USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Framingham > Memorial of the bi-centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, June, 1900 > Part 10
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F. F. Avery, Mattress Manufacturer. Float carrying bedsteads of old fashioned and up-to-date makes and covered with mattresses to correspond.
A. M. Eames & Co., put in one of the most striking features of the parade. It was a chariot standing sixteen feet high and made up of a melange of wooden wheels and wheel materials of all kinds and ages. The modern were the rubber tired automobile wheels. The supporting wheels
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were twelve feet in circumference, the side lines were circles of a much larger arc, the seat was supported on a brace of wheel rims. The whole was a product of Eames & Co's factory and the design of their own origin. It was drawn by six horses.
Auburn Last Company. Two teams showing the rough blocks and the finished lasts.
N. H. Chadwick, Screen Doors, one team.
FOURTH DIVISION.
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL MERCHANTS.
MARSHAL.
A. S. TROWBRIDGE.
ADJUTANT. F. A. WALLACE.
SURGEON. W. R. MORROW, M.D.
QUARTERMASTER. L. W. JENNINGS.
AIDES-DE-CAMP.
Edward Luce. W. A. Whitman.
M. J. Brown.
F. C. Hastings. Warren Hamilton.
Arthur M. Fitts.
Alfred J. Heath.
W. H. Harding. William Deegan.
F. W. Shepard.
T. J. Murphy.
COLOR BEARER. WILLIS M. RANNEY.
William E. Chenery's Coal float was one of the most original in the parade. In one of his large double teams was a "coal " black band of negroes, playing and singing genuine coon songs, to the delight of every one.
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THE PARADE
John H. Goodell's eleven fine looking market teams, with butchers and salesmen uniformed in caps and white frocks.
E. H. Kittredge drove his two-horse meat wagon. His little daughter Bertha added to the beauty of the turnout.
Fitts Brothers, Department Store, eleven teams, including carts and delivery wagons suitably decorated.
James Daisley, Builder, float, summer house in which were several young ladies.
Cutler Grain Company, two teams.
H. N. Winch, Groceries, three teams.
Folger's Department Store had a good sample of the skill and good taste of their decorative artists. Mr. Folger planned the idea of a symphony in purple and it was made beautiful enough to attract universal attention without the aid of any living figures. The design comprised supporting pillars surmounted by a beautifully wrought dome in white, gold and purple. In the lower portions was grill work in snowy white. Potted palms served to set off the interior. The whole was one of the brightest and prettiest designs in color that could be imagined. The idea was not to show life but beauty.
Sprague & Williams had three-horse, two-horse and one- horse teams, showing their special lines of goods.
Caswell, Livermore & Co. of Boston put in their double team.
Fleischman & Co., Yeast Team. Framingham is one of their distributing centres.
Heath Brothers, float, pyramid of Worcestershire salt bags on top of which were eight girls, a tasty and taking exhibit.
C. W. Luce & Co., Furniture, two floats representing respectively, houses as furnished in 1700, and the up-to-date house of today. It was one of the pretty exhibits of the parade.
J. G. Klier, Baker, two teams.
Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company, one team.
Miss Annah Mason, Milliner, float, a large hat under which were seated six girls. A novel and striking display. Miss Mason was the only woman among our merchants who had an exhibit.
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Canning Brothers, Boots and Shoes, float, large shoe mounted on pedestal of colored bunting, which attracted much attention.
W. D. Parlin, Hardware, nine teams representing different lines which his stores carry. One of the most attractive exhibits in the parade. A novel feature was the Tin King, representing furnaces, made up of pots, pans, scoops and shovels, with .stove-pipe collars around his waist for a belt, saucepans for eyes and carrying a great battle-ax made of galvanized iron pipe.
Victor Coffee, one team.
H. L. Sawyer, two teams representing lines of hardware.
George E. Fowler, Boots and Shoes, float carrying large rubber boot in which stood a small boy.
Stearns Brothers, four teams and mounted aid, representing different lines of groceries and other goods carried in their store. An exhibit costing much time to get up.
W. H. Pratt, Provisions, float carrying different kinds of meats and on which stood a lively calf and a lamb.
George W. Drury & Co., Dry Goods, float representing the different seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.
M. E. Hamilton, Groceries, team advertising Chase and Sanborn's Coffee and a mounted rider representing King Arthur Flour.
F. A. Bean, Druggist, float, handsome boat in which were ten young ladies. The design was after the old Grecian caravel, propelled by oars and steered by a sweeping lielm.
Coolidge Brothers, one team.
Framingham Coal Company, float drawn by four of the finest horses in the parade. The exhibit was a stack of anthracite in sacks, lettered and arranged to read the name of the firm.
Leavis & Knight, Framingham Steam Laundry, one team.
L. S. Watkins, Toys and Stationery, float representing picture framing department.
Deegan & Sweeney, Groceries, three teanis.
J. F. Eber, Newsdealer, carts pushed by newsboys, repre- senting the Boston papers, one cart for eachi paper, a fine exhibit altogetlier.
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FIFTH DIVISION.
FIRE DEPARTMENT.
MARSHAL. Chief A. HOWARD FISKE.
SURGEON. A. E. ST. CLAIR, M.D.
AIDES-DE-CAMP.
Engineers, JOHN P. KYTE, JAMES P. SHAY,
WILLIAM O'CALLAHAN, DAVID GORMAN.
COLOR BEARER. E. E. SLATTERY.
Marlboro Brass Band.
Framingham Fire Department.
Members of the different companies followed by Hook and Ladder 1, Steamer and Hose 1, Steamer and Hose 2, Steamer and Hose 3, and the old hand engine " Niagara."
After the dismissal of the Parade at Central Square Governor Crane and most of the other invited guests repaired to the residence of John M. Merriam, Esq., where a bountiful lunch was provided, and where they were entertained until it was time to take carriages for the Literary Exercises at the Auditorium in the beautiful grove at Mount Wayte.
Unfortunately Governor Crane was obliged to return to the State House early in the afternoon and so was not present at the Literary Exercises or Banquet.
The house where the Town's Guests were thus gathered stands at the corner of Union Avenue and Beech streets and very near the border of "Harmony Grove," which, had the celebration occurred a generation ago, would doubtless have been selected as the most natural and central place for the leading events, provided a fair day could be assured.
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But Harmony Grove though a familiar and agreeable sound to many of our citizens, now exists only in the past, yet its history is worthy of a large page in this memorial volume, because through its attractions and accessibility thousands of visitors from all parts of the State came to it during the pleasant months of each year of its existence, and thereby gave good and extended reputation and impetus to South Framingham.
In 1847, Mr. Lothrop Wight, a Boston merchant retiring from business because of impaired health, changed his residence to Framingham Centre where he purchased various valuable real estates, and made large improvements upon them, with much good taste and public benefit. Up to that time, at least, no one there had surpassed him in those particulars. In 1851 he purchased from Adam Hemenway the Daniel Sanger farm in South Framingham, on which the famous tavern stood, near where the Pearl Street Grammar Schoolhouse now stands, and through which farm, in 1842, the highway now Union Avenue was constructed. To that part of the lands so obtained, on the west side of the highway, he added adjacent lands purchased by him from Abel Eames and Edwin Eames. This combination made a tract of about fifteen acres of open land and woodland, that extended from the Avenue to Farm Pond.
The grove was opened to the public, with ceremony, on the tenth day of June, 1852, by the proprietor who, at his personal expense, brought in a special train from Boston a party of 400 of his business acquaintances and others invited, who together with his townsmen were generously entertained by him, with the best musicians of Boston in attendance.
The Hon. Amasa Walker, then Secretary of the Common- wealth, presided over the festivities, which were graced by the presence and the speeches of Gov. George S. Boutwell, then the youngest as he is now the oldest living governor of the State, Lieut. Gov. Cushman, members of the Executive Council, Father Edward T. Taylor the famous preacher of the Seamen's Bethel, Dr. Charles T. Jackson the distin- guished chemist and many others.
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HARMONY GROVE
From that date and for twenty years the place was noted for pleasure parties from near and remote places, church, school, anti-slavery and temperance gatherings. Many political meetings were held there, of which the most conspicuous was that of the Republicans in the Lincoln presidential campaign of 1860 over which Charles R. Train presided. Among the speakers were John A. Goodwin, at one time Speaker of the House of Representatives of this State, John A. Andrew, who was elected Governor in that year, United States Senators John P. Hale of New Hampshire, Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, the latter afterwards Vice President of the United States.
Another famous meeting was that of 1872 when prohibition temperance men invited Gen. B. F. Butler, then a candidate for Governor, to address them. He was chosen in a later year. ·
A Rhode Island clam bake on one occasion was the singular feature of the year, gotten up by some of the enterprising and hospitable men of the Town; and it was as real a clam bake as could be had outside of Rhode Island.
A memorable event was the "Howe Family " gathering and celebration on August 31, 1871, when some thirty-five hundred of the descendants of the earliest settlers of that name in this State, came from all over and beyond our national limits, and were addressed by Col. Frank E. Howe of New York, President of the Day, Hon. Joseph Howe, Secretary of State of the New Dominion, Hon. William Wirt Howe of New Orleans, and by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe of Boston, who also wrote the " Song of Welcome."
But the best remembered purpose for which the grove was used was that of the Abolitionists under the guidance of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and others who constituted the American Anti-Slavery Society. Their eloquent oratory, and bitter invective against churches and ministers and against the national government and its Constitution, were exceedingly impressive, oftentimes start- ling, and never to be forgotten. During a decade they drew great crowds of people from within and without the State, and though many in their audiences were unfriendly,
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yet their words were taken as coming from sincere men. On a Fourth of July the culmination was reached when Mr. Garrison, dramatically and angrily, as if to defy public sentiment, denounced the Constitution, and applying a match to a copy of it, held it high in air and exclaimed : "I now consign to the flames this instrument conceived in sin, brought forth in iniquity, a league with Satan and a covenant with Hell." A small coterie of his adherents applauded the act, but the great mass of the audience denounced it with patriotic indignation. When a few years later the Civil War broke out, followed by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Mr. Garrison and his associates bade good bye to the grove and its well remembered amphitheatre, made famous by them.
The acres of the grove have been divided into dwelling lots and appropriated for streets, and nothing now remains of it but its name, memories and associations, and also the few surviving graceful and stately trees that shaded its first dwelling, and that now ornament the new home which they surround, attracting by their beauty the notice and the pleasant words of the strangers passing on this busy Avenue.
Though Harmony Grove was not available, yet as we look from it across the little lake we see the conical miniature mountain rising before us and seeming to extend an invita- tion, which we welcome, to make our assemblage there, and accordingly Mount Wayte becomes the scene of the latest great event in the history of the Town, and most appropri- ately, because right here on its southeasterly slope nearly two centuries and a generation ago the very first important event in the history of the " Plantation," preceding the town, was the wiping out by the red man of the first white man's abode with fire and blood. From that day till within less than a generation no other home succeeded.
But now this so long deserted woodland has thrown off its somberness, and in recent years become a hamlet of a hun- dred summer cottages tliat encircle a spacious canopied auditorium, and halls of Christian churches dedicated to things sacred and to the highest secular concerns, and the popular study of Scripture and general literature, and to
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history, science, art and music, as presented in the genial weeks of each summer by eminent lecturers, instructors and public speakers to the thousands who frequent this grove, to many of whom the Hall of Philosophy, in its robes of Grecian architecture, on the summit of the hill is the goal of the ambitious Chautauquans. For here was established in 1880 the "New England Chautauqua," on the grounds of the South Framingham Camp Meeting Association - whose annual ten days' sessions have attracted multitudes hither, and whose influence for good, through the variety of its exercises, in promoting high intellectual improvement and recreation has been wide spread and lasting. To our own Town it is, and we trust will continue to be, invaluable and attractive. The enterprise merits the hearty and most gen- erous support of our citizens.
"The groves were God's first temples.
Be it ours to meditate, In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, And, to the beautiful order of thy works, Learn to conform the order of our lives."
While Mount Wayte is a little remote from our present villages it is itself the site of an ancient one, for at its base and in its immediate vicinity was one of the principal homes and haunts of the Indians, long before the English settlements were made. How long, there is no record nor evidence to tell, but probably centuries. The other two chief villages in this Town were at the outlet of Lake Cochituate and at the Falls, in Saxonville. That of Mount Wayte, it is probable, was a part of a cluster of Indian homes extending from the river to and around Farm, Waushakum, and Learned's ponds. The more marked evidences of its existence were from the earliest period of Colonial history to be found directly at the foot of the mountain, on the shore of the pond, and at its out- let to the river. Nothing can be added to, but almost every thing relative to the Indian occupancy of the Town is to be gained from that chapter of the late Josiah H. Temple's History of Framingham which is devoted to that subject. It is at once comprehensive, minute, instructive and of great
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interest. And there is not in existence a larger or more rare collection of the Indian relics of the Town than that which he gathered and possessed, and which happily, has been pre- served and is now owned by our Historical Society, and which as time passes on, becomes more valuable and curious, as the only visible relics of an extinct race, of whose origin we know nothing, and whose history in New England is limited to less than three centuries.
Our Indians were of the Nipmuck -i. e. " Fresh Water Country," - tribe whose territory extended in a northeasterly course from the northeast corner of Connecticut. The pro- prietorship of one of them, John Awassamog, born, probably about 1614, on the now R. L. Day place, extended from the Blackstone river through Mendon along the Charles and Sudbury rivers up to the old northerly Marlborough line, where it joined the domains of Yawata, a squaw sachem of the Pawtucket tribe, which extended from Winnisimet, now Chelsea, through Concord to the Pawtucket Falls, now Lowell. They were married to each other about 1635.
Here, around our ponds, the patient and faithful women labored upon the cornfields with implements of stone, perform- ing the work of planting, cultivating and gathering, while the men spent their time largely and lazily in hunting game on the hills, or fishing in the ponds and rivers, and at the proper seasons of the year, in watching the coming up the river of salmon, shad and alewives, from the distant seashore at, now, Newburyport and their return after the spawning season. These with the fish from our ponds and the "eel fishing" places between Farm and Waushakum ponds, and the products of the plantations supplied the wigwam homes with ample food for most of the year.
Living thus, the clan here diminished rapidly after the English settlements were made, and decayed and gradually disappeared. Nothing visible of their history is left with us, except the relics before named and the undefined localities of their two principal burial places; the one designated as " The Indian Graves" on the bluffs on the east side of the river, in the northeast part of our town; and the other " The Old Field " in our south village, being the " Common " with
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contiguous lands extending westerly from Concord street, upon which Nobscot Block, Manson Building, the Baptist church and other buildings stand.
The multitudes who daily pass over these spots, trample unconsciously upon the unknown and unmarked graves of the red men. The simple mounds over those of their chiefs have long since been levelled. The Sabbath morning bell in the church tower summoning to worship, the music of song, the peal of the organ and the preacher's voice, all reach the last resting places of these sleeping dead, but are unheard by the red men, though some of them had listened to the words of the Apostle Eliot in these former woodlands. But most of them had never heard of the white man's God, but were, as pictured in verse nearly two hundred years ago,
" The poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind: His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way, Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topped hill an humbler heaven : Some safer world in depths of wood embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angels' wing, no Seraph's fire ; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company."
We are not aware that there was any Indian family in this town at the commencement of the present century, though there were some in the nearby places. But at about that time an Indian girl, some ten years old, then called Lizzie, but in later years known as Lizzie Brown, was brought by some one of the neighboring clans to the house of Major Lawson Nurse in Salem End, and left as a waif with them for their kindly care. Some time later they transferred her to Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Maynard, whose house was on what is now Pleasant street, by whom she was brought up and with whom she lived as a domestic but almost as one of the family, for some thirty-five years, during their lives. Why Mr. Maynard, who was afterward a prominent citizen
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of the town, should have taken the little girl into his family is not apparent, but partly, it is probable, through some senti- ment of gratitude to the Indian race arising from the fact that when as a young Lieutenant from this town, in cur Revolu- tionary army, being captured by the Indian allies of the British in New York, he was saved from death by their chieftain, the famous Brant, and though taken to Canada by the British, was generally kindly treated by the Indians during his captivity. He thus had an opportunity to partially repay their kindness by bestowing life long benefits upon one of their nation, though of a different and remote tribe. It is recorded in our town history that she was " highly esteemed as a nurse of the sick." In fact she was for years the nurse of the village, and of the more than two hundred children here, who with their mothers were the recipients of her nurture and delicate attention, in the critical days of their lives, those who remain love to recall and speak gratefully of her as their benefactress. She was a good natured and kindhearted woman, respected, popular and welcomed in the homes of the town.
When, twenty-four years ago, as the solitary one of her Indian blood, she was placed in the Old Burial Ground, with those who had been her benefactors and friends in the past years, the grave closed over one of lowly origin but of a useful life ; and at her death the last page in the history of her race in this town was written, and its record is now closed.
LITERARY EXERCISES AT MOUNT WAYTE.
ORDER OF EXERCISES.
OVERTURE, "Jubel," Weber
BATTERY B. BAND OF WORCESTER.
MUSIC. "America."
BI-CENTENNIAL CHORUS.
PRAYER.
REV. LUCIUS R. EASTMAN.
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE DAY.
SAMUEL B. BIRD, ESQ.
EXERCISES AT MOUNT WAYTE
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
HON. CONSTANTINE C. ESTY.
MUSIC. "Damascus Triumphal March," Costa
BI-CENTENNIAL CHORUS.
POEM.
EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.
MUSIC. Bi-Centennial Hymn, Dr. Jules Jordan
Words by Rev. Frederick L. Hosmer.
Uplifted be the voice of praise, As, far and near, beloved Town, Thy children throng from many ways Thy fourfold jubilee to crown !
Still echoed in thy history We catch the high heroic strain, The Pilgrim faith that crossed the sea For Truth and Right and Freedom's gain.
And worthy sons of noble sires Have passed the torch of knowledge on ; Thro' paths of peace and battle-fires, Have to the old new triumphs won.
We reap the fields the fathers cleared, The harvest of their toil and tears ; The ampler life by them upreared, The heritage of all the years.
O Thou, by whom our fathers wrought Our strength thro' all the ages down, Still make us worthy of our lot, Still guard and bless our ancient Town. BI-CENTENNIAL CHORUS.
ORATION. HON. THEODORE C. HURD.
REMARKS BY HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, UNITED STATES
SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS.
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MUSIC. "Auld Lang Syne."
BI-CENTENNIAL CHORUS.
BENEDICTION.
REV. JOHN F. HEFFERNAN.
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ADDRESS OF SAMUEL B. BIRD, ESQ.
Friends, Invited Guests and Fellow Citizens : - On this closing year of the nineteenth century, we meet to celebrate our Bi-Centennial, and in behalf of the committee of arrange- ments selected by act of the Town and representing for a brief time the Town, in their behalf I extend to you a cordial welcome.
Two hundred years ago a few scattered families, for their better protection, and their more convenient service of worship, were incorporated under a town government. Today instead of the few scattered families we have a population of nearly or quite twelve thousand. Instead of one rude uncomfort- able house of worship we have fifteen churches, some of them large, elegant and expensive, and some of the parishes largely endowed. Instead of the few pounds sterling expended by the fathers in the employment of a schoolmaster to teach school a few weeks in the year, in different sections of the Town, we employ fifty-nine teachers, and have more than two thousand pupils, and for support of schools we pay more than fifty thousand dollars a year, beside the thousands invested in schoolhouses, school furniture and apparatus. And it is a credit alike to both town and teachers that there are so many of the teachers in the past and present, who have been in constant service from twelve to twenty-seven years. Instead of the bridle paths and fording places indicated by here and there a blazed tree, we have a hundred and twenty miles of highways, equal to those of any town in the Commonwealth ; we have electric and steam railways, electric lights, water works, a system of sewage, the first of its kind to be constructed in this Commonwealth, and the second of its kind on this continent. We have an efficient Fire Department, and a model Police Force. With all these improvements and conveniences we are already considering the plan of giving up our town government and joining the cities of the Commonwealth, and we hope before long His Excellency will place his official signature to an act incorpora- ting the City of Framingham.
The past is secure, - Not a stain, blot or blemish mars its record of two hundred years. It is clean, pure, bright. A
C. C. Esty, Historian
George F. Hoar, U. S. Senator Rev. L. R. Eastman Speakers at Literary Exercises
Theodore C. Hurd, Orator
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record of which every citizen may well be proud. And the present, - with its educated, intelligent, middle aged and young men, with its able, experienced, honest and honorable corps of Town officers, there are no fears for the present ; And the future will be largely what the young men and the young women of today, what the two thousand school children assembled yesterday shall make it. But whatever the future may have in store for us, may this Town, in the future as in the past, be the home of a happy, prosperous, intelligent, lawabiding, liberty loving, God fearing people for generations yet to come.
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