USA > Rhode Island > Kent County > Greene > A history of Greene and vicinity, 1845-1929 > Part 7
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My grandfather had one sister, Kate, who went Kate Wood somewhere in Pennsylvania and married, but little was ever heard from her afterward.
Gardner, the youngest son, lived in Providence Gardner nearly all his life, married and had several sons and one Wood daughter,-Isaac Maxon, Edgar, Frank, and Annie. and children Isaac Maxon lived and died in Providence, on the west side. He had one son, Herbert, who has worked in the City Hall for many years. Edgar lived in East Provi- dence nearly all his life and had three daughters. and grand- Frank died last year. Annie never married and died children several years ago. They are all gone now, except Herbert and one cousin of his in Boston.
Now to continue the story of the old South Farm. I have given the history of the farm and of the Nichols family, but have not said much about Squire Greene Wood and Amy Nichols Wood, who gave the name to the place.
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Squire Greene Wood Squire G. Wood was born May 4, 1797, about three miles east of Summit, where he lived, doing work on a farm until he was eighteen years old, when he came to the Narrowlane to help the man, who five years later became his father-in-law, build his new house. It is likely that he saw here for the first time and loved at first sight the woman who for sixty-five years was to be his wife and helpmate in joy and sorrow. He told me once that he told her then that he should wait for her for ten years if necessary, and that he wanted her and her only.
Amy Nichols Wood
Amy Nichols was born in an old house now gone, nearly half a mile west of where Charles N. Perry now owns, for many years the home of William Bates and afterwards Randall Bates, who are now buried in the cemetery at Hopkins Hollow. She was born November 4, 1805, and lived there until 1815, when they moved to Narrowlane. She was married to Squire G. Wood in 1820, when she was but fifteen years old, and he was twenty-three,-by Rev. James Varnum, who came from the West and was the founder of what we know as the Rice City Christian Church in 1815, and of which both grandfather and grandmother were charter members, as were all of the family, except one who joined else- where.
Squire Greene Wood and Amy Nichols Wood
Soon after his marriage Squire G. Wood went to Manville, near Woonsocket, to work for Thomas Mann, who was then the owner and superintendent of the new mill then being built. He helped to put in the first water wheel to run the small mill as it was then. He was to receive $1.50 a day, which was called great pay in those days, and it cost him three dollars a week for board. He worked the first year, coming home once in two weeks, walking both ways.
Their first son, Jonathan, was born in 1821, and soon after they moved there and started their first home together,-he working in the mill and she taking boarders to help save his pay toward the place of her
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father at Narrowlane which they had bought that year. They stayed there several years. Her father and mother died within a short time of each other, leaving her brother alone. They came back to the old farm, where Kate, the second child, and their first daughter, was born.
They afterward lived for a few years at a time in Providence, where he worked for Thomas J. Hill as a pattern maker in his machine shop. They lived some- where near Eddy Street in what was then open country, for they kept a cow or two and pastured them near-by on what is now all built up.
They also lived at Natick, where he worked for the older Spragues, who then owned it as a village. They also lived at Anthony for a year or two, where Elizabeth, the youngest, was born, February 9, 1845. They then came back to the farm to live, until they came to Greene in 1858, where they lived until he died in August, 1888, in his ninety-second year, and was buried at Hop- kins Hollow. After his death my grandmother lived with Lizzie in the house where Sanford T. Briggs now lives, until the place was sold to Charles E. Capwell, and the new house built where George Ames now lives, until her death, December 5, 1899, in her ninety-fifth year. A few days after, we buried her at Hopkins Hol- low, beside him who for sixty-five years she had loved and worked with side by side till he went, and then went on her way alone until she joined him on the other side in heaven, never to be separated any more,-to see also her children who had gone before, and the great number she had known in her long Christian life.
They had lived to see many changes such as steam railroads and the telephone, but what would they say if they could visit us today and see the automobiles, electric lights and radios and the other great improve- ments that have come since their time? We are getting used to them, but they never dreamed of them. In their day they went afoot or with a horse and wagon,
Squire Greene Wood and Amy Nichols Wood
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sometimes very slowly, and never very fast. Before the railroad in 1858 they had a long day's journey to Providence and back, and usually went one day, stayed over night, and came back the next day. Now you can come from Providence to Greene in an hour or less, stay all day, and get home for supper easily.
Jonathan Wood
Caroline Greene Wood
Jonathan Wood, first child of Squire Greene Wood and Amy Nichols Wood, named after his grandfather, Jonathan Nichols, was born at the South Farm in 1821. He spent his boyhood at Manville, R. I., at the old farm, and finally with his grandfather, Caleb Wood, who lived a half mile north of what was called Sharp- street. He married when quite young Caroline Greene, a daughter of John T. and Zanna Greene, who lived at Sharpstreet for many years. A few years later he started a grocery store in a house on the corner, which he carried on for several years. In 1868 he sold out and went to Hebron, Connecticut, to live on a farm where for about twenty years he made his home. He sold his farm at Hebron and came to Greene to live in the house where Charlie Capwell lived for several years, now owned by a firm named Watson. He stayed here but a few years and then moved to Gilead, about five miles south of Andover, on the railroad between Willimantic and Hartford. This was his home until his death in 1907, aged eighty-six years. His wife died in 1902, and they were both buried in a cemetery just south of Sharpstreet. They had one son and three daughters, all of whom are now living,- three in Providence and one in Saylesville.
Kate Wood, 2nd
Kate Wood, second child of Squire G. and Amey N. Wood, was named after a sister of her father, who went into Pennsylvania, married and was never heard from afterward. Most of her life was spent at Narrowlane, Greene, and a few years in Phenix, where she worked in the mill with her cousin, as was the custom then. She never married, and died on April II, 1885. She was buried at Hopkins Hollow, April 15, Rev. Caleb
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Tillinghast of Providence preaching the funeral sermon according to her wish. She was very badly missed in the old home and neighborhood where she had spent her whole life.
Caleb Thomas Wood, my father, was born on the Caleb Thomas "South Farm" in 1836. His early life was spent on the Wood farm and he went to school at Hopkins Hollow. Later for several months he went to a school in New York State, and in 1857 he went to what was then Lapham Institute in North Scituate, now run by the Holiness people as a preparatory school for the ministry. While there he met Ellen P. Tillinghast, my mother, and they Ellen P. were married early in 1859 by her father, Rev. J. A. Tillinghast Wood Tillinghast, at Tolland, Connecticut. They settled in New Jersey, just where I have never known, but I came very near being born in New Jersey instead of in Rhode Island. Upon the death of my uncle Squire my mother and father came home to Narrowlane, and my mother never went back. My father came home later and they set up home at the "South Farm." He then took up teaching in the public schools, which became his life work. He taught at Hopkins Hollow and at Hope Valley, and at one or two other places in Rhode Island. In 1868 he went to Indiana, from there to California, and from there to Wisconsin, where he lived, and died in 1898. He lies buried at Tomah, Wisconsin. He died in his sixtieth year of malarial fever.
Huldah Wood, daughter of Squire G. and Amey N. Huldah Wood Wood, was named after her grandmother on her father's Wilbur side. She lived at home during her early life. She also went to Phenix and worked in the mill for a while, after which she came home to the farm. In 1860 she was married to Gustavus A. Wilbur, from Massa- Gustavus A. chusetts, and they set up housekeeping at the new Wilbur house in Greene now owned by Sanford T. Briggs. They had one son, John A. Wilbur, born May 4, 1862. Three John A. short years after, in August, 1865, she was taken away Wilbur
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by typhoid fever in her twenty-fifth year,-the second to go out of six children. She lies buried in Hopkins Hollow. Her husband afterward married Mary Bur- dick of Hope Valley, and had one child, a daughter, Annie M. He died at Sterling, Connecticut, in 1900.
Annie M. Wilbur Squire Greene Wood, 2nd
Squire Greene Wood, the third and youngest son of Squire G. and Amey N. Wood, was born at Narrow- lane and like the rest went to school at the old school- house and always stayed at home. He was the one whom the father loved best of all, and it was said he was loved by all who knew him. At that time there was a sawmill located just below the bridge near where the cranberry house now stands. Being anxious to work he had gone to work part time at this sawmill. Here he was at work one cold December morning in 1860. He was sent below to clean out the sawdust which had filled up the saw pit. The engine which ran the mill stood near by, and in some way his clothing caught in the driving wheel and he was instantly killed. Word was sent to the home of what had happened, and he was carried home to his stricken father and mother. Neither ever got over it entirely. He was the first of the family to be buried in the new cemetery at Hop- kins Hollow.
Amey Elizabeth Wood Potter
Amey Elizabeth Wood, the last child of Squire G. and Amey N. Wood, was born at Anthony, February 9, 1845. Her life was spent at the "South Farm" and Greene, and she followed school teaching, having a record of nearly fifty terms in Coventry and West Greenwich. She was married to James J. Potter in 1896, and upon his death several years later sold the home to George Ames and went to Providence, where she now has her home with John A. Wilbur in South Providence.
I have known them all but Squire and Huldah, whose funeral I can just remember in 1865.
Ellen P. Tillinghast Wood
Ellen P. Tillinghast Wood, my mother, was the daughter of Rev. Joseph A. Tillinghast and Lavira
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Ellen P. Tillinghast
Peckham Tillinghast. Her father was born in Moosup and her mother was born on Sterling Hill, a daughter of Wood Rev. Peleg Peckham, for forty years pastor of Sterling Hill Baptist Church. My grandfather was married to my grandmother in 1836, and my mother was born on Sterling Hill, July 16, 1838. Soon after, her father was called to be pastor of the Baptist Church at Allenton, Rhode Island, about two miles south of Wickford on the Post Road. My mother stayed there during her childhood, and at the age of twelve years joined the Baptist Church, being baptized and received by her father into the church, with several others. When she was fourteen her father received a call to a Baptist Church in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, where he stayed for two years. During this time my mother attended the Uxbridge Academy, or what we would now call a senior high school. I have seen the church, and the academy building, which is now used for other purposes. I have also seen the parsonage where they lived. They then returned to Allenton, Rhode Island, where for two terms she taught school at what is now called Lafayette, near Wickford Junction, on the main line of the New Haven Railroad. After this she went to North Scituate with the idea of fitting herself for a teacher in the public schools, but she met my father and that changed all her life and her plans for the future. Soon after, her father received a call to Tolland, Con- necticut, and decided to go, so she went there for a short time with them. Early in 1859 my father and mother were married in Tolland by her father, and soon after they went to New Jersey and stayed until the death of my uncle in 1860, when my mother came to the farm of her father-in-law, there to stay for over eleven years. There we three children were born, and there she had some joyful times and much more of sorrow and hard work. She lost her father in August, 1859, and her mother moved back to Allenton to live. I can remember going down there with my father and
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Ellen P. Tillinghast Wood
mother once or twice while she lived there, and I think she came once or twice, but my mother seldom saw her mother, who died in August, 1868, I believe. We went and stayed for a few weeks while my mother fixed up her mother's affairs. We then came back to the farm, my mother bringing her brother Joseph with her, where he was to make his home for eleven years.
During most of my early life we made the ell part of the house our kitchen, and used the big kitchen for a bedroom, and the east room for a sitting room in front. Afterward my grandfather, grandmother and Lizzie came over to live, and they took the ell and east room and dark bedroom. Also Lizzie had a room upstairs. My grandfather brought no stove with him, but Granny cooked by a fireplace altogether, and she certainly knew how to cook with one. Such Johnny cakes and doughnuts and fried apple pies as she cooked,-and pan cakes and boiled dinners! They made their own butter and cheese, and it was good wholesome living. They stayed during the summer of 1867 and grandfather did the planting and haying that year. We lived in the big kitchen and west rooms. After they came back to Greene we moved into the ell and used all of the rooms downstairs. We stayed there until the fall of 1871, when we moved to Liberty, about a mile beyond the Plain Meeting House, going toward Escoheag. They had some trouble in the district and it was decided to have two schools in the district. A trustee was elected, and two rooms in the house owned by Burrill Franklin were fitted up for school purposes. For five months the school was so held, my mother being the teacher. In the spring we moved back to the "South Farm," and in two weeks' time the place was sold to the Waite Brothers and we moved down to the house, near the cranberry house. After living there for about two weeks we moved again, this time to Sharpstreet, where my mother had been engaged to teach the school for the spring and fall terms, they expecting to hire a man
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to teach the winter school,-but my mother taught all Ellen P. the terms, both winter and summer, for two years. We Wood Tillinghast then moved about two miles farther east, near Fryes Fryes Pond Pond, where we stayed five years. My mother taught two years in that district, and then took sawmill boarders for two years, and then taught one winter at the new schoolhouse at the Plain Meeting House,- dividing the family, she and my sister being together, and her brother and I keeping house at home.
We were packed up to move April 1, 1879, but in the last week in March a bad snow came on and so we were a week late in getting away, but we finally got started and moved to Phenix in the Pawtuxet Valley. Phenix Phenix then was the great place in the valley, on the north stream. Arctic Centre was then a very small place, only a few houses and no stores, all of the dry goods and grocery stores being at Phenix. We moved into what was once a Baptist Church, but which had been made over into tenements, and ours was on the ground floor. We lived there about three months, and then moved two houses north into the lower tenement of a house owned by Thomas D. Parker, where we lived nearly four years. We then moved into a tenement over the Railroad Station owned by Isaac Mumford, where we lived two years. The first year my mother worked for a lady named Briggs, dressmaking, in 1880. She went to teaching school again in the Phenix Public Phenix Public School. At that time there were three departments in School three separate rooms. First, the primary department, taught then and for many years after by Minnie E. Snow. Second, the intermediate department, as it was then called, which had been taught for a year or two by a sister of the primary teacher, Miss Sophie Snow, who left the school to be married to Walter Knight of Auburn, where they lived for many years. I may say in passing that Phenix still had the old country way of having an annual school meeting where a trustee was elected for one year and he hired the teachers. So my
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Ellen P. Tillinghast Wood
mother applied for the place and was hired. We had a superintendent of schools, but all he did was to visit the school once or twice a year, give a certificate to the teachers good for a year, his term of office. In this school my mother taught for five years, from 1880 to 1885. Several hundred scholars passed through under her care and teaching, and many of them made good men, and men who have made a mark for themselves. Many of the girls later in life married and some became school teachers. All spoke well of my mother and of her teaching during the five years she was there, but she never liked teaching and as she was becoming tired of it she made plans to move again, this time back to Greene, where she had made arrangements to live on the place near the schoolhouse then owned by my grandfather, where we could have a cow and hens and raise a garden and where she would be near those whom she loved and who loved her, but how soon our best hopes are blasted and our plans changed. How little she dreamed that she was never to see any of them again in this world, but so it was. Her winter term closed in March, the last week of the month, and so during the month she had been packing up her goods to move as early as possible in April, so as to get settled up here, and then she would teach the spring term, spend the summer up here, then teach the fall term, and then quit as she hoped, forever. A few days after her school closed she was taken sick with lung fever, and we had Dr. Smith, of Washington, our family doctor, and he said she would come out all right if she kept her bed and rested, but not to try to do anything for a week anyway. But it was not her nature to be quiet and rest. She wanted to be stirring. We all cautioned her not to take any chances, as I knew that all of her own people had died of typhoid fever and I was afraid she might overdo, and I knew if that came upon her she would never be able to stand it, which was just what happened. She felt so much
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Ellen P. Tillinghast
better one morning she got up and dressed and sat in the kitchen working on her returns to the superinten- Wood dent which had to be in before she could draw her term's pay. I tried to persuade her to go back to bed and finally I went over to the village on an errand. When I came back she had collapsed on the floor and was unconscious. I went for the doctor again and when he came he gave us very small hope, said he was afraid typhoid had already set in, and that all we could do was to keep her comfortable, which we tried to do. Those were trying days for us all. I couldn't believe that she couldn't get well. I needed her so much, and it was the first time in my life when anyone in our family was so very sick. She had been sick before and had got well, and oh, how I prayed that she might live. But she was deranged most of the time. At times she knew us and then again she would want to go home. Just at sunrise, April 9, 1885, she went home to meet father and mother and many who had gone before. The funeral was held Saturday morning at 8:30, her own pastor conducting the service. The Baptist and Methodist pastors were also present. The school children came in a body to see her and brought flowers with them. At 9:30 we started for Greene and Hop- kins Hollow where the second service was held, attended by her pastor and Rev. Benjamin Moon of Washington, who had known her for many years. She lies buried in our lot there, and how we have missed her in the years that have come and gone. She was a good mother, anxious to help all to be better in this world, and to fit them for a better world beyond where there is no sorrow, nor crying, for their tears are all wiped away. So went as good a woman as ever lived, true to her family, true to her Maker, and true to her best ideal of life. This is a very poor sketch of one who did so much for me, but if I were to write for days I could not tell all she was to those whom she loved dearer than her own life. I had her only twenty-four short years,
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Ellen P. Tillinghast Wood
but her influence on those years was enough to keep me from going into many wrong ways I might have gone but for her teachings. She was a true Christian, not one who said much in public, but one who lived it at home.
Squire G. Wood, 3rd
I was born at the "South Farm," March 11, 1861. They tell me it was a bitterly cold night and that my grandfather drove over from here and took Granny and Lizzie with him. My father took the horse and wagon and drove to Daniel Tillinghast's place where Laura Tillinghast now lives, but in the old house which was burned down some years ago. Mrs. Tillinghast came, and Emeline, now Mrs. Ripley, came with her, so there are two still living who were there when I came into this world. They went for Dr. Hutchinson at Rice City, but all was over when he got there. Of course the first three or four years I cannot remember much about. I can remember when President Lincoln was shot, for my grandfather came over with the news, and my father came over here with him to hear more about it if he could, and he came home with the news that he was dead and when the funeral was to be.
As I was the son of two school teachers of course I was taught to read very early, and when I was five could read any common reading. I have a book given me by my father when I was six years old, called The Bay Slaver, a tale of African bandits, which I read through then and many times since. It seems as if all school teachers have some particular studies which they would rather teach than anything else. My father's were spelling and arithmetic, and these he drilled me in more than anything else. Spelling always came easy to me, so that later on I rarely looked a spelling lesson over unless there were new words which I had not seen before, and it has never troubled me at all to write for hours without thinking how the words are to be spelled. Arithmetic came somewhat harder. People have wondered how I could remember dates and
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names so easily. My father had a good memory for those things and he insisted they were there because he had trained his memory to keep these dates and names there until he wanted to use them. Addition and subtraction were quite easy, but when we struck the multiplication tables that was different altogether. Most scholars learn the tables from one to twelve and can rarely say them offhand without stopping to figure them up before they answer,-but my father made me learn tables from one to twenty-five, so I could say them backward or forward or skip about to any number he pleased, and it was some job for a six year old boy, and many a hard hour I put in before I had it to suit him. When we think of 625 different amounts to be remembered so that you can say the correct amount with- out stopping to figure,-it took some study and work,- and I think he did it more to show me off before com- pany than anything else, because he did that several times,-but it did certainly help me to remember other things better afterward, although I would never make anyone as young as that do it.
I went to school in the old schoolhouse one winter when my father taught, except in bad weather. The rest I learned at home for the first ten and a half years, with my mother as teacher. We had some lessons each day, some work and some play. When I lived there we had a good barn and shed, a good corn crib, a smoke house for smoking hams,-and all of the north side between the east fence and the west fence clear down the river was mowing land. We had a good garden there each year, and one year my grandfather planted an acre and a half of potatoes east of the house. We kept two cows and old Beauty, the horse who was born the same spring I was and lived to be over thirty years old. When they moved back to Greene they took one cow and left one, so we had milk that winter. We had a strawberry bed across the road, west of the barn, but wild strawberries were very plentiful in the south lot
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