History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 195

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 195

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The importance of occupation for the insane was early recognized by Dr. Earle, and it has nowhere in New England been practically applied to a greater extent than at Northampton. As early as 1870 it was estimated that not less than two-thirds of the manual labor necessary to the running of the hos- pital was performed by patients.

Believing that a large part of the excessive cost of such hospitals as that at Danvers adds nothing to the curative capability of the institutions, Dr. Earle con- demned such expenditure as unwise political econ- omy, ostentatious charity and gross injustice to the payer of taxes.

Dr. Earle has been instrumental in introducing im- portant changes in the treatment of the insane. In 1845 he established a school for the patients in the

men's department of the Bloomingdale Asylum, and this was continued for two years. As early as 1840, while in the Frankford Asylum, he gave illustrated lectures on physics to the inmates. "This was the first known attempt to address an audience of the insane in any discourse other than a sermon, and has led to that system of entertainments for the patients now considered indispensable in a first-class hospital." At Northampton he gave a great variety of lectures, upon miscellaneous subjects. One course of six lec- tures was upon diseases of the brain, which are ac- companied with mental disorder. The average number of patients who attended them was two hundred and fifty-six. "This is the first time," he says in his annual report, "that an audience of insane persons ever listened to a discourse on their own malady." His observation of the effect on the audience was not unlike that of other preachers. If the listeners were slow to take the application to themselves, they were quite ready to appropriate it "to their neighbors." He also secured lectures and entertainments from other sources, and provided amusements in which the inmates participated.

Dr. Earle is the author of many papers upon in- sanity and other subjects, which have been published in the Journal of Insanity, the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, etc. Some of these have been issued in pamphlet form. He anticipated by many years the valuable treatise of Dr. B. Jay Jeffries, in a paper on "The Inability to Distinguish Colors." His twenty-two reports of the Northampton Hospital are classics in the literature of mental disease. By a combination of causes the public, so far as they knew or cared about the subject, had come to the belief that from seventy-five to ninety per cent. of the insane can be cured at the hospital. Dr. Earle became convinced of the erroneousness of this belief, and was the first hospital superintendent who com- bated it. His researches upon the subject extended over a series of years, were embodied in his annual reports, and at length in 1887 collected and published by the J. B. Lippincott Company, in a book entitled "The Curability of Insanity."

The doctor showed that one cause of the false opinion in regard to curability was the reporting of repeated recoveries of the same person, in paroxysmal insanity. One patient was reported cured six times in one year, another seven times, a third sixteen times in three years, and a fourth forty-six times in the course of her life, and she finally died a raving maniac in one of the hospitals. Judging from the results of the doctor's researches, not one-third of the persons ad- mitted to the Massachusetts insane hospitals have been permanently cured.

Of his work on The Curability of Insanity a re- viewer writes: "This book may mark an epoch in the literature of insanity, since it has changed the whole front of that literature, and set in motion in- vestigating forces which will carry out its main doc-

Joshua Murdock

741

LEICESTER.

trine into many useful details, upon which the veteran author has not dwelt."

He wrote the article on insanity in the United States Census of 1860, and about ninety articles of reviews and bibligraphical notices of insane hospital reports and other publications on mental dis- orders, which appeared in the American Journal of Medical Science between the years 1841 and 1870.

In a third visit to Europe, in 1871, he visited forty- six institutions for the insane in Ireland, Austria, Italy and intervening countries. His several foreign tours gave him opportunity to form the acquaintance and enjoy the hospitality of many professional, philanthropic and literary people; he was well ac- quainted with Elizabeth Frye, knew the poet, Sam- uel Rogers, and, at their own homes and tables, met socially the Howitts and Charles Dickens. He also cheri-hes pleasant memories of American missionaries in the Levant fifty years ago; of Rev. Jonas King and other missionaries in Athens ; Cephas Pasco, at Patrass; Simeon Calhoun and David Temple, of Smyrna; Wm. Goodell, Rev. Mr. Shauffier and Henry A. Homes, at Constantinople. He received kind attentions from all of them, and the home hospitality of several.

Dr. Earle was one of the original members and founders of the American Medical Association, the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, the New York Academy of Medicine, and the New England Psychological Society, of which last-mentioned association he was the first president. He was also president, in the official year 1884-85, of the Association of Superintendents. Besides holding a membership of various medical so- cieties, he is a member of the American Philosophi- cal Society ; fellow of the New York College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons; corresponding member of the New York Medico-Legal Society and the Med- ical Society of Athens, Greece, and honorary mem- ber of the British Medica-Psychological Association. In 1853 he delivered an adjunct course of lectures on " Mental Diseases " at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, and in 1863 he was ap- pointed Professor of Materia Medica and Psychologic Medicine in the Berkshire Medical Institute at Pitts- field, Mass. Insanity had never before been included among the required subjects of instruction in any full professorship at any one of the American medical schools. After the delivery of one course of lectures the doctor resigned his professorship, as he had been called to the superintendency of the Northampton Hospital.

In his specialty Dr. Earle is recognized as an author- ity. "He was one of the medical experts summoned to the trial of Charles J. Guiteau, for the murder of President Garfield. After an attendance of one week his health gave way, and he was obliged to leave; but he approved, and still approves, the verdict which held the prisoner responsible for the homicide."

In 1888 he published a large volume on the gencal- ogy of the Earle family, a work of great labor, and a model of its class. From this book many of the dates and material facts of this biography are taken. Dr. Earle still holds his birthright membership in the Society of Fricuds.

Dr. Earle's generous and valuable gift to the acad- emy in which he pursued his early studies has been elsewhere noticed. He has never wavered in his at- tachment to Leicester, and its people claim him as one of her honored sons. It is their hope that the day may yet be long deferred when it will be suitable to pronounce his eulogy, and give,full expression to the general respect and regard in which he is held in his native town.

JOSHUA MURDOCK.1

Joshua Murdock, the principal founder of the ex- tensive card-clothing establishment of J. & J. Mur- dock, was the son of Deacon Joshua Murdock. He was born in Leicester, October 3, 1815; educated in the town schools, in Leicester Academy and Amherst Academy. At the age of sixteen years he engaged himself to the firm of Smith, Woodcock & Knight, serving a regular apprenticeship of nearly five years, and remaining with them till 1838, when he entered the employ of James Smith & Co., of Philadelphia. In 1840 he returned to Leicester and commenced the card-clothing business with Samnel Southgate, Jr. As has already been stated, after the retirement of Mr. Southgate in 1844, Mr. Murdock continued in business alone till 1848, when his brother Joseph, who had been engaged in trade at the South, returned and associated himself with him under the firm-name of J. & J. Murdock. He lived to see the gradual growth of the enterprise from the small beginning and to witness and enjoy its great prosperity. Mr. Mur- dock was for several years a selectman of the town, also a director of the National Bank and a trustee of the Savings Bank. Under the district system he was for many years the prudential committee of the centre schools. He discharged the duties of this office with exceptional wisdom and efficiency, and to him the marked excellence and improvement of the village schools at that period are largely due. He united with the First Congregational Church in Philadelphia in 1840 and removed his relation to the First Church in Leicester in 1842. He was always interested in the welfare of the church and society, and was a lib- eral contributor for the support of its ordinances. He was wise and cautious in judgment, and was identified with all the public enterprises of the place. He was so extremely modest and retiring, he shrank so instinc- tively from all obtrusion upon the public, and from the expression of his views, and especially his feelings, that he was fully known only to the few who were placed in intimate relations with him. He was in-

1 By Bev. A. H. Coolidge.

742

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

telligent, sound in judgment, a man of deep and kindly feelings and positive decision of character, but always reticent.

Mr. Murdock was first married in Philadelphia, by Rev. Albert Barnes, D.D., June 16, 1842, to Ange- lina Maull. He was married by Rev. John Nelson, D.D., to his second wife, Julia Trask, the danghter of Samuel Hurd, of Leicester, January 10, 1849. Their only child, Caroline, is the wife of Alexander De Witt, of Worcester.

EDWARD SARGENT.1

Jonathan Sargent, from whom the Sargents in town descend, came to Leicester as early as the year 1728 from Malden, Mass. Among his descendants have been many men of more than ordinary standing and influence. To some of these we have already referred.

Col. Joseph D. Sargent, the father of Edward Sar- gent, was one of the most enterprising and successful business men in the town, and one of its most public- spirited and highly honored citizens. His three sons -Jos. Bradford, George H. and Edward Sargent --- have been associated in extensive business interests in Leicester and elsewhere.

Edward Sargent, the subject of this sketch, was born in Leicester, March 25, 1832. He was the son of Joseph D. and Mindwell (Jones) Sargent. He re- ceived his education in the Leicester schools and the Academy. He, with his brother Joseph B., as has been before stated, began the manufacture of hand- cards, at the " Brick Factory," on the 1st of May, 1854. On the first day of the year 1859 they received their brother, George H., into the firm, and at the same time organized the Sargent Hardware Commission House in New York City. Mr. Sargent was connected with this company through life. They built extensive works for the manufacture of hardware in New Haven, and have become the largest hardware concern in the country. While the company were manufacturing cards in Worcester, Mr. Sargent spent several winters there. Aside from this he passed his life in Leicester, and was one of its wealthy and valued citizens. He was a selectman of the town. He was interested in everything that related to the welfare of the place, and contributed liberally both money and personal supervision to all public improvements. He was at different times nominated as a candidate for the State Legislature, and, though not belonging to the winning party, he had the habit of running invariably beyond his ticket, in his own town, in which he was a general favorite. In the time of the Civil War he was an ar- dent patriot, and freely contributed to all its demands.

In 1864 Mr. Sargent completed the building of his elegant residence, opposite the attractive sheet of water on what was originally the " Town Meadow," where the beavers built their houses and dams, and through which ran " Rawson Brook," but which has

long been called, after his name, "Sargent's Pond." This house is now the home of his son, J. B. Sargent. At the same time Mr. Sargent built his handsome stable for his horses. He was a good horseman, and, especially in the earlier years of his life, very fond of the horse and of driving. He regarded time as too valuable to be wasted in making distances on the road.

He was married, February 9, 1858, by Rev. A. H. Coolidge, to Adelaide Sophia, the daughter of Austin F. and Sophia (Hatch) Conklin. She was a woman of amiable and cheerful spirit and superior intelli- gence and worth. After twenty-five years of married life she died on the 11th day of February, 1881. They had three children, -Joseph Bradford, Winthrop (who died in childhood) and Harry E.

Mr. Sargent was much affected by the death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, and survived her less than two years. He died Jannary 3, 1883.

BILLINGS MANN.2

The village of Mannville received its name from Mr. Billings Mann, to whom it is largely indebted. He, with Mr. Albert Marshall, carried on the manu- facture of woolen cloth, in the first of the series of factories on Kettle Brook, on the corner of Earle and Mannville Streets. Around this mill there has grad- ually grown the little village that bears his name.

Mr. Marshall, a worthy and highly-esteemed citizen of the town, is still living, at an advanced age.

Mr. Mann was born in Worcester in 1797. He was the son of Joseph and Mchitable (Billings) Mann. Ifis father was a clothier, and he worked with him dressing cloth. He thus became familiar with the details of his subsequent business. His education was that of the common school. On the 21st of July, 1822, he married Jemima, the daughter of Eliot and Jemima Wight, of Bellingham, Mass., by whom he had one daughter, who was married to Maj. Theron E. Hall. The same year, at the age of twenty-five, he began the manufacture of woolen cloth in Fitchburg. In 1828 he removed from Fitchburg to Worcester, and engaged in manufacturing with Mr. Gunn. In 1837 he was in the business in West Rutland. The next year, 1838, he first came to Leicester, and, as has been elsewhere stated, was associated with Mr. Amos Earle in the manufacture of satinets. In 1844 he associated himself with his brother-in law, Mr. Albert Marshall, in the same business, in Holden, as the firm of Mann & Marshall. Here he remained till 1853, when, with Mr. Marshall, he came to Lei- cester. They purchased the mill property and com- menced the manufacture of satinets, as elsewhere stated.

Mr. Mann's home, to the time of his death, was on the corner of Earle and Mulberry Streets, the place which Ralph Earle had occupied in 1717.

1 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

2 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

Ofargent 0

Billings Mamm

Alonso White

743

LEICESTER.

His first wife died July 21, 1822, aud on the 21st of July, 1828, he married Harriet L., the daughter of Josiah Daniel, of Dedham, by whom he had seven daughters and three sons, two of whom, George and Billings, are successors in the business. Mrs. Mann was a woman of rare excellence and beauty of char- acter. She presided over her large household with queenly dignity and grace, and of her, with full truth, it could be said, " Her children rise up and call her blessed." She died February 20, 1878. Her ill- ness was protracted and her sufferings intense, but she endured them with a truly Christian spirit of resignation and cheerfulness.

For twenty-two years Mann & Marshall carried on a prosperous business, but after the "Boston fire," in which they were heavy losers, they were forced to abandon the enterprise, which they did in 1878.

Mr. Mann was a business man of strict integrity, and the affairs of the company, in prosperity and adversity alike, were conducted on the highest prin- ciples of business houor. He was genial and kind, and his home at Mulberry Grove was one of generous hospitality. He died December 2, 1879, and his fu- neral at the First Congregational Church was largely attended. He was a member of the order of Knights Templar, and he was buried with Masonic honors.

ALONZO WHITE.1

Alonzo White was born in Almond, Allegany County, N. Y., May 6, 1808. His father was a native of Spencer, Mass., and had emigrated to New York three months before. This was then "The West." Almond had all the characteristics of a new country. There were no school-houses, no church buildings, and few of the, conveniences and comforts of older settled communities. The girls of the family rode on horse-back thirty miles to purchase their gowns ; and the parish of the Presbyterian minister extended from Rochester to the Pennsylvania line.

Mr. White was born, and lived when a boy, in a log-house. He worked upon the farm until he was twenty years of age. He then determined to seek his fortune elsewhere, and first went on foot to Dan- ville, twenty miles distant, where he earned the money for his proposed journey by carting wood, spending his extra time in making brooms. In the fall of 1828 he came to Spencer, where his uncle re- sided, and worked on the farm. In February of the next year he came to Leicester, and commenced his apprenticeship as a card-maker with Reubeu Mer- riam & Co. There was then no card-setting machine in the establishment, although the newly-invented machine was coming gradually into use. The holes and the teeth were made by machines and the teeth set by hand. The next year card-setting machines made by Mr. Merriam were introduced.

After remaining with Mr. Merriam a year, Mr. White was engaged at one hundred dollars per year by Colonel Joseph D. Sargent, who was then making cards on the Auburu Road, in Cherry Valley. The machines were moved by dog-power. Upon Mr. Sargent's removal to the Brick Factory, Mr. White came with him, and was in his employ seven years. In 1836 he, with his partners, bought out Colonel Sargent, and commenced business as the firm of Lamb & White. Colonel Sargent highly valued the services of Mr. White, and expressed his appreciation in a substantial manner. He expressed his confidence in him at this time by furnishing him the capital for the new enterprise. Mr. White's subsequent business career is given in the notice of the firm of White & Denny, and White & Son.

Mr. White has served the town in the offices of selectman, assessor, etc. He was the contractor for the new town-house. For a short time he was a director of the bank. He united with the First Congrega- tional Church in September, 1831.

In 1834, April 10th, he married Elizabeth Lincoln, the daughter of Aden Davis, of Oakham, Mass., by whom he has had six children, four of whom, two sons and two daughters, are living. He has been to them a generous parent, and to the community and the church a free and generous helper.

He built his house on the corner of Main and Grove Streets, in 1848. Here he, with his wife, with whom he has been united for almost fifty-five years, still reside, in the enjoyment of the fruits of their industry and enterprise, and the society of their friends. He has the satisfaction of seeing his chil- dren and his grandchildren all settled in good homes of their own in Leicester.

SALEM LIVERMORE.2

John Livermore, ancestor of all the Livermores probably in the United States, emharked at Ipswich, Old England, for New England, in April, 1634, then twenty-eight years old, in the ship "Francis," John Cutting master. He was admitted freeman of the Massachusetts Colony May 6,. 1635. On the list of freemen his name was written Leathermore, and in other old documents and records sometimes Lether- more and Lithermore. He was a potter by trade. He was many years selectman, and filled other of- fices of trust and honor in Watertown, where he first settled and la-t resided, he being, for about eleven years, from 1639 to 1650, a resident of New Haven, Conn., after which he returned to Water- town, Mass., where he died, April 14, 1684, aged seventy-eight, and his wife, Grace, died there in June, 1691. He was probably son of Peter and Marabella (Wysback) Livermore, of Little Thurloe, Suffolk County, England, about seven miles north -.

1 By Rev. A. H. Coolidge.

2 By Caleb A. Wall.

744

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

west of Clare. On his removal from Watertown to Connecticut he was made a freeman of that colony, October 29, 1640, and he sold out his estate in New Haven May 7, 1650, and went hack to Water- town. Four of his nine children-Samuel2, Daniel? and two daughters-were baptized in New Haven, and his oldest child, Hannah2, who married John Coolidge, Jr., was born in England in 1633, the others in America. His four h child, and oldest son, John2 Livermore, Jr., born in 1640, settled on an estate of fifty-two acres, called the "Cowpen Farm," in Weston, near the border of Sudbury, which estate was given him by the father.

This Jolin2 Livermore, Jr., who was a lieutenant in the military, had in Weston, by his first wife, Han- nah, who was mother of all his children, five sons and four daughters, born between 1668 and 1690, of whom the fifth child and third son was Daniel3 Livermore, born in Weston June 8, 1677, ensign, an original pro- prietor and settler in Leicester before 1720, on lot No. 29, which included what has since been called Livermore Hill. This Daniel3 Livermore died March 26, 1726, aged forty-nine, and by his wife, Mehitabel, afterwards wife of John Parmenter, of Sudbury, had five sons and three daughters, horn between 1707 and 1726, as follows :

1. Daniel+, Jr., born in Westou June 16, 1707, by wife, Mary, had in Weston three sons and three daughters, born between 1734 and 1748; 2. Jonas+ born in Weston May 13, 1710, married, October, 1735, Elizabeth Rice, of Sudbury, and settled near the foot of Livermore Hill, in Leicester, on the east side of the road running north and south through his father's lot, No. 29, where Jonas+ died in 1773, and his wife died in 1790-parents, in Leicester, of five sons and three daughters ; 3. Mehitabel 4, born March 13, 1713, mar- ried, May 14, 1736, Eliakim Rice, an early settler in Worcester, son of Elisha Rice, who was brother of Jonas, Gershom, James, Ephraim, Thomas and Jo- siah Rice, original proprietors and settlers in Worces- ter (see Caleb A. Wall's "Reminiscences of Worces- ter," pages 40 to 43); 4. Sarah4, born March 7, 1717; 5. Isaac4, horn May 11, 1720, resided on the west side of the road, opposite his brother Jonas, near the foot of Livermore Hill, where, by his wife, Dorothy, he had four sons and two daughters; 6. Hannah4, born April 16, 1723 ; 7. Abraham4, horn November 9, 1724, died of scarlet fever September 4, 1742; 8. Nathan4, born March 26, 1726, married, May 7, 1755, Lucy Bent, of Sudbury.

The above-named Ensign Daniel 3 Livermore's sister Hannah3, born in Weston, September 27, 1670, married, February 22, 1689, the above named Eph- raim Rice, then of Sudbury, who was an original proprietor of Worcester, where his children settled, near his brothers, on Sagatabscott Hill.

Jonas+ and Elizabeth (Rice) Livermore had in - Leicester these eight children :

1. Jonas5, Jr., born February 28, 1736, carpenter

and farmer, married November 10, 1761, Sarah, daughter of Hezekiah and Sarah (Green) Ward, and resided in the south part of Leicester, near Au- burn, where Jonas' son, Salem Livermore, afterwards lived, and where Jonas5 died, January 31, 1825, aged eighty-nine, and his wife, Sarah, died Sept. 10, 1832, aged ninety-four, parents of ten children ; 2. Micah 5, born in 1738, settled in Oxford; 3. Mary 5, born 1743, married Thomas Scott and resided on the estate in Auburn, near Leicester, where his father, John Scott, had lived, and where Thomas' son, David Scott, Sr., afterwards lived ; 4. David5, born 1745, married, in 1770, for his first wife Anna Heywood, of Holden, and settled on the south part of lot No. 59, in Spencer, where they had seven children, and he died there De- cember 13, 1818, and she died June 12, 1794, his second wife being her sister, Mrs. Mary Osborne, of Holden, who died January 5, 1842, aged eighty, by whom he had three children, one of them, Melinda, wife of the late Benjamin H. Brewer, of Worcester ; 5. Elizabeth, twin, born 1745, married Samuel Tucker, Jr., of Leicester ; 6. Elisha, born 1751; 7. Beulah, born 1753, married Levi Dunton; 8. Lydia, born 1755, married Asa, son of David Prouty, of Spencer, and had there Aaron, Asa, Jr., Persis, Jonas and Joel Prouty, born between 1776 and 1784, of whom Persis was wife of Eli Mussy, son of John Mussy, Jr., of Spencer.

Jonas5 and Sarah (Ward) Livermore had in Lei- ce-ter these nine children :

I. Hannah, born May 13, 1762, died August 24, 1767; 2. Jonas6, born April 13, 1764, died unmarried, at Leicester, April 20, 1790; 3. Sally, born June 28, . 1766, died unmarried, February 17, 1833; 4. Patty, horn October 22, 1768, married in 1791 Captain Samuel Upham, Jr., of Leicester, and removed soon after 1800 to Randolph, Vt., where he died in 1848, aged eighty-seven, the oldest of their three children being the late Hon. Wm. Upham, Senator in Con- gress from Vermont, from 1843 till his decease, January 14, 1853, in Washington, aged sixty-one; 5. Salem, born September 26, 1770, married, first, Nancy Walker, who died March 2, 1838, and he married, second, Ruth Livermore, and resided on his father's estate in the south part of Leicester near Auburn, where he died April 20, 1858, father of nine children, all hy his first wife; 6. Bathsheba, horn July 23, 1772, married John Page, and settled in Cambridge, Vt .; 7. Louisa, born April 27, 1774, died December, 1800, married Ahner Gale; 8. Daniel, born June 10, 1776, married May 29, 1801, Betsy, born in 1777, daughter of Thomas Parker, of Leices- ter, and resided on the estate of his grandfather, Jonas Livermore, Sr., near the foot of Livermore Hill, where Daniel Livermore died August 31, 1869, aged ninety-three, and his wife, Betsy, died November 2, 1846, parents of Jonas Livermore, of Camden, N. J., Rev. Daniel Parker Livermore, of Melrose, Mass., Diantha, wife of Daniel Henshaw, Mary, wife of

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 195

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