USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > History of the town of Acton > Part 6
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At this time (December 9, 1743) the matter of the support of the schools again arose and a vote was passed to raise eighteen pounds (old tenor) for the support of the same. Simultaneously it was voted that the assessors (Samuel Davis, John Cragin, Samuel Jones) be a committee to divide the town into three school districts. This is the first positive action taken by the town on the school question. The voting of specific funds would indicate that at last the townspeople really meant business. Likewise the committee named, although acting in double capacity, may well be called Acton's first school
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committee, even though no authority in the matter of school organ- ization was specifically delegated to it. As a matter of fact we find that a year later twenty pounds was voted which same was to be allocated among the parts of the town by the selectmen.
Concurrently with the various projects that have been mentioned there was considerable action in the matter of highways. The town records bristle with items concerning roads laid out or proposed and tell an interesting story of political backing and filling in the attempt on the part of one party or another to get special access to church, store, or desirable farm land or water privileges. The details are far too intricate to be considered here (by far the best reference on this point is the exceptionally well excuted map of the old town ways and houses drawn in 1890 by former town clerk Horace F. Tuttle, which hangs in the Acton Memorial Library) but now and then a typical case is cited which shows the tone of the community mind. At the March meeting of 1744 there appeared in the warrant an article having for its objective the building of a bridge over the "Great Brook" near the house of Nathan Robbins in order to ease the difficulties of one Hugh Foster. Whatever the nature of Mr. Foster's tribulations, either real or imaginary, the town did not see fit to give him relief since the article was dismissed. This action un- doubtedly referred to a bridge approximately at the site of the present stone one near the baseball field in South Acton. On the modern geological survey map the stream is called Fort Pond Brook. On the older maps it is designated as Fort Pond Brook or as Law's Great Brook. Among Acton residents the strange custom persists of using the term Fort Pond Brook for that portion above South Acton whereas lower down, in the area nearer to the Concord line where it flows through the old Laws farms, it is frequently identified as Law's Brook. Incidentally there is no Acton record as to when Fort Pond was so named or why but in any event we do find mention of Fort Pond Brook in connection with perambulation of the bounds in 1744. Mr. Albert Conant, an Acton native, successful business man in Littleton, and a careful student of its lore, remarks in a historical paper of visiting as a boy the old cellar hole which was presumed to be part of the ancient Indian fort from which the adjacent pond took its name.
Another bit of local history and geography is brought to mind by an article in the warrant of 1750 "to see if the town will discontinue a bit of way that leads from Daniel Shepards beginning at a place commonly called Rocky Guzzle to a pitch pine upon the high land towards the meeting house". To a majority of the present Acton resi- dents the term "Rocky Guzzle" is without any particular import but to earlier residents it had a weighty and sombre connotation. Geo-
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graphically it is the ravine which lies between the northern boundary of old Woodlawn Cemetery and the level ground upon which the chapel now stands. The last vestiges of the road in question can still be seen in the form of an almost obscure cart path leading off to the right of the present highway as one goes down the hill toward the cemetery.
Where the name "Rocky Guzzle" originated is a mystery since there is hardly a place in Acton that is less rocky and there is nothing but the tiniest rill to do any guzzling or gurgling. In its present posture, with the landscaping that has been done in the last twenty years, there is nothing ominous about the little glen, but in former days, when the whole vale lay in the perpetual umbra of virgin pines and hemlock, the locality was avoided by the timid after the onset of dusk not only because of the silence and gloom and the nearby presence of the army of the dead but because of the disquieting legends associated with it. The choicest of these has to do with the Brooks Tavern and the erection of the second meeting house and will be related in its proper setting.
But we must cease this digression and return to the study of the record. As has already been made clear the building of the meeting house was a tedious business. Winter weather conditions forced the completion of the exterior but once that was accomplished progress slowed up appreciably. In the beginning there were sixteen pews installed, located on the main floor and adjacent to the side walls. In the center, on each side of the broad aisle, were constructed what were known as body seats. The remaining space, namely that under and above the gallery stairs, was filled in piecemeal over a lapse of several years. In fact the records show that periodically auctions were held in the endeavor to make disposition of it provided the bidder was a respected and responsible citizen. At certain auctions the town showed no compunction whatever about voting aye on one case and nay on another in the space of a few minutes. The body seats and those in the gallery were allocated to those who because of poverty or other cause were not proprietors of a pew and the occupants were arranged by sex with the men on the right and the women on the left of the pulpit. This was a custom of long standing followed presumably in the interests of morality and decorum. It was based on the debatable notion that if the young lads and lassies were isolated by a few feet their thoughts would more easily dwell on God and their souls. Only the owners of pews, namely men of stature and sobriety who were family heads, were allowed to sit with a wife and/or other female relatives.
Pew owners were accorded other unusual prorogatives, and that by town action, which, however little they may have effected the
45
sensibilities of the citizenry, certainly left an imprint upon the architecture of the meeting house. In 1744, for instance, Josiah Piper and Daniel Shepard were given permission to cut a window between their pews and another at the back of the Shepard pew with the proviso that they keep said windows in repair. It is because of this action that drawings of the old first meeting house show small windows here and there which are completely out of line with the standard larger ones.
To insure as much justice as possible in the assignment of the pews it was the practice for the town to choose a committee to "seat the meeting house". Experience had made it plain that only by such a procedure could haggling and confusion be minimized. Further- more, only thus could the aged and infirm be assured of a certain and comfortable seat. In spite of this attempt at democracy, however, the things of this mortal world were not wholly overlooked since we find record of where a certain committee was instructed to be "governed by age and the amount of taxes paid the preceding three years". Special instructions were also issued relative to Negroes who were to have exclusive use of the "hind seat in the gallery".
The first seating committee was elected at a special town meeting held on September 4, 1744 and the personnel consisted of John Davis, Jr., Jonathan Billing, John Craigin, and Jonathan Hosmer. There is no record of how successful this group was in the execution of this touchy assignment but at least it was not conspicuously un- successful since otherwise the report would have been soundly denounced and voted down as was the case in certain instances of later date.
As new arrivals moved into town pews were assigned to them by the selectmen who were constituted a special committee for that purpose by a vote of the town in March 1748. One of these new resi- dents appears to have been Timothy Farrar, who applied for the pew space under the women's stairs but was denied permission for un- specified reasons.
In the tenth year after the founding of Acton there occurred an event which at the time appeared routine but which was to loom large in the town's eventual story. On February 23, 1745 there was born to Ezekiel Davis and his wife Mary Gibson (of Stow) a son Isaac who was destined thirty years later to be the first commissioned officer to sacrifice his life in the War of the Revolution. Ezekiel Davis had married almost exactly a year previously and lived in the part of town where the village of West Acton subsequently came into being. The house, standing today on Arlington Street, has been in continuous use as a dwelling ever since, the owners being Elias Chaffin, Jona. B. Davis, and George Hagar among others. The
46
present occupant is Mrs. Ethel Goding who rents a portion of it to the Richard Corrigan family.
In due course the interest in the school situation progressed to the point where larger sums were being provided and the teachers were paid a salary. In 1749 we find a notation by the selectmen as having paid Deacon John Heald the sum of five pounds for services as schoolmaster for the years 1746 and 1747. They were two years in arrears but Acton at that time had not attained to such things as fiscal years, finance committees, auditors, and all the complex official- dom of the present era. If any instruction was given gratis previous to 1746 there is no record of it so Deacon Heald may be regarded as Acton's first bonafide schoolmaster as well as its first selectman and deacon. The next two appear to be Phineas Osgood and Josiah Hayward who received ten pounds each in March of 1748.
In May of the same year Acton really went all out in the matter of school support by voting the unheard of sum of sixty pounds, more than three times the amount deemed necessary only six years pre- viously. A brief summary of the payments recorded for the next several years is given below:
Jonathan Hosmer £17-00-00
Feb. 22, 1749
Josiah Hayward
2-00-00
Feb. 22, 1749
William Farr
8-10-00
Feb. 22, 1749
Timothy Brooks
8-10-00
Feb. 22, 1749
John Craigin
2-04-06
Mar. 4, 1751
John Meriam
2-04-06
Mar. 4, 1751
Josiah Hayward
2-04-06
Mar. 4, 1751
William Farr
2-06-09
May 7, 1751
Ephraim Smith
1-06-08
Nov. 28, 1751
Francis Eveleth
2-00-00
Mar. 2, 1752
John Craigin
2-00-00
Mar. 2, 1752
William Farr
3-02-03
Mar. 27, 1752
John Craigin
1-06-08
Mar. 27, 1752
Josiah Hayward
2-00-00
April 7, 1752
Francis Eveleth
4-00-00
May 12, 1753
Francis Eveleth cited above, was doubtless the native of Stow, mentioned in Crowell's history of that town (page 91) as having been "one of the famous teachers of the past".
Additional data relative to payment of school teachers will be found in Appendix V.
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF ACTON
PART III
1750 - 1800
Ever since the incorporation of the town it had been the custom to permit sheep and swine to run at large and forage for their food. As a matter of fact the origin of the town common or "common ground" stemmed from the fact that in earlier times it provided a place where the live stock could feed while under constant observa- tion. Each year an article in the warrant bore upon the point. At the March meeting of 1732 sheep were denied the privilege for the first time while hogs were allowed to continue to roam. The reason for this discrimmination is not too clear when viewed from the perspective of more than two centuries but at least it does illuminate one facet of a growing civic consciousness, even though it was to be a long time before a similar restriction was to be put on swine. The hogreeves were to be busy rounding up the stray pigs and coaxing them into the local pound for decades yet to come.1
It has already been pointed out that in numerous cases the town had seen fit at diverse times to order the constables to warn certain undesirable persons out of town. Up to 1753 however, there is no record of the specific procedure to be followed in the case of the insane or unfortunates of other sorts. At the March meeting of the above year there appeared in the warrant an article, "To se if town will Cast Lydia R ...... on those that Brought her into town and Likewise pass any vote Relating to said Lydia R. ..... that may be Thought proper when met". The action on this matter resulted in the choice of Nathan Robbins, Jonathan Parlin, John Davis, Jr., Capt. Davies, and Lt. Billing as a committee to examine into the matter.
No record appears as to subsequent action until 1759 at which time six shillings was voted as payment to Mrs. John Craigin for service as a midwife at the confinement of Margaret L. ..... and Lydia R ....... From this it would appear that in 1753 Lydia R ...... was an immature girl who had been brought into the community and possibly abandoned by those upon whom she depended for support but in any event the above mentioned committee must have made some arrangement whereby she remained for six years. There is no way to know today whether she was a partially irresponsible sub- normal or an alert siren of easy virtue. As the mothers of illegitimate
1 As a matter of casual information it may interest the reader to learn that Ralph Waldo Emerson, in addition to his literary interests, his labors in connection with the Concord Athenaeum, and diverse other civic activities, once filled the office of hogreeve.
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ACH THE FIRST
SITE OF
ACTION!
MORNINGX"
CAPT TOBE 'YSI CAPT. ROBBINS;
THE REGULARS ARE COMINGII
ROBBINS ALARM STONE
Birthplace of Capt. Jsaac Davis, West Acton, Mass.
₹ 4
BROOKS HOUSE, PARSONAGE, NEW FIRE HOUSE, DAVIS MONUMENT
children these two women are of small import on the scroll of his- tory but the reaction of the town is quite another matter. Bastardy was no uncommon thing among our forebears regardless of their marathon sermons and exalted rules of conduct. Authoritative writers in the field of sociology1 cite numerous sources that make it clear that carnality to a degree wholly contrary to the traditional picture of Puritanism was the rule rather than the exception. Further- more2 one record shows that in a town near. to Acton that of two hun- dred persons taking the baptismal covenant there in a fourteen year period no less than sixty confessed to fornication before marriage. In the present no such admission would be made or expected, but at that time the fear of infant damnation was a compelling stimulus to young married persons to make shameful public confession. Apparently human nature of yore was characteristically human.
The point here to be made is that when in February of 1760 the town voted to pay certain sums to Oliver Wheeler and Amos Lamson for the support of Lydia R ...... and her child it showed a laudable turn of mind for those days. In an earlier era the unfortunate woman might well have been thrown into jail or subjected to humiliating mental or even corporal punishment. The whole plot of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter hinged directly upon this point.
On June 7, 1754 John Craigin, Daniel Fletcher and Jonathan Hosmer of Acton met Abishai Brown and David Parlin of Concord and renewed the old bounds between the two towns. The record states specifically that this was the continuation of a project begun on April 16th and that the party completed its work at the Billerica line at the point commonly called Berry Corner.3
When Rev. John Swift was selected in 1738 as Acton's minister it was agreed that his salary should fluctuate in relation to the value of the necessaries of life. Accordingly on May 21, 1754 the time had come to make an adjustment and in consequence the town voted, "To chuse a committee to make an agreement with Rev. Swift upon the common prices of the necessaries of life in this and the neighboring towns at the time of his settlement and have the same transmitted to the Town Records to be conformed unto in computing and adjusting Swifts sallary from time to time".
The committee chosen consisted of the selectmen plus Mr. Faulkner, Josiah Hayward, Deacon John Brooks and John Davis, Jr. On the following November fifteenth they submitted the list below as embracing what in their opinion was needed to supply the parson's family for a year:
1 Arthur W. Calhoun; A Social History of the American Family, vol. 1, p. 132.
2 ibid. (re town of Groton) p. 133.
3 At this time the town of Carlisle did not exist.
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30
bush.
Indian Corn
at
0-6-0
20
66
Rye
66
0-10-0
500
lbs.
Pork
66
0-0-8
300
66
Beef
66
0-0-5
25
66
Sheep Wool
66
0-3-6
15
Cotton Wool
66
0-4-6
50
Flax
66
0-1-3
56
Sugar
66
0-1-4
20
gal.
Rum
66
0-8-0
80
lbs.
Butter
66
0-1-4
2
Hats
66
3-0-0
10
prs.
Shoes
0-15-0
This list appears in the town records and below, in the handwriting of the minister, obviously written in the presence of the committee, is the following:
"These may certify that I the Subscriber am content with the above amounts of the price of the Necessarys of Life at ye time of my Settlement in the Town of Acton, witness my hand the date above John Swift
ordered on this book of records"
Attest Jonathan Hosmer, Town Clerk.
Evidently it was thought desirable in those days that the good clergyman should not only be filled with the spirit of the Lord but should also be fortified with the lesser incentives to the amount of approximately a half pint per day. If by chance it happened to be his habit to forego the first three days of the week and save up for the Sabbath there is small wonder that two long and eloquent sermons might result.
At about this time notations begin to appear in the record con- cerning the residents of what is now Carlisle. On April 24, 1755, for instance, Jonathan Hosmer, Samuel Davis, and Daniel Fletcher, selectmen of Acton, met with John Hartwell, John Green, and Jona Puffer, selectmen of Carlisle and agreed that Mr. John Davis should pay half of his taxes in each town. The modern reader would infer from the above that Carlisle was already an incorporated town but such is not the case. The actual status of affairs is of sufficient interest to be explained in detail.
In 1754 the inhabitants of the area under consideration were, at their own request, incorporated as a district of Concord. For two years they tried in vain to settle on a location for their meeting house. During this period we find the selectmen of Acton and Carlisle perambulating the common boundary on April 19, 1756 with Berry Corner mentioned as an important landmark in the day's work.
50
Just two months later, on June 24th, eleven petitioners1 sought relief and asked that the district be returned to the town of Concord. On the following July 14th a committee was chosen to present the above views to the General Court with the following residents voting in the negative, Jonathan Blood, David Blood, Zaccheus Green, John Green, Jr., John Hartwell, David Parlin, Joseph Parlin, James Russell, James Russell, Jr., Leonard Spaulding, Joseph Taylor, Nathaniel Taylor, Nathaniel Taylor, Jr., Timothy Wilkins.
Eventually, on January 11, 1757, the General Court passed the act whereby the district, henceforth known as Old Carlisle, was set back to the town of Concord.
In spite of this action the leaven continued to be active in the hearts and minds of some, and in 1760 a meeting house was started in view of the day when corporate separation might be achieved. Not only this, but on two occasions sufficient action was evinced to make it necessary for Acton to delegate committees to appear before the General Court to show reason why no part of the town should be set off to form another town. In the first instance John Davis, Jr. and Francis Faulkner were appointed at a town meeting held on May 22, 1760 and in the second Capt. Daniel Fletcher, Jonathan Billing and Josiah Hayward were likewise delegated on March 31, 1762 with the further instruction that they were to jointly visit the locality in question with a committee of the General Court to view the circumstances of the petitioners, should the court so desire.
Finally, on April 28, 1780, an act was passed setting off certain extreme portions of Concord, Acton, Chelmsford, Billerica, and the Blood Farms and incorporating them as a district of Acton by the name of Carlisle. This act provided that "one sixth of the expense of the maintenance of the North Bridge in Concord be paid until another bridge be built by Carlisle". In addition all the poor in the district were to be supported therein.
Moreover the farms of Thomas Brown, Nathan Buttrick, Oliver Brown, Samuel Kirby, John Blood, and Willard Blood of Concord, living within the area designated, were to continue to belong to Con- cord unless they within one year notified the secretary of the province to the contrary. This latitude was allowed them in view of the fact that these families had not petitioned for the act, and agreeably to the vote passed at the dissolution of Old Carlisle, they were exempted from its operation. An act was passed September 12, 1780 annexing Josiah Blood to Concord and one in March of 1783 annexing David Parker to Chelmsford.
In 1783 Carlisle completed its meeting house but remained a district of Acton until June of 1804 at which time it was deemed 1 Shattuck p. 321.
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expedient to split off as a separate town. Jonathan Heald was chosen to present the matter to the General Court. On February 18, 1805 Carlisle was granted its act of incorporation. The population at that date is not known but it can be approximated from the census of 1800 and 1810 which give 634 and 675 respectively. These figures are of passing interest in view of the fact that as of now, nearly a century and a half later, the population stands at 876.
During the period while Carlisle was a district of Acton the com- munities upon two occasions shared their representative in the General Court, namely in 1790 when Deacon Ephraim Robbins served in the double capacity and again in 1803 when Asa Parlin did likewise.
From the outset Acton had built mills to saw its lumber and grind its grain and had smelted its own iron. With a growing population and an increased sense of well-being it had also depended less and less upon the elder communities for the various craft products. As a case in point the cooper's trade had reached such a stage by 1757 that the town saw fit to create the office of "culler of staves". Mark White was the first incumbent and was presumably charged with the duty of seeing to it that the staves that went into the hogsheads, barrels, puncheons, pails and churns locally produced were of satis- factory grade. Acton was a beehive of small industry for well over a century1 and a goodly number of the old houses have ells or other portions that at one time housed coopers, bootmakers, metalsmiths or cordwainers.
While these developments were taking place the long festering irritation between England and France relative to their American colonies was coming to a head. Both nations, for more than a century, had been struggling for the prize of supremacy. The British emigra- tion policy, coupled with a more benign climate, had augmented the numbers and increased the importance of the southern colonies far beyond the possibilities of the feebler settlements in the far north. Consequently, while the seaboard area contained upwards of a million souls, the banks of the St. Lawrence and the valley of the Mississippi were peopled by less than a hundred thousand persons who claimed France as their native land and who were envious and suspicious of the prosperity of their neighbors.
The peace of Aix la Chapelle (1748) was a truce rather than a league; and the very vagueness of its terms was pregnant with further discord. France, on the one hand, was reluctant to relinquish any of the territory trod by her missionaries and subject to her flag while England, on the other hand, dreading the presence of France and the
1 By 1821 between fifteen and twenty thousand barrels per year were being made. There were also at this time 3 grist mills, 2 carding machines, 2 fulling mills, and four saw mills.
52
.
influence of the Jesuits upon the warlike Indians, was anxious for the time when all of North America would be under her sway. France, had it not been for her feebleness and the paucity of her population in the new world, would have eagerly driven the British from the whole continent. Since this result was quite hopeless she could only exert herself to fortify the strongholds she already held and erect others along the disputed boundary line. Hence a chain of posts was proposed connecting the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. It was a policy long cherished which she now set out seriously to consummate.
The natural result of this conflict of objectives led to the so called French and Indian War (1753-1763). The record of Acton's parti- cipation in it is extremely meagre. Fletcher1 asserts that tradition states that Capt. Gershom Davis led a company in 1759 and just at the end Capt. J. Robbins took out another. In addition Major Daniel Fletcher was captain of a company of infantry in a regiment raised by Massachusetts Bay for service against Canada in which expedition he was wounded and taken prisoner. Acton vital statistics list three in such a manner as to make it clear that they died in the service, namely, James Brabrook (May 8, 1756, at Ft. Larance, N. S.), Samuel Brabrook (July 14, 1756, on Rainford Island) and Benjamin Allen (Oct. 14, 1758, "in His Majesty's Service") .
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