History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 66

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 66

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THE OLD TAVERN .- The residence of Otis Pond, at the Common, is perhaps as old and as little changed as to the interior, as any house in town. This was the tavern, with swinging sign-board between the two supporting timbers, suggesting accommodation for

man and beast. It was kept by mine hosts Drury, Sturtevant, Cary and Wiser, and not on a temperance platform, as stories of the older inhabitants assure us. Here reined up the stages from Worcester to Norwich, which, in 1831, left Worcester every Wednesday and Saturday at 3 A.M., the passengers reaching Norwich the same afternoon, and, by the steam packet "Fanny," New York the next morning. The summer arrange- ments for 1838 read : Monday, Wednesday and Friday the stage leaves for the Norwich boat at 6.30 A.M., but on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday on the arrival of the first train from Boston. The Southbridge stage also passed through this town. A town-meeting, awaiting a committee's report, would take a recess at the inn so accessible. The first parish-meeting convened there, and its best room, I fancy, witnessed Sabbath worship, till the church was ready for use. Dr. Pond speaks of a memorable ball at the tavern, which was the precur- sor of a great revival. The post-office and store were at the Common, but years since left the geographical centre of the town for its travel centre-the depot. But the sign "Groceries " remains,-an epitaph on business departed, perhaps capital buried beyond resurrection. Like an old palimpsest, too, it carries an older inscription of the store-keeper's name, easily decipherable beneath the last-painted word.

PERSONAL SKETCHES .- We glance at a brief out- line of some whose lives have shaped our local his- tory. All that occurred before 1773 belongs to Wor- cester's chronicles or the other mother towns. Yet a word of some then active where now lie our farms may not prove amiss.

September 17, 1674, Rev. John Eliot and his coad- jutor, Major Daniel Gookin, visited Pakachoag (Lin- coln's "History of Worcester" gives thirteen ways of spelling that name), preached and appointed civil officers among the Indians. John Speen, a Natick convert, had already preached and taught here two years. Gookin locates this Indian village seven miles from Hassanamesit,-i. e., Grafton,-and three miles from the Connecticut Path, which led west- ward. That way ran just north of Lincoln Square, in Worcester. Wattasacompanum, as ruler among the Nipmucks, aided Eliot and Gookin. But next year the wily Philip seduced the natives from their loyalty to the English, when they burned deserted Qninsiga- mond, and were present at the Brookfield disaster. Wattasacompanum, or Captain Tom, as he is called, paid the penalty of his weakness at his execution on Boston Common. Matoonas, who had been chosen constable at Packachoag, met a similar fate.

Col. Timothy Bigelow, who served in the French and Indian Wars and led Worcester's company of minute-men on the Lexington alarm, was born in what was Worcester, but soon became included in Ward. His beautiful memorial column on Worces- ter Common records his soldierly service.

Rev. Wm. Phips, of the colonial Governor Sir Wm. Phips line, lived near the Oxford bound-

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ary, east of Prospect Hill. Born at Sherborn and a graduate of Harvard College in 1746, he preached at Douglas till dismissed in 1765. We find no trace of him as a minister here, but he was active in church, precinct and town matters, a capable man and a firm patriot. His daughter Sukey married Wm. Craig and was the mother of Abijah and William Craig and their as peculiar sister, Miss Patty. Mr. Phips died in reduced circumstanens at Oxford in 1798.

A resolution passed at town-meeting in 1787 rings out its sweeping " Woe unto you lawyers !" Never- theless, eveu in those troublous days, oue of the most useful and honored citizens was the llon. Joseph Dorr, born in Mendon, graduated at Har- vard, 1752. Leicester and Brookfield also claim him as a resident. His services are conspicuous on our annals from 1786 to 1795. Having assisted in fram- ing the State Constitution and filled already the posi- tion of State Senator, he was exceedingly valuable here in drafting petitions for clemency to those en- gaged in Shays' Insurrection, and was sent as the town's intercessor to lay their appeal before the Gov- ernor and Council. His youngest son, Edward, born in Ward, was a large land-owner in Louisiana and died there. Two older sons became eminent in mer- cantile and financial circles in Boston. Joseph Dorr held the office of justice of the Court of Common Pleas twenty-five years and was judge of Probate for Worcester County eighteen years. He died at Brook- field in 1808.

Deacon Jonathan Stone, of the third generation from Deacon Simon Stone, of Watertown, the immi- grant ancestor and the third successively named Jon- athan, came from Watertown about 1753, and settled on lands then in Leicester. In 1757 he and others asked to be joined to Worcester, which took place next year. Still later his acres fell into the new parish, soon becoming the township of Ward. His descendant, Emory Stone, Esq., owns the ancestral possessions, the venerable homestead standing till within forty years. Jonathan Stone's name oceurs as owner of pew No. 47 in the Old South Church, Worcester, in 1763. He marched with Captain Bige- low to Cambridge, April, 1775, his son, Lieutenant Jonathan, going with Captain Flagg. Most of the family name here now are descended from Deacon Jonathan. He was active in the organization of the church and served as its first deacon. As appears in the original plan of the edifice, he bought pew No. 15, on the right of the pulpit, and paid the best price (sixty pounds) of any proprietor. The school District where he lived is named as Deacon Stone's District. After his day that section was known at one time as New Boston. Old family Bibles record his three marriages and the goodly array of his nine sons and daughters. He lived to be over eighty years and his stone stands near the cemetery wall close by the chapel.

His son, Joseph Stone, Esq., has been already

spoken of. As teacher, surveyor, bookbinder, and even occasional printer, he was variously and largely useful. Fond of reading and study, he gathered quite a library, and the annotations in his pamphlets and al- manacs afford many a desired fact to the antiquary. Spec- imens of hymns and tunes he composed are preserved. In 1793, with Abraham Wood, he published a singing- book, which circulated widely. The town records, in his clear chirography are a feast to the eye and a de- light to the investigator. Some of our elders remem- ber the cloaked figure of this aged worshipper at church. He had been often chosen to public office, and faithtully discharged every trust. He outlived his wife sixteen years, and died childless, at the age of seventy-nine, February 22, 1835. He gave some of his property to Bangor Seminary, and a memoir of him was written by Dr. Enoch Pond.

Jonah Goulding settled in the west part of the town, coming thither from Grafton. He became noted as the captain of the Ward company, that joined Shays' forces. One Boyden was the lieutenant. After the rebellion collapsed he was arrested at his home and confined forty days in Boston Jail. His business was that of a tanner, and he built the mansion occupied by his grandsons, the Messrs. Elbridge and John Warren. He filled the place of school committee- man and selectman. Naturally firm in purpose, keen in judgment and outspoken in speech, he acted with emphatic earnestness. He was the principal mover in the formation of the Baptist Church, and its life- long strong pillar. He died in 1826.

Rev. J. G. Warren, D.D., his grandson, and son of Samuel and Sally Goulding Warren, born September 11, 1812, fitted for college at Leicester Academy and graduated at Brown University, 1835, Newton Theol- ogical Institute, 1838. He was ordained at North Oxford, September, 1838, and had pastorates at Chicopee and North Troy, N. Y .; but his chief ser- vice was done as a secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union from 1855 to 1872. At a critical period he filled this position with marked capacity and success. He retired in enfeebled health, and died in Newton, February 27, 1884. He was a trustee of Brown University and Newton Theological Institute.

For seventy years and four generations the Drury family were important persons ; but none of the name are now resident. They owned a large estate, at one time two hundred and fifty acres, reaching from the church site well up on Pakachoag. Thomas Drury, the elder, probably came from Framingham. His name appears, in 1772, on the Worcester records among those eligible for jury duty. His grave-stone dates his death November 3, 1778, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. His son, Lieut. Thomas, had gone forth with Captain Bigelow's minute-men on the Lex- ington alarm. He deeded to the town, in 1781, the land around the church, two and one-half acres ; im- proved the water-power, long known as Drury's Mills, and died, aged ninety-one, in 1836. His daughter,

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Phebe, married, in 1799, Rev. Z. S. Moore, then pas- tor in Leicester. Soon he became a professor at Dartmouth College, then the second president at Wil- liams, and died while first president of Amherst Col- lege. She is well remembered as a lady of fine char- acter and dignity, a widow many years, and at her death her property was left to Amlierst College.

Major Drury, often named as Thomas, Jr., well sustained the family reputation. His residence, from its high location, commands fine views to the north and east, from Cherry Valley across the southern part of Worcester. Rev. Mr. Davis owned the place re- cently, and the old-time hospitable mansion is now owned and occupied by Mr. John J. Holmes. The worthy major's twin daughters, Almira and Caroline, greatly resembled each other, occasioning amusing mistakes of personal identity. Miss Caroline married Rev. M. G. Pratt, for twenty years pastor of the Con- gregational Churchi.

Colonel Alvalı Drury (each generation has a sepa- rate military title) showed remarkable business enterprise. He built the house just above his mills, now Mr. Hilton's, and was much relied on bv his townsmen for his capability and public spirit. He died in his prime, the result of an accident in his mill, and with the removal of his family that well known and oft-spoken name passed out of Anburn annals.

For so small a town, Ward, in its early days, was favored with skilled physicians. Dr. Thomas Green, from Leicester, settled here, probably at the time of Dr. Campbell's removal. Dr. Green had served as surgeon's assistant during the Revolution. He was town clerk in 1784-85. This branch of the Green family, for a century and a half, have manifested aptitude for the study and practice of the healing art, which Dr. Thomas followed in Ward for twenty-five years. He died in 1812, and was succeeded in his profession by his half-brother.

Dr. Daniel Green, also of Leicester, was born November 9, 1778, a son of Thomas Green, and grandson of Rev. Thomas Green, a noted physician and surgeon, as well as pastor of the Baptist Church in Leicester. Dr. Green . was of the sixth generation of those who came to Massachusetts from England in 1630. About 1811 he established himself in Ward, and for over fifty years was the esteemed and suc- cessful physician, with a practice extending into all the neighboring towns. A man of excellent judgment, with keen powers of observation, and integrity of purpose, he was the trusted practitioner till over eighty years of age. He was an active worker in the anti-slavery cause in its earlier days, as well as an earnest advocate of temperance. He married, Jannary 13, 1814, Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph Emerson, of Hollis, N. H. June 1, 1861, he died, aged eighty- three years. "He was closely identified with the best interests of the town through all these years, and is remembered accordingly." 13

John Mellish, Esq., was born at Dorchester in 1801, came to Auburn in 1839, was a justice of the peace thirty-five years, hield the office of school com- mittee-man until advanced in years, having held the same position in Oxford and Millbury, and was em- ployed as school-teacher, generally in the winter season, for many years. He took the census of Auburn in 1840 and 1850. His son, Jobn H., graduated at Amherst College in 1851; Andover Seminary, 1854; was ordained at Kingston, N. H., February 14, 1855; is now preaching at North Scitnate, R. I. Another son, David B., learned the printers' trade; became an expert reporter and sten- ographer, in New York City; had an office in the Custom House, was elected Representative in Congress and died while filling that post in 1874 at Washing- ton, D. C. A daughter, Mary Louisa, married Rev. Franklin C. Flint, of Shrewsbury, and died in 1881.

The Eddy family have held a prominent place in town for a hundred years. A recent death removes this landmark, and the widow and children have migrated. A boy, Samuel, is the ninth in successive generations bearing that name.

These then form the annals of our quiet neighbor- hood. Less in area and population than places ad- jacent, less of the factory element and more of the yeoman's toil, Auburn follows the even tenor of her way. Its century and a decade of municipal life have been in general uneventful years, aloof from the swirl and roar of the city's whirlpool, yet growing, though slowly. In other States the name Auburn marks thriving cities; here it best comports with rural scenes, Still-life one might disdainfully count this, if restless and ambitious as most Americans are. But a town so accessible to Worcester will some day share its growth, and number residents by thousands. Upon the creditahle past may our citizens plan for and attain future thrift, growth and the common weal.

CHAPTER XXXV.

ASHBURNHAM.

BY EZRA S. STEARNS, A.M.

ORIGINALLY the town of Ashburnham included about one-third of each of the adjoining towns, Ashby and Gardner. It is situated in the northeast corner of Worcester County, and is bounded on the north by New Ipswich and Rindge in New Hampshire; on the east by Ashby, in Middlesex County, and by Fitch- burg ; on the south by Westminster and Gardner, and on the west by Winchendon. Since 1792, except the addition of two farms, the gift of Westminster, the boundaries and area of the township have remained unchanged. The present area is about twenty-four thousand five hundred acres, including about one

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thousand five hundred acres of ponds and reservoirs. Situated in the line of the water-shed between the Connecticut and Merrimack Valleys, the course of numerous streams is outward ; the only waters flowing into the town are a few small brooks which have their source in Rindge and New Ipswich on the north. There are eight natural ponds in the town ; four are tributary to the Connecticut and four to the Merri- mack River. Here the Souhegan and Squannacook and important branches of the Nashua and Miller's Rivers have their source. The altitude exceeds that of the surrounding country on the east, south and west. The summit on the line of the Chesline Rail- road, one and one-half miles northwest of station at South Ashburnham, is one thousand and eighty-four feet above tide water, while the old burial-ground on Meeting-House Hill exceeds the summit by two hun- dred feet. The rounded form of Great Watatic on the dividing line between Ashburnham and Ashby, towers to the height of one thousand eight hundred and forty- seven feet. In the north part of the town are several lenticular hills with ronnded outlines andarable to the summit. These remarkable acenmulations of hill are also found in Rindge, Ashby and Gardner, but only a small proportion of Ashburnham falls within the area of this glacial drift. The soil is that common to the hill towns of Worcester County. When placed in comparison it is stubborn and rocky, yet generally arable and productive. The subsoil is clay retentive of moisture, and numerous springs gushing from the hill-sides are the perennial source of brooks and rivu- lets winding through the valleys, and supporting the crystal lakes nestled among the surrounding hills. The fauna and flora of the locality are topics discussed in the general history of the county.

Lunenburg, including Fitchburg and a part of Ashby, and Townsend, including a more considerable part of Ashby, were originally granted 1719, and within those grants numerous settlements were made in rapid succession. For several years the territory at the west of the new settlements was unbroken, and the future town of Ashburnham remained the border of the wilderness on the line of the settlements. In 1735 six grants of land, containing three thousand eight hundred and fifty acres, were located within the present township, and are minutely described in the "History of Ashburnham," recently published. Also in 1735, and while these individual grants were being located and surveyed, the General Court made grants of several townships to the surviving soldiers or the heirs of those deceased who served in the expedition to Canada in 1690. The companies from Dorchester, Ipswich, Rowley and other towns each received the grant of a township, and preserving at once the names of the towns in which the soldiers resided and the military service in which they had engaged, the new grants which were located in this vicinity were called Dorchester Canada (now Ashburnham), Ipswich Canada (now Winchendon), and Rowley Canada (now

Rindge). The township of Dorchester Canada was surveyed in January, and the grant confirmed by the General Court June 1, 1736. For nearly twenty years and until the date of incorporation, the government of the township was proprietary. In accordance with the conditions imposed by the General Court, three sixty-thirds were reserved in equal shares for the first settled minister, for the ministry and for the support of public schools. The remainder was divided from time to time equally among the sixty proprietors, who individually made sale of their land to speculators and to settlers.

The early roads and mills and the first meeting- house were ordered and controlled by the proprietors, and by them the call was extended to the first settled minister. Between 1736 and 1744 considerable pro- gress was made in the settlement. A saw-mill was built in 1738, and in 1739 or 1740 the first meeting- house was erected. The number of families residing in the township during these years is not known, and the names of only a few of the settlers have been preserved in the records. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War two houses were fortified, but before the close of the year 1744 the settlement was deserted. During the ensuing five years there were no meetings of the proprietors, and no family re- mained within the township.

In 1748 active hostilities between England and France were suspended, but during that and the following year parties of Indians, accompanied by French soldiers, continued to menace the exposed and poorly-defended line of the settlements. The northern part of Worcester County was wholly deserted, or continually in a state of alarm and anxiety. Not until 1750 did a feeling of security invite an occupancy of the frontiers. One by one the hardy pioneers founded homes in the town, and through the efforts and encouragement of the proprietors, the settlement of this town slowly increased until the return of peace opened the door to an increasing tide of immigration to the towns in this vicinity. It appears that during the first twenty years of effort and danger, dating from 1735, there were a considerable number of tem- porary residents in this town, and that among these, on account of the insecurity of the times, there were not over a half-dozen families who settled here pre- vious to 1755 and became permanent inhabitants of the town.

Deacon Moses Foster, of Chelmsford, and James Colman, of Ipswich, cleared land and built houses in the northeast part of Dorchester Canada previous to the permanent renewal of the settlement. The sites of these early homes are now in Ashby, having been included within the limits of that town when incorporated in 1767. In times of expected danger they removed their families to Lunenburg, and prose- cuted their labor in this town with many interruptions. About 1750 Deacon Foster removed to the centre of tbe town, and subsequently was an inn-holder many

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years. He died October 17, 1785, aged ninety-four years. Mr. Colman was a prominent citizen, and was a member of the first Board of Selectmen. He con- tinned to reside at the scene of his early labor in this town, but, after 1767, he was a citizen of Ashby, where he died Angust 15, 1773. Elisha Coolidge removed from Cambridge, 1752, and settled at Lane Village. He was a mill-wright, and a useful citizen. He died August 29, 1807, aged eighty-seven years. Jeremiah Foster, from Harvard, and a native of Ipswich, removed to this town with his family in 1753, and settled on the Gamaliel Hadley farm. He was a man of character, and influential in the new settlement. He died December 12, 1788, aged seventy-eight years. Next in order appear John Bates, Zimri Heywood and Benjamin Spaulding, an enterprising trio in the northeast part of the town, who were subsequently included in Ashby. Enos Jones, from Lunenburg, at the age of nineteen years, settled on a farm in the north part of the town, on the Rindge road, which still perpetuates a name that remains prominent in the annals of Ashburnham. Omitting mention of several families that removed from town after a few years' residence, to the settlement was added Jona- han Samson, a native of Middleborough, who removed from Harvard in 1762, and settled on the Merrick Whitney farm. He was a useful citizen, and late in ife he removed to New Hampshire, where he died it an advanced age. Ebenezer Conant and Lieuten- int Ebenezer Conant, Jr., from Concord, settled near Rice Pond in 1763. Both died in this town. Their lescendants have won a merited distinction in several scholastic callings. In the midst of these arrivals several German families settled in the eastern part of the town, in a locality which still bears the familiar appellation of "Dutch Farms." Soon after their arrival in the colony, and while temporarily living hear Boston, Henry Hole, Christian William White- man, Jacob Schoffe, Simon Rodamel, Peter Perry, John Rich and John Kiberling, in 1757, purchased one thousand acres of land, and early the following year removed hither, except Peter Perry, whose name loes not again appear. At the same time, purchasing and of them and locating among them, came other Germans, Jacob Constantine, Jacob Selham, Andrew Windrow, Henry Stack and Jacob Barkhardst, while John Oberlock and Philip Vorback settled near the site of Cushing Academy. A few years later Jacob Vilker settled on the farm still owned by his descend- ints. These were born in Germany, and nearly all of hem were married in their native land. They were educated, intelligent people, and in full sympathy vith the settlement in religion and in batred of yranny. By assimilation and intermarriage, in lan- guage and manner of living they quickly became qual and common factors in the body politic, and in social relations. No traces of caste, or prejudice of ace, appear in the records or the traditions of the own. In the second and subsequent generations the

name of Hole was written Hall; Kiberling or Kib- linger became Kibling; the Oberlocks assumed the name of Locke; Rodamel was changed to Rodimon, and later to Dimond, while Windrow was Anglicized in Winter. Atter the Revolution, in which they manifested a conspicuous patriotism, members of the second generation of several of these families removed to Northern New Hampshire.

Among the non-resident proprietors, who were most active in forwarding the settlement, appear many names familiar in the annals of a former century. Timothy Tilestone, of Dorchester, was the first peti- tioner for the township and for several years a rul- ing spirit of the organization. He was ably sup- ported by Judge Joseph Wilder, of Lancaster, the Sumners, of Milton, and by Benjamin Bellows and Edward Hartwell, of Lunenburg. The fortunes of the second or permanent settlement of the town were supported and encouraged by Richard and Caleb Dana and Henry Coolidge, of Cambridge, Colonel Oliver Wilder and the brothers, Joseph Jr., and Captain Caleb Wilder, of Lancaster, Jona- than Dwight and Hezekiah Barber, of Boston, Rev. John Swift, of Framingham, Hon. Isaac Stearns, of Billerica, and many others whose association with these primitive affairs of the town adorn the early pages of its history.

Ashburnham, hitherto known as Dorchester Canada, was incorporated February 22, 1765. The proprietors and inhabitants in a joint petition for incorporation, expressed a desire that the town be called Ashfield, but the General Court, with an accommodating regard for an assumed prerogative of the royal Governor in the act of incorporation, left a blank, in which Gov- ernor Bernard caused to be written the euphonious name of Ashburnham in honor of an English earl.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 66

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