USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Douglas > History of the town of Douglas, (Massachusetts,) from the earliest period to the close of 1878 > Part 2
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238
38. BASS FISHING AT WALLUM POND,
238
39. CAMPING OUT AT WALLUM POND, . 238
40. THE MOSES KNAPP PLACE, EAST DOUGLAS,
249
41. MODERN AXE, 253
42. OLD AXE, MADE IN 1825, 253
43. UPPER WORKS OF DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO., 255
44. HOWE FACTORY OF DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO., 255
45. GILBOA, DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. Co., . 255
46. HEAD AND BIT FORGING SHOPS AND LOVETT WORKS, 25'
47. MEDALS AWARDED TO THE DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO. BY THE MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE ASSOCIATION, UNIT- ED STATES CENTENNIAL COMMISSION, AND FRENCH MEDAL, .
259
48. MEDAL AWARDED TO THE DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO. AT THE WORLD'S FAIR, LONDON, 1862, . 260
49. MEDAL AWARDED TO DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO. AT THE VIENNA EXPOSITION, 1863, ·
.
261
29. RESIDENCE OF MOSES H. BALCOME,
36. AUTOGRAPH OF S. W. HEATH,
15
LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
NO.
SUBJECT. PAGE.
50. OLD RED SHOP AND FARM BUILDINGS OF THE DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. Co., . 263
51. PATTERNS OF AXES MADE BY THE DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. CO. 269
52. OVERCOAT STEEL AND THE DOUGLAS AXE BIT, .
271
53. PATTERNS OF HATCHETS MADE BY THE DOUGLAS AXE MF'G. Co., .
273
54. CLAW HATCHET,
274
55. BURGLARS' TOOLS USED IN THE SAFE ROBBERY, · 275
56. RESIDENCE OF A. F. BROWN, EsQ.,
277
57. RESIDENCE OF CHARLES HUTCHINS, .
281 283
58. RESIDENCE OF JESSE B. SHERMAN,
293
60. RESIDENCE OF EDWIN MOORE, 293
61. RESIDENCE OF JOHN M. RAWSON, 299
62. RESIDENCE OF A. M. HILL, 299
63. RESIDENCE OF IRA WALLIS, 305
64. PLAN OF BALL'S BLUFF BATTLEFIELD, 325
59. RESIDENCE OF L. S. WHIPPLE,
CHAPTER I.
FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
HE name of DOUGLAS was first given to the territory of the town in the year 1746. " New Sherburn," or "New Sherburn Grant," had previously to this date been its designa- tion since its first occupancy by the whites, which was as early as 1715, if not considera- bly earlier. The original settlers came almost entirely from the town of Sherburn, though some, and probably a small portion of them, hailed from Natick, and in all their transactions as a body they appear to have invaria- bly acknowledged their allegiance to the town of Sherburn. The year in which the present name was given is clearly that of 1746, since in 1745 a new road was laid out, and the records show that it was done by the authorities of New Sherburn, but in all subse- quent transactions by these officers they are recorded under the auspices of Douglas.
At the time when these pioneer settlers began the occupation of the town large tracts of land within its present limits had for some years been annually burned over in the spring by the people residing in the adjoining towns of Oxford and Mendon, in order that the lands thus devastated might better answer the purpose of grazing their cattle. The excellent qualities of the territory of Douglas for pasturing had at this early date become well known to the farmers in these towns, and doubtless the same fact was well understood by the Sherburn people in the other direction, and was probably one of the strong inducements governing them in their courageous venture to plant themselves here. This annual destruc- tion of immense quantities of timber, merely for the purpose of
2
18
HISTORY OF EAST DOUGLAS.
enriching thus summarily their borrowed pasturage ground, was not strange on the part of these neighbors, even though it was done, in process of time, at the expense as well as to the no small annoy- anee of the more legitimate occupants of the land. In due time it came to an end, however, though not without calling out proba- bly some vigorous protests from those whose rights were thus encroached upon.
Carrying us back, as the name instinctively does, to the chival- rons days of Scottish history, when the proverb was in vogue, " No man may touch a Douglas, nor a Douglas's man, for if he do he is sure to come by the wanr (worse)," the question, " What's in a name?" is one not entirely unremunerative to the curiosity of a genuine son of the old town of Douglas. In view of the fact that the old-world contest by the real lords of the soil against the Stu- arts and their allies was really revived in our Revolutionary strug- gle, we think it will not be difficult to see that at no time in the past were the Douglases more uncompromising in their resistance to the haughty and baseless demands of royalty, or less entitled to the honor of having inherited the republicanism as well as the fear- less and independent spirit of John Knox and his followers. And lest this should be deemed to be only the ebullition of a merely senseless obstinacy to monarchial authority, uncalled for in reason, we are able to cite one of the noblest instances of loyalty to the king in the annals of any country, in the case of the beautiful and heroic Catharine Douglas, maid of honor to Queen Joanna, who threw herself in front of the assassins who were savagely thundering at the door of the royal apartments, and, substituting her own arm for the bolts that had been treacherously drawn, she held the door therewith until cut down at her post by the swords of the conspir- ators.
But it is time for us to trace the origin of the name borne by our town. Dr. William Douglas, an eminent physician of Boston, a Scotchman by birth, author of several historical and medical works, being withal a somewhat extensive land proprietor in various parts of the State, in consideration of the privilege of naming the township, offered the inhabitants the sum of $500 (old tenor), as a fund for the establishment and maintenance of free schools, together with a tract of thirty acres of land, with a dwelling-house and barn standing thereon. It was stipulated in this offer that this land was
19
FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
not to be sold by the town, but it was sold, nevertheless, in the course of a few years afterwards, though the wise and kind inten- tions of the donor were doubtless fully met by the inhabitants in ordering the proceeds to be carefully invested for the benefit of the school fund. Something more than $900 of the money thus real- ized still remain in the keeping of the town, the balance having been invested in nonproductive securities. It is said also that a bell was promised to the Center School by Doctor Douglas, besides £50 a year for seven years for the support of the ministry, though quite a portion of these pledges was never received by the town.
The location of the thirty-acre farm is supposed to have been in or near what is now known as the Douglas Woods, through which the New York and New England Railroad is located. For the gratification of the curiosity of those who have the leisure to look up the boundaries as they stood when the donation was made, we insert the following extract from the original deed, which bears the date of May 8. 1750 : "Northerly on the Range line parting the second and third Ranges of lots ; easterly with the land of Dr. Wm. Douglas ; southwardly with the Range line parting the third and fourth Ranges of lots ; westwardly with the land of Jonathan Fairbanks by metes and bounds- being 215 rods in length and twenty-four rods in width, with a dwelling-house on said land."
Dr. Samuel Jennison, a man whose subsequent prominence in the history of the town, as well as in national matters, would certainly seem to have secured for him the highest regard of his fellow-townsmen, appears at a later date to have become anxious that the town should bear his name, in consideration of certain favors which he was ready to grant. For some reason his propo- sition was not favorably received, since on the 11th of February, 1771, the voters were assembled to see if they would petition the General Court to have the name altered, but the proposal was rejected, and with so much unanimity that it was never again alluded to. Notwithstanding the failure of Doctor Douglas to make good all of his promises to the town, the inhabitants chose still to honor him, or else were content not to experiment further in subsidized cognomens, and hence we do not to-day live in Jen- nison.
The area of the town now comprises about thirty-three square
20
HISTORY OF FAST DOUGLAS.
miles, or abont 21,000 acres. It is bounded on the north by Oxford, Sutton and Uxbridge, on the east by Sutton and Uxbridge, on the south by Burrillville (R. I.), and on the west by Thompson (Con.) and Webster. Its distance from Boston is forty-five miles, with which it has a direct connection over the New York and New England Railroad.
The geological formation consists of quartz, feldspar and mica. Bowlders are plentifully scattered over the surface in nearly every section of the town, and gold and silver ores are said to be found in some localities, though not in sufficient quantities to pay for working. Large quantities of building and ornamental stone are quarried from the granite ledges found in the centre of the town, which are shipped to almost every section of New England.
The face of the country is beautifully diversified with hills and valleys, and it is rendered more beautiful in many sections by the cultivation of shade and ornamental trees by the roadside. The numerous lakes and ponds within the limits of the town add greatly to the beauty of the scenery, and the waters flowing from them, mingling with the rivers and streamlets, are made tributary to the wealth and prosperity of the inhabitants, as the chapters. under the head of " Manufactures " will abundantly show.
The principal elevations are Bald Hill, 711 feet in height ; Wallum Pond Hill, 778 feet ; and Mount Daniel, 735 feet. The largest of the numerous ponds are Wallum Pond, in the south- west part, covering about 150 acres within the territory of Doug- las ; Badluck Pond, in the western part of the town, covering about 110 acres ; Reservoir Pond, also in the western limits, covering about 400 acres ; and Manchaug Pond, located in the northern border, covering in Douglas ninety-three acres. Besides these, Bating Pond is found in the southern part of the town, and Cham- berlin Pond in the west, each covering a small extent of terri- tory.
The soil is varied. In the central and eastern sections many of the farms are susceptible of easy cultivation, and reward the labors of those who till them with remunerative crops, but in the western section there is an unbroken tract, of nearly 6,000 acres in area, extending nearly the entire length of the town from north to south, and comprising nearly one-third of the whole of its territory, its. surface rocky and uneven, and covered with a varied growth of
21
FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
wood and timber,"but with scarcely a single inhabitant. Just across the boundary line which separates this portion of the town from Sutton is located a natural curiosity, well known as " Purgatory,"- a weird and rugged spot, in which some terrible convulsion of nature has at a former period rent asunder the solid rocky formation of which the entire region is chiefly composed, leaving a chasm of some fifty feet in width, its perfectly vertical walls nearly seventy feet in depth in some places, into which the superincumbent trees and rocks have been tumbled in wildest confusion. At the bottom of
PIECE OF PETRIFIED WOOD FOUND ON LAND OF SIMON RAWSON.
some portions of this frightful gorge may sometimes be found beds of ice far into the summer months, and visitors who are at the trouble to clamber through the rugged defile find the air strangely alternating from hot to cold. Such fantastic names as " Pulpit Rock," and "The Devil's Corn-crib," have been bestowed on some of the singular forms assumed by the fallen rocks.
From a very early period, probably reaching beyond the year 1635, bands of Indians, principally of the Nipmuck tribe, largely monopolized the beautiful region of country comprised within the southern limits of Worcester county, the Blackstone river being then called Nipmuck river. The numerous relics of Indian war- fare as well as of daily life, which have been exhumed from time to time by the plow and spade within the area of Douglas, show
.
ARROWHEADS AND OTHER INDIAN RELICS FOUND WITHIN THE LIMITS OF DOUGLAS, CHIEFLY ON THE SIMON RAWSON PLACE.
23
FIRST OCCUPATION OF THE TOWN.
conclusively that this was one of the favorite haunts of the red man. It is well known that the Indians almost invariably select for their burial grounds the most picturesque localities, and here they must have congregated quite numerously, pursuing their rude arts of husbandry and predatory life combined.
In 1674 Major Gookin, with that distinguished apostle to the Indians, John Eliot, made a tour through the Nipmuck country, visiting especially among the " praying Indians," who are said to have numbered at this time as many as one thousand, from which it is safe to conclude that the Indian population in this region must have been unusually large as early as this. No records exist showing the time when the Nipmucks constituted an independent tribe. They seem to have been for many years held in more or less subjection to the neighboring sachems.
Until the fatal war of 1675 these sons of the forest lived on the most pacific terms with the white settlers, proving highly serviceable to them in many ways. That ferocity so generally predominating in savage life seems never to have shown itself among them, such was the simplicity of the Nipmuck character. Up to this time no pur- chases of lands were allowed to be made from the Indians without the oversight of a judicious committee of the General Court, so that no injustice or wrong seems to have occurred on either side, each seeming to realize their mutual needs and obligations. That they were constantly interchanging offices of kindness and neigh- borly assistance, the following touching incident strikingly exem- plifies : At one time, not long after the arrival of the Puritans, it became known to these Indians that their new neighbors were greatly in want of bread, and one of these miscalled " savages" is said to have carried them a bag of corn, believed to have contained as much at least as a bushel and a half, the entire distance from the southwest part of Worcester county to Boston. It is doubtful if the records of civilized life will present many such instances of persevering goodness under similar disabilities.
The census of Douglas for the several decades since the year 1790 shows a constant gain in population, though moderate in the rate of increase. Its elevation above the Blackstone valley on the east, and the valley of the Quinebaug on the west, secures to its residents a most salubrious and invigorating atmosphere, and those in quest of permanent residences are beginning to realize the ad-
24
HISTORY OF EAST DOUGLAS.
vantages afforded to such within its limits, as the rapid gain since 1850 will show in the appended table :
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
1860
1875
1,079
1,083
1,142
1,375
1,742
1,617
1,878
2,442
2,202
Within the last few years a camp ground has been established near the Center, where imion religious services of the evangelical order are regularly held each year, usually closing with a mass temperance meeting, conducted on the plan of the gospel workers in this cause. This camp-meeting enterprise was started through the earnest efforts of Mr. George M. Morse, of Putnam, Conn., a leading manufacturer of that town, and possessed of considerable wealth, which he endeavors seemingly to employ as far as possible in the promotion of religious and benevolent efforts. Large num- bers of people from the different towns in this part of Massa- chusetts, as well as from the closely adjoining States of Connecticut and Rhode Island, attend this annual gathering, many of them during the ten or twelve days of its continuance, but the attendance is mostly by those who can leave their homes in the morning and return at night. The order prevailing at these meetings is almost invariably unexceptionable.
CHAPTER II.
ALLOTMENT OF SHERBORN NEW GRANT.
E have been unable, after careful inquiry, to ob- tain any reliable local facts of an early date con- cerning the settlement of the town, so sparsely made and so slightly appreciated in their real importance and desirableness were the records of those eventful times. Doubtless very many incidents of a most interesting and even thrill- ing character transpired in connection with the venturesomeness of those who braved peril and hardship to secure for themselves and families a home by pushing out into the unoc- cupied regions of the country. The perusal of these incarnations of heroic endurance would prove invaluable to us of to-day in many respects. Napoleon is reported to have said that the history of an army could not be written till that of its several regiments had been recorded ; and neither can a nation's history, nor even that of a State, be fairly and impartially constructed till that of its towns and hamlets is collated.
In the absence of these important data, however, the history of its connection with the town of Sherborn (the present legal orthog- raphy of "Sherburn " since the action of the Legislature on the subject in 1852) will furnish us much valuable material. This old town was incorporated in 1674, but when Framingham was erected into a township, in 1700, the General Court set off from Sherborn seventeen families, with their estates, to be included in the new town. This proved so unsatisfactory to the inhabitants of Sherborn that they appealed to the General Court for redress, and urged their complaint so vigorously that it resulted in securing to
26
HISTORY OF EAST DOUGLAS.
them two valuable land grants. From the Sherborn Town Rec- ords the following items are appended, as giving, perhaps, the only legitimate history of those days :
March 7, 1708 .- " At a town meeting, legally warned, etc., it was then manifest to ye town what had been effected with ye Hon. General Court by our Representative, Sam'l Bullard, concerning ve seventeen families on ye north part of ye town, with ye accept- ance and concurrence of ye Court herewith, and was consented to by a general vote, in consequence of ye loss of seventeen families which were incorporated with ye town of Framingham. Ye Gen- eral Court granted 4,000 acres of land, lying westerly of ye town- ship of Mendon, as an equivalent." These lands were called Sher- born New Grant, and the grant was confirmed in 1710.
"At a meeting of ye inhabitants of Sherborn, June 17th, 1715, to state a rule whereby ye 4,000 acres of land, late granted and con- firmed to ye town by ye General Court, in lieu of ye seventeen families set off to Framingham, may be orderly and regularly di- vided, to and among ye same free holders and inhabitants, it was
" Voted, That ye invoice and polls and ratable estates taken in August, 1714, shall be ye rule whereby ye 4,000 acres of land shall be appropriated among ye present inhabitants of said town of Sher- born, being freeholders, and such other inhabitants that have lived upon hire in ye town for some time passed.
" Ye first committee chosen to look where ye town may be ac- commodated with ye 4,000 acres of country land was, Dea. Leland, Joseph Sheffield, and Benj. Whitney. Ye first committee chosen to divide ye land according to ye rule adopted by ye town was, En- sign Sam'l Bullard, Wm. Rider, Jr., and Joseph Death ; and ye town voted them 400 acres of land for their services. This com- mittee subsequently declined to serve, and Dea. Benoni Larned, Eleazer Holbrook, John Death, Joseph Ware, and Thomas Jones were chosen a committee, and ye town voted that they should not receive but 3 shillings per day for their services." It was also voted "that ye committee shall begin at ye northeast corner of ye said grant, and work from thence westwardly through ye same in ye first range of lots ; then turning and running eastward in their work through ye second range of lots ; then working westward again for ye third range of lots ; and lastly, to work eastward for ye fourth range of lots-ye lots to be 200 rods in length northerly
27
ALLOTMENT OF SHERBORN NEW GRANT.
and southerly, and ye breadth of 'em to extend easterly and west- erly, according to their bigness."
It was also voted " that ye proprietors draw lots for dividing the land," and Dea. Hopestill Leland was chosen to draw for those of the proprietors that were not present. This 4,000-acre grant was divided among one hundred and five persons, seventeen of whom bore the name of Morse. In 1715 another grant of 3,000 acres was obtained by the town of Sherborn ; and subsequently by purchase still another grant of 3,700 acres, all of which was di- vided according to the rule adopted by the town.
There were granted "to twenty proprietors, of a place called New Sherburn, afterwards Douglas," at some time prior to 1730, an area of 4,524 acres of land at the extreme west and southwest part of the town, within which grant were " 400 acres granted to ye ministers, and 160 acres to Simon Chamberlin."
About this time there were set off to several men in Boston a large tract of land, on what is now known as Wallum Pond Hill, then known as the Boston Men's Farm. There were also granted to a son of Gov. Bradstreet, for some meritorious service, 500 acres of land in what is now the northeast corner of Douglas. The com- mittee sent out to locate this land for him, in their report, recom- mended that they " throw in 60 acres, because ye land was of such poor quality." There were also granted to David Draper 600 acres of land in the northeast corner of New Sherborn, and to Na- thaniel Brewer (called afterwards the Brewer Farm) 800 acres south of the Draper and Bradstreet grant. Brewer subsequently sold 500 acres of his grant to Benjamin Murdish. David Draper and Benjamin Murdish soon after this petitioned the General Court to be set to the town of Uxbridge, and they, with their es- tates, the eastern line of which was near the school-house on Wil- liams Hill, were set to the town of Uxbridge, and have ever since belonged there. The remainder of the Brewer farm is now divided into the farms owned by Willard Whipple, Mrs. Charles Thayer, Mary Prentice, and James and Chester Williams, the farm known as the Knapp Farm (now owned by Wm. A. Perry), and the lower village, owned by the Axe Company."
A part of the remainder of the village of East Douglas, and a strip of land nearly one mile wide, and extending to the Uxbridge line south of the residence of Joseph Hall, was sold by order of
RESIDENCE OF MR. A. J. THAYER, EAST DOUGLAS, MASS.
29
ALLOTMENT OF SHERBORN NEW GRANT.
the General Court, April 1, 1723, " in ye first year of ye reign of our Sovereign Lord, King George ye Second, to Dr. Wm. Douglas, Habijah Savage, John Binning, Wm. Tyler and Andrew Tyler." This land was subsequently divided between these parties, and the Tylers settled upon their shares. On the eastern part thereof, immediately south of this Tyler and Douglas grant, was the first 3,000-acre grant, the north line of which must have been not far from the Martin Four Corners. This tract was two and a half miles long from north to south, and two miles wide from east to west. The 4,000-acre grant was west of the Bradstreet grant. The Brewer Farm and the Taylor and Douglas grants, the east line of which was the east line of the farm formerly owned by Micah Hill, extended two and a half miles from north to south, and two and a half miles from east to west, the west line being near the east edge of Douglas Woods. The last grant to Sherborn, of 3,700 acres, was west of the 4,000-acre grant, and extended as far south as the present residence of Mr. Joseph Morse, and included within its limits Badluck Cedar Swamp. Besides these there were various other small tracts of land granted to individuals, together with sec- tions of land contiguous to these respective tracts, which were desig- nated as " unknown land," " individual land," and "overplus land." The most of these have fallen into the hands of adjacent land- holders.
Among the first settlers of the town we find the well known names of Morse, Hill, Brown, Balcome, Wallis, Jones, Whiting, Dudley, Whitney, Fairbanks, Jepherson, Reed, Gould, Thayer, Aldrich, Humes, and many others. Mr. Ephraim Hill was the first white man that settled in Douglas, and in 1721 the town of Sherborn granted him twenty acres of the 4,000-acre grant, in consideration of this fact, to be divided to him with his other land.
The Sherborn Records give the following additional information on this primary division of the territory of the town :
" At a meeting of freeholders and other inhabitants of ye town of Sherborn, regularly assembled by legal warning, Oct. ye 10th, 1715, to receive information from ye Committee chosen to lay out Sherborn New Grant, &c., as may then be offered, and to give to ye said Committee full and plenary orders and directions how to proceed in laying out ye 4,000 acres of land late granted and con- firmed by ye General Court to ye town of Sherborn, as an equiva-
30
HISTORY OF EAST DOUGLAS.
lent for seventeen families, &c., called Sherborn New Grant, as · aforesaid,
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