USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Westborough > The history of Westborough, Massachusetts. Part I. The early history. By Heman Packard De Forest. Part II. The later history. By Edward Craig Bates > Part 14
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WESTBOROUGH, December ye 2, 1776.
To the town at their meeting by adjournment this day :
GENTELMEN, - This is to manifest my very hearty sympathy with you in the common Distresses and grievous Burdens of the present Dark Day : that I have fully performed, according to my utmost ability, all such duty as has been requested of me in my office, agreeably to my age and circumstances, so that I
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
have not knowingly given offence to any person ; and I am still ready to do and to bear, as God shall assist me, whatever may be in any Reason desired of me. I rely upon your justice and honor to afford me subsistence in your service, as is in all equity to be expected. But my brethren, the article of getting my wood is utterly beyond my power, and you was sensible of this from the beginning, and you gave me reason to depend on you for it. It is plain I must unavoidably suffer unless you will show so much compassion as to help me. I don't insist at all upon the manner of your doing it, so it be but just and equal and answer the end ; whatever you do about other things, there is neces- sity of getting the Wood, or your own selves and Familys will suffer loss.
I am, yours Affectionately,
E. PARKMAN.
The town should never have suffered such an appeal to be necessary. After fifty-two years of willing service, as his strength failed, he should have found a hundred hands to help in any need that beset him; but "repub- lics are ungrateful," and so, more to their shame, are parishes sometimes. The remembrance of the past goes for little when, for any reason, those services can be no longer rendered. The year following the town did better, and also in 1778 and 1779. In 1780, as we have seen, the depreciation of the currency was greatest, and the appropriations were munificent in appearance, though small enough in reality.
These were the darkest days; and singularly, as though Nature herself felt a throb of sympathy for her brave and suffering children, on the 19th of May came the " dark day" of which men and women spoke with bated breath for half a century afterward. Dr. Jeremy Bel- knap, of Boston, has left a good description of it in a letter to a friend. There had been some thunder in the
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THE "DARK DAY."
morning, and all the forenoon was cloudy, though the sun occasionally broke through. About ten or eleven o'clock the clouds assumed a yellowish hue, reflecting a yellow light on all objects. An hour later the light began to fail, and by one o'clock the darkness had become so great that candles were lighted, and kept burning all the afternoon, The atmosphere was not simply dark, says the letter, but seemed full of a vapor "like the smoke of a malt-house or a coal-kiln; " and there was a strong smell of smoke, as there had been for some days previous.
The phenomenon excited great awe and foreboding, and was commonly regarded as something supernatural. One good minister assured his people that it was noth- ing less than the "pillars of smoke," prophesied by Joel, which were to accompany the "turning of the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come." Others said it must be the pouring out of the seventh vial of the Apocalypse. Others still, desiring to be somewhat more scientific, said that the earth was passing through the tail of a comet, or that the nucleus of a comet had got between the earth and the sun, and caused an eclipse.
But Dr. Belknap, who was a man of keen observation in the phenomena of Nature, gives what is doubtless the true explanation, and his reasons for adopting it. For some time previous it had been unusually dry ; it was also the time of year when the farmers, breaking up new land, were in the habit of burning off the woods in order to plant corn. A vast cloud of smoke had thus been generated, which for several days had hung low, causing a strong smell of smoke, and specially notice- able at sunset, when the sun seemed to disappear in a dense bank half an hour before its setting. Some of the
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
swamps had been covered with a sort of thick scum; rain-water had been impregnated with smut; and every- thing pointed to the presence of a quantity of smoke, which, for atmospheric reasons, had not been blown away. On the day of the darkness the atmospheric con- ditions were such as to wrap this cloud of smoke thickly around this section of New England, and pack it close to the earth, so that all light must pass through it and take on a yellowish tinge. It is related that a woman in Middletown, Ct., began that day to iron her clothes, but found them looking so yellow that she put them away, intending to wash them over again; but on looking at other things, and finding them all in the same condition, saw that it was occasioned by the quality of the light. The smoke was less dense in that region, so that it was not dark, and the yellow quality of the light was more marked. Those of us who remember the "yellow day " in September, 1881, will see at once the identity of the phenomena.
In view of the current depression, a State fast was observed on the 20th of July. But the light was begin- ning to break through already. On the 14th of Decem- ber following, the first warrant was issued in the name of the " Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay ;" and on the 20th of the next February the form was changed to the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts." The war was approaching its close, -the town was classed for recruits for the last time Feb. 15, 1781. In October Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, and the result of the long struggle became assured. On the 13th of De- cember the thanksgiving day appointed by Congress was joyfully kept in Westborough, and an offering was made for the sufferers in the South.
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MR. PARKMAN'S LAST DAYS.
Mr. Parkman was beginning by this time to show unmistakable signs of breaking up. In September, 1781, he wrote in his Diary, "I am growing blind." He was obliged to add that it was sore times with him, -" My people have paid me no penny for fifteen months, and I know not what they will do." Both they and he were feeling the pinch of the times severely. There were, moreover, other than financial troubles. November 15th, Eben's son Elias died in hospital at Peekskill, aged twenty-four. It was all the men and women of that day could do to pull through to victory and peace; for the old pastor, bowed with his seventy-nine years, the strain was too great to rally from. On the 16th of June, 1782, he wrote in his Diary, " It is fifty-eight years since I gave my answer to ye Town's call to ye ministry." Few men have ever been able to write such a sentence as that. What a gulf of years lay between those records in his Diary! For the man, it spanned all the years be- tween the youth of twenty-one, fresh from his studies, preparing for his marriage and for the opening duties of his profession, to the old man of seventy-nine, - facul- ties failing, limbs growing weak and tottering, the whole of his life behind him. For the town, it covered the growth from the pioneer settlement, when Indians lurked in the woods, and the roads were unbroken, to the day of schools and comfortable homes and well-tilled farms and strong civic life, - from the ninth year of George the First to the twenty-second year of George the Third, and to the accomplished independence of these Colo- nies, which put an end to all the Georges and all kings whatsoever for this land thenceforth. When he came, Chauncy Village had but just been absorbed in the town of Westborough; it contained less than fifty families in
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
an area nearly twice as large as it has at present. He had seen it grow to double its population and divide into two, and the southern town become as large as both had been at the time of division. He had minis- tered in the first meeting-house during the whole of its existence, and in the new one until it had become too small, and had been enlarged and again overflowed. To the original thirteen members of his church he had added three hundred and eighty-one. He had baptized them all, married them all, and attended the funerals of those that had died. The whole life of the town was bound up with his life as it could never be again with the life of any one man. It owed to him more than it could ever again owe to any individual.
On the 29th of August, 1782, a fast was held, “on account," as the venerable man notes it in the church records, "of the continuance of the war, the Drought, the Increase of vice and wickedness, & ye sorrowful decay of Religion." It was the last time he ever officiated on a day of civil appointment. He was still preaching, ac- cording to his Diary, in the early part of September; but his last entry was made in the church records on the 27th of October, and on the 18th of November the town voted to procure some one to assist him in preach- ing for the winter, appropriating for the purpose the sum of £30. A vote was passed at the same meeting making an addition to his salary; but as the actual grant was not made until the March meeting, it availed him nothing, for before he could derive any benefit from it he had gone beyond the need of town-grants.
He died Dec. 9, 1782, aged seventy-nine years, three months, and four days; the funeral service was held on Monday, the 16th. The Rev. Mr. Bridge, of Sudbury,
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DEATH OF MR. PARKMAN.
preached the sermon from Psalm xii. I : "Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men."
Mr. Parkman leaves on the student of his life the im- pression of a good example of the New England min- ister of the olden time. The Rev. Elisha Rockwood says of him: " His preaching was evangelical, his deportment dignified, and in his daily intercourse with his people he was distinguished for dropping those words which are like apples of gold in pictures of silver." It is greatly to be regretted that no good portrait of him survives, to give us a clearer conception of the outward aspect of the man. His bearing was always in keeping with the honorable position he occupied. He magnified his calling, and was careful not to lower its dignity; but he was at the same time kindly and courteous. He was not one of the arrogant and lordly class, sometimes found at that day, whose pastoral sway was a rough dic- tatorship. He was, indeed, a bishop who believed that it was for the highest interest of his flock that they should be ruled, and he ruled them; but his sway was gentle and reasonable, and his assertion of his rights not so effectual as to prevent his suffering some inconvenience, and in his old age some actual want, through the neglect of those who were in duty bound to provide for his necessities. His life was that of a man of simple tastes and habits, interested in common things, rising with some difficulty, perhaps, to the broad sympathies which take in great affairs. The pages of his Diary are full of the lights and shadows of daily life, while pervaded by the sturdy and reverent faith of the men of his time. He communed with himself much; he trusted in God, and imparted his own religious devotion to his people. There
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
is abundant evidence of his high conscientiousness and his reverent piety. His theology was such as the age produced. It could not be broad, for breadth of culture was an impossibility; but neither was it bigoted or unin- telligent. And in his ideas of practical administration he was abreast of the most thoughtful men of his time, as his attitude in the excitements of 1740 shows. His long pastorate was of high service to the town, as well as to the kingdom of God in New England; and in its contrast to that which immediately followed, made the long-suffering people sigh for the good old times. Those who have followed in the succession during the hundred years that have supervened, have found no obstacles in their way of his raising, and have been honored by their connection with so worthy a man as Ebenezer Park- man. By his patient labors, in season and out of season, through times that tried men's souls, he and the men and women who toiled with him wrought out a noble beginning for those who came after him. It would be a fitting tribute to his worth, and a lasting stimulus to succeeding generations, if some suitable memorial of him were erected in the church and town he served so well. In a higher sense, the town of to-day is his memorial, and the memorial of all who, like him, laid good foundations in that early day against the time to come.
He was buried in the old cemetery, "and his tomb is with us unto this day." The inscription upon it is as follows : -
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INSCRIPTION ON MR. PARKMAN'S TOMB.
Here lies deposited the mortal part of that man of God the Rev. EBENEZER PARKMAN, A.M., Who was born Sept. 5, 1703 ; ordained the first Bishop of the Church in WESTBOROUGH, October 28th, 1724 ; and died on the 9th of December, 1782 : having completed the 79th year of his age on Sept. 16th, & the 58th year of his ministry on November 8th, preceding.
HE was formed by nature and education to be an able minister of the New-Testament, and obtained grace to be eminently faithful in the work of the Lord : HE was a firm friend to the faith, order, and constitution of the New-England Churches. HE was a learned, pious, good man, and full of the holy GHOST, & faith unfeigned ; and answered St. PAUL's description of a Scripture Bishop, being "blameless, vigilant, Sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, APT TO TEACH."
Be thou faithful unto the death, And I will give thee a Crown of life, Says Christ.
CHAPTER XIV.
1782-1800.
FROM THE DEATH OF MR. PARKMAN TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
T HE town was not ruined by the war, in spite of the hard drain upon it. According to Peter Whitney it had in 1791 a hundred and eighteen houses and nine hundred and thirty-four inhabitants; and the people were industrious and wealthy, according to his standard, “ as any one must naturally suppose from the appearance of their places and buildings." It is pleasant to know that Westborough's reputation for keeping its farms and build- ings in good order dates back so far. There were men here at this time who had accumulated wealth, lived in good houses, and kept a modest retinue of servants. Capt. Stephen Maynard was perhaps the wealthiest of all; he lived in the house on the Northborough road now occupied by B. J. Stone, was a very prominent figure in the town, and one of the leaders in military affairs. A great-granddaughter has written of him: --
" He was a rich old nabob and a stiff whig. He owned two negroes, a male and a female, man and wife, who had a child just about the age of Anne Brigham [a stepdaughter of Captain Maynard, who married the first Isaac Davis]. They were after- wards sold, and removed south ; and my grandmother [Mrs. Davis] said she could well remember their departure. She was very much attached to the daughter."
This is an interesting glimpse into the time, and makes us long for more. It is not impossible that the doughty
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PROMINENT MEN A CENTURY AGO.
captain was not altogether in sympathy with the appeal of those rank abolitionists of that early time, the Rev. Messrs. Stiles and Hopkins, when they came to West- borough in 1776 to raise money for their negro colony in Annamabo, Africa. But slaves were no novelty in New England at that day. Mr. Parkman had one himself, whom he brought from Boston ;1 Mr. James Bowman is known to have owned one; and there are traditions of others.
There were other prominent men here in those days, of whom we can obtain only a glimpse, - Phineas Hardy, whose name heads the list of signers of the reply to the Committee of Correspondence; Capt. Nathan Fisher, who was delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1779, and representative for many years ; Dr. James Hawes, who was always wanted for committees and important posi- tions; Lieut. Moses Wheelock, who rose to be Colonel Wheelock, and was a man of much force. These and many others gave character to the town, which at that time occupied an honorable place in the county. Every one knows the small marble slab which stands by the road- side, on the way to Shrewsbury, just beyond the house of the late George Davis. It bears this inscription : "Capt. Bezaleel Eager was killed on this spot Oct. 31, 1787, aged 74. Erected by I. Davis." One day in 1874 I found in the Worcester Library an old copy of a mag- azine published in Worcester in 1787 by Isaiah Thomas, then the only newspaper of the region, which contained the following item from Northborough : -
1 This slave was named Maro, and was purchased of Mr. Parkman's father in Boston- in 1728 for the sum of £74. Mr. Parkman made the journey home on horseback, the negro running behind. A little more than a year afterward he wrote in his Journal that Maro was very ill, -at the point of death; and the next day made the following unique record : "Dark as it has been with us, it became much darker about the sun-setting : the Sun of Maro's life Sat."
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
" Died at Northboro' Oct. 31, very suddenly, in the 74th year of his age, Capt. Bezaleel Eager, formerly a representative for the town of Westborough in the General Court. He was a per- son well known, and as well respected, and his death is much lamented. He was a sensible, honest, worthy man, and has left behind him a fair character and a good name.
"The manner of his death was as follows: retiring from a lecture [held in the house which stood just this side of the stone above mentioned], he mounted his horse in the view of a number of people ; but not being properly seated, and not having full possession of the bridle - as was supposed -his horse, lively and gay, immediately set out upon a run, and threw him against a stone wall, whereby his brains were instantly dashed out, perhaps not more than twenty rods from where he first mounted. Several persons ran to him as he fell, but discovered not the least sign of life in him, except the motion of the lungs, which continued nearly an hour ; and then he ex- pired, - probably without any sense of pain, as it was without the least motion of any limb or part of the body."
So one of the heroes of the Revolution escaped the perils of war, to die by an accident at home.
Meantime there was a boy growing up on one of the hills just southwest of the village who was to make a reputation for himself that would be national. Born in the same year that saw the rising indignation over the Stamp Act, and ten years old when the war began, Eli Whitney was now making the beginning of his higher education, and was off to Yale College in 1788. In ten years more, at the age of thirty-three, he had made his cotton-gin invention; and having given up the useless task of trying to reap the profit of it, was making a contract with the Government for firearms, and laying the foun- dation of the prosperous factories at Whitneyville.
The disposal of the " ministerial farm " of 1710, which
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THE MINISTERIAL FARM.
was now the joint property of Westborough and North- borough, had for some time been a question of consider- able perplexity. Northborough was disposed to claim a part of it for its own minister; and in September, 1768, the selectmen were directed to inquire "whether the min- ister in Northborough has any right to the ministerial land in Westborough." At the March meeting in 1770 a committee was appointed to survey the land, - doubt- less with the idea that it might some day be sold; and this committee made report to the town, May 21, as follows : -
" The Line next to Fessenden's is 108 rods in Length, but by the old plan is set down 80; ye Southwest angle by the old plan is 24 Rods, but by our Messuer turns out but 14 Rods ; the South next to Beaton's and Burns' is set down in the old plan 80 Rods, and we find by the Chan it is 96 Rods. The Easte Line Towards ye South Easte corner by the old plan is 48 Rods, by our Measuer is 53 Rods ; the other three angles agree nearly with the old Plan ; the North Line, called by the old Plan 56 Rods, but will not hold out but 30 rods and a half : so we find but 32 acers and 16 rod in the whole."
This was the measurement of the section west of Chauncy Pond, which was called in the original grant from the Proprietors of Marlborough "forty acres of upland and swamp;" there was also the ten-acre meadow lot near Hobomoc Pond.
We hear nothing more of this land until 1782, when action is taken twice, in January and December, by the appointment of committees to confer with Northborough in regard to its equitable division. Nothing is, however, accomplished until Jan. 12, 1784, when the sale is actually made, and the first and larger lot goes to Jacob Broaders, and the other to Thaddeus Fay. The proceeds were of
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
course divided between the two towns, and that which fell to Westborough was set apart under the name of the " Parsonage Fund," and the income of it applied to the support of preaching. In August of the same year the town voted to buy some land around the meeting- house from the heirs of Mr. Parkman, in order to en- large the common. It was bought for twenty-three dollars an acre, and a wall was built around the common, three and a half feet wide at the base, and four feet and four inches high. A little later there was a grant of land for sheds near the meeting-house.
There is little else on record concerning the life of the town for some time, except in matters ecclesiastical. There was a vote at the March meeting in 1786 to dispose of the paper money in the treasurer's office at the rate of 4s. per $100, - which shows the sad fate which be- falls an inflated currency. In December, 1787, the insur- gents in what was called "Shays's Rebellion " made an outbreak at Worcester and at Springfield. Westborough passed a vote disapproving of the measures taken by them, as it had in 1765 expressed its disapprobation of the " Rioatous Assemblies and unlawful acts of Violence " in connection with the Stamp Act. The town had so well imbibed the true idea of free civil government that while it was willing to sacrifice to the utmost for civil liberty, it would countenance nothing unlawful or disorderly, even in the name of liberty. No higher praise than this could be given to any civil body.
In 1785 the growth of the town required a new adjust- ment of the school districts. In 1742 there had been apparently but three districts in the whole town, which at that time included Northborough. Then came the long period of uncertainties, resulting in the division of
. .
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OLD SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
the town. In 1765 the first effort had been made to " squadron " the town, and the system then adopted had lasted essentially for the twenty years following. But at this time the matter was taken up again, and numerous town meetings were held before any agreement could be reached, on account of the conflicting interests of differ- ent sections and families. A good many wished to have nine squadrons, and it was only by a small majority that it was at last voted to have six, as follows: No. I, in the centre; No. 2, westerly, toward Grafton; No. 3, easterly, toward Marlborough ; No. 4, northerly; No. 5, south- erly, toward Upton; No. 6, the "Flanders road." The only real change effected by this action was the separa- tion of the Flanders from the east squadron, to be a district by itself. But in 1789 a new division was made, resulting in what was essentially the district system, which has survived to the present generation A few changes were made in 1836, but they were unimportant.
Inasmuch as the report of the squadroning committee of 1789 contains a complete list of the families in town at the time, as well as the situation of the several school- houses, it is herewith subjoined.
REPORT OF COMMITTEE CHOSEN TO SQUADRON OUT THE TOWN.
The Report of ye above Committee is as follows ; viz. -
GENTLEMEN, - We your Committee have attended the Busi- ness for which we weare appointed, and after considering the Situation of our inhabitants have divided them out into Squad- rons as within mentioned, & pitched upon places for the School Houses to stand on in each squadron unless any squadron shall agree to sett them other where ; also that the money which shall be granted for Schooling be Divided According to the Number of Families in each squadron, & that Flander Squadron so called, remain as they are.
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EARLY HISTORY OF WESTBOROUGH.
FIRST SQUADRON.
Joseph Baker, Esq.
William Wood.
John Baker.
Capt. Daniel Reed.
Col. Nathan Fisher.
Col. Moses Wheelock.
Dea. Benjamin Wood.
Isaac Ruggles.
James Hawes, Esq.
Ebenezer Gay.
Stephen Maynard.
Doct. David Taintor.
Elijah Brigham.
Breck Parkman.
Oliver Nason.
The school house to stand between the meeting house & Doct. Taintor's on the south side of the road.
SECOND SQUADRON.
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