USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Proceedings of the Brookline Historical Society at the annual meeting > Part 29
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The voyage around Cape Horn to California in the old days averaged 150 days, and round the world from one to two years. Now one may go from Boston across the continent, in a luxurious Pullman car, inside of five days, and may keep on round the globe and reach home in less than sixty days.
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In my early schooldays I studied Olney's Geography, which described that part of our country beyond the Missis- sippi and Missouri as the "Great American Desert,"-they are now fertile states of the Middle West, which railroads and modern appliances have been the means of settling and making prosperous.
Agriculture in the West since that day has made rapid prog- ress, and in some states corn and wheat fields larger than many a New England township are plowed and planted, and their harvests are threshed, bagged, loaded upon cars and sent to market by machinery unknown to the farmer of sixty years ago, and without being put under cover of a roof.
In my early boyhood there were no friction matches, the flint, steel and tinder box being the dependence in lighting a fire, aided by a homemade brimstone match. There were no furnaces nor stoves in country houses, and I fancy much the same conditions obtained in the cities. Thefuel was wood, and it was burned in large fireplaces which heated the house, and over the fire was the iron crane, with hooks and trammels upon which pots and kettles hung for cooking purposes; to the right of the fireplace was the brick oven for baking, with a place beneath for the preservation of wood ashes to be used in making soap for the family. In front of the fire the rye and corn cakes were baked, and in a tin kitchen in front the meats were roasted. The house was lighted by tallow candles, fish or whale oil lamps; and other household comforts were equally crude. Care was taken to keep the ashes over the burning backlog at night so that there might be coals to start the morning fire, for should there not be and the tinder become damp, fire had to be obtained from a neighboring house.
It was as important to keep the tinder dry and ready for use as for the soldier and hunter to keep his powder dry. This was all changed by the discovery and invention of the friction match, which is easily ignited when fire and light are needed, and is kept in the home, shop and pocket, always ready for use; it is said to be the most useful of all discoveries and inventions the world has known.
Coming down to later time, the telephone, patented in 1876 and soon after put to use, was a wonderful discovery,- more wonderful than the telegraph in the fact that it is not
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only a chariot of speech, but a transmitter of the sound and tones of the human voice, a hundred or a thousand miles. It is more direct than the telegraph, being installed in home, office, shop or elsewhere, and is more serviceable for dis- tances within its radius, although probably it will not supplant the telegraph on long distances. Many millions of dollars have been invested in it in this and other countries, and it is entitled to rank as a great discovery and convenience of modern times.
Still later, Marconi brings to our attention his discovery of wireless telegraphy, by which messages are sent over land and sea, the atmosphere being the conductor. It is an established fact that messages have been and are being sent through his device, but how far it will affect the electric telegraph is not yet apparent. The public mind has become so accustomed to modern discoveries and inventions for the speedy transmission of news and wants in the world's activity that this wonderful discovery causes little astonishment or comment.
Since the foregoing sentence was first penned a wireless mes- sage has been received reporting a collision on the twenty-third instant in a dense fog, twenty-six miles south of Nantucket, between the steamships Republic and Florida; in one hour four steamships at sea received the message and hurried to thesceneof the disaster, and four others from ports between Boston and New York. There were 1650 persons on the two colliding vessels, all of whom, except four, who lost their lives, were three days later landed at New York. The Florida arrived at that port with her bows stove in and forward compart- ments full of water, but the Republic, which was struck near abreast of the engine room, into which water entered, flooding and extinguishing her boiler fires, sank off No Man's Land while in tow for New York.
This disaster proves beyond doubt the utility of wireless telegraphy upon the ocean, and indicates its adoption by all seagoing steamships and a wide field of usefulness in the future.
"Following close on the heels of the marine disaster which sent the Republic to the bottom of the sea, comes the intro- duction of a bill into Congress requiring ocean passenger steamers, which ply between American ports and distant
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foreign ports, to be equipped with wireless telegraph instru- ments.
"Wireless telegraphy has ceased to be a plaything or a scientific experiment. Through the air over New Eng- land at all hours of the day and night fly messages from ships, and from naval and commercial stations on land. Even ingenious boys, who have fashioned their own apparatus, are talking from house to house."
The modern development and use of electricity only needs to be mentioned to bring to mind what we see daily in the lighting of buildings and streets, in the moving trolley car seen on every hand, and in hundreds of other ways which make the present a wonderful age of discovery and inven- tion unknown and unanticipated a few decades ago.
We see countless horseless carriages propelled by electricity, steam and other power, a means of conveyance unknown a few years since, and they are now so common as to cause us no thought, except to keep out of their way.
In 1856 the ship Victor Emmanuel of Liverpool was rigged with wire standing rigging, and was the first to be thus rigged. She made her first voyage to Bombay, where in that year she was visited by hundreds (I being one) to see, examine and comment upon the strange device, little anticipating that the time was near at hand when all vessels would be thus rigged, and hemp superseded. But such was the case, and in modern eyes hemp would seem as strange as wire did to men at that time.
Then ships were built of wood and propelled by sail. Now nearly all long-voyage shipsare built of steel and are propelled by steam. Then the American flag was in the ascendency among the merchant fleets of the world. Now it has van- ished from the ocean and the great marts of oversea trade.
The naval fleets of the world were encased in wooden hulls; now they are of steel, with armament that would have astonished the mind of mankind in its calibre, carrying power and effect, managed and used by machinery of modern inven- tion and construction.
In the period under review, that of a human life, the mines of California, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, our Rocky Mountain region, Alaska and elsewhere have been opened and developed, bringing from the bowels of the earth
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their long hidden treasures of gold, silver, copper, tin, zinc and other metals to enrich the people not only of our country but of the entire world. The use of natural gas for domestic and manufacturing purposes, the refining of crude petroleum, and its discovery in various parts of our land have been an agency in the march of progress. The mining and use of coal and iron have gone on, hand in hand, to bless the world and its people, in the household, upon the farm, in the whirr of machinery of every name and nature, in all the great enterprises we have been considering, and in thousands of other ways, being of greater importance to the human race than all other products of mines the world over, and perhaps of all other products of the earth, that of agriculture alone excepted.
In schools, public, private and technical, in colleges and universities, education has made great advancement. Through museums, public libraries, general literature and the public press, general knowledge has been disseminated in the past half century and has exerted a greater influence than ever in the world's history. Old theories have been set aside, new ones have been adopted, and the wheels of progress have been started. I say started advisedly, for what may seem progress today may be as far behind the attainments of fifty years hence as those of fifty years ago are now behind the present.
The world's activities have been revolutionized by the discoveriesand inventions which have taken place in a lifetime. Manufacturesand mechanical works of almost every kind have multiplied, industries which did not exist fifty years ago have come into being and are now indispensable to our needs. Wealth has accumulated as never before, and its lavish dis- play is seen on every hand. It endows schools, colleges and universities, founds museums and libraries, establishes asy- lums, hospitals, homes, institutions and retreats for all classes, aids in moral, intellectual, philanthropic and religious ob- jects, and every enterprise, public or private, for the better- ment, comfort and well-being of mankind as never before. The things we have enumerated are some of those, and their results, which have aided in the progressive march of a lifetime.
And yet, notwithstanding it all, the pessimist claims to see in it a wider cleavage between rich and poor. To admit
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that would be to admit that modern civilization and all . Christian effort is but a backward step, in "peace on earth and good will to man."
When changes in social conditions, advocated by im- patient agitators, are not immediately put into operation, it is customary to assail the wealthy and educated classes of society for the delay. Such malcontents do not take into consideration that time as we measure it counts but little in the economy of the ages, and that He who rules the universe rules in accordance with His plan to bring about the millennium. Wholesale denunciation of what is called the upper classes is unmanly, and a poor apology for a ladder upon which to climb to a higher plane.
How little the busy man, of this busy age, realizes the changes which have taken place, except those which are near and affect him directly, until his attention is called to the subject. The human mind and memory are so constituted that they grasp and hold but a slight portion of things, and occurrences near at hand soon make us forget the distant ones, and leave us without power to penetrate into the future.
In my boyhood I heard a gentleman say that he had lived in the most progressive age of the world's history, and that it did not seem possible to him that there could be so much advancement and progress in the next fifty or sixty years as had taken place in a past period of that length of time. He was born in 1781, died in 1852, and has been in another sphere of existence fifty-six years. If he from that other sphere has been permitted to pass in review the great changes and wonderful progress of the past fifty or sixty which we have been considering, how astonished he must be at his former shortsightedness! And yet we know of no safer guide for future occurrences than the history of the past.
It is the self-appointed province of an historical society to delve into the past, bring to light, record and preserve the things reposing in the gulf of forgetfulness, that in reviving their memories the present may be enriched by the lessons they teach. In that line of work the Brookline Historical Society in the eight years of its life and activity has accom- plished much; there remains much for it yet to accomplish, and it is desired and hoped that in the years to come it shall
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prove to act vigorously, be more useful to the town and community, and produce greater satisfaction than in the past. There are hundreds of subjects relating to the town, thous- ands relating to the vicinity and the commonwealth and New England, and an unlimited number relating to the country, which can be written up, read before the Society . for the benefit of its members, and preserved in its archives to form a rich collection for future generations. Every member is capable of doing something to aid in that work, and where "there is a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together" the accomplishment is easy and the result sur- prisingly satisfactory.
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The following annual report of the Treasurer, duly audited, was read and approved :-
REPORT OF THE TREASURER.
Edward W. Baker, Treasurer,
In account with Brookline Historical Society.
Balance on hand January 1, 1908 :- Permanent fund $872 93
Current fund
64 84
$937 77
Receipts to December 31, 1908 :-
Permanent fund
$52 70
Current fund
238 00
290 70
Total balances and receipts
$1,228 47
Expenditures Jan. 1, 1908, to Dec. 31, 1908 :-
From Current Fund.
Printing Annual Report $90 00
Printing Notices, etc. 23 25
Postage and Addressing Notices, etc. 19 50
Lunch, Bay State Historical League. 5 50
Framing Pictures.
5 30
Envelopes
3 50
Edward Devotion House Association .. 75 00
Incidentals
80
Total expenditures 222 85
Balance January 1, 1909 :-
Permanent fund
$925 63
Current fund
79 99
Total balances
$1,005 62
EDWARD W. BAKER, Treasurer.
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REPORT OF THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE.
Your committee appointed to nominate officers of the Brookline Historical Society for the coming year begs leave to report that it has attended to its duty and proposes the following candidates :--
For Clerk. CHARLES F. WHITE.
For Treasurer. EDWARD W. BAKER. For Trustees.
CHARLES H. STEARNS,
CHARLES F. WHITE,
EDWARD W. BAKER,
WILLIAM O. COMSTOCK,
JOSEPH McKEY,
MISS JULIA GODDARD, MRS. MARTHA C. KITTREDGE.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
CHARLES F. READ, GEORGE S. MANN, MISS AUGUSTA T. LAMB.
Brookline, Mass., December 29, 1908.
The report was accepted and it was voted to proceed to ballot. The ballot was taken and the candidates nominated were unanimously elected.
.Voted, That the next meeting of the Society be held on February 12, 1909, and that it be commemorative of Abraham Lincoln, the date named being the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth.
Voted, That a committee of three be appointed by the chair to make arrangements for the meeting and that the C. L. Chandler Post, G. A. R., The Women's Relief Corps, the
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Joanna Aspinwall and Hannah Goddard Chapters, D. A. R., the Isaac Gardner Chapter, D. R., and The Thursday Club, all of Brookline, be invited to attend the meeting as guests of the Society.
The chairman appointed as the committee Messrs. White, Comstock and Read.
Notice was given of an intention to change the By-Laws of the Society in the following manner at the March meet- ing of the Society :---
To add to Article V the following paragraph :-
"The Officers of the Society shall also include a President Emeritus when the Society shall so vote."
To substitute for the first paragraph of Article VI the fol- lowing paragraph :-
"The annual meeting of this Society shall be on the third Wednesday of January. Regular stated meetings shall be held on the third Wednesdays of February, March, April, May, October, November and December."
Voted, To print the president's annual address, treasurer's report, by-laws, list of officers and members, and such papers as the Committee on Publications may select.
Voted, To dissolve the meeting.
EDWARD W. BAKER, Clerk.
UMLe:
MILESTONES IN AND NEAR BOSTON
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MILESTONES IN AND NEAR BOSTON. A Paper Read before the Society by Charles F. Read, May 27, 1908.
Before the introduction of the steam railroad in the nine- teenth century, it was the custom in the new world, as in the old, to travel by stagecoach or private carriage on the roads which connected the towns and villages which lay scattered on the route. At intervals on these roads could be seen stone posts suitably inscribed, which were called milestones. They were welcome sights to travellers, when beginning in gay mood a day's journey ; a more welcome sight at nightfall when one was found to be near a hospitable tavern where food and shelter were ready for tired traveller and more tired beast.
When Benjamin Franklin was Deputy Postmaster-General of the British Colonies in America, he caused many milestones to be placed on the post roads between Boston and Phila- delphia to enable His Majesty's mail carriers to measure distance as they travelled on the king's business on their fleet horses. It is related of the many-sided Franklin, whom wede- light to honor as a native of Boston, that he constructed a mechanical device whereby he could have his milestones placed at regular intervals on the road. Hetravelled in a comfortable chaise, to which his contrivance was attached. His chaise was followed by workmen travelling in a cart, from which they unloaded and set a milestone at each designated place. This invention of Franklin may be called a forerunner of the modern cyclometer and speedometer which the bicyclist and autoist attach to "wheel" or "auto" to record the dis- tance travelled. A few of the Franklin milestones are still standing on the former post-roads between Boston and Phila- delphia. One in Stratford, Conn., is marked-
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By the time of the administration of Gov. Hutchinson, the Province of Massachusetts Bay had become well supplied with milestones, and several are still standing. Two are to be seen on the old Boston and Worcester Turnpike. One is situated in the town of Framingham at the junction of the turnpike and the road to South Framingham. It is in- scribed-
23 Miles from BOSTON 1768
It is interesting to note that within a quarter of a mile of this stone is the old Buckminster Tavern, where the three companies of Framingham militia paraded before the Battle of Lexington in 1775. The two spies sent through Middlesex County in February of the same year by Governor Gage stayed at this tavern over night and saw a parade of the Framingham men. In their report to the governor they said, after describing the parade, that "the militiamen went into the tavern and drank liquor until they were full of pot valor." The other stone is to be seen in the centre of the city of Worcester and bears the inscription-
42 Miles to Boston 52 Miles to Springfield 1774
These stones are probably two of many which were set in compliance with the following order of the Council of Massachusetts Bay issued in 1767, the original record being filed in volume xvi, page 239, of the Massachusetts Archives. The order reads, "To the Justices of Middlesex, Essex, York, Cumberland and Lincoln Counties. To preserve mile marks of Captain (Francis) Miller, by fixing stones at said marks. Also Suffolk, Norfolk, Hampden and Berkshire Counties." I am informed that this is the only reference to milestones in the records of the Governor's Council from 1729 to 1767.
It was customary in tavern days for a landlord to locate at a mile post on the highway, and fortunate indeed was he
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whose hostelry was placed at the end of a day's journey, for this ensured him a steady and profitable business. We can see in imagination the rotund figure of "mine host" as he hastens to his front door on the arrival of the evening coach, joyfully rubbing his hands together at the prospect of a good night's trade.
Landlords were permitted by authority to place mile- stones in front of their taverns at their own expense and were even allowed to so place such stones if the house was located to one side or the other of the proper marking-places. These private stones bore the initials of the landlord in addition to the distance inscription, and were formerly many in number. Such a stone is to be seen now in Walpole, Mass., and is inscribed-
ER 20 MILES BOSTON 1740
This stone was set in provincial days when our "forbears" lived under the King, by Ezekiel Robbins, landlord of the Brass Bull Tavern in Walpole, a famous relay house or noon rest, half way on the post road from Boston to Providence. Land- lord and tavern have long since disappeared from sight, but the milestone was made of more enduring material. Ban- ished from its former location by the widening of the highway, it now occupies a prominent position in front of the town hall in Walpole.
In these opening years of the twentieth century, as we travel through some of the highways and byways of Greater Boston, mayhap by trolley car, automobile or, best of all, by "shank's mare," we see scattered along the roadside many milestones which have come down to us from the days of which we have been speaking. They are zealously guarded today by antiquarians who delight in the study of the past, although in a practical way the present also claims their activities.
We should know something of the men to whom the people of Boston and its vicinity were indebted for placing so many milestones, and of these public-spirited citizens we must first consider Samuel Sewall, for he began the good work in
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1707, two centuries ago. It is, however, only necessary to give a brief biography of this useful and distinguished man, for all students of our local history are familiar with the life and activities of Boston's famous diarist.
Samuel Sewall, eldest son of Henry Sewall, was born in Bishops-Stoke, England, March 28, 1652, and died in Boston, January 1, 1730. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1671, and received there three years later the degree of A. M. He was an assistant of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1684 to 1686, and was appointed by William and Mary in 1692 as one of their first council, serving in that capacity until 1725, a period of thirty-three years. He was appointed a judge in 1692 and Chief Justice of the Province of Massa- chusetts Bay in 1718, resigning this last office in 1728 on account of the infirmities of age. He was also judge of probate of Suffolk County from 1715 to 1728.
Judge Sewall was married three times. His first wife, with whom he lived for forty-three years, was Hannah Hull, daughter of John Hull of Boston, the famous mint master. He married for his second wife Mrs. Abigail Tilley; his third wife was Mrs. Mary Gibbs.
Judge Sewall made the following entry in his diary on July 14, 1707: "Mr. Antram and I, having Benjamin Smith and David to wait on us, Measured with his Wheel from the Town House Two Miles and drove down Stakes at each Mile End in order to placing Stone Posts in convenient time. From the Town House to the Oak and Walnut is a Mile want- ing 21 1/2 Rods. Got home again about Eight o'clock."
Three weeks later the judge wrote: "Peter Weare set up the Stone Post to show a Mile from the Town House ends: Silence Allen, Mr. Gibbon's son, Mr. Thrasher,-Salter, Wm. Wheelers,-Simpson and a Carter assisted, made a Plumb Line of his whip. Being Lecture day, I sent David with Mr. Weare to show him where the second should be set; were only two little Boys beside."
These stones were placed on the thoroughfare we now call Washington street. One mile from the Town House, then standing on the site of the present Old State House, is at about the corner of Washington and Lucas streets. The one milestone at this location is shown on Bonner's map of Boston, which was printed in 1722, fifteen years after
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Judge Sewall had the stone placed in 1707. Two miles from the town house, where the second Sewall stone was set, is at about the corner of Washington and Camden streets. It is to be regretted that these two ancient marking stones are not standing today. But in the upbuilding of a city there is continued change; by such a process these stones may have found useful if not appropriate places in cellar walls. Will they ever be brought to light and reset as relics of the past?
The distinguished Paul Dudley may next claim our atten- tion, for he cut the initials of his name deep and strong on many of the milestones which we see today.
Paul Dudley, son of Joseph Dudley, Governor of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony from 1702 to 1715, was born in Rox- bury, Mass., September 5, 1675, and died there January 25, 1752. He was educated for the law at the Temple in London, and returned to New England in 1702 with a commission from Queen Anne as Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was appointed a judge in 1718 and became Chief Justice of Massachusetts in 1745, holding this office until his death.
Judge Dudley was a naturalist as well as a jurist, was honored as such by membership in the Royal Society of London, and contributed material for a natural history of New England to the transactions of that society.
He married in 1703 Lucy, daughter of Col. John Went- worth of Ipswich, Mass. She died in 1756, surviving her husband less than five years.
It is easy to imagine that in the pursuit of the study of natural science Paul Dudley, the learned judge, traversed on foot the roads and lanes of Roxbury and its vicinity and then conceived the placing of his famous milestones; or he may have set them at the request of his friend Judge Sewall, whose life was then drawing to a close.
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