USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Braintree > Town annual report of Braintree, Massachusetts for the year 1869-1879 > Part 24
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The speculative spirit had induced those who could obtain foreign goods, to over-importation, specie was drained from the country, public and private credit was impaired, if not destroyed,2 and the overhanging, lowering clouds seemed black and heavy with impending calamity. The inspiration of UNION, a word that was destined to disperse the impo- tence of Confederation, had not yet been pronounced ; the financial system, by which the genius of Hamilton was to quicken the giant energies of the Republic, had not yet been matured; the matchless masonry of the Constitution had not been cut or chiselled into shape ; and those broad outlines of a nation, one and indestructible, had not yet been traced by
1 Austin's History of Mass., p. 344.
2 Austin's History of Mass., p. 364.
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the Divine Artist on the broad canvas of history. Chaos ruled in commerce, paralysis pervaded administration, and doubt, mingled with despair, haunted the popular mind.
The actors of that dismal epoch are gone. No, not all ; here and there one lingers. In our own midst we have one, 1 a matron of a hundred years, whose cradle was rocked in the commotion of war, whose childhood was overcast with these scenes of gloom and darkness, and who has lived to see the clouds scatter, the seas of sorrow subside, until her own eyes, that have witnessed the changing events of a century, behold her country approaching a destiny beyond the wildest dreams of any poet, or the fairest promise of any prophét. May the remaining blessings of time, and all the unconceived blessings of eternity, come to the venerable woman whose presence we were in hopes might have hal- lowed this occasion !
That Braintree shared in this general discouragement and depression is evident, and from the close of the Revolution- ary war, to the close of the century, may well be termed the period of our municipal discipline and humiliation. The town had griefs of the spirit, as well as material difficulties. The records show that the General Court had given Braintree exceeding offence in an effort to tinker the orthodox Sabbath to suit the " demand of the. times."2 Her indignation com- pels the people of the town, by vote, to "acknowledge it was surprising to them, the Honorable Court should at this day, when we are just emerging from the horrors of a most barbarous and unparalleled war, curtail a part of the Fourth Commandment, by tolerating secular concerns and servile labor, to be carried on six hours of the same, to the great dis- turbance of every sober and conscientious person in the State." Other troubles follow. The town vaults were stuffed with certificates of indebtedness, of such dubious value that the selectmen were authorized to make for these securities the
1 Mrs. Mary White, aged 101 years, still vigorous and in good health.
2 This action refers to the statute passed by the General Court regulating the Sabbath as it now exists, making Sunday commence after midnight of Saturday, instead of six o'clock, as the Puritan Sunday did.
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" best market " possible, and they are also to dispose of the Continental money at " any hazard, for what it will fetch."
The town found it necessary, in 1786, to "instruct its representative in his political conduct in the General Court." We have first, for this matter of instruction is rather a serious business, a vote "to raise a committee who are to serve without pay," that shall draw up the proper expression of dissatisfaction on the following basis, " which is declared to be the will of the town": -
First. To remove the Court from Boston.
Second. To tax all public securities.
Third. To tax money on hand and on interest.
Fourth. To lower the salaries of placemen.
Fifth. To make land a tender for all debts, at the price it stood at when the debts were contracted.
Sixth. To take some measures to prevent the grasping ot attorneys and barristers-at-law.
The report of the committee carrying out these remark- able propositions is a marvel of turgid eloquence, if not elegance, and proceeds to inform the representative that, " Inasmuch as there are numerous Grievances or intolerable Burdens, by some means or other lying on the good subjects of this Republic, our eyes, under Heaven, are upon the Legis- lature of this Commonwealth, and their names will shine Brighter in American annals, by preserving the inalienable liberties of their own People, than if they were to carry the terror of their Arms as far as Gibraltar."
The climax 1 of this burst of eloquence or rhetoric appears somewhat strained ; but there is no doubt whatever about the sincerity and earnestness of these terrific sentence-makers. They command the representative at the next session "to give his close attention to these matters." It is a mooted question whether he obeyed the clamor of the populace, as the following year there is an article in the warrant, "To see whether the Representative shall be dismissed, or instructed
1 See Appendix D, 2d part.
3
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still further."1 The suggestion of removing the capitol away from the temptations, blandishments, and influence of a great centre has, perhaps, a foundation of common-sense ; but the movement to change the agreements of securities by taxation, to make a new legal tender, and scale debts by arbitrary methods, would betoken that the agrarian element had once found temporary lodgment in this conservative town. We can but smile at the primitive innocence, so often repeated, by which over-confident people seem to turn their eyes. in any particular crisis, to the General Court. It is an ever- recurring transaction, yet there does not appear to be any corresponding action, on the part of that body, to justify this liberal outlay of popular glances, in that direction, in emer- gencies. And we are equally struck with the significance of another fact. In reading these instructions we find they insist on a course that shall crush, or at least put proper check or restraint, on that order of gentlemen denominated lawyers, "the constitution," they say, "of whose modern conduct appears to us to tend rather to the destruction than the preservation of the Commonwealth." We may conclude from this expression of opinion that in periods of disaster, the human mind has a tendency towards summoning a scape- goat, to receive the surplus spleen of the public distemper. It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, however, that whenever the condition of affairs improve, the total depravity of a special class seems to disappear.
The sacrificial victim or "scapegoat" in 1786 was the lawyer; in 1876 it seems to be the politician. I do not stand here to defend that class who make politics a trade, but to my mind it is contrary to the spirit of republican in- stitutions, that in free America any citizen cannot properly aspire to a high position without the danger of loss of charac- ter and private reputation. I believe it to be one of the highest duties of an American citizen to know, and to mingle
1 At this time quite a rupture must have taken place between the town and its representative, Gen. Thayer. He was elected by only twelve majority in 1787, and an interline on the town books of that date exhibits some feeling in the matter.
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in politics. Our trouble is, that there are not more politicians in the true sense of that word ; that there are so few, and too few, is the fault of the influential members of society, who stand aloof from the primaries, and then complain at what is done, charging that things "are fixed." After all, govern- ment is. but a machine, and when those individuals or classes who now do the growling, and charge all our evils to the caucus, will commence to handle the machinery them- selves, they can have matters their own way. Let our respectable people participate more freely in the details of political action, and there will be less corruption in high places, and a purer political atmosphere than now. Unless, and until they do this, they have no right to murmur or com- plain. It is familiar knowledge, that the term of our national life to which I have referred, was conspicuous "for general decay of trade, the rise of imported merchandise, the fall of produce, and an uncommon decrease in the value of land."1 Much, therefore, must be pardoned to these stringent and barren years, that blasted the hopes, and palsied the reason of men. The heresies that lurk in those outbursts of indig- nation and suffering came from a community loaded down with unpaid obligations, exhausted with exertion, with 110 chosen industry to sustain it, no outlying farms or agricultu- ral regions seeking it for a market, no deep water or wharves, waiting for reviving navigation, no local facilities as yet tempting capital to investment. Is it to be wondered that the good old town sought, as many have since, to discover some "short cut" to relief, some new way to pay debts, expecting to rectify existing wrongs, by shearing the stipend of placemen, snubbing attorneys, and suppressing barristers, and striving to balance the ledger, by " swapping farms and exchanging wood-lots " ?
Among other misfortunes, Braintree develops in 17912 a defaulter, or, as the examining committee rather tenderly express it, " a falling short of accounts," and her cup of mis-
1 People's Hist. of America.
2 Vinton's Memorial.
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ery would seem to be wellnigh full. This, unhappily, is by no means the limit of her trials, for in addition to the com- mon tribulation and loss from worthless paper promises of payment, and deficits from unfaithful servants, she is about to be given over to the merciless process of legislative sur- gery. The time has come when the various centres make independent demands, and the extreme precincts aspire to become towns. These localities besiege the General Court for incorporation, and Braintree, through agent and repre- sentative, remonstrates and protests against the division of her territory, but in vain ; the hour of partition has come, and fate demands the dislocation of the ancient township. In 1792 Quincy leaves her, and in 1793 Randolph follows, and the same year a separation from Suffolk, leaves Braintree in Norfolk County. Though the town has previously urgently pressed for a new county, for some reason she is now dis- pleased with the arrangement, and petitions to be annexed once more to Suffolk. The petition is refused, and now the "iron has entered the soul" of Braintree, for she secedes from the halls of legislation and turns her back in sorrow, if not in anger, upon the unfriendly tribunal that has severed her in twain and torn her from the embrace of her time-hon- ored county relations.
She declines in 1794 and 1795 to send any representative to the General Court, her vacant seat undoubtedly intended as a rebuke, to what she regards a cruel injustice, while she sits quietly at home, like Niobe weeping for her children. Though the inexorable fiat of change has stripped Braintree of population and property, and forced from her more acres than she has now left to call her own, neither time nor change can deprive her of the honors and distinction that make her one of the oldest and most historical of the towns of Massa- chusetts.
It will not be forgotten that the vast iron industry now in this country, annually computing its products by hundreds of millions of value, had its birth and infancy, in 1643, by the
1 Appendix G, p. 463. Vinton's Memorial.
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waterfalls of the Monatiquot, it being the second ever founded in America. It will be remembered that her enterprise claims the first working of glass1 in America, while her crude method of transporting masses of stone by tramways ? was the forerunner of that network of railways now numbering seventy thousand miles in the States of the Union. Her list of eminent men contributed to fame during the one hundred and fifty years she was intact, is too long for repetition, but in it were persons distinguished in law, literature, science, and medicine, and from her ranks went many bankers, capi- talists, and " princely merchants " to add to the celebrity of the metropolis.3
It was from Braintree that Boston sought its mechanic to build the Old South Church 4 in 1744, while from her yards were launched ships of notable burden and commercial repute. It would take hours to properly notice the promi- nent divines that in the three precincts adorned and dignified the Braintree pulpit. 5
Rich, indeed, has this town been in clerical celebrities, from the pastorate of Mr. Fiske, whose somewhat extrava- gant eulogium upon his tombstone tells us in a rather sca- faring way that he, after possessing
" Paul's patience, James's prudence, John's sweet love, Is landed, entered, cleared, and crowned above,"
to the noble Christian minister and masterly intellect of Richard Salter Storrs, who, in the sixty-fourth year of his pastoral service, in the ripeness of age, laid down his task amid the love and tears of the whole people, and of whom it was justly said, " Thrice blessed is the man who so spends a long life as to make his very name a religious doctrine.", Yes, it is beyond dispute, that the Braintree sanctuaries have
1 Life of Josiah Quincy, by Edmund Quincy, p. 7.
2 Whitney, in a note to p. 49, mentions this road as built to carry stones for Bunker Hill Monument.
3 See Appendix D note 3.
4 Vinton's Memorial, in a note to p. 318, says Lieut. Robert Mead, carpenter of Braintree, erected the South Church at Boston.
5 See Appendix D, note 4.
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been signally honored with worth and ability. There are en- rolled the respected names of Thompson, the first minister of 1638, reputed " a learned, solid, sound divine," 1 and Briant, " a man of extraordinary powers," who assaulted the phari- secism that went about exclaiming, "The temple of the Lord,2 the temple of the Lord are wee," and aroused the bitterest theological controversy, since the days of Hutchinson and Wheelwright ; and Hugh Adams, of "eccentric " 3 cast, who seemed forever in hot water about his salary ; and Parson Niles, a man of decided parts, who settled by treatise the whole doctrine of "Original Sin," and illustrated his views by buttonholing the General Court until he had the town lines so run around his farm as to be against all rules of con- sistency and symmetry ; 4 and Weld, "a faithful and useful minister," under whom the flag of the "Half Way Cove- nant," 5 a device filling up the church with hypocrites and the world with infidels, was hauled down; and Park, still living as the head of an influential seat of religious learning, and who, uniting in his intellectual accomplishments the en- dowments of Hooker, and the logic of Edwards, is without a peer in the profession he adorns. Such are some of the lights of the ministry that have shed their beams from our sacred desks. But what words shall express or reflect the effulgence of those other stars, that shine in the American firmament, undimmed and unchangeable? Who shall attempt to paint the brightness of those immortal chieftains, without which America would not have had her history, or Freedom have won her victories ?
When the fifth Henry was picturing the results of the campaign that gave Agincourt to martial prowess, he thrilled his compatriots by prophesying " the effect of French defeats on English hearts." Then, said he, shall our names, " familiar in the mouths " as household words, -
1 Lunt's Sermon, p. 88.
2 Appendix, Lunt's Sermon, p. 135.
8 Pamphlet, Manual and History of First Cong. Church, Braintree, note to p. 4.
4 Park's Address at 50th Anniversary of Dr. Storrs's pastorate.
5 Pamphlet, Manual and Historical First Cong. Church, Braintree, p. 13.
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" Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,
Be in this flowing cup freshly remembered."
And wherever, in all this broad domain, the old and lumi- nous story of the Revolution is told to-day, wherever an American heart throbs on this memorable morning to the recital of patriotic incident, wherever the pledge of remem- brance is given to those who made this the nation's jubilec, the names of Adams and Hancock and Quincy will be insep- arable from sentiment and recollection. From our midst may not have gone forth those who became renowned in field, or on battle-deck, but we sent out the Thor, who forged the thun- derbolt, that rifted the Republic from the grasp of monarchy. Most fitting was it that the soil which held the dust of the regicide Revel, should have been the origin of the two men exempted in the hour of travail from kingly recognition and clemency.1 It was our town that gave the first chief magis- trate to the Commonwealth, the second and sixth President to the United States, the latter of whom, to show his attach- ment and love for it, in an address delivered in Braintree in 1839, said, "I was, or rather, I am, one of yourselves. I was born in Braintree, and in the revolution of time I am one of the oldest inhabitants of that town. In Braintree I first beheld the light of heaven, first breathed the atmosphere of your granite rocks, first sucked with my mother's milk the love of liberty, and I was always grateful to heaven for having made me a Braintree boy."
It was a son of Braintree that with Otis and Warren made the grand triumvirate, that inaugurated the crusade for inde- pendence ; it was her citizen that defiantly asserted " that the people, the populace as they are contemptuously called, have rights antecedent to all earthly government; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws ; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe " ;? it was
1 Bancroft's His., Cen. Edition.
2 His. of American Revolution.
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her descendant that, hearing the crack of the musketry on the 19th of April, broke out with the exultation, " What a glori- ous morning is this ! " 1 it was her son that first wrote the bold signature to the Declaration, " to be seen across the ocean," which imperishable document has this day been read to an audience of more than forty millions of grateful people ; and in a later day, when liberty was again in peril, and when law was defied in her very citadels, it was the most distinguished of all her children that became the champion of imperilled rights and solved the perplexity produced by anarchy by an- nouncing, "I will put the question myself." 2
Though other towns now flourish on her parted domain, and the population living within its former boundaries now numbers twenty thousand souls,3 while the valuation included in her ancient limits has swelled to twelve millions of money,4 yet these glorious names are her everlasting patri- mony, and these illustrious deeds are the deathless inherit- ance of Braintree, and of Braintree alone. With New Brain- tree in Massachusetts, and Braintree in Vermont, as credita- ble colonies, with Quincy, Randolph, and Holbrook, pros- perous offspring, setting up for themselves on their part of the old estate, with her sons and daughters, since pioneers on the reserves and plains of the great West, on Southern savannas, and on the far-off vineyards of the Pacific, bearing wherever they are planted the virtues and principles taught by her hearthstones, Braintree, in 1794, became within her present boundaries a town of the Commonwealth, and so in- tact she has remained for eighty years, except that by Act of the Legislature a small strip of her territory, known as the " Neck,". was annexed to Quincy in 1855.
We have seen how Braintree closed the seventeenth cen- tury. She ended the eighteenth, as the old records show, by minutely detailing the duties of the sexton of the church, who
1 Austin's His. of Mass.
2 This incident of John Quincy Adams is described in Rev. Win. P. Lurt's sermon.
8 See Appendix A, note 2.
4 See Appendix A, note 2.
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was required " to ring the bell, sweep the house, remove the snow from the horse block, carry the burying cloth, and per- form divers other prescribed responsibilities "; and then the position was knocked off to the lowest bidder, at ten dollars, just as the sands of 1799 were running out ;1 and year after year, without violent change or abrupt innovation, the town pursued its slow and steady ways, while the sexton rang the bell to the church, to bridal ceremonies, to fire alarms, tolling with it the funeral dirge, for those who passed on to the grave ; and without doubt it rang lustily on that memorable Sunday morning, during the War of 1812, when Col. Clark inter- rupted the first service by rushing into the house, announcing the news of British invasion, and Capt. Ralph Arnold? rallied his company, and, with a week's rations, started in search of the enemy, repulsing the tollman at the North Ferry Bridge, who interfered with the progress of the bold warriors, by shouting " Halt !" causing that indiscreet official to beat a hasty retreat, the gate being carried by storm. This tradition, showing a readiness to resist the foc, together with the records of the town concerning enlistments for the War of 1812, is proof that Braintree was true to the country, as had ever been her wont. That the growth and habits of the town for the first quarter of the present century were sluggish, and its condi- tion stationary and far from flattering, may be inferred from a portraiture by Rev. Dr. Storrs in his fiftieth anniversary sermon, calling attention to the fact " that fifty years ago, and for many after years, no post-office blessed the town, nor public conveyance for letters, papers, or persons was to be had, even semi-weekly, except through villages two miles distant ; that but for an occasional rumbling of a butcher's cart, or a tradesman's wagon, the fall of the hammer on the lapstone, or the call of the ploughman to his refractory team, our streets had wellnigh rivalled the graveyard in silence, it can scarcely surprise one that our knowledge of the outer
1 See Appendix D, note 4.
2 See Appendix D, note 5.
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world was imperfect, nor that general intelligence and enter- prise were held at a discount." 1
It is easy to see that what the good doctor says of himself is true of the town, - that preliminary years of experience "are rather preparative to life, than intelligent life itself."2 In 1800 the population of Braintree was 1,280, and its valua- tion was not over $250,000.3 In 1812, the year which Dr. Storrs has presented to our view, with its Arcadian simplicity and quiet, if not with Arcadian fascination and felicity, the. town riches, all told, amounted to $305,000, the nabob of Braintree, a butcher, boasting the fabulous wealth of $30,000.4 But Braintree was to " see another sight," and this stagnation was to give way to a different era. The original meaning of Braintree, " a town near a river,"5 was to fulfil its derivation, and along the Monatiquot the true destiny of the place was to be achieved. Capital at last sought the secrets of growth and increase. The tide mills, now the site of the grain and grist mill of Hobart, were utilized in furnishing most excellent flour. The head of water above " cart bridge " was put to use in making the best of chocolate, being afterwards converted into a grist mill, which was destroyed by fire a few years since. The "trip hammer falls," once used for the smelting of copper, were made to serve the Boston Flax Company, consuming nearly two thousand tons of coal annu- ally, and at times employing four hundred persons in prepa- ration of its fabrics. Higher up the active stream, now the location of the yarn mills of B. L. Morrison, was the site ot the grist mills of Hon. Benj. V. French, a name we cannot pass without special mention. 6 Mr. French was, in his day,
1 Anniversary Sermon of Rev. Dr. Storrs, p. 32.
2 Anniversary Discourse of Dr. Storrs, p. 14.
8 See Appendix A, note 4.
4 A communication entitled "Sixty Years Ago," written for the Braintree Breeze, in 1872, has this incident: "The two rich men of the town were Peter Dyer, a large land-owner, who lived on Washington Street, in the house now occupied by the widow of the late Ezra Dyer, and Bryant Newcomb who lived at the Neck, now a part of Quincy. These men, one a butcher, the other a farmer and trader, were supposed to be worth from $20,000 to $30,000 cach."
5 See Adams's Town Hall Oration, note 10, p. 26.
6 See Appendix D, note 6.
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one of our most public-spirited citizens, who in early life removed from Boston to this town, possessed of an ample fortune, and Braintree as well as the State is largely indebted to him for the development of its agricultural resources. He caused husbandry to become a fine art, and horticulture a passion. He is entitled also to grateful remembrance for his successful efforts in the establishment of Mount Auburn, thus inaugurating the present system of burial in rural and culti- vated grounds, making the home of the dead a pleasant and " attractive spot. Near by were the yarn and woollen mills of A. Morrison & Sons, and following on, the site of the shovel works of the Ames, and latterly the tack and nail factory of Stevens & Willis, the extensive paper mills of Hollingsworth, where in former years the Revere Copper Works were located, and still higher up, the planing and saw mill of White, not to mention other enterprises not now in active operation. Another industry to which Massachusetts owes much of her success, as there were engaged in it, in 1874, 2,392 firms, and employed 35,831 hands, with an invested capital of $2),000,000, and an annual pay roll of $28,000,000, produ- cing in sales $88,394,000, the cost of which was $51,364,000, was the vast boot, shoe, and leather business, which had a thrifty and prominent activity in Braintree. The town soon began to thrive under these stimulants to skilled labor, and after the establishment of a trunk line of railway, a road most wisely and generously managed, affording communication to all parts of the country for transportation of commodities .. and persons, the change in our population, values, and con- cerns was so remarkable that the son of the venerable pastor, coming home to share the honors and festivities that signal- ized his father's half-century of Christian service, forcibly stated " that the sequestered hamlet is now the suburb of the city, and the tumult of the world's enterprise rushes through it day and night." 1 Through the courtesy of Col. Wright, under whose supervision the last census of the State was
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