USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Royalston > Reflections on Royalston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S.A > Part 38
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Elijah Walker, a son of Obadiah and Agnes (Mccullough) Walker, and brother of Asa Walker, was born in 1756, and came from Douglas to Royalston with his father; he married Abigail Hill, in 1782; both died in 1836; they had 9 children:
1. Tabarh [?] Walker, born in 1783.
2. James Walker, born in 1785; married Sally Brewer, in 1807; 5 children.
3. Elias Walker, born in 1787; died in 1788.
4. Jonah Walker, born in 1789; married Mary Swan, of Richmond, N. H., in 1813; they had 3 children.
5. Moses Walker, 2nd, born in 1792; married Sophia Fisher, in 1816.
6. Abigail Walker, born in 1794; died in 1795.
7. Rhoda Walker, born in 1799; married Soloman Calhoun, in 1821.
8. Willard Walker, born in 1802; married Phebe Thurston, of Orange, in 1826; he died in 1833.
9. Hannah Walker, born in 1804.
Martha Walker, a daughter of Obadiah and Agnes (Mccullough) Walker, was born about 1768; she married Ephraim Hill, of Royalston, in 1789; 6 children.
Nathaniel Walker is named by Mr. Caswell as one of the sons of Asa and Anstis (Jacobs) Walker, but he gives no data in regard to him. Our investigations show that the only Nathaniel Walker mentioned in the Royalston Vital Records could not have been the son of Asa Walker, as he was born, married and died be- fore Asa was married, and he was probably a son of Obadiah and Agnes (McCul- lough) Walker, and Asa's brother. Nathaniel Walker married Sally Grant, of Roy- alston, in 1807; he died in 1813; they had 3 sons, all born in Montpelier, Vt .:
1. Hiram Walker, born in 1808.
2. George Walker, born in 1810. 3. Aaron Walker, born in 1812.
Mrs. Sally (Grant) Walker married, 2nd, Capt. Benjamin Wilder, of Winchen- don, in 1825, and became the mother of Josiah Wilder, who married Emeline Morse, daughter of Russell and Elizabeth (Waite) Morse; she married, 3rd, Stephen Richardson, in 1845; she died at the home of her son, Aaron Walker, in Boston, in 1877, at the age of 93 years.
Mr. Caswell, in his History of Royalston, gave "The Moses Walker Family" a separate full heading, and then, after giving a list of the members of that branch of the Walker family, as furnished him by Minerva N. Walker, one of its members, he added on the names of Willard, Rhoda, Hannah, Reuben and Martha Walker, as if they, too, were members of the Moses Walker branch; but he must have got the sheets of his copy jumbled, for those names and the accompanying dates do not fit on to that branch at all, either chronologically or otherwise. With the aid of the Vital Records I have been able to place these names where they belong, among the descendants of the Obadiahs, as given above.
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Moses Walker, of uncertain relationship to the Obadiahs, Asa, and the other Walkers hereinbefore mentioned, probably came to Royalston from Athol, about 1800; he settled in the southwesterly part of the town; he was born in 1765, and died in 1841; he married Lydia Bigelow, in 1791; they had 7 children:
1. Nancy Walker, born in 1793; married Isaac Nichols, in 1813; she died in 1868. (See Nichols Family, page 252.)
2. Lydia Walker, born in 1794; married Weston Ball, in 1817.
3. John Bigelow Walker, born in 1796; married Mercy S. Metcalf, in 1820; they had 3 children:
(1.) John Bigelow Walker, Jr., born in 1824; married Cornelia M. Moody, of Northfield, in 1853; he was a dentist, and practiced in Keene, N. H., at one time; they had 5 children.
(2.) Rebecca Metcalf Walker, born in 1827; married David P. Foster, in 1847; she died in 1859.
(3.) Minerva N. Walker, born in 1833; never married; died in 1913.
4. Ruth Walker, born in 1797; married Jason Fisher, in 1818; he was a pros- perous farmer at the west part of the town, and was also noted for the excellent wooden pumps which he skillfully fashioned from pine logs. They had 8 children. The oldest, Horace Fisher, was born in 1820, and was a farmer and lumberman at the west part of the town; he married, and had 4 children; the oldest, Edwin Au- gustus Fisher, was born in 1847; he acquired a good education, and taught schools; in 1871 he took up civil engineering, and from that time was engaged in railroad surveys and construction, street, waterworks, sewer and railroad engineering; in 1893 he became assistant engineer in charge of the construction of an additional water supply for the city of Rochester, N. Y., and in 1896 was appointed City Engineer of Rochester, which position he held for many years; he married, and had 6 children. Other children of Horace Fisher were: Elmer H. Fisher, born in 1851, married, had 2 children, and died at Los Angeles, Cal., in 1904: Edward Ever- ett Fisher, born in 1853, married Minnie Louise Leathe, in 1883; they had a child; he died in Keene, N. H., and his wife died in Orange, in 1925; Cora J. Fisher, born in 1855, married George Edward Woodbury, in 1881; they had a son; she died in Malden, in 1914. Augustus J. Fisher, another son of Jason and Ruth (Walker) Fisher, was born in 1836; he was a school and music teacher in his early manhood, dealer in dry goods in Orange for 29 years, and for many years President of the Orange Savings Bank.
5. Cynthia Walker, born in 1798; married Ebenezer Wheeler Dexter, in 1818; Mr. Dexter was a prosperous farmer and mill man, and his residence on his place in the southwesterly part of Royalston was one of the best in the town; Cynthia Walker was his 2nd wife, and they had 7 children; Rachel Dexter, the oldest daughter, born in 1827; married James M. Lee, of Athol, in 1847; Almeda Dexter, the 2nd daughter, was born in 1830; married Calvin T. Bryant, of Winchendon, in 1860; he was a grocer; he died in 1906; she died in 1924, at the age of nearly 94 years, and was the oldest resident of Winchendon at that time; they had 2 children, Flora Almeda Bryant, born in 1861; she taught school in Winchendon for 25 years, resigning in 1907 to care for her mother in her declining years; and Waldo Calvin Bryant, born in 1863, who attended Cushing Academy, and after graduating from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in 1884, became an electrical engineer, and in 1888, having invented a superior electric switch, he went to Bridgeport, Conn., where he organized the Bryant Electric Company, which later was capitalized at $2,500,000, for the manufacture of electric light supplies; he was president and general man- ager of this concern, and had controlling interests in several other companies pro- ducing electrical goods, in Bridgeport, and director or trustee of several financial and philanthropic institutions. Other children of Ebenezer Wheeler and Cynthia (Walker) Dexter were Moses Walker Dexter, born in 1833, who became a whole- sale tea merchant in Philadelphia, where he died in 1909; and Bela Dexter, born in 1835; he carried on the home farm and mill for a time after the death of his father, resided in Athol a few years, and removed to Vermont, and finally settled perma- nently in Rutland, where he served as Representative to the Legislature, Deputy Sheriff, and Justice of the Peace; he married, aud had 9 children.
6. Susanna Walker, born in 1800; died in 1839.
7. Rowena Walker, born in 1802; died in 1803.
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THE PIERCE FAMILY.
Capt. Gad Pierce, born in Harvard, or Lexington, in 1741, married Mary Foster, of Acton, and was the first person of his name to settle in Royalston. His home was on the west bank of the Lawrence, on what has since become the road from the Common to Winchendon, and he kept a public house there, and had an excellent farm. He died in 1811, at the age of 70, and his wife probably died in 1827, at the age of 84.
Capt. William Pierce, father of Capt. Gad Pierce, and two brothers of Capt. Gad, Zebulon and Eliphalet Pierce, came to Royalston soon after Capt. Gad came, and settled in the same neighborhood, but removed early, and left Capt. Gad Pierce, apparently, as the progenitor of most of the numerous people of that name in Royalston.
According to Mr. Caswell, John Frye and Benjamin Woodbury, Selectmen of Royalston, on Feb. 8, 1766, laid out the first two roads, which were accepted by vote of the Town at the town meeting held March 3, 1766. One road, 3 rods wide, be- gan at the Common, near the meeting-house, and run northwards by marked trees through Ebenezer Elliott's land and land of John Frye to the end of his dwelling- house. The other road, also 3 rods wide, began at the Common, near the meeting- house, and run easterly "through the minister's lot by marked trees, so on east- wardly on land of Caleb Dana, Esq., by marked trees to land of Gad Pierce, so on said Pierce's land by marked trees to the line of Zebulon Pierce's land, and Gad Pierce's land, then half the road on Zebulon's land and half on Gad Pierce's land by marked trees to Lieut. Wheeler's land, so on to land of Jonas Allen's by marked trees, south of said Allen's dwelling-house, so on by marked trees through Mr. Allen's land and Nathan Cutting's."
This last mentioned road was, without doubt, the one which, with little or no change, has been the direct road from the Center to Winchendon ever since that time. The description, with the previous notation, gives the location of the first Pierces on that Winchendon road, near the Lawrence Brook, with Gad Pierce on the one side and Zebulon Pierce on the other side of the road; probably Capt. Wil- liam and Eliphalet Pierce made their homes with Zebulon, and removed with him.
Capt. Gad and Mary (Foster) Pierce had 11 children:
1. John Pierce, born in 1763; married Hannah Sibley, in 1787; they had 5 children:
(1.) Hannah Pierce, born in 1787; married Nathan Reed, Jr., in 1807; they had 2 children: Sally Reed, born in 1808, and Horatio Nelson Reed, born in 1809.
(2.) John Pierce, born in 1789.
(3.) Cyrus Pierce, born in 1791.
(4.) Sally Putnam Pierce, born in 1793; married Benjamin Bragg, in 1812; Benjamin Bragg was the man who developed the "clothier's mill" on the Lawrence into an actual cloth manufacturing establishment, and was burned out (see page 62); she died in 1833; they had 8 children.
(5.) James Pierce, born in 1796; married Mary P. Whipple, in 1817.
2. Jonathan Pierce, 2nd child of Capt. Gad and Mary (Foster) Pierce, was born in 1766; Mr. Bullock, in his Centennial address, mentioned his occupation, as follows: "Once a week our portly fellow citizen of that time, Jonathan Pierce, drove the post and carried the mail between Worcester and Keene, through Roy- alston, bringing to us the weekly papers, the regular politics, the more distant gossip, and helping us along generally in our conformity with the outside world; this mission, commencing about the year 1800, he performed nearly a quarter of a century; and happy days they were." Jonathan Pierce married Huldah Sibley, in 1790; he died in 1838, and she died in 1848; they had 13 children:
(1.) Jonathan Pierce, born in 1790; died in 1792.
(2.) Jonathan Pierce, born in 1793; died in 1795.
(3.) Chancy Pierce, born in 1794; died in 1798.
(4.) Jonathan Sibley Pierce, born in 1796; married Betsey Raymond, in 1820; she died in 1822; he married, 2d, Mrs. Sally Morley, of Barre, in 1823; he died in 1829.
(5.) Huldah Pierce, born in 1799; died in 1823.
(6.) Cynthia Pierce, born in 1801; died in 1822.
(7.) Sumner Pierce, born in 1803; died in 1878.
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(8.) Horace Pierce, 8th child of Jonathan and Huldah (Sibley) Pierce, was born in 1804; it appears that in his early life he was a blacksmith, as an old Bart- lett account book gives him credit, "Jan. 31, 1838, By mending chains." Later he manufactured wooden pails and buckets at the mill on the Lawrence, near the New Hampshire line; this he discontinued about 1869; he resided for 25 or 30 years at the house on the Common built by William O. Brown, and designated 9C on our map, where he died, in 1883. He married Mary Blood, daughter of William and Betsey (Frye) Blood, in 1828; she died about 1870: they had 9 children:
[1.] Milo Horace Pierce, born in 1829; after receiving his school education, he became associated with his father under the firm name of Horace Pierce & Son, in the manufacture of pails and buckets; after that business was closed out, in 1869, he went to Baxter Springs, Kansas, and was connected with William Blood, a brother of his mother, in business; his brother, Junius E. Pierce, followed him a few years later, and they removed to Texas, and for several years were in business there; then Milo's health failed, and he returned to Massachusetts, and died at the home of his sister, in Granville, in 1892.
[2.] Mary Louise Pierce, born in 1831; died in 1849.
[3.] William Watson Pierce, born in 1833; died in 1836.
[4.] Leander Frye Pierce, born in 1836; died in 1836.
[5.] Henry Leander Pierce, born in 1837; died in 1863. There is a remarkable historical vacancy with relation to this man. Henry L. Pierce was 23 years of age when the Civil War began in 1861; I was 13; I have a vague recollection of some- thing about Henry; I think he must have been through with school and perhaps had gone out of town before I was old enough to remember anything about him; but I do recall that after the Civil War had got under way it was told that he had "gone to the war;" and I remember much more vividly that later it was told that he had lost his life in the war; and a little later a little horse was brought to town which, it was told, had been used by him in the army, and that horse was used by Horace Pierce and Milo H. Pierce, in their trips once and twice a day between their home on the Common and their shop at the north part of the town, as long as they continued in business. Horace Pierce was a member of the historical com- mittee at the time of the Centennial in 1865, and was especially active in securing the erection of a monument at the grave of Nahum Green, a supposed Revolution- ary soldier; the Memorial, in connection with its military history of the town, gives a list of 18 men, "born or bred in Royalston," who served in the Civil War, but not on the quota of the town, but the name of Henry L. Pierce is not among them; Mr. Caswell browsed in the garden of Royalston history for years, but the only thing his book gives us about Henry L. Pierce is the dates of his birth and death; Mr. Cross, in his exhaustive history of all things military connected with Royals- ton, gives a list of 40 men, "born or reared within the precincts of this town who nobly served their country on the quotas of other towns or states," but the name of Henry L. Pierce is not among them,-Mr. Cross never heard of him. A com- paratively recent advertising "History of Worcester County," in an article headed Stow, and probably paid for by Mrs. Emma Louise (Pierce) Stow, gives the in- formation that Henry L. Pierce died in the Civil War, in Tennessee.
[6.] Elizabeth Ann Pierce, born in 1841; died in 1849.
[7.] Adelia Frye Pierce, born in 1844; died in 1849.
[8.] Emma Louise Pierce, born in 1849; she became a school teacher, and taught in Royalston and other places for many years; she served on the School Committee 6 years, from 1877 to 1882, inclusive. In 1888 she married Marshall Volney Stow, a prosperous farmer, miller and lumber man, at Granville, Mass., and that place was her home for many years, during which she became prominent in the affairs of the town, and served on the School Board, it is said, for 15 years. Some years after the death of Mr. Stow she returned to the home of her childhood, on Royalston Common.
[9.] Junius Ebenezer Pierce, born in 1850; in his young manhood he followed his brother Milo to Kansas, and then went with him to Texas, as told above, where he had a part in the development of mercantile business and other matters in the frontier towns; he was married in 1881, and had a son, who became prominent as a member of the coast artillery at Fort McDowell, in San Francisco harbor; Junius E. Pierce died in 1896.
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(9.) Susan (or Susanna) Pierce, 9th child of Jonathan and Huldah (Sibley) Pierce, was born in 1806; she married John Pierce, son of Aaron and Sally Pierce, said to have been her cousin, in 1831; she died in 1848.
(10.) Paul Pierce, born in 1808; married Daphna Murdock, of Winchendon, in 1832; they had 2 children, who died in infancy; he died in 1884; he lived on the Winchendon road, on what was probably a part of the estate of his ancestors; his house was burned about 1855, probably, aad was never rebnilt.
(11.) Columbus Pierce, born about 1810; he lived on the place with his cousin and brother-in-law, John Pierce, who married his sister Susan, and died there be- fore 1850, probably; the place was the one long known as the John Pierce place, and more recently as the John W. Stockwell place.
(12.) Charlotte Pierce, born in 1812; she married, 1st, Lucien Bryant, of Tem- pleton, in 1823; they had 3 children, who will be mentioned elsewhere; he died in 1841; she married, 2nd, John Pierce, said to have been her cousin, and whose 1st wife was her sister Susan (see above), in 1848; she died in 1893; they had a son, Norman Hazen Pierce, who in his childhood was considered rather bright and pre- cocious, but as he advanced in years developed peculiarities which resulted in his spending the last part of his life in an asylum.
(13.) Eunice Pierce, born in 1814; married Edward Clark, of Roxbury, N. H., in 1843; she died in 1891.
3. Gad Pierce, Jr., son of Capt. Gad and Mary (Foster) Pierce, was born in 1768; he married Anna Piper, in 1788.
4. Molly Pierce, born in 1770; married Josiah Piper, Jr., in 1790; he died in 1837; she died in 1849; they had 2 children:
(1.) Luke Piper, born in 1793; married Betsey Cole, of Gerry, in 1814.
(2.) Samuel Piper, born in 1807.
5. William Pierce, 5th child of Capt. Gad and Mary (Foster) Pierce, was born in 1772; he married Sally Work, in 1791; she died in 1811; they had 14 children:
(1.) Betsey Pierce, twin, born in 1791; married Ashbel Goddard, in 1811; they had 7 children.
(2.) Sally Pierce, twin, born in 1791; married Nahum Goddard, in 1809; they had 3 children.
(3.) William Pierce, Jr., born in 1794; married Hannah Brown, in 1819; died in 1827.
(4.) Martha Pierce, born in 1796.
(5.) Jonas Pierce, born in 1798; married Fanny Earle, of Athol, in 1826; they had 10 children. The family resided for a time at the place on the hill on the northeasterly road from the Center village,-the location designated at 15NE on our map; this Jonas Pierce family removed from that place and probably from the town somewhere between 1850 and 1855, as reminiscences of my childhood indicate,. and the place has since been owned by Barnet Bullock, George Everett Pierce, Lincoln J. Holden, and perhaps others.
(6.) Mary Pierce, born in 1800; married Leonard R. Turner, of Phillipston, in 1834; he died in 1846; they had 2 children, Mary Turner, who died in infancy, and Martha Gale Turner, born in 1836, who became the wife of Joseph T. Nichols (see page 233); after the death of her husband she returned to Royalston and for a time resided at the Gleason house, at 20C on the Common, with a Widow Gale; and after the marriage of her daughter her home was with the Nichols family; she was a nurse of excellent repute, and maintained a lively interest in public affairs; she died in 1892.
(7.) Royal Pierce, born in 1802; died in 1803.
(8.) Royal Pierce, born in 1804; died in 1804.
(9.) George Pierce, born in 1805; in early manhood he was a school teacher, and then for many years he drove an 8-horse team between Royalston and Boston, taking down the products of Royalston's farms and shops, and bringing back merchandise for the stores and other articles; when the railroad superceded the teams as a means of transportation, he turned his attention to farming and deal- ing in live stock; he bought the Gregory place at 42C on the Common, next north of the Estabrook store and post-office, which he made his home for the remainder of his life, and had more tillage and pasture land on the northeast road, and for
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many years it was his custom to go up through the country to the north and buy up herds of cattle, which he would drive down to Royalston and place in his pasture, and after giving them a rest and a chance to feed up, and selling a few to local farmers, perhaps, would drive them to Brighton or some other market near Boston. Although his name does not appear on the lists of town officers, he was regularly elected as Moderator or presiding officer of town meetings for a quarter of a cen- tury, and his rulings and decisions were generally accepted as fair and according to parliamentary practice. He was prominent in military matters, and was for a term Captain of the "Royalston Grenadiers." His house was burned along in the 40s, and his barn in 1861, the story of which is told on page 194; a new house was built, and the place of the barn was filled by the removal of the old Baptist Church building to the location, where it served as a barn for Mr. Pierce as long as he lived and for various other purposes, until it was destroyed by fire, in 1923, as told on page 194. He married Delia Peck, in 1835; he died in 1892, and she died in 1893; they had 7 children:
[1.] George Everett Pierce, born in 1836; he went with his father on cattle driving trips in his boyhood days, and continued in the business after he became "of age," buying cattle and driving them to market, as his father had done before him. With his brother, Warren Albert Pierce, he kept the post-office store at South Royalston for a time, and was burned out; he was also connected with Solon Bryant in a store in Whitinsville; he was interested in the chair business in Chicago for 2 years or so, probably in connection with his brother, Edwin F. Pierce. Most of the last 40 years of his life he spent in Royalston and Athol, and served the Town of Royalston as Assessor 17 years, Treasurer 11 years, and Collector of Taxes several years. He was associated with his brother-in-law, Lucian Lord, in real-estate de- velopement in Athol, and he owned at different times more houses in Royalston than any other person except the mill owners at South Royalston, probably, in- cluding the Pierce, Perkins and Miller places on the Common, the Jonas Pierce place on the hill, and others; and he was in possession of many different tracts of land, and was quite extensively engaged in lumbering. In 1899 he married Emma A. Reed, daughter of William G. Reed, and improved the old Perkins house for a home, but she died before the year ended; after that his home alternated between Royalston and Athol, and he died in Royalston, in 1924.
[2.] Lyman Elliot Pierce, born in 1837; in early life he was employed in one of the stalls of Faneuil Hall market in Boston, aad afterwards was a member of the firms doing business there; later he held a position in the Chamber of Com- merce; he was prominent in Masonic and Odd Fellows orders, and it is told that for about 30 years he conducted annual gatherings of the Pierces at popular re- sorts. He married, and resided at Melrose. He died at Lincoln, Neb., in 1900, having gone there to attend a convention.
[3.] Edwin F. Pierce, born in 1839; he was employed in a Gardner chair fac- tory when 14 years of age, and afterwards in the United States armory at Spring- field for 2 or 3 years; he was then employed by a wholesale chair concern in Boston, and about 1864 he went to Chicago and established himself in the same line, but returned to Boston a few months before the great fire which devastated Chicago in 1871; he continued in the wholesale chair business in Boston for the greater part of his life. He was twice married, and had 2 daughters.
[4.] Warren Albert Pierce, born in 1840; he was employed in a store in Athol, and afterwards became a traveling salesman in boots and shoes; he married in Chicago, and resided there. He died in 1912, and his wife died in 1915.
[5.] Delia M. Pierce, born in 1844. She taught schools in Royalston and Athol, and married Lucien Lord, of Athol, in 1868; he was an aspiring young man, and played quite a prominent part in Athol's business affairs, real estate develop- ment, and other schemes; he and his wife occupied leading positions in the social affairs of the town, and in the Second Unitarian Church; she died in 1915, and he died a few years later. They had 2 children: a son, who died at the age of 5 years, and a daughter, Delia Elizabeth Lord, who was born in 1878, married Carl Fletcher, of Baldwinville, in 1901, and died in 1903.
[6.] Leonard Turner Pierce, born in 1847: he was for a time employed by his brother, Lyman Elliot Pierce, in Boston, and afterwards went into railroad work, became a locomotive engineer on the Fitchburg Railroad, and was for a time in
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charge of a part of the affairs at the Williamstown railroad yard; after that he returned to Royalston, and lived there and at Athol, and died suddenly in a hotel in Athol, in 1901. He married Emma Hane, and they had 2 children: Alta Pierce; and George Pierce, whose home has been at Los Angeles, Cal., and who visited in Royalston in 1925.
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