USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Shirley > History of the town of Shirley, Massachusetts, from its early settlement to A.D. 1882 > Part 5
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In 1816 Joseph Hoar erected a wheelwright's shop on the Mulpus, in the easterly part of the town. He em- ployed four workmen, and continued the business for about three years. In 1819 he sold his shop and tools to Joseph Estabrook, who prosecuted the trade until 1835, when he sold the establishment to Andrew Shattuck. In 1821 the shop and 'contents were destroyed by fire, but the place was soon furnished with a new building, and the business was retarded but for a brief period.
In 1840 the place, with all its appurtenances, passed into the possession of Harvey Woods & Brothers, who greatly enlarged and improved its facilities. It was
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owned by them for several years. The business passed from this firm to another brother, Moses Woods, and from him to Henry Brown and Oliver Wing; and was finally, for a season, under the sole conduct of Mr. Wing.
These men manufactured carriages of all descriptions, and in almost all their parts. They also made harnesses, and some kinds of upholstery. For several years there were annually made at the establishment six hundred rail- road carts, and in the times of the Mexican war, and during the war of the rebellion, many military baggage wagons and ambulances were also manufactured here, and the proprietors enjoyed a well-earned reputation for their fidelity as business operators. In 1871 the whole establishment, with all its valuable tools, together with a large boarding house, was destroyed by fire, which was supposed to be the work of an incendiary. Messrs. Woods employed some thirty workmen, and their enter- prise was of so much importance to the little village where their works were located that it assumed the name of Woodsville.
In 1853 Emery Williams engaged in what is termed the wheelwright business, at the South Village. His shop was connected with the Hazen Mills, and on the same water-privilege. He generally employed six workmen, and confined his labor mostly to the manufacture of car- riages for the use of farmers. He also invented a washing machine for which he secured a patent.
Connected with the shop of Mr. Williams was a window-blind and sash manufactory, of which Mr. Wil- liam Sawtel was proprietor. This business is still con- tinued in the neighborhood in a limited form, but the making of carriages has for the present passed away.
The manufacture of leather has been prosecuted to some extent in Shirley. About the year 1793 Nathan Adams, of Lunenburg, came to town and purchased the former residence of Obadiah Sawtel, situated on Mulpus brook, where he established a tannery. He continued
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there until 1801, when he sold the estate to Stephen Barrett, of Concord, and returned to Lunenburg.
Mr. Barrett was engaged as tanner and currier until his death, which occurred in 1856. During some twelve years of this period he and his sons turned out three hundred sides of leather from domestic hides, one thousand from foreign hides, and two hundred calf-skins. Since the death of Mr. Barrett the manufacture of leather has been discontinued as a part of the business of the town.
In the year 1856 Alvin White and William White came to Shirley and purchased the estate of the late Peter Page, located on Mulpus brook, and connected with which is a saw-mill. With this mill they united a basket manu- factory. They make baskets of every grade and size, from those that hold four quarts to those that hold four bushels. Through the aid of power machinery the basket material is rapidly prepared for weaving, and during the early years of their operation they turned out, of all sizes, about twenty thousand per annum.
In 1861 Alvin White disposed of his interest in the estate to his brother, and purchased another, higher up the river, which he has greatly enlarged and improved, and where, with his son, he makes over ten thousand baskets per annum.
William White and Edwin White continue their business at the old stand, and their average manufacture of baskets is fifteen thousand per annum ; and, besides the lumber which they saw, they annually prepare five hun- dred thousand staves and shingles.
The Shakers of Shirley have always been devoted to certain branches of manufactures. What they do they do well, and their work sustains a salable reputation at all times. They vary their employments, adapting them- selves to the wants of the people. They have made agricultural implements, wooden ware, hair sieves, corn brooms, grass bonnets, husk mats, feather fans, and fancy
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articles of various kinds. They cure herbs, make apple sauce, tomato preserve, distil rose-water, and thus meet a want nowhere else supplied. Their staunch honesty, in- dustrious habits and frugal lives may be seen and under- stood of all men. This gives their productions a ready sale, the proceeds of which enable them to live above physical want, and above any fear of future poverty. They are neither rich nor poor, but pursue that medium course which makes them satisfied with themselves and the world, and leaves open to them a consistent faith in another and better state.
In 1861 Mr. George Sanderson commenced the manufacture of hoop skirts, and his business has been nearly commensurate with the article with which he has furnished the sex to whose use it is devoted. He has kept in general employment some fifteen workwomen, and has turned out weekly about 864 skirts, using in the process 880 lbs. of crinoline wire and 100 lbs. of crinoline tape.
The enterprise of the female portion of the Shirley community ought not to be overlooked in this general record of its business operations. For many years almost every family had some of its members engaged in braiding palm-leaf hats. This business was so profitable, for a time, as to give entire households, that were destitute of most other means of support, comfortable and sometimes thriving livelihoods. It assisted others to redeem their estates when under deep pecuniary embarrassments ; and others, still, to purchase and maintain permanent homes. In the year 1837 seventy thousand of these hats were manufactured, and were valued at $12,333.00.
Sometime in the year 1872 Charles A. Edgarton & Co. commenced the manufacture of tape,-by the aid of ingenious machinery then recently patented,-occupying a mill located on the site of the Fort-Pond cotton manufac- tory (which was destroyed by fire in 1868). The manu- facture of suspender webbing and elastic goods was added to the business, and eventually grew to be the principal
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line of manufacture. In 1878 new and improved ma- chinery was introduced, whereby the company were en- abled to turn out a superior quality of goods; and the business so far increased that enlarged accommodations became a necessity. Accordingly, in 1881, the company ( having now changed to Charles A. Edgarton & Son,) erected a new factory, in dimensions 28 x 80 feet, and two stories high, independent of the basement. This building stands upon the banks of the Catacunemaug, a little above the first privilege used by the early settlers for mill pur- poses, and its machinery is worked by a steam engine of fifteen horse power. It runs eighty looms and other re- quired apparatus, through which the company are able to turn off one thousand dozens of suspenders per week from the yarn. And for character of material and skilfulness of workmanship, Messrs. Edgarton & Son may safely chal- lenge comparison with any similar establishment in the country.
This manufactory has added much to the business interest of the town, and provides a healthy and lucrative occupation for fifty employes, of different ages-twenty-five from each sex.
Such is a brief sketch of the enterprise of the past and present generations of Shirley in the arts above spec- ified. For some three score years there has been a blend- ing of the manufacturing interest with that of agriculture. And the union has conduced to raise the general standing of the town, and give it an honorable place among those by which it is surrounded.
Indeed, in its manufacturing interests, it has excelled all of its immediate vicinity, except Ayer, and "that is a place of yesterday." Let its inhabitants carefully improve its privileges and it will experience that steady and solid growth that can neither rescind or decay.
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Autoglyph Print, W. P. ALLEN, Gardner, Mass.
RESIDENCE OF CHARLES A. EDGARTON
CHAPTER IV.
Schools-Parker School Fund-Libraries, and College Graduates.
While Shirley remained a part of Groton territory no school was established within its bounds. The limited pecuniary ability of the settlers precluded the ancient town the privilege of attending to the literary wants of the in- habitants that were located in her remote sections, (or " angles," as the outside districts were called,) and these were necessarily left without any public means of instruc- tion.
Even after Shirley became a corporate district, it was four years before any town movement was made to estab- lish the means of public instruction. Hence, a large part of an entire generation-the last of which "have been gathered to their fathers" within a few years-never en- joyed the privilege of passing a day within a public school-room. And yet, as there were but few of that generation who could not read, write, and cast up common accounts, it is certain that home instruction was not neg- lected. Indeed, it is known that several individuals, of respectable standing as townsmen and town officials, acquired even the rudiments of learning in their mother- tongue after they had arrived at the age of eighteen years, and with little other than self-help! In one instance an aged man told the writer of this history that he did not know even the first letter of the alphabet until after he was married; when, through the assistance of his wife, he se- cured such a knowledge of the literary requirements of the day, as enabled him to hold a respectable place in society.
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HISTORY OF SHIRLEY.
In May, 1757, the town voted "to have a school for three months, and to have it commence in August or Sep- tember." This school was convened in an apartment of the dwelling-house of Mr. Jonas Longley. The same house was afterward owned and occupied by Andrew Jackson Reed, and stood on the farm now owned by Augustus Holden. This house-together with a large barn, then recently erected, and filled with hay and grain- was destroyed by fire Aug. 16, 1851 .*
Schools were held in other places, from time to time, down to the opening of the war of the Revolution, when -owing to the straitened condition of the town finances- they were suspended until the close of the struggle for independence. The happy termination of this struggle imparted new hope to the people, and secured increased educational effort. The schools were then resumed, in- creased and enlarged, as occasion required, giving every child an opportunity to participate of the benefits of public instruction.
The first school-house was built in the centre of the town, for the use of all the children in town, and stood on the land and near the present residence of Rev. Seth Chandler. It was a very humble edifice, about twenty feet square, singly covered with rough boards, without inside ceiling, but was furnished with a cellar, to which access was gained through a trap-door in the centre of the room. In one corner of the apartment stood a huge fire- place, built of rough stones, and surmounted by a chimney of the same material. The room was furnished with a few seats made of rough planks, and with writing benches constructed of boards over which a plane never passed. To facilitate the means of supporting a school for a few weeks each year, it was customary to rent the building to some pedagogue or school-marm as a tenement, in part payment for his or her services in "teaching the young idea how to shoot."
*See Appendix E.
CIVIL HISTORY. 67
Dame Nutting-as she was reverently called at the time, by people of every age-occupied this responsible station for many seasons. Such was the obesity of this female official, that she might have stood beside Falstaff himself without losing aught by the comparison. To supply therefore the defect of an unwieldy movement, she kept herself supplied with a stick-some six feet in length -with which she reduced her urchin crew to a state of due subordination while seated in her chair-throne, from which she seldom moved. Hand bells had not then been invented, and as a substitute the dame would step outside the door and ply her stick to the weather-beaten ceiling, as a warning to her noisy crew that her recess had come to a close. And woe to the recusant wight who did not heed the signal,-as the recent notions in regard to cor- poral punishment formed no part of the school-code in those days.
The work of school-teaching was assumed by Dame Nutting at a late period of her life. In her younger days she broke the monotony of household duties by a very dif- ferent employment. She made occasional excursions to Boston, and procured young negroes-either by gift or purchase,-for whom she secured homes, at a price, in Shirley and vicinity. She traveled on horseback, and conveyed her infant charge in panniers. Andrew Mitchell, who was a soldier in the war of the Revolution -and from whom descended several families-was one of the proteges of this afterward famous school-dame.
It was soon found that the one school-house would but poorly accommodate all the children in town, even when distance was not considered ; and, hence, three sep- arate districts were established, having the names of the Centre, the North and the South. The Centre claimed the only school-building,-that which has been described, -- while the other two held their school-sessions in private houses. The North was convened in the house near the present north school-house, known as the Reuben Hartwell place, and the South in different places, as convenience
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allowed. Near the close of the century the three districts furnished themselves with school-buildings as good as the times would permit. That at the north occupied the site of the present structure. It received one or two revisals in the course of its time, and, in 1844, gave place to the one now in use ;- was removed and devoted to the purpose of a blacksmith shop-the same now owned by Charles Holden. The centre school-house stood upon the common, near the present location of the First-Parish meeting- house. In the South district, the first school-house stood upon the side of the road opposite the dwelling of John Park, Esq. It has since been converted into a dwelling- house.
In process of time the town was re-divided, and formed six districts. They were severally called the Middle, South-Middle, South, North, East and Southeast. Each of these districts erected its school-building, and without an exception they stood on, or near, the sites of the present structures. The Shakers had a school by themselves, and it constituted the Seventh district .*
Down to the year 1843 the buildings for the use of schools were erected at the expense of the several districts. As many of the districts were small they could afford nothing but cheap edifices, most of which were ill-con- structed and uncomfortable. At the last-named date the town voted to assume the buildings, at a fair appraisement, and they have all been exchanged for new and, in most cases, expensive structures. At the time the school build- ings became town property, each had its number at- tached to it, by a law of the Commonwealth,-and they have since continued to be thus designated.
In 1846 District No. 3 was very unnecessarily di- vided, thus forming what has since been known as the Eighth district.
With the exception of three of the school-buildings- those in No. 4, No. 6 and No. 8-all have been erected
*See Appendix F.
1
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since 1855. They were all constructed on a new and im- proved plan, are of brick, and furnished with patent desks, and in every way well adapted to their intended pur- poses. No. 3 is sufficiently large to accommodate two departments of a graded school; it is thus used, and the building is so constructed that there is no necessary con- nection or commingling of the pupils that belong to the different departments. Within the last twenty years more than twenty thousand dollars have been expended on school-buildings, the amount raised for the support of schools nearly trebled, while the increase of population has been comparatively small.
The public finances, for several years, have been sufficient to sustain each school for twenty-four weeks during the year; and for the future the time will be lengthened to thirty weeks, divided into three terms of ten weeks each. Public schools have been lengthened by private subscription, from time to time, and a select school of three months has usually been holden in the basement of the town-hall, in the autumn of the year. This room is large and well ventilated, and otherwise well adapted to the purpose .*
Much larger benefits might be realized from the finances of the school if all the schools in town should be reduced to the principle of gradation. This might be easily done by transporting, at the public expense, the few scholars who live in the remote parts of the town. Three institutions, of each three grades, would complete the school organization on this plan, and give longer terms and better schools, at less cost, than at present exist. The child of four years requires a different method of in- struction and discipline from the pupil of fifteen years, and in mixed schools, under the most favorable circumstances, difficulties may arise which not seldom defeat the ends of instruction, to both descriptions of learners.
There are elderly people in all our towns who can see and rejoice over the contrast between present school-facil- ities and those experienced in their early days-when
*See Appendix G.
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HISTORY OF SHIRLEY.
school-buildings were mere hovels, school-terms limited to six or eight weeks, and text-books confined to Dil- worth's Speller, the New Testament and Psalter, and perhaps Webster's Third Part, and none but "written Arithmetics."*
In 1856 the will of the late Hon. Leonard M. Parker was published, and as he had left a bequest for the estab- lishment and support of a High School, his will came up for the action of the town in a public meeting, convened Aug. 4th of the year aforesaid.
The article in the town-meeting warrant was as fol- lows :- "To see what action the town will take in rela- tion to the bequest,-in the last will and testament of Hon. Leonard M. Parker, late of Shirley, deceased, and the codicil thereto annexed,-for the endowment of a High School for the benefit of the youth of the town, and act anything in relation thereto."
The action of the town in the matter is given in the following record :- "Voted, to accept the provisions of the will of Hon. Leonard M. Parker, late of Shirley, de- ceased, testate, and of the codicil thereto annexed, which will was proved at Probate court, in Lowell, Sept. 19th, 1854, by which will the said testator made to said town of Shirley certain bequests for the endowment and support of a High School, for the benefit of the youth of the town." "Voted, that the extracts from the will of Hon. Leonard M. Parker, containing those portions relating to the be- quests to the town of Shirley, be put upon record."
The following extract from the will states the terms on which the bequest was made, and its publication in this place will furnish to all who would consult these terms, a convenient means of reference :
"I give and bequeath to the inhabitants of the town of Shirley, aforesaid, the sum of four thousand dollars, to constitute a fund for the endowment and support. of a High School for the benefit of all the youth of the town-
*See Appendix H.
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the same to be placed under the superintendence and direc- tion of the following persons, as a board of trustees, viz : Rev. Seth Chandler, Dr. James O. Parker, Zenas Brown, Thomas Edwin Whitney, Francis H. Kinnicutt, and Joseph Mason, Esqs. But the board shall consist of five when reduced to that number by death or otherwise. They shall continue in office five years-provided that one of the four first above named, in the order in which they are named, shall go out of office at the end of each of the first four years after the organization of the board-the other two at the end of the fifth year ; and all vacancies, as they occur, shall be filled by the board, except one, which may always be filled by the town, at a meeting duly warned for the purpose, the board to determine the vacancy thus to be filled by the town.
"The choice of a trustee, by the board and by the town, shall always be made by ballot ; and the same person may be re-chosen. Three members shall make a quorum for the transaction of business. The trustees shall not charge for their services, except by a vote of the town.
"The board shall be organized by the choice of a chairman and secretary. They shall make choice of all other necessary officers, appoint teachers and fix their compensation-shall determine the number, age and qual- ification, of pupils to be admitted to the school-shall adopt all necessary rules and do all things needful; and' they shall keep a record of their doings, and annually make a report to the town, showing the condition of the school, the state of the fund, and the manner in which the income has been expended or invested, as the case may be.
"As soon as the board see fit they may procure an act of incorporation, with all needful powers to carry this will into effect, according to the true intent and meaning thereof, and for the most effectual investment of the funds, to ensure to the town their safety. And, as far as may be, the same shall be invested in stocks of the United States and of this State, in loans to towns and to individuals ; and in all cases of loans to individuals the same shall be secured by mortgage of real estate.
ยท
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HISTORY OF SHIRLEY.
"It is my general plan and intention that the school shall be kept at least six months, and, ere long, ten months in each year forever, as the income of the fund will admit. And, to the end that this intention may be fully ac- complished, the school may, from time to time, be omitted one year, (but not exceeding two years in succession,) for the purpose of adding the income to the principal, and also for the further purpose of laying out the income in the purchase of books, maps, globes, apparatus and works essential to the design of the school,-meaning also to authorize, in due time, the erection of needful buildings.
"It is my further plan that the school shall be estab- lished in the centre of the town, as near as may be, being the most convenient point for general accommodation, be- sides combining quietness, health, and pleasantness of location, with much beauty of natural scenery.
"The school is always to be kept free from all secta- rianism and party spirit, in matters of religion and politics. It is always to be free of expense to all availing of its benefits, belonging to the town,-but, should it ever so happen that more may be accommodated, the trustees may admit scholars from other towns, free, or otherwise, at their discretion.
"The principal composing the fund, with all its accumulations, shall always be held sacred to the objects specified, and shall never be encroached upon ; but the in- come shall be received and faithfully appropriated by the trustees to the purposes herein contemplated. The town shall have the right, at all times, to examine into the state of the school and of the funds, and the doings of the trustees, and to hold them to a faithful accountability. Intellectual and moral culture,-minds richly stored with knowledge, wisdom and virtue :- these are the best lega- cies which children can receive from their parents.
"These are the life-preserving powers of our republican government. The design of this school is to furnish means for thus cultivating and thus enriching the minds of the young through coming generations. It is not to take
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the place of the common schools of the town, but to come in aid of them, to be in addition to them, and of a higher grade ; so that all, at a suitable age, may come from those schools and here be carried forward in all the departments of learning essential to a thorough English education."
The will, of which the above is an extract, bears date May 25, 1854. This will is supplemented by a codicil dated June 28, 1854, from which the following paragraphs are taken :
"Having in my said will made a bequest to the town of Shirley for the establishment and support of a High School-and for the purpose of carrying into effect, as far as may be, my plan and wishes-I now will and direct that the first interest which shall accrue on the amount so be- queathed by me, shall be appropriated to the purchase of a piece of land, northerly of my house, which formerly be- longed to my father. I mean about two acres; being the spot which, in the account of the proceedings of the lay- ing the corner-stone of the town-house, is called the Parker Grove. It is my wish and intention that this shall be ever owned and kept by the town as a public square, to be enclosed, laid out and improved, by the pres- ervation and cultivation of trees, and otherwise, and thereby be a lasting ornament and. benefit to the town. It is also my intention,-whenever it may be deemed advis- able to erect a building for the accommodation aforemen- tioned,-that the same shall be placed upon some portion of this ground.
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