USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Rural retrospect: a parallel history of Worcester and its Rural Cemetery > Part 6
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With the exception of Governor Lincoln's, of course. As long as Mr. Lincoln lived, he commanded a tremendous respect from old- timers and newcomers alike. It was as if the whole community bided its time and virtually said: "Just wait a bit. We'll humor the old gentleman." And so Change marked time, matching its rhythm to an old man's heartbeat.
Some generations dovetail so neatly into others that there are no telltale marks to show the separation. Others, as in this instance, seem
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to have sharp, sudden cleavage. During 1867 came the deaths of George T. Rice and Charles Wheeler (the industrialists), Judge Ira Barton, and Pliny Merrick, as well as the comparatively young Russell Hawes, who was only forty-four. In the next year, Levi Lincoln, Henry Newcomb, Rejoice Newton, and Ichabod Washburn died. These men left great gaps in leadership into which young men stepped with eagerness and ambition.
For instance, Mr. Washburn was succeeded in the wire company by his son-in-law, Philip L. Moen. This was no easy position, for along with it went a responsibility for the development of many charities and societies provided for by the will of Ichabod Washburn.
Although Mr. Washburn had married the second time (to Elizabeth B. Cheever) he was childless and left nine-tenths of his fortune to benevolent causes. Long years before, when he had been just a boy, someone had approached him with a church subscription list. When he had hesitated to sign it, because his funds were so extremely limited, a wise friend had prompted: "Give fifty cents. You will soon see it come back to you again."
Ichabod Washburn saw it come back again and again. Each time it came back he gave it out again in extended measure. Late in life he commented: "It has been to me a source of great satisfaction and devout gratitude to my Heavenly Father that He has not only given me the means, but the richer gift, a heart to give." He never forgot to say "Thank you" heavenwards. When new counting rooms were added to his factory, he arranged a dcdicatory service before allowing them to be used.
Mr. Washburn's money was not left to a few securely established funds and institutions, but to small, new schools (Worcester Polytechnic was onc of them) and missionary associations, to chapels and colleges, seminaries, hospitals, orphan asylums, churches and benevolent socicties. His will also provided for a Home for the Aged and for The Memorial Hospital, the latter in memory of his two daughters.
Through financial panic and war, the Washburn wire factory had continucd to prosper. The frontiers of the West still needed fencing
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wire, and the demand for piano wire was greater than ever. Further- more, the sewing machine had introduced another product-the needle-and crinoline wire had become a fashion necessity. For ten years the Washburn company operated a cotton mill to make yarn for covering four tons of crinoline wire daily.
The young Philip Moen became president of the company in 1868, after Mr. Washburn's death. Charles Francis Washburn, the son of Charles, became secretary and vice president. Another young man, William E. Rice, was becoming prominent in the business. After an early start in Mr. Washburn's counting room, he had ventured into his own business in Connecticut and then Holyoke. When he had become so successful that Mr. Washburn suggested a consolidation, the two businesses had merged in 1865.
There followed a period of intense and rapid development for Worcester's wire industry. To a great extent this was due to Mr. Rice's introduction of the continuous rod-rolling system for producing wire rods of smaller gauge and longer length. This system, modified and improved by Worcester engineers, was the first to be installed in America.
In 1868 the mill buildings and property, which had previously been rented, were purchased, and an extensive building program was begun. At the same time, the company absorbed the Quinsigamond Iron and Wire Works, of which Mr. Rice had been manager and treasurer, and the whole organization was incorporated as the Wash- burn and Moen Manufacturing Company. William E. Rice was director and treasurer of this new corporation. He later became its president in 1891.
The General Superintendent of the company in 1868 was Charles H. Morgan. At a later time, in 1887, he was to found a company of his own which was to contribute conspicuously to Worcester's reputation in Industry.
Quite naturally, Worcester recognized its Civil War heroes by according them earned positions of leadership. General Charles Devens was named Judge of the Superior Court in 1867, General
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Josiah Pickett
Charles Devens
Augustus B. R. Sprague
George H. Ward
Four Worcester heroes of the Civil War
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Josiah Pickett became Postmaster of Worcester in 1866, and General Augustus Sprague a City Councilman and the City Marshall in 1867.
The Civil War had been no lukewarm episode for Worcester. From that first Sunday when the echo of Fort Sumter's guns had reached the City, patriotic fever had run high in Worcester. "Our Flag has been fired upon!" the outraged Spy had reported in bold, high type.
The Light Infantry, the first military group to respond, left town on the following Wednesday. There had been appropriate farewell ceremonies which included the giving of pocket Bibles to the soldiers by Ichabod Washburn and the promising by Doctor Rufus Woodward to care (free of charge) for the soldiers' families. Captain Harrison Pratt, the first man to offer his services, was in command of the group. (He was also one of the first to come home-to Rural Cemetery.) This group of soldiers were welcomed in Washington as saviors of the capital. They were given the Senate chamber for their temporary quarters, and there they spent the night in blankets on the floor. (Never before or since has a Worcester delegation had the Senate floor for so long.)
Within a very few days the Third Battalion, led by Major Charles Devens and Captain Sprague, also marched out of Worcester. In August, General Devens returned to command the Fifteenth Regiment with Lieutenant Colonel George H. Ward. This regiment was given a farewell on the City Common. Three months earlier the Timothy Bigelow monument had been erected, and Congressman George F. Hoar (the orator for the service) was quick to note the coincidence.
"Eighty-four years to the day," he said, "there was mustering in these streets the first Regiment ever raised in Worcester County for actual warfare-the Fifteenth Regiment of the Massachusetts line." "Now," he continued, "for the second time, Worcester County sends out to battle a full regiment of her own, by coincidence too appropriate to be called accident."
"I am unable to predict as to our return," responded Charles Devens, "yet this symbol [the flag] shall be returned untarnished to the
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ladies of Worcester. Defeat, disaster, and death may come to us, but dishonor never."
His words proved true.
On the next day 1046 men left the city. When the regiment finally came home, there were only 85 men fit to travel. It was this regiment that met the blow at Ball's Bluff, where 621 men went into battle with only 311 surviving. It was there that Willie Grout died. Willie was the eighteen-year-old lieutenant son of Jonathan Grout, a wealthy publisher and bookseller in Worcester. Willie became the symbol of martyred youth not only for Worcester but also for the whole country because of a poem written about him by Henry S. Washburn. The poem was entitled "The Vacant Chair."
It was at Ball's Bluff that George H. Ward, the son of Artemas Ward, was wounded in one leg. This leg had to be amputated, but Ward would not be mustered out. He continued in battle, often with the stump of the leg strapped to the saddle. Later, on the second day of the Gettysburg campaign, he was mortally wounded. After the War, the Worcester Post of the Grand Army of the Republic was named in his honor, and a monument erected to him in Rural Ceme- tery. Another such memorial was placed on the Gettysburg battlefield.
The Worcester Post was the tenth in the United States and eventu- ally became one of the largest, but the eleven veterans who met at Brinley Hall to form the Post were quite unaware of the distinction they were initiating.
There were many other regiments-of the infantry, cavalry, and heavy artillery-and there were many other heroes. In the final count, Worcester boys who served in the Civil War numbered four thousand. There was even a regiment of colored troops from this area. Heading the subscription list for enlisting and equipping this group was Edward A. Goodnow, a prominent financier who had opened Worcester's first wholesale jobbing house in 1856.
In the Navy were boys such as George S. Blake (the son of Francis Blake), Bancroft Ghirardi (nephew of Governor John Davis and George Bancroft), and George M. Rice, Junior. General George B. Boomer
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from the West (his father was a Worcester minister), Benjamin D. Thayer, Major Dexter F. Parker, Colonel William Green-all were buried at Rural, none of them over thirty-five years of age. General William Sever Lincoln, leader of the famous 34th Regiment, was wounded several times and taken prisoner. General Charles Watson Wood, who became national commander of the National Union Vet- erans Union, afterwards became a prominent lawyer of Worcester.
Doctors and nurses were among the valorous people of the war. Volunteer doctors from Worcester were William Workman, Henry Clarke, Doctor Thomas H. Gage, and Rufus Woodward. The doctors who stayed home were busy in the Dale Hospital, on Union Hill, to which many northern soldiers came for convalescence. To the one original building, which had previously been a short-lived medical
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ALL, HOVOR 10 01 11 631.1.111
Welcoming decorations on Main Street, looking south from Pleasant, in 1865, when boys came home from the Civil War
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college then a Ladies Collegiate Institute, were added fourteen large buildings.
In 1861 Dorothea Dix, formerly of Worcester, was appointed Superintendent of the United States Army Nurses. Another Worcester County woman, Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, was active during the Civil War period. But there were many other women from this area with just as self-sacrificing, though perhaps not so historically impressive, a record. Among these were the two daughters of Anthony Chase-Lucy and Sarah-who worked untiring- ly among the freed slaves of the South both during and after the years of the War.
Probably the most prominent woman leader in home activities was "Aunt John," who was Eliza Bancroft Davis, the widow of Gover- nor Davis. Even in her seventies, she organized and managed many benefits for northern soldiers. Mrs. Ichabod Washburn was sometimes her partner. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Mrs. Washburn presented a Costume Promenade, not only to celebrate but also to raise funds.
Many ladies' organizations of lasting function were formed in the churches at this time. Revived was the custom of fast days, during which businesses were closed and services held in the churches. Invit- ing much interest were the parades and drills at the Fair Grounds, a plot of land bounded by Russell and Sever and William and Highland Streets. Both during and after the War, the welcoming and victory demonstrations were fabulously extravagant.
Eloquence was the main recruiting officer of the War. The draft late in the War was not popular; men could pay for substitutes, and even though the manufacturers of Worcester offered bonuses to each volunteer, everyone knew that if persuasion were to fail, Worcester could not fill its quota. War meetings by the score were held in Mechanics and Brinley Halls, all with the one purpose of whipping patriotic intention into action.
Newspapers helped immensely with the recruiting problem. More than any other public service, the daily newspaper was changed by the
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War. It reformed from its role as an amiable gossip and became a promoter of public opinion by its vital presentation of war news and war issues. This was possible partly because of the new telegraph system, and partly because of the patriotic interest of such men as John D. Baldwin, who with his sons managed and edited the Daily Spy. This newspaper prospered until it was necessary to build a large brick building opposite City Hall to house its offices. No man was more respected than Mr. Baldwin. Twice, in 1864 and in 1868, he was elected to the United States Congress.
No institution in Worcester was so popular as the Highland Military Academy which stood at the top of the hill on Salisbury Street. Here many serious cadets (Willie Grout was one of them) trained feverishly, and this school sent fifty young officers into the Civil War conflict.
Worcester's industry during the War took on tremendous propor- tions. New factories sprouted up over night. And the old ones were pressured into the stature of large industries. The Washburn Iron Company, with Nathan Washburn and Edward L. Davis (Isaac's son) as partners, made iron for rifle barrels, Allen and Wheelock made the firearms, and Osgood Bradley the carriages, caissons, and sleeping cars to transport the soldiers. With the addition into Goddard and Rice of George S. Barton, who had started as an apprentice, the Com- pany became the Rice, Barton and Company in 1862. This company also converted its facilities to wartime emergencies.
George Crompton's looms were working day and night to make blankets for the soldiers. During the last days of the war Mr. Crompton built Mariemont, the thirty-seven-room Elizabethan house which served for many years as Worcester's main showplace at Providence and Winthrop Streets. This estate had many gardens and one of Worcester's first tennis courts, the Crompton family introducing this diversion to a war-weary Worcester.
An unusual business contributing to War effort was the furniture factory of Edward W. Vaill, who began by making a folding camp chair. This developed into such a popular product that at one time there were 100 patterns and sizes. These chairs became a staple,
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Cadets training at Highland Military Academy on Salisbury Street during Civil War
familiar article for home, church, auditorium, ship, and funeral parlor. Mr. Vaill's business prospered until it spread through several buildings on Main Street. Later it moved to Stephen Salisbury's building on Union Street.
With the Civil War there came not only a dispersion of leadership among a great variety of persons but also a first note of authority from outside the City limits. Government, as it shifted its eye from the agricultural to the industrial growth of the country, began taking an active control of local affairs. The direct, indirect, and income taxes which had been necessary to finance the War were continued in peace- time. The Government also stepped in with pseudo-control of the banks, introducing a universal currency and making it almost impera- tive for state banks to become national ones in 1863. Soon, Worcester's oldest banks-the Worcester, Mechanics, Quinsigamond, Central, City, and Citizens-all received National charters, with a brand new bank, the First National, entering the picture in 1863. Edward A. Goodnow was president of this bank for twenty-eight years.
Capital had gorged itself during the War at the expense of Labor,
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The Doctor John Green family lot in Rural Cemetery
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which was to get its retribution at a later date. But great individual and corporate fortunes were being accumulated, and there were no safe places other than mattresses and secret compartments to keep important papers and bonds. In 1868 the Worcester Safe Deposit Company was formed, the fifth in the country. George M. Rice, of Rice and Barton, was its first president. This small company was the nucleus for a huge bank consolidation which came in a later period.
Two other far-reaching things happened to Worcester in the 1860's. The first occurred in 1865 when Doctor John Green died, leaving a fund to Worcester for a free public library which he had already started with his own large collection of books. Doctor Green had no children, but his name has been perpetuated by this generous fund, the income from which continues to provide reference books for Worcester's young students.
The other event was the founding of the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) in 1868. On the brow of Boynton Hill, Phinehas Ball had surveyed a lot and planned the first buildings which were to be made of stone from Worcester's quarries. Through generous gifts of John Boynton and David Whitcomb (partners in business), Ichabod Washburn, and Stephen Salisbury II, the school had materialized. The Washburn Shops had been finished just a few days before Mr. Washburn's death, and he had insisted on being driven to the top of the hill to see his "dream come true"-a school which would offer what he called "practical education." Charles O. Thompson was the school's first principal. Among early teachers were Milton Prince Higgins and his brother, Orlando Higgins, Levi I. Conant, Thomas E. Eaton, George I. Alden, and John E. Sinclair.
This Institute answered a definite demand of the new mechanically- minded world which needed expert technicians to run it. It was a new world that intended to move and to move fast. Worcester was ready to move with it.
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New Brooms
CHAPTER VI
VAST ENERGIES HAD BEEN CREATED for the Civil War emergency. A paee had been set. When the War was over, the channeling of this energy and pace into peacetime requirements proved to be chief of all post-war problems.
The restless, left-over energy made itself apparent in many ways, even by minor upheavals in established organizations. Records of many corporations and societies after the War show a complete turn- over of offieers and directors.
Everyone seemed to have a new broom. And the new brooms swept elean.
In 1868, for instance, there was not one of the original trustees left on the Rural Cemetery Board. The only oldtimer with any length of service at all was Henry W. Miller, Woreester's distinguished hardware merehant.
Of course, this was due in part to the faet that some of the men had died.
But part of it was because of a new broom in the hands of the proprietors. Usually, although the proprietors were duly invited to the annual meetings, no one (except the trustees) ever eame to them. This was not so in 1866. Present and on time were seventy-five pro- prietors, ready and eager to present grievances and ask questions.
The Cemetery had recently acquired considerable land. It was offering lots for as much as one hundred dollars now instead of twenty- one and twenty-five, which had been their original priees. "What is
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happening to that money?" the proprietors questioned each other. And what was this rumor about offering care of the lots in exchange for a gift of money? Yes, this would all bear looking into. Things had been at status quo long enough. After all, there hadn't been a change in the Board for eight years.
The main dissatisfaction was worded very formally but its point was clear: "The grounds of the Cemetery are desecrated nearly every day during the summer months, particularly on Sundays. And," the petitioners led by George W. Richardson meaningfully continued, "it is unsafe for ladies to visit these grounds alone. We therefore earnestly and respectfully request you to adopt rules and regulations for the better government of visitors."
There had been a premonition of this situation years before, only months after the incorporation of the Cemetery, when young Lawyer Frederick Gale had walked through the grounds and reported in a letter to his sister: "They will make a beautiful, nay a romantic place of that ground in time, and no doubt at some future day it will be the trysting place for many lovers."
Frederick Gale, a bachelor at the time, had no complaints except that he wished "very much" that he had had "some fair maid" to accompany him "in the ramble."
Mr. Gale's prophecy for the Cemetery apparently came true, because the town directory of 1844, in speaking of Rural, described it tolerantly as a "place of frequent and agreeable resort, more especially for the younger portion of our population."
By 1866 the situation had obviously gotten out of hand, for there were many incidents confirming the complaints of the angry pro- prietors. Five days after the annual meeting, the investigative com- mittee of two men, Francis H. Dewey and J. Henry Hill, reported: "We have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the evils complained of call for our immediate and decided action."
They recommended first of all that city policemen be available for duty at the Cemetery. Next they suggested nine, not ten, command- ments. These were adopted by the trustees, published in the Daily Spy,
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Daniel Waldo Lincoln President: 1868-1879
1856-1868
and posted in the Cemetery. They excluded everyone, except propri- etors, from the Cemetery on Sun- days and holidays. No horse was to be driven faster than a walk, no horse was to be left without a keeper, no flowers were to be picked, no firearms to be discharged. Further- more-and especially-anyone found lying or lounging on the ground was to be asked to remove himself. All unseemly noises were to be considered an offense, and ten dollars reward was offered for any information leading to the convic- tion of an offender.
This should have fixed things properly.
But the new brooms kept sweeping, and by 1868 only Henry Miller was left to represent the old Board. New men were Timothy W. Wellington, Charles B. Whiting, George W. Richardson, Doctor George A. Bates, J. Henry Hill, and Daniel Waldo Lincoln.
These new Board members were elected after the death of President Levi Lincoln, and it must be remembered that George T. Rice had died the previous year. But the new roster nevertheless excluded some rather distinguished gentlemen who either refused to serve or were not asked. The familiar names of Stephen Salisbury, Clarendon Harris, Francis Dewey, and Frederick Paine were conspicuously absent from the list of trustees in 1868. (Mr. Salisbury and Mr. Paine had each served for twenty-nine years, and Mr. Harris for sixteen.)
President of the new Board was Daniel Waldo Lincoln, Governor Lincoln's son, a fact which gave the old conservatives great satisfaction. Timothy Wellington was a wholesale and retail coal dealer who had become well known during the War. Four of his sons had gone into
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battle; two of them had died. Mr. Wellington had provided a hospital for wounded soldiers at his own expense.
Charles B. Whiting was a cashier at the Worcester National Bank in 1868. In the next year he was to form a banking firm of his own which subsequently launched a rather sensational and unfortunate episode in banking circles. George W. Richardson was a lawyer and president of the City National Bank. He was extremely respected, but his life was destined to finish under a cloud of rumor and distrust. Doctor George A. Bates was a native of Barre. A bachelor, he lived in a room at the Lincoln House.
The new clerk was J. Henry Hill, who had been a law partner of George Frisbie Hoar and Charles Devens before the War. He had succeeded Clarendon Harris as Cemetery clerk. When Mr. Hill had been a law student in the office of Judge Benjamin Franklin Thomas, he had once gone for a stroll with a young lady (so he says in his diary) "to the Rural Cemetery about one mile west of the village. . .
. I will speak more particularly of this place at some future day." Little did he know that he himself would one day become the Cemetery's trustee and clerk for many years.
By the time of the shake-up in 1868, the treasurer had also been changed. Samuel Jennison, the first treasurer, had died in 1860, and had been succeeded by Doctor George Chandler. Doctor Chandler had been superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum for ten years after the term of Doctor Samuel Woodward. Since his resignation, Doctor Chandler had served in the Legislature and as alderman of the City. In 1867 he was replaced as treasurer of the Cemetery. John C. Ripley, cashier of the Citizens National Bank, was the new man.
In ten years there had been three major improvements in the Cemetery. The new cast-iron fence, about which the trustees had talked for years, had finally materialized along the front line of the Cemetery grounds. It had cost more than three thousand dollars. Water had been brought into the Cemetery, also after much discussion. There were three fountains placed at strategic places on the grounds; near the central fountain a small shelter had been built for visitors in
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