USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > Somerset > History of the town of Somerset Massachusetts : Shawomet purchase 1677, incorporated 1790 > Part 10
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This house of many vicissitudes was now a hotel oper- ated by William Moore and his wife who was a sister of James M. Hood. The son of these two, Eugene H. Moore, became in later years mayor of Melrose. Some of the army units had bands wtih them which gave concerts in the evening beneath a great horsechestnut tree growing near the house, said to have been large enough to shelter a hundred people. The military companies held their drills on several of the level areas in the vicinity. And the officers patronized the hotel : and the populace.
The ferry, then operated by Thomas Evans, was literally the jumping off place for those unique products of the Civil War, the "bounty jumpers." These were men who accepted the bonus paid by state, town or individual for enlisting in the army and then took their first opportunity to escape, some of them practising the scheme as a regular profession. Some men, no doubt, were terrified as they saw the army and battle drawing close. To both kinds the thick woods at the Fall River end of the ferry looked like an ideal and perhaps a final opportunity to escape and escapes were frequent. Many got away safely. A considerable number jumped from the ferry intending to swim ashore; or tried to
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HISTORY OF SOMERSET
swim the river from the Fall River side; or in winter to cross the ice; and were drowned. Each spring during the war released several bodies of dead bounty jumpers from the ice of the Taunton.
At Slade's Ferry also there was much traffic of troops bound for New York by the steamboat route and the Faith and the Weetamoe were often both in service, until a few weeks after Appomattox when much of its traffic was lost to the new Fall River and Warren extension of the Provi- dence, Warren and Bristol railroad line, on Brayton Point.
This line was the first railroad to cross Somerset terri- tory. It terminated at a dock, still in existence, on the Point where passengers transferred to the steam-ferry Oriole for Ferry Street, Fall River, where if they wished they could connect with the new line which had opened on May 4, 1864, between Fall River and Newport.
The trains on the Somerset side stopped at the head of the Ferry dock where a Y track allowed the engine to disconnect and shunt itself on to a turntable to be headed towards Providence. Passengers who had come on the train, or who had tickets from Fall River, were ferried free. The ferry fare for others was five cents. The Oriole connected with three trains a day.
One of the outings of these years for Fall River people was to cross to Somerset in the morning by Slade's Ferry, bringing a lunch, for a day's berrying, or tramping, or to pick the cherries along the shore on Read's Woods Farm, and return in the afternoon by way of the Oriole.
With the coming of this new connection to the city the Slade Ferry route lost much of its value. In 1871, William Lawton Slade bought out the Brightman partners and was sole owner when the Fall River-Warren line, in 1875, added six miles of road between Brayton's Point and Ferry Street by way of the new Slade's Ferry Bridge.
In 1865, the year after the railroad came, Brayton's Point, for two centuries given over wholly to farmsteads, had another activity. In this year Edward Lucas and Axel Bealky built a marine railroad at the general location of what has since been successively Bealky's, Read Brothers', Crowninshield's and finally McNerney's.
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THE CIVIL WAR YEARS
Lucas was a Fall River coal dealer, a large, enterprising man; and Bealky a Norwegian who had come, like numerous other Norwegian and Swedish shipwrights, in the 1850 shipbuilding days.
Lucas in a few years retired from the business and Joseph C. Terry joined Bealky, bringing with him the lighter Archer. He remained with Bealky until 1873 when he withdrew and started a small yard of his own, somewhat south of the Bealky yard, later returning to his final loca- tion in Fall River, south of Slade's Ferry bridge, where he continued with his son, Walter C. Terry, until his death.
Lucas and Bealky installed the famous whistle on this plant which shared with the Fall River Bleachery's deep roar and the Bourne Mills' shrill siren the reputation of being the most terrific whistles in this region. The Bealky siren must have been a bit more impressive than the Bourne's original one for it has now taken its place.
In 1907, William V. Read and Henry R. Read, who had had shipyards at several locations in Fall River, took land directly south of the Bealky yard, which had been for some- time inactive, and started a marine railway and ship repair yard under the firm name of Read Brothers: They had con- tinued an active repair business for about ten years when the demand for vessels following this country's into the World War brought attractive building contracts.
The Warren and Fall River line was within a few weeks of its opening on Brayton's Point when the news came, on April 10, 1865, of Lee's surrender. The civilized world's most sanguine war, up to that time, was over. While Somerset was still rejoicing five days later, on April 15, four years to the day on which the first call for troops had reached Somerset, the town received the news of Lincoln's death. "We thought everything had gone," says a Somerset resi- dent who remembers the day. "We didn't know where we were. We were dazed. The copperheads were glad but didn't say much."
Somerset plants, stores and offices closed. Men clustered in mournful groups. Across the bay in Fall River level headed citizens rescued a Copperhead who said he was glad and was
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about to be hanged to a telegraph pole by irate men.
In Somerset the Copperheads kept out of the way.
Cyrus M. Wheaton Post 182, G. A. R. was chartered on October 16, 1885, with nineteen charter members: Amasa Gray, Silas Padelford, Edward P. Terry, William H. Beldon, Benjamin Jones, Jr., Moses Parrott, George Goff, James Tompkins, Daniel D. Andrews, Eber Ray, William Ryan, Henry T. Hill, Howard Slade, James Haffords, William E. Hathaway, Patrick Sherry, Patrick Crane and Joseph Pitts.
There had previously been a Peleg Swift G. A. R. Post in Somerset, but it had lapsed after a few years of indiffer- ent interest and veterans since then had gathered informally for Memorial Day decoration of the graves, usually with a few volunteers making the rounds of the cemeteries on horseback.
Cyrus Wheaton, after whom the new post was named, was a foreman of construction in Somerset shipyards who enlisted as a private and became a lieutenant and Somerset's first commissioned officer of the war, and had died of wounds and disease before it ended.
Membership in the post rose to 52 and the organization soon had to transfer its meeting place from Music Hall to what had previously been known as the People's Market on Main Street, and was thereafter known as Grand Army Hall.
The commanders were : Amasa Gray, 1886-1887 ; Henry J. Hill, 1888; Henry K. Wing, 1889; William H. Belden, 1890; Silas M. Padelford, 1891; Thomas A. Francis, 1895; William H. Tallman, 1896-1899; Daniel D. Andrews, 1900; William Sherman, 1901-1904; Thomas Francis, 1905; Silas Padelford, 1906; Edward Staples, 1907; Daniel D. Andrews, 1908-1913; William H. Seaver, 1914; Amos C. Padelford, 1915-1916; Daniel D. Andrews, 1917; Milton Brightman, 1918-1919 ; Amos Padelford, 1920; William H. Seaver, 1921; Amos Padelford, 1922-1927; George O. Buffington, 1927- 1929.
William H. Tallman, who joined the cavalry at the age of 17 at the outbreak of the war and became a lieutenant, wrote an account of his experience as a captive in Libby Prison, which is preserved by his family.
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THE CIVIL WAR YEARS
Cyrus M. Wheaton Women's Relief Corps No. 23 was organized May 20, 1907 and has the distinction of being the last Relief Corps chartered in the state; its low number being assigned to it after the lapse of an earlier charter held elsewhere. Its charter members numbered 23, and its first president was Mrs. Josephine L. Fassett, who was a prime mover in its organization.
Cyrus M. Wheaton Sons of Veterans Camp was or- ganized March 24, 1914, with Alfred W. Tallman, son of Lieut. William H. Tallman, as its first commander.
In September of 1926 the town assigned to the joint use of the Grand Army Post, the Woman's Relief Corps and the Sons of Veterans, the former North Primary schoolhouse on Avon Street, since then known as G. A. R. Hall.
In May of 1929, George O. Buffington, in accordance with G. A. R. General Orders, finding himself the sole survivor of Cyrus M. Wheaton Post took the records and charter of the post and deposited them in the Somerset Public Library, being accompanied on this final duty by his daugh- ter Mrs. Frank Gardner. As a courtesy to him personally and in his office as last commander, the official passing of the post was deferred until after Memorial Day and dated June 1, 1929. Commander Buffington, at the date of this his- tory, is still living.
O'Neill's Beach on Brayton's Point is a present-day feature of Somerset whose story begins in the Civil War days. James O'Neill, first resident of that name on the Point, was a son of George O'Neill who came to this country from Ireland in 1849 and enlisted from Somerset in 1861, in the Seventh Regiment. Soon after his father went James determined to go and although only twelve years of age, ran away and was accepted as a drummer boy in the same regiment where he was not discovered by his father for three months.
Both lived through the war, living in Fall River until 1885 when James moved to Somerset and occupied the care- taker's house at the then abandoned railroad ferry on the
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HISTORY OF SOMERSET
Point. With the coming of the automobile and the growth of a summer colony in the neighborhood, James' son Joseph added a gasoline station to a yard for hauling out boats. From this beginning the O'Neill's Beach resort has grown.
MEN OF SOMERSET WHO SERVED IN THE CIVIL WAR
Allen, George Allen, Joseph
Fields, W. T. Forrester, George French, A. W.
Beekton, P.
Bourne, G. O.
Gibbs, Joseph
Briggs, Daniel
Gibbs, Samuel W.
Briggs, John A.
Gregory, Robert
Bryen, James O.
Hancock, E.
Carmichael, J. B.
Hane, John
Carroll, M.
Hall, N. H.
Caswell, Charles
Hardy, John
Chace, B. R.
Hathaway, George W.
Chace, Benjamin F.
Herr, William
Chace, George A.
Holton, John R.
Chace, George F.
Holton, Michael
Chace, J.
Hood, George N.
Chace, James W.
Hood, W. H. H.
Clark, N. H.
Kendrick, John G. Kendrick, M.
Clark, Willam H.
Cleveland, Edward
Lahus, R.
Conerty, Thomas
Lampson, J. R.
Connors, E. D.
Larry, Richard
Leonard, George E.
Conroy, John W.
Luther, A. C.
Luther, J. S.
Davis, N. S.
Davis, S. R.
Maines, Daniel
Deckinton, W.
Mantier, J. H.
Marble, A. H.
Dwight, Eugene Dyer, E. J.
Marble, Benjamin
Marble, George W.
Marks, M.
Eldridge, Hiram
Ellis, Warren Emery, Ira Evans, F. P.
Misher, E. F. Moore, J. M.
Nightingale, O. W.
Chace, M. P.
Colwell, Charles H.
Cranage, James
Edson, George A.
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THE CIVIL WAR YEARS
O'Neil, George O'Neil, James O'Neil, Daniel
Padelford, Silas M. Peckham, C. B. Peirce, W. C. Percy, F. A. Phillips, O. W. Purinton, S. C.
Regan, William Rice, Charles
Scott, William
Scoyles, J. A. Shaw, Frederick W. Shaw John
Shay, John, Jr. Sherman, Ira M. Sherman, L. H. Shipman, J. Simmons, B. D. Simmons, O.
Slade, Howard M.
Sisson, S. A.
Smith, A. Stefanski, A.
Sullivan, J.
Sullivan, P.
Swift, George
Swift, P.
Swift, P. Jr.,
Swift, Peleg
Talman, Wlliam H. Terry, B.
Thompson, W. Tompkins, Charles
Tryan, S.
Walsh, J. W.
Wheaton, C. M.
Whitman, J. M.
Wilmarth, Andrew
Wilson, John
Wrightington, Thomas Wood, John W.
SLADE HOMESTEAD, THE SHOP, AND THE FERRY DOCK
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SLADE'S FERRY
O N the day of the Hood shipyard fire of 1854, the Ferry- boat Faith left its journeying across the Taunton between Somerset and Fall River shores, and ploughed up the river carrying the Fall River fire engine Mazeppa and her crew, stood by while they did good service, and took them home again.
It nowhere appears that the ferry proprietors charged for this service. If they did not, is was characteristic. During the years of the Civil War, a little later, they never collected a fare from any Union soldier traveling on furlough or otherwise as an individual. The Slade-Brightman Ferry was something more than a business. It was a part of the community life and history.
At the time of the shipyard fire it had been in operation 174 years from the Somerset side of the river, 176 years from the Freetown-Fall River side, and had 22 years more ahead of it before the opening of the highway level of the Slade's Ferry Bridge, on January 4, 1876, which took over its name and the last of its duties.
Two centuries as a White Man's institution, following years beyond reckoning as an Indian ferry, came to an end at that opening. It is to the credit of the people of this region that the names of the families who founded and maintained it are perpetuated in the two bridges that take its place.
On March 20, 1678, Henry Brightman and Thomas Cornell purchased the lot in the Freeman's Purchase, now Fall River, which was directly opposite the land William
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HISTORY OF SOMERSET
Slade had purchased in Shawomet, and Brightman began to row passengers across the river for hire. In 1680, William Slade occupied his Shawomet site and began to do the same.
In a sense, Slade's Ferry remained these two ferries to the end of their history. Through the row boat and the sail boat periods Slade's and Brightman's owned their own boats and operated them as separate ferries, yet using each other's landing place and terminal facilities without rental or other charge.
Later, when larger boats became necessary the two proprietary families bought them and each paid exactly a half of the cost. When this partnership boat left Fall River it was the Brightman Ferry and a Brightman collected all the fare and freight charges and kept them. When it reached Somerset shore it became Slade Ferry with a Slade in charge, collecting the fares and pocketing them.
Without disagreement, quarrel or rivalry this plan con- tinued for two centuries a business almost unique in char- acter. How it worked in detail is illustrated by the operation of the Weetamoe, last and finest boat of the ferry.
When the Weetamoe was ready to leave the Brightman slip, in Fall River, Capt. Horace Slade went into the pilot house and became its commander while Capt. Cory D. Brightman, wearing a tall hat, went about the deck, col- lected the fares and put them in his pocket.
Presently the Weetamoe arrived at the Slade dock, or slip, on the Somerset side and loaded for Fall River. Now Capt. Slade came out of the pilot house and Capt. Brightman went in; and Capt. Slade walked the deck of the Weetamoe, collected the fares for the east-bound trip and put them in his pocket.
When the time came to pay the help, which consisted of an engineer, a deck hand and a boy now and then of an even- ing ; or to pay for coal, taxes or repairs ; each captain reached in his pocket, or in the desk at home where he kept the money, and paid his share, equally, half and half.
If the coal and water for the ferry boat were dumped on the Slade wharf the Slade's charged no wharfage; neither did the Brightman's on their side. When it came time to wheel
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the coal or freight aboard, both captains, with the engineer and deckhand assisting, peeled off the coats,-though Capt. Cory Brightman still kept on his stove-pipe hat-and went to work.
Neither party to this remarkable arrangement rendered to the other any accounting of receipts. Bills were rendered to the "Slade Ferry Company" and contracts were similarly signed, usually with a Slade executing the contract and a Brightman witnessing it.
The Weetamoe was the climax of the ferry's motive power which had begun in 1680 with rowboats. These carried only passengers and their personal baggage. Carriages were rare. If a carriage wished to cross the river it had to travel north to Taunton ford. The horses of mounted passengers were required to swim, with their bridles held by somebody in the boat.
This system was hard on the horses, especially in cold weather, so that at a very early date an effort was made to supplement the rowboat service with scows capable of carrying both horses and freight. These scows were fitted with sails which were used whenever the weather made them practicable and were spoken of as "sail-power" boats. They were flat bottomed and apparently not very seaworthy, according to the traditions of accidents caused by frightened horses and shifting loads.
The Boston News-Letter of March 16, 1827, published a story of such an accident in which two men and a woman lost their lives, the ferryman saving himself by hanging on to a horse's tail.
The two men drowned on that occasion were descendants of Capt. Benjamin Church, Captain Constant and Captain Charles. They are buried in the cemetery on the west side of the main road from Fall River to Freetown, near the Free- town line. Who the woman was, is not mentioned in the story ! Such was news gathering in 1827.
The type of sail-power boat in use at the beginning of the 1800's consisted of an open hull with a deck covering in front of the mast. Horse and load were placed in the open
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HISTORY OF SOMERSET
hold and the carriage on the deck. There was probably also a short deck aft to aid in working and steering the boat.
These sail-power "scows," blunt-ended and straight- sided, were about 25 to 30 feet long. By 1825 they had to be superseded because of the establishment of a direct stage line between Providence and New Bedford.
This brought about the "horse-boats," sufficient in size to carry both stage and horses. The first horse-boat put into service on Slade's ferry was commissioned in 1826. It was large enough to carry not only the stage coach and horses but several extra carriages or wagons.
The period of horse-boats began the joint ownership of boats by the Slade's and Brightman's, who up to that time had each owned their own craft though using each other's shore as landing place.
The first horse-boat was built at Saybrook, Connecti- cut, cost $1000, and was contracted for by William Slade, 3rd, the contract being witnessed by Daniel Brightman, who was half purchaser on behalf of several Brightman partners. It was 50 feet in length and 20 feet in width and was two horse power. It was put into service on July 22, 1826.
By 1838 a second horse-boat had been built of about the same dimensions as the first, and both appear to have been in service together for some years.
Like the sail-power boat, the horseboat was flat- bottomed and square-ended. The horses worked on a circular treadmill, transmitting their power through their feet by pulling on the traces by which they were hitched to a stationary beam. The treadmill was a circular floor which revolved as they drove it with their feet. This floor was geared to a shaft which drove paddle-wheels overhanging each side of the boat. The two horses faced in opposite direc- tions. By a gear-shift the boat would go in the opposite direction without turning the horses around.
These horse-boats had no rudder but were steered with a long oar, and being flat-bottomed, often had great diffi- culty in battling tide and wind so as to land at the desired point.
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SLADE'S FERRY
In the horse-boat days the ferry ran on almost the exact line of the present Brightman's Street bridge, landing on the Fall River side 150 feet north of it. The shore on both sides was sharp and the passengers and freight were landed by dropping a hinged apron from the boat to the shore to form a gangplank.
The horse-boat continued in regular service until 1847, when the first steam-ferry, the Faith was built. The Faith appears to have cost $6,126 fully equipped and its owners were Jonathan Slade, son of William Slade, 3rd, and James M. Brightman, Hathaway Brightman, Cory D. Brightman and David B. Brightman.
The Faith so improved and standardized the service of Slade's Ferry that eleven years later, the Slade's Ferry company ordered the Weetamoe built by Joseph C. Terry, Fall River shipbuilder. This steam-ferry, last and finest of all Slade's Ferry boats, cost $7,676 and was owned by Jon- athan Slade, one-half; Cory D. Brightman, one-eighth; Hathaway Brightman, one-fourth; James M. Brightman and David B. Brightman each one-sixteenth.
As the Weetamoe was larger and deeper than the Faith, new slips had to be built for her. The Slades enlarged and deepened their slip on the Somerset side. The Brightman's moved a short distance south, to the location now occupied by the People's Coal Company, and builttheslip which forms the sustaining walls of that company's dock.
The Weetamoe is remembered by many persons still living, inasmuch as she did not go out of commission until 1876. She was the pride of the region and of her owners. If the weather was rough, or if ice was tearing the sheathing off of hulls and battering the planking, the Weetamoe was held in the dock and the Faith did the work.
The Weetamoe saw, and itself contributed to, the busiest days of Slade's Ferry. It was the boat in service, often with the Faith called to make extra trips, during the Civil War.
In 1872, after the Fall River and Warren railroad had for eight years operated under the inconvenience of trans- ferring its passengers by ferry from Brayton's Point to
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HISTORY OF SOMERSET
Ferry Street in Fall River, the Old Colony and Newport Railway Company secured from the Massachusetts Legisla- ture an act permitting the company to "construct a bridge across Taunton Great River, from some point near Slade's Ferry, in Fall River, to some point in Slade's Ferry, in Somerset; and said bridge shall be adapted to both highway and railway purposes."
The act further stipulated that the new bridge "shall be provided with a draw, not exceeding sixty feet wide."
Work was begun on the new bridge in October of 1874. The piers were iron caissons, set one upon the other in sec- tions and filled with stone. Work on the abutments was carried on simultaneously and in the short space of thirteen months both decks of the bridge were ready for testing.
The highway deck was tested by teams loaded with pig iron weighing a total of 95 tons, which crossed the bridge at the same time that a train of cars with 200 tons of stone was crossing the railroad deck above it.
Three weeks after this test, on November 30, just thirteen months and three weeks from the time work was begun on the piers, the first passenger train passed over the bridge. Regular train service was begun on Monday morn- ing, December 6, 1875 and highway traffic was opened January 4, 1876.
On this latter date, the usefulness of the Slade- Brightman ferry practically ceased and profitable operation stopped. The two steam-ferry boats, the Faith and the Weetamoe, remained for some years tied up at their slips as if hoping against hope for future usefulness. The Faith's engine was then removed and the hull sold to a man who turned it upside down and converted it into a chicken coop- one would say the most substantial chicken coop in Fall River's history.
The Weetamoe waited until the heavy winter of 1923- 24 for her final end. For several years after the opening of Slade's Ferry bridge she lay idle at her dock. A New York business man on a visit to Fall River then bought her and had Joseph C. Terry run her up on his marine railroad and
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remove the engines. The New Yorker never came back for the hull and after a time Terry accepted the gift fate had given him, caulked its seams, cut one end off square and made the Weetamoe into a spile-driver.
This spile-driver, named the Daisy, was in use along our waterfront for many years in the business of spile-driving which Josph C. Terry and his son took up after separating from the shipbuilding firm of Terry & Bealky.
The last of Terry's several water front shops was located at the so-called "Terry's wharf" just south of Slade's Ferry bridge and there the Daisy lay for many years in plain sight of the bridge and the scene of its early glory as the Weetamoe. Heavy ice in the bay in the winter of 1923-24 crushed the Daisy and she went pieces. Certain timbers now lying along the shore at this point can be identified as the remnants of the former Weetamoe.
The slip built by the Brightman's in 1858 is now the People's Coal Company wharf, with the old ferry slip walls filled in, and extended somewhat, to make the present dock. The Brightman Street Bridge rests at both ends on the lo- cation of the slips used by the Slade-Brightman ferry during the horse boat days.
Ferry fares were adjusted to the character of the item to be transferred. No schedule of the rates is recorded until those approved by Simeon Borden as County Clerk on February 8, 1866. In the early 1800's the rate per person was a penny-two cents. This advanced finally to ten cents and was so maintained for years without deviation no matter who rode or how often. There were no round trip prices, no commutation tickets, nor party prices, with the single exception of circuses, the managers of these being helped to special trades by the unclassified character of their animals and vehicles. The steam ferry boats carried all but the elephants which always refused to get on the boats but swam the river keeping up with them easily until their feet touched bottom when they would begin to roll and spout and show every reluctance to leave the water.
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