Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 36, 1888

Villages Of The Town

Danvers is notably a town of many villages. There are in all eight railroad stations, not counting the junction, within its limits and five post-offices.

The first post-ofSces in Danvers, it may here be mentioned, were established as the result of a town-meeting held in 1828, when Dr. Nichols, Jonathan Shove, Nathaniel Putnam and Samuel and John Preston were chosen " to devise or digest any scheme relative to the Establishment of Post-offices in this Town." The action of the meeting is thus recorded :

"Voted, That there be but one post-office in this Town. "Voted, That there be one more post-office added in this Town. "Voted, To reconsider tlie last, 05 votes for and (15 votes against, the moderator decided the vote."

The committee's report was, however, adopted, in which it was recommended that the town have two post-ofiices, one between the old South Meetinghouse and Pool's Bridge, to be called the South Danvers Post-oflice, and one at the New Mills, to be called the North Danvers Post-ofiice, and this action was communicated to the Postmaster General. For many years this ofiice at New Mills or Danversport remained the only one within the present limits of the town. Mail addressed " Danvers" now comes to the Plains. The other oflices are Danvers Centre, Tapleyville and Asylum. The latter, established chiefiy for the convenience of the hospital, accommodates that locality in the midst of which is the General Putnam homestead, the home of the Prestons, Nichols, Verrys and other well-known names, commonly spoken of as " Number Four." While there is no central village there, the community has always maintained a distinctive identity, and has borne an enviable reputation for the character of its inhabitants. The name Danvers Centre is misleading; its only appropriateness is in the way of reminiscence and lies in the fact that the locality to which it is applied is the seat of the church which was the religious and political center, not only of Salem Village, but, for many years after the incorporation of the town, of all the northern portion thereof.

It is often called " the Village," a name altogether better, inasmuch as it is suggestive of the historic associations with which the locality abounds. Though by the destruction of the Mudge shoe-factory the Village no longer has any manufacturing business of its own, its people are full of life and public spirit. They keep up their end in public affairs, turn out to caucuses and town-meetings, and exercise a strong influence usually on the safe and conservative side of things. The history of this community, most interesting of all the villages of the town, has been given somewhat in the sketch of the early settlers and in that of its church.

Forty or fifty years ago, perhaps more, Putnamville, the name given to school district number three, extending from Porter's Hill to the Topsfield and Wenham lines, was the centre of much wealth and culture ; of its people, Rev. Dr. A, P. Putnam has written in a series of very interesting letters. Concerning the Plains, the Port and Tapleyville, something remains to be said here.

The Plains. - About the time Elder Sharpe sold his grant, which included nearly all of this present principal village of the town, to John Porter, the General Court formally laid out, as a great highway connecting the lower and upper settlements of the Colony, " the Ipswich Road." It crossed Farmer Porter's lands at their greatest width, - entering them at some point on Ash Street, and continuing through Elm and Conant Streets to Frost-fish Brook, - and it often served as a fixed boundary in the many subsequent divisions of the Porter estate. Almost exactly midway between the limits of "Porter's Plains," so these level lands were soon called, as measured on the Ipswich Road, another road or path was at a very early date opened northward, which, in due course, became the highway to Topsfield along the line of the present Maple and Locust Streets. The point at which the Topsfield road left the Ipswich road is the present" Square."

This meeting of roads had no immediate effect in the formation of anything like a village. As late as 1692 there was but one house in all the region, and that Avas the original Porter homestead, near the Unitarian Church. More than a full century had passed, when, in 1755, another road, High Street, was pushed down to the embryo settlement at New Mills and across the river to Salem, and even then the Square was scarcely more than a country cross-roads.

At the head of High Street there is standing a well preserved gambrel-roofed house, which was built about the time the street was laid out. It is the homestead of a family which, though not numerous, has been honorably prominent in the town's history. About the middle of the last century, an Andrews, then living on the Shillaber farm at Putnamville, wanted some bricks, and had to go to Medford for them. Andrews told the brickmaker that there was excellent clay in Danvers, and asked him to send some one to commence working it. " Here's my son," the brickmaker said, "just turned twenty-one, he can go if he wants to." The son came, boarded with Andrews, married his daughter, started the brick business here and built the house just referred to. His name was Jeremiah Page. He died June 8, 1806, in his eighty-fifth year, and is always spoken of as Colonel Jeremiah. At the breaking out of the Revolution he took a very active part, and commanded a company of militia at the fight on the retreat from Lexington, and throughout his useful life he was one of the leaders in town affairs. He had twelvechildren, three of whom were by a second marriage. His oldest son, Samuel, went with his father to respond to the Lexington alarm, and was where bullets were thickest. Subsequently he joined Washington's army about Boston, with a captain's commission. He was at the crossing of the Delaware, at White Plains and Monmouth, and shared the sufferings of Valley Forge. He was with Wayne at the storming of Stony Point, and to insure success to the bayonet charge his company were ordered to remove the flints from their muskets. After the war he became a successful merchant at New Mills, Danversport. In the following sketch of that village, which, for a half century after the Revolution, was the commercial centre of the town, Captain Page must be again mentioned, and as a matter of convenience, some further reference to the family will there be made. Capt. Page died September 2, 1814, aged sixty-one, and with his father is buried in the High Street Cemetery. He held many public offices, and represented the town many years in the General Court.

At the beginning of this century there were but twelve dwellings in all the Plains, including two taverns, one store, one blacksmith's shop, one butchery and two brick yards. Until 1816 there was no public school here, and children had to go to New Mills. That year, on the basis of sixteen houses and one hundred and thirtj' inhabitants, a new school district was formed, as told elsewhere.

Several years before this, however, an eflbrt had been made to educate thesmaller children near home, and Deacon Gideon Putnam, Ezra Batchelder and Timothy Putnam bought a small school-house in ]Middleton and moved it here. p]zra Batchelder's house stood where the Maple Street School-house stands ; " Uncle Timmy's " stood where his grandson, Otis F. Putnam, now lives. Deacon Gideon kept tavern and store at Richards' Corner. Deacon Gideon was the father of the courtly Judge Putnam, as has been said, and it is related that when the son was home on a vacation from college, and was obliged to play host to a stranger, he was chagrined at the meagre fare - -it was probably washing-day - and paid the price of the meal to the guest " for picking the bones." In 1820 there were but twenty-one houses from the square along the whole line of the Centre horse-car route. The only house on the easterly side of Maple Street between the store at the corner of Conant Street and the Perry farm was the Captain Eben Putnam's house, which was once a part of the mansion on Folly Hill.

The butchery stood on Conant Street beyond Alfred Trask's residence, and was carried on by James Sleeper, who lived in a three-story brick building, which stood on the corner of Maple and Elm Streets, but projected far into the present widened location of Maple Street. This brick building was where the bank was first located. An " ell " fronting on Elm Street was long since moved some distance west, and is now owned by H. M. Merrill. In this " ell " Porter Kettelle did a small store-keeping business. The principal storekeepers then were Jonas Warren, who had bought out the Putnam's, but did not keep tavern, and " Johnny Perley," at Perley's Corner. Great was the rivalry of these two, and great was the business they did. For fair and liberal dealing Uncle Johnny's reputation suffered somewhat in comparison with Mr. Warren's. The former was a bachelor, of modest and soft speech, but sharp to keep the half cents on his side of the bargain. Amusing stories are told of the way war was waged between the two corners. The amount of goods sold and bartered was enormous. Heavy teams from far hack in the country came in loaded with produce, as many as forty in a single day, and generally they went no farther than Danvers Plains, but exchanged their produce here for a long supply of fish, salt, molasses and other staples, including, of course. Sew England rum. Clerks were sometimes busy till midnight loading for the return trips.

The old hotel on the site of the present one was owned by Ebenezer Berry, who bought it of Jethro and Timothy Putnam in 1804. Mr. Berry came from Andover, and married a daughter of Captain Levi Preston. His two children, - -Eben G. Berry and Mrs. Sperry are living, a sketch and portrait of the former appearing in subsequent pages. The building was sold at auction in three sections, 1838, and these were removed to make room for the erection of the present hotel. One of these sections has long been the home of Benjamin Henderson on Elm Street; a second sojourned for a while on Cherry Street, and was finally settled near the soap factory, while the hall was removed to a lot on Maple Street, owned by Amos Brown, was there occupied by Amos Proctor Perley as a diy-goods store, and burned in the fire of 1845. This hall had been originally a part of the mansion on Folly Hill, referred to in the opening lines of this sketch. Its flour was painted to represent mosaic work and its finish was thorough and costly. It was so annexed to the hotel that its length ran parallel to High Street, and the uses to which it was put were many and various. Here the Danvers militia congregated, with their burnished flint-locks and the paraphernalia of destruction, awaiting officers' inspection. Here the North Danvers Lyceum met, as chronicled where other literary societies are spoken of. Here the selectmen and assessors met. Here was the lodge-room of Jordan Lodge of Masons, and here, by no means last to be mentioned, were held those dancing parties at the mention of which old eyes kindle, and limbs, no longer sprightly, beat time to the echoes of the darkey Harry's fiddle, which linger still in their ears.

At both Warren's and Perley's corners grocery business is still carried on. Both are decidedly " old stands." Samuel Preston succeeded " Uncle Johnny" and kept store awhile in connection with the shoe business, then Amos Proctor Perley took it, and subsequently formed a partnership with his brother-inlaw, Moses J. Currier, under the name of Perley and Currier. Mr. Currier survives ; Mr. Perley, known and respected far and wide as " Uncle Proc," a man of sterling integrity, died a few years ago ; his son, Charles N. Perley, present post-master, carries on the store.

1841, and thenceforth carried on a wholesale business at the Port. Frederick Perley was the purchaser, perhaps a nominal one, for he verj' soon re-conveyed the whole to Elias Putnam. There were nine acres in all, on which Mr. Putnam built his shoe factory and the house in which he died, and through which he laid out Park Street. One acre on the corner, including the old store buildings, he sold for three thousand dollars to Daniel Richards. Mr. Richards was a native of Atkinson, N. H., who came here as a clerk to Mr. Warren in 1828, two months before he was twenty-one. "It was hard work to be a grocery clerk then," - these are his own words - "but I weighed one hundred and seventy-five pounds and was pretty strong."

In 1833 the temperance-reform movement was working. The old store-keepers were unwilling to be " driven '' to give up the time-honored custom of selling spirits and, as a consequence, Mr. Richards started a new " temperance store " in a building which stood where Beal and Abbott's store now is, and was well supported.

After Mr. Richards' purchase of the old corner, he sold the buildings and built the present store. A part of the old store-tavern is the Dougherty house on School Street, and another part is the Abbott house, corner of Elm and Park Streets. Mr. Richards died last November, 1886, in his eightieth year. He was for thirty years president of the National Bank, was a life trustee of Peabody Institute, and, in addition to the grocery busine.ss which is still carried on by his sons, he bought the Fowler mill property at Liberty Bridge, and built the grist-mill, now used for grinding rubber, using as many as one hundred thousand bushels of grain a year.

The open level land at the Plains made it a favorite place for military musters. In 1809 the brigade of General Eben Goodale formed a line nearly a mile long, from Perley's corner to the old house owned by Augustus Fowler. Twenty-five hundred troops, infantry, cavalry, bands, Governor Christopher Gore, a big dinner and a sham fight, - it was something of a day.

In 1813, during the war, another brigade of three thousand men mustered on the same ground, and Lindall Hill Avas covered with sjjectators, who nevertheless took themselves out of the way when a fort, which had been constructed on the hill, was stormed and burned. The Plains, too, was the place of celebration on " 'Lection Day," the last Wednesday in May, when the Legislature used to first meet. "Who does not remember," wrote Dr. Osgood in his little pamphlet, "how thousands upon thousands congregated on Danvers Plains to see the horses run, the mountebanks tumble, the fandango whirl around and the drinking of egg-pop, punch, and something a little stronger? And then what lots of 'lection cake, buns, and molasses ginger-bread, rolling marbles and nine-pins, running and wrestling ! " A colored man,

Milan Murphy, a veteran of the Revolution, and called "Colonel," a chronic victim of all sorts of pranks, was a prominent figure in these festivities. He marched wearing his old three-cornered hat, a blue coat with brass buttons, and accompanied his voice to an old fiddle on which he played his one tune, "sometimes on one string, sometimes on no string at all." Colonel Milan was great at butting, making nothing of going through the head of a molasses hogshead. He found his match one day in an old ram, presently to be made, after the manner of his kind, into " spring lamb," at the butchery already mentioned. There was but one round, and the details have not been so well preserved as the conclusive fact, that "the ram knocked Milan more'n a rod."

It was about 1830 that the Plains began to be something. Then Samuel Preston was manufacturing shoes on the site of the present bank building; Eben Putnam, in a shop near his house ; and others before long came in. Joshua Silvester moved his business from the little shop at the foot of Porter's Hill, and built a large factory and fine residence on the westerly side of Maple Street, in 1837. No man deserves more special mention in a history of Danvera than he, and a word might as well be written here as elsewhere. He was eighty-four years old, July 9, 1887, and is able to be about, though his sight is failing. He was born in Wiscasset, Me. ; his family moved to Andover, Mass., when he was a child ; he came here when he was eighteen to work at shoe-making; went with Frederick Perley one term at Atkinson Academy ; clerked a year or two at Jonas Warren's store ; began shoe-manufacturing in the shop at Porter's Hill, with a partner named Brickett, and remained after the dissolution of the partnership until the date of his lemoval to the Plains, as above. The fire which destroyed the new buildings at the Plains will be noticed. His numerous trips to England in connection with subsequent business enterprises, and his acquaintance there with Mr. Peabody, are spoken of in connection with the history of the Peabody Institute. He has served the town as selectman, in the legislature, and in other capacities, but what he is to be chiefly remembered for, is the far-sighted public spirit which he has always shown in the matter of public improve, ment, and especially in encouraging the setting out of shade trees. He has lived long enough to see the sticks which he set in the ground by hundreds, years ago, transformed into bowers of beauty, and children, who have grown to manhood as the trees have grown, and who realize the richness of their legacy, rise up to bless this benefactor. Last winter a public testimonial was made to him. (His death occurred, since writing, July 29, 1887).

Mr. Silvester married a sister of Francis Noyes, who had a large factory and dwelling just above Mr. Silvester's. Mr. Silvester's sister Mary married Thomas Bowen, the first post-master at the Plains, and his sister Sarah married John A. Learoyd. Mr. Learoyd learned the currying trade in Byfield, came here in 1829 and worked as a journeyman for Brickett & Silvester, at Porter's Hill, and boarded with Mr. Silvester. He soon came down to the Plains, bought and moved the Baptist meeting-house of 1783, and began in it the currying business, which he carried on through life, and which one of his sons continues. He was from the first a leader in the Maple Street Church. His own house was planned for the convenience of neighborhood prayer-meetings, when all went to Dr. Braman's church, and when the separation took place the new church was formally organized in his parlors. He died February 1, 1880, and his wife survived him but three weeks. They left a family of children trained after their own hearts, and strong in church work. Among them one son an Episcopal minister; a daughter, the wife of a minister; another son for nearly twenty-five years superintendent of a model Sunday-school.

Amos Brown's wheelwright shop and house were between Noyes' factory and the place where Cherry St. was soon laid out. He and his brother Samuel, mason, came from North Beverly. If the life of wheels depends on sound stock and honest work, every pair which ever came out of Amos Brown's shop is running yet. Right across the street from Brown's shop was Deacon Frederick Howe's house and blacksmith shop. The Deacon was born in Methueu, in 1793, learned his trade of the AVilkinses, at the Centre, and at length established himself here. He died July 2, 1880, eighty-seven years old. He was a deacon of the First Church when he was made one of the first deacons of the Maple Street Church. He entered from the first into temperance reform, and early attached himself to the anti-slavery movement, without for a moment losing his interest, as many did, in the church. His blacksmith shop was naturally a centre for discussion on such questions, and was one of the rallyingpoints of the Liberty party. " It is remarkable that a man so occupied and of so laborious a life found time and strength to do so much in so many good causes. Between his anvil-strokes rung out true words that formed opinions of other men, and the tired hand was never too weary to use the pen for the same purpose." None of Deacon Howe's family remain here. One of his sons, Joseph W., is a prominent member of the New York bar, and had a hand in the conviction of Tweed.

Frederick Perley, a brother of " Uncle Proc," lived and manufactured shoes opposite Ezra Batchelder's. Joseph W. Ropes came here from Salem in 1838, and engaged in the tinware and stove business, which his son carries on. In subsequent pages will be found a sketch of Alfred Trask, who came to the Plains about 1835, and built up a large and prosperous business as a drover.

The establishment of the Village Bank here in 1836 was brought about by the efforts of leading shoe manufacturers, Elias Putnam foremost, and tended very much to the making of the Plains the business centre of the town. The new church was organized in 1844, there were better and larger schools, lands which had long been used only for farming were laid open for building, and the prosperity of the place may be judged from this clipping from the Courier, May 18, 1845, a paper published for a few years at South Danvers :

" But the greatest improvements seem to have been made in North Danvers. New streets have been opened, old ones built up, old houses transformed to new, and the whole village presents a thrifty and goahead appearance to the occasional visitor - not appreciated by the constant resident. The beautiful church, the noble public houee, the large shoe factories and long ranges ot handsome dwellings seem to have arisen by magic. High Street is so tilled up that we can liardly tell where the New Mills village leaves otf and where the 'Plains' begins. They are fast joining hands, and when they come together they will liave quite a city-like appearance."

" A very alarming fire took place in the North Parish, in Danvers, at the Plains, last Tuesday afternoon (June Id, 184.'>), commencing at 2 o'clock.

"It broke out in an outbuilding lielongiug to tlie dwelling house of Mr. Joshua Silvester, and was said to have been occasioned by some children playing with friction matches. The fire spread with great rapidity, and seemed at one time beyond human control. The number of buildings of all sorts destroyed issaid to be eighteen.

"These cons^isted of the dwelling, extensive store and barn of Joshua Silvester; the building occupied by John Hayman, painter, and F. E. Smith, tailor; the large building occupied by Francis Noyes as a shoe manufactory, together with his dwelling and stable ; the building occupied by Amos Brown, wheelwright; and CofHu & Co., painters ; two dwelling houses, shoe nuinufactory, barn and store house of Samuel Preston, who saved nothing but a couple boxes of shoes ; Francis (Frederick) Howe's blacksmith shop ; barn and store house belonging to A. Proctor Perley; a new building occupied by tlie post-ottice, and Clough's restorator. The Village Bank Building was a good deal injured by fire and water, and most of the furniture of W. L. Weston, the cashier, was greatly injured ; but all Bank property was saved. The goods of Henry T. Ropes, who occupied part of the building as a tailor's shop, were saved. Mr. John Page's house was completely emptied, but uninjured by firo. The streets were filled with property taken from the stores and hcjuses. A. P. perley & C'o.'s store was saved by unparalleled exertions, though for a long time in ininiinent periU The stock was removed.

" There Wii« a great scarcity of water, it being necessary to connect eight engines to obtain a single stream of water upon the fire. The nearest body of water was Frost Fish Brook, over a half a mile distant, at the Beverly line.

" The alarm reached Salem about a quarter past two o'clock, and several engines and fire companies innuediately started, guided by the direction of the smoke, although it was not then known where the fire was, nor how imminent was the danger. Express messengei-s arrived sometime afterwards for assistance, when the alarm was again sounded, and several more engines were despatched, making seven in all from Salem, preceded, accompanied and followed by great numbers of our citizens. The progress over the length of dusty road was exceedingly toilsome, with the almo.st vertical sun beating down upon their unsheltered heads, at a temperature of 120 to 1311 degrees. Some weie very much overcome by the exposure and fatigue. One man fell at the brakes of No. 6, and when the engine, having exhausted the water at the cistern where it was posted was withdrawn, he was lying upon the grass insensible, under the care of ^the physicians belonging to the company.

" The amount of loss is variously estimated, some going as high as 880,000. There was insurance in various offices - mostly of mutual companies - to the amount of over 830,000."

lamentable want of anything like architectural design, and it must be confessed that from this want of foresight our main street presents a shambling and irregular appearance, not worthy of the general appearance of the town. There is not space to speak of the later development and prosperity of the Plains. Suffice it to say that Farmer Porter's fields are so well built up that few desirable house-lots remain unutilized, and, generally speaking, Danvers Plains is a beautiful village, and its residents have many rare advantages.

Danversport comprises two penin.sulas, formed by three divergent forks of tide water, into each of which flow inland streams, known, commencing with the most southerly, as Water's, Crane and Porter's Rivers. As the highway across them runs, the main road to Salem, these rivers are about a third of a mile apart; at each bridge, tide-gates and mills. It is the lower peninsula between Water's and Crane Rivers that formed Governor Endicott's orchard farm, the first settled land in Danvers. The upper peniusula - Skelton's Neck, wherein came to be much commercial activity, and for many years the principal village of the town - was for a long time wild and unsettled. It was quite a hundred and twenty years after the Governor had broken gruund on his grant that Archelaus Putnam went down through the woods and selected as a site for a tide-mill the place where the outcurving banks of the Crane River make the stream quite narrow. From his father, Nathaniel's, farm (the Judge Putnam place) he floated down the stream, or moved down its frozen surface, a coopershop, lauded it about where the railroad station now is, moved it across the point made by the sharp bend of the river, and near the present location of Aaron Warren's brick store he made it into a dwelling, wherein, with his wife Mehitable, he lived, the pioneer of Danversport. Soon after the settlement ol Archelaus, his brother John moved down, and together they built a grist-mill. Tradition is that the whole district was covered by a dense thicket, in which foxes abounded. This was a path through the neck to the upper settlements, marked by blazed trees, by which wood was taken to the water-side and boated to Salem. A more respectable way, two rods wide, was soon laid out from Porter's Plains to the mills, the origin of High and Water Streets. In 1760 this road was pushed on over Endicott's Neck, across Water's River, and so on to Salem. It was welcomed by land-owners on the lower side of that river, who conveyed to Samuel Clark, Jeremiah Page, Benjamin Porter and others for the benefit of the public " two rods wide through our land in a straight line as may be from the Bridge when built to North Field Proprietors' way, so called, at the Gate going into said Small's land." But there was almost no end of trouble within the town. The road was strongly opposed. For one thing the New Mills, as the little community soon came to be called, belonged territorially to the south parish, and the people there were unwilling to see the diversion of business and interest which the short cut to Salem would render inevitable. This is what Colonel Israel Hutchinson meant when he wrote in his private papers, "After they found they could not get it discontinued, they proposed to make it a toll-bridge. We found that would not by any ways do, as those people (of Salem and Marblehead) who had assisted us in repairing the way and building the bridges would be great sufferers, and it would promote traveling that way, which was what the leaders, who were sellers of rum, tobacco, etc., wished to prevent.'' Application was made to the North Parish " if they were willing to take us with all ways and bridges, but they (the South Parish) would not let us go. We then, after contending in the law more than seven long years, and although we had gained our cause in every case, being almost ruined, were under the necessity of proposing to the General Court that we would take all ways and bridges on ourselves." And the General Court looked on the ])roj)osition with favor, and in 1772 passed "An Act lor the subjecting the Inhabitants of a Part of the Town of Danvers, called the Neck of Land hereafter described, to the charge of maintaining and supporting certain Bridges and Highways." After reciting the unhappy divisions and controversies, and the final and amicable compromise in ratification of which the act was passed, it was provided that the inhabitants of the Neck should constitute an independent highway district to maintain existing highways and bridges therein, and also any others constructed at the special instance and request of the inhabitants. The district, containing about three hundred acres, was bounded by a line commencing at Crane River Bridge on the Ipswich Road (Ash Street) ; thence following the river channel to Lieutenant Thomas Stevens' land (about at the southerly end of the railroad bridge) ; then straight across Fox Hill to the high-water mark on the south side of Water's River, a little west of the bridge ; thence across the further end of the bridge to Porter's River, up the whole length of Porter's River, to the Ipswich Road again at Frost-fish Brook Bridge ; and so on by the Ipswich Road (Conant, Elm and Ash Streets) to the place of beginning. These limits embraced a large tract now included in the Plains. The act remained in force nearly seventy years, until its repeal March 7, 1840. Evidently matters, however, had not been conducted in strict conformity to requirements, for in 1836 the Legislature confirmed the recorded proceedings, giving them the same effect as if the officers had been proprietors and all meetings called by competent authority.

From the beginning made by Archelaus Putnam, other mills were in a few years established on Crane River - wheat-mills in 1764, and a saw-mill in 1768. Associated with him in ownership were John Buxton,

Dan Vers

In the mean time other dwellings were erected along the new highway, the woods were cleared away, and a little village s]»eedily grew up at "New Mills." On the banks of Porter's River sharp-eyed men from the ship-building towns saw excellent facilities for that business. The pioneer of shipbuilding here was Timothy Ste])hens, of Newbury, an enterprising and skillful builder. Presently a number of young men came down from the North, worked with Stephens and learned his trade, and permanently established themselves here. Some o( these will be mentioned again.

For nearly half a century after the first mill on the Crane River the tide-power on the other two rivers remained unutilized. About 1798 Nathan Read enters into the history of Dan vers. He was a graduate of Harvard, 1781, a tulor there of Harrison Gray Otis and John Quincy Adams, and afterwards studied medicine and kept an apothecary store in Salem. There he married, October 20, 1790, Elizabeth Jaflrey, and built the house in which the historian Prescott was born, on the present site of Plumer Hall. Among the achievements of his inventive mind was the first machine for cutting nails. He purchased the waterpower on theAVater's River, and with associates erected the Salem and Danvers Iron Works. At the same time he purchased part of Governor Endicott's oM Orchard Farm, and on a sightly eminence overlooking the river built a mansion, which, after the successive ownership of Captain Crowningshield, Cajjtain Benjamin Porter and the heirs of the latter, still retains much of its original stateliness. When the company were incorporated, IMarcli 4, 1800, Nathan Read is described " of Danvers ; " seventeen others, of Salem. The corporation was authorized to hold thirty thousand dollars of real and three hundred thou-^and dollars of personal property, and reference is made in the act to the date of the original partnership, May 5, 1796.

In the mill-pond, in front of his residence. Read experimented by applying steam to the paddles of a small boat long before the Hudson was the scene of Fulton's larger results. He was the first man to apply to the government for a patent, and himself framed the first patent law. He represented the district in Congress, 1800-03. A [wMticaljeu d' esprit was current at the time of his candidacy for re-election to Congress, when his party, the Federalists, were called '' Jacobins " by their opponents, the Republicans, and the candidate of the latter party was the Hdn. Jacob Crowningshield :

Maine, where he had purchased a large tract of land. He was there appointed a judge of Common Pleas. He died in Belfast, January 21, 1849, in his ninetieth year, leaving a numerous family. Nathan Read's petition :

"To tlie freeholders & other inhabitants of the Town of Danvers the Petition of Nathan Reed respectfullj- sheweth that he has it in contemplation to build certain Blills near Water's bridge, so called, on Waterses river, so called, & re(iuests the Town to grant, convey & quit claim to him, hi» heirs and assigns forever its consent, license, right & permission to erect a dam or dams on & across said River ; to build mills, piers and wharves & to construct a lock it flood gates any where nigh or adjoining said bridge, & to do everything necessary for compleatingjfe using said mills without any let, hindrance or molistation whatsoever of said Town.

"At a legal meeting of the inhabitants of the Town of Danvers, March 9th, 1795 - voted that the prayer of above Petition of Nathan Reed be granted.

The business at the foundry brought up from the towns of the south shore, nurseries of iron-workers, several men who established families here. John Joselyn was one of the earliest of these, among whose children was Edwin Joselyn, who for thirty years was a noted teacher in Salem, and among whose descendents are the wife and children of Hon. Augustus Mudge. John Bates who followed an older brother here from Dedham a few months after he was twentyone, is still living within sound of the machinery, and on the 20th of this present month May, 1887, will be ninety years old. Besides tlie foundry on the north bank of the river there was a nail-shop, and also an anchor-shop on the south bank. In the latter were forged the anchors of the frigate " Essex," an occasion celebrated by inuch punch. Work was steady at the anchor-shop, the plan being to manufacture a supply for some time ahead, mostly of a size for fishermen and coasters, and when the stock was too much reduced, a gang of expett anchor-men were called up from the south-shore who kept the one trip-hammer and the two pairs of bellows busy until anchors were sufficiently plenty again. One of these anchor- men, John Silvester, after a progressively successful career in the iron business, about 1858 bought the works at Danvers, and it is his son Benjamin Silvester who is at present carrying on the business of rolling iron at the old stand. The nail and anchor shops have long since been removed, the former fulfilling a mission of usefulness at Calvin Putnam's lumber yard, the latter now a barn in the neighborhood. Before Mr. Silvester's purchase the works were carried on by Matthew Hooper who built the large brick residence on the Salem side of the river. Within a few years a spur track has been laid from the railroad to accomm<»date the works.

The old-time ferry between Salem and Beverly, some two miles down the river, gave place to the Essex Bridge, now " Beverly Bridge," the proprietors of which were incorporated November 17, 1787. The people at New Mills were much opposed to the new bridge for more reasons than one. It interfered somewhat with free navigation, in compensation for whicli tlie proprietors were required to pay £10 annually to the town treasurer; then travel from Ryall Side and the back country would naturally be more diverted from New Mills, and for this, while there was no compensation, the energetic inhabitants attempted a remedy. They built a bridge of their own across Porter's River in 1788. The land on the other side of the river then was a part of Beverly. Later, some three years after the incorporation of the iron works at Water's River, Samuel Page, Thomas Putnam, Caleb Oakes, Samuel Endicott, John Page and Hezekiah Flint were, June 23, 1803, incorporated as the Danvers and Beverly Iron Works Company. They were authorized to build a bridge of stone, thirty-two feet wide, for which Captain Burley furnished the material from his land on the Beverly side, to erect and use forever an iron manufactory and any other mills for useful manufacture, and to hold property to the value of three hundred thousand dollars, in two hundred shares. Option was given to Beverly to build the bridge, but the committee of that town preferred to relinquish the right of improving the river for a mill-pond and to pay twenty dollars annually towards the support of the bridge. Both the original structure and the stone bridge were for a long tnne called "Spite Bridge." Those who built it gave the name of " Liberty Bridge." By an act, February 8, 1811, the company having " lately discontinued their operations," the Salem establishment was sold to the company at Water's River. Nathaniel Putnam was many years agent and manager of the works. Subsequently the works were changed into a grist-mill, were long known as " Fowler's Mills, then " Richards' Mills," and within a few years have entered a new stage of usefulness, that of grinding up old rubber.

A man without a handle to his name must have been at a discount in New Mills. The busy little port was thick with " Cap'ns," with here a "Colonel," there a " Major." It was the home of a considerable number of men who were masters of ships out of Salem, of others who were prosperous ship-owners, merchants and millers. Such families were not numerous, and they naturally became connected and inter-twisted by marriages in a way perplexing to unravel.

Among the young men who were attracted by the ship-building at the new settlement was Samuel Fowler, of Ipswich, born there January 9, 1748-49. He was but seventeen when he came. At that time a young girl was just entering her teens who had the distinction of being the rirst white child born at New Mills. She was Sarah Putnam, daughter of Archelaus, the pioneer, and step-daughter of Colonel Israel Hutchinson. Two years before the battle of Lexington Samuel Fowler and Sarah Putnam were man-ied. She is said to have been a very handsome woman, " with a snowy complexion and black eyes and hair."

She lived to be over ninety-two years of age, and died November 19, 1847, having survived her husband nearly thirty-five years. Samuel Fowler, shipwright, became a ship-owner, engaged in trade with the West Indies, and is called on the records " merchant."

Captain Samuel Page, the oldest son of Colonel Jeremiah, married Rebecca, daughter of that William Putnam who went to Sterling, Mass, and he came down from Porter's Plains to become one of the first and leading citizens of New Mills.

Simon Pinder (sometimes Pindar, Pendar) was of the same age as Samuel Fowler, and came also from Ipswich. He married here Mehitable Dutch, and probably built the old house on Fox Hill, in which he lived and died, on the site of which is the new house of Mr. Dennett's. He was engaged in the fishing business and also kept a store near his house. He died July 4, 1813. An older house than his, by the way, on Fox Hill is the " Fairfield House," so called for Samuel Fairfield, who married Anna, a daughter of Colonel Hutchinson, and died November 26, 1810, aged sixty-two.

Moses Black, a full generation younger than those just mentioned, was born in Haverhill in 1779, and came here at the close of the last century. He was a " wool-puller," and established a prosperous business, was known as "Major Moses," and was the founder of the Black family, than which few in town have been more prominent and influential.

Nathaniel Putnam had a large family, among whom were Nathaniel, known as " Cap'n Nat," Mehitable and Phebe. Aaron Cheever had two sons, both sea-captains, - Thomas and William. Simon Pinder had seven or eight children, among whom were Samuel, Hitty, Hannah and Sally. Jere. Putnam, not previously mentioned, was the father of two other sea-captains, "Captain Jerry" and "Captain Tom."

Captain Nathaniel Putnam married Hannah Pindar ; Samuel Pindar married Mehitable Putnam ; Moses Black married Phebe Putnam. Captain Thomas Cheever married Sally Pindar; William Cheever married Betsey Waters, and at his death she became the third wife of Captain Nathaniel. Hitty Pindar became the wife of "Captain Jerry" Putnam.

One of Hannah Pindar Putnam's children, Nathaniel, married a daughter of " Captain Tom " Putnam, and subsequently moved to New York ; and one of Betsey Waters (Cheever) Putnam's children, Abby, was married to a son of Captain Tom's, Captain Albert. Samuel Pindar lived in the "Mead House" on Endicott Street - a part of his father's estate - and worked at times for Major Black ; he died in 1888, was tlie only son who had a family here, and the removal of his own sons leaves no one now to represent the family name. A link between the Pindars and Pages was the marriage of a danghter of John Pindar, of Beverly, son of Simon, to Captain Samuel Page's oldest son, Jeremiah.

" Captain Tom '' Cheever and his wife, Sally Pindar, lived with his brother, William, in that large house on Water Street which has fallen to such decay that the roof is tumbling in. Captain Thomas sailed forty years for Gaj^tain Joseph Peabody, of Salem. Captain William died at Calcutta when but thirtytwo years old, and left no children to grow up ; his widow re-married as noted. Of Captain Thomas's children, two daughters became wives of Dr. Ebenezer Hunt; W^illiam and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Eben Putnam, live at Staten Island, N. Y. ; and George, Miss Hannah P. and Mary P., widow of William, son of Major Moses Black, live here.

Captain Jerry Putnam, who married Hitty Pindar, lived in the house which he built, now owned by Charles Warren; he was of the fraternity of seacaptains, lived to be about seventy, and his oldest daughter, Mehitable, married into another family, not yet mentioned, well savored with salt - the Johnsons. The Johnson home was a small house which stood near Dr. Frost's residence. The father, William, and three sons, William, Henry and Thomas, were all sea-captains. The son William lived in Salem ; Thomas lived in the house next north oi Charles Warren's, and of his children, Thomas W., of Salem, is the secretary of the Holyoke Insurance Company, and George was lost at sea, leaving two boys now in our schools. It was Captain Henry Johnson who married Captain Jerry's daughter ; he first went to sea when twelve years old as cabin-boy for Captain Tom Cheever, and after he gave up the sea, settled down on his father-in-law's place. His son, the late James A. Johnson, was the last to follow the traditional occupation of the family.

The family trees of the Pages and Fowlers intertwine in various ways. Samuel Fowler, the young man who came from Ipswich, had four children to grow uj). Colonel Jeremiah Page was twice married, and his eldest son. Captain Samuel, was much older than the children of the second wife. It is not, strange, therefore, that while Samuel Fowler's son, Samuel, married Captain Samuel Page's daughter, Clarissa, that the younger son, John Fowler, should have married Captain Samuel's half sister, Martha, and that Martha's brother, John, should have married Mary, a sister to Samuel and John Fowler. Samuel Fowler, Jr., born in 1776 and died in 1859, lived in the square brick house on the corner of Liberty and High Streets, and carried on an extensive milling and tanning business about Liberty Bridge. His tan yard, which remained in the family until a few years ago, is one of the longest established in the country. Of his children three sons survive, - Deacon S. P. Fowler, whose life runs parallel with the century, and of whom a sketch follows this article, Henry and Augustus. A daughter, Rebecca, married Aaron Eveleth ; another, Sally Page, James D. Black, a son of Major Moses. The latter and Miss Maria L. are the surviving daughters. John Fowler built the Bates house' near the iron foundry, from whom it passed to two sea captains. Captain Edward Richardson and Captain Stephen Brown, and from them to John Bates, its present venerable owner. John Fowler's oldest son, "master mariner," died in the Gulf of Mexico in 1840 ; another, Jeremiah, was one of the pioneers of California, established the first diary in San Francisco, is still living, a successful old man, in Placer County, that State, and within a few years his fiimily has re-allied itself to Danvers, through the marriage of one of his sons to a daughter of the late Captain Andrew M. Putnam.

John Page and his wife, Mary Fowler, lived in his father's homestead at the Plains. He saw the growth of the Plains village from almost nothing to the business centre of the town, and contributed to this progress. The manner in which he carried on his father's business of brick-making will be noticed when that industry is spoken of He was an honored and representative citizen of the town. His widow long survived him, and died, lacking a month of ninety years. Like her mother, Sarah Putnam, she was distinguished in her youth for the fine personal appearance, which she retained in a remarkable degree in her old age; she was of more than ordinary intelligence, and read extensively to the latest period of her life. The connection between Major Black's family and the Fowlers has been noticed. A direct Black-Page alliance was made by the marriage of the Major's son, Moses, Jr., to Harriet N., daughter of John and Mary Page. Mrs. Black and four sisters, Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Edgerton, Mrs. Weston and Miss A. L. Page are the surviving children of John Page. It is unpleasant to know that in the male line this name, which has been so conspicuous in our history, is here extinct.

Beside the children of Major Moses Black already mentioned were Mrs. Sarah L. Holroyd, Mrs. Mary O. Smith, Archelus P. and Joseph S. The latter was a son-in-law of Moses Putnam, and his partner; he died in 1861. William, Moses, James D. and Joseph S. Black were, each in his peculiar way, prominent and leading citizens. James D., the only surviving son, who lives at Harvard, Mass., has furnished the writer with some interesting reminiscences which have been used in the sketch of the schools.

These families here mentioned by no means included all of the " first families " of New Mills. There were Captain Crowningshield, and later Captain Ben Porter, at the Read mansion. Captain Israel Endicott and other Endicotts, Caleb Oakes, Major Joseph Stearns, Deacon Benjamin Kent, ship builder, Josiah

Gray, Captain Jacob Perry, the Webbs and so on. Much might be written of tliem were there plenty of space and time. Some will be mentioned again in connection with brick-making and other industries, and other representative names than those already mentioned will appear in the sketch of the local church, the Baptist, in the account of the anti-slavery excitement, and especially in the lisfof the company formed during the war of 1812, an account of which here immediately follows.

In the summer of 1814 nearly sixty men, mostly of New Mills - the solid men of the place in more senses than one, who were exempt from service - voluntarily associated themselves into an independent company of defence. They met in the school-house July l(3th, organized by the choice of Captain Samuel Page as moderator, and Captain Thomas Putnam, clerk, and passed, among others, these votes:

" Voted, That the Alarm post be the front yard of Capt. Saml. Page's house. Voted, Tliat the company meet at their Alarm Post on Saturday next at 4 o'clock P. M., well equipped, including Knapsack, etc.

" Voted, That as we have pledged ourselves on the points of Honor to be Always Read/) and willing to obey the commanding oflScer of said company, therefore any member who does not at all times (when ordered) attend at the Alarm Post in good season and well armed and equipped shall be liable to be reprimanded for each neglect by the commanding officer."

Of the permnnel and appearance of this company fortunately an interesting sketch has been written by Deacon Fowler. Here were men whose age had added breadth to shoulders and rotundity to forms, men who held commissions in the Revolution, shipmasters who had visited foreign climes, skippers and hook-and-

Hnemen; shipwrights, wealthy shoe manufacturers, men who first pressed bricks by machinery and found a mint in the clay-i:)it; tanners, merchants, farmers, artisans, oflScers of the town, county, church, State, physicians, and - enough ! Truly a company extraordinary in its make-up. They marched, a little stiff in the knee-joints, from their Captain's down to the woods in the lane (River Street) for practice in firing, till "The Girl I Left Behind Me" quickened their energies and warmed them up. Amid generous plaudits it is to be presumed th e veterans moved on with taciturn dignity. The young men smiled, but only some sour Federalist growled," There goes the old ringbone company." The weapons were of every sort - the King's arm, good for a charge of ten fingers, two balls and five buck-shot; the long heavy ducking gun, requiring liberal allowance of ammunition ; the large-calibre " refugee." The firing by platoons was somewhat theoretical - there was too much individuality about it. Blank cartridges being used there was little danger in front. Not so in the ranks, for from the vents of the old firelocks a generous discharge of powder was at each shot directed towards the exposed ear of the man on the right, until the word wns passed down, " Turn up your guns when you fire." At one of the numerous false alarms that the British were landing at Salem, the company marched at midnight as far as Gardner's farm. It was noticed that they were divided somewhat peculiarly. The well-fed, heavy, short-legged and short-winded men held the rear, under the lieutenant, while the front rank, composed of the leaner and longer-legged, advanced faster under the captain. The people of Salem were in constant fear of naval attack, and people inland were so alert that it is said a shot from a battery, alarmed by some harmless fishermen, caused quick commotion to the extreme limits of New Hampshire. The escape of the " Constitution" from English ships into Marblehead harbor was witnessed by Dan vers men from Folly Hill. Earthworks, mounting two iron fourpounders, were thrown up at Water's River, and several prize vessels laid off the ship-yards during the war. The last survivor of the New Mills minute-men was Jonas Warren.

A school-boy of sixty years ago recalls that then Capt. Samuel Page was the leading merchant, and that his mercantile business was not confined to coasting, but foreign goods were largely imported. His fine mansion, still standing, was regarded as the most aristocratic residence of the village. He had years before erected several large warehouses to accommodate his business.

Capt. Nat Putnam and Capt. Tom Cheever were partners in store-keeping in the brick building until recently occupied by Aaron Warren. Capt. Nat built as his residence the large brick building opposite, known as the Bass River House, and a very fine residence it must have been in those days. After Capt. Page's death, Putnam and Cheever occasion- ally used the storehouses, and so also Major Black, to store sheeps' pelts. Into one of them a cargo of smuggled rum was surreptitiously unloaded in the dead of night. Though a blacksmith, who had to be aroused to mend the broken cann-hooks, was let into the secret, the vessel got away before daylight, and nothing was for a long time known of the close proximity of so much exhilarating fluid. But the stuff' could not be sold, and remained an elephant in somebody's hands until long after its advent somebody else " peached," and a long line of government trucks entered the village and confiscated the whole stock.

The following list of the earliest Danversport vessels was made by ]\Ir. Crowley, of the Salem Custom. House, at the writer's request. The date is that of register. The owner's name follows the name of the vessel.

The sturdy ship-wrights at New Mills helped out their country in the times that tried men's souls. Beside the smaller craft, three fine ships, - the " Grand Turk," the "Jupiter," the "Harlequin," - were built here during the Revolution. Before the war, Pindar, Kent and Fowler took a contract to build a three hundred and fifty ton ship for a London house. Capt. John Lee was sent from England to superintend her building. Impending hostilities prevented the owners from rigging and fitting her, and as long as she remained on the stocks the builders could not, according to contract, demand their pay. Capt. Lee refused to allow her to be launched, but all the carpenters mustered one night and slid her into the water. The builders might better have thrown up the bargain and make the most of the ship, but they chose to bring a fruitless suit again.st the American agent of the Englishmen, and in the meantime the good ship, utterly uncared for, floating with the tides, rotted in the river.

Old newspapers which contain "arrivals" at the " Port of Danvers " give an insight into the amount and character of the business here transacted. A few sample entries during the summer of 1848 are here given, -

"27th. - Arr. Brig 'Ellen,' corn, to D. Richards. Schs. 'Franklin' with lumber, to A. Sawyer, Jr. ; ' Regulator,' wood and sleepers, to E. R. R.

From April 1 to November 30, 1848, there were 172 arrivals including 58 cargoes of lumber, 31 wood and bark, 43 flour and grain, 17 lime, 3 molasses, 2 salt, 4 coal, 12 in ballast, 2 unknown. Seventeen vessels loaded for shipment to other ports, two cargoes being sent to the coast of Africa. It is said that the first cargo of coal ever landed here was owned by Parker Brown, but nearly as early a venture in this new combustible was that of J. W. Ropes. His advertisement thus appeared in August, 1849. -

" Coal. " Now landed at Black's wharf, and for sale liy the subscriber, a cargo of very superior anthracite coal which will be sold at the wharf or delivered as cheap as can be purchased in Salem.

The Legislature authorized the town to put down channel poles in the rivers in 1844. Recently the draw-bridges at Beverly were widened to accommodate larger coal vessels than could otherwise come to Danversport. Calvin Putnam established the present extensive lumber business, on the site of Deacon Kent's ship-yard, about thirty-five years ago.

The Tapleys and Tapleyville. - About the first of this century an old man was driving a heavy load of oak ship-timber, along one of the roads in the western part of the town. There had recently been a very heavy fall of snow, and the roads were so full that turning out was a matter of great difficulty. Suddenly out of the drifts there appeared an approaching sleigh, and behind the driver sat the magnate of whom something has been said, "King" Hooper. " Turn out," cried Hooper. " Can't do it, load's too heavy," said the old man, " let your man take one of these shovels and we'll soon make room." "No, half the road's mine, and I'll wait here till I get it." "All right" was the complacent reply, and slipping out the pin he went back home with his oxen, leaving the load of logs effectually blocking the narrow path. This was Gilbert or, as it more often appears "Gil - bord " Tapley, the ancestor of the numerous family of that name in Danvers, many of whom have borne prominent and honorable parts in the quiet annals ol the town. He was the brother of John Tapley, from whom Tapley's Broook, in Peabody, derived its name. Another brother located in Maine. Gilbord came up to Salem Village and bought, in August, 1747, of Joseph Sibley, a farm of sixty-seven acres, bounded by Amos Buxton, Joshua Swinerton and others, the river-meadows, and a " way " now called Buxton's Lane. His dwelling on this farm was standing until within thirty to forty years on the Andover turnpike, a few rods south of the Wm. Goodale place. He was married three times; first, to Phebe, daughter of John, and sister to Dr. Amos Putiuim ; second, to Mary, widow of Nathaniel Smith ; third, to Mrs. Sarah Farrington. Phebe was the mother of Amos, Daniel, Phebe, Joseph, Aaron, Asa, Elijah ; Mary was the mother of Sally, eight children in all. Through only two of these was the name preserved here, Amos and Asa. Of the daughters, Phebe married Wm. Goodale, of Hog Hill ; Sally, Porter Putnam. Of the other sons, Daniel married Mary Tarbell ; Joseph went to Lynnfield and left very numerous descendants ; and Elijah established a family at Wilton, N. H. Amos Tapley's home was in near neighborhood to his father's, the present Joel Kimball place. His wife was Hannah, daughter of John Preston, who lived where George H. Peabody does now, not far away. They were the parents of twelve children, seven sons. Of the sons, - David, Amos, Moses, Aaron, Daniel, Philip and Rufus, - Moses and Daniel were among the pioneers of Indiana; Amos went to Lynn and was the father of Amos P. Ta{)ley, one of the most respected citizens of that city; Philip died at sea, young; and upon David, Aaron and Rufus depended their father's branch of the family name at home. David's son Alvin was the father of Joseph A. Tapley, of Danversport. Aaron lived clo.se by his father, on the James Goodale place, and left no son. Rufus took his father's home, and later moved next south of the First Church ; three of his children went to Saco,

Me., of whom Rufus P. was for seven years a judge of Maine Supreme Court ; none of the children are left here. Thus the only lineal male representatives of Gilbord's son Amos, now in town, are Joseph A. Tapley and his sons.

Now of Gilbord's son Asa. It was said that Gilbord's second wife was the Widow Smith ; she brought three daughters into the family, two of whom quite conveniently became wives of two of the sons, while a third, Ruth, married Matthew Putnam, and thenceforth presided over the old Nourse witchcraft homestead, and became next neighbor to her sister P^lizabeth. For it was Elizabeth Smith whom Asa Tapley married, and their home was the old house which was sold to the late Elisha Hyde, and until within a few years stood on the street which bears that man's name. Asa came to own a great deal of land in that neighborhood. His children were Daniel, Asa, Betsey, John, Gilbert, Sally, Nathan, Perley, Jesse, Mary. Daniel lived first in the brick house which was the old home of Dr. Amos Putnam, near Felton's Corner; Nathan and Asa were brick-makers, the former living first in the house which he built, now occupied by his son-in-law, William H. Walcott; Asa in the house next south; while the house of Hix Richards, who married their sister Betsey, completed the trio of adjoining Tapley houses. The son John settled in Dover, N. H. Gilbert and Jesse established themselves near their father's home ; the former in the old Tarbell house, which stood on the corner of Hyde and Pine Streets, where he made shoes and money, the latter at the other end of Hyde, on Collins Street. Perley lived and died in the house into which Gilbert afterwards moved and died, on the corner of Pine and Holten Streets. Looking back at the character and standing which these sons who remained in Danvers maintained, it is using a very moderate expre-sion to speak of them as a remarkable family. Some of them died wealthy, all respected. None now survive. Gilbert reached the greatest age, eighty-five, and was the last survivor, his death occurring October 10, 1878.

Perley Tapley was a famous mover of buildings, and many are the feats which he and his long team of oxen accomplished in this direction. About 1843 he moved a building in which Matthew Hooper had manufactured boxes, near Felton's Corner, to the brook at " Hadlock's Bridge," and in it Perley and Gilbert Ta]dey began the manufacture of carpets. This building was burned in June, 1845, and another was immediately built. Gilbert Tapley carried on the business alone from 1847 to 1864, when the Danvers Carpet Company was formed. For many years the industry thus established gave employment to many people. In 187(5 there were about one hundred employees, who turned out one hundred and fifty thousand yards of ingrain carpets.

near, and converting them into dwellings. Many of these remain, the original settlers of the village, which, thus created, very properly took the name of Tapleyville. A humorous squib which appeared in the Danvers Eagle October 30, 184-4, was concocted on one of those trips which leading South Parish men used to make to hear Dr. Braman preach Fastday and Thanksgiving sermons. It was headed "Tapleyville in 1844." "There is one peculiarity," it says, " which we believe is not common to any other place. By the city regulations it is provided that no house or other building shall be erected within the territory, and the city is entirely composed of buildings which have been moved into it, and by this means it is constantly increasing. Nothing is more common than to see houses of all sizes and shapes and of every quaint style of architecture traveling into the place and seating themselves down in some comfortable situation to rest just so long as the mayor will allow them to remain. . . . We had the curiosity to look into the City Hall when the Council was not in session, and found it ornamented with various agricultural implements. Like the rest of the city, it looked like a traveling concern, and was built of rough slabs. We understand it once took a tour of observation through the streets of Salem, and afterwards returned to its native place." The " mayor " was, of course, Perley Tapley. The building last alluded to was a log cabin, which had been conspicuous in the Harrison campaign processions. It was the great feature of a great procession at Salem, when people gazed in admiration at Perley Tapley's skill in managing the forty or fifty yoke of oxen attached to the cabin, especially in turning corners. A glee club sang from the balcony, and a halt was made on Salem Common, where there was a great dinner, and an able and eloquent speech by Daniel Webster.

Mr. Tapley is said to have been the first to move a brick building. Having a church -steeple on his hands at one time, he cut it up sectionally into shoemakers' shops ; one is to be seen near the Tapleyville Station. He was moving a building on floats from Boston to East Boston once, and being somewhat out of his element on any other than a solid foundation, was in danger of being blown out to sea ; in the crisis he is said to have called vehemently to the pilot to " gee." Wishing a new school-house for his village, he did what he could to make the old Number 6 building "too small" by loading every child of school age in his neighborhood into his ox-cart and filling the room to overflowing. Many characteristic stories of his energetic way of doing things might be collected. He was not forty-eight years old when he died. He leaves no sons, but two daughters in town. In addition to the single family mentioned as the representatives of old Gilbord's son Amos, there are now in town but five other adult male Tapleys, - George and his two sons, of the line of Daniel, son

Tapleyville is sujiplied with a post-office and a railroad station. As a school district it ranks among the three largest ; as a business and manufacturing centre it is one of the busiest in town. Within a few years a large tract of land bounded by Holten, Pine and Hobart Streets has been opened and is well taken up by new dwellings. The new streets are named for the pastors of the First Church, - Clarke, Wadsworth, Braman, &c. Within the present year, 1887, a fine three-story building has been erected by the Agawam Tribe of Red Men for society and business purposes.