USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Duxbury > The story of Duxbury, 1637-1937 > Part 4
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-Compiled from information furnished by MRS. MARY E. BAKER
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BEULAH CHAPEL
B EULAH CHAPEL on Union Street was built in the fall of 1902, on land given by Mr. and Mrs. Charles E. Hunt of Duxbury. The Chapel was paid for by free will offerings.
Ministers who have officiated at Beulah Chapel have included Rev. Frederick Kidder, Rev. Mr. Pugsley, Rev. Newell Booth, Rev. Virgil M. Hoover, Rev. Eugene Lloyd, Rev. Howard Randall.
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ST. FRANCIS XAVIER MISSION HOUSE (MIRAMAR)
TN 1910, the archdiocese of Boston purchased from the Samuel Loring heirs a portion of their estate in Island Creek, with brick house and cot- tage. For three years, His Eminence, Cardinal O'Connell, used it as a summer residence and gave to it the name, "Miramar." During the next nine years, "it offered wholesome recreation to Catho- lic girls of the archdiocese."
In 1922, it was opened as a preparatory sem- inary of the Society of the Divine Word (S.V.D.) and was named the St. Francis Xavier Mission House. This is the third mission house of this so- ciety in America. Instrumental in its establish- ment were Rev. William Gier, former superior- general, and Rev. Father Janser, now a missionary in India. The first rector was Rev. Anthony Hul- lin, S.V.D.
The school, which began with seven boys, now is preparing one hundred boys for the foreign mis- sionary priesthood. The course covers completely four high school years.
There are seven buildings now in use and about eighty acres of land. The household consists of
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
one hundred boys, eleven priests, ten lay brothers who are part of an associate lay brotherhood, and seven sisters who are in charge of the kitchen and laundry.
In tailor shop, office, garage, and boiler-room, in masonry, carpentry, electricity, gardening, and housework, the brothers are efficient, even skilful. The brothers and students have transformed a cran- berry bog into a pond and have built a bridge, wall, and lighthouse and have installed a diving- board. They have developed a park and made a beautiful Lourdes Grotto.
Originally, the property was far from being in condition for a playground of any sort. By long and persevering labor, a recreation field has been built, with tennis courts, baseball diamond and handball court.
The purpose is to accomplish proper balance of devotion, study, and recreation. The present rec- tor is Rev. Max Hoffman, S.V.D.
-Compiled from information furnished by REV. MAX HOFFMAN
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THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY FAMILY By Rev. George A. Gately
T HE Catholics of Duxbury on July 4, 1937, will celebrate the tercentenary of the town in special services in the Holy Family Church. Pa- triotism, as well as religion, will be emphasized at the Parish Mass, so that the event will be happily remembered for a long time to come by those who are present.
A word now about the congregation of this church. In the summer, many Catholic families who are visitors, are attendants of this mission church. The same may be said of a very great number of people who play the role of summer employees. The all-year-round attendants must not be unmentioned in this article. This group is small in number, but especially active in support of, and in attendance at, this mission church.
Now just a word about the history of the church. Some time before the Holy Family Church was built, when the Duxbury locality was just a mission, Rev. John J. Buckley, pastor of St. Peter's Church in Plymouth, purchased from Mrs. Carrie Adams, daughter of Professor Francis Howard, the site of
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the church. To accommodate the summer Catho- lics of Duxbury, Father Buckley arranged for serv- ices in Duxbury Hall, in July, 1902.
An elderly resident gives the information that the first Mass in Duxbury was celebrated by a Rev. Father Crowley, a visitor to the diocese, then a guest at the Standish Hotel.
During the summer of 1902, and through July, 1903, Mass was said in the same Duxbury Hall. In August of 1903 and during the remainder of the season, Mass was said in a tent pitched on the site of the present church. From the summer of 1904 until the summer of 1934, all Catholic serv- ices were held in Mattakeeset Hall.
Although Duxbury had been a mission of Kings- ton since 1908, when His Eminence, William Cardinal O'Connell, appointed Rev. Andrew F. Ha- berstroh first resident Pastor of Kingston, active building in Duxbury did not take live form until Rev. James H. Courtney had succeeded Father Ha- berstroh. Duxbury Catholics were pleased when Father Courtney announced that a church would be built. Natives and visitors displayed great loyalty to him and to his idea by giving generously of their means. The church was paid for before it had been completed.
This article would not be adequate without men- tion of a priest who earned the distinction of being well liked by all. May no one who comes to these parts ever forget Rev. Robert Hinchcliffe. He was an amiable and devoted priest. All were pleased
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Churches and Cemeteries
when, in 1936, he was promoted to a more important assignment. His transfer was, however, regretted by all. The Rev. Daniel F. Leahy is assistant to the present Pastor of Kingston, Rev. George A. Gately.
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CEMETERIES
M YLES STANDISH CEMETERY received its name in 1892 when, as a result of pains- taking research in which a leading part was played by Rev. E. J. V. Huiginn, pastor of the Church of St. John the Evangelist, the old burying ground was found to be the resting place of Captain Myles Standish.
Located between Hall's Corner and Bailey's Corner, and including the lot where stood the orig- inal Duxbury church in 1632, the cemetery is as old as the town. In it lie men and women of every generation that has lived in Duxbury. Here rest Pilgrims who bore arms with Captain Standish, col- onists who fought with Colonel Benjamin Church against King Philip, Colonials who campaigned with General Winslow against the French, Minute Men who marched in the command of Lieutenant- Colonel Ichabod Alden, and veterans of the War of 1812.
In a pamphlet, The Graves of Myles Standish and Other Pilgrims, printed in 1892, in which Mr. Huiginn gave a detailed account of the results of his studies, he stated that "John Alden, his wife, Pris- cilla, and all the old settlers of the town lie buried
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Churches and Cemeteries
in the old cemetery" to which his discovery gave a new name.
To the Duxbury Rural Society belongs the credit for having transformed the unfenced, rather neg- lected burying ground into an orderly cemetery. In 1889, with the consent of the selectmen, the Rural Society employed Melzar Brewster to clear away the woods and underbrush and mow the grass in the cemetery grounds. Familiar with the legend that the grave of Captain Standish had been marked by two stones set about six feet apart on the east- west line, Mr. Brewster presently came upon two similarly placed stones of triangular shape. Care- ful excavations, directed by Frederick B. Knapp, president of the Rural Society, produced evidence which convinced investigators that this was the long-lost grave of Duxbury's first military com- mander. Near-by graves were identified as those of members of the Standish family.
In 1931, the town provided money for interment of the Standish remains in a metal receptacle en- cased in concrete.
While it is probable that almost all of the old set- tlers are buried somewhere within the limits of the cemetery, there is no way of making definite identi- fications. In the beginning, there was no definite cemetery plan. There were no records of the lo- cation of lots. No doubt, the early residents be- lieved the inscriptions on the slate headstones were sufficient. But time and weather obliterated many of these identifying marks. Many other headstones,
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loosened from their bases, became misplaced; and the graves which they had marked were left without identification. Still others of these old slate slabs were stolen by ghoulish souvenir hunters to whom even the rights of the dead meant nothing.
But it is only the oldest of the graves that are un- marked and plotted in cemetery records. Among the known stones is one bearing the name of Jona- than Alden, marking the only known Duxbury grave of a son of a Mayflower passenger.
No more lots are available in Myles Standish Cemetery.
The other large burial place is Mayflower Ceme- tery, so named in 1903. It dates from approximately 1787. A map prepared by Frederick B. Knapp gives a complete plan of lots and owners since that date.
At first comprising twenty acres, the cemetery was increased through the donation of six acres by the Ladies' Cemetery Association in 1921, and later by purchase of considerable land along its southern limits.
In Mayflower Cemetery stands the memorial to the "Soldiers and Sailors who gave their lives for their country in the War of 1861." According to the reports of the cemetery trustees, an increasing number of lots have been purchased during the past few years by summer residents. This is eloquent testimony as to the depth of the appeal of Duxbury to even its part-time residents.
The two smaller cemeteries, Dingley and Ashdod, have reached their capacity. The Ashdod Cemetery,
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Churches and Cemeteries
comprising only one and one-half acres, is divided into one hundred fifty family lots.
In Duxbury cemeteries there are about two hun- dred seventy lots for which perpetual care has been provided. Among the two hundred fifty-eight graves of men and women once in the armed service of the United States are those of four Civil War army nurses, Captain Myles Standish, Colonel Jonathan Alden of colonial times, twenty-five Revolutionary War veterans, four veterans of the war of 1812, two hundred twelve Civil War veterans, and eleven veterans of the World War.
Among the gravestones, too, are some which do not mark the final resting place of mortal remains; the men whose names are chiseled on these stones were among that splendid company who went down to the sea in ships, and never returned. So these stones, erected by those left ashore, are merely memorials to lost mariners; they all bear the in- scription: "Lost at sea."
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INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE
"Ship Napoleon," by Walters anu Son. The Vessel Was
Built at Duxbury, Mass., About 1810, and Its "Portrait" Painted in the
English Channel by the Father and Son Artists in 1831. As Was So Often the Case, the Napoleon Was Depicted in Two Views on the Same Canvas, One in Full Length, the Other From Astern
INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE
T HERE is no more direct way of ascertaining the industrial and commercial activities of Duxbury one hundred years ago than to examine the occupations listed in the census of 1838, when the population was recorded as 2,377.
With the exception of the services necessary to any community of comparative size, almost all enterprise in Duxbury was related to farming, shoe- making or shipping.
The list follows:
1 auctioneer
1 insurance agent
7 blacksmiths
1 lawyer
3 boat-builders
2 livery stable proprietors
1 box manufacturer
10 masons
2 butchers
2 master ship-builders
11 calkers
1 milliner
26 carpenters
6 painters
2 clam diggers
6 riggers
7 clergymen
1 sail-maker
2 coal dealers
1 spar-maker
2 coffin warehousemen
5 saw mill proprietors
1 coroner
38 ship carpenters
1 dentist
14 store keepers
1 doctor
1 stove dealer
3 expressmen
72 shoe-makers
200 farmers
1 trowel-maker
1 gunsmith
2 undertakers
2 horse-shoers
2 wheelwrights
1 ice dealer
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
Of the three major industries, only farming re- mains. Like ship-building, shoemaking flourished during the first half of the nineteenth century, only to fall before the march of machinery.
By 1850, Duxbury had acquired a reputation as a small manufacturing center as well as a shipping port. According to the 1849 issue of Hayward's Gazetteer of Massachusetts, published by John P. Jewett & Company of Boston,
"The people of Duxbury are principally engaged in foreign commerce, ship-building, fisheries, and the coasting trade.
"There is manufacturing in the town of leather boots and shoes, salt, cordage, iron and brass castings, woolen cloth, tin ware, pumps, bricks, building stone and lumber."
Ship-building
One hundred years ago, Duxbury was a busy port where the whole people went "down to the sea in ships." Duxbury-built ships, loaded with a goodly share of the world's commerce, ploughed the seven seas, carrying the Stars and Stripes into most of the busy ports of the world.
Duxbury-bred captains, without the aid of the navigating instruments deemed essential to safety today, with little to depend upon except their own knowledge of sun, stars, wind and sea, and an un- canny instinct not unlike that of a homing pigeon, piloted their sturdy little vessels through all sorts of weather.
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Industries and Commerce
The great majority came safely home, always to the relief of those who awaited them. Others, overwhelmed by storm or by fire at sea, simply failed to return; and after months of waiting, those on shore finally entered upon the record those brief eloquent words: "Lost at sea."
In skill, courage and intelligence, Duxbury crews were everywhere recognized as without superiors. Though they knew the vast power of the sea, they were always ready to match their skill against it. Like their neighbors of Cape Ann, they seemed to find triumphant satisfaction in tempting the wrath of the reaching waves by crowding on canvas until the masts trembled and straining rigging sang.
Their quiet courage was marked by a readiness to accept calmly whatever fate the ocean might have in store for them-a philosophy summed up in the words: "When my time comes, I'll go."
Duxbury ships and Duxbury men built a world- wide tradition in which their home community felt an intense pride and for the maintenance of which every adult and every child seemed to feel a share of responsibility.
When a ship was to be launched in one of the town's several shipyards, schools were closed, flags were hung out, business was suspended for a few hours, and the townspeople in holiday mood flocked down to the yard to witness the ceremony.
Meticulously dressed men, wearing freshly greased boots, rode on horseback from the outlying parts of the town, with their beribboned wives
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
seated precariously behind them. Others came in chaises, rumbling two-wheeled vehicles with wooden axles, while others picked their way on foot through the dust of the roadway.
The fortunate ones had the honor of being on deck when the ship slid into the water. Always foremost among the celebrators, wide-eyed boys invented all manner of ingenious ways of being "useful" in order to have plausible excuses for being on the ship when she slid down the ways. And finally, when she struck the water and rode on an even keel, each of the cheering spectators took a personal pride in the sight, as if he himself had shared in her construction.
From earliest colonial times, ships had been Dux- bury's chief means of contact with her neighbors and with the outer world. Trade always had been considered in terms of ships.
By 1837, Duxbury citizens had been building ships for more than a hundred years. Thomas Prince had opened the first shipyard at the foot of Captain's Hill in about 1719, and had built his first ship of wild cherry cut from the forest close by the shore.
His venture was followed shortly by Israel Syl- vester at the northwest end of Mill Pond, by Benja- min Freeman at Harden Hill, Samuel Winsor & Samuel Drew on the shore of the Nook, west of Captain's Hill, by Isaac Drew, James Soule, Captain Samuel Delano and by John Oldham at Duck Hill.
On the shore near the Nook, Benjamin Prior
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Industries and Commerce
opened a yard; and here, in 1764, was begun a business that became known all over the world. In that year, Ezra Weston took possession of the yard and began his shipbuilding career.
Though Weston was but twenty-one years of age, he immediately began to build larger ships than had been undertaken in Duxbury. Because of the size of the vessels under construction in his yard, it be- came known as "the navy yard."
In spite of frequent interruptions for military service with the Second Duxbury company under Captain Benjamin Wadsworth, Weston continued building ships during the Revolution. At the conclu- sion of the war, he was well on his way to the success which was to win for him the name, "King Caesar."
He lived in a big square house on Powder Point. From there he ruled over his little commercial king- dom with a firm but benevolent hand. There was born the son who became his partner in 1798, when the firm name was changed from "E. Weston" to "E. Weston & Son." Father and son worked to- gether until "King Caesar" died in 1822. Ezra, the son, then carried on the business alone.
The Prince yard and nearly all the others of that early period had disappeared by 1837. The demand for larger ships had caused them to be supplanted by larger establishments. Eventually, fourteen ship- yards lined Duxbury's waterfront.
In 1837, seventy-one ships were built in Dux- bury yards. About nine hundred Duxbury men- almost one-third of the total population-were em-
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
ployed in the shipping industry. Lloyds of London listed more than one hundred ships under the owner- ship of Ezra Weston whom they termed "the largest shipowner in America." Weston was also one of the largest shipowners in the whole world. Dux- bury was known as one of America's important ports.
Weston ships were built in the ten-acre yard which Ezra had opened on the Bluefish River in 1834. Yokes of Weston oxen hauled in pine, ash and white oak from the Weston forests in Dux- bury and neighboring towns. Weston schooners brought more timber from Maine and special woods from more distant places. Weston packets plied back and forth to Plymouth and Boston with sup- plies of all sorts. Cordage for the Weston ships was made in the thousand-foot ropewalk; sails were made in the Weston sail loft, and anchors in the Weston forge. Weston fishing vessels brought in their catch to be packed in salt imported in his own ships from Cadiz, St. Ives and Turks Island. The shipbuilding tools were made in the Weston tool- forge. And when Weston ships sailed for the dis- tant ports of the world, they carried goods from the five Weston warehouses on the Weston wharf and were provisioned with pork, beef and vegetables from the Weston farm. Banking was done at the Duxbury Bank, of which Ezra Weston II was presi- dent.
Here was an early example of "big business"- but one in which the participants shared readily
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E. C. Turner, Photographer
Ezra Weston II (King Caesar II) From 1820 to 1842 leading ship owner in the United States. From Memorial of Weston Family.
Industries and Commerce
with one another and in which a sort of homespun sentiment played a part.
On the death of even so humble a servant as "Dick," a horse which turned the wheel of the rope- walk, King Caesar himself had the animal buried and the grave marked with a stone which now stands near the junction of Powder Point Avenue and King Caesar's Road. In memory of the horse, King Caesar laid aside the responsibilities of his business empire and penned some lines which, for genera- tions, Duxbury children memorized.
According to Arthur Holmes who recalls having learned them at his mother's knee, many years ago, the lines were as follows:
TO HONEST DICK
Well, he hath shaken the dust of this weary world from his shoes.
He hath broken the reins that bound him to subjection
And left behind the traces which united him to the load of life.
The Wheel of time shall no more revolve for him.
But the vast circle of eternity
Shall roll above him forever.
For the benefit of the hundred Duxbury em- ployees of the Weston business and their neighbors, Ezra Weston continued in operation the general store which his father had opened in a house at the Nook. The scales, measuring devices, the shelves and drawers which once were filled with
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
merchandise for supplying the needs of Duxbury families, the counter over which many a bolt of fine cloth was examined and many a bargain struck- all are in good order in the original building. The present owner is Winthrop Winslow.
During its ninety-three years of life, the Weston business was carried on under four firm names. First came "E. Weston," then "E. Weston & Son." When the elder Weston died in 1822, the son con- tinued under the firm name, "Ezra Weston," and continued thus for twenty years, a period during which the business enjoyed its greatest prosperity. In 1842, only a brief time after the second Ezra's two sons, Gershom and Alden, had become members of the firm under the name, "E. Weston & Sons," Ezra died. Until they closed the firm's books in 1857, the two sons continued the business that oc- cupied the water side of the highway now known as "King Caesar's Road."
Like those of their competitors in and around Duxbury, the Weston yards were busy from sun- rise to sunset. It was the custom to issue rum to the workmen at mid-morning and again at mid- afternoon and to serve them a hearty dinner at noon.
The workmen, many of whom worked on a part- time basis, had learned their trades through the apprentice system. Each was skilled in his own field. Besides this skill, these Duxbury men put into their work a pride of workmanship which gave to the ships an individuality that made them, in the prac-
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E. C. Turner, Photographer
Wallpaper in home of Ezra Weston II, 1808.
Industries and Commerce
tised eyes of experienced shipping men, as distinct as if they had borne on their bows the trade-mark, "Duxbury-built."
The expertness of Duxbury craftsmen and Dux- bury crews was a source of mutual pride. Each group had confidence in the other. The builders realized that they were building ships to be handled by men whom they believed to be the finest sailors in the world; they knew, too, that upon their own skill and thoroughness in construction depended the lives of their neighbors who would take the craft to sea. And the knowledge that their vessels had been built by Duxbury artisans made the crews feel the more secure.
Duxbury yards produced vessels of all types then in the merchant service-sloops, schooners, brigs, barkentines and barks, and the tall, picturesque ships.
Oldest and smallest in type were the sloops, built with a bowsprit and single mast. The schooners, so long associated with the fishing industry, had two or three masts and sometimes were equipped with light square topsails.
The typical Duxbury-built brig had two masts consisting of fore and main lower masts, topmasts and topgallants, square-rigged, with square mainsail and topsail. Such a brig was the Pilgrim built in 1829 in the Holmes yard in neighboring Kingston and later made famous by a youthful member of her crew, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., in his realistic narrative, "Two Years Before the Mast."
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The Story of Duxbury 1637-1937
The barks and ships were magnificent floating pictures that stirred painters to their best work, lofty square-rigged "three-masters" with a long, high bowsprit, and driven fast before the wind by incredible clouds of straining canvas. They were of three hundred to more than eight hundred tons.
It was a Weston-owned ship, Hope, built in 1841, largest New England vessel of her time, that amazed the people of Liverpool with her size when she sailed majestically into that port for the first time.
Though most of the vessels built in Weston yards were sent to sea under the Weston three-striped house-flag of red, white and blue, many were con- structed for other owners.
Construction in their yard was continuous. As quickly as one ship was launched, work began on another. Thus sprang up the saying that the E, W, N, S on the weather vane atop the flagpole in the Weston yard did not merely indicate the four points of the compass, but signified: "Ezra Weston's New Ship."
The Weston company alone had an annual gross income of approximately a million dollars and dis- tributed to its hundred Duxbury employees a yearly payroll of some $120,000. The Duxbury bank did a thriving business while the shipping industry was at its height.
Though the Westons were by far the best known of Duxbury builders, vessels were constantly under construction in other yards in the town. Travelers on the highway were frequently able to see more
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-
E. C. Turner, Photographer
Ship, "Hope," John Bradford, Master, for a time the largest vessel in New England. Launched in Duxbury 1841.
Industries and Commerce
than a dozen vessels on the stocks at the same time.
Among the Weston competitors was Samuel Hall who had been an employee of Ezra Weston for some years following the opening of the yard on Bluefish River. In 1837, Hall established his own shipyard just north of the Weston yard. Here he built two vessels, Constantine and Narragansett for Boston owners. To have more room and deeper water for the launching of larger ships, Hall went to Noddle Island, now East Boston, in 1840, and built the second shipyard opened in that section. Here he made a long, remarkable record. He launched about one hundred seventy merchant ships, among them the famous clipper, Surprise, which smashed all previous records by going from Boston around the Horn to San Francisco, sixteen thousand, three hun- dred miles, in ninety-six days. The clipper ships hastened the end of the shipbuilding era in Dux- bury, where Samuel Hall had received his start as an independent builder.
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