USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Walpole > The story of Walpole, 1724-1924; a narrative history prepared under authority of the town and direction of the Historical Committee of Bi-Centennial > Part 11
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Among Walpole men who entered the service early in the war was the town physician, Dr. Silas E. Stone, who was commissioned Asst. Surgeon of the 23d Mass. Volunteers in Septem- ber, 1861. Just before his regiment sailed for North Carolina he was married to Sarah Eliza- beth Hawes, daughter of Hon. Joseph Hawes of Walpole. Dr. Stone was under fire at Roan-
1 Minute Men of '61, 126 et seq.
? Town Rec., IV, 74.
3 Ibid.
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oke Island and New Berne, was attacked by fever while at work in the hospitals, and was sent home on a transport in May, 1862, his life despaired of. He managed to pull through, but was left in such poor health that he was forced to resign his commission. 1
The view of wartime activities afforded by entries in the town records is not a very colorful one. We see the townspeople, in July of '62, voting that "whereas by proclamation of the Governor . 24 men of the town of Walpole have been ordered into military service of the United States, a bounty of $150 shall be paid to all who enlist for three years or the duration of the war." 2 Originally intended to stand only 15 days, this bounty offer was later ex- tended "until the quota is filled." 3
In addition to a Rallying Committee of 14 to aid the selectmen get enlistments, a committee of three, Bainbridge Mowry, Jerome B. Cram and Truman Clarke, was named "to confer with the towns in this vicinity as to the best method of filling up the quota." 4 The Rallying Com- mittee was made up of J. B. Cram, Beri Clarke, Henry S. Clark, H. B. Witmarth, J. G. Harts- horn, J. Stetson, Jr., E. Polleys, E. G. Piper, S. S. Hartshorn, Horace Guild, Edwin Wilson, W. Hartshorn, Samuel Guild, and J. P. Tisdale. 5
1 Gould Scrap Book.
' Town Rec., 95. 3 Ibid., 97. 4 Ibid., 97.
" Ibid., 95.
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Enlistments were speedily reported. By August 29, 1862, the Selectmen were able to inform the Adjutant General that 60 men from the town were already in service for three years. 1 Several of them were 18 years of age or under.
Meanwhile, on August 19, 1862, it was found necessary to increase the bounty for 9-months men to $200. This brought speedy results. Before the end of September 36 men were en- rolled, all but two being assigned to the 44th Mass. Infantry; 2 and by the following spring a few more were added to the list.3
When in the summer of 1863 the drafting of men began, Walpole voted that the families and dependents of drafted men would be pro- vided for in the same way as were those of the volunteers. 4 Drafted men and substitutes brought Walpole's contribution in men to about 226, there being a surplus of 18 over all demands made upon the town.5 Back in 1862 so many 9-months men had volunteered that the quota had been exceeded. Consequently the town was able to "sell" about a dozen men to Charles- town. That is, the Walpole men were credited to Charlestown's quota, and Charlestown paid the bounty.6
1 Military Arch., City and Town Rolls, XVII.
2 Military Arch .; Roll of Bounties, II.
3 Town Rec., IV, 112 et seq. ‘ Ibid., 120. Schouler, II, 525.
6 Mass. Military Arch., City and Town Records, XVII.
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In addition, at least one Walpole boy who was away from town (and probably there were others) came forward for service. David W. Lewis, residing in Brattleboro, Vt., was made captain of a Vermont company and was pre- sented with a beautiful sword by the people of Brattleboro before his departure for the front. At Winchester, in the Shenandoah, he was cap- tured and his sword was taken from him. Six or seven years ago a man in Pittsburg wrote to the Governor of Vermont, saying that he had a sword marked with Lewis' name, which had been taken from the body of a Confederate officer killed at Gettysburg. Thus, after more than 50 years, Maj. Lewis received his wartime sword.
This cold record testifies to the loyalty of Walpole men; but it cannot tell of the priva- tions and heartaches that the war brought. One can read now the boyish letters of Charles N. Spear, who was just 18 when he enlisted in the 23d Mass. Volunteers, written from North Carolina to his parents in Walpole. We read too his mother's injunctions to him to be a good boy and of the love she sent to him. And then, tied in the packet, is a letter in another hand. A comrade had written, telling of the boy's death from disease in a lonely Southern hospital, far from his home.
And he was but one of many. The names of
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those who gave their lives are carved upon the tablets in the Town Hall.
Elbridge B. Piper, died April 18, 1862, in hos- pital at Newburne, N. C.
John W. Frizell, died May 18, 1862, in hospital at Port Royal, S. C.
Patrick Herne, killed in Battle at Bull Run, Aug. 30, 1862.
John E. McKew, killed in Battle at Fredericks- burg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862.1
Henry L. Godbold, died in hospital at Wash- ington, Sept. 27, 1862 of wounds received in battle.
Martin L. Fisher, died Aug. 18, 1862, in New York.2
James S. Gilmore, died Feb. 26, 1863, in hos- pital.
William C. Manter, died Feb. 13, 1863, in hos- pital at Fairfax, Va.
John G. Woods, died June 30, 1864 in hospital at City Point, James River, Va.
Samuel Jackson, died July 6, 1864, in hospi- tal at Washington of wounds received in battle.
Charles N. Spear, died Oct. 29, 1864, in hospital at Newberne, N. C.3
Lowell E. Hartshorn, died Dec. 16, 1864, in Andersonville Prison, Ga.
1 He was of Co. I, 25th Infantry, a Dedham company. Ded. Hist. Reg., V, 76 and 123.
? He died in a hospital of exposure in the field, while on his way home after 11 months' service. Ded. Hist. Reg., X, 120.
' He was of Co. H, 23d Mass. Volunteers, and had been stationed at Evans Mills, N. C., until removed to the hospital. The date of his death is given in the letter previously quoted as Oct. 19.
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While these men-many of them were boys- were suffering hardships in the field, those at. home were working as best they could to bring the struggle to a successful end. There were fairs, private and public meetings, gatherings of women to sew and knit garments and prepare lint and bandages. Supplies of every con- ceivable kind were sent to the front to help make the soldier's life more comfortable.
Various appropriations on account of the war were made from time to time by the town, the total for the four years being $14,564. This did not include an expenditure of more than $10,000 as aid to the families of soldiers, for which the town was reimbursed by the State. 1
But the money cost was not counted. Each one thought of those who were with the armies and prayed that they might return in safety. For some, that was not to be. The supreme sacrifice was demanded. And when the boys came marching home, the joy of their coming was dimmed by the knowledge that there were vacancies in the ranks.
1 Schouler.
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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
POST ROAD AND TAVERN DAYS 1680-1800
W ITHIN the bounds of Walpole lie three historic highways, two of them going back to Colonial days, the third a memento of the great Turnpike Era of a century ago.
Earliest of all is that which came out from Boston through Roxbury to Dedham, and thence through the easterly part of Walpole (originally Dorchester, and later Stoughtonham and Sharon)-the old trail to Rhode Island- Pleasant Street of today-which was first called simply "The Country Road." 1
Over this road the journey of Colonial emis- saries from Boston to the southward were made. Over this the Quakers, men and women, were driven under the whip from Dedham Village into the "wilderness," to find their way as best they could to the shelter of the tolerant Rhode Island settlement.2 The "wilderness" included what is now the easterly part of Walpole, which was a wilderness indeed, though at that very
1 Mass. Arch., CXXVIII, 165, plan of lands now in East Walpole, 1688.
' New England Judged, 356, 357, 415.
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period, 1661, a saw mill was in operation at the Centre and a little colony had sprung up near it. This Country Road, which 30 years later was to become the "Post Road," remained the principal highway in America for more than a half-century; eventually giving way to a more westerly road, through Walpole Centre and Wrentham. Still other changes were made, as we shall see; but in nearly all the period from 1693, when the first regular mail service in America was established, to the advent of railroads in 1835, the great American mail, by one route or another, probably passed through what is now Walpole territory. 1
There had been a post between New York and Boston as early as 1673 by way of Spring- field, but this was chiefly for official business and was interrupted soon after its inception by the capture of New York by the Dutch and a subsequent war with the Indian sachem King Philip, here in Massachusetts.2
But in 1690 war with the French and Indians -King William's War-prompted the Colonial authorities at Boston to vote that "a post for speedy intelligence be maintained between this place & Road Island for a full discovery of the motions of the French or Privateers on those
1 Ded. Hist. Reg., VI, 87. There is no mention of a route via Walpole in the "Proposals for Carrying the Mails" issued by the Postmaster General in 1811.
2 Jenkins, 1, 2, 5.
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coasts." 1 And in the next year the Royal Governor of New York suggested that a regular post be instituted between New York and Bos- ton. 2
Yet it was not until the appointment by the British Crown of one Thomas Neale to proprie- torship of the Colonial post offices, in 1691, and his designation of Andrew Hamilton of Phila- delphia as his resident deputy in America, that steps for a real postal service were taken. On May 1, 1693, a weekly post was instituted be- tween Portsmouth, N. H., and Baltimore.3 The Country Road thereafter became the Post Road and a part of what has been well called the first National Highway in America.4 Over it the mail-rider or "the post," as he was called, passed from Boston to Providence, New London and Saybrook, Conn., where he met the post from New York and exchanged mails.5
The Post Road, then as now, crossed the Neponset at King's Bridge, or Kingsbridge (near the present Morrill plant in Norwood), where there had been a bridge "in bredth fower foote" with "a rayle on either side about twoe foot and a halfe high" as early as 1652 or perhaps a year earlier.6
Just south of the bridge,7 as early as 1688,
1 Mass. Arch., XXXVI, 159. 2 Mass. Arch., XXXVI, 448-448a.
' Jenkins, 8. 4 Ded. Hist. Reg., VI, 87, 130.
" Ibid. "Dorchester Town Rec., 309, 310, 316. 7 Lewis, 144.
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Henry White's tavern was doing a good business catering to travelers. His place appears in an old manuscript expense account of a journey to New York and New Jersey, made about that year. 1
The earliest known printed mention of the Post Road is in John Tulley's Almanack for 1698, published at Boston. It gives "A De- scription of the High Ways, & Roads. From Boston to New-York 278 Miles, thus accounted. From Boston to Dedham 10 miles, thence to Whites 6, to Billings 7, [present Sharon] to Woodcocks 10 [North Attleboro]. Or, from Dedham to Medfield 9, to Wrentham 10, to Woodcocks 4 (which is the smoother Road) to Providence 15. . . . " 2
By 1700 the Post Road had doubtless become a fairly good one, as roads went in those days. The famous Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston, who traveled it often on official business of the courts, dignifies it as "the Cart-way" in 1702.3
Two years later, in October 1704, Mme. Sarah Knight journeyed over it to New York on horseback. She left Boston at 3 in the after- noon, planning to meet the "Western post" at Dedham, and accompany him over the road. Guiding travelers was one of the duties of the post riders in the early days. Sarah missed 1 Col. Soc. Pub., XIX, 28. 2 Col. Soc. Pub., XIII 220. " Sewall, I, 64.
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the post, so engaged a man to go on with her through the night as far as Billings, where she hoped to find the rider.
"When we had Ridd about an how'r," she wrote, "wee come into a thick swamp, wch by Reason of a great fogg, very much startled mee, it now being very Dark." 1 This swamp must have been in or close to Walpole territory, for, "In about an how'r, or something more, after we left the Swamp, we come to Billinges."
She covered the 13-mile stretch in something more than two hours. Sewall on one occasion took three hours to travel the same route in the daytime.2 A traveler over this Post Road in 1710 reports "weather and ways dirty"; 3 but Gov. Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Province traveled over it in a two-wheeled calash the following year, and survived the journey.4
Somewhere about this time the famous old Roe Buck Tavern makes its appearance. This hostelry was on the Post Road on the northeast corner of present Coney Street, in East Walpole. 5 Though said to have been built soon after Bil- lings' Tavern,6 the first notice of the Roe Buck that I have found was written in 1720, when Benjamin Lynde of Boston, one of the Superior Court Justices, "cros't over about five miles
1 Knight's Journal, 11, 12. 2 Sewall, I, 502.
' Buckingham Journal, 96, 97.
4 Ded. Hist. Reg., VII, 58, 59.
" Lewis, 189.
6 Sharon Hist. Pub., I, 6.
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to Kingsburys," from Canton. 1 Nathaniel Kingsbury was at this time the tavern keeper.2
Sewall lodged at the Roe Buck in 1720; 3 yet strangely enough, all the almanac makers seem to have entirely overlooked the tavern. The "Row Buck" does appear in one almanac for 1724 (possibly earlier), but is placed "at Kings- bury," 7 miles from Dedham, its proprietor evidently having been confused with King's Bridge. This almanac carried substantially the same listing to 1729; but a copy of 1738 has it merely "King's Bridge,"4 with no mention of the tavern. The Roe Buck property, including 500 acres of land, passed into the hands of the Gould family in 1760; and before the end of the century the old tavern was torn down.5 Its gaping cellar remained until 50 years ago.6
In 1718 the first stage coach line in New Eng- and, and the second in America, began regular trips between Boston and Bristol Ferry over the Post Road. At the Ferry passengers could continue by boat to Newport or New York.7
A Bostonian, writing to a friend in New York, March 8, 1717/18, says, "we Expect Peggies [his daughter] comeing to us as Soone as the Season and opportunity can permitt, and am of
1 Lynde, 10. 2 Huntoon, 207.
4 N. Whittemore's Almanacks.
' Stoughton Sentinel, Jan. 30, 1875.
7 Ded. Hist. Reg., VII, 58, 59
3 Sewall, III, 261.
' Huntoon, 211.
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opinion that her best way will be via Road Island, for there is a Stage Coach erected from Bristoll to Boston, wch will Render her Journey more rapid. .. . " 1 Two months later, how- ever, the father has another reason for preferring the land route. He writes that he is "under a deep concern about Peggies returne for that there is on our Coast a pirate who hath taken severall Vessells. . . " It would not be safe, he says, to come all the way by water, certainly not farther than Rhode Island, and it would be best to come from New London by land. The pirate was Capt. Bellamy, who ended his career about this time by being shipwrecked on Cape Cod, while intent, it is believed, on plundering Provincetown. 2
Though Peggy's father considered this Boston- Bristol coach a speedy affair, it scarcely came up to standards as we know them. In 1720 the trip from Bristol to Boston, 55 miles, took from 5 a. m. Tuesday to noon of Wednesday. The trip was made every two weeks, in the summer months, at 25 shillings a person.3
The Post Road continued to be the chief route to Bristol, Attleboro and Providence until 1751, when the opening of a new road between the northerly end of present North Attleboro . village and present Wampum Station in Wren-
1 Descent of John Nelson, 37.
3 Boston News Letter, April 4, 1720.
: Sewall.
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tham connected the lower end of the Post Road with a road from Walpole Centre to Wrentham, and changed the course of traffic. 1
Even before this, the route from Dedham, through Walpole Centre, to Wrentham and Woonsocket had become a much traveled one. Judge Sewall in 1719, returning from a journey to the southward, tells that he "baited at Ded- ham Hamlet, Mr. Fales"-undoubtedly present Walpole Centre.2
Whether Mr. Fales actually kept a hostelry, or whether he merely obliged the Judge on this occasion, is open to question, but it is probable that the flourishing little community at the Centre boasted a regular tavern. It might have been the home of Peter Fales, which stood on Main Street up to 25 years ago, just north of the present Bradford Lewis house.3 Pos- sibly it was run by Ebenezer Fales. About 10 years later, in preparation for the ordination of Walpole's first minister, the town voted that "ye Entertainment should be made att ye house of Ebenezer Fales." Ebenezer agreed to do the entertaining in proper fashion at five shil- lings a man.4
One of the first pieces of business done by the selectmen after the town was established in 1724 was to nominate Daniel Morse to the Court
1 Wood, 170.
2 Sewall, III, 227.
' Lewis, opposite 13.
4 Town Rec., I, 29.
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of Excise (which had charge of issuing tavern licenses) "as sutable to entertain Travelers." 1 Whether he ever became tavern-keeper is a question.
Before 1754 the easterly road past the Roe Buck Tavern had become in fact the "Old" Post Road, and the post riders were traveling over the route through Walpole Centre.2 It is described as "The post Rhode That Leads from Boston to Rhode island whare thare is much traveling. ." 3 It was also referred to in the same year as "The great Road leading to Rhode Island" by Peletiah Man, or Mann, for many years tavern-keeper at Wrentham 4 who, in a petition to the General Court, says, "There is no Tavern within nine Miles of one side and four Miles the other. . . . " 5
The tavern "nine miles" distant was the Brass Ball,6 kept by Deacon Ezekiel Robbins, which stood just across the Neponset River at Walpole Center, towards Wrentham, on the northwest side of what is now West Street, near the factory of the Lewis Mfg. Co.7
Just how early the worthy deacon became a 1 Town Rec., I, 1. 2 Jenkins, 34. 3 Mass. Arch., CXI, 303. 4 Ibid., 292. 5 Ibid., 300.
8 Tradition says that this tavern was called the Brass Ball; but I wonder if, in its early days, it was not the Black Horse. Witness: in 1748 Seth Kingsbury was named by the town to care for the roads from Wrentham to the "Sign of the Black Horse." (Lewis page 94.) Of course the Black Horse may have been a shop cf some sort.
7 Ded. Hist. Reg., XI, 35.
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THE OLD MILESTONE SET OUT BY DEACON ROBBINS
(Reproduced by courtesy of the Dedham Historical Society from a heliotype in the Dedham Historical Register for April, 1900, accompanying an article by Dana W. Robbins.)
POST ROAD AND TAVERN DAYS
taverner I have not been able to establish. He was doing business there in 1742, when Judge Lynde, returning from Bristol, dined with him; 1 and there is little doubt that he was serving the public in 1740, when he placed a milestone a short distance beyond his house, towards Wren- tham, marking the 20-mile point from Boston, as then reckoned.
This "mile ston" or "mill-stone near Robins pauster barrs .. . " appears in the town records in 1744.2 A widening of the road about 1875 started the stone on various wanderings, in which it was lost, found, set up in front of the town hall (about 1895)3 and finally, by another turn of fate, found its way into a culvert. The tavern itself is gone, but an old house built on the farm about 1750, on the opposite side of the road, is still standing.4
Judge Samuel Curwen of Salem, who made a journey to Philadelphia in 1755, "alighted at Robbins, Walpole" for his noonday meal, and "dined on Eggs boil'd." 5 This is scarcely the kind of meal we would expect one who had ridden out from Cambridge to order; yet, in charity, we will assume that it was what the Judge really wished for, and not the best fare the Deacon had to offer.
1 Lynde, 127. 2 Town Rec., I, 93, 94.
3 Ded. Hist. Reg., XI, 35.
4 Ibid., 35 et seq.
5 Curwen's Journal.
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It is possible that George Washington was entertained at the Brass Ball in the following year, 1756. At that time Washington, a young Colonel of Virginia militia, came to Boston to consult with Gov. William Shirley on military business of the Seven Years' War. His diary shows that he visited Rhode Island and continued on to Boston,1 probably by the principal route which lay through Walpole Centre.
In the fall of 1771, William Gregory, a business man of New Haven, returning from a visit to Boston, tells that he set out after the noonday meal, oated his horse at Dedham, and thence "steered my way along, and arrived at Walpole just at dark, and I put up at one Mr. Robins', just nineteen and a half miles from Boston, as far as I wanted to ride to divide the way between Boston and Providence. Here was two fine handsome girls. I rose about six o'clock after resting well. Here they have a fine fish pond. I proceeded on my way towards Wrentham, where I arrived to breakfast." 2
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Deacon Robbins was not only taverner and church official, but was one of Walpole's earliest benefactors. He gave the first schoolhouse,
1 Ford, I, 230 note, 231 et seq.
' Journal of Wm. Gregory, N. E. Magazine, N. S. 12, p. 346. But 50 years ago complaint was made that polution of the river by the factories had killed the fish. Mass. State Board of Health Re- port, 1876, p. 89.
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THE CLAPP HOUSE, West Street, Walpole (1750)
وبد كمية
يحقد
تورمع السـ
POST ROAD AND TAVERN DAYS
and, at death, left his considerable estate to the church and to the town's poor. 1
One of the functionaries at the Brass Ball was the slave "Jack," whose official duties, we are informed, were to eject visitors who became too boisterous. As a part of the estate, Jack be- came the property of the church, which was charged in the Deacon's will to "take tender care of him and suitable provide for him all the re- mainder of his life, and afford him a decent burial after his death."
On one occasion the society paid $6.00 to advertise for Jack's return when he ran away, and on another felt compelled to investigate the legality of relations between Jack and a negro woman who passed as his wife. The lady went by the name of Hannah Jack and survived her mate, who died in 1810. The church records show that $163.33 was spent on Jack's funeral, so the Deacon's instructions were faithfully followed to the end.2
The proprietor of the Brass Ball died in 1772 3 and, though his widow continued of an occasion to board the visiting ministers and their horses,4 it is doubtful if she intended to take permanently upon her frail shoulders the charge of a busy tavern.
However, the Brass Ball was still known as
1 Ded. Hist. Reg., XI, 33 et seq.
2 Ibid., 33.
3 Vital Rec.
' Town Rec., II, 60.
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Robbins' tavern in the following year, for John Rowe, prominent Boston merchant, whose name is preserved in that of Rowe's Wharf, wrote in his diary on June 8, 1773: "I rose very early & set out with Duncan for Wren- tham on a [fishing] Party with Admiral Mon- tague. I stopt at Richards [Roxbury] & at Robin's Walpole & at eleven I reached Wren- tham. . . . "
With the passing of Robins another taverner appears-Dr. Samuel Cheney, who dwelt in the house still standing on the west side of Main St., opposite Norton Ave., now numbered 841 and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Goddard and Mrs. Frederick Guild.
Though first mentioned as a tavern keeper in 1775,2 Dr. Cheney had been owner of the prop- erty since 1771, when he purchased it from Dr. Ebenezer Daggett.3 Dr. Cheney was of a promi- nent Roxbury family and was a graduate of Harvard. 4 Cheney sold his house in 1779, the property passing in that same year through Thomas Ruggles to Capt. Shubael Downes of Nantucket, mariner.5 The tavern, however, was still listed as Cheney's in 1782.6
Captain Downes, who became prominent in town affairs, being Representative in the legis-
1 Rowe's Diary, 246. ? Ames' Almanack.
3 Suffolk Deeds, CXIX, 215. 4 Cheney Genealogy, 77.
" Suffolk Deeds, CXXX, 81 and 118. " Thomas' Almanack.
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THE BOWKER HOUSE (formerly Downes & Gay Tavern), Main Street, Walpole (about 1725). Now occupied by Mrs. Frederick Guild
POST ROAD AND TAVERN DAYS
lature in 1789,1 evidently had a command of language more expressive than churchly. Tra- dition in Medfield has it that when they raised a new meeting house and the workers made a poor job of getting up the higher parts, they sent for Downes. His experience and courage, plus considerable "rough language," saw the job through successfully.2 Doubtless some of the Captain's expletives originated in the four barrels of beer and the 55 gallons of rum con- sumed during the raising.
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