History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 65

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 65

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March 1, 1815, Rev. Enoch Pond (Brown Univer- sity, 1813) was ordained pastor, who labored dili- gently and successfully till 1828. He then became editor in Boston of the periodical Spirit of the Pil-

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grims ; and somewhat later began his life-work, at Bangor Theological Seminary, where he died, full of years, service and honor, in 1881. This church greatly flourished during his ministry, more than doubling its membership in two extensive revivals. He published sermons, reviews, lectures, beside preparing young men for college. Anecdotes are told by those who remember him showing his pleas- ant and, at times, jocose disposition and ready wit. His dwelling looks to-day very much as when he abode there, and the long school-room and study, now two chambers, is our veneration, as is Luther's home and study to the residents of Wittenberg.

Rev. Miner G. Pratt preached twenty years. He married Caroline, danghter of Maj. Thos. Drury, afterward resided at Andover, and died at Rochester, N. Y., 1884, aged eighty-four years. He organized a parish library, and was also postmaster. In 1887 the church building was moved back fifty feet, and the belfry and spire added.

Several clergymen came with shorter terms of stay, among whom was Rev. L. Ives Hoadley, a relative by marriage of Dr. Pond. Rev. Elnathan Davis, from Fitchburg, a graduate of Williams College in 1834, began labor in November, 1869. He did noble work as a citizen as well as preacher. The church was raised up, galleries removed and the interior quite remodeled. The church's centennial was joyfully celebrated in Jannary, 1876; but the only printed record is the newspaper column. Mr. Davis' minis- try of ten years greatly strengthened the church. Sincere was the sorrow at his funeral, April, 1881. Rev. N. A. Prince preached two years; and the present incumbent, Rev. S. D. Hosmer, of Harvard, 1850, began his labors January 1, 1883. The chapel near to the church has served at times as a school- room. In it hang three portraits of former pastors- Rev. Dr. Pond, Rev. Charles Kendall and Rev. Elnathan Davis.

On the town records we catch glimpses of persons not in accord with the standing order ecclesiastically. In 1779 provision was made to supply the deficiency cansed by "taxes sunk by being laid on several of the Baptist persuasion in a late Ministerial Rate." Ten years after the selectmen were empowered " to abate Minister's taxes set to those who bring Certifi- cates of their Congregating otherwheres besides in this town, as they may think proper." Liberty was given Elder Rathborn (at the desire of Jas. Hart) "to preach in the meeting-honse at any time when they may not have occasion to make use of it them- selves." March, 1812, the town "allowed the Dis- senters from the Congregational Society the Privi- lege of occupying the Meeting-House on Week Days for Lectures; when the aforesaid Congregationals do not want to occupy the said house themselves."

A church was erected through the efforts of Colonel Goulding and Samuel Warren in West Auburn, next the burial-ground, in 1814. This was the Baptist

house of worship. When that society migrated to North Oxford, this building, bought by the War- ren Brothers, and moved to the site of their tan- nery, was used for business purposes till it was burned, abont 1863.

The Baptist Church in Sutton called a council of elders and delegates, who met April 9, 1815, and constituted the First Baptist Church of Ward, with eleven male and seventeen female members. Elder Pearson Crosby, of Thompson, Conn., preached the sermon text (Matt. 16: 18), and Elder Thomas L. Leonard, of Sturbridge, gave the right hand of fellow- ship to the new church. Deacon Jonah Gonlding, Samuel Warren, David Hosmer and several persons of the Jennison and Gleason families were original members. Elder Dwinel seems to have been the first pastor, afterward Elias McGregory, and Rev. John Paine was the preacher from 1830 till 1837, when the larger part of the church, which counted near one hundred members, were transferred to become the Baptist Church in North Oxford. Also in 1837 Rev. Jonah G. Warren was chosen to prepare the history of this church. The Oxford Church and congregation to-day are largely com- posed of Auburn families.

The Roman Catholic Church at Stoneville began as a mission in 1870. It is now under the pas- toral supervision of Father Boylen, who lives in Oxford. They have a neat sanctuary on the hill, with a fine view of the Holy Cross College in Worcester, distant less than two miles.

EDUCATIONAL. - In 1779 two hundred pounds were given for schooling, and the town divided into five squadrons or districts, "Each squadron to draw their money, and it to be a free school for the Town." The first committee chosen in 1780 were Jonathan Stone, Darins Boyden, Jesse Stone, John Prentice and Andrew Crowl. In November three thousand pounds were added to the sum granted last year for schooling. It must have been the depreciated currency of the day, for soon after thirty pounds became the annual appropria- tion. Who were the school-dames or masters then, we know not. Joseph Stone may have been one. In 1784 Ward refused to allot any part of the school-money "to be held in the Center for the sole purpose of teaching Large Scholars." Two years later the committee were seven in number, viz., James Hart, Jr., Joseph Dorr, Esq., Lieu- tenant Thomas Drury, Jonah Goulding, Levi Eddy, Deacon Ezra Cary and Abel Holman. The ap- portionment of the school-tax on the lands of non- residents in 1789 names the Sutton Squadron, Leicester Squadron, North and South Squadrons on Prospect Hill, Bogachoge and Deacon Stone's Squad- ron. November, 1790, Lieutenant Thomas Drury was annexed to the southeast squadron, provided said squadron shall erect their school-honse on the height of land south of Messrs. Cary & Green's

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Potash ; and a new squadron was formed; the families of Abel Holman, Richard Bartlett, Eliph- alet Holman aud Paul Thurston set off from the southeast district. In June of the next year the three western districts were consolidated, and prep- arations made to build a school-house. A little later forty pounds was the usual annual appro- priation. Like other towns fifty years since, a prudential committee looked after the school finances and a visiting committee attended to the literary attainments of teachers and pupils. The pastors have generally served with others on the School Committee, and the towu has a few times recognized their merit by placing ladies on the educational board. A report of the School Committee was accepted at town-meeting in 1843; but the earliest printed school report I have seen came out in 1851.

A school of a higher grade was held in the fall of 1875, whose pupils enjoyed the thorough instruction in High School studies of a Yale graduate, resident still in town. We have two hundred and forty children between five and fifteen years old, six school- districts, with seven schools; the Stoneville building, erected in 1872, housing two schools, with an annual appropriation of $1,300, added to which is the State school fund and the dog-tax.

Rev. Mr. Pond taught a private school some seven years in his own house. He fitted many young men for college, took rusticated collegians into his fam- ily, and, with wonderful diligence and versatility, heard lessons, directed his scholars, wrote sermons and articles for the press at the same time. He pre- pared a new arrangement of Murray's English Grammar. At times there were thirty or forty pupils. Hon. Albert G. Wakefield, of Bangor, Maine; Rev. Artemas Ballard, D.D., of St. Louis ; Virgil Gar- diner, from the South ; Mr. Burrill, of Providence, R. I .; and Rev. Gideon Dana were of those who studied here. Since Mr. Pond's departure select schools have at different times heen kept in the chapel.

Some of the elders here in their youth attended Leicester Academy, whose centennial was kept in 1884. At present our young people take advantage of the nearness aud excellence of Worcester's varied institutions of learning.

A paper-covered little book is still preserved with Jonathan Stone's autograph as owner in 1760. His son, Joseph Stone, Esq., who died in 1835, had a good library for the time. Among his varied capabilities he exercised the craft of a bookbinder. Traces exist of a social library about 1830; Joseph Stone, Abijah Craig, Oliver Baker and others heing share-holders. There was, too, a parish library in Rev. Mr. Pratt's day, of which he was custodian. Mr. William Craig willed to the town one thousand dollars, provided the town added another thousand to establish and main- tain a free public library, only the interest to be expeuded. He was a man eccentric in dress,

economical in his habits, of bright faculties, quick at repartee, an active Whig. He died in 1871. The library wasopened in October, 1872, with two hundred volumes, and was for several years in charge of Miss Hannah Green, at her residence; thence moved to an ante-room of the town hall. It has outgrown its present quarters. A portion of the library, mostly theological works, of the style read by our devout grandfathers, once belonged to Joseph Stone. The residue (fifteen hundred volumes) are a well-selected collection, diligently conned by the young people of Auburn. Miss Lucy P. Merriam is the trusty libra- rian. A catalogue was printed in 1885. We need for our library a copy of every book and pamphlet written in or about this town or its vicinity ; and then a commodious hall for their use, preservation and increase. The town also owns a large case, filled with law works and the public documents of the State.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

AUBURN-(Continued.)

MANUFACTURES .- In the last century every house- wife was skilled, like Solomon's virtuous womau, in seeking wool aud flax, and deftly handled the spindle and distaff. The whirr of the spinning-wheel and jar of the loom made the home music. On early rec- ords the potash of Dr. Green and Recompense Cary is named as the starting-point of a new road. An official document in 1794 mentions two grist-mills, four saw-mills and one fulling-mill. A wind-mill, too, caught the breezes upon Prospect Hill. Charles Richardson's mill utilized the water privilege, now called Pondville, known as Rice's mills fifty years ago. From Mr. Rice the property passed through several owners to Otis Pond, who changed the busi- uess from a saw and grist-mill to the making of yarn. Then, with his brother as partner, it became a sat- inet-mill. At this time, 1862, Mr. B. F. Larned took an interest in the business, which, at first with others, and then alone, he sustained till 1883. The Auburn Mill was widely known for its woolen goods, sold through Boston and New York commission houses. By a freshet causing the reservoir to give way, the mill was damaged in 1873. Mr. A. Henry Alden was drowned in the flume by the bursting in of the bulkhead gates June 18, 1879. A six-families tenement-house, office and store-house were built, and a set of cards put in, making five sets in the mill, in the spring and summer of 1880. Three times has the plant been wholly burned,-in 1865; August 25, 1870; and August 21, 1880. Each rebuilding was a marked improvement. A very pleasant festival and charitable gathering of towns-folk and friends from abroad, with a bright speech by Hon. John D. Washburn and a poem by Rev. E. Davis, celebrated

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AUBURN.

the completion of the new mill in the month of Feb- ruary, 1881. Mr. Larned sold the property in 1883 to L. J. Knowles & Brother. The mill is now managed under the firm of Kirk, Hutchins & Stoddard as the Auburn Woolen Mill.

The Drury family, for three generations, owned a grist and saw-mill at the outlet of the pond near the Southbridge and Stoneville roads. Colonel Alvah Drury built the house now Mr. Hilton's residence, and prospered in his business. The site afterward be- came known as Dunn's Mill. Albert Curtis and B. F. Larned bought the water privilege, and Dunn's shod- dy mill, owned by B. F. Larned, was burned, with a loss of over four thousand dollars, May 2, 1877. Mr. James Hilton carried on the same business, and his premises were burned in 1887, but immediately re- built and enlarged.

Dark Brook, the outflow of Eddy's Pond, at two points has turned the wheels of manufacturing in- dustry.

Plows, scythes, wooden-ware for farmers' tools and shoes were made here from 1820 to '40. Ichabod Washburn, the wealthy and liberal wire-maker of Worcester, served his apprenticeship with Nathan Muzzy, whose blacksmith-shop stood behind the church. He received his freedom suit of clothes, made by Mrs. Muzzy, at the expiration of his ser- vice.

In 1837 Auburn could show one woolen mill, a pa- per mill, a card factory, three shingle mills, a lath mill and a sash and blind factory. Daniel Haywood's paper mill, a four-story structure ou the stream above Stoneville, was swept away by a flood in 1856. John Warren & Sons carry on the tannery in West Au- burn. This industry has been successfully prose- cuted ou the same spot, and kept in the family since Jonah Goulding started that business nearly a cen- tury ago.

In 1834 Jeremy Stone began to improve the water- power on Young's Brook by erecting a brick mill and houses for the operatives. He died at the South be- fore his plans were completed, but the village at Stoneville marks his business foresight. Edward Denny, of Barre, next owned the property. About 1850 Mr. A. L. Ackley bought him out, changing the woolen to a cotton mill. John Smith, of Barre, took it in 1858, whose sons, C. W. and J. E. Smith, coined money by shrewd business operations in the war-pe- riod, from 1861 to '65. At C. W. Smith's death, a few years since, the mill lay idle awhile. Mr. George H. Ladd acted as superintendent till the last sale of the property and his removal to Clinton. Mr. Hogg, the carpet manufacturer at South Worcester, is present owner, the business-name being the Stone- ville Worsted Company, making yarn for the Worces- ter Carpet Mill.

When the Lynde Brook reservoir broke loose, the damage at the Stoneville dam and bridge cost the town alone three thousand dollars. The dwellings

of the operatives under the maple's shade, the neatly- kept pine grove on the near hillside, its height crowned by the Catholic Church and the public school, form as attractive a New England factory village as you may find.

The Darling Bros. (Messrs. D. W. & J. T.), con- tractors, reside on the Rochdale road in Auburn. Specimens of their skill, fidelity and success as builders are seen at the Polytechnic, Worcester, and public edifices at Ware and Springfield. Through the influence of James Alger, a veteran engineer on the Boston and Albany Railroad, some twenty of our young men are firemen and engineers on several rail- roads.

AGRICULTURE .- Rev. Peter Whitney writes of this town in 1793 : "The soil in general is fertile, rich and strong, suitable for orcharding and all kinds of fruit ; well adapted to pasturage and mowing, and produces large crops of rye, oats, wheat, barley, Indian corn and flax. It is not very rocky, but affords stone sufficient for fencing in the farms." And Major Gookin, a century before, noted the famous crops of Indian coru at Pakachoag, the Indian civil planta- tion, and translated the significance of the aboriginal word, the village named from "a delicate spring of water there."

I suppose wool-raising in the olden time was profit- ably pursued. Different ear-marks of the stock- owners are recorded by the town clerk. The minister's glebe counted its acres by the scores, and the good parson, like his congregation, was expert in using the plough, scythe and sickle. There must have been double the amount of woodland. In recent times the supply of railroad ties, and hundreds of trees cut clown for fuel, explains the lesser area of the forest. For a mile one rode along a shaded avenue a few years since on the Southbridge road ; alas! that the fact should be but a pleasant memory now. Some farms till belong to descendants of their first owners. Our yeomen quite generally are busied in supplying milk to the neighboring city. Mr. A. S. Wolf conducts a well-managed market produce farm, and finds a ready disposal for all he raises. He employs, winter and summer, a number of men, and his fruitful acres remind one of the Arlington and Belmont market- gardens. Other persons cultivate the small fruits and realize, we hope, the pecuniary profits a well-known novelist gave as his experience on the banks of the Hudson. The yearly harvest exhibition shows an attractive display of flowers, vegetables and fruit.

The Auburn Grange, No. 60, P. of H., was organized July 2, 1874, with twenty-three charter members. It now numbers over one hundred, and is in a flourish- ing condition. A few years since the grange spent a bright May-day, before Arbor Day was recognized, in the adornment of the public green by setting out thrifty young maples to grow beside the half a dozen lofty elms, the bequest to us of our thoughtful prede- cessors a century ago.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

We note some of the chief agricultural results in Auburn, found in the tables of the State census in 1885 for the year previous :

Milk, gallons. 250,716

Value of dairy products $47,164

Hay, straw and fodder. 30,927

Vegetables 19,391

Animal products. 9,152

Wood products 7,368

Poultry products 6,874

Aggregate of agricultural products. 8132,032

There were ninety-one farmers, with eighty-five ad- ditional farm laborers.

A sentence from the town's instructions to its rep- resentative, in 1787, might serve well as a grange motto: "The industrious husbandman, on whom this commonwealth will probably ever depend for its greatest strength." True of the United States to-day, though not as applicable to Massachusetts as when originally penned.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

AUBURN-(Continued.)

MILITARY AFFAIRS .- Military titles abound in the names of the first residents. Some had seen service in the French and Indian Wars. The commission of Comfort Rice as first lieutenant in the Third Com- pany of Foot, Micah Johnson, captain, in the regiment of militia in Worcester County, whereof John Chand- ler is colonel, signed by Governor Hutchinson, June, 1773, is yet preserved. Two companies marched from Worcester on the Lexington alarm, April, 1775. Cap- tain Timothy Bigelow led the minute-men. A few in his company and one certainly in Captain Flagg's were from this South Parish. The State archives con- tain the muster-roll of Captain John Crowl's com- pany from this place, twenty-six men in all. They were attached to Colonel Larned's regiment, and marched to Roxbury in the alarm of April, 1775. They were paid for a hundred miles' travel and from six to twelve days' service. Total amount allowed for this company and receipted for by their captain January 24, 1776, £28 2s. 73d. When the parish became a town its records attest its earnest loyalty to freedom, in offering good bounties for army recruits, in for- warding beef, grain and clothing to the soldiers in service. The following document is a sample:

To Capt John waight, Agent for Solder clothing for the county of Worcester, we the Selectmen of Ward have apprised and seut the follow- ing artikels, viz. :

28 shirts at 48s per shirt £67 4 0

14 pair of shoes 48s per pair .. 33 12 0

14 pair of Stockings 36s per pair

25 4 0

Total

£126 0 0

Ward, Nov. 30, 1778.

CHAS RICHARDSON

NATHAN PATCH

Select

JONATHAN CUTLER J

Men

The town also purchased five guns and ammunition.

There must have been a home company, as its officers were associated in 1780 with the town's Committee of Correspondence.

The part Ward took in Shays' Rebellion has been already told. October, 1796, a quarter of a pound of powder was allowed each soldier for the muster at Ox- ford that shall bear arms on said day. Next year the . records state, " Voted to give One Dollar to each of the men called for from the military Company in this town, who shall be Volunteers to fill the Levy ; also to such of the Cavalry and Artillery, who are inhab- itants of this Town, who may be detached from their respective Corps, in proportion to the Levy on the Infantry ; also that the town will make up the pay to each and every of said Soldiers, including whatsoever they shall be entitled to receive from the public equal to $10 per month they may serve, after they shall be called into actual service, consequent to said Levy."

The town's powder was stored in the attic of the church until a powder-house was built on the hill-top south of the old burying-place. Men still living, in their younger days trained with their townsmen on the Common, or went through the military evolutions in a field near Major Drury's house; marched to Lei- cester, Oxford or Worcester, joining other companies for regimental review. Gradually the military spirit (lied out in the piping times of peace, till the black war-cloud looming up on the Southern horizon sum- moned the citizen soldiery of the North. Auburn enlisted seventy-seven men ; three of these entered the navy. The Twenty-fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia received the most of these of any one regiment, but Auburn had soldiers also in the Fifteenth, Twenty-first, Thirty-fourth and Fifty-first, and scattered individuals in yet others. A few joined the Heavy Artillery. Three were killed; four more died of wounds or sickness in the hospitals. On the soldiers' monument, raised in 1870, are inscribed the names of fifteen soldiers, deceased. The little flutter- ing flags mark the resting-places of these and others since mustered out from life's march and bivouac.

John A. Logan Post, No. 97, G. A. R., was organized with thirty-six comrades and was largely efficient toward the erection of the soldiers' monument. But so many of its members left town that after three years the post disbanded. No uniformed soldier is met on our quiet streets ; the nearest approach to the stormy times of '63 is the distant boom of the holiday salutes of Bat- tery B in Worcester or the crack of the sportsman's rifle intent on shooting sly Reynard or a harmless rabbit. The grandson of the first pastor became dis- tinguished as Prof. Jacob Whitman Bailey at West Point. Would that one of our tall forest trees might stand as a flag-staff' on the Common to display on fit occasions the Stars and Stripes above the greenery of those towering elms.

CEMETERIES .- In January, 1775, a committee was chosen "to pick upon a buruing yeard." They re- ported "upon a Diligent and faithful tryal of yo

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AUBURN.

Ground near the Senter of the parish, the most Suta- ble place on the Rode from the meeting-house to ox- ford, on the Southerly Corner of Mr. Thomas Drury's Cleared Land," eleven rods each way, containing three-quarters of an acre. This old burying-ground joins the Common and is thickly planted with the memorial stones of our predecessors. The oldest bears the date April 13, 1777-the stone of Mrs. Deboralı Thurston, aged nineteen years. The epitaphs chroni- cle the family genealogies of the town to a large extent, as for forty years here was the only burial spot, and till 1846 the principal one. Our forefathers' tomb-stone poetry was usually alarming in its address to the living; but these lines on the stone of a four- years-old child answer darkly the mooted question, Is life worth living ?

When the archangel's trump shall blow, And souls to bodies join, What crowds shall wish their lives below Had been as short as mine.

An ancient graveyard beside the thronged city's street seems terribly out of place, only interesting to some Old Mortality of an antiquarian ; but in the country the open fields around, singing birds loving its tree-tops, wild flowers and creeping vines border- ing its stone walls, the sunset glow of a summer even- ing lighting up its glades, give a tranquil beauty and serenity better felt than told. The poet's matchless elegy could have been written only of a country church-yard.

For seventy years the graveyard near School-House Number Four has been the burial-place for the west part of Auburn. The first interment was that of Mr. Gleason in 1814. Colonel Goulding's tomb is here. A small enclosure on Prospect Hill near the Oxford line has one monument and several graves. It be- longed to the Cudworth family. The Burnap field, on land of Thomas S. Eaton, is where that family buried their dead, but the stones have been all removed.

The new cemetery, laid out in 1846, occupies about six acres midway from the church to the depot. A simple plinth and marble shaft, resting on a granite base, the soldiers' monument, crowns the crest of the slope opposite the gateway. For forty years this garden of the dead received the faithful care of, and nearly every grave was dug by, the sexton, John G. Stone, from whose broad acres this land was pur- chased. Our town name recalls the designation of that first extensive garden-cemetery, Mount Auburn, near Boston. As our necropolis has never been named, from its fair prospect over the near water to the dis- tant hills, let us designate this beautiful spot our Mt. Pisgah,

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 65

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