Worcester County, Massachusetts - Chapter 6: Lancaster - (ai?///?:/*?^), 1889

Chapter 6: Lancaster - (ai?///?:/*?^)

At the Presidential election of 1856 the vote of Lancaster was : For John C. Fremont, 232 ; James Buchanan, 35; Millard Fillmore, 10. The vote of 1860 stood: For Abraham Lincoln, 183; Stephen A. Douglas, 42; John Bell, 41. The men who thus voted, when traitors appealed from the ballot-box to the sword, were not tardy in defence of their convictions. One of Lancaster's sons served in the Sixth Regiment, in which was shed the first blood of the Rebellion, in 1861, on the anniversary of the battle of Lexington. The news of that bloodshed told every village of the North that the bitterness of civil war had begun. Monday evening, April 22d, a massmeeting of the citizens in Lancaster town-hall. Dr. J. L. S. Thompson chairman, deliberated upon the grave dangers threatening the republic. Enthusiastic patriotism ruled the assembly ; nor was it content with flamboyant resolutions only, but began then and there the organization of a company for the defence of the government.

This company, seventy-eight men, chiefly of Lancaster and Bolton, was called the Fay Light Guard, in honor of Hon. Francis B. Fay, of Lancaster. It was soon drilling under command of Thomas Sherwin, captain-elect, and three weeks later joined the Fifteenth Regiment, in camp at Worcester. Without any suflScient reason, alleged or apparent, the Governor arbitrarily refused to commission the com pany's chosen commander as captain, and the men, in response, encouraged by the sympathy of the whole camp, refused to be sworn in under the stranger from another county set over them. The company was therefore disbanded, when the rank and file, almost without exception, enlisted in other companies of the Fifteenth and Twenty-first Regiments. They had received an outfit, and been paid one dollar per day for all time spent in drill, at an expense to the town of nearly one thousand dollars. Before the end of August, 1861, forty volunteers represented Lancaster in the Union Army, and before October closed, four of these slept their last sleep on the banks of the Potomac, victims in the defeat at Ball's Bluff".

Meetings for drill were held in the town;hall on Monday evenings, in which many a volunteer who afterwards did good service in the field received his first lessons in the school of the soldier. Donations of money, underclothing, etc., were solicited by a citizens' comm.ittee, and, during the first winter of the war, forwarded for distribution among the town's soldiers. In July, 1862, systematic measures were adopted for affording relief to the sick and wounded. Frequent public meetings kept enthusiasm from flagging. Seventeen three-years' men were demanded of the town, and were soon marching with ^he Thirty-fourth Regiment. It was voted, July '23d, to pay each recruit sworn in the sum of one hundred dollars. Twenty-one nine-months' men were called for in August, and entered the camp of the Fifty-third, under Lieut. Edward R. Washburn.

The Soldiers' Relief Association was formed August 27, 1862, with Mrs. Harriet W. Washburn, president, and Miss Elizabeth P. Russell, secretary and treasurer. It soon became a branch of the Sanitary Commission, held weekly meetings, which were uniformly well attended, and quietly accomplished a vast amount of beneficent work.

In the calls of 1863 the town again offered one hundred dollars bounty in addition to that promised by State and national government, and her quota was quickly filled, most of the recruits being assigned to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-sixth Regiments. In 1864 the premium was raised to one hundred and twenty-five dollars, the maximum allowed by law, and sundry substitutes were hired. As news came from the great battle-fields one by one, Lancaster learned that her sons were doing their duty everywhere, and family after family mourned their unreturning brave. Capt. George L. Thurston came from the battle-ground of Shiloh, his constitution undermined by fatigue and exposure, to die among his kindred. Capt. Edward R. Washburn was brought from the bloody charge at Port Hudson wilh a shattered thigh, to die at home within a year. In the very last days of the struggle Col. Frank Washburn fell mortally wounded, while leading a desperate cavalry charge against an overwhelming force of the enemy at High Bridge.

Bancroft, Frank Carter, ntias Henry T. Colter, 8th New Hampshire, A ; 17 ; Oct. 25, '61 ; drummer ; wovinded in ankle at Maryville, La., May, "63 ; re-enlisted ; mustered out Oct. 28, '65.

Hardy, George H., 21st, D ; 21 ; Aug. 23, '61 ; corporal ; wounded in leg at Roanoke Island Feb. 7, '62 ; re-enlisted Jan. 2, '64, and transferred to 36th, I ; wounded in body at Petersburg, Va., June 1, '64 ; transferred to 56th June 8, '65; mustered out July 12, '65; credited to Harvard and Leominster.

Johnson, Adelbert W., 15th, C ; 23 ; July 12, 'CI ; discharged for disability May, '62 ; enlisted in 53d, Nov. 6, '62, from Leominster ; wounded in knee at Port Hudson, La., and died at Baton Rouge July 11, '63.

June 9, '05 ; a non-resident substitute. Langley, James, 2d Cavalry ; 22 ; May 7, '04 ; a non-resident substitute. Lawrence, Sewell T., i!3d, H ; 31 ; Oct. 5, 'Gl ; discharged for disability year, chieHy on gunboat "Nipsic " in Cliarleston blockade. McRell, William J., U. S. Navy ; 21; enlisted Aug. 12, '62; wounded by concuBsion of shell Feb. 1, '63, at Stone Inlet, S. V. ; taken prisoner. Mahar, Dennis, 21st, B ; 21 ; Aug. 23, '61 ; discharged for disability non-resident substitute. Smith, William, 28th ; 25 ; May 7, '64 ; a non-resident substitute. Suuth, William, 13th Battery L. A. ; 22 ; April 8, '04 ; mustered out

Lancaster Francis Washburn

In the month of April, 1838, John M. Washburn, then a merchant on the eve of retiring from business, removed from Boston to Lancaster, and in the July following his third son, Francis, was born. Bringing into his life and character, as an inheritance from his Puritan ancestors, an integrity of purpose and an indomitable will, it seemed from his childhood that he was born to be a leader of men. Of a nature somewhat reserved, though deeply imbued with the spirit of tenderness for a few, his boyhood was not one of numerous friendships, nor was be in manhood a seeker for popular favor. From the academy of his native town he went, at the age of sixteen years, to serve a regular term in the Lawrence Machine Shop, that he might know his work from the beginning and become a master of the details of practical en-, gineering. From Lawrence he went to the Scientific School at Cambridge, and in 1859 to the famous school of mining and engineering at Freiburg, in Saxony. He became an accomplished student in these subjects, determined to fully equip himself for the important positions which were already awaiting his acceptance on his return, .lesse Boult, of San Francisco, who was one of his fellow-students at Freiburg, says of him that he was regarded then as a young man of the highest intellectual powers, and sure of a very brilliant future.

When, in 1880-61, the storm that now seems so far from us, began to blacken in our civil sky, he wrote " I must hasten my return. If the war comes I shall sail at once." When the storm broke upon the cnuntry he said, " I will take a commission if it is offered ; I will go as a private soldier at all events." He came home to find a commission already promised, but also to find that his father was languishing in fatal disease, which was rapidly hastening towards its termination. Restrained, therefore, by filial solicitude and dnty, from immediately proceeding to the field, he now studied the arts of war with the same fidelity with which he had devoted himself to those of peace.

In December, 18(il, his' commission came, and with it orders to proceed at once to duty. His only regret in receiving it was that it came one day too late to receive his father's sanction. Waiting only to pay the last tribute of honor and affection, he reported for duty and was mustered as a second lieutenant in the First Kegiment of Massachusetts Cavalry, then in camp at Reedville. The history of this distinguished regiment is part of that of the war and need not be dwelt upon here.

He was successively captain in the Second, and lieutenant-colonel in the Fourth Cavalry, and, on the resignation of Colonel Rand, was, in February, I8(i5, commissioned as colonel, which position beheld until and at the time of his death.

Though constantly in the service, and often employed in difSeult and dangerous cavalry service. Colonel Washburn escaped any injury till his last engagement, and was seldom, if ever, off duty by reason of sickness. After the death of his brother. Captain Edward Richmond Washburn, who died of wounds received at the first assault on Port Hudson, La., he made two brief visits to his home. He was always considerate in asking leave of absence, feeling that such privileges were more valuable and more due to brother officers who had left wives and children behind them. Nor was he less considerate of the men under his command. At the time of his last visit he said earnestly and with a strong sense of justice: " If I die on the field, you must leave me there. The men in my regiment have just as much to live for as I have: their death will bring equal sorrow to their homes ; the officer is no more than his men. Buried where they fell, so let it be with me."

He was mortally wounded in the brilliant and chivalrous engagement at High Bridge, Va., the last in the war, on April (i, 1865. This was one of those forlorn hopes, in which it became the duty of a small, well-disciplined and gallant band to make a stand against the flower of the Confederate Army, in its retreat from Richmond. The orders were not wholly clear ; but the purport of them was to hold back the retreating army to the last possiljle moment.

Whether these orders were wisely and judiciously given may not now properly be ini|uired; but hi.story tells that they were executed with a firmness and valor unsurpassed in the annals of ancient or modern times. The odds were too great to be computed. Colonel Washburn charged the enemy with an intrepidity and ert'ectiveness which called out their expressed admiration on the field and in their subseipient accounts of the engagement. The orders were literally and fearlessly obeyed, and the enemy was held back till every officer of the command had been killed, wounded or made a prisoner. The courage and gallantry displayed in this action were noted by the highest officers of the army, and Colonel Washburn was, at the request of Lieutenant-General Grant, commissioned as a brevet brigadier-general for gallant and meritorious services.

The actual hand-to-hand encounters of sabre with sabre, as well as the actual crossing of hostile bayonets, were rare in our Civil War, us in most of the wars of history. But in this action men fought hand-to-hand. An accomplished swordsman, this brave officer had already disarmed one antagonist, and was engaged with another, when he received a pistol-shot from the first. After this he received the blow of the sabre which proved fatal, fracturing the skull. And. thus, by bullet and sabre-stroke, his magnificent physique, but not his dauntless spirit, was conquered.

The untiring devotion of one' who had with equal faithfulness performed the same loving service for his brother Edward, brought Ool. Washburn from the field of battle to the house of his brother, Hon. John D. Washburn, of Worcester. He had hoped to reach the home of his childhood, and this was all the hope that could be counted as rea.sonable, since from the first the complication of his wounds rendered recovery almost impossible. His strength proved, however, unequal to the full journey. Not on the field, nor in the hospital and among strangers, but in the presence of tliose he loved, and in his brother's home, he died at the early age of twenty-six, on the 22d of April, 18(i5. So gave himself a willing sacrifice in his country's cause, this young and noble citizen, whose name has been and will ever be honored at home, and to whom, for his known purity of character and brave and chivalrous deeds, has been accorded from abroad the well-merited appellation, "The White Knight ol Modern Chivalry."

The following tribute to that heroic battalion of the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry and their gallant leader appeared in the yew Yoi-k Evening Post fifteen years after their desperate charge on the memorable ()th of April, 1865. Its repetition here may serve as a fitting close to this sketch of one of many modest heroes, who bravely dared, patiently endured and nobly died in defense of their country's life and honor.

[The fourth Massachusetts Cavalry, or rather a small portion of its rank and file, but with most ol its field and staff officers, and led by its Colonel, Francis Washburn, formed part of the advance which, to use Geiioral Grant's words in his last general report of the war, " heroically attacked and detained the head of Lee's column near Farmville, Va., until its commanding general was killed and his small force overpowered." Less than a thousand men, all told, without any artillery, held in check for a considerable time, when every moment almost was worth an empire, a rebel force outnumbering them ten to one. Of the twelve Fourth Cavalry officers who went into the fight eight were killed and wounded, including their gallent leader. He lived to reach his home, and died in his mother's arms.]

Gen 1- Francis Washburn

Lancaster's quota under ;..l calls was one hundred and seveuty-oiie men for three years, and there were credited to her one hundred and eighty-one. The preceding list proves this to be an underestimate of the town's contribution of men for the supjiression of the great treason. The veteran re-enlistments numbered fifteen. Ten citizens were drafted and jiaid each three hundred dollars commutation. Thirtyseven non-resident substitutes were hired. Twenty of Lancaster's sons won commissions; twenty-seven were killed or mortally wounded in action, and twenty-three died ofdisea.se during the war. On Independence Day, 186."), the town celebrated the victory of free institutions in the grove at the " Meeting of the AVaters;" Eev. George M. Bartol delivered a thoughtful addre.is to the great throng of people there assembled, and Professor William Russell read the Emancii)ation Proclamation.

Early in 1879 a comprehensive, illustrated history of Lancaster was published, forming an octavo volume of seven hundred and ninety-eight pages. For several years previous the desirability of such a publication had been privately and publicly discussed, it being supposed that among the i)apers of .Joseph Willard, E.sq., deceased in 18(3.5, would be fountl a history of thetown iiartitilly prepared for the press. Disapjiointcd in this hope, at a town-meeting in April, 1876, the subject was referred to a committee, consisting of Eev. George M. Bartol, Rev. Abijah P. Marvin, Jonas M. Damon, Charles T. Fletcher and Charles L. Wilder, with power to take such action as they might deem expedient. Jlr. Marvin was employed to write the history, and in March, 1877, the town sanctioned the doings of the committee and appropriated fifteen hundred dollars to meet the needful expenses. Seven hundred copies of the book were printed at a total cost of $3542.44. A copy was given to each family belonging to the town, and about seven hundred dollars were realized from sales.

Until the present century the town's paupers were aided at their own homes by special vote of money, or placed with such persons as would take them for a fixed price by the year. Thus Dr. James Carter foi many years contracted to support them for so much per head, and housed them in an old building near his own stately dwelling, but on the opposite side of the way. In 1824 Rev. Asa Packard influenced the town to a more humane policy. A farm in the extreme northern section of the town was bought for two thousand dollars, and there the homeless poor were collected, a family being hired to conduct the establishment under direction of chosen overseers. The buildings proving insufficient, new ones were built in 1828 on a road to the south of the old, which served until 1872, when the town bought the large three-story mansion built by Dr. Calvin Carter on the site of his father's, burnt in 1821. This was used until destroyed by fire. May 11, 1883, when the present costly almshouse and farm buildings were erected near the ashes of the old.

At the annual town-meeting of March, 1882, it being known that Nathaniel Tliayer lay critically ill at his city residence, a committee were chosen to address him in a letter giving expression to the general solicitude and sympathy, and tendering to him renewed acknowledgments for his many and generous acts of good will to the town. A year later, one tempe.stuous day, a large number of Lancaster's citizens paid voluntary tribute of respect by attending his funeral at the First Church in Boston. Not the sorrow of his many private pensioners only, but the saddened faces of the whole community bore testimony to his worth and the grave sense of his loss. A tablet of Caen stone inscribed to his memory has been placed in the Thayer Memorial Chapel.

Nathaniel Thayer was the youngest of three sons born to Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., and his wife, Sarah Toppan, Sejitember 11, 1808, in Lancaster. Nurtured amid rural surroundings, in a household where frugality was a necessary law, he died the wealthiest citizen of Massachusetts; a succe.ss not striven for with insatiate greed of accumulation, but gathered as the natural harvest of activity and sagacity, and prudently garnered for use. Mr. Thayer's school education was wholly Lancastrian ; but among his teachers at the little local academy were such inspired masters as Jared Sparks, George B. Emerson and Solomon P. Miles. After leaving school he entered upon mercantile life, and at the age of twenty-six years was received as a partner by his eldest brother, who had established a very prosperous banking and brokerage business in Boston. The firm of John E. Thayer & Co. being dissolved by the

Mr. Thayer, on June 10, 1840, married Cornelia, daughter of General Stephen Van Rensselaer. In 1870 he decided to make Lancaster his legal home, having for ten years previous spent the summers in a mansion built among the elms that shaded the old parsonage where his revered father and mother had lived and died. When here he led a quiet life, in cordial sympathy with the townspeople, studiously avoiding everything that might seem ostentatious in manner, equipage or speech, and taking a personal interest in whatever concerned the material, moral or intellectual welfare of the town. He was tenderly loyal to old acquaintanceship, and greatly enjoyed revisiting the scenes and renewing the memories of his boyhood's days. He was ever a cheerful giver to all philanthropic objects, a munificent benefactor of Harvard College, a generous patron of scientific research. His liberality was wisely discriminative in its aims, independent in method, and the modest dignity which was his most obvious characteristic shunned all publicity.

For about three years before his death, which took place March 7, 1883, he whs debarred by failing vigor of body and mental powers from active participation in business pursuits. He was a member of the American Academy and Massachusetts Historical Society, and honorary member of the Berlin Geographical Society. In 1866 he received the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College, and in 1868 was elected a Fellow of the Corporation, a very exceptional compliment, never but once before paid to one not an alumnus. Four sons and two daughters, with their mother, survive him. His eldest son, Stephen Van Rensselaer, a graduate of Harvard in 1870, died October 10, 1871. He was a young man of noble impulses and rare sweetness of nature, who never had an enemy, made hosts of friends, and has left behind him a memory fragrant with generous deeds.

Lancaster has ever been noted for the social refinement and literary tastes of its people. The list of college graduates who were natives of the town, or here resident at graduation, as given below, numbers sixty, of which forty-four were alumni of Harvard College. Its clergymen have almost invariably been college-bred. Among very numerous resident and native authors may be mentioned : Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Rev. John Mellen and his sons (John and Prentiss), Samuel Stearns, LL.D., Joseph Willard, Esq., Capt. Richard J. (Ueveland and his sous (Henry Russell and Horace W. S.), Brig.-Gen. Henry Whiting, William Shaler, Hannah Flagg Gould, Mrs. Caroline Lee (Whiting) Hentz, Rufus Dawes, Hon. James Gordon Carter, Edmund II. Sears, S.T.D., Hubbard Winslow, D.D., Mrs. Mary G. (Chandler) Ware, Prof William Russell, Mrs. Julia A. (Fletcher) Carney, Louise M. Thurston, Mrs. Clara W. (Thurston) Fry, Charlotte M. Packard, Rev. Abijah P. Marvin.

The physicians have been : Mary Whitcomb; Daniel Greenleaf, died 1785, aged 82 ; Jolin Dunsmoor, died 1747, aged 45; Stanton Prentice, died 1709, aged 58; Phinehas Phdps, dieil 1770, aged 37; Enoch Dole, killed 1770, aged 27 ; William Dunsmoor, died 1784, aged 50; Josiah Wilder, died 1788, aged 45; Josiah

The United States Coast Survey locates "Lancaster Church" in 42° 27' 19.98" north latitude, and 71° 40' 24.27'' longitude west of Greenwich. The elevation above the sea level of the grounds about this church is about three hundred and eight feet.