USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Haverhill > Some memories of old Haverhill in Massachusetts > Part 3
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Of Old Haverhill
from the main street into the Country. The houses round are pleasant & in good style. It is painted white, has a steeple & small bell which rings at one & nine. The interior of the Church is without elegance or any distinction. In this Town resides our Chief Justice Sargeant. Back of the Meeting House & on the side is the House of the Revd Mr. Shaw. The scene was engaging while I was present. The River was alive with Boats. The opposite Shore was crowded with Spectators, & every diversion was pursued which rural life permits. The regiment consisted of 800 rank and file, & the Company of Horse. The men were well dressed. The Col. named Brickett gave entertainment at his House for the Clergy, the Officers dining at Bradford on the opposite side of the River. He is by profession a Physician. There was a manly freedom in the higher class of people, but a strange contrast to the manners of the lower people, who being employed, instead of farming, upon the rivers on rafts & lumbering, have very much the manners of the people in the province of Maine .... At Haverhill the River is about 12 of a mile wide, & the tide flows commonly about 4 feet. We are carried over in Gon- dolas.
23rd. I returned as far as Newbury. I came down on the Haverhill side with an intention to pass at Cottle's ferry, 4 miles below the town. There is a ferry called Russel's, 3 miles, entering the road by a brick house on the right. . But as the waterman lives on the other side & Cottle on this, they es- tablish it as a rule to pass down by Cottle's & return by Russel's ferry."
XI
It is difficult to restore old Water street to its condition when it was a street of aristocratic resi- dences, but I have heard my kinswoman, Mrs. Abbie Kimball, whose long span of life began with
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Some Memories
the nineteenth century, the daughter of Sheriff Bailey Bartlett and his beautiful wife, Peggy White, describe it when her father lived there,-the row of stately houses on the north side, with gardens be- hind and terraced banks and flower beds in front, the river side open, and the view of its flowing waters unobstructed until it turns and is hidden by the hills. There stood the imposing mansion of "Marchant" John White, the richest man of the town, with a hospitable entrance leading to a broad hall with a beautiful staircase. Flowers bloomed in front, in box-bordered beds, and back were well ordered and fruitful gardens. Here apartments were prepared for Washington when he came to Haverhill, but he took quarters at Harrod's tavern. He paid the honor of a call, however, to Mrs. White and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Leonard White, and to Mrs. Bartlett, whose husband he knew well. The "Marchant" White house later was kept as a tavern, called "The Golden Ball," and later by the widening of the street its terraces and entrance were destroyed. Now, still noble in its decay, it stands on the west side of Stage street, removed from but yet near the scene of its days of grandeur and large- hearted hospitality.
The old burying-ground on Water street, lying on the eastern confines of the crowded part of the city,
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its few acres sloping gently upward from the high- way and the Merrimac beyond, is the most sacred of all the roods of Haverhill earth for it holds min- gled with its earth the mouldered ashes of the fore- fathers and of later generations of worthy and illustrious citizens. Upon the shore of the river immediately below the earliest settlers, mooring their pinnace, disembarked to found here their new home, the limpid mill stream just above attracting them. Within these confines and beneath a spreading tree they offered their first worship here to the God to whose care they reverently confided themselves and their fortunes. Here on a knoll that lightly swelled from the surrounding land they built their first rude meeting-house in 1648. Here, probably, the thirteen children who died before 1654-flowers too frail for the rigors and the hardships to which they were exposed-were buried in unmarked graves, and the twenty-seven other children and the seven adults who died before 1663. Following the custom of the old England from which they had come, the fathers set apart the land by the House of God as God's Acre-the resting place of the dead-, vot- ing in November, 1660, that the land immediately behind the meeting-house should be reserved as a burying-ground. Whatever stones may have marked the earlier graves have been destroyed.
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Some Memories
The earliest legible stone is to the memory of Eben- ezer Ayer who died October 10, 1695, aged 17 years, 4 months and 19 days. The youth whose brief span is so exactly measured was an orphan, the son of Peter Ayer who died in 1682, and of Hanah Allin Ayer who died in 1688. Here the sorrowing colonists laid to rest in March, 1680, Alice, the ex- emplary and devoted wife of the Reverend John Ward, the first minister of the town, and here after half a century of service and in the fulness of his eighty-seven years, the venerable pastor himself was buried. Here, too, rests the line of his successors for more than a hundred years,-Rolfe, Gardner, Brown, Barnard, Shaw,-the stone of each commemorating his labors and his virtues. Al- though there is no proof that Hannah Duston, the early heroine of Haverhill, or her brave husband, Thomas, lies here,-the probabilities are negative,- yet many of their descendents are here buried. Here were interred the victims of the memorable Indian raid of August 29, 1708,-the minister, Rolfe, killed where the High School now stands, Captain Samuel Ayer, Captain Simon Wainwright, Lieutenant John Johnson, all men of great bravery, and twelve other victims, buried on the day of the slaughter because the intense heat made it neces- sary, and many of them placed in a common grave
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0 f Old Haverhill
because the effort of making separate graves was too great for the exhausted survivors. Here per- chance rests the first "exile from Erin," the jolly Irish fiddler, Hugh Tallant, who set out in 1739 the row of sycamore trees that bordered the Saltonstall estate below.
"Not a stone his grave discloses; But if yet his spirit walks, 'Tis beneath the trees he planted, And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks."
The original confines of the burying-ground have been from time to time extended. In 1732 an ad- ditional acre-and-a-half was bought; in 1777 Colonel Badger gave an increase of land; and in 1817 the boundaries were extended by purchase to their present limits. Pentucket cemetery occupies the lower half of what in earliest times was known as the Mill Lot. In 1845 the upper half of this lot was purchased and a new cemetery-Linwood-laid out. This was dedicated April 21, 1846. To it many of the dead from the old cemetery were removed, for through carelessness and inattention the old ground had fallen into a condition of neglect. The stones had been thrown down and broken; the rambling blackberry covered the graves; weeds grew un- checked; and the rude and lawless made the place a resort for their idleness. The ladies of the town
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Some Memories
set themselves to remedy the shame of this condi- tion. By their efforts, particularly by the proceeds of a levee held April 10, 1847, sufficient money was raised not only to make all needed repairs and im- provements, including the buckthorn hedge on the west and the iron fence on Water street, but also to erect the monument that now stands there to the memory of the Reverend Benjamin Rolfe. At this time the name of the Old Burying-Ground was replaced by that of Pentucket Cemetery. All of the inscriptions that mark the graves of those who died before 1800 and that are legible have been copied and are recorded in the Essex Antiquarian for Janu- ary, 1908. These inscriptions mark the simple directness, the reverence and the religious faith of the times in which they were written. Whatever in them seems quaint is so merely because forms of expression change. Like all inscriptions above the dead, they recount their virtues, express sorrow for their loss, hopes for their blessed immortality, and the briefness of life and the certainty of death.
Whittier in his poem, The Old Burying-Ground, descriptive of one in Rocks Village, speaks of the forefathers as setting apart to Death the "dreariest spot in all the land,"-
" For thus the fathers testified, That he might read who ran,
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The emptiness of human pride, The nothingness of man.
They dared not plant the grave with flowers, Nor dress the funeral sod, Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God.
The hard and thorny path they kept From beauty turned aside; ¡
Nor missed they over those who slept The grace to life denied."
This burial place was not ill-chosen, however. It sloped downward to the south and the warm sun lay upon it; the broad river laughed or sobbed just beyond its lower confines; the mill brook sang along its western line. Its memorials were rude and simple, but they bespoke love and memory, even though they often were writ with lines that, like the voice of Fate, reminded him who read that he, too, was mortal. The inscription on the footstone of Israel Ela, who died in 1700, is a proper finis to this chapter :-
THY : OUR IS : RVnE THY : TIME IS : DVnE
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Some Memories
XII
The brook that turned the mill that gave to Mill street its name has disappeared from view, the dust of the forefathers has long ago become as the dust wherewith it is commingled in the old Pentucket burying-ground, but below is an old house over whose portals passed in and out some of the first settlers of the town, the old home of the first preacher of the town, the Reverend John Ward. For more than two hundred years it stood where it stands now; then, like nearly every old house in the place, it was moved to a new location. But when its historical value was appreciated, it was bought and restored to its original location. In it lived that sweet daughter of John Ward, Elizabeth, who won the heart of Nathaniel Saltonstall, and in it possibly they were married, December 28, 1663. With Elizabeth her father gave as dowry the estate now known as the "Buttonwoods." Their grandson was Judge Richard Saltonstall, born July 14, 1703, a Colonel at the age of 23, a Judge of the Superior Court at the age of 33, one of His Majesty's Council, "a man of talents and learning, distin- guished for generous and elegant hospitality, and for his bounteous liberality to the poor. His address was polished, affable and winning, his tem- per gentle and benevolent, and he enjoyed the love
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Of Old Haverhill
and esteem of all." Under his direction the noble avenue of sycamore or buttonwood trees was planted by Hugh Tallant, the first Irish resident of Haverhill, the village merry-maker and fiddler, jolly and witty,-
" Merry faced, with spade and fiddle, ; Singing through the ancient town,- Only this of poor Hugh Tallant Hath tradition banded down,-
Jolliest of our birds of singing, Best he loved the Bob-o-link; ' Hush!' he'd say, 'the tipsy fairies! Hear the little folks in drink.'"'
For a century and a quarter the shade of these Occidental plane-trees fell across the road and upon the waters of the river beyond. Then a blight attacked them, and in February, 1867, they were cut down and their trunks, sawed into planks, were used to build a wharf below the Haverhill bridge. Of the mansion of the Saltonstalls nothing remains save a tradition of its elegance and its hospitality. It stood on the beautiful site now occupied by the Historical House, the stretches of the glorious river in front, and resembled in its appointments and in the mode of life within the homes of the gentry of England.
The eldest son of Judge Saltonstall and the heir
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Some Memories
to this estate was Richard, born April 5, 1732, who was commissioned as Colonel in 1754 and made Sheriff of Essex County in 1760. Brave in fighting, philanthropic, with a strict sense of loyalty he maintained his allegiance to the King when the Revolution was brewing. In the excitement of the times a mob of men from the outskirts of the town surrounded his house one night to express by violence their disapproval of his position. But he met them with such dignity, serenity and kindness that their fire was quenched. He left the town, however, soon after and returned to England. Here he declined the offices offered to him by the King, but lived honored by his English friends. He lies buried by Kensington church, with his virtues commemorated by a monument there. His estate became the property of his sister, Mrs. Abigail Watson of Plymouth. The mansion was destroyed by fire, the estate was sold to Colonel Samuel Duncan, and the house now occupied by the Historical Society was built on the site of the former mansion in 1814.
The brick house a short distance farther down Water street, sometimes known as the "Spiller House," though built in the manner of a garrison house with port holes and narrow windows, was never a place of refuge or defence. It is, however,
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Of Old Haverhill
nearly two centuries old, having been built in 1724, and it is historical in having been the home of John Eaton, the early town clerk.
XIII
It seems to have been the fortune of many no- table houses in Haverhill to make at least one journey. The Dr. Saltonstall house retires from busy Merrimack street to the sylvan banks of Plug Pond; the Sheriff Bartlett house is divided, a part being moved to Dustin square and there burned, a part to the corner of Water street and Eastern avenue; the John Ward house makes a forty-year visit to Eastern avenue and then returns; the Judge Sargeant house goes first to Pleasant street and then to Spring court; the interesting house formerly occupied by the late George C. How, removes from Water street to Main street; its neighbor across the street, the Butters house, comes to town from the Kingston plains; and the list might be made much longer. The old house long known as the Smiley house, on the west corner of Pleasant and Winter streets, was earlier Kendall's Tavern, and stood on Elm Corner at the junction of Main and Water streets. A few rods east of the elm tree was a fount of clear water, known
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as Kendall's spring. North of Kendall's tavern on Main street was Peter Osgood's apothe- cary store, and beyond that is still the Osgood house, although it is hidden from view by the one-story shops that cover the front yard where once tall lilacs bloomed while between them a pebbled walk led up to the front door. The last resident in this house, Miss Ann Osgood, was an old, old lady when she died. When I was a boy and acted as assistant in the Haverhill Athenaeum library, Miss Osgood's choice of books distinctly impressed me because it was in so great contrast to that of the majority of the ladies. She read Motley's and Prescott's histories, the works of Parkman, and if she descended to fiction it was some volume of Miss Muhlbach's historical novels that she took across the way. On her mother's side she was of a notable family whose coming to Haverhill had romantic features. Her grandfather, Benjamin Willis, was a ship-master of Charlestown who married in Boston, Mary Ball, a kinswoman to that Mary Ball who was the mother of Washington. At the outbreak of the Revolution Mr. Willis was captured by the British. His wife and her three children Benjamin, Robert and Mary, lived on Charlestown neck. Near their home was a stream of pure and fresh water. A British man-of-war an-
-
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Some Memories
merchant of that city, who took such a strong liking to the young American that he gave him both advice and assistance and enabled him to become one of the largest importers in the state. His ships laden with valuable cargoes came into Newbury- port, and thence his goods were brought up river or sent whither their young owner desired. The daughter of this Benjamin, Mary, married the Honorable James H. Duncan, and was long the dignified, gracious and beloved mistress of the man- sion now occupied by the Pentucket Club.
The Athenaeum building, in the upper story of which was the Athenaeum library, occupied the site where the Odd Fellows' Building is now. When it was removed in 1872 the remains of three vats were uncovered. They were part of an old distillery, where West India molasses was made into New England rum, and the water for its use was brought in wooden pipes from an excellent spring, back of Music Hall, that gave the name to Spring Court.
XIV
An old map of Haverhill, published in 1851, is of much antiquarian value because it designates the residences of the citizens of that time. It is em-
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bellished, too, with a number of cuts of public buildings and among them is one of the first Town Hall, built in 1847. Its four massive pillars in front, supporting the entablature, form its notice- able architectural feature. A belfry rises above the front of the building, and over this hovers a golden eagle. The hall was formally opened February 22, 1848. There was an historical address by the Honorable James H. Duncan, and the singing of an original hymn of which the following lines are a part :-
" Let us anew the scenes renew Here wrought in days of yore, When hostile bands with murderous hands Roamed our fair precinets o'er. The savage whoop, the fiendlike yell, Spread fearful consternation Where our town clock and massive bell Now wake congratulation."-
It was by poetic license, undoubtedly, that time had been siezed by the forelock, for the town clock was not put up until two months later.
-" Thy sons shall still, old Haverhill, Thy patriot deeds revere Long as the sun shall shine upon Yon eagle resting here."
The reverence of the sons of Haverhill has not been bounded in time by the stay of the town hall
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Of Old Haverhill
bellished, too, with a number of cuts of public buildings and among them is one of the first Town Hall, built in 1847. Its four massive pillars in front, supporting the entablature, form its notice- able architectural feature. A belfry rises above the front of the building, and over this hovers a golden eagle. The hall was formally opened February 22, 1848. There was an historical address by the Honorable James H. Duncan, and the singing of an original hymn of which the following lines are a part :-
" Let us anew the scenes renew Here wrought in days of yore, When hostile bands with murderous hands Roamed our fair precincts o'er. The savage whoop, the fiendlike yell, Spread fearful consternation Where our town clock and massive bell Now wake congratulation." --
It was by poetic license, undoubtedly, that time had been siezed by the forelock, for the town clock was not put up until two months later.
-" Thy sons shall still, old Haverhill, Thy patriot deeds revere Long as the sun shall shine upon Yon eagle resting here."
The reverence of the sons of Haverhill has not been bounded in time by the stay of the town hall [59]
Some Memories
eagle, for when this hall, outgrown as soon as built, was replaced by the newer one, in 1861, the eagle was placed on the hook and ladder house on Fleet street. Thence it has stolen in silent and myster- ious flight I know not whither, but where it rests I hope it may keep up the cry of the homesick soul until conscience compels its keeper to restore it to its earlier precincts.
When on the evening of September 5, 1853, the streets of the town were to be lighted by gas for the first time, a plan was formed fittingly to celebrate the event. There was to be a procession of the military and the dignitaries of the town through the illuminated streets, the band leading and playing triumphal music, to the Town Hall where a banquet and toasts were to be enjoyed. All went well as planned except that the gas refused to burn or even to be lighted. It was indignantly told around the town the next day that "Jonty" Sanders-a local butt-had maliciously pulled the wicks out of the gas jets, and thus spoiled the illumination.
The first sewing machine in Haverhill was shown. in the old Haverhill Bank building on Main street, nearly opposite the Eagle House. There was great prejudice against the use of these machines on shoes, and those who earliest introduced them for this purpose,-Moses How and Woodman & Lan-
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caster,-used to stop and cover them over when buyers came. From the steps of the Town Hall George W. Lee strongly harrangued against their use, claiming that the work was good for nothing, and that their introduction would bring distress and starvation to the workers.
The present City Hall-it still bears the brown tablet marking it as the Town Hall-was dedicated August 6, 1862. That was its formal dedication, but for four years it received a continued and greater dedication in the patriotic uses to which it was put. The stimulus of noble oratory, the en- thusiasm of crowded mass meetings, the great fairs in aid of the soldiers, the simple but impressive services over the dead heroes, all hallowed it to the cause of humanity and liberty. From its platform all the great speakers of that age of oratory,- Sumner, Phillips, Beecher, Chapin,-counselled and taught and inspired. There, too, music often ex- ercised her sway,-the Mendelssohn Club, Ole Bull, Camilla Urso, Annie Louise Cary, Adelaide Phillips, and she who held so large a place in the hearts of Haverhill people, Julia Houston West. The play was rare there, but in its place were the dramatic readings by great interpreters. All, all are gone, and yet I see them still, their gracious smiles, their little mannerisms, even their silks and
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their laces, bowing beyond the footlights of the past.
The story is told of Mrs. Vincent, who sometimes played here with William Warren and the Boston Museum company, that once the stage waited for her until messengers were sent out to hunt her up. She was found remonstrating with a burly teamster who was driving a lame horse. As she was hurried on she exclaimed, "Well, I don't care if the stage is waiting. I won't see a brute driving a horse on three legs without speaking my mind." Mrs. Houston West shared this compassion for the abused horse, and never failed to rebuke the one who abused him. The depth of feeling, the fullness of expression, that made her singing a revelation were due to the woman as well as to the great artist. A little anecdote of her, showing another character- istic, is worth relating for the lesson in it. Some busybody had told to a favorite accompanist of hers some criticism of her as made by the singer, and the accompanist, in tears, went to Mrs. West about it. "My dear," said Mrs. West with great sweet- ness and dignity, "she who told you that is neither your friend nor mine," and she made no other answer.
Haverhill audiences have often been considered impassive. I recall two rebukes of this coldness,
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but widely different ones. Bret Harte once lectured here on The Argonauts of '49. He had gone but a little way in his lecture when he felt the chill of his audience. He stopped, looked around, frowned, and growled, "Humph! icicles dressed up in clothes!" Then he turned to his manuscript, read it through with lightning speed, stalked to the dressing room and made the air sulphurous with curses.
Mrs. Scott-Siddons, a very beautiful woman and a genius in the reading of Shakespeare's plays, had given with much power and sweetness several scenes from the great dramatist to an audience that sat silent and unmoved. Suddenly she left the desk, swept out before her audience, and recited a bit of silly verse, describing an auction sale of old bach- elors :--
" A crier was sent through the town to and fro, To rattle his bell and his trumpet to blow, And to bawl out to all he might meet on his way, 'Ho! forty old bachelors sold here today.'
And presently all the old maids of the town,- Each one in her very best bonnet and gown,- From thirty to sixty, fair, plain, red and pale, Of every description all flocked to the sale.
The auctioneer, then, on his labor began; And called out aloud as he held up a man, 'How much for a bachelor? who wants to buy?' In a twink every maiden responded, 'I-I!'
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In short, at a hugely extravagant price The bachelors all were sold off in a trice, And forty old maidens,-some younger, some older,- Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder."
The audience awoke to animation, and the hand- clapping was prolonged and loud. When it ceased, in incisive tones Mrs. Scott-Siddons remarked, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. I thank you for the genuine applause for that you most appreciate."
XV
Just above the site of the City Hall two prim spinsters long kept a millinery and dress-making shop, the little sign above the door reading, "M. & P. Wingate, Mantua Makers." The wits very quickly designated them as Ma and Pa Wingate. Their ribbons and laces vanished long before my day, and my memory of them is an inheritance. I have often, however, seen them "in my mind's eye, Horatio,"-Priscilla, with her hair looped in smooth bands over her ears, the oak of the establishment, Mercy, the clinging vine, with clustering curls falling over delicate pink cheeks, gazing out through the little panes of their show window to watch for some prospective customer.
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