Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 27

Author:
Publication date: 1937
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company
Number of Pages: 802

USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people > Part 27

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

A year before John Winthrop's fleet dropped anchor in Salem Harbor, three brothers were exploring the virgin timberland along the Mystic River. Diverging a trifle from their course, they came upon a country which one of the brothers, Ralph Sprague, reported as an 'uncouth wilderness' (uncouth then meaning 'wonderful,' 'uncommon') full of 'stately timber.' This is the first record (1629) of a white man's visiting the three square miles of territory that now contain the thriving industrial city of Everett.

Since more than two centuries passed before Everett became self- governing, its history is entangled with that of Malden and early Charles- town. As early as 1649, a petition granted to some 'Mystic Side' men permitted them to separate from Charlestown and to set up a town called 'Maulden.'

228

Main Street and Village Green

In the first half of the nineteenth century, South Malden was important principally because of the commanding position which it occupied in the overland communication to Boston. A penny ferry, opened in 1640, had formerly been the most direct route to the capital. From the back country one of the oldest New England roads led to the ferry. In 1796 a country road was laid out, three rods wide, running to Malden Bridge, built ten years before to supplant the ferry. Private capital financed the construc- tion of Malden Bridge, which the Malden Bridge Corporation owned and operated as a toll bridge for seventy-two years. During that time the round trip from Malden to Boston was costly: the tolls amounted to forty- seven cents, a heavy tax in a time when a daily wage rarely exceeded a dollar.

When the Newbury Turnpike Corporation decided upon South Malden as a terminus for the new highroad to Newburyport, the first step was taken in making the future Everett a consequential post in the trans- portational plan of the Commonwealth. Yet, in spite of its favorable location in the system of communication between Boston and the north country, Everett's progress before 1870 was slow. Until 1845 the town was engrossed in agriculture. In 1859 toll charges were done away with on the Malden Bridge, thus attracting more business and more residents to the town, which in 1870 was incorporated under the name of Everett, in honor of the illustrious orator, statesman, and scholar Edward Everett.

POINTS OF INTEREST

I. Parlin Library, Everett Square, a modern white brick building, chief public library of the city, and memorial to Albert N. Parlin, civic philan- thropist, contains one of the few copies now readily available of a useful historical-descriptive booklet, 'The Straight Road,' concerning the New- buryport Turnpike, which passed through what is now Everett. On the lawn of the library grounds is a Sundial inscribed: 'To the children of Everett that they may measure their hours of sunshine.'

2. The Milburn Collection of Hawthorniana (open only to accredited stu- dents of Hawthorne), 88 Waverly St., is a large and exceedingly valuable treasure-house of first editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works and other Hawthorniana. Except for 'Fanshawe' and the two 'Carrier's Addresses' (broadsides soliciting newspaper subscriptions in Salem), the set of Hawthorne 'firsts' is complete. Among the rare items are the large paper copy of 'The Gentle Boy,' containing a frontispiece drawing by Mrs. Hawthorne and the privately printed 'Love Letters of Haw- thorne.' There are also in the collection notebooks, manuscripts, and a very nearly complete compilation of all comment so far discovered in print about the great novelist, as well as association objects.

3. Mt. Washington (summit on Garland St., alt. 176) is one of several glacial drumlins in a chain, the others, visible from this one, being

229

Fall River

Powder Horn Hill in Chelsea and Orient Heights in East Boston. West- ward is a good view of Everett. Once there were remains of Indian forts here, testifying to the defeat of a Massachusetts tribe by the Wabanaki of Maine. Indian relics, including pottery, have been dug up at various times, indicating that the Indians also used Mt. Washington for cere- monials and encampments.

4. Woodlawn Cemetery, Elm St., 176 acres, planted with rhododendrons and many varieties of beautiful trees, is one of the notable burial grounds in Greater Boston, comparing favorably with Mt. Auburn and Forest Hills.

5. The Mystic Iron Works (open by permission), on the Mystic River, has a five-million-dollar blast furnace turning out 500 tons of pig iron daily, which is about 20 per cent of this type of raw material used in New England. This furnace is among the largest in the country. The great ore bridge, first object to catch the eye of the approaching visitor, has a clear span of 250 feet and is equipped with an eight-ton bucket. The plant, built in 1926, revived in Massachusetts an industry which had been lost to the State for a century and a half.

6. Merrimac Chemical Company (open by appointment Mon. Fri. 9-4.45; guide provided), Chemical Lane, off Broadway, is another vast and im- portant plant, picturesquely marked for many years to travelers on the Eastern Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad by the great outdoor pile of sulphur which lies west of the buildings. This plant, formerly the Cochrane Chemical Co., was established in 1858. During the World War it did a huge business in TNT, phenol, and picric acid. It marketed the first H-acid made in the United States, and produces also fire and sagger clay, mined at Bennington, Vermont. A favorite statement is that its total output supplies the basic materials of every applied science and manufacturing process and the physical media of all the arts.

FALL RIVER . City of Falling Water

City: Alt. 39, pop. 117,414, sett. 1656, incorp. town, 1803, city 1854.

Railroad Station: Fall River, 860 North Main St., for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. Bus Stations: North Main St., Granite Block opposite City Hall, for Eastern Mass. Ry. Co .; Union Coach Terminal for New England Transportation Co., Short Line, Inc., Union Ry. Co., and I.C.T. Bus Co.

Piers: Fall River Line Wharf, off Water St., near Anawan St.

Accommodations: Ten hotels; twenty-four lodging houses; three boarding-houses. Information: Chamber of Commerce, N. Main and Granite Sts.

230

Main Street and Village Green

FALL RIVER, strikingly outlined against the sky on a long steep hill crest across Mount Hope Bay, looks both larger than it is and very foreign. The lofty chimneys of the great stone or brick mills and the soaring stone towers of numerous Roman Catholic churches, especially the twin pagoda-like spires of Notre Dame, give a European tone. In the foreground of the bay, the white Fall River Boat to New York, one of a line known to all New Englanders for ninety years, lies moored await- ing its evening sailing hour.

The uphill approach to City Hall and the heart of the municipality, through warehouses and mills, many of the latter now silent and empty except for some solitary watchman, is unimpressive, but the center of the business district is solid and substantial, with large stores, banks, and public buildings, mainly of granite, brownstone, or limestone. Excursions from this center bring the visitor at almost any block to sudden stretches of time-darkened mill plants, of which the Durfee Mills, all of granite, extend for eight blocks, largely closed, though some sections have been leased to small concerns. South and east of these lie large areas of shabby but self-respecting wooden tenements; toward the north the streets open into a more prosperous and pleasant residential district. The territory of the present city was settled in 1656 as part of a large land grant from Plymouth known as Freemen's Purchase. What is now Fall River was then called Pocasset, an Indian name still preserved by one of the villages in the town of Bourne on Cape Cod. In 1804 Fall River's Pocasset took the name of Troy, because of the affection of one of its citizens for Troy, New York. The present name of the city dates from 1834, and originated from the Indian name of the Quequechan River ('Falling Water'), which runs through the city and gives power to its mills.

Agricultural interests predominated until the Revolution, and there- after no drama appears in the settlement until its sudden discovery by the industrial age. Fall River has three natural advantages as a center for cotton manufacturing: water-power, a mild, moist climate suited to the weaving of cotton fibers, and a sea harbor adequate for trade ship- ments. In consequence, its textile mills were among the first to be estab- lished in New England, and by 1871 they experienced a boom which from then until 1929 made the name of the city practically synonymous with cotton in the social and industrial history of the nation. Even in 1936, after seven years of depression, the city directory listed 236 industrial plants. There are upward of fifty labor unions.

Today the dominant note of the working city is French. The handsomest churches are French; French translations parallel the English inscriptions on monuments; the radios in the restaurants offer French popular songs; French newspapers are read in the trolleys.

Dark, stolid, built four-square, the Portuguese from the settlement at the far north of the city, more numerous than the French, are also princi- pally engaged in the textile industry. Other races have spread through

231

Fall River

the city, have intermingled by marriage, and have developed a cosmo- politan culture.

Fall River, by its very pre-eminence in cotton manufacture, has been the hardest hit of all New England mill cities through the combination of general business depression, the preference of modern women for rayon or silk to cotton, and the removal of many textile factories to the cheaper operating field of the South.

POINTS OF INTEREST

I. The Site of the Battle of Fall River is indicated by a Tablet on the City Hall, North Main St. Shortly before the Revolution, Tory sentiment was still strong, but this feeling changed, and 31 Freetown men responded to the Lexington alarm. Colonel Joseph Durfee, who later started the first cotton mill here, organized a home guard in 1777. On Sunday morn- ing, May 25, 1778, boats were discovered cautiously approaching the town. Challenged, they did not reply and were fired upon by Samuel Reed, one of the guards. The whole neighborhood sprang to arms. Colonel Durfee stationed his men behind a stone wall and maintained a constant fire until the British brought cannon to bear. The Colonials then retreated slowly to Main Street, where, near this spot, a stand was made and the enemy was repulsed, leaving one soldier dead, one dying and carrying a number of wounded with them.

The attacking British numbered about 150, commanded by Major Ayres. On landing, they set fire to the home of Thomas Borden, near Anawan and Pond Streets, and to his saw and grist mills. They fired the build- ings of Richard Borden, an aged man, and took him prisoner, but re- leased him on parole a few days later. As the boats retreated down the bay the Colonials kept up musket fire, killing one soldier.

2. The Sand Bank where the skeleton in armor was found (1831) is indi- cated by a tablet on the gas plant at the corner of Fifth and Hartwell Streets. This discovery inspired Longfellow to write a famous poem, 'The Skeleton in Armor.' Some of the remains are now to be found at the Fall River Historical Society.

3. In a haunted hut on the Banks of the Quequechan River lived for many years an old hag reputed to be in league with the Devil. Driven out and stoned by her superstitious neighbors, she was left to die while they burned her hut. Before setting the torch to it, however, they searched it, and found - or so the oldsters say - a letter from Captain Kidd to the crone which indicated that in her youth she had been his cherished mistress.

4. The Bradford Durfee Textile School, Bank and Durfee Sts., is free to citizens of the State who wish to make themselves more proficient in this trade and for those who seek preliminary training. In 1933 the school had 148 students. At the present time it is giving active attention

232

Main Street and Village Green

to courses designed to meet new trends in the textile industry, a pro- gressive policy demanded by the recent hardships experienced in New England mills under changed conditions of trade.

5. The Old Church House (private), corner of June St., is the oldest house in Fall River, a vine-covered, gambrel-roofed one-and-a-half-story frame structure, painted red, with a central chimney. Built about 1763, it is said to have been occupied by a Tory, who during the Revolutionary War lent his assistance to the British by using the house as one of the many connecting stations which sent messages to Taunton by means of flags and beacon lights.

6. Fall River Historical Society (open to public weekdays 2-4, Sat. 10-12; adm. free), 451 Rock St. With its high-ceiled rooms and impressive dig- nity, the building lends itself well to museum purposes. On the first floor is a picture gallery with oil paintings by Bryant Chapin, Robert Dunning, and others. A false bookcase in the parlor once concealed the entrance to a wine-cellar, a station of the Underground Railroad. Mills, millmen, and streets of Fall River are represented in the room named 'Downtown of the Nineteenth Century,' where also are many interesting photographs of the steamers on the 'Old Fall River Line.'

7. The Lafayette Monument in Lafayette Park, Eastern Ave., County and Mason Sts., presented to the city by the Franco-Americans in 1916, depicts in bronze a youthful Lafayette on horseback. It was executed by Arnold Zocchi in Rome.

8. Rolling Rock, facing Lafayette Park on Eastern Ave., is a huge con- glomerate resting on a granite ledge. It is said that in former times the Indians found that, by applying force, this rock could be rolled about on its base without falling off, and they used this discovery as a unique method of torture, placing captives' arms under a raised part of the rock and then rolling it onto them, crushing flesh and bone.

9. Notre Dame Church, Eastern Ave. at St. Joseph Street, contains 'The Last Judgment' of Cremonini painted on the ceiling of the main audi- torium. This is the largest work of this famous Italian mural artist in the United States.

FITCHBURG . The Farmer Goes to Town

City: Alt. 458, pop. 41,700, sett. about 1730, incorp. town 1764, city 1872.

Railroad Station: Union Station, 264 Main St., for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. and B. & M. R.R.

Bus Station: 261 Main St. for Blue Way Line and New England Transportation Co. Union Station for B. &. M. Transportation Co.

233

Fitchburg

Accommodations: Two hotels open all year at reasonable rates.

Information: Chamber of Commerce, 560 Main St .; Y.M.C.A., 525 Main St.

NESTLED among rolling hills, in the valley along a branch of the Nashua River, Fitchburg illustrates the almost inevitable trend of many Massachusetts cities which, after more than a century's existence as small agricultural hamlets, were transformed in a few years into in- dustrial cities. Second in size in Worcester County, Fitchburg is notable in its segregation of the industrial and residential sections. The steep slopes on the south side of the little Nashua River are covered almost entirely by dwelling houses, while the business section monopolizes the north side close to the river bank. The outlying portions, sparsely popu- lated, are used principally for pasturing and farming.

Owing to the dominance of heavy industries, Fitchburg gives the appear- ance of being a man's town, although the census reports that women lead in actual numbers. A Yankee twang is at once detected in the voices, but the city is a composite of many races. There are Irish, some de- scended from early railroad hands, many dark French-Canadians, who came as mill workers about 1860, lean, blue-eyed Swedes, brought by Iver Johnson interests in 1890, and serious-faced Finns, introduced in the great immigration of 1880 to 1912, and Poles and Italians. The city itself has an air of substance, unleavened by imagination. It strikes a level midway between an impressive display of wealth and a marked revelation of poverty. This is due in part to the great number of small commercial enterprises owned principally by Germans, Jews, and Armenians. Racially organized co-operatives, notably the Finnish Co-operative Society, the Farmers Co-operatives, and the new German enterprise, promote an orderliness of living not usually found in 'factory towns.'

Fitchburg for fifty years after its incorporation was primarily a dairying and agricultural community, largely self-contained. In 1793 an outlet was provided by the opening of a stagecoach line between Boston and Fitchburg. At the same time the industrial potentialities of the Nashua River were recognized. As early as 1805 General Leonard Burbank established a paper mill near the 250-foot fall of the river.

The opening of the Boston and Fitchburg Railroad in 1845, and the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad in 1848, insured still more rapid transportation facilities and attracted new industries, many of which are now in operation. The quarrying of granite from Rollstone Hill is still an important industry.

POINTS OF INTEREST

I. The Home of the Fitchburg Plan is the new High School, Wallace Ave., a red-brick building capped by a white cupola. The Plan, originated

234

Main Street and Village Green

in 19II, is a co-operative arrangement by which boys in engineering courses are allowed to spend three days a week at high school and three days at work in local factories, and are paid on an apprenticeship basis.

2. The Fitchburg Historical Society (open Sun. and Thurs. 2-4), 50 Grove St., occupies a modern two-story brick building with limestone trim. Rare exhibits are a Vinegar Bible published in London in 1777 ('vinegar' is erroneously used in the margin instead of 'vineyard'); also a Breeches Bible, published in 1588 ('breeches' instead of 'apron' used in Genesis III, 7). A drum used by a high priest of Haiti in the voodoo dance and an English hurdygurdy 300 years old are on display.

3. The Fitchburg Art Center, at the end of the Merriam Parkway (open weekdays except Mon. 10-12 and 2-5; Sun. 2-5), has been transformed into an attractive two-story building of brick and exposed timbers covered with woodbine. It houses a notable permanent collection of 18th-century French provincial furniture, pottery, and glass; monthly traveling exhibits are shown, with emphasis on textile weaves and de- signs, and on color prints.

4. Rollstone Rock, Main St. near Caldwell Place, is a huge glacial boulder which geologists classify as 'erratic,' since no rock of like formation or substance is found nearer than 100 miles to the north. As quarrying on Rollstone Hill progressed, it was found necessary to move the rock, but its 100-ton weight prohibited its removal in a single piece. It was con- sequently split into sections and reassembled.

5. The Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Co. (open to ranking technicians only), River St. (State 2), occupies a series of long two-story brick build- ings covered with woodbine. A tour of the plant and an explanation of the 4000 processes involved in the manufacture of a shotgun takes three hours. Iver Johnson was a Norwegian mechanic with a genius for fire- arms and organization, and a passion for fine materials and work- manship. Sporting firearms are manufactured, but not ammunition; bicycles, though originally a side-line, are now of primary importance.

6. The paper industries of the city are perhaps best represented by the large brick Mills of the Fitchburg Paper Co., River St. (State 2), and the extensive series of Mills of the Crocker-Burbank Co., Westminster St. (State 2) (both open to technicians only). The Fitchburg Paper Co. specializes in wallpaper and coated paper for lithography.

7. Mysterious Arches, on a terraced bank 200 feet back from Blossom St., near the summit of the hill, somewhat resemble a Roman aqueduct in miniature. They are constructed of smooth field-stones the size of a man's palm, set in cement. Early in the 20th century Andrew Whitney, a wealthy citizen with a reputation for eccentricity, started to build 'something' whose purpose he refused to divulge. He died when the structure had progressed thus far. As Mr. Whitney was interested in theatrical ventures, it is thought that he may have had in mind an out- door theater or a home for retired actors. Saplings and brush have encroached on the arches, adding to their mystery a touch of desolation.

235

Gloucester and Rockport

8. The State Teachers' College, at the junction of Pearl and North Sts., occupies a broad three-story red-brick building on a pleasant campus. It is one of the largest teachers' colleges in the State, and has an especially good art school. It established one of the first junior high schools in the country.

9. The Simonds Saw and Steel Co. (open only to visitors with special mechanical or mercantile interests), 5 North St., makes the largest saws in America, those used by the lumber trade.

IO. The Laurel St. Bridge, Laurel St. (descend on foot to see arches), is unique in Massachusetts in that its abutments are not at right angles to the river or railroad tracks, but set at an angle of approximately 45 degrees, so that the water flows almost diagonally beneath it through a series of arches. It withstood the floods of 1936.

II. The Cushing Flour and Grain Co. (seen from the bridge) has occupied since 1868 a fascinating old stone building with a gambrel roof, small- paned windows, and white cupola.

12. Coggshall Park (picnic groves, skating rink), South St., is a beautiful natural pine grove and lake with a combined area of 200 hilly acres, noted for its profusion of laurel in June.

GLOUCESTER and ROCKPORT Mother Ann's Children

GLOUCESTER

City: Alt. 57, pop. 24,164, sett. 1623, incorp. town 1642, city 1873.

Railroad Station: Railroad Ave. for B. & M. R.R.

Piers: Annisquam and Eastern Point Yacht Clubs, Wonson's Cove.

Accommodations: One year-round hotel; 12 summer hotels.

Annual Events: Italian fishermen's three-day St. Peter festival early in July; the Fishermen's Memorial Service in August.

Information: Booth in summer on Western Ave., near Fisherman Statue. Chamber of Commerce, Main St.

ROCKPORT

Town: Alt. 61, pop. 3634, sett. 1690, incorp. 1840.

Railroad Station: Rockport Station on Granite St. and Railroad Ave. for the B. & M.

Piers: T Wharf off Dock Square for the Municipal Yacht Basin at the Sandy Bay Yacht Club.

236

Main Street and Village Green

Accommodations: One year-round hotel; eight summer hotels.

Annual Event: The Artists' Ball sponsored by the Rockport Art Association, third week in August.

Information: Board of Trade off Dock Square.

GLOUCESTER and ROCKPORT comprise the whole of the granite peninsula of Cape Ann. Gloucester is an up-to-date industrial city, fringed by summer resorts ranging from fashionable Eastern Point, Bass Rocks, and Magnolia to quiet Annisquam. Nevertheless the persistence of its seafaring tradition for more than three hundred years gives its wharves, its narrow streets, its skyline of weathered roofs and spires, a unique atmosphere, of which the essence is the never-to-be-forgotten smell of Gloucester, a compound of tar, salt air, and the strong fresh aroma of codfish drying in the sun. Modern Rockport is an artist's paradise, with neat wooden houses crowding close around the harbor, still looking seaward and away from the bleak and boulder-strewn moorlands of the interior Cape.

The work of innumerable artists who flock to Cape Ann every summer, Kipling's classic 'Captains Courageous,' and the salty yarns of James B. Connolly have spread the fame of the picturesque seaport of Gloucester and the tiny fishing villages of the outer Cape far beyond the confines of New England. For more than two centuries Rockport shared this tradi- tion and a fleet of small fishing boats still rides at anchor in the minute harbor, snugly sheltered from the battering surge of the open Atlantic by natural buttresses of sea-worn granite.

Since 1623, when the Dorchester Adventurers' colony at Gloucester was established, Cape Ann men have drawn their livelihood from the sea. But with the mushroom growth of American cities during the boom days of the industrial age, Rockport found a valuable article of export in the high-grade granite that everywhere underlies the town. Riggers who had learned their trade in the lofts of Gloucester turned their talents to erect- ing the quarry derricks, which with their spider webs of gray wires are today still a feature of the Rockport landscape, as are the piles of faulted blocks and the deep pools of the abandoned quarries. A special type of vessel was perfected in the shipyards of Rockport and the near-by towns for carrying granite. Up to about twenty-five years ago these stone sloops were a picturesque sight as they lay loading in almost every narrow deep tongue of water along the outer Cape. The quarries attracted a colony of Finnish stoneworkers, who still remain, although the granite industry is greatly diminished in scope.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 27

Author: Publication date: 1937 Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company Number of Pages: 802

Author:
Publication date: 1937
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company
Number of Pages: 802