USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Gardner > History of the town of Gardner, Worcester County, Mass., from the incorporation, June 27, 1785, to the present time > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
The following is an act of parliament, concerning the increase of vagrancy, passed in the year 1531 :-
" Whereas, in all places throughout this realm of England, vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased, and daily do increase in great and excessive numbers, by the occasion of idleness, mother and root of all vices ; whereby hath insurged and sprung, and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other heinous offenses and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the inquietation and damage of the King's people, and to the marvellous disturbance of the common weal of this realm; and whereas, strait statutes and ordinances have been before this time devised and made, as well by the king our sovereign lord, as also by divers, his most noble progenitors, kings of England, for the most necessary and due reformation of the premises ; yet that notwithstanding, the said number of vagabonds and beggars be not seen in any part to be diminished, but rather daily augmented and increased
.
225
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
into great routs or companies, as evidently and manifestly it doth and may appear : Be it therefore enacted by the king our sovereign lord, and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, that the justices of the peace of all and singular the shires of England within the limits of their commission, and all other justices of the peace, mayors, sheriff's, bailiff's, and other officers of every city, borough, or franchise, shall from time to time, as often as need shall require, make diligent search and inquiry of all aged, poor, and impotent persons, which live, or of necessity be com- pelled to live by alms of the charity of the people ; and such search made, the said officers, every of them within the limits of their authorities, shall have power, at their discretions, to enable to beg within such limits as they shall appoint, such of the said impotent persons as they shall think convenient ; and to give in commandment to every such impotent beggar (by them enabled) that none of them shall beg without the limits so appointed to them. And further, they shall deliver to every such person so enabled, a letter containing the name of that person, witnessing that he is authorized to beg, and the limits within which he is appointed to beg, the same letter to be sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city or borough, and subscribed with the name of one of the said justices or officers aforesaid. And if any such impotent persons do beg in any other place than within such limits, than the jus- tices of the peace, and all other the king's officers and ministers, shall by their discretions punish all such persons by imprison- ment in the stocks, by the space of two days and two nights, giving them only bread and water.
" If any such impotent person be found begging without a license, at the discretion of the justices of the peace, he shall be stripped naked from the middle upwards, and whipped, within the town in which he be found, or within some other town, as it shall seem good. Or if it be not convenient so to punish him, he shall be set in the stocks by the space of three days and three nights.
29
226
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
" And be it further enacted, that if any person or persons, being whole and mighty in body and able to labor, be taken in begging in any part of this realm ; and if any man or woman, being whole and mighty in body, having no land, nor master, nor using any lawful merchandry, craft or mystery whereby he might get his living, be vagrant, and can give none account how he doth lawfully get his living, then it shall be lawful to the constables and all other king's officers, ministers, and sub- jeets of every town, parish and hamlet, to arrest the said vaga- bonds and idle persons, and bring them to any justice of the peace of the same shire or liberty, or else to the high constable of the hundred ; and the justice of the peace, high constable, or other officer, shall cause such idle person so to him brought, to be had to the next market town or other place, and there to be tied to the end of a cart, naked, and be beaten with whips throughout the same town till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping ; and after such punishment or whipping had, the person so punished shall be enjoined upon his oath to return forthwith without delay, in the next and straight way, to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the same punishment, by the space of three years ; and then put himself to labor like a true man ought to do; and after that done, every such person so punished and ordered, shall have a letter, sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape or wapentake, witnessing that he hath been punished according to this statute, and containing the day and place of his punishment, and the place whereunto he is limited to go, and by what time he is limited to come thither ; for that within that time, showing the said letter, he may lawfully beg by the way, and otherwise not : and if he do not accomplish the order to him appointed by the said letter, then to be eftsoons taken and whipped ; and so often as there be fault found in him, to be whipped till he has his body put to labor for his living, or otherwise truly get his living so long as he is able to do so.
" Be it further enacted, that scholars of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, that go about begging, not being au-
227
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
thorized under the seal of the said universities, by the commis- sary, chancellor, or vice chancellor of the same; and that all and singular shipmen pretending losses of their ships and goods, going about the country begging without sufficient authority, shall be punished and ordered in manner and form as is above rehearsed of strong beggars ; and that all proctors and pardon- ers, and all other idle persons going about in counties or abiding in any town, city or borough, some of them using divers subtle, crafty and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves to have knowledge in physic, physnamye, and palmistry, or other crafty science, whereby they bear the people in hand that they can tell their destinies, dreams and fortunes, and such other like fantastical imagina- tions, to the great deceit of the king's subjects, shall, upon an examination had before two justices of the peace, if by provable witnesses they be found guilty of such deceits, be punished by whipping at two days together, after the manner before re- hearsed. And if they eftsoons offend in the same or any like offence, to be scourged two days. and the third day to be put upon the pillory, from nine o'clock till eleven. the forenoon of the same day, and to have the right ear cut off; and if they offend the third time, to have like punishment, with whipping and the pillory, and to have the other ear cut off."
As if this act was not sufficiently severe to cure the evils of " sturdy mendicancy,"and to rid the land of " sturdy and valiant beggars," the provisions of it were expanded, five years later, enhancing the penalties, and, at the same time, providing vag- rants with labor upon public works, as roads, harbors, embank- ments and fortifications. Another important alteration was a restriction upon private charity. According to Froude, " pri- vate persons were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to give money to beggars, whether deserving or undeserving. The poor, of each parish, might call at houses, within the boundaries for broken meats; but this was the limit of personal alms giving ; and the money, which men might be disposed to offer, was to be collected by the church wardens, on Sundays and
228
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
holidays, in the churches. The parish priest was to keep an account of the receipts and expenditure.
" The sturdy vagabond, who, by the earlier statute, was con- demned on his second offence to lose the whole or part of his right ear, was condemned, by the amended act, if found a third time offending, with the mark upon him of his mutilation, 'to suffer pains and execution of death as a felon, and as an enemy of the commonwealth.' For an able bodied man to be caught a third time begging, was held a crime deserving death, and the sentence was intended, on fit occasions, to be executed. If out of employment, preferring to be idle, he might be demanded for work, by any master of the ' craft' to which he belonged, and compelled to work whether he would or not. If caught begging once, being neither aged nor infirm, he was whipped at the cart's tail. If caught a second time, his ear was slit or bored through with a hot iron. If caught a third time, being thereby proved to be of no use upon this earth, but to live upon it only to his own hurt and to that of others, he suffered death as a felon. So the law of England remained in force for sixty years. It was therefore the expressed conviction of the English nation, that it was better for a man not to live at all, than to live a profitless and worthless life. The vagabond was a sore spot upon the commonwealth, to be healed by wholesome discipline if the gangrene was not incurable; but to be cut away with the knife, if the milder treatment of the cart-whip failed to be of profit."*
This severity, in the treatment of vagrants, did not, however, have the effect to rid the land of this deeply rooted evil. It is said to have failed from over severity, so that through " foolish pity of them that should have seen the laws executed," there had been no hanging and very little whipping. This may be said to be the result of all unduly severe legislative acts. After the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, an act was passed, called the vagrancy aet, by which an attempt was made to
*Frude's History of England, vol. 1, p. 78-90.
229
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
reduce the vagrant to the condition of a slave. " A servant determinately idle, leaving his work, or an able bodied vagrant, roaming the country without means of honest self-support and without seeking employment, was to be brought before the two nearest magistrates. On proof of the idle living of the said person, he was to be branded on the breast, where the mark would be concealed by his clothes, with the letter V, and adjudged to some honest neighbor as a slave, 'to have and to hold the said slave for the space of two years then next follow- ing ;' ' and to order the said slave as follows :' that is to say, ' to take such person adjudged as slave with him, and only giving the said slave bread and water, or small drink, and such refuse of meat as he should think meet, to cause the said slave to work.' If mild measures failed, if the slave was still idle or ran away, he was to be marked on the cheek or forehead with an S and to be adjudged as slave for life. This measure failed and, in two years, was withdrawn."*
From these instances, now adduced from English history, relating to vagrancy, and the failure of parliamentary enact- ments to suppress it, legislators and town officers of modern times will discover, that they are engaged in no new conflict with this useless and dangerous class, who to-day, throng the streets of our cities, and the highways of our entire land, plun- dering houses and stores, and consuming the hard earnings of our honest and industrious citizens, parasites of society.
It appears from the Colonial Records that the early colonists encountered this same evil, which they sought to control by legislation. September 3d, 1639, the following aet was passed by the Plymouth Colony, " for the preventing of idleness and other evils, occasioned thereby. It is enacted, by the Court, that the grand jurymen of every town shall have power within their several townships, to take a special view and notice of all manner of persons, married or single, dwelling within their several towns, that have small means to maintain them, and are
*Frude's History of England, vol. 5, p. 75-76.
230
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
suspected to live idly and loosely, and to require an account of them, how they live, and such as they find delinquent, and can- not give a good account unto them, that they cause the consta- ble to bring them before the Governor and Assistants, at Plym- outh, the first Court of Assistants, after such delinquents shall be found out. That such course may be taken with them as in the wisdom of the government, shall be judged just and equal."*
" It is enacted, by the court and the authority thereof, that if any person or persons shall come into this government, that according to the law of England, may justly be accounted vaga- bond ; the marshal or the constable of the town whereunto they come ; shall apprehend him or them ; and upon examination so appearing, he shall whip them or cause them to be whipped with rods, so as it exceed not fifteen stripes ; and to give him or them a pass to depart the government, and if any such per- son or persons shall be found without their pass, or not acting according thereunto, they shall be punished again as formerly ; and in case any constable of this jurisdiction shall be unwilling, or cannot procure any to inflict the punishment aforesaid, that then they shall bring such persons to Plymouth, to the under marshal and he shall inflict it."t
In the Massachusetts Colony, in 1639, we have the following record : " It is ordered, that the court, or any two magistrates out of court, shall have power to determine all differences about a lawful settling and providing for poor persons, and shall have power to dispose of all unsettled persons into such towns as they shall judge to be most fit for the maintenance of such persons and families and the most case of the country."#
In 1659, we have the following record, which throws light upon the custom formerly adopted, in all our towns, of legally warning all new comers, rich or poor, to depart the limits of the town within a certain specified time, that the town might avoid their support, in case they should afterwards become
*Plymouth Colony Records, vol. 11, p: 32.
¡Plymouth Colony Records, vol. 11, p. 206.
¿Records of Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 264.
231
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
paupers : " For the avoiding of all future inconveniences refer- ring to the settling of poor people that may need relief from the place where they dwell, it is ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that where any person, with his family, or in case he hath no family, shall be resident in any town or pecu- liar of this jurisdiction for more than three months, without notice given to such person or persons, by the constable, or one of the selectmen of the said place, or their orders, that the town is not willing that they should remain as an inhabitant amongst them, and in case after such notice given, such person or per- sons shall, notwithstanding, remain in the said place, if the seleetmen of the said place shall not, by way of complaint, petition the next County Court of that shire for relief in the said case, and the same prosecuted to effeet, every such person or persons, as the case may require, shall be provided for and re- lieved, in case of necessity, by the inhabitants of the said place where he or she is so found.
"And it is further ordered, that each County Court shall, from time to time, hear and determine all complaints of this nature, and settle all poor persons, according to directions of this law, in any town or peculiar within this colony, and every such per- son or persons shall accordingly be entertained and provided for by the selectmen or constable of the said place, at a town charge ; and in case any town or peculiar shall find themselves aggrieved at such dispose of the County Court, they may appeal to the next Court of Assistants ; and where any person or per- sons cannot according to this law be settled in any town or peculiar, they shall then be placed in any town of that county wherein they are found, according as the County Court shall appoint, and their charges satisfied unto them by the county treasurer.'
In 1682, still farther legislation, upon this subject, seemed to be demanded, as is apparent from the following enactment of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts :-
*Records of Massachusetts, vol. 4, Part First, p. 365.
232
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
"Whereas, there are in sundry of our towns, and especially in Boston, many idle persons in families, as well as other single persons, who are greatly, if not altogether, negligent in their particular callings, and some that do not follow any lawful em- ployment for a livelihood, but misspend their time and that little which they earn, to the impoverishing, if not utter undoing, of themselves and families, for prevention whereof, it is or- dered, by this Court and the authority thereof, that the tything- men in each town shall inspect all such families and persons, and speedily return their names to the selectmen of the town where they dwell, who shall forthwith return to the next mag- istrate, and (if in Boston) to any of the magistrates or com- missioners there, who are hereby empowered to issue out warrants to the constable of the respective towns to require such person or family to work in or about any employment they are capable of, in the town or place where they reside, and if they refuse to be regulated, as aforesaid, then to be sent by said authority to the house of correction, and there receive, ac- cording to the orders of that house, and kept to work ; and that such persons and families may be provided for, it is ordered, that all their clear earnings shall (by said selectmen or their order) be laid out in necessaries suitable for them or their families' use and relief, and that their wages shall from time to time, be stated by said selectmen ; and if any person or persons shall think themselves wronged thereby, they may complain to the County Court for relief."*
" No idle drone may live amongst us," was the motto upon which they conducted their legislation towards vagrants.
In imitation of the ancient custom, of the Massachusetts Colony, in its enactment concerning vagrants, in 1659, we have frequent occurrences recorded upon our town records, of legally warning all recent settlers to leave the town forthwith, of which the following is one of many :-
*Records of Massachusetts, vol. 5, p. 373.
233
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
Worcester, ss.
GARDNER, June 7th, 1791.
To Elijah Wilder, constable for the town of Gardner in said county :
Greeting.
You are, in the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, directed to warn and give notice unto Isaac Jackson, yeoman, and Jonathan Brown, yeoman, and Beulah his wife and their child, and Samuel Edgell, gentleman, and Sarah his wife, and Betsey and Sarah their children, and Joseph Edgell, yeoman, and Dorcas his wife, and Sarah Laws, spinster, all of West- minster, and Rufus Dresser, yeoman, and Elizabeth his wife, of Lancaster, and William Whitney, Jr., yeoman, and Anna his wife, of Winchendon, and Anna Knights, spinster, of Sterling, all of the county of Worcester; and Daniel Fisher, yeoman, of Walpole and county of Suffolk, and Lewis Dunn, yeoman, and Hannah his wife, and Lucy their daughter, spinster, all of Marlborough, and county of Middlesex and state of Massachu- setts, and Joseph Simond, yeoman, and Miriam his wife, from Putney, and Grace Palmer, spinster, of Shrewsbury, all of Vermont state, who have lately come into this town, for the purpose of abiding therein, not having obtained the town's con- sent ; therefore, that they depart the limits thereof, within fifteen days. And of this precept, with your doings thereon, you are to make return into the office of the town clerk, within twenty days next coming, that such further proceedings may be had in the premises as the law directs.
ELISHA JACKSON, EBENEZER HOWE, SAMUEL STONE, JOSIAH WHEELER,
Selectmen.
It is not to be inferred, from the above precept, that the citi- zens of this town had any wish or intention to exclude from their limits these recent comers, but that they were only acting in accordance with the law of self-defense. It may be said, that usually these precepts, of warning were, as Macbeth says, like,
30
234
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
" A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing,"
unless it was, the performance of a solemn farce.
That there have been great improvements made in the con- dition of the working man, within the last two centuries, under the ameliorating influences of Christianity, with its consequent advanced civilization, as also a manifest decrease of vagrancy and pauperism, cannot be denied, by the intelligent student of history. Macaulay informs us that, in England, the wages of the laborer, estimated in money, were, in 1685, not more than half of what they were in 1848; that, although meat was so cheap, in 1685, it was still so dear, that hundreds of thousands of families, scarcely knew the taste of it; bread, such as is now given to the inmates of a work-house, was then seldom seen even on the trencher of a yeoman, or a shopkeeper. The great majority of the people lived on rye, barley and oats. Among the commodities, for which the laborer would have had to pay higher, in 1685, than his posterity paid in 1848, were sugar, salt, coals, candles, soap, shoes, stockings, and generally all articles of clothing and bedding.
In confirmation of these facts, as stated by Macaulay, he introduces a statement from King's Natural and Political Con- clusions, who roughly estimated the common people of Eng- land, in 1685, at 880,000 families, of which 440,000 ate animal food twice a week, the remaining 440,000 ate meat not at all, or at most, not oftener than once a week. Beneath this labor- ing class, were a large portion of the population, who were unable to subsist, without more or less aid from the parish. They constituted about one-fifth of the whole population, making the poor rate, the heaviest tax, then borne by the people. In the reign of Charles II., this tax was computed at near seven hundred thousand pounds a year, a little less than the entire revenue of the crown. In a short time, it rose to between eight and nine hundred thousand pounds. Paupers and beggars, in 1696, were estimated at 1,330,000, out of a population of
235
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
5,500,000. In 1846, the number of persons who received relief, as appeared from official returns, was 1,332,089, out of a popu- lation of about 17,000,000, showing that, in England, the pau- per rate has been constantly decreasing.
Speaking of the condition of the poor, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and previous, Hume, refers in a note, to his third volume, to a statement made by Holinshead, author of Chroni- eles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, concerning the condi- tion of the poorer classes, " that there are old men dwelling in the village, where I remain, which have noted three things to be marvellously altered in England, within their sound remem- brance. One is the multitude of chimneys lately erected ; whereas, in their young days, there were not above two or three, if so many, in most upland towns of the realm, the religious houses and manor places of their lords, always excepted, and peradventure some great personage, but each made his fire against a reredosse, in the hall where he dined, and dressed his meat. The second is, the great amendment of lodgings ; for, said they, our fathers and we ourselves have lain full oft on straw pallets, covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dag-swain and a good round log under their head, instead of a bolster. If it was so that the father, or the good man of the house, had a mattress, or flock-bed, and thereto a sack of chaff, to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, so well were they contented. Pillows, said they, were thought meet only for women in childbed. As for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well ; for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the prickling straws, that ran oft through the canvas, and rased their hardened hides. The third thing they tell of, is the ex- change of treen platers, so called, I suppose, from tree or wood, into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin. For so common were all sorts of treen vessels, in old time, that a man should hardly find four pieces of pewter of which, one was peradventure a salt, in a good farmer's house"; Erasmus attrib-
*Macaulay's History of England, vol. 1, p. 317-318.
+Hume's History of England, vol. 3, p. 465.
236
HISTORY OF GARDNER.
utes the frequent plagues, in England, to the filthiness, dirt and slovenly habits of the common people ; at the time above refer- red to, he says, " the floors are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies, unmolested, an ancient collection of beer, grease, fragments, bones, spittle, excrements of dogs and cats, and every thing that is nasty."
Comparing the condition of the working men and the poorer classes, in the sixteenth century, with their poor fare and un- comfortable dwellings, so poorly furnished, with the condition of the same classes, with their comfortable homes, and im- proved means of subsistence and education, at the present time, we are brought to the inevitable conclusion that great advances have been made. It is true that, since the close of the war, and especially since the decreased demand for labor, the country has been greatly infested with a class of vagrants, popularly called " tramps," yet the number of these will hardly bear comparison with those which existed in the reign of Henry VIII. and his immediate successors. This class of persons is defined, by the Massachusetts Statute in the following terms :-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.