History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 15

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 15

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The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored to the French the fortress which New England valor had placed in English hands, and left the colonists to the long struggle which was in store for them, with their wily and cruel neighbors of the north; and the first war, after the settlement of the town, which arose to try the mettle of the inhabitants, was the French War,

in which hostilities broke out in 1754. I have already referred to Queen Anne's War of fifty years before. It is undoubtedly true that the protracted struggle of the English colonists with the French and Indians along our extended northern frontier, from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence to the forks of the Ohio, fur- nished the training-school in which was raised the generation of soldiers who fought the battles of the Revolution. In the French War Washington won his spurs, and many of the officers and privates who met the British regulars on Bunker Hill, or penetrated the thick forests of Canada and crossed the Saint Law- rence in canoes under the lead of Arnold and Mont- gomery, to attack Quebec, or joined in the attack on the Hessians at Trenton, or endured the pangs of famine and frost at Valley Forge, had also, twenty years before, rushed upon the defences at Louisbourg, or, under the command of Wolfe, struggled up the cliffs to the Heights of Abraham, or marched with Washington through the dense forests of Western Pennsylvania to the field of Braddock's defeat. To say that the record of this town in that long struggle was distinguished and honorable, is but to faintly praise where words of enthusiastic eulogy are appro- priate. In a period of nine years its population was more than decimated by the fatalities of that war. Such a record is of great and unparalleled significance, and imports that here resided a race of heroic men, whose martial virtues were not inferior to any that ever inspired the strains of the lyric muse. In 1757, the fortunes of England in America reached their lowest ebb). For more than two years, disasters had hnddled thick upon her arms. At Fort Du Quesne, at Oswego, at Fort William Henry and throughout the whole of the Saint Lawrence valley, an almost unbroken succession of defeats had reduced her pros- pects here to the verge of despair. And, at home, the gloom which settled on the face of affairs was -carcely less deep and rayless than that of one hun- dred years before, when the guns of the Dutch fleet were heard in the Thames. It was at this moment that the elder Pitt, the great commoner, seized the reins of power which fell from the nerveless grasp of the " Whig aristocracy." In less than four years he restored the military glory of his country to the pitch it had attained by the genius of Marlborough, and gave to England an influence in the politics of the world which she had not enjoyed since the days of Oliver Cromwell. The most brilliant of the series of victories by which these results were accomplished was the conquest of Canada. To the conquest of Canada no portion of the British people contributed so much as the province of Massachusetts Bay, and no portion of the people of this province contributed more of men and money, according to their numbers, than the people of the town of Grafton.

When we read the astounding fact that eighty of her sons out of a population of seven hundred and fifty died in this war, we feel the intense meaning of

1 Henry F. Wing, Esq.

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GRAFTON.

Colonel Barré's immortal speech in the House of Commons : "They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence ; have ex- erted a valor amid their constant and laborious indus- try, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior yielded all its lit- tle savings to your emoluments."

When we turn the leaf which embalms the deeds of this town in the War of the Revolution, we find equal cause for pride and exultation. Grafton sent forth no conspicuous leader to the councils, and furnished no battle-field in that great debate. She contributed no Washington, no Adams, no Warren, no Ward, and it was not here that-

The embattled farmers stood

And fired the shot heard round the world.

But no people in the colouies caught the echo of that shot with more quick and responsive ear. Before the sun had set on the 19th day of April, 1775, a full company of nearly one hundred men, with Rev. Mr. Grosvenor, their pastor, in the ranks, were in rapid march to the front. On every bloody field, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, the sons of this town dared or tasted death in the cause of independence. But the contest of the American colonies of Great Britain with the mother country was not specially distin- guished by the valor of the Continental troops. There was no deficiency in that respect, but there have been more remarkable instances of human courage and en- durance than any displayed in that war. The long contest of the Netherlands with the mighty arma- ments of Spain, forty-three years in duration, recorded in the glowing and eloquent pages of Motley, pre- sents an instance far more striking and wonderful of a brave people, in the sacred cause of liberty, main- taining an unequal contest through more than a gene- ration, and carrying it to a trinmphant issue against intrenched power and vast resources. It was not very wonderful that three million people, situated in a country of such resources as this, and remote from Europe, especially in alliance with one of the great powers of the earth, should be able to wrest their independence from the mother country, whose peo- ple were not completely united iu policy. But what is unexampled iu this great contest, what the file affords absolutely no precedent for, was the calm and conservative wisdom which marked all the councils of the revolt. The colonists were not revolutionists, indeed, but rather conservatives. They were not fighting to establish new reforms, but to preserve ancient liberties. They had no constitu- tions, in the sense in which we use the term, and yet in all their public utterances and state papers they perpetually refer to their constitutions, and ap- peal to the principles of those constitutions.

By their constitutions the people of this province meant the Magna Charta, the declaration of rights of 1688, and the bill of rights of 1689, and all that body of law found in the preambles of ancient statutes

and in the decisions of courts, whereby the liberties of Englishmen were declared and secured every- where. They believed those principles were em- bodied by necessary implication in the charter of 1629, and in the new charter of 1691. I cannot de- velop, and must not stop to dwell on this topic. They were a race of constitutional lawyers. Burke said of them : " In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, proba- bly, than in any other people of the earth." And Chatham, in 1775, thus characterized their public papers : " When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself I must declare and avow that in all my reading and observation-and it has been my favorite study-I have read Thucydides and have admired the master states of the world-that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclu- sion, under such a complication of difficult circum- stances, no nation or body of men can stand in pref- erence to the General Congress at Philadelphia."

Now, the same characteristics which marked the emanations of the greater bodies, and so much chal- lenged the admiration of the great statesman, will be found in less degree in the humble records of the proceedings of the New England towns. I have ad- verted to this subject to say that right here, in the volumes containing the proceedings of this town iu 1774 and '75, will be found undying evidence of the existence here of that "fierce spirit of liberty " which Burke discovered, coupled with the temperate wisdom and practical sagacity which commanded the applause of Chatham. A single illustration is all I can allow myself. I refer to the report of a commit- tee adopted by the town January 4, 1774, and having reference to a communication from Boston, sent out upon the occasion of the destruction of tea in Boston harbor. It is in these words: " The town of Grafton, taking into consideration the unhappy circumstances that this country are involved in at the present crisis, attempts being repeatedly made infringing upon our rights and privileges, which we consider justly alarm- ing to all the true friends of our happy constitution, which hath been so dearly purchased, and which we esteem to be our most invaluable interest and rights as Englishmen, which we have ever gloried in, more par- ticularly at the glaring injustice of the East India Company being allowed to send tea to America, while subject to a duty payable in America, which we view as subversive of our rights as Christians ; as subjects, and as loyal subjects of our most gracious King George, whose name and person we ever desire to view as sacred. Therefore, Resolved, as the people of this town, that any one individual, or any body of men, that shall encourage, aid or assist in importing

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

or receiving any such tea or any other article while subject to a duty, the sole purpose whereof is to raise money to appropriate to any sordid measure, or any use whatever contrary to our just rights of distrib- uting our own property wherewith God and Nature hath made us free, can but be viewed as criminal to our country, as well as to the mother state, and must be so viewed by us. Resolved, that this town are in duty bound to join with and assist our sister towns and colonies in this our common cause, so as we may be instrumental under God of handing down that liberty to our posterity which hath been kept so long inviolate and preserved by our worthy ancestors. Resolved, that the substance of the proceedings of the town of Boston and other towns in their respect- ive town-meetings (relative to said atfair), which have been published and come to our knowledge, are in our apprehension consistent with truth and our happy constitution, and we can but wish prosperity may attend all laudable stands, so that our glorious constitution may yet be handed down to posterity in- violate. But to adopt any measures where private advantage or sinister ends are apparently at the bot- tom, and who make this though ever so glorious a foundation for their avarice and emolument we cannot but must detest and abhor."

The syntax of this document will not bear exami- nation, but the record presents an interesting type of the class of the counsels that prevailed everywhere. It exhibits in the sons the same characteristics which predominated in the fathers who settled the town- clear, practical common sense, a people who knew their rights and the exact extent and limits and grounds of them ; a people who believed that liberty was not an abstraction, but inhered in a sensible ob- ject-a people who could not be surprised nor driven into vain excesses, and who proposed as their ances tors had done, to govern themselves, but by no means to commit society to any untried and dangerous the- ories of abstract rights, that rested not upon the solid basis of precedent. But our ancestors were not always right. What Emerson said of Concord is true of Grafton, " If the good counsel prevailed, the sneak- ing counsel did not fail to be suggested." You will find if you search the musty records, that while most of the men whose blood flows in your veins were stanch in the just cause, others of your ancestors, perhaps, were obstinate, obstructive and wrong- headed. If the question came up on paying the minute-men for the time they spent in learning the military art and for their accoutrements, you may find some of your kindred, whose names you would prefer not to see in that conspicuous eminence, sullenly pro- testing against the scheme, perhaps suspicious that it savored too much of " measures where private advan- tage and sinister ends were at the bottom." But Tories were exceeding scarce, and although I find an honored name of one who was cashiered as agent to procure recruits for the town, " because he was not

firm and friendly to the State," yet I believe he was restored within a few months. And you know that when the question of the adoption of the United States Constitution came up, the people of this town and vicinity, concurring with the mistaken views of many veteran patriots of the Revolution, rejected by a very large majority that Union which, in the next age, their posterity were destined so gloriously to de- fend. I have left myself no time, nor was it a part of my design, to enter upon any consideration of Graf- ton's relation to the War for the Union. If the record of fatalities did not reach the unparalleled extent of the old French War, the roll of your volunteers was swelled far beyond every requirement of the govern- ment. For nearly every eight men your quota called for, you furnished, out of the abundance of yonr patriotism, an additional man.

Your eminence in this particular received ample recognition from the Commonwealth, when its chief magistrate said, in measured words : " I feel bound in truth and justice to say that no other town appears to have contributed to the late war a larger proportion than yours of its treasures and its men." I am speak- ing to those who helped to make the record. I know how appropriate the theme is; but I could not ade- quately treat it. To what examples of ancient or modern valor could I refer to set in more striking light your own ? The mind reverts to Marathon; to Platea ; and to the pass in the Locrian Mountains, where the three hundred Spartans with their few allies, held at bay a million barbarians.

The literature and art of twenty-five centuries has invested these examples of heroism with imperish- able glory. No immortal literature has yet wrought its spell upon your deeds. The long arts of sculpture and painting have not familiarized the eyes of seventy generations with your achievements. Perhaps the conditions under which you and your comrades wrought and endured are not favorable to the repre- sentations of art, and the Achilles of the Civil War may never find his Homer. But I know of nothing in the quality of your valor, in the circumstances under which it was displayed, in the motives which actuated it, or in the results it achieved, to belittle it in comparison with the classic models of antiquity. The Greeks, trained in war from their infancy, on those renowned fields, confronted a foe formidable only in numbers, to preserve for a few precious decades a small tract of mountainous country, until their genius might create and transmit to other ages and other races a body of wonderful literature, monu- ments of unequaled art, and examples of politics and governments, of the highest interest to mankind. You fought without previous military training, against an equal foe, in the cause of human lib- erty, inspired with a lofty sentiment of national in- tegrity, and to the end, in the immortal language of Lincoln, "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, might not perish from the

Esch Seine melde

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GRAFTON.

minister's friend and active supporter in all good things.

It is also true of him that he has ever been a kind and generous friend to the poor, and has by his help- ing hand and wise and sympathetic counsels bright- ened many a life. It used to be said of him that "he would never have an unworthy man in the village." No saloon has ever found a roof to cover it in Saun- dlersville, and no corrupter of the people, a home.

While giving his time to the exacting demands of a large business, and caring like a father for the wel- fare of the place, Mr. Saunders always manifested an intelligent interest in public affairs. He has voted at every Presidential election since that of John Quincy Adams in 1824. In the palmy days of the old Whig party he acted with them, and his counsel was fre- quently sought. Later he became identified with the Republican party. All local enterprises of moment sought his advice and support. He was an advocate of public improvements in the town of Grafton, where he lived, and active in all movements to benefit it. He had a large influence in getting the Providence and Worcester Railroad through, taking a large amount of stock, giving land for a station and set- tling land damages for the company. He twice rep- resented the town with acceptance in the State Legis- lature, and served several terms as selectman, over- seer of the poor, trustee of the cemetery, etc .; was director of the Grafton Bank and Savings Bank ; also of Millbury Bank and Savings Bank ; was director also of Worcester Safety Deposit Co., and is now the oldest director in the Worcester Manufacturers' Mutual Insurance Co., being one of its organizers in 1855. The fact that he was frequently called upon to act as arhitrator shows that he was widely recognized as a man of intelligence and discrimination in all busi- ness affairs.

Mr. Saunders was married at South Deerfield, Mass., in 1825, to Miss Minerva Boyden, and three daughters were born to them. One, Emily B., married William H. Jourdan, now of Worcester ; another, Harriet M., became the wife of John D. Chollar, Esq., of the same city ; the third, Minerva, married Robert W. Taylor afterward of Providence. Mr. Saunders has three grandsons, viz .: William Saunders Jourdan, John Howard Chollar, Bradford Newcomb Taylor; one great-grandson, Harry Putnam Jourdan.

In 1867 Mr. Saunders married for his second wife Miss Margaret Read White, daughter of the late 1877, Mr. Rugg disposed of his interest to the other Deacon Washington White, of Grafton, who still, the | members, since which time the business has been most devoted of wives, imparts the charm of her presence to his beautiful home.

Changes have come to the village. The business is in other hands. New proprietors are running the mill. But though not enjoying the prosperity that once was his, Mr. Saunders can look out from the windows of his residence upon the surrounding ac- tivities, upon the mill he erected, upon the church he built, the trees he planted, and the beautiful vil-

lage he created, and believe that the place that bears his name will retain, long after he has gone, the marks of his formative hand. His influence will live on in what he has done for village improvement, and education and temperance and religion.

JASPER S. NELSON.

Jasper Stone Nelson, son of Josiah and Sophia (Goddard) Nelson, was born June 2, 1822, in the town of Shrewsbury, Mass, upon a farm still owned by the Nelson heirs, it having been in the possession of the family for the greater part of the last one hun- dred and twenty years.

The experiences of Mr. Nelson's early life were those of the farm and the district school, he attend- ing the latter more or less until he was eighteen years of age. This, with three months at Worcester Academy, was all that fell to his lot in the way of educational advantages. After leaving school he learned the trade of shoe-making from an elder brother, and until about twenty-three years of age divided his time between the farm and the bench.

Mr. Nelson's career as a manufacturer of boots 'and shoes began in Shrewsbury in the year 1845 and was marked hy a steady, uninterrupted growth and successful issue. The shop in which he began busi- ness was a plain building, ten by thirteen feet in dimensions, situated only a few rods from the place of his hirth. This building was subsequently enlarged to about twice its original size. To this place he took the stock of his own selection, and with the help of an elder brother prepared it for market, being his own salesman. Such was the beginning of a now large and flourishing industry, with its agents and branch houses all through the West and South.

In 1848 Mr. Nelson moved to what is now North Grafton and became associated with Mr. James S. Stone, of Boston, a native and former resident of Grafton. In 1850 Messrs. Stone & Nelson pur- chased a tract of land near the Boston and Albany station, and with it a building which forms part of the present establishment. November 1, 1857, Mr. Nelson bought out Mr. Stone's interest, continuing the business in his own name until January 1, 1869, when Mr. Geo. H. Rugg, a former employé, became a partner to the business. In 1873, Mr. Nelson's son, Charles H., was admitted to the firm, and January 1,

conducted under the firm-name of J. S. Nelson & Son.

The factory, which was originally thirty by forty feet, two stories high, has been enlarged from time to time to meet the requirements of a steadily increas- ing trade, until the present buildings have a capacity of two hundred and sixty-four by thirty feet, four stories high in which two hundred people find steady [ employment.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

For nearly forty years Mr. Nelson was in close con- tact and competition with business men all over the country, yet no dishonorable act or suspicion of unfairness was over charged against him ; his charac- ter for strict integrity stood unchallenged to the end. " His word was as good as his bond." As a citizen, Mr. Nelson was public-spirited and patriotic, con- cerned for the welfare of both his home and his country. He was not, however, ambitious for polit- ical honors, though he shrank from the performance of no known duty.

During the War of the Rebellion he was one of a special committee who, with the Board of Selectmen of the town, were entrusted with the management of its military operations, in which capacity he rendered valuable service and was among the foremost to assist, by word and deed, those who gave themselves to fight the country's battles, and many a soldier and soldier's family became the recipients of his practical sympathy and generosity.

Mr. Nelson was twice elected and served the town as a selectman, and in 1870-71 represented his district in the State Legislature.

October 31, 1844, Mr. Nelson married Mary E., daughter of Gardner Wheelock, who bore him three children-two daughters, Emma Elizabeth and Carrie Gilman, both of whom died before reaching their majority, and a son, Charles Horatio, who, upon the death of the father, succeeded to the business, which, under his wise and vigorous management is still (1889) growing and prosperous. Brought up to labor, Mr. Nelson's sympathies were with the laborer, and the men in his employ both loved and respected him, for they felt that in him they had a friend and hene- factor, so that in the establishment of which he was the head, serious differences between employer and employé were practically unknown.

For whatever was false and degrading Mr. Nelson entertained a wholesome contempt and his sympathies were strongly on the side of temperance and moral reform. In him the Baptist Church of the village found a firm friend and generous supporter, and was greatly encouraged and helped by his regular attend- ance upon public worship-from which he seldom absented himself when in health-as also by his liberal contributions of money.

To know Mr. Nelson at his best was to know him as a friend, and those thus favored-and they were many, for he was a man to attract others-found in him at all times, and under all circumstances, the courteous gentleman, the genial companion and sym- pathetic helper. He was a man of strong attach- ments, loyal to his friends and eminently domestic in his habits ; he loved his home and was not easily enticed away from its luxury and comforts.

In person Mr. Nelson was a man of fine physique and commanding presence, blessed with a vigorous constitution, and until the closing year of his life he enjoyed excellent health. He died October 22, 1884,

while yet upon the rising tide of a prosperous busi- ness career, beloved and mourned by all who knew him.

ERASTUS FISHER.

The little town of Killingly, Conn., was the birth- place of the subject of this sketch, as it had been the home of his ancestors for several generations. To this place his great-grandfather, who bore the scrip- tural name of Barzillai (born January 6, 1730; died January, 1813), came in 1769 with his wife, Lydia Dexter (whom he married October 3, 1754). They were blessed with nine children, the four oldest of whom rendered valuable service in the War of the Revolution. One of the sons, Nathan, was taken prisoner, and died on the "Jersey " prison-ship. John, the eldest (born December 29, 1755; died .June 9, 1843), the grandfather of Erastus, served during the entire war. On the farm now owned by John Williams he brought up his seven children, the second of whom. Laban (born January 1, 1783; died July 3, 1860), was the father of four children, of whom Erastus was one. If it be true, as Oliver Wendell Holmes has said, that "the education of a child should begin an hundred years before he is born," the present descendants of Erastus have much to be grateful for in their inheritance from his mother. Abigail Dexter (born April 2, 1789; died July 26, 1862) was a direct descendant of Rev. Gregory Dex- ter, who came from England in 1644, who was an in- timate friend of Roger Williams, and came to this country at his solicitation, and who became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence, R. I. On the old homestead farm these parents reared their chil- dren. Both father and mother were earnest, devoted Christians, not only professors but possessors of true religion. Erastus (boru November 21, 1810; died April 20, 1880) was sent to the public school, and in his good home he early formed those habits of indus- try, and acquired those moral characteristics, by which he was afterward so well known.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 15

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464