USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Clinton > History of the origin of the town of Clinton, Massachusetts, 1653-1865 > Part 14
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Jabez Lowe, his cousin, worked with him in this shop for a time. The shop was used by Nathaniel Lowe for making combs after 1808. His family consisted of six sons and three daughters. Two of his sons and one of his daughters died in childhood, or youth, and another daughter just as she reached maturity. As the other five children moved to the West, his farm passed out of the hands of the family in 1829, two years after his death. It was bought by Emory Harris, who kept for himself the southerly portion and one of the barns. He sold the northerly portion and the house to Amory Pollard. Mr. Pollard sold it to Williams Greene, who transferred it to Camden Maynard. Francis E. Lowe received somewhat more schooling than the other children of Nathaniel Lowe, and had the advantage of the instruction of the famous Thomas Frye, who taught in the Quaker Village in Bolton. While the four brothers all did good service in helping to develop the new western country, he was especially efficient, and received many honors from his fellow-citizens. He is still living in Havana, Illinois.
Although Nathaniel Lowe probably moved here before his brother. John, yet the honor of introducing the comb in- dustry is usually assigned to the latter. We are told that before he came to this neighborhood he had been, for
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some years, the keeper of the toll-gate on the Haverhill and Amesbury Turnpike. In 1800, he bought of John Frye of Bolton, the farm which had been previously held by Jona- than Prescott and Amos Allen. This has been more recently known as the Burdett-Maynard farm, and is on the east side of South Main Street, just above the upper Worsted Mill. In ISc4, he bought a lot of forty acres, upon which was the unfinished house of Benjamin Gould and the nail shop of Asahel Tower. Mr. Tower used the water power in cutting strips of iron into the desired sizes. The nails were headed by hand. Mr. Tower afterwards carried on his business in South Lancaster. Arnold Rugg drew wire here for a short time. Neither of these men employed many assistants. In 1804, John Lowe also bought land on the road running from Sprague's, or Prescott's Mills, to Sandy Pond. He had married Mary Burdett, while in Leominster, and had a son, Henry, when he came here. He built the house where his son-in-law, Enoch K. Gibbs, now lives, about 1807. His shop stood northwest of his house, and has since been made, with many changes, into a dwelling-house which still stands near by.
Although comb-making has changed less in the past century than most arts, yet many of the processes have been greatly simplified and quickened. As John Lowe carried on the trade, little machinery was needed and no power was employed, except that of the muscles. The horns, which had been purchased from the neighboring farmers, or at the slaughtering pens at Brighton, were first sawn with a hand- saw into desired lengths and down one side to the hole left by the extraction of the pith. After they had been heated, soaked and softened by dipping in boiling oil, they were spread open and placed alternately with hot irons, and then the pile was put in clamps and pressed by the aid of wedges or of a screw and lever. This pressing was the most dirty and heavy part of the work, and was not usually done by those who knew the trade as a whole, but by some one who
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looked after that alone. When the horn had been pressed sufficiently, it was thoroughly cooled, taken out of the irons and thrown into cold water to stiffen it. The next process was that of shaping according to the design for the dressing- comb, the back-comb, the side-comb, the pocket-comb, or the "louse-comb." This was donc at the time of which we are speaking by the hand-saw, although it was not long be- fore dies were introduced. The teeth were marked by a pattern, and then sawn by hand or, later, by a circular saw run by foot-power, or still later, by water-power, when it could be obtained.
In 1826, Joseph Willard, in his "History of Lancaster," says: "In consequence of the great improvement in machinery within a few years, double the quantity of this article (the comb) is manufactured with a considerable reduction in price. The improved machinery is an invention of Mr. Farnham Plummer of this town. It will cut one hundred and twenty dozen side-combs in a day. It cuts out two combs from a square piece of horn at the same time. The circular saw, which was previously used, cuts but one tooth at a time. Capt. Asahel Harris, an intelligent man who deals largely in this business, assures me that the new machine is a saving of nearly one-half in point of time, that it saves also one-third of the stock, besides much hard labor. It can be so constructed as to cut combs of any size." When the teeth were finished, the comb was smoothed and polished on a sponge or felting filled with ground pumice stone. The work up to this point was done by men and boys; the rest was done by girls. They looked over the combs to find defects, cleaned them, and did them up in paper packages and put them into the wooden boxes ready for sale. Smaller manufacturers often disposed of their combs to J. G. Thurston, the store-keeper of South Lan- caster, paying their help by orders on him, and receiving the rest of their pay in goods or in money. We read of one of the old comb-makers, who went alone to Albany on horse-
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back, with his merchandise in his saddle-bags, to find a market. Of course, the larger manufacturers of later times sold the product through agents and city firms. The busi- ness started by John Lowe spread so that Mr. Willard said in 1826: "There are fifteen or sixteen establishments (in Lancaster) for making combs, in which fifty persons at least are employed. The annual sales of this article are from fif- teen to twenty thousand dollars."
John Lowe had a family of three sons and six daughters. He died in 1851 at the age of seventy-nine. Henry, his old- est son, born February 3, 1801, and Thomas, a son of Nathaniel, bought a water privilege on Rigby Brook in 1823, and began in the "upper shops," which they built, the manu- facture of combs by water-power. Before this time muscu- lar power alone was used. They did not succeed in business and soon sold out to Henry Lewis, who, in turn, sold in 1836 to Haskell McCollum, a son-in-law of John Lowe. McCol- lum bought another water right of his father-in-law, and tak- ing Anson Lowe as a partner built the "middle shops" and so increased the business that the district about the shops became known as McCollumville. The title of Scrabble Hollow, as applied to this section, so familiar in recent times, is also a product of the same nicknaming age. Enoch K. Gibbs, who had married Martha Lowe, a daughter of John, built the "lower shops" four years later. James S. Lawrence and Charles Miller were also sons-in-law of John Lowe and followed his trade. The sons, sons-in-law and grandsons of John Lowe in various combinations carried on the comb business here, employing from twenty to twenty- five hands, until after the incorporation of Clinton, although the middle and upper shops had passed into the hands of A. L. Fuller before this time. We shall have frequent occa- sion to mention Haskell McCollum and Enoch K. Gibbs in the later history of the town.
These two upper shops were afterwards owned by N. C. Munson of Shirley and Charles Frazer. These, with the
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GEORGE HOWARD.
lower shops, which the Lowes retained, were destroyed in 1876, when the dam at Mossy Pond gave way and the waters of the reservoir of the Bigelow Carpet Company were preci- pitated through Rigby Brook.
The neighboring water privilege on South Meadow Brook where Allen's mill had stood, was also utilized for comb- making. It will be remembered that it was purchased by Moses Emerson in 1813. This Moses Emerson had been a merchant on the Old Common, keeping "the most extensive store in the county," and was a man of some wealth. He kept a "coach," which showed a style of living before un- known in this neighborhood. He married his fourth wife in 1813. He was a selectman of Lancaster during the years 1813 and 1814. As it is said that he did not move on to his newly-acquired property until 1817, his stay here was very brief, for he died in 1822, at the age of forty-eight. His estate of two hundred and one acres was bought from the guardian of his children by George Howard of Bridgewater, in 1825. The Goss-Allen mill must have been long disused, as it had wholly disappeared at this time. Mr. Howard built a new dam, and put up a shop and dwelling-house, all of which he rented to Levi Pollard and Joel Sawtelle. They made combs here for some years, but as their business did not prosper, they were obliged to abandon it. George Howard then carried it on himself with a much greater degree of success. He sold his shop to Ephraim Fuller in 1839. This shop was made into a dwelling-house, and is now located on Fuller Street, and was recently known as the Hale house. Mr. Howard lost his wife, Sarah M. Howard, September 7, 1830. In 1833, he married Elizabeth Buss of Leominster.
Perhaps there is no family among the comb-makers which presents the life of the period in its various phases so fully as the Burdett family. For this reason, and also from the fact that for three generations this family have taken a
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prominent part in the history of the community, a special study may be made of it as a type.
The first member of the family of whom any record has been found, was Robert Burdett of Malden. He was there in 1653, the year when Prescott first settled here. His great, great grandson, John Burdett, moved from Malden to Leominster in the latter part of the eighteenth century. He died there in 1843, at the great age of ninety-seven. He was a Revolutionary soldier, and fought at the battles of Lexington, Bunker Hill and Saratoga.
Three of his eleven children settled in the district which was to become Clinton : Mary, born in Malden, March 26, 1775, who became the wife of John Lowe; John, born in Leominster, February 19, 1777, and Nathan, born in Leom- inster, July 21, 1788. Another son, Phinehas S., born February 19, 1797, lived for some time with his brother, Nathan, in his youth, and three sons of Phinehas, Augustus P., Horatio S. and Albert T., were engaged in business here when Clinton was incorporated. Jerome S., their cousin, the son of James, was in business here also.
We have already seen how John Lowe bought a farm here in ISoo, and probably settled on it soon after. As soon as young Nathan was of age to learn a trade,-in ISOS or before,-he became an apprentice at comb-making with his brother-in-law, John Lowe, and boarded with him in his new house, which he had just built by Rigby Brook.
It is not probable that Nathan Burdett, and others whom we speak of as learning the comb business, were legally bound by closely drawn papers, neither was the work of these apprentices confined to the shop, but they helped on the farm, as the season demanded, and gave a share of their time to the cattle. Yet Nathan Burdett must have learned his trade in a short time, for he soon became a teacher of the art, and had for his pupils the two older sons of Daniel Harris, who lived on Water Street, just opposite the end of what is now Cedar Street. One of these learners,
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Emory, was the equal of his teacher in age, while Asahel was six years younger. It may have been while he was working here that he first met Margaret Darling, who be- came his wife September 30, ISog. This Margaret Darling was of Quaker descent, and came from Smithfield, Rhode Island. She was at this time living at the house of Stephen Sargent, near by that of Daniel Harris. The young couple first lived at Daniel Harris', then at John Lowe's, and then Mr. Burdett bought the low building still standing as an L to a house on the west side of North Main Street, north of Hollis Wood's. The house and lot cost three hundred dollars. April 5, 1814, Mr. Burdett sold it to Robert Phelps for five hundred and fifty dollars.
Mr. Burdett bought of Ezekiel Rice, the house on Main Street, which had been built for Moses Sawyer, Jr., and the farm connected with it. A year after he went there, a terrific gale occurred. Trees were uprooted, and the air was filled with flying boards and bricks, but, although the family cowered in the cellar, expecting every second that the house would go, yet the heavy oaken timbers withstood the force of the wind. This farm contained some thirty-seven acres, and extended just north of the reservoir, with an average width of twenty-five rods, from Rattlesnake Ledge across South Main Street beyond the swamp where Coach- lace Pond now lies. Mr. Burdett bought of Captain Thomas WV. Lyon, in 1825, twenty acres adjoining and south of his original farm. This included the present Reservoir Lot. He afterwards bought various other lots of land, especially wood-lots by Mossy and Sandy Ponds, so that his farm at times must have exceeded seventy acres. He always kept a yoke of oxen, three or four cows, a small flock of sheep and a few swine. For some years he kept four draught horses for "teaming."
The farm afforded excellent pasturage, hay, fodder and grain sufficient for the cattle. Indian corn and rye furnished the family with hasty-pudding and brown-bread,
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and buckwheat supplied cakes. Wheat was sometimes sown, but little used. Pumpkins and potatoes, and the usual garden vegetables, were raised in quantities sufficient for the needs of the family. The fruits, with the wild berries, fur- nished "sauces" and pies. A large portion of the apples were sent to Joseph Rice's to be pressed, for no farmer in those days could be without his cider. Milk was used as the main article of diet by the children, and all beyond what was needed in its original form was made into butter and cheese. Fowls enough were kept to furnish eggs and an occasional chicken. The Burdetts salted down pork and beef, smoked hams, and were kept fairly supplied with fresh meat by a system of barter. Whenever Nathan Burdett, or one of his neighbors, Peter Sawyer, Joseph Rice or John Burdett, killed a "critter" or a calf, sheep or hog, he sent pieces of it, or perhaps a quarter, to each of the others, ex- pecting to receive a like share from them when their turn came for slaughtering. The tallow was made into candles. The hides were sent to Charles Chace to be tanned, and then John Burdett or Alanson Chace made the leather into boots and shoes. Although homespun was rapidly giving way to store goods, yet the wool from the flock of sheep was sent to Ephraim Fuller's to be carded. It was then spun into yarn by the women folks, and knitted into stockings, mittens and comforters. If the supply was more than sufficient for these purposes, it was sent to "Miss" John Goss, who lived just east of the point where the Bolton station is now located, to be woven into cloth for outer garments,-no one wore flannels in those days,-upon her hand-loom. Fire- wood and lumber were cut from the forest, and thus nearly all the simple wants for shelter, fuel, light, food and clothing were supplied by home products, almost as much so as they had been a hundred years before. Rum, molasses, salt fish, tea, coffee and the spices were still the principal articles of commerce, although the call for dry goods grew greater and greater as new tastes were created and cheaply satisfied.
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These goods were obtained chiefly from barter of farm products or combs, so that little money was handled.
Mr. Burdett built on the opposite side of the road from his house, a shop of two small rooms for the manufacture of combs. In 1820, he became a teamster for Poignand & Plant. He continued in their employment for six years, and then returned to comb-making, and kept it up, more or less, for a dozen years. He often had four apprentices, or journeymen, working for him at one time. Among the apprentices at various times, were Charles Copeland, Henry Lewis, Henry Lowe, Eben Pratt and Phinehas Burdett. The latter was his youngest brother. His sons, too, learned more or less of the comb trade. Samuel Dorrison, or Dollison, who lived at "Grannie" Sawyer's,-the widow of Moses Sawyer,-did the heavy work. Sally Tucker, and the girls of the household, did the cleaning and packing. The principal product of this shop was pocket-combs, of which about twenty-four dozen were made per day, when the farm required no attention.
During the six years from 1820-1826, when Mr. Burdett was teamster for Poignand & Plant, he drove to Boston once every week. During the last part of the time, he had four horses. He was usually gone three days on his trip. The first day, he would carry the finished cloths to Boston. The second, he would unload and load again with cotton, and the groceries which he bought for the store of Poignand & Plant and that of J. G. Thurston. On the third day, he would come home. The neighbors, Joseph Rice, John Burdett, and others, would drop in during the evening after his return, and as they sat around the foaming pitcher of cider, which was often refilled, they would hear the story of the trip. The other three days of the week the farm received Mr. Burdett's attention.
There were nine children in the Burdett family, six boys and three girls. One of the boys died in childhood, and one of the girls in infancy. Hannah Goldthwaite, a young
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half-sister of Mrs. Burdett, was brought up in the family, and one or more apprentices often boarded at the house. The routine of life in this large family was similar to that of other families in the village, and seems strangely contracted according to modern standards.
The kitchen was the center of home life. It was thirteen feet wide and twenty-four feet long. It had no plaster or paint. The walls were sheathed, but overhead the beams were uncovered, and blackened by smoke. From strings drawn across, hung the yellow strips of drying pumpkin. Here, too, in the early winter, hung the huge bunch of sausages, three feet in length and two in thickness. The great fire-place was near one end of the room and was so large that it was not necessary to cut the "four-foot wood" to burn in it. Here, most of the cooking was done by boil- ing in iron kettles hung from the crane and by frying in the " spider," or by broiling on the gridiron over the coals. The Thanksgiving turkey was hung on a stout string from the strong mantlepiece, and was turned as it roasted by one of the children, who, from a safe distance, twisted and un- twisted the string. The "Johnnie cake" was baked on a board or pan propped up in front of the fire by bricks. Once a week the brick oven was heated by building a fire in it, and after the coals had been cleared out, huge, iron bak- ing dishes, thick and round, of rye and "Injin" bread were put in, and with them an unlimited supply of pumpkin and apple pies, the huge pot of beans and the "Injin" pudding.
The kitchen was, of course, the eating and living room, as well as the room for the preparation of food. The front room contained the bed of the parents, and underneath it, in the daytime, was the trundle bed of the younger children. The front door was never opened, for the little "entry" was used as a bedroom for the older girls. The boys slept over the kitchen. The lower ends of the rafters were just above their feet, and the snow, sifting through the loose shingles, often gave them an extra coverlet before morning. The
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front room in the second story was not finished off until the boys grew up. Built out from the kitchen was a store room, with bins for rye meal and Indian meal. There was the place for milk and butter, cheese, lard and candles. Apart by themselves, were hung the hams and, perhaps, in winter, the quarters of beef. In the little attic above were the sage, the thoroughwort, and the many other herbs that every care- ful housewife made ready each autumn. Of course, there was a "buttery," where the food and some of the dishes were kept. The cellar was stored in winter with the products of the garden and the salted meats, and, in sum- mer, it had to serve the housewife instead of a refrigerator.
The family attended religious services at Lancaster Center. The brick church was finished in 1816. Nathan Burdett bought "Pew 126," in the gallery, in 1826, of the Town of Lancaster, for thirty-eight dollars. The church building at that time was still under control of the town. The boys in summer time used to walk barefoot as far as Sprague's Bridge, and then put on their shoes and stockings, which werc as carefully taken off on their return. Dr. Nathaniel Thayer was their pastor, and his influence entered deeply into their lives as it did into those of all his people. It was said : "The selectmen did not mend a piece of road with- out first consulting Mr. Thayer." He looked after the schools, and his kindly presence was often felt by the scholars. In doctrine, he was a conservative Unitarian, and his preaching had for its chief aim the elevating of character. We are told : "As a pastor he was indefati- gable. If any were sick or in affliction, his sympathy was prompt and sincere. No matter how distant the family might live, if they were in trouble, their minister was with them, rain or shine."
Dr. Calvin Carter of Lancaster, was their physician, of whom Rev. A. P. Marvin says: "His practice extended through the northern and central part of Worcester County far into Middlesex. There was no end to his jokes and pleasantry."
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People in those times had less of refinement than today, but more of a rough, jolly good-fellowship. Yet there was a general lack of self-restraint that led to great looseness of morals. Men grew hilarious over their liquor and told coarse stories such as we seldom hear today. Now the Burdett family was one of the most temperate in the neigh- borhood, yet even here the older boys were brought up to take their hot toddy before breakfast, and it was looked upon as very "queer," when one of them gave up his daily dram on account of an accident to one of his companions in a drunken frolic on a Fourth of July morning. It was not until the first third of the century had nearly gone by, that the Washingtonian movement made "temperance" common, and even then the agreement signed was so lax that the society formed was spoken of as "going to its grave with the pledge in one hand and the rum-bottle in the other." The first temperance society in this section was formed in 1830, and was made up of young men who had surely seen examples enough of the evils of intemperance to lead them in the other direction. The Burdett family was one of the rare exceptions during the half century that followed the Revolution, in which none of the boys became the victims of rum.
From 1842 to 1845, Mr. Burdett was one of the select- men of Lancaster. When the growth of District No. 10, after the coming of the Bigelows, gave it new influence in the affairs of the town, he was chosen as the man who could best look after its interests. In 1845, Mrs. Burdett, the mother of all his children, died. He afterwards married Deborah H. Ross of Sterling. He lived to see all his children established in positions of usefulness and honor, and died in 1871, at the ripe age of eighty-three.
Of the children and grandchildren of Nathan Burdett, we shall have frequent occasion to speak in later history Eliza, the eldest daughter, who married James Stone, February 15, 1827, was the mother of Christopher C. Stone
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and Mrs. William T. Freeman. James Stone lived in a house on the east side of South Main Street, about half way be- tween the old Sawyer place where Widow Betsy Sawyer then lived with Samuel Dorrison, and the Nathan Burdett house. The building was erected about the time of Mr. Stone's marriage. William Burdett, the oldest son, married Sally Tucker, August 31, 1832. His father put an addition on the northern end of the dwelling-house as a tenement for the newly-married couple. After living here for some years, the family moved to Northboro, where Mr. Burdett recently died. A second daughter married John H. Wood of Holden. Two children died in childhood, and the four remaining sons, Nathan, Thomas, George W. and Alfred A., as they are important factors in the later history of the town, will receive our future attention.
Although John Burdett was not a comb-maker, yet his relationship with John Lowe and Nathan Burdett demands that he should receive some consideration at this point. He was born February 19, 1777, in Leominster. He married Sarah Shute. She died March 17, 1832, and Mr. Burdett married a widow, Sally Carpenter, August 3, 1834. He came from Leominster to this section. He bought the Prescott- Allen-Lowe farm, on the slope of Burditt Hill, north of that of Joseph Rice, in 1812, of Titus Wilder, Jr. There were forty-four acres in this farm. Later, he bought more land. At first, he lived in the little old house where John Lowe had lived before him, but, about 1818, he built a house, which was considered among the best in Factory Village, on the spot where the J. F. Maynard house now stands. James Pitts says of him: "Dea. Burdett was a perfect example of industry ; he was a boot and shoemaker by trade, and a finished workman, as also an excellent farmer. Ile managed from the income of his small farm and his shoe-bench to bring up his large family in respectability and comfort." He united New England thrift with religious earnestness. We shall find him to be the foremost of the old inhabitants
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