USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > History of the town of Acton > Part 36
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Through the years Acton has been the recipient of numerous gifts from its sons and daughters and admirers. In 1923 the town voted to accept a sum of twenty five thousand dollars as per the will of George Robert White in memory of his mother Elizabeth. The funds were to be judiciously invested and the income used to "relieve the neces- sities of deserving poor or unfortunate, preferably widows and orphans, irrespective of citizenship, and particularly in those cases for which the town may not be liable, but may feel a moral obligation to care for". Mr. White exhibited unusual perspicacity in stipulating further that it should be the duty of the town to anticipate such
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necessities in order that persons in need, who because of undue sensitivity might refuse to apply for aid, should be benefitted without publicity. Very probably this turn of mind was due to the fact that as a boy in South Acton Mr. White was conscious of the hardships experienced by his mother in supporting herself.
In pursuance of the donor's wish the town appointed Waldo E. Whitcomb, William H. Kingsley, and Warren H. Jones as trustees to carry out the details of the implementing of the fund. Each year the town elects one trustee for a term of three years. As of 1950 the personnel of the group was Waldo E. Whitcomb, Grace O. Lears, and Clara L. Sawyer.
Mr. White was born in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, July 19, 1847 and died in Boston on January 27, 1922. He received his education in the public schools of Acton and Boston. At the age of seventeen he entered the employ of the drug firm of Weeks and Potter in which he subsequently became a partner and president.
In 1878 the company developed a skin ointment which proved so effective that it was decided to manufacture the formula for general sale, and the first box was sold over the counter in that year. The trade name, Cuticura, was originated by Mr. White, who was at the time handling the advertising of the specialty department. Shortly there- after, again at the suggestion of Mr. White, the beneficial ingredients of the ointment were incorporated into the famous Cuticura soap. With the introduction of this product the enterprise rapidly attained the calibre of big business with the result that in 1883 the Potter Drug and Chemical Company came into being. In 1889 Mr. White became president and held the position with distinction until his death.
An associate of those years has said of him, "Mr. White was one of God's own gentlemen. He was a man of powerful force but always approachable and genial. One never had the feeling that he was an employer. He had worked himself up from the bottom and he never forgot it."
Stories and anecdotes concerning him are non-existent since he avoided the limelight as the plague. To the general public, in fact, he was practically unknown. Only those who read the annual list of the city's largest taxpayers in the newspaper had ever heard of him. Certainly only a handful of Acton residents recognized him for who he was upon the occasions of his periodic visits to the scenes of his boyhood and his lifelong friend Mr. George Ames.
Before his death he gave generously to many institutions, notably to the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston and the million dollar building of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. In his will he left three funds of one hundred thousand dollars each to the Massachusetts General Hospital, one for the maintenance of the ward for women and
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children, one for the development or maintenance of a department for the treatment of diseases of the skin, and one in trust for the children's hospital to be administered for general purposes of that unit. One wing of the hospital is named after Mr. White.
The major portion of his will, however, was bequeathed to the city of Boston as a permanent charitable fund known as the George Robert White Fund. The original gift amounted to five and a half million dollars. Disbursements have approximated four million for seven health centers set up in the more congested areas of the city. As of 1948 the fund had increased, despite the expenditures, to more than eight and a half millions of which over three millions were then available for new projects. One unusual feature of the bequest was the stipulation that it was to be used for substantial civic improve- ments which would not be undertaken in the normal course of the city's business. Such was the farsightedness and the generosity of the man whose memorial fountain in the Boston Public Garden is probably looked upon by very few today who know what the name signifies.
Mr. White was a director of the First National Bank of Boston, a Trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, of the Forest Hills Cemetery, and the Gray Herbarium.
He never married, always making his home with his sister, Mrs. Frederick T. Bradbury, who was also generous in her philanthropies to the city.
As the automobile became more and more the uniform method of conveyance it was inevitable that it should push from the scene the horse drawn vehicles and the incidental activities that went with the era. Beginning with the autumn of 1923 the school children were transported by motor busses and the old barges went into the limbo of the past. The final moneys paid out by the town appear in the town report of 1922 as follows; Charles Edwards and John D. Smith $975.00 apiece; W. M. French $420, and A. Christofferson $920.00.
With the change the cost per force increased. Meanwhile the town was spending close to seven thousand dollars a year to transport the high school students to Concord. Not a few of the citizens were beginning to ponder the problem seriously. In his annual report in 1924 Supt. Knight pointed out that the high school, for transportation and tuition combined was expending seventeen thousand dollars per year. Furthermore, in order to get the benefit of cash discounts the moneys due other towns had to be paid promptly. They were fixed charges. An increase in enrollment not anticipated could very readily wipe out what had appeared to be a comfortable balance when the budget was drawn up in January. This could mean that by September the elementary schools might have to initiate drastic
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economies until the next fiscal year. The Superintendent pointed out that were the high school in Acton the finances could be more equably allocated according to local necessity.
This was the final broadside in the long battle of the high school which, due to a radical change in public attitude, was to be solved in the not too distant future.
However lethargic Acton was during the nineteenth century in making provision for fire protection the popular mind had surely taken a modern turn during the first quarter century thereafter. At . the March meeting of 1924 it was voted to procure three up-to-date fire trucks and to so finance the purchase as to absorb the indebted- ness in four years. A committee of nine consisting of the selectmen, the three chief fire engineers and J. Sidney White, Fred L. Burke, Edgar H. Hall was appointed to decide on the disposal of the trucks and other matters pertaining to the requisite changes.
After due consideration it was decided that the best procedure was to equip each village with an efficient piece of apparatus while at the same time making use of whatever was usable on the old trucks. Consequently the body of the South Acton truck was com- pletely rebuilt. The chemical tanks on the West Acton truck were renovated and placed on a new Reo chassis, together with five hun- dred feet of hydrant hose, and placed at the Centre.
A triple combination pumper, chemical, and hose truck, with two thirty five gallon chemical tanks and one thousand feet of hose was placed in West Acton. A new combination chemical and hose truck carrying two thirty five gallon chemical tanks and one thousand feet of hose was placed in South Acton.
Due to its past unfortunate experiences West Acton already had a fire company but at this time companies were organized at the South and Centre. Under the new set-up the town was able for the first time to profit by minimum insurance rates.
A vote had already been passed to build a new fire house at the Centre on a site close to the old one at the rear of the town hall, but in view of the new facilities the vote was rescinded and a location on Concord St. just across from the residence of Miss Gladys Bean was selected. The new fire house was built and functioned successfully for several years but in due course the much larger and more useful and imposing present building was erected.
As Acton's story has progressed through the years many changes have taken place that would have astounded the early citizenry. Pursuant of the movement into modernity came the demand for per- mission for Sunday baseball as per the vote of the state in 1920. An article to that end was indefinitely postponed by a vote of 141 to 57 in 1921. It failed again in 1923 but eventually passed in 1924.
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With increasing population and the concommitant complexity of civic business Acton was eventually forced to rearrange its town meeting technique. Thereby was sounded the knell of a distinctive and grand old institution - the town meeting dinner. For sixty years after the building of the town hall the town meeting was an all day affair with a big noon collation. The majority of the voters were at that time farmers who could readily spare a day in early March.
For decades the church solicited the edibles and served the meals. Later the Grange assumed the responsibility. At the rear of the lower hall, which then occupied the whole floor area, there were two cook stoves and plenty of good birch and hickory wood. On one would be seen two wash boilers full of coffee and on the other two more filled with prime hams. This latter delicacy was not infrequently in charge of Mr. Moses Reed, not merely because of his good nature and civic interest, but also because he was a surpassing master at the cooking and carving thereof. For a quarter one could get all the baked beans, boiled ham, mashed potatoes, coffee, cake and pie that one could hold. Eating patterns were somewhat different in those days. Salads and the lighter foods were yet in the future. What these yeomen wanted were belly-filling victuals - not vitamins. For some of the folk it was the gorge of the year. A veteran waitress testifies to seeing one of the town's valiant trenchermen stow away three heaping platefuls and top off with five pieces of mince pie together with incidental pickles, cheese, tapioca pudding and cake.
An end comes to all things, however good, and in 1925, pursuant to a previous vote, the town officers were elected by precincts on March Ist. and the regular town meeting was held on March 9th. Eight years later, under the impact of the necessities of a population largely employed out of town during the day, the final demise of the old town meeting came with the inauguration of evening sessions.
In 1925 the town appointed Mr. Albert Jenks as its first forester. He reported that eleven thousand three year old white pine trans- plants had been procured and distributed to citizens interested in setting them out and properly caring for them. Some of the people requested spruce seedlings in order to start Christmas tree plantations. He further reported that the Keyes and Conant tracts, comprising twenty two acres, had been set aside for town forest work.
In 1925 innovations associated with a burgeoning community went on apace. The town voted to employ a public health nurse in addition to the school nurse already in service although there was no restriction that it might not be the same person. As a matter of fact it was the same person, Mildred E. Walther, who worked in conjunction with the school committee, the board of health, and a special committee composed of Mrs. Eugene L. Hall, Mrs. William Rawitser, and Miss
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Charlotte Conant.
The great bombshell of the year, however, was when the town at its March meeting voted the following:
"That the town erect a high school building in the vicinity of Kelley's corner, and that the selectmen be and hereby are authorized and directed to petition for legislation to author- ize the town to borrow the sum of fifty thousand dollars, outside the debt limit for said purpose".
and then proceeded without hesitation to nominate and elect George A. Richardson, W. Stuart Allen, Edgar H. Hall, Waldo E. Whitcomb, William Rawitser and Frank Toohey as a building com- mittee.
Always in the past such a vote had been followed by a season of political maneuvering that ended in nullifying the original decision. This time, however, due in large part no doubt to the fact that facile transportation had minimized distances within the town, it appeared at long last as if a spirit of township unanimity had superseded the village jealously of former years. At a special meeting on April 11th by a vote of 332 to 60 (with two ballots blank) it was decided to purchase the necessary land and erect the building at a cost not in excess of one hundred thousand dollars.
The New England town meeting has ever been a forum where the voter could express any opinion within the bounds of propriety that bore on the question at issue. Instances are plentiful where the rugged old individualists of the past indulged in pithy invective concerning the town officials and diverse others of contrary viewpoint to the high glee of the assembled electorate before the moderator could restore parliamentary decorum. Despite the apparent pacific conditions indicated in the paragraph above there were, so the story goes, certain entertaining pyrotechnics relative to land values before the high school question was resolved.
In May Mr. Charles W. Lawrence was elected to organize the high school. His first move was to become familiar with the work that had been done by the students while at Concord and in this he testifies to the kindly assistance accorded him by Principal Goddard. He found that ninety two percent were in the College Preparatory or the Scientific or the Commercial Courses, the balance being in Manual Training or Domestic Science. It seemed to him advisable therefore in the new Acton high school to concentrate on the College Prepara- tory and the Commercial Courses.
All this led up to the fact that in September of 1925, after a lapse of eighteen years, a new and well appointed Acton High School opened with one hundred and two students and a faculty consisting of Mr. Charles W. Lawrence (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
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languages and history; Miss Leona Albrecht and Miss Winifred Bruce (both of Boston University) commercial subjects; Miss Hazel Murray (Boston University) and Miss Mabel Noyes (Wellesley) languages and English; and Mr. L. Ashley Rich (Northeastern University) mathematics and science.
Especial interest centers around the memorial tablets placed in the High School building. From them much can be learned of Acton's past history and of the activities of its prominent men and women. The data appears in the town report for 1926 but is well worthy of repetition here.
Auditorium of the High School:
BLANCHARD HALL Given in Memory of LUKE BLANCHARD 1826 - 1901 Merchant of Boston And JERUSHA VOSE BLANCHARD 1826 - 1909 LOYAL CITIZENS OF ACTON By Their Son ARTHUR F. BLANCHARD 1926
Cooking Room: The Furnishings of This Room Were Given as a Memorial to VARNUM BALFOUR MEAD 1832 - 1908 and DIREXA ELIZABETH MEAD 1835 - 1900 By Their Children George Varnum Mead Frederick Stearns Mead Adelbert Francis Mead
Typewriting Room:
OLIVER WARREN MEAD 1823 - 1912 A prominent Citizen Active in Promoting Higher Education and The General Welfare of the
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TOWN OF ACTON For More Than Fifty Years This Tablet Erected by His Children in Affectionate Remembrance
Science Room:
The Fittings and Furnishings of this Room Were Given by the Children of GEORGE CLEVELAND WRIGHT and SUSAN HASKELL DAVIS WRIGHT As a Memorial to Their Parents both of Whom Were Life Long Residents of this Town 1823 - 1910
GEORGE CLEVELAND WRIGHT
Served this District as its Representative to the General Court 1873-1874. He was a prosperous Merchant, a wise counsellor, a generous sympathetic Friend of Those in Distress, and Foremost in all Community Work He was a direct descendant of Deacon John Wright of Woburn, 1640 SUSAN HASKELL DAVIS WRIGHT
Was Born Within One-Half Mile of this Spot Before Her Marriage She Taught in All But Two School Districts of this Town. She was a Prime Factor in her Husband's Success. She was a Grand Niece of Capt. Isaac Davis shot by the British Soldiers April 19, 1775 at Concord, and a Direct Descendant in the Eighth Generation of Dolor Davis 1635, Husband of Margery Willard, Sister of Major Simon Willard of Concord Who Bought Much Land From the Indians in this Vicinity.
ACTON HIGH SCHOOL Completed A. D. 1926 Building Committee
William Rawitser W. Stuart Allen
George A. Richardson Frank Toohey
Waldo E. Whitcomb Edgar Hall Architect - John H. Bickford Builders - Duncan Construction Co. John F. Cabeen
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THE BRONZE LANTERNS Are Given In Loving Memory of DAVID R. RAWITSER By His Parents.
Upstairs are the following: Room 12 and Room 11, Sophomore Home Room and Junior Home Room:
The Furnishings of These two East Rooms Are Given in Memory of VARNUM TUTTLE 1823 - 1904 A Life Long Resident of the TOWN OF ACTON
Room, 10 Senior Home Room:
This Room is Furnished In Memory of EMERY W. CLARK 1870 - 1923 Valedictorian of the class of 1886 The first class graduated from THE ACTON HIGH SCHOOL
Front Rooms, used by Grades VII and VIII: The Furnishings of these Rooms Are in Memory of FREDERICK C. NASH Formerly Superintendent of Schools For The Town of Acton and CLARA HAPGOOD NASH In Her Youth a Teacher
West Room, No. 15:
The Furnishings of this Room were given in Memory of DELETTE H. HALL 1843 - 1920 Served through the Civil War in Co. E. 26th Regiment Mass. Vol. Inf.
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With General Butler in the Gulf Department and with General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley 1861 - 1865 A Loyal Soldier and an honored citizen Representative to the General Court 1906 and SUSAN A. WETHERBEE HALL 1844 - 1922
The Library and Reading Rooms: LIBRARY AND READING ROOM A Memorial to 1831 LUTHER CONANT 1922 and his wife
Northwest Room:
This Room is Furnished In Memory of 1728 COLONEL FRANCIS FAULKNER 1805 Upright In Character, Wise In Counsel, Faithful in Service Member Of Provincial Congress 1774, Colonel of Middlesex Regiment 1775 Delegate To Constitutional Convention 1779 Representative To The General Court 1783-1785 As Chairman Of The Committee Of Safety His Signal Gun Was Fired Three Times Before Daybreak April 19, 1775, Which Signal Was Repeated From Every Farm House The Sounds Growing Fainter In The Distance. The Acton Minute-Men Assembled At The Faulkner And Davis Homesteads, Then Marched With Captain Davis To Concord Bridge.
In Peace He Was A Leading Citizen In All Public Interests. He Developed At The Faulkner Mills, South Acton, One Of The Earliest Cloth Mills Of This Country. The Wool, After Carding, Was Distributed To The Homes For Spinning And Weaving, Then Returned To The Mill For Fulling, Dyeing, And Dressing. Prizes Were Awarded For The Finest Specimens In Home Made Broadcloth.
And His Grandson 1805 COLONEL WINTHROP E. FAULKNER 1880
Member Of The State Senate 1853-1854 Director Of The Fitchburg Railroad 1855-1872 Genial, Hospitable, Public-Spirited, A Leader In The Military, Musical, Social, And Civic Activities Of Acton. Given By His Daughter In 1926 SOPHIA FAULKNER CAMPBELL
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No better opportunity than this will present itself for a commentary concerning Sophia Faulkner Campbell, the donor of the tablet just mentioned. It is a curious turn of circumstance, in view of the activity of her ancestors in the events of the Revolution, that she should have attained to the British peerage. Born Sophia Elizabeth Faulkner on October 14, 18481 she married Dr. Francis J. Campbell, LLD, FRGS of London on February 18, 1875.
Dr. Campbell was a native of Tennessee. He lost his sight at the age of three and at the age of ten went to a school for the blind in Nashville. After growing to manhood he taught at Bridgewater and in Wisconsin and was for eleven years the head of the Music Depart- ment of the Perkins Institute for the Blind. Subsequently he went to London where his ability enabled him to become the head and the originator of the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind at Norwood. His ingenuity and amazing success revolution- ized the English methods of teaching the blind and eventually earned him a knighthood.
After his demise Lady Campbell returned to her native land and lived in Newton from whence her body was brought to Woodlawn for burial in June of 1933.
On April 19, 1925 Acton celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Concord Fight with proper ceremonies. The committee in charge consisted of Miss Charlotte Conant, Mr. Murray Brown, Mr. George A. Richardson, Mr. Allen Brooks Parker, and Mr. Theron Lowden. This committee was subsequently augmented by some fifteen others.2
Public exercises instead of being held on the Common as planned were, because of unusually severe and chilly weather, held in the town hall at two o' clock. Governor Alvin T. Fuller, Hon. John F. Fitzgerald (who married Josephine Hannon of South Acton), and Rev. Frederick Brooks Noyes were present and made addresses. An over- flow meeting for the children was held in the Congregational Church with special exercises. Although the Governor was expected to appear at a meeting in Medford that same afternoon he remained long enough to speak to the children. Previous to his remarks in the town hall he placed a wreath upon the grave of Capt. Isaac Davis and gave a brief talk to the minute men assembled upon the Common.
This company of minute nien consisted of about one hundred men uniformed as Revolutionary soldiers. The next day it held an honored position in the parade at Concord and received great
1 The records are in conflict as to the date of her birth. Acton vital statistics give it as Oct. 14, 1848 whereas the Acton town report for 1933 cites the death date at June 18, 1933 and states her age as eighty seven years and two months which would make the birth year 1846. The monument in Woodlawn shows the date Oct. 14, 1849.
2 For full particulars see page 100 of the town report of 1925.
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applause. Among its members were several who had been in the Acton company organized for the Concord celebration of 1875.
On the afternoon of the same day Vice-President Dawes and his suite came to Acton upon invitation of the committee and placed a wreath upon the Davis tomb. By some happy circumstance the ill weather that had prevailed for two days suddenly broke just before the Vice-President arrived and made his visit much the pleasanter.
In 1926 Mr. George V. Mead and his wife purchased and presented to the town the triangle of ground in West Acton that is now identified as Sidney Edwards Square. The bronze tablet on the huge field stone bears the following inscription:
This plot of land presented to the Town of Acton by GEORGE VARNUM MEAD and EFFIE WRIGHT MEAD
The road on the north side of this lot was the old Indian Trail and first colony road in this vicinity and connected Acton Center with Stow - on this road travelled many citi- zen soldiers on their way to Concord April 19, 1775 - about one and one half miles east of this point was the house of Capt. Isaac Davis.
The Indian trail mentioned was very probably the same one cited by Crowell in his History of Stow as that which led from the Indian settlement in Natick up through Stow to Nashoba.
Sidney John Edwards for whom the square is named was born in Barnstable, Devonshire, England, December 11, 1878. He came to this country when about fourteen months old and lived in West Acton until he was fourteen years of age, at which time the family moved to Winchester, Mass. He enlisted in the 30th Battalion at Victoria, British Columbia on November 1, 1914, proceeded overseas to Eng- land February 23, 1915 where he transferred to the 15th Battalion and proceeded to France May 16, 1915 and was reported killed fighting gallantly five days later on May 21, 1915. He received the Canadian Silver Memorial Cross, the British Silver War Medal and the Victory Medal in Bronze, and also the 1914-15 Bronze Star.
In March of 1926 the seventh and eighth grades were transferred to the rooms prepared for them in the high school building. The chil- dren were thereby grouped into single grades under one teacher thus evening up the work for the whole town. The teachers were Ella L. Miller, Mary Branley and Olive Valente.
During the year the state released the town from the Littleton, Acton, Carlisle Union in consequence of which Mr. Charles W.
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Lawrence was made superintendent as well as principal of the high school.
With June came the first graduation exercises in Acton since the year 1907. They were held in the auditorium, the address of the evening being given by Mr. Harry Gardner, Deputy Commissioner of Education of Massachusetts. The class greetings were given by Marion Fobes, the history by Sumner Teele, a vocal solo by Leona Albrecht of the faculty, and the valedictory by Alberta Hodgen. The presentation of diplomas was by Mr. Spencer Taylor, chairman of the school committee.
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