Millbury Town (part 2 of 2)

Holman. - Colonel Jonathan, of the Sutton Regiment in the Revolution, lies buried at West Millbury. His old homestead is still standing in the same vil lage. A grandson, E. M. Holman, is living at Webster, Mass.

Jacobs. - Lieutenant John was fifth John from John born in England in 1079. He, with Elisha, were both at one time in business to considerable extent.

Wood. - Captain Amasa came here in 1811 and began the manufacture of shoes. The business extended to Vermont, the South and to California, and

Waters. - Asa Waters the 1st and his brother Andruswere born in what is now West Millbury. Other prominent members of this family have been Horace and Jonathan E. Elder Samuel is spoken of elsewhere. Elijah Waters, of West Millbury, left ten thousand dollars for religious purposes.

Trash. - Among these were Captain Samuel, who was in the Revolution. Aaron was an active business man in his day. None of the name are to be found here at present.

Gale. - Leonard D. Gale, born in what is now Millbury, was one of the real inventors of the electric telegraph. Dr. Jackson and Prof Henry are also to be credited with a large share of the honor connected with it. Prof. Morse never would have succeeded as he did without the aid of Prof. Gale, as he himself admitted. Morse brought it out, and that is about all he did do, except inventing the dash and dot alphabet.

Andrews. - This family was early identified with town affairs. Asa, the elder, was a small manufacturer. His son, Dr. Asa, is mentioned elsewhere.

Griggs. - Capt. Joseph was one of the earliest business men ; prominently concerned in religious affairs also. He was born in Sutton, November M, 178(i ; died in Worcester, December 6, 1852. The name is extinct in this town.

Barton. - This was one of the old families. Rufus Barton's old homestead is still left. Captain Reuben Barton, Jr., was an early town officer. Hon. George S. Barton, of Worcester, came from this family.

Harris. - Ithran was a soldier in 1S12 and a s'lioe manufacturer in a small way. Harry W. was a prominent agriculturist; George carried on a brickyard formerly, which is now operated by A. J. Harris. -

Small. - The first Small was Stephen, of colonial fiime ; Capt. Samuel was in the Revolution ; Aaron was a farmer, as was also Samuel A., who at his death owned the largest and best farm in town.

Flagg. - Benj. Flagg was one of our largest manufacturers; was in the Legislature, and was highly respected. Col. Geo. A., his son, is one of the leading men in town.

Sfowe. - Ithamar Stowe came from Grafton, and became one of the useful citizens of the town, was for a while a business man, but later retired to his farm, which is now occupied by his son, George I. Stowe. Numerous descendants are living.

Armsby. - Horace .Vrmsby, for fifteen years, was a manufacturer of sash and blinds here. He was a man highly esteemed. His son, Amos Armsby, Esq., is reckoned among the best of financiers, and is a respected member of the community.

Crime. - Hon. Hosea Crane was once president of tlie Millbury Bank, was long a manufacturer, and was elected to the Senate of Massachusett.s.

Atwood. - David Atwood was long cashier of the Millbury Bank, has served the town as treasurer many years, has served on the School Committee, and in every way has proved a valuable citizen. In 1889 his commission as justice of the peace was renewed.

Davidson. - William G. Davidson was formerly a tanner, but now is an extensive farmer at the west part. One son, William E., is a lawyer in Boston; H. W. Davidson, Es(]., another son, is a farmer.

(I'nnlding. - Ephraim (xoulding, Esq., was the first postmaster at West Millbury. He was long identified with trade in the west part of the town. None of the name are living among us.

Bancroft. - Hon. H. L. Bancroft was once in trade here. He was elected to the Massachusetts Senate and has long been connected with religious and town affairs.

Dimfon. - Silas Dunton has for many years been engaged in trade in this town. He has represented the town in the Legislature, and is a respected and honored citizen.

Simpson. - Captain Peter Simpson is a prominent manufacturer of the town. He has done much for its prosperity, and is a liberal giver to every worthy object.

Sayles. - Hon. Irving B. Sayles is another citizen of the town who has been honored with a seat in the Massachusetts House and Senate. He has served the town as selectman. School Committee and trustee of the Town Library. He has also been engaged in trade here.

Benchley. - Henry W. Benchley, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the State, was once a citizen of Millbury. He was a man highly respected while here.

Space forbids a more extended mention of the families of the town, but in passing we may name the PaYks, Woodwards, Haywards, Pitts, Richardsons, Bonds, Gartields, Glaziers, Rices, Carters, Hulls, Haydens, Tainters, Snows, and others might be mentioned who are or have been active to more or less extent in the affairs of Millbury.

Millbury has been the birth-place of many ingenious and useful inventions, and among others those of Hervey Waters justly deserve mention. Mr. Waters is a native of this town ; was a son of Deacon Elijah Waters, of Armory fame ; he resided here when making many of his inventions. He later resided in Boston, where he was recognized by the courts as an expert of superior merit in the trial of patent cases. One of his inventions has been thought worthy to be classed with " Babbage's Calculator," which has been pronounced by British critics to be the nearest approach to the human intellect of anything ever created by man.

Pins were formerly made in England liy hand process. The manufacture had been repeatedly attempted in this country, but always failed until Hervey Waters invented machines to make them by motive-power. His first machine made them with solid heads. When taken to market, he was told they woukl not sell because not like the English pin, whose head was formed of a fine wire twisted around one end. When he as.sured them his style was best, the reply was, " 'Tis not in fashion, and 'tis useless to argue or contend against fashion." He then devised and built a machine to make the English pin at one motion from wire of two sizes - a very ingenious contrivance. When he took these to market, he found it flooded with English pins selling far below cost. The English had attempted a game of"ten practiced by them to kill off our infant manufactures, of drowning him out.

He had too much Yankee grit to be put down in this way. Knowing it cost the English much labor to stick them by hand, he determined to stick them by a machine, and then bis two machines woubl defy all competition. Accordingly, he contrived and built such a machine. Into a large hopper at the top the pins were poured, shaken down an opening, marshaled into parallel lines, forty-eight pins in a line, all pointing the same way, and at one motion the whole row was thrust upon paper, in less time than it requires to read this description. Like " Babbage's Calculator," the machine v/astauf^/if to count, and to count rapidly and correctly, and what seems equally marvelous, it arranged the pins in rows with heads all one way and points the other.

By this triumph of American genius the manufacture of pins became permanently established in this country. Mr. Waters sold out his machines to parties

He next turned his attention to the manufacture of scythes. Hitherto the practice had been to draw out the blades under trip-hamniers. He conceived the idea of rolling them out between grooved rollers. The curvature of the scythe produced obstacles almost insuperable, but after years of persistent effort and maijy ingenious contrivances he overcame them all and made scythes cheaper, if not better, than had ever been done before.

When the late war broke out he invented a machine for rolling bayonet blades which did the work so perfectly as to save grinding and only require buffing.

It was adopted at once at the United States Armory, Springfield, by many private contractors and most of the bayonets made during the war - numbering hundreds of thousands - were rolled out on Mr. Waters' machine.

Military Kecord. - What is now Millbury did her part in furnishing soldiers as long ago as the Frenih and Indian War - among this number was Jonathan Holman. From this part of Sutton went a goodly quota for those times. At the breaking out of the Kevolutionary War the men of the North Parish were not backward in responding to the call of their country. The names of Waters, Taiuter, Dwineli, Holman, Lovell, Elliott, Small, Goodell and Pierce stand out on the roll of fame in letters never to be erased. Millbury has been the home of one majorgeneral, one brigadier-general and several colonels. In the days of the old militia this town had her companies of infantry' and her annual trainings. But the old captains and the privates (most of them) long ago took their march for that country from which no soldier returns.

In the late conflict with the South the men of Millbury were not backward in the war for equal rights. Her dead lie on many a hard-fought field, the living bear the scars of the battle's fray. Some of her sons became the gaunt victims of a cruel foe. But the strife ceased at last, right triumphed over wrong, but at a fearful cost. As near as can be ascertained. Millbury, in the War of the Rebellion furnished four hundred and three soldiers for the different terms of service. War-meetings were often held and the spirit of patriotism was ever on the alert. The women of the town showed their willingness to serve their country by giving up their husbands, fathers, sons on the altar. The Millbury roll of honor will stand for all coming lime a record of what her sons did to exterminate the accursed institution of slavery.

Memorial tablets have been erected to those who died in the service. The living " tell how fields were won." Thirty-two lives were lost in the great struggle.

Biographical

When the American Colonies boldly declared for independence, they were sadly deficient in means of defence against the well-armed troops of (treat Britain. They had no public armories; guns were scarce; gun-makers more so, and neither could be readily imported.

Fortunately for the Massachusetts Colony, there dwelt in Sutton a family in which gun-making had been an hereditary pursuit for several generations. Their presence in this locality is thus accounted for :

When Governor Winthrop came, in 1630, to found the Massachusetts Colony, in and around Salem and Boston, he brought a much larger company than the Pilgrim Fathers, who bad previously settled at Plymouth, and embracing various trades and professions. Knowing that the country abounded in wild game and Indians, he took the wise precaution to bring two gun-makers, William Plaise and Richard Waters. They settled in Salem, where the town built for them a shop at public expense. Richard Waters married the daughter of Plaise, and it is a noteworthy fact that gun-making became an hereditary pursuit for seven generations.

Nathaniel, a grandson of Richard Waters, was one of the original proprietors of Sutton Township, estimated at 30,000 acres. He selected his part (onetenth) in North Sutton, now West Jlillbury.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, two of his descendants, Asa and Andrus, espousing the freedom cause with ardor, proceeded forthwith to build a gun-factory on Siugletary Stream, a tributary of the Blackstone River. Guns, previous to this date, had been wrought by hand-labor, and this was the first instance that can be traced by the writer where wat.erpowerlmA been brought to its aid. Gun materials were wholly wanting - even bar-iron.

lay in the Salisbury Mines, Connecticut, nearly one hundred miles distant. They obtained it there in pigs, carting it, through a new and rough country, to Douglas, where, wood being plenty, :i forge was built to refine and hammer the iron into bars. Thence it was carted to their armory, and there wrought into guns.

Andrus Waters lost his life at the Salisbury mines, and, having rare genius for mechanics, his loss at this critical period was regarded as a public calamity, and he was buried with due honors at West Point.

Asa pursued the business with energy, and continued to support the cause with gun-flint arguments, thus proving his loyalty through all the years of the war. In the mean time the State built a powder-mill near his works, placed it under his charge and he was often heard to remark : " Hardly a barn could be found in this region under which 1 have not bent my back to scrape up salt-petre,'' thus showing the desperate straits to which the colonies were driven in their struggle for independence, of which the present generation can form but a feeble conception of the cost of success.

When the clouds began to lower, threatening the War of 1812, rightly termed by Henry Clay "The second War of Independence," two of the sons of Asa Waters, Asa (2d) - the subject of this sketch - and Elijah, built a larger gun-factory below, on the Blackstone River, where greater power was obtained, to which industry they added the making of scythes, saw-mill saws, refining iron, east^steel, etc. During this war Deacon Elijah Waters died, much lamented, leaving his brother Asa alone to pursue the business.

Possessing great physical strength and uncommon energy, inheriting, iu a remarkable degree, the mechanical talent characteristic of his family, and being awarded by the government large contracts, he introduced various improvemeuls in gun-making, which wrought great changes, and out of which grew results whose importance can hardly be overestimated. Two only will be referred to.

Gun-barrels were welded and forged, up to this time, entirely by hand-power, the super having two strikers. All this is within the recollection of the writer.

On October 2"), 1817, he was granted letters-patent for his invention for welding gun-barrels under triphammers, with concave dies, striking four hundred blows a minute, and controlled by a foot-treadle. This patent was signed by James Monroe, President ; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State ; and Richard Rush, Attorney-General of the United States.

In the following year ( 1818), observing that the English process of grinding the barrels down before a revolving-stone left the metal of uneven thickness around the calibre, and thus liable to explode, led him to invent a lathe to turn the barrel to uniform thick- ness. This patent, December 21, 1818, was also signed by James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, and by William Wirt, Attorney-General, and was the first patent ever issued for turning gun-barrels in a lathe, save one, which was a failure. This proved a success, so far as the barrel was round, but to turn the irregular shape of the butt - " hoc opus hie labor est." As I now approach what may truly be considered an epoch in progressive mechanics, from whence dates an entire revolution in the modes of work in all our large mechanic-shops, I will summon to the stand one who was an eye-witness of its first development, Maj. J. W. Wright, of Michigan, and will (^uote from a letter recently received from him:

I resided must of the early part of my life near tlui Armory of Asa Waters in Milibnry, and was long employed by liiiu : lirst by preparing tinisbed work for tlie llnited States Inspectors, then as chief clerk, and next as Superintendent of his Armory Works. While iu bis emidoy he introduced many improvements, among which was a mode of welding gun-lmrrels by water-power instead of the English mode by hand-pow er. Also a machine for turning the barrels in place of giindiug them down.

Various machines were got up about the same time at other Armories They all finally succeeded in turning the barrel so far as it was round, but to turn the irregular shape of the butt baffled all the efforts and defied the ingenuity of all tlie mechanics iu all the Armories.

After laboring long and hard on the problem, Mr. Waters, hearing of a budding genius in a neighboring district, sent for liim to come to his Armory and see if he could suggest something. He came, and soou after produced a model for a very peculiar and entirely original " Cam motion," which relieved the dirticulty at once.

To reduce the forged butt to proper shape cost, in labor and files, a doU.ar on each gun, and this motion re(lu(;ed the expense more than half. One of the stockers, while watching the operation, said to the filer, " Blauchard has robbed you of your,)ob, but he cannot rob ns of ours, for he cannot turn a gun-stock." This young man, since famous as Thomas Blanchard, modestly replied : " I'm n-jt so certain of that." His mind being thus directed to this matter, after the study of a year or more, he brought to the Armory of Mr. Waters a wooden model, lour feet long, for a machine to turn a gun-stock. The expert mechanics thought favorably of it, and a full-sized machine was built. Some of the I'nited States inspectors, on service at the Armory at the time, wanted it sent to Springfield for examination and trial. Blauchard consenting, it was carted to the Armory there by Horace Waters. It remained long enough to build another similar, was then returned to Mr. Water-s' Armory, and there remained in use numy years.

While in the employ of Mr. Waters I married the niece of Thomas Blanchard, and was thus brought into close and intimate relations with both. I had frequent conferences with Blanchard upon his various iaventious, and was often requested to aid him in his suits for infi'iugements, which were unending.

In after-years the great inventor declared that it was at this visit to the armory that the idea first flashed into his mind of the " Eccentric Lathe." The " Cam Motion '' was the germ from which the "Lathe" sprung, it involving the same principle. From it has grown, by successive improvements, what is now known as the " Uniformity or Interchange System," which has revolutionized the workshops of the world, and forms an epoch iu progressive mechanics, the greatest since the introduction of steam-power, and reduced the price of watches, firearms and everything made by machinery.

Lathe," in thus calling to his aid the services of Thomas Blaiichard, for had he not been called at this time his inventive genius might have been turned in another direction.

By a flash of genius, as by inspiration, here was revealed the discovery of a new principle in mechanics, which has proved one of the greatest labor-saving inventions ever made. By this, a machine driven by motive-power could be made to work out almost any . design or pattern - be it round or square, crooked or j straight, however irregular - and rapidly reproduce j an exact copy every time.

Thomas Blanchard's fame soon reached Washington, and he was invited by the War Department to take the whole charge of stocking guns in the Spring field Armory. He there extended the principle to mortising in the iron parts, until the whole hand-labor of stocking guns was performed by sixteen power machines of his own invention, which did the work with perfect uniformity, and at greatly reduced expense. The machines had exact and perfect uniformity in every part. Here a new difficulty arose. While all his work had perfect uniformity, the locks and other iron parts had not been brought up to this perfection and frequent misfits occurred. This raised loud complaints against the innovators of hand-labor and threatened the whole improvement. Blanchard then made ingenious contrivances to make his work ununiform, so as to fit the variations of the iron parts. The War Department reported that it was important that after a battle the broken guns could be gathered up and readjusted into perfect arms; and for the model of 1840 they gave directions for all the parts to be so uniform as to be interchangeable.

This was at first pronounced to be impossible, especially of the lock, which parts were lettered or numbered to preserve their identity. It was then at least impracticable, and a legion of contrivances and experiments had to precede before the iron-work could be brought up to the standard of Blanchard's.

Thirteen years elapsed, as appears from Mr. C. H. Fitch's report, before the contrivances Blanchard had made to make his work un-uniform could be .dispensed with.

In this part of the interchange system many other inventors and mechanics should share the honors, notably: Hall, of Harper's Ferry; Cyrus Buckland and Thomas Warner, of Springfield. It was under the auspices of the latter, as master armorer in 1842, that the system finally triumphed - and a grievous triumph it was for American mechanics. Individuality of parts was thus merged in numbers, and lettering and other distinguishing marks abandoned forever.

The chief feature in bringing the iron-work up to the standard was the " Milling Machine." This useful machine might well be called the Universal Filer. Such have been the improvements inaugurated by the "Interchange System," that the old-time idea that hand-work was superior to machine-work has become an exploded notion. No human hand can compete with the sewing-machine in perfect uniformity of stitch, much less in rapidity; none with the micrometer gauge in infinitesimal nicety, nor approach it; none execute the machine engraving on bank-notes and watch-cases.

Great improvements have been made on Blanchard's machines, but the principle that he introduced has never been superseded, and will be found active to-day in factories where breech-loaders, revolvers, watches and other interchangeable work is executed. His inventive genius has rarely been surpassed, and his motto was : " Whatever the human hand can do, a machine can be made to do." He was born June 24, 1788, in North Sutton (now Millbury), and lived here until after he had made this invention, the tackmachine and many others.

It thus appears that Thomas Blanchard's inventions were the primary cause, and are still the indispensable conditions of the interchange system, and that Asa Waters was the pioneer and his armory in Millbury the birthplace of this great improvement. His inventions preceded and were the direct cause of Blanchard's great discovery.

The War Department was very liberal in its contracts with Asa Waters as long as he lived, in consideration of the improvements he introduced. He was born in North Sutton (now Millbury) November 2, 1769. He married, May 19, 1802, Miss Susan Holman, daughter of Col. Jonathan Holman. They had eight children - seven daughters and one son.

He founded the Millbury Bank in 1825, was its first president and largest stockholder. He gave the site for the Millbury Academy. He originated five water privileges in the Blackstone Valley, and was one of the largest real-estate owners in the county. His business was extensive and diversified. In addition to his gun, scythe and forge works, he held the three water privileges now known as the Millbury Cotton-Mills, the sash and blind shop and the Berlin Mills. He also owned the extensive privilege at Wilkinsonville. In 1815 he purchased the Dudley farm, which included the water-power there, and which he afterward sold to David Wilkinson, of Providence, from whom the village received its name_ He owned three farms in Millbury, and numerous houses, a farm of two hundred acres in Gialton, and nearly a thousand acres of woodland in Douglas. His forge furnished the bar-iron for his gun and scy the works, and Douglas woods the coal and timber.

He was a member of the Legislature when the controversy occurred about Amherst College, helped obtain its charter, and with Rev. Joseph Gotfe and General Burbank each contributed five hundred dollars towards founding it.

He was one of the founders of the Second Congregational Society, and obtained its charter in 1827. In 1818 he was granted a patent for the invention