USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Rural retrospect: a parallel history of Worcester and its Rural Cemetery > Part 3
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Worcester had celebrated its one hundredth anniversary as a town (1822) and its hundredth anniversary as a shire town (1831). For both of these occasions, John Davis, known as an orator as well as a statesman, had given the addresses. By 1838 the town already had two mutual fire insurance companies, both of them started in the samc decade. There was also a Fire Department started in 1835, with nine engineers and six companies. Isaac Davis was its first Chief Engineer.
This Fire Department had rapidly changed the original function of the Worcester Fire Society, established in 1793. The latter was now a social group, having as a rival a similar society started by John Davis. At the split-up of the old church, Governor Davis had supported the opposite side of Daniel Waldo's argument. Rumor has ever since persisted that when John Davis' name came up for election into the Fire Society, he had been "blackballed" by Daniel Waldo. Mr. Davis immediately turned around and formed his own Mutual Fire Society which existed for eighteen years.
Another active social group consisted of the members of the Worcester Association of Mutual Aid in Detecting Thieves, considered a necessary adjunct to every community in the days when horse- thievery was a common, yet serious, crime.
Worcester's most respected institution was the American Anti- quarian Society, started in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas. In 1831 the town's new consciousness of heritage had been evidenced by the incorporation of the Worcester County Historical Society.
By far the most popular cultural institution was the Lyceum, cstablished after the pattern of other towns, in 1829. At its first
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1838
SEVEN, ELEVEN SEVEN
meeting Frederick W. Paine had been elected president and Anthony Chase, the secretary. John Davis, of course, had presented the first address.
The objective of the Lyceum was to present weekly lectures, from November to April. Dues were one dollar a year, and lecturers were free to choose their own subjects. It was intended that all classes of society be eligible for membership, but the Lyceum was actually supported by professional men and their families. In 1835 there had been 190 members.
At the first meeting of 1837, Edward D. Bangs, who had retired because of ill health the previous year after twelve terms as Massachu- setts Secretary of State, was the speaker. He talked long and earnestly about the deplorable condition of New England's cemeteries.
That's how this story really began.
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1838
The Best Gift
CHAPTER II
AN IDEA IS SOMETIMES the best gift a man can give. In the shuffle of years its remembrance may be lost, because it is usually the men who give land or money or tangible gifts who are labeled as life's chief benefactors. But even they know well that in some far-off accounting, it is the man with the idea who will rate the starriest crown.
They know, too, that the idea alone would not have been enough, that it became sufficient only because of their own subsequent deeds, and in that knowledge they gain deserved significance.
In this story the man with the idea was Edward D. Bangs. The occasion was a Lyceum lecture in the year of 1837.
Everyone knew that what Mr. Bangs said was true. There was no one who had not seen the neglected condition of the town's cemeteries, where briers and weeds grew in tangled thickets over forgotten graves. They had seen cows grazing in the burying field on the Common. They knew that many graves had no monuments at all, and that most of the others were crumbling. They had seen evidence of mutilation where vandals had taken the fences for firewood.
The graves of the early planters in their own fields were no longer marked. The town's oldest cemetery at the corner of Thomas and Summer Streets had been supplanted by a school house. The second community lot on the Common had been neglected since the beginning of the century. There had been a newer one laid out from the corner of Mechanic and Foster, with Mechanic Street extending just to the cemetery drive. There was also the Pine Meadow Cemetery, opened
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THE BEST GIFT
-
Edward D. Bangs, above The man who first suggested the Cemetery
Thomas Kinnicutt, above right The State Senator who guided the corpora- tion bill through the Legislature
Daniel Waldo, Junior The man who gave the land for the Cemetery. President: 1840-1841
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THE BEST GIFT
1838
in 1828, off Shrewsbury Street. But in the urgency of its growing, the town was already impatiently pushing at the gates of these new lots.
Mr. Bangs, who was remembered as having been "tall and hand- some with golden earlocks," had not been well for many months. Now he seemed short, thick-set, and plain. But as he peered from under the lids of protruding eyes, his kindness and graciousness were so remarkably evident that his friends, as they listened, quite forgot his awkward appearance. With gentle, low inflections, he prodded their awareness until the people of Worcester felt thoroughly ashamed.
They were, Mr. Bangs assured them, not altogether at fault. They had intended no disrespect. There had been many untidy fringes of community life which Worcester folk had tried to straighten out as quickly as possible, but resources were, after all, not without limita- tions. With all good faith, the citizens had tried to attend to the cemetery problem of which Mr. Bangs spoke, but as soon as they had made new arrangements, the town's boundaries had changed. In a quite unforeseen development, even railway trains had whistled their way through the town's quiet cemetery lots.
Mr. Bangs reviewed the situation, then presented suggestions for its improvement. It seemed that the condition prevailed, he explained, largely because no provision had been made for individual ownership. To emphasize the uncertainty inherent in town-owned lands, he reminded his listeners of the twenty acres at the west of the village which the town had purchased only two years previously. At that time several people had persistently requested permission to buy family lots, but this privilege had been denied. Subsequently, after only one burial, the town had voted that the field be sold.
The cemetery solution would never come, Mr. Bangs insisted, until individual grant of the soil itself could be obtained, thus protecting "forever" from change and casualty.
Mr. Bangs was an excellent speaker. He had had a great deal of experience as lawyer, representative, County Attorney, and Secre- tary of State. At the Lyceum lecture of 1837 he reached a listening audience.
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1838
THE BEST GIFT
One man, Daniel Waldo, was paying especially close attention. Mr. Waldo, always reticent to speak, was good at listening, and even better at doing. The idea of a cemetery which would provide "for- ever" a resting place appealed to his sense of community responsibility, and in the months that followed he determined to do something about it.
First of all, he bought a tract of land covering approximately nine acres, located on the east side of the road leading from Worcester to Holden, past Salisbury's Mills. Mr. Waldo already was a wealthy land-owner, and could conceivably have chosen other lots, but he knew this land had to be special. Most of all, it had to be far enough away from the town so that it need never be disturbed.
His choice of land proved to be one of Nature's prizes, with a rolling contour and a great many beautiful trees, a place where sun and shade played well together. It was land that had once belonged to Judge Timothy Paine, part of his lot that ran from the Salisbury estate on the west to the Green estate on the east. Situated far, far away from the hustling busyness at the center of town, this lovely place was protected on the north and south by a belt of thick forest through which columns of tall, straight larches seemed to march. Through the meadow area ran a small brook, and at the foot of one of the knolls rested a spring-fed pond.
Daniel Waldo bought the land for $1400, in the month of Septem- ber, 1837, announcing his intention to donate it for a cemetery.
Winter came to Worcester, with snow falling to a depth of about nine inches. "Sleighs," announced the Spy, "have displaced wheel carriages on our roads." There was the regular business to be attended to. A meeting was held "to see" if the town would "cause a bell to be rung at noon and at nine o'clock in the evening" and "to see if the town will cause the lamps in the Centre district to be lighted the current year."
But with Winter's first snowy step, a more momentous decision was made by a group of future-seeing men who agreed to "pray the Legislature" for a charter incorporating a unique cemetery association which would provide for individual proprietorship.
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( Pacato Colecion des Det 8.1838 Han Danne Waldo
The Bile incorporating the Juntar, in bitarcentro passio to la engraçado en the Junte today - For wants of a button, name Justis "The Rural Cemetery in Worcester"- If you can think of one more agreeable to
in the House live can In cartly auncalled accordingly- I am, Dr. Si.
an. M. M The Shimiento
Letter naming the Cemetery from State Senator Thomas Kinnicutt to Daniel Waldo, 1838
The petition was signed by Judge Nathaniel Painc, Samuel M. Burnside, Judge Ira Barton, and Rejoice Newton.
Permission was asked to establish and own "a rural cemetery," its primary consideration to obviate the possibility of town encroach- ment. To have a distinguished name did not seem necessary. On
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1838
THE BEST GIFT
January 28, of 1838, the State Senator, Thomas Kinnicutt, wrote to Daniel Waldo:
"Will you do me the favor to designate some name for the Rural Cemetery in Worcester. This is the only thing necessary to enable the committee to report a bill. . . . Please write me when you have determined the name."
No name was forthcoming. On February 8 Mr. Kinnicutt wrote again, advising Mr. Waldo that the bill had been introduced. "For want of a better name, I have inserted 'The Rural Cemetery in Worcester'," he wrote, "If you can think of any more agreeable to you and will inform me, or Mr. Lincoln, this bill can be easily amended in the House accordingly."
Again, no better name was suggested. On February 23, the Act to incorporate the "Proprietors of Rural Cemetery in Worcester," and appointing the lands they should acquire "forever" for their specific purpose, was passed by the Legislature and approved by Governor Edward Everett.
In the charter, mention was made of the promised land, a gift from Daniel Waldo. This document also stipulated that not more than twenty acres of adjoining land could later be procured by the proprietors, and that they could hold personal property worth no more than ten thousand dollars. It outlined a program of planting trees, shrubbery, and "other rural ornaments," and provided for the erection of a dwelling house with "suitable appendages." Further- more, it stated, a portion of the land was to be set off for a garden. Provisions were made whereby lots could be conveyed to proprietors exempt from taxation and from attachments. Penalties for defacement of property were listed and contingencies in case of inheritance were carefully explained.
On March 15, Rejoice Newton called a meeting of the proprietors, for which he was elected the chairman and William Lincoln the clerk. At that meeting the charter was accepted, and a committee was immediately named to compile a set of By-laws. In addition to the
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1838
THE BEST GIFT
original petitioners, these men were elected as corporators: Daniel Waldo, Benjamin Butman, Isaac Davis, Edward D. Bangs, Benjamin F. Thomas, George T. Rice, Stephen Salisbury, Joseph G. Kendall, Levi Lincoln, Frederick W. Paine, Samuel Jennison, and William Lincoln.
The only other business was a vote to meet again the next morning.
Perhaps the By-laws had been prepared long in advance, or pos- sibly someone worked overtime that night. At any rate, on the morn- ing of March 16 the By-laws were neatly in order and ready to be reported.
These laws named the date of the annual meeting and provided for the election once a year of seven trustees and a treasurer. These men, in turn, were to elect their president and clerk. The By-laws suggested "neat and handsome books" for the clerk, ruled that every fence in the new cemetery must be made of iron or stone, stipulated a price of not less than ten cents per square foot, and ordered the erection of a receiving tomb. They also outlined the obligation of a trustee to own two hundred square feet of land and to live in Worcester. A reasonable compensation to the treasurer and clerk was recom- mended, and it was explained that a proprietor, in order to become a member of the corporation, must procure a deed and give assent to the charter and rules.
Hospitality was a characteristic of the age. Rural Cemetery, emphasizing this fact, made provision for the "burial of distinguished strangers without payment thereof."
At the same meeting in which the By-laws were accepted, seven trustees were named: Levi Lincoln, Edward D. Bangs, George T. Rice, Isaac Davis, Stephen Salisbury, Joseph G. Kendall, William Lincoln. These men, at a later meeting on April 9, elected Levi Lincoln to be their president. (Daniel Waldo declined to serve.) Samuel Jennison, with his banking experience, was the perfect choice for treasurer.
Two days later, at the first scheduled annual meeting, Edward D. Bangs, who was very ill, was replaced on the Board by Frederick W. Paine. Ten days later, Mr. Bangs died. Inasmuch as Rural Cemetery was not yet ready for interments, he was buried in Boston.
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Map of Cemetery in May, 1839, when the grounds covered a little less than nine acres
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THE BEST GIFT
1838
The conclusion of Mr. Bangs's life and the fulfillment of his idea were not simultaneous, but they did overlap. Just a few days before his death, a topographical survey of the Cemetery area had been made. The treasurer had been given permission by the trustees to borrow $1000 to lay out and improve the land, and a committee had been appointed to erect a fence around the property.
It was not until July 9 that Daniel Waldo deeded his land to the proprietors. It was discovered that an additional piece of land, cover- ing about half an acre, was needed to front the Holden road. This, in August, Stephen Salisbury donated to the corporation. Meanwhile, the trustees, with landscape gardeners, were busy clearing and cleaning the land.
Periodically there were meetings to distribute responsibility. Committees were appointed to supervise the grounds, to print two hundred copies of the Act of Incorporation, to arrange the dedicatory services, to consider a revision of prices, to make signs for the entrances and paths, to place numbers and valuations on the lots. This work, the trustees agreed, should not go without reward or some privileges, so with unanimous vote it was declared that no person other than a proprietor would have permission to fasten his horse or team to any tree or post in the Cemetery.
Streets and paths were laid out under supervision of the trustees, and on a map dated August 24, made by C. H. Hill, Surveyor, eighteen streets were listed. Again, there were no fancy names. Some of the streets were named by location-North, South, Eastern, and Central- and the others for trees. The map also showed a bridge over the north end of the pond, another over the south end. Incidentally, this survey cost the exact sum of $8.79.
On the very next day after the map was finished, at one o'clock in the morning, Worcester experienced one of its most disastrous fires. Frederick W. Paine, the new trustee of the Cemetery, was one of its heaviest losers, even though his investment was covered in part by insurance in the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company of which he was president. He had owned a block of tenement buildings north of
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1838
THE BEST GIFT
School Street fire, August 25, 1838, a painting by the Boston artist, George L. Brown
Henry Goulding and Company (a manufacturer of textile machinery) where the fire presumably started. The tenements as well as the factory were ruined. So, too, were the barns and carriage houses of the Boston and Worcester Stage Company where hundreds of horses had been stabled. In a spectacular rescue the horses had been saved, and the next morning a great number of pigs had been found under a pile of old lumber far away from the flames. To that date, this was Worcester's most serious fire loss, and the episode has been preserved by legend and a graphic painting.
Less than a week later, William Lincoln, clerk of the Cemetery, made his first report to the proprietors. On September 5, a notice appeared over his name in the National Aegis announcing: "An address will be delivered and religious services performed at the Cemetery at three o'clock of the afternoon of September 8."
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THE BEST GIFT 1838
The weather cooperated by making September 8 a sparkling, clear day. From the knoll at the north side of the grounds where a large group of people assembled, the first touches of fall color could be seen in the maples, the larches, and birches. The service itself was con- ducted by Alonzo Hill, who had been co-pastor of the Unitarian Church with Aaron Bancroft since 1827. Mr. Bancroft, who had completed fifty years of ministry in 1829, had been asked to officiate, but he had passed along the honor to his associate.
Levi Lincoln was the orator of the day. Erect and formal, Mr. Lincoln's presence itself gave a special dignity to the occasion. As always, he wore a full-dress suit. (This was his invariable custom, even when walking down the street.) His manners were meticulously correct, his speech precise.
In a general way, he reviewed the history of cemeteries from the time of the ancient Egyptians. Specifically, he outlined the history of Worcester's burial fields. He took great pains to emphasize the "rural" aspect of this new cemetery which he was officially dedicating. "The broad avenue and the winding path are before you," he declared with the wordy rhetoric of his day. "The open plain, the gently rising hill, the easy sloping declivity, the natural rivulet, and the miniature lake are among the diversified objects of this attractive spot."
Mr. Lincoln paid generous tribute to Edward D. Bangs, and mourned his premature death. It was, he suggested, "as if he had returned among us but to give his last effort to an object which had he lived to see its accomplishment would doubtless have secured a spot for a monument to his name where the remembrance of his worth will long remain, in cherished and grateful association with the visible memorials of others."
Immediately after the dedicatory service, as had been advertised, lots were offered in public auction. Forty-eight lots were sold, the proceeds totaling $1600, even exceeding the anticipations of the trustees.
Nature itself had divided the Cemetery into two separate sections, with a meadow and pond between them. On the front side, lots were
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The Kinnicutt stone, marking resting place of the first person to be buried in Rural Cemetery, Harriet Kinnicutt
taken by the Lincolns, the Kinnicutts, the Bancrofts, Daniel Waldo, and Rejoice Newton. On North Avenue the proprietors were the Wheelers, Sikes, Kendalls, and Washburns, with the Greens, Francis Blake's family, the Paines, and George T. Rice buying lots on the south. Because of this extended allocation of space, there has, until recent years, been no "old," no "new," parts of the Cemetery.
The Spy of the next day, September 9, reported the proceedings of the dedication and also presented "Lines," a poem of six stanzas beginning: "Home of the coming Dead." "These exquisite lines," wrote the editor, "have been sent to us by some unknown corre- spondent."
The Rural Cemetery in Worcester was thus officially dedicated.
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1838
Its originator, Edward D. Bangs, was not present to see his dream come true. It was an instance when action had not soon enough followed the dream, an instance when one man had planted a seed, another had cared for it, and still others were to reap its harvest. With one of life's ironical tricks, the first was not one of the last.
But by just as strange a coincidence, the first person to be buried in Rural was Harriet Kinnicutt. She, a descendant of the Paine family, was just thirty years old when she died September 29, 1838. On her monument, erected on a knoll between Walnut and Chestnut Paths, were etched the words:
"Earth hath lost no lovelier, Heaven no purer spirit won."
Harriet Kinnicutt's husband, State Senator Thomas Kinnicutt, was the man who had guided the Cemetery's Act of Incorporation through Legislature and had himself named it Rural.
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1838-1856
The Adopted Children CHAPTER III
"WHEN RURAL CEMETERY WAS SELECTED and set apart for its solemn purpose, it was a secluded and quiet spot, where, it was thought, the voice of merriment could never intrude; but now, in the unparalleled increase of population and the consequent extension of the city, it it has become placed between great thoroughfares, encompassed on every side by the ordinary pursuits of living men in the midst of worldly tumult."
Levi Lincoln was not prophesying. In these now century-old words, he was not describing Rural Cemetery as it is today but as it was in 1852.
It had been only fourteen years since its incorporation.
In the previous ten years, Worcester had grown by ten thousand persons. What Mr. Lincoln did not know was that the town had just begun to grow, that in five more years it would gain still another five thousand-and even then, that was to be just the beginning.
In 1855 the census showed a total of 22,000, amply tripling the Worcester population of 1838 when the Cemetery had been granted its charter.
Accommodating so many people had demanded a considerable stretching out for the town. It was a stretching that extended around,; and right past the gates, of Rural Cemetery, as well as in other direc- tions toward town boundaries.
In the history of the town, there had been several wealthy land- owners-the Jennisons, Chandlers, Heywoods, Waldos, and Salisburys,
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THE ADOPTED CHILDREN
1838-1856
but land-owning had been, almost always, quite incidental. By 1856 this was no longer true. Land-owning had become a thriving business; a new term of "real estate" had become part of the economic language.
David Messinger, a young man who had come from Maine in 1834, had been one of the first to realize the tremendous potentials of Worcester's expansion. "It seemed," he later reminisced, "a pleasant little place to make a start in." After ten years as a merchant in the dry-goods business, he literally started to change the face of the town. He bought land everywhere-all except at the south of Worcester, which prompted his later comment: "I wish I had."
From Levi Lincoln, Mr. Messinger bought property at the corner of Chestnut and Walnut Streets for $700. Governor Lincoln thought, and told him so, that he was crazy to pay such a price, that he'd never get his money back. But Mr. Messinger continued to buy property toward the west. Later Mr. Lincoln bought back four acres from him at $400 an acre, and himself succumbed to land fever by having Phinehas Ball, a surveyor, lay out the Lincoln pasture into streets and building lots.
David Messinger also bought part of the Chandler estate, then seven acres west of Chestnut Street from Elisha Flagg. He sliced through this Flagg land with a street later named William. Other streets on the west which he opened were Cedar, Harvard, Everett, North Ashland. On the east were Elizabeth, Farwell, and Eastern Avenue-all made by David Messinger. Beyond Rural Cemetery Mr. Messinger bought land from Doctor John Green. There he built a mile of streets.
Ransom C. Taylor, a young lad who started his business career by driving a delivery wagon for his father (a butcher), had come to Worcester from New Hampshire in 1846 to start a meat produce busi- ness. It became one of the most important in New England. He, too, had realized the advantages of owning property in a growing Worces- ter, and made extensive investments until at a later time he became the largest individual owner and heaviest taxpayer in the City. It was he who later built Worcester's first five- six- and seven-story buildings.
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1838-1856
THE ADOPTED CHILDREN
STAL
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Front Street, looking east. At bottom of picture are the railway tracks which traveled directly across the Common toward the depot on Foster Street. From left are the Crystal Palace (razed in 1884 to make room for the Chase Building), the Osgood Bradley mansion (previously owned by Rejoice Newton) and the Union Congregational Church
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THE ADOPTED CHILDREN
1838-1856
Eventually he built so many large business buildings on Main and Front that he owned more than half the buildings on these streets.
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