USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Warwick > Warwick, Massachusetts; biography of a town, 1763-1963 > Part 12
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10 PROGRESS BYPASSES WARWICK, 1826-1860
PREVIOUSLY WE HAVE TOLD how the Athol and Royalston road was built in 1800. This was laid out from the north side of the second meeting house eastward to Mayo's Corners. Four years later the Warwick and Irvings Gore 'Turnpike Corporation built the road from the meeting house through the "Gulf" northward for two miles to intersect the Brattleboro Turnpike.
The Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Corporation which had built the turnpike from Athol to Northfield through the old upper village of Warwick, and also the turnpike to Brattleboro through Mayo's Corners, now saw the advantage in combining the two turnpikes from Athol to Warwick by acquiring these new roads and extending Gale Road from a short distance north of Gale's Pond to the present Athol Road. This was done in 1826, and then the Brattleboro turnpike road over Hastings Heights was turned over to the town. The section of the Northfield turnpike from Gale Road west past the south end of the town common land to the old tavern was also abandoned.
The following year the Turnpike Corporation built the road on the east side of what is now the town park, and then the turnpike to Brattleboro followed the road down through the Gulf. Now all stage coach travel, bringing with it the mail, would pass through the village but at some distance from the old tavern and the post office.
David Mayo's tavern had passed through several owners until it finally was acquired by Samuel Fay in 1815. Cobb's store and post office stood next to the tavern on the west side. Now these locations were no longer suitable as it became evident that the future expansion of the village would be toward the north. The old upper village as it was soon called was to become of second- ary importance.
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Doctor Amos Taylor had acquired considerable land north and east of the town common. He now found his land along the new highway in great demand and he sold an acre for $187.50 to Samuel Fay on which Fay was to build a new tavern. Colonel Lemuel Wheelock bought three-quarters of an acre across the turnpike and erected a store where the town hall now stands, then closed his old store on the abandoned turnpike. Fay raised the frame of his tavern May 10, 1827 and on December 13 he opened for business. Cobb meanwhile had begun to erect his store and post office adjacent to the tavern on the east side.
The previous year, 1826, James Goldsbury, the son of the Colonel, had built the present Goldsbury homestead for his bride on the site of Doctor Medad Pomeroy's old home. Lemuel Wheelock now bought the home of Doctor Taylor, moved it a few rods to the east, and built his new home on the site opposite the new tavern in 1828.
Two year later Reverend Preserved Smith, who had built a new house on the now abandoned turnpike west of Gale Road, decided to move his house to the village. With the aid of his parishioners and 20 yoke of oxen he moved it nearly a mile across muddy fields to its new foundation between Cobb's store and the Goldsbury house. The difficulties encountered in this project are described at length by Mary P. Wells Smith, a noted author and wife of the minister's son. Her story Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack gives an excellent description of life in Warwick in the early days of the 19th century.
The village blacksmith shop was moved to what is now the town park. The "lower village," as it was called, now was to enjoy a building boom to include several houses along the Win- chester Road, the Unitarian Church in particular, the present summer residence of George Cook in 1836, and the Baptist Church in 1844.
The first stage from Brattleboro to stop at the new tavern arrived at 4:30 A.M. on December 15, 1827, and Cobb was on hand to open the mail. January 1, 1828 another stage carrying mail driven by Captain Putnam of New Salem began to stop on its route from Ware to Keene, New Hampshire. This stage went
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north on Monday and Fridays, returning the following day, and the mail contract was $550 a year. Cobb himself carried the mail between Warwick and Northfield.
But the life of the turnpikes was drawing to a close when the Fifth Massachusetts Turnpike Corporation relocated its roads in 1826 and 1827. In 1829 the County took over both the Brat- tleboro and Northfield turnpikes when, it is said, only $15 remained in the Corporation treasury.
During the years that followed, until the advent of the rail- road put an end to the stagecoach, the routes changed frequently but the tavern was the center around which the town revolved. The arrival of the stage was eagerly awaited. Usually the horses were changed for fresh ones. The travelers could alight, stretch their cramped limbs and refresh themselves at the bar before resuming their place in the stage.
Thus the Warwick Inn, as we know it today, began its many years of service to the public. During these years the ownership has changed hands frequently. During its first 100 years some 40 different parties have possessed it, some for less than a year; others leased it or served as hired landlords. Fay had no sooner opened it for business than his wife died of consumption, and he sold it immediately. During the days of the stagecoach it pros- pered and expanded. In 1828 Fay, who no longer owned it, agreed to build a hall 60 feet long by 21 feet wide over the horse sheds on the north end of the tavern. This hall served the town for community gatherings of all kinds for a century. Dances, wedding receptions, farewell parties for departing soldiers were held here; religious services were conducted by the Universalists and the Baptists. The latter used it during the construction of their church in 1844. After the second meeting house was razed in 1836 all town meetings were held here, and many heated dis- cussions occurred within its four walls until the town hall was finally built.
The closing of the stage routes and the consequent loss of busi- ness caused a group of five Warwick men to sell the tavern to Lemuel Scott in 1852 for $800, half the price they had paid for it five years previously. Scott changed the horse stalls and wagon
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sheds under the hall into quarters for a store and post office. When Scott died suddenly in 1858 Colonel Benjamin Putnam, who had run a tavern in North Orange, bought the Shaomet House, as it was then called, and changed the name to Putnam's Hotel. Forrest Goldsbury acquired the property in 1867 and he added a second floor over the one story ell on the east side.
The old Fay Tavern in the upper village was turned into a tenement house and came to be called both the "Bee Hive" and the "Big House." Finally neglected and falling into decay, it was abandoned and in 1896 it burned to the ground during the night.
The year 1826 was a disastrous year for the farmers. The spring was extremely cold and a long protracted dry period fol- lowed. Finally the rain came, and when crops were flourishing huge hordes of locusts swarmed out of the west and proceeded to devour the crops. Cobb, on July 29, calls them grasshoppers and writes that they "continue their depredations on the crops in an unexampled degree. Many fields of spring grain have been mown for fodder to save the remnant that the grasshoppers have not devoured."
Occasionally Cobb mentions the activities of one Captain Daniel N. Smith, and the opinion is soon formed that Warwick has a man with an inventive genius. He finally turns his efforts toward the developing of a machine called a revolving timber plane. Lacking a detailed description we believe that here in Warwick the invention of the revolving plane so widely used to- day was born.
Just as all men of genius are expected to be, Smith was a man with no business ability and on several occasions he was commit- ted to jail for debt. Despite this he persevered and secured Cobb to act as his agent, with the result that a patent was secured Jan- uary 15, 1827. From this time on he seems to have had financial backing and on March 29, 1828 Cobb writes: "Mr. Knowlton of Pittsfield called on me to examine the timber plane with a view of obtaining liberty to build the machine in Pittsfield." Apparently he was successful, for Smith erected a machine in Pittsfield in May. Laban B. Proctor of Warwick now became a
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salesman for the machine and went to Pittsfield. He soon sold a machine in Rochester, and a machine was set up in David Young's shop in Athol. Smith now sold his wheelwright shop, the old glass factory store, to Lemuel Wheelock, but he continued to reside in Warwick. He erected a machine in Lowell, but on his return home he spent three days in jail until securing his release.
On December 20, 1831 Cobb received a letter from Proctor and Smith stating that machines were being set up in Baltimore to plane timbers for railroad cars. Others were sold in Norfolk and Philadelphia. Now with the venture an assured financial success, Smith moved out of his residence over his shop to a house where he lived until the family left town about 1836. It is interesting to note that his new home was bought in his daughter's name doubtless to avoid any possible legal attachment.
In 1835 Smith set up his planing machine at Fay's shop and Cobb describes it as "calculated to plane, tongue and groove floor boards. The boards move by rollers instead of a carriage." (Diary, May 14, 1835)
Captain Smith died in 1841 at 65 years of age and is buried in the Warwick cemetery. Many years later his children returned to Warwick for a family reunion. They climbed Mount Grace and at the top they found a huge boulder lying on the ground. They chiseled an inscription on the rock stating that the children of Captain D. N. Smith had held a reunion there and each child's name was inscribed. After each name was inscribed a book, chapter and verse of the Bible, the verse describing the child.
Years later the State mounted a bronze plaque on the rock which is near the base of the observation tower. However other visitors have added their names and dates, so little can be found of the Smith inscriptions. Perhaps it is too much to claim that Smith was the inventor of a machine that was to revolutionize the planing of lumber, but we believe the evidence in Cobb's Diaries justifies it.
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BLAKE'S MAP OF 1830
Through an act of the legislature in 1830 the town was requested to have a map of the town made. This important task was given to a committee composed of Jonathan Blake, Esq., Justus Russell and Ashbel Ward, Esq. Blake was a surveyor of the best, and as a result of his fine work he has bequeathed to the town an excellent picture of Warwick as it existed at the height of population. It shows not only the natural features and the roads as they then existed, but locates the houses with the names of the owners, and most important of all the location and description of the industries. This map is reproduced as the rear end-paper of this volume.
The population of the town was at its peak of 1256 in the census of 1820. Following the collapse of the Franklin Glass Company, in which so many had suffered financial reverses, several prominent families moved away. The year 1824 was especially marked by many prominent men being forced into bankruptcy. Cobb, in his diary, lists 12 during that year alone. Nevertheless the census of 1830 gave 1150 inhabitants, but the tide was receding and with the opening of the west to immigration the decline was to continue.
Among the industries then functioning we find 12 sawmills and two more equipped to manufacture shingles, clapboards and pail staves; four grist mills to grind grain to flour; two tanneries to cure the hides of animals; two cabinet shops, three blacksmith shops and two more equipped with trip hammers for the manu- facture of scythes, axes and cutting tools; one potash plant, an industry once quite prevalent in the area; two clothing shops where cloth was woven and prepared for local use.
The town then had only one church though it had three more religious societies. There were four stores, ten school houses and 188 houses (three uninhabited). All ponds are designated as natural or artificial. Of particular interest is the fact that timber or woodland is denoted, showing also land cleared for cultivation or pasturage. The large areas of open land, much of which has now reverted to woodland, shows that the many sawmills had,
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by 1830, stripped the town of much of its timber and gradually caused many to close down.
In order that the reader may be familiar with some of the important leaders in town affairs, now coming to the front, a brief description of the most important will be given.
Jonathan Blake, Jr., has been mentioned as drawing the val- uable map previously described. The son of a prominent citizen mentioned in connection with the ill-fated glass manufacturing venture, he was a man of many talents. He served ten years as town clerk, nine years as selectman, six years on the superinten- dent school committee, was the town's representative to the state constitutional convention in 1822, and a Justice of the Peace who apparently performed more marriages than Rev. Smith. He was a leader in church and social organizations, but his chief legacy to the town was his historical essays on the his- tory of Warwick. These, after his death in 1864, the town voted to have printed as the history of Warwick in 1872.
Lemuel Wheelock was a man about whom the town was to revolve from about 1820 until his death in 1842 at the age of 51. He was the son of Eleazor Wheelock who settled on Beech Hill as early as 1775. The second of nine children, he married Rhoda Chamberlain, the daughter of a wealthy man in Win- chester, and in many other ways had soon shown his ability to make money. He bought the store owned by Stephen Ball at the junction of the Hastings Pond road and the Northfield turn- pike in 1820. Keeping clear of any involvement in the glass manufacturing fiasco he seemed to have ample funds to loan hard pressed citizens, always on good security. Thus by fore- closure and astute business methods he became owner of many farms and invested his money in several enterprises, all profitable. Many stories have been preserved that describe him as pompous, vain and with a very uncharitable disposition.
Mary P. Wells Smith tells in her story Jolly Good Times at Hackmatack the experience of the Reverend Preserved Smith who was the father of her husband. Daniel Webster at the height of his career stopped at the Warwick Inn, July 5, 1840, to rest
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his horses and to dine on his way from Barre, Massachusetts to New Hampshire. Word was hastily sent to the prominent Whigs to come and meet this famous national hero. Much to the disgust of the Reverend, Lemuel Wheelock, an avowed Democrat, boldly pushed his way to the forefront and monopolized the attention of Webster.
Wheelock's influence was widespread. He became Lieutenant Colonel of the militia regiment and served the town as selectman from 1824 to 1830. He served as representative to the legislature on several occasions. In 1839 when the election of representative was legally held, 191 votes were cast. Wheelock received 82, Joel Pierce 77, and the remainder were so divided that the mod- erator ruled that, as Wheelock did not receive a majority of the votes cast, no choice had been made. It was then voted not to send a representative that year. Two weeks later another meeting was held and a motion to rescind this vote was passed 90 to 71. Ballots were immediately cast for representative and Wheelock received 92 votes. The opposition refused to vote, and Ashbel Ward and others challenged the election. (Town Rec., Vol. III).
Lemuel Wheelock expended $45.50 for legal fees in defense of his election and at the annual town meeting in 1840 a bitter fight ensued over the cost, but the final result was a vote to reim- burse Wheelock 81 to 71. (Town Rec., Vol. IV). Ashbel Ward, who dared the wrath of the mighty Lemuel, himself served ten years as selectman, which testifies to his popularity in those days of annual elections to this office when changes were frequently made.
Shortly after the Reverend Preserved Smith had been installed as pastor he gradually began to accept the more liberal Unitarian doctrines that were becoming more and more popular. We have no accurate knowledge as to when he finally became converted and began to attempt to influence his parish to follow him. The majority of his parishioners were receptive, but a minority refused to be influenced and many withdrew. Some joined the church in Northfield but as their numbers increased they began to take steps to organize a Congregational Church based on the older more orthodox creed.
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In 1829 the Trinitarian Congregational Church was organized and in 1833 they erected a church building on, the east side of the road to Orange in the upper village where the furnaces of the Franklin Glass Company previously stood.
The meeting house under the charge of Reverend Smith was still supported by the town. However all who professed member- ship in other denominations were relieved of the town ministerial tax levied to support the pastor. The second meeting house, built in 1786, due to the difficulty of securing money under these conditions had fallen in a state of disrepair. The subject of repairs was debated furiously in 1828, and a committee was authorized to ascertain the best way to raise the necessary money "for the Peace and Tranquillity of the town." (Ref. Town Rec.}, Vol. II, p. 185)
From this year until 1834 the vote against supporting the minister grew until the opponents finally prevailed in that year. This ended for all time any control of church matters by the town.
The First Parish and Religious Society now took over the con- trol of what was now the Unitarian Church. The old meeting house was now beyond repair, and the society began to make plans to build a new one. William Cobb writes in his diary that the building committee, Joseph Stevens, Jonathan Blake, Jr. and Samuel Moore, with Amory Mayo, parish clerk and Cobb as treasurer, met at his store and made a contract with Chapin Holden and Samuel Fay "to build the meeting house for $1700 all above the underpinning." The old meeting house was sold to Chapin Holden for $101 and after a farewell service in the old church July 17 the building was torn down. Apparently there was some belated question as to the location, for on July 25 Cobb writes that it had been decided to erect the new meeting house "on the west side of the road on town land."
When all was in readiness for the raising of the frame, the question as to whether it should be a wet or dry raising was debated. It was feared that a dry raising, with no liquid stimu- lants provided, would discourage the number of men necessary for the task from being present. However Holden insisted that
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it be dry, and on September 8 and 9 the frame was raised with no accidents occurring. After the event 74 adjourned to Asa Taft's tavern to enjoy a dinner.
The first bell hung in the steeple soon cracked and, in all, four were raised before the present one proved satisfactory. The total cost of the Church was $3000, financed by the assessed value of pews sold for $2526, and the privilege of choosing one's pew was bid off, resulting in an additional sum of $406. The building was dedicated January 18, 1837.
Now that the town could boast ownership of a bell, a decided convenience for all, it was voted that the town should defray the expense of ringing the bell. The selectmen were authorized to contract for a bell ringer. The bell was to be rung before all church services and public meetings, on weekdays at twelve noon and at 9:00 P.M., and to be tolled on funeral occasions.
With four organized religious bodies now at least partially active, their subsequent history will be told in a later chapter.
As long as the town "supported preaching" it had the privilege of holding town meetings in the meeting house. Now denied this privilege an attempt was made to have a town hall built in 1836. However the vote was unfavorable and from that time until the present hall was built in 1894 town meetings were held in the hall attached to the rear of the Warwick Inn.
The year 1837 was outstanding in the nation's history when an event occurred that seems fantastic today with our everincreas- ing national debt. The federal government found that its revenue exceeded the cost of government and a substantial surplus had accumulated in the treasury. As a result money was returned to the states in proportion to the population. This in turn was divided among the cities and towns with Warwick's share amounting to $1676.74. At first it was voted to loan the money to citizens on proper security in sums between $100 and $200. Later it was voted to spend part of it to defray the cost of build- ing the road from Warwick to Northfield.
Town expenditures voted in 1838 give a good picture of the value of the dollar, which was to remain constant until the days of the Civil War. Labor on the roads was to be paid eight cents
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an hour, $600 was appropriated for schools, $1000 for support of the poor, $800 for repair of highways, and $100 for breaking out roads in winter. The support of the poor was put up at auc- tion and this practice was to continue for many years.
Just when the temperance movement began is unknown but Cobb first mentions a society as already organized in 1830, and from that time on lectures on the evils of intoxicating drink were given frequently. A new temperance society was formed in 1834 with 280 members, and the Reverends Smith and Kingsbury were president and vice-president respectively, with Jonathan Blake, Jr. as secretary. Cobb, who sold spiritous liquors, was not a mem- ber.
In 1842 the Millerites, a religious organization that believed that the prophecies in the Book of Daniel foretold the end of the world in 1843, held meetings for 17 days in Warwick. The organization had some 50,000 members and, while Cobb men- tions that there were many converts in surrounding towns, he fails to name any in Warwick.
Now we have arrived at the period when a drastic change in the transportation system had developed to the extent that it affected Warwick. We find the first mention in Cobb's diaries on March 1, 1829 of the advent of railroads that was to accel- erate the development of the nation. It was in that year that the first grant of a franchise for a railroad was made in Massachu- setts.
The Warwick Lyceum was a society founded for the purpose of hearing monthly lectures on various subjects and debating vital questions of the day. March 3, 1831 the subject for debate was whether a railroad from Boston to the interior of this state would be beneficial to the community. (Lyceum Rec., 1830- 1843) Perhaps the eloquence of Reverend Smith who closed the debate for the negative side was the deciding factor. In any case the vote was in opposition to the railroad.
On July 4, 1831, "A Mr. Harrington exhibited a railroad with cars and locomotive engine at the tavern hall. He lectured on the origin, construction and uses of the steam engine." It must have been interesting.
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On July 4, 1835, the railroad from Boston to Worcester opened with 1500 passengers carried on opening day. By December a new stage line was running from Brattleboro through Warwick to Worcester to connect with the railroad. Soon railroads were expanding in all directions, and on December 5, 1843 Cobb writes of a meeting held in Brattleboro to discuss extending a road from Fitchburg to Brattleboro. Now the chief topic of the day was the question, would the railroad go through Warwick?
During January, 1844 a survey was made for a proposed railroad from Athol following Tully brook and crossing the northeast corner of Warwick to Winchester. A second survey passing through Mayo's Corners and then north along the east side of the old Winchester road was made. Finally a third survey was made designed to bring the railroad west from Mayo's Cor- ners to just north of the village and thence north to Winchester. But the rugged hills of Warwick encountered in all three surveys were too great an obstacle.
In March the legislature granted a charter for the extension of the Fitchburg railroad via Baldwinsville to Athol; from there "in such direction as the stockholders may prefer to Brattleboro. Either by way of Warwick and Winchester or down the Millers River to Grouts Corners (Millers Falls) and thence to Northfield and Vernon." (Cobb Diaries, March 9, 1844)
On April 17 we find an item: "Commenced work on the Vermont and Mass. railroad at Athol. One hundred Irish men on the ground and more expected." Many of the Irish families in the area can trace their ancestors to these immigrants brought here to provide cheap labor building the railroads.
October 27, 1848 six men were killed when a train carrying railroad iron went through a bridge four miles east of Athol. Nevertheless the first passenger train arrived in Athol December 29, and a year and a half later service was provided to South Orange. Again on December 27, 1848, Northfield had been reached and on February 13 the first train reached Brattleboro where a joyous celebration was held.
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