History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 27

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 27

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the French War, as their colonels-the former of the minute-men, the latter of the militia. Abijah Wil- lard was perhaps the most gifted and experienced of- ficer in the town, but unfortunately favored the side of the King. Dr. William Dunsmoor and Ephraim Sawyer were the majors of the minute-men, and David Osgood the quartermaster. Col. John Whit- comb was chosen a major-general in February, by the Second Provincial Congress.

Every soldier was expected to furnish himself with arms and equipments, and if too poor to do so, he was supplied by the town, or by contributions from the more wealthy. No attempt was made to secure uniformity in dress; each wore his own home garb, and as there was a much greater variety in the color and form of men's wear then than now, the ranks always presented a motley appearance.

There were at this period but seventeen towns in Massachusetts which could boast a larger population than Lancaster. It had a greater proportion of me- chanics and traders than other inland towns-fulling- mills, tanneries, potash boilers, a slate quarry and even a little furnace for casting hollow-ware. But its farmers raised nearly ten bushels of grain for every man, woman and child in the town, and four times as many cattle, sheep and swine per inhabitant as were credited to the town in the census of 1885. There was, therefore, a large surplus above the needs for home consumption. Pork was sold at six pence, salt beef at three pence, mutton at two pence, cheese at four pence and butter at eight pence, per pound ; corn meal at three shillings, beans at six shillings, potatoes at one shilling four pence per bushel; cider at seven shillings eight pence per barrel. There was no public conveyance for travelers, no post-office nearer than Cambridge. Silent Wilde, the news- carrier, rode out from Boston on Mondays, with the papers for regular subscribers, and jogged through Lancaster on his way to the Connecticut River towns and back once a week. His trips were soon to cease, and the day fast approached which was to test anew Lancaster's patriotism.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, a post-rider came galloping in hot haste through the town shout- ing to every one he saw that the "red coats " had come out from Boston. The tidings, long expected, were spread by mounted messengers and the firing of cannon ; the minute-men were soon hurrying down the Bay road, and the militia followed not far behind. Two hundred and fifty-seven men marched from the town to Cambridge that day. General John Whit- comb reached the scene of action before the running fight ended and took part in directing it; but it is hardly probable that any great number of his regi- ment, save the mounted troop, perhaps, kept pace with him. The six Lancaster companies were : two troops of thirty-two men each under Captains Jolın Prescott, Jr., and Thomas Gates; two com- panies of minute-men, with Captains Samuel Sawyer

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

and Benjamin Houghton; and two companies of militia led by Captains Joseph White and Daniel Robbins. They remained at Cambridge about two weeks.

The Provincial Congress immediately resolved upon the enlistment of an army of thirteen thousand men for eight months. Col. Asa Whitcomb was one of those authorized to raise a regiment, and, on May 25th, reported his command containing eleven com- panies, five hundred and sixty men-one company above the complement. Ephraim Sawyer was major, and Dr. William Dunsmoor surgeon of the regiment. The Lancaster men were mostly in the companies of Captains Andrew Haskell and Ephraim Richardson. There is a tradition in old families that on the day of the battle of Bunker Hill the Lancaster regiment was stationed at Cambridge, but was ordered to furnish re- inforcements to Prescott, and some of its companies reached the hill and fought in the final struggle, while others were coming up when the retreat began. The historian Bancroft says: "From the regiment of Whitcomb, of Lancaster, there appeared at least fifty privates, but with no higher officers than cap- tains." If he had written thrice fifty he would have been more nearly just. By official returns the regi- ment lost five killed, eight wounded and two missing, which was a larger list of casualties than was credited to eight others of the sixteen regiments in which casualties of battle occurred. Daniel Robbins was killed upon the hill and Sergt. Robert Phelps was mortally wounded and died a prisoner in Boston. Both were in Haskell's com- pany. Sergt. Israel Willard and Joseph Wilder were probably wounded, the former mortally, as >pecial allowance was made for them by the Legislature at the same time as to the heirs of Robbins and Phelps. Evidence is found in petitions for aid, showing that Burt's Harvard and Hastings' Bolton company were also in the fight, and the historian Frothingham supposes Wilder's Leominster company to have been engaged. Capt. Andrew Haskell so commended him- self by his conduct at Bunker Hill, that he would have been promoted but for certain unofficer-like traits which he seemed unable to overcome.

During the siege of Boston the Lancaster regiment was brigaded with the Rhode Island troops under Gen. Greene and stationed on Prospect Hill. Col. Whitcomb was one of the wealthiest farmers of the town, a deacon in the Second Parish, a sterling patriot, and evidently, from his enduring popularity, gifted with noble qualities of heart. He was also a brave and experienced soldier, but too amiable to preserve proper discipline in his command. Upon the consolidation of the Provincial regiments to bring them to the Continental model, sundry super- numerary officers were discharged, and Washington, with the concurrence of Greene, selected Whitcomb as one whose services should be spared. His men re- sented this, and refused to re-enlist under another

commander, when Col. Whitcomb reproached them for their lack of patriotism, and offered to enlist as a private with them. Washington, hearing of this, re- instated him and complimented him in special orders for his unselfish zeal. The worthy colonel's military service ended April 1, 1777, however, and he returned to his farm. Impoverished by his sacrifices for conn- try, he was compelled to part with his lands, removed to Princeton, and there died, March 16, 1804, aged eighty-four years.

In the closing scenes of the siege, March 9, 1776, Dr. Enoch Dole, of Lancaster, was killed on Dor- chester Heights by a cannon-ball. The town had several soldiers with Arnold and Montgomery at the gates of Quebec, and t vo or three were there wounded and captured.

About five thousand refugees from Boston during the siege were scattered through the inland towns, and to these were added the people of Charlestown after the burning of that place. One hundred and thirty of the homeless were assigned by the Provin- cial Congress to the charity of Lancaster, but the actual number seeking refuge here was much greater, for the proposed formal distribution of the exiles had speedily to be abandoned as impossible. Many sought Lancaster who added to its social force ; such were Daniel Waldo, Edmund Quincy, Esq., and Na- thaniel Balch. A few became permanent residents of the town ; for example, Josiah Flagg and John New- man.

In August, 1776, the Court of General Sessions, in anthorizing five hospitals for inoculation for small- pox, appointed Doctors William Dunsmoor and Josiah Wilder directors of one at Lancaster. There is no record of the location of this hospital, but fourteen years later, when this scourge of humanity became again virulent, Dr. Israel Atherton established one for the same purpose upon Pine Hill, where it was kept during four years.

After the departure of the American army for New York, the defences of Boston Harbor were entrusted to the militia, and during 1776 about fifty men of Lancaster served in two regiments stationed at Hull, with Capt. Andrew Haskell and Lieuts. John Hewitt and Jonathan Sawyer for their officers. A requisition upon the State for five thousand militia to tempora- rily re-enforce the army at New York came from Congress in June, and Lancaster's quota for four months' service was seventy-two men. They served under Capt. Samuel Sawyer and Lieuts. Salmon God- frey and Nathaniel Sawyer, in the regiment of Col. Jonathan Smith. The whole command was a hurried levy of rustic yonth, wholly undisciplined. Septem- ber 15th, at Kip's Bay, they met the splendidly- drilled Hessian corps, and came off with scant honor. Four Lancaster men were then missing-probably killed-and several were wounded.

Capt. Aaron Willard, who still suffered from his terrible wound received at Ticonderoga in 1758, un-

LANCASTER.

like his more noted cousins and neighbors-Abijah, Abel and Levi Willard-was earnest in the patriot cause. He was one of the two commissioners ap- pointed by Washington to visit the Acadians, in order to ascertain the strength of their alleged sympathy with the revolutionists. The mission was found so hazardous that the commissioners made their report from information gained without entering the prov- ince. Willard received a commission as colonel of a regiment drafted to strengthen the northern army under Schuyler, but was prevented from service by a painful accident. Capt. Manasseh Sawyer, August 18th, marched to join the regiment of Col. Nicholas Dike at Dorchester, with a company of ninety-two men, enlisted for eight months. Thirty-two of these were of Lancaster. Henry Haskell, who had distin- guished himself in the battle of Bunker Hill as cap- tain of a Shirley company, was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. Capt. Daniel Goss and Lieut. Jabez Fairbank, with a company of militia, chiefly Lancaster men, served at Dobbs' Ferry, in a regiment of which their townsman, Ephraim Sawyer, was lieutenant- colonel.

October 7, 1776, the town voted to empower the House of Representatives "to draw up a Form of Government" for the State, stipulating that it should be sent to the people for ratification. Dr. William Dunsmoor was at the same date elected representa- tive.

The popular colonial system of short enlistments forbade the growth of a well-disciplined national army and menaced the success of any complex campaign. A complete re-organization was resolved upon by the formation of eighty-eight three-years' regiments of six hundred and eighty men each. Fifteen of these were demanded from Massachusetts, and it required one man in every seven to fill the call. A bounty of twenty dollars and one hundred acres of land was promised volunteers, and the monthly pay of privates was fixed at six and two-thirds dollars. December 9, 1776, the male inhabitants of Lancaster over sixteen years of age numbered six hundred and seventy-two including thirteen negroes. Her quota was, therefore, ninety-six men, and that number volunteered in due time. Three more levies for three years were made during the war. Ten soldiers were sent by the town to the Continental army in the spring of 1780, thirty- five in the spring of 1781, and seven in March, 1782, the sum of the quotas being one hundred and forty- eight. These men were all volunteers, the draft being resorted to only for short-service calls. Large bounties had to be paid at last, and a few non-resident substi- tutes were hired. The men were scattered through the Massachusetts regiments, the town being repre- sented in every one but the First and Ninth. The largest numbers were in the Tenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Most of them participated in the battles which compelled the surrender of Burgoyne. Those holding commissions were :

Henry Haskell, lient .- col. 15th. Ephraim Sawyer, capt. 16th.

William Harris, paymaster 16th.

Jonathan Sawyer, lieut. 14th, killed. John Hewitt, lient. 10th,

John Whiting, lieut. 12th. Philip Corey, lieut. 10th. Joseph House, lieut. 2d.

Winslow Phelps, ensign 13th. Jonathan Wheelock, drum-major 14th.

The year 1777 was marked in Lancaster for a perse- cution of suspected loyalists by the extremists of the patriot party. A resolve of the Legislature concerning "the danger from internal enemies " gave reason for the creation of a committee to search for and obtain evidence against such suspects, and Col. Asa Whit- comb was selected. A black-list was presented by him in September, bearing the names of Moses Ger- rish, Daniel Allen, Ezra Houghton, Joseph Moore, Solomon Houghton, Thomas Grant, James Carter and Rev. Timothy Harrington. Abijah and Abel Willard and Joseph House had fled with the British upon the evacuation of Boston, and their estates had been confiscated. Levi Willard and Joseph Wilder were dead. Of those in Whitcomb's black-list, Ger- rish, Moore and Ezra Houghton were imprisoned, Solomon Houghton escaped from the country, Car- ter's and Allen's names were stricken from the list in town-meeting, and Grant is found serving in the patriot ranks. The attempted proscription of Har- rington was apparently the more bitter because of his connection with the troubles in the Bolton parish. He made a shrewd and spirited defence, when called iuto town-meeting to face his accusers, signally triumphed over them, and was held in increased respect thence- forward.

The loss of Ticonderoga and the victorious ad- vance of Burgoyne southward spread dismay through- out New England. One-half of the alarm list were hurriedly marched from Lancaster to Bennington in August, mostly embraced in companies led by Cap- tains John White and Solomon Stuart. During the autumn months of 1777 about thirty men of the town participated in the Rhode Island expedition of Gen- eral Spencer.

February 5, 1778, it was voted "to accept the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union be- tween the United States of America," and May 18th the town voted upon the acceptance of the new State Constitution, when one hundred and eleven were found in favor of and forty-one against it. It was, however, rejected by the people. Four thousand and forty-nine pounds were appropriated to pay the soldiers hired to serve for eight and nine months' service in the Continental Army. These men were thirty-two in number and joined the forces stationed along the Hudson. Captain Manasseh Sawyer and over fifty Lancaster men were engaged in the unsuc- cessful attempt to drive the British from Newport and fought at Quaker's Hill under General Sullivan. There were also constant details for guard duty. Frequently twenty or more of the town's youth were at Cambridge or Rutland in charge of prisoners.

The paper currency had steadily depreciated and

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

counterfeit money was so abundant that the most reputable persons innocently received and paid it out. Trade was fast becoming a system of barter. Foolish attempts were made to fix the prices of common necessities by law, and annually committees were chosen by the town to make up a schedule of these prices. June 28, 1779, the town solemnly voted " that the price of the Comodityes of the farmer and any other article do not rise any higher than at this time."

Eighteen men of the town were mustered June 25, 1779, for nine months, to re-enforce the Continental Army, and a company of militia were serving at Claverack with Captain Luke Wilder, Andrew Has- kell being his lieutenant.

The State Constitution was voted upon May 13th, and one hundred and three favored it, while only seven declared against it. Dr. William Dunsmoor, Captain Ephraim Wilder and Captain William Put- nam were Lancaster's delegates in the convention which formed it. In June, 1780, the town was called upon to furnish forty men for six months' service. Certain of the radical leaders, and especially Josiah Kendall, who had been vociferously patriotic in the earlier days of the war, avowed their belief that the men could not be obtained, and counseled non-com- pliance with the demand of the government. Cap- tain Samuel Ward, who had narrowly escaped pro- scription for his conservative views, saw his oppor- tunity and promptly advocated in an eloquent harangue immediate obedience to the requisition, at whatever cost. He was made chairman of a com- mittee of twelve empowered to hire the soldiers " on any terms they think proper." The forty men with- in twelve days were on their way to the camps, each having been promised " £1400 lawful money, or £13 6s. 8d. in Corn, Beef and Live Stock or any Produce as it formerly used to be sold." From this the silver dollar would seem to have been worth one hundred and five paper dollars at that date.

During both 1780 and 1781 a full company of mili- tia served in Rhode Island for from three to five months, and others were stationed for similar terms of service on the Hudson. The rolls found indicate that tully one-quarter of the whole male population of Lancaster above the age of sixteen, were kept constantly in the army during the most eventful years of the struggle for freedom. Over six hundred names of Lancaster soldiers in the Revolution are already listed. Almost no records of casualties are discovered in muster-rolls, but they disclose the names of thirty men of Lancaster who died of wounds or disease be- tween the battle of Lexington and 1779. Those who for any cause were exempted from military service lived lives of toil and sacrifice. Money was annually appropriated for the care of soldiers' families, and the widows and orphans received systematic aid after the war, the town's expenditure being finally re- funded by the State. Lancaster is credited with

having paid for such purposes from 1781 to 1785 the sum of £1852 1s. 4d.

Twenty-three residents of the extreme southerly portion of the town, May 15, 1780, presented a peti- tion to be set off to Shrewsbury. To this public con- sent was given in June, and an act of Legislature consummated the division February 2, 1781. The area thus parted with was about six square miles, and was incorporated with Boylston in 1786. The Second Precinct had by 1780 so grown as to outvote the older portion of Lancaster, and the autonomy it had long sought could no longer be denied. April 25, 1781, Chocksett was incorporated under the name of Sterling, in honor of General William Alexander, Earl of Sterling. By this change Lancaster lost over half of its population and but thirty-six and one-half square miles of its territory remained.

The noise and smoke of rejoicing over honorable victory and independence won soon passed, and there was time for the town to reckon up its sacrifices and take account of domestic resources and necessities. The outlook was not encouraging. The paper cur- rency had become worthless and disappeared. Farmers and mechanics were crushed with debt, and half maddened by burdensome taxation, while lawyers and merchants were reaping a golden harvest. Bankrupt sales were advertised on every hand. Soon a spirit of anarchy was born of the general discontent, which culminated in Shays' Insurrection. No citizen of Lancaster is known to have joined the armed force of malcontents, and very few sympathized with the appeal to violence. The town sent delegates to the county conventions, voted in favor of enactment of laws to alleviate the distress of the people, and re- commended relieving the farming interest by excise and import duties.

But when, January 16, 1787, the two militia compa- nies were called out by Col. William Greenleaf, the sheriff, the men were found almost unanimously in favor of supporting the law, and upon his calling for twenty-eight volunteers to march to the defence of the courts at Worcester on January 23d, thirty-one offered themselves. Lancaster was the rendezvous of the troops from the eastern part of the county, and Captains Nathaniel Beaman and John Whiting led companies in the regiments which, under General Benjamin Lincoln, pursued Shays and scattered his "regulators." The service was not long nor attended with bloodshed, but it was ardnous in the extreme. Those who participated in it often grew eloquent in reminiscence of the terrible night march from Hadley to Petersham, February 3, 1787, facing a furious snow- storm in a temperature far below zero. Among those serving as privates was Captain Andrew Haskell. Three years later this veteran soldier was slain in. battle with the Indians at the defeat of General Arthur St. Clair. Hon. John Sprague accompanied the expedition against Shays upon the staff of General Lincoln, as his legal adviser.

LANCASTER.

Authority had been obtained by an act dated Feb- rnary 15, 1783, for lotteries to meet the extraordinary cost of rebuilding and repairing bridges and cause- ways. Twelve classes of the Lancaster Bridge Lottery were drawn-the net proceeds of which amounted to only £3286; and the results in other respects did not encourage the continuance of the scheme.

By this time there were ten bridges over the Nashua rivers, and eight of them were a public charge. They were all built with one or more trestles in the bed of the stream, and an ice jam or unnsually high freshet often tore several of these from their anchorage. A September flood in 1787 swept away the Ponikin saw-mill, and damaged or demolished half the bridges in town. The Sprague, Ponikin and Atherton bridges were rebuilt in 1788. The Sawyer bridge, so-called, on the site of the present Carter's Mills bridge- whither it had been moved from the discontinued Scar road in 1742-was rebuilt in 1789.

The majority in Lancaster were opposed to the ratification of the National Constitution, and elected Hon. John Sprague their delegate to the State con- vention of January, 1788, with the usual instructions as to their wishes. Mr. Spragne, however, finally favored the ratification, although but six of his Wor- cester County associates voted with him. This use of his discretion did not seriously offend his constituency for at the first meeting for choice of a Presidential elector, December 18, 1788, he received thirty-one of the sixty-two votes cast in Lancaster.

Rev. Timothy Harrington became physically unable to attend to the duties of his pastorate in 1790, and on October 9, 1793, Rev. Nathaniel Thayer was ordained as his colleague, receiving as a settlement two hundred pounds, with a yearly salary of ninety pounds. Mr. Harrington was born at Waltham, Feb- ruary 10, 1716, was graduated at Harvard College in 1737, and died at Lancaster, December 18, 1795, having been pastor over the church here forty-seven years. By a first wife, Anna Harrington, he had two sons and four daughters. He married Ann, the widow of Rev. Matthew Bridge, April 11, 1780. He was a lovable man, attracting young and old by his gentleness, affability and simplicity of manners. He was espe- cially remarkable for his day, because of his liberality of sentiment, shown in speech and conduct-a broad charity toward all humanity. Three of his sermons were published, and his century discourse was re- printed in 1806 and 1853.

In 1791, February 7th, the proprietors voted " to re- linquish to the several towns in the bounds of Old Lancaster all their right to roads in the respective towns."

An increased interest in the subject of education began to be visible in 1788. Some of the leading citizens organized a central grammar school, and Timothy Whiting and Jonathan Wilder were elected a town visiting committee-the first recorded-to serve with the minister and two others chosen by the

supporters of the school. The following year, under a new State law, the town was divided into districts, thirteen in number. In 1790 a new building for the grammar school was erected on common ground "opposite General Greenleaf's garden." The next year one hundred and fifty pounds were appropriated for education, one-third of which was devoted to the grammar school, one hundred being divided among the districts. From 1792 Rev. Nathaniel Thayer be- came chairman of the school committee annually elected by the town, which at first consisted of seven, but was increased to eleven in 1796.

Numerous landed estates passed from the owner- ship of the older families shortly after the Revolu- tion, in all sections of the town, and many new names began to appear in the tax-lists. The ruling spirits in the town management were Hon. John Spragne, Capt. Samuel Ward, General John and Judge Timo- thy Whiting, Sheriff William Greenleaf, Michael Newhall, Col. Edmund Heard, Ebenezer Torrey, Joseph Wales, Merrick Rice, William Stedman, Jonas Lane, John Maynard, Jacob Fisher, Eli Stearns and John Thurston, not one of whom was a lineal descendant of the early settlers. At the north part of the town many of the old residents became converts of Mother Ann Lee, and joined the Shaker commu- nity. A little colony of Reading families succeeded to their farms. At the south end, as the nineteenth century opened, the Burditts, Lowes, Rices and Har- rises, mostly from Leominster and Boylston, came, bringing with them the horn-comb industry. For a few years, besides the saw and grist-mills of Col. Greenleaf, at Ponikin, a trip-hammer and nail-cutting machine were in operation. The quarry in the northern end of the town sent annually to Boston a large quantity of roofing-slate; but these industries were short-lived. The first post-office was established in Lancaster, April 1, 1795, with Joseph Wales as postmaster. Jonathan Whitcomb carried the mails and passengers daily to and from the city, by the " Boston, Concord and Lancaster mail line " stages, when the century closed.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 27

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