USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Reminiscences of Worcester from the earliest period, historical and genealogical with notices of early settlers and prominent citizens, and descriptions of old landmarks and ancient dwellings, accompanied by a map and numerous illustrations > Part 3
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A path went from what is now Lincoln Square along Sum- mer street to the first burial place, where the Thomas street School House now stands.
A path or road was made very soon after the organization of the town, along what is now Pleasant Street, for the accommo- dation of the settlers in the valley of Beaver brook, between Joshua Rice's and New Worcester.
The roads were then merely cart paths through a compara- tive wilderness, very different from what we now see, after the science and civilization of a century and a half have applied their skilful engineering to our highways.
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CHAPTER III.
Incorporation of the town -- First town meeting and list of town officers-jurisdiction of the two constables fixed-Support of worship-Old pound-First annual town meeting and town officers- Seleetmen lay out a road to Shrewsbury-Worcester's earliest officers and prominent families.
ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWN.
Such had been the progress during the first four or five years of this re-settlement, that there were here in 1718 about two hundred inhabitants, their fifty-eight dwellings being principal- ly rude one-story structures of logs with ample stone chimneys, and oiled paper supplying the place of glass in most of the windows. Advancing from this period with a prosperous growth the freeholders and proprietors of the place, May 21st, 1721, presented a petition to the General Court for incorpora- tion as a town. This petition was entrusted to John Houghton of Lancaster and Peter Rice of Marlborough, representatives from those towns, with a letter in behalf of the object from Jonas and Gershom Rice, the " fathers of the town." In re- response to this letter, the Act incorporating the town of Wor- cester, was adopted June 14, 1722, and on the 30th day of the following September, the first town meeting was held, in the meeting-house on the Common, in pursuance of a warrant issued by Ira Fullam, Esq., of Weston, directed to Gershom Rice and others, warning the inhabitants then and there to as- semble for the choice of the necessary town officers. Ger- shom Rice called the meeting to order ; Dea. Daniel Heywood was chosen Moderator ; Dea. Nathaniel Moore, Nathaniel Jones, Benjamin Flagg, Jonas Rice, and John Gray were elect- ed Selectmen ; Jonas Rice, Town Clerk ; Daniel Heywood, Treasurer ; Nathaniel Jones, Jonas Rice, and Henry Lee, As- sessors ; Jonathan Moore and John Hubbard, Constables ; Daniel Bigelow and Thomas Haggit, Surveyors of Highways ; James Holden and Jacob Holmes, Tythingmen ; William Gray and Richard Ward, Fence Viewers ; Nathaniel Moore, Clerk
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
of the Market : John Gray, Sealer of Leather ; Robert Pechles and Aaron Adams, Hog Reefs.
At a meeting of the board of Selectmen, Oct. 12, 1722, the northern and southern precincts of the town, then including Holden, and one-half of Auburn, were established by the fol- lowing vote : That " the country road shall be the line between the Constables from Leicester to half-way river, and from thence said river to be the line till it comes to Mill Brook ; thence said brook to be the line till it comes up to the country road ; then the country road to be the line to Shrewsbury, the two divisions to be known by the name of the North and South Precinets."
This established the respective jurisdictions of the two Con- stables chosen each year, by a dividing line between the northern and southern precinets, which followed the old " country road" from Leicester to New Worcester, whence it followed the water course to South Worcester, and from the junction with Mill Brook at the latter place, up Mill Brook to Lincoln Square, from which latter point the dividing line was the old road up Lincoln street to Shrewsbury. Apricot street over the high hill east of Cherry Valley was then a part of this " country road," which left Worcester over a fording-place a little north of the present Lincoln Square.
At a town meeting held Oct. 19, 1722, Capt. Jones, Modera- tor, the Selectmen were directed to procure standards for the Clerk of the Market and staves for the Constables and Tything- men, and Dea. Daniel Heywood, Lieut. Henry Lee, John Hubbard, James How, and Jonas Rice were appointed a com- mittee to adjust the accounts with the first minister, the Rev. Andrew Gardner, who had just been dismissed from the pastor- ate, after but three or four years' service ; £10 were ordered to be levied upon the inhabitants for the support of the public worship of God in the town, and Dea. Daniel Heywood, Lieut. Henry Lee, Moses Leonard, James How, and John Stearns, were appointed a committee to procure a supply of the pulpit for the present.
Nov. 6, 1722, the Selectmen ordained that "a highway four rods wide be laid out, beginning at the country road by land of
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
Lieut. Henry Lee's house, (near what is now called Adams Square,) by the east end of Lee's land to Benjamin Flagg's land, and so through Flagg's and Isaac Miller's land by marks to land of James Knapp, and through James Knapp's and James Miller's land to land of Col. Adam Winthrop, by a great oak tree marked standing thereon." This is supposed to in- clude a portion of the present Lincoln street between Adams Square and Plantation street.
Jan. 29, 1723, the Selectmen contracted with Henry Lee to build " a pound for the reclaiming of disorderly beasts, thirty- three feet square and seven feet high, of good white oak posts, six inches thick, and good oak rails two inches thick and six inches broad, to be located near the meeting-house, and to be finished before March 1, for the sum of six pounds." This was located on what is now Salem Square, near the Common, opposite the present Baptist Church, no part of the Common being used for burials till 1730. This old pound remained there till within the memory of some persons still living, with the old wooden school-house subsequently located near it.
At the first annual town meeting, which was held in March, 1723, Capt. Nathaniel Jones was Moderator ; Capt. Na- thaniel Jones, Benjamin Flagg, Henry Lee, John Hubbard and Benjamin Flagg, Jr., were chosen Selectmen ; Benj. Flagg, Jr., Town Clerk ; Henry Lee, Treasurer; Nathaniel Jones, Henry Lee, and Benj. Flagg, Jr., Assessors ; James Rice and Zephan- iah Rice, Constables ; James Hamilton and James Knapp, Surveyors ; James Moore and James Kelogth, Tythingmen ; Andrew Farren and Joseph Crosbee, Fence Viewers ; Nathaniel Moore, Clerk of the Market; John Gray, Sealer of Leather ; Jacob Holmes and Daniel Ward, Hog Reefs.
May 15, 1723, the Selectmen voted "that the town road to Shrewsbury be on the south of Col. Stephen Minot's farm, be- ginning at a black oak tree near land of Thomas Haggit, thence straight to the stump of a tree about half a rod south of Col. Minot's house, and thence by the fence of said farm to an oak marked at the foot of the hill, so as to be six rods wide on the south side of said marks." This is supposed to be the extension of what is now Lincoln street from the head of Plantation street to the Shrewsbury linc.
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
At the second annual March meeting in 1724, Moses Leon- ard, Moderator, the following officers were chosen : Select- men, Jonas Rice, Gershom Rice, James Taylor, Daniel Hey- wood, and John Gray ; Assessors, Moses Leonard, Zephaniah Rice, and Jonas Rice ; Constables, James Maclellan and Jacob Holmes ; Surveyors of Highways, Moses Rice, Gershom Rice, Jr., Palmer Goulding, and Robert Lethredge; Fence Viewers, William Gray and Robert Peebles ; Tythingmen, Richard Ward and John Battay ; Clerk of the Market, James Taylor ; Scaler of Leather, Mathew Gray ; Hogreeves, Isaac Moore and Ma- thew Gray.
The duties of "Clerk of the Market " would appear to have been similiar to those of the present "Scaler of Weights and Measures," as the " Clerk of the Market," on the first organi- zation of the town was provided by the Constables with a set of weights and measures, consisting of a " half-bushel, peck, half-peck, an ale and wine quart, pint and gill ; a four-pound, two-pound, one-pound, half and quarter-pound, ounce, half- ounce, and quarter-ounce weights ; and a yard measure."
EARLIEST OFFICIALS AND PROMINENT FAMILIES.
Of the most prominent officers of the town during the half century following its first organization, Dea. Nathaniel Moore continued on the board of Selectmen twelve years, half that time its chairman ; Dea. Daniel Heywood was on the board nineteen years, Jonas Rice eight years, and Gershom Rice nine years, from 1722; Benjamin Flagg, father, son and grandson of the same name, were on the board forty years of the fifty- four preceding the Revolution, and their descendants of the same name for nearly a like period afterwards; William Jen- nison was on the board eleven years from 1726 ; Palmer Gould- ing and Palmer Goulding, Jr., eight years from 1731 ; John Chandler, father and son, successively Judges of the Probate and other Courts, and filling other prominent county and town officers, were in succession chairmen of the boards of Select- men for forty-one years, from 1733 to 1775, both being together on the same board seven years of the same time ; Timothy Paine, Clerk of the Courts and Register of Deeds, was a Select- man for twenty years from 1755 to 1775, and Town Clerk four-
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
teen years to 1764 ; Clark Chandler being the latter's successor as Town Clerk for eleven years to 1775. Jonas Rice, the first Town Clerk, occupied that position thirty years, and Benjamin Flagg and Zephaniah Rice each two years. Daniel Heywood, Henry Lee, James Taylor, Nathaniel Moore, William Jennison, Gershom Rice, and Benjamin Flagg successively served as Town Treasurer from 1722 till 1741, from which time John Chandler, father and son, successively filled that office, as well as that of County Treasurer, till the Revolution.
The first one to represent Worcester in the General Court was Capt. Nathaniel Jones, in 1727, after whom Judge William Jennison served three years as representative, to 1731, from which latter date the second Benjamin Flagg, the second and third Judges John Chandler and Timothy Paine, officiated suc- cessively in that capacity until the Revolution, with the excep- tion of the few years between 1766 and 1775, when more decided friends of the colonial cause than the Chandlers and Paines were needed, and Col. Ephraim Doolittle and Joshua Bigelow were successively sent.
The first Sheriff of the County was Daniel Gookin, son of the distinguished pioneer settler, historian, and Indian Super- intendent, Gen. Daniel Gookin. The son, who served as Sheriff from the first organization of the County in 1731 until his death in 1743, resided on the southeast corner of Main and Park streets opposite the Common, on the site afterwards suc- cessively occupied as a dwelling by Samuel Fessenden, one of the earliest lawyers in Worcester; and the distinguished lawyer, James Putnam, the last Attorney General of the Province under the Colonial government, who came here in 1750, and left at the outbreak of the Revolution on account of his tory proclivities, his estate being subsequently occupied by Hon. Jos. Allen, and afterwards owned and occupied successively by Col. Samuel Flagg, Daniel Clapp, and the late Chief Justice Charles Allen. Daniel Gookin was succeeded as Sheriff by the second Benjamin Flagg, who served until his death in 1751, when he was succeeded by the last John Chandler, and the latter was succeeded in 1763, when he became Judge, by his brother, Gardner Chandler, who was Sheriff until the Revolution.
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
Of the original " Fathers of the Town," Dea. and Capt Dan- iel Heywood resided on the site of the present Bay State House, where he and his son and grandson of the same name kept a hotel for nearly one hundred years from the first organization of the town. The main portion of this ancient hotel building, afterwards known as the old " Central Hotel," and continued from the last Daniel Heywood's time as a public house by Reu- ben Wheeler, Samuel Hathaway, Cyrus Stockwell, Z. and D. Bonney, Luke Williams, Wood & Fisher, E. T. Balcom, Clif- ford & Swan, and Warner Clifford, to the year 1854, was then removed to make way for the Bay State House, and the old structure now stands on the south-east corner of Salem and Madison street. One of its chambers was used for a county prison in 1732. The north end addition to it made by Mr. Wheeler more than fifty years ago, is now a part of the car- riage manufactory of Messrs. Tolman, Russell, & Co., on Ex- change street.
Daniel Heywood, one of two first deacons and tavern keep- ers in Worcester, was the son of Dea. John Heywood of Con- cord, from which place Daniel came in 1718, and married Hannah, sister of Major Daniel Ward. Of their seven chil- dren, the oldest. Mary, married Capt. Israel Jennison ; Re- becca, born in 1725, married Noah Jones, first keeper of the old Jones tavern beyond New Worcester, from 1760 to 1781; Daniel, born in 1727, married Anna Wait, Dec. 13, 1753, was with his father in the hotel, and died June 30, 1753, leaving a son Daniel, to whom his grandfather bequeathed most of his large estate, including the hotel, which he afterwards contin- ued until his death in 1809; Abel, born in 1729, married Hannah Goddard from Brookline, and the latter's son, Abel, Jr., who married Hannah Chamberlin, was father of the late Henry Heywood, who died in 1872, aged 87. The first Daniel Heywood's youngest daughter, Abigail, married Capt. Palmer Goulding, Jr., and another daughter, Sarah, married Asa Moore, a hotel keeper, who died in 1801, aged 89. The Heywoods were originally very extensive land owners in the central portion of the town on both sides of the main highway.
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
The first Daniel Heywood, born in Concord, April 15, 1696, who married in Worcester, Sept. 25, 1718, a daughter of Oba- diah Ward, was brother of Phinehas Heywood, born at Con- cord in 1707, who went from here to Shrewsbury in 1739, and settled in the north-west part of that town near Worcester line, where his grandson, Daniel, now lives. Phinehas was promi- nent in town affairs in Shrewsbury preceding the Revolution, delegate to the Provincial Congresses, &c., and was father of the Hon. Benjamin Heywood, who settled in Worcester, per- formed meritorious service in the war, and was Judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1802 to 181I, besides holding other important offices. The late Dr. Benjamin F. Heywood of this city, was a son of the Judge, who was a nephew of the first Daniel Heywood of Worcester. The Heywoods in Gard- ner are descendants of Phinehas.
Obadiah Ward, who married Jemima Harrington of Water- town, Dec. 20, 1693, and resided first in Sudbury, and after- wards in Marlborough, previous to his coming here, where he died Dec. 17, 1717, aged 55, was grandson of the original Wil- liam Ward, one of the first settlers of Sudbury in 1639. Of Obadiah Ward's nine children, some of whom came here with him, the oldest, Richard, born in 1694, married Lydia Wheel- ock ; Hannah, born in 1696, married Daniel Heywood ; Daniel, born in 1700, married for his second wife, Mary, widow of Henry Coggin of Sudbury ; Uriah, born in 1704, was slain by the Indians at Rutland in 1724; Isaac, born in 1707, married Sybil Moore ; Thankful, born in 1712, married Jonas Farns- worth.
Daniel Ward died in 1777, aged 77. Of his nine sons and three daughters, the oldest, Henry, born in 1727, married Lydia Mower ; Phinehas, born in 1729, married Eunice Cutting ; William, born in 1733, married Elizabeth Mower ; Mary, born in 1735, married March 30, 1757, Samuel Curtis, a prominent man in town affairs, Selectman, &c., during the Revolution, who resided on Pakachoag Hill, just east of the old Gershom Rice place, and was grandfather of the present Albert Curtis, whose son now occupies his great grandfather's homestead ; Azu- bah, born in 1737, married a relative of the first Dr. John
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
Green ; Samuel, born in 1739, married Dolly Chandler, and in right of his wife inherited the large estate of 300 acres former- ly known as the " Chandler Farm," extending west of Main street from Austin to May street, afterwards owned and oc- cupied by the late Abial Jaques and his sons ; Daniel, born in 1741, married Damaris Stevens ; Sarah, married Thomas Ba- ker ; Uriah, born in 1745, married Jemima Houghton ; Asa, born in 1747, (father of Artemas Ward, Register of Deeds,) married Hannah Heywood, widow of the first Abel Heywood ; Esther, born in 1751, married. Josialı Ball.
Benjamin Flagg, sen., whose original location was on Lincoln street between Adams Square and Plantation street, was the first one of those of the same name for five generations who have filled so many prominent positions in town as Selectman, &c., from its first organization, including our venerable fellow- citizen, the present Benjamin Flagg, now in his 87th year, formerly Selectman, Alderman, and Representative in the Gen- eral Court, who is of the fifth generation, in descent from the patriarch of 1722, and whose grandfather, Col. Benjamin Flagg, commanded a regiment from this vicinity in the Revolutionary War. Col. Flagg's location was on Plantation street, on a. farm of 150 acres, for the last thirty years owned by George S. Howe, formerly owned and occupied successively by Aaron and Leonard Flagg, son and grandson of the Colonel. It is the same original mansion of Col. Flagg, enlarged and remodeled by the present owner.
Captain Nathaniel Jones, Selectman, Moderator, &c., during the earliest years, was probably ancestor of Noah, Phinehas, and John Jones, who kept the old Jones Tavern, still standing on its original site a mile beyond New Worcester, on the Leicester road, father, son, and grandson, successiveiy keeping that once celebrated half way stage house between Worcester and Leicester for three quarters of a century subsequent to 1760.
CHAPTER IV.
Earliest Settlers,-the Curtis and Rice families, and their connexions and descendants.
THE CURTIS FAMILY.
It was in the fall of 1673, as near as can now be ascertained by tradition and otherwise, that Ephraim Curtis, the first ac- tual white settler in Worcester, left Sudbury with a pack on his back, a long light Spanish gun on his shoulder, and an axe in his hand, and set his face towards Worcester, arriving after two days travel, on the very spot still owned and occupied by his descendants, on Lincoln street, to the sixth generation. The principal reason of his selecting this locality to settle on, was the supposition of mineral wealth in the soil, from the re- port of a valuable lead mine having been discovered in the vicinity by the Indians, who had a sort of rendezvous on Wig- wam Hill, while on their hunting and fishing excursions. Here Ephraim Curtis was all alone in the wilderness for a year or more, and in subsequent times used to tell how, after working all day, he would sit down and look towards Sudbury and shed tears in spite of himself. But he had a will that soon bore him through. For a time he claimed the whole township of Worcester, but had to be content with two hundred acres near the upper part of Plantation street, and another plantation near Grafton gore, granted by the Great and General Court as his share of the territory of Worcester.
Ephraim Curtis was son of Henry Curtis of Watertown, who married a daughter of Nicholas Gay of Watertown, and died in Sudbury, May 8, 1678, leaving three children, Ephraim, John, and Joseph. Ephraim was born in 1642, and lived to be over 92.
It is not now known when or where he was married, or who was his wife, but he certainly had two sons, John and Ephraim, to whom he bequeathed his estates, giving his homestead to
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
his son John in 1731. Of this John Curtis, who was a military captain, and kept a hotel at his residence from 1754 to 1774, we have a definite account. He is described as a small, short man, very proud, always on his dignity, and, as his memory is preserved, a splendid horseman, in which eapacity he shone to advantage mounted on a spirited steed. He married Elizabeth Prentice, daughter of Rev. John Prentice, minister at Lancaster from 1708 to 1748, and with her on a pillion behind him dressed in a bright scarlet cloak, with her arm around him, we have the picture of Capt. John Curtis. He died June 29, 1797, at the great age of 90, and his wife Elizabeth died in 1802, at the same great age. His son John died in 1768, aged 37. Capt. Curtis commanded a company in the French and Indian war, in 1757. He was a public officer of some kind, probably dep- uty sheriff, and left chest after chest full of papers, deeds, &c., with seals large as a small sized moon down to a fifty cent piece, which very unfortunately have been all destroyed by the child- ren.
The first thing, and as some think the only thing the old Pu- ritans lived for, was to worship God ; this they did continually and they were indeed jealous, like Elijah of old, for the God of Hosts. The next thing they did with characteristic punctil- iousness, was to reverence His servants as represented in His ordained ministers ; and thus situated on the great highway from the sea coast to the Connecticut river, this public house of the model puritan, Capt. John Curtis, was for years the general rendezvous of all the ministers that went to and fro. It was a free hotel for them, and well was it patronized up to the last generation but one.
The original Ephraim Curtis, and the others who had follow- ed him here, were driven off from Worcester by the Indians in 1675, during King Phillip's war. Having actively engaged in the military service, Curtis received the commission of Lieu- tenant, and distinguished himself as a gallant soldier in repel- ling the attacks of the red men. July 24, 1675, after the destruction of Mendon, Lieut. Curtis and others held a confer- ence with four of the Indian sachems, and obtained from them . assurances of their abandoning further hostile acts ; but the
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
terrible destruction which soon ensued at Brookfield, where Lieut. Curtis was on duty, and barely escaped sharing the fate of Captains Hutchinson and Wheeler and six others from Con- cord, who were killed by the savages while in defence of that garrisoned place, indicated the certain doom of Worcester, where the last remaining buildings were soon after burned. Lient. Curtis crept towards morning from the garrison house to which the inhabitants of Brookfield had been driven on the fatal night of Aug. 2, when all the houses there but that one were burned, and made his escape toward Sudbury. Meeting on the way Major Simon Willard and Capt. Parker with 46 men from Lancaster, who were on the way to fight the Indians at another locality, Lieut. Curtis notified them of the terrible distress at Brookfield, and they changed their course and the same night reached Brookfield after a tedious march of thirty miles, and relieved the besieged garrison there.
Lieut. Curtis left the spot on which he had attempted a set- tlement to his descendants, with no other personal memorials or tokens of himself in the family than his gun and silver headed cane, marked " E. c." He spent the remainder of his days in old Sudbury, leaving his son John to take care of his attempted plantation at Worcester, and another tract of 250 acres to his son Ephraim, jr., on the border of Worcester, Au- burn and Millbury, which he conveyed to the latter in 1734.
Capt. John Curtis, who was born near the beginning of the last century, and lived almost to its close, a nonogenarian at his deccase, left a well worn bible, (worn by his own fingers as well as by time since,) on the fly leaf of which were the lines, written by his own hand :
" The Almighty spake, and Gabriel sped Upon the Wings of Light ; Jehovah's Glory round him Spread, And changed to Day the Night.
Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! JOHN CURTIS ! Hallelujah !"
He was sadly missed from the pew which he had so long and so punctually occupied in the Old South, (pew No. 61 on the plan,) the floor of which had to be raised up six inches by planks in order to bring his head on a level with the rest of the congregation.
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Reminiscences of Worcester.
Capt. John Curtis had seven children, of whom Tyler, born April 28, 1752, who succeeded to the old homestead, married Lydia Chamberlain, and his sister Mary married Lydia's broth- er, Dea. John Chamberlain, who was father of the late General Thomas Chamberlain.
Of the remaining five children, the other daughter, Sarah, married Capt. William Jones, who kept a hotel on the site of Sargent's Block, near the junction of Main and Southbridge streets, from 1770 until his death in 1777, which house was the rendezvous of two tory spies, Capt. Brown and Ensign DeBer- niere, sent by the British Gov. Gage from Boston to Worcester in the spring of 1775, to collect topographical information, &c., preparatory to the contemplated advance of a detachment of British troops into Worcester at that time. The other four children of Capt. Curtis were,-John, jr., the oldest, and James, who died before the father, Joseph, and William.
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