Sudbury Town (part 2 of 2)

In Sliattuck's History of Concord (page 99) is the following: "On 29 March 1775, a report was circulated that British troops were coming to Contt cord, which created great excitement The Provincial committee of safety met in Concord 14 aad 17 April, and gaveoiders for tlie removal of some of the stores from Concord. Tiiesewere ordered to 9 different towns. 5 barrels beef, 100 of flour, 20 casks of rice, 15 hogsheads of molasses, 10 hogsheads* of rutn, 500 pounds of candks are ordered to Sudbury.'' The government powderhouse or storehouse ia' Sudbury was near the gravelpit on the west side of the river. This alorehoase was under guard of « small company of soldien.

Agreeable to an order of couH directing me to enlist 1 corp' and 6 privates to serve as guard to the stores belonging to the state deposited at Sudbury, I liave enlisted Corp^ Robert Eames Silas Goodnow jr. Philemon Brown Elisha Harrington Jon* Graves Lemuel Goodnow Jon* Clark

Guards as above were returned Jantnry 1, 1778, of the same number of men, though not all the same men ; also, January 1, 1779, of eleven men.

In the War of Rebellion of 1861 Sudhurr's record whs highly honorable. The following is taken from A Mhtorf of Mauaehu^lU in. tie Civil War, by William Schouler, late Adjutant- General of the Commonwealth, published in 1871. It should be premised that during this war a part of wliat is' now Maynard belonged to Siidbunr, which accounts for tlie difference between the population and valuation of Sudburv, as returned bv General Schouler in 1871, and as returned by the census taken about two years ago.

"The town-clerk during all the years of the war was J. S. Hunt. The town-treasurer during the years 1861, 1862, and 1S63 was Edwin Harrington; in 1864 and 1863, S. A. Jones.

1861. The first legal town-meeting to act upon matters relating to the war was held on the 29th of April, and it being expected that the Wadsworth Rifle Guards, - the same being Company B of the Second Battalion Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, - belonging to Sudbury, would be called into active service, it was voted to^ furnish a new uniform and a revolver to each private. and noncommissioned officer, and a sword to each of the commissioned officers; also to pay each member while in active service an amount which, add<^ to government pay, would make twenty dollars a month ; also ' that the families of those who may leave shall be furnished with all necessary assistance at tlie expense of the town, and their business ahall be cared for bv tlie town, and not allowed to Bufler bv their absence/

" 186£. July 28, Voted to pay each volunteer who shall enlist in the military service for three years, and be credited to the quota of the town, a bounty of 8 125/' The number required was fourteen, and the selectmen were instructed to enlist the men, and to provide, at the expense of the town, for any sick or wounded volunteer belonging to Sudbury, A^ugust 19, the bounty to volunteers for nine months' service was fixed at §100. 1863, December 7, the selectmen were authorized ''to use all legal and proper means to fill the town's quota, in complinnce with the call of the President, dated Oct. 17, 1863, for three hundred thonMnd men/' 1864, June 4, it was Voted to raise a sufficient amount of money to pny a bounty of SI 25 to each volunteer who shall enlist and be credited to the quota of Sudbury, in anticipation of any subsequent call of the President for. more men. This amount of bountv was continued to be paid until the close of the war.

'' Sudbury funiished one hundred and sixty-eight men for the war. whicli was a surplus of eleven over and above all demands. Four were commissioned officers. Tlie mIioIc amount of money aj)- propriated and expended by the town on account of the war, exclusive of state aid, was seventeen thousand five hundred and seventv-five dollars. Tlie amount of money raised and expended by the town during the war for state aid to soldiers' families, ! and repaid by the commonwealth, was 80,199.18."

Eccletiaiiical J Mary, - Tlie First Church was organized in 1G40, but four years after the planting of Uie First Church in Cambridge, which is the oldest Congregational Church in Middlesex County, the First Church in Sudbury being the next. Bev.Edmund Brown was the first pastor, inducted into office at the time tl>e church was brganized. Mr. Brown was a man of rare excellence, able, discreet, and a sound preacher. The first meet* ing-house was erected in 1642, and was located on the east side of the river, in the old burying-ground. It was a rude structure, and was built by Sergeant John Butter for the sum of £6, to be paid m articles of produce. It was 30 x 20 feet, and 6 feet high, having four windows with three lights apiece, and two windows nith fpur lights each. It was without floor or seats for two or three vears. The second meeting-house was built on the site of the first, was 40 X 25 feet, and 12 feet high, - a framed house designed for galleries. This meetinghouse served not only as the place of public worship, but as a town-house and arsenal. In front of it was an arrangement for punishing criminals, and in the time of King Philip's War it was surmounted with a stockade, and so answered the purpose of a fortification. This building remained thirty-four years^ when it was sold, except the seats, for £6.

Mr. BrowsL died January 22, 1678, and was succeeded by Mr. James Sherman. The third pastor was Bev. Israel Loring, a man eminent in all the region as a powerful preacher. Mr. Loring died in the ninetieth year of his age, and the sixtysixth of his ministf}'. He died on Tuesday, and would have preached on the Sabbath immediately preceding, but for the providential arrival on Satui^ day of a brother. Ou Monday, the day before his death, he opened town-meeting with prayer.

Tliis story of him is well authenticated : He had refused to baptize children bom on Sunday. At length Mrs. Loring gave birth to twins on iOie Lord's Day, when Mr. Loring publicly confessed his error, ayd in due time administered the ordinance to his own Sabbath-born children.

In 1722, eighty-two years after its organizatioi^. the church was divided, when Mr. Loring took charge of the new church on the west side of the river, which, with the consent of those who remained on tlie east side, was designated the First Clmrch^ and the parish, the First Parish in Sudbury. .

There are now three places of public worship in Sudbnr}', located in the centre of the town, belong* ing, in order, to the old First Society, which is Uni* tarian, to the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to the Orthodox, designated as the Union Evangelical Church.

shelves nearly seven thousand volumes, and furnishes a great variety of reading matter, of n^hich tlie citizens very generally avail themselves. The library building has recently been enlarged, and in the course of a few years it will be necessary to enlarge it again ; when, undoubtedly, it will be made an imposing and beautiful structure. On the first page of the catalogue is the following^: -^!

''John Goodnow, son of John Goodnow, 3x7, and Persis Goodnow, his i^ife, was bom at Sudbury^ * September 6, 1791, and^ied ip'JPl^ton, Ded?mber 24, 1861. By the first two clauses in the last will and testament of the above-named J[^hn Gopduoi^ was founded a public library for the ^benefit of x\\f inhabitants of the town of Sudbury, a true copy^of aaid clauses being hereby reco^ed a^ follows^ viz. :

" First : I give, devise, and bequeath imto my native town of Sudbury ,.|n the County, of Middlesex, the sum of Twenty Thousand Dollars, to be appropriated for the pufrpose 6f purchasing' and keeping in order a Public Library for >t^ benefit of the inhabitants of that town* ' *"

'' Second : I also gi>^, devise, arid bequeath three acres of land, in^thd^northerly.'fi^' of the Sndbary Tavern Estate, adjoining the lii^^ of-Howe Brown, begimiing at tliB meeting-hous6 road^ and running with equal width with Brown's line to the brook, for the purpose of erecting thereon a^ suitable building for a Library,>and th^p fui:tber sum of Twenty-five Hundred Dollars for the erection of said buildiug: and whatevej^ portion of said land ^hall not be needed for the purposes of sd^ Library Building, the said Town of Sudbury shall hiiye full power and authority to supply to other town purposes, but without any power of alieiiatior^.

''At a legal town -meeting held At ^udhurr, on the 7th day of April, 186i^the town voted to accept the bequest contained in the :|irs^ and second clauses of the last will i^ud testament of John Goodnow, late of Boston.' And Messrs. James Moore, John H. Dakin, and George Parmenter, selectmen of the town, were appointed^'and authorized to receive and receipt for the said bequests/'

Sudbury River rises in Westborough, flows through Hopkinton, Ashland, Framiiigham, Sudbury, Concord, Billerica, and at Lowell empties into the Merrimack. On this stream are factories of note in Ashland, Saxonville, Billerica, and in Lowell, the city of spindles. The river is tapped in Framingham for tlie purpose of funn'shing Boston with water. As it flows between Sudburv and Wayland it has no fall sufficient for a mill privilege.

Wash-Brook rises in Marlborough, and after flowing very circaitonsly through Sudbury, empties into Sudbury River near the lower causeway, Ou this stream are C. I. Howe's tack-factory and gristmill, Pratt's and Willis' grist and saw mills, and tlie factory of S. B. Rogers and Company. There .'lused to be a grist and saw mill on this stream near the Dutton place.

'^ The lai^ woolleft iaetoiy and the paper-mill in lUlaynard, before thai town was oi^iiized, were on the Sudbury side of the Assabet River, by the water of which those mills are carried, and which unites with the Sudbury River in Concord.

in 1871 about 1,900 acres of land were set off froja Sijidbury for the purpose of forming, with land set off from Stow, wluit is now the busy and flojirishing town of Maynard.

* The New Bedford and liOwell Railroad, lately leased for ninety-nin^i' y^rs to the Old Colony corporation, passes through South Sudbury, Sudbury Centre, and North Sudbury^ having a depot at each of these places.

T(ie Massachusetts Central, passes through South Sudbuiry, and crosses jthe^New^edford and Lowell Railroad near the depot of the latter road.

Th JTa^si^h JtiM.--^This famous resting-place for lAin and heeai, so long associated with the name of. Howe, was built and opened as a tavern in tlie year 1700 or 1701, by David Howe. It was fitst known as "Tlie Howe Tavern in Sudbury ,'^'^% distinguish it from the tavern of John Hopre, two miles west in Marlborough. As early as 1746 Colonel Ezekiel Howe, son of David, took the house sfnd put up the sign which gave it the name of the " Red Horse Tavern," which it continued to hold. It was the common halting-place for soldiers in the French and Indian wars as they passed from the Bay to Crown Point. Colonel Ezekiel Howe died in 1796, when the house passed into the hands of his son, Adam Howe, who kept it for forty years. At his decease his son, Lymau Howe, took it, and kept it till his own decease in 1S60, when it passed out of the family and ceased to be an inn.

Tlie Wayside Iim is one of the historic places not only of Sudbury, but of Middlesex County and the state. The poet Longfellow has made the world acquainted with it by his Tale^ of a Wa^su/e Inn, one of his most fascinating poems. Most of the characters in this \K)em are real, and the story told by each will be read by thousands with delight for ages to come.