Bristol County, Massachusetts - Chapter 5: Attleboro in the World War, 1924

Without any reservation whatever as to the resources of its institu- _ tions, its industries, its homes and its individual citizens, native or foreignborn, Attleboro accepted the call and the conditions of the World War. The unanimity of every organization for every wartime movement and need was the conspicuous feature throughout the two years of ineessant activity in this small but loyal and devoted city. In its wholesale and generous gifts, in its mutual undertakings for rallies and drives, and in the cordial sympathies exhibited - with creed, class and color forgotten, the citizenship drew nearer together than ever for one cause. We stand in such close proximity to the event at this writing that scores of important happenings must be referred to just now, so vital were they to every household; but as the years bear us farther away from the scene, the leading qualities of the community that will not be forgotten and that will remain steadfast will be those of the city's practical patriotism and zealous team-work that helped save the day. With the unfurling of a new flag on the Common, and the pledging of Attleboro's loyalty to the President, the city, on April 2, 1917, four days preceding the opening of the war between this country and Germany, joined the concourse of New England cities rallying for the World War.

The "Attleboro Sun" gave voice to every occasion at all hours and for all war purposes, on four different occasions printing supplements containing the names of those in service, and it is upon its complete reports of the wartime occurrences here that the essentials of this chapter are based. Flag-raisings innumerable at shops, churches and homes, were part of the outward display of the enthusiasm of the beginnings of the city's forward march into action. Company I, opening its recruiting tent on the Common on April 2, with but little effort had enrolled 109 men into the service, the City Council directly voting one thousand dollars to provide for any local emergency defense required, and seven days afterwards, on April 9, the First National Bank wired Secretary McAdoo its subscription of $100,000 to any war loan. The first call for the formation of the State Guard was issued on April 13, and the local committee of Public Safety took the matter in charge and directed its success. At the outset, in order to encourage the then popular and increasingly necessary enterprise of wat gardens, the "Attleboro Sun" at once gave the sum of one hundred dollars and fifty bushels of seed potatoes, and soon afterwards over 1200 citizens registered in the home gardens campaign, 475 children entered the local garden contests, and the City Council itself appropriated $500 to encourage the work of farmers. So early as April 25, it was announced that onethird of Attleboro's $3,000 share of the Y. M. C. A. war fund had been raised. Events followed in swift succession thereafter. On April 26, fiftytwo men, under the lead of His Honor Mayor Harold E. Sweet, had enrolled themselves in the State Guard here, and two days later one hundred had enrolled, with Joseph H. Williams as their captain.

draft registration here totalled 6,253, which included 2,443 on June 5, 1917, 185 in June and August, 1918, and 3,625 on September 12, 1918. There were 388 from here accepted into service at camps. All told, 412 were passed here for general service, thirty-eight were passed as remediables, 152 for limited service, and 252 were disqualified. For dependency, 954 were deferred; for agricultural reasons, twenty; and for industrial reasons, fortyone. On June 22, 1917, diplomas were awarded high school boys who had entered the service, namely: Howard W. Mattison, Charles E. Miller, Francis E. Williams, and Irving B. Robbins. On June 28 the Red Cross campaign raised $36,150 in the city and $60,000 in the district.

The big feature of July was the parade of the Fourth Regiment, with the members of Company I and 186 draft registrants in line; and a month afterwards, on August 10, came the farewell supper at the armory, when the company was given a reception, more than 3,000 people being in attendance. On August 17 the company departed for Framingham, when a check for $1,000 was given them, and the City Council voted $1,000 for soldiers' - dependents. On August 22 it was announced that one hundred local men with Company I had merged with the Ninth Regiment to form the 101st Regiment, and only fourteen men of Company I were left in the Fifth Massachusetts. As these and each quota thereafter left the city they were generously remembered by the citizens.

During September, the Public Safety Committee was at work raising a $500 local war fund, and on November 20 the Y. M. C. A. raised its local quota of $10,000 with over $2,200 coming in at the last meeting. On December 7 it was given out that the K. of C. fund had gone to a higher amount than $600 for its $2,500 fund; and December 20 it was $3,000. It was on December 5 that the post office here started its thrift stamp sale; during Christmas week $1,108 in war stamps were sold, and up to February 26, 1918, the amount had reached $7,387. During the first part of 1918, Judge Brady was named head of the local legal advisory board, and Doctors Hewitt, Murphy, Conro and Reed were appointed on the local medical advisory board.

Now it was that Attleboro recorded perhaps the most terrible winter in all its experience, with the mercury ranging from fifteen to twenty degrees below zero the first week of February, with coal and food shortage, and with "heatless, meatless and wheatless" days and lightless nights. The winter was hardly over when on March 9 occurred the $125,000 fire at the "Daily Sun" plant and the Odd Fellows block. Nevertheless, on April 3 the city celebrated with a parade the ratification of the prohibition amendment by the Legislature; and on May 20 the war chest campaign opened, with an objective of $125,000, and in two days the sum of $75,423 was raised; on May 28 the war chest total was given as $143,000.

On May 31, a service flag was presented to the city by the special aid guard; and on June 26, there occurred a war savings stamps boom, with band concert, when $45,000 in pledges were received. On July 24, Captain J. H. Williams was made major, and Lieutenant Holbrook was appointed captain of Company M in the State Guard, which company went into camp at Framingham, July 30. Mayor Harold E. Sweet was then second lieutenant of the company. On August 2, the community labor board was appointed, consisting of S. M. Einstein, G. K. Webster and J. H. Crowell.

Then came the influenza, with the closing of the churches and all public gathering-places, and the barring of public funerals; the city battling with eight hundred cases in October. There were eighty-four deaths from influenza here. On Monday, November 11, the city celebrated the announcement of victory, and on November 15 the sum of $53,055 was given from the war chest to the United War Work fund. The city's own honor roll on the Common was dedicated December 3, and thirty-three gold stars were placed there on December 25.

That wide-awake institution, the Special Aid Society of American Preparedness, opened its Attleboro branch March 29, 1917, the officers being: Chairman, Mrs. Eliza Brown Daggett; vice-chairman, Mrs. Harold £. Sweet; secretary, Mrs. Mary C. Ford; treasurer, Miss Elsie M. Dearborn. This organization became a chapter of the American Red Cross, October 9, 1917, with jurisdiction over this city as well as the towns of Norton and Seekonk, and its membership attained to the number of 5,395. The Special Aid Guard, a military organization of sixty-four young women, was started April 25, 1917, by the chairman, Mrs. Daggett, and by Captain Thomas Williams, which company codperated with the Red Cross Chapter, throughout. The captain of the Guard was Mrs. Ethel Hollis; first lieutenant, Elizabeth Sherwood; second lieutenant, Mrs. Marion Sykes Flagg. The activities and the chairmen of the various departments were as follows: Knitting, Mrs. E. D. Gilmore, with a total production of 9,054 articles: surgical dressings, Miss Harriette L. Wilmarth, with total of 128,225 articles; hospital supplies and comforts, Miss Elizabeth F. Wilmarth, chairman, total 129,631 articles; sewing, Mrs. James L. Wiggmore,' 3,448 hospital and refugee garments, and 800 army kits; drives for Belgian clothing, Mrs. P. J. Cummings, two drives conducted, and 12,000 pounds collected and shipped; nurses, Mrs. P. J. Cummings, sixty nurses enrolled for various needs and calls; motor corps, Mrs. Ralph P. Kent, number enrolled, fortytwo; home service, Mayor Harold E. Sweet, total number of. calls made upon families of soldiers and sailors, 308; number of workers, eight; educational classes, Mrs. Harold E. Sweet: home nursing, four classes; first aid to injured, three classes, and one class in foods and nutrition; War Chest drive, house-to-house canvass, Mrs. H. M. Daggett; Liberty Loan, women's committee, Mrs. H. M. Daggett. Christmas packages also were sent to men in service overseas in 1917 and 1918; and school children made refugee garments for children, and story-books and puzzles for convalescent soldiers.

From the beginning of events to the close of the war, the committee of Public Safety was at work on the local fields, each member serving without compensation. The original committees as appointed by Mayor Harold EF. Sweet, March 26, 1917, being as follows: Executive and finance, chairman, Major George H. Sykes; vice-chairman, Edward A. Sweeney, secretary and treasurer, C. J. McClatchey; E. D. Gilmore, T. E. McCaffrey, $r., W. I. Tuttle, Hon. Harold E. Sweet. Recruiting committee, chairman, Captain F. L. Northup; O. P. Richardson, Sr., S. M. Holman, Jr., EK. W. Rhodes, W. E. Gorman, G. C. Holbrook. Industrial survey, chairman, W. J. Luther; F. T. Chase, J. B. Pineault. Transportation, chairman, C. I. Rogers; J. E. Anderson, J. V. Curran. Home Guard, chairman, J. H. Williams; Captain C. A. Richardson, E. V. Sweet, L. E. Baer, R. T. Hodge.

The principal appointments made by the executive committee included Committee on Food Production and Conservation, chairman, Joseph L. Finberg; Eliza Brown Daggett, Caroline S. Holden, Lewis A. Fales, Samuel Slocomb, Joseph M. McEvoy, Thomas K. Bliss, John E. Anderson. Fuel committee: Chairman, Miles L. Carter; C. J. McClatchey, J. E. Anderson. Soldiers' and Sailors' information, chairman, E. A. Sweeney; Marion L,. Sykes, Eliza B. Daggett. Registration of unemployed men and enrolling men for shipyards: Ralph C. Estes, Esq. Patriotic assimilation, liberty chorus and local correspondent Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration, Rev. Charles H. Pennoyer. Non-war construction: M. F. Ashley, Walter O. Lochner, Karl H. Hyde. Merchants' representative for Attleboro, T. E. McCaffrey, Jr. Christmas buying, W. O. Lochner. The office of the chairman, Major George H. Sykes, was a sort of clearing house for war activities in the city, and under the direction of the Public Safety Committee, Company M, Fourteenth Regiment of the State Guard was organized. A petition of the names of those interested in this work was presented to the Governor, and after an inspection, physically, by Dr. D. V. Baker of Brookline, assisted by Doctors Charles S. Holden, Ralph P. Kent, Frederick Murphy, Wilfred E. Rounseville, Joshua W. Clarke and A. C. Conro, and by Colonel E. H. Eldridge of the Inspector General Department of Massachusetts, the men were mustered in for two years, June 26, 1917, as Company 90, Massachusetts State Guard, and at a later date was assigned to the Fourteenth Regiment as Company M. Upon the recommendation of this committee, the following-named officers were appointed: Captain Joseph H. Williams; First Lieutenant George S. Holbrook; Second Lieutenant Maurice A. Wheeler. The members of the company were:

Major Sykes was appointed inspector of the Fourteenth Regiment, inspecting each company at its home town and at the camp at Framingham. With Edward A. Sweeney also, he was appointed on the State committee for recruiting. At the principal rally held in Attleboro June 20, 1917, a number of men were recruited, who served with great honor in France, taking part in battles and making the supreme sacrifice on fields that are considered to be the turning-point in the war. Under the committee's supervision more than $2,600 were raised in behalf of the Halifax disaster relief fund in December, 1917. By their direction, the sixteen four-minute

The five Liberty Loan campaigns were among the most enlivening events of the war here at home, with every organization and individual in the city as partakers in this most practical feature of citizenry service. Clarence L. Watson was the chairman and Walter O. Lochner secretary of the committees for the different drives, Attleboro exceeding its quota in every drive. The first Liberty Loan campaign here was planned May 24, 1917, and in less than one month, on June 15, it was announced that $50,000 had been subscribed over the quota of $900,000, and that the total number of subscribers was 2,064. During the course of this first drive, Mayor Harold E. Sweet opened the "Dollar Down Club," and the directors of the First National Bank bought $135,000 in bonds, in addition to the bank's $100,000. The second Liberty Loan campaign began and was carried through with renewed zeal, the work starting on October 4 and ending November 9, with more than 1,800 subscribers, the city taking $1,340,350, cr $335,000 more than the minimum amount. During this drive the First National Bank took $100,000 in bonds and the S. O. Bigney Company offered to pay a tenth part of all the bonds its employes purchased. A big rally marked the beginning of the Third Liberty Loan campaign, April 3, 1918, and on May 20 it was announced that there had been 2,200 purchasers of bonds, and that Attleboro was the first city in the county to go over the top, with its final total of $1,021,000. It was during this third drive that S. M. Einstein offered on April 19 to buy as many bonds as the entire city might purchase on that day, when the First National Bank took $267,850 in bonds, and the Attleboro Trust Company $100,000. And, to cap this climax, there were two thousand people in line in the city's Liberty Bond parade. In the "Fighting Fourth" Liberty Loan campaign, the city's quota was set at $1,168,000 on September 14, and on October 19 it was stated that the city's total was $1,406,200, the subscription being $267,850 over the quota. In spite of the epidemic handicaps, the sum of $828,500 was brought in the first day, and on October 17, the city celebrated with two parades as the quota was reached. In the "Finishing Fifth" loan that began April 18, 1919, the total amount subscribed to May 12 was $899,550, or $50,000 over the quota. A victory parade was held with the rally for the loan, April 21, with General McRoberts as the speaker.

The activities of the Attleboro War Chest were a centre of war-time attraction, the organization for that successful effort taking place May 22, 1918, the officials being as follows: President, T. S. Carpenter; vice-president, J. L. Sweet; treasurer, E. H. Brown; secretary, W. O. Lochner; executive board: T. S. Carpenter, chairman; Louis A. Anderson, John J. Coady, Mrs. H. M. Daggett, Louis A. Duquoy, Joseph Finberg, Walter L. Gardner, John J. Hodge, C. P. Keeler, T. O. Mullaly, E. A. Remington, T. G. Sadler, Hon. Harold E. Sweet, J. L. Sweet, Mrs. J. L. Wiggmore, Joseph L. Williams. The disbursing board consisted of Harold E. Sweet, chairman; T. S. Carpenter, John J. Coady, John R. Curry, Louis A. Duquoy, Joseph Finberg, Ernest D. Gilmore, N. G. Larson, T. G. Sadler. Later Judge Philip E. Brady was elected to take the place of John J. Coady, deceased. The campaign committee: T. S. Carpenter, chairman; J. L. Sweet, E. A. Rem- ington, S. H. Garner, H. M. Fiske, secretary. The object of the association was to provide efficient ways and means for raising funds in this city to help win the war, and to disburse and apportion such funds among the leading war relief agencies. The campaign for funds opened Sunday evening, May 19, with the presentation of Rossini's "Stabat Mater", under the joint auspices of the K. of C. and the Y. M. C. A. The publicity committee, consisting of S. H. Garner, chairman; J. J. Coady, George C. Harrison, William L. King, R. H. Marden, E. D. Rhind brought out many unique stunts in advertising. These committees and their aides waged a most satisfactory campaign, securing pledges and cash amounting to $144,009, divided among 7,900 people. In 1923, with the War Chest as an inspiration and incentive, a Community Chest was organized - all charitable organizations receiving benefit therefrom in one drive.

During the war, Judge Ralph C. Kstes had charge of the four-minute men locally, two appearing weekly at the theatres to give official talks on war topics; the judge also enrolled eighty-two men for the ship-building call, fourteen men for farm work, and thirteen under the compulsory work law. Rev. Charles H. Pennoyer, through the Community Fellowship which he founded, took leading part in the patriotic programme; while victory singing and four-minute singing was led by John L. Gibb. Joseph Finberg was the food administrator here during the war and he was the treasurer of the Liberty Loan drives. The local draft board first consisted of Judge Frederick B. Byram, Dr. C. S. Holden and J. V. Curtan. | Harold hws Mason succeeded Judge Byram. Samuel Slocomb was chairman of the food production and conservation committee, and head of the United States Employment Bureau here; and he had charge of the community market during the war. Walter O. Lockner was very active during the Liberty Loan drives, and he was secretary of the fourth and fifth drives. Thomas S. Carpenter was chairman of the war chest movement, and he headed the 1919 Red Cross membership drive. Three Y. M. C. A. men went into the Y. service, Henry C. Barden, Dr. Clarence W. Estey, Rev. Elias C. Miller, pastor of the First Baptist Church, and Harold M. Fiske, Y. M. C. A. secretary here. Edward A. Sweeney, member of the draft board, began a compilation of individual war records.

The Public Safety Committee makes the claim of having set up the first honor roll in the country, for early in 1917 each man who enlisted in the service had his name painted on a canvas at the time of enlistment. The Honor Roll that today faces Monument Square is a noteworthy memorial to Attleboro's sons and the brave nurses who performed their part in that war. The work of construction of the memorial was placed in the hands of Major George H. Sykes and Mayor Harold E. Sweet, and the design of the board was the work of Olstin M. Higgins, local architect. The board is seventeen feet long and twelve feet high, and contains racks for 1,376 names. Lettered in gold are the words "City of Attleboro Honor Roll," and surmounting is an American eagle with outstretched wings.

The activities of the Chamber of Commerce during the period of the war were unceasing. 'That organization conducted the campaign for the first Red Cross war fund; it secured the Public Safety Committee fund; it was given direct responsibilitv to raise the war camp community recrea- tion fund; it was sponsor for the war chest campaign here; and it aided industry in many ways, such as in securing restoration of jewelry export privilege, abatement of jewelry tax penalty, etc. The Public Library was in use throughout the war as a community centre, with its Red Cross meetings, surgical dressing classes, and lectures on food conservation. With the help of the high school students, more than 3,000 books were sent through the American Library Association to the soldiers in the different cantonments; and as the local share in the United War drive, the association received $1,326.27. The schools and churehes all aided in every campaign and active war movement.

All honor to any who joined the forces of patriotic endeavor throughout the war; yet there were those who were first to offer aid before this country joined therein. For example, in May, 1916, the women of Pilgrim Unitarian Church, desirous to perform some war relief work, organized as a branch of the surgical dressings committee of the National Civic Fed eration, whose headquarters was at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospita! in Boston, known specifically as the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Surgical Dressings Committee. Therefore, a number of the women of this church met at the vestry twice or three times every week from May, 1916, to September, 1918, to fold gauze dressings and to make other hospital supplies. In May, 1917, when the Special Aid Society of American Preparedness was organized in Attleboro, this group became the Pilgrim Unit of the organization and in September, 1917, when the Special Aid was merged into the Attleboro Chapter of the American Red Cross, it continued as Pilgrim Unit of the new organization, receiving financial aid from it, but still working as a branch of the Brigham Hospital committee, its work being slightly different from that of the Red Cross. In the course of time, and as other women became interested, a good deal of work was done outside, so that Pilgrim Unit had three or four branches and several smal! neighborhood groups, as well as numbers of individuals busy under its direction. Work was prepared and shipped for the women of the neighboring town of Norton. The Dean street branch, the women of St. Joseph's Church, and of the Methodist church specialized in various ways, and the total amount made by them was 150,000 articles. Miss Elizabeth J. Wilmarth was the chairman of this loyal unit.

Besides the devoted work of women in the thousand ways and means in which they participated in making a success of every effort toward: victory, there were two women in particular who paid the supreme sacrifice, namely Miss Ruth Holden, who died April 21, 1917, in a small town 'north of Moscow, Russia, whither she had been sent on duty. She was born in Attleboro, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. C. S. Holden. She was valedictorian of her class at Attleboro high school, and was a graduate of Radcliffe, winner also of Wellesley College fellowship at Newnham College, England. She had volunteered as a nurse in the maternity and relief unit of National (British) Union of Woman Suffrage societies. Mrs. Alice Illingworth Haskell, a volunteer nurse during the influenza epidemic, contracted the disease and died at the Sturdy Memorial Hospital. She was a graduate nurse of the Sturdy Hospital, and lived in Norton.

critical period of the strife. He never spared himself; he gave of his time, his talents, his money; and day and night he was on call to be of aid to his city. In its griefs and sorrows both himself and Mrs. Sweet were messengers of mercy and help; and in its rejoicings over victory he was a banner bearer and a leader. 'The city's first executive was first, indeed, in war, in peace, and in the esteem of his fellow-citizens.

Attleboro's welcome home celebration of October 4, 5 and 6, 1919, was the most memorable affair in which the city as a whole had ever participated, all organizations of whatever name sharing appreciation of the men who represented their home town with such soldierly self sacrifice. Among the events, the direction of which Mayor Brady graciously delegated to his predecessor, former Mayor Sweet, was a grand parade under the command of Major George H. Sykes, and the dedication at Capron Park of Memorial avenue and the nurses' tablet. The pillars on Memorial avenue bear these names of those who gave their lives in the cause: Nurse Ruth' Holden, Leroy C. Estee, Howard C. Mattson, Charles O. Fiske, Charles F. Hall, Cyril M. Angell, Willard B. Hoyt, Percy E. Cobb, Jerome Gilbert, Peter Voivin, Edward J. Kelley, Lloyd Inman, Arthur N. Crosby, Albert H. Allen, Charles H. Fontneau, Herbert O. Gilman, Herbert D. Parmenter, Harold Jillson, D. Emory Holman, F. Hubert Ogilvie, Earle I. Brown, Lincoln A. Smith, Joseph Perry, Carlton M. Bliss, Edward Quinton, Harry Atterian, Chester E. Harding, Joseph L. Ritchie, Albert La Rose, Harry L. Boyce, George F. Spencer, Elmer G. Baker, Earl A. Thayer, Ralph V. Kling, Harold V. Patriquin, Lester D. Simmonds.

These events have now become as one generous patriotic deed in the march of the years; and Attleboro looks back upon it all with emotions both of grief and gratitude, but chiefly with thankfulness that her gifts of her sons and all her resources were spontaneous and whole-hearted, and that her loyalty, put to that great test, was unswerving and abundant in its expression.