USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Municipal history of Essex County in Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 2
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The watch house on the Common was attacked, but successfully de- fended. The Indians then sought to burn the meeting house on the Common, standing nearly opposite the present site of the Hotel Bartlett, but before they had succeeded in this attempt the rallying of the villagers and the approach of the soldiers caused them to desist and retreat. Elisha Davis, a man of courage and audacity, by a ruse frightened the enemy. He went to the rear of the Rolfe barn and with a stentorian voice gave orders to an imaginary body of soldiers. "Hurry, my men! Come on, come on ! Now after them !" he cried, striking the reverberating barn with a great club. The savages, still busy in the Rolfe house, ran out, crying to their party, "The English have come! the soldiers are upon us!" and immediately the red foe scurried to retreat, but carrying their booty and taking along the captives whom they had seized. Davis and his party extinguished the fire that they had set at the Rolfe house and the blaze at the meeting house. The villagers were gathering, the militia under Captain Turner arrived, and the pursuit of the Indians was begun.
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The militia, reinforced by the villagers under the command of Captain Samuel Ayer and his son, joined with the Indians in fierce combat on the southeast slope of Long Hill, between the present Hilldale avenue and North Broadway, and after an hour of bloody conflict the savages were routed, and made a hurried retreat. Nine of their number were killed, including Hertel de Chambly, the French leader.
The whole attack, the retreat, the skirmish, and the battle had taken but a few of the morning hours, and the sun, midway in its course, poured its hot rays upon the scenes of carnage, the dead, and the exhausted de- fenders. The heat made immediate burial necessary, and the struggle and the nervous strain left the men too weary to dig separate graves, and so the most of the dead were buried at once in a single grave in the old burying ground. There, also, on the second day after, the bodies of the minister, Rolfe, his wife and child, and Captain Simon Wainwright, were buried together.
This attack, so severe in loss of life and property, was the last made by the Indians upon the town. Lurking savages were occasionally seen in the outskirts of the town, but no harm was done by them, and gradual- ly fear and apprehension died away, and new problems occupied the atten- tion of the citizens.
The township of Haverhill as laid out in a survey of 1666 was a triangular tract of land, the irregular line of the Merrimack river form- ing the base, and the sides, one drawn from Holt's rocks and the other from a point three-and-a-half miles above the present Lawrence dam, meeting in an apex in the northwestern part of the town of Hampstead. In the spring of 1724 certain residents in the western part of the town, dissatisfied with the provisions made for school and church there, peti- tioned the General Court to be set off as a new town, and, despite the opposition of the other citizens, this petition was granted, and the large tract of land southwest from Hawkes' Meadow brook along the Merri- mack and embracing the water leaps known as the Deer Jump and Bod- well's Falls, was made a separate township in 1725, called, in honor of the King's privy councillor, Methuen. At these falls the great Lawrence dam was built in the three years from 1845 to 1848. So from the Me- thuen territory that was originally Haverhill territory, that part of the great mill city which lies north of the Merrimack was set off to form in May, 1847, the municipality of Lawrence.
The boundary line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, long in dispute and occasioning a border warfare, was settled by the King and Council, August 5, 1740, and thereby the most of the territory now comprised in the towns of Hampstead, Plaistow, Atkinson and Salem was transferred from the Haverhill territory. While these towns have a filial relation to Haverhill by reason of their territory being of the original Haverhill grant, other towns bear that relation by reason of their having been settled by Haverhill men. Thus Pennacook, afterwards called Con- cord, New Hampshire, was settled by a party of Haverhill men, led by Ebenezer Eastman, with his six yoke of oxen, who traversed the wilder- ness road through the night of May 26, 1726, and first made settlement in the future capital of the Granite State. So, in 1660, Jonathan Buck went from the little gambrel cottage on Water street, nearly opposite Mill street, to found the town of Bucksport, Maine. So, in 1661, two Haver- hill men, Michael Johnson and John Pattie, were sent to take possession of certain lands on the east side of the Connecticut river, and to this new
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settlement they gave the name Haverhill, in memory of the old town from which they went.
- The little log meeting house built in the Mill Lot in 1638 was, after prolonged and bitter discussion, succeeded by a new meeting house on the Common, built in 1698, and this was replaced by a later house, built in 1761, also on the Common. Between church and State in these earlier years the connection was close, and the meeting house was the place where the town met for elections and the discussion of matters of politics and public interest. New churches were established in the North parish in 1730, in the West parish in 1734, and in the East parish in 1743. But these were each of the Congregational creed, and conservatism opposed any new religious establishment. It refused the use of the meeting house to George Whitefield, the brilliant and forceful Methodist, and he preach- ed in an open field on Mill street to a large congregation. The authori- ties sent him a letter warning him to depart from the town. He read the letter at the close of his discourse, and merely remarked, "Poor souls, they need another sermon." Then he announced another meeting in the same place at sunrise the next morning, and this meeting was largely attended. The spirit of the times and the town refused recog- nition to the Quakers under the leadership of Joseph Peaslee, but against this narrowness and proscription there was in some minds a perception of its injustice. In 1764 a young Princeton graduate of manly presence, great spirituality, wonderful oratory and the masterful quali- ties of a leader, preached in the parish churches, and was invited to be- come pastor of the one in the West Parish. But when he avowed himself to be of the faith of the Baptists, the church pulpits were all closed to him. The more liberal citizens, however-many of them men of wealth and influence-opened their houses to him, and he also preached in the open at White's corner. Thus the Reverend Hezekiah Smith first broke the conservative spiritual unity of the town and established here a church of a new creed, the Baptist. To the church which he founded he ministered for forty years, and when he died in 1805 the universal grief of the town was a tribute to him as a preacher and a citizen.
The village that had clustered on Water and Main streets began to expand. In 1744 Front street (renamed Merrimack street in 1838, and now the chief commercial street of this city), was laid out two-and-a-half rods wide through the alder-grown parsonage lands. Interest in ship building arose, and the river side of Water street became the scene of ship yards and wharves. The serenity of peace, however, yielded often in these years to the alarum of drums, and Haverhill men fought and made honorable record in all of the memorable battles of the French war. The clouds of conflict with Great Britain were arising, and Haverhill in its town meetings was not lacking in spirited denunciations of the exactions of the mother country. It acted, too, as energetically as it talked spiritedly. It appointed committees of inspection and corres- pondence; it provided for supplies of ammunition; it added to the three military companies then existing, a fourth; and these companies were drilled, that they might be in readiness for the call to arms. The drilling ground was the northern part of the Common, a place now marked by the memorial stone erected by the Daughters of the Revolution. In obedience to instructions from the Provincial Congress, a company of sixty-three minute-men, "as they are to be ready at a minute's warning," was raised. When the news of the fight at Lexington reached Haver- hill, just after noon on April 19, 1775, these men were ready :
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"Swift as their summons came, they left The plough mid-furrow standing still, The half-ground corn grist in the mill, The spade in earth, the axe in cleft,"_
and started, minute-men and militia, to the number of one hundred and five, on the march to Cambridge. Three days before, on the Sabbath, a disastrous fire had swept the west side of Main street and left but ruins from the Common to White's corner. Seventeen buildings in the very heart of the town were destroyed, and some of the minute-men left their work on these smouldering ruins in response to the orders to march.
In frustrating the plans of General Gage to surprise Lexington and Concord, a son of Haverhill, William Baker, a youth of twenty years, played an important part. He was employed in Hall's distillery in Gile's Court, now Portland street, Boston. One mid-April day there came into this place a woman who was quartered with one of the British regiments. Being partially intoxicated, she unwittingly disclosed the designs of the British to march that night to Concord. Recognizing the importance of this disclosure, Baker immediately carried the information to General Warren's headquarters, passing the sentries and guards without sus- picion, because he was known to be an employe of the distillery. Im- mediately, plans were formed for arousing the minute-men, and in those plans the duty was assigned to Baker of having a horse ready for Paul Revere on the Charlestown shore. Baker returned to Haverhill, enlisted for the war, won by his ability in military service the rank of captain, and died a half century later in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Provincial Congress, hastily summoned after the Lexington fight, among other acts established post riders and post offices, in order that there might be communication between Cambridge, the headquarters of the American army, and the principal towns. Such an office was then established at Haverhill, and the first postmaster of the town, Simeon Greenough, was appointed.
In the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, seventy-four Haverhill men took part, and of this number two, John Eaton and Simeon Pike, were killed. In this engagement Colonel James Brickett of Haverhill was severely wounded. As he was borne from the field, he met General Warren, who stopped to greet him. Warren was without arms; Colonel Brickett proffered him his, and bearing these, Warren fought and gave his life in that engagement.
In the more than eight years of the Revolutionary struggle the town of Haverhill contributed its full quota of men and its full share of ex- penditure. The cost of the war, the payment of bounty money and the supporting of the families of the soldiers placed a heavy burden upon the town, but its courage never weakened, its hope never lessened, and its determination never was broken.
When the activities of war were over, the town sought to rebuild its shattered industries. The shipyards took on new life; the wharves were busy with commerce. Ox teams brought in the produce of inland places, to be shipped down the river to Newburyport in ships that there spread their sails to voyage to the West Indies, to London and other ports. Then returning, they brought cargoes of goods to be distributed to the surrounding country by the oxen express.
The little town was greatly honored on November 4, 1789, by a visit from the revered President, Washington. He passed the night at Har-
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rod's tavern, "The Freemason's Arms," then standing on the present site of the City Hall. He was cordial and winning in meeting the towns- people, gracious in his compliments on the natural beauty of the place and the enterprise of its people, and courteous and dignified in his bearing; the memory of his visit shines clear and golden in the annals of the town.
The industry that distinguishes the city today, the making of shoes, began almost fortuitously in the year 1795. There were shoemakers among the earliest settlers: Job Clement, who came in 1641; Andrew Greeley, who came in 1646; Benjamin Webster and Samuel Parker, who were welcomed in 1679; but it is interesting to note that William Thomp- son and Peter Patie, who asked in 1676 permission to dwell in Haverhill and follow their trade of shoemaking, were refused this privilege, al- though later they became residents of Haverhill. In 1795 Moses Gale advertised that he had several thousand fresh and dry hides that he would exchange for shoes and await payment until the hides could be made into shoes. This induced the manufacture of shoes in wholesale, and thenceforward this became an increasing industry. During the war of 1812, two storekeepers, Moses and James Atwood, sent a wagon-load of shoes to Philadelphia and sold them there for a very profitable price. In 1815 Phineas Webster engaged exclusively in the wholesale manufac- ture of shoes, exchanging his product largely in Danvers for the leather tanned there. The shoes were packed promiscuously in any kind of a barrel or box, shipped to Philadelphia or Baltimore, and there retailed from the decks of the vessels. In 1818 Rufus Slocomb commenced freight service between Haverhill and Boston, and this business increased until in 1835 he had forty horses and two yoke of oxen constantly engaged in hauling his large covered freight wagons over the road, the freight out- ward from the town consisting largely of cases of shoes. In 1837 there were forty-two shoe manufacturers in the town, but the business received by the panic of that year so severe a check that it took a decade to re- cover. In 1857 the number of manufacturers had increased to ninety, but another panic checked the growth. In 1861 there were seventy manufacturers. After this decade, the period of the Civil War and its immediate effects, the shoe business increased rapidly. In 1890 there were three hundred firms, employing 15,000 operatives.
The earliest provision for protection against fire was made Feb- ruary 22, 1768, by the organization of a Fire Club, the members of which were equipped with buckets, ladders and bags for saving property. It was composed of the leading citizens of the town, and its annual supper was a distinctive social occasion. The first fire engine was purchased in 1769 by a company formed for that purpose, and this was changed from a private to a public enterprise by the presentation of the machine to the town in 1780, but the firemen were not paid for their services, except by the remitting of their poll taxes, until 1841. The first Haverhill bridge across the Merrimack was built in 1794 and was considered a marvel of beauty, strength and mechanical ingenuity. The first person to walk over it was widow Judith Whiting, born in 1701, and therefore 93 years old. The memories of this interesting woman, told in her old age-she lived to be 98-to her minister, Rev. Abiel Abbott, and written down by him, is the foundation of the history of the Indian attacks and much of the earlier chronicles of Haverhill. The bridge was rebuilt in 1808, was changed from an open to a covered bridge in 1827, and after long years of service, a brown and antiquated landmark, it was replaced by the pres- ent iron structure in 1874.
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In the later years of the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth, Haverhill was the home of many families of refine- ment and public spirit, who drew as their guests people of similar quali- ties from other communities. John Quincy Adams visited here his rever- ed aunt, Elizabeth, wife of the Reverend John Shaw, and in her house- hold fitted for the senior class in Harvard College. In the youth of the town he found congenial and high-spirited associates, and in the homes plain living, but excellent thinking and sprightly wit. The spiritual summons to do missionary work in far-off lands took Harriet Atwood Newell from the old home at the head of the Common to the far-off Isle of France in 1812, and, from across the river, Anne Haseltine Judson to Burmah. The opening of the Haverhill Academy in 1827 brought to- gether a group of young men and women of unusual character, one of whom was John Greenleaf Whittier. In the same year a great temper- ance movement was inaugurated in the town. At that time the use of liquor was almost universal. It was served at marriages; it was offered at funerals; it was a gift that appeared constantly in the donations to ministers; it went with the farmer into the field, and the mechanic into the shop; and in the town of 3900 inhabitants there were twenty-one places where it was sold. To combat its influence demands the highest type of courage. The "Gazette", which led in the movement for tem- perance, lost half of its subscribers; the men who advocated it were ridiculed, openly insulted and drawn in effigy about the town ; but in five years the cause became so strong that but one place could be found where liquor could be purchased, and in ten years the fires of the last distillery were put out.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century changes in religious thought caused many to dissent from the strict Congregational creed, and the First Church of the town was cleft into opposing parties. The changes became so acute that the party of the old faith withdrew, in 1832, to form the Independent Congregational Church, now the Centre Church. Those who were left were divided between the Universalist and the Unitarian beliefs. An agreement was reached between these factions by which the Universalists received four thousand dollars of the parish funds and withdrew, in 1834, to join the church of that faith that had been established in 1823. This withdrawal left the First Parish Church to the Unitarians, and they have since held it.
When the church was undivided, its house had been used freely for the town meetings, but after the division, the parish made a charge to the town of thirty dollars a year for such use. The town questioned the parish's right of ownership of the land-the Common-on which the meeting house stood. The dispute was settled by the town paying, in 1837, a thousand dollars for a quit claim deed to the land, "limiting the use of the said land for the purpose of an ornamental common, and pro- viding for the said deed being void and the land reverting to the said Parish if any building or buildings whatever shall, either by said town or any person or body, ever be placed or suffered to remain on said land." Thus, and under such conditions, the town acquired the land now known as City Hall Park. The town meetings, however, from 1828 until the building of the first town hall, in 1847, were held in the various churches and halls in the town, going as far west in 1828 as the West Parish meeting house, and as far east in the same year as the East Parish meet- ing house, and in the later years using alternately the First Parish Church and the Christian Union Chapel at Washington Square.
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The prelude to the Civil War was long, and its notes, harmonious or discordant, were heard early and clearly in Haverhill. In December, 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized in Philadel- phia. A son of Haverhill, John Greenleaf Whittier, was a member of the convention effecting this organization. A young man, twenty-six years old, with dark, flashing eyes, square forehead, his tall, straight form clothed in Quaker garb, he was noticeable in appearance, and his growing reputation as a poet added to the interest in him. Of his service here he said in later life, "I love, perhaps, too well, the praise and goodwill of my fellow-men ; but I set higher value on my name appended to the Anti- Slavery Declaration of 1833 than on any title page of any book. Looking over a life marked with many errors and shortcomings, I rejoice that I have been able to maintain the pledge of that signature, and in the long intervening years-
"'My voice, though not the loudest, has been heard Wherever Freedom raised her cry of pain.'"
The Haverhill Anti-Slavery Society was formed in April, 1834, and of this society Whittier was the corresponding secretary. His poetic power had already been dedicated to the cause of freedom in his tribute to William Lloyd Garrison, "The Slave Ship", "Expostulation", and other poems. And all along the struggle against slavery, Whittier brooked and bore unpopularity and ostracism, while his lyrics rang out their notes of warning and appeal. And when war broke out, his strains were heard amid the din of strife, and the loyal soldiers felt their inspiration in the camp, on the march, and in the hour of battle.
In the thirty years preceding the outbreak of the Civil War the country was aflame with discussion. In Haverhill, a favorite meeting place for the discussion of national and local affairs, was the hatshop of Nathan Webster, on Merrimack street, just west of White's corner. The arrogance of the Southern representatives in Congress, the repeated threats of secession, and especially the "Atherton gag," aroused the spirit of the men who met there. Consequently, they drew up a petition to be presented in Congress, praying that measures peaceably to dissolve the Union should be adopted immediately. The paper was drafted by Ben- jamin Emerson, a man who in appearance resembled Daniel Webster, and who was so uncompromising a foe to slavery and so dark in com- plexion that he was known as "Black Ben." The most of the signatures to this petition were obtained in the Union Evangelical Church on Win- ter street after the Sunday service. Th petition, so signed, was sent to John Quincy Adams, and by him presented in the House of Representa- tives on the 14th of January, 1842. Immediately a tumult arose. A resolution censuring Adams was introduced. After the matter had con- sumed twelve days, Mr. Adams was asked how much more time he would occupy in his defence. Mr. Adams reminded his hearers that when Warren Hastings was tried, Burke occupied some months in a single speech ; he hoped, however, to complete his defence in ninety days. The resolutions of censure were laid on the table, and the result was inter- preted as a defeat and humiliation of Mr. Adams' enemies, and a signal victory for the cause of the right of petition. The original petition was presented to the Haverhill Historical Society in 1908 by the trustees of the Adams' papers.
On January 4, 1834, a meeting was held at the Eagle House to pro- mote the extension of the Boston & Andover railroad from Andover to
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Haverhill. The practical results of this meeting were that the work of grading the road bed of this extension was begun in the autumn of 1835, and the road was formally opened to Bradford, just across the river, on October 23, 1837. This important event was celebrated by a free ride to the stockholders and a banquet in Academy Hall, at which there were sentiments and speeches. The road was extended through Haverhill to Kingston in 1839, and soon after to Portland.
When the town was denied the free use of the First Parish Church for its town meetings, the subject of building a town hall became of in- terest. At a special meeting in May, 1831, the town voted adversely on the project, but in 1835 it gave approval to the measure, and appointed a committee to select a site and make recommendations. Two years later the matter was again considered, but indefinitely postponed. In 1847, however, the town definitely voted to build such a structure "on the south side of the Harrod lot, so called", at an expense of $8,000. When the building was completed the full cost was found to be more than double that sum, and it was also manifest that the building had not been plan- ned of sufficient size. Twelve years later plans for a new building were drawn, and in town meeting, January 7, 1861, a vote was passed for its immediate erection. The walls of the old building were partially de- molished, when there came the outbreak of the Civil War. Nevertheless, the work of the construction of the new hall was zealously carried on, and it was dedicated August 6, 1862. In November, 1888, a fire of un- known origin broke out at 10:30 in the forenoon, and despite all efforts of the fire department gutted the building in an hour, the tower falling at 11:30. The conflagration was spectacular, flames of varied hues, yel- low, green, red, reaching forth like long tongues from the ornamental windows and curling upward to the roof. The loss was estimated at $80,- 000, with an insurance of $65,000. Plans were at once made for rebuild- ing the hall, and the present structure, outwardly closely resembling the old building, was completed at a cost of $111,791.
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