Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 29

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

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Retrace State 110; L. from State 110 into Main St .; straight ahead across Merrimack River on State 125.

IO. The Kimball Tavern (about 1690) (open 10-5; adm. free), stands at the corner of Salem St. The first iron stove in Haverhill was set up in this house, which is also noted for its fine woodwork and finish, its old latches and panels, its old furniture and curios.

II. The First Church of Christ (organized 1682; erected 1848) (services, 11 Sun .; midweek services Thurs. 7.30), across the Common, is an animated adaptation of the late Colonial style, adorned with Corinthian columns, an elaborate cornice, and a graceful steeple. The tower of the church was used as a model for that of the Chapel of Mary and Martha in Dearborn, Michigan, built by Henry Ford.

A Boulder on the church green claims the birth here in 1810 of the foreign missionary movement in the United States, through the organization of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1812, four missionaries sailed for Calcutta on the brigantine 'Caravan' 'to bring light to the moral darkness of Asia.' They were the famous Adoniram Judson (see MALDEN) and his wife Anne Hasseltine and Samuel Newell and Newell's wife, Harriet Atwood, the latter a resident of Haverhill.

12. Bradford Junior College, South Main St., occupies a well-equipped campus of 37 acres. Founded in 1803 as an Academy, it is believed to be the oldest upper school for girls in New England. None of the original buildings are now standing.

HOLYOKE . The Power of Water

City: Alt. 152, pop. 56,139, sett. 1745, incorp. town 1850, city 1873. Railroad Station: Mosher St. for B. & M. R.R.

Bus Stations: 69 Suffolk St. and 443 High St. for Blue Way, B. & M., Greyhound, Interstate, and Vermont Transit Co.

Airport: Barnes Airport, on Hampton Plains, between Westfield and Holyoke. Accommodations: Five hotels.

Information: Chamber of Commerce, 98 Suffolk St .; County Automobile Club, 129 Chestnut St.

HOLYOKE, a manufacturing city lying between the Connecticut River and Mount Tom, is built around the numerous power canals that cut across the city. Entered from the north, it is modern, well-groomed, and prosperous. To the south are a number of imposing Catholic institutions, educational and charitable. The manufacturing center, lying along the power canals, has been unusually active throughout the depression. The absence of drab slum quarters usually associated with mill towns is notable.

One factor in creating this prosperous atmosphere is the skilled type of worker employed by the numerous paper mills that manufacture high- grade writing paper, the principal support of the town. Particularly well known are the Whiting Mills. This and six other important paper mills, attracted by cheap water-power from Hadley Falls Dam, have given the town the name of 'The Paper City.'

The American Thread Company and the Skinner Silk Company are about all that remain of what once promised to be a great textile center. Cheap water-power, easily accessible wood for wood-pulp, and rag-scrap from near-by textile mills early diverted interests to paper-making.

The waterworks and gas and electric plants are municipally owned. A daily and weekly paper in English, and one weekly each in French and German, are published. The City Hall, a striking building with a great granite tower, is an object of civic pride. Cultural pursuits are evidenced by the excellent small museum of natural history and a small art gallery, both at the Public Library, by the Holyoke League of Arts and Crafts, and by a number of musical organizations.

The first foreign-born citizens to arrive were the Irish, whose descendants constitute one third of the present population. These, with the French- Canadians, make the city an outstanding Catholic center. Poles number ten per cent of the inhabitants, and the rest are of English, Scotch, Ger- man, Italian, Greek, Scandinavian, or Jewish origin. All this foreign growth has been made in the past ninety years, but it is the very essence

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Holyoke

of Holyoke, and there is little or nothing other than the Indian arrow- heads at the Public Library to remind the visitor that there was a settle- ment as early as 1725.

During Revolutionary years the village remained an agricultural com- munity centered about a tavern that served as a halfway stop on the stage route between Springfield and Northampton. The potential water-power of the Connecticut River just above Hadley Falls was not long in attract- ing the attention of manufacturing pioneers, and as early as 1828 a dam had been constructed, and a few small textile, grain, and metal mills were in operation. Not until 1848, however, did capital appear in the form of a group of New York and Boston investors and developers who secured the rights of the old Hadley Falls Company. In 1848 a $75,000 dam was completed, and on the same day it was swept away by the terrific pressure, incorrectly calculated, of the water behind it. The story is said to have been graphically told in a series of telegrams directed to the Boston office:

IO A.M. Gates just closed: water filling behind dam.

12 A.M. Dam leaking badly.

2 P.M. Stones of bulkhead giving way to pressure.

3.20 P.M. Your old dam's gone to hell by way of Willimansett.

Within a year a second dam, twice as costly, was completed, which served until 1900. The present dam and its great waterfall are visible only from the uppermost of the three city bridges which cross the river. Known as 'The Gateway of New England Waters,' this dam proved its strength by withstanding the destructive flood of 1936.

TOUR - 5.5 m.

W. from High St. on Appleton

I. The interior of Skinner Memorial Chapel (Congregational) (open daily 9-5), Appleton and Maple Sts., is designed in Gothic style. A decorative panel in the choir stall represents the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch by St. Philip, and is surmounted by dull stained-glass windows. The chancel floor is mosaic.

L. from Appleton St. on Maple St.

2. The Holyoke Library and Museum (open weekdays 10-5), 335 Maple St., contains exhibits of wild life, of prehistoric and Indian relics, and a gallery of paintings. Professor Burlingham Schurr, the noted naturalist, is the curator. The paintings include examples of the work of Twachtman, Whistler, Homer, Diaz, Monet, Chase, and Duveneck.

R. from Maple St. on Cabot St.

3. In the Skinner home, 'Wistariahurst,' at the corner of Pine and Cabot Sts. (open 2.30-5; permission at office of Skinner Silk Mills, 208 Appleton St., or from curator at house opposite: 'Wistariahurst'), is the Belle Skinner

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Main Street and Village Green

Collection of musical instruments and manuscripts. The collection, num- bering some ninety pieces, includes a Chinese instrument, 600 years old, and several other ancient instruments. All are kept in such perfect con- dition that Conductor Koussevitzky of the Boston Symphony Orchestra called it 'a collection of superlatives.'

Straight ahead from Cabot St. on Pleasant St .; L. from Pleasant St. on Dwight St., R. from Dwight St. on Northampton St. (US 5).

4. Mt. Tom and Mountain Park (open in summer, fee), 3.5 m., are reached by a winding drive, uphill through a marked entrance. The park has pic- nicking facilities and an amusement center.

Opposite the entrance, a path leads to Dinosaur Tracks, embedded in a ledge 150 by 30 feet.

Straight ahead on Northampton St. (US 5).

5. Mt. Tom State Reservation (picnicking facilities), 5.5 m., is an extensive wooded area through which winds a fine road past heavy growths of laurel. In 1932, 10 pounds of the rare mineral babingtonite were found near-by. Some geologists believe Mt. Tom was once volcanic.

LAWRENCE . Warp and Woof

City: Alt. 43, pop. 86,785, sett. 1655, incorp. town 1847, city 1853.

Railroad Station: B. & M. R.R., South Canal St.

Bus Stations: Eastern Mass. Street Ry. Co., 400 Essex St .; Blue Way Line, Inc., B. & M. Transportation Co., Checker Cab bus, P.Q. Mass., North- eastern Bus Line, Mason's Bus Line, Hampshire St.

Airport: North Andover Airport, partly owned by city of Lawrence, about 7 m. from the city. Emergency landing field, refueling.

Accommodations: Two hotels open all year.

Information: Chamber of Commerce, Essex St.

TEXTILE mills dominate both the life and the landscape of Lawrence. From the heights above the Merrimack at Andover the city sprawls, with its forest of chimneys and acres of red-brick factory buildings regimented along the river-banks. The striking uniformity of the city is the result of a made-to-order construction program. For Lawrence is Massachusetts' only 'made city.'

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Lawrence

In 1845 the Essex Company was formed by a group of Boston financiers to utilize the water-power of Bodwell's Falls in the Merrimack. An area of 6.75 miles was purchased, comprising parts of the townships of Andover and Methuen, which, although industrial almost since their beginning, had neither the capital nor the engineering skill to harness the river. The group of capitalists who envisioned the city on the flat plain where only some twenty families then scratched a living from the soil was headed by Abbott Lawrence as principal stockholder and first president. It included wealthy merchants long powerful in Boston maritime enterprise, who turned from foreign commerce to the mounting profits of the first textile centers.

Within a month after the incorporation of the Essex Company in March, $1,000,000 was subscribed. During the summer, work on the great dam, the heart of the whole enterprise, went forward at a tremendous rate. In the autumn of 1848, three years after the first stone was laid, the dam was completed, hills were leveled, valleys filled in, buildings erected, and a sizable imported population installed in the rows of workers' houses. The vast program of the Essex Company included also the construction of two canals running parallel into the river, the erection of a machine shop for the building of locomotives, a reservoir on Prospect Hill, gas- works, fifty brick buildings, a large boarding-house, and plants of the Atlantic Cotton, Pemberton, Upper Pacific, and Duck Mills.

The first group of immigrants were natives of England and Ireland, mechanics, artisans, printers, engravers, and weavers. The stream of immigration from other countries, mostly of unskilled workers, continued steadily, and by 1890 as many as forty-five languages were spoken. Today eighty-three per cent of the population is of foreign birth or ancestry. The Italians, who constitute the largest of the foreign-born population groups, have jealously preserved their ethnic identity. The Poles, Syrians, Armenians, and French-Canadians also form large and cohesive racial groups. The International Institute sponsors each year a three-day carnival in which fourteen or more national groups appear in the costumes of their native lands, and re-enact in exact detail the age-old pageantry of their countries.

Built and populated almost overnight, Lawrence at first was totally lacking in many of the actual necessities of community life. There was no store in the town until Amos Pillsbury in 1846 brought supplies up the river in a gondola and set up shop near the Andover bridge. In 1847, passenger train service was first introduced by the Boston and Maine Railroad. The first newspaper, the Merrimac Courier, was issued in 1846, and in the same year the first religious services were held in the Free Will Baptist Church. Following the granting of the city charter in 1853, Charles S. Storrow, a director of the Essex Company, was elected the first mayor.

The abnormally rapid growth of the town, coupled with the focusing of its builders' attention upon industrial production rather than on social

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evolution, naturally resulted in unfortunate living conditions. Sanitation, proper heating, and ventilation were lacking. Overcrowding, low wages, and long working hours prevailed. Little consideration was given in the design of factory buildings to the health or safety of the operatives.

In 1860 the roof of the Pemberton Mill crashed in. The débris took fire and 525 workers trapped within the building were killed or injured. A jury attributed the disaster to flimsy wall construction. In 1890 a tornado swept across the southern part of the city, killing and injuring many persons and destroying property. Though the misery caused by this 'act of God' had no essential connection with the wretchedness resulting from labor conditions, the psychological effect was cumulative. In 1912 the labor problem of the city reached a climax and the workers began to demonstrate in protest against allegedly intolerable conditions. The result was a strike into which the Industrial Workers of the World, led by 'Big Bill' Haywood, injected themselves with telling effect. More than three hundred arrests of strikers on charges ranging from riot to murder followed.

One of the most spectacular incidents which developed in the conflict was the arrest of Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti. Ettor, a member of the general executive board of the I.W.W., had been summoned from New York and elected chairman of the strike committee. Giovannitti was editor of an Italian labor paper. In the midst of a clash between police and strikers on January 25, 1912, an Italian worker, Anna LoPezzi, was shot and killed. The two conspicuous labor leaders were arrested as accessories to murder, bail was denied, and they remained helpless in jail until the end of the strike.

It was in this strike that the 'Exodus of Children' occurred. Partly to relieve the desperate conditions which accompanied the strike and partly to call the attention of the country to the struggle, the strike committee published an appeal in the New York Call to working-class families in other cities to adopt workers' children during the strike. Shortly there- after the first group of children arrived in New York and were greeted at the Grand Central Station by cheering crowds.

Subsequent investigation by a congressional committee gave the following findings:

Sixty thousand of the city's 86,000 people were dependent on earnings from the textile mills with a weekly wage averaging $8.76. The textile industry had become a family industry. Wives worked beside their hus- bands in the mill. Half the children above 14 years of age were also em- ployed. Many of these workers lived in wooden fire-traps of which the dark and damp rooms were breeding places of moral and physical disease. Malnutrition was universal; the chief articles of diet were oleomargarine, condensed milk, and a cheap meat stew.

The strikers won, although the terms of settlement were not superficially impressive - a wage increase of about one cent an hour, and the privilege of returning to work without discrimination against strikers or leaders.

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Lawrence

There are today thirty-eight local trade unions in Lawrence which send delegates to four central labor bodies, the Allied Printing Trades' Council, the Building Trades' Council, the Carpenters' District Council of Law- rence and Vicinity, and the Central Labor Union. In 1937 Lawrence was made the center of a national textile organizing campaign by the Com- mittee for Industrial Organization. Although woolen mills still predomi- nate, there has been a growth in diversified industries. A report of the Chamber of Commerce for 1936 gave a total of 155 industries, and an estimated payroll of $23,560,680. Besides textiles other manufactures are paper and soap. The Champion-International Paper Company is one of the largest coated paper concerns in the world, and the Wood Mill of the American Woolen Company is the largest single woolen mill.

TOUR - 5 m.

E. from Broadway (State 28) on Haverhill St. (State 110).

I. St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, near Hampshire St., founded by the Augustinian Fathers in 1848, is in the Gothic manner.

2. The Common, between Haverhill and Common Sts., is surrounded by public buildings, schools, and churches. Near the pond stands a large wooden flagpole which commemorates the Flag Day celebration held by the vigilantes in protest against the strike of 1912. In the granite founda- tion is a tablet which reads: 'The gift of Joseph Shattuck [a Boston, Springfield, and Lawrence banker] to the people of Lawrence, as a per- petual reminder of October 12, 1912, when 32,000 men and women of the city marched under the flag for God and Country.'

L. from Haverhill St. on Jackson St .; R. from Jackson St. on Elm St .; L. from Elm St. on East Haverhill St.

3. The Bodwell House (private), 33 East Haverhill St., erected about 1708 (ells added later), is the only surviving landmark of the days before the made-to-order city was built.

Retrace East Haverhill St .; L. from East Haverhill St. on Elm St .; R. from Elm St. on Union St .; L. from Union St. on Haverhill St .; R. from Haver- hill St. on Prospect St.

4. From the grounds of the Lawrence General Hospital, Prospect St., there is an unparalleled View of Industrial Lawrence, red-brick chimneys emitting their smoke periodically; miles of red-brick factories with clock towers and small-paned windows; the canal with its dull look of cooling metal.

R. from Prospect St. on Canal St.

5. The North Canal, Union St., is about 5330 feet in length. This and the South Canal across the Merrimack were startling engineering feats in their

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day. The North Canal was built in connection with the great Lawrence Dam in 1845, and diverts the Merrimack waters to supply the great mills which lie on the left along Canal St. The South Canal was built in 1866 and is about 2000 feet in length.

L. from Canal St. on Island St.

6. The Lawrence Experimental Station of the State Board of Health (open), the first institution of its kind in America, was established in 1887 for bacteriological and sewage disposal research. One of the early results of experimentation was the construction of the municipal filter, the first large sand filter in the country. The Station has been visited by sanitary and medical experts from many countries.

Retrace Island St .; L. from Island St. on Canal St.

7. The Pacific Print Works is the largest print works in the world. The Lower Pacific Mill is a worsted plant. Also in the same group is the Pacific Cotton Mill (all open by permission at the office). Extending for more than half a mile, they occupy the entire block beyond the intersection of Amesbury St. The first combing machines in the country were set up here.

Retrace Canal St .; R. from Canal St. on Union St.

8. The Wood Mill (open by permission), near Merrimack St., built in 1905 by the American Woolen Company, is the largest woolen mill in the world, more than one third of a mile long, 126 feet wide, and 6 stories high. It contains under one roof more than 30 acres of floor space.

R. from Union St. on Merrimack St .; R. from Merrimack St. on Broadway. 9. The Great Stone Dam, immediately above the O'Leary Bridge, was built in 1845 to furnish water-power from the falls of the river, and was a notable engineering achievement of the time. It withstood the floods of 1936, which otherwise must have devastated the city.

IO. The Arlington Mills (open by permission before 1), established in 1865, were the first in the country to manufacture black alpacas and mohairs. They are devoted largely to worsted manufacture and carding and comb- ing wool for spinners. The mills have also an exclusive process for the removal of grease from wool.

LEXINGTON . A Town of Heroic Past

Town: Alt. 201, pop. 10,813, sett. 1640, incorp. 1713.

Railroad Station: Lexington Station, Massachusetts Ave., serving B. & M. R.R. Bus Stations: Lexington R.R. Station for B. & M. Transportation Co. Lexington Center for Granite Stages.

Local Busses: Frequent service to neighboring towns, 10g.

Accommodations: No hotels; several inns and boarding-houses.

Swimming: Parker Field (pool).

Information: Cary Memorial Library, 1874 Massachusetts Ave.

THE town of Lexington today presents nothing of its heroic past, little of its ancient rustic calm, and still less of its brief industrial fever. It is a haven of quiet streets and comfortable homes, free of industrial ugliness and urban squalor. For 364 days of the year Lexington runs along in the placid groove of a suburb of Boston. But on each April 19 the town plunges back into the past and relives its part in ushering in the American Revolution.

There was no permanent settlement at Cambridge Farms, as Lexington was first called, until about 1642. The settlers supplied the main town of Cambridge with hay and wood, raised food for themselves, wove coarse fabrics for clothing, and erected a few rude houses. In 1691 the General Court recognized the community as a separate parish.

Lexington furnished 148 men for the wars against the French and the Indians between the years 1756 and 1763. Those who survived formed the nucleus of the militia that gathered when the threat to Boston by the British in April, 1775, roused Lexington to a quick response. The town's minister, the Reverend Jonas Clarke, sympathetic to the cause of the rebellion, led his fellow townsmen to join with Boston in resistance. He formed a Committee of Correspondence to keep in touch with develop- ments. So lively was the resentment of Lexington's patriots that in 1773 resolutions were sent to the Legislature affirming that their people 'would be ready to sacrifice our estates and everything dear in life, yes, and life itself, in support of the common cause.'

On April 19, 1775, local farmers gathered on Lexington Green to resist the troops of General Gage. Gage had laid plans to confiscate the stores of muskets and ammunition at near-by Concord. It was believed at the time that he was also planning to capture the Revolutionary leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who had fled to Lexington after re- ceiving a report early in April that Parliament had ordered their arrest for trial in England. It now seems probable, however, that Gage did not even know that Adams and Hancock were hiding in the region. The

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purpose of this expedition was undoubtedly twofold: to overawe the people by a show of British strength and thus to check a movement toward unity that was beginning to grow in the New England Colonies; and to capture the stores at Concord.

Despite the care with which Gage's plans were laid, news of them leaked out, and Dr. Joseph Warren on the eve of the battle dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes to Concord and Lexington to warn the patriot leaders of the danger. By two o'clock in the morning the Green at Lexing- ton was swarming with Minutemen, and the roll was called by Captain John Parker, veteran of the French wars.

At four-thirty in the morning word reached Parker that the enemy was in sight. Some fifty or sixty Minutemen lined up hastily on the Green and received the famous order from Parker: 'Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.' A few minutes later the little band of farmers faced four hundred redcoats, the advance guard of British regulars, under Major Pitcairn.

'Disperse, ye rebels!' shouted Pitcairn. The men of Lexington did not stir. Twice the major repeated his command; then a musket shot rang out. The British officer ordered his regulars to open fire. The Minutemen returned it, but so inferior were their numbers that Parker ordered an immediate retreat.

When the regulars had passed on, marching toward Concord, they left behind them eight patriots dead and nine wounded. The British casualties were only two wounded. The stores at Concord were destroyed. The British retreated to Boston, harassed by the Minutemen, who followed them, firing from behind stone walls and trees. The battle had small im- mediate result, but the stand of the Lexington farmers was the beginning of a dogged resistance which ultimately ended in defeat for the forces of the King.

Meanwhile Adams and Hancock were hiding a few miles out of Lexington. As they ran across a field, Adams shouted, 'It is a fine day!' 'Very pleasant,' answered one of his companions, taking it to be a reference to the weather, and rather surprised at such small talk. 'I mean,' said Adams, 'this day is a glorious day for America.'

The name of Lexington spread over the land. Hunters in Kentucky baptized their camp Lexington. Twenty-four counties, cities, and towns by the name of Lexington scattered over the country testify to the pride awakened by the events of April 19, 1775.

Exhaustion and unrest were the post-Revolutionary lot of Lexington, as of most communities in Massachusetts. Debts mounted as business stagnated. Despite their passion for liberty and democracy, however, Lexington farmers did not join the insurrection of embittered debtors led by Daniel Shays; on the contrary, the town sent militia to aid in putting it down.

By the end of the eighteenth century the town had recovered a peaceful

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Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 29

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