USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > History of the town of Acton > Part 23
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Mr. Hoar, now well into his nineties, is the town's senior carpenter and builder by a wide margin. He is still alert and bubbling with humor and has been additionally blessed by the fact that his wife until very recently has been able to keep his domicile in operating condition as in the years long past. He has been kind enough to amplify his reminiscences concerning a number of things relative to the village that deserve a place here.
At the turn of the century there stood between the Baptist Church and Arlington St. the blacksmith shop of Samuel Guilford and John McNiff and the wheelright shop of Herbert Clark. They were torn down some years ago and Mr. F. H. Charter, who bought the land and the Guilford house, has exercised his abilities as a landscape gardener to improve the spot beyond recognition.
In 1871 B. F Taft began the manufacture of tubs, pails, and churns, was succeeded by Samuel Sargent and later by Enoch Hall, whose sons carried on the business for many years. The Halls put in a saw mill, a churn building, and a large storehouse. They bought standing white pine wherever possible and did their own lumbering, sawed their own stavestock, and prepared all the materials for the production of their merchandise. Before the arrival of the automobile and the concommitant clearance of the snow from the highways it was an interesting and common sight to see the huge sled loads of logs, drawn by four sturdy horses, enroute to the mill from the surrounding countryside. Eventually the decrease in the churn market and the influx of metal pails and tubs brought about the close of the business in 1932. The mill buildings are at present owned by Sidney Laffin and house his garage and the town school busses.
The building which now houses the drug store in West Acton has had a long acquaintance with merchandising. Associated with it are the names of Burbeck and Tenney, Taylor Brothers, a Mr. Hastings, Nelson Conant, who functioned there in the 1870's and was at one time in partnership with his brother Albert Conant in Littleton, and then Mr. Charles Mead who conducted a general store for a long period.
Upstairs in the rear was a grain storage area and here was born one of the town's most amazing enterprises. Here Mr. George Conant made his first experiments with bluine, the laundry acces- sory that was eventually to make him a fortune. Mr. Waldo Whit- comb relates how Mr. Conant, whose economic status in those days
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was not a matter of envy, used to come into his meat market and solicit sheets of the butcher's standard porus wrapping paper then in vogue. These were then immersed in a bath of bluine solution having sugar as an adhesive agent by the much be-blued Johnny Cleary, who came to be known locally as Johnny Bluine, and were strung on lines to drip and dry. Thereafter they were cut into small rectangles that were sorted into dozen lots and mailed to school children all over the United States to be sold at ten cents a package.
This merchandising technique was something new under the sun and at first the Post Office Department cast a rather vinegar eye upon the whole scheme. Eventually Mr. Conant was given a clean bill of health on this issue and he, and his youthful agents, who were given modest prizes, did a colossal business both in this country and abroad. In due course the West Acton quarters were completely inadequate and a new building was erected a few rods to the rear of the post office in West Concord. When the project was at top productivity it was rather a sight to behold the sugar arriving by the carload.
When the enterprise had run its course Mr. Whitcomb was sent to England to negotiate the closing of the offices there following similar action in France and Germany. He was available for this purpose because he had sold his meat business to Mr. Ellis Harlow but upon his return he bought it back again to the satisfaction of both parties.
Mr. Conant had an unusual sentiment for the old Windsor Hotel and for a time owned the building and had the name painted in large letters on the side facing the railroad. It stood on the corner of the streets now known as Massachusetts Ave. and Windsor Ave. The old hotel and a large garage beside it, together with a two apartment house, were burned in 1922. In the same year Mr. George Mead and his wife bought the property and built the present brick block which houses a cafe, the post office, a store, and five apartments. At the same time there was also built a four apartment building on Windsor Ave.
The building in West Acton known as Littlefield's store was origin- ally an old barn. When Mr. Frank Knowlton started his cigar manu- facturing project the first location was on the second floor of this building. In 1889 the business had expanded sufficiently so that it was moved to the newly erected and more ample quarters immediately to east of the large apartment block next to the school house. For years this enterprise, with Mr. Frank Knowlton managing the factory and Mr. Octavius Knowlton in the field, did a thriving business and provided employment for some thirty men and women in the produc- tion of the well known Yankee Star cigar. One of the workers of those days recalls that in rush times some twenty five girls were kept busy. A deft girl could finish more that five hundred cigars
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a day. The building was eventually purchased by Mr. Albert Jenks, torn down, and rebuilt on Central St. as a cold storage plant.
Mr. Frank Knowlton was a member of Co. M, 1st Maine Regiment, was an active member of the G. A. R., and for more than a quarter of a century was a trustee of the Memorial Library.
Mr. Charles Robinson at one time bought a piece of land on the edge of the village towards Acton Centre and erected a large building with two extensions or ells. The main portion of the first floor housed a grocery store. One of the ells was used for men's furnishings and the other for women's wear. On the second floor were three tenements. Some two hundred feet to the rear he built a sort of men's club containing a smoking room, card room and two bowling alleys. Many years later Mr. Hoar tore it down and erected from the second hand lumber a bowling alley on private property for a gentleman in Harvard.
The brick building that now houses the telephone exchange was originally the residence of Bradley Stone and his blacksmith shop stood close by.
About 1882 a factory for the manufacture of overalls and white yachting suits employed some twenty girls for five years or more. The building now stands on Kinsley Road and functions as a private dwelling.
The combination grain, grist, and cider mill of Edwin C. Parker & Co. was built in 1868, burned in 1869, and rebuilt in 1870. The Parkers, father and sons, continued to operate the business until well into the first decade of the present century. In 1908 Mr. George Henry Reed, a native of Acton, who had for many years conducted a successful grain and lumbering business in East Dorset, Vt., bought out the Parker interest and continued to operate it until his death in his eighty ninth year in 1942. In 1909 he also assumed the manage- ment of the mills at South Acton. Mr. Reed was a direct descendent of Joseph Reed of Davis' company at Concord Bridge. It was a further coincidence that his grandfather, William Reed while repairing the roof of the famous Faulkner Mills in 1812 received his summons to report for duty in the war. A century later Mr. Reed assumed the responsibility of the same mills. In 1940 the younger of his two sons, George Howard Reed, took charge of the business and he and his wife, Marion, are at present active in that capacity and in the civic affairs of the town.
In 1873 the Butter and Cheese Factory Company was incorporated and ran for three or four years. The venture proved unsuccessful and eventually the first floor was used for many years by William Lawrence as a blacksmith shop, and after him by a Mr. Bisbee. The upper floor was used by Waldo Littlefield as a paint shop for vehicles
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of all sorts. The building is now owned by James E. Kinsley to house the supplies of the Acton Pipe Company.
It will come as a surprise to many to learn that no sooner had Acton striven mightily to put down secession on a national scale than it had to combat a similar attempt within its own confines. The town records give no hint of this growing sentiment but at a meeting held on November 3rd 1868, at which there was a large attendance and much debate, the following resolution eventually prevailed by a vote of 204 to 45.
"Whereas, certain citizens of the district of West Acton have declared their intentions, if it can be effected, of cutting themselves off from the town of Acton, and in con- nection with Boxborough establishing a new town; and since said town of Acton believes that small towns labor under great disadvantage in reference to sustaining social, literary and religious institutions and said town of Acton is too small already and has not a farm or a family to spare, and should seek to add to rather than cut off any of its population and territory and since the division of the town as proposed would detract from its historic fame and since said town of Acton is ready to receive any part or all of the said town of Boxborough, Therefore resolved that we as a town persistently oppose its dismemberment and choose a committee of seven persons with full powers to employ counsel and take such means and measures as in their judgement is advisable to save the town from prospec- tive trouble and ruin; the expense of the same to be borne by the said town of Acton."
The committee chosen to take this uprising in hand consisted of Daniel J. Wetherbee, William W. Davis, John Fletcher, Luther Conant, Aaron Handley, George Gardner, and William D. Tuttle. This was an able, alert, and conscientious group which could not fail to command the utmost respect of every citizen of Acton, except possibly some of the disgruntled minority who, according to legend, were less interested in doing Boxborough a favor than in finding "lebensraum" for a town cut to their pattern. That such a committee succeeded in its efforts was not unexpected but it was fortuitous for the future of both towns concerned.
The project was not as much of a flash in the pan as the vote indicates. The majority of the people of Boxborough were favorable to the formation of a new town. The records give no clue as to the contemplated name. Apparently the matter dragged on for months since more than a year later, on November 30, 1869, a Boxborough town meeting convened to consider the article, "Resolved that the
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town of Boxborough unite with that part of Acton called West Acton", passed an affirmative vote of 49 to 11 and instructed a special com- mittee to use every effort to bring about the union.1
The eventual throttling of the scheme was a matter of considerable chagrin to numerous Boxborough citizens. The scroll of time may prove it to have been a blessing. In that era the town was truly isolated and very sparsely settled. The trend was toward the cities and size and bustle were in the minds of many confused with progress and the full life. So Boxborough has had to go it alone but its way has been long, dignified and honorable. Its leading citizens have been persons of courage, industry, character, and of high repute throughout the countryside. Their offspring have made names for themselves in the far places and have always had a unified and venerable community they could call home.
On one point there can be slight doubt. The coterie in West Acton that started the scheme was motivated by no altruistic notions with respect to the established families of old Boxborough. To so believe is to ignore the whole history of human conduct. Very shortly the rural community would have found itself perpetually out-voted and more or less ignored except as an expansion area for its vigorous and ambitious new bedfellow. It takes no seer to appreciate this fact. It is merely the history of growing America and in such forced unions the lesser party has usually been disallusioned too late. A farming community of three hundred cannot absorb a thriving industrial unit of several times that number. If one seeks local illustrations they are readily available in the cases of old Groton and Ayer and Stow, Sudbury and Maynard. In those instances the up-start village was a part of the parent body and there was much in common but neverthe- less the child outgrew the household and eventually went its way alone to the relief of all concerned. To have tried to combine two communities with diverse backgrounds and interests would have been mixing oil and water. The thing could work only if one group was either supine or ruthlessly submerged.
With the arrival of the automobile, long haul trucking to every isolated country store, and modern methods of snow removal, there has come a decided drift of suburban folk to the rural areas. Added to this has come recently the superhighway that has put Boxborough within forty five minutes of Boston. It, as in the case of Carlisle and the remoter portions of Acton, are now sought after. The careworn subsistence farmer of a former day is no more. The modern commuter is independent of the soil. He can pay his taxes and in general
1 Boxborough, a New England Town and Its People, published 1891 by Lucie Caroline Hager. For this reference the author is indebted to the present town clerk of Boxborough, Florence E. Smith. The same material appears in Hurd, History of Middlesex County vol. 2, p. 773.
A legend for which the author has failed to find written evidence asserts that the projected name of the new town was Bromfield.
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comes with a sincere desire to be welcome and to make a contribution to the new environment. It may well be that within a generation the hopes of eighty years ago will be realized in the form of a well knit and attractive residential town whose life stream has been kept unique and whose independence preserved.
It was in this same year, 1868, that Mr. Luther Conant took charge of the Centre School for the winter term with outstanding success. The school report states that, "He knows exactly what to do and how to do it in the best manner". In those days of low standards of pupil deportment this was excessive praise. Furthermore it was deserved since Mr. Conant was an accomplished and dignified man and a rigid disciplinarian as well. He would have been anathema to the modern theorists because his pupils feared him but they respected him mightily and testified to his interest and fairness to the end of their lives. He later became one of the town's most prominent citizens and performed for it innumerable services of trust for over half a century.
In March of 1869 it was voted to begin the erection of a series of more commodious school buildings. Among the factors leading to the decision was the problem of school discipline mentioned above. As a matter of fact it was practically non-existent in certain districts. The teachers were only partially to blame. In open town meeting the school committee put the matter squarely on the shoulders of the parents and accused them of studied non-cooperation. In one in- stance, to emphasize their point, the committee published the following excerpt from a letter received by a disgruntled and departing teacher :
"I shall not, for any consideration, enter into an arrangement to teach this school again; for besides hearing in a thorough manner some twenty recitations a day, they expect me to thrash some of the larger boys into obedience, which I consider neither right nor proper to expect of any female."
In another case Miss Nellie Bradley, an experienced teacher hired for the winter term at the South Intermediate School, left after three days because of the impossible behaviour of the pupils.1
To one who knows the foregoing facts there is much eloquence in the item appearing in the school report of 1870 wherein the school board congratulates itself because during the session there had been no cases of open rebellion.
Any Acton youngster of fifty years ago who was in the habit of traversing the highway that passes Woodlawn Cemetery was familiar
1 The Hoosier Schoolmaster, by Edward Eggleston, vividly portrays the teacher tribulations of the period. It was during the winter term that the older boys took advantage of the hiatus in farm labor to attend school. They were frequently as much as five years behind their age group and considered it a civic duty to oust the teacher if possible, by annoyance if a woman, and by force if a man.
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with the old Robbins family tomb with its iron door set in the cemetery wall. Today the opening is walled up but the spot is readily recognizable to one who seeks it. Previous to 1870 it had been the practice of the town to hire from Elbridge Robbins the use of the tomb as a respository for the bodies of those who died during the winter months when the ground was too deeply frozen to permit immediate burial. For this accomodation a rental of one dollar a year was in force. In 1870 it was decided to erect a new tomb of much larger capacity to meet the needs of increased population. It is this tomb that stands today beside the building which for many years housed the town hearse but which now serves as a tool shop. One use to which the tomb has been put, that never entered the minds of the builders we are certain, was that of a lunch and siesta room. During the years when Asaph Parlin and Nathaniel Brown cared for the cemetery in the 1910 era they sought relief frequently from the noon- day heat of summer by emptying their dinner pails in the cool of the tomb and thereafter taking a thirty minute nap on the coffin benches before resuming the afternoon duties.
The granite for the tomb was for the most part purchased from William Reed1 and probably came from a shallow quarry on his farm. The builders were William Reed, Solomon Dutton, John Harris, Daniel Harris, Luke Smith and Ai Robbins. The hauling was done by Luke Tuttle and Charles Wheeler.2 The committee in charge of the building of the tomb consisted of the selectmen plus Francis Dwight.
It may well be mentioned here that in this same year the town decided to pay honor to Ezekiel Davis, brother of Isaac Davis, who was wounded at Concord Fight, by erecting a headstone at his grave, which for fifty years had gone unmarked since his death in 1820 at the age of sixty eight. There were two reasons for this lapse of time. The first was the fact that Ezekiel Davis was practically a pauper in his later years; the second was sheer neglect on the part of the town. The marker now standing at his grave was erected "at a cost not to exceed fifty dollars".
It was in 1870 also that one of Acton's best known and respected merchants, Mr. Emery Taylor, launched himself, at the age of twenty one, in a general store business that was to set a record in the town
1 William Reed lived on the farm now occupied by William Kazokas on Arling- ton Street. He received $69.60 for granite and $60.00 for labor. John White was also paid $10.00 for granite. (Not to be confused with the William Reed who lived on the present Rimbach place)
2 Charles Wheeler lived for many years on the Isaac Davis homestead. Luke Tuttle lived in the homestead now owned by Wallace Sherry in Acton Centre. In Mr. Tuttle's day a huge cow barn stood in the area between the house and the driveway that now goes to the stone garage to the rear. Mr. Luke Tuttle's son, Harry, built the stone building for apple storage.
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annals. For sixty five years under his management the inventory increased until it was well nigh impossible to name an article that could not be found somewhere in the recesses of the rambling establishment. Today a fraction of it houses the present store and the Centre post office. In the heyday, however, the merchandise also filled a large shed in the rear and spilled over into the huge barn that forty years ago stood some few rods to the rear of the present residence of Mr. Norman Collins.
Throughout Mr. Taylor's benign regime the enterprise retained its flavor as an old fashioned country store. In the rear was the pot- bellied stove, set in sand and surrounded by the smooth worn chairs of the village sages. On a winter day, while politics and tall tales went on amain, the proprietor and his two sons were busy selling blasting powder and chewing tobacco, axe handles and corsets, putty and Epsom salts, horse collars and embroidery hoops, porus plasters and barbed wire fencing. Upon occasion the diamond dye got into the box labelled "grass seed" but that was an insignificant trifle to a clerk who knew the stock. Until late in his career the kindly merchant escaped fussing with the mass of modern packaged goods. In the good old days flour, corn meal, beans, peas, raisins, and even crackers and cookies came by the barrel as did also kerosene, vinegar, molasses, and shellac. When the customer bought he did not expect to return in a few hours. He loaded up once and for all. Only rarely was there a female clerk so it was Mr. Taylor himself,1 a jolly, honest, and circumspect person, who accompanied the women to the upstairs regions for the purchase of the more intimate articles.
In 1935, at the age of eighty six, Mr. Taylor found it necessary to relinquish active connection with the store. Since then, first under the management of Mr. Dewey Boatman, and subsequently under the present proprietor, more modern methods have been intro- duced and extensive alterations made. Nevertheless, modern techni- que, however profitable and efficient, cannot replace the old general store as a unique institution and as a forum for local public opinion. One case in point seems apropos. No amount of listening to the elec- tion returns over the radio can match the thrill that came to the eager local politicians of both parties as they congregated in the old store to exult or dispair while the proprietor at the telephone an- nounced the results far into the night.
In the autumn of 1870 the Davis Monument was honored by a visit of the state military encampment at Concord, under the com-
1 Moses Emery Taylor, born March 18, 1849; died February 20, 1937. The elder son, Wilmot Taylor, clerked in the store throughout his lifetime, until it ceased operations as a Taylor project. He is now retired and living in Stow. The younger son, Simon, now deceased, ran the delivery wagon for a portion of his earlier years.
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mand of General Benjamin F. Butler. According to Fletcher the noon hour in camp was a busy scene of preparation for the afternoon march to Acton. While dinner was yet being served the drums of the First Brigade were heard in the distance to the right and the long line was marked by its dust, winding its way by a circuitous route to the review field. In half an hour the other brigades were on the march and at a quarter of two five thousand men were in line. The infantry were on the right and center and the whole artillery and cavalry were massed on the left.
At two o'clock General Butler, mounted on his white horse, and with his full staff, took his place at the head of the division and rode out at the north corner on to the Concord road. The marching column was about a mile and a quarter in length. The route from Concord to Acton was largely the same as that which the Acton troops took in the Revolution, the division marching in column of fours.
The head of the column reached Acton at ten minutes after four o'clock. The selectmen, W. W. Davis, Elbridge Robbins, Jr., and Charles Robinson, with a committee of citizens, both men and women, had made preparations to welcome the troops. Houses were decorated and numerous barrels of lemonade and apples were in readiness.
The monument and the town hall were elegantly decorated. The streets and the Common were crowded with people in holiday attire. Mr. Davis, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, addressed General Butler in an eloquent and earnest manner. The General responded as follows:
"On behalf of the soldiers of Massachusetts gathered here in your good old town, I thank you for your earnest welcome and for your offered hospitality. It seems most pleasant to us to find so beautiful a resting place after our long and weary march. You have referred to the services of the militia in the late war, and you will allow me to say that the character and conduct of Co. E of Acton evidenced that the spirit of the Revolutionary sires has not died out of the good old town of Acton.
"You have the honor of having erected the third monu- ment of the war of the Revolution and of having suffered among the first in that struggle. You have earned the right to say that the sons will, by deed and work, keep green the memories of this historic spot. You and they have made a noble record, and, as it has been in the past, so may it be in the future.
"I doubt not that the sight of this monument, and the
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