USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Holliston > Holliston, Massachusetts bi-centennial celebration, 1724-1924 > Part 3
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The school house was the typical "Old Red" building, standing in the open forest. Across the road looking north was a large pasture, beyond which was the Holliston poor farm. There were no neighbors to watch and complain of any acts of the scholars, as we had later at the new school house at East Holliston. We had the whole range of the open woods for a playground. William Eames lived nearest -more than one-quarter of a mile away, and from there water was brought for use at the school. It was an ideal place for a school house.
The inside of the school house was not so cheerful. The seats and desks were in tiers on opposite sides. The girls sat on one side and the boys on the other, facing them. The back seats were higher and were occupied by the older scholars. There was a large cast-iron box stove in the center. The recitation platform extended across the rear.
The older boys attended school only in the winter and were sometimes older and larger than the teacher. In sum- mer, very young children, two and three years old, were sent to school. Sometimes a kind hearted teacher would arrange to let the tired little ones sleep.
Adaliza Leland was the teacher during the first term in the new school house. We always had men teachers in winter and women in summer.
The roll call of parents and children was:
Andrew Allard. Children, Henry, Maria, and Albert Whittemore, who was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Versal Whittemore and wife.
Aaron Brigham. Children, Delia, Daniel, Martha, Alfred, and Alma.
James Bigelow. Children, James, Charles, Sophiah, and Eliza. Mr. Bigelow was killed in his repair shop by his necktie catching in a lathe.
John Broad lived on the hill road from Ashland to Hol- liston Centre.
Elbridge G. Comey. Children, Amanda, Aratus, Henry, Manlius, Mary, and Perley. The first three attended the old red school house.
John Dearth. "Old John," "young John," and son. John, senior, rode in a gig. Other children were Mary Ann, Adaline, and Elvira.
Elijah Dewing. Son, Elijah.
Cozzens, - -, name and location forgotten.
Elbridge Eames, son of Nathan and Cynthia, on the new road to Ashland. Children, George H., Mary Anne, and Mrs. Nell Thayer.
Joseph Eames, who lived near the Whitneys, on the Framingham road, had five fingers and five toes. He was a man of great strength and size.
Nathan Eames. Children, Ambrose, Elbridge, and Emerson. The mother was known as "Aunt Nathan."
William Eames, who lived in sight of the old school house. Children, Sarah Ann, Mary Frances, Albert, and perhaps Martha Ann.
Courtland Gallott, Lorenzo and Lambert, sons of Widow Gallott, lived at the end of the lane near the "Rack- etbow Road."
Calvin Follensbee was a New Hampshire "Hunker" Democrat. The father of the writer was a stanch Whig. They made boots in a little shop, on what is now the Brooks- mont farm. The arguments carried on in that little shop, shoe knives accompanying the gestures, were fearful to my young sense of safety.
Daniel Rider. Children, Benjamin, George, and Jane. Daniel Rider and Elijah Dewing lived in the same house; half of the house only was painted.
James Taft lived on the Col. Sam Bullard farm. Chil- dren, James E., Sarah, Frederick, Sylvia, and Abby. Sarah married Levi Haven and was the mother of Mrs. Dickinson. James Taft lived to a ripe old age. His honest, Christian life has always been before me as an example, and oft reminds me of Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Night."
"From scenes like these Old Scotia's grandeur springs." Fine steers were his hobby and his strongest words, "I van."
Timothy Twitchell lived next beyond Elbridge Eames. His son, Justin, sat in the back row at the old school house. As a boy of five years, I saw Jim Taft washing Justin's face with hard, crusty snow. The seeming cruelty has never been forgotten by the boy now eighty-five.
Elbridge Whittemore. Sons, Elbridge and George.
Warren Whitney. Location of Whitney farm is well known. Whitney was a very large man. Joel was the son known to the writer.
The farm east of the James Taft place was occupied by
Emmons Force, a bachelor, then by Howard Forestall and son, George. Later, Alfred Cutler became the owner. The present owner is Alfred Gooch.
The old red school house district has been covered as well as memory serves. The time allotted the speaker is full and he will close with the hope that the errors and omissions will be excused.
In introducing the speaker of the evening, Mr. Fisher said :
We have with us this evening a Holliston boy, born here in 1862, a Civil War baby, his father having made the supreme sacrifice at the battle of Glendale, early in that year. Happily his is the vigor of a strong middle age. His circulation is good, as may be understood from the mingling in his veins of the blood of the Rockwoods, the Cutlers, and the Whitings, three families which have accomplished much in the growth of Holliston. He grew to young manhood in this town among the girls and boys of his period. His early education was in our own public schools; he is a typical representative of the scholars who have gone forth from this town to help in the education of our neighbors. I take great pleasure in presenting Elbridge Cutler Whiting, tem- porarily of Sudbury, who will deliver the Historical Address on this occasion.
To this report of the Historical Discourse, Professor Whiting wishes to add the following preface:
This brief history of Holliston is dedicated to the citi- zens of the town by its author, a son of Holliston, who traces his ancestry back through those families who laid its founda- tions, and who helped build its noble structure. He wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness for the facts related herein to Judge Willis A. Kingsbury, Joseph H. Dewing, Mrs. Esther Fair, who placed at his disposal some of the treas- ures of the Historical Society, to the historical addresses of Rev. Messrs. Charles Fitch, Edmund Dowse, D.D. and Geo. M. Adams, D.D., also to the histories of Dr. Albert M. Blan- chard, Rev. Geo. F. Walker and Morse's History of Holliston and Sherborn and to the historical papers of the late John M. Batchelder. If this bird's-eye view of the life of Hollis- ton will help to make its sons and daughters better citizens, the author will feel well repaid for his work. E. C. W.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOLLISTON FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT TO THE YEAR 1924
UR task today is both pleasant and difficult. It is indeed pleas- ant to remember the doings of our ancestors. "Haec olim meminisse juvabit." And it is also difficult because of the mists that gather around the records of antiquity. Traditions and facts are interwoven invariably in the warp and woof of history. And yet notwithstanding these things we would be renegades in truth if we shrank from such a task. It has been well said, "Those only deserve to be remembered by posterity who treasure up the history of their ancestors."
I need not remind you that the citizens of Holliston have not been remiss in their observance of historical events. For nearly one hundred years, you have recalled the faith and works of your fathers by fitting and joyful observances. The Holliston Historical Society in recent years has gathered valuable material relating to the records of this noble town, in this illustrious county of Middlesex, in this wonderful state of Massa- chusetts.
The way has been prepared by reverent and loving hands and we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who have told the story again and again.
There are five periods in the life of Holliston, each of about fifty years' duration and I have named them:
1. The Prenatal Period
2. The Colonial Period
3. The Formation Period
4. The Uplift Period
5. The Modern Period.
Let us consider some of the outstanding events in each of these cycles of time.
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I. THE PRENATAL PERIOD.
HE Prenatal Period began when the first white man started to explore the streams and forests of this section of country. Probably John Eliot, the great apostle to the Indians, was one of the first as he went from settlement to settlement to tell the story of Jesus, the friend of the red and the white man alike. On the banks of Lake Wennakeening (Pleasant Smile) now known as Lake Winthrop, his voice was raised in prayer and worship, and praying bands of Indians to the number of one thousand were formed before Eliot finished his course and received his crown of right- eousness.
After him came the two Adams' taking possession of portions of this garden of Eden, but unlike their namesakes, they stayed and tended their flocks and tilled the ground. Jasper Adams gave his name to the rock and hill near the center of the town. On the flat rock he built fires to signal to his father, Lieutenant Henry Adams of Medfield, that all was well with him and with his cattle.
Meadow lands and cedar swamps were the magnets that drew settlers away from the coast to the interior. The open spaces of meadows gave succulent food for cattle and the cedar swamps furnished lumber of lasting quality for fences and stockades. Was it a Holliston lad who said that "Cedar posts would last a hundred years; father has tried it a good many times"? No man could subsist without these natural meadows and cedar swamps.
Grants of land in the interior were given by the authorities to men who had been of service to the community or to those who had braved death to survey the country. Major Eleazer Lusher, land commissioner, had received such a grant in this section and in 1660 he sold a portion of it to Lieutenant Adams. In the same year the son of Governor Winthrop with a partner received another grant of 700 acres bounded westerly by Lake Wennakeening, which name was changed to Winthrop in honor of the owner.
William Sheffield acquired six hundred acres and to this he added three Four
thousand which he obtained from the Indians. Adams and Sheffield were the only occupiers of this region until the incorporation of Sherborn in 1674. The genealogy of Holliston is as follows: Sixteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims Dedham was founded in 1636. Twelve and one-half years later Dedham begat Medfield. Twenty-five years from 1649, Medfield begat Sherborn, and fifty years from 1674 Sherborn begat Holliston in 1724. Twelve and one-half, twenty-five, and fifty years-a geometrical progression-and always progress to the birth of our own town.
Two factors hindered the earlier settlement of this region. The threatening war of 1676 under King Phillip prevented timid men from taking possession of the lands, and although Eliot had converted many of the Indians, they did not have enough influence to stay the wave of violence which swept through eastern Massachusetts resulting in the destruction of thirteen towns, six hundred men in battle and the slaughter of innocent women and children. Lieut. Adams was murdered at the door of his own home. Capt. Wadsworth and Lieutenant Brocklebank together with twenty-nine men were slaughtered on the hills of Sudbury. The other factor to prevent early settlements was the unfavorable report made by a committee of explorers sent out from Boston to inspect the land. They reported that the land probably would never be occupied much beyond Newton. They were men of little faith, but they have descendants even to the present day.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century a few families resided in this precinct of Sherborn, a town twelve miles in length, but they were a hardy lot of pioneers and their wives were cheerful helpers in the subjugation of the wilderness. Some of them had come "from a paradise of plenty and pleasure into a wilderness of wants," but that very fact was making them men and women of faith and of power. God was sifting the chaff from the wheat in preparation for the birth of a town.
The names of Leland, Bullard, Morse, Hill, Perry and Goulding are mentioned as settlers at this time, but to build homes in this section at that period meant the separation of families from the church and the school, a distance of many miles. I used to think when a boy that the road through the woods from Holliston to Sherborn was a long and fearful journey but what must it have been over two hundred years ago! The church in Sherborn was placed at the extreme eastern end of the town. Each settler was required to cut and carry one-half cord of wood to the house of the minister, and to transport their families by ox cart or on horseback to the church each Sabbath day a distance of
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from five to ten miles. Sherborn was about to erect a new meeting house which meant the taxation of every family, no matter how far they lived from the church. An effort was made to have the building placed, nearer the center but after due consideration it was seen that another meeting house must be erected to accommodate all the inhabitants. An amicable spirit prevailed and it was voted to grant to the inhabitants west of Doppin brook their proportion of 160 pounds toward the building of a new church or public meeting house as they called it, whenever the western inhabitants were ready to proceed.
Thirteen heads of families, all but five in this section, petitioned the General Court that they might erect a meeting house nearer their homes. Until the year 1664 in order to be a freeman and a voter, one must be a member in good and regular standing of some Congregational church. The General Court granted their request not only to build a house of worship but also passed an Act of Incorporation for a new town. This act provided that the inhabitants of this region should build a meeting house within eighteen months and call a minister as soon as possible, and they must also maintain a schoolmaster to instruct the youth in reading, writing and arithmetic. The petition was signed by Jonathan Whitney, Timothy Leland, Aaron Morse, Moses Adams, Joseph Johnson, Ebenezer Pratt, Gershom Eames, John Goulding, Joshua Underwood, Thomas Jones, Isaac Adams, John Twitchell and John Larnite. The petition was granted the third of December 1724 and thus we pass to the second period.
II. THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
HEN Holliston was incorporated in 1724, the qualifications for voting were-males not less than twenty-one years of age, owning real estate yielding three pounds per year or personal estate valued at sixty pounds. He must have two certificates, one from a clergyman, stating that he was orthodox in religion and not vicious in his life and the other from the selectmen that he was a freeholder according to the above standard.
Holliston was named in honor of Thomas Hollis of London, a patron of Harvard College, and he graciously responded by giving the town an elegant folio Bible with the inscription, "The Gift of Thomas Hollis of London, Merchant, To the Meeting-house in Holliston." This Bible is preserved in a shrine made like a massive book and kept in a safe in the Congregational church.
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For the first town meeting, held at Timothy Leland's house, December 21, 1724, John Goulding, a leading citizen, had been empowered to call together the inhabitants qualified to vote, and he was chosen moderator and later with four others, Wm. Sheffield, Ebenezer Hill, Jonathan Whitney and Thomas Marshall was chosen selectman. Goulding was also selected as clerk and Isaac Bullard constable. Thirteen persons signed the petition for separation and these four others added who were selected as officers of the town composed practically all the heads of families in this district, the population being about 100 persons or six people to a family.
Within two weeks, January 4, 1725, another town meeting was held and it was voted to erect a Meeting House for the purpose of worshiping God on the Lord's day. At a third meeting, January 25, an appropria- tion of one hundred pounds was made towards the erection of a Meeting House, forty by thirty-two feet and twenty feet in height. The location seemed to be a source of perplexity, but it was finally located with the approval of Colonel Browne of Salem, who had donated the land, near this very spot where we are now gathered and enough land was set apart for a burying ground which has remained to this day.
In November of this same year 1725 it was voted to have the "Word" preached in Colonel Browne's new house until the Meeting House should be fit for use. The building was not entirely completed until 1731 and cost three hundred and fifty pounds or about $166. It was a very plain structure, but it served its purpose after its enlargement in 1772 for nearly one hundred years. The building was finished sufficiently in 1727 to allow the town meeting to be held within its walls and on the 20th of June a town meeting was held and it was voted to choose Mr. James Stone of Newton, a graduate of Harvard to be the Gospel Minister in Holliston at a salary of seventy-five pounds, with a settle- ment of one hundred pounds, the salary to be increased as the popula- tion increased. Mr. Stone waited five months before replying and he said that while he was inclined to accept their invitation to be the Gospel Minister of Holliston, he was in doubt as to the salary being sufficient for his support.
A committee was appointed to address Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston who owned a tract of two hundred acres in the town to see if he would give a piece of land toward the settlement of a minister. Judge Sewall had been one of three judges who had presided in the trials of the witches of Salem and Boston. This delusion had been prevalent thirty-five years before and ere it had died away twenty people had been condemned and
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put to death as witches. Judge Sewall later became convinced of his great error and he publicly asked pardon of God and man in a paper read to the congregation of the Old South Church in Boston on Fast Day, January 14, 1697. From that time on Judge Sewall devoted his entire life to doing works meet for repentance, and became noted for his charity and philanthropy. And so it came about, quite fortunately, that Judge Sewall and his children conveyed to the committee in trust eleven acres of land "for the sole proper use, benefit, and behoof of the first Orthodox, Congregational or Presbyterian minister of the Gospel which shall be settled in the said town of Holliston and to his heirs and assigns forever." These eleven acres included land where the Hollis House once stood. Besides this gift, the people subscribed more money so that Mr. Stone finally accepted the offer to become the minister of the town. In those days, being a college graduate, he was "The Person" of the com- munity, or as some would say in their peculiar brogue "The Parson."
The next step to be taken by the town was the formation of the church. On Thursday, October 31, 1728, Old Style or November 11, New Style, seven men together with the Pastor-elect subscribed to a solemn covenant with God and one another. The seven men who founded the church were the same seven together with six others who founded the town: Rev. James Stone (the pastor), William Sheffield, John Goulding, Jonathan Whitney, Timothy Lealand, Isaac Bullard, Thomas Marshall, and Edmund Morse. They, with the exception of the pastor, came from the church in Sherborn. A few weeks later, the wives of these men joined the new church. A description of these men can be found in. different printed discourses, especially the one by Rev. Geo. M. Adams, delivered at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Congrega- tional Church.
The town had voted that the seventh day of November should be set apart as a day of fasting for the purpose of gathering and settling a church in said town and that Wednesday, the twentieth of the same month should be the day, with God's leave, for the ordaining of the Rev. Mr. Stone. Therefore on November 20, 1728, a gathering of grave and reverent men, pastors, and delegates from neighboring churches, clothed in knee breeches, with buckled shoes and powdered wigs and three cor- nered hats met together at Col. Browne's house in an ecclesiastical council to consider the advisability of ordaining Rev. Mr. Stone as pastor. The church, having been formed thirteen days before this in the house of Timothy Lealand, had a right to call this council. After due deliberation the council voted to proceed and in the afternoon of the
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same day these same solemn men marched in a dignified manner to the new building to ratify the action of the town in forming a church on November 7, 1728 and to approve of the calling of the Rev. Mr. Stone to be the Minister of the town, and to install him into this sacred office. The town in four years had increased in population to one hundred and fifty souls. As yet there was no village and only thirty farm houses were scattered here and there over the town, but Holliston was now well and honorably started on a life that would redound to its own honor and that of the nation.
Holliston was founded on the Rock of Ages and must erect a structure not wholly made with hands.
In the church building for nearly one hundred years the town held its meetings for the transaction of business, for the social gatherings and for public worship on the Lord's day. This could be done because the people at that time were for the most part of the same blood and of the same religion. While this could not be done in these days and while some may regret the wide differences of opinion, yet we may rejoice that down deep in the hearts of men the same fundamentals of life are abiding, and after all we are all brothers one to another in the real things of life.
In the act of incorporation of the town it provides not only for the support of a church and minister, but the people were required to pro- cure and maintain a schoolmaster for the instruction of the youth. In 1731 money was granted for the support of public schools and in 1738 the town was divided into three districts, the North, the West and the Central and the inhabitants were assessed one hundred pounds for the erection of a building in each district, but each man might work out his own assessment. In 1801 the three districts had grown to eight and in 1807 the first school committee was chosen: Dr. Timothy Fiske, Lieut. Elijah Watkins and Capt. John Haven and the grant for school purposes was $500. In 1911 the grant was $10,559 and July 7, 1924, at a special town meeting, an appropriation of $42,500 was made just to construct and remodel an addition to the High School building. It is a long step from the old days when a child could go to school as early as his parents chose and continue as long as he liked. There was no high school in the colonial days and the schools kept only twelve weeks in winter and ten weeks in summer, the shorter term being almost wholly for the girls and younger boys.
The first fifty years of the life of the town was a comparatively quiet period, excepting toward its close. The inhabitants wanted to see the
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town grow, but they believed in quality rather than quantity, and they did not care for a mixed and corrupt population. At one time they raised money to encourage and aid the removal of certain families to Canada, and at others, expelling immoral and licentious individuals and families that had crept into their territory and were polluting their soil. They wanted unity of spirit, even though they had to use the rigour of the law. There is this to be said in justice to the memory of our fathers: They were attempting something on this continent that had never been tried before in all the history of the world. They were seek- ing to build up a form of government of justice and equality, which would be established by the people themselves. A democracy pure and simple without kings or despotic rulers to oppress them and to build a church that would find its authority in God, through membership in the local body. It was in self defense that they expelled certain individuals and companies of people from their midst. They wanted to see if they could do a certain thing that wise men all over the world had said could not be done. The reason they laid so much stress on education and religion was because they were firmly convinced that the kind of govern- ment and church they were trying to establish on these western shores could not be built in any other way. Later on when affairs became more settled these men and their posterity were liberal enough to allow others to come and live their lives on a somewhat different basis.
There was one event in these first fifty years of the life of the town that made a great impression on the people. It was what they called the Great Sickness. At the close of 1753 and the beginning of 1754 a peculiar form of sickness fell upon the community and within six weeks fifty-three people, nearly half being heads of families, died of the fatal malady. This sudden stroke in a population of four hundred people caused great lamentation and mourning. Several families were entirely broken up and at one time there were not enough well persons to care for the sick and to bury the dead. If it had happened in this day of scientific research, probably some rational explanation would have been found, but in that early period before the age of science the cause was laid at the door both of God and man. Some said it was the hand of God as a punishment for the sins of the people; others said that the quarrels that had arisen between the peoples and especially between two of the principal men of the town, who were engaged in a lawsuit over a most trifling matter, had brought this curse upon the town. At any rate from that time to the present, I know of no town that has had so few disputes in law as the town of Holliston and a lawyer in Holliston ought
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