USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Royalston > Reflections on Royalston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S.A > Part 10
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The irregularities in the records have led us into unprofitable specu- lation. The situation is perplexing. The horns of the dilemma seem to converge into one.
Elisha Cheney had a son Ebenezer born in 1789 and who died in 1795. Then a second Ebenezer was born in 1798, who was the subject of our solicitude. It is possible that the town clerk at times designated this latter Ebenezer as "Jr." because he was the second one of the name in the family. Or perhaps it was a compliment, suggested by the youth- fulness of Mr. Cheney's wife.
My father's old book shows the settlement of a year-long account with Ebenezer Cheney under date of Feb. 5, 1849, which is the last in- formation from that source. I have positive recollection in connection with a serious family event that William Chase lived in the house at 14N
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in 1852. This house was built by Ebenezer Cheney and was probably his home as long as he lived in Royalston Center, for I find no traces of rec- ollection that he or any others of his family occupied any other house. As I lived at 13N, and arrived at the age of 4 years in 1852, it seems to me that I would have known about Mr. Cheney and those boys if they had been around that vicinity.
Ebenezer Cheney and whatever family he had dropped out of sight. Whether they died or removed I have no available means of deciding. Dexter Cheney, of whom the printed records do not show any relationship with the other Royalston Cheneys, was recorded as married in Royalston in 1842, and was listed as a carriage builder in Athol in 1853. Whether Dexter ever had anything to do with Ebenezer in his Royalston factory, or whether Ebenezer might not have gone over to Dexter's Athol factory when he escaped our notice, are matters of conjecture only.
Leonard Wheeler was the only carriage builder designated for Roy- alston in the Massachusetts Register for 1853, but he did not take over the factory permanently, if at all. It stood in a condition of disuse, ex- cept for a part of it that was occupied by the palmleaf business, which is now to be elaborated.
THE PALMLEAF BUSINESS.
The carriage manufactory was the palmleaf shop. The building at 30C on the Common was originally used by Estabrook or Gregory, or perhaps by both, in their palmleaf business, as mentioned on page 54. I do not know when that business was established, or whether it was the first Joseph Estabrook who had a store on the Common who got the business under way, or his successor in the store, Franklin Gregory, who was followed in the store and the palmleaf business by a second Joseph Estabrook and Charles H. and Phinehas S. Newton, about whom more may be said in a story about the stores.
But I do know, almost to a day, I think, when the work of splitting the palmleaf and preparing it for braiding into hats was begun in that carriage manufactory building, in which it was continued for some 35 or 40 years, and as long as the business was conducted in Royalston.
My father's old account book is, to me, indisputable authority in the matter. Under date of Feb. 2, 1848, my father, Benjamin Bacheller Bartlett, entered an account with Luther Hunt, in which he credited Hunt with "3 gages and dies, 3 posts, 3 stands, 2 dozen knives, and 1 emery wheel, etc., $10.50," and "2 days work, $2.00," and charged him with "cash to balance account, $12.50." And Luther Hunt's bill in the trans- action still reposes in the ancient book, on paper almost as strong and white as it was on the day on which it was written, more than 70 years ago; while the ink used has retained its color in the way now desired for permanent records.
Under date of Jan. 31, 1849, practically a year from the time of the acquirement of his tools, my father entered on an account with Joseph Estabrook a charge, "To splitting 44,764 leaves, $279.77," and credited him, "By cash, $145.77," and "By note, $134.00."
Under date of Oct. 15, 1848, on an open account with Ebenezer Che- ney, he credited him, "By shop rent, $14.17."
These old accounts, plus the family tradition that he worked at the palmleaf splitting, prove beyond question that my father did that work for Joseph Estabrook, for one year, furnishing his own tools and paying his shop rent, on a piece basis of 6212 cents per hundred leaves.
An item on the "Memoranda of expenses," "Paid Hunt's board, 35 cents," indicates that Mr. Hunt came from out of town as instructor and helper in beginning the work. And while this was the beginning of the work in that shop, I question whether it was not also the beginning of the splitting in Royalston, as it is probable that if the work had been
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begun at the shop on the Common, the tools would have been there and the work would have been continued there; whereas, that shop remained unused, except for storage purposes, for a number of years, and was converted into a dwelling sometime around 1858.
The beginning of my father's connection with that palmleaf business on Feb. 2, 1848, was followed, 18 days later, by a much more important event, the advent of his only begotten son, at the Goddard house at the foot of the Common, 66C on the map; and that, two or three months later, by one of scarcely less importance, when he bought the house at 13N and made it his home and that of his family. And it appears from his accounts and other data, that he acquired a tract of land and kept a cow and did some farming along with his work in the shops. The land used was located on the road and about half way from the Common to the old Hutchinson place, long since known as the Raymond place, in Square 24 on the little map on page 40; and I suspect that it was in some part the same land used and improved by Rev. E. W. Bullard, and now owned by Colin Mackenzie, who by coincidence also owns my father's former home at 13N.
The palm leaves split to be braided into hats and woven for Shaker bonnets were somewhat similar to those formerly made into palmleaf fans, which almost everybody has seen, but much larger and heavier; some of them, if flattened out, would have made fans 3 or 4 feet, or possibly 5 feet in diameter; and the straws made by splitting, after the butts and tips were chopped off, were 24 to 30 and sometimes perhaps 36 inches in length.
These leaves were usually bleached before they were split. Proba- bly in the earlier stages of the work at the carriage shop this bleaching was done at the shop on the Common; Mr. Caswell states that Gregory had a bleachery. But I can remember, when, as a boy I became large enough to note what was going on at the shops, bleaching rooms were fitted up in the carriage shop. They were boarded up practically air tight, and the palm leaves were stacked up around the walls and exposed to the fumes of burning brimstone or sulphur.
This stuff came in hard rolls, and had the quality, when set afire in iron pots, of burning without blazing up; hence it seemed safe to start it and shut it up to do its work of whitening the leaves.
Probably the theologians who devised the hell of fire and brimstone were aware of this property of the stuff, and so incorporated it into their arrangements as something that would best mete out the endless punish- ment which they desired to have inflicted upon those who would not be- lieve as they wished to have them, -a sort of endless burning that would never destroy, but keep the sinner in eternal misery.
Well, I can say that when those bleaching closets were opened the place smelled like hell for a while, and doors and windows were kept open to reduce the poignancy before the leaves were handled.
My father was a fairly healthy man when he took hold of that palm- leaf work. Brought up on a farm, he was able to do a large amount of hard work during the five or six years that he was at the Holman mill. But that brimstone flavor and the fine dust made bad work with his pul- monary organs; he continued at the work through the year, as probably he had contracted to do, and at the end of that time his health was in such condition that only an absolutely out-door life or sanitarium rest and treatment could have given him back his former good health. His next work, at the Sawyer furniture shop, with the fine dust from ma- chine sandpapering, was not what would to-day be recommended for one in his condition. He did what he could do, and was treated according to the advanced notions of that period, and died June 6, 1852. Consumption of the lungs, tuberculosis. A post-mortem examination showed that one lung was all gone and only a part of the other was left.
I have no information as to who followed my father in that work.
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W. W. Cobb is a name that comes back to me as of one who had a hand in the work sometime during the fifties; Mr. Caswell has him listed as a performer in a Royalston high school "exhibition" in November, 1852. Stephen P. White began in the work before 1860, I think; he answered his country's call in 1862, and died in the service; he was the father of the wife of Colin Mackenzie. A Mr. Pike, brother of Mendall Pike, was in the work during the sixties; he was a Seventh Day Adventist, and was allowed to work in the shop on Sundays instead of Saturdays. Along in the middle sixties three men were brought over from Petersham or Barre, -Knight, Stone and Dick Comerford, I think; they boarded at our house. Later came Charles O. Lamb and Charles V. B. King, from Barre. Edwards Russell Morse was in it for a while, and later became a merchant on the Common. The only thing that kept me from trying the work was my mother's objections, based on my father's experience; I was called for, and the stipend was alluring, as, on account of the diffi- culty in getting men to take up the work, the remuneration was kept higher than in some other trades and occupations.
The braiding of the palmleaf into hats was never done at the fac- tory; the work was put out, and was done by women and children at their homes in the villages and on the farms, and sometimes the "men folks" would lend a hand at it. It was probably introduced along the time that the home carding, spinning and weaving were being super- seded by factory production. In some localities a large majority of the families braided palmleaf hats.
Usually the leaf was bought by the braiders, and the braided hats were sold to the parties from whom the leaf was bought or to others, the pay usually being taken in goods, on which a good profit was made. The tin peddlers and dry-goods peddlers who went about the country usually accepted the hats in exchange for their wares, whether they furnished the leaf or not. Country stores generally traded for the hats, and some of them had the leaf to put out. The "Massachusetts Register and Business Directory" for 1853 lists five of the Royalston store firms as dealers in palmleaf hats; but probably only one of these, Joseph Esta- brook, had a shop for preparing the leaf; the others dealt with him, or with out-of-town parties, as best served their interests or prejudices, taking the hats at the market price in order to get the profit on the goods with which they paid for them.
While the "Register" for 1853 listed Joseph Estabrook as alone in the palmleaf business, under the head of "Country Stores" it listed Estabrook & Newton. Charles H. Newton had been a clerk for Esta- brook, and then became his partner in the store; not many years later Estabrook retired from business, and Newton took over both the store and the palmleaf business, associating with him his brother, Phinehas S. Newton, under the firm name of C. H. Newton & Co. Phinehas was provided with a good looking but not gorgeous wagon, or "cart," as it was usually called, drawn by a well matched pair of horses, and for many years he made regular trips through towns within 20 to 30 miles from Royalston, putting out the palmleaf, taking in the braided hats, and paying for them in such goods as were wanted; and a large and profitable trade was built up.
As this work of braiding was done by the "women folks," they felt at liberty to turn it for some articles which perhaps they would not have felt like asking the heads of their families to pay for out of the products of the farms or the shops. And so probably many a woman braided into her work visions of the handsome bonnet, gown, cloak, muff, fur piece, or other articles of apparel and adornment which "Phin" would bring to her at the desired time, in exchange for her season's toil. But there were families, which had no male bread-winners, the members of which braided and braided, expecting in return little more than food and fuel and the plainest and most economical clothing.
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My mother was an expert braider. The daughter of a thrifty and prosperous farmer, she probably acquired the habit in her girlhood days at home, and it followed into her married life, and it became her chief means of providing for the needs of her two children and herself after the loss of my father. My sister became an expert braider, and earned many dollars when not attending or teaching school and by working while other girls were at play. I was taught to braid, and had my regu- lar "stint" to do when not attending school; this consisted of braiding down the straight part of the side of a hat, and perhaps it counted for a cent a day in the product; but so "distasteful" was the work to my fas- tidious nature that I often dawdled a good part of the day over my job, with my elders protesting aud urging that I could finish it in an hour or two and thus have a large part of the day for play. And very glad was I when there was a chance to drive cows to pasture, pick berries, or do something different from the detested "girl's work." By the marriage of my mother to David P. Foster in 1859 a male bread-winner was added to the family, and he arranged for my employment at work more com- patible to my sex. "But that is another story."
Again referring to that old family account book, I find that palmleaf was bought in 1846 and 1847 at 22 to 25 cents per pound, and hats were sold in 1847 and 1848 at 25 and 28 cents for single rims, and 42 to 46 cents for double rims. Later, the palmleaf was furnished the family without buying it, as it would be used economically, and a price paid for braiding it into hats, which ranged from 5 to 8 cents per hat with single rim, as the leaf was split to different degrees of fineness, making a difference in the amount of braiding required to make a hat.
By persistent labor at this braiding, often working until late in the evening, when, with the children in bed, and nothing to hinder her, she could accomplish more than in the daytime, my mother averaged to earn about 25 cents per day, besides attending to household duties and making and mending for the family. She occasionally had an opportunity to "cut and fit" a lady's dress-waist, for which service she accepted the munifi- cent fee of 25 cents; and she was quite willing to do such work, as she said she could earn the 25 cents at that work more easily than at the braiding. She was also occasionally employed to braid a "custom" hat, which she whitened in a brimstone barrel in the cellar, pressed neatly over a block from the shop, and placed a black band around it. The cus- tomer probably wore that hat to church.
Machines for pressing the hats were introduced into the shop, and I once saw them in operation. They consisted of round blocks, (neither oval in shape nor graduated by sixteenths of an inch in size, as hats are now made,) upon which the hats were stretched and revolved by power from Cheney's old water wheel; blocks of iron were heated in a furnace in the chimney and placed in metal sockets or shells attached to arms or levers in such a way that they could be brought down to cover all parts of the revolving hats. But for some reason this pressing was not con- tinued for a great length of time, and I know from my own observations that the row of machines stood idle and dust-covered for many years, and the hats were sent away in the rough condition in which they came from the braiders, nested one into another and packed in palmleaf sacks.
I suspect that thousands of those hats were sent in that condition to foreign lands, where bare-headed savages had been civilized up to the desirability of adding the hat to the breech-clout for "full dress."
About 1860 the Newtons added the Shaker-hood or bonnet business, and much of the palmleaf was woven into that class of goods. Looms were furnished the weavers at their homes, on which were woven the webs, approximately two feet square, and from each of which probably two of the hoods could be cut. And there were smaller looms that could be held on the lap, on which were woven narrow bindings, which, with a notch braid, made by crossing the straws diagonally, were used to
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cover the seams and edges of the parts cut from the webs. Sometimes the leaf was colored and the hoods were woven in solid color, or mixed.
We had the looms and did some of all parts of that Shaker-hood work at our house. I operated the big wooden loom. The old account book was pressed into service again, and I find under the heading, "The Earnings of 1861," that during the months of January and February, 178 webs were produced at 5 cents each, a large part of which were credited to my initial, although I was attending school. Meanwhile the ladies produced 369 of the narrow webs, at 2 cents each, and ended the month, and the account as well, with braiding 17 hats at 6 cents each. The most notable item in a family expense account kept during the early months of that year, 1861, was "2 quarts kerosene, 46 cents," 92 cents a gallon. On that great family necessity the Standard oil trust has "robbed the public" to the extent that it has sometimes paid 8 to 10 cents a gallon for the stuff, with a war-time price around 15 cents.
The Shaker-hoods were never finished up in Royalston, except an occasional home-made one for home use; but some of them were brought back from the factory and sold to the women and girls. Those hoods, well varnished and about as air-tight and nearly as attractive as tin milk-pails would be, made nice warm summer bonnets, and almost all of the members of the gentler sex wore them for common, but not for full dress, with the same pertinacity with which many of them went bare- headed half the year in more recent times. -
But the hoods had their day, and soon were "laid on the shelf;" so their manufacture was given up, while there were still many millions of hatless heathen to be supplied with hats. The Newtons sold out their store to Obadiah Walker in 1870, and Charles H. Newton removed to Fitchburg. Phinehas S. Newton continued the palmleaf business for many years, but finally allowed it to die the same death as the furniture and carriage business had met; that is, he did not transfer or sell it to other parties to be continued, but gradually reduced it to nothing. The palmleaf business had been more profitable than the other enterprises.
The bi-product of this palmleaf business furnished a basis for an- other manufacturing enterprise. The outside straws, separated by the splitters from the parts suitable for hats and bonnets, were made into door-mats. Russell Morse, Jr., made these mats in a shop opposite his home and close beside the north district schoolhouse, two miles from the Center (Square 15). The straws were braided into a rope, which was coiled and sewed into a circular or oblong form; some of the straws were "hetcheled" into finer shreds, dipped in a dye of a brilliant hue, and braided into the outside row, forming a fringe. These mats were orna- mental, useful and durable, and found a ready sale.
The butts and tips, chopped from the palm-leaves before they were stripped up for splitting, were used in the manufacture of paper.
In the course of time the old building, with the big sign, "Carriage Manufactory" across its front, (and which lasted, perhaps, as long as the building remained,) was removed, and a smaller one erected on or near its location, which was used for a creamery for several years. It was operated on a co-operative basis, I think. A gasoline motor was used for power. Before 1900 the building and lot passed into the ownership of Herman. M. Partridge, who continued there the manufacture of crutches, kindergarten materials, and other articles, which he had pre- viously made at the old Holman-Partridge mill.
THE SHOEMAKER'S SHOP.
Leonard Wheeler built the cottage house at 21N, and he also built in connection with it a place for a shoemaker's shop, which was not merely a room in the house, but had a separate entrance and flight of stairs. Probably the first person who did business in this shop was George S.
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Colburn. The Royalston "Vital Records" give his marriage to Frances R. Sawyer, Dec. 14, 1842; quite likely she was a relative of Joseph Saw- yer, although I found no proof of it in Templeton or Royalston records. Colburn was probably "pegging away" in that shop as late as February, 1850, when he was credited with a mending job in the old account book. Later than that I have no information or recollection in regard to him; and it seems probable that he removed from Royalston at about the time that the Sawyers went away. William Milton Chase, son of Captain William, made and mended boots and shoes in that shop for a time, and Aaron A. Grant carried on business there, both before and after taking part in the Civil War. When Cyrus P. Reed became occupant the shop room was merged into the dwelling.
THE STEAM-MILL FIASCO.
In 1856 or 1857 a stock company was organized to build a mill at the Center, with the manufacture of chairs, and perhaps pails and tubs, as the business in view. Gardner and Ashburnham were becoming famous on account of their great chair factories; Fitchburg was following; and
ROYALSTON STEAM-MILL.
similar factories had recently been started in Templeton, Westminster, Hubbardston, Princeton, and other towns, which appeared to be doing well; why should not Royalston, with an abundance of the raw material right at hand, have a factory, and achieve prosperity?
The principal and probably the controlling stockholders in the com- pany, as I was informed by Phinehas S. Newton, were: George Whitney, $1,500; Barnet Bullock, $1,500; Elmer Newton, $1,500; Joseph Raymond, $1,000. Others among the thrifty farmers and artizans held smaller amounts, and probably a good working capital was assured.
A lot was purchased from Joseph Estabrook, a little to the north and east of the lower end of the Common, and on it, at the location indi- cated at 10N on the map of the Center, printed on pages 52 and 73, was erected a four-story frame building, of substantial mill construction for that period. This was supplemented by a solid brick building containing a first-class steam plant, and a tall brick chimney.
Our "artist" made a sketch intended to give an idea of the size and shape of the building. The first story was a semi-basement, and the ground descended toward the mill, so that the roll-way for logs, intended to facilitate their approach to the up-and-down saw-mill at the right of the second floor, was not rising, as it seems to be in the sketch, but level.
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As the steam-mill lot was just across the street from my home, I watched the erection of the big building and the tall chimney with boyish interest. Some of the workmen boarded at our house. The drawing of the big bed-stone on which the steam engine was installed, from a Fitz- william granite quarry, by 12 or 15 pairs of oxen, was an event for older people as well as the children. A battery of three huge boilers was set in the brick building, but the smaller parts were never connected, and no machinery was ever placed on the floors of the main building.
At this distance, it appears that the great financial panic of the lat- ter part of 1857 scared the steam-mill company out of ever operating the mill. The buildings stood vacant for nearly nine years, unused except by the children, who found ways of getting into the nailed-up and locked- up premises. At least one Fourth-of-July Sunday-school picnic was held on the broad floors. On the occasion of the Centennial celebration in 1865, the tent in which a two-dollar dinner was served to 800 adults, and in which the post-prandial exercises were held, was set up near the mill building, and a 50-cent dinner was served the children, in the building.
It is probable that it had been expected that Col. George Whitney would become the active manager of the operations of the mill, as he had undoubtedly been the promoter of the organization of the company. Col. Whitney held the position of station agent at the South Royalston railroad station, but he had placed his brother-in-law, "Uncle Ben" Wheeler, there to attend to most of the duties of that confining position; he also held a contract which called for the carrying of mails between the Center and South Royalston three days in the week; and he had an interest in the chair shop at South Royalston. Obviously he considered himself capable of handling bigger business, and the steam-mill project seemed to be it. Perhaps Col. Whitney would have pushed the steam- mill into activity but for one little event. Rufus Bullock died Jan. 10, 1858. He was the proprietor of the woolen mill at South Royalston; his family had never had anything to do with it, and they didn't want it; so they "unloaded" it onto Col. Whitney and Daniel Day. That was reason enough, perhaps, why Col. Whitney did not feel especially interested in nursing the drooping steam-mill plant into full foliage and fruitage.
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