USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Hanover > History of the town of Hanover, Massachusetts, with family genealogies > Part 15
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Charles D. Barnard, at the battle of Gaine's Mills, January, 1862, was severely wounded in both legs and has been all his life a cripple.
Richard Winslow, the only colored man in the Post, was, dur- ing his entire term of membership in the Post, its color-bearer. He was at Fort Wagner, in Col. Robert Gould Shaw's fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment of Colored men, and, by especial invita- tion, took part in the dedication of the monument to Col. Shaw in Boston.
Rear Admiral Joseph Smith.
No history of this town should fail to contain some account of the life of Rear Admiral Joseph Smith, the most distinguished man in the naval annals of the town. Born March 2, 1790, the second son of Capt. Albert and Anne L. (Eells) Smith, he married, March 1, 1818, at Nobleborough, Maine, Harriet Bryant, daughter of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Wall) Bryant, of Newcastle.
His father was a North river ship builder, and the boy was thus made acquainted with all the details of ship building. With a nature which called him toward the sea, he enlisted in the Navy. A midshipman, January 16, 1809, lieutenant, July 24, 1813, com- mander, March 3, 1827, captain, February 9, 1887, commander of the Mediterranean squadron in 1845, chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks in 1847, rear admiral, July 16, 1862. He died, Jan- uary 17, 1877, aged eighty-six years and nine months.
He was with Commodore Perry in the battle of Lake Erie, in the war of 1812, fighting in command of a ship built by himself and manned by a crew taken from the army insubordinates who were under arrest. When, in the hottest of the fight, one side of his ship was nearly blown away by the enemy, he swung his ship broad- side to the foe, first port and then starboard; while the unharmed side loaded, the wounded side was turned to the enemy. Thus he fought out the fight with pluck, undaunted courage, and with re- source ever fresh for the emergency.
At the battle of Lake Champlain, he was wounded ; and his gal- lant conduct in the capture of the Algerine cruisers, in 1815, gained him honorable mention.
When the Civil War broke out, Admiral Smith was past seventy. He was still chief of Yards and Docks, and upon him fell to a very great extent the task of building up our Navy. His days were
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days of long toil, but no clerk in his department could keep up the pace set by its chief. But for his urgency, the Monitor would not have received the trial in Hampton Roads which demonstrated the value of armored ships and saved the Navy of the United States. President Lincoln is said to have called him the "Wheel-horse of the Navy."
The Admiral's trial of the Monitor saved the Navy, but it was too late to save his son Joseph Barber Smith, who commanded the Congress, when she was attacked by the Merrimac. His reply to Secretary Welles, when the latter called him from church to tell him of the battle and the surrender of the Congress, "Then Joe is dead," is classic. It illustrates the Spartan character of the old hero when it is added that after this laconic judgment of his boy's courage, he walked back into the church and finished the service.
The Blue and Red War of 1909
A word as to the Mimic war in Plymouth County in 1909. "Never in the history of New England, if in this country, have mil- itary manœuvres been held of the magnitude of those which took place, from August 14th to 21st, 1909, in Southern Massachusetts."
"The manœuvres were considered of sufficient importance for for- eign nations to send military attaches, and the interest the entire country manifested was shown by the fact that over 250 newspaper representatives accompanied the troops, the majority, coming from states other than Massachusetts."
The final battle was fought at and near Hanover Four Corners, lasting for about three hours. His Excellency, Eben S. Draper, Governor of Massachusetts, was in the thick of the fray.
Richard Harding Davis, a veteran correspondent of several wars, said to a friend, regarding the Hanover battle as he sat watching the same. "It may surprise you if I say that this mimic fight is one of the most spectacular I have ever seen in my life. All it lacks is the carnage. The picturesqueness of New England topog- raphy, the stone walls, rolling hills, clumps of bushes, etc., all defined by the incessant firing, certainly is .thrilling."
The last of the mimic battles was fought, and the warring troops to the number of ten or twelve thousand, now peaceful and friendly, pitched their tents on Hanover soil, where they all remained for one night, many of them for two nights or more.
Hundreds of people, both from Hanover and the surrounding towns, visited the encampments, which extended along Washing- ton street for about two miles, on Broadway for a mile, and for
WOODWARD HILL Scene of one of the final battles of the Mimic War of 1909
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short distances on Myrtle, Hanover and King streets,-one encamp- ment being on New State street in Hanson near the residence of Charles E. Thayer. The sight witnessed was such as few will ever see again in our vicinity. The troops were orderly and intelligent, and left our town with the best wishes of her citizens.
The 10th U. S. Cavalry (colored) remained in town until Sun- day morning, encamping, the last night, in the field in the rear of the residence of R. M. Sturtevant, on Pleasant street. This Cavalry served with distinction at San Juan with Col. Roosevelt, and also in the Philippines. It was a beautiful morning when they left and, as they rode from the field in perfect order, the sight was one long to be remembered.
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CHAPTER VIII.
SHIPBUILDING, HANOVER'S RAILROAD, IRON.
By John F. Simmons.
SHIPBUILDING.
In the days when England first became mistress of the seas, her "walls of oak" were her boast. No iron ship could have been constructed, when the Pilgrims pounded across the Northern Atlantic in the famous "Mayflower," which, to our ideas of marine construction, seems to have resembled nothing so much as a tub. To the first Englishman at Plymouth, the superabundance of white oaks through the primeval forest could but have suggested the building of ships for themselves. Here the Mayflower had left them with no means of marine conveyance, except the shal- lop in which they had made their first coasting trips of discovery. They were hemmed in by the forest in their rear and the sea in front of them bade them go no farther. The land-bound English- men must have cast about in their early years for some means of increasing their available flotilla.
And, in truth, this seems to have been what happened, when the more worldly-wise Puritans had come to establish themselves here. Many differences have been pointed out between the Plymouth settlers and those who peopled the Bay Colony, so far as religious beliefs and practices are concerned. Elsewhere the fact has been alluded to that the Pilgrims of Plymouth were not Puritans, although the literature of the world is full of allusions which confuse the two bodies of early settling Englishmen in the Colonies. Without adverting further than has been done to the theological distinctions, it is interesting to note how wide is the difference in worldly wisdom between the Pilgrims of Plym- outh and their neighbors of the Massachusetts Bay.
The little old shallop of the Mayflower was sufficient to enable the more adventurous of the first comers to skirt the coast in northern exploration. This taught them early, in the first
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year of their settlement, that, 20 miles to the north of Plymouth, a spot might have been selected which would have offered better land for tillage, better water for harbors, better forests, and equally good fishing, hunting and trapping. They also knew that. the company, whose money had made possible their immigration to these new shores, relied for the payment of their dues upon the success of the settlement as a commercial adventure. Yet with a strange blindness to the opportunities for commercial better- ment which the more northerly shores offered them or perhaps coerced by a stolid English conservatism which their dwelling among the burghers of Holland had only tended to increase, they steadfastly refused to be moved from the place where they had landed, although its associations could have been to them nothing less than horrible.
However, the Puritans were not so slow to sieze commercial advantages offered them in their new home. They, and not the Pilgrims would seem to be entitled to be called the real fathers of the race whose shrewdness is ineffaceably connected with the word Yankee. As early as 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Company in London had been informed of the shipbuilding possibilities of the new country. England had then as now a mighty race of sailors. Her mechanics from generations of shipbuilders, had become the most skilled builders of wooden walls in the world. While the men were ever ready, the supply of ship-timber was even then beginning to be a cause of anxious thought. The new country with its unknown miles of virgin forests offered a solution of the difficulty. The London Company saw the advantage of bringing- together the raw material and the labor skilled in fashioning it to their needs. A letter (their first) to the new Colony of Mass- achusetts Bay, under date of April 7, 1629, stated that six ship- wrights had been sent to New England.
No long time elapsed before the new industry began to show re- sults. On July 4, 1631, a thirty ton "Bark," the "Blessing of the Bay" (note the religious tone of the name) was launched into "Mistick River", at what is now Medford. She was owned by Governor Winthrop and was the first vessel to be built in New England.
In June, 1641, Richard Hollingsworth launched at Salem a three hundred ton ship and, in a hundred years after the landing at Plymouth (1724), we find sixteen master shipbuilders of the Port of London petitioning the Lords of the Committee of Plan- tations "not to encourage shipbuilding in New England because
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workmen were drawn thither." The scarcity of raw material had even then become associated with a scarcity of the labor to work it and the interference of government with the laws of trade was invoked.
The first ship to be built in Scituate was built probably by Wil- liam James at the Harbor. Deane says he probably came from Marshfield as early as 1650 ; but he did not settle at the Harbor un -. til 1673. He may have built and probably did build here when he first came. To do so was most probably the object of his coming. He dug a dock, still known as "Will James' dock," and located his yard at the head of it. We can find no record to corroborate these surmises and no means have yet been found to learn the names of the ships he built.
As stated in Briggs' "Ship Building on North River," it may be possible that ships were built on North river even earlier than at the Harbor, although Deane distinctly states that they were "first built" at the Harbor. In 1645, Thomas Nichols was a shipbuilder owning lands "near and southeast of the spot, since known as Hobart's Landing, at which place he carried on the art of shipbuilding." (Briggs). This place, later known as "Briggs' Ship Yard", lies on the Scituate side of the river, just west of Little's bridge. The old marks of the landing and the ship yard can still be traced. Nichols had a daughter Rebecca, who mar- ried Samuel House, Jr., who continued the business of shipbuilding at his father-in-law's yard. Her descendants settled in Hanover, west of the Third Herring Brook and near the Ponds, in Pem- broke.
The second oldest yard on North river is the "Old Barstow Yard." The Barstow's were prominent, perhaps the most prom- inent, of the first settlers in Hanover. A Barstow was designated to call the first townmeeting. A Barstow built the first North river bridge and a Barstow took the first contract to build a street in town. This was William who came to New England in the "Truelove", in 1635. In 1649, he is found in what is now Hanover, building himself a house on a spot which may still be found in the rear of the Second Congregational Church at the Corners, north of Oakland Avenue. He died in 1668 and had been a shipbuilder at the old "Barstow Yard" a few years before his death. His descendants carried on the same business in this and neighboring towns for two centuries. The handiwork of the Barstow yards carried the ship timber from Hanover hillsides over the waters of the whole earth.
JOHN BAILEY HOUSE (NOW MRS. ADA A. CAMPBELL), PLEASANT STREET
THE JUDGE CUSHING HOUSE. CORNER OF OAKLAND AVE. AND WASHINGTON ST. (1860)
THIE JOB TILDEN HOUSE, WINTER STREET
LONE HOUSE IN CRICKET HOLE
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SHIPBUILDING.
This yard occupied the ground now covered by the Hanover abutments of the North river bridge. The road then led down to the stream just west of the present bridge and wayfarers as they descended to the river, passed under the bows of the newly formed hulls.
The limited size of this yard compelled the removal of the Barstows to larger quarters, when the size of the ships they built began to be increased. They then went to the yard at the "Two Oaks", farther down the stream.
Their old yard, however, was still used. Nathaniel Sylvester, commonly known, for distinction's sake, as "Builder" Sylvester, took the abandoned site for his own, about 1745. Mr. Sylvester was born in 1718 and built the house (1743) now occupied by Mr. T. K. Guth, near the bridge.
His great grandchildren now living in Hanover are Elijah W., George F., and Elizabeth, who, with their sister Mary T. Stockbridge (widow of the late Lebbeus, Jr.), all reside on Broad- way, South Hanover. Elijah is a carpenter, George, a florist ;. Elizabeth is employed at E. Phillips & Son's Tack-Factory and lives in the family homestead with her brother George. George married Mary Abby, daughter of Rev. Cyrus W. Allen, who was pastor of the first church at the Centre. He has no children.
"Builder" Sylvester built mostly schooners, for which there was a good demand for coasting purposes. Coal was then un- known. Wood was in great demand. Railroads were also un- dreamed of. Coasting schooners furnished the best means of transporting wood to the market. And the wood business was one of importance.
"Builder" died February 21, 1781. His son Nathaniel suc- ceeded him at this yard, until, in 1795, it passed into the hands- of Jonathan Sampson. Nathaniel built the schooner "Swallow", in 1784, and probably the schooner "Lydia", in 1789.
Jonathan Sampson, who succeeded the Sylvesters here, built 32 vessels. His product was used largely for fishermen at the Grand Banks. The largest ship ever built at this yard was the "Caliban", 311 tons.
Sampson's successor was the firm of Turner, Palmer, and Ma- goun. The firm were all old shipbuilders and they did a rushing business, mostly in smaller vessels. The members were Barker Turner, Jeduthan Palmer, and Enoch Magoun. They all lived in Pembroke, although Palmer was by birth a Hanoverian. Tur- ner had built 22 vessels for Scituate Harbor alone. They some-
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times had three vessels on the stocks at once. The firm dissolved between 1829 and 1835.
The next oldest shipyard on the river was the first one within the present limits of Hanover. It was called Turners' yard and was the "farthest point up the river at which any vessels were built." (Briggs) It lay just above the North river bridge, on land since owned by Seth Barker, later by Horatio Bigelow, after him a Mr. Kendall, and now by T. K. Guth. At the time, the yard occupied a small gully or ravine on the river bank, which was just about large enough to accommodate one of the small vessels which were built in those days. The place can still be identified, although modern improvements have demanded that it be nearly obliterated.
David Turner owned this yard previous to 1699 and after- ward. He came hither from Scituate and, in 1665, married Han- nah, a daughter of William Randall. Briggs says, "He probably commenced the building of vessels soon after this date", (1665).
As we go down river below the bridge after leaving the Old Barstow Yard site we come to yards in the following succession. John Clark's
Isaac Perry's
Albert, Josiah, Thomas, and Millar Smith's
Thomas Barstow and Robert L. Eells', afterward J. B. and Elijah Bartsow's
Isaac Perry's,
Col. John Bailey's-afterward Smith's, afterward Barstow's. Kingman's,
Wing's.
It is impossible here to go into details further. Dr. Briggs, in his "Ship Building on North River," gives a mass of facts which no research now could probably increase.
The height of the business boom which shipbuilding gave to Hanover occurred probably between the Revolution and the War of 1812. The embargo crippled the industry temporarily but the most potent cause of the decline it would probably be impossible to select. Lack of available material in the neighborhood; the increase in the size of ships and the great difficulty of getting a large ship to sea from Hanover over the rocks, shoals and bars of the river; bad commercial legislation; the increase of steam craft and the use of iron and steel in ship construction ; all tend- ed to make an end of an industry which brought all sorts of business prosperity to the town. It is said as many as 400 hands
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from the ship yards could be seen at the Corners every Saturday night, when the boom was on. Mr. Eben C. Waterman, of our present board of Selectmen, was the last apprentice to learn the shipbuilder's trade on North river. He followed this calling for several years.
There were notable men, notable in town and in the country at large, who had connections with this Hanover industry. Some of them we have already mentioned. Among them we may well remember Capt. Abert Smith, the father of Rear Admiral Joseph Smith, whose son Joseph commanded the "Congress", when she was sunk by the Merrimac in Hampton Roads during the Civil War, and of Hon. Albert Smith, who is elsewhere mentioned.
Mrs. Annie Lenthal Bigelow, wife of Horatio Bigelow, who lived at one time near North river bridge, was a granddaughter of the Capt. Albert; and Mrs. Elizabeth Salmond, wife of Sam- uel Salmond, was his seventh child.
HANOVER'S RAILROAD.
This railroad which, until its absorption by the Old Colony system (which in its turn became by lease a part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company's property), was called the Hanover Branch Railroad, begins at the Four Corners on Broadway, opposite the lumber and grain establish- ment of Phillips, Bates and Company, curves southward and pass- es close to the Indian Head river at the Clapp Rubber Works, which was formerly Curtis' forge; thence it leads westerly to South Hanover, running nearly parallel to the river, until it reaches the station passing enroute close to the buildings of Waterman's Tack Manufactory, at Project Dale. From South Hanover it curves northerly, crosses Centre and Circuit streets, reaches West Hanover village at the junction of Circuit, Hanover, and Pleasant streets, and crosses the Rockland-Hanover line at a point about sixty-five rods northwest of the late residence of Otis Ellis, deceased. It continues through Rockland (formerly called East Abington), to its junction with the main line of tracks of the Plymouth division of the N. Y., N. H. & H. road, at North Abington.
Hanover had within its boundaries no railroad, until the build- ing of the Hanover Branch was an accomplished fact. The people from the northerly portions of the town, when they desired to reach Boston, had, up to that time, resorted by private convey- ance to the Old Colony Road at North Abington or to Hingham,
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HISTORY OF HANOVER.
where steamboats supplemented the South Shore Branch of the Old Colony system or took the stage which, under the guidance of Seth Foster, daily covered the route from North Marshfield through South Scituate and Assinippi to Hingham. From the south portion of the town, Hiram Randall's coach, which followed a route beginning at West Duxbury and running through the Four Corners, Center Hanoer, West Hanover, and Rockland to North Abington, furnished the only public conveyance.
Still earlier, the Plymouth and Boston coaches ran across the town, from south to north, along Washington street; but this line was discontinued when the Old Colony line was put into operation in 1846.
The town almost became a part of the Old Colony Road's sys- tem. The earliest surveys of that system's route were made along and parallel to the old turnpike and stage route. This survey was abandoned when the Half Way House near Queen Anne's Corner was reached; tradition says that this was due to the op- position of the land-holding farmers, who objected that "it would cut up their farms and scare their cattle." If this be true, it furnishes an example of the customary short-sightedness of those who are wedded to the idea of keeping things as they always have been.
After the Old Colony Railroad had been located and built west of us, the citizens began to stir themselves for a railroad from this town. The movement begun, perhaps, in 1845, culminated in a charter for the Hanover Branch Railroad. This was granted by the Legislature, April 6th, 1846, and under its terms the road was to be located within one year and constructed within three years from the passage of the act. "John Cushing, George Curtis, and John Sylvester, their associates and successors," were the orig- inal incorporators. The capital stock was to "consist of not more than twelve hundred and fifty shares, of one hundred dollars each." Authority was given to enter upon and unite with the Old Colony and provision was made by which the New Corporation could sell out to the Old Colony Railroad Company at any time. The Old Colony Railroad from Boston to Plymouth was chartered on the 16th of March, 1844. The Hanover people began their agitation within a year and, in less than a month over two years from the incorporation of the trunk line, the people of Hanover had the charter for their branch.
But then, as now, it is one thing to obtain a charter, and quite another thing to build a road. The year went by and no road
-
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had been built. In 1847, (April 23), the legislature extended the time for filing the location for one year and six months from April 6, 1847.
The new corporation met and chose Isaac M. Wilder, clerk. They met several times; but nothing of a progressive nature was accomplished and the extended time-limit expired without a rod of the road having been located.
The sleep which followed was but a Rip Van Winkle dream and not the sleep of death. For nearly twenty years after the expiration of the charter, the stage coach continued to be without competition in the transportation of passengers to and from Han- over.
Then came one of those men for the emergency, with whose deeds the history of the world is full. A man born with a genius to make money, a man of great individuality, who had the utmost confidence in his own judgment and an indomitable energy in carrying to completion a plan once conceived, came here from Hanson. Edward Y. Perry was no common man. Although his long life was devoted almost entirely to the accumulation of a large fortune, yet he was always pleased, as he advanced on the way to wealth, to help the material prosperity of the town or friends who were useful to him. While it should be understood that no analysis of Mr. Perry's character is here attempted, and without ascribing motives of any sort to his action, it cannot be denied that, but for Mr. Perry's efforts, the Hanover Branch Rail- road would never have been built and the material prosperity of Hanover would have been seriously retarded. That, directly and indirectly, Mr. Perry's personal acquisitions were greatly in- creased, does not in the least dim the clear truth of the statement that he, more than any other single man, built the road. Nor does this detract at all from those others whose efforts aided im- mensely and without whose assistance Mr. Perry's labors would have been fruitless. Without making the list complete and with- out invidious distinction, Mr. George Curtis, Mr. L. C. Water- man, E. Q. Sylvester and Ezra Phillips, in Hanover, and Jenkins Lane and Washington Reed, in Rockland, were men to whom the new project owed much, the latter, for the interest they stirred up in East Abington (now Rockland) and the very large contri- butions to the stock list which resulted, and the former, for the same material assistance in Hanover.
A company was organized, April 19, 1864, but it was no easy task to raise funds to build the road. Few in town believed it
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could ever be made to pay dividends. It is related, as showing the popular way of estimating its probable future, that two citi- zens of West Hanover were discussing the new scheme. Neither believed in it. One said, "now here is Randall's coach doing all the business there is to do. It comes through here twice a day. It ought to be here now. Let's see how many there are aboard."
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