USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Winthrop > The history of Winthrop, Massachusetts ; 1630-1952 > Part 16
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There were many customs of old times which persisted into mid-century days, although never heard about in modern times. One was the Election Day Shoot. At the time there were many robins, blackbirds, swallows and other song birds now few but very happily protected by law. In those days, despite the wee size of the songsters, and their beauty, it was the custom to shoot them for food. Probably the tiny bodies, plucked and cleaned, were baked in a pie. Anyhow, on Election Day many Winthrop men took their shot guns and killed as many birds as they could possibly find. It should be noted that this was not the real Elec- tion Day but the day of the drum-head election of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company on Boston Common in May. When the day ended, the weary Winthrop hunters trudged home with or without their bags of birds and their wives served them as a special Election Day pie with supper. Apparently not too many birds were slaughtered, for the outing was a sort of con- vivial affair, frowned upon by the staid and sober. This was be- fore the days of the Audubon Society.
The other old custom, apparently of French Canadian back- ground, was the chivare. Whenever a bridal couple retired for their wedding night, it was the habit for their friends to surround the house silently and then, at a signal, break out with as much noise as possible-bells, horns, dishpans, drums, shot- guns-whatever would make as much racket as possible was
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used. After the serenade was carried along to the point of ex- haustion, the celebrants would knock at the door and demand entrance. Inside, hardly to their surprise, they found refresh- ments waiting, and much of the night was spent in proper cele- bration. This custom has been unknown in town for many years.
Although it seems unlikely today, Winthrop was once the home port of a number of small ships, such as schooners, which spent much of the year in trading and carrying up and down the New England coast. In winter, these little ships commonly ran ashore at Thornton Station and spent the winter on the soft bottom there. Captain Lucius Floyd of the Malvena reported his fellow captains and their ships as including: Captain George W. Tewksbury of the Ant, Captain Josiah Floyd of the Hershel, Captain Lorenzo C. Tewksbury of the Marion, Captain Harry Pierce of the Quickstep, and Captain Henry Tewksbury of the Irene.
Sand and gravel formed an important product which was "exported" from Winthrop in mid century days, particularly. The small schooners (and later scows which were moved about by steam tugs) came into Winthrop and, run ashore at high tide, loaded their holds with sand and gravel at low tide. The present muddy harbor bottom gives no hint of the fine and clean sand and gravel which once covered the harbor flats. Just so, the present, polluted waters give no idea of the sparkling and crystal- clear tide which once flooded in to fill our shores twice daily. At one time, Captain Lucius Floyd reported, he saw twenty gravel boats ashore at Winthrop loading gravel, mostly for Bos- ton. Much of this gravel was removed from between Thornton and Sunnyside and Snake Island. Before that, cows often walked across to Snake Island to graze on the lush grasses then growing there. Now the bottom is covered ankle deep in slime and silt, largely from the filling in of the East Boston Air Port.
Education consumed a large part of the town's annual budget in the early days, just as it does now. Then teachers received the large salary of about $4.75 a week-but then a man who received a dollar a day from dawn to dark considered him- self well paid and many men worked for 50 cents or 75 cents a day at ordinary labor, and brought up families on that wage, too. The two teachers when Winthrop became a town were Miss Sarah Underhill at the Center and Miss Harriet N. Copeland at the Point. Other teachers, who followed these two, included : at the Center, Lucy Bartlett, Dianthe T. Heath, and Augusta Wilson, and at the Point, Miss Marcia Barett. Another early teacher was Mary Priscilla Ryder who taught at the Center between 1855 and 1857 and then resigned to marry Sidney Griffin. She became the author of a little Winthrop History
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ABOUT 1880. View of Old Town Hall looking west across Columbia (now Metcalf ) Square, showing band stand. Pauline St. on the right. The building on the left is the rear of the Burrill homestead which faced what is now Fremont St.
30 MAY 1910. Memorial Day observance on Library grounds looking toward the old Town Hall and Civil War monument. The latter was moved to its present site on Hermon St. front at a later date.
"Winthrop Days", from which the writer has borrowed abun- dantly.
The school committee in 1856 was Daniel Long, David Floyd and Isaac C. Hall. This committee distinguished itself by build- ing a new school at Point Shirley at a cost of $635.86 and by hir- ing a man teacher, Nahum W. Smith. It seems it was felt that a man was needed to properly discipline some of the older boys! This year there were 54 regular pupils in the two rooms on the first floor of the new town hall and 18 at the Point. During the next few years teachers came and went in rather unpleasing numbers. The School Committee issued a statement regretting the too frequent changes in personnel and the parents spoke about the situation in Town Meeting-but the changes in teach- ers continued. Late in 1860 Samuel Wiggin became a teacher and conditions especially in respect to discipline, greatly im- proved. Unfortunately he stayed but a year and was followed by Mrs. O. M. Blodgett, who was also a stern disciplinarian. Probably the good woman would be mortified could she know that her immortality today rests upon a couplet coined by one of her students :
"Here I stand before Miss Blodgett. She's going to strike but I will dodge it."
Meanwhile the dark threat of the Civil War was looming ever blacker. Winthrop, like all New England towns of moder- ate circumstances, was brimmed with both men and women of ardent abolitionist sentiments. For the time temperance was side-tracked as a political issue and all good people joined in denouncing slavery. Doubtless, no one anywhere in the North considered that the South would secede; everyone believed that slavery could be ended by legislation-as it had been wiped out peacefully long before by the British Empire. But, when Fort Sumter was fired upon and the Stars and stripes hauled down in April of 1861, then Winthrop, like all other towns rolled up its sleeves, determined to support President Lincoln in "preserving the Union".
Locally, the war was in part very beneficial, for the need for copper started a great boom in the copper works at Point Shirley. The great furnaces smoked furiously and were shut down, for over-haul, only every 14th day. The men employed worked so hard that they found it difficult, or their families did, to obtain supplies and so the custom grew up of vendors coming into town with wagons loaded with provisions and supplies of all kinds. These vendors also served all Winthrop homes as they made their creaking way to and from the Point.
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Two of these vendors were outstanding because of their eccentricities. One was a Mrs. Croak. Perhaps this was her real name, perhaps not. Anyhow she possessed a voice of some harshness and marked masculinity which reverberated along the streets in rather an unpleasant fashion as she hawked her wares vociferously. It was alleged by the uncharitable that at times Mrs. Croak was the victim of indulgence in alcoholic beverages. Perhaps that explained her deep, husky voice.
The other conspicious vender, despite Winthrop's strictly enforced temperance, appeared now and then at the Point with a wagon with a large barrel on the back. This barrel had a faucet or spigot in place and it is reported that this vendor, "OId Man Mackin", did a thriving business at the Point where the workers at the furnaces commonly suffered from parched throats. For regular groceries, Winthrop depended upon Long & John- son, General Store, situated at about where the Catholic Church is now.
One of the conspicuous characters of the day was Captain William Tewksbury. He cultivated a dairy farm on Deer Island and his residence there brought him fame as a life-saver for ships were being wrecked on the Island now and then, and amateurs in small boats were always getting themselves into trouble, then as now. He received the medal of the Massachu- setts Humane Society for saving the lives of seven men in 1817. It has been passed down through the family as one of its most cherished possessions and is now in the possession of Mrs. Florence Tewksbury Crosby.
Captain Tewksbury labored under some difficulty in his agri- cultural operations. His cows were on Deer Island, his milk customers were in Winthrop and in East Boston. So, he had to ferry his milk across the Gut, load up his wagon there, hitch the team of horses he maintained on the mainland and then de- liver his milk. Few dairymen, it is believed, employ a rowboat as part of their standard equipment.
Because of Winthrop's relatively small population, in the Civil War, the town, according to official records kept at the State House ". .. furnished 72 men ... which was a surplus of eight over and above all demands. The whole amount of money expended by the town on account of the war, exclusive of state aid, was $10,744."
Heading the list of Winthrop's soldiers, was William Francis Bartlett. As a side light on the man who became one of the great men of the Union Army, it is related that one winter day when the snows were deep, he coasted to school-and as boys will do, became a bit late. He hurried to get to his seat before the final bell. However, he noticed a huge drift beside the school door.
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Climbing to the top of the drift, he coasted down towards the door but, speeding much more rapidly than he had imagined, he coasted right into the school room and, when he stood up, found his teacher, Mr. Nahum Smith, standing before him. Most boys would have been flustered and tongued-tied. But not the boy Bartlett. Even then he exhibited the presence of mind which helped make his military career spectacular. He took off his hat, bowed to the teacher and politely apologized-and was, it is to be hoped, forgiven, although the account fails to say whether or not he was given a taste of the teacher's ruler.
Bartlett was commissioned in the Union Army, and from the rank of captain, by his valor and ability, rose through various ranks to the star of a brigadier general. Beyond question, he is Winthrop's most distinguished soldier. After the war, Gover- nor John Albion Andrew, Massachusetts' able war governor, came to Winthrop, and at a special meeting at the Town Hall, presented General Bartlett with a handsome sword and, in his address, named Bartlett as "Massachusetts' most valuable soldier".
It is difficult to list the soldiers from Winthrop because of the system by which drafted men could hire a substitute to go and fight for them by paying them a bounty. For example George Smith, employed at the Revere Copper Works at the Point, hired a substitute to take his place. This substitute, whose name is not known, was killed in his first battle!
Other Winthrop men hired substitutes, too-it was the com- mon practice of the war. These substitutes, often called "bounty men", were quartered in a special camp on Deer Island where they "enjoyed themselves" until called to duty. Many of these were killed, for casualties in the Civil War were relatively heavy, and the very poor medical service was unable to prevent sickness or to properly care for wounded men. In addition, the infamous Confederate prisons cost the lives of many Union soldiers un- fortunate enough to be captured. Since the bounty men were often carried under names other their own, some of these who gave their lives for their country (at a price) sleep in nameless graves.
The town report of 1863, lists the following Winthrop men who served as volunteers : Leander Hicks, Oliver Kelly, Edward Dyer, Henry Reed, Charles Hicks, Daniel Neil, Robert Walker, George Matthews, C. W. Hall, James A. Bryant, Edward March, John Hodgdon, Henry King, Charles Danick, William Lewis, Charles Wood, William Holden, and James McDonald. Later, Channing Howard and others expended a great deal of effort in compiling as accurate a list as possible and these names are preserved on the monument to the Winthrop men in the war.
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The monument now stands in front of the new Town Hall, op- posite the Library. 1
At home, the war brought hardships and tears-war always does. A Soldiers' Aid Society was organized and worked at raising money, by means of fairs and entertainments, to do what could be done by way of contributing money and supplies, espe- cially for ill and wounded soldiers, who needed help very greatly. A G.A.R. Post was organized after the war and the town faith- fully continued its support of the soldiers. For many years, the men in blue were a feature of the annual Memorial Day parade. Gradually the ranks thinned until only a few remained and they no longer marched but rode in automobiles over the line of march of veterans of later wars. Today, not one remains- after all, the war was fought nearly a century ago. The Union Army did take in lads of a seemingly impossible tender age but any veteran of the Civil War today must needs be now in his late nineties at least and few men reach that dignity.
Of local interest during the war, was the use of Winthrop as a proving ground for field artillery manufactured at the Alger Foundry at South Boston. The Army took a block of ground including Cutler Street and Ocean Avenue, near the present Shore Drive and a huge target was set up on Grover's Cliff at about where Fort Heath is today. Day after day field pieces would be fired and the town echoed and re-echoed to the crash of the cannon. In the years that have followed, many people have amused themselves by visiting Grover's Cliff to search for the cannon balls thus expended. Some have been found.
In the period after the Civil War one of the main points of controversy was the proposal to establish a lunatic asylum in the town. Dr. Walker, superintendent of the Boston Lunatic Asylum, became convinced that Winthrop Highlands was an ideal place in which to build a new asylum-which Boston badly needed. The area at the time was mostly waste land, or pasture, and many of the committee felt that it would be wrong to isolate the insane of Boston in such a "forbidding place" exposed as it was to the "fury of the Atlantic and all the winds of heaven". Indeed, the committee as a whole refused to even take the trouble to go down to Winthrop to examine the site. Dr. Walker, clever as well as stubborn, finally won his committee over to the extent of going down to Winthrop by baiting his trap with the promise of a splendid dinner at Taft's Hotel-by then becoming famous as a place where magnificent food was available.
So in the fall of 1868, the committee did come down, explored Winthrop Highlands and visited Taft's for dinner, or supper as it was commonly called then by less fashionable people. The ex- pense account turned in to the city included $135 for carriages
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and $1,009.35 for the dinner. It must have been really some- thing, for prices, even at Taft's were very low in those days when a quarter of a dollar would buy all a man cared to eat in an ordinary eating place.
Still the committee was set against Winthrop as the site of the new hospital. Doctors Stedman, Tyler, Choate, Butler, Nichols and Jones stood as firmly against Winthrop as Dr. Walker was for it. To gain outside support, Dr. Walker commissioned a photographer to take panoramas of Winthrop from the top of Summit Avenue. These photographs, the first such ever made, have been preserved and copies are now safely treasured by Sid- vin Frank Tucker, curator of the museum at the Winthrop Public Library. Today these are of priceless value. To speak of early photographs, there is another set of views now in the office of Eugene P. Whittier, Jefferson Street realtor, which are of inter- est and value.
After the war, education, which had continued to languish in difficulties during the period of hostilities, was reorganized in part. In 1867 there were 137 pupils attending the primary de- partment and the grammar school at the Center and the single school at the Point. Truancy, which plagued early days, had been largely checked, because it was reported that only seven other children of school age remained unschooled that year. H. S. Soule, Lucius Floyd and Charles S. Tewksbury were the school committee that year.
The next year, an attempt was made to encourage scholar- ship by naming the top ten pupils and bestowing honors upon them. At the Center school, the ten were listed as : Alfred Tewks- bury, Willie Piper, Alice W. Magee, Amanda Floyd, Leonhard Shouler, Abiel C. Treworgy, Millard Sawyer, Granville Turnbull, Marilla Belcher and James Boylan in order. At the Point, the ten were, respectively : Alice Long, Mary J. Caton, Ensign Tewks- bury, Eugene Finigin, Fred Carney, Wallace Wyman, Daniel Carney, Thomas Porter, Henry Caytan and William Flanagan.
It was at this time that Winthrop schools had their first singing teacher, Miss H. J. George. Regular teachers were then paid $307.50 a year. Miss George received $13.00 in 1868-so she could hardly have devoted much time to her task.
This was, as just mentioned, the period when Orray Augus- tus Taft was making his hotel at the Point world famous. He was also careful to make friends in Winthrop, especially as he looked to local young men, such as George Paine, to shoot local game birds to keep the Taft larder well stocked. His sisters, Ella and Clara, were favorites of Taft when they were little girls and he often sent his carriage up to the Paine Farm. They would drive down to the Point, be entertained graciously, and then
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be driven home again in grand style, all to the envy of other little Winthrop girls.
An example of Taft's devotion to his business came in the great gale of September 9, 1869, a storm which left a trail of great destruction all around Greater Boston. In Winthrop, it is reported that the famed Gibbon's Elm, which used to stand near the old Thornton Station, was split in half and felled to the ground. However, a subscription list was passed around and expert workmen raised the two halves, and when in position, bolted them together. At least, that is the story told by old time residents. The story adds that, within a few years, the rejuve- nated tree had grown so well that the heads and nuts of the bolts were covered over by the annular growth of the tree.
Point Shirley was hard hit by the gale. When the gale struck, Taft himself was busy in the great kitchen giving the final delicate touch of his master hand to a dish of upland plover, ordered by a party of eminent gentlemen who were half-way through one of Taft's magnificent meals. They had "discussed the chowder and the game courses" and were waiting for the birds. The guests, as the wind howled, looked out the big win- dows of the dining room at the many small boats in distress until the view was obscured by a cloud of spray, rain and dust. The windows quivered, the stout timbers of the hotel shook and, sud- denly there was a terrific crash. The great kitchen chimney had blown over and tumbled down through the kitchen skylight.
Mrs. Taft rushed into the kitchen to see what had happened. Amid the debris of pots and pans, dishes and all the rest, stood Taft himself, whitened by mortar, blackened by soot and sur- rounded by bricks. He had escaped without injury and he was holding aloft his dish of upland plover. "See," he cried, "the birds are unhurt." So he cleaned up himself a bit and served the birds and somehow managed to complete the rest of the meal. His ideal, service for his guests, was maintained, his integrity as a host was untarnished and though his kitchen was ruined, there would be no question but what Tafts' always gave its patrons whatever they might want, whenever they wanted it.
Up to this time Winthrop homes were supplied with water by wells or springs. It was in 1889 that some houses had the first water piped into them. The City of Boston, then operating the prison at Deer Island, requested permission from the Town to lay water pipes through the streets. Some residents, whose homes were upon the pipe line, took advantage of this oppor- tunity and had the water laid into their houses, thus assuring themselves of adequate water at all times-a blessing that wells and springs do not always give.
Two very significant events soon occurred which definitely
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EDWARD MAGEE.
ABOUT 1880. Grocery store of Edward Magee on south side of Main St. near corner of Winthrop St. at the left - hence "Magee's Corner." The men are, left to right, Winthrop Magee, John Carter, Edward Pero, Horace Magee in team and Harry Lee, brother to Mrs. Sarah (Lee) Whorf.
1830-1889. Taft's Hotel at tip of Point Shirley. Famous as an outstanding eating house and meeting place for the well-known men of the day.
ended Winthrop as an industrial town and made it reasonably certain that it would develop as a town of homes. As stated, the efforts of Dr. Walker to build an insane asylum had failed, de- spite the reported visit to Taft's Hotel, and despite a second visit in 1870, when but $702.56 was charged by Mr. Taft for entertain- ing the committee. Boston did buy much of the Highlands, in- cluding a part of the Old Deane Winthrop Farm, but nothing was ever done and the City eventually resold the land.
The first of the two signficant events was the abandonment of the Revere Copper Works. While the company employed a watchman, Alexander Haggerston, for many years, the furnaces went out in the spring of 1869 and were never relighted. Vari- ous reasons were given for the abandonment, including the diffi- culty and the cost of transporting ore and the metal to and from the Point. Whatever may have been the real reasons, operations were transferred to and continued at the plant at Canton, Mass. From many points of view, it was fortunate for Winthrop. Not only was the Point being gradually transformed into a black, slag heap (much of the slag is still there) but the poisonous fumes from the furnaces made it impossible for any grass or other form of plant material to thrive on the Point and the fumes, when the wind was right, plagued the rest of Winthrop seriously.
The second significant event was the forced abandonment of the kerosene manufacturing plant which had been erected and was operating on the easterly side of Pleasant St. opposite the present Pleasant Park Yacht Club. Kerosene was then an im- portant distillate of crude oil; as important as gasoline is now, for almost all houses used kerosene for lamps. Until electricity (1888) and gas (1901) came, it was the principal illuminant. The distillation of kerosene created a nuisance which the people of Winthrop found objectionable. Not only was the odor dis- agreeable, but there was considered to be danger from explo- sions. In 1871, several leading residents brought suit against the kerosene plant asking them to show cause why they should not be closed as a public nuisance. Moorfield Storey, able attorney for the kerosene company, appealed the decision of the Court, which was in favor of Winthrop. The very Wednesday following, the kerosene plant exploded and most of Winthrop was shaken by the blast. No great damage seems to have resulted. Residents next prepared to take action within the town and force the kero- sene company out by means of a local ordinance. However, the company's representative appeared at Town Meeting and alleged that a new distilling process, the invention of a certain Dr. Charles T. Jackson, had now made the distillation process en-
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tirely odorless. The company asked for a chance to demonstrate the new process and the plan to oust them was dropped.
However, as the months went by, it was found that the odor was as bad as ever and Winthrop concluded that the unknown Doctor's invention, if any, was a failure. Plans were made to take up the ousting process again, this time with vim and vigor. The proprietors of the kerosene company realized that, while they might win a legal battle, Winthrop people had made up their minds the plant must go, and so, to save time and trouble, the plant was closed down and the kerosene smell departed from Winthrop forever. Only Spectacle Island remained to trouble the sensitive noses of Winthrop people.
The seventies were a period of considerable trouble in the schools. Some citizens found the schools needed various improve- ments although no one could agree upon what the improvements should be-a common situation. Dr. Sam'l Ingalls visited every school room in town in 1872 and reported on conditions- on the whole favorable. Dr. George B. Emerson, noted educator, also investigated the schools and he shocked the many critics by saying that, in his opinion, Winthrop schools were the best in the State. He was a real authority and his word silenced some of the critics.
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