USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Acushnet > History of the Town of Acushnet, Bristol County, State of Massachusetts > Part 14
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Photo. by James E. Reed, New Bedford
HERSOM'S SOAP FACTORY
of the town. The senior partner is an old hand at the business of manu- facturing soap, having been engaged in the business continuously from 1875 in New Bedford near the Fairhaven bridge, till he purchased this plant. The factory building was erected and owned by Simeon Hawes. It originally stood on the Mill road, nearly opposite the Old Tobey house, and was used for an ice house. Later it was moved to its present location and so constructed that the lower floor was used for stores and the upper story was the well known "Hawes' Hall." Subsequently it came into the possession of and was used by the Acushnet Paper company.
Mr. Hersom bought the property in 1889 and at once commenced making soap there, and later the grinding of bone for fertilizing purposes. The building which now stands on the west side of County road, just
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above Lund's corner, is 14x65 feet, with a building for grinding bone attached. A Morse Automatic elevator passes through the factory from ground to attic, opening and closing hatchways as it moves up and down.
Mr. Hersom's teams gather bones, meat and tallow from the city markets and stores daily, in the warm weather, and three times a week in the winter. This material is at once rendered and the product is all used in the factory. The resin stock comes in car loads direct from the forests of North Carolina; the caustic soda used is imported.
More than one hundred and twenty-five tons of material per annum is left in the rendering tanks after the grease has been removed. About 30 per cent. of this is meat, pieces of bone, etc., which is known as tankage, and the balance is bones from the meat. This is prepared for land fertilizers by grinding to a powder in a powerful Holmes & Blanchard mill. The machinery of the factory is propelled by a ten and a twenty horse power engine. Twenty hands are employed in and about the works.
TOWN HOUSES No history of a town is complete that does not contain a sketch of the places where its voters have met annually to choose its officers and make the laws for its government. It appears that old Dartmouth had no town house for this purpose till more than fifty years after its incorporation. During this half century it is evident that the voters assembled in private dwelling houses to transact the town business. The meeting of Dec. 21, 1694, was at the house of John Russell, Jr., situated on what is now Rockland street, at Padanaram. Mr. Russell died "ye 20th day of March in ye year 1695-6", and it is recorded that from 1696 till 1699 inclusive, these gatherings were held at the residence of his widow, excepting one at the house of Return Babcock at Smith Mills.
A voter living in the north part of Acushnet who wished to attend a town meeting was under the necessity of taking a horse-back ride of fifteen miles each way to and from Mr. Russell's house. And about the same distance had to be traveled from other extreme corners of the town. The town was about fifteen miles square and Mr. Russell's house was within three miles of the south line. The injustice of a meeting place there, and the need of a town house were continually agitated till at the meeting of July 26, 1686, the following order for the erection of a house was adopted :
"It is ordered that there shall be a meting house built this yeare for the Towns use the dementions thereof to be as followeth : 24 foot long : 16 foot wide : 9 foot stud and to be covered with long shingles and to be inclosed with planks and clabords and to have an under floor layed and to be benched round and to have a table to it suitable to the langth of sd hous. Allso four two light windows allso the Town have chosen Seth Pope and Thomas Taber to agree with a workman to build sd hous."'
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There is no record evidence that a location for this house had been agreed upon; that a lot had been purchased for the purpose, or that a town house was built till thirty years later. The delay may have been occasioned by a failure to agree upon a site. The people in the south part of the town were satisfied with Padanaram but inhabitants of other sections of the territory insisted on a more central and accessible spot. This was naturally at or near Smith Mills, which was on the traveled Indian trail from Plymouth through Acushnet village westward through Smith Mills to Rhode Island, the home of Massasoit, and was known then and ever since as the Rhode Island Way. This sentiment finally pre- vailed and the town voted to buy a lot which was located on the Rhode Island Way, now Hathaway road, about a half mile northeastward from Smith Mills village and near the head of Slocum road. The town records contain a description of this lot. It was not laid out, however, till 1714, twenty-eight years after the above uniquely worded plans were adopted in town meeting and fifty years after the incorporation of the township.
The argument in favor of a central location was soon confirmed by the increase in attendance at the meetings. That the accommodations were soon outgrown is indicated by a vote at the meeting of March 26, 1739, that there shall be a
"Town house built and to be thirty foot square, and ten foot be- tween joints and shall stand on the lot that the old Town house now stands on."
This vote was amended at a meeting in the town house on the 13th of the following August, as follows : "The sd house to be built shall be built nine feet between joints and 22 feet wide & thirty-six foot long with a chimney at one end with a suitable roof and windows in sd House."
Here the town meetings were held till New Bedford, which included Acushnet and Fairhaven, was incorporated in 1787. Then the inhabitants on the east side of the Acushnet river held the balance of power and the seat of legislation of the new town was established on Acushnet soil. The question of the location of a town house for the new town was a subject of prolonged discussion and indecision at frequent annual meetings for twenty years.
Meantime the meetings were held in the Precinct meeting house near Parting Ways. The members of the church frequently protested both orally and by vote, against the misuse of the meeting house. When they could endure the filth and destruction resulting from these gatherings no longer they embodied the warning in an official message to the town authorities, including the following: "If the town do not restrain its voters at town meetings from standing on pews and seats and going into . the pulpit the Precinct will not admit them into there Meeting house." This threat apparently did not accomplish the desired result, as later the society voted as follows:
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"Whereas, the holding of town meetings in the Congregational meeting-house is injurious to said house, and causes considerable trouble in the course of a year to cleanse the same, therefore voted, that Edward Pope, Esq., Capt. Obed Nye, and Samuel Perry, Esq., be a committee to agree with the town upon the terms said town may meet therein for the transaction of public business and in case the town shall refuse to comply with the terms proffered by said com- mittee they are to notify the Selectmen not to warn any town meeting to be holden in said house after the expiration of the present year. Said committee to make report on the last Saturday of September next 1805."*
The society did, however, allow future town meetings held in the church, thus manifesting long suffering patience with the filthy tenants, as will be seen by the following item contained in the issue of the New Bedford Mercury of June 24, 1808 :
"The inhabitants of the town are requested to meet on the 27th of June at 2 o'clock at the Old Cong. Meeting House for the purpose of providing a suitable place for holding future Town Meetings; as by vote of that precinct the Town is prohibited the use of said Meet- ing-house after the present year."
It is probable the same meeting voted to buy a lot and build, as the New Bedford Mercury of April 7, 1809, reports that "The inhabitants of this town assembled in their newly erected Town-House at the Head of Acushnet River to give in their suffrages" a day or two before.
In 1808, soon after the above demand was made by the Presbyterians. the town bought from Bartholomew West a parcel of land south of and adjoining the Friends meeting house grounds at Parting Ways, where the schoolhouse now stands. Two years later a strip of land adjoining the above was purchased from Stephen Hathaway, and in the deed from Hathaway it was stated that a town house stood on the "West lot." This fixes very nearly the date of the erection of the only building constructed within the limits of the present township of Acushnet especially for use as a town house.
This building continued to be used as such till Fairhaven was set off from New Bedford, in 1812, when the former town refused to buy it. The "south-enders" of that town hoping to get a new one nearer the village, and New Bedford having no use for it then, the house was sold and moved to the northwest corner of Second and School streets, New Bedford, where it now stands. It was used as a house of worship by the First Baptist Society until they constructed the present church on William street.
The first meeting of the new town of Fairhaven was called as author- ized by the legislature by Captain John Hawes of Acushnet, to be held at "Burial Hill, Feb. 22, 1812." The meeting place was doubtless the old church. The meetings continued to be held here till the old church dis-
*If the church was left in such a filthy, disgraceful condition as modern town meeting rooms were previous to the laws prohibiting the disgraceful habit of spitting on the floor of a public room, it is little wonder they wanted to be well paid for cleansing it.
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appeared in 1837 and from that time on they were held in the engine house which stood in the village on the north side of the street a little east of the schoolhouse, which is now the town house. The accommodations here were inadequate. It was decided to build a house. But the question, Where? raised a prolonged and increasingly heated controversy. The north-enders were determined it should not be located south of Parting Ways and the south-enders were equally determined it should be. The latter showed their superior strength in a bitter contest at the meeting of Nov. 26, 1831, when it was "voted that future town meetings be held at Academy Hall" (now southwest corner of Main street and the bridge.) The Acushnets who had been in the contest for a central location of the Town house were completely defeated but not routed. It was the perma- nent location of the building, which everyone admitted should be erected, that the Acushnets were manoeuvring for and they remained on the firing line up to 1843 (during which time the meetings were held at Academy Hall), when Eben Akin, Jr., town clerk, called the annual meeting of the town to order in the new "Town house of said town." This house was built at an expense of $2,300. The lot on which it was located is on the northeast corner of Main and Hawthorn streets, Fairhaven, about half way between Parting Ways and Fairhaven bridge. The situation was not far enough north to satisfy the people of the northerly section and furnished another argument for the division . of the town. The two factions clashed and in the new house, says a writer, "red hot meetings were held and much town meeting gingerbread and election cake were consumed by the argumentative fire till the heat caused the building to be burned in 1858." "Now for a division !" was the war cry and it was accomplished two years later. A special town meeting was held in Phenix Hall, Fairhaven, soon after the fire, and the annual meeting of 1859 was held in Sawin's Hall in that village.
The first meeting of the new town of Acushnet was on March 14, 1860, in the engine house east of the bridge at the village, and they were held there continuously till the autumn of 1874. From that date till 1878 the "new school house" at Parting Ways was the meeting place. Since 1878 the schoolhouse of former district No. 4 has been used as a town house.
TOWN MEETING Here are a few interesting items in relation to town ORDERS houses and meetings. The first meeting of Old Dart- mouth of which a record has been found was ten years after its incorporation, and the following is a copy of three of the entries therein :
At the first recorded town meeting of Old Dartmouth it was voted that the Herring Fishery at the Head of Aquisnot Harbor be inspected
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and see what would be proper to be done in respect to opening the dams, &c., to facilitate the passage of Alewives up the River.
. "Att a town meetinge ye 22 of Jouly 1674 it is ordered that all our town meetings doe beginne at ten of ye Clocke and to continue untill ye Morderator releace the town not exceeding four of ye clocke."
"It is all so ordered that all such parsons as doe necklectt to a year all the town meetings shall for fitt to the town 1 shilling and six pence a pece and for coming to meeting to leatt three pence an hour."
It was the common practice to post notices of military events and political gatherings of the townspeople on school houses, churches and elsewhere. This was rightfully offensive to the Friends' society, and at a quarterly meeting of theirs at Apponegansett meeting house in 1783 a petition was prepared and subsequently presented to the selectmen and other officers of the town of Dartmouth requesting that "no more publica- tions of political or military matters be set up or posted up on the meeting house." The protest also includes notices of marriages. The petition states that the quarterly and yearly meetings of the society recommended that all such posting of notices were disagreeable to them, and that all or many of them were "such as their religious principles enjoin them to have no concern with," &c. This petition was duly presented to the authorities and the obnoxious practice was discontinued.
A quaint order passed at one of the town meetings obligated every householder to notify the selectmen of each new inmate of his house, or the addition to his family of a new member. The town records contain the following returns :
"To Humphrey Smith, Walter Spooner and Ezekell Cornell the present selectmen of ye town of Dartmouth Greeting :
''This is to notify you as the law directs that I have taken in my house a young woman to dwell in said town named Elizabeth Baggs of Newport in the Colony of Rhode Island, &c who came to reside with me this day.
Given under my hand this 30th of the six month called June 1762, pr. WILLIAM ANTHONY.
Received the above July ye 14th 1762.
HUMPHREY SMITH, One of the selectmen of Dartmouth."
The town of New Bedford in 1787 was divided for political purposes into four districts. "The north and south lines of the division were made by the harbor and river; and the east and west lines by the highway beginning in the line between this town and Dartmouth at bridge about twenty rods eastward of the house where James Peckham deceased last dwelt, and leading easterly to the bridge at the Head of said harbor and thence still easterly by the dwelling house of Hannaniah Cornish to Rochester line." This line would now be the Plainville and Tarkiln Hill road through the village, thence easterly out Mattapoisett road.
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Among the officers elected were the following residents of Acushnet : Selectmen, John West, Isaac Pope ; assessor, Joseph Taber ; surveyor of lum- ber, Capt. Benjamin Dillingham ; collector, Samuel Bowerman ; constables, Robert Bennit, Sr., Paul Wing, Job Jenney, Elisha Cushman; warden, Capt. Benjamin Dillingham; tithing man, Pardon Taber; fence viewers, Samuel West, Stephen Taber, Henry Jenne; culler of staves, Capt. Benjamin Dillingham; hog reeves, Gilbert Bennit and Seth Hathaway.
INDIAN TRAILS AND HIGHWAYS The original traveled ways in this town were Indian trails that connected their little villages, which were usually near brooks, or on river banks, or near the ocean beaches. Those trails were simply foot paths through the forests wide enough for one man, as the Indians preferred to tramp along in single file. In commencing these there was evidently no purpose to have them on a "bee line," but any course to avoid dense thickets, rocky nooks and other natural obstructions. The trails most frequented were only three or four feet wide. Those most used were kept free from under- brush along their sides, and from overhanging limbs that obstructed travel. There were no bridges, but streams were crossed by wading and swimming. The white settlers had no better pathways till many years after they came here, for they had no vehicles till almost fifty years later. Horseback was the only mode of conveyance. Men rode in the saddle and women behind them on a pillion. There were horse-blocks from which the horse was mounted at the homes, churches, stores and blacksmith shops.
When our people came here they found only these primitive ways, which they later widened for the passage of teams. And finally these woods roads were laid out by the town as public ways, with all the snake-like crooks and turns of the original Indian trail. The main trail through this town was from Peaked rock, where it entered Acushnet from Middleboro, through Long Plain, over Perry Hill to the village bridge. All other trails in this vicinity led into this, as the roads now lead into that road. This way was designated the Post road, as it was the stage and mail route to Boston for many years. It is now known, and called in this history, as Long Plain road. It was the first highway laid out by Old Dartmouth in this town, but the act did not occur till sixty years after the incorporation of that town. There was a much used trail leading over Perry Hill eastward through Rochester and onward to Plymouth, but in my opinion this was not a part of what has been popularly known since the settlement of Old Dartmouth as the Rhode Island way, for reasons given on previous pages. The way from Peaked rock southward was on record as early as 1711 as the "long Plain Rode." On a "Map of Rodes," from a plan made by the selectmen of New Bedford, February, 1795, by
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an act of the General Court of June 18, 1794, the only highways in Acush- net were "Post Rode," "Perry Hill Rode" and "Fairhaven Rode."
In the early days there were a number of woods roads in town which accommodated the settlers off the main line of travel. Some of them have been abandoned and are now impassable, and others have become town ways. Notably among the discontinued ones is that which was at the eastward of and practically parallel with Long Plain road. It branched off from this highway about two miles north of Long Plain and bore southerly, crossing Quaker Lane, thence over the Rochester road on the Col. Robinson farm, and onward across Perry Hill road east of the church to the south end of the town. The assurance by old residents of the existence of this road is abundantly confirmed by cellars and remnants of stone foundations of dwellings which may be seen at this date along the line of this way. Jeremiah Hammett, a native of this town now eighty years of age, tells the writer that his grandfather, Shubel Hammett, saw loads of whale oil and household goods hauled up from Fairhaven during the threatening days of the war of 1812, and secreted along this road, which was then sparsely inhabited, and its existence would not be suspected by strangers traveling on the Long Plain road. Mr. Hammett remembers that William Bennett and John Ryder lived on this way. There was another open way extended from Long Plain road at the first corner north of Parting Ways, westward past Whelden fac- tory to Mill road. An inhabited road extended southward from a point on the Mattapoisett road near Cornish's Corner to the north end of what is now a public way, running northward from Bridge street in Fairhaven, thus connecting this Fairhaven section with Mandell road.
CORNERS The well known "corners" in the town and village are Swift's Corner, where the post office building now stands. It was so designated from Jireh Swift, who owned the land and building on the northwest corner. It is called so in the act of incorporation of this town.
Ball's or Davis's Corner is the next one north of the above, where the Mill road branches off from the County road or Acushnet avenue.
Lund's Corner is the cross roads, as such places are designated in the southern states, a few rods west of the bridge. It acquired its name from Jonathan P. Lund who conducted an extensive business in the village and had a large building on the southeast corner of this cross road in which he manufactured tin ware and dealt in that and other household utensils and farming tools. This spot is where Acushnet avenue and the street leading west from the bridge cross. As this is a terminus of two trolley lines the name and location are widespread.
Potter's Corner is at the west end of the Middle road, at the Mill road, named for Thomas Potter, who resided there.
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Luther's Corner is the east end of the Middle road at the Long Plain road, and received its name from Naomi Luther, who resided there.
Mason Taber Corner is the junction of Perry Hill and Long Plain roads, where Mason Taber's tavern was located.
Cornish Corner is at the homestead of Hannaniah Cornish on the Mattapoisett road, about one and a half miles east of Long Plain road. where the highway makes a sharp turn to the north.
Wilcox Corner is about a mile west of Long Plain. It is mentioned in the layout of highways.
Parting Ways is on the Post road, a half mile east of the village bridge. It is where the Rhode Island way is parted by the Fairhaven way, which leads southward from this point. All the other road corners
Photo. by James E. Reed, New Bedford.
LUND'S CORNER
are named from the owner of land on one of the corners and change with the change of the tenant. But the song of this attractive spot, the Part- ing-of-the-Ways, is that
"Men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever."
HIGHWAY NAMES AND LAYOUTS.
A few of the recorded layouts of highways are briefly given below.
Fairhaven road. This highway, from Parting Ways southerly to the town line, was ordered to be widened where the ledges are in 1852. My efforts to find the original layout of this highway have been unsuccessful. It was probably near the date of the layout of Post road, from the north end of this section, northerly from Parting Ways, 1724, for in that year it is evident the extension of this road
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was laid out from "Susannah Hathaway's orchard," which was the lot where the dwelling house of the late Capt. Stephen Kempton now stands at the town line, southerly to the present Fairhaven water tower. The road from Susannah Hathaway's orchard down present Main and Adams streets to Huttleston avenue in Fairhaven was laid out Feb. 25, 1728. The road from the present junction of Adams and Main streets down into the village, did not exist at the above date.
Keen road, from Freetown line through William White's and Parker's land, March 4, 1773. This road from Freetown line to Ebenezer Keen's dwelling house was laid out by the selectmen, forty feet wide, March 25, 1845.
Mattapoisett road. The section of this road extending eastward from the Friends' meeting house past William Spooner's homestead was laid out thirty feet wide, March 26, 1745.
Mattapoisett road. A section of this road from Cornish's corner to Tripp's mill was laid out Oct. 6, 1786.
Mattapoisett road. An extension of this highway from John Tuck's dwelling house northerly, one hundred rods long, the first road ordered laid out by the town of Acushnet, March 27, 1861.
Mill road. Here is part of a recorded layout of County road from Freetown to the Village bridge. The layout was made Jan. 3-6, 1719, at which time there was no open way from Ball's corner down present County road to Lund's corner. From a copy of the record furnished me by Charles A. Morton the layout from Ball's corner is as follows :
"Thence E. 2º1% N. 15 rods to a White (oak) marked D. thence S. 42°1/2 E. 461/2 rods to a heap of stones on the north side of a little Brook nigh to the Mills. Thence S. 17º1% E. 26 rods to a heap of stones on the south side of the hill thence S. 2º W. 38 2-3 rods to a heap of stones on the south side of the way that comes up from Apponegansett, and N. 31° W. 3 rods and 4 feet from the back side of Samuel Joy's oven."
This last heap of stones was on the south side of Bridge street, opposite the south end of Mill road. The south line of Bridge street westerly to Lund's corner was seventy feet north of "the back side of Samuel Joy's oven."
Mill road. The County Commissioners ordered the road from Ball's corner to Potter's corner straightened and widened to twenty-five feet in the "traveled part," Oct. 10, 1834.
Middle road. From Potter's corner eastward, connecting the Mill road with the Long Plain road at (Mrs. Naomi) Luther's corner, was laid out by the County Commissioners "to be twenty-four feet wide in the traveled part," March 1, 1851.
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