USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Town annual reports of the several departments for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1885 > Part 22
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The bush scythe has held sway over the whole broad tract between Lake Avenue and the Bridle-Path, during the past year, and the grub-axe will find its stint hereafter. Brush and briar being cut away, little seems to. be left in the clearing. But Nature, which so readily repairs the deliberate wickedness of man, or even his careless waste, may be trusted to maintain its persistent evolution from the ashes of briar and bramble. The sun, at last, can now penetrate those tangled recesses, and light and life are sure to emanate from its vivifying rays. The Com- MISSION doubt not that shade enough will be furnished by the trees that were spared and by those that will rapidly spring up. A refreshing breeze is almost always blowing over that Park,
*" How does that suit you ?" asked McClure, as he pointed out to Steven Rowe the apparently hopeless swamp through which he was expected to build a double culvert. One glance, and " Oh! The Holy Terror!" broke from the lips of the veteran stone-layer.
"A "Ford," when the brook is up.
#The remarkable cleft bowlder.
§The pavilion erected to shield from sudden storms.
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CITY DOCUMENT .- No. 40.
even in the hottest days. A glance over the rippling surface of the fathomless Lake, of itself revives and invigorates. And where Nature ultimately fails to replace, man will be prepared to meet any reasonable requirement, with a ready supply of deciduous or evergreen growth, such as the customary foresight of the PARKS- COMMISSION keeps in constant and ample reserve.
The subjoined note will doubtless prove as interesting to the community now as it did, when received, to the PARKS-COMMIS- SION. It is not beyond hope, howsoever the screech of parsimony may disturb the air, that the interest of Alderman Crane, and of his official associates, in the PUBLIC GROUNDS, may manifest itself in some other form than antiquarian research.
WORCESTER, July 24, 1885.
E. W. LINCOLN, ESQ.,
My Dear Sir :-
I am quite sure that within the bounds of the new Park, at the Lake, once stood the house of Samuel Leonard, of Bridgewater. And it was from that house that his son Samuel was stolen by the Indians in the year 1696. Investi- gations thus far point to the spot on the hill, where the old cellar-hole is found, as being the site, or near the site, where the old log-house of Samuel Leonard stood. It would seem the best natural location for his house, on that beauti- ful rise of ground. About one year after the capture of Samuel Leonard, or Leonardson, his master took part in the descent on the town of Haverhill, Mass., and succeeded in capturing Mrs. Dustin and Mrs. Neff. The story of their capture and escape, by killing the Indians, will be found on page 185 of Barber's Historical Collections of Massachusetts, and forms an interesting item to the history of Worcester and her new park; for I am quite sure that it was from that territory that the Leonard boy was taken. My business has demanded so much of my time that I have only been able to give to this sub- ject a few moments at a time, which is my excuse for so much delay in work- ing this matter up. I shall have to go to Boston now before I can connect all the titles to the land from Leonard down to present owners, which I hope to do.
During the construction of the Boston and Worcester R. R., along there, a Mr. Young lived in the old house that covered this cellar-hole, and one day several men were sitting in one of the rooms when a large stone came flying over from a blast, crashed through the building, and killed one of the men in the room.
So, you see that the old cellar-hole has a history of modern, if not of an- cient, time.
Yours, with great respect,
E. B. CRANE.
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PUBLIC GROUNDS.
·
The elucidation of this matter will be awaited with patience by this COMMISSION. There can be no dispute that the first settlers of Worcester located towards the Lake. Whether "Lo! the poor Indian " raised their hair; or that errant mastodon, seeking a ford at King's Point, frightened them from their clearings; or they were scared away by some primeval sash and blind maker rampaging and roaring around to see whose excreta fouled his settling-basin ; this, at least, may be assumed with confidence ; that whatsoever in the premises is worth finding out, President Crane, and his Society of Antiquity, will know sooner or later. Thereafter, will be ample time for this COMMISSION to erect flag- staff or cairn.
May 11, A. D. 1885, the Chairman of the PARKS-COMMISSION received from the City Clerk a "statement " addressed "To his Honor Charles G. Reed, Mayor, the Gentlemen of the Board of Aldermen and the City Council of Worcester, Mass.," and by the Honorable Council referred to this COMMISSION. That "statement " purported to embody the opinions of what was entitled the " Evangelical Pastors' Union " upon the subject of " Public Sunday Amusements "; venting more especially a remonstrance against "last year's (1884) innovation "-" the inusical concerts in the Public Parks on the Lord's Day, and the use of public funds for that purpose." As the reference by the Hon. City Council did not ask for any action by this COMMISSION, nor even an essay upon the the theme of Sunday harmonies out- side of pew limits; and as the statement of the Evangelical Union avowedly deprecated action of any sort, there remained only the simple duty of placing the documents on file. But the Chairman " invited his soul to loaf " with Matthew 12:1, &c. ; Mark 2:23, &c .; and Luke 6:1, &c., seeking everywhere and finding mental refreshment and moral inspiration.
Subsequently, on the 5th of August, a communication was received from the Military Committee of the City Council, whereof a copy is subjoined :-
WORCESTER, MASS., Aug. 4, 1885.
TO EDWARD WINSLOW LINCOLN, Chairman.
My Dear Sir :-
The Joint Standing Committee on Military Affairs of the City Council are
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possessed of the sum of Three Hundred Dollars, appropriated by the City Council for the purpose of giving open-air concerts.
The Committee desire me to submit to the Hon. Commissioners of Public Grounds whether it is their wish that any of said concerts be given upon " Elm Park," and, if so, on what dates?
Very respectfully yours,
E. O. PARKER,
For the Com.
The matter was duly considered by the COMMISSION, as it had been presented to them, and their conclusions set forth, as fol- lows :-
PARKS-COMMISSION, WORCESTER, MASS., 7th Angust, A. D. 1885.
To Alderman EDWARD O. PARKER. My Dear Sir :-
Your note of inquiry, in which you state that the "Committee on Military Affairs of the City Council are possessed " of a sum of money "appropriated for the purpose of giving open-air concerts,"-and "submitting to the Hon. Commissioners of Public Grounds whether it is their wish that any of said concerts be given upon Elm Park; and, if so, on what dates,"-was duly received, on the 5th inst., by the PARKS-COMMISSION-the legal successor of the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS-and I have the honor to state that the PARKS-COMMISSION cherish or entertain no especial feeling in the premises, and have, therefore, no wish to express.
With great respect,
EDWARD WINSLOW LINCOLN, Chairman.
The habit of crossing a stream before you come to it is one that never commended itself to this COMMISSION. Should the water be deep, there might occur accidents. Were it foul or even turbid, Millbury would sue, claiming that it was roiled through some lâches of this COMMISSION. Should the channel be dry, ex- Senator Whitin, who will have some suggestions to offer, at the next Creation, concerning the proper grade of river-beds, would find a ready ad dam! num for implied diversion. "Let the squirrel sit !" exhorts the philosopher among our ex-Mayors.
Wrote the Chairman of the COMMISSION OF PUBLIC GROUNDS years ago :-
"In this vision of the future the Mill-'Privilege' disappears. Aqua-facture dies, and yet lives ; it ceases to turn wheels-ex mero motu-but, heated and
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PUBLIC GROUNDS.
compressed, its forces impel machinery, make fortunes, nor mar neighbor- hoods. The dam subsides, the brook ripples on, industry prospers, and no man is worse off. The pipe, or conduit, whichsoever is preferred, conducts water from the Apennines to Rome : perhaps, in this day and generation, we should say,-from Asnebumskit to Millbury and Tasseltop. But the Cloaca Maxima is never diverted from the Tiber."
To which in its thorough scope, the observation and study of years constrain him to adhere more closely. True, his suggestion has led the heathen to rage furiously, yet what countless multi- tudes reject the very Gospel. Reviewing all the criticism and sharp exception to which he has been subjected for the past fifteen months, that he may dismiss the theme once for all, the writer can but repeat :- Take down, or perforate the dams ! suffer the river to flow and chafe, and fret, without let or hindrance ! restock it with fish,-protecting them thereafter, as natural scavengers ! and the complaint must disappear, with its unnatural cause. Obvious it might be styled, would some people look before their noses !
There was a man in Dam-burgh, who thought he smelt a scent, At home, abroad, indoor or out,- thro' sash and blinds it went. How very queer ! or far or near, it meets his eager quest, You'd scarce suppose a town with stench could be so self-posses't! But yet, that taint ! it makes him faint : each sharply-pungent whiff Comes fraught with what to him betrays the old familiar sniff. He snuff's the ground,-the fault is found ! beneath his nose, forsooth, Do Mill-race, pond, and dam, suffused, disclose the fragrant truth !
The position of Worcester, in the political scheme of Massa- chusetts, was fixed originally in the ordinances of God at the creation. The place of Millbury, as a geographical expression, was determined when man saw that a current of water could be arrested and constrained to turn a mill-wheel. The proto-settler of Worcester pre-empted this turn-table of central Massachusetts, and the existing City attests his prescience. The dam-builder who tried to found Millbury upon a fabrication of sash and blinds, got discouraged as some post-diluvian excreta was washed down from Asnebumskit ; and wandering off to " fresh fields and pastures new," left both offended nostrils and vacuous skull for a latter-day puzzle to Raymenton and Putnam. It is but the
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CITY DOCUMENT .- No. 40.
survival of the fittest; an example of the operation of that inex- orable law which attracts men irresistibly to more propitious conditions. Brookfield, Lancaster, or Sutton may have had the better start ; and for mere beauty of landscape few towns can even now compete with them. But the stage-coach must run from one colony to another, and what more convenient or prac- ticable route than that traced by the Indian File ! As it was in the beginning, it is now ;- and shall it not be ever ? Worcester is central ; has become more and more accessible ; and attracting the best and brightest of the youth from the county-towns, makes much of them, sends them to the City Hall and State House, and will see them, as she has before, advance by univer- sal acclaim to the Gubernatorial chair. As it was with North- borough and Royalston, may it not be in turn with all the rest which shall keep their lamps filled and trimmed ! After a cer- tain stage of development a Town or City will grow by its own momentum.' Is it our fault ? and shall legislation enact it to be our crime ?- here in Worcester,-that the invention of the steam engine, and its application to locomotion, have given water-power and the mill-privilege a very black eye !
Certain gentlemen, perhaps as well known for a curious politi- cal shiftiness as for any acquaintance with the physical contour of the State, have consulted with certain other gentlemen-("ex- perts," these latter, who devoted an entire day of eight ? hours to a personal investigation !)-and thereupon report to His Excel- lency that they know no more than their fore-runners in a similar line of assumption, and that wisdom virtually died with that State Board of Health, Nov. 17, 1881, whose inferences and con- clusions had been so decisively repudiated by the General Court. They are undoubtedly competent judges of the causes that will convert the Democratic vote for governor to a reductio ad ab- surdum; are adepts in collecting cheerful assessments for the Republican treasury (unless O'Brien should be a candidate) ; and are naturally familiar with the gentle flow of the Charles and Mystic, until the onset of the tides drives back sewage and stream in one irresistible reflux. Yet what do they know,-as do some of us whose lives have been spent by its banks,-of a
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stream that unimpeded, might well be termed a mountain torrent ; that falls perceptibly in every mile, and precipitates itself in its short course of forty miles from Quinsigamond suburb, straight downward four hundred feet to the sea !
But, say our guides in empiricism, as they blindly lead us to the ditch,-Worcester is prosperous, populous, and has the pros- pect of a brilliant future. Aye,-but was its past founded upon prodigality and unthrift ? Is not its present burdened by many disadvantages of circumstance and location, and of both com- bined ? so that it has required close application and shrewdest management to secure success where otherwise would have re- sulted adversity. Is it for the welfare of the Commonwealth that its second city should be oppressed, borne down, -- if not crushed in the vain search for a sanitary chimera ? The cash, or credit (either a synonym for ultimate grievons taxation !) that these speculators in visionary theories would worse than waste in leaching the sands, might be applied to some pur- pose were they devoted to storing up the surplus waters of Tat- nuck Brook. That enormous sum, which it is so flippantly ad- vised that the city of Worcester should squander, would suffice to construct dams behind which might be saved a supply ample to clean out all the settling-basins of Millbury,-even the Town itself,-could but the ten righteous men be found for whose sake was the promise that it should be spared. Were it not as well that men of common sense and brains, who have had their whole attention concentrated upon this matter for years, should at last gain audience ? Men of parts,-even if they have brains,-pro- vided they are afflicted with "eminent gravity," merely allow themselves to be diverted, for the nonce, from their usual devo- tions on State Street, or at the club ; swallow at a gulp the plau- sible assertions and glib theories of their hired experts !* and report that Millbury smells something offensive during two or three months of the year, when her mill-ponds are drawn down; that Worcester has been a thrifty and well-conducted City (whose responsibility for that smell we elect to take upon hearsay
*Medici experimenta per mortes agunt.
PLIN. passim.
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or assume), and that we advise the General Court to incur the risk of arresting or ruining her prosperity, as the easiest solution of a problem with which we confess ourselves incompetent to grapple.
The simple fact of a preference for Intermittent Downward Filtration, as against the Scour of the Current, and Broad Irri- gation, both of which were provided by Him who evolved the Blackstone valley from Chaos; that it is advised before a trial of such a plausible scheme as that of Col. Waring, for which the present writer, at least, had no sneers; betrays how much Science (?) has to prove before it can vindicate its title,-discloses how little engineering it takes, in these days, when the graduate strikes an attitude, and the freshman works the plane-table,-to engineer ! But the men who were
" to the manner born "
know that there is not a water-plain along the entire valley of the Upper Blackstone, whether of its affluents or of the main stream, that is not underlain with a false, treacherous bottom. The whole subsoil, when you get to it, is a shifting, fluid quick- sand. The engineers, detailed to put a bit in the mouth of the Mississippi, awoke one fine morning to discover their scientific row of piles sliding down the stream, yet retaining their perpen- dicularity. Although the very bed of the river is thus proved to be in motion, it is of less concern to the engineers, whose faith is set and theories based upon the dogma of a fathomless Federal Treasury. The United States are prosperous, you see, and have a bright future ! But, ceteris paribus, it is of consequence and immediate relation to the present issue. If the subsoil between Worcester and Millbury consists of quicksand ; as it most assur- edly does along Beaver, Lincoln, Mill, and Tatnuck (Kettle, doubtless), Brooks, what is to become of the Pure Water drawn by Gegenheimer, and a score of other citizens of Millbury, from their driven wells, after Worcester has been forced to filter its sewage into those sands ? The sewage, we are assured, will be deodorized by Act of the General Court, even as by a similar enactment it was first authorized to flow unchallenged. Will
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rendering it odorless make it innocuous also ? is a possible conun- drum for the owners of drive-wells; and again ultimately for Worcester, which will be charged with fouling them. The City pollutes the stream and must resort to intermittent downward filtration. In that way, it will defile the water of the drive-wells, when the General Court can enact the waste of another Half- Million ! Do you ask, where is the money to come from ? You fool ! has not Worcester a " present condition and future pros- pects ?" Cannot she mortgage them and issue bonds secured upon the interest of money spent ! Should all experiments result in failure, Sanitary Empiricisin can be depended upon for explanations and glib excuses : Worcester supplying a ready scapegoat and victim. The Commonwealth will be so much more prosperous, you see ! after its second city has been op- pressed, depressed, sacrificed upon the altar of a qualified Stink !
" Cannot you deodorize this gas ?" asked the late Judge Byington of John H. Blake, expert witness in ré Commonwealth ads. the Worcester Gas Light Company. "Cannot you eliminate the perceptible and offensive smell ?" "Possibly,-were it desirable ! " was the intelligent reply of the man who had been there all his life to the shallow, if honest, inquisitor. "There are noxious elements in Gas which Science has not yet learned to extract or neutralize ; and, until we do know how, it were better to endure the scent, because through it we can detect an escape, and thereby anticipate danger."
Cannot you purify or, at least, deodorize sewage ? owl-like engineers (?) from the modern Athens ! We will not be positive ; but some of us who get our living by rushing in
" where angels fear to tread,"
are persuaded that there can be no serious, certainly no insuper- able, difficulty, if the offending Town or City be thrifty ; pos- sesses or can borrow enough Gold to form a Rule; and,-more than all else,-Fifteen Thousand voters who will allow them- selves to be divided, and their energy dissipated, in a day and generation wherein Stewart Parnell has shown what can be done, and won, by the inflexible determination and simple cohesion of little more than an awkward squad !
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" Having eyes, see ye not ? And having ears, hear ye not ? And do ye not remember ?" that the Ballot, aye, and the Boy- cott, are our own, if we are bold and shrewd enough to use them ; -no matter who would like to go to Congress and busies him- self building wing-dams in arrest or diversion of the popular judgment, with the "Golden Rule" for his mudsill! For did not He, who spake as never man before, or since, declare : " He that is not with me is against me !"
Boards of Health ! sources of continual discomfort and worry. Systems and theories of Sanitation ! which spoil a man's daily life and poison his earthly existence .* That was an honest, if blunt, confession of the Spaniard, though carved upon his tomb- stone : " I was well; would be better; took physic, and-here I am! " Four-fifths of this gab and gush about Filth and Sanita- tion is stuff and nonsense. The other fifth is invested in a joint- stock company that manufactures silver shrines to the great god- dess Cloacina ! The health of average Humanity is good enough and with cheapening and increasing comforts, has been steadily improving. A man might well afford to live, towards this close of the Nineteenth Century, were it not for these costly fads of scientific (!) nuisance. Few die that ought not. How many exist that might perhaps be spared ! But this miserable scare of Sanitation ;- that assumes the inscrutable and demon- strates the self-evident ;- is worked for all that it can be made to yield, frightening the ignorant, puzzling the better informed but yet timorous, and answering its purpose, Oh, silly tax-payer, whose heifer it is that is milked !
* SEWAGE .- A London paper says that the sewage problem has yielded a new notion. Sir J. B. Lawes is of opinion that the most profitable way to dispose of sewage is to send it to the sea; its phosphates and other constitu- ents being advantageous to the fisheries, and therefore as likely to come back to us in the shape of food as if spread upon the land, while the acceptance of the idea for practical purposes will make an end of all experiments for the agricultural employment of sewage. Any less capable person would find it difficult to obtain a hearing for the proposals that are based on the idea, but the public will gladly listen to one who has certainly mastered the theory of food production and the utilization of waste material. There is a direct gain, doubtless, to the subject in the fact that it will be regarded from a quite new point of view. We shall not only have to discover the weak points in the
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Wrote that sturdy yeoman and keen observer,-William Smith, of Woolston, England,-no longer ago than Nov. 24th, ult .:-
" As to sanitary matters, they are a reckless expenditure look where you may, and in many cases are the direct cause of fever. The Stink-Officers are
new proposals, but shall perhaps have to rummage amongst our own preju- dices, to determine which are to be got rid of to make room for wiser coun- sels. Whether sound or unsound, practical or nonsensical, we are certainly put upon a new tack for fresh and unexpected exploration.
There is much in this of sound sense. Nature generally provides an anti- dote for every evil; and she does for polluted sewage. Philadelphia just now is worrying over the water problem. Much sewage naturally drains into the river, as it does into every river in the world that supplies a large city with water. The Water Department is superintended by a gentleman of admirable character and superior scientific attainments, and he and the chemists are finding all sorts of terrible things in the water. There is not enough oxygen, and now it is too much albuminoid ammonia, and now too much free ammo- nia. To-day he would drive away all the population from the banks of the river by making it impossible for them to get rid of the sewage except by wells and sinks; to-morrow he would abolish all the pumps because the water wells get the sewage from the sinks. Another time he would have some thousands of dollars to dredge the mud from the bottom of the river, and again he would have some more thousands to "oxygenate" the water by arti- ficial means.
Then he worries them by telling them that there is just one more death in ten thousand than there is in London, which is considered the healthiest city in the world; so that the average duration of a man's life, supposed to be about thirty-five years, is shortened five hours by living in Philadelphia rather than in London. To remedy this in the manner he wants would require fifty or sixty millions of dollars. When a noted health reformer, Mrs. Isabella Hooker, was recently showing how much the modern comforts of life short- ened life, and was taxed with inconsistency in not practicing what she preached, she retorted that she was willing to give a few years, for the sake of the comforts. And indeed long life is not the only blessing we desire. Most people would be willing to give a few hours of life rather than groan under a taxation that would require the proceeds of many hours of labor a week to pay. And it is unnecessary as Sir J. B. Lawes hints. A thick bed of aquatics in the bed of a river will " oxygenate " the water, and they will feed on all the ammonia that a moderate amount of sewage yields. Fish will eat all the "albuminoid" material, and it will be pretty foul water that the two together will not clean. It makes no difference what goes into river water so that the worst gets out again before people drink it. If Philadelphia would keep its river stocked with fish, and encourage the water plants, and get a few large subsiding reservoirs to give time to settle the mud, the millions re- quired by scientific superintendence might be spent on happy homes. The lesson may be useful to people grappling with the sewage question every- where .- The Gardener's Monthly ( Phila. ).
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