Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 70

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America. > Part 70

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The little that is known about primitive life hereabouts must be told in simple, not glittering generalities. Many obscure traditions of rude pioneer life grow dim with every passing year. Until some one shall weave these into pleasing narrative, the history of the fron- tiersman, who first made his home in this valley of labor, may be told in the simple lines : -

" Here he hewed and dug, subdning the earth and his spirit ; Here he built him a home in the forest, Here he had farmstead and eabin and fields of corn."

Lands along the Merrimac bank were the first chosen. Farmers obtained good yield at the outset; but the country grew poorer rather than richer, as a light soil, carelessly cultivated, must rapidly detcriorate. The grand harvest of fish came in spring-time and inter- fered with farming operations. Fish in hand were more tempting than corn in prospect.

Salmon were plentiful and of finest quality; shad were taken in immense numbers, and the eddies and pot-holes at the rapids were a sort of eel's paradise. Eels came in quantities so immense that they were dealt in, at times, neither by pound nor hundred weights, but by wagon-loads, or cubic measurement, at about the present price of cord-wood ; often by the barrel ; the price of a pound of steak, in our times, sometimes purchasing a barrel of this "Merrimac beef." If the modern theory that fish is peculiarly brain-food is correct, what hin- dered our predecessors from becoming intellectual giants ?

Where population is now dense there were scarcely a dozen habita- tions ; in all the city, less than 150 souls in less than threescore homes. No church dedicated to service of Almighty God stocd within present city limits. There was, here and there, an ordinary farm-house, with rude surroundings. The long, roughly-built bridge, the fishers at the falls, a noble river in the foreground, the tumbling rapids, and a long reach of undulating, sandy plain, were the simple features in a scene peaceful and common-place. The plain is now dotted with spires and crowded with modern homes. The lawless rapid is changed to a uniform plunge of waters in unbroken fall over artificial barriers ; colossal workshops, filled with busy laborers, now stand where there was near approach to solitude. That part of Andover now South Lawrence was generally known as the " Moose Country." There was rivalry of epithets. The "Shawsheen fields" were known as Sodom by those on the opposite bank ; in retaliation the Andover people gave the name of Gomorrah to the north bank. The phrase "Out of the world into Methuen" was as common as " Taunton, good Lord." It was an isolated spot before the bridg- ing of the Merrimac and the building of quills at Spicket Falls. World's End Pond was a sort of inland boundary of civilization, beyond which pioneers ventured with fear and trembling.

Indians .- In this modern city antiquarian research, if not a lost, is a neglected art. A new population, gathered out of homes separated by mountain chains and oceans, care little for genealogical records of the few old families they have overshadowed, and less for that nomadic race who once owned the soil before sweeping epidemics reduced their number to an insignificant remainder.

Pumpassonaway, alias " Old Will," had a " planting ground " in the old Haverhill township, "near Spicket river," perhaps the very site of Lawrence, or along the eastern limit. The locality of the city seems rather to have been a hunting-ground, or place of occasional resort, for the red men, than a permanent abode. On the south bank of the Merrimac, a mile above the dam, can be seen evidence of In-

dian occupancy, and many specimens of savage haudiwork have been found hard by.

Just at the western limit of the city, on the south bank of the river, was an Indian burial-ground, and, near by, a smaller space set about with stones, enclosing graves of petty chieftains. Within the mem- ory of men now living, wandering Indians, of the Penobscot tribe, have made pilgrimages to this rude sepulchre of savage kings. One, claiming to be a descendant of buried chiefs, might be seen, during his stay, standing on these ancient graves at early morning, statue-like and silent, with face to the eastward, watching for the rising of the sun ; and, again, at sunset, looking westward upon fading lights, with stony indifference to all surroundings -a grim picture of sorrow. Indians stated that often their women came to this spot, after their custom, to grind the corn, and, in mournful cadence, chanted, while they labored, the death-song over graves of departed braves.

Further up river, in Andover, just below the steamer-landing at Laurel Grove, was an extensive Indian burial-ground, whether a bat- tle-field, a burial site in the days of pestilence ( when ninety per cent. of the savages died and Merrimac valley became a vast charnel- house), or a nsual place of burial, is unknown. Opposite the month of the Shawsheen River, near the gas-works, have been found evi- dences that it was a place of resort for dusky fishers and arrow- makers.

It was on the extreme southern border of Lawrence that a band of northern savages were first discovered in their mischievous and bloody raid upon Andover settlements. As late as 1722, seventy-eight years after settlement of Andover, we find the town voting money to repair block-houses protecting " Shawsheen fields " (South Lawrence). The severest Indian raids upon Audover settlers were nearly fifty years after settlement.

There is a tradition that Tower Hill was an important outlook, or signal station, in Iudian warfare, that from the summit smoke or fires signalled wandering bands, scattered over wide valleys. It is related that the pioneer Bodwell was a veteran Indian fighter; that, at one time, wheu a band were prowling about the south bank of the river, opposite his cabin, one of them made a defiant gesture to the veteran marksman, wherenpon the old man drew a bead upon the redskin with his long-range English musket, and the savage fell in the long grass, shot through the head. Crossing next day, in a boat, he rolled the body into the river, preserving the fine wolf-skin robe of the Indian for his own comfort.

There is another tradition that a thieving Indian, seeking to enter one of the old dwellings upon the plain, was shot through the chinks of the timber wall, and buried beneath a great tree, standing near City Hall; also, that an early settler, seeing a movement in the grass or grain near the south canal, discovered a creeping savage working his way towards a pioneer's cabin. He shot the wily Indian, when three others, before unseen, broke from the cover and made good their retreat. A story is told of a young pioneer, who, returning from a courting visit to the fair daughter of an up-river settler, had his dream of bliss suddenly disturbed by the whizzing of a tomahawk past his head. Finding two Indians in chase, he saved himself by his knowl- edge of by-paths.

On Pine Island, four miles above Lawrence, was an Indian village in the olden time. Nancy Parker was the last of the Indians to remain in the region. She is remembered by the very old as a tall, wild-looking, but harmless and industrious Indian woman, making her rounds among the farmers of the present Lawrence and Andover, with her spinning-wheel strapped to her back, - the champion spinner of the region, - little dreaming that spinners would crowd to the valley by hundreds, and the noisy river-rapid be harnessed to the wheels at which they toiled. From Nancy Parker's spinning-wheel to the mon- ster mill is a long step, and, by this water-fall, the importance of the step is apparent.

Illustrating the dreariness and isolation of the region, in early set- tlement, we are told that an aged pioneer, iu an up-river neighbor- hood, died in midwinter. A furious suow-storm and high wind ob- literated all rude pathways, and nothing but wastes of deep snow surrounded the lonely home for weeks. Sadly the two sons rigged the handsled, placing the body in a box thereon, and, by hard work during a whole day, reached and followed the river-bank to an open road, at Bodwell's Falls, leading to Andover village. Thus the hardy pioneer rode to his final rest.

At a point opposite Lawrence poor-farm, upon Cochichewick Brook, in Andover, the first mill-wheel turned in this valley, the first trip- hammer disturbed the quiet of the settlement, and the first woollen machinery, brought from England by stealth, the separate parts

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packed among household goods (fearing the penalties of English law), was set np.

It is said that the first store in a wide region reaching from Haver- hill to Dracut and from Derry to Andover, was started on the Howe road, in Methuen, but a few minutes' drive from Lawrence. The pro- prietors are credited with selling at " one per cent. profit"; that is, for every dollar of cost adding another dollar for profit !

Just outside of city limits, on Clover Hill, in Methuen, is the old burial-ground, laid out soon after settlement. The old church and minister's house stood hard by. Good Parson Sargent sleeps well in the old cemetery among the hardy parishioners, who, for fifty years, listened to his words of counsel and warning.

The pioneers of South Lawrence were : Barnard, Stevens, and Poor; later came the Parkers and other families. The first-named family trace back the title to lands nearly two hundred years. To North Lawrence came, as pioneer settlers, who remained, the Bod- wells, Swans, Sargents, Barkers, Poors, and Marstons; possibly others whose descendants do not remain. The two important ferries were Marston's, below the city proper, and Bodwell's, above the dam. The former was first established, primarily to enable settlers to pursue northern Indian bands, who often appeared upon the north bank, doing much mischief, and escaping unpunished. Both ferries were discontinued when the bridge was built in 1793.

CHAPTER II.

THE SOURCES OF WATER-POWER.

MERRIMAC RIVER -SPICKET AND SHAWSHEEN RIVERS -PROJECTS FOR DEVELOPING POWER AT BODWELL'S FALLS.

" He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills."-Ps. eiv. 10.

The Merrimac, a living, rapid stream, was man's passive agent in a notable work of rapid transformation on this quiet plain. Receiving overflow from mountain-shadowed, northern lakes, the sparkling cur- rents, in their journey to the sea, change the lawless dance of cascades into a round of prosaie service.

The great lake reservoirs, at and about Winnipesaukee, keep in reserve vast hydraulic power, receiving and holding a portion of the immense spring rise from melting snows and swollen streams, which might otherwise become an irresistible flood. Gathering its waters from mountain ravines and isolated forests, this one New England river supplies a vast system of mill-privileges, and "furnishes a more valuable water-power than all the rivers of France."

There is a plausible theory that the Merrimac once discharged its waters into the Atlantic, at a point near Lynn Harbor, continuing to the sea in the line of its general course, which, unlike the usual flow of rivers, turns sharply north-eastward at Chelmsford. There is also a theory that a chain of lakes once lay along the hroad, low terraces that reach from the ocean to Winnipesaukee, connected by small streams ; that floods and upheavals, in formative periods, burst, one by one, the barriers between contiguous lakes, until a continuous stream, the Merrimac, was the result.

This river drains abont 4,100 square miles of territory before reach - ing Lawrence, one-eighth of that area being lakes, ponds, and streams. These natural storage-basins, around the sources of the river and tribu- taries, enable the water-power companies at Lowell and Lawrence, by the erection of dams and dikes at Winnipesaukee and adjacent lakes, to hold there a reserve of power for dryest seasons.

Navigation of the lower Merrimac, from Lawrence to the sea, has long been discussed as a feasible project, and much boating was done by pioneer navigation companies.

The vignette on one denomination of Bay State Bank bills, of the first issue (1848), represented the river and mills, and a steamboat prominent in the scene. The Pentucket Navigation Company was in- corporated, a few years since, for the purpose of clearing and navi- gating the lower Merrimac. Efforts of leading men in this company secured appropriations from the general government, which have been expended, under the direction of United States engineers, in removing obstructions and deepening the channel.

Great freshets occurred in 1745, 1785, 1818, 1852, 1863, and 1870. The freshet of 1818 caused a sudden rise of the lower tributaries.

Many bridges were swept away. A man and woman were drowned when crossing the bridge over Shawsheen River, near Den Rock.

The freshet of 1852 was a memorable one, testing the strength of the great dam, guard-gates, and protecting embankments at Law- rence and Lowell.

Spicket River, emptying into the Merrimac at the lower end of the city, has peculiar characteristics. Though small, short, and crooked, it drains no less than ten ponds. From these many reservoirs comes a supply of water reliable for continuous power, made available at the important cotton and woollen mills in Methuen village, where there is a picturesque natural fall of over thirty feet descent. At the Arlington Mills, in Lawrence, this stream gives a most valuable power, improved and increased by the construction of earth dikes, and a permanent stone dam. On the lower Spicket are worsted mills, and a leather- board mill.

The old log dam npon the lower Spicket was carried away the present summer (1878). It was an ancient affair ; one of the few old landmarks. The current ahove this dam is sluggish, the course crooked. The breaking of this dam drained the usually deep river at this point, and revealed the foundations of a still older dam above it, of which there seems to be no account preserved either in records or traditions. It is known that long ago there was a furnace at that point for the smelting of iron.

Shawsheen River is a small stream, with sources in the meadows and ponds of central Middlesex County. It has a north-casterly course, uniting with the Merrimae opposite, and just below the outlet of Spicket River. The stream is sluggish, giving no water-power in Law- renee limits. The name, from shaws (a shade), and sheen (bright, sparkling), signifies a clear, shaded water. The eastern bank of this river is the boundary between Lawrence and North Andover.

The possibility of utilizing Deer JJump, Peter's, and Bodwell's falls (the latter at Lawrence, the others above), by developing a water- power available for extensive manufacturing, was apparent to the thoughtful long before actual steps were taken. The Merrimac Canal Company, incorporated in 1820, for the purpose of making navigable Merrimac River, from Haverhill to the foot of Hunt's Falls at Lowell, and improving and developing the water-power, made surveys show- ing elearly the amount of available power afterwards developed by others. The Act incorporating this company was extended in 1824, but the organization seems to have operated only as a " circumlocution office," where schemes revolved, but were never perfected or tested.

The only local resident who seems to have fully comprehended what it was possible to do at Lawrence, was Daniel Saunders, Esq., a farmer, who had also been a woollen manufacturer after the old-time style. Mr. Saunders set in operation forces that, eventually, were effectual in founding and builling the city. Surveys of the river had also been made by George P. Baldwin, Esq., of Woburn, Capt. Phineas Stevens, of Nashua, N. H., and Benjamin F. Baldwin, accom- plished engineers.

These surveys all demonstrated that, at Bodwell's Falls, by the eree- tion of a permanent dam, a grand water-power, equal to that at Lowell, might be developed, and a manufacturing city established, the site favoring building. Mr. Saunders pushed the project energetically, interesting capitalists and manufacturers. Quietly, without exciting suspicion, lands were secured in important localities.

The fall, at the present dam, was a tumbling rapid, broken by pro- jecting ledges, with a descent of four to five feet in the third of a mile westward from Pacific Mills outlet, the rocks worn in pot-holes by stones whirled in eddies. The stream below was rapid and unaffected by tides for several miles ; the fall above, from the foot of Ilunt's Falls, needed only to be used to be known as one of the great water- powers of New England. The locality was near to shipping ports, central, a goodly site for a town ; what was needed to develop con- ditions so favorable ? Men of courage, ability, and means ; not rivals working for personal control, but, associated for a common purpose, combining resources for a definite end. This desirable association of courageous and enterprising men was formed, as appears hereafter. A distinguished French engineer and author, M. Charles Chevalier, visiting the new manufacturing cities of New England, was astonished to see the confidence and readiness with which men, trained in commer- cial and mercantile life, like the brothers Lawrence and the Lowells, undertook great enterprises involving mechanical and engineering skill, planned on a scale far beyond ordinary precedent. He deemed their courage and enterprise something sublime. The same French writer, looking upon the work-people employed in first New England mills, with the eyes and opinions of a Parisian, says, "Reading ap- pears to be the only amusement of the people." Ile says further,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

"The population was not born upon the spot ; the half will die some- where else, after founding other cities ; the American of pure blood encamps, he does not settle."

CHAPTER III.

FOUNDING THE CITY.

MERRISIAC WATER-POWER ASSOCIATION -AN IMPORTANT EXCURSION - THE ESSEX COMPANY ORGANIZED - ACTIVE OPERATIONS - LEADING SPIRITS.

The Merrimac Water-Power Association was formed in 1843, with Samuel Lawrence as president and treasurer, and Daniel Saunders as agent. Associated with these active men were Judge J. G. Abbott, John Nesmith, Judge Thomas Hopkinson, and Jonathan Tyler, of Lowell, Nathaniel Stevens, John Tenney, Edmund Bartlett, Charles W. Saunders, Daniel Saunders, Jr. , John Wright, Gayton P. Osgood, Joseph Kittredge, Josiah G. White, Joseph H. Billings, and Henry Poor. Perhaps others may have been more or less interested, finan- cially, in the enterprise.

Samuel Lawrence, as treasurer and financial agent of Middlesex Mills, at Lowell, was enabled, by his position among manufacturers, and his business and family connections, to interest men of capacity and means in the plan of founding a new manufacturing city by the falls below Lowell. Enthusiastic and sanguine by nature, he cham- pioned the enterprise with zeal, persistence, and boldness.

Daniel Saunders, because of his knowledge and fitness, was ap- pointed agent of the association, and quietly bonded or purchased land lying about Bodwell's Falls, and along the river bank above.

In the winter of 1844-45, these associates petitioned the Legislature for an Act granting them chartered rights, under the name of The Essex Company. The Aet was approved in March, 1845. The rights obtained are shown in the following charter :-

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows :

SEcr. 1. Samuel Lawrence, John Nesmith, Daniel Saunders, and Edmund Bartlett, their associates and successors, are hereby made a corporation, by the name of the Essex Company, for the purpose of constructing a dam across Merrimack river, and con- structing one or more locks and canals in connection with said dam, to remove obstruc- tions in said river by falls and rapids, from Hunt's Falls to the mouth of Shawsheen river, and to create a water-power to use, or sell, or lease to other persons or corpora- tions, to use for manufacturing and mechanical purposes. .

Skor. 2. Said corporation may hold real estate not exceeding, exclusive of the ex- penditure for the dam and canals, three hundred thousand dollars, and the whole capi- tal stock of said corporation shall not exceed one million dollars.

SECT. 3. The said corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to constrnet and maintain a dam across said river, either at Deer Jmup Falls, or Bodwell's Falls, or some point in said river between said falls, and all such canals and locks as may be necessary for the purposes aforesaid.

Sections 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 provide for the building and main- tenance of bridges, fishway, canals and locks, settlement of claims, tolls on freight (other than rafts and floats of wood and timber, masts and spars ), and fixes limit of flowage. The Act was approved March 20, 1845.

March 18, 1846, an additional Act was passed, empowering the company to purchase property in the State of New Hampshire, by consent of said State; also extending the time for obstructing the passage of rafts.

An Important Excursion. - So thoroughly interested were the petitioners and others in the passage of the Act of incorporation, that they gathered on the morning following the final passage, witnessed the signing of the Act by Governor Briggs, and, that very hour, started on an excursion to the site of the future city, coming to North Andover by rail, thence by carriages to the falls.

This company of business men, on whose decision depended the immediate inauguration of important work, was made up as follows : Abbott Lawrence, William Lawrence, John A. Lowell, Samuel Law- rence, Francis C. Lowell, George W. Lyman, Nathan Appleton, Theodore Lyman, Patrick T. Jackson, William Sturgis, John Nes- mith, Jonathan Tyler, James B. Francis, and Charles S. Storrow. Under the pilotage of Daniel Saunders, the party were shown, not the beauties of a charming landscape; rather was it a question of power, - how much attainable, and at what cost ; a question of the adaptability of surrounding lands to the building of a town, -a matter to be dealt with by men of forecast, scientific attainnents, and practi- cal knowledge of heavy manufacturing and engineering. operations.

At that date these fourteen gentlemen were fit representatives of the great interest then so lately established - the manufacture of textile fabries in New England.

Mr. Charles S. Storrow, at that time managing agent and engineer of the Boston and Lowell Railroad, acted as secretary for the pros- peeting band, here commeneing his first entries and disbursements in aid of Lawrence enterprises. After closing their inspection of the locality, and discussing, on the spot, the feasibility of plans, the party were driven to Lowell, where, at a rather late hour, they sat down to an excellent dinner, at the Merrimac House, provided by landlord Larrabee. "A dinner lubricates business," says an old writer, and the saying proved true in this case. 'An after-dinner talk resulted in the commencement of enterprises that have wrought a transformation seene upon the quiet plain. Without the active aid of capitalists and leading manufacturers, possessed of boldness, skill, and capacity, to champion the project, preliminary and experimental work already done would have been unavailing. In that after-dinner hour was taken the first decisive step leading to permanent organization and effectual work. Abbott Lawrence and John A. Lowell retired for a few minutes' consultation, and, returning, offered the water-power association, as a fair equivalent for all their acquired rights and inter- est, the sum of $30,000, in addition to the re-imbursement of all expenses previously incurred ; assuming also to carry out all agree- ments made by the associates for the purchase of lands and flowage rights already secured by bond, and to lead off in the organization of the Essex Company by large subscriptions to capital stock.

A proposition so definite, promising immediate organization of a powerful company, and commencement of active operations, with effi- eient leaders, was promptly accepted. Thus, on the day the Act was signed, before set of sun, steps had been taken by parties who har- bored no fear of failure, and took no backward course, which resulted in immediate operations as vigorous and unremitting as the inception was energetie and novel. The excursionists returned home hardly realizing that a eity had been born which would force products upon the world's markets, call laborers from among all civilized northern races, and work materials supplied from every quarter of the globe.

There may be no significance in the fact that this initial act in the founding of a city was done in the beatitude of an after- dinner rest, excepting that it might not have been done so promptly or so well, or done at all, before dinner. If, as a brilliant Frenchman once said, a plate of mushrooms, spoiling a king's digestion, changed the, destinies of Europe, may not this excellent repast have hastened the founding of a " city of labor"?

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Standard history of Essex county, Massachusetts, embracing a history of the county from its first settlement to the present time, with a history and description of its towns and cities. The Most historic county of America., Part 70

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett Number of Pages: 450

Author: Tracy, Cyrus M. (Cyrus Mason), 1824-1891, et al. Edited by H. Wheatland
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Boston, C. F. Jewett
Number of Pages: 450