USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > Some annals of Nahant, Massachusetts > Part 20
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Follen, Tierney, Waters, Rooney, Coakley, O'Connor, Kennedy and others. There are the Deveney's, several brothers and sisters, and James J. Deveney, son of Michael Deveney, has served on the school committee and on the Board of Assessors. Mostly these families were here throughout the recollection of many Nahanters now living, and they made up the com- munity known as Irishtown, finally spreading out Flash Road on what is now government land. Later many of these Flash Road people moved their houses across the street, and de- scendants of nearly all these families are still in town. Most of these later arrivals came since the Civil War, and came from around one part of old Ireland. Irishtown, however, has been given up, by gradual removal to other parts of the town, and much more recently Italians have come in there so that the district may no longer carry its old name meaningly. These are also Roman Catholics, increasing the attendance at this church. Short Beach Village remains rather closely built up, but the newcomers have improved the appearance of much of the property.
Churches everywhere are arousing questions of their effi- ciency. Do they do their full part in education, to bring true life values to the front and eliminate the mad chase in wrong directions for pleasure and happiness. When people look back over the years they see clearly that their greatest moments were simple, and at the time unrecognized as superior to others reached by worry, effort and expense; and the Bible passage "consider the lilies of the field, they toil not neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these" may be an epitome of life for an idle flapper or a youth with lip drooping to support a cigarette, but it needs a more accurate application, perhaps, by the churches. The "nots" in the Ten Commandments are too frequently mixed up and misplaced or omitted in every one's life. The churches struggle with financial burdens which should be removed. Complaint is made that parsons make the road to Heaven a toll road, but many a family spends far more for club dues than for church support. Yet the spiritual
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is important, and considered only as adult education the church is important, provided it does its work. With proper efficiency far greater sums could well be spent by any com- munity upon its churches. People need to be told of some eternal verities. Not all things are mutable. The phrase, "as it was - in the beginning - is now - and ever shall be," has a resounding boom of fatefulness. But it applies to some fac- tors of life, and should continue to boom, and not be resolved into a mere tinkle.
None of these Nahant churches have cemeteries, and the only one in town is Greenlawn Cemetery owned and maintained by the town. In early days there was a burial place near Pleasant Street, but it was practically private. A very early action of the town, at the third town meeting in 1853, was the appointment of a committee on a town cemetery, consisting of David Johnson, Dexter Stetson and Walter Johnson. They reported at the annual meeting in March, 1854, and the report was referred again to a committee of five, consisting of the same three with Washington H. Johnson and Artemus Murdock. They were empowered to buy a "suitable piece of ground" for a cemetery. At the March meeting in 1856 the committee reported the purchase from the heirs of Thomas H. Perkins of a lot in Range Eleven containing about two acres. In 1858 a street was laid out from the highway to the cemetery, and the place was named Greenlawn Cemetery. This street was exactly where the main avenue from Nahant Road runs today, and entered the lot near its northwesterly end. The northeasterly side was a few feet northerly from where the main avenue now broadens out to meet the circular part of the avenue. The other two sides were as they are now, on High Street southeasterly and along what was then a Tudor orchard southwesterly. About this time the town provided money for the stone posts and gates which many people will remember on this old line, in eighty yards or more from Nahant Road. Then came three additions to the area. First, in 1879, came the extension northwesterly down to Kennedy Court; second, in 1908, the purchase of the strip toward Nahant Road, about
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a hundred feet wide and from Linehan's land up to but not including the top of the hill; and third, in 1918, the inclusion of the land out to Nahant Road, part of which was occupied by the building first used as a schoolhouse and then as a police station. At a special town meeting in 1918 the town accepted the offer of Mrs. Luther S. Johnson to build a cemetery chapel, thus carrying out the intentions of her late husband. It was started in 1919 and dedicated on May 30, 1920. It was named "Ellingwood Chapel" in memory of Joanna Ellingwood Green, and Joseph Johnson, Jr., who were Luther Johnson's mother and father. Luther Johnson's grandfather was Joseph Johnson, son of the first Johnson on Nahant. Luther Johnson was a shoe manufacturer in Lynn, leaving benefactions to the Lynn City Hospital and other institutions. He always loved Nahant, his birthplace. In 1894 he presented his Nahant G. A. R. comrades with a flag which they carefully kept and which is now in the Nahant Public Library.
During the same year 1919 Mrs. Francis H. Johnson pre- sented the town with the gateway on Nahant Road in memory of her husband. Mrs. James H. Beal gave a sum sufficient to build the fence and gateway on High Street, the old end of the cemetery. The town itself made an appropriation to move the police station across the street to its present location and to grade and improve the new parts of the area, and on Decora- tion Day, celebrated May 31, 1920, the work was completed to about its present condition. This year (1928) the town pro- poses a further extension along Nahant Road up to High Street.
Decoration Day has always been well observed at Nahant. For years a long procession, headed by a band and including town officers, firemen, G. A. R. men and school children, has made an impressive sight and a worthy tribute to the old soldiers, most of whom are gone. Some years ago the G. A. R. men feared no one would be left to do this interestedly, and set about enlisting the school children by special talks and a prominent part in the day's events. But now there is the American Legion, veterans of still another war, who may be relied upon to "carry on" this service of memory and of gratitude, which is equally felt by those who cannot participate
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in the events. Mankind seems born to fight. Probably another fifty years will see still another group interested to continue, as those now so young begin to lay down their burdens.
Nahant has reason to feel proud of its cemetery. Its desirable location, its shrubs and trees, the beautiful Norman chapel and entranceway, all make it a place worthy to compare with any others. Indeed, these factors make it too attractive. Restrictions on the use of it have been tightened from time to time and may be more stringent. It is for Nahanters, and is too small to accommodate others, but it has been so used because of its beauty and because a lot in it is released by the town at a low price. In the very early days any one could get a lot, and so many did so that the available area was disappearing. Some people only wanted a little piece of real estate and never used their lots, selling them as years went on. Restrictions stopped this practice, but later on came other abuses and further restrictions. Probably there will always be people who would impose upon the generosity of a town, and so it must be rather strictly ruled that Nahant's burial place is for Nahant's own people.
The Civil War Soldiers' Monument was erected in 1866, and the American Legion Monument, a great boulder from the shore of the town, with a bronze plate, was placed in 1920. In 1858 a committee, of which John Q. Hammond was chair- man, laid out the cemetery into lots and pathways, and the report of their work is extant, filed with the town clerk in March, 1859. Almost at once the forefathers of the town were moved from the old ground near Pleasant Street to the new burial place. It is said that the first burial in the new place, except perhaps for these removals, was of Alonzo Colby, who died in 1858. A formal dedication of Greenlawn Cemetery was held in 1859.
The disinterested services of Thomas Roland in the planting of trees and shrubs have assisted toward the fine result now evident; and the good work of Thomas P. O'Connor as gardener, performed with enthusiasm and interest, is also contributory.
CHAPTER XVI TRANSPORTATION
IT is impossible to say when the first public carriage from Nahant to Lynn began service. The growing of the hotel business made definite transportation important. Jesse Rice, of the Rice House, later Whitney's Hotel, is said to have established the first line of public conveyance. He came to Nahant about 1817. Definite service is advertised soon after, as in the Lynn "Mirror," in 1826, it is stated that a coach will run from the Nahant Hotel twice a day, connecting with coaches for Boston and Salem. This, of course, was dependent upon the tides. N. P. Willis writes:
Road to Nahant there is none. The hoi polloi go there by steam; but when the tide is down you may drive there with a thousand chariots over the bottom of the sea. There runs a narrow ridge, scarce broad enough for a horse path, impossible for the rocks and seaweed of which it is matted, and extending, at just high-water mark, from Nahant to the mainland. Seaward from this ridge descends an expanse of land, left bare six hours out of the twelve by the retreating sea, as smooth and hard as marble, and as broad as the plain of the Hermus. For three miles it stretches away without shell or stone, a surface of white, fine- grained sand beaten so hard by the external hammer of the surf that the hoof of a horse scarce marks it.
There appears to have been some amelioration for the de- lays and waits for the tides, for accounts speak enthusiasti- cally of the excellence of the punch at the Lynn Hotel near the Common, where folks could sip and read and talk until time to go on. The lumbering coaches were slow, as people travel today, but it is said that B. C. Clark, mentioned else- where as the owner of swift yachts, also owned fast horses.
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By keeping horses on Nahant, in Boston, and at a stop on the turnpike, he could get to Boston in an hour in a light sulky, and this compares favorably with time today. Many men travelled over the road, but of course the steamboats came to increasing use as they were improved in speed and in cer- tainty of operation. Then came a poor road over the beach in the late 40's.
The post office at Nahant, beginning in 1847, at once re- quired rather positive functioning for handling the mails. The first mail carrier appears to have been Captain Henry Dunham, who used a small one-horse wagon or carryall which would hold four or five passengers. Dunham was born in 1794 and followed the sea from early youth, reaching the rank of captain at the age of twenty-one. He was in the Merchant Marine, on vessels from Boston and New York to foreign parts. He is said to have been the first to raise an American flag in San Francisco. He transferred to the United States Navy and was wounded in the Mexican War and retired. Moving to Nahant he built a house at the corner of Prospect and High Streets, enlarged and remodelled in recent years for Robert Amory. He died on Nahant in 1877. His son, Henry T. Dunham, was highway surveyor for several years. He was born in 1825 and died in 1907. It is said that he lived in the Alfred D. Johnson Prospect Street house, now owned by F. L. Timmins, for a time, or until Johnson bought it after 1857, and then moved to a house owned by Tudor on Ocean Street, below the S. Martin Johnson house now standing there. When E. Francis Parker, in the late 60's, built the house now owned by Albert Thorn- dike, this house of Tudor's was moved to between Valley and Willow Roads on the same side of Ocean Street, and was still occupied by Henry T. Dunham. Then in the late 80's he built the house on Pond Street later owned by Martin Curran and now by his daughter. Captain Dunham, while driving across the railroad tracks in Lynn, was struck by a train. It is said he was carried on the front of the locomotive from near Market Street into the station, and he was so
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badly injured that he was an invalid for the rest of his life. This was about 1868.
Near this time (1868) two other men started in this busi- ness, Byron Goodell and Edmund B. Johnson. Goodell came to Nahant and settled permanently, continuing in the trans- portation business until the electric cars arrived. Several of his sons and daughters and their children now live in Nahant. His home for many years was on Ocean Street in one of three houses later moved back on Tudor Street. This house has seen its share of moving. It was built as a Tudor corn barn on what was later the Schlesinger estate, and then remodelled into a house facing toward Pond Street. Later, or soon after 1869, when Schlesinger bought, this house was moved to Ocean Street. Goodell used a stable, built by Tudor, on the upper side of Maolis Street, which burned in 1880, and after- wards had an extensive stable outfit in the same locality between Maolis Street and the present Nahant Club grass tennis courts, with an entrance from Ocean Street just north- erly from the tennis courts. At times, he kept forty horses. This property, owned by Tudors, was finally all cleaned up, about the time that the Maolis Gardens remains were cleared away and the various spaces divided into house lots. Goodell then moved down to Summer Street, using the house on the corner of Willow Road and a large stable just above it. Byron Goodell died in 1904 at the age of seventy.
The other line of barges to Lynn, set up by Edmund B. Johnson, one of the old Nahant Johnson family, was sold out in 1880 to George W. Kibbey, who operated it until the coming of the electric road. Kibbey had stables near Whitney's and latterly about where Robertson's Garage now stands, and later built the stable on Wharf Street, now turned into a garage and operated by his son, George H. Kibbey. Kibbey died in 1915 at the age of seventy-four. Some time later a third line of barges was opened by Carahar Brothers, who were James A., William H. and Bernard F. Carahar, of whom the latter is the survivor. James A. Carahar served on the Board of Selectmen, but died in 1908 at the age of forty-eight. In
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1896, when the extensive Simmons holdings on Nahant were sold at auction, Carahar Brothers bought a considerable section at Little Nahant, including the peak of the hill to which the old hotel was moved by them from over close to the Lynn line. A part of this Bernard F. Carahar has lately developed into a shore resort with dance hall, bathing accom- modations and other usual accessories. Carahar Brothers barge line ran almost wholly to serve Bass Point, which had grown as a shore resort, and the other two lines served chiefly the main part of the town. The Goodell line had direct service from the Nahant Wharf, later called Tudor Wharf, to the Maolis Gardens, when that resort was in its heyday of glory.
These barges naturally grew from small beginnings to long, side-seated vehicles holding twenty-five or thirty people, and were as comfortable as such conveyances could be, though hardly measuring up to present-day standards. Often they used three or four horses, especially to climb the hill en route to the Maolis Gardens. In winter time there were pungs with similar arrangements, but smaller, as the traffic was not so heavy. Straw on the floors helped to keep feet warm, and later charcoal burners were used to give a little heat. A lantern, sometimes smoky and smelly, furnished a little light. The Goodell and Kibbey lines interlaced their trips so that in summer time there was half hour service, or nearly that, with times set to meet trains to and from Boston. In the latter days of this service the fare was fifteen cents, with tickets at seven or eight for a dollar. Some years earlier, in the 70's or 80's, people travelling back and forth daily were carried for a dollar a week.
Soon after 1900 a trial was made of a motor barge, but it was too early in motor car development, and its ability to maintain any schedule was too uncertain. In 1904 it was proposed in town meeting that the town apply for a special act of Legislature empowering it to subsidize these barge lines at a thousand dollars a year for each of the three, and thus enable them to improve the service. But the electric road
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was in sight and the scheme failed. The natural end of the barges was at hand, pushed aside, as has been many another business, by what is called the march of progress. The barges disappeared, sold to other places and used, perhaps, for carrying school children from districts too remote for walking to school. In such uses barges may be seen today. Nahant barges were sold in Plymouth and Georgetown for this purpose. The word "barge" as applied to these vehicles has been thought peculiar to Nahant, although the dictionary has long defined it with this as one of its applications. People have even thought, because they were told to ride in a barge, that they were to get to Nahant by water.
These barges did not give evening service. Around five o'clock was the last trip up from Nahant, and at about half past six the last conveyance left Lynn for Nahant. On Saturdays, and at times on another evening, there were trips up after supper, returning about nine or half past. The barges to Bass Point ran through the evenings to suit their patronage. One could, however, hire a barge for two dollars, or even for a dollar and a half, which would take a half dozen or so to Lynn, wait around all the evening, and cheerfully get home around midnight. This was the transportation which the electric cars supplanted, yet few people who lived amid these conditions will say that they were more annoying than another group of possible vexations is today. Life moves onward into complexities of invention and achievement, but none of such things is sure to move life upward toward greater content and harmony with the world.
The earliest mention of any possible railroad to Nahant appears to have been in 1845, when a group met at the Nahant Hotel to consider if anything could be done to improve the communication over Long Beach. A wide-open discussion seems to have resulted, and one of the factors is indicated by an item in the "Lynn Whig" of September 13, 1845: "A correspondent of the 'Transcript' states that the committee will probably report in favor of building upon this beach (Long Beach, Nahant) a branch for the Eastern Railroad."
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It might be interesting to speculate on how far from its present state the town would now be if this plan had been adopted.
The first mention in the town records of a street railroad appears to have been in 1861, when on January 16 a town meeting was held because the Lynn and Boston Street Railroad Company had given notice that it would petition the State Legislature for permission to extend their lines to Salem, South Danvers and Nahant. A petition was presented to the selectmen and recorded under this meeting, asking that the town refuse its consent. It was signed by thirty-seven summer residents, many of whom were not voters in Nahant. This meeting was called for the consideration of this one question only, and the town voted to reject the proposal by a large majority. In 1884 an article was petitioned into the annual meeting warrant by F. E. Johnson and twenty-two others, to see if the town wanted a street railroad, and it was referred to the selectmen who were to confer with the railroad company to find what was proposed. In the meantime legis- lation was again sought by the company, and the legislative committee asked the town to find out, at its annual meeting in March, 1885, if it favored the petition of the Lynn and Boston Horse Railroad Company for a right to extend its tracks to Nahant. The matter was disapproved by a vote of 91 to 25. Then in 1886 came the petition of the Nahant Railroad Com- pany for a steam railroad over Long Beach. At the March meeting this was rejected by a vote of 94 to 6.
During these proceedings Joseph T. Wilson, who had begun his long services for Nahant, became acquainted with the street railroad officials, who saw, by their repeated defeats, that the town did not want them. Then they said to Wilson that they might as well wait, and whenever the town was ready to receive them they would proceed further. Wilson had never been a strong opponent in his personal opinions, as frequently expressed, but was strongly against the scheme until the people wanted it by a large majority. In the 1884 town report he stated, for the selectmen, that better trans- portation to Nahant "is imperative." He believed, particu-
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. larly, that the summer residents should not be opposed to it, because they paid most of the taxes through which the town prospered. The dangers of turning a town, which was attrac- tive because it was a country town, into a suburb, made possible by easy communication with a city, and without many factors which kept Nahant financially well-to-do, were all foreseen. Yet it was believed, by Wilson and such other proponents as also appreciated or apprehended these dangers, that sufficient safeguards of other sorts than difficult access would keep the place at as great a height of attractiveness as would be possible in any event. Bass Point was even then presenting many problems to a town that would be well ordered and of good repute in every part, and it was believed that the railroad would bring in people who would strive to keep the town a beauty spot, while doubtless also bringing others who cared little for community welfare, and who might want "three flatters" on small lots, for example, or to develop further a shore resort business not compatible with a residential district.
Thus the railroad question hung fire until 1887, when again in town meeting the opinion of the voters, this time on an electric road, was obtained. There were 127 against it and 50 for it. At the annual town meeting in 1900 the question was raised again, and by a yea and nay vote it was decided to postpone consideration indefinitely. By this time the selectmen, of which Wilson was still chairman, had become convinced that the road was coming. A few men, some recent comers to Nahant, were working actively for it, and their success seemed probable. The summer residents had mostly become acquiescent, though not wholly convinced that the movement was for the good of the town. Their own wishes were not so important to them. While they liked Nahant they could leave it and choose other places more desirable. In March, 1903, the town again expressed its opinion, and this time it was in favor of an electric road by 120 to 88.
Then followed an interesting period. The summer residents, seeing that it was coming, proceeded to form a corporation,
Maolis Gardens - One of the Stone Lions
Tudor's High Fence around Orchard near Bear Pond, Bailey's Hill in Background Fence in this tumbledown condition about 1885
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the Nahant Street Railroad Company, capitalized at $30,000. This was because it was thought better for the interests of the town to keep financial control within the town. Here, for the first time, Wilson became directly interested, and for the reason just given. His son, Fred A. Wilson, and Ellerton James were active in the affairs of this proposed company. J. T. Wilson had, of course, been offered stock and other "reasonable" pay for his services in getting the town to consider favorably some of the adventures proposed, but he was always immune even to "perfectly fair forms of graft." In the meantime another company, the Nahant & Lynn Street Railroad Company, was organized, with a majority of the stock owned out of town. It was capitalized for a much smaller sum. A hearing was given by the selectmen to the two companies, on the same evening. But just before this hearing the Nahant Company had been to the head of the company operating in Lynn, asking if they would build or operate or both, and had been informed that the line would not pay and under no consideration would they handle it. A prominent firm of Boston engineers and men with practical experience had been employed to estimate the cost of the out- fit, all installed and ready to run with hired power, and their report called for an expenditure of over $160,000. This was a decided advantage for the Lynn-owned company. At the hearing their representatives promised five-cent fares, as the stenographer's record of the proceedings shows, and several other benefits only to be had from a line doing well financially. The Nahant-owned company, armed with their real evidence, could only promise to do as well as any one, and when asked about five-cent fares (the usual fare at that time) could only say they did not believe it possible, for the road was going to cost well over $100,000. Whereupon from all over a crowded hall came cries and cat calls at the utter foolishness of sup- posing any such expenditure would be required.
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