USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Sutton > History of the town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1704 to 1876, including Grafton until 1735, Millbury until 1813 and parts of Northbridge, Upton and Auburn > Part 24
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David, the fourth son, he gave a collegiate education. He was born Aug. 5, 1704, graduated at Harvard College 1724, and received the honorary degree of doctor of divinity from Dartmouth College in 1777. He was ordained pastor of the first Congregational church in Sutton Oct. 15, 1729. He married Miss Elizabeth Prescott of Concord, Mass. - daughter of Dr. Jona. Prescott and his wife, Rebeckah Buckley - June 24, 1731. She bore him a son May 5, 1732, and named him David; Elizabeth, born Feb. 17, 1733; Rebeckah, born Sept. 1, 1736; Mary, born December 1738; Hannah, born August 1740; Sarah, born Dec. 17, 1742; John, born March 1744; Benjamin, born February 1745; Lucy, born March 1748; Joseph, born Sept. 8, 1751; Jonathan, born 1754; Deborah, born March 5, 1756.
Rev. David Hall, D. D., it is supposed built the house where Esquire Mills now lives, and that he had thirteen children born here, although we have the names of but twelve.
" Master Hall" used to relate an anecdote to the effect that his father made an exchange with a young minister who had just been settled in one of the neighboring parishes, and who knew nothing about the doctor's family. As he came and was ushered into the parlor, a child was creeping on the floor, so, as Mrs. Hall was a very young looking woman, he asked her if that was her first child; she answered, "Yes, sir, the first of the second dozen."
Many distinguished persons have descended from this highly honored family. Their son Jonathan was a physi- cian in Pomfret, Connecticut, and had three learned and quite distinguished sons, viz. : Prescott, David and Charles. Prescott was a lawyer of distinction in New York, and had a beautiful summer residence at Newport, Rhode Island ; David also had an elegant villa at Newport; Dr. David E. visited him there, and complimented him for having the Atlantic Ocean in his door-yard. Rev. Dr. Hall's daughter, Rebecca, married Rev. Aaron Putnam of Pomfret, Connect- icut. Sarah married General Jonathan Chase, and was the mother of Mrs. Dr. Nathan Smith, whose husband was the renowned surgeon and professor at Yale. So his distin- guished sons descended from this house. Hannah married
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Rev. Asa Grosvenor and went to Pomfret, Connecticut. Several distinguished preachers of that name also descended from Dr. Hall; who was succeeded on this place by his son Joseph, familiarily known as " Master Hall" from the fact that after graduating at Harvard College he adopted teach- ing as a profession, and taught grammar and the learned languages for many years, fitting many men for college and others as teachers. He also served the town faithfully for nearly thirty years as their town clerk. He married Miss
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Chloe Grosvenor, daughter of General Grosvenor, of Pom- fret, Connecticut. They had four sons and one daughter, all born in this house, viz. : John H., Joseph G., David E., J. Lemuel and Lucy. The first was a jeweller and died in the north part of Worcester county, June 16, 1815. The second was a surgeon and physician, also a judge of pro- bate in Tennessee, where he died, leaving one son, also a doctor, and one daughter. The third, already spoken of, was a physician. The fourth graduated at Brown University, and was a Congregational clergyman somewhere in the west ; he left two sons - Lemuel R. now lives in Chicago, Illinois. He married for second wife Augusta A. Norton, the only child of very wealthy parents.
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The daughter of Master Hall married a noted physician, Dr. D. S. C. H. Smith, who lived in this house some two years. It is said that Dr. Hall owned a strip of land run- ning from the great Boston road to the Mendon road. He also owned woodland taking in a part of Purgatory. It is said that he gave the common and burying-ground to the town. Dr. Hall was a large, fine looking man. His hand was so large that one woman said that it was big enough for Faxon's glove ; another, more profane, that it was almost as large as the hand of Providence - Faxon's glove was one hung out in Boston as a glover's sign.
The following obituary of "Master Hall" was copied from the Worcester Spy :
Died in Sutton, April 6, Mr. Joseph Hall, aged eighty-eight. Mr. Hall was son of Rev. David Hall, D. D., who was pastor of the first Congregational church in Sutton for the space of sixty years. Of thirteen children which composed his father's family he outlived them all but one. *
* * * At the age of eighteen he entered into the freshman class at Harvard Uni- versity, and maintained a respectable standing in his class. He obtained the esteemed approbation of the faculty of the university, and in the year 1774 received the degree of A. B. Mr. Hall taught a grammar school in his native town for more than forty years. It is believed that he assisted more young men in their studies, preparatory to entering college, than almost any other person that has lived in the county of Worcester. He was a man of uprightness and integrity, in whom the people best acquainted with him placed implicit confidence. As an evidence of this he was elected town clerk in his native place for nearly thirty years in succession.
When he was eighty-four years of age he commenced the study of the French language, and acquired so much knowledge of it as to be able to read it with ease; and has actually read through the New Testament in French, several times, carefully comparing it with the English. * *
* * He lived with his bereaved companion fifty-four years; she is now left to mourn the loss of a kind husband, and his children of a tender parent .*
Of the daughter of Dr. David Hall, Rebeckah, who mar- ried Rev. Aaron Putnam, we give the following obituary from the Massachusetts Spy of July 19, 1773 :
On Saturday last departed this life, in a sudden and affecting manner, the very amiable consort of the Rev. Aaron Putnam of Pomfret, in the thirty- sixth year of her age. She had been unwell for some years, and for the promoting of health had been riding out a little way, and now returning back she desired Mr. Putnam to stop the chaise and pick her some useful herbs which she observed as they were passing. Accordingly, apprehending
* See Massachusetts Spy, April 15, 1840.
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no danger, he got out of the chaise and was doing as she proposed, at which time the horse in the carriage took some start, and running with one wheel over a rock she was thrown out of the chaise, which gave her such a shock, as notwithstanding the utmost endeavor of physicians (which providentlally were nigh at hand), proved her death in about three hours' space. She was a daughter of the Rev. Mr. David Hall of Sutton. From her very early years a professor of godliness, and of a very serious and exemplary deportment, a person of distinguishing endowment, a good wife, a tender and indulgent mother, one beloved by her acquaintances abroad and by the people among whom she lived.
She hath left her husband in deep affliction and sorrow for his great loss, attended thus with peculiarly affecting circumstances; hath also left three young children. On the next (being Lord's) day, her remains were decently interred a little before sunset. The Rev. Mr. Whitney of Brookline delivered at Pomfret on that day two very suitable discourses, that in the afternoon more particularly adapted to the mournful occasion.
O 'that this, so solemn warning of Providence, might be suitably regarded and improved, not only by the bereaved and greatly afflicted relatives, but by others. "Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day or an hour may bring forth."
Dr. Bond of Norwich, Connecticut, who fitted for college under the instruction of Mr. Hall, furnishes the following reminiscence :
There was in Massachusetts a law or usage in compliance with which towns of a given number of inhabitants provided at public expense a teacher quali- fied to give instruction in higher branches of education than were taught in common schools. The last of the teachers thus employed in Sutton was Mr. Joseph Hall -" Master Hall"- as he was generally designated. Though a graduate of Cambridge College, he never studied a profession, but lived with his father, Rev. David Hall, and was a farmer. Young men who wished to qualify themselves as teachers of common schools, or who wished to prepare for college, availed themselves of the opportunity thus provided. The instructions given were private, as usually there was not a sufficient number to form classes. Times for recitation were managed to suit the convenience of the teacher, and not interfere with his occupation as a farmer. At certain sea- sons of the year, there would sometimes be quite a number of pupils, as academical institutions at that time were few and distant. Young men of the town who wished to qualify themselves as teachers or to enter upon a course of medical or other professional studies, or prepare for entering some college, usually studied at home, and at some appointed hour went to the teacher's house for the purpose of recitation. Most, if not all the youth in the town who received a collegiate education, fitted for college wholly or in part with the teacher appointed by the town, whose tuition was paid by the town. As the result of this arrangement, some were encouraged to seek a collegiate education who otherwise would not have attempted it.
The place was next owned by Rev. Edmund Mills and his son Edmund John, in 1819. The ancestor of Rev. Mr. Mills was Peter Vander Meulen, born in Holland ; his son, Peter
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Mills, was born in Windsor, Ct., in 1686, married Joanna Porter, and had eight sons and one daughter. Their son John, born in Kent, Ct., 1722, was a farmer and was drowned at Hartford, Ct., in 1761. He had five sons and three daughters. His son Edmund, born in Kent, Ct., June 1752, died at Sutton, Nov. 7, 1825. He graduated at Yale college in 1775, married Mrs. Abigail Packard, widow of Rev. Winslow Packard, who was born in Bridgewater, Mass. in 1754, graduated at Dartmouth college, and was settled at Wilmington, Vt., in 1781; was married to Miss Abigail Moore, Feb. 18, 1782, and died Oct. 12, 1784. They had two children, Origen Packard, born Nov. 30, 1782 ; Clarissa, born August 23, 1784. The Rev. Edmund Mills was ordained pastor of the first Congregational church in Sutton, June 23, 1790. He brought up the two Packard children, and had six children of his own. Polly, born January 10, 1790; Edmund John, August 17, 1791; Abbie Moore, March 16, 1793; Maria Swift, Dec. 2. 1794; an infant, Sept. 19, 1797 ; Lewis, March 20, 1800; Henry February 20, 1802. Most, if not all of his children, were born in the house now owned and occupied by L. W. Howard, but as they all lived here, and this was their last residence and has so long been occupied by his son, it has been thought best to write more particularly of the family in connection with this place.
Origen Packard was a book-binder and learned his trade of one Goodell, who carried on the business in the house where Rev. C. Willard Morse was born. Mr. Solomon Warriner, whose mother was sister to Mrs. Mills, learned the same trade at the same time and place ; he afterward carried on business at Springfield. Mr. Packard went to New, Haven, Ct., where he married a Miss Smith. They had a very worthy family, one son and three or four daughters. Esther married Volney Forbes and lives in Wilmington, Vt. She has no children. Andrew went south and married a southern lady ; owned a plantation, and had quite a family. Mr. and Mrs. O. Packard both died at Wilmington, Vt., and were both buried at the same time.
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Clarissa Packard married Rev. David Holman and had a very respectable family. He was the Congregational minister at Douglas for many years, and there both died. Edmund J. Mills, Esq., the best preserved man in town of his age, married Miss Sally Tenney, daughter of the late Daniel Tenney, Esq. ; they have had four sons and two daughters. William E., born Nov. 2, 1825 ; Nancy T., March 15, 1827 ; Samuel John, Nov. 17, 1829, died January 23, 1838 ; Frank Lewis, Oct. 24, 1836 ; an infant son, March 1, 1835 ; Sarah Maria, August 18, 1841. William E. married Jane Dusen- bury and has four children. He is a civil engineer and lives in Worcester. Nancy T. married Mr. L. Taylor. They have several children, one of whom, Lizzie Jane, a recent graduate of the Sutton high school, was the valedictorian of her class. Frank L. married Susie -. He is now a widower and works at the shoe business in Worcester. Sarah is a fine scholar, and assistant teacher in the high school.
Edmund J. Mills, Esq., taught school with great success for some sixteen years. He was a deputy sheriff for many years, had an appointment at the reform school on Thompson's Island, in 1839; has been justice of the peace for several years; also trial justice. He has been quite distinguished as a presiding officer on various occasions ; has conducted more funerals than any other man in town, and with order and grace rarely witnessed on such occa- sions. He has been our representative in the legislature; but the list of town officers will show the honors bestowed on him. His farm is one of the best of its size in town. There was once quite a mulberry grove on the place, from which they fed worms and made silk. They had a patriotic celebration in this grove on the fourth of July, 1824, provided for by Mr. Mills and Deacon McClellan. In 1840 a large delegation from Douglas and Sutton attended a mass meeting at Worcester, on the 17th of June. Mr. Mills, mounted on a beautiful dappled gray horse, belonging to Reuben Sibley, acted as marshal, and being a fine horseman, was much noticed in the general parade on that exciting occasion. Both himself and his companion enjoy a vigorous old age. Their golden wedding was celebrated in this house by their numerous friends, who warmed their grateful hearts by substantial tokens to a considerable amount.
The next child of the Rev. Mr. Mills married William Whittlesey, who was for several years cashier of the Millbury bank. They had several children. The next married New- ton Whittlesey, who lived in Cornish, N. H. She still survives.
Lewis Mills was also cashier of a bank and a merchant in Boston ; he now lives in Brooklyn, New York,
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Deacon Henry Mills, now a doctor, was a merchant and manufacturer for several years. He built a number of houses in Millbury, and was for a time part owner and agent of the Singletary factory. He is now principal of the Fairview Electropathic Institute at Binghampton, N. Y. He was for some years deacon of the first Congregational church in Millbury. He married first, Nancy Goddard; then Mrs. Kate Douglas. Both wives and his three children are dead.
The likeness of Rev. Mr. Mills in this book is not con- sidered a good one; it represents him bald-headed and inferior. Mr. G. Hall says :
"I went a fishing with him only a few weeks before his death, and thought him one of the noblest men I ever saw. I remember as we unloaded the boat at Sand Beach, Joe Putnam came along and cried out, 'What, Mr. Mills, ye goin' a fishin' ?' Mr. Mills answered, 'Yes, indeed, we are going to take the monarch of the pond.' While we were out in the boat he and my grandfather talked on various subjects; among them he referred to Paul Revere passing the British sentinel in a boat with muffled oars, and asked Capt. Hall what was meant by muffled oars; so he told him that they wound the oars and tholes with woollen cloth, to deaden the sound, as rowing with bare oars and pins could be heard in a still night quite a distance. I then learned the meaning of muffled oars; and, as Mr. Mills asked the meaning, perhaps others may yet learn what he then learned, by asking one who knew. When we went ashore we selected our best fish for him, and his son E. J. met us on the shore to take him home. He tells me it was the last ride he had with his honored and reverend father.
" When a small boy, having been told that God made man in his own image, I thought that he got the best likeness in Geo. Washington and the next best in Mr. Mills. When he died I saw hard-faced old men shed tears that I had never seen weep before, and men too who did not attend his church. He was a noble man and much lamented by all who knew him. I was at his funeral in the old church. The church was full and the common was the best approach of many. It was a solemn day. The sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. Wood, and some of the best singers from Worcester assisted in the choir."
His widow married for her third husband Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D. D., of Franklin. He was a very eminent divine, and his published sermons were the doctrinal wonder of the age. He was not a very large man, and wore his small clothes and three-cornered hat as long as he lived. When President Jackson visited New England he went to Taunton in company with the cele- brated surgeon, Dr. Miller, to see him; as they drove into the village the boys saw his quaintly antique style, and thought he must be Gen. Jackson; so they followed him through the street, vociferously cheering him as President of the United States; at every cheer the crowd increased, and all supposed Jackson had arrived. They had mistaken an eminent divine for a great warrior.
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With all his distinction as a theologian, he was a perfect child in many things. After he married Mrs. Mills, some of her lady friends went from Sutton to visit her. His man was away at the time, so they asked him to harness their horse; he tried to do it, but did not know how to put the bridle on, so Mrs. Tenney had to do it herself.
He had an old horse that he had owned for several years; he drove it into Boston and had it put up at a hotel stable; when he was ready to leave, he went to his carriage and ordered his horse harnessed to it, but the hostler had put the wrong number on his bridle, so he harnessed the wrong horse and one varying much in color from his own, yet he never discovered the difference until a neighbor in Franklin asked him if he had been swapping horses, when he indignantly replied, "I never did such a thing in my life." "Well," said the neighbor, "that is not the one you went away with, at any rate." "It is the horse that I have owned for years." "No, sir!" said the neighbor. "Well, then ask Tom." So the matter was referred to his man, who went immediately to Boston to swap horses for the learned doctor.
Sixteen families have resided in this house. There have been twenty-five births, seven deaths and twelve funerals, besides many marriages.
The next house was built by James Phelps for Dr. D. S. C. H. Smith, who was born in Cornish, N. H., June 27th, 1797, and died at Providence, R. I., April 5, 1859. He was educated at Dartmouth and Yale colleges. His father, the renowned Dr. Nathan Smith, was connected with both of these institutions.
Dr. David Solon Chase Hall Smith came to Sutton about 1819. There were three other doctors in this district at that time, and all quite distinguished men, which circumstance made his place a hard one for a young man; yet his thorough training and the prestige of his father's fame soon made him the most popular physician in this part of the county. He was called in consulta- tion by many of the doctors for miles around. He drove to Rhode Island almost every week for years, and was frequently called to Providence. He was a large man, of fine personal appearance, had large, piercing gray eyes, and some of his patients thought he could look straight through them and tell exactly what ailed them; and, indeed, diagnosis was his forte.
To determine the nature of disease and its cause is the most difficult part of medical practice. The remedial agents are all defined, but disease is often so insidious and its locality so obscure as to baffle the skill of the most astute practitioner. To understand the complicated and intricate mechanism of the human system requires great research, as well as intuition, genius, judgment and skill. All these Dr. Smith possessed in a remarkable degree. So when other physicians had a human machine on their hands that they could not keep going, they used to send for him to find out what cog was broken, what pin loose or what pulley disbanded. Some seemed to think that he could put in a new mainspring, wind up the human system like a clock, give motion to the pendulum of life, and restore a defunct body to animation, strength and vigor. He used to say that other doctors would send for him when they
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thought their patient was dying, and once in many cases such a person would recover; then he got the credit of the case, and that gave him reputation. He said he had no proof that he ever cured any one, though circumstances sometimes seemed to indicate it. The recuperative power was more frequently in the hand of God, or the constitution and courage of the patient, than the skill of the doctor. When he had a patient over whom he was unusually anxious, he said he did not know what to do, and that sometimes he thought his patients lived in spite of him rather than from his help. He was at times quite subject to the blues, and while in one of these despondent moods he was told that he had been seen with the blues before; "I know it," said he, " but I've got the blacks now;" meaning, no doubt, that the blues of that day were of an unusually dark tinge.
He was a great naturalist, and seemed to know all about animated nature. He was almost as intimately acquainted with the American birds as Audubon himself; he also gave much attention to entomology. His hat was frequently lined with insects which he had pinned there for his cabinet; he furnished Professor Harris several thousand for his valuable work. He also gave a description of the reptiles of New England for President Hitchcock's great work. Before he came to Sutton his father hired a German botanist to travel with him one year through the western country, that he might master the study of botany ; so he became a great botanist, and could classify and give the medical properties of nearly all the known plants that grow in this country.
Like his father he was a great man, but never became rich; indeed at one time he was quite poor, deeply in debt, and his creditors attached his horse, so that he had no way to visit his patients, and he became discouraged. One day a man came for him to go to Thompson, Ct., but he told him that he could not go, for he had no horse; the man told him that he would take him up there in his own carriage and bring him back. "Well," said the doctor, "if you will do that I will go;" so he went. When he reached home the man asked him what was to pay. "Oh, nothing," said the doctor, "you have had trouble enough to get me there already." "But I am going to pay you for all that." He gave him a ten dollar bill and left. The next day a man came for him to go and see a poor family in the south part of the town. He said, "If they are poor I'll go, for I am poor myself." When he reached there he found they were poor indeed, and he said starvation was all that ailed them; so he took out his ten dollar bill and gave it to the poor woman to buy wholesome food for her sick children. It was all the money he had. He thought their rich neighbors could doctor that family as well as he could.
He married Miss Lucy Hall, daughter of Joseph, son of David, son of Joseph, son of John, son of John. They had two sons and three daughters, Sarah C., born July 17, 1822, married David N. Hall, a college graduate and lawyer, and died at St. Louis Jan. 15, 1849; Nathan, born Aug. 24, 1825, died Oct. 14, 1853 ; Maria, born Jan. 19, 1828, died Nov. 2, 1850; Elizabeth P., born Dec. 2, 1830, died at Providence Dec. 29, 1849 ; Geo. S., born Dec. 19, 1835, died March 25, 1838. Dr. Smith married for second wife Mrs. Dr. Wood of East Douglas, and for third a Miss White.
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The last still survives. His children are all dead. His son Nathan studied medicine, and had just commenced practice when he was stricken down with consumption and died. He married Susan Anthony; they had one child that died in infancy. Sarah and Elizabeth were both very good artists.
We have already said that the doctor was quite poor at one time. Then it was that Dr. Shattuck of Boston sent his son up with a good horse for him as a present. Dr. Shattuck was one of his father's students, and had a great regard for the family. Soon after, Mr. James Phelps, then doing a large business, volunteered to build him a house, telling him 4 he could pay for it from his earnings in small instalments as was most convenient. So he built the house now owned by Dr. Robbins, and Dr. Smith lived there till 1848, when he moved to Providence, thence to Webster, where his wife died Sept. 23, 1850. Then he came back to Sutton, and on the 19th of June, 1851, he married the widow Wood and went to East Douglas; from there he returned to Provi- dence, and died of apoplexy very suddenly at the time above stated. He was at one time quite skeptical, almost an infidel ; yet his mother was a pious woman, and read her bible through in course as often as she could. When she died, her book-mark was at one of the psalms. He had her bible and kept the mark where she left it; so, thinking of his good mother and her bible, he learned to love it for her sake, and " when I last saw him," says Mr. Hall, " on the occasion of my wife's funeral, when he spent two or three days with me, he told me that he thought he had experienced religion, and was quite happy in his new hope."
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