USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > History of the town of Acton > Part 18
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In the schools of that day there was an excited interest in spelling which was kept alive by the spelling matches which were held frequently during the winter months and were participated in by the pupils of all the schools. They were not merely educational in influence but were much prized as social events and served to maintain a unity of feeling among the young throughout the town. The winter schools were always taught by a master. The public schools were supplemented by private ones in many cases. Almost every autumn there was an excellent private high school at the centre.
Miss Sally Bright also frequently had a private school in what is now known as the Bright place on the Stow road beyond the residence of Mr. Cyrus Hayward.
At this time the misses were taught, by the lady teacher, sewing, to make ornamental designs with beads, and to become skilled in other forms of ladies' handiwork with the needle. This was as much a part of the school work as the recitations of lessons from books.
In the store of James Tuttle one of the principle articles sold is spiritous liquors of various kinds according to the tastes of the patrons. Indeed, such a lively business is carried on that Mr. Tuttle hires a boy to wait on the customers, rinse out the glasses, etc.
The farmers thought spirits a necessity to enable them to endure the heat of the summer haying and to bear the cold of winter in getting in their wood and so every little hotel and grocery store licensed to sell liquors for the "public good" did a thriving business.
It may be wondered how farmers who were getting only twelve cents a pound for butter could afford to indulge in in toxicants to an extent to create such a thriving business. The answer is that liquors were cheap, New England rum, for instance, was thirty cents a gallon."
The reference made to the store of the Tuttle brothers requires some amplification since the company they organized had an enormous influence upon the community life for many years. When
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the
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a young man, just out of his teens, James Tuttle put in a couple of years at Mill Corner as a trader, followed by three years at the Centre. Being aware of the possibilities offered by the completion of the railroad he, when twenty five, went into partnership with his brother Varnum, then twenty one, under the name of J. & V. Tuttle.
Between the present post office and the station, which stood about on the location of the northern abutments of the bridge of today, they built their first store. It was a one story affair which was subsequently remodelled and made higher so that it housed several shops, one or more dwelling units, and at the turn of the century the dental offices and apartment of Dr. Ernest Hosmer.
In 1850 they moved to a new store on the site of the present grocery adjacent to the fire house. In 1852 they took into the busi- ness Mr. Elnathan Jones who had married their sister Eliza. In 1867 another partner, Mr. J. K. W. Wetherbee, having married another sister, was added and the partnership became the firm of Tuttle, Jones & Wetherbee. It was the closest knit and one of the most successful enterprises in the town's history grossing over a quarter of a million dollars in some of the later years. All of the men involved were re- nowned for sagacity and thrift and held numerous positions of trust in town affairs.1
In 1866 the store was severely damaged by fire but within a year was rebuilt. Previous to this, however, the firm had decided to spread out into the dry goods area and for that purpose had erected in 1870 the now obsolete but huge edifice known as Exchange Hall, that being the name of the public gathering place occupying the top floor. For about three decades this venture was an unqualified success but as the old guard vanished from the scene newer and less astute managers fared less well. In addition these later merchandisers were confronted with the grim fact that industrial Maynard had arisen as a competing shopping center and that the automobile made transportation thereto a matter of minutes.
For a time the heirs, through the medium of the company of Finney & Hoit, tried to continue in the old manner, but the death of Mr. Hoit in 1932 wrote finis to that chapter. More recently a mere token business has lingered on to an ultimate demise.
Much more light is thrown upon the particulars of this thriving enterprise by certain excerpts from the records kept by the daughter
1 Mr. James Tuttle was selectman, assessor, overseer of the poor, chairman of the committee to build the present South Acton schoolhouse, and also on committees to erect other public buildings. Mr. Varnum Tuttle was one of the main backers of the chapel enterprise. Mr. Wetherbee was for fifteen years postmaster at Acton, selectman for seven years; town treasurer for thirty one years; and trustee and executor for many private estates.
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of Mr. James Tuttle, Mrs. Anna Tuttle Newton.1 They are given here- with as originally written.
"In a few years the firm had waxed strong and did a business of from 20,000 to 25,000 a year, which gradually grew to a good quarter of a million dollars. From 1843 to 1850 the room and cellar sufficed, then the brothers moved to their new store which is on the site of the present grocery store.
This building consisted of basement and a full story above and an attic floor, shed, carriage house and barn, a broad piazza around the principal floor and along the front the sign, "James Tuttle's Store".
This building was some 50 by 42 and served its purpose until the evening of June 20, 1866 when it burned to the ground, but was promptly rebuilt in about a year at a cost of twelve thousand dollars.
The central or dry goods store is in charge of Mr. Jones while the buying is done by himself and Mr. Wetherbee. Mr. Hiram Hapgood has charge of the office and attends to the collections and books.
Mr. James Tuttle and his son Waldo Tuttle now have charge of the grocery store. The extensive meat and pro- duce business of the firm also centers here. Four butcher carts go out daily and these and the general delivery teams run every day to the Acton villages, Maynard, West Con- cord etc.
The buying for the grocery and produce store is all done by Mr. Varnum Tuttle who is in the Boston market daily making his purchases. The firm has four farms, two in Acton, and one each in Stow and Littleton, upon which are raised most of the vegetables sold on the routes. James Tuttle has charge of the farming on all but one of the farms. Milk production is quite a specialty. Considerable pasturage is owned in Antrim, N. H. where the young stock is kept.
The residences of two of the firm, the Messrs. Tuttle, are close to the stores while those of Messrs. Jones and Weth- erbee are on the high ground on West Street.
Over a dozen horses are kept at work and the regular employees number about thirty while many are hired by the job.
The pay-roll includes H. J. Hapgood, head bookkeeper; James McGreen, custom cutter; John Brown, pressman;
1 Submitted through the kindness of Mrs. Bertha Newton Lowden, grand- daughter of Mr. James Tuttle.
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Niel Currie, sole cutter; T. F. Newton, for over sixteen years salesman; Sanford Wheeler, now salesman and for over twenty two years running on the routes; Abram Tuttle, also upon the routes for a score of years; H. W. Tuttle, salesman for fifteen years; C. H. Sweatt, butcher for the past ten years; H. B. White, bookkeeper; O. L. Dart, route man and clerk; E. F. Conant, bookkeeper; Nellie M. Conant, the only saleslady; L. A. Jones, F. Z. Taylor, L. C. Hastings, E. J. Carter, F. L. Crosby, and F. H. Smith, clerks; Martin Tuttle, teaming; A. A. Wheeler, H. W. Howard, A. F. Sar- gent, W. T. Brown, Charles Hodges and D. L. Ball, clerks; Joseph Whitcomb, farmer at the Conant farm; Albert Moulton at the adjoining farm; William Sargent at the Stow farm; John McKenley at the Littleton farm; and for twenty five years Samuel Jones in charge of the stables.
The firm continued until the death of James Tuttle in 1898 when Waldo Tuttle and Theron Newton continued the grocery business as Tuttle & Newton. Soon after the death of Waldo Tuttle in 1916 Mr. Newton sold the store to the Acton Association.
Another enterprise that had its inception at the same time was the commission business of Joseph Warren Tuttle, located at 16 and 18 Clinton St. Boston for the handling of all kinds of country produce. Mr. Tuttle's residence stood on the south side of the street about half way between the present location of the railway water tank and the lumber yard. In 1848 Mr. George W. Tuttle was admitted to partnership; in 1874 Mr. Charles Jones; in 1875 Mr. Charles H. Tuttle and in 1883 Mr. Herbert A. Tuttle, and the company was known as J. W. Tuttle & Sons.1
In January of 1844 the question again arose concerning the dis- position of the second meeting house which was now thirty eight years old and used irregularly as a place of worship. A committee was chosen to investigate the cost of remodelling it to serve as a combination town house and school building as compared with the expense of a new school building with an upper hall for town affairs or the expense of a new school alone. Another article in the same warrant proposed the building of a new school "near the pound". This would mean on or near the site of the old first meeting house long since gone. The article was dismissed but it was to appear again a generation later and result in the school house that stands on the spot today.
In passing it might be mentioned that the same year Mr. Daniel Tuttle was awarded the contract to ring the bell of the old meeting house for deaths and funerals at twenty cents per time and Cyrus
1 Fletcher p. 295.
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Dole was awarded the same amount to perform the same service at the new church.1 Peter Tenney was to be grave digger and hearse driver at one dollar per burial.
In November of 1846 the question of a town hall once more arose. It was decided not to purchase the old meeting house but to appoint a committee to confer with the first parish with a view to renting the lower part of the building for a term of ten years provided it could be obtained at a figure not in excess of ninety dollars a year.2 It was election day and one might conclude that it was unusually cold since the record states that adjournment was made to Tuttle's Tavern to count the votes for state officers. Doubtless the church was inadequately heated. Consequently on a bitter day the prospects of a warm tap room just across the common was decidedly attrac- tive.3
Two outstanding events marked the religious activity for the year 1846. The Congregational Church started the present building which, in its original form, had the typical steeple in the center with two entrance doors and two long aisles leading to the rostrum at the extreme rear. The choir occupied a gallery between the entrance doors and behind the congregation.
The present architectural form was effectuated in 1898. The second event was the organization of the Baptist Church at West Acton on July 10th.4
In 1848 Ebenezer Davis built the pencil factory which functioned for years beside Nashoba Brook at the point where it passes under Brook St. The remains of the old dam are still visible but the building was destroyed by fire on October 17, 1944. Following Ebenezer Davis was Benjamin Davis who operated the plant as a sash and blind manufactory; then came William Schouler with a print works; and then A. G. Gray, Lewis Ball, and Henry Smith all in turn in the pencil business until 1888. Mr. Smith continued to live on the place for many years but directed his attention to the raising of various greenhouse crops for the Boston market.
Now and again reminders of what the old mill had produced ap- peared in the form of pencil stock two feet long that was given out by Miss Martha Smith as children's prizes at church picnics. These rewards were highly regarded both because of their length and
1 The old meeting house refers to the one built in 1807 that stood on the present site of the town hall; the new meeting house, the first of two erected during Rev. Woodbury's pastorate, stood on the site of the present church.
2 Rufus Holden, Luther Conant, Cyrus Wheeler, Alden Fuller, Abner Hosmer.
" The tavern of Daniel Tuttle stood between the present fire house in the Centre and the stone marker bearing the name of James Kinsley. It was subsequently burned and replaced by the Monument House, which in turn burned in 1913.
4 See Appendix XIV.
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because they were made in the days when straight grained cedar heart was obtainable. They were a joy to sharpen. Upon occasion the winners of these trophies would bring them to school and work amain to produce legible script while the top of the mighty stylus waged about over the head of each privileged individual who was, needless to say, the object of considerable envy.
After the death of Mr. Smith the property was bought by Mr. Edmund Pennell who subsequently sold to Dr. Willis Middleton under whose ownership the building became an aviary for rare and foreign birds. It is now the residence of the Woodbine family.
At one time the aforementioned Ebenezer Davis manufactured bellows in a shop located on the William Davis place, later called the Bellows Stock Farm and later owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Griffin. The present occupant of the property is Mr. John Murphy. Eventually the shop was moved to the Eben Davis place where Dr. Wendell F. Davis now lives and where his father continued to make bellows.
With the passage of the years it became desirable in the minds of some that the facilities of the old burying ground be augmented by starting a new cemetery somewhere between the west and south villages. To that end Benjamin Hapgood, Bradley Stone, and Phineas Harrington were chosen at a town meeting held in November of 1847 to seek out available and satisfactory ground and report the following March. They reported that two acres could be obtained from John Hapgood and possibly additional acreage from Daniel Wetherbee if necessary. The final action came in April when the selectmen were authorized to purchase as much land as they saw fit from Daniel Wetherbee. Thus was started what now is called Mt. Hope Cemetery. In December of 1848 the selectmen were given the power to fence it if they deemed it necessary.1
It was in 1848 also that West Acton obtained its first post office, located in the office of Dr. Reuben Green who had just opened it up for practice.2 It remained in that building until 1854 when it was transferred to the local store, there to stay until the Cleveland admin- istration. Thereupon Hanson Littlefield became postmaster and the office was moved to his store. In 1889 Charles B. Stone was re- appointed and the office was removed to a room specially built for it. At that time the Windsor Hotel occupied the site of the present post office. According to Mr. John Hoar this building was used as a boarding house for the men who helped to build the railroad. In
1 The record does not make clear whether any land was obtained from John Hapgood. The question is not sufficiently important to induce a search of the county records.
2 Dr. Isaiah Hutchins bought out Dr. Green in 1852 but the post office remained fixed for two years more.
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his youth it was the residence of Adelbert Mead and his brother Oliver. There is reason to believe that originally it was a tavern run by Shepley & Davis. The present Windsor Avenue was so named because the hotel stood on its corner.
When the Republican party broke up in the early 1830's its pieces went into both the Whig and Democratic parties. The so-called "new" Republican wing, which John Quincy Adams represented, stood for internal improvements and an active national government, and these men tended to become Whigs. The "old" Republican wing, of which Jefferson was the founder, was primarily interested in freedom, maintenance of states' rights, and the restriction of the executive power. These men were hard put to it to know where to turn since the Whigs stood for a narrow construction of executive power while the Democrats stood for states' rights - but not to the extent of disrupting the Union.
As the years rolled on the storm clouds presaging the oncoming civil war gathered ominously. The South's system of argiculture was a colossal drain on the soil and could survive only by the accretion of territory as, for instance, that taken in the Mexican War. Con- sequently in the campaign of 1848 Lewis Cass, an ardent expansionist from Michigan received the South's favor and the Democratic nom- ination. The Whigs chose General Taylor, the hero of Buena Vista. A third party, the Free Soilers, was formed in the north by the coalition of three hitherto separate and hostile elements - the abolitionist Liberty Party, the anti-slavery Whigs of New England, and the "Barnburner" faction of the New York Democracy, which came in to be revenged on Cass for "stealing" the Democratic nomi- nation from Van Buren. This latter party nominated Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams for its ticket and although it failed to carry a single state it did roll up three hundred thousand votes, mostly in New York, thereby throwing its great electoral weight to the Whigs and landing Taylor in the Presidency.
This three way split filtered down through into state politics and in consequence we find Acton in the gubernatorial election casting 135 votes for Stephen Phillips, Free Soiler, 50 votes for Caleb Cushing, Democrat, and 42 votes for the Whig candidate, George Briggs.1 The town's abolition majority did not, however, reflect the sentiment in the state at large since Briggs was elected with 61640 votes while Phillips and Cushing trailed with 36011 and 25323 votes respectively.
In November of 1849 there appears an article in the warrant
1 The following year (1849) Acton cast 100 votes for Phillips, Free Soiler; 92 votes for Boutwell, Democrat, and 58 votes for Briggs, Whig.
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asking whether or not the town will provide lights and fuel for lectures. There is no hint in the record as to the nature of these gatherings but doubtless some of them had to do with the attempted resuscitation of the old First Parish or possibly the Methodist group that operated for a time. In any event it was voted to supply lights and heat for town affairs only.
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF ACTON
PART V
1850 - 1900
In January of 1850 Acton voted to accept an invitation from the town of Concord to assist in the seventy fifth anniversary of Concord Fight on the following April 19th. It was further voted to be respon- sible for one hundred tickets to the great dinner to be served and to pay for the tickets of Acton soldiers who desired to participate.
A large general committee on arrangements, fifty eight in all, was chosen from the surrounding towns. Acton's contingent was com- posed of the following personnel; Rufus Holden, James T. Wood- bury, Francis Tuttle, Jona. B. Davis, Bradley Stone, Silas Hosmer, Winthrop E. Faulkner, Abraham Conant, Joseph W. Tuttle, Reuben Barker, Charles Robbins, Samuel T. Adams, Aaron Chaffin, Nathan Brooks, Daniel Wetherbee, John White, Ebenezer Hayward, David M. Handley.
The festivities of the day consisted of a morning parade to the North Bridge which was escorted by the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company and included the governor and his suite, the Boston Brass Band, and all the possible representatives from other towns and cities that could be assembled. Following the huge dinner, to which three thousand sat down, there were speeches by Robert Rantoul, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, Governor George Briggs and John G. Palfrey.
Mr. Rantoul was the chief orator of the day and he certainly gave his listeners their money's worth. In a Gargantuan opus seventy four pages in length he made a recapitulation of the world's history from the creation to the instant of his speech. As a display of knowl- edge of the progress of man and of the classics it was a success but the untutored listener must have wondered what it was about.
The president of the day, Mr. E. R. Hoar, in calling upon the Acton representative, Mr. Stevens Hayward, referred to the words of Isaac Davis as he departed from his home to the effect that he had a right to go to Concord on the king's highway and that he would go if he had to meet all the British troops in Boston. Rev. Mr. Woodbury offered the prayer and the band concluded the exercises with the White Cockade.
Two survivors of the engagement at the bridge were present, namely, Jonathan Harrington and Amos Baker, aged ninety two and ninety four respectively. The latter was too feeble to make any re- marks publicly but Harrington stated that after the British fire had
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been returned the man on his right, Noah Parkhurst of Lincoln said, "Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end".
However amiable the towns of Concord and Acton may have been in April of 1850 there was by mid-summer, strange as it may seem, decided coolness. This was brought about by the fact that in July Hon. Josiah Adams of Framingham, a native of Acton and an ardent champion of its rights and reputation, addressed an open letter to Mr. Lemuel Shattuck of Concord relative to statements included by him in his history of the town published in 1835.
Adams lists a formidable bill of particulars as to numerous errors, inconsistencies, and evasions, and accuses Shattuck of trying to make it appear that Davis marched his company to the right of the line on the morning of April 19, 1775, not because he was requested to do so but because of his ignorance of military procedure or as a result of colossal brashness.
The whole tenor of Adams's letter is indicated by the following two quotations:
"It was necessary for your purpose, to account in some way, for the well established fact that Captain Davis was killed leading his company in the front; though he was the junior officer of both Capt. Brown and Capt. Miles, the commanders of the two Concord Minute Companies. And to make it more clear that Davis assumed the most honor- able, without knowing that it was also the most dangerous place.
"You have permitted your libels on the character and memory of Isaac Davis to remain unretracted for fifteen years; and if, at first, they might have passed as gross mistakes, they must now be set down as studied fabri- cations."
Regardless of what Shattuck's objective may have been, Adams is on solid ground as to the facts since he brings to bear the sworn statements of Solomon Smith and Thomas Thorp of Davis's company as well as one by Amos Baker of the Lincoln company. Baker, the last survivor of Concord Fight, deposed on April 22, 1850, that after a conference in which Davis took part he returned to his company and marched it to the right of the line in order to be in front as the column approached the bridge. Baker went on to say that at the time he assumed that the reason behind the move was the fact that aside from Davis's company there was scarcely a bayonet on the field and that is was a good move in case the British made a bayonet charge.
It is not known by whom, or when, or where the idea of building the monument on the common was first discussed in private. The first recorded public action took place on November 11, 1850 when
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Principal H. H Williams
Emery W. Clark
Eugene L. Hall
Minnie
G. Bassett
Martha Proft
rie L. Shopley
ACTON HIGH SCHOOL- CLASS OF 1886
l:Florence Fletcher
------
HON. WM. A. WILDE
the town, in meeting assembled, voted to remove the remains of Davis, Hosmer, and Hayward, their friends and relatives so willing, to a suitable place on Acton Common, and erect over them a monu- ment; and that the selectmen together with the three ministers of the town, be a committee to lay out what they thought proper and petition Congress and the state legislature for aid in the project.
In consequence the committee organized itself on December 17, 1850 with selectman Ivory Keyes as chairman and Rev. Robert Stinson as secretary and drew up the following petition:
"We, the undersigned, beg leave to represent that Capt. Isaac Davis of Acton, Mass., was under arms at Concord Fight, the 19th of April, A. D. 1775, and was shot dead at the first fire at the Old North Bridge in Concord, at the head of his company of Acton Minute Men, leading on the column of attack; that it is contemplated to erect over said Isaac Davis's remains a suitable Monument, and this is to pray you grant aid in erecting said monument."
Signed. Ivory Keyes James T. Woodbury Robert Stinson
Luther Conant James Tuttle Horace Richardson
The petition was presented to the legislature early in the session of 1851 and was referred to the joint committee on militia consisting of Saunders and Hawley of the Senate and Wilson of Lenox, Nettleton of Chicopee, Brastow of Somerville, Foster of Groveland, and Hatch of Mansfield, of the House. This committee gave Mr. Woodbury an attentive and gracious hearing as subsequently presented to the legislature a most favorable recommendation in which it was pointed out that Capt. Davis, as leader of the first organized resistance to the troops of King George belonged not only to Acton but to the common- wealth and the nation as well.1 The crux of the resolution is contained in the following paragraph:
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