives him. They had two children,-Mary Elizabeth, the wife of Deacon Lyman D. Thurston, and Hon. Charles Ad- dison Denny. He built the house in which he so long resided in 1837. He had all the qualities which made home and social life delightful. He was fond of children, and his conversation was in- structive and entertaining. He died February 25, 1875, of pneumonia, after a few days' illness. It was said of him at his funeral, which was largely attended in the First Congregational Church : "He under- stood better than most men the truth that while men die, institutions and influences live, and was largely endowed with that rare, unselfish wisdom which qual- ifies one to build the foundations of the public wel- fare deep and enduring. The effects of this purpose, which, to a large extent, dictated the policy of his life, will be more fully understood and acknowledged in the future than they can be now, and his name

will go down to posterity as one of the benefactors of the town."

He kept from January 1, 1857, to September, 1874, a personal journal, which is of great value as a record also of local and public events in one of the most eventful periods of our national history. A few days before his death he completed a transfer to this journal of the diary of his European travels, and for- mally concluded the series of entries with these sig- nificant words: "And here I will close this daily journal of my own private matters, which I have kept for almost eighteen years, intending it princi- pally as a business memoranda. It has often been useful to me as a reference; but as I have fewer business transactions, and have just recorded the history of one of the most important transactions of my life-a voyage to Europe-I will here close my record, blessing God for his care and protection, not only during this voyage, but a long life, now reach- ing more than three-score years and ten."

DWIGHT BISCO,1

Dwight Bisco, who was for sixty years one of the leading citizens and business men of Leicester, was born in Spencer April 27, 1799, one of several sons of Jacob Bisco. Upon his father's farm he lived and worked until twenty-two years of age, when, with a silver dollar as his only money capital, he came to Leicester, and engaged in the employ- ment of Cheney Hatch, one of the card-clothing manufacturers,-a business of which Leicester then had almost a monopoly. Bringing with him good character, intelligence, habits of industry and self- control, and not afraid of work, he steadily acquired skill in this intricate and difficult manufacture.

In 1826 he associated himself as partner with Isaac Southgate, Joshua Lamb, John Stone and Joseph A. Denny, another house in the same business. In 1843 Mr. Denny and he bought the interest of the other partners, and continued the business, under the name of Bisco & Denny, until Mr. Denny's death, in 1875. It was then passed on by Mr. Bisco into the hands of his sons and of Mr. Denny's only son, he continuing to occupy himself in the factory until February, 1882, when he entirely withdrew, being then in his eighty- third year.

In middle life he had invested the chief part of his savings in the Leicester Boot Company. It was un- fortunate, and was brought to an end by the burning of the company's buildings and stock, September 25, 1860, inflicting on him a total loss of all he had paid in. With a quiet courage he applied himself again to business, as closely as in his youth, and was en- abled to make good his loss, and to present to his eight children, at the Thanksgiving dinner-table, five hundred dollars each.

1 By Rev. Samuel May.

Dwight Bisco

Miram Stnight

737

LEICESTER.

His marriage with Ruth Woodcock (daughter of John Woodcock, Sr., and sister of John, Josephus and Lucius, of the following generation), in 1826, founded a family life of great happiness and unity for more than fifty years. When they celebrated their golden wedding, January 8, 1876, "we saw them," said Rev. Mr. Coolidge, " standing together, a spectacle rarely witnessed, an unbroken family,"- parents, children and grandchildren,-a circle which death had then never entered. But in September of that year Mrs. Bisco died, with little warning; and Mr. Bisco suffered the severest loss which could pos- sibly happen to him. He had become very deaf, and her loss was the more severe. Their children, who are all living, are Emily A., Charles D., George, John W., William, Henry, and Frederick A .; all married but William. Mr. Bisco died December 7, 1882.

He was repeatedly a selectman of the town; a di- rector of the Leicester Bank eleven years; treasurer of the Pine Grove Cemetery Company forty years ; treasurer of the Unitarian Congregational Society as long, and a deacon of that church. He was a mem- ber of the State Legislature in 1847 and '48. In a notice of him in the Christian Register, Mr. Abraham Firth wrote of "his marked faithfulness in all these relations, and in every sphere of life in which he moved. He was always found on the side of virtue, and of political and spiritual freedom. Brought up under the teaching of Calvinism, it never satisfied him."

One who was long in daily business association with him wrote, in the Worcester Spy, "he was known among his associates as an honest, upright man, of superior sense and judgment." His pastor, during his later years, wrote of him, "I have never kuown a truer man, nor one of greater strength of character." His first minister, at the funeral ser- vices, paid a warm tribute to his character and life. " No man in Leicester," said a fellow-citizen, " has a better record than Dwight Bisco." A memorial book of Mr. and Mrs. Bisco has been printed.

CAPTAIN HIRAM KNIGHT.1

Captain Hiram Knight was one of the successful business men of Leicester, who, beginning life with- out pecuniary advantages, have secured for them- selves a handsome property. His father, Silas Knight, was a wheelwright, and in very moderate circum- stances. He was a Revolutionary soldier and pen- sioner. He lived to the venerable age of eighty-five years and five months. His mother was seventy-six years and six months old at the time of her death. Her maiden name was Martha Goodnow.

Hiram Knight was born in Oakham, August 22, 1793. When about twenty-one years of age he came to Leicester for employment. He was married by

Rev. John Nelson, D.D., April 28, 1818, to Olive Barnes. Her mother was Betsy, the daughter of William Green, who was born in Leicester in 1743, and was the son of William and Rebeckah Green. Their first home was on Main Street, in the house afterward occupied by the Leicester Boot Company. The next year he removed to the academy, of which he was steward from 1819 to 1822. In 1823 he pur- chased the old "Green Tavern," on the corner of Main and Paxton Streets. Here for about two years he resided, engaged during the time in the occupa- tions of butchering, tavern-keeping and for a time was associated with Reuben Merriam in card-making and a store. In 1825 he became a member of the firm of James & John A. Smith & Co., who built and occupied the factory where the Wire Mill now stands; and also the brick factory above and the boarding- house. The history of this company, which was afterward the firm of Smith, Woodcock & Knight, and later of Woodcock, Knight & Co., is given elsewhere. Mr. and Mrs. Knight kept the board- ing-houses for this firm till about the year 1832, when the family came back to the Green tavern. Mr. Knight was in the card business till 1867, when he transferred his interest to his sons. He, with John Woodcock and George Morse, was in partnership with James Smith & Co. at the formation of that house in Philadelphia in 1836, and retained his interest for a number of years.

The lower factory of his firm was to a considerable extent built under his supervision. He superintended the building of the Brick Factory and the boarding- house. He also had general charge of the building of the brick school-house on Pleasant Street. His own residence, on the site of the old tavern, and now occupied by his son Dexter, was erected in 1843.

Mr. Knight had agricultural tastes, and at one time had considerable land, which he cultivated and im- proved. He was an active member of the Worcester Agricultural Society.

He was one of the directors of the Leicester Na- tional Bank from 1850 to 1874. Between the years 1836 and 1844 he served the town in the various offices of moderator of town-meetings, selectman and assessor, etc. He was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Boutwell. He was one of the early members of the Second Congregational Society, Uni- tarian. In politics he was a Democrat, but reserved the right of independent thought and action. He was a member of the State Constitutional Conven- tion in 1853. In early life he was somewhat active in military affairs, and was captain of the local mili- tary company.

Captain Knight was engaged in the manufacture of card-clothing in the period of the rapid develop- ment of that industry, when inventive genius was perfecting the wonderful machine for card-setting, of which a gentleman once said, after admiringly watching its almost human movements: "Why ! it

1 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

- --

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

thinks!" He had not been trained to the business, but was a natural mechanic, inventive and ingen- ions ;. and though not forward in asserting his claims, made many valuable improvements in the machinery for card-making. According to the testimony of his partner, Mr. John Woodcock, he made the first card clothing set by machinery in Leicester.

Captain Knight was a man of sound judgment, self-reliant, and of strict business integrity. He gave close attention to his business and was successful. He was wise and cautious in his investments, and became one of the wealthy men of the town. For his success he was largely indebted to his wife. She was a woman of domestic tastes, and devoted herself untiringly and efficiently to the varied duties of the honsehold, acting her part with true womanly fidelity and fortitude in all the varied experiences of the family, in prosperity and in trial and sorrow. She was married at the age of seventeen years.

They had eleven children, seven of whom died young ; the three older at the ages of nine, ten and twelve years respectively. Their daughter Susan died in 1856, at the age of twenty-five. She is re- membered as an excellent scholar, retiring in man- ners, and loved by all her associates. Three sons snrvive-Dexter, James J. and George M.

Captain Knight died May 6, 1875, at the age of eighty-one years and eight months. His wife sur- vived him abont four years, and died April 19, 1879, at the age of seventy-eight years.

REV. SAMUEL MAY.

Rev. Samuel May, the first minister of the Second Congregational (Unitarian) Church and Society, and who continued such for twelve years, was born in Boston, April 11, 1810, oldest son of Samuel and Mary (Goddard) May. Four years a pupil of Deacon Samuel Greele, afterwards for three years at the Pub- lic Latin School of Boston, and one year at the Round Hill School, Northampton, he was graduated at Har- vard College in 1829.

After spending nearly a year in study with his cousin, Rev. Samuel J. May, at Brooklyn, Ct., he entered the Cambridge Divinity School in the fall of 1830, and was graduated there in 1833. The society at Leicester was then young, having been incorpor- ated in April, 1833, and holding its meetings in the old Town Hall. Mr. May spent six or seven weeks in their service that autumn, then left to fulfill some other engagements, and returned in March, 1834, to begin a second engagement. That spring he received and accepted the society's call to be their minister, and was ordained as such August 13th, the services being held in the society's new church, which had been dedicated the evening previons, when the late Rev. Dr. James Walker, then of Charlestown, preached the very impressive discourse, afterwards so widely circulated by the American Unitarian Association,

entitled, "Faith, Regeneration, Atonement," showing these to be successive periods and steps of the reli- gious life.

Mr. May's ministry was one of fair success. Rela- tions of good will and friendship were formed, which continued far beyond the term of his ministerial con- nection, and to the close of life of his parishioners in nearly every instance. Entire harmony of feeling exist- ed between them, except with regard to one question, viz. : that of slavery in the United States, and whether a Christian minister shonld or should not take part in the effort to bring that condition of slavery to an end. Mr. May regarding it his duty to take such part, and to seek to induce his hearers to do the same, several persons were so much dissatisfied as to withdraw themselves from the society. One or more others who remained being similarly dissatisfied, Mr. May de- cided to resign his office rather than be a cause of di- vision, and the connection was closed in the summer of 1846.

Mr. May has continued to have his residence at Leicester to the present time. In 1835 he was married to Sarah Russell, third daughter of Nathaniel P. Rus- sell, of Boston. Their children, all born in Leicester, and still living, are Adeline, Edward, Joseph Russell, and Elizabeth Goddard. The daughters reside with their parents. Edward is a pay director of the United States Navy, and Joseph R. is in commercial life in Boston. Edward married, in 1871, Mary Mig- not Blodgett, of Boston. They have four children.

Soon after resigning his position at Leicester, Mr. May was minister of the First Ecclesiastical Society, Brooklyn, Ct., until June, 1847. Then he became the general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery So- ciety. He held this place, with the exception of about a year and a half of impaired health, for eighteen years, and until 1865, the time when, by amendment of the Constitution, slavery in the United States ceased to exist. He was also, for several years, corresponding secretary of the American Anti- slavery Society.

From 1841 to 1865 Mr. May refused to take any political action inder the United States Constitution because of its recognition and support of slavery- refused, that is, to vote for officers who must take an oath to support the Constitution. When the Constitution was amended he resumed the exercise of the citizen's duties. At the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, in 1861, he gave snch aid as he could to the cause of the Union, and to its armies in the field, speaking and acting publicly.

He early took a decided stand against the use of intoxicating drinks ; was a member of town, county and State societies formed to promote total abstinence from their use; and joined with others to establish the Leicester Hotel as a house in which no such drinks should be sold.

Mr. May served upon the town School Committee, at two different periods, for twenty-one years. He was

Pliny Early .

739

LEICESTER.

chosen one of the directors of the towu's public library at its establishment, in 1861, and still con- tinues as such, having served nearly twenty-eight years. In 1874 he was elected a trustee of Leices- ter Academy. In 1875 he was a member of the State Legislature, representing, with Mr. Pliny Litchfield, of Southbridge, the district formed of the towns of Leicester, Spencer, Charlton, Southbridge and Auburn. As House chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, he took an active part in the State's commemoration of the one hundredth anni- versaries of the hattles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. At the town's celebration of the cen- tennial of American Independence, July 4, 1876, Mr. May was chairman of the town's committee. He edited the pamphlet which records in full that day's doings in Leicester.

He is a member of the American Social Science Association, of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, and of the Bostonian Society. He was chosen secre- tary of the Class of 1829, Harvard College, at the time of graduating, and has held the office to the present time. He aided in the compilation of the large pamphlet which records the one hundredth anniver- sary of the foundation of Leicester Academy, and the proceedings of that occasion, September 4, 1884.

PLINY EARLE, A.M., M.D.1

Dr. Pliny Earle was the fourth son of Pliny Earle, the great-grandson of Ralph Earle, who came to Leicester in 1717. His mother was the danghter of William Buffum, of Smithfield, R. I. He was born December 31, 1809, and his childhood was passed in the home of his father at Mulberry Grove. He was a pupil in Leicester Academy, and afterwards in the Friends' School, in Providence, R. I., where he was a teacher in the winter of 1828-29, and also from 1831 to 1835, when he was made principal.

He pursued the study of medicine, first with Dr. Usher Parsons, of Providence, and afterwards at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he was graduated with the degree of M.D. in 1837. The next two years were spent in Europe; one in the medical school and the hospitals of Paris, and the other in a tour of professional and general observation, "in which he visited various insti- tutions for the insane, from England to Turkey." The results of these observations were published in 1840, in a pamphlet entitled "A Visit to Thirteen Asylums for the Insane in Europe." He had an office in Philadelphia for a short time, but in the spring of 1840 became resident physician of the Friends' Asylum for the Insane, near Frankford, now a part of Philadelphia. In 1844 he was appointed medical superintendent of the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, in New York City. In 1849 he made

another tour in Europe, visiting thirty-four institn- tions for the insane in England, Belgium, France and the Germanic countries, and, upon his return, pub- lished his book npon "Institutions for the Insane in Prussia, Austria, and Germany." In 1853 he was elected a visiting physician of the New York City Lunatic Asylum, on Blackwell's Island.

In 1855 he returned to Leicester for rest and the confirmation of his health, and passed several years on the homestead of his grandfather, Robert Earle near Mulberry Grove (now called " Earle Ridge") During this time, however, he spent the winters of 1862-63 and 1863-64 in the care of the insane soldiers of the army and navy, at the Government Hospital for the Insane near Washington, D. C., of which his former pupil, Dr. Charles H. Nichols, was superin- tendent. He also wrote for the medical periodicals, and acted as an expert in the trials of several impor- tant cases involving the question of insanity before the legal tribunals of Massachusetts and the adjoin- ing States.

It was in these years of comparative rest that he rendered the town essential service as a member of the School Committee. In this relation the writer, together with Dr. J. N. Murdock, was associated with him. In this period the public schools were subjected to a thorough reorganization, and new and more prac- tical methods of instruction were introduced. In these services Dr. Earle exhibited the same executive force, the same mastery of details, the same practical wisdom, the same contempt of shams and ability to puncture them, and the same personal integrity and demand for strict uprightness and fidelity in those who were under his supervision, which characterized his administration of the institution in Northampton, of which he was afterward the head. In one respect he was in advance of the time. He came early to appreciate the importance of objective illustration, and the practical application of school instruction. He required pupils to use books only as instructors, and to know things and not mere words.

Without seeking the position, he was appointed superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton, Mass., July 2, 1864, and held the office twenty-one years and three months, resigning it Octo- ber 1, 1885. He made that hospital in many respects a model institution for the insane; and its trustees, in the resolutions passed at the time of their acceptance of his resignation, expressed as follows not only their own conviction, but the general judgment with refer- ence to the value of his administration : " In its mau- agement he has combined the highest professional skill and acquirement with rare executive ability. By his patient attention to details, by his wisdom and firmness, his absolute fidelity to duty and devotion to the interests of the hospital, he has rendered invalua- ble service to the institution, and to the community which it serves." They also express the hope that " he will continue to make his home in the institution,

1 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

740

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

that they may continue to profit by his counsels ; and they will provide that his rooms shall always be open and ready for his use." This offer Mr. Earle accepted, although his summers have been spent at Mulberry Grove.

The Northampton Hospital had been erected in opposition to a widely prevalent opinion that it was not, and never could be, needed,-an opinion which delayed its construction, made the obtaining of appro- priations very difficult, and finally compelled the trustees to put it in operation in a very incomplete condition, internally. The Civil War had tended to restrict the price of board for public patients to a very low limit, and in 1864, when Dr. Earle took charge of it, it had never paid its current expenses. He imme- diately addressed himself to the task of making it not only a first-class curative institution, but a self- supporting one as well. He purchased supplies at wholesale and in open market. He reorganized and reduced to a very complete system all the departments -domestic, economical, financial and medical-with checks and counter-checks for the detection of loss, or of waste by carelessness, as well as for the exposure of unfaithfulness in the discharge of duty toward the patients, or in other respects. The so-called " moral treatment" of the patients was amplified, made more diversified, and extended over a greater portion of the year than in any other American hospital.

The pecuniary results of this system were the pay- ment of current expenses in the second year, and, during the whole period of Dr. Earle's service, the purchase of land at a cost of over twenty-five thou- sand dollars ; the payment for all ordinary repairs, and over one hundred and seventy-three thousand dollars for buildings and other improvements, and an increase in cash assets and provisions and supplies of over forty-three thousand dollars, all of which became, of course, the property of the State, without any assistance from the State. The results as productive of an improved curative institution, being less tangi- ble, cannot well be illustrated, but, as reflected in current public opinion, they were equally success- ful.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 194

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