USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Rural retrospect: a parallel history of Worcester and its Rural Cemetery > Part 2
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The town had no general hospitals, but it gained state-wide and country-wide eminence with the State Lunatic Asylum which had been located on the Boston turnpike at the edge of town since 1831. This institution had been promoted by Horace Mann when he was a legislator in the Massachusetts Assembly, before his years of concen- trated attention on public education. Since its beginning, the hospital had been superintended by Doctor Samuel Woodward. In 1838 Doctor George Chandler was his assistant physician and apothecary.
At this hospital, although it had been overcrowded for ten years, the insane received every "alleviation of their mental diseases which fit accommodations, remedial treatment, and high skill can bestow." In Doctor Woodward's report of 1837 he had said: "Kindness and indulgence, the inclination of self-respect and self-control, are indis- pensable auxiliaries in all well-regulated management." These were revolutionary ideas in treatment of the mentally ill.
Later Dorothea Lynde Dix was to extend these ideas for the whole nation, but her initial efforts for the insane were expended for her own home town of Worcester. After a survey of five hundred Massachu- setts towns, she was to write the now famous Memorial to the Legisla- ture asking for funds to build a much larger hospital in Worcester. The bill was to be passed in February of 1843.
From this beginning, Dorothea Lynde Dix was to make history by
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achieving similar triumphs in other states and countries. Miss Dix, among whose ancestors were the two early Worcester doctors- Elijah Dix and Joseph Lynde-spent many of her childhood years in Worcester. When she was only fifteen, in 1816, she had opened her first school here with Levi and William Lincoln, both "imps of devil- ment," numbered among her pupils. It was also in Worcester that she became acquainted with her second cousin, Edward D. Bangs, to whom she was engaged for several years.
Worcester had actually led the country in its aggressive vision of caring for the insane. So, too, did this little town set the pattern for the school system which was soon to be adopted in the entire state.
Worcester's early schools of higher training, supported wholly by individual proprietors, had been successful only for a short time. As the children of subscribers left town to attend various colleges, interest had naturally declined. In 1799 the town's one Seminary had been sold at public auction. Elementary schools had suffered from similar lack of interest and supervision.
For twenty-five years nothing had been done to remedy this situa- tion. But by 1823 when disinterest had festered into uncomfortable guilt, a group of prominent men determined to foster school reform. These men framed a plan whereby schools were to be supervised by a board of twelve elected persons, whose duties would be to hire teachers, admit scholars, determine courses, settle complaints, visit and examine schools, and make reports to the town.
This system was tested in the local schools with such successful results that Samuel Burnside, a Scotch lawyer and member of the committee, was asked to introduce the plan to the State Legislature. Subsequently, a law was enacted bringing the Worcester School System into effect in all school districts of Massachusetts. In 1824, steady support of taxation was provided for schools, thus ensuring further progress.
Part of the local plan-and this part was recommended by the venerable Doctor Aaron Bancroft, founder of Worcester's Unitarian Church-provided that in the afternoon of the Saturday closing the
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scholastic year, a public address was to be given in one of the houses of public worship. Its purpose was to illustrate the importance of good education (presumably by the illustrious example of the speaker) and to give to the district a glimpse of how its schools were being conducted.
Present at these services were the children from every school in town. Each April (school finished early, so that the youngsters could help at home with the spring planting) long processions of children could be seen winding their way toward a central meeting house. There the pupils would sit for what probably seemed an interminable length of time to listen to a profound address. There was no honor the town could bestow greater than an invitation to speak at this occasion.
By 1837 the Common Schools were thoroughly organized, with twelve districts and twenty-seven schools. There were also two Female Schools and two Boys' English Schools as well as the old Latin Grammar School. Of the several private enterprises, the Manual Labor High School was probably the best known. Mount St. James Seminary had very recently been opened on Pakachoag Hill by the Rev. James Fitton.
Worcester's Manual Labor High School had been started in 1832 with the objective that strict moral and religious character should be attained and that every facility should be afforded for labor. There were a few boys who did not have to work. These were afforded the distinction of sitting by themselves during meals, but reportedly the only difference in their food was that occasionally they were given doughnuts.
The institution was based on the theory that "education should be good, but not expensive." There were boys who later remembered it as a theory that boys should have very little to eat, a great deal to study, and to be kept at hard work when not studying.
The tremendously busy lawyer, Isaac Davis, had been zealous in the school's formation and in its direction. On fifty acres of land a half-mile south of the village, he had supervised its first building in 1833. In 1838 there were one hundred and thirty-five scholars.
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A coincidence not reported in the vital statistics of 1838 concerned seven influential men who were all just thirty-eight years old. They had caught up with Time at the same moment as had the century, in 1800.
By another coincidence, three of these men lived as neighbors on Pearl Street. Emory Washburn, who later became Governor of Massachusetts, lived the nearest to Main Street, and next door, on his right, lived Thomas Kinnicutt, State Senator. Henry Miller, the storekeeper, owned the house on the other side of Mr. Kinnicutt's property, on the corner of Chestnut and Pearl Streets.
Not far away, on the corner of Cedar and Chestnut, lived another of the 1800 group, the wealthy and distinguished Alfred Dwight Foster, son of the celebrated Judge Dwight Foster.
The others in this 1800 category were Clarendon Harris, George Bancroft, and Osgood Bradley.
Clarendon Harris owned a bookstore where he sold not only books but also wallpaper, musical instruments, whips and whip thongs. In addition, he managed a circulating library. In 1829 Mr. Harris had published the town's first directory, a little book of ten pages listing fourteen streets. Not long before, he had published a book of poems by George Bancroft, who also was born in 1800.
Mr. Bancroft, a native son, was not living in Worcester in 1838. He had already entered state politics, had published two volumes of his history of the United States, and had been appointed Collector of the Port of Boston. Later, when he was recognized as America's foremost historian and had become United States Minister to Great Britain and Prussia (and incidentally longed no more to be remembered as a poet), George Bancroft paid large sums to redeem the little books which Clarendon Harris had sold for sixty-two and a half cents.
Osgood Bradley had come to Worcester from Andover in 1822 to make carriages, sleighs, cutters, gigs, and similar conveyances. Later he had graduated to the making of stage coaches, and still more recently, at Washington Square, he had manufactured the first coaches for the steam railway trains. With heavy teams, these coaches had at
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HENRY W. MILLER.
Worcester's oldest hardware store, first owned by Daniel Waldo, then by his apprentice, Henry W. Miller. To the present date, a hardware business has been continuously operated in this location on Main Street
first been moved to the Boston terminals over the Worcester turnpike.
Henry Miller, the merchant of the 1800 group, had started his career by being Daniel Waldo's apprentice, receiving thirty dollars a year with his room and board. Apprentices before him had been John W. Lincoln and George T. Rice, or "Tilly" Rice, as he was usually called.
In 1821 Mr. Waldo had sold his hardware store to George Rice and Henry Miller. After ten years of this partnership, "Tilly" had opened another hardware store at the south corner of Main and Walnut with Francis Kinnicutt. Henry Miller had stayed with the business that had grown up with the town.
Daniel Waldo had recently replaced the original store building with Granite Row, the first block of considerable size in solid materials the village had ever seen. The first story, where Henry Miller had his store, was of granite, the second of brick. In the same building was the store of H. B. Claflin, who later was to become one of New York's greatest merchants.
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The dry-goods business was becoming extremely popular, because housewives were buying more and more in the stores and making less and less at home. While there were sixteen grocery stores in Worcester, there was an equal number of dry-goods stores. In 1838 David S. Messinger advertised: "Cassimeres, Satinets, Flannels, and other Woolens, Rich and Common Silks, Colored Alepines, Pongees, Meri- noes, Gloves, Hosiery, Ribbons, all of which will be sold extremely low for cash." (Barter, as a means of exchange, had fallen into low esteem.)
Harrison Bliss, who was later to become one of the two founders of Mechanics National Bank, was in 1838 part owner and clerk of one of the town's best grocery stores. Mr. Bliss, when eighteen years of age, had come to Worcester from Royalston with one cent less in his pockets than the number of his years. In a newspaper of 1838 he advertised: "Molasses, Coffee, Prime beef, and Pickled Salmon."
Although Daniel Waldo had retired in 1821 from his hardware store, "his counting room," as observed by his friend, Levi Lincoln, Jr., "nevertheless continued to be his chosen and daily resort for informal and free communication and intercourse with his acquaintance and friends, for attention to the management of his ample property and for the occupation of his time in reading and the bestowment of his interest and thoughts upon the welfare of others. The regularity of his habit in passing the street, to and from this accustomed place, was indeed so great as almost to mark the precision of the diurnal hour."
Next to Daniel Waldo's Granite Row, just north of George Street on Main, was what was known as Mr. Waldo's Meeting House. This Calvinist Society, which later became known as Central Congre- gational Church, had been organized in 1822. It had resulted as a by- product of a sharp controversy in the Old South Church, after which Daniel Waldo and seven others had left the parent institution.
Controversies in a church were not uncommon. Creeds were in the formative stages, and any young minister with ideas differing from those of the prominent families was apt to have a difficult time. Pastor after pastor was sometimes hired, then fired, in an attempt to find
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someone with whose theological beliefs everyone could agree. As one of the so-called "pillars" ex- pressed it when asked why he didn't simply change his member- ship at a time of disagreement: "I think it would be a good deal easier for the minister to leave than for me."
In this instance, however, an impasse had been reached among members of the congregation at Old South. Daniel Waldo, and the seven others, had finally been so disturbed that they had with- drawn their support from the old church. Together they started a new parish, promising its sup- port for five years. Severely cen- sured by the old congregation, the dissenters, in Daniel Waldo's words, conveniently "declined the remonstrance."
The first Calvinist meetings were held in the Court House, but in 1823 a church had been erected by Mr. Waldo. By 1838 this building had already been en- larged, and to its facilities had been added an organ costing seven- teen hundred dollars. Mr. Waldo's three sisters were active in the women's activities of their brother's Meeting House; they held many
CONDINE WORSE S.C
A
Mr. Waldo's Meeting House (Central Congregational) when it was located on North Main Street next door to the hardware store
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sewing meetings in the Waldo Mansion on Main Street, next door to the Bank.
"This Calvinist Society," wrote its pastor, John S. C. Abbott, to Mr. Waldo, "must remain in the world as the prominent and enduring monument of your exertion for Christ."
Such was the value of Time's perspective that a church originally erupting from a quarrel had already redeemed itself by its good works.
Because of the recent rise in Worcester's population, Mr. Waldo had again been importuned to start another church, this time peace- fully. There were others, however, to take up this responsibility. Ichabod Washburn, the comparatively new citizen, Alfred D. Foster, one of Worcester's leading inhabitants, and William T. Merrifield, the builder, assumed the burden of this new enterprise. It was named Union Church. In 1838 its edifice was built for $20,000 on Front Street next to the big mansion where Rejoice Newton lived.
There were, according to the newspaper statistics, eight churches in Worcester, which included "four Congregational." In a parenthesis following "Congregational" there were the words: "One of which is Unitarian." This was probably embarrassing to the Unitarians who were still persistently spoken of as members of the Second Congrega- tional Society. In 1829 the Unitarians had moved from Summer Street and erected their second church, a beautiful building, on Court Hill. The other churches included one Methodist, one Catholic, and one Baptist. The old Baptist church had burned in 1836; the new one on Salem Street boasted an organ, the gift of Isaac Davis.
The Auxiliary Bible Society, whose president was none other than Governor John Davis, was one of the most active groups in Worcester. Also enthusiastically supported was the jail chapel started by John W. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln had distinguished himself as Cap- tain of the Light Infantry in the War of 1812 and had been State Senator before becoming High Sheriff of Worcester County. It was he who had pushed out the walls between two cells to make Worcester's first jail chapel.
This chapel was warmly encouraged by Ichabod Washburn.
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"Deacon" Washburn, as he was known to everyone during his lifetime, was an intensely religious man. This was not unusual, for so, too, were most of his contemporaries, but Ichabod Washburn was handi- capped by his exaggerated shyness. His missionary enthusiasms were forever conflicting with his retiring temperament. In the end, how- ever, his zeal was the conqueror. When he died it was a matter of record that except in rare cases of illness, he had gone every week for over thirty years to the jail chapel to act as superintendent of its Sunday School.
In 1838 Ichabod Washburn was becoming one of Worcester's most influential men, but not for any of the reasons that would formerly have been valid. First of all, he had no family heritage with which Worcester was familiar. He had had no education, no cultural back- ground or training. But he did represent, as well his townsfolk realized, a new era-one in which machines and inventions were to be deter- mining factors. His neighbors did not understand the changes already apparent in their community, but they respected them.
By 1838 the farms had not by any means been pushed out of town by factories, but they were feeling the first gentle nudge towards the outskirts. Statistics counted the 510 Saxony sheep still in town, but also listed several enterprises which were the beginnings of several important industries.
Conspicuous among them was the firm of Howe and Goddard, a partnership of Henry P. Howe and Isaac Goddard, former paper makers who had become interested in manufacturing paper machinery. The transition from hand-made paper to a machine-made product had occurred only recently. These two men were located in the old Red Mills on Green Street, near Kelley Square. They constituted the beginning of the Rice Barton Corporation. As did most of Worcester's mills, this factory used the water power from Mill Brook.
Of these other mills, three made cotton, eight made woolens, and two made paper. Boots, hats (8300 annually), straw bonnets, cutlery, and plows were manufactured in small shops. Albert Tolman and Osgood Bradley were the traditional carriage makers, although in
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The home of Judge Thomas Kinnicutt, built in 1835, on Pearl Street. This house, designed by the noted architect, Elias Carter, was later owned for many years by Dr. Samuel Woodward
1837 Mr. Bradley had discontinued the manufacture of horse-drawn vehicles to concentrate on railway coaches. On Thomas Street, in 1825, William A. Wheeler had started a foundry where the first iron stoves in the area were cast. Here, too, the first steam engine of the town was operated. As early as 1831, the firm that developed into Curtis and Marble Machine Company was established in what was known as New Worcester. Its product was a shearing machine for finishing woolen goods.
No industry at the time, however, approximated the importance of the wire-making business on the Holden road. Ichabod Washburn, its owner, had been born in Kingston, Massachusetts. When he was only two months old, his father had died, and before he was nine, he had been "let out to live," as was the custom for poor little boys. He had worked as a harness maker's helper, then in a cotton factory before coming to Worcester the first time in 1814, when he was sixteen. On his way to Leicester where he was to learn the blacksmith trade,
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Ichabod Washburn had stopped with the stage at Sikes' Hotel. The boy was very, very hungry, but the long table in the dining room, heavy with delicacies, overwhelmed him so much that he had gone instead to his room and cried himself to sleep.
After his apprenticeship days in Leicester, he had started black- smithing in Millbury. With destiny controlling the precise timing, Daniel Waldo had been impressed to give the young man a loan with- out security. This had made it possible in 1819 for Ichabod to begin a small business in Worcester.
His projects had reached out in various directions, and he had had several partners before he, with Benjamin Goddard, had arrived at the idea of making wire. This was new in America, but the business had soon become mildly prosperous. In 1834 Stephen Salisbury had thrown an embankment across Mill Brook, forming what has been known as Salisbury Pond, and built near there a mill for Ichabod Washburn. By 1838, according to Mr. Washburn's autobiography, there were twenty-five workmen in the forty-by-eighty, three-story factory. The plant's size and success was only in miniature what it was later to become, but it was a start. Mr. Washburn's partner, in 1838, was his twin brother, Charles. This capable man had been handicapped by being born with only one arm.
No one presumed to dream of the unbelievable development in store for this little factory on Mill Brook, but there was no one who did not sense that it somehow pointed in the direction of the future.
New definitions for transportation, evolved during the previous twenty years, also indicated an unfamiliar future. There was much speculation about the outcome of the canal-railway competition. Ten years before, the canal to Providence had been opened after an expenditure of $750,000. Unfortunately for the canal, only three years later the Boston and Worcester Railway Company had been incorporated. By 1835 the railroad had been finished to Worcester, with the first train chugging into town for the July Fourth celebration of that year. It had arrived at a depot on Foster Street, after passing through the celebrated "gorge," a mile away from town. There the
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road had been blasted through a deep, perpendicular cutting of slate rock, extending about thirty rods. This was considered a tremendous feat of engineering.
Frenzied interest in the new railroad replaced the canal enthusiasm so quickly that almost immediately canal receipts began to drop. By 1838 they had been dropping steadily for six years. This rapid change- over from a water to rail mode of transportation came so quickly that stockholders had hardly had time to count their canal losses before they became wealthy from the profits of railroad stock.
There were few Worcester men, however, who benefited financially from this early railroad. Because the majority were overcautious as a result of their recent canal experience, less than $5000 of Worcester money was invested in this enterprise.
Regardless of the excitement over the new steam trains, the stage coach was still a popular method of travel. There were figures to show that for the previous year there had been 30,000 passengers on the lines between Worcester and Boston, and more than that number between Hartford and Worcester. With the rivalry of competing stage lines, Worcester's streets bustled with the activity of arriving and departing coaches. At night the inns did a thriving business providing shelter for the weary travelers, while hundreds of horses rested in tavern stables.
There were several of the old established stage lines, and new ones were periodically announced. Recently a route had been started between Worcester and Lowell. This line traveled the proverbial way of "round Robin Hood's barn" -- to Shrewsbury, Northboro, Berlin, Stowe, then to Chelmsford and Lowell. It promised a "trusty, obliging driver."
Another line advertised a coach going to Norwich, Connecticut. There its passengers would board a steamer for New York, making the entire trip from Worcester in "less than twenty-two hours."
The pioneer of stage coach lines in Worcester County had been Levi Pease of Shrewsbury. He and Reuben Sikes had established a stage line in Worcester in 1793. In 1807 Mr. Sikes bought the Tavern
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which soon began to bear his name. He became known as the largest proprietor of stage lines in New England. Cyrus Stockwell was another well-known stage line owner.
The fabulously romantic traditions of the stage coach era had been further glamorized by Ginery Twichell who came to Worcester from Barre in 1832 to start his legendary "Knights of the Whip." He later owned more than two hundred horses and several lines of stages. In 1838, in recognition of his community service, his friends presented him with an elegantly decorated coach.
Early in his career, Mr. Twichell unknowingly made a prophetic statement. "Before I take the presidency of the Boston and Worcester railroad or go to Congress," he declared, "I want to drive a six-horse stage coach with twenty passengers from Worcester to Brattleboro via Barre." Little did he know at the time that later he would not only become president of several railroad companies but also a Congressman.
He was a man who could change his definitions as he went along. Someone else had said in 1813 that the time would come when "people would travel in stages moved by steam engines, from one city to another almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen or twenty miles an hour." Ginery Twichell was one who didn't mind whether his stage coaches were moved by horses or horsepower.
There were others who had not been so flexible. One critic argued: "We are told that we are to gallop at the speed of twelve miles an hour, with the aid of the devil, sitting as postillion in the fore- house, and an honorable member sitting behind him to stir up the fire and keep it at full speed. I will show you they cannot go six; I may be able to show that we can keep up with them by the canal. Thus, sir, I prove that locomotive engines cannot move more than four and one-fourth miles per hour, and I will show the whole scheme to be bottomed on deception and fallacy." There were many who believed that the railroads would mean certain ruin for the farmers. The horses would have to be killed, they declared, and this would mean that farmers would have no market for hay and oats. Moreover, they worried, the hens would refuse to lay because of "the infernal noise."
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Progress, as it usually does, nevertheless went unhesitatingly on, disregarding its critics. For the first six months after the first train came into Worcester, the Boston and Worcester Railroad reported the surprising number of 72,558 passengers. By 1838 there was not only the line going to Boston, but also the Western and Norwich com- panies. Emory Washburn had recently even made a first report to Congress favoring a railroad from Worcester to Albany.
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