Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 43

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

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WILLIAMSTOWN Buckwheat, Barley, and Gentlemen

Town: Alt. 603, pop. 4,272, sett. 1749, incorp. 1765.

Railroad Station: Williamstown Station, lower end of Cole Ave., for B. & M. R.R.

Bus Station: Drugstore, Williamstown Center, for Berkshire Street Ry. Co. Accommodations: Inns, tourist houses, and two hotels, one open summers only. Information: Williams Inn.

WILLIAMSTOWN lies in a valley among encircling hills. Into it lead winding roads which thread the wild and lovely hill country, coming suddenly upon fields of corn, buckwheat, and barley, the outskirts of this serene and dignified college town.

For more than a hundred years after the Pilgrims had settled at Plym- outh, little was known of this remote corner of northwestern Massachu- setts, cut off by the high mountain wall of the Hoosacs. It could be reached only by the old Mohawk warpath through the Taconic hills, along which came the Indians of the Five Tribes to spread terror through the settlements.

The destiny of Williamstown was decided in 1755 when, before leaving for the French and Indian War, Colonel Ephraim Williams penned a clause in his will leaving a bequest to be used toward the establishment and support of 'a Free School forever in the township west of Fort Massachusetts, called West Hoosac, provided it be given the name of Williamstown.'

Six weeks later Colonel Williams, at the head of his troops, was killed. Not till 1790 was the free school started. Three years later it was given a charter as Williams College, and Dr. Fitch, its first president, met with a faculty made up of four members. In those days, church and college were closely interbound. Students were required to attend chapel every morning and church on Sundays, and there were frequent extra meetings for prayer at noon and in the evenings. Yet despite these holy activities the student body was far from sanctified. Morning chapel often found the Bible nailed to the pulpit, and once it is even rumored to have been burnt. In vain the pious teachers labored with revivals and prayer to dispel the Devil.

Nevertheless, despite the repeated onslaughts of Satan, both town and college continued to grow. After the Civil War, many fine sections of land were purchased by people of wealth for use as summer residences. The college buildings increased in number and in beauty of architecture.

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Spring Street was opened and, with its banks, offices, theater, police court, and new Colonial post-office, became the center of civic activity.

At the present time, as always, the town's outstanding institution is Williams College. Williams has been known by long tradition as 'the college of gentlemen,' a spirit created by its first president. In keeping with this aspiration for quality rather than size the college has remained small and has quietly turned its efforts toward culture rather than ostentation.

TOUR - 20 m.

N. from State 2 into US 7.

I. A monument at the junction of US 7 and State 2 marks the Site of the West Hoosac Blockhouse of 1756, otherwise known as Fort Hoosac.

2. The Robert Hawkins House (open during summer as Cozy Inn), also known as the Old Well Sweep House, corner of Simonds and North Hoosac Rd., was built in 1765. It is a one-and-a-half-story white clap- boarded structure with dormer windows, massive central chimney, and a large enclosed porch. The old well sweep with field-stone masonry still stands on one side of the lawn.

3. The River Bend Tavern (private), opposite, was built in 1750 by Colonel Simonds and opened under his genial hospitality. Rye and Indian bread and beans for the Revolutionary soldiers were baked in the huge stone ovens of this old house.

R. from US 7 into Sand Springs Rd.

4. The Sand Springs (visitors welcome), enclosed by an aluminum fence, form a sparkling pool. The spring flows up naturally through 3000 feet of sand and gravel, and had been used for hundreds of years before the coming of the white man. As early as 1800 a log hut was built to accom- modate those who wished to bathe. Today the waters are used in the manufacture of ginger ale as well as for medicinal purposes.

Retrace Sand Spring Rd .; L. from Sand Spring Rd. into US 7; L. from US 7 into State 2.

5. Williams College Campus covers an area of approximately 350 acres and is valued with its buildings at $5,000,000. Williams College takes its architectural theme from the work of Cram and Ferguson, who be- tween 1912 and 1928 designed the auditorium known as Chapin Hall, the Library, and three dormitories. All are of red New Hampshire brick with limestone trim, and all belong in the English Georgian phase of the archi- tects' work.

It is told that in 1806 five young students met, in a retired spot, to pray for a mis- sion to heathens. During a storm which suddenly broke, they fled to shelter be- neath a near-by haystack. The odd Haystack Monument, with its pedestal support-

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ing a huge marble world outlined with five continents, marks the spot, and the granting of their prayer. Mission Park, the field in which they met, is now a part of the college, and commemorates the birthplace of the first American Foreign Mission.

The most striking building on the campus is the Thompson Memorial Chapel (1905), which stands on a high embankment at the right, a massive structure of fine- grained limestone in English Gothic, from which to a height of 120 feet rises a magnificent square tower with four pinnacles. Chapin Hall, with an imposing façade of Corinthian columns, contains the Trustees' Room and a spacious audito- rium seating over 1300 people, with a large electric organ of unusual size and beautiful tone. Within, the considerable decorative detail of carved woodwork, especially the massive pillars of teak from Burma, are worth inspecting.

Three separate large buildings house the laboratories of chemistry, biology, and physics.

Other noted campus buildings are West College (1790), a plain four-story brick building, the first one built by the college and now a dormitory; the President's House, an oblong two-story white frame dwelling of the early Federal period, with a roof-rail and a doorway above which is a delicate fan-light; and the Van Rensselaer Manor House, now the home of Sigma Phi Fraternity, but formerly the late Georgian residence in Albany of Stephen Van Rensselaer, last of the Dutch patroons, projector of the Erie Canal, and founder of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, N.Y. Van Rensselaer cast the deciding vote in Congress for the election of John Quincy Adams as President, by closing his eyes, praying to God, opening them, and finding Adams's name printed on a ballot at his feet. When the demolition of the house was ordered at Albany, Williamstown acquired it and brought it here, owing to Van Rensselaer's close friendship with Amos Eaton, an early professor at Williams who had surveyed the route of the Erie Canal.

At Jesup Hall the Williams Little Theater presents three programs of one-act plays each year. The Cap and Bells, another college dramatic organization, puts on two elaborate productions annually.

6. The Green River Mansion (private), 0.8 m. E. of the junction with US 7, was built in 1772 by Captain Smedley of the North Williamstown militia. Colonel Benedict Arnold stopped at this house on the evening of May 6, 1775, and gave Captain Smedley's wife three pounds to bake a batch of rye and Indian bread for the soldiers at Fort Ticonderoga.

Retrace on State 2; L. from State 2 into State 43; L. from State 43 on country road at Sweats Corner.

7. The Hopper (reached by footpath) is a huge hollow in the Mt. Greylock Reservation resembling a vast grain hopper, shadowed by the tall peaks of Mts. Greylock, Fitch, and Williams, with Prospect Mountain serving as a giant plug in the north end of the cavity. New paths developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps are Hopper Trail to Greylock summit, Money Brook Trail up Mt. Williams and Mt. Fitch, connecting with the main Appalachian Trail (see Tour 9).

8. On Money Brook Trail is Money Brook Falls, one of the highest in the Berkshires, with a sheer descent of about 80 feet, and 200 to 300 feet of cascades. Near-by is a cave where, tradition has it, Pine Tree Shillings were counterfeited in Colonial days, thus giving the brook its name.

9. In the Williamstown area of the reservation lie Goodell Hollow, a favorite skiing place, and Deer Hill, a spruce-clad mountain spur where deer 'yard-up' in considerable numbers during the winter months.

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Woburn

Retrace on country road; L. from country road into State 43; R. from State 43 into US 7.

IO. A footpath (L) at the junction of US 7 and State 2 over Phelps Knoll on the eastern slope of Petersburg Mountain leads to McMaster's Cave, from the entrance of which is a descent of 250 feet underground.

L. from US 7 into State 2.

II. The Taconic Trail climbs 1200 feet in a distance of 3 miles.

Retrace State 2; L. from State 2 into US 7.

12. At Flora's Glen Brook a trail leads (L) into Flora's Glen, where William Cullen Bryant, while a student at Williams College, is said to have gained inspiration for the lighter passages in 'Thanatopsis.'

13. The Capes to the Berkshires Bridle Trail (see Tour 12) starts from its western end in the northern section of Williamstown.

WOBURN . Home of a Yankee Count

City: Alt. 83, pop. 19,695, sett. 1640, incorp. town 1642, city 1888.

Railroad Stations: Woburn, Woburn Square, for B. & M. R.R. (Lowell Divi- sion); Montvale, Montvale Ave., for B. & M. R.R. (Lowell Division and Stoneham Branch).

Accommodations: Limited to boarding and rooming houses.

Information: Public Library, 45 Pleasant St.

THE territory of Woburn is diversified by detached hills and rounded knobs, streams, valleys, ravines, and glens. The city has both a residential and an industrial aspect. Foreign immigration, bringing in Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox groups, broke down the sectarian homo- geneity of the town and for a while upset the Protestant town fathers; but religious differences settled down in time, and the permanent effect was merely to give the community a somewhat cosmopolitan cast, the population now consisting very largely of native-born Irish, Italians, Swedes, and Greeks.

In 1636, six years after Charlestown was founded, its residents began to feel crowded and the town fathers selected Woburn for more land for their farms.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century two incidents occurred in the domestic life of the community which caused a pleasurable agitation among the decorous citizens. One was the case of Ichabod Richardson,

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who was seized by the British while on board a privateer and kept a prisoner for about seven years. His wife, convinced that her husband was dead, married Josiah Richardson. Upon his release the prisoner came home to find his family under another man's roof. The matter was adjusted by the good wife's returning to the bed and board of her first husband. A more realistic transaction of about the same date was the barter by one Simeon Reed of his wife to James Butters of Wilmington for a yoke of oxen.

The building of the Middlesex Canal in 1803 played a major part in the town's economic development. During the first half of the nineteenth century, Woburn rapidly changed to an industrial community, with shoe-manufacturing and leather-tanning predominating. In the ten years before the Civil War the increased demand for unskilled and semi- skilled cheap labor led to an influx of foreign races. By 1865, there were twenty-one tanning and currying establishments and four factories for the manufacture of patent and enameled leather. Later, machinery, glue, chemicals, and foundry products were added to the list. Before the crisis of 1929 there were fifty-three manufacturing establishments with more than two thousand employees, more than fifty per cent being leather or shoe companies.

TOUR - 6 m.

W. from City Square; on Pleasant St.

I. The Winn Memorial (Woburn Public) Library (about 1877) was the first of H. H. Richardson's remarkable series of libraries. The architect did not achieve in this plan the complete mastery of his profession he was soon to show; yet the boldness of planning to fit functional needs, the simplicity, the symmetrical design which maintained delicate balance, the vivid carving - all these notably displayed in the stark wing - atone for his failure to merge all the units into one harmonious whole. In the tower is a so-called 'Antique Kitchen' (open upon application, 9-5 except Sun. and holidays), a curious potpourri of mineral and ornithological col- lections.

2. The Statue of Count Rumford stands in front of the Library. Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814) was a native of Woburn, an expatriate, a noted scientist, statesman, philanthropist, economist, and military leader. His birthplace (see below) is usually visited by distinguished foreign scientists who come to America, and was one of the first places sought by Anton Lang, the Christus of the Oberammergau Players, when he was here. This statue, revealing a typical shrewd Yankee face and wiry figure, the latter fashionably garbed in military court dress, is a replica of one by Casper Zumbusch which stands in the English Gardens at Munich.

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Woburn

Thompson was a boyhood friend of Woburn's other celebrity, Loammi Baldwin, the engineer. Together they tramped ten miles daily each way to Harvard Col- lege. At fourteen Thompson's scientific knowledge enabled him to calculate a solar eclipse within four seconds of accuracy, and during his years of apprentice- ship to a storekeeper in Salem he was always busy with chemical and mechanical experiments. At eighteen he removed to Concord, New Hampshire (then called Rumford). Here at nineteen he married the widow of Colonel Benjamin Rolfe, a woman whose wealth and influence helped to further his career.

Suspected of Tory sympathies prior to the Revolution, Thompson migrated (1776) to England and thence to Bavaria, countries which shared thereafter the fruits of his versatile genius. In 1791 he was created a count of the Holy Roman Empire, and chose his title to accord with the name of his wife's home town. He finally returned to England and presented to the Royal Society his most important scientific theory, that heat was a form of motion. Late in life he married again, this time the widow of the scientist Lavoisier.

L. from Pleasant St. on Woburn Parkway.

3. Horn Pond Mountain (off Woburn Parkway) must be ascended by footpath. East from the summit are the charming small lakes of the Mystic Valley, the Boston Customhouse Tower, and the Blue Hills.

Retrace Woburn Parkway; from Woburn Parkway on Pleasant St. to City Sq.

4. The Hiker's Monument, a very masculine bronze, is the work of a woman, Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, first wife of H. H. Kitson, the sculptor. At the left corner, across from this statue, is a unique souvenir, a Ventilator Cowl from the United States Ship Maine, retrieved from Havana Harbor some time after the explosion of 1898 which precipitated the Spanish War. Its battered hood is green with sea stain, and its base is covered with coquina, the marine shell growth of West Indian waters. Preserved from further wear of elements by a glass case, it is a visible embodiment of the tragically ambiguous slogan: 'Remember the Maine.' L. from City Square into Park St.

5. The Ancient Burying Ground, junction of Park and Center Sts., dates from 1642, and contains the graves of ancestors of Presidents Pierce, Garfield, Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison. The quaintest inscription is that of Mrs. Elizabeth Cotton:

If a virgin marry, she hath not sinned; Nevertheless she shall have trouble in the flesh; But he that giveth her not in marriage doth better; She is happier if she so abide.

Retrace Park St .; L. from Park St. on Main St.

6. The Old Middlesex Canal Channel borders both sides of the highway near the railroad tracks. This canal, some 25 miles long, ran from the present city of Somerville to Lowell. It was opened in 1803, the work chiefly of Loammi Baldwin, more popularly known as the promoter of the famous Baldwin apple. Passenger and freight boats were drawn by horse or mule plodding along a 'tow-path.'

L. from Main St. into Elm St.

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Main Street and Village Green

7. The Baldwin Mansion (private), still occupied by Loammi's descend- ants, has been subjected to many alterations since its erection in 1661, and retains little of its original character. Remodeled in 1800, it now stands, three-story square, with white pilasters at the corners and an elaborate doorway. In the fields are two aged Baldwin apple trees, sprung from the first parent.

8. Count Rumford's Birthplace (open weekdays 9-5; adm. free), 90 Elm St., a modest buff-colored frame house, with a combination of gambrel and lean-to roofs, was erected in 1714 by the Count's grandfather, plain Mr. Thompson. The future count lived here only during his babyhood; his family soon removing to another Woburn residence. Within the house is a steep stairway with two turns, which is enclosed by an unplastered brick wall. The white paneling in the various rooms, however, indicates greater prosperity. On the first floor hangs an oil copy of the Gains- borough portrait of 'The Count,' of which the original is at Harvard University. Rumford was the only Yankee painted by Gainsborough. It is interesting to compare the avid youthful grace and charm here revealed with the severe maturity in the statue before the Library.

Upstairs, the chief object of interest is one of the original Rumford Roasters. As a scientist, Rumford was especially interested in heat, and this is one of the first fireless cookers marketed. In effect, it is a cylindrical iron oven which when heated retained its heat a long time.

The garden at the rear of the house perpetuates the Count's fondness, among several less gentle tastes, for flowers. The cannon in the yard was captured from the British in Portland Harbor in the War of 1812, and its position is a comment, probably unconsciously ironic, on the Count's Tory sympathies. Another irony, equally unconscious and far more amazing, was the invitation to him from Presi- dent Adams to return and command West Point. Wisely, Rumford remained abroad. He died and was buried in France.

WORCESTER . Heart of the Commonwealth

City: Alt. 492, pop. 190,471, sett. 1673, town 1722, incorp. 1780, city 1848. Railroad Station: Union Station, Washington Square, for B. & A., B. & M., and N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.

Bus Stations: 92 Franklin St. for Greyhound; 3 Salem Square for B. & W .; Washington Square for New England Lines; 60 Foster St. for Prescott Short Line, Berkshire; 72 Franklin St. for Great Eastern; 203 Front St. for I.R.T. Accommodations: Eighteen hotels.

Information: Chamber of Commerce, 32 Franklin St .; A.A.A., Bancroft Hotel Building; Young Men's Christian Association, 766 Main St.

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Worcester

WORCESTER is favored in appearance by its terrain. Hills break its surface everywhere, even in the core of the city, and rescue it from monotony. Zoning and city planning have co-operated to increase its variety and beauty. Factories are counterbalanced by municipal parks.

'Heart of the Commonwealth' is the emblem engraved upon the munici- pal seal. The claim is not only geographical but industrial. Excellent facilities for transport, diversified manufactures, and flourishing mer- cantile establishments give the city a central position and a vital func- tion in the life of New England.

To the visitor the first impression of the mid-State metropolis will be one of tremendous activity, commercial and industrial. This impression will, however, soon be supplemented by a realization that Worcester is equally a cultural center, interested in the arts, in higher learning, and in his- torical research.

The old Worcester halls was the scene of dramatic, musical and civic events unsurpassed in New England. Here Fanny Kemble, Bernhardt ('la divine Sarah'), Joe Jefferson, Edwin Booth, the beautiful Lily Langtry, and Charlotte Cushman were seen in never-to-be-forgotten rôles. Here the lovely Parepa-Rosa and the daring Lola Montez danced. Here Patti and Jenny Lind sang, Rubinstein played his own compositions, and Ole Bull enthralled the city with the tones he evoked from his violin. Here appeared many celebrities, the spectacular Victoria Woodhull, Dickens, P. T. Barnum, Thackeray, Kossuth, Deborah Sampson, the Revolutionary Amazon, and Abraham Lincoln. Here Emerson spoke for abolition and, six years later, Frederick Douglass and John Brown lec- tured passionately on the same subject. Here shortly after John Brown's death, Thoreau appeared with an address on the martyr to emancipation. In 1854 'The Angel Gabriel' (J. S. Orr) fanatically attacked the Papacy. Here Matthew Arnold complained of having been served cold oysters at luncheon. Here was exhibited in 1818 Columbus, the first elephant seen in America, and here the amazing P. T. Barnum gravely produced an ancient colored woman who he declared was George Washington's nurse - 161 years old!

In Mechanics Hall were held for many years Worcester's famous Musical Festivals, which are still a noteworthy annual event, held now in the Memorial Auditorium.

Worcester is the home of six institutions of learning: Clark University, Holy Cross College, Teachers' College, Worcester Academy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Assumption College.

A brief list of outstanding Worcester names with their major contribu- tions to civilization would include Ichabod Washburn, wire-drawing processes and wire forms; William A. Wheeler, metal machine tools; Thomas E. Daniels, power planing machine; H. H. Biglow, leather heel- ing machine; George Crompton, looms. Not to be omitted, also, is the name of J. C. Stoddard, inventor of a steam calliope, which he played

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Main Street and Village Green

in an excursion from Worcester to Fitchburg in 1856, greatly startling the citizens along the way.

At the time of the building of the Blackstone Canal (1828), laborers came over in great numbers from Southern Ireland and were followed in 1845 by many of their countrymen during the Potato Famine in Ireland. Many French-Canadian workers came to Worcester after the Civil War, and today they and their descendants number some thirty thousand. Be- ginning 1828, the demand for skilled engineers and craftsmen attracted many Swedish immigrants. It is estimated that in 1935 one fifth of the population was of Swedish descent. At the close of the nineteenth cen- tury began an influx of Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Italians, Greeks, Arme- nians, Syrians, and Albanians, which terminated only with the outbreak of the World War. The Negroes also form a definite group. Such diver- gent racial strains have brought to the city cultural backgrounds which differ widely. This has had the effect of giving Worcester a cosmopolitan stamp, preserved by fraternal organizations, singing societies and ath- letic associations of the various groups.

In 1674 Daniel Gookin visited the Nipmuck Indians with the Apostle Eliot. Eight years later he returned as the leader of a small group. But in 1702, Queen Anne's War drove out the little band of settlers just as they were about to enjoy the fruits of their labors. In 1713, at the close of the war, one of the refugees, Jonas Rice, returned to Worcester, and the home he built marked the beginning of the permanent settlement. Within five years two hundred people had established themselves here. The rumblings of the next half century, which were to culminate in the Revolutionary War, found a responsive echo here, and the town ulti- mately set up its own Patriot's Committee. The patriot publisher, Isaiah Thomas, escaped from the Boston Tories to Worcester with his printing press, and here in a hospitable environment continued printing his paper, The Massachusetts Spy. The broadsides and pamphlets which poured from his presses had much to do with consolidating the various revolu- tionary elements throughout New England.

In 1786, the courthouse was besieged by impoverished farmers, a major demonstration of Shays's short-lived rebellion, frustrated by Chief Justice Artemas Ward (see No. 16, Motor Tour, below). Significant also was the action of a Worcester lower court in 1791 in a case involving the rights of a Negro slave. The court decided that the clause in the Bill of Rights stating that 'all men are born free and equal' was applicable.

Textile manufacture started in 1789 when the first piece of corduroy came off a Worcester loom. In 1789 a factory (Worcester Cotton Manu- factory) was organized, but this attempt proved premature owing to the primitive stage of mechanical development. Cotton goods could still be imported from England far more cheaply. Domestic paper, however, found a ready market. The city became a manufacturing center after the advent of steam power. Then, in 1828, the Blackstone Canal was

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Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people, Part 43

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