USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Holden > The history of Holden, Massachusetts. 1684-1894 > Part 30
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I3
00
To one Shovel and two Forkes
00
06
00
To Two Axes and two Sawes
OI
02
00
To Square and other Carpenter Tooles
00
09
00
1
400
HISTORY OF HOLDEN.
roads had been laid out. The town property consisted of the new meeting-house, destitute of pulpit, pew and even floor, which indeed was still in the hands of the proprietors, and was not surrendered till some time after.1 It was thus, rich only
To three Sythes and three hoanes
00
07
00
To Beetel-ring, wedges and old Irion
00
IO
00
To Grane
03
06
00
To Hand-Irions fireslice Tongs and Troimels
OI
04
00
To Iron pott kittels Skillite and frying-pan
00
12
00
To Warming-pan candel-stick Box-Iron and Skimer
00
05
00
To Puter wessels and Wooden-Ware
OI
16
00
To two Beds and Bedsteds and their furniture
04
00
00
To two Beds more and their furniture
04
14
00
To Linen and Flax
01
10
00
To Chestes and Tables
00
12
00
To one Loom one Slay and two Spining wheels
OI
07
00
To Chaiers dri cask Sider bariels and Indore lumber OI
05
00
To one Dri Hide
00
06
00
To one Large Ioron Kettel
00
08
00
To Hooseing and Land and Pue in the meeting House
460
00
00
£
S.
d.
Sum Total
552
13
00
l "at a meeting of the Proprietors of Holden by an adjournment at the Light house Tavern, Boston, augt 14: 1744
" at said meeting the following report was made & accepted
In observance to a vote of the Proprietors of Holden at their meeting at the Light house Tavern in King street Boston upon tuseday the 17th day of April last, we accordingly attended upon the affair Submitted to us by said Proprietors & went to Holden and there mett together the second tuseday of June Instant and took a view of the meeting house built in said Town by the said Proprietors, and heard what the Inhabitants had to say respecting the finishing the same and makeing & Disposing of pews in said house-and are of opinion that the said Proprietors be at the Charge of finishing said House so far as may be Necessary for the accommodation of the Present Inhabitants and that Sundry pewes are alredy Built and more are required to be built in said meeting House for the accommodation of those that de- sire Pew's Evento the Number of twenty-Two takeing in the Two hind seats for the doing that Number, Reserving to som of the Non resident Pro- prietors Two three, or not more than four of said Pews, & one for the Min- istry, and the remainder to the Present Inhabitants. & are further of opinion that the Proprietors should pay to the Inhabitants the Charge they have been at in building the pulpitt, & the Body of Seats be low and that Each person that shall have a Pew, be at the Charge of Building it, & Cielling it up to the Girt, Exept the Charg of the Pew to the Ministry, and we are fur-
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in the empty but strong hands, and full and strong hearts of its citizens, that Holden began as Holden, a century and a half ago.
Before we turn away from the obscure records of the earliest years, interesting and important so far as they have been pre- served, it remains to notice and name two of the worthies of that day. For eighteen years, from 1725 to 1743, Colonel Adam Winthrop was Moderator of all the meetings of the proprietors. Holden, as well as Worcester, profited much in those days by his enterprise and sagacity. As a mark of their grateful respect, he was allowed in the first, the second, and the third divisions of land, his first choice of land. He well deserves what Dr. Damon said of him fifty years ago, " He emphatically may be called a father of the town." Mention must also be made of him for whom the town was named, the Hon. Samuel Holden, who was a prince among London mer- chants, a director of the Bank of England, and a member of Parliament, an earnest Christian man and a leader in Christian beneficence,1 who was the architect of his own fortune, and
ther of opinion that when that said meeting house is finished, and the pews disposed of that the Proprietors then Resign up the said Meeting house to the Inhabitants of said Town they submitting themselves to the votes of the Proprietors and Further that if the Proprietors accept of what is a bove proposed that then we or som other comtee, they shall appoint pro- ceed to the disposal of said Pews all which is humbly submitted," Pro- prietors' Records.
1 "BUT give me leave to rejoice in the distinguishing Honours of Providence and Grace to the Deceased Mr. HOLDEN, that he seem'd to be one of the Ser- vants with five Talents ; in as much as it pleased GOD in his early Youth to fix him (as he once wrote to me) in those Principles and Inclinations which rul'd in him thro' his Life; and then being rais'd to great Riches, and endued with uncommon Powers of Mind, and his Integrity with his Capacity being manifest to all about him, together with his Diligence in Business which renders one fit to Stand before Princes ; the eyes of City and Court also were in time set upon him, his Honesty and Prudence commanding their Esteem ; and so he came to shine not only at the Head of the DISSENTERS, that great and good Body both in the British Church and State; but also at the Head of the Bank of England, and on these Accounts (as I have heard) was even courted and constrained by the MINISTRY into a Seat in Parliament ! And now the Wonder of Grace to him and in him was, that amidst so many and great Avocation and Incumbrances from the World, the Snares and
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who gave as grandly as he accumulated ; whose benefactions, together with those of his family, to college and church in the New World amounted to no less than £10,000. May Holden ever be worthy of the honored name which she bears.
Town officers were elected on the 4th of May, 1741, and two weeks later was held the first meeting for the transaction of town business. The records deserve to be read in full.
" Att a Genaral meeting of ye Inhabitance of ye Town of Holden on ye nine teenth Day of may Anna Domani 1741 Leagaly Assem- bleyed.
Mr Simon Davis was Chose a moderator for this meeting
"(I) voted to have ye Gospel preached in Sd Town
"(2) voted to have ye Gospel Preached for Six Sabaths forward after the next Sabbeth.
"(3) voted that Samuel Peirce Willam Nickels and Thomas Mcmollen be a Committe to provide a minister and a place for his Entertainment
"(4) voted to haue a wrigting and reading Schoole kept in Sd Town voted to have it Three months to begin att the first of Sep- tember next the parsons hereafter named ware Chosen a Committe to provide a School master viz Cyprian Stevens and Samvel Thomson
"(5) voted to build a Surficant pound in Sd Town voted that all parsons in Sd Town come to the age of Sixteen years shall attend the work of erecting Sd pound on the Twenty fifth Day of this Instant may or pay ten Shilings per man
"(6) voted that fifty pounds Shall be Raised to Defray Charg of preaching and Schooling
"This meeting is solved " .
Thus simply and grandly did the fathers lift the burdens which incorporation laid upon them. As. it is well expressed
Temptations of so many of its Glories ; his Eyes were not dazled with its glittering shows, nor his Heart taken off, but the rather the more settled on the infinitely greater and eternal Blessedness of Heaven; the care of his own Soul, the temporal and spiritual Good of Mankind as far as his Influence could reach ; that hereby he might please, honour and glorify GOD in his Generation, maintain a Life of communion with Him and Devotedness to Him, and make to himself Friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness, that at Death he might be received into Mansions of Light, and everlasting Hab- itations." Sermon of Dr. Benjamin Colman before the General Court, p. 3.
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in the hymn, which, written for the celebration fifty years ago, we have just made a part of ours to-day,
" First in their noble thoughts and plans, The love and worship, Lord, of Thee ; Then, the strong training of their youth The love of Man and Liberty."
As soon as possible a church was organized, with fourteen constituent members, all of whom were men, and the same day, December 22d, 1742, Rev. Joseph Davis, a son of Lieutenant Simon Davis, was ordained as the first pastor of the young church and town. The meeting-house was then completed ;1 schools were kept year after year in different parts of the town, wherever room could be found for them, and road mak- ing was carried forward as rapidly as possible.
The one hundred and fifty years of our history as a town very naturally fall into six periods, each of twenty-five years. Within the borders of the town, one of the most memorable events of the first quarter-century was the earthquake of 1755, the effects of which were quite widely felt, but were nowhere more marked than in Holden, chiefly in that district later set off to form the town of West Boylston. At the time Rev. Mr. Mellen, pastor in Lancaster, says that several acres of land were " quite surrounded by a visible fracture in the earth, of a circular form, of various width and depth," and vividly describes the effects especially upon the trees .? It is said that
1 May 24th, 1743, the town " voted that there be a desent pue built att ye cost and charge of ye Town at ye west end of ye meeting house next to ye pulpet Stares and to be for ministral use."
2 " At the north east corner of the town of Holden, in a low obscure place, there are several acres of land quite surrounded by a visible FRACTURE in the earth, of a circular form; and of various width and depth.
"A small rocky river is upon the north, and other-ways chiefly covered by a steep hill, set with thick wood.
" The breach upon the hilly sides is upon the declivity of the hill, and is a perpendicular sinking of the ground, in some places more than the heighth of a inan, but without any present opening.
" The trees on each side of the breach by this means, being thrown into various directions, and sometimes crossing one another, over head at right angles, sometimes thrown out by the roots.
" Upon the less uneven land is now a rupture of different dimensions, not
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HISTORY OF HOLDEN.
the marks of this convulsion may still be traced. Twice dur- ing this period the little town was desolated by sickness, in 1749 twenty-two dying, and then in 1756 a pestilence break- ing out here, which caused the death of forty-five persons, almost one-tenth of the population, and then spread to other towns with consequences as lamentable.
As regards matters beyond our own borders, the citizens of Holden shared in the courageous and patient endeavors of the New Englanders against Louisburg and in the French and Indian war. Edward Everett says that the people of Massachu- setts, between 1755 and 1763, "performed an amount of mili- tary service, probably never exacted of any other people, living under a government professing to be free." Careful estimates show that the thirty thousand population of this county sent nine thousand men into the war ; our mother town, from four- teen hundred inhabitants sent five hundred. Though in conse- quence of the incompleteness of the muster rolls, the names of only twenty of those who went from a little community of less
very deep or yawning, but sometimes dividing it self into two, and fre- quently emitting cracks to some distance from its main body; the ground being thereby very much broken into pieces, and some large masses intirely dis-joined from the rest.
"Upon the River side it is easy to see where the rupture was, but at pres- ent there is no opening, only a sand that seems to have been thrown out, and a great dislocation of the stones of vast bigness in the channel, The old channel is indeed in great measure block'd up, and seems to be rais'd something answerable to the sinking of the land at the hill, and causes a considerable fall of the water where it is said there us'd to be little or none : and this is not improbable from circumstances which seem to demonstrate that this whole body of earth when torn from the hill, was push'd several feet towards the River.
" The stump of a tree that happened to stand directly over the chasm, on the east, is divided into two equal parts, one standing upon the outside of the chasm, the other upon the inside, but not opposite to each other, the half within the chasm being carried five feet forward towards the River.
"A large log also that crosses the breach upon the same side, is dislodged from its ancient bed at the end lying without the chasm, but retains its former situation within. The same thing is seen in the roots of a tree that is turned up in the chasm upon the opposite side to the west.
"Some trees that stood upon the margin of the river tumbled into it and notwithstanding the large quantity of earth hanging to their roots, the
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than five hundred, have been preserved, yet we do not fear that Holden fell behind her sister towns in faithfulness and valor. We know of at least one, Sergeant Ephraim Bennett, who died in actual service on the Crown Point expedition in 1755.
In the second quarter-century of our history, the Rev- olution came, and men found profit even in the sacrifices and the losses, which the colonies had borne. These hardships had trained heroes, who could wrest liberty even from England herself. In 1768 Mr. Davis records the observance by the church of "a day of Fasting and Prayer on account of the Aspects of divine Providence in our public affairs." But prayer could not avert the storm. Peace could come only by the sword, liberty by Revolution.
The temper of our citizens in this crisis is displayed in the following resolutions, two out of fourteen which were drawn up and passed in response to a pamphlet from Boston contain- ing resolutions and an appeal.
"(1) Resolved that Liberty both Religious & Civil is a most Precious and Enestimable Gift of the Great & Glorious Creator of
place from which it was taken is not left void, but the earth behind has come forward and clos'd up the breach. The turf also at the channel, is in some places doubled over and crowded together.
"I very lately saw this remarkable place, with a view at publishing the account of it here. It has been seen by many people, and some of them per- sons of some distinction.
" It seems probable that the eruption and swelling was greater at the River than in any other part; which may possibly account in some measure for the descent of the other land that way, which in the general lay a little higher : and this might help to continue the channel in its rais'd situation.
" I observ'd upon a little hillock not far from the center of the circumfer- ence, a small quantity of fine sand spread upon the leaves, which seem'd to be spewed out of the earth, and a little spring to appearance of a strong mineral tincture, ouzing thro' it, and falling down its sides.
"Had only such a rupture as this happened in a place inhabited and set with houses, the terrible effects of it are not hard to conceive. And it ought to be improv'd as an admonition to thankfulness, and readiness for such a like event."
A Sermon Delivered June 16, 1756. At the Second Parish in Lancaster. By JOHN MELLEN, A. M., Pastor of the Church of Christ there, Boston : 1756, pp. 8-1I.
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all things granted to all Rational Creatures : neither can any Person or Persons innocently give or Sell it away from himself any more than he can take it from another
"(2dly) If any have been so unhappy as to Surrender their Liberty such Act of theirs Cannot induce any Moral Obligation of Servitude on them Personally Espicially ; if they were Enslaved by irresistable Power : surely then it Cannot reasonably bind their Successors in every future Generation ""
Our fathers, however, were not ready to make universal application of the principles which they so forcibly stated. The following paper, executed a year and a half before the reso- lutions which I have just read, but not recorded until four years after their date, seems not without interest and per- tinency.
" Know all Men by these presents that I, Joseph Harrington of Weston, in the County of Middlesex in the province of Massachu- setts Bay in New England Gent" for & in Consideration of Fifty Pounds Lawfull Money of the Province aforesaid, to me in hand paid by Nathan Harrington of Holden in ye County of Worcester, Yeo- man, the Receipt whereof I do Acknowledge & myself therewith fully & intirely Satisfied, have Bargained, Sold Set over & delivered & do by these Presents according to Law Bargain Sell Set over & deliver unto the Said Nathan Harrington a Negro Man named Bos- ton, about Twenty Five years of Age, to have & to Hold to the Proper use and behoof of him the Said Nathan Harrington,"
and so on to the end of legal verbage. There is every reason to suppose that poor Boston was serving in Holden' while the citizens were declaring and declaiming in favor of liberty, and they may every one of them have been utterly unconscious of the inconsistency. But liberty fought out brought yet wider liberty in its train, till at last it has been proclaimed to all the inhabitants of the land.
What the men of Holden voted for, they were ready to fight for. The researches of Dr. Damon gathered the names
1 In 1765 there were two negroes in town. In 1777 the tax levied on the Negro named Pole was abated; the latter was a member of the church in 1743.
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of thirty-five who served in the Continental Army, and of forty more who went out as militia men. One in every ten of the total population bore arms in the cause of freedom. Thomas Heard was killed in warfare near Saratoga, Moses Wheeler and Jeremiah Fuller died amid the agony of Valley Forge. The only commissioned officer from Holden in the Continental Army, Captain George Webb, received the high but deserved honor of a special letter of thanks from General Lafayette.
Scarcely less interesting is the story of the struggles of those who remained at home to meet the requisitions so often made upon them. Bounties were voted to volunteers, large quantities of beef were called for and sent to feed the army, clothing and blankets were gathered up from the homes of the people, doubtless leaving many a household destitute of needed comforts, for freedom's sake.
It may also be noted that in the long days of the struggle Holden involuntarily became a refuge for the Tories, who fled in needless fear from Worcester and fortified themselves for a time on Stone House Hill, and that amid the distresses of debt and disaster which followed the war, scarcely less dreadful than war itself, some of the citizens of Holden sympathized with the movement known as Shays' Rebellion, and a few actually joined the Regulators.
In January, 1773, after one month more than thirty years of pastoral service, Rev. Joseph Davis, at his own request, was dismissed from his office, although he continued to reside here, serving in the work of the ministry as occasion offered until his death in 1799, at the age of seventy-nine years. After an interval of about two years, Rev. Joseph Avery was ordained as pastor, to hold the office nearly fifty years.
The closing event of the first half-century of our history was the building of a new meeting-house, on the lot given to the Town for public uses by John Hancock in 1789. When this period closed, Holden had a population of about eleven hundred. The valuation was thirty-five thousand pounds, and the appropriations were one hundred and thirty pounds for highways, seventy pounds for schools and sixty pounds for
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HISTORY OF HOLDEN.
necessary charges, aside from the usual salary of Mr. Avery, sixty-six pounds, thirteen shillings and four pence, which would make the rate of taxation $7.45 on the $1,000. At this time, however, highway taxes were worked out at the rate of four shillings per day for a man, and two shillings for a yoke of oxen with plough or cart. It may be noted in passing that all taxes were reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence till 1797, and highway taxes were not reckoned in dollars and cents till 1806.
The second quarter-century closed with the building of a new meeting-house, the third period began with school-house building. The town set apart four hundred pounds, and soon almost all the districts or "squadrons," as they were then called, were supplied with buildings commodious and convenient for the times.
During this period the old church had remarkable quicken- ing and growth. The closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth were an era of wide- spread irreligion and immorality. For fifty years the church had scarcely received on an average one male member a year. From 1801 to 1808 not one was received. The first religious revival which had ever touched the town brought nearly ninety members into the church in 1809. The Baptist Church was organized in 1807, and grew steadily amid this revival spirit. There were, however, serious ecclesiastical difficulties during this period. Not long before 1800, the introduction of instru- ments of music into the choir roused an antagonism, which it required all Mr. Avery's skill to quiet. Still more important were the questionings and controversies, contemporaneous with the rise of the Unitarian denomination. The deepening religious spirit of many on the one hand, the increasingly "liberal" temper of many on the other hand were elements hard to hold in combination. Only such patience, tact and wisdom as Mr. Avery had and used, could have prevented the old church from being rent in twain, as were so many of the old churches of the Commonwealth. It would be very interest- ing to study the articles of faith which he drew up for the
THE STORY RETOLD. 409
church in 1811, but unfortunately they had already been lost half a century ago.
This third period closes with the distressful years before and during the war of 1812. From the policy of the nation at that time, Holden suffered like all of New England. Against it Holden used to the utmost its voice and vote. In July, 1812, the town adopted a petition to Congress against the declaration of war, drawn by a committee of which Rev. Mr. Avery was chairman (as he usually was when important papers were to be drawn), and in the elections which followed, for Representative in Congress, President and Governor respectively, only eleven Democratic votes were cast, as against one hundred and ninety-five Federalist votes for Gov- ernor. How many of our citizens actually served as soldiers, we do not know, but in 1815 the town voted " to give the three men that went on government service eight dollars per month to each of them."
This closes perhaps the most troublous period in our annals. During most of this period there was no growth or develop- ment of the town. In 1810, the population (one thousand sev- enty-two) was actually less than twenty years before. In 1809, however, was begun at Unionville, by Eleazer Rider & Sons, the manufacturing of cotton yarn, almost the first business of the kind in all Worcester County, the dawn of our bright industrial day.
Passing now from the half of our history, in which the his- torian is dependent on brief records and meagre tradition, to the half which lies within the knowledge and memory of not a few who hear me, we may well pause for a moment to consider the work and worth of those who were, in a pre-eminent sense, the makers of this town, and in their own sphere and propor- tion, the makers of the Commonwealth and of the nation. A vast amount of labor was performed in the first half of our history. To all who live here now, may be said, " Other men labored, and ye have entered into their labors." The pioneers of Massachusetts had not, like the pioneers of the New West, the momentum of a great nation and of an over-
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HISTORY OF HOLDEN.
flowing continent, and the accumulation of centuries to aid them. With little equipment beyond his axe, his plough and his strong hands, the settler struggled with the wilderness ; cleared away the forest ; erected his simple cottage which affection, intelligence and piety made a home, better than which, in all essentials, the world has never seen; fought the wolf, the crow and the rattlesnake;1 forced the coy earth to yield the corn and the flax, from which the housewife, a help for him, meet to share alike his labors and his honors, wrought food and clothing ; built roads ; bound every stream to a saw, and made it, like Samson, to grind in a mill; receiving with meekness the word of God's minister, yet blazed his own path through the mysteries alike of theology and of statecraft ; and, under the influence of the New England home, the New Eng- land school-house, and the New England church, trained up a generation, likewise industrious, liberty-loving and God-fearing. Was not this a task for heroes, and were they not heroes, who wrought it so well in Holden ? In the words of the honored man, who half a century ago in this very place so impressively told their story, " Honest, intelligent, industrious and religious ancestors are among the richest of Heaven's blessings to any people. Citizens of Holden, God has bestowed upon you that inestimable blessing. The wise man hath well observed, 'The glory of children are their fathers.'" .
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