USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Shirley > Shirley uplands and intervales; annals of a border town of Middlesex, with some genealogical sketches > Part 13
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One day when Thomas Hazard lived in the house on Squannacook Road, Mrs. Hazard baked a nice pumpkin pie, which she put on the bench outside the door to cool. Thomas wandered up, and sat in it, while it was still very, very hot, and the tradition has come down to our day. In 1830, when Butler made his survey, there was another negro just a little farther up the road named Charles Treadwell. He had married three years before Harriot Henesy, whose brothers or father lived opposite the house where Mr. Hatch lives now. Treadwell built his house on a little rocky promon- tory, overlooking the half-moon meadow, earlier known as Nehemiah Holden's. The cellar-hole is tiny and the house, according to Butler's description, matched it, for it had one story, one chimney, and one window, "small." Here twin sons were born in 1828, and another in 1831. The scenery along the upper Squanna- cook in Shirley is different from that in the other parts of town; it is more abrupt, and shows the action of nature more distinctly.
Oliver Holden's memory is kept green in Shirley by a fine bronze tablet in the old church at the Centre. It has a portrait of Holden in low relief upon it, and it is this which most startlingly resembles his mother. In the rooms of the Bostonian Society, in the Old State House, is a corner devoted to Oliver Holden. His organ stands there, and beside and over it are some of his manuscripts, framed, and a beautiful portrait of the composer. It is a little shrine to one who was a pioneer of New England culture.
XVI OUR CELEBRITIES
IT IS seldom that a town is vouchsafed a picture of its own beginnings from one who saw it with his own eyes and wrote his impressions down. Too often, I find, even our town meetings are misleading, for again and again the recorded votes of the town were never carried out, either because the authority or money was lacking, or a belated public sentiment deterred. So we of Shirley should consider ourselves fortunate that one of our temporary ministers, who came to us before our beloved "Priest Whitney" settled here, should have recorded what he saw.
The church had voted a little earlier that they should employ as minister some one "other than we have had before," and as a result they employed a young man who had been studying theology with a relative in Lan- caster. This was Robert Treat Paine, afterward signer of the Declaration of Independence. Paine, then about twenty-six years old, a Harvard graduate, had just returned from several years of adventure on the sea. He had commanded a sloop in which he had sailed down the coast, and then across to Fayal and Cadiz. At Cadiz he had turned his cargo into money, and after buying lemons, oranges, figs and madeira had sailed up to London and back to Boston again. Immediately he put to sea once more as master of the Sea-flower, and spent two years whaling in the north Atlantic. This was
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SHIRLEY
a strange preparation for the ministry, but he was of those who had been bred on sermons, and had looked with favor upon the ministry, with its assured position and many privileges. Preaching was hereditary, and he had been in training for it for years, but his final teach- ing came from a relative of his mother's in Lancaster. While he was at Lancaster he was called to preach for six weeks at Shirley. This was in the spring of 1755, just two years after the town had been set off from Groton. The church had been built nearly opposite and a little south of the place where the Centre school stands. It was only partially furnished at the time, and Paine tells us that part of his congregation had to stand, as the rude benches were insufficient. Paine writes home:
I find my present church in the middle of thirty acres of scrub wood. Upon my appearance, the people, who were sunning themselves under the trees, repaired to the seats, and I preached with satisfaction to them.
Paine's biographer adds to the picture:
Here we see the youthful Paine, in white lappet and wrist- . bands, blowing a horn to call his congregation together; preaching "satisfactory" sermons; bowing in prayer while the venerable deacons stand at the ends of the pews; and lining out the psalms from the Bay Psalm Book, "The tidings strike a doleful sound." As a preacher he was one step higher in dignity and standing than as teacher. The transient title of "Reverend" was probably used chiefly by his sisters. We find no record that he was ever ordained. When he stepped from the pulpit, he demitted the title and such emoluments as the people gave their ministers .*
Paine had taught school in Lunenburg four years before, and apparently the fact that both Shirley and
* Two Men of Taunton. Ralph Davol, pp. 116, 117.
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OUR CELEBRITIES
Lunenburg were on the "Crown Point Road," the old Indian trail from Boston to Canada, had its effect upon him. Of course soldiers passed constantly through Shirley on their way to the North in the expeditions against the French and Indians. So Shirley was his last attempt at a country ministry, for in August, while he was still in town, he received a commission as Chaplain of the "Regiment of Foot" under Colonel Samuel Wil- lard, a relative, then about to set out against Crown Point. So in September, Paine left us for active mili- tary service.
His description of our beginnings is somewhat pathetic. It seems hard that our ancestors should have striven so greatly, and that their best should have been so poor; but the blessed thing after all is that they had ideals of life, however imperfectly they were carried out.
Not many times has Shirley been visited by the great of the earth, being, as it is, a pleasant little town scat- tered over its hills, hugged by the sister streams, the Squannacook and Nashua; offering no wonderful views, no startling effects, but a pleasant, restful hominess, which appeals to all who come, but does not call loudly to the noisy world. After Priest Whitney came to minister to the souls in Shirley, and he had built his house in dignified fashion as befitted his state, a gentle visitor came often to the town to stay at the parsonage .* Dorothy Quincy, whose name spells romance to us now, came up many times from Boston to visit at the Whit- neys. With her came Madame Lydia Hancock, whose niece, Lydia Bowes, was the second wife of Priest Whitney. If tradition tells the truth, Madame Han-
*West of Howard Fuller's.
BETSY KELSEY'S HOUSE
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OUR CELEBRITIES
cock had determined upon a match between her favorite nephew, John, and the fair Dolly. So she did all in her power to bring them together; and we know that at least one meeting took place in Shirley, for John came here in 1773, the bearer of a letter from Edmund Quincy to his daughter:
Dear Dolly:
Altho I am not to be favored with one Letter or line, I sit down to write you a second, to congratulate you upon the favorable account of your health, which I have, with great satisfaction recieved, thrº, Colo Handcocks goodness, in communicating what Mr. Whitney informs him on that head, & also upon the agreableness of Mad™ Handcock's & your present tour into the Country, (especially at Lancaster), where Nature smiles thrº the most extended circle of obser- vation; Where the beauties of the Animal & Vegitable world, as well as those of the Ceelestial Regions, illude ye Search of the most phylosophical eye. Let us take the hint (indeed very obvious), & be thence taught to contemplate, admire & adore the inexhaustible Source, from whence is derived every blessing both of the upper and the nether springs; the latter soon, very soon, may be dried up; but this affords us a singular reason for our own making sure of a portion in the Former which is never failing. . . The inconstancy of humane things, which we are very apt to regret, is very wisely designed to Correspond with every affair relative to the humane Sys- tem; in the honest Examination, & right understanding whereof, as far as our respective capacities reach, is said to consist that wisdom, recommended to us as the principal thing; and as our creator has been pleased to furnish us with the divine talent of reason & reflection, we are infinitely obliged to improve the same to the highest degree of our intellectual capacity; indeed the longest span of life will prove too short to render praise to the author of our Being, adequate to the blessings with wch he vouchsafes to crown us here; and hence a cogent argument to evince ye revealed doctrine of a Resurrection & a future life, in the Full expectation whereof, we are by Divine permission, to be ever gratefully rejoycing, in what ever state an all wise providence may see fit
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SHIRLEY
to place us, in this life, and the more innocently & inoffensively we live in it, the higher will be the enjoyment of every favor we may receive, tho by a Different System of action we are in danger of annihilating the same; but I may not proceed, tho. on a most agreable subject of Contemplation, my time being Short & interruptions frequent.
You have the honor of Colo Handcock's being the bearer, I wish him a pleasant Journey, & a happy meeting with his valuable aunt & you, & that you with them may have a safe & comfortable Journey home: You'l make mine & your Sistr Katy's compliments acceptable to Madm Handcock, Mr Whitney & Lady, to which I need not add that I remain, Dear Dolly,
Your most affectionte Father and Friend,
EDM. QUINCY.
BOSTON, June 18th 1773.
To Miss Dolly Quincy.
P. S. Your sister Katy intended an answer to your Short L' .- but this day has not been able. Colo Handcock & associates have had a hard task, respecting ye G's, Lt G's & other Letters of wch you'l see Copies,-but I think not- withstanding, He appears to rise the higher the greater ye burthens. Mrs Boyle here remembers her love to you, & wants to see you.
[Addressed]
To
Miss, Dolly Quincy at the Revd Mr Whitneys
in
Shirley By favor of Colo Handcock.
So John rode to Shirley to accompany his aunt and his lady-love upon their homeward journey. But soon the Revolution came and John and Dorothy visited us no more. Still we have one reminder of their friendli- ness, for Madame Hancock left us a great Bible to grace our church which was being built during their visit here.
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OUR CELEBRITIES
The old order changed; those who had broken the wilderness, and those who had seen Paine and Hancock and Dorothy Q., died, and their sons took their places. As in all the New World, new people and new blood crept in, Scotch-Irish, Irish, negro, but still the old New England stock held sway. New sects came, and new churches sprang up. To our old church in its new belief came a gentle, learned soul, who left a mark upon the town in all its activities. Seth Chandler lived in the parsonage by the Common for over fifty years, beloved and respected by all. Here in Lyceum days, Ralph Waldo Emerson came to lecture to our people in the new Town Hall, and afterwards to sleep in the best chamber of the parsonage. It was the southwest upper room. From the windows he could look out over fields and woods to the sunset and Wachusett, for Shirley is a "fair guid" town to look at when the sun is setting.
It was in these same days that George S. Boutwell, Governor of Massachusetts, and Secretary of the Treas- ury under President Grant, taught in the little old wooden Pound Hill School, and lived in James Parker's new brick house. He loved in later life to talk of those days, and the thrift of "Captain James," who was horrified at the amount of paper that the young man used, certain that such recklessness would be sure to bring him to want at last. Boutwell slept in the northeast chamber, and he had so little heat in winter, that the frost stood out in glistening crystals on the wall each morning, and the water froze in the pitcher at night. Strangely enough, later, the old schoolhouse followed the teacher's home- ward steps, and was dragged across the snow by seven- teen pair of oxen, to stand just outside his window at the
SQUIRE JAMES PARKER'S NEW HOUSE, SHIRLEY CENTRE
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OUR CELEBRITIES
Parkers, degraded into a woodshed. James Parker was wont to sing one song continually as he went about, which must have been an especially cheerful one to his "help" as they worked :
"This world out of nothing was made, And all that is therein; And 'tis often we've heard it said, 'Twill all come to nothing again."
He often sat in the northwest window of the dining- room in his rocking chair. On Sundays, after dinner, he would put on his old straw hat, take his pitchfork for a cane, and go down the hill to visit his daughter-in- law, Nancy. She was a better cook than his wife, Ruthy, and her pies lured him.
A little later Ben Butler gave a political address in the little red brick schoolhouse beside the Congregational Church, and at the Baptist Chapel the worshippers listened to the youthful sermons of President Faunce of Brown University and of President Andrews of the Uni- versity of Nebraska. Hosea Ballou, the great Univer- salist divine, preached here in Shirley the dedicatory sermon of the church to which his great-grandson still goes each Sunday.
So, many an able man has learned some of his early lessons from us, and we hope has remembered us kindly in after years. But all these were people who came to us from outside, and do not include our modest roll of those, born among us, who have achieved distinction. Immediately, all good Shirley folk will think of Oliver Holden of "Coronation" fame, and will remember that he was born and lived his early childhood on our side of the Squannacook. He is not our only candidate for
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musical fame, for nearly a century later John Sullivan Dwight, the eldest son of the John Dwight, who lived down Town Meeting Road, won more than local fame. He was a member for five years of the famous "Brook Farm." Later, having gone to Boston, he wrote for the "Harbinger" and the "Dial," and in 1852 estab- lished "Dwight's Journal of Music, "the first musical paper in this country. And now some fifty years later still, we are being gladdened by the fame that our pianist, Wesley Weyman, is bringing home to us from abroad.
Nearly a hundred years ago, in the stately old Edgar- ton house, now unhappily used as part of the Suspender shop, was born a sweet, timid but indomitable child. She grew up loving the little village with its elm-shaded streets, its wooded hills and winding brook. Her hus- band, who must have adored her, has written so appre- ciative a memoir of her that it is hard to write so briefly of her. She was an avid scholar, fond of nature, a seeker after peace, and she was blessed with a poetic instinct. Sarah C. Edgarton began early to write poetry and among the poems that have come down to us are a few that describe the Shirley of her day. She loved the Catacoonemug, but finding the name too hard for her poetic muse, she extended the name of one of its branches, Bow Brook, to cover it all.
Far in a wild and tangled glen, Where purple Arethusas weep- A bower scarce trod by mortal men- A haunt where timid dryads sleep-
A little dancing, prattling thing, Sweet Bow Brook, tutor of my muse! I've seen thy silver currents spring From fountains of Castalian dews.
SARAH CARLTON EDGARTON MAYO
THE EDGARTON HOUSE, LEOMINSTER ROAD
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OUR CELEBRITIES
"Bow Brook" ran by the old red mill, which stood just west of her house, and this too she celebrated in song.
Bright in the foreground of wood and hill, Close by the banks of my native rill,
Rumbling early ere dawn of light, Rumbling late through the winter night, When all the air and the earth is still
Toileth and groaneth the old red mill.
Around its cupola, tall and white, The swallows wheel, in their summer flight; The elm trees wave o'er its mossy roof, Keeping their boughs from its touch aloof, Although four stories above the rill, Towereth aloft the old red mill.
After a few years of apprenticeship in writing for the "Ladies Repository," Miss Edgarton began the publi- cation, in 1840, of an "annual" called the "Rose of Sharon." She had to write a large part of the first few numbers herself but the annual was a success, and she edited it for many years. She published also some small books containing her verses, such as the "Floral Fortune Teller." All her work is colored by an expressed religion, which did not seem strange in her day, but to us seems like a foreign language only partly understood. She was born in a time of religious turmoil, and this deep interest aroused by sectarian division colored her life. In the ebb and flow of recent migration more than one name will come to mind of those neighbors and friends who have helped the fair fame of Shirley, doing more than well in the ministry, in letters, in art, and the finer enterprises of the great world. One of Shirley's younger sons is even now holding high his literary ideals, hoping
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for a return of the poetic drama that has glorified the greater epochs of history. He too sang of Shirley, on that peaceful summer day, when the returning sons and daughters met to celebrate her hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
The loud circumference of warring lands, Labour and craft and wrong surround us; still Shy in her orchard-wildness Shirley stands, A hush'd spectator on her mapled hill.
Here to her simple festival she calls Her friends home-yet not all; where be they now The Pilgrim race that filled her corn-field walls And served the Lord with patience and a plow?
For still the sights familiar to their eyes Are scenes for ours; the spires of Groton blaze Their weather-cocks from Gallows Hill's sun-rise And the long slopes of Harvard slant in haze.
Let, then, our thoughts be memories; let our pride Be the untainted loveliness, which is Our Shirley's dower, on woods and pastures free Let our ambition, even as hers, be this :-
Unenvious, to win the envied bays Of nature's health and honest common-sense, And, by the peace of sane, inglorious days, To earn the unrepute of innocence.
30 July, 1903.
PERCY MACKAYE.
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OCCUPANTS OF SHIRLEY HOUSES
This list of the occupants of the houses in Shirley is nec- essarily very incomplete. To the times before 1830, little material existed to tell us whether the owner did or did not occupy the house. In some cases he continued his residence in another town, and we may presume that a tenant made use of the house. Very often a mortgage deed appears like a real deed; in such cases, where the evidence is not conclusive, I have given the mortgagee as the owner, and the real owner as tenant. During the last one hundred years, when the land is easier to identify, only the occupants as given on the various maps have been used, merely as a guide to those who would search farther. The houses designated are those which are known to have been built before 1847, when Caleb Butler published his history of Groton and Shirley. There are probably many mistakes also, as would be only likely in so great a mass of material. Incom- plete and incorrect as it is, it is still a basis for other and better work.
ABBREVIATIONS
C. Census.
cir. about.
d. deed, following a date.
d. died.
dir. directory.
inh. inheritance.
J. P. James Parker's Diary.
m. map, following a date.
m. married.
pet. petition to be set off as a separate town, 1747.
r. road.
sch. school districts.
val. valuations printed by the Town.
Im, Im ", If, I male, I male under sixteen, I female.
Iº, 1º, IW, I story, I chimney, I window.
17
MOSES BENNETT'S HOUSE, TOWNSEND ROAD
a
- Hla
-
243
OCCUPANTS OF SHIRLEY HOUSES
I. TOWNSEND ROAD.
Nathaniel Blood.
I747 pet. Moses Bennett, builder.
I755 r. Moses Bennett.
1767 Jonathan Bennett, Exr. Moses.
1767 d. Richard Sawtell, 30 acres and buildings.
1812 sch. No occupant.
1830 m. Eleazer Jewett. I· Ie 2".
1838 d. Eleazer Jewett. Owner (mortgage).
1847 m. Nathaniel Kezar.
1857 m. Nathaniel Kezar.
1860 г. William Gibbs.
1875 m. William & Michael O'Neil.
1880. Jethro Snow.
William Watson.
1882. No tenant.
1914. John W. Leahy.
2. SPAULDING ROAD.
1753 r. Elnathan Sawtell.
1763 d. Jerahmeel Powers.
1767 d.
Richard Sawtell.
1776 d.
John Heald of Temple, N. H. 110 acres and buildings.
1790 c. John Heald. 2m 2f.
1798 d. John Heald, Jr.
1803 d. Thomas Blood of Groton.
1804 d. Isaac Turner, Jr.
1806 d. Hezekiah Spaulding of Mason, N. H.
1812 sch. John Heald, tenant.
1830 m. John Heald, tenant. 1º I· 2".
1847 m. No name.
1856 m. Gone.
3. SPAULDING ROAD.
For land see No. 2.
1806 cir.
Hezekiah Spaulding, builder.
1830 m.
Hezekiah Spaulding. 2' I. 5* red.
1847 m. Hezekiah Spaulding.
1882 m. Hezekiah Spaulding.
1912.
Ransom B. Adams.
.
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SHIRLEY
4. TOWNSEND ROAD.
1767 d.
Richard Sawtell. (See also No. 2.)
1776 d.
John Heald.
I790 c. Jesse Farnsworth. Im Imu If.
I791 d. Jesse Farnsworth, builder.
1820 d. Peter Tarbell. 43 acres and buildings.
1830 m. Jesse Farnsworth. Iº 2º 4".
1847 m. Francis Harris.
1856 m. A[bner] Wheeler.
1875 m. Gone.
5. SQUANNACOOK ROAD.
Benjamin Ellingwood, of Shirley.
1782 d. Jeremiah & Elizabeth Sheldon, of Lynnfield, 50 acres and buildings.
1782 d.
Nathaniel Heyward, of Lynnfield.
1784 d. Benjamin Woodbury.
18II d. Samuel Woodbury.
Benjamin Woodbury, tenant.
1812 sch. Aaron Woodbury and Samuel Woodbury.
1822 d. Aaron Tuttle.
1830 m.
Joel Adams, of Lunenburg. I. I . 2".
1875 m. Joel Adams.
1882 m. George H. Adams.
1914. George H. Adams.
6. SQUANNACOOK ROAD.
Samuel Waldo, grant.
1766. Thomas Flucker and Isaac Winslow, inheritance.
1773 d. Moses Kezar. (d. 1778.)
1776 d.
Nathaniel Kezar.
I790 c.
Nathaniel Kezar. 2m Im " 44.
1795 d. Nathaniel Kezar, Jr.
1798 d. Jonathan Nutting.
1812 sch. Jonathan Nutting.
1830 d. Asahel Adams of Boston. I. I. 4".
1847 m. P. Whitin.
1856 m. Charles O. Adams.
1875 m. J. Holland.
1882 m. J. Holland.
1914 Rose McEnney, owner.
Moses Wood, tenant.
245
OCCUPANTS OF SHIRLEY HOUSES
7. SQUANNACOOK ROAD.
This cellar-hole was the site of a house built about forty years ago, and afterward moved to Ayer. Because of the crudity of the old maps, Nos. 7 and 10, situated on the same farm, were impossible to distinguish without the assistance of Mr. Peter Tarbell's memory.
8. SQUANNACOOK ROAD.
1812 sch. Not built. Francis Shepard.
1830 m. Charles Treadwell, negro. I· I· I· small.
1847 m. Gone.
9. SQUANNACOOK ROAD.
I730. John Holden, grant.
1747 pet. Caleb Holden. "Small dwelling house."
1760 d. Nehemiah Holden.
1765. Oliver Holden, born here.
1762 r. Nehemiah Holden (of Shirley, 1776).
1769 d. Samuel Walker. (Perhaps a mortgage.)
1788. Nehemiah Holden, still tenant.
1812 sch. Thomas Hazard.
1830 m. Thomas Hazard. I' I' 2" "old."
1847 m. Emerson Hazard.
1857 m. E. Shumway.
1875 m. Gone.
1912. Andrew Jarvis. New house on the site.
10. GARRISON ROAD.
1765 r. Moses Kezar.
1776 d. Nathaniel Kezar.
1799 d. George Farrar.
1805 d .. Samuel Johnson, later of Westmoreland, N. H.
1808 d. James Carter.
1812 sch. Samuel Johnson, tenant.
1814 r. James Carter, of Sudbury.
1820 d. James Carter.
1828 d. George Hildreth.
1830 m. George Hildreth. 2ª Iº 3" "off the road."
1847 m. Edwin Haynes.
ASA HOLDEN'S HOUSE, TOWNSEND ROAD
247
OCCUPANTS OF SHIRLEY HOUSES
1854 d. Henry W. Spaulding.
1857 m.
Henry W. Spaulding.
1875 m. Edmund Bathrick.
1880 dir. Jethro Snow.
1882 m. William O'Mealy.
1905?
Burned.
1912 Marion L. Hale, new house.
II. TOWNSEND ROAD.
James Prescott.
I747 pet. Jerahmeel Powers.
1753 r & d. Jerahmeel Powers, house southwest of the present house.
1758 r. Asa Holden, tenant.
1764 d.
Asa Holden.
I786. Asa Holden, new house built.
I790 c. Asa Holden. 5m Im u 31 (died 1813).
1812 sch. Nathaniel Holden.
1830 m. Nathaniel Holden, Esq. 2ª Iº 5".
1857 m. Nathaniel Holden.
1875 m. Almond M. Holden.
1882 m. Almond M. Holden.
1910. W. B. Buckminster, owner.
12. TOWNSEND ROAD.
For land see No. II.
1830 m. Nathaniel Holden, Jr. 2º 2º 5w, builder.
1847 m. James Otis Parker. It had been moved to the village and set up opposite the McLeod house, No. 156.
1857 m. Charles Parsons.
1875 m. N. C. Munson, owner.
1882. Not given.
13. GARRISON ROAD.
For land see No. 14.
I792. Aaron Woods, living on the west side of the road.
1793 d. Reuben Hartwell.
1805 d. Peter Graves, owner. Small dwelling and } barn of No. 14.
1808 d. Nathaniel Batchelder.
1814 r. Nathaniel Batchelder.
Jacob Batchelder, of Lyndeborough, N. H.
1828 inh.
Nathaniel Batchelder, of Reading, Mass.
David Batchelder, of Andover, Vt. Edmund Batchelder, of Baltimore, Vt. -
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