USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lawrence > Quarter-centennial history of Lawrence, Massachusetts, with portraits and biographical sketches > Part 3
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1664 .- Attendance of every voter was required, and every neglect to come to the town meeting at the day and time appointed subject- ed the delinquent to a forfeiture of 12 pence.
1672 .- It is ordered that whatsoever dogs shall be in the meeting house on the Sabbath day, the owner thereof shall pay 6 pence for every time being there, and G. A. Jr., is appointed to take notice thereof and have the pay for his pains and to gather it up.
1680 .- It was voted and agreed upon that if any person whether male or female, shall sit in any other place in the meeting house than where they are appointed by the committee shall forfeit for every such offense for the use of the town twenty pence, to be forthwith gathered by the constable by order of said committee and if the con- stable faileth to do as abovesaid to pay said sum himself.
1689 .- Ordered by the selectmen that no persons entertain others in their houses after 9 o'clock in the evening without warrantable busi- ness, on penalty of five shillings. No young persons to be abroad on Saturday or Sunday nights, nor people to entertain on these nights in the like penalty,-persons unseasonably away from their own homes exposed to the same forfeiture. The tithingmen were requir- - ed to examine and report the breaches of these orders.
1695 .- Two persons were appointed by the Selectmen to sit in the galleries to inspect the young on the Sabbath and were required to notify disorderly persons to the minister."
The settlers of Andover during these years had much trouble with the Indians. Shortly after Passaconnaway's death in 1660 a war sprung up between the Indians and the whites which was waged at
ASA M. BODWELL,
Farmer,-" to the manor born," living upon the estate of his ances- tors, now comprising 190 acres. Mr. Bodwell has sold considerable of the original estate, including the site of the city reservoir, and has also added several parcels. He was born in 1812, and has spent his - life upon the old homestead, excepting a few years passed at the west in early manhood ; has never married. He received the educational advantages offered by the common schools of this valley fifty years ago. About four years ago he moved the old wooden house of his ancestors and erected the fine brick edifice, No. 589 Haverhill Street, where he now resides.
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HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
intervals till the year 1696. Subsequent to this date Andover was not a frontier town, and no depredations by the Indians in this vicin- ity are reported. During the next century and a quarter the sturdy yeomanry on either side of the river moved on in the even tenor of their way, little dreaming of the changes the next century would pro- duce. After the factories had been set in motion in Lowell, people about here began to wonder whether Bodwell's Falls and other rapids in the river near them could and would ever be utilized. At one time about the year 1825, as Dr. Isaac Tewksbury was riding over Phillips Hill in company with Dr. Kittredge, of North Andover, they halted and took a bird's eye survey of this valley and remarked upon the feasibility and probability of a future city. At that time there were not over 200 persons residing in the territory now comprising . the city of Lawrence.
A * writer of the Old Residents' Association says, that no church spire pointed to heaven in this valley ; only three school buildings, of limited capacity, with primitive accommodations, stood within present city limits. There was no hum of machinery excepting the simple movements of the small paper and grist mills on the lower Spicket and the activity at Stevens' workshop, on the site of the Ar- lington Mills. But here .was the waterfall, the noble sweep of river, the lesser streams winding their way through wooded valleys to meet the Merrimack. Here were the sandy Shawsheen fields in Andover, long tilled by savage and civilized hands and the sparsely settled farms, with wooded pastures, lying along the north bank of the river in Methuen, with the same rounded hills to eastward and westward. Here was the swell of land, between the Merrimack and Spicket rivers, favoring building, drainage and a regular arrangement of city streets ; here were all the possibilities of future activity waiting the advent of men bold, enterprising and skilful enough to transform this sleepiest of rural neighborhoods into a centre of activity and life. * Hon. R. II. Tewksbury.
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The Andover tract was known as the "Moose Country " or the Plain of Sodom, and the chief innkeeper at the Cross roads was familiarly called Lot. The Methuen district was in retaliation called Gomorrah by dwellers on the opposite bank. A ravine traversed by a small intermittent stream bisected this Methuen plain, leaving the river from a point near the Central Pacific, Mill, running northerly in- land, nearly with the line of Lawrence street, bending westward and broadening into a basin lying between the line of Haverhill street and Amesbury and Franklin streets. This basin, now mostly filled and drained, has become the heart of population in Wards Three and Four.
A gulley or run extending from the Washington Mills, nearly on a line with Jackson street, to the quagmire which formed the easterly part of Lawrence Common. Below Union street, eastward from the Duck Mills, was a sunken valley, lower than the bottom of the canal, requiring a vast amount of filling. There was a shorter ravine where the Atlantic Mills are located, and another low run extending inland, towards depot square, from a point near the counting house of the main Pacific Mills. Depot square and its immediate vicinity was a pool of stagnant water, well stocked with pouts and other fish. A ridge or bluff of bluestone ran parallel with Essex street, to the rear of where the post office now stands, from which, in the early days of the city, cannon were fired in times of jubilation and poli- tical rejoicing.
Haverhill and East Haverhill streets follow substantially old county roads, changed somewhat in direction and grade ; Broadway is a sec- - tion of the old turnpike laid out in 1806, from Concord, N. H., to Medford, Mass., that part within the city limits taking the name a few 'years since. Portions of Cross, Arlington, Berkeley, and Marston streets in North Lawrence, and of Lowell road, Salem turnpike and Merrimack street in South Lawrence, with the ferry and back roads in the outlying wards, follow substantially okl thoroughfares.
W. R. SPALDING.
Captain Spaulding was born in Wilton, N. H. in 1828. Came to Lawrence in 1846, and entered the clothing business, in which he has from that time been engaged, and is consequently the oldest merchant in the city. He obtained the charter of the Merrimack Valley Horse Railroad, and was largely instrumental in its being built, and was at one time extensively interested in the Concord Railroad, and one of its directors for several years. At the present time he is one of the directors of the Lowell & Lawrence Railroad, and is, under appoint- .
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* ment of Gov. Rice, one of the Inspectors of State Charitable Institu- tions for Paupers and Insane at Tewksbury ; is also a director of the Pemberton National Bank and treasurer of the Lawrence Savings Bank. He has served in both branches of the city government. Married Mary A. Ham, a native of Rochester, N. H.
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HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
The old ferry roads had much travel before the building of Andover bridge ; they compassed the valley, now the site of the city. The westerly road approached from the north, reaching the Merrimack at Bodwell's ferry, near pumping station, by way of Currant, (Bellevue) and Tower Hill, running as now, to the rear of Bellevue Cemetery. The easterly road ran as it now runs, over and a little to the eastward of Prospect Hill, reaching the Merrimack at Marston's ferry, near the Lawrence poor farm, where was also, in the olden time, a ford.
After the building of the Andover Bridge, in 1793, a rough roadway ran from the bridge, northeasterly, across the lowlands to a point just west of the First Baptist church, where it joined the Haverhill road.
The few dwellings dotting the plain within the central wards were mostly upon the road, now straightened, graded and known as Haver- hill and East Haverhill streets. On East Haverhill street was and still is the old house, with its immense elm, both now standing, almost the only undisturbed relics of a former century, in the populous districts of the city. A part of this ancient dwelling is so old that it ante-dates all recollections or traditions, excepting the known fact that it once stood near the mouth of the Spicket River, on the Merrimack bank, before roads were opened in the region, and sheltered one of the first settlers on this plain. The great farm belonging with this estate lay along the western bank of the Spicket river, and extended from the Merrimack to the westward bend of the Spicket, and westerly to the Gage farm, hereafter mentioned. The old house was removed to the present site, when highways were laid out, and large additions made thereto. The great elm was transplanted from the Spicket bank by a tramping soldier of the old French war, about one hundred and twenty-six years ago, at the request of the fair wife of the farmer re- siding there. The estate is now the homestead of W. B. Gallison, Esq. Opposite this ancient landmark was the more modern dwelling of Adolphus Durant, Esq., built a little more than fifty years ago ; with a snug enclosure of surrounding land with the buildings. The house is
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well remembered, and was removed a few years since and fitted for tenants.
The farm house and buildings of the late Phineas M. Gage, stood in the fields on the spot now known as Jackson Terrace ; the old well with curb and sweep, was just at the rear of the Unitarian church, the farm orchard was in the section of the city now crossed by. Orchard street, his garden extending along the line of Garden street. Thus the names of two city streets are naturally accounted for. The farm of Mr. Gage extended from the banks of the Merrimack to Spicket River, including the eastern end of the common, and the lands eastward to a line near Newbury street.
The substantial dwelling standing upon the site of the high school building is so well remembered as hardly to need mention. It was occupied in old times, in turn by one Remick, a sea-faring man, and one Thwing from Dorchester, and by Daniel Merrill, Esq., later of Methuen. Lawrence common was mostly within the lines of this es- tate, which included all of the central and westerly portion. .
The ancient homestead of Capt. White stood just west of the resi- dence of J. H. Battles, Esq., near the corner of Haverhill and Law- rence streets. His farm lands extended westerly to Cross street and northward to Spicket river, with a large central tract south of Haver- hill street. His son Judge Daniel Appleton White, born beneath the old sloping roof, gave the citizens of Lawrence what must continue to prove a source of perpetual pleasure and incalculable profit, his mu- nificent gift for the founding of a course of lectures, established and known as the "White Fund Course," and from the fund material aid is given to sustain and enlarge the public library. The more modest farm house at the corner of Amesbury and Haverhill streets was, with several acres of surrounding lands, the property of Fairfield White, Esq., now living, hale and hearty, a resident of Methuen, and still holding a part of those lands. A substantial square farm house, near where E. W. Colcord now lives, at the corner of Franklin and Haver-
1899261
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STEPHEN P. SIMMONS,
Stone Contractor and Builder. Residence, 175 Haverhill St. Has been in Lawrence since April Ist, 1847. Was born in Foster, R. I., April 17, 1813. Received a common school education. Learned the mason's trade in 1833, at Woonsocket Falls, R. I. Was married in 1834, in Smithfield, R. I., to Fannie B. Eldridge of South Harwich, Mass. ; has four children. Attends the First Methodist church. He helped to build the dam across the Merrimack River, built the stone chimney in Everett yard, Grace Episcopal church, all the foundations, excavating, grading, etc., for Lawrence jail, stone church in Methuen, and re-built the foundation of the Pemberton Mill after its fall. In 1854 did several thousand dollars' worth of work for the Essex Co. Mr. Simmons was present at the organization of the town of Lawrence, and also voted at the first city election.
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HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
hill streets, was known at one time as the Sargent house. It was torn down about the time the city was incorporated.
The buildings of the Methuen poor farm, formerly owned by Na- thaniel Sargent, stood near the corner of Bradford street and Broadway, then the corner of Haverhill road and old turnpike, and were too lately removed to need special description.
The town farm lands lay along either side of the old turnpike from Andover bridge northward, with a great pasture on the easterly slope of Tower Hill, the lands of one Alpheus Bodwell, being in the Ward Five lowlands. West of the railway was the modest low dwelling of Captain John Smith, on the site of the residence of E. F. Childs, Esq., at the corner of Haverhill and May streets. One Jennings, formerly owned the lands northward of this dwelling nearly to Methuen line. Two dwellings, not particularly noticeable, stood on the slope of the hill before reaching the Bodwell farm buildings, just westward of the ferry road. This Bodwell farm house has within a year or two been supplanted by a modern brick structure ; the estate is still held by the family. Asa M. Bodwell, Esq., being one of the few men of enter- prise remaining of the old stock of settlers born and reared upon the soil. Edwin Sargent, Esq., residing on Prospect Hill, is another en- terprising native who has faithfully kept the inheritance. Warren Stevens, Esq., of South Lawrence, was to the manor born, and with others worthily represents the old stock in that locality. Of the de- scendants of James Smith, who had a small estate on the old turnpike just north of Haverhill street, Charles M. Smith is a man whose ex- - ample may be safely followed and his walk commended. The origi- nal Poors, Barnards, Liscombs, Gages and Swans have worthy de- scendants, holding in many cases portions of the old estate.
On the farm of Levi Emery, Esq., our lively Representative, was the old farm house formerly of one Ordway, a sterling Bunker Hill patriot, who, when ammunition failed, threw stones and clods, and pos-
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sibly hurled imprecations at the red coats. The estate was afterwards owned by one Trull.
The Samuel Ames, formerly Davis, farm was the same substan- tially as that now owned by Mr. Ames, and below, at the river banks and ferry, were two ancient houses, once much resorted to in the days of ferries and fords. A rickety dwelling known as the Roger house stood at upper guard locks, and was the first to be demolished and replaced at the founding of the city.
On the lower Spicket was the Foster house, still standing, just below East Haverhill street bridge, and the paper mills of A. Durant, Esq., long since supplanted and removed. The little old school house at the corner of East Haverhill and Prospect streets, was long since replaced by a modern spacious building ; the one on Tower Hill was years ago removed ; the one in South Lawrence was removed years since and is now a modest dwelling.
Where is now the Arlington Mills, stood the piano case factory of Abiel Stevens, afterwards transformed into a hat factory, and in the immediate neighborhood the residence of father and son ; the well- known Susan Huse place, the house standing, the residence lately occupied by John N. Archer, and the square house, in which, in the early days, Nathan Wells, Esq., resided.
In South Lawrence the cross-road settlement, where Andover street crosses Broadway, was the nearest approach to a village within the present city limits. Here was the Essex Tavern, the Shawsheen Tavern and county store. The substantial brick residence of the late Hon. Daniel Saunders, is still standing and occupied by his respected widow. The Essex House is now a dwelling, changed somewhat from its former appearance. The Shawsheen House under another name is still kept as a public house. Opposite the old toll house was a modest old style dwelling.
On the Lowell road westward from this corner are three old dwell- ings of note. The Theodore Poor farm house, the Caleb Richardson
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HEZEKIAH PLUMMER,
Lumber Dealer, 434 Haverhill St. ; residence, 155 Haverhill St. Born in Andover territory now Lawrence, in 1815. Hle was brought up on a farm, commencing to learn the carpenter's trade when thirteen years old. Was engaged in making doors and sashes in 1846, at Hazen Mill, formerly so called, on the Lowell road, about a mile from South Lawrence depot. Soon after this, when there commenced a demand for lumber to build the "new city," he erected a steam mill upon the South Side, for the same purpose. Associated with Joseph Norris from 1852 until his death, Mr. Plummer has built many public buildings, as well as private residences. Married in 1846 ; has one child. At- tends the Unitarian church. Was common councilman in 1856 and 1859 ; alderman, 1861, 1868, 1871 and 1872.
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HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
estate and the old dwellings erected by the pioneers Barnard and Stevens, all with marks of extreme old age, but all showing that they were built by thrifty farmers, men of enterprise, with ideas in advance of their time.
On the corner of Andover and Parker streets, where one Towne lived for years, and John Bailey, Esq., now resides, once stood the dwelling of Capt. Michael Parker. The Captain was a blacksmith as well as farmer ; his ancestry were buried in the open lot south of the shop, and as he worked at his forge he could look out upon the little enclosure of sleepers. When he sold his farm of a hundred acres, which lay along the Merrimack eastward, the bodies where removed to Andover cemetery. Parker street perpetuates his name.
In the present suburbs of Lawrence, the old estates remain so nearly as they were and the changes are so well known, descriptions would be tedious. Among the most notable land marks is the Tarbox dwelling. at the foot of Clover Hill, where Hon. John K. Tarbox was born, and the old dwelling of the Sargents and Swans, to the eastward of Pros- pect Hill. Along the line of the Merrimack were rude fish wharves, busy localities in the fishing season ; there were five of them between the dam and the Industrial school, simple structures of rough stone and logs, each creating an eddy where at some seasons the fish gathered in immense numbers.
Thus upon the fingers of the hand may be counted the dwellings and buildings that stood within the populous portion of the city. In all the district where the great mills have been built and where men congregate for trade stood not a single habitation. Previous to 1845, little change had taken place for more than a century. The silence that brooded over the plain was almost oppressive. The waterfall wasted. a countless horse power in its musical flow, the years came and went and brought little of change to the isolated farmer, the hardy river raftsman, or the careless, happy-go-lucky fisherman who got his supply of food so easily at the rapids, and consumed it in such abundant
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QUARTER-CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
quantity that, if the modern theory that fish specially nourishes the brain were true, he should have been, as he certainly was not, the most intellectual of mortals.
But, though long delayed, change came, change rapid, radical and entire, overshadowing completely the leaven of original population, till only here and there do we find the descendant of a native family, or a landmark untouched by the hand of enterprise.
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CHARLES STORER STORROW,
Treasurer and Agent of the Essex Co. Came to Lawrence from Bos- ton at the founding of the city, surveying its site, locating the streets, improvements, reserves, etc. ; a civil engineer by profession, he planned and directed those first important works-the great stone dam and the canals. Born at Montreal, P. Q., March 25, 1809, during the temporary residence of his parents there. Was first mayor of - Lawrence, 1853. Manager and engineer of the Boston & Lowell Railroad previous to coming to Lawrence. Chief engineer of opera- . tions at Hoosac Tunnel for a time. Appointed one of the park com- missioners for the city of Boston in 1876. Has resided in Boston for several years attending to the finances of the company at the Boston office, and constantly visiting Lawrence, attending personally to the home management. Married Lydia Cabot, and has several children.
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V BEGINNING THE ENTERPRISE .- THE ESSEX COMPANY.
* Amid all the gorgeous imagery of the Arabian Night Entertain- ments, that rich, unfailing source of youthful enjoyment and delight, there has probably no one tale so colored the day dream of boyhood or so materially ministered to the idealistic fancy of imaginative youth, as the enchanting story of " Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp," where- in is recited among the many marvellous feats of the wonderful Genii, the subservient slave of the youthful possessor of the wonderful lamp. The account is almost incredible, even where one is so ready to be- lieve, of the erection from foundation to turret of a most magnificent palace complete, with its entire equipment, with the exception of one single window, in the short space of a single night.
Substituting in the stead of a single night-time, the space of hardly - half a short half decade of years, and here on this very spot of earth called home by thousands there has been performed a feat hitherto hardly less incredible, to wit, in this short space of time, by the aid of no supernatural power or mythical agency, a deep and rapid river, arrested in its impetuous course, its mighty and resistless force
" For a portion of this chapter the compiler Is indebted to Hon. W. 11. P. Wright for facts and formulated sentences.
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made the subservient slave of man, and doomed to toil in harness at the will of its master, the erection of an infant city, with its mills and its hundreds of diversified industries, its churches, its schools, its happy homes, and all the manifold surroundings that go to make up a happy, prosperous, flourishing municipality, and all this on a barren locality, which before afforded but a moderate support to a few un- ambitious tillers of the soil.
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DANIEL SAUNDERS, SR.
If the earliest conception of the scheme and the means of its suc- cessful acheivements, if the unshared labor and responsibility, the heart-sickening discouragement, the wearing anxiety and care neces- sarily attendant on so vast an undertaking in its inception, are matters
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HISTORY OF LAWRENCE, MASS.
of moment. If to the unfailing sagacity, the untiring energy, and indomitable resolution of one man, the success of an enterprise is mainly due, and all these together in one individual, entitle him to rank as Founder of the Enterprise, then to one who unassuming and unpretending, for many years, walked with us and lived amongst us, belongs the proud title of the Founder of our City, and places among the honored names in Lowell, of Boot, of Colburn and Worthen of earlier days, that of Daniel Saunders, of Lawrence. Sometime pre- vious to 1835 Mr. Saunders, than resident in Andover, and at the time engaged in the woolen manufacture, on his own account, came by chance into the possession of an old plan for a canal from Lowell to tide water in the Merrimack river. He was a man who never mislaid, or wasted, or destroyed anything that could by any possibil- lity become of future use or value, unpretending but self reliant, who thought more than he talked, and who was one of the very few pos- sessed of that rare faculty of keeping their own secret without taking the world into their confidence upon every matter trivial or otherwise, or who felt necessary to cackle into existence every new idea suggest- ing itself, as the hen ushers into the world her new laid egg.
From occasional studies of the plan and from the numerous sites for locking, as thereon portrayed, he was persuaded that there must be a more considerable fall between Lowell and tide water in the Merrimack river than was generally conceived, and this seemed some- what plausible from the fact that the river between these two points was navigable downward by rafts, and exhibited at no one place any - decided fall, but showed the descent of the water, such as it was, by occasional rapids, up which a boat might be pushed without diffi- culty in ordinary height of water, and consequently was to an ordi- - nary observer, extremely deceptive as to its actual capacity for power. In order to satisfy himself of the fact, with a single assistant, and with no other instruments than a straight edge and spirit level, he determined the fall of the several rapids, between the two points, with
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