USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Essex > History of the town of Essex : from 1634 to 1868 > Part 42
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OUR SOLDIERS NOT DEMORALIZED.
Having noticed the noble military bearing, as well as the fine civil and gentlemanly bearing of our returned soldiers, I have but little sympathy with the oft-uttered sentiment that the demoralized troops are prepared as they return to demoralize the community. How it may be sometimes, elsewhere, I have no means of knowing, but how truly may it be said of some of the Essex soldiers, they went out boys, but have come back men in the best sense of the word ! Military life has elevated the character and made the man, in multitudes of cases in the history of wars. Adjutant Stearns wrote home after having been in the army but a few months, " Father, I am twice the man I ever was before." That the temptations are sometimes strong in army life there can be but little doubt ; but as respects our own soldiers, I have sometimes put the question, do you know of any Essex soldier who was per- fectly temperate before the war, who became decidedly and hopelessly intem- perate in the army ; and as yet I hear of none.
SOLDIERS SHOULD HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PAY.
Let us manifest our regard in some way which they can appreciate. This, I fear, is not always done. I have heard of a so-called philanthropist, who 55
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[CHAP. 7.
would read a lecture to a soldier on the sin of playing cards, when the soldier's left arm had been shot off a little above the elbow, and the right amputated just below !- and another, who was advised never to lose any more precious time in dancing, when he had had both legs taken off by a shell ! That is not the philanthropy that I love.
And now let ine say to the soldiers, that what we failed to do as a recep- tion on Sunday, the 22d of August, 1863, as well as on other less noticeable days of your return, you will please to understand us as doing NOW.
WELCOME, a thousand times welcome home, Mr. Commander, and soldiers, all. You are to eat no " salt hoss," and drink no swamp water, on our ac- count to-day. You will be invited to dine at a table spread by the very fair- est of fair hands ; and I can close in no more fitting words than those of the Rev. John Howe, I think, and say, soldiers, soldiers, " may your MOON be- come more and more like the SUN, and your MIDDAY SUN become seven-fold brighter than it is !"
WAR AID OF THE LADIES.
Turning awhile from the soldiers, for there is beauty here as well as chivalry, fair women as well as brave men, I cannot but imagine what brought the faces and the forms of our fair friends here to-day, when they knew well enough, that with the men of war among us, much of our talk to-day would be about the grim business of bloody fields ! Four years ago to-day, ladies, your needles were employed in making havelocks for the army, and in five days more, (July 9,) you put them upon Capt. Fuller's men, and indulged in the pretty fancy that you had made them soldiers. What inexperience, united with what patriotism ! In twelve days more, (July 21), the terrible defeat at Bull Run took place, and away went all of our confidence in have- locks. You could have wept ; but weeping would not fight battles, and we found it time to prepare better for the war. But to repeat my question, what has brought sweet smiling woman here to-day ? It was not because the war could not have been commenced without her. Alas, it could have been, and it was. But believe me, it could not have been conducted and concluded as it was, without infinitely greater loss of blood, had she not stood by, to minister to the wounded and the dying ; to put on the bandage, to adjust the tourniquet, to aid the surgeon, if not almost to guide the amputating knife ;- to wipe away the moisture of the fever ;- to beat up and smooth down the pillow, and when nothing more could be done, to reach the cup of water ; to point upwards, and to speak of that wondrous One, who has the rod and the staff, and who puts the everlasting arms underneath ! and when the last pulse had fluttered in one and all was over, and the soldier's form was forever still, then to proceed to another and another.
I say the war could not have been concluded so bloodlessly as it was, without the presence of woman, any more than the Crimean war could. My fair friends, whose name was it that floated over all other names at Sebasto- pol at the close of that war ? Was it Raglan's, the Gen. Grant of that battle ? No. Was it Toddleben's the wonderful engineer ? No. Was it
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1861-1865.]
St. Armand's, as great a man, I suppose, as either ? No. It was the name of Miss Florence Nightingale-and that's whose it was. And now does any one venture the fool's question, and ask who our American Florence Night- ingale is ? I shall let George S. Hillard answer,-" the reason we have no one in particular, is because we have so many in general.
If the presence of Florence N. during a battle and at its close, may have been compared to a star looking down upon a troubled sea, as it has been, our country has certainly had a galaxy, a milky way of them, hushing the troubled waters all to rest. I shall always honor the memory of Miss Kean the actress, for taking the fainting head of the dying President in her lap, and upon her diamond dress ;- but bear in mind, this was at Ford's theatre, and with two thousand people to look on, whereas the army nurses must often, from necessity, be beyond all human observation.
"A WALK ABOUT TOWN."
[THE gifted author of an interesting History of Candia, N. H., (Rev. F. B. Eaton) has, near the close of his work, published at Manchester in that State, in 1852, in- troduced a large variety of matters, often of a kind more familiar and interesting to the young, than he chose to insert in the body of the book, under the agreeable title of a " Walk about Town." We trust it will be no violation of the rules of author- ship-etiquette, if with this explanation and acknowledgment, the same happy thought is followed in a sketch of Essex, and a part of the remaining pages, after the man- ner of " Charming Fare," be entitled " A WALK ABOUT TOWN."]
THE ANCIENT .MEETING-HOUSES.
It is painful to notice how little remains by which to identify localities, once memorable but now forgotten or unknown. A skeleton of a tradition may be floating in the air, but how unsatisfactory ! "We ask for the monu- ments of Richard's Christian men," while " they show but the bones of the infidel Saracen." It is to this day un- certain whether the first meeting-house in Chebacco was upon the same side of the county road where the buildings of Capt. Joseph Choate now stand, or upon the opposite side ; there being printed authorities in favor of both. So too, the exact locality of the second meeting-house is lost, although three years ago, viz., in 1864, the underpinning stones marked the square perfectly. The bell of that structure which called the generations of Rev. Mr. Wise's day to go up for worship as often as the smile of the Sab- bath appeared, might have been preserved through com- ing years, while on the contrary, all that is now known of it is the tradition that when struck it always seemed to say "skillet," giving some diminutive idea of the size of it, as well as the fact of its having been a cracked bell. This at least, was the construction which the wags of that day would and did put upon it. That bell weighed one hundred and sixty pounds ! And it now seems incredible as well as painful that it was not preserved, so much light
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would the very sight of it have thrown upon the true his- tory of that day !
But sometimes acts, and even words, as well as things, become monuments for perpetuating events, when well authenticated, and none other should be allowed to appear on the page of history. Indeed, granite and marble are too cold to hold the record of very much that the living desire to know.
A very short " walk," southerly, from the second meet- ing-house, which stood within some twenty-five feet of the present town pound, brings us to the site of the third house of worship, and which was built in 1752, for Rev. Mr. Cleaveland's society. A union of this society with that just referred to having been effected in 1774, the united society erected the present Orthodox church in 1792. When erected, and until remodeled in 1842, it was crowned with a small dome, and that dome was sur- mounted by a ball. A deed of valor and daring was per- formed by one of the young men of that day, which has never been recorded; Thomas Giddings, then of Chebacco, now living at a great age in Maine, unless very recently deceased, went up to the ball, stood upon it with one foot, and swung his hat! This feat was witnessed by many, and was related to the writer a few years since by Mr. John Choate, since deceased, who witnessed it, being then a small boy. The height of that ball from the ground can- not now be precisely determined. It was probably eighty feet. The bell of the present house is a noble one, never says skillet, like the former, nor does it sound like one .*
* A passage of words once described by Capt. James l'erkins, late of London- derry, N. H., is thought worth preserving, relating, as it does, to the location of the present Orthodox church, built, as above stated, in 1792. The people were not unanimous with regard to the spot where it should stand, as had indeed been the case in Rev. Mr. Wise's day, many years before. Jonathan Cogswell, Jr., Esq., and his friends had selected the old gravel pit, where the three roads met, and Thomas Choate and his friends, chiefly from the south side of the river, had a preference for the spot where it now stands, undoubtedly the best in the town. A short specimen of the "logic and the wisdom and the wit," if not of the "loud laugh " itself, lets us into the spirit of the times. Squire Cogswell with a few, but well chosen words, when urging the superior advantages of the gravel pit lot, would be let into by John
.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX.
BRIDGE CONTEMPLATED IN 1852.
Remains of the horse bridge across the river, referred to in a former part of this work, are still visible upon its banks at the farm of the late Adam Boyd, formerly of Jonathan Cogswell, Esq. As vessel building has increased, good building lots have become scarce. It has been al- ready stated that the demand for larger vessels than for- merly, made it necessary at length to build wholly upon the banks of the river. It was this fact that led a large number of the citizens of Essex in 1852, to petition the Legislature to authorize the County Commissioners to al- low a bridge to be constructed at the same place where the horse bridge before referred to, formerly stood. A part of the design of the petitioners was to open a road be- ginning at or near the mouth of the lane leading by the house, then of Col. John P. Choate, now Mr. E. K. Lee, and continue it upon a straight course by the house of Mr. Boyd, and so on, to and over the river, and to strike the Gloucester road, nearly opposite the house of Mr. Oliver Pierce. This, it will be seen, would have thrown open vessel-building lots all the way from the contem- plated bridge to the creek which separates the Boyd farm from that of Messrs. Albert and Jonathan Cogswell. The petition was referred to the Legislative Committee on Roads and Bridges, before whom a long and patient hear- ing was had, in the Senate-chamber, on the 2d of March, 1852. The case on the part of the petitioners was ably presented by William D. Northend, Esq., of Salem, at- torney at law, and that of the town as respondents, by
Emerson, " You're all self, Squire, just cause you live close to it." Mr. Cogswell continued to urge his reasons coolly, when Mr. Emerson applied the touch of ridi- cule, "Squire, Squire," said he, raising his voice, "I guess it will do very well, Squire ; go up on the hill, take a hand-sled, and you can slide right into the window." Squire Cogswell's words grew fewer, as they approached the climax, only. adding, " If you'll set it at the gravel pit, I'll level the spot." Ordinarily, this might have settled the question, but Mr. Choate threw in the make-weight, "If you'll go to the hill I'll fix the spot." This, along with the recollection of Mr. Emerson's hand- sled settled the question, the " Squire " himself surrendering as gracefully as circun- stances would admit.
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Obed B. Low, Esq., of Boston, attorney at law, and for- merly of Essex. The committee reported a bill agreeably to the prayer of the petitioners, but it failed to pass ; the grand objection being that of interrupting the navigation of the river, and more especially the passage of vessels built above. An incidental advantage of the proposed road and bridge would have been a considerable shorten- ing of the distance from Ipswich to Gloucester.
INDIAN RELIC.
About the year 1810, a cellar was dug opposite the house of George W. Burnham, trader, for the dwelling- house now owned and occupied by the heirs of John Boyd, deceased, but then being built for Thomas M. Burn- ham, father of O. H. Perry Burnham, of Boston. One of the workmen, Moses Andrews, senior, deceased, in exca- vating, struck a stone, which, upon having the earth re- moved, presented the appearance of a man's head. It was of granite. Such was the interest taken in this head that Mr. B. had it set up upon the corner post of his front yard. A little paint was added, to mark the features, and it remained there for years. On removing to Boston Mr. Burnham carried the stone head, and at length sold it to a gentleman of Boston interested in antiquarian matters, who also sold it to other parties, upon a representation, it is said, of its being the work of Roman hands, inasmuch as the features were to some extent imitations of the Roman. It was purchased by two gentlemen from Eu- rope, Danes, and was long exhibited in an antiquarian collection of curiosities at Copenhagen, where it was seen and recognized by an American Captain, formerly of Chebacco. This head was of course the work of the red man of America, made with no other tool than a stone hatchet, and may have been, and no doubt was, an object of worship. That any well informed European traveler could have made himself believe it was the work of the Romans, and most of all that it should have been admit-
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ted into such a Museum, upon such a representation, is not a little surprising. If imposition was practiced upon a traveler from abroad, it is some satisfaction to know, it was by no Chebacco man. The original finding of the head, indeed, was verified by the finder, Mr. Andrews, who signed and swore to the affidavit setting forth the facts. But no opinion of his made any part of his affi- davit. It is now said, that on its being sent back to Bos- ton, damage was demanded for deception. Of this, how- ever, nothing certain is now known.
WITCHCRAFT.
No one, it is presumed, could take a very long walk about town, without a frequent disposition to inquire, not only what manner of stones and buildings formerly stood here, but also and more especially, what kind of men and women and children dwelt here. No reference is made by this inquiry to such men as William White, or John Cogs- well, or Goodman Bradstreet, or any others, male or fe- male, whose names were never allowed to die; but to the mass of men-to the three hundred of the rank and file of old Chebacco at the close, if you please, of the seven- teenth century. The pulpit was doing its work gloriously and had been from the beginning ; so the press was throw- ing off its weekly seven by nine; and the common school scholars were studying Dilworth and the Psalter. But all this left a vast amount of unoccupied mind and talent, that must and would train itself. Arrivals from England were occasional, and all loved to hear from fader-land ; and on a great variety of subjects England pitched the tunes for us to sing. And now, would it not be past be- lief for example, in a community, settled half a century. before the Salem witchcraft, if no legendary tales upon that fruitful topic should find ears to fall upon, in old Ipswich and its Chebacco child ? Yes, past belief, it must have been, that none of the gentry who everywhere else could ride through the air upon a broomstick and pass in
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and out through the smallest key-hole of your chamber as easily as through the widest open door-if none of this gentry ever ventured over Haffield's Bridge, the bridge where the towns of Ipswich and Essex now meet.
The gifted author of the History of Gloucester, p. 321, remarks that " no account of the part borne by Gloucester men in the expedition to Louisburg would be complete without the story of Peg Wesson," the witch. It is true that not every town is able to point to the proven fact of the existence of any particular Peggy. But inasmuch as the historic record proves the fact (see Felt's History of Ipswich), that Chebacco men helped to drag Sir William Pepperell's cannon across the beach at Louisburg, who will presume to say that Chebacco men were not as really brought up in the fear and belief of witchcraft in general and Miss Wesson's claim to her honors as a witch in par- ticular, as though they had really lived along side of "the old building on Back street, in Gloucester," or even in the " Garrison " itself. We have high authority for gathering up legendary tales and ancestral recollections. We con- fess with shame to a remissness in this part of " every- body's duty ;" and with a tearful regret that so much is lost irrecoverably, would claim for the honor of our birth- right upon Hog Island, that the old homestead was hon- ored with a now and then visit from "Peggy Wesson " or some kind friend of hers. How else are we to account for the fact that the farm-horse was sometimes found hitched to the corner of the house at an early hour in the morning, " all of a lather," with his mane tied into un- questioned witch-knots, when a few minutes inquiry among the three or four families upon that island satisfied you that nobody had been out of their house for the night; unless the horse had been taken once in a while to ride upon, instead of the broomstick ?
The propitious horseshoe was not nailed up upon every dwelling in town for the exclusive purpose of attaching the clothes line to it, by any means.
56
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HISTORY OF ESSEX.
And then, as those days and scenes gradually passed away, other events bordering on the marvellous would come in to the aid of superstitious belief-the rag-man was always ready to come down chimney after the boy that could not help playing Sunday. The story of the Babes in the Wood could not long satisfy the demand for exciting incident, and what was wanting in fact would be supplied by fancy. Real advance or retrocession in society can be detected only by weighing and guaging the masses of one epoch, against their descendants of another epoch, in the same scales ; that is, determining the status of the public mind at different periods in regard to the same matters. If the superstition and ignorance of a given age melt away before actual intelligence, education and refinement in that which succeeds it, then society has ad- vanced ; the percentage is not so easily determined. It is something, indeed, almost everything, to know that the load of the night-mare is removed forever, without being obliged to prove just what that load weighed. It is not pretended that there is no room for further improvement. Superstitious observances and bad signs are yet fellow- boarders and dear friends of the skeleton, which we are told is to be found in every house. But when even light litera- ture, and more especially that which is substantial, comes in at the door, the gentry above named must go out at the window.
It is not the most agreeable task in the world, in the abstract, to hold up the past age to the present, but we hold to progress, and insist that it is a better world to live in than it was once ; a better world than when Paul fought with wild beasts at Ephesus ; better than when the He- brew children were cast in a furnace of fire; or to come down to New England's day, it is a better world to live in than when the raw heads and bloody bones of the nursery stood by every member of the family, man and boy, as long as they lived. At the close of the last century, like the close of the preceding, the moral atmosphere, if not
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full of witchcraft itself, was so impregnated with a re- siduum of it, that it wanted another hundred years to set- tle in. When a boy would rather have his ears boxed than go down cellar alone, or go to bed in the dark, and this fear of the invisible, permeated through every order of society ; there was very nearly an end to social and com- mercial intercourse. Nothing was too absurd not to have votaries. Men would sometimes reason as correctly upon wrong principles, and unestablished facts, as they would at other times reason incorrectly upon right ones. When the imagination was heated, it became a race-horse with- out a rider. An incident or two may illustrate. For many years at about the close of the last century and the com- mencement of the present, a Chebacco gentleman of the first respectability was a member of the board of select- men, and as the meetings of the board were held in the body of the town at Ipswich, and frequently continued into the evening and night, he would often be returning at midnight. The remarkable fact connected with these nocturnal rides, was that in crossing Haffield's bridge, a light was generally, if not invariably, kindled up upon each of the horse's ears; coming on quietly, but unmis- takably, as he entered at the northern end of the cause- way, and as quietly leaving them on his leaving the cause- way at its southern terminus. It was never injurious to the venerable traveler ; but what was it, and what its busi- ness? The tradition that aids us in the investigation is, that during some of those years when the causeway was low, and consequently often overflowed by the tide, a traveler had been lost there or came to grief or damage, and though this part of the case was not very clearly ver- ified, yet it was surely believed, and the town was thus punished in the person of one of its principal officers, un- til the road, causeway and bridge were properly raised above the tide; for after that was done the selectman was neither troubled nor honored with any more lights upon his horse's ears when passing that bridge.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
Some of our boys and young men may, perhaps, have quite as much fondness for active as for still life, and will tell us that the natural scenery of the town speaks for it- self, and they can read out all it has to say; but of the people of former years who are now, and have been long abroad, whom they have not seen and are not likely to see, they would like to know something, especially if they have made any mark worth remembering.
In a walk about town not long since, the site of the first Falls school-house brought to mind the long-a-go pupils, or at least some of them. Their history has already been made the subject of a sketch in a former chapter of the present History. Reference is had just now to some of the common name of Burnham, as West- ley, Samuel, Zaccheus. A later "walk" along the site of the old North school-house, when standing between the present dwellings of Jonathan Low and David Mears, has called up the green memories of others, and some of whom have spent most of life abroad. Among those who drank of the old North school spring, still living and ac- tive, but unknown to most persons under twenty years of age, was Thomas Sewall, [now the Rev. Dr. S. of the Methodist Episcopal church, fifty years old]. His resi- dence in Essex was not perfectly continuous after the age of boyhood, and yet he attended our school as late as about 1832. He was a fine speaker and reader, hav- ing enjoyed the instructions of Prof. Russell at Phillips Academy, in Andover.
In the Spring of 1842, our young friend, having grad- uated at Middletown, Conn., and having entered upon the study of theology, went upon a foreign tour in company with Rev. Dr. Durbin with whom he was then studying, and several other gentlemen. Their travels lay through parts of England and several other countries of Europe, Arabia and the Holy Land. While in England, he visited
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many spots made dear by the recollection of his child- hood reading and nursery training. "This letter" says he, in writing to an Essex relative, "I have pressed to the tombstones of John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, and the Wesleys, just for the notion of it." But it was an in- stance of his personal, individual prowess and bodily activity that is to be here recited, a case where a Che- bacco school-boy beat an Arabian runner on his own sands. Some twenty in all were upon the camels together, or perhaps some resting in walking and loitering. "I sup- pose," said our Thomas, to one of the Arab guides, "you are a swift runner ?" It was said pleasantly and taken so, yet with the addition, "if you will come down, I show you," giving him to understand he felt it to be a chal- lenge. A wager must always be laid in such a case, and Sewall merely threw down a few pice, knowing he should lose them. The Arab on the other hand laid down the best things he had-his sword and belt, knowing he should win. The ground was marked off and the judges appointed. Sewall commenced by a good but not his best run. He perceived almost at once, however, that he was fully up with the Arab. His first thought was that it was but a make-believe on the Mahometan's part, till a glance assured him that the man of the desert was doing his best. Our Essex boy, on perceiving that, quickened his pace, and there upon the yielding sands of that sandy country, Thomas Sewall beat the Arab and took the trophy by unanimous consent. The interpreter of the company told our countrymen that he could hear the Arab with deep mortification, declare that there was n't a man on the desert that could run so. Before the final separation of that little caravan, such was the deep humiliation of our Arab runner, for the loss of his sword and belt, that Mr. Sewall made him a present of the former, and if our recol- lection is correct, paid him something for the belt, which he exhibited to American friends on his return home ; thus leaving some salutary impressions of foreign etiquette
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