History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881, Part 4

Author: Ballou, Adin, 1803-1890
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Boston : Rand, Avery, & co.
Number of Pages: 1328

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Milford > History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881 > Part 4

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The several heights of land and positions in Milford I found, by careful levelling, to be as follows: At the Boston and Albany branch railroad depot, the level was long ago settled to be three hundred and thirty feet above tide- water. Main Street, at the head of Central Street, is fifty-six feet nine inches above the depot, or three hundred and eighty-six feet nine inches above tide-water. Congress Street, at the top of Silver Hill, is two hundred feet above Main Street, at the head of Central, or five hundred and eighty- six feet nine inches above tide-water. Tunnel Hill, near Haven Street, at Hopkinton line, is thirty feet above the point on Silver Hill last noted, or six hundred and sixteen feet nine inches above tide-water. The highest

HISTORY OF MILFORD.

point of land in town is on Highland Street, near Reuel Cleveland's house. This is two hundred and fifty-one feet nine inches above Main Street, at the head of Central, or six hundred and thirty-seven feet nine inches above tide-water. Thus the average altitude of Milford, computing it from the extremes, - three hundred and eight feet at the outgo of Charles River, and the aforesaid six hundred and thirty-seven feet nine inches near Reuel Cleveland's, - is about four hundred and seventy-two feet above sea-level.

Going from the head of Central Street on Main Street, towards Men- don, I found the following levels: At Greene Street, near the brook, the ground is eighteen feet below the head of Central; on the top of the hill, near the Adams place, it is thirty-five feet higher than at the head of Central Street; at the crossing of Hopedale Street, it is forty feet below the head of Central Street; and on the hill, at Mendon line, it is one hundred and twenty-two feet above Hopedale-street crossing, or four hundred and sev- enty feet above tide-water. The hill on the old road to Mendon, up west of the " salt-box " so called, is two hundred and thirteen feet above said Hope- dale-street crossing, one hundred and eighty-six feet above the head of Cen- tral Street, and five hundred and seventy-two feet above tide-water, being the highest land in the extreme westerly part of the town. Hopedale Street, opposite my house, is thirty-seven feet two inches lower than Main Street at the head of Central; and, at the junction with Adin Street, it is thirty-five feet five inches lower than said head of Central Street.

Proceeding easterly from Milford Centre, I found the peaks, ridges, hollows, and adjacencies of Bear Hill to measure as follows: The highest peak (which is south of Central Street, and near Charles River) is two hnn- dred and two feet above the depot, and five hundred and thirty-two feet above the sea-level; the highest ground on Central Street, which passes over Bear Hill, is one hundred and eighty feet above the depot-level, and five hundred and ten above tide-water; the hollow on the east side of the hill is only thirty-two feet above the depot-level; and the high land at the ancient Holbrook place, on Maple Street, is one hundred feet above the depot-level, or four hundred and thirty feet above tide-water.

The southerly part of the town is much less broken; has a gentle, plain- like inclination down to Mendon line; has few or no hills that are many feet above the depot-level; and its lowest depression is only about twenty feet below that level.

I have been thus particular, in regard to the rivers, hills, and valleys of the town, to find and verify their altitudes, etc., in hope to settle some dis- puted points, and to correct erroneous ideas among our inhabitants, derived from former topographical surveys, or from crude estimates founded on mere appearances to the common eye. I have spared no reasonable pains to be accurate and reliable in my statements; and, believing that no tests will ever invalidate their substantial correctness, they are respectfully submitted for publication.

ALMON THWING.

HOPEDALE, April 24, 1879.

TOPOGRAPHY COMPLETED.

I will add a few historic, explanatory, and descriptive sentences, on our topography. The river now known as Charles was designated as " Second Bridge River " in our oldest records, deeds, and other docu- ments. Its Indian name, at least in the vicinity of Boston, was Mas- sachusetts. The famous Massachusetts tribe; dwelling on it east of the Nipmucks, were quite powerful when Salem and Boston first began to be settled by the whites. But how high up into the country this river then bore the name Massachusetts, I have never been informed. Mill River has always borne its present name since the first white settlement of Quinshipaug Plantation, alias Mendham, alias Mendon, in 1663 or thereabouts. Whether it ever had an Indian name, I know not. If it had one, it was probably Mas- penock, after the pond whence it issues, called Maspenock by the natives. Its numerous mill-privileges led our forefathers to give it the current name, though Maspenock would certainly be more grace- ful. At the point where it leaves our territory, on the present Lewis B. Gaskill place, the early Mendon authorities, in 1667, provided for the erection of their first " corn-mill," so called. Benjamin Alby, the patriarch of all our Albees, received a grant of land, and engaged to maintain the said mill for the public convenience. It is supposed that he built it accordingly, but that it was burned, with nearly all the buildings of Mendon's first settlers, in King Philip's War. Before any bridges were built, this river had several conspicuous fords, familiar to the Indians, and used for some years by the early white settlers. Hence tradition whispers that Mill River and its fords suggested our town's name.

It will be seen that these two intersecting rivers divide our territory into three sections. The first is a narrow strip of land on the west side of Mill River, adjacent to Mendon. It extends from a little above the "City " mill-privilege on the Upton line, to the old " country road," later the turnpike, and now common highway, from Mendon town over Neck Hill towards Bellingham. It is bounded westerly, much of the way, by the famous " Eight-Rod Road." Its length may be four miles or more, and its average width perhaps one hundred and fifty rods, more or less. It lies on the eastern declivity and along the bases of Neck Hill and its higher adjunct, formerly called North Hill, towards Upton line. . The larger portion of it is woodland and swamp, little adapted to tillage. Minor portions have long been cleared, and are now used for pasturage, tillage, and meadow purposes. Other tracts, once cleared, have been allowed to return to forest.

The middle section, between the two rivers, extends virtually the

HISTORY OF MILFORD.

whole length of our municipal domain, from Hopkinton on the north to Mendon on the south, about six miles. It is much the largest of the three ; being, on an average, perhaps nearly a mile and a half in breadth. Its highlands and plains constitute our most conspicuous, habitable, and productive territory ; though minor tracts are otherwise. Magomiscock Hill presents the most elevated and picturesque feature of this section, and, as is shown in Mr. Thwing's report, is our highest land, being, near Reuel Cleveland's residence, six hundred and thirty-seven feet nine inches above tide-water. The whole range, called by the Indians Magomiscock, affords many admirable views of the surrounding country.

The third or easterly section of the town includes all east of Charles River. Its northerly extremity, for three-fourths of a mile, is narrow. Then for two miles southwardly it has an average breadth of perhaps one mile and a half. The residue, adjacent to Bellingham, is an obtuse triangle, containing only a few hundred acres. In the northerly central part of this section we have the " Rocky Woods," long fitly so called. South-easterly of the Rocky Woods lies "the Great Meadow," on the skirts of Medway, though, as the town lines once ran, anciently bordering on Sherborn territory, later Holliston. This "Great Meadow " was, for a time, a subject of sharp rival claims between the early Mendonians and Sherbornians. Tradition says that the first settlers found a considerable portion of this meadow a muddy beaver-pond ; that they drained off the water by cutting a channel through the old beaver-dam; and that they were soon delighted to behold a luxuriant growth of blue-joint and other nutri- tious grasses spring up over the whole surface. In the southerly central part of this section rises our grand swell of land, called for over one hundred and seventy years " Bear Hill." Its highest peak is five hundred and thirty-two feet above tide-water. There is con- siderable feasible land in the third section, partly smooth plain, and partly a strong loam, more or less stony.

The geological formation of our territory deserves at least a brief exposition. Its basis is primitive rock, perhaps the original crust of the once molten earth, as its surface first cooled and crystallized unimaginable ages ago. This appears to have been granite and gneiss, chiefly the latter. Nearly one-third at the north end exhibits granite, more or less imperfect in its upper strata, but growing better as opened downward. In some quarries it is of great excellence, in others inferior, by reason of impure ingredients liable to oxidation. See Chapter XIII.

If we go back to that very remote period when the whole mass of

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION.

our globe is conjectured to have been in a molten state, surrounded to a vast distance by tumultuous gases, we can imagine, at length, a time when the surface had cooled and crystallized into a stony crust of many feet in thickness. Meanwhile it settled down here and there, with various fissures, into the seething fluid underneath, thus causing it to ooze up through those fissures so as to form the remarkable veins which are seen in many rocks. These veins are often of a different hue, and sometimes different substance, from the first cracked crust which they cemented together. At later stages of the cooling pro- cess, when hydrogen and oxygen gas had been resolved into water, we can conceive of its progressive action on the still intensely hot shell of the earth. It would disintegrate the outer surface into every form of earthy substance, from the finest sand and clay to clefts and bowlders of manifold size. And next its increasing quantities would cause depressions in the general crust, create lakes, break through here and there into the fiery vaults below, be converted into tre- mendous steam force, and cause a continuous succession of earth- quakes. Hence our mountains, hills, and valleys of every size and structure. These uplifted masses, and their intervening hollows, in our quarter of the world, are sometimes circular, but generally appear in ranges running more or less northerly and southerly. In many instances the great earthquake plough seems to have torn its way through the rocky strata, and formed sharp ridges and precipitous dells. What the explosive steam left undone was gradually accom- plished by the subsequent surging floods and grinding glaciers. These gradually formed the peculiar features of this and other habitable regions.

Many geologists, too, have reasonably supposed that most of North America, long ages ago, was covered by the ocean, and gradually rose above its tides. There are numerous indications of this on our rocks, highlands, and plains. For the conjecture includes not only the flux and reflux of tidal billows, but also the phenomena of ice- bergs and glaciers. Thus only can we account for larger and smaller bowlders, removed in a southerly direction from their native locations very considerable distances, and sometimes left perched on high ledges composed of quite different ingredients. We have also much earthy drift which affords concurrent evidence for the same conclusion. The northern half of our territorial surface is strewed with larger and smaller rocks, mostly moved southward from their primary beds. Some of these are of decent granite, akin to small sections of under- lying material which project in upon us from beyond, as first men- tioned. But, with few exceptions, these multitudinous surface

HISTORY OF MILFORD.

bowlders and stones are of coarse gray gneiss, more burdensome than useful. What may be called our rock in situ, to the extent of four-fifths, is gneiss, of different varieties. Some of it is amorphous, and has either no rift, or a very uncertain fracture. Some of it is well stratified in layers of various thickness, and breaks into decent shapes for use. Quartz predominates largely in most of it, with feld- spar next in quantity, but smaller portions of mica and hornblende. A singular kind of it ranges through from Central North Purchase south-westerly, across Hopedale and Neck Hill, far into Mendon. It has an overplus of quartz, is sharp-gritted, brittle, ill-shaped, and of refractory grain. Some of it turns up in uncouth layers, whilst portions seem fire-cracked and of ragged structure. Nearly all of it has a reddish hue, as if colored by iron or some other metallic oxides. It is not a very desirable kind of rock, yet not of the worst kind.

Of course the native soil of our territory is chiefly gneissic, like our principal rock in situ, and almost all our surface stones ; for it is mainly gneiss, more or less decomposed. Some of our ridges and hills have been much denuded by the perpetual washing of ages, either by the ancient ebb and flow of ocean tides, or later drenching rain-falls, or perhaps both. Consequently the primitive ledges and a superabundance of various-sized rocky fragments prevent the profit- able tillage of considerable portions, whilst the plain lands are largely composed of the drift washed down from these rugged elevations. But some of our highlands, though quite stony, have gentler ascents and broader summits, with a good depth of productive soil. Gneissic soils are generally poor. Ours, however, exhibits a medium average between the best and worst of such soils. This is probably due to a larger portion of feldspar in the primitive rock of this whole region than generally prevails in basic gneiss. But our rocks have not feld- spar enough to afford eminent fertility. Our soil is, therefore, rather deficient in alumina and potassa. We have but one small deposit of clay, as yet discovered and opened. This is on the ancient Whitney farm, in the south-easterly part of North Purchase, adjacent to Deer Brook. Perhaps another deposit may yet be found by deep digging on our southern border, just east of where Mill River passes into Mendon. Possibly other localities of small extent may be discovered. But our lack of clay is obvious ; and our primitive potassa is so small that its yield from feldspar in the native rock, by natural evolution, hardly supplies the demands of annual vegetation. Hence our pasture- lands have been running out ever since their early days, and our arable fields produce meagre crops without frequent manuring. The soil generally, especially where it is not marshy or quite low, needs more

FLORA AND FAUNA.

alumina and potassa. This is why wood-ashes show such decidedly good effects on all our farms and gardens. We have a comparatively thin covering of vegetable loam, excepting in some of our swamps ; and this is mostly a sandy or gravelly one, which too quickly parts with heat and moisture. More of clay and ashes would improve it in these respects. As to our swamps, most of their peat-muck has too much earthy matter interinixed with its decayed vegetable substance to be very rich. We have only a few peat deposits with carbon enough to render them valuable for fuel. Our lowland surfaces are most valuable where they are, or their muck is utilized for manurial purposes. Of minerals, precious or ordinary, none have been dis- covered on our territory, except in small particles, - none of practical value. Nor have we limestone, or slate, or handsome flagging quar- ries, - nothing but the granitic strata before mentioned. We hope these, when fully quarried, will prove valuable. The foregoing must suffice for the present in respect to our geology.

VEGETATION AND ANIMALITY.

If we go back two hundred and fifty years in imagination, before any white man's foot had entered our territorial area, it may ration- ally be conceived of as mainly covered with a heavy forest, many of whose trees were vastly larger and taller than any of their offspring that survive. From the nature of the soil, chestnut probably pre- dominated on nearly all the uplands, especially in the northerly sec- tions. Next in abundance was the oak, chiefly of the coarser varieties, such as gray, red, and black oak, but intermingled here and there with considerable white oak. Hickory had its place, but could never have been largely prevalent. Ash, maple, pine, birch, and several smaller kinds of wood, occupied the lower lands in considerable quan- tities. Elm, hornbine, hemlock, and spruce were probably always scarce. In the deeper swamps, pine and cedar prevailed. At that time our now almost desolate Cedar Swamp - all around its deep miry pond, and down stream, nearly to " the falls," the Parkhurst mill-seat - was covered with massive cedars, such as would now, if standing, fill the beholder with wonder at their magnificence. Even sixty years ago, as now remembered by our older citizens, that swamp abounded with lofty trees from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter at their butt ; and those were far inferior to their elders previously felled. So, if we contemplate in imagination the mighty chestnuts, oaks, cedars, etc., on which the old Nipmucks gazed, we may say, in scripture phrase, " There were giants in the earth in those days." .

As to the alders, and numerous varieties of shrubbery which we

HISTORY OF MILFORD.

call underbrush, it is presumable that they were plentiful in many parts of our territory ; though some historians of aboriginal times conjecture, that, in all these regions, the Indians annually set fire to and burnt over such tracts as were thereby rendered capable of affording grassy food for wandering herds of deer. This is not im- probable, but somewhat doubtful. The Indians had undoubtedly a great interest in promoting the growth of deer, in view of their own food and clothing tlience derived. But whether our particular region was much adapted to deer-pasturage, except perhaps some of the meadow-lands on the rivers, I can hardly decide in the affirmative. Anyhow, we may conclude that the present undergrowth and shrub- bery which prevail in our woodlands, and spring up so very readily in our cleared grounds, high and low, are mostly native to the soil. Among this shrubbery the several varieties of whortleberry are somewhat conspicuous, and latterly have become considerably valu- able. It is not unlikely that they, as well as other berry-bearing bushes, afforded the aborigines acceptable sustenance in their season. The grapevine is indigenous, and some of its fruitful varieties have always afforded pleasant eating.

In respect to herbage, it is hardly necessary to go into particulars, further than the meadow grasses. When the first white settlers took possession of land in our general region, they found many natural meadows, of greater or less extent, which yielded large crops of nutritious grasses. As cattle were indispensable to their subsistence, comfort, and wealth, the natural meadows were held in high estima- tion. They were made a distinct kind of real estate, as were the cedar-swamps, and in proprietary allotments were divided up into small parcels, so that landholders might have a limited section, and each get a share. Hence meadows were greatly coveted in those early times. We wonder at this now, because those very lands seem to produce comparatively worthless bog-grass, rushes, brakes, and briers. At least, this is the case with many of them. It was not so originally. In carly times most of them produced large mowings of blue-joint, fowl-meadow, and other valuable fodder. Those kinds of grass propagated themselves by seed annually shed, and were fostered by the sediment of much richer overflows than occur in our days. Our ancestors kept cutting off those grasses for hay before they had gone to seed, clearing up the adjacent woods whose decaying leaves formerly furnished much sediment, setting up saw-mills whose dust and litter changed the fertility below them, and meantime elsewhere removing many cloggy obstructions from the streams which in olden times had served to retain manurial substances. These and kindred

FLORA AND FAUNA.

causes killed out the nutritious grasses, and encouraged the growth of our present rubbish.

But whence the ancient meadows? Some of them were probably created by the sagacious and industrious beavers, who, hundreds of years ago, were numerous in our general region. They built their palatial dams, and formed considerable ponds. When their ponds filled up with continual wash and sediment from above, or when, for some other reason, the animals abandoned their homes, or per- haps at length were exterminated by over-hunting for their skins, they left those nice grass meadows, so prized by our forefathers. It is likewise probable, that, before the days of beaver-dams, there were natural ones here and there, up and down our two rivers, where we now find narrows. Those for a long time exhibited falls, but at length were worn down by the current, and their ponds let off. The result would be meadows of larger or smaller extent. It is likely, too, that the Indians threw up some imperfect log-dams, where a few fallen trees, accumulated boughs, and convenient earth, favored it, in order to make fish-ponds, and thus increase their means of subsist- ence. All such flowages would leave grass meadows at last. What- ever the probability of these suggestions, one thing is certain, - that our early meadows not only yielded much better hay, but were of greater extent, than at present. For instance, what our first settlers magnified as " the Great Meadow," situated north-easterly from Bear Hill, and which drains itself through North Bellingham into Charles River, was deemed to be of so much importance that the proprietors of Mendon and Sherborn, whose boundaries in 1700 were thought to give them conflicting claims to this meadow, had a serious legal con- troversy about it, which lasted several years. Yet now, if we look for that " Great Meadow," it seems to have dwindled into compara- tive insignificance. It may have been of considerable size in the year 1700, perhaps containing, in its whole extent, many hundred acres ; but it has been so encroached upon by upland border and woody growths, that, to ordinary observation, a small showing remains. Various other causes may have contributed to its apparently dimin- ished area. For some such reasons all our natural meadows are smaller than the old records seem to represent them.

THE ABORIGINAL ANIMALS, ETC.

I need not particularize many of these, whether land, water, or amphibious creatures. They were such as generally inhabited the inland parts of southern New England. Several species of the more formidable and dangerous have been extinct for more than half a

HISTORY OF MILFORD.

century, having been fairly exterminated. I include in this class the bear, wolf, panther, and smaller ferocious beasts. `The harmless deer and admirable beaver disappeared much earlier. Nearly all the ordinary wild animals, such as the fox, woodehuek, rabbit, skunk, squirrel, musquash, mink, etc., have been hunted down to a compara- tively thin remnant. They now scarcely hold their own from year to year. The larger birds of prey are rarely seen. The eagle, perhaps, never had a home on our humble hills, and was only a transient visitor in wilderness times. The great owl is nearly or quite extinct. The cranes and larger fish-eating birds only come and go on infrequent occasions. Wild geese, dueks, and other birds of passage, which in olden times are said to have rested themselves often in our ponds and meadows, now ordinarily hold on their flight to safer regions. Hawks, erows, partridges, and numerous kinds of smaller birds, are still among us, some of them rather sparsely, and others more plentifully, but none of them in great abundance.

Of serpents we have few. They have been sedulously exterminated from generation to generation. Tradition tells that in early times there were many large blaek snakes, - some of them eight to ten feet long. Now their descendants are comparatively few and small. Rattlesnakes once abounded, especially in the vicinity of the Cedar Swamp, east and north of Pine-Grove Cemetery, in Rocky Woods, in the ledges towards Hopkinton, and all up and down Deer Brook. In that neighborhood the early settlers made it their business to hunt them vigorously in the months of May and early June. About that season they would crawl out of their winter dens to sun and limber their torpid bodies for summer dispersion in all directions. Many scores of them are said to have been drawn out with snake-hooks, and killed, by expert hunters, in a single day, and large numbers in the course of a few favorable weeks. Yet, for two or three generations, they continued to be a terror, and especially in haying-time, when they haunted the meadows and water-brinks in quest of food and drink. It was then that the mowers and haymakers never felt safe without leather moccasins, reaching almost to their thighs, and similar pro- tectives for their hands and arms, being liable at any moment to stir up one of these venomous reptiles. Sometimes they quartered about their barns, wood-piles, and even their houses, - crawling in at the open doors. The old people tell startling stories of rattlesnake adventures, either of their own experience or that of their progeni- tors. But the rattlesnake is now almost extinct within our borders, even in its old favorite haunts. When I first came to reside in Milford, in 1824, I was told that rattlesnakes were still to be found

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History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881, Part 4

Author: Ballou, Adin, 1803-1890 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Boston : Rand, Avery, & co. Number of Pages: 1328

Author: Ballou, Adin, 1803-1890
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Boston : Rand, Avery, & co.
Number of Pages: 1328