USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 43
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THE STORY OF ESSEX COUNTY
THE SCOPE OF MODERN TELEPHONY-On January 25, 1915, Professor Bell, in New York, as the result of far-reaching modern improvements in telephony was enabled to speak to Mr. Watson in San Francisco, using a replica of his original telephone, his words being a repetition of those he had spoken on March 10, 1876: "Mr. Watson, come here; I want you." Professor Bell's death occurred in 1922.8 Had it been vouchsafed him to live only four years more, the development of transatlantic telephony would have enabled him to witness the fulfillment of his almost incredible prophecy of 1876 -that he would ultimately be able to chat pleasantly with friends in Europe while sitting comfortably in his Boston home. And in that same year-1926-another signal accomplishment of the Bell Tele- phone Laboratories was perfected; namely, the talking films, an invention which though considered at the time merely a by-product of telephone research, has since far out-distanced in scope and popu- larity the more truly significant fact of transatlantic telephony.
IX-THE STORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
As was the case with the invention of the telephone, Essex County played its part, though more remotely perhaps, in the development of the telegraph. The son of a Congregational minister, Samuel F. B. Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791. To prepare for Yale College, he was sent to Phillips Academy, in Andover, where he was graduated in 1806.
At an early age Morse showed ability in portraiture. He earned part of his expenses in this way while at Yale, receiving one dollar apiece for profiles of his classmates, and five dollars each for minia- tures. While in college he also became interested in experiments in electricity performed by his instructor in science, Prof. Jeremiah Day, but at graduation he resolved to devote his life to art, and the next four years he spent in England, working under a number of able artists. His reputation grew, but financial success was slow in com- ing, especially after his return to this country.
The turning point in his career, quite unsuspected by him, came to Morse in 1832, when he was returning from Europe on the packet ship "Sully." A fellow-passenger, a Dr. C. T. Jackson, was one day exhibiting an electro-magnet which he had obtained in Paris. Morse
8. Thomas Augustus Watson died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in December, 1934, aged eighty.
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at once recalled his early studies in electricity, and though unaware of any previous work upon the subject, he immediately conceived the idea of the electric telegraph, and sketched a series of diagrams in his sketchbook which embodied his exciting conjectures. From the first, Morse included as a distinctive feature of his proposed tele- graph an automatic receiver, consisting of a moving tape upon which dots and dashes would be recorded by a pivoted arm actuated by an electro-magnet.
Possessing little scientific knowledge and long unable to secure financial backing for his invention, Morse painted portraits for a living while continuing his experiments with the telegraph. By 1837 he had succeeded in constructing a crude transmitter, relay, and receiver ; this was the year in which Congress was seriously consider- ing the advisability of establishing a Federal system of telegraphy patterned on those systems, inferior to Morse's, which were already in operation in parts of England and Germany. At last securing a partner, a young man named Alfred Vail, who was able to contribute ample funds, Morse soon turned out a perfected instrument which he was willing to offer to the public, after having first secured a patent on it. But the public interest was lukewarm, and Morse appealed to Congress for aid in constructing an experimental line between Wash- ington and Baltimore, pointing out the importance of such an inven- tion to the public welfare. Congress, however, was skeptical of the value of Morse's telegraph and the defeat of his bill seemed inevita- ble, when suddenly, on February 23, 1843, in the last minutes of the session, the bill was passed without debate or revision. Morse and his associates, greatly encouraged, now took up the work of construc- tion, and after disastrous experiments with underground cables, suc- ceeded at last in stringing their telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, insulating the wires by leading them through glass bottle- necks inserted in holes bored into the tops of poles. On May 24, 1844, Morse, sitting at his transmitter in the Supreme Court room of the Capitol, ticked out the words, "What hath God wrought ?" to his partner, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, who in a few moments sent back the same message, thus demonstrating to an enthusiastic public the practicability and something of the immense importance of his invention.
Nothing daunted by the government's refusal to pay him the $100,000 which he asked for his patent, Morse soon organized the
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Magnetic Telegraph Company and started construction of a line from Philadelphia to New York. Slowly but surely, the idea took hold, and within a very few years telegraph lines had spread like a network over the Eastern States. Morse's patents were frequently infringed by the many telegraph companies hastily commencing opera- tion, but they were always upheld by the courts in the lawsuits which he promptly brought against the offending companies. Not until 1856, however, when Hiram Sibley organized the Western Union Telegraph Company, were the enormous profits made which Morse had foreseen when he offered the magnetic telegraph to the govern- ment. When he died, in 1872, Morse was not only wealthy, but also the possessor of many orders, medals, and decorations tendered him by the principal nations of the world in recognition of his great con- tribution to science.
It is of interest to residents of Essex County that the first com- munication by magnetic telegraph in this section of New England was a dispatch sent by the mayor of Salem to the mayor of Boston on December 23, 1847. With the early adoption of the telegraph by the railroads for train-dispatching purposes, Essex County, served by the famed Eastern Railroad since 1838, was among the first in the country to enjoy the distinction and the convenience of telegraphic communication.
BIBLIOGRAPHY-American Bankers' Association : "Automotive Transportation and Railroads." New York, 1927.
Arrington, B. F .: "Municipal History of Essex County in Mas- sachusetts." New York, 1922.
Crocker, G. G .: "From the Stagecoach to the Railroad Train and the Street Car, in and around Boston in the Nineteenth Cen- tury." Boston, 1900.
Currier, J. J .: "History of Newburyport." Newburyport, 1906- 1909.
Dean, A. W .: "Massachusetts Highways," in "Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers," XVI, 10 (December, 1929).
Dow, G. F .: "Two Centuries of Travel in Essex County." Tops- field Historical Society, 192 1.
Essex Institute : "The Essex Antiquarian." Salem, Massachusetts.
Essex Institute : "The Essex Institute Historical Collections." Salem, Massachusetts.
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Harlow, A. F .: "Old Post Bags." New York, 1928.
Horner, F. C .: "The Application of Motor Transport to the Movement of Freight and Passengers." 1929.
Hurd, D. H .: "History of Essex County, Massachusetts." Phila- delphia, 1888.
Kaempffert. W. B .: "A Popular History of American Inven- tion." New York, 1924.
Langdon, W. C .: "The Early Corporate Development of the Telephone," "Bell Telephone Quarterly," II, 3 (July, 1923).
Langdon, W. C .: "Two Founders of the Bell System," in "Bell Telephone Quarterly," II, 4 (October, 1923).
Lowell, W. D .: "The Ancient Ferry Ways of the Merrimack," in "Putnam's Monthly Historical Magazine," III, 2 (February, 1895).
Mason, E. S .: "The Street Railway in Massachusetts." Cam- bridge, 1932.
Rhodes, F. L .: "Beginnings of Telephony." New York, 1929.
Tapley, C. S .: "Danvers Roads and Stagecoach Days," in "His- torical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society," XII ( 1924).
Tracy, C. M .: "Standard History of Essex County, Massachu- setts." Boston, 1878.
Watson, T. A .: "Exploring Life." New York, 1926.
The Military History of Essex County
Essex-33
CHAPTER XIII
The Military History of Essex County
By K. J. Barrows
The military history of Essex County cannot be treated as a distinct entity but must necessarily be bound up with the military events of, first, the Colony of Massachusetts; second, the State of Massachusetts; and lastly, the United States as an independent nation. It is the intention of the author not to state in mere cata- logue order the names of various military engagements and the par- ticipation therein, but to regard the county as a whole, relating certain interesting incidents, mentioning a few of the many self-sacrificing heroes by name, and emphasizing cause and effect.
At the very beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Indian danger was not a particularly serious one, due to the great plague which almost decimated the natives in regions where the set- tlers had first established themselves. There was no such massacre as that which had wiped out the Virginia Colony. The Indians, how- ever, had been constantly in and out of the little settlements, showing the white men where to plant, trapping game for them, and giving them knowledge of the new land. But in the background there always lurked the danger that the natives might grow irritated at being slowly dispossessed of their ancestral lands. Furthermore, increasing numbers and desire for expansion led the settlers to adopt a more aggressive attitude. More and more probability of trouble was aris- ing. Unharmonious relations could easily have been started by some unscrupulous white or some aggrieved or intoxicated Indian.
Exactly this happened, for a drunken, dissolute trader from Vir- ginia was murdered by the Pequots. This act seemed to start off a series of reprisals by both natives and English until the Pequots killed
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three men in Saybrook, Connecticut, roasted another alive, slaugh- tered nine men in Wethersfield, and carried away into captivity two young girls. Owing to the blundering policy of the Massachusetts magistrates and ministers, the horrors of Indian warfare became the hourly dread of every inhabitant along the frontier. Ipswich had ever to be alert and prepared to defend itself against the savages. Farmers and professional men had to carry rifles with them daily in order to be safe. Essex County settlements kept regular watchmen out day and night. Military companies were formed, as early as 1631, in Haverhill. In 1637 Ipswich ordered that "no person shall travel above one mile from his dwelling except where other dwell- ings are nearer, without arms upon pain of 12 shillings for every default."
The Connecticut General Court had declared war against the Pequots in May of 1637 and had managed to blockade and burn down two of their larger villages. Massachusetts sent down forty men, having voted one hundred and sixty, but they were too late to take part in the expedition. In Essex there is the first American instance of a bounty given for the service of soldiers. Three men were sent, all of whom received grants of several acres. One of the companies detailed for service was commanded by an Essex County man. One town was represented by twenty-three soldiers and many individual skirmishes took place, of which a typical example is Wain- wright's attack upon some Pequots. He quickly expended his ammu- nition, but, nothing daunted, broke his gun over their heads and brought in two scalps.
The Pequots were all practically destroyed, and the first advance of the parties in New England was complete. The future was, never- theless, regarded with great apprehension, and minor difficulties were still rampant. Amesbury settlers had to set a watch over their homes both day and night for many years. A watchhouse was built in every ward, and the people of each ward had to furnish the requirements of the watchman, including fuel. No farmer dared to enter his field without his gun, and even old friendly Indians could hardly be trusted. No persons were allowed out later than ten o'clock at night save by permission of the guards. In the various Essex County settlements fortifications were ordered built. A general alarm took place in 1642, in that it was believed that the various surrounding Indian tribes were
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about to concentrate on killing the whites. Certain towns were ordered to disarm the Merrimac sachem. Forty men went to find the chief, but their efforts were fruitless. In 1653 General Dennison ordered a squad of twenty-seven men from Ipswich to "destroy the distant foe, where lodged or whither fled; or if for fight in motion or in halt." Each private was allowed a shilling for four days' service.
In spite of all this uneasiness, it was forty years before the savages regained sufficient strength and found a leader to dispute the steady advance of the Puritan settlers. By 1675 the Indian found himself not simply outnumbered, but entirely surrounded by his white neigh- bors. Land hunger of the settlers became an ever-increasing force, and almost any trouble with the natives became a sufficient excuse for cession of territory. An inevitable conflict was approaching. The Indians were about to make a desperate effort to preserve their hunt- ing grounds and resist the attempt of the English to impose upon them the white civilization-its laws, religion, and institutions. Apprehen- sion of an Indian war began to shake the whole Colony. At Haver- hill, for instance, a town meeting was called to consider what measures should be adopted. Fortifications had formerly been built, but in the general feeling of security they had been suffered to fall into decay. Now it was voted that "the selectmen shall forthwith cause the forti- fications to be finished, make port holes in the walls, to right up those places that are defective and likely to fall and to make a flacker at the east corner, that the work in case of need may be of use against the common enemy."
The colonists, of course, did not want war; they merely wanted the Indians to accept them as natural superiors. Indian settlements were attacked, and the Indian retaliated by a series of border raids on unprotected villages. The stronghold of the Narragansetts was attacked and the torch was applied to four hundred wigwams, roast- ing alive some eight hundred Indians. Crazed by this disaster, the natives burned Deerfield and killed a relief force of sixty men in addition. This war, known as King Philip's, was a very grim affair. No call for active military service was made until this time, when a levy was made on all the towns, and men were drafted to serve, "all which," said one of the calling officers, "due want warm cloathing, and must have new coates."
SALEM-LESLIE'S RETREAT AT NORTH BRIDGE From painting by Lewis Jesse Bridgman. Essex Institute Collection
Courtesy of The Essex Institute
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A company of men known as the "Flower of Essex," commanded by Captain Lothrop, of Beverly, was ambushed in Deerfield by King Philip himself, and seventy-six out of eighty-four whites were killed. Captain Gardner, of Salem, also organized a company against the Narragansetts. This group was later led by William Hawthorne, of Salem, an ancestor of the noted author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Georgetown sent men to Sudbury, where they were drawn into ambush by the Indians. In 1676 the General Court ordered that each town should "scout and ward and clear the highway of brush and under- growth" to prevent the skulking of the enemy. Forts were built at Topsfield, Boxford, and other nearby towns. Gloucester was put in a state of defense. A committee of the General Court reported "Cape Ann has made two garrisons, besides several particular fortifications."
Andover endured more from the fear of impending attacks from the savages than from the reality of them. One, however, was made on South Parish in April, 1676, by a small band of the allies of King Philip. Their purpose seems to have been, by a stealthy march on the place, to seize the garrison house while the men were at work in their fields and then to burn, capture, and slay as they were able. Crossing the Merrimac, they were discovered by a settler scout, who mounted a swift horse and gave notice to the imperiled inhabitants. Two young men did not hear of the warning and were fallen upon in overpowering numbers. They made brave resistance, but were soon conquered, one killed and the other captured.
Gradually the Indians were driven back, hunted down, and scat- tered. They had suffered greatly from the want of corn and could no longer hold out against the superior arms of the English. King Philip died, thus depriving the Indians of active leadership. The war had been a terrific drain on the colonies of New England; of the five thousand men of military age in Massachusetts, one in ten had been killed or captured. The same proportions applied to the Essex towns, as, for example, in Gloucester, twenty-one men were called, represent- ing nearly one-third of all the male citizens of the town capable of bearing arms. In spite of the heavy losses in property as well as lives, the settlers held their own. The burning of whole towns did not pre- vent the reconstruction of those in which enough of the inhabitants remained alive. The question of English supremacy over the Indians in New England had been decided in a fashion which made it needless ever to settle that particular matter again.
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True enough, the whole menace was not taken away, for in 1677 an Indian raid occurred in Amesbury, as is illustrated by the contents of a letter-"the damage done us by the eastern Indians mentioned in our letter dated July 28th was in taking our fishing catches about Cape Sable and a notorious murder committed upon some men, women and children at Amesbury about the middle of July."
England was not alone in her expansion in the New World, for the next sixty years marks a contest with France and her conflicting interests in North America. This country had been gradually extend- ing her power south and west from the St. Lawrence region during the seventeenth century. A resultant international rivalry for the profits of the fur trade aroused English statesmen to the serious dangers from French expansion. Also in Europe, France's King Louis XIV was devoured by the ambition to play the leading role and upset the balance of power with the result that the new English King Wil- liam III headed, in 1689, an alliance against the House of Bourbon.
In New England the authorities conceived the plan of attacking the French, who were the driving force behind the Indian raids, at their headquarters in Canada, instead of carrying on an almost impos- sible system of defensive tactics along a frontier several hundred miles long. Some inhabitants of the Essex County region joined the suc- cessful raid upon Canada in 1690, led by Sir William Phips. This expedition secured the surrender of Port Royal and aroused the enthusiasm of the colonists to inflict more damages upon New France, but their desires were not fulfilled, for both a border attack and one on Quebec failed miserably. Thus ended King William's War, with few casualties coming from Essex County.
No real settlement of the problem had been made. Border war- fare attacks on the frontier towns of New England continued. Gov- ernor Dudley, of Massachusetts, was bent upon a war which would thoroughly eradicate the menace of French expansion to the south- ward. Sparing no efforts on the one hand to keep the Eastern Indians quiet, he began to send out privateers in 1702 to prey upon French shipping. The Jesuits and officials of Quebec felt that the only way they could retain their hold over the Indians was to keep them in a state of hostility to the English, so Dudley made it the corner stone of his policy to root out the French from Canada and Acadia. This was doubly necessary, for in 1705 the frontier was ablaze with Indian
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raiding. A terrible raid upon Deerfield resulted in the death of over fifty people. Dudley had six hundred men ranging the border, many of whom came from Essex County. Massachusetts raised the scalp bounty to one hundred pounds for the head of every Indian over ten years old.
An expedition of over one thousand men set out for Port Royal, but the incapacity of the leaders and their lack of harmony caused the plan to be a failure and the army remained as Casco Bay. Colo- nial militia never formed a disciplined and effective fighting force. The officers were, without exception, civilians with no military train- ing. In the private soldiers there was a reckless and wilful refusal to submit to any authority, which was characteristic of the frontiers and which destroyed all discipline. "I will never plead for an Haverhill man more," wrote Governor Saltonstall, of Connecticut, while recruit- ing a few years earlier, "to tell us what we should, may or must do.
They go this, and that, and the other way at pleasure, and . do what they list."
Meanwhile attacks were still being made as far south as Haver- hill, for in 1708 both the French and Indians made a sudden daylight raid, in which the French leader, de Rouville, was conspicuous in his efforts to egg on his charges, and the result was a minister being beaten to death while an Indian sunk a hatchet deep into the brain of his wife, whose infant child was snatched away and its head dashed against a stone. These brutal Indians, curiously enough, came from the various mission stations of the Jesuits, but it seems their French commander did everything he could to arouse their passion for blood.
Other horrible acts such as the above proved a stimulus to attack once more Port Royal. Another expedition was sent in 1710 with nine hundred Massachusetts men under the command of Colonel Nicholson. Port Royal fell to the British, but the ships steered a wrong course and eight transports were cast away on the rocks, with a loss of over a thousand men. Although the French were weakened by the European Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, their power was still unbroken.
Still the frontier suffered from continued attacks. At Amesbury, in 1722, the Indians were still very troublesome, making frequent raids on settlements and keeping the people in constant alarm. When they would suddenly come into view, the general populace would flee
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to the forts for protection. The viewpoints of the English and the Indians were irreconcilable in regard to land policy. The English pointed to ancient Indian deeds conveying the lands in question to the whites, most of them genuine and as near regular as such deeds usually were. The Indian could not understand that a piece of paper signed by his ancestors, perhaps under the influence of liquor, could deprive him of lands from which he had driven the white man, and where no white settler had dared to set foot for a generation.
AMESBURY-HIGH SCHOOL With "The Doughboy" war memorial before it
War again broke out under Governor Dummer in the years from 1723-25. Essex County took part in campaigns to the North and considerable success was gained by parties of volunteers who were encouraged to go on long scouts by the offer of a large bounty for scalps. This policy was so productive that the General Court found it necessary to order the Treasurer of the Province to bury the scalps in his possession so as to prevent their being presented a second time for payment. Peace was concluded in 1727 with the Indians, who found war less profitable than trade, and thus, with the power of their allies broken, the French lost much of their ability to harm New England.
But the rivalry between France and England for possession of the eastern part of the North American continent had lasted for over
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one hundred years and was to last a good while longer. It must be remembered it was only a part of an international clash which was reflected in Europe, in the West Indies, and even in far-off India, and was made lively by an almost continuous contest for the control of the seas. In all of these wars the treaties of peace were hardly more than truces, and in all of them men of Essex County participated. Massachusetts was the most populous of the northern colonies, being a nursery of merchant shipping, privateers, and fighting ships and the land neighbor of both Acadia and Quebec.
In 1744 England found herself drawn into the larger operations of the war of the Austrian Succession, and as a result war was formally declared against France. New Englanders were exasperated by an unsuccessful attack by the French upon the small fishing station at Canso. Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, felt that the best plan would be to attack the French naval base of Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, which had been heavily fortified at enormous expense, but whose garrison was in a shameful condition due to the inefficiency and neglect of the French authorities. This fortress was really the key to the entire French position in North America, and it certainly was a strategic point in the whole imperial system of trade. Several hundred citizens of Marblehead and Boston signed petitions to raise the necessary money and risk everything upon the attempt.
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