Norfolk County, Massachusetts - Chapter 30: The Town of Sharon, 1918

Chapter 30: The Town of Sharon

LOCATION AND BOUNDARIES - TOPOGRAPHY - EARLY HISTORY - PETITION FOR A PRECINCT - THE ANSWER - FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR - DISTRICT OF STOUGHTONHAM - FIRST DISTRICT OFFICERS - THE FIRST CANNON - BUNKER HILL - THE TOWN OF SHARON - POSTOFFICES - TOWN HALL - WATERWORKS - FIRE DEPARTMENT - MODERN SHARON - TOWN OFFICERS.

The Town of Sharon is situated in the southern part of the county, extending southward to the county line. On the north it is bounded by the towns of Norwood and Walpole ; on the east by Canton and Stoughton ; on the south by Bristol County; and on the west by Foxboro. The Neponset River just touches the northeast corner, and Traphole Brook forms a little of the boundary line between Sharon and Norwood.

Topography

The surface of Sharon is varied. Moose Hill, in the western part is the highest elevation. Its summit is said to be about six hundred feet above the level of the sea. It received its name from the fact that in early days it was a favorite haunt of the moose. Only a few years before the beginning of the Revolution deer reeves were elected by the people of Stoughton (of which Sharon was then a part) for the protection of the moose and deer that inhabited the forests about this hill. A winding road leads to the top of the hill, where in the days immediately preceding the Revolution was lighted "the signal fires of liberty." In later years an observatory was built there. From the observatory can be seen Mount Wachusett, the hills of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, the Blue Hills of Milton, and the Neponset Valley is spread out like a panorama.

One can readily infer how Rattlesnake Hill, a high, rocky ridge in the southeastern part of the town, received its name. The slopes of this ridge are covered with a growth of timber that affords an excellent place of abode for the serpent that gave name to the elevation. The road to North Easton passes over this ridge.

There are a number of smaller hills, such as Bald Hill, Bluff Head and Bullard's Hill. From the southern part of Bullard's Hill a fine view of the Village of Sharon may be seen. Along the foot of the hill runs the little brook, fed by springs, called by the Indians Maskwonicut, but to which the white settlers gave the name of Puffer's Brook.

Near the center of the town is Lake Massapoag, a pretty body of water, bearing an Indian name signifying "Great Water." About thirty or forty years ago the lake was stocked with fish - black bass, white perch, land-locked salmon, etc. - and along its shores have been built quite a number of summer residences by people from Boston, who come from the city during the hot weather to enjoy the scenery and rest.

In the western part is Wolomolopoag Pond, which in the Indian language means "deep, pleasant water." The outlet of this pond flows in a southerly direction and on its banks was built the first house in what is now the Town of Sharon. It was built by some one about 1660 or a few years earlier, and being located on the old Boston and Bristol post road was occupied by Captain Billings as a tavern in 1675. The pond above mentioned is sometimes called Billings' Pond. On the southern boundary lies Wilbur Pond - also known as Leach's Reservoir.

In the eastern part of the town are some good granite quarries, and in early days considerable quantities of bog iron ore were obtained here.

Early History

When the Town of Stoughton was incorporated in December, 1726, it included all the territory south of the Blue Hills and extended from Readville to the south line of Suffolk (now Norfolk) County. The west line of Stoughton was nearly twenty miles long, and the average width of the town from east to west was about ten miles. In this large town was included the present Town of Sharon. The colonial laws of that period required the towns to support churches and the people to attend public worship on Sunday. Stoughton was so large that it was inconvenient for many of the people to attend the church supported by the town, which was located at Canton Corner, hence those living adjacent to other towns attended worship where it was most convenient. After some ten or twelve years, the people living about Lake Massapoag decided to ask the General Court to establish a town or precinct for their benefit, and the result of their agitation was the following

Petition

"To His Excellency Jonathan Belcher Esqr. Captain-General and Governor in Chief in and over His Majesties Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England - and the Honourable His Majesties Council & House of Representatives of ye General Court assembled in Boston on ye Eighth day of June 1739.

"The petition of John Hixson and Benjamin Johnson committee to Prefer a petition to this Court in behalfe of ye subscribers Inhabitants of ye Southerly part of Stoughton humbly sheweth that Whereas by the Providence of the All Disposing God our lots are fallen to us at so greate a Distance from the Publick Worship of God in ye North part of ye sayd town that your Petitioners cannot ever without greate difficulty attend the Publick worship of God. Wherefore we have petitioned the Town once and Again to be eased of the greate Difficultyes we now labor under but have been by them rejected Notwithstanding the greate length of way which some of your Petitioners live from ye Publick Worship in ye sayd North Part about eight or nine miles And in Consideration of our greate Duty to attend ye Publick Worship of God not only Our selves but by our familyes and Children which by the Blessing of God are greately increased Therefore your Petitioners have of late Petitioned this Honourable Court to be sett oft" a seperate town or Precinct, but this Honourable Court did not see Cause to grant ye Petition. The reason as we Humbly conceve was the answers to the Petition which were wrong & erroneous.

"Therefore your Petitioners humbly Pray this Honourable Court to see with your own Eyes by sending a Committee to view ye circumstances at the charge & cost of ye Petitioners that this Honourable Court may be rightly Informed & see the Unjust procedings of the Honourable respondents & their fallacious answers to our former petitions & as your Petitioners are Obliged by Conscience and Law to attend the Worship of God they have by a free Contribution maintained preaching amongst them selves for a Considerable time Notwithstanding they have alsoe payed their proportional Part to ye North Part where they can have but little or none advantage. And we would beg leave to Inform this Honourable Court that since we have had preaching amongst us it has encouraged some well minded Persons to come & Settle within the limitts herein Petitioned & if it should Please the Honourable Court to Grant our Petition it would be a greate encourragement to a greate many more if your Petitioners were in a Capacity to have the Ordinances of God administered amongst them & your Petitioners having had some Experience by their Having maintained preaching amongst them selves they look on them selves as able to Maintain the Worship of God. Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray this Honourable Court that they would please send a Committee to view our Circumstances that so your Petitioners may be put into a Capacity that they may have the ordinances of the Saviour Settled amongst them in a regular Order by setting them off as a district and seperate Town or Precinct viz :

"We humbly beg leave here to say that what we now offer in Respect to our being sett off is in sincerity for the promoting of the Worship of God and Religion in its purity amongst us. Wherefore we pray Your Excellency & Honours would be pleased to hear our request and grant our petition and as in duty bound shall ever pray."

The signers of this petition, in the order in which their names appear, were as follows: Benjamin Estey, Timothy Tolman, Isaac Cumings, John Smith, William Colwell, Samuel Cumings, William Richards, Samuel Estey, Samuel Dwelly, Nathaniel Coney, Pelatiah Whittemore, Eleazer Puffer, Joseph Ingraham, Samuel Lovel, Matthias Puffer, Abraham Chandler, Ebenezer Estey, William Webb, Mahew Tupper, Stephen Holland, Benjamin Perry, Joshua Johnson, Josiah Perry, Eliakim Perry, John Noyes, Eleazer Hawes, Job Swift, Jacob Estey, Daniel Richards, Joshua Whittemore, Ebenezer Hewins, Edward Belcher, Jeremiah Belcher, Matthew Hobbs, Clifford Belcher, Ephraim Payson, Samuel Bird, Thomas Randall, Thomas Rogers, Ebenezer Capen, William Wood and Nathan Clark.

The Answer

To this petition the inhabitants of the north part of Stoughton prepared a response, in which they said: "The Petitioners have used a great deal of Craft in the course they have pursued, in as much as the Town now owes the minister about eighty pounds (i8o) & the town has just layed out nearly one hundred pounds (£100) in building a Road for the petitioners to go to Meeting & now they have built a Church near their own Doors & ask to be set off as Town or Precinct."

The General Court appointed a committee as asked for in the petition, and after visiting the territory the committee unanimously reported in favor of granting the prayer of the petitioners. A bill to that effect passed both branches of the General Court and it was approved by the governor on July 2, 1740. At a meeting of the inhabitants held soon afterward, John Hixson, Ephraim Payson and Daniel Richards were elected a committee to manage the affairs of the precinct, and Ebenezer Hewins was chosen treasurer. On January 5, 1742, Rev. Philip Curtis was called to the pastorate of the Second Precinct, and the meeting house mentioned in the petition was completed in 1744.

French And Indian War

In this conflict quite a number of the citizens of the Second Precinct volunteered as members of the company commanded by Capt. Elkanah Billings. Among them were some who signed the petition asking for the establishment of the precinct, notably Samuel Cumings, Nathan Clark, Mayhew Tupper and Benjamin Estey. Samuel Billings was lieutenant of the company; Eleazer Robbins, ensign; Elijah Billings, Timothy Morse and Ebenezer Billings, sergeants; Daniel Morse, Benjamin Rhoads and William Savage, corporals; Eleazer Fisher, clerk; Ebenezer Bullard, drummer; and Seth Lane, fifer. The company served in Colonel Miller's regiment about Crown Point, Ticonderoga and Fort William Henry.

Capt. Ebenezer Mann of this precinct raised a company, most of the members of which came from Wrentham. The volunteers from Sharon fought side by side with the British regulars and acquitted themselves in such a manner that the precinct afterward profited by their services. The war closed in 1763 and not long after that the inhabitants of the Second Precinct decided to ask the General Court to be set off as a separate town, or at least to be made a district, whereby they would enjoy greater civil and political privileges.

District Of Stoughtonham

Early in the year 1765 Joseph Hewins, Jr., Jeremiah Fuller and William Richards were appointed a committee to present a petition to the General Court asking that the Second Precinct of Stoughton be made a separate town or district, and this committee emphasized the services of the men who went out from the precinct in the French and Indian war as an argument why the petition should be granted. It does not appear that the Town of Stoughton offered any serious objections and on June 21, 1765, the following act was passed:

"An Act for incorporation the Second Precinct in the Town of Stoughton, in the County of Suffolk (as it now is), into a District by the name of Stoughtonham.

"Whereas, the inhabitants of the Second Precinct in Stoughton labor under great difficulties, by reason of their distance from the place where town meetings are held in said town :

"Be it enacted by the Governor, Council and House of Representatives, That the Second Precinct in the Town of Stoughton, by the same bounds and limits which the said Second Precinct now have, be, and hereby are, incorporated into a separate district by the name of Stoughtonham ; and that the inhabitants thereof be vested with all the powers, privileges and immunities which the inhabitants of any town within this province do, or by law ought to enjoy - excepting only the privilege of sending a representative to the General Assembly - and that the inhabitants of said district shall have liberty, from time to time, to join with the Town of Stoughton in the choice of a representative," etc.

First District Officers

Pursuant to the authority conferred upon him by the above mentioned act, Joseph Hewins, justice of the peace, issued his warrant to Richard Hixson, as one of the principal inhabitants of the district, to notify and warn the legal voters of the district to meet on July 8, 1765, for the purpose of electing such officers as by law the district was entitled to choose. At the appointed time Daniel Richards, Job Swift and Thomas Randall were elected selectmen and assessors, and Daniel Richards, clerk and treasurer.

The district was now in a condition to manage its own affairs, take care of its own poor, divide the school money with the Town of Stoughton, and a settlement with that town was effected without trouble or ill feeling.

The First Cannon

It may not be generally known that the first cannon cast in America were made in the Town of Sharon while it was the District of Stoughtonham. In the spring of 1767 Edmund Quincy, Jr., came to the district and bought a farm on the east shore of Massapoag Lake. One day while walking along the shore of the lake he noticed the indications of iron ore in considerable quantities. Realizing that in case of a war with the mother country, which then seemed imminent, this ore would be of great value to the colonies in the manufacture of heavy guns, he communicated the information of his discovery to his friend Richard Gridley of Boston. Colonel Gridley was the only American who knew anything regarding the manufacture of cannon, having been an engineer in the colonial service. Mr. Quincy purchased of the Dorchester proprietors the right to take the ore. He then formed a sort of partnership with Colonel Gridley and Joseph Jackson and bought the furnace that had been erected by Ebenezer Mann in the south part of the district. The first cannon were completed in 1775, and Colonel Gridley, who had in the meantime become the chief engineer of the Continental army, came out to the works to test them. The test proved satisfactory and the guns were used on various fields of the Revolution.

Bunker Hill

Israel Smith, marched from Stoughtonham (See chapter on the Revolution). But there was one incident connected with the War for Independence that belongs peculiarly to Sharon history, and is thus told by Solomon Talbot :

"It was the morning of the 17th of June, 1775, when the stillness of the early hour was broken by heavy cannonading in the distance, at Boston. The roar of heavy guns continued all the forenoon. In the afternoon the contest seemed to have redoubled its fury. What were the thoughts of these women as the horrors of war and bloody strife entered their minds? What if their husbands or sons should be slain in battle and a revengeful, conquering enemy should put into execution their threats to come with fire and sword, burn the houses and kill the defenseless women and children?

"In their agony of spirit and despair they turned their steps to Sharon Hill, the high ground near the school house, where they might possibly behold the fearful contest. They sank down in despair as they beheld before them on the horizon, twenty miles away, in a fearful mass of smoke and flames, Charlestown, with its six hundred dwellings.

"Night coming on, the tumult and voice of war was hushed. Anxiously awaiting some tidings from the terrible strife before them, they went into the school house, where they could sympathize with and console each other. Others came in and a goodly number were gathered. Rev. Philip Curtis, who had faithfully watched over them these many years, was with them with his prayers, exhortations and watching. Here on this eventful night was held the first watch-meeting ever held in Sharon. Here these women, with aching hearts and tearful eyes, beheld in the light of burning Charlestown the beacon of freedom, the dawn of a nation's birthday."'

On August 23, 1775, was passed the general law providing that all districts in the Province of Massachusetts Bay should become towns, and on that day, or under that act, Stoughtonham became a full-fledged town. Its boundaries then included the present Town of Foxboro, which was set off on June 10, 1778. In some of the records there is a mention of a meeting at which the citizens voted to ask the General Court to change the name to Washington, but no further information on the subject is available. On February 25, 1783, the following act was approved by Gov. John Hancock:

"An act for discontinuing the name of a town in the County of Suffolk incorporated under the name of Stoughtonham, and calling the same Sharon.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That the said Town of Stoughtonham shall no longer bear that name, but henceforth shall be called and known by the name of Sharon, the aforesaid incorporating act notwithstanding. And all officers in said town shall hold and exercise their respective offices in the same manner as they would have done had not the name of said town been altered."

The first postornce in the town was established on July 1, 1819, and was located at Cobb's Tavern, on the Bay road. In 1828 the postoffice at Sharon

Centre was established. On June 3, 1841, the name of the office at Cobb's Tavern was changed to East Sharon, and that at Sharon Centre to Sharon. The former has been discontinued, so that the only postoffice in the town is the one at Sharon.

Town 'Hall

For many years the town meetings of Sharon were held in the meeting house or in hired halls. In 1883 J. M. Weston, C. C. Barney and A. B. Lovejoy were appointed a building committee to superintend the erection of a town hall, 45 by 70 feet and two stories in height. Plans were prepared by Arthur H. Dodd, an architect of Boston, and the contract was awarded to L. E. & T. L. Barlow, except the granite foundation which was built by John Moyle. The superstructure is a frame, the first story of which is covered with clapboards and the second story with shingles. At the right hand of the front entrance is a circular tower and the building is surmounted by a cupola, the top of which is seventy-six feet above the sidewalk. The first floor is occupied by the town offices, the clerk's office being provided with a fireproof vault for the preservation of the records. On the second floor is a large hall, 44 by 45 feet, with the customary anterooms, etc. The public library was formerly kept in the building, the cost of which was about eight thousand dollars. The hall was dedicated on February 21, 1884, with appropriate ceremonies.

The Sharon Waterworks were built by a company and were acquired by the town in 1895. Since that time, to January 1, 191 7, the town has appropriated $31,414 for water for public use, and the sum of $89,544.51 has been realized by the sale of bonds. Of these bonds the amount outstanding at the beginning of the year 1917 was $49,000. The system includes two pumping stations, nearly twenty miles of mains and 107 public hydrants. During the year 1916 Pumping Station No. 1 pumped 26,121,500 gallons, and No. 2, 20,371,- 952 gallons, making a total consumption of 46,493,452 gallons, for which the town received $10,325 and the cost of maintenance was only $3,403.

On November 20, 1916, Daniel W. Pettee, who had served on the board of water commissioners for more than twenty-one years, passed away by death and Alfred C. Sampson was appointed to the vacancy. The board at the beginning of the year 1917 was composed of Ralph O. Brown, Alfred C. Sampson and Timothy F. Quinn.

Fire Department

The Sharon fire department, like those of most of the towns, has been developed from the old hand engine and volunteer company into a thoroughly modern fire-fighting organization. The cost of maintenance for the year 1916 was $4,541.77, of which $2,552.51 was used to pay the salaries of the members of the department, and $698.27 represents the cost of installing a new storage battery for the fire alarm system. Concerning this battery, the board of fire engineers say in their report : "On June 3d the new storage battery for the fire alarm system was put in commission, replacing the old gravity battery which had been in use since the first installation of the alarm system. The cost of operating the old battery from January 1, 1916, to June 3, 1916, was $146.88, while the cost of operating the new battery from June 3d to the end of the year was $18.79. At this rate the new battery will soon pay for itself, as well as being more reliable and up to date."

The board of fire engineers at the beginning of 1917, was composed of Edgar H. Andrews, chief ; C. P. Curtis, assistant chief and clerk ; A. D. Packard, superintendent of fire alarm.

Modern Sharon

The Sharon of 191 7 is quite a different affair from the old Second Precinct of Stoughton in 1740. In 1910 the population of the town, according to the United States census, was 2,310. In 19 15 the state census reported the number of inhabitants as being 2,468, a gain of 158 in five years. The assessed valuation of property in 1916 was $3,900,627, an increase of $488,038 over that of the preceding year.

Sharon has two weekly newspapers (the Advocate and the News), four public schools, three of which are conducted in buildings erected for the purpose and one in the town hall, electric light, steam and electric railway transportation facilities, a fine public library for a town of its class, churches of different faiths are represented by comfortable houses of worship, several mercantile establishments and some manufacturing concerns. The good roads movement has not been neglected, as in 191 6 the town meeting appropriated over one thousand dollars for the purchase of a steam roller and about ten thousand dollars for the construction and repair of highways and sidewalks.

Town Officers

Following is a list of the leading officials at the beginning of the year 1917: Charles E. Whitcomb, Robert G. Morse and Herbert F. Nelson, selectmen and overseers of the poor; Charles A. Hixon, Henry A. Boyden and Edgar M. Hixon, assessors ; George H. Whittemore, clerk ; George A. Dennett, treasurer and tax collector; William D. Wheeler, moderator; Ralph S. Earle, John J. Rafter and Sidney A. Weston, school committee; Ambrose B. Peach, highway surveyor; Hervey T. B. Derry, Joseph B. Legge and Milton O. Parker, constables; Edmund H. Talbot, town counsel.