USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people > Part 61
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MIDDLEBOROUGH, 15.3 m. (town, alt. IIo, pop. 8865, sett. 1660, incorp. 1669), was known to the Indians as Nemasket. The first white men to visit the region were three shipwrecked Frenchmen, who were promptly taken by the Indians as slaves. Children and grandchildren of the Pilgrims settled here. Middleborough was spared in the early months of King Philip's War because of the friendly relations between the inhab- itants and the Indians, but eventually it was destroyed. After the war the settlers returned and rebuilt it.
In the 19th century the inhabitants turned to manufacturing products from straw hats to fire engines. Today there are more than 40 industries in the town, and its manufactures include ice bags, heating pads, hospital supplies, caskets, fire apparatus, and metal products. Five firms produce shoes.
The Church of Our Savior, Center St., was designed in 1898 by Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson, architects known especially for their ecclesiasti- cal work. Perpendicular Gothic in style, the church has a central tower and shallow transepts.
Left from Middleborough on State 105 LAKEVILLE, 3.9 m. (town, alt. 94, pop. 1443, sett. 1717, incorp. 1853), a name suggestive of extensive areas of cool waters. This town was once an Indian settlement. Sassamon was deeded the area by King Philip's brother-in-law. In 1674 Sassamon revealed Philip's war plans to the
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From Plymouth to E. Providence, R.I.
English. Branded as a traitor, he was subsequently murdered, allegedly by three of his race, whose execution by the English precipitated the war prematurely, thus causing Philip's final defeat. The Indians continued to make their homes about the picturesque ponds of Lakeville until the year 1930, which marked the death of Charlotte Mitchell, a half-breed, the last of a once powerful and numerous tribe. Although small industries have flourished and died, the town has always been essentially agricultural.
Pond Cemetery, on the shore of Assawampsett Pond, left from the center on State 18, 1.2 m., contains many Indian graves.
At 17.3 m. is the junction with State 28 (see Tour 19).
At 23.7 m. is the junction with State 104.
Right on State 104 is RAYNHAM, 1.2 m. (town, alt. 51, pop. 2208, sett. 1652, in- corp. 1731), a farming and poultry-raising community, originally the east precinct of Taunton, and named in honor of Lord Townshend of Rainham, England. The settlement was left unharmed during the Indian War inasmuch as the local forge had provided King Philip with tools and repaired his weapons. The earlier settlers, however, had suffered much at the hands of the Indians, and several of their number had been massacred. The victims were interred at Squawbetty, a burial ground on the west bank of the Taunton River, now so thickly overgrown with brush that it is difficult to get to it.
On State 104, 0.4 m. south of the Center, is the Site of an Iron Forge locally claimed to be the first in America, established by the Leonard family in 1652 and operated by them for more than a century. Other early industries were shipbuilding, shoe manufacturing, lumbering, and flour-milling. The only industries now surviving are a rivet works and a bleachery.
West of the intersection with State 104, US 44 enters a thickly settled, highly industrialized area.
TAUNTON, 24.8 m. (see TAUNTON).
In Taunton Center US 44 crosses State 138 (see Tour 25) and State 140 (see Tour 23B) (Rotary Traffic, US 44, R).
US 44 proceeds southwest, traversing a rural area.
At 31.8 m. is Anawan Rock (L), 150 yards from the highway. This huge conglomerate, about 80 feet long by 25 feet high, marks the site of the last major incident of King Philip's War, the surrender of Anawan, the bravest of Philip's generals, to Captain Church in 1676. Near the south- east end is an angular opening, like a room, with its sides nearly perpen- dicular, where Anawan and his men are said to have encamped.
At 33.4 m. at the crossroads stands the Anawan House, a typical old New England stage hostelry and inn.
I. Right at Anawan House on a side road is the Rehoboth State Forest, 3 m. Great Meadow Hill (alt. 265) is a State park for picnicking and camping, reforested with white pines and spruce. A Fire Tower on the hilltop (observer on duty here daily from Mar. to Nov.) offers a magnificent view of the rolling hilly countryside, partly forested and dotted with lakes and streams.
2. Left from the inn on the side road 1.3. m .; right here on a dirt road to 2.2 m .; left uphill to REHOBOTH (Hebrew: 'Enlargement'), 1.3 m. (town, alt. 256, pop. 2777, sett. 1636, incorp. 1645). Although the first settlers were Plymouth Congre- gationalists, Baptists were permitted to reside in Rehoboth if they were peaceable. A Baptist Church, the fourth in America, was founded in 1663, but owing to a vio- lent disagreement with the Congregational brethren, it moved to Swansea. The town was the scene of bloody fighting during King Philip's War, when all the garri-
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son houses were destroyed. The iron industry began early in the 18th century, and included the production of cast-iron plows. Today only a porcelain enamel company remains.
Goff Memorial Hall on Bay State Rd., a one-and-a-half-story brick structure given to the town by Darius and Lyman Goff, serves as an auditorium, public library, and museum. In the museum is an old Scotch sword. During the French and In- dian Wars, it was used by a Mr. Davidson, who is said to have answered an op- ponent's plea for quarter with 'Halves is all I can give!' - and forthwith pro- ceeded to demonstrate.
US 44, after passing through wooded country thickly dotted with boul- ders, traverses a rural section and reaches the Rhode Island Line at 39.4 m.
TOUR 11 : From NEW HAMPSHIRE LINE (Fitzwilliam) to CONNECTICUT LINE (Thompson), 64.3 m., State 12.
Via Winchendon, Ashburnham, Fitchburg, Leominster, Sterling, West Boyls- ton, Worcester, Auburn, Oxford, Webster, and Dudley.
B. & A. R.R. and N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. parallel the southern part of this route; B. & M. R.R. services the northern area.
Hard-surfaced roadbed; open all year.
Sec. a. NEW HAMPSHIRE LINE to WORCESTER, 43.5 m.
BETWEEN the New Hampshire State Line and Worcester, State 12 traverses a hilly farming country with widely separated cities.
State 12 crosses the Massachusetts State Line about 20 m. south of Keene, New Hampshire.
WINCHENDON, 3.3 m. (town, alt. 992, pop. 6603, sett. 1753, incorp. 1764), at the junction with US 202 (see Tour 13), is known as the 'Toy Town.' First known as Ipswich Canada, it received its present name of an old English town at its incorporation. The woodenware industry dates from 1827. Toys became the chief product and Winchendon was one of the leading toy-manufacturing towns. Educational toys have been a specialty.
At 4 m. on State 12 stands a huge Rocking Horse, Winchendon's sign, symbolic of its chief industry.
ASHBURNHAM, 11.4 m. (town, alt. 1037, pop. 2051; sett. 1736, incorp. 1765), was founded upon seven grants of land: the Starr Grant given to the heirs of Dr. Thomas Starr, an army surgeon in the Pequot War; the Cambridge Grant (1734), to the town of Cambridge as compensation for . maintaining a bridge across the Charles between Brighton and Cam-
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From Fitzwilliam, N.H., to Thompson, Conn.
bridge; the Lexington Grant, sold in 1757 to 7 German immigrants and thereafter known as Dutch Farms; the Bluefield Grant, to three men for erecting an inn on the Northfield Rd .; the Converse Grant, to the heirs of Major James Converse of Woburn in recognition of services to the Colony; the Rolfe Grant, to the heirs of the Rev. Benjamin Rolfe of Haverhill, slain by the Indians in 1708; and the most important (1735), the Dorchester Canada, or Township Grant of six square miles divided among descendants of 60 soldiers from Dorchester who fought in the Canadian expedition of 1690.
Because of the town's rocky surface, large-scale agriculture has never been profitable, but dairying and fruit-growing are carried on. Of small industries the most important was, and still is, the manufacture of furni- ture from local timber.
Cushing Academy, a co-educational preparatory school, was founded by Thomas Parkman Cushing in 1874.
At 18.9 m. is the junction with State 2 (see Tour 2).
FITCHBURG, 21 m. (see FITCHBURG).
LEOMINSTER, 24.6 m. (city, alt. 409, pop. 21,894, sett. 1653, incorp. town 1740, city 1915), was originally a part of Lancaster Town (see Tour 7). In the first 50 years of its existence it had some manufacturing activity, and today less than one-fifth of its land area is devoted to agri- cultural pursuits, which center in orcharding and dairying. Combs were made as early as 1770, and by 1845 there were 24 factories producing them. As a substitute for the horn originally used, viscoloid has been developed. The du Pont Viscoloid Company is the most important industry in the town.
Once 75 per cent of the Nation's piano-cases were made here, but in 1935 this activity ceased. In that year but 67 industrial plants remained, turning out such diverse products as furniture, toys, combs, buttons, worsted dress fabrics, wool yarn, dress ornaments, paper, and paper boxes.
On the Common is an old Indian Mortar, a block of stone rudely hollowed out, about 18 inches in diameter and 8 inches in depth.
The Public Library contains in its Museum (open 9-9) a hornbook used by the Pilgrim Fathers; axes and hatchets made by the early settlers; a hand reel for winding yarn from a spinning wheel; wool card, shutters, and bobbins from hand looms; a sausage-filler made about 1790, and a number of books printed in Leominster between 1796 and 1813.
STERLING, 31.5 m. (town, alt. 500, pop. 1556, sett. 1720, incorp. 1781), was named for Lord Stirling.
In the domestic factory stage the chief industry was chair-making. Baltimore chairs became famous, and were shipped to the West Indies and to the Southern States for use on the cotton plantations, where they were called 'Yankee Sticks.' Clocks, hats, shirts, patterns, pottery, cider and vinegar, textiles, tannery products, and emery wheels were also made
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at various times. In 1828 Silas Lamson, a native, patented the crooked scythe snathes and started a business still carried on in Shelburne Falls. During the Civil War, Silas Stuart, another native, invented a machine for the manufacture of sewing-machine needles. The first standardized paper patterns for dressmaking were designed here in 1863 by Ebenezer Butterick, a tailor and shirtmaker. The shirt patterns met with such instant success that patterns for children's and women's clothes were added. Butterick Patterns and eventually The Delineator, a women's magazine, developed from this invention.
The town is now mainly agricultural, with fruit-growing predominant. The Sterling Cattle Show, established in 1857, is held on the Common every fall.
Left from Sterling on the Redstone Hill Rd., from which there is a fine view, is the junction with a road at 1.3 m .; which leads (R) to the Mary Sawyer House (open by permission), the home of Mary's Little Lamb.
The story runs that Mary and her father found two newborn lambs in the barn. One was so weak that Mary took it into the house and nursed it. The lamb became a pet and followed Mary about the farm. One day he followed her to school and Mary hid him beneath her desk. When she was called to the front for spelling class, the lamb followed her sedately down the aisle, to the amusement of the pupils, if not of the teacher.
The schoolhouse has been removed to South Sudbury (see Tour 4) by Henry Ford. The story has the distinction of being the first rhyme recorded by a phonograph. When the first record was made, Mr. Edison was asked to 'say something' into the machine. The first words that came to him were the verses of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb,' said to have been written by John Rowlstone, a resident of Sterling at the time Mary Sawyer lived there. New Hampshire, however, insists that the lamb and Mary belong to it.
At 36.2 m. State 12 crosses the Metropolitan Reservoir by a causeway. WEST BOYLSTON, 37.1 m. (town, alt. 495, pop. 2158, sett. 1642, incorp. 1808). Its 600 settlers were at first mainly engaged in agriculture but water-power, furnished by the Nashua, Quinnepoxet, and Still- water Rivers, eventually stimulated the building of textile mills and the manufacture of boots and shoes. In 1895 many manufacturing sites and extensive farmlands were purchased for the creation of the Wachusett Reservoir, which was completed in 1905. This hindered the industrial development of the town, now primarily a residential community.
Robert Bailey Thomas (1766-1846), originator of the Old Farmer's Almanac; Erastus Bigelow (1814-79), inventor of the power carpet loom; and Thomas Keyes, Jr., were born in West Boylston. Keyes invented an orrery, an instrument to illustrate the movement of the solar system, and also a stop-motion machine used in warping cloth.
At 43.6 m. is the junction with State 122A (see Tour 11A).
WORCESTER, 44.4 m. (see WORCESTER), is at the junction with State 9 (see Tour 8), State 122 (see Tour 23), and State 70 (see Tour 7). Sec. b. WORCESTER to CONNECTICUT LINE, 20.8 m.
South of Worcester, State 12 runs through a thinly settled area.
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From Fitzwilliam, N.H., to Thompson, Conn.
At 5.4 m. is STONEVILLE (alt. 564, Town of Auburn).
Left from Stoneville on a road skirting Dunn Pond is AUBURN, 0.8 m. (town, alt. 560, pop. 6535, sett. 1714, incorp. 1837), at first named Ward, for Artemas Ward, popular Revolutionary officer. Confusion between the words Ward and Ware caused the change in 1837 to the present name, probably suggested by Gold- smith's line, 'Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.'
Agriculture, the original occupation, was supplanted by industry that died out as the town became a residential suburb of Worcester.
At 8.4 m. is the junction with US 20 (see Tour 4).
At 10.5 m. is the junction with a dirt road.
Right on this road at 0.8 m. is the Birthplace of Clara Barton (adm. 25g). Clara Barton (1821-1912), the organizer of the American National Red Cross, was a teacher in New Jersey, working to popularize free schools. At the outbreak of the Civil War she went to the aid of the suffering soldiers. She labored in person on the battlefield, carrying her own supplies and never leaving the scene until all the wounded and dead had been removed or cared for. She also established search for the missing and helped to identify and mark the graves of the dead. In 1866-67 she lectured on incidents of the war. She went to Europe in 1869 for her health, and thus was in Switzerland at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. The day after the fall of the Commune she entered Paris and remained there eight months, creating work for the women of the town which kept 1200 from beggary and clothed 30 thousand.
She went to Geneva in 1869 as a member of the International Committee of Re- lief for the Care of the War Wounded. At that time there was no American or- ganization, and it was several years before she was able by her sole efforts to over- come the indifference and actual hostility of American officialdom. Her bio- grapher, William E. Barton, says: 'The history of the American Red Cross cannot be written apart from its founder, Clara Barton ... her voice almost alone pleaded for it. [After its organization] she was its animating spirit, its voice, its soul.'
Clara Barton helped in the work of the Red Crescent in Turkey in 1896 and dis- tributed relief funds among the sufferers in Armenia. She did personal field work during the Spanish-American War. She received decorations from ten leading countries of the world and published several books including 'The History of the Red Cross.'
At 11.9 m. is a cemetery containing the Grave of Clara Barton.
OXFORD, 13.3 m. (town, alt. 516, pop. 4249, sett. 1687, incorp. 1693), named for Oxford, England, is on land purchased from the Nipmucks in 168I. The first attempted settlements made by French Huguenots were abandoned owing to Indian depredations. Permanent settlement was made by the English in 1713.
Manufacturing began to supplant agriculture in 1811 when Samuel Slater opened a spinning mill. Though a diversity of products such as scythes, nails, hoes, chaises, harnesses, chain, and bricks have been made in the town, the textile industry alone has persisted to the present. The Larned Memorial Library (1904) has a stained-glass window depict- ing the Pilgrims embarking at Delft Haven.
The Church just beyond the Town Hall, built in 1792, and remodeled in 1840 to accommodate stores on the first floor, was the first house of worship erected in America by the Universalists, after a profession of faith had been drawn up. The society still treasures the pulpit from which Hosea Ballou preached.
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Left from Oxford on Sutton Ave. is the 30-acre Oxford State Forest, 2.7 m. From the Fire Tower (810 ft.), there is an excellent view.
At 14.7 m. a tablet on a granite monument states that the long flat stone next to it is the Chimney Stone against which the Johnson children had their brains dashed out by Indians.
At 15 m. is the junction with a road.
Right on this road at 0.6 m. is the Old Maanexit Ford, pointed out by a marker. This was the post route established in 1672 for monthly service between Boston and New York.
At 17.5 m. is EAST VILLAGE (alt. 478, Town of Webster).
Left (straight ahead) from East Village on State 193 at 0.9 m. is the junction with a road (L) on which, at 0.2 m., is Beacon Park (open) on the shores of Lake Webster, the site of a village of the Nipmuck Praying Indians, established by John Eliot (see Tour 8) and Daniel Gookin in 1674. The Indians believed that the islands in the lake were the abiding-places of benevolent spirits. Lake Webster's Indian name is Chargoggagogmanchaugagogchaubunagungamaug.
WEBSTER, 18.7 m. (town, alt. 458, pop. 13,837, sett. about 1713, incorp. 1832), was named for Daniel Webster. Industrialization began when Samuel Slater in 1811 set up a cotton mill, which proved so suc- cessful that four years later five more mills were erected. New industries were attracted by the completion of the Norwich and Worcester Rail- road in 1840. Today textile and shoe industries are first in importance. On George St. is a Burying-Ground in which the graves are marked with field-stones; large ones indicate old men, small ones, young men.
At 19 m. on State 12, one of the buildings of the Steven Linen Mills is claimed to be the First Linen Mill in America.
At 19.2 m. is the junction with State 197.
Right on State 197 is the junction with a road (R), 1.1 m., on which is DUDLEY, 2.3 m. (town, alt. 453, pop. 4568, sett. 1714, incorp. 1732). Resident Indians gave four acres of land for the church, and in return special pews were reserved for them. Manufacturing began here in 1812, and has continued an important factor in town development.
The Black Tavern (open), at the Center, built in 1803-04, was originally a stage- coach stop between Hartford and Boston, and is now the home of the Rev. Charles L. Goodell, author of 'Black Tavern Tales,' a collection of stories and le- gends of Dudley.
Left from the Center at 1.5 m. is a dirt road leading (L) to a fork at 1.6 m .; straight ahead here leads to the Durfee Farm (open) (R), at 2.1 m. The land was deeded to Elijah Gore in 1738, and the house was probably erected about that time. An excellent example of Colonial farmhouse, it has a massive central chimney with fireplace on both sides, old hand-hewn oak timbers fastened together by hand- hewn wooden pins instead of nails, hand-wrought door hinges and latches, and wide white pine paneling. On this farm is a pink Granite Monument placed on its present site in 1650 to mark the boundary between the territory of the whites and Indians. Because the stone is so near the Connecticut Line, some authorities believe that it may have marked an ancient boundary between the two states.
At 21.1 m. State 12 crosses the Connecticut State Line, about 10 m. north of Putnam, Conn.
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TOUR 11 A : From WESTMINSTER to WORCESTER, 23.7 m., State 64, 31, 122A.
Via Princeton and Holden.
B. & M. R.R. services part of this area.
Road hard-surfaced throughout.
THIS route, winding through hill country, has delightful farm and wood- land vistas.
Branching southeast from State 2 (see Tour 2) at Westminster, State 64 at 2.8 m. passes Wachusett Pond (R), which is in the Fitchburg water- supply system. From this point, a hard-surfaced road runs (R) to Mt. Wachusett (see below).
At 3.8 m., right, a short distance off the road, is Redemption Rock. Here Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster (see Tour 7), who was taken captive during an Indian raid on that town, was ransomed in the spring of 1675.
At 6.4 m. is EAST PRINCETON (alt. 730), at the junction with State 31; right on State 31 PRINCETON, 9.4 m. (town, alt. 949, pop. 717, sett. 1743, incorp. 1771), an agricultural community, was named for the Rev. Thomas Prince, associate pastor of Old South Church in Boston, 1718. In 1793 the town had several gristmills and sawmills, a fulling mill, and a cloth mill.
Colonial Princeton was the scene of an unsolved mystery - the disap- pearance of Lucy Keyes, the Lost Child of Wachusett. In 1755 the five- year-old daughter of Robert Keyes was following her sisters along a trail to Wachusett Pond, to get sand for cleaning the family pewter. The older girls sent her home. When they returned, Lucy had not arrived. Frantic searching parties found nothing but a few broken twigs at one point on the trail. Years later, a party of fur trappers returning from northern Vermont reported that in an Indian camp they had found a ' white squaw' whose only English was an unintelligible phrase containing the word 'Wachusett.' She was happily married and refused to leave the tribe. Still later, the mystery was revived by the dying statement of John (Tilly) Littlejohn, a neighbor who had led one of the searching parties, who confessed quarreling with Robert Keyes and killing his daughter for revenge. Little credence was given to this explanation be- cause Tilly's mind was obviously unsound and his story contained chronological errors.
In the Goodnow Memorial Building (open) is an historical museum, con- taining an old spinning wheel, an ancient Bible, and three antique cradles, including the one in which little Lucy Keyes once slept.
Right from Princeton on an unnumbered road that ascends a steep hill, curving
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left at 3.4 m .; at this point, straight ahead on a path, and left at 0.6 m. to Balanced Rock 1.2 m.
From the junction with the side route the road (from here one-way) continues to the top of Mt. Wachusett, 5 m. (alt. 2018), which is in a 3000-acre State Forest Reservation. Along the route are observation points. Standing well above the surrounding hills, Wachusett from its summit provides a panoramic view that, on clear days, includes the Customhouse Tower in Boston, Mt. Greylock, and the Presidential Range in New Hampshire. The hotel at the summit is maintained by the State.
From the summit the Sky Line Foot Trail runs north 22 m. to Watatic Mountain (alt. 1840), on the New Hampshire Line.
At 14.7 m. is a Watering Trough, all that remains of the once prosperous mill settlement of QUINAPOXET.
HOLDEN, 17.3 m. (town, alt. 855, pop. 3914, sett. 1723, incorp. 1741), is in a town once known as the 'North Half' of Worcester; at its incorporation, it was named for Samuel Holden, a London merchant whose philan- thropies aided the Colonies. As in many other rural towns of the State, there were some small industries in early days, including a brickyard, two potash works, and several sawmills and gristmills. During the first part of the 19th century, the town's woolen mills had an extensive market; the competition from mills in States with lower wage levels has closed all but one. Truck-gardening, fruit-growing, and poultry-raising are the principal agricultural pursuits.
Holden was the home of Captain Webb in whose company a descendant of Governor Bradford, Deborah Sampson, disguised as a young man, served during the Revolution (see Tour 10).
At the Center is the junction with State 122A; left on State 122A at 23.7 m. is the junction with State 12 (see Tour 11) at the northern edge of Worcester.
TOUR 12 : From PROVINCETOWN to WILLIAMSTOWN. 400 m., the CAPES TO THE BERKSHIRES BRIDLE TRAIL.
Via Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Dennis, Yarmouth, Barnstable, Sand- wich, Bourne, Plymouth, Kingston, Milton, Canton, Sharon, Medfield, Sher- born, Framingham, Groton, Rowe, and Adams.
Trail marked by white and orange spots painted on trees, rocks, and other objects at road and trail intersections.
THE Capes to the Berkshires Bridle Trail is the first established unit in a proposed network of bridle and hiking trails that will eventually form a vast system of trails throughout the length and breadth of Massachusetts, making accessible many out-of-the-way beauty spots in the State.
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