History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 9

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 9

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He preached as a candidate for the first time in Upton the second Sunday in June, 1795, and received a call from the church to be their pastor the following December. The town assembled on the 31st of the same month to see if they would concur with the church in giving him a call to settle with them, and the result is seen on the records of the town as follows: " Voted, unanimously, to unite with the church in calling Mr. Benjamin Wood to the work of the ministry in this place, and to give him two hun-

dred pounds for a settlement, and eighty pounds annually for encouragement and support to settle with ns."

His reply was given in the affirmative the follow- ing March, and he was ordained and installed on the 1st day of June, 1796. Rev. Samuel Wood, D.D., of Boscawen, N. H., delivered the ordination sermon ; Rev. Isaiah Potter, of Lebanon, N. H., gave the charge to the pastor ; and Rev. John Crane, of Northbridge, the right hand of fellowship. He succeeded Rev. Elisha Fish, who had been settled with this church forty-three years. After Mr. Wood had preached fif- teen years, finding his salary inadequate for his sup- port, an additional settlement was made upon him and he was paid $400 annually.

During the following year he married Betsey Dustan, a descendant of the famous Hannah Dustan, of Haver- hill, Mass. Their union was blest by a family of eight children-six daughters and two sons-whose names were as follows : Betsey, Palmer, Fanny, Philena, Samuel Willard, Judith Maria, Lue Ann and Hannah F., who is the widow of Colonel David C. Wood, of Upton, and is the only one now alive.

Five of Mr. Wood's children made for themselves homes in Upton. Betsey married and went to Holden to live, Judith Maria to Westboro', and Lue Ann to Boston. Several of them became members of the church, and all were highly respected citizens of the town. Samuel Willard settled in Upton; died February 10, 1838, twenty-seven years of age, leaving a widow and one daughter. Lue Ann, wife of Clark B. Wood, of Boston, died about forty-five years of age, leaving a husband and three daughters. The other members of the family lived to an advanced age, and left children and children's children after them. Early in life Mr. Wood was interested in Free Masonry and was a member of Solomon's Temple Lodge of Uxbridge.

He was deeply interested in everything that con- cerned the welfare of the town. He served one term Representative to the General Court, and several years one of the Superintending School Committee.

His great province, which acquired him his fame, was preaching. He had all the qualifications of a fine pulpit orator. He was an able theologian, with a commanding presence, easy and graceful in manner, possessing a voice of rare excellence that charmed his hearers, and made him one of the most popular preachers in all the region round about. In the Harmony Association, of which he was a member, he commanded the highest respect, and was greatly be- loved, being affectionately and reverently called by them "Father Wood."

He was not ouly a pleasant speaker, but a power- ful sermonizer. During his ministry he witnessed eight seasons of special outpouring of the Spirit, and admitted four hundred members to the church.

He was apt and brief on all occasions, and was specially sought to officiate at weddings and funerals.

1 By Mrs. M. A. Stoddard.

. AM.R.

Bany Wood /

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5 5 L'anen

919

UPTON.

June 25, 1835, when the town was a hundred years old, he delivered the centennial address,-the rec- ords say, "in a strain of lofty and touching eloquence." This address, his ordination sermon and the first one he preached after his ordination, his farewell to the old meeting-house and the dedica- tion of the new, with numerous other sermons, which were printed soon after they were written, are now preserved in a bound volume in the Upton Town Library.

He lived with the beloved wife of his youth and the mother of his children nearly fifty years. After her decease, September 16, 1845, he married Miss Almira Howe, who was a devoted wife to him during the remainder of his life, a space of about three years. He was well preserved physically and mentally, and able to preach till within a short time of his death.

He had preached in the old meeting-house more than half a century when the society began to discuss the need of a new one. He was very anxious to keep the church and society united and to see them located in a new edifice while he lived, and was gratified in the consummation of his hopes early in January, 1849, by the dedication of a large and com- modious house of worship by a church and society in thriving condition. At the sale of pews soon after its completion there was a call for more pews than there were pews for sale. He did not preach long in the new church. His health began to fail. He preached his last sermon the last Sunday in March.

He was very fond of singing, and took great interest in that part of divine worship. During his last sickness he sent for the choir to come to his room that he might once more listen to their voices in a hymn of praise.

They assembled at his bedside and sung, at his request, in his favorite tune, "Concord "-

" The hill of Ziou yields A thousand sacred sweets," etc.

The love of his people was manifested in his last days, when they formed a procession and marched by the open door of his sick-room to take a last fond look of their much-loved pastor. The strong attachment be- tween him and his people was mutual.

He died April 24, 1849, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and fifty-third of his ministry. His funeral sermon was preached by Rev. H. A. Tracy, of Sutton. The inscription on his monument in the village cemetery sums up his life in the following touching tribute :-

" His works are his monument,

The affection of his people his epitaph, His life of duty and devotion his obituary."

L. L. WARREN.

L. L. Warren was born near Upton, August 2, 1808. His father, Major Eli Warren, a man of ster- ling worth and generons spirit, had been for many years identified with the interests of Upton, and had

given himself, with untiring energy, to everything that pertained to the public weal.

Partaking of this nature, the son, after completing his education at Amherst Academy, entered into business relations with his father, and prosecuted this vocation industriously for ten years.

In 1835 Mr. Warren married Mary A. Wood, of Upton, and soon afterward moved to Kentucky to secure the advantages held out by the rapid immi- gration pressing down the Ohio Valley. Before starting West, he had resolved to locate at St. Louis, but during his journey met a gentleman who gave him a glowing description of Lonisville's future prospects, and urged him to alter his plan. Follow- ing this suggestion, he stopped at Louisville, which was then but little more than a village, and, after investigating the advantages offered, began the shoe business with a small capital. This business he con- tinned uninterruptedly and prosperously for forty- eight years. His energy and prudence in business affairs soon established for him an enviable reputa- tion as a safe financier, and marked him as a success- ful merchant.

During the existence of State banks Mr. Warren was, for several years, a director in the Northern Bank of Kentucky. In 1864 he organized the Falls City Bank, and, as president for twenty years, man- aged its affairs with his usual ability and success.

In the midst of absorbing business engagements, he took a deep interest in religious and educational affairs, and an earnest consecration of time, labor and means to their advancement characterized his entire life. His early taste for the advancement of educational interests clung to him through his long career. He represented his ward in the School Board of Louisville a number of terms, and for ten years, as chairman of the Finance Committee, his keen foresight and unerring judgment saved to the Board many thousand of dollars. He gave much thought to improvement in the methods of teaching in the schools, and was one of the first to advocate the introduction in Louisville of the training-school sys- tem. To familiarize himself with the subject, he vis- ited the New England States, and made a thorough investigation of the systems at his own expense, and by continued effort succeeded in establishing train- ing-schools in his adopted city.

As a friend and patron of religious schools, he was no less prominent. He was one of the founders of the large and flourishing Presbyterian School in Louisville, a director in Centre College and the The- ological Seminary at Danville, Ky., and for many years attended to the finances of these institutions.

With various other movements of both a business and charitable nature he was prominently identi- fied; but it was in his church affairs that his greatest efforts were enlisted. As an elder in the Presbyte- rian Church for over forty years, in the city, Presby- tery and Synod, he was an unfaltering worker. He

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

was one of the founders of the old Chestnut Street Church in 1847, and in the erection of the magnifi- cent Tabernacle at Fourth and Broadway, which was destroyed by fire soon after its completion, bis zeal and liberality knew no bounds. It was his cher- ished desire to see the congregation with which he had been so long connected worship in as thoroughly an appointed church as could be built, and he advo- cated the step with untiring persistence. In the erection of so costly an edifice, the collection of the necessary funds to carry out the design was no in- considerable barrier to the consummation of the task, and to many success seemed impossible. But Mr. Warren had enlisted all of his religious zeal in the enterprise, and his purse was placed at the com- mand of the Building Committee. His subscription of twenty thousand dollars had gone into the general fund, and the church was erected; and when the committee appeared before the congregation to make their final statement, a debt of forty-three thousand dollars was reported. It was then that Mr. Warren reached a higher plane of disinterested devotion to his church, and proved his faith by his works, and wiped out the debt with a check for the needed forty-three thousand dollars. As a manifestation of its appreciation of his noble liberality, the congrega- tion dropped the name of "Tabernacle," under which the church had been dedicated, and in honor of him called it "The Warren Memorial Church."

In public and business affairs he enjoyed the un- wavering confidence of his associates, and his private charities were as freely distributed as those of any one in the history of Louisville.

Mr. Warren died, after a short illness, March 19, 1884, in his seventy-sixth year. A handsome monu- ment marks his resting-place in Louisville's beauti- ful cemetery. It bears as his epitaph the memorable words that fell from his lips : " What I have done, I have done for Christ's sake." A wife and nine chil- dren survive him.

REV. GEORGE S. BALL.

Rev. George S. Ball, pastor of the Unitarian So- ciety in Upton, was born in Leominster, Mass., May 22, A.D. 1822, and is the son of Micah R. and Rachel (Lincoln) Ball.

He is a fairly well-preserved man of sixty-six years of age. He received a meagre education in the com- mon schools until the age of sixteen, when, obtaining from his father a release of his time, he devoted himself to the further study in the higher schools of his native State. He found it hard work to earn his bread and pay for his education ; but he perse- vered, working, as it were, with a book in one hand and some instrument of manual labor in the other. This required energy and self-denial, but by faithful, continued efforts he graduated at the Meadville Theo- logical School in the first regular class, that of 1847.

In the autumn of the same year the society at Ware

invited him to settle with them, and he was ordained October 13th as their pastor. He remained there two years, when his health failed, and he asked for dis- mission. After a rest, he was much better, and began preaching in Upton, and at the end of some months of labor here, he was, at their request, installed as minister in February of 1850. The connection thus formed has continued ever since.

Under this long pastorate, for modern times, he has become thoroughly identified with the town and all its interests. He represented it in the Constitu- tional Convention of 1853. In 1861 be was elected Representative, for the district composed of North- bridge and Upton, to the Legislature of 1862; but about the same time he was called to be chaplain of one of the Worcester County regiments, already in the field, the gallant Twenty-first Regiment of Mass- achusetts Volunteers. He was exercised to know which position to take. His love of his country and its pressing needs in the hour of peril persuaded him to forego the honor of the former, that he might do something to mitigate the sufferings of camp and battle-field, and thus do a little to sustain and main- tain inviolate the government under which liberty and prosperity had come to this people. He accepted the post of chaplain, and went at once to the regi- inent, then stationed at Annapolis, Md.

In the first battle of that regiment, at Roanoke Island, he won the hearts of " the boys" by his brave and efficient aid to the wounded, and in the report of the commanding colouel to the general, a copy of which was transmitted by the colonel to Governor Andrew, he received warm approval.

The following paragraph is taken from the "His- tory of the Twenty-first Regiment,"I which was writ- ten by General Charles F. Walcott:

In the thirteen months that he had been with ns, he had shared with the regiment every peril and hardship which it had been called to face and endure, and had won the lasting respect and love of every man in it of whatever creed. Never losing eight of bis duty as a Christian clergyman, he had been far more than a mere chaplain to ns. Ardently patriotic, always hopeful, manly and conrageons, he exerted a strong and lasting influence in keeping up the tone of the regiment in its soldierly as well as its moral duties. As our postmaster, no matter at what inconvenience to himself, the mail was never left to take care of itself, when by his energy it could be forced to come or go. To our sick and wounded he had been, with unfailing devotion, a brave, tender and a skillful nurse. Ao honor and grace to his calling and the service, it was a sad day in the regiment when he left us.

So we may say Mr. Ball has been far more, in Upton, than a mere clergyman, a good man, a good citizen, never a strong partisan, but friend and min- ister to all who needed or would receive his help. For thirty-nine years he has labored in this field, save two years, when he was colleague with the venerable Dr. Kendall, at Plymouth, and the time of his service in the army. He served also as chaplain to the Massa- chusetts House of Representatives in 1863, and as a member from his district in 1864, and as a member of the State Senate in the years 1866 and 1867.

1 Page 235.

LEage S. Ball!

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GRAFTON.

On the 18th of June, 1848, while settled at Ware, he was married to Hannah B. Nourse, daughter of Caleb and Orissa (Holman) Nourse, of Bolton, Mass. They had eight children born to them, seven of whom are now living.

Mr. Ball's life has been very active in anti-slavery and moral reform of all kinds. But most marked is his influence on his own townsmen and the people of the vicinity, where his name is a tower of strength.

CHAPTER CXXIII.

GRAFTON.

BY WILLIAM T. DAVIS AND A HISTORICAL ADDRESS BY HON. FRANK P. GOULDING.

ON either side of Quinsigamond River, which flows from the lake bearing that name into Blackstone River, are various ridges of land more or less ex- tended, rising hy easy ascent from the valley, and most of them cleared and cultivated to the summits. On the slopes of some of these hills, and on the higher table lands of others, and on the banks of the stream, are located the different villages of which the town of Grafton is composed. The territory included within the bounds of the town extends about five miles from north to south, and four miles from east to west, and is bounded on the north by Shrewsbury, on the east by Westborough and Upton, on the south by Upton and Sutton, and on the west by Sutton and Millbury. Few towns can boast of situations more beautiful or landscapes more attractive than those, which one after another greet the eye of a stranger as he enters its domain and wanders along its hillsides and through its valleys. Standing on the central village and looking towards the north, Brigham Hill, on whose eastern slope the hamlet of North Grafton seems to be hiding itself from the setting sun, hounds the horizon on the north and west, while along its base the river Quinsigamond is seeking its uncon- scious way to the sea, and in the distance Wachusett stands guard against the unwelcome blasts of a colder clime.

This was the territory known in early times as Hassanamisco, and inhabited by the Hassanamesits, a family of the Nipmuck tribe. It is memorable as having been one of the earliest fields in which John Eliot labored for the Christianization of the abo- rigines. Here the second Indian church was estab- lished, and here the Indian James the Printer lived, who aided Eliot in his work on the Indian Bible.

Of the Hassanamesits there is only one survivor within the town, Sarah Maria Cisco. She occupies about two acres and a half of the old Indian reserva- tion, which she has inherited from her ancestors and which has never been owned by a white man. In 1887 the Legislature passed a resolve providing for

the payment of an annuity of two hundred dollars to this last representative of the old Hassanamisco tribe, to be paid by the selectmen of Grafton quarterly after January 1, 1887, during her life. It would be a fit- ting and interesting memorial if, after the death of the beneficiary, her land could remain ungranted and unoccupied and suitably enclosed to be preserved for all coming time as a memorial of the aborigines of our State.

Within the territory of Grafton is to be found also an interesting landmark, reminding us of one of the first, if not actually the first, schoolmaster in the Massachusetts Colony. Elijah Corlet, born in Lon- don in 1611, graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and came to New England wbile a young man. He was the first schoolmaster in Cambridge, and taught in that town from 1641 until his death, which occur- red February 24, 1687. Owing to his efforts in behalf of education, the General Court granted him two hundred acres of land November 12, 1659, and Octo- her 23, 1668, five hundred acres. But these grants have no connection with Grafton. On the 22d of May, 1661, however, the Colony records s'ate that "in answer to the petition of Mr. Elijah Corlet the Court judgeth it meet to grant the petitioner liberty to purchase of Netus, the Indian, so much land as the said Netus, said Indian, is possessed of according to law, for the satisfaction of the debt due to the peti- tioner from said Negus." Mr. Corlet had Indian scholars in his school, and it is thought by some that a son of Netus was one, and that the debt was owed for his tuition. On the 11th of October, 1665, Ed- mond Rice, of Marlboro', and Thomas Noyes, of Sudbury, reported to the court that the debt due from Netus to Mr. Corlet was seven pounds ten shillings, and that, as authorized by the court, they had laid out three hundred and twenty acres at the north end of Nepnop Hill for the benefit of Mr. Corlet. In 1685, Mr. Corlet sold the land to Alice Thomas, of Dedham, and on the 17th of October, 1716, the grand- children of Mrs. Thomas sold it for two hundred pounds to Benjamin Willard, housewright; Joseph Willard, webster; Thomas Pratt, Jr., husbandman, all of Framingham, and Nehemiah How, of Sudbury. A description of the land may be found in the deed from these grandchildren in the Suffolk Registry of Deeds, Book 37, Folio 250. The land has been vari- ously called Corlet's Grant, Willard's Farm and the Farms District.

But it is not proposed to include in this narrative any details concerning Hassanamisco before its settlement by the white man. They belong rather to a history of the Indian tribes than to that of a town whose birth dates only back to its incorporation and earlier occupation. When the territory forming the town of Sutton was sold to the English by John Wampus, the Sachem, he reserved four miles square for the use of the Indians, and these sixteen square miles constituted the town of Grafton at the time of its incorporation.

922

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

They were exclusively used by the Indians nntil 1718, when, with the approval of the General Court, Elisha Johnson, of Sutton, bought of the natives a tract within their limits. Other purchases soon after followed, and in 1728, no less than nine white families were living on the land. In 1726, in accordance with the petition of Samuel Chandler and John Sherman, in behalf of themselves and other persons living in Concord, Sudbury, Marlborough and Stow, for per- mission to purchase the territory of the Indians, a committee of the General Court, consisting of Na- thaniel Byfield and Samuel Thaxter, of the Conneil, and John Chandler, Major Tileston and Captain Goddard, visited the territory and reported Septem- ber 27, 1727, "that they had carefully viewed tue lands proposed to be sold by the natives there, con- taining about seven thousand five hundred acres, about one-half whereof being good soil but very stony, the other half pitch-pine and shrub-plain; are of opinion, and have accordingly valued and es- timated the land at the sum of twenty-five hundred pounds," and recommended that the purchase be ap- proved on certian specified conditions. The result of the negotiation which followed was the execution of the following deed :

To all people to whom these presents shall come :

Ami Printer, Andrew Abraham, Moses Printer and Ami Printer, Jr., lodians of Hassanamisco, in the county of Suffolk, withio his majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, beiog owners and proprietors of one-seventh part each of and in the Indian native right of land in Hassaoamisco aforesaid, Peter Muckamaug and Sarah, his wife, of Hassanamisco aforesaid (owners and proprietors in the right of the said Sarah), of one-seventh part of the said native right, and Christian Misco, relict widow of George Misco, late of Hassananiisco aforesaid, deceased, and Joshun Misco, of Hassanamisco aforesaid, son of the said deceased, heing owaers and proprietors of two-sevenths parts of the said native right --

Sendeth Greeting.

Whereas, The Great and General Court or Assembly of the aforesaid Province having been therennto petitioned, as well by the Indian natives aad proprietors before named, as by a number of English petitioners, did ia their late session, viz .: in the month of December last past, in answer to the petition of Samuel Chandler, John Sherman and others, gave liberty to the petitioners thereia referred to to purchase the lands at Ilassanamisco by them petitioned for, containing about seven thous ind five hundred acres, more or less, of the Indian natives and proprietors thereof for the settlement of forty English families of the petitioners or their posterity and no others, exclusive of the English and ladiuns upon the spots already, reserving for and unto the said Indiaa proprietors, each of them, an equal dividead in said laad with each of the parchasers, to be laid ont so as to comprebend and take in their present improve- meots. And also one huadred acres more of land there to be the present Indian proprietors', their heirs and assigns forever. And also the sum of twenty-five hundred pounds, to be deposited in the hands of trustees appointed, authorized and impowered by the said Great and General Court or Assembly, to receive and set ont the same at interest, on good and sufficient seenrity, and said interest to be paid to the said Indian proprietors, and the said Court shall from time to time order and direct, together with sundry immunities, privileges and enfranchisements, respecting the settlements and support of the ministry and school, as in and by the records of said Court (relation therenoto being had) doth and may appear.

Now Know Ye, That the said Ami Printer, Andrew Abraham, Moses Priater, Ami Printer, Jr., Peter and Sarah Muckamang, Christian Misco and Joshna Misco, being the only surviving proprietors of the Indian right of laud in Hassanamisco aforesaid, for the consideration hefore mentioned, have given, graated, bargained, sold, alieuated, enfeoffel, conveyed and confirmed, and by these presents do fully, clearly and

absolutely give, graut, birgaia, sell, convey and confirm unto each of the persons hereinafter named, being of the proprietore to whom such liberty of purchasing was granted as nforesaid, or otherwise admitted by and with the approbation or allowance of the said Great and General Court, one-fortieth part in commoa aad undivided right of aad in all that tract or parcel of land called or known by the name of Ilassana- misco, situated and bounded by and with the township of Sutton, io the afuresaid county of Suffolk, and surrounded by said Sutton, excepting always, and reserving out of this present grant and sale, such parts and dividends thereof and therein nato them, the said Indiaa proprietors, and to their heirs and assigns forever, as is expressed and mentioned in a vote of the House of Representatives on the 9th of June, 1725, and accordingly reserved by the Great and General Court As is above expressed, excepting also and reserving out of this preseat grant and sale, all such other parts and parcels of said tracts of land as hath been formerly (with the allowance of said Court) granted unto sundry English people, to be holden of them, the said purchasers, their respective heirs and assigns forever, conformable to the votes, acts and orders of the sald Great and General Court passed thereon in their aforesaid session-that is to say, to James Watson, of Boston, ia the County of Suffolk, in the Province aforesaid, mariner, Benjamin Willard, gent, and Joseph Willard, hus- bandmaa, being both of or in the County of Suffolk, in the Province aforesaid, each one-fortieth part thereof to them, their respective heirs and assigns forever.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 9

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