USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Royalston > Reflections on Royalston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S.A > Part 27
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The town is not without some compensation, however; for while the owners of the land occupied must pay the taxes on it, the company has for many years paid taxes on its equipment of towers, wiring, etc., and in 1921, with its name changed to New England Power Company, its valuation was placed at $57,600, on which it paid a tax of $1,255.68, while a branch or subsidary company, carrying a line into New Hampshire, had a valuation of $5,180, and a tax of $112.92.
In 1921 or 1922 a proposition was received from the company to bring the electric current into Royalston on a voltage adapted to general use for $12,000. Individuals offered to pay $2,000 of the amount, and the matter was brought up at the annual March town-meeting, to see if the Town would become responsible for the payment of $10,000. The vote was against the acceptance of the proposition.
A little later, several individuals installed private electric plants, generally uti- lizing gasoline motors for driving the dynamos generating the electric current.
For many years the woolen mill at South Royalston, running its dynamos by its own water power, has furnished current for lighting streets and public and pri- vate buildings in that locality. There has been a gradual extension of street light- ing at South Royalston, and the cost to the Town for the equipment and current in recent years has ranged around $200 to $250 per annum.
At the Center, street lights on the Common were first provided for several years by individuals, who placed them where they would do the most good. In 1916 the Town paid for an equipment of kerosene lamps, and has since paid for the up-keep and care, the cost in recent years ranging around $250 to $300 per year.
The printed valuation books of Royalston show that Edward Franklin Bragg, of Cambridge, a son of Rev. Jesse Kendall Bragg, who was a native of Royalston, was the owner of several of the water powers on Lawrence River, long since dis- carded for mill purposes; and it is also told that he had acquired water powers along Millers River, and had in mind their utilization in the development of elec- tricity. He died in 1823, after several years of invalidism. When it comes about that electric energy may be stored indefinitely, many a small stream may be profit- ably employed in storing a surplus in time of high water, to be drawn on when the water is low and insufficient to operate the dynamos.
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REV. JOSEPH LEE'S FAMILY.
Rev. Joseph Lee, the story of whose connection with "The Church of Christ in Royalston," as pastor for 50 years, is told on pages 108 to 114 of these Reflections, was a man of extensive family experience, although the various official histories of Royalston give but little information on the matter. The Vital Records book, however, gives information that he was three times married and the father of ten children.
He married, first, Sarah Barrett, of Newton, Oct. 26, 1769; she was the mother of 7 of his children, and died Feb. 15, 1783.
He married, second, Lucy Jones, daughter of Rev. Thomas Jones, of Woburn, July 31, 1784; she was the mother of 3 children, and died Sept. 17, 1791, aged 39.
He married, third, Widow Hannah Farrar, of Shrewsbury, May 31, 1795; she died March 16, 1818, aged 72.
Rev. Joseph Lee died Feb. 16, 1819, aged 76. Here is the list of his children, gathered from the lists of births and deaths in the Vital Records. The births of the 1st and 6th are not given in the Vital Records, but as their ages at death are given as 1 day, the dates of their births are here given to correspond.
1. Lee, a daughter, born Sept. 19, 1771; died Sept. 20, 1771.
2. Joseph Lee, born Aug. 1, 1773. (See below.)
3. Samuel Lee, born Feb. 15, 1775; died Aug. 28, 1777.
4. Sarah Lee, baptized July 13, 1777; died July 25, 1777.
5. Samuel Lee, born Jan. 16, 1779. (See below.)
6. - Lee, a daughter, born Dec. 17, 1782; died Dec. 18, 1782.
7. Sarah B. Lee, born Feb. 2, 1783; died July 3, 1783.
8. Thomas Jones Lee, born July 8, 1785. (See below.)
9. Lucy Lee, born Sept. 17, 1786; died Aug. 14, 1840. (See below.)
10. Sarah Barrett Lee, born July 30, 1791. (See below.)
There is nothing in the Royalston Vital Records to inform us what became of the younger Joseph Lee; but in the Templeton Vital Records it is stated that Joseph Lee, of Orland, District of Maine, and Priscilla Sparhawk, of Templeton, were married Oct. 16, 1801; and Samuel Lee, of Buckstown, Hancock County, Maine, and Elizabeth Sparhawk, of Templeton, were married June 26, 1804. From this we may well surmise that young Joseph and Samuel Lee wandered down into Maine, teaching school, perhaps, and in due time, when they had arrived at the ages of 28 and 25, respectively, they came back to Templeton, to claim two of the estimable daughters of Rev. Ebenezer and Naomi (Hill) Sparhawk.
In a short note relating to Rev. Joseph Lee, the Memorial says: "A son, Capt. Samuel Lee, of Templeton, was one of our Vice-Presidents on Centennial day." This Samuel Lee was undoubtedly the 5th child in the list above, and he was 86 years of age at the time of the Centennial. He was the father of Hon. Artemas Lee, of Templeton, with whom Joseph Raymond was associated in business in Tem- pleton, from 1824 to 1838 (p. 91), and who was designated to respond for "Worcester County," at the Centennial.
Mr. Bullock said, in his Centennial address: "Of the teachers of schools in this place, many of whom afterwards became eminent on other fields of life, my per- sonal recollection selects Mr. Thomas J. Lee, son of that first revered minister, and author of the spelling-book which was used in my childhood. Over the interval of 40 years his spare form, his gentle manners, his suavity, his dignity, rise before me and command the respect of memory, as then they commanded the obedient ven- eration of a child." The Memorial gives the name of Thomas J. Lee in its list of Town Clerks, as having occupied that position in 1818, 1821, 1822, 1823 and 1824. Mr. Caswell has him listed on School Committees in 1818, 1821 and 1822. In the appendix to the printed report of Rev. E. W. Bullard's historical discourse on the 100th anniversary of the First Congregational Church, Thomas J. Lee is listed as having served as Deacon from Oct. 11, 1821, to Oct. 14, 1827. He resigned the office at the latter date; and as he seems to have dropped out of the ken of the historical minds, we may suppose that he went away from Royalston, perhaps to a larger field for his services as teacher.
The 9th child, Lucy Lee, remained in Royalston until her death, in 1840. Just when the Lee family vacated the old parsonage at the head of the Common, or
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when that parsonage was transformed into a tavern, is not apparent. In my boy- hood days, the house indicated as located at 15E on our map, was mentioned as the Lee house, and probably it was the home of Lucy Lee during the last years of her life, and perhaps of others of the family.
There is obviously an error in the dates of the birth and death of either the 6th or the 7th child, as it would be a physical impossibility for them to be born so near together; probably the 6th was born and died in 1781, a year earlier than the year given; for, if we advance the dates on the 7th, we must also advance the date of the death of the mother, which is placed at only 13 days after the birth of the child.
Similarly, the mother of the 10th child died only 7 weeks after the birth of the child. Nothing can be said about this 10th child, Sarah Barrett Lee, except that the Vital Records make no mention of her after her birth, so that we may not tell whether she died in infancy or childhood, or grew up to maturity, or was married, before 1850, the limit of the time covered by the Vital Records. Perhaps she be- came a teacher, and followed the example of her brothers in making a home else- where.
REV. EBENEZER PERKINS' FAMILY.
Rev. Ebenezer Perkins, the second pastor of "The Church of Christ in Royals- ton" (see pages 111, 112 and 114), married Amelia Parish, daughter of Rev. Ariel Parish, in 1819. They had 7 children.
1. Ariel Ebenezer Parish Perkins, born in 1820. He was named "after" both his father and his mother's father. He became a minister, and had a pastorate of nearly 11 years in Phillipston, and one of about 30 years in Ware, and received the degree of D. D. in 1870. He responded for "The Clergy," at the Centennial dinner, made the principal address at the dedication of the new Town Hall, in 1867, and often occupied the pulpit of the First Congregational Church. He was twice mar- ried, and had 8 children. He died in Worcester, in 1899.
2. Hannah Amelia Perkins, born in 1822; married Rev. Charles Louis Wood- worth; they resided in Watertown, and had 5 children. Mr. Woodworth responded to the sentiment, "The Fellows who Stole the Hearts of Our Daughters," at the Centennial dinner.
3. Mary Colman Perkins, born in 1823, remained with her parents while they lived, and afterwards was a member of the family of her brother, Joseph Lee Per- kins, removing with them to Fitchburg in 1870, where she died in 1885.
4. Daniel Choate Perkins, born in 1824, became a physician, practicing in Enfield, Springfield, and Peabody, and died in the latter place in 1863. He married, but had no children; his widow is remembered by a few people still living, as their teacher at the Center school.
5. Benjamin Conant Perkins, born in 1827, became a lawyer, practicing in Salem. He served two terms in the Massachusetts Senate, and was a Register in Bankruptcy. He was twice married, but no children are reported. He served as Toast Master at the Centennial dinner.
6. Joseph Lee Perkins was born in 1828. He was for a time employed in ad- joining towns. He married Flora H. Perry in 1855, and they had 4 children; the family lived for a few years at the Perry place, designated at 5N on our map; after the death of Mr. Perkins' parents they made their home at the old Perkins home- stead at 18C on the Common. Mr. Perkins engaged in lumbering business, and for a few years was in partnership with Franklin H. Goddard, in operating the former Prouty saw-mill and shop, which was burned about 1869. (See pages 64 and 195.) He served the Town as Assessor, and on the building committee for the town hall in 1867. In 1870 the family removed to Fitchburg, where Mr. Perkins was a book- keeper, and afterwards a real estate agent. He died in 1890, and his wife died from the results of a railroad crossing accident in Worcester in 1907. Their chil- dren, all born in Royalston, were as follows:
(1.) Josephine Louise Perkins, born in 1856. She went to South Africa as a missionary teacher, remaining there several years. She became the wife of Rev. William O. Ballantine, M. D., and they were engaged in missionary work in India for many years. Their 5 children were named Joseph H., Alice J., Benjamin D., Henry Frederick and John Perry Ballantine. Alice J. Ballantine married Max
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David Kerjassoff, who became acting United States consul at Yokahoma, Japan, where both he and his wife lost their lives in the conflagration which followed an earthquake, Sept. 1, 1923. It was for a while supposed that their sons, William and David Kerjassoff, had escaped the holocaust and would be brought to their relatives in this country; but later developments indicated that they had shared the fate of their parents.
(2.) Julia A. Perkins, born in 1858, married Charles A. Willey in 1889, and lived at Flushing, N. Y. She died at Nantucket, in 1924.
(3.) Benjamin H. Perkins, born in 1863. He married May W. Brown, of Nan- tucket, and they have had 3 children. Mr. Perkins was for many years a shoe dealer in Fitchburg, retiring from business about 1921.
(4.) Joseph Frederick Perkins, born in 1865. He was a missionary in Brazil, South America, 4 years; married Gertrude Storrs in 1893; died in 1895.
7. Annette Greenleaf Perkins, youngest child of Rev. Ebenezer and Amelia (Parish) Perkins, was born in 1832. She married Horatio Danforth Newton, son of Col. Willard Newton, and they lived on the Newton farm in the northeast part of the town. She died in 1868. They had 4 children:
(1.) Willard Hazen Newton, was born in 1857, and in his early life worked at farming and lumbering at home. In 1900, in partnership with Willie W. Davis, he bought the old Holman-Partridge saw-mill and wood-working shop (pages 63-64), which was burned and rebuilt in 1905, and the activities there gave employment to several men; the firm also engaged extensively in buying and clearing off timber lands, through the operation of portable steam saw-mills. Mr. Newton has served the Town as School Committee, Overseer of the Poor, Highway Surveyor, on the Trust Funds and Advisory Committees, and in various other responsible positions. He married Stella Viola Partridge, adopted daughter of John Milton Partridge and 1884. his wife, in 1878. She died in 1921. They had one child, Leon W. Newton, born in He married Lizzie Son, and they have a family of several children.
(2.) Ebenezer Perkins Newton, born in 1858, remained on the home farm all of his life. He married Florence M. Robbins in 1911, and died in 1913.
(3.) Horatio Standish Newton, born in 1866, married Mary E. Russell in 1894. He has been in business in Connecticut for many years.
(4.) Annette G. Newton, born in 1868. Her mother died while she was an in- fant, and she was taken into the family of her uncle, Joseph Lee Perkins, and cared for and educated like one of his children. She married Charles L. Mayne, a prominent man in railroad affairs. They removed to Kansas.
Rev. Ebenezer Perkins resigned his pastorate of what had then become the First Congregational Church in 1846. He was then 52 years of age, but he did not secure another field of labor, and remained in Royalston until the end of his life, 15 years later, at the age of 67. Just what led to his resignation and abandonment of the ministry is not apparent. I once heard something said indicating that he had a nervous trouble.
We are told in Mr. Caswell's story about the Methodist Church in South Roy- aIston, that in the autumn of 1829, Enoch Bradley, a Methodist, "preached in the schoolhouse in South Royalston once in two weeks. At first the house was crowded with attentive hearers, and the prospects bid fair for a glorious work; but by this time Rev. Ebenezer Perkins, the Congregational clergyman of the middle of the town, became much alarmed, visited much from house to house, and infused much of his own spirit into the people, telling them that if they did not want to have the Methodists get a foothold in the place they must not attend their meetings. This course succeeded so well that at the next meeting the schoolhouse was fastened up by some person unknown to man. A few true friends came to the meeting, the house was entered by a window, the door unfastened, and services held; but an effectual stop was put upon the prospective revival."
As this occurred some 7 or 8 years before the Second Congregational Church was established at South Royalston, undoubtedly many people from that direction were regular attendants at Mr. Perkins' church, and it is easy to understand why he was "much alarmed" over the rush to the meetings propagating a different sect.
When the Second Congregational Church was organized, in 1837, Mr. Perkins' church lost a considerable number, not only of professing members, but of others
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who had attended its services; but probably he was not seriously disturbed over what was so apparently the right thing in the development of the town.
In 1836, when the Royalston Center Baptist Church was organized, and in 1838, when the Universalists joined with the Baptists in erecting a meeting-house within a stone's throw of his home, Mr. Perkins had reason to be concerned about the effect that the introduction of the propaganda of two new denominations in his territory would have on his congregation. This union meeting-house was in active use through the remainder of Mr. Perkins' pastorate and for several years after it ended, and the meetings there must have drawn some away from the one which had been established by the original Proprletors as the town church.
Whatever effect the work of the other denominations had on Mr. Perkins, or whatever the reason for his resignation of his pastorate, it is a fact that for a con- siderable part of the time during the 15 years between his resignation and his death, he did not attend any of the services at the First Congregational Church. As my life did not begin until after the time of Mr. Perkins' resignation, my mem- ory does not give any information about the earlier years; but I was brought up to attend, as regularly as I had my meals and sleep, practically all of the services at that church, from the time that I was large enough to be led to them; and I will say that I have not the slightest remembrance of ever having seen Rev. Mr. Per- kins in that church building except on one occasion, and that was a Sabbath-school concert on a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1861, probably, as I line it up with other occurrences; (it was the custom of Mr. George F. Miller to arrange for such a concert on one Sunday afternoon of each month during the summer;) and I think that one or perhaps two of Mr. Perkins' granddaughters had parts in the exercises; and he was there, very likely in response to an urgent invitation from Mr. Miller, and occupied a back seat. His daughter Mary and his son Joseph were members and regular attendants, and after Joseph's marriage, I well remember where he, and his sister, and his wife, and their children, sat on the north side of the church. But Rev. Mr. Perkins had no place there and no part in the services; and I think the same was true with relation to his wife; but she might have been out of health. Allowing that his equilibrium had been disturbed, it seems strange that the former pastor did not do what he had probably often advised and urged others to do,-go to the house of God for comfort and consolation in his trouble and distress.
But Mr. Perkins did not give up his religion. For two seasons (or more) I was his cow-boy, escorting his 4 cows to and from their pasture every day; and often, when I arrived at his place at the appointed time he would be engaged with family prayers, which usually followed breakfast. I am sure that he did not accustom himself to rising regularly each morning on the stroke of an alarm clock, for his routine of those morning exercises, breakfast, family prayers, and relieving the 4 bovines of their nocturnal accumulations of the lacteal fluid, was quite erratic. So that when I arrived at his place at the appointed time to do my little part, perhaps he would only have commenced on his order of exercises, which resulted in a great loss of my valuable time. And then when it had happened that way for several mornings in succession, he might attempt to regulate matters by kindly requesting me to please report for duty a half-hour later; on doing which, with my unfailing promptness, I would find, perhaps, that the cows had been milked and turned loose a half an hour earlier, and were feeding "all over the Common."
One morning he was so late about turning the creatures over to my tender care that I was seized by a terrifying fear that I would be late to school,-a thing that I was never allowed to do, any more than I was permitted to steal or tell lies; and not then having acquired the "sand" and "gall" which have characterized my later years, and realizing that something must be done in the dire emergency, I began to "snivel;" and when the kindly old gentleman noted my anguish and discerned the cause thereof, he tenderly informed me that he would accompany the bossies to their retreat that forenoon, and I could run home and be "dolled up" for school. In my perturbed condition, and conscientiously disinclined to take pay for service which I had not rendered, I neglected to take home the quart of milk which was the daily reward for my services, the cash value of which was 3 cents. But the benignant gentleman carried it to my home, so that the little family was not for even one day deprived of that which had become a very important part of our sus- tenance in that time of economic stress.
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After Joseph Lee Perkins had married Flora H. Perry, and established his home at the Perry house, which was near my home, it was arranged that his cow should be pastured with his father's, and of course I was the fellow to get them together. Sometimes parents' idiosyncrasies are emphasized in their children. Joe certainly outdid his father in irregularity in morning exercises, with the result that sometimes while I was waiting for Joe to release his cow, the drove farther up would be let loose and pretty well scattered over the Common; while at other times Joe would be up and have his cow started up the Common ahead of schedule time, to go along reaching her head over fences, and with her long tongue transferring to her herb grinder the tops of Mrs. Joseph Raymond's hollyhocks and other deli- cacies of that nature. On one occasion like that she was arrested by Capt. George Pierce, acting as authorized or volunteer field-driver and pound-keeper, and incar- cerated in the yard connected with his barn, that had proviously been the Baptist church, from which she was not released until Joe had paid a fine of 75 cents.
Let no one think that because I have mentioned some of Rev. Mr. Perkins' pe- culiarities, that I would unduly illuminate them. If history is to be truthful, it cannot always be confined to the laudatory treatment of the individual, so common in many so-called historical works. Mr. Bullock, in his Centennial address, in men- tioning the prominent men whom he "learned so greatly to respect as sources of radiating influence from this central Common," said:
"The minister, Mr. Perkins, of grave yet pleasant memory,-how I remember him, in his long, floating, summer toga, driving us in at the 8-o'clock bell on every Saturday evening."
A comparison of birth dates shows that the "us" referred to by Mr. Bullock might have included several of the following sons of families "on the Common": 1 Estabrook, born 1811; 3 sons of Rufus Bullock, 1816-1821; 4 Perkins, 1820-1828; 5 Gregorys, 1822-1833; and only a short distance from the Common, 3 Woodburys, 1823-1831; the 5 sons of Barnet Bullock, 1829-1842, all coming in a little too late to play on the Common Saturday evenings with Alexander Hamilton Bullock, who went to college in 1832, according to the official history; but as he was only 16 at that time, he might have indulged in a little sport with the other boys on the Com- mon when at home on his vacations. There were many Raymond, Pierce, and other boys coming up "on the Common," for Mr. Perkins to "curfew," to say nothing of about as many girls, who haven't been taken into the foregoing elucidation.
In another part of his Centennial address Mr. Bullock voiced his appreciation of Mr. Perkins in the following graceful language:
"Mr. Perkins continued as pastor 28 years, when, chiefly for reasons arising from the state of his health, he requested dismissal. He retained the respect and confidence of the whole town throughout his life, and died in this town of his adop- tion and love. My earliest recollections of church-going are associated with his fine personal form, his full voice, his free and dignified delivery, his style of public prayer, which for mingled solemnity and facility it has rarely been my lot to hear surpassed. Gravity of demeanor was his rule of public appearance, but as I knew him in private he was one of the most social and agreeable of gentlemen. He came here a mere youth, to succeed one who left behind the veneration belonging to an official life of half a century, and it is but justice to his memory to say that not one out of a thousand men would have succeeded so well and left a better record in the town."
Rev. Ebenezer Perkins died in Royalston, Nov. 26, 1861.
REV. NORMAN HAZEN'S FAMILY.
Rev. Norman Hazen, the third pastor of the First Congregational Church (see page 112), was born in Vermont, acquired a good education, and according to Mr. Caswell's story, had two "charges" before coming to Royalston; and Mr. Caswell repeated a statement made in Mr. Bullock's Centennial address that Mr. Hazen was "settled in June, 1847." Rev. Mr. Bullard, in his Centennial sermon, stated that Mr. Hazen was "ordained March 22, 1847." These statements may not really be as contradictory as they seem. While the ordination ceremony usually precedes a pastor's association with his first "charge," ministers have acted as pastors before they were formally ordained, and this may have been the case with Mr. Hazen.
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Or, possibly he had been previously ordained, and that word was used in the record and by Mr. Bullard where the word installed should have been used.
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