USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Bellingham > History of the town of Bellingham, Massachusetts, 1719-1919 > Part 14
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"BELLINGHAM Jan 31 1755
"Mrs. Abigail Fisher
"Madam You will Excuse my taking up Your Precious time to read any thing from one so remote as I am, You have it, & it is at Your Pleasure to read it or let it alone mean as it is. The last night I got to Medfield by Dark the last half hour rained hard I staid there about an Hour Set out when the rain abated the first 5 miles very Dark my horse rushed my knee against the fence but the smart soon over Several times the limbs gentely brushed my face It rained hard again about half an hour the moon rises about 9 I got home found my family all well except Stephen (24 years old) who has a fit of the fever every Day let him & J come into remembrance with you in your best Hours and will You bear me Company in my meditations as I came home The night being so dark I cannot see my horses head nor my hand No Person nigh
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
me If my Horse should throw me to afford me any help how mellancolly the seen all Dark Solitary and Gloomy, but am I alone tho my acquaintance & You my friend are at a Distance and no Human Creature near me Yet tis Probable that thousands of spiritual beings are moving unseen about the Earth in the Dark as well as light Perhaps there may be Some of those invisible beings very near unto me in this Gloom.
I have wrote only a small sketch of my meditations they mought tire you my Dear I subscribe my Self Among the many that have Paid You their Regards the Most Unworthy.
Yet Your Truest Friend and Loving Humble Servant
John Metcalf
There are several notes in regard to Quakers, and he had a strong leaning towards their views, though he brought a letter from the Dedham Church to the town church of Bellingham in 1738, given in Chapter VI.
"All worshiping God without the Imediate Influence of the Holy Spirit of God is vaine & Hipocrisie Every Congregation that forbids all that have anything Revealed to them to Preach & Pray, & Confines it to one of the Congregation, All Such Worship is after the Doctrines of men and not according to the Commandments of the Lord. All Worship Appointed by men without Divine athority is Idolatrous & offering strange fire Therefore I cannot Joyne with Such in their Worship.
JOHN METCALF."
1778
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PERSONS OF PUBLIC INTEREST
"Jan 5 1778 Weighed my Silver Plate 9£ 16 s 8d"
"1782 Books read from the library in Medway in which I have a Right Returned 1st Thursday in March and every 3 months Harmonie of O & New Tests. Thomas Hutchinson's History of New England, Peter the Grate, Burnet History of the Reformation, Oliver Cromwell, History of Charles V."
By his will his books were divided into eleven parts to be given to his grandson John and ten children. His son Stephen received all his land in Bellingham.
After his death his widow, Abigail, who had no chil- dren of her own, continued to live in his house with his son Stephen, the Judge. This house had then a long ell behind it, as appears from her petition to the Judge of Probate in 1794:
"I have been a faithful wife near 36 years to John Metcalf. I live in a large house Eight rooms on the ground three cellars and plenty of chambers. I sleep near 50 feet from any human being and I need help. The Squire's daughter is a weakly woman without time or skill to nurse an Old Lady. I have given my husband's five daughters and one granddaughter all my gold and most of my wearing apparel. I entreat of the Judge to give me power to draw 20 £ of my husband's furniture and to give me one third of the estate. Abigail Metcalf."
Stephen Metcalf, 1731-1800, was the most prom- inent citizen of the town and has often been mentioned already. He married Hepzibah Adams, the grand- daughter of Thomas Sanford, and was my great great grandfather. The value of his land within the town was estimated at $7377. Besides the care of his farm, he was a surveyor and a lawyer. He was a trial justice in this district for many years, and then a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for this county. He was often
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
engaged in county affairs, and besides his seven years at the General Court as our Representative he was a senator nine years and for two years a member of the Governor's Council.
Stephen Metcalf 1731-1800
Caroline F. Orne, 1818, was descended from Simon Stowe who came to Watertown in 1635, and her childhood home stood where Mt. Auburn Cemetery is now. She was the librarian of the Cambridge Public Library for seventeen years, and she wrote stories and poems of early New England history. Her sister was the wife of Dr. Nelson, and she herself was a member of the Bellingham Church for many years.
Joseph M. Rockwood, 1818-1910, belonged to a family that had lived in Bellingham for four generations. His sister married Joseph Ray. He graduated at Dart- mouth College at nineteen years of age, and then at Newton Theological Seminary in 1841. He was a Baptist pastor at Rutland, Vt., eight years, Belchertown six, Grafton seven, and Middlefield for twenty-five years. In 1851 he was a member of the Massachusetts Consti- tutional Convention, went to the General Court in 1864, and served under the United States Christian Commission in the Civil War. He was married for sixty-five years, and had seven children. In 1890 he retired, and he died at the age of ninety-two, the oldest graduate of both his college and his seminary.
Alexander Scammel, 1747-1781, was the son of Dr. Samuel L. Scammel of South Milford, who married the
BUILT BY STEPHEN METCALF IN 1777 NOW OWNED BY M. J. CONNOLLY
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PERSONS OF PUBLIC INTEREST
daughter of Dr. Corbett. He was fitted for college by Rev. Amariah Frost of Milford, and graduated at Harvard in 1769. He was a school teacher in Plymouth and King- ston and then went to New Hampshire, where he did surveying and then began to study law with General Sullivan. He helped him capture a fort near Portsmouth, ammunition from which was used at Bunker Hill. They both went to Cambridge, where Scammel served as a major in 1776. The next year he commanded the first New Hampshire regiment at Ticonderoga, and was wounded in the first fight with Burgoyne. The next winter he became Adjutant General of the American army, and he held that office till 1781. When Major André was executed for a spy, Scammel was the officer of the day. In 1781 at his own request he was given command of the light infantry of the army, composed of parts of several regiments. It was used in the vicinity of New York, and then in Virginia with the French army. During the siege of Yorktown he went out with a reconnoitering party at daybreak, was surprised and mortally injured. Cornwallis allowed him to be carried to Williamsburg, where he died. He was a man six feet two inches tall, intelligent, honorable and brave. He had the full confidence of General Washington, whose dignity it was noticed often kept other officers at a dis- tance. His character and his fate impressed both his associates and the whole country, and he is one of the officers in the painting of Burgoyne's surrender in the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington.
This epitaph was written at the time:
" Though no kind angel glanced aside the ball, Nor fed'ral arms pour'd vengeance for his fall; Brave Scammel's fame, to distant regions known, Shall last beyond this monumental stone,
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
Which conq'ring armies, from their toils returned, Rear'd to his glory, while his fate they mourned."
Elijah B. Stowe, 1845-1909, of Milbury, came to this town after his marriage in 1869. He kept the village store at Caryville and was station agent and postmaster for forty years. He held town offices, and was a member of the Legislature in 1889. Church choirs were led by him in West Medway and in two of the Milford churches, and he belonged to the Worcester Music Festival Chorus for twenty-three years. He managed many concerts and oratorios in Milford, twelve of them annually, with the aid of the best singers to be had and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. By this work in conducting choirs, training choruses and managing concerts he raised the musical standards of this whole region, and became a public benefactor. His public service is commemorated by a bronze tablet in the Milford Congregational Church.
John M. Thayer, 1820-1905, had both his grand- fathers in the Revolutionary Army. His home was very near the site of the first church, the actual center of the town. He fitted for college with two of the Bell- ingham pastors, Mr. Newton and Mr. Massey, and graduated at Brown University in 1841. After studying law in Worcester, he made a six weeks' journey to Omaha in 1854, a few months after the territory was organized. Here he was admitted to the bar, but began as a farmer and pioneer, built the first frame house and became interested in politics. He became a Republican in 1857. For six years he was an Indian fighter. The territorial legislature made him a brigadier general of its troops, and then a major general till the Civil War. Twice he dealt with an uprising of all the Pawnees, who had fifteen hundred warriors, the second time in 1859.
E. B. STOWE, 1845-1909
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In 1860 he raised a full regiment of one thousand Nebraska men in a population of twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and forty-one, and entered the war as their colonel. He served as brigadier general of vol- unteers with Grant and Sherman, and resigned as a major general in July, 1865. He was elected one of the first United States Senators from Nebraska the same year, and served six years. In 1875 President Grant appointed him Governor of Wyoming, where he spent four years. He was elected Governor of Nebraska for two terms, and held office for five years. In 1892 he retired to private life, and died in 1906.
Henry A. Whitney, 1842-1915, was the man of our time who knew the most about the history of the town. He had been constable, tree warden, cemetery trustee, selectman five years, promoter of the town library and its trustee, Representative at the General Court in 1904, and town clerk, 1883-1915. As early as 1912 he proposed a small annual appropriation for a town history at the time of this two hundredth anniversary.
Besides the two Corbets and the three Scammels several other doctors have lived in this town.
Dr. S. Atwood was on the school committee in 1833.
Dr. W. H. Clark, who lived here a few years, was killed on the railroad at South Milford in 1902.
Dr. Collins was here some time before 1850.
Dr. Roland Hammond was on the school committee for several years from 1872, and was town clerk from 1890 to 1892.
Dr. Amos Holbrook, 1754-1842, was "one of the most eminent medical men of the county during his whole practice. He had not a college education, but this deficiency was more than made up by his experience as an army surgeon and by residence and study in France."
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
He went to live in Milton, and "he had the best practice in that town and Dorchester."
Dr. Timothy Merriam was here some time before 1850.
Dr. George Nelson, 1797-1875, lived in the house at the top of the hill at Bellingham Center.
Dr. N. W. Sanborn left town after a few years in 1895, and returned for a while in 1903.
Dr. S. A. Stanley was on the school committee in 1838.
Dr. Jonathan Thayer, 1717 to about 1765, is said to have stood well in his profession.
Dr. Daniel Thurber, 1768-1836, of Rehoboth, studied medicine with the doctor of his own town for three years, and then began to practice at the age of twenty-one at South Milford. His house was in Mendon most of the time, but for two years he lived in Bellingham, and rep- resented it at the General Court in 1806 and 1807, as he did Mendon for many years. He won many friends, and was the busiest man of his profession in this vicinity. He was very firm, in both principles and practice. His advice was often asked, and both Harvard and Brown Universities gave him an honorary degree in medicine. The Thurber Medical Association of Milford and vicinity is named for him. He wrote a little chemistry for begin- ners, in verse, and many epitaphs and poems for July 4. His chubby face was long remembered, with iron gray curls that shook when he laughed. He had no children. This is his epitaph:
"A stranger to this town I came, And left my father's home.
To heal the sick my mind was led,
And now I'm numbered with the dead."
Dr. William Whitaker was married in 1775 and again in 1807; he is occasionally mentioned in the records of town meetings.
HENRY A. WHITNEY, 1842-1915
CHAPTER XIV BELLINGHAM IN 1919
OUR town is on the western border of Norfolk County, and its south end borders on Rhode Island. Its center is thirty miles from Boston, and twenty from Providence, seven from Woonsocket, five from Franklin and four from Milford. It is eight miles long, and from two miles wide at the south end to three at the north, with an area of twelve and one-half square miles. There is not much to be said for the land of the town; the exploring committee from Dedham in 1692 reported that it was not worth lay- ing out. A gazetteer of 1828 says: "The soil is sandy and not of the first quality." Near the center is Saddleback Hill, three hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea, which is a part of the watershed between the Charles and Blackstone River valleys. The Charles River leaves the town at Caryville about one hundred and sixty feet above sea level. Another noticeable hill is Scott Hill, over which runs South Main Street, the western border of the Peter's River valley, which is the southern half of the town. This beautiful, clear stream is said to be named for crabbed old Peter Bates, who lived beside it at the foot of a long hill south of the State line, and kept slaves.
Early in the course of this stream, near the Franklin line, Maj. Joel Crooks had two sawmills; he used in the afternoon at the lower one the same water which came from the forenoon's work at the upper one.
Near the middle of its course is Hoag Lake, where
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
an amusement park was run by the street railway com- pany for several years. Farther down and a little above Rakeville is Jenckes' Reservoir, which furnishes ice for Woonsocket. A little south of it is Bungay Brook, coming from Wrentham on the east.
At the eastern edge of this valley near Bald Hill, before the railroad came, there was a well known mineral spring. In the swamp above Hoag Lake is a place called the Stamping Ground because deer used to meet there. On the Crooks farm near the stream is a ledge called For- tin's Rock; the story is that a slave of that name (Fortune?) used to pray there when he came to wash in the morning. . Near to it is a boulder with a large square hole drilled in it, supposed to have been used by Indians for crush- ing corn.
This whole valley was a natural resort for the Red Men, whose canoes could descend the Blackstone from Woonsocket Falls and the Charles from the falls at the Red Mill. Arrow heads are found on the bluff north of Crooks' Corner, near Jenckes' Reservoir and elsewhere, and Indians were buried where the South Cemetery is now.
The other end of the town has a larger stream, the Charles River, coming from Hopkinton and Milford, which enters Bellingham near its northwest corner. It widens into Factory Pond at South Milford, where it separates the two towns, and here is the first of the four water powers averaging sixty-five horse power, which first made this a manufacturing town. At Bellingham Center the river turns east and forms two ponds, Box Pond and the "Navy Yard" with its Red Mill. Here, too, flows in a brook nearly two miles long from the clear water of Beaver Pond, which is itself half as long. The second water power is at the Red Mill. After flowing east for two miles the river then runs nearly north,
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CARYVILLE ABOUT 1870
1 Boot Shop
2 Francis Metcalf
3 Calvin Fairbanks
5 William Fairbanks 7 Mill
4 Edwin Fairbanks
6 C. H. Cutler
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BELLINGHAM IN 1919
cutting off about a third of the town's surface from the rest; most of this part was Rawson's Farm. Stall Brook comes from Milford like the river, and flows into it at North Bellingham. At the last two falls in the river come the two northern villages, North Bellingham and Caryville, the latter spreading out into Medway and Franklin.
To go from one end of the town to the other, one begins at the northeast corner and follows Hartford Avenue for three miles, then North Main Street to the Center, South Main Street to Crooks' Corner and then a half mile on Centre Street to Woonsocket, at the southwest corner. The whole journey is over State or improved road. The first of these streets is the oldest in town, laid out in 1670 from Medfield to Mendon, and a part of the middle road from Boston to Hartford. It was incorporated as a turnpike about 1796, and people paid toll to use it; one toll house was near the Green Store at South Milford. In 1806 Stephen Metcalf took a contract to build one hundred and eighty-three rods of it through Black Swamp in Medway twenty-four feet wide, graveled eight feet wide, for $2.43 a rod; a share in its ownership was sold as late as 1821. In 1914 the State, Millis and Medway together spent $9000 on this part of it. From Bellingham Center to Medway the road is being rebuilt this year. This long main axis of the town is crossed by another much busier one, leading from Milford to Franklin. This, like the road from Crooks' Corner to Woonsocket, was built by the State in 1902-1906 at a total cost of $23,000 for both. They had cost $9685 to maintain in 1917; Bellingham paid $318 for that purpose that year.
An alphabetical list of the streets in the town; they were named in 1878:
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
Arthur Street
Wrentham Street to Paine Street.
Beech Street
Caryville to Franklin.
Blackstone Street
Mechanic Street, southwest across the town to Blackstone.
Brook Street
Blackstone Street to Mendon Street.
Centre Street
South Main Street to Woonsocket.
Chestnut Street
South Main Street to Blackstone.
Cross Street
Centre Street by Hoag Lake to Franklin.
Depot Street
Town Hall to South Milford by Bellingham Junction.
Farm Street
Caryville by the Town Farm to Hartford Avenue again.
Governor Avenue Grove Street
Centre Street to Pothier Street near Blackstone.
Hartford Avenue High Street
Crimpville to Maple Street.
Hixon Street
Hartford Avenue near Beaver Pond.
Lake Street
Cross Street to Wrentham Street.
Locust Street
Franklin Street to Wrentham Street.
Mechanic Street
Town Hall to Four Corners, southeast.
Mendon Street
Town Hall west to Mendon.
Nason Street
Hartford Avenue to Taunton Street.
North Street
Blackstone Street to Mendon.
North Main Street
Town Hall to Hartford Avenue.
Paine Street
Crooks' Corner to East Woonsocket.
Pearl Street
Caryville to Franklin.
Pine Street Maple Street to Franklin.
Railway Street
Centre Street to Lake Street.
Social Street
Woonsocket to Centre Street.
South Main Street
Town Hall by Scott Hill to Crooks' Corner.
Taunton Street Crimpville to South Milford.
Westminster Avenue Centre Street to Blackstone.
Wrentham Street
Crooks' Corner to Wrentham.
The villages and localities in town, beginning at the north, are these: Caryville, North Bellingham, Partridge- town, South Milford, Crimpville, Bellingham Center, Four Corners, Scott Hill, Rand's Crossing or South Bellingham, Rakeville and Crooks' Corner.
Most of the land of Caryville belonged to the Met- calf family for a long time. Joseph Fairbanks bought his farm and the water power on the Charles River here from them, and started the factory in 1813, which has run ever since. His grandsons, Edwin and William Fairbanks, began the manufacture of boots, the second town industry in size, which lasted till the shop was burned in 1876.
South Milford to Milford.
Caryville to South Milford.
BUILT BY E. B. STOWE IN 1877
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BELLINGHAM IN 1919
The school district here was set off from the next one in 1855, and a good building was put up, used till 1901, when the two districts were united again, with the present large building. The first grocery store here was kept by Alphæus Grant in the building now used as a part of the mill office. His successor was Warren Mann of West Medway, and then E. B. Stowe, who was station agent and postmaster for forty years. This store belongs now to Goldthwaite Brothers, and there is another at the electric car station, kept by Camp Brothers. The Caryville postmasters have been David Lawrence 1866, Calvin Fairbanks 1867, E. B. Stowe 1885, Josephine M. Stowe 1888, Edith M. Brown 1903, F. N. Chase 1914, Perry Goldthwaite, Jr. 1915.
North Bellingham is the second village, about a mile south of Caryville. Deacon Thomas Sanford built "a mansion house" beside Stall Brook, which Pelatiah Smith bought of him in 1702, with about two hundred acres of land. His family owned most of it for nearly two hundred years. His grandson started the principal tavern in town here, which still stands after over a cen- tury, the largest dwelling house in town, now owned by the Bellingham Woolen Company. A manufacturers' directory calls the population of North Bellingham four hundred.
The oldest and largest cemetery joins the Smith lands on the south. The mill here has run since 1810, when it was built for a company of Mendon and Franklin men by Joseph Ray. There are two churches here. The village store was kept by David Lawrence, by Elbridge Grant for many years, and is now kept by Camp Brothers. The North Bellingham postmasters have been M. Z. Bullard 1850, N. J. Arnold 1851, L. P. Coburn 1855, C. H. Chace 1856, E. J. Adams 1857, A. L. Metcalf 1862, S. J. Law-
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HISTORY OF BELLINGHAM
rence 1866, S. B. Smith 1870, Elbridge Grant 1880, Grace Grant 1909, E. E. Grant 1910, and E. T. Camp 1911.
Partridgetown is a part of the valley of Stall Brook on Farm Street, including the town farm and three others.
South Milford is a village now in three towns, Milford, Hopedale and Bellingham, all of which were set off from Mendon. It was one of the chief centers of that old town, and possessed a post office in 1814, nine years earlier than Milford. That office has always been in Mendon or Hopedale, as was the old toll house and the Green Store, but the cotton and woolen mill, 1812-1868, and the home of the five South Milford doctors, the two Corbets and the three Scammels, are within our town.
Those residents of Bellingham north of the Center who are not accommodated by the post offices at Caryville and North Bellingham are reached by the Medway Free Delivery Route No. 2, which has about one hundred and fifty mail boxes on a circuit of twenty-two and two tenths miles from Medway Village in Bellingham and Franklin.
Crimpville is the name of a small group of houses less than a mile north of the town house and across the Charles River from it, where the first Baptist Church was built in 1744. The name came from the process of shaping the legs of boots, which was carried on here before the Civil War. This was one of the smaller school districts for a time.
Bellingham Center is the meeting place of five roads, and the town house, schoolhouse, Baptist Church and store stand near together. In 1837 there were ten or twelve houses here. The Red Mill is near by, which was busy from 1830 to about 1860, and there were some small boot shops here then. For a long time the store has been kept by L. Francis Thayer and his father Ruel F.
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BELLINGHAM IN 1919
Thayer before him. The old center of the town, where the first meeting house stood, built in 1722, was about a mile farther south, at the corner of Blackstone and South Main Streets. The Bellingham postmasters have been Wright Curtis 1823, Olney Foristall 1825, Hamlet Barber 1829, Elias Thayer 1831-1833. There was no office for four years. Then Joseph T. Massey 1837, Ellery Thayer 1840, Ruel F. Thayer 1864, E. E. Rockwood 1890, L. F. Thayer 1895, R. S. Thayer 1915.
The Four Corners are formed by the crossing of Maple and Mechanic Streets close to the Franklin line, about a mile from the town house. Four lines of electric cars meet here every hour, for Caryville and Medway, Franklin, Woonsocket, Bellingham Center and Milford.
Scott Hill is the general name of the high land on South Main Street where the Scott family has always lived, where more of the town can be seen at one view than any- where else, most of it the pleasant Peter's River valley, four miles long and half as wide.
South Bellingham has usually not meant the south end of the town, but a few houses near where the Midland Railroad from Franklin to Blackstone crosses Centre Street near Railroad and Park Streets. This place is also called Rand's Crossing. It was once called Mullen- ville for a few years. A South Bellingham post office was kept by Paul Chilson 1850, and Reuben Chilson, 1851 to 1856; again by Orville C. Rhodes, 1887-1901.
Ninety-nine persons in the south part of the town signed a petition in 1891 for free delivery of their mail from the Woonsocket office in a district of six and one- half square miles with a circuit of nineteen miles. The carrier's journey is now six hours long, over twenty-four and seven tenths miles, and he visits two hundred and twenty-two mail boxes.
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