USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 37
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December 28 More dissipation! My friend William Lincoln (Historian of Worcester) came and invited me to accompany him to Millbury. He carried Sarah Bancroft and I carried Rebecca Curtis. We went in the afternoon and returned at evening. We stayed at Whitcomb's Tavern about an hour and drank mulled wine, a kind of stupefying beverage, made of eggs, sugar and hot wine. It is a species of flip.
VISIT FROM HENRY CLAY.
November 5, 1833-I was visited by Henry Clay at the Antiquarian Hall this morning in company with the committee. (Which greeted him on a political visit to Worcester). There was a party in the evening at Gov. Lin- coln's, to which the whole public had the opportunity of going; and from the looks of the people there, one would suppose that few let slip so good a chance. The house was literally crammed. Mrs. Clay was present, and so far as I could see, was a plain, unostentatious, sensible woman of about fifty
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years of age. He is about fifty-seven, over six feet high, slender in make, and a little stooping, with a face pretty well marked, though not remarkably so. His forehead is large, but narrow at the top, his mouth satirical, with a large and generously marked nose. He is rapid in conservation, full of anecdote, and swears most insufferably. But this last quality is common to all Kentuckians.
November 12, 1833-Upon Mr. Salisbury's return with his new wife, he invited me and William Lincoln to introduce the people of the town to them, which we did in the evening . . . As I have had some experience in this business, I must give an account of it. I have officiated in this capacity in almost all cases since my residence in town where the new married couple have lived here. I am tempted to put down the catalogue. But it would occupy too much room.
The process of introducing is in this way. The new married couple, through their friends (sometimes on the evening after marriage and always within a week or so) give notice that they will be happy to be visited by any- body and everybody at eight o'clock on such an evening. Though the invita- tion is to everybody it is understood to extend only to such as may expect to exchange visits. The calls are made at eight and after. The new married couple take a sort of military position in one corner of the room, flanked by the bride's maids and the bride's men, and the person introducing their friends receives them at the door and leading them up, announces their names. The names of the new married couple are not mentioned, but only those who pay the visit ; because those who make the visit know very well beforehand whom they are going to see. Usually before ten, the company retires, after having drank wine and eaten the wedding cake. It is customary to make a free use of the cake, and a large quantity of letter paper is furnished for individuals who may wish it, to wrap up a piece of cake in, to carry home. Some want it for friends, some to eat it, and others to put it under their pillows to sleep on, thinking it may produce new matches.
March 17, 1835-Eden Augustin Baldwin, my nephew, came from Tem- pleton today, having been sent here by his grandfather, with the request that I would put him to the Baptist School in this town or send him to Leicester Academy, as I might think most for his advantage. I concluded to send him to Leicester, though I was inclined to put him to the first named, and should have done so had it not been for their regulations about board. No tea, coffee or milk are given to the pupils who board in the institution. In my judgment this is a bad arrangement. If a boy be not treated well at school he will hardly know what he has a right to expect when he becomes a man.
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SEES FIRST RAILWAY TRAIN.
August 1, 1834-This is my birthday. Alas! how swift the year has flown. This day I am thirty-four years old. I saw today for the first time a Rail Way Car. What an object of wonder! How marvellous it is in every particular ! It appears like a thing of life. The cars came out from Boston with about an hundred passengers and performed the journey, which is thirteen miles, in forty-three minutes. I cannot describe the strange sensa- tions produced on seeing the train of cars come up. And when I started in them for Boston, it seemed like a dream. I blessed my stars that such a man as Robert Fulton had lived to confer on his fellow mortals an improve- ment so valuable as his application of steam engines to driving boats, and that this had suggested the application of the same power in moving carriages on land. We reached Boston about half past eleven. I put up at the Tremont House.
July 3, 1835-The Rail Road from Westboro to Worcester was this day finished, and one of the engines passed over the road for the first time. Some of the directors of the corporation came up in it.
July 4, 1835-The road was publicly opened today, and the first train of cars reached Worcester at half-past ten in the forenoon. The streets were thronged with people from the adjoining towns at an early hour, and these, with our own population, presented a larger multitude in the town than I have ever before witnessed. Few of them had ever seen carriages moved by steam, and their curiosity was very great. The sides of the road were lined with people for nearly a mile, all equally eager to have a glimpse of the novel and marvellous spectacle. It being the 4th of July, which is, perhaps, our greatest holyday in the year, made the collection of people greater than it might otherwise have been. The females were almost as numerous as the males.
That I might witness the entry of the first train of cars to the greatest advantage, I invited Hon. Joseph G. Kendall, Clerk of the Courts, who is my fellow boarder, to accompany me in a wagon to a high ground above Pine Meadow (East Worcester), where the road may be seen for nearly a mile. We were told that the cars would arrive in Worcester at half past eight, and we accordingly, that we might lose no part of the interesting exhibition, took our station upon the hill at ten minutes past eight. I must remark here that my lameness is such that I can only hobble along, and walking in any way is extremely painful to me, owing to my rheumatic complaint.
I therefore sat in the wagon and held the horse. The day was a very warm one, and as I had no protection from the sun, I was nearly roasted. The cars came at half-past ten instead of half past eight !! What a poor time
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I had of it! Mr. Kendall left the wagon and sat under the shade of a tree. When the cars came in sight, my horse took fright, and I was compelled to get out of the wagon and had great difficulty in holding him. He reared and jumped most furiously, and when he was so far recovered to permit me to look around the train of cars had reached their destination !
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN ITS INFANCY.
May 2, 1832-A meeting of the Temperance Society for the Worcester South District was held at the hotel today. I should not have mentioned this had I not noticed certain things which very much disgusted me. The dele- gates from many of the towns sat down at the public dinner table. They have signed the constitution of the Society, and profess to be samples of sobriety and regularity. I observed, however, that every one of the Society drank very freely of Cyder, and that which was of the very worst and most unpalateable sort. I am not a member of any Temperance Society, yet I should regard myself as not much better than a drunkard to be found drink- ing such intolerable stuff as this Cyder. If it were good, there would be some apology for them. But as it is shockingly bad, it only shows what they are accustomed to when at home. If they will drink such Cyder in the dry tree, what may we not expect them to do in the green?
I saw three clergymen who sat near me at the table drink the first tumbler and were well towards the bottom upon the second when I got up. Yet these reverend gentry have left their flocks to come here to give us a specimen of their temperance and self-denial. I would not say anything if I drank ardent spirits or even Cyder. But I totally abstain from both and drink wine only when it is offered me. Good wine I am fond of ; yet I cannot relish it beyond the second glass.
September 19, 1833-This day met at Worcester the Massachusetts State Temperance Convention. The delegates came from all parts of the Com- monwealth, and were nearly five hundred in number. Altogether, they com- posed a body of great respectability, both as to virtue and intelligence. Plenty of ministers, lawyers and doctors among them. A satirical observer, how- ever, if so inclined, might here and there pick out a red nose, which would contradict the sincerity of the convert to the doctrine of abstemious drinking. It is one of the faults of the day to occupy so much of our time in recom- mending the practice of virtue that we have not time left us to perform it. We are nothing but hearers without being doers. So true it is that when mankind undertakes a reformation they are always running into extremes. In the evening there was a party at Gov. Lincoln's, which was attended by many members of the convention.
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TAVERN KEEPERS GO ON STRIKE.
April 1, 1835-This is a day of excitement. At the March town meeting a vote was carried by the town to instruct the selectmen not to approbate any innholder for licenses to retail ardent spirits. This comes of the temperance reform, and is now the subject of deep interest. The town is divided into three parties, viz : the rigid advocates of temperance, the friends of retailers, and the neutrals, who will not belong to either party. Our innholders find themselves closely pressed by the vote of the town and have had a caucus, at which they determined that they would not take out licenses for any purpose, but would take down their signs and close their houses on the Ist of April.
Accordingly, this morning, the signs to all the taverns, except the Tem- perance House, nine in number, were taken down, and the houses all shut against travellers. I saw several ladies sitting in the portico of one of the houses, who had arrived in a stage; there were many gentlemen in the same plight. But none of them were permitted to enter the house. A table was set in the portico, with several decanters filled with cold water set upon it, which I took to be an emblem of temperance. The travellers looked cross, and the dear ladies in particular. The public sympathy was such as to justify the tavern keepers, and this enraged the temperance party.
April 6, 1836-The town is now more full of excitement than has been known since 1812. There was a strong disposition to bring temperance into politics. The late attempt to instruct the selectmen has awaked many fears that the leaders of the temperance reform design to make it a political subject. Several who were members of the Society for Promoting Temperance have directed their names to be withdrawn. Wherever two men are seen together, the subject of conversation is temperance. In many instances they have become so furious as to almost come to blows. I perceive that whoever speaks upon the subject manifests his passions at once. In this respect the friends of temperance are as intemperate as their opponents. Every body is getting mad, and what is cause of especial madness with me is that I am already as mad as the maddest.
(The Taverns soon were given their ardent spirits licenses.)
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The County's Treasure Hunts
The Colonists had not been long in Worcester County before they began to search the earth for precious metals. Men believed they had discovered gold or silver, and spent much time and money to proving themselves mis- taken. An inferior quality of coal was located in Worcester and a small fortune spent before its exploiters realized how impractical were their efforts. A Brookfield man, noticing a film of oil on a near-by brook, drilled for petro- leum, and was not discouraged until a well had been sunk five hundred feet deep. He got no petroleum, but he had for his pains and money one of the finest wells of artesian water in the county. Sturbridge has a famous graphite mine, of which more anon.
The county has mineral wealth, but it lies in immense deposits of good building stone. Milford's beautiful pink granite may be seen in handsome buildings and monuments the country over, and the great granite quarries of Millstone Hill in Worcester, and Rollstone Hill in Fitchburg, have con- tributed a large share in the erection of towns and cities everywhere; a con- tribution, unfortunately, which was greater before the coming of the con- crete age. There is some iron in the shire, and slate and soapstone and other useful minerals. But the deposits lack either in quantity or quality, and are not considered workable.
In a hill in Sturbridge, which the Indians called Tantiusques, is a large deposit of graphite, or black lead, as it used to be called and from which came the name of lead pencil. The English learned of it as early as 1633, when John Oldham, journeying overland from Massachusetts Bay to Connecticut, trading with the Indians, brought back with him "some black lead whereof the Indians told him there is a whole rock." Even then, evidently, it was an ancient mine. The Indians, for no man knows how many years, had been digging out the black lead for use in making paint for their faces.
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Three generations of Winthrops, the original English owners, and their friends and associates, sunk much money in the mine from time to time. They caused to be made several attempts to extract the graphite in commer- cial quantities, and a few tons were mined and some of it was shipped to London. The Winthrop letters in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, which give in much detail the story of the ownership of Tantiusques, reveal nothing to show that even a shilling's worth was actually sold. The mine yielded little of mineral, but it did yield a grand crop of lawsuits.
These figured conspicuously in the proceedings of the General Courts and the Law Courts of the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut Colonies. One of them is still cited as a leading case in the laws of inheritance. It carried Tantiusques across the Atlantic and before the Privy Council, English high court of appeal. Then the Royal Society made its acquaintance, as John Winthrop, one of its fellows, related to the distinguished scholars and scien- tists a glitteringly colored story of the mine in the distant American wilder- ness and its iron and copper, lead and tin, and silver and gold. Finally, according to the Winthrop letters, Tantiusques killed its owner, by worry over a group of lawsuits rising out of it. The record of the drear gash in the side of the Sturbridge Hill overlooking the pond, is one which the super- stitious might associate with an Indian curse. The truth is, however, that Sachem Wabucksham deeded it to John Winthrop, Jr., with full satisfaction to all concerned.
It was John Winthrop, Jr., son of the Governor and an amateur scientist of more than ordinary knowledge and ability, who recognized the possibilities of this lode. He acquired the land and in 1644 obtained confirmation of the deed from the General Court. He then proceeded to organize an informal company to exploit the mine. Robert Child, a prominent and well-known investor, wrote him from London that graphite was used by mathematicians, painters and limners, and if it were of the right sort, and in big enough pieces, the stuff could be made into combs, which were in great demand by the ladies of Spain and Italy to color gray hair a glistening raven-like black- ness.
The early Colonists firmly believed that New England must contain the precious metals. They must have recalled the Spanish galleons laden deep with gold from the New World. If the southern regions of America, as they knew it, yielded such treasure, why not New England? Charles I certainly cherished this hope and planned personal profit from the rich finds which he expected would be made. For in the grant of the Massachusetts charter he insisted upon a clause, several times repeated, that the lands should yield to
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the King "the fifth parte of the oare of gould and silver, which should, from tyme to tyme, and at all tymes then after, happen to be found, gotten, had and obteyned in, att, or within any of the saide lands, lymytts, territories, and precyncts." The General Court encouraged all endeavors to discover and develop mineral deposits by grants which carried exemption of taxes and of certain duties to the State.
Winthrop, through his agent, bought from the Sachem "All the black lead mines and all other places of mines and minerals with all the lands in the wilderness lying north and west, east and south round the said Black Lead Hills for ten miles each way, only reserving for the Indian seller and his people liberty of fishing and hunting and convenient planting in the said grounds and ponds and rivers." For this he paid, "Ten belts of wampameeg, with many blankets and coats of trucking cloth and sundry other goods." His great mistake lay in the wording of the deed. Not many years later it took a long series of expensive surveys to square the circle of "round the Black Lead Hills for ten miles each way."
Winthrop made a contract with one King who was to receive forty shil- lings for every ton he should mine, to be paid when he had "digged up twenty tons of good merchantable black lead and put it into a house safe from the Indians." King took two men with him into the wilderness and presumedly went to work, but nothing came out of the venture. A second attempt was made under a man named Paine, who was to mine the graphite and deliver it on the banks of the Connecticut River, many miles away over a crude and, in places, exceedingly steep trail. The price to be paid him was "the full sum of £ten in English goods or wheat or peas as they shall desire," for every ton. Paine wrote to his employer, complaining that he had neither horse nor oxen, and that "the men do nothing but the firing, and the carrying of wood upon their backs takes up the greatest part of the time." They had no suitable tools with which to break the hard rock in which the veins of graphite were embedded. The only recourse was heat, which cracked the stone, and disintegrated it to a sufficient extent to permit the removal of the desired mineral. Paine also begged for more men, for, as he wrote, "they which are there are weary of being there." One was sent, and Paine reported, "his whole work and study has been to make trouble and hinder our men."
Affairs continued to run badly. In September, 1658, Winthrop wrote to his son, then in London: "There is some black lead digged, but not so much as they expected, it being very difficult to get out of ye rocks, which they are forced to break with fires, their rocks being very hard, and not to be entered further than ye fire maketh way, so as ye charge has been so great in digging
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of it that I am like to have no profit by ye same." John Winthrop, Jr., never spoke truer words.
He died in 1676, and when Tantiusques is next heard of it was the prop- erty of his son Wait Winthrop. To him, the Black Lead grant brought nothing but trouble, because of conflicting claims to part of the land con- tained in his idea of "ten miles each way." Here entered the court of law and later the General Court. A survey was ordered, and thereof followed others, and so the matter dragged on for twenty years. The new plantation at Brimfield wanted some of the land, and the affair assumed a political aspect. Before it was settled to the satisfaction of Wait Winthrop he died. He left a son, a daughter, and no will.
The son, another John Winthrop, maintained that he as "eldest son" was entitled by law to all of the real estate, of which Tantiusques was the prin- cipal part. His brother-in-law, Thomas Lechmere, thought differently, and the case got into the Colonial courts, which eventually found for the daugh- ter, and ordered a division under the law of that day, by which the son got two-thirds of Tantiusques and the daughter one-third.
John Winthrop was much annoyed and determined that he would have justice and all the mine in spite of Colonial judges. So he sailed for London with the papers in his pocket, to bring an appeal before the Privy Council. There it required three years of costly litigation, but he won the day. He had found that he liked the English manner of living and remained in Lon- don. He had left his wife, the daughter of Governor Dudley, in New Lon- don, to bring up their children and conduct the management of the Winthrop estate, and meet his frequent requests for remittances. He remained in London twenty-one years, until his death. He was rated a poor business man, but he developed literary and scientific tastes, and in 1734 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, which brought the Sturbridge mine conspicu- ously into the records of that erudite body. In fact, the fortieth volume of its records is dedicated to him.
John Winthrop entertained wildly exaggerated notions of the mineral wealth to be found in his Black Lead Hill. His grandfather's failure to develop the graphite mine did not dissuade him from the most ambitious schemes to create a Massachusetts El Dorado. His optimism as a mining speculator was invincible. In this twentieth century he has many prototypes in the promoters of mines of all descriptions, chiefly of copper or gold. One of the series of maps of Tantiusques which came out of the surveys indicates in his own handwriting such spots as "Rare fishing in the pond. Rich lead ore. A place of good copper ore. Iron mines. Here is a heavy black stone which is rich in tin and Dna." (Alchemistic symbol for silver.) "On this
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side of the hill is small veins of pure silver. Granite mountain and a fine sort of grayish stone which contains" a dot in a circle, the alchemistic symbol for gold. "And," wrote Dr. George H. Haynes in his excellent paper on The Tale of Tantiusesques in the proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, "all this in a tract of a few thousand acres of almost unexplored Nipmuck wilderness within twenty-five miles of Worcester." Evidently, Mr. Winthrop, F. R. S., was not without his little jokes on his fellows of the Royal Society.
He employed a crotchety ex-sea captain, John Morke, who professed to be a Swedish engineer, to secure information as to the market for black lead. The captain reported from Rotterdam that "there was market for about one hundred and fifty tons of black lead yearly to supply France and Holland, and at a good price, above £ 100 per ton," and "I find very considerable encouragement for your other mines of tin, etc." The worthy sea-dog prob- ably stretched the truth considerably, for it is not likely that he ever con- tracted for a single pound of the mineral, and certainly the price he named was quite five times too high.
Winthrop believed him, however, and, full of enthusiasm, engaged him as steward to operate the Sturbridge mine. He also entered into a contract with Samuel Sparrow, a young London merchant, who was to transport and bring back to England the black lead from the mine and within six years to pay to Winthrop seven-eighths of the net product of the sale of 500 tons, retaining the other one-eighth. Winthrop, on his part, in consideration of an advance by Sparrow of £1,000 and also of his management, pledged himself to deliver to Sparrow for sale 500 tons of black lead within six years. Another advance of money on the same terms was made by Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Hunt of London.
The very next day Sparrow and Morke set sail for America, and six weeks later, after a stormy passage, landed in New London, where they were treated coldly by Madame Winthrop, who consistently declined to contribute toward her absent husband's venture. They hurried to Sturbridge. They carried in with them as far as Woodstock, Connecticut, two cartloads of tools and goods, but were compelled to store them for the winter in that village, ten miles from Tantiusques as no cartway could be found over Breakneck Hill, whose name is aptly descriptive.
The whole enterprise was a failure from the beginning. Some graphite was mined, for Sparrow returned to London with a ton and three-quarters of it. But he sent back word to America that it was below the standard of British black lead, and the best price offered him was 4d. a pound. Win- throp professed to distrust Sparrow. At any rate, he seemed carried away by
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the actual visible proof that his mine would produce. He wrote to Morke: "The black lead you have dug and sent over proves extraordinary, and is certainly the best that is known in the world. It is admired by all disinter- ested and undesigning persons, though there is some people that have private views who would seem to slight and undervalue it. But I do assure you that it contains one-fifth silver, but this you must keep a secret and not talk to any body about it further than that it is to make pencils to mark down the sins of the people."
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