History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 28

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 28

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CHAPTER V.

LANCASTER-(Continued).

Hon. John Sprague- Cotton, and Woollen Mills-The Academy-War of 1812- The Whitings- The Brick Meeting-house- Lafayette- The Printing Enterprise- Dr. Nathaniel Thayer- New Churches- Clinton Set Off-Bi-Centennial-Schools-Libraries-Cemeteries.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1800, Lancaster lost her leading citizen by the death of Hon. John Sprague. He had been for thirty years resident of the town, coming from Keene, N. H., in 1770, to form a law partnership with Abel Willard. He was a son of Noah and Sarah Spragne, of Rochester, Mas‹., born June 21, 1740, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1765. He served the town ten years as Representative and

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

two as Senator, was sheriff for three years, and for two years was chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He was widely respected as a peacemaker, a safe adviser. a learned lawyer and an impartial judge.

In 1805, Moses Sawyer and Abel Wilder built the dam and first mill, at the bridge over the Nashua in the village then called New Boston. This water- power soon came into possession of Elias Bennett, and a fulling-mill was started in addition to the saw and grist-mills. The clothiers and wool-carders succes- sively here were Ezekiel Knowlton, Asa Buttrick and Ephraim Fuller. Asahel Tower, Jr., also operated a nail-cutting machine in connection with the saw-mill. Samuel Carter purchased the property, and, about 1844, built a cotton factory, which was leased to the Pitts Brothers and others. This was burned July 7, 1856, and the present factory built upon the same site.

In 1809 Poignand & Plant founded the first cot- ton factory in Lancaster on the site of Prescott's mills, and James Pitts, in 1815, built the second, upon the Nashua. The details of theseimportant en- terprises will be found in the history of Clintou.

Burrill Carnes, Sir. Francis Searles and Capt. Ben- jamin Lee, three Englishmen of wealth, during about ten years successively owned and lived upon the Wilder farm, on the Old Common, now occupied by the State Industrial School, and by lavish expendi- ture gave it the semblance of an old-world baronial estate. In 1804 the place was bought by Maj. Joseph Hiller, of Salem, who resided here until his death, in 1814. He was an officer of the Revolution, had been appointed by Washington the first collector of Salem, and was an ardent Federalist, a Christian gentleman and a very valuable accession to Lancaster. His two highly accomplished daughters became the wives of their cousins, Capt. Richard J. and William Cleve- land, who also came to reside here, and won promi- nence in town councils. As children came and grew to boyhood Capt. Cleveland and his wife felt the need of a higher education for them than the town's gram- mar school could give, and persuaded several gentle- men to join in establishing the Lancaster Latin Grammar School in 1815.

This classical school was kept for about eleven years upon the Old Common. The teachers' names best tell the quality of the education there afforded : Silas Holman, 1815; Jared Sparks, 1816; John W. Proctor, 1817 ; George B. Emerson, 1818-19; Solomon P. Miles, 1820-21; Nathaniel Wood, 1822-23; Levi Fletcher, 1824; Nathaniel Kingsbury, 1825. These scholarly young men, together with Warren Colburn and James G. Carter, at the most enthusiastic period of life's work, sitting at the hospitable board of the Clevelands, discussed with the cultured host and brilliant hostess the need of a new education which should develop the reasoning powers of youth ; and here they formed the opinions upon which some of them, as the most influential factors, remodeled the common-school system of the State.

September 15, 1808, Maj. Hiller, Hon. William Stedman and Capt. Samuel Ward were chosen by the town to draft a petition to President Jefferson for a suspension of the embargo, which it was alleged had closed the chief sources of the nation's wealth and destroyed the customary incentives to enterprise and virtuous industry. The friends of the French party, as the Jeffersonians were nicknamed, were but few in Lancaster. At a special town-meeting, June 24, 1812, resolutions remonstrating against declaring war with England as suicidal and unnecessary were passed by a vote of one hundred and fifteen to fifteen. August 20th, Rev. Nathaniel Thayer, it being a fast day, preached a sermon denouncing what he termed the iniquitous policy of the President. But when, in Sep- temher, 1814, the British fleet appeared off the coast, and Boston was fearing an attack, there was no lack of belligerency. Among the first military companies to report to the Governor, in answer to his summons, were the light artillery and an infantry company of Lancaster, who, after a service at the meeting-house, on Sunday, September 14th, proceeded to Cambridge. Capt. Ezra Sawyer marched his infantry command hack the same week, having been ordered ont by mis- take. The artillery, forty men all told, remained on duty until November 5, 1814. Capt. John Lyon, who led the company from Lancaster, was superseded by Capt. Silas Parker. Henry, Levi and Fabius Whiting served with distinction in the regular army, attaining the rank of first lientenant during the war. Henry Moore was killed at Brownstown, Josiah Rugg died in the army, and Nathan Puffer served in the United States artillery.

September 3, 1810, John Whiting died at Wash- ington, aged fifty years. He had been commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth United States In- fantry in 1808. Both he and his brother Timothy, Jr., served throughout the War of the Revolution, during which their father came from Billerica to Lancaster. Both became associate justices of the Court of Sessions, and were more than once candidates of the Jeffersonian party for Congress. An indication of John Whiting's ability, probity and lovable char- acter is found in the fact that when two Lancaster men were candidates for Congressional honor, in 1804, he received eighty-four votes, while William Stedman, the regular Federalist nominee, had but seventy-six, although it was a fevered period in par- tisan politics and the town's voters were usually more than three-fourths Federalists. Tradition still recalls Whiting's suave dignity when presiding over a town- meeting and his courtly grace in social assemblies. He was deacon in the church and brigadier-general in the militia. His daughter, Caroline Lee, as Mrs. Hentz, became a very popular writer of verse and fiction. His son, Henry, Brevet Brigadier-General, U. S. A., published two volumes of poetry, and contributed ar- ticles to the North American Review.

The corner-stone of the brick meeting-house was

LANCASTER.

laid with appropriate ceremony July 9, 1816. Two acres for the site were purchased for $633.33, being part of a farm belonging to Capt. Benjamin Lee. The de- signer of the building was Charles Bulfinch, the earliest professional architect in New England, who also designed the State House in Boston and that at Augusta. Thomas Hersey was the master-builder. The cupola has been pronounced by competent critics to be almost faultless in its proportions. On Wednesday, January 1, 1817, the building was dedi- cated. The final cost of the structure complete was $20,428.99, and it was proposed to pay for it by sale of the pews. They were accordingly appraised, eighteen being given the highest valuation, $230, the lowest being priced at $30. At the auction sale Capt. Ward paid the highest sum, $275, for pew No. 4; Capt. Cleve- land paid $255 for pew No. 57. A bell weighing thirteen hundred pounds was presented to the parish by several gentlemen. It was cracked within a few years, had to be recast, and now weighs eleven hun- dred pounds. The old meeting-house stood until 1823, and was used as a town-honse. In that year a new town house was built largely from the material obtained in tearing down the old one.

In the year 1823 the town dared a temporary de- parture from the old style of bridge construction. For twenty years the subject had been anxiously dis- cussed by special committees and town-meetings. One committee had presented and advocated a plan for a double arch stone bridge, but the cost was great and there was a well-founded fear that the central pier would seriously obstruct the passage of ice. The town also seriously considered a curiously un- scientific wooden structure, in which the planking was to be laid upon the top of seven timber arches, unbraced and without chords. Almost yearly one or more of the trestle bridges yielded to ice or freshet, and was whirled down stream. Daniel Farnham Plummer, a wheelwright of South Lancaster, exhib- ited for several years a model of a wooden arch bridge, which he claimed to have invented. This model, three or four feet in length, made of hickory sticks about as thick as one's finger, readily bore the weight of a man ; and the town, when the Atherton and Centre bridges next went seaward, voted to adopt Plummer's principle. The new bridge was out of the reach of flood, but had in itself sufficient ele- ments of instability, and the wonder is that it stood ten years. The town returned to the stereotype tres- tle form again, except at the Centre, Ponikin and North Village, where covered lattice girders were built, which did good service for from thirty-five to forty years. The river bridges were all finally re- placed between 1870 and 1875 with iron structures, for which, including the thorough rebuilding of most of the stone abutments, the total expenditure was thirty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty dol- lars.

Friday, September 3, 1824, is a date famous in the 3

annals of Lancaster, because of the visit of Lafay- ette, the nation's guest. The general had passed the night at the mansion of S. V. S. Wilder in Bolton, and at half-past six in the morning, escorted by cav- alry, proceeded to Lancaster by the turnpike. He was received at the toll-gate with a national salute from the artillery, and upon arrival near the meeting- house was met under an elaborately decorated arch by the town's committee and conducted to a platform upon the green. There, in the presence of an im- mense concourse from all the country around, he was welcomed in an address by Dr. Thayer, to which he made brief response, evidently deeply affected by the eloquent words to which he had listened, and by the spontaneous homage of a grateful people. After a brief stay, during which the surviving soldiers of the Revolution were presented to him, amid the booming of cannon and the tearful acclamations of the multitude, the cavalcade moved on towards Wor- cester.

To this time and for a decade later the martial spirit of the people was kept bright by the militia laws. At least once a year the peaceful highways of the town were wont to bristle with bayonets; and the rattle of drum, the squeak of fife and the odor of burnt cartridges overpowered all the sweet sounds and smells of Nature. This was the " May training." The " muster-fields " are historic, and old citizens continue to recount the humors of the parades and sham-fights. The original territory of Lancaster had sixteen military companies, which, with half a dozen from adjoining towns, made up the Lancaster regi- ment. The town kept up a mounted troop until 1825, and also had a light artillery company and one of light infantry, besides the ununiformed militia.

The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the destruction of the town by the Indians was cele- brated February 21, 1826, when an oration was de- livered by Isaac Goodwin and a poem read by Wil- liam Lincoln. The former was printed.

So early as 1792 public attention was called to the desirability of a canal from the seaboard to the Con- necticut, through Lancaster and Worcester, and pre- liminary examination of a route was made. This project was again brought forward in 1826, and Lan- caster was earnest in its promotion. Loammi Bald- win made a survey through Bolton and Lancaster, his line crossing the Nashua at Carter's Mills; but capi- tal failed to forward the enterprise. The traffic, as before, continued to be conducted by heavy wagons drawn by teams of horses. Forty such wagons daily passed through the town to and from Boston, bearing as many tons of merchandise or farm products. At intervals of a mile or two stood taverns, which enter- tained many wayfarers, and nightly attracted to their sanded-floored bar-rooms a jovial company, which grew hilarious as the hours sped, under the inspira- tion of unlimited flip. The most direct route for the Boston and Fitchburg Railway lay through Lancas-

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

ter and Bolton, but the blind selfishness of inn-keep- ers and stage proprietors was able to create sufficient hostility to the road to carry it by a more tortuous line through towns then less populous. Repentance soon followed, and upon the inception of the Worces- ter and Nashua road its projectors were met in liberal spirit. Hopes of a more direct connection with Bos- ton have been often raised, and, finally, April 30, 1870, the Lancaster Railroad Company was iocorpo- rated. Its road was built by George A. Parker, who became president of the company, but has never been used owing to a controversy between the Fitchburg and Worcester and Nashua Railway corporations.

Capt. Samuel Ward died August 14, 1826, aged eighty-seven. He had for fifty-nine years been resi- dent in Lancaster, an active and liberal citizen. Born in Worcester, September 25, 1739, he was for a time a pupil of John Adams, but entered the army when a boy of sixteen. His career to the date of his coming to Lancaster has been outlined in a previous page. He was devoted to mercantile pursuits until the last twenty years of his life, which he spent in the care of his ample landed estate. His generous hospitality brought many guests to his board, and the charm of his bright presence and richly-fraught speech glows for us in the grateful reminiscences of those who were blessed by his friendly interest. He left a legacy of five hundred dollars, the income of which he desired should be annually distributed " to those who are unfortunate and in indigent circum- stances " in Lancaster. This sum has been increased by sundry similar legacies, and forms the Lancaster Charitable Fund. Capt. Ward had outlived wife and children many years, and willed his estate to his niece, Mrs. Dolly Greene, wife of Nathat- iel Chandler. Squire Chandler, as he was always called, thenceforward resided in Lancaster. He was a man of culture, bright wit and quaint individuality ; born in Petersham, October 6, 1773, graduate at Har- vard College in 1792, died June 4, 1852. Madame Chandler survived her husband seventeen years, liv- ing to the age of eighty-five. Their daughter, Mrs. Mary G. Ware, remains in possession of the home- stead.

During 1826 a brick, two-storied structure was built a little south of the meeting-house, and the Latin Grammar School was removed thither from the Old Common. Hitherto a school for boys only, from this time both sexes were admitted. The building was paid for by subscription, and the ground for it was the gift of George and Horatio Carter. An act of incorporation was obtained February 11, 1828, by the subscribers, under the title of the Lancaster Academy. April 7, 1847, a second corporation with the same title took possession of the building by pur- chase, and, in 1879, the town having bought it, tore it down to make room for the present grammar-school house. The first teacher of the academy in this lo- cality was Nathaniel Kingsbury. He had numerous

successors ; among those who served for several years were Isaac F. Woods, Henry C. Kimball, A.M., and William A. Kilbourn, A.M.

The year 1826 was also memorable for the publica- tion of the first systematic history of the town, under the title of "Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Town of Lancaster," occupying ninety pages of the Worcester Magazine. Its able and painstaking author, Joseph Willard, Esq., was descended from a Lancaster family, and practiced law here from 1821 to 1831. He proposed publishing a more comprehen- sive history of Lancaster, and made valuable col- lections of material for it, but it was postponed for other literary work, and at his death, in 1865, was found too incomplete for print.

During 1827 the brothers, Joseph and Ferdinand Andrews, wood and copper engravers, came to Lan- caster from Hingham. The latter had been editor of the Salem Gazette. George and Horatio Carter built the brick house nearly opposite the hotel, in Lancas- ter Centre, for a book-store and printing office, and thence, March 4, 1828, the first number of the Lan- caster Gazette was issued. It was a sheet of five columns to the page, edited by Ferdinand Andrews, and printed every Tuesday. One of its standing advertisements was : " Wood, corn and oats re- ceived in pay for the Lancaster Gazette." The last number was printed April 13, 1830, and Lancas- ter had no newspaper again until the birth of the Lancaster Courant, in 1846.

Maps had been printed and colored here as early as 1825 by the Carters, who were copper-plate printers. Although the newspaper enterprise did not prosper, the firm of Carter & Andrews did an extensive busi- ness in book publishing, engraving on wood, copper and steel, map printing and coloring, book-binding, etc., employing nearly one hundred persons. A type foundry was established by Charles Carter, and a lithographic press was set up by Henry Wilder in connection with the firm. In 1834 the business passed under control of Andrews, Shephard & Has- tings, and, in 1835, Marsh, Capen, Lyon & Webb took possession, using for their publication title "The Education Press." The enterprise was abandoned in 1840. Among many books printed in Lancaster were : " Peter Parley's Works," "Farmer's General Register of the First Letters of New England," "The Comprehensive Commentary," " The Common School Journal," various standard school books, “The Girl's Own Book," by Lydia M. Child, a series called "The School Library," etc. The wood engraving was superior to any work of the kind before that date in the United States.

The Lancaster Bank was incorporated in the name of Davis Whitman, Jacob Fisher, Jr., Stephen P. Gardner and associates, April 9, 1836, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. This was increased by twenty-five thousand dollars in 1847, again by twenty-five thousand in 1851, and by fifty thousand in

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LANCASTER.

1854. In 1876 the capital was reduced to the original amount, and in 1881 the bank was removed to Clinton. The first president was James G. Carter, who was suc- ceeded in 1840 by Jacob Fisher, Jr. He resigned in 1874 and George W. Howe was chosen president. Caleb T. Symmes, who had been cashier for thirty years, retired in 1874 to be succeeded by Wm. H. McNeil. Closely connected with this was the Lancas- ter Savings Bank, incorporated in 1845, which, after an exceptionally prosperous career, was ruined by a series of unfortunate investments and placed in the hands of receivers. The deposits amounted to about one million dollars, of which the depositors have received fifty-three and one-third per cent., and a small balance awaits the settlement of the Lancaster Bank affairs.

The dam and mills at Ponikin, from the first saw- mill built there in 1713 to the existing cotton factory, have seen many changes in ownership, location and pro- duction. The chief proprietors have been Samuel Ben- nett, Joseph Sawyer, Col. Joseph Wilder, Col. William Greenleaf, Major Gardner Wilder, Charles E. Knight, Charles L. Wilder, etc. When the last-uamed built the present dam, only traces of the older ones, lower upon the stream, were visible, but about a mile up the river stood a prosperous saw and grist-mill, owned by the Shakers, but built by Sewall Carter about 1828. near the site of a saw-mill founded by David Whit- comb as early as 1721. This mill was bought by the American Shoe Shank Company, and for several years leather board, patent shanks, etc., were manufactured there. The works were burned in December, 1883.

While journeying for health and recreation Nathan- iel Thayer, D.D., died very suddenly at Rochester, N. Y., June 23, 1840. There had been for nearly two centuries but one meeting-house, one religious society in Lancaster. Sectarian differences there were, but they seldom disturbed the harmony of social relations. The revered pastor was always the prominent central figure of the community, the father of the parish.

Nathaniel Thayer was twenty-four years of age when he began his ministerial labors as the colleague of Rev. Timothy Harrington, having been born at Hamp- ton, N. H., July 11, 1769. He was the son of Rev. Ebenezer and Martha (Cotton) Thayer. His mother was a lineal descendant of John Cotton, the first minis- ter of Boston, and through her he is said to have inher- ited certain mental and moral features which had dis- tinguished her ancestors,-" an uninterrupted succes- sion of clergymen for nearly two hundred and thirty years." He was fitted for college in the first class at Phil- lips Exeter Academy and graduated at Harvard in 1789. Two years after his coming to Lancaster, on October 22, 1795, he was married to Sarah Toppan, of Hampton, and made his home at first in the old house now generally known as Mrs. Nancy Carleton's, remov. ing, after the death of his venerable colleague, to the parsonage which stood a few feet south of the well in front of Mrs. Nathaniel Thayer's present residence. He received the degree of S.T.D. in 1817.

Dr. Thayer was in person not over medium height, nor was he otherwise of rare mould, but his dignified mieu and a melodious voice of great compass and flexibility gave impressiveness to his oratory. Twenty-three oc- casional sermons of his have been printed. Though always appropriate and sometimes rich in thought happily expressed, the effectiveness traditional of his discourses was largely due to the thrilling tones and skilful emphasis of the orator. He was conscientiously averse to repeating an old sermon even when his time was overtasked. Because of his power in the pulpit aud wisdom in church polity he was frequently sum- moned even from great distances to aid in ordination and council.

But not alone uor chiefly for his public teachings was he prized by his people. His benignant presence was sought as a blessing in times of joy, a comfort in great sorrow. The prayer from his lips was the never- omitted prelude to business at the town-meeting. The young bashfully, the old unreservedly confided their hopes, soul experiences and troubles to him, assured of hearty sympathy and wise counsel. He was the depositary of family secrets; the composer of neighborhood disputes; the ultimate referee in mooted points of opinion or taste. To a gravity which might have graced the Puritan clergymen, his maternal ancestors, he joined an affability that showed no discrimination in persons, and made him beloved of children.

The day was never too long for his activity. In the summer mornings by five o'clock the early travellers saw him tilling his garden by the roadside. In the atter part of the day he rode about his extended parish, stopping to greet every one he met with kindly inquiry, carrying consolation to the sick and sorrow- ful, help to the destitute, the refreshment of hope to the despondent, cheerfulness and peace to all. The charm of his fireside, with its hearty hospitality, freely and unostentatiously open to every chance guest, its frugal comforts made sweeter by abounding Christian graces, was never forgotten by those who came under its influence. The wife and mother, who presided with simple dignity over the household, survived her hus- band exactly seventeen years, falling asleep at the ripe age of eighty-two. In 1881-82 an apse was added to the brick meeting-house, called the Thayer Memo- rial Chapel, in honor of Dr. Thayer and his wife. In it, besides the spacious chapel, are an elegantly appointed church parlor, a kitchen with closets, etc., a Sunday-school library room, basement and entrance hall. Its cost, amounting to about fifteen -thousand dollars, was defrayed by a popular subscription among the friends of the church, and its memorial character is indicated by portraits and a suitably inscribed wall- tablet.

Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears, of Sandisfield, grad- nate of Union College, 1834, was installed as Dr. Thayer's successor December 23, 1840. Failing health compelled him to obtain rest from the cares of so

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

large a parish, and his pastoral connection with the First Church closed April 1, 1847, to the great grief of his people, and the regret of all citizens of the town; for his presence had ever been a quickening influence to true and earnest living. His subsequent life was largely devoted to literary labors, and of his writings, both prose and poetry, some have won a wide reputation, and that not confined to the so-called religious circles. In 1871 Mr. Sears was honored by Harvard College with the degree of S.T.D. He died at Weston, January 16, 1876. Before him no minister of the First Church had asked or received dismission.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 28

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