Westborough Town (part 2 of 2)

The school was opened November 1, 1848, with accommodations for three hundred boys, and was soon crowded. Mr. Lyman had strongly recommended limiting the age of those admitted to less than fourteen years, but his wishes were not carried out.

In 1852 the buildings were enlarged at an expense of fifty-four thousand dollars, and soon after there was an average attendance of five hundred and ninety. In 1859 une of the boys set fire to the institution, causing a loss of over fifty thousand dollars.

greater part of them being sentenced for serious crimes. The school-ship for the larger boys was then provided, and the Westboro' school relieved of its most hardened offenders until 1871, when the schoolships were sold.

In 1875 an addition was built at a cost of ninety thousand dollars, for the confinement of the most dangerous element. The separation did not prove complete enough for the best results. The system of placing the most hopeful inmates in private families was extended, and the numbers in the Reform School reduced.

The reputation which the school gained, while holding in confinement so many incorrigible young men, was such that the courts were unwilling to send there boys who were young and likely to reform.

It finally became necessary to make a complete change of system. After the large buildings and grounds had been transferred to the trustees of the Westboro' Insane Hospital in 1886, the old Reform School was succeeded by the Lyman School for Boys which bears the name and now carries out the ideas of its first private benefactor. Although while living, Mr. Lyman had been unwilling that the public should know the name of the one assisting the school, this tact was disclosed at his death, in July, 1849, as the State received from him a legacy of fifty thousand dollars, making seventy-two thousand five hundred dollars in all.

Now the school is conducted without bolts and bars, the age of admission is limited to less than fourteen and it is meeting with success under the new system.

The Lyman School buildings are situated at Wessonville. about two miles north of the railroad station, and can be easily seen from the cars passing through town. The old Wesson Hotel, late Willow Park Seminary and water cure under Dr. J. H. Hero, and the old farm, formerly the homestead of Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, are now used for the school. The present number of boys is two hundred. The old school was an improvement on the jails and houses of correction, especially in giving the boys out-door work on the farm, the opportunity to learn trades and compulsory education. A very large per cent, became respectable citizens. Others became educated in crime, and went forth unreformed, soon to occupy other penal institutions in the State. The Concord Reformatory now cares for older offenders, and the great benefit arising from the present system of educating and reforming the younger boys and girls in private families makes it improbable that the attempt to collect five or six hundred boys in one building will be repeated. The boys are now divided into large families, cared for by competent men and women on the boarding-school plan, until they are discharged reformed, placed in families or reach the limit of twenty-one years.

in June, 1884. It was made a State homifDpathic institution, subject to the same general laws as the other State lunatic hospitals, with the special provision that persons preferring homceopathic treatment during insanity should be committed by judges to Westborough, instead of the other hospitals.

By the act of incorporation the buildings and lands of the State Reform School were given to the hospital, with $1.50,000 for making necessary changes. With this sum of money it was required that accommodations for three hundred and twenty-five patients should be made, and also for the necessary officers and employees.

The seven trustees composing the first board were Charles R. Codman, chairman, of Boston ; Henry S. Russell, Milton ; Francis A. Dewson, Newtonville ; Lucius G. Pratt, West Newton ; Emily Talbot, Boston ; Phcebe J. Leonard, Bridgewater ; Archibald H. Grimke, secretary, Hyde Park.

Plans were drawn and approved by the Governor and Council on the .31st of December, 1884 ; specifications were made and contracts signed ; and on the 18th of May, 1885, the work of alteration began.

The hospital was formally opened for the reception of patients December 1, 1886, by a proclamation of His Excellency George D. Robinson, Governor of the Commonwealth.

The number of patients in the hospital has gradually increased, until, at the present time, it is completely full, containing four hundred and forty-two patients.

The first library in town was a social organization, started by five prominent citizens. The membership fee was from 15.50 to .*15.00, and at every meeting each member paid a tax of twenty-five cents. This society was established in 1807, and Rev. Elisha Rockwood was president for many years. TKey purchased many valuable books, and some were given to them. It was in existence for thirty-two years. In 1839 they made over their property to the Mechanics' Association, a new organization of forty-six members, who, in addition to the support of a library, had lectures and discussions. In 1857 this association transferred the library to the town, and one year later we find the firat appropriation for the town library - one hundred dollars for maintenance and repairs.

there were seven thousand nine hundred and sixty volumes in the library. The appropriation was five hundred dollars and the usual vote of the " dogfund."

There have been several newspapers published in town, but most of them have had very short lives. The first one, Tlie Westborough Messenger, was published a few months in 1849. Since then there have been The Westborough Sheaf and The Westborough Transcript. About 1866 the first printing-office was opened, and the Westborough Chronotype was published. This paper is still the principal paper, a weekly with a large circulation. T/ie Westborough Tribune also has been published weekly for a few months, and is an excellent country paper.

The introduction of reservoir water has done more, directly and indirectly, to change the appearance of the village, during the last ten years, than any other cause. An abundant supply of water, at small cost, has made it possible to keep lawns green and beautiful through the summer months, and in most parts of the village great care is taken to keep private grounds neat and attractive. Fewplacesin the State are more fortunate in their water supply. Within two miles of the square there is a reservoir of fifty-six acres in area, with a small, lower basin, supplied during the summer months with spring water, or water filtered through sandy hills from the upper reservoir, and with a head of about one hundred and thirty-five feet. The cost has been about one hundred thousand dollars. Moderate water rates yield enough revenue to pay running expenses, interest on the water bonds, and the necessary payments to the sinking fund to extinguish the principal in thirty years.

In 1872 the town first considered the question ot the introduction of water for fire and other purposes, and an act was secured from the Legislature in 1873. An examination of the available sources of supply resulted in the choice of the Sandra Reservoir, then used as a mill-pond. In 1878 the necessary land and water rights were taken, and July 4, 1879, eleven hydrant streams were thrown simultaneously higher than the business blocks in the village. For several years the shallowness of the reservoir and the decaying vegetable matter discolored and injured the quality of the water in the summer season. In the year 1887 a dyke was built across the narrowest part of the pond and the level of the upper basin was raised five feet. The mud in the lower basin was removed and the margin paved. ' Since then the quality of the water has been nearly perfect and the supi)ly ample for a city of fifteen thousand inhabitants.

The militia in town were properly enrolled, and in the early part of the nineteenth century were in a good state of discipline. The old armory, on South Street, recently removed, by J. E. Day, to Cottage Street, was erected for their use and for a hall for public gatherings.

Some of the membera of the Westborough Light Infantry, the militia company, which had its headquarters in this building, organized the first fire company, about seventy years ago. Captain Charles Parkman was the foreman, and provided a large part of the apparatus for extinguishing fires, which was of a very primitive character.

In the year 1838 the town voted to appropriate two hundred dollars for the purchase of a fire-engine and its apparatus, provided as much more was subscribed by individuals. Two hundred and eightyeight dollars in addition was raised and the fire-engine purchased.

April 11, 1842, the town adopted the act of the Legislature, establishing a Fire Department in the town of Westborough. In 1850 the old Chauncy hand fireengine was purchased at an expense of five hundred and ninety dollars.

At present there is a well-organized Fire Department with its headquarters in the new engine-house erected, in 1888, on Milk Street, at a cost of ten thousand dollars.

The department consists of a board of five engineers. Chauncy Hose, No. 1, fifteen men ; Jackson Steamer, No. 2, sixteen men; William Curtis Hose Company, No. 2, eighteen men ; Rescue Hook-and- Ladder Company, No. 1, thirty men ; Union Hose, two men.

It is estimated that about two million dollars' worth of property is under the protection of these companies, equipped with modern apparatus and assisted by hydrants distributed through the thicklysettled portions of the town.

Rescue Hook-and-Ladder Company has stood first or among the first fire companies in the State at the public competitions, which have been so common lately in the Commonwealth.

The Westborough Agricultural Society has been in existence fifty years. The annual fairs and cattle shows, the debates on agricultural subjects and public lectures have been important educators for all the citizens as well as the farmers.

The principal farm product sold has been milk. In 1835 it was first sent to the Boston market and now it is sent daily, in large quantities, to the same place. Of the dairy products sold in 1885, amounting in all to 169,948, milk amounted to 521,268 gallons, worth $67,574. The total farm products were valued at $218,508.

A new society has just been incorporated called the " Westborough Historical Society." Its object is to collect books, papers, pamphlets, maps, photographs and everything which is now, or probably will be in the future, of historical interest. They will hold meetings for the purpose of learning about local history, and probably in the near future will have a room of their own. Mr. J. A. Fayerweather was elected the first president.

Debating Society has been of great assistance to the boys and young men of the town. They have sustained many excellent courses of lectures and entertainments. Most of the young men of this place who have achieved prominence in the pulpit, at the bar or have taken an active part in the State and town politics, have received their early drill in extempore speaking in its halls.

One of the most active of the societies in town is called the Village Improvement Society. It was formed late in tlie year 1878, and has done much towards rendering the town comfortable and attractive. It has depended almost entirely upon its membership fees for money to carry on its work, and in the ten years of its existence has had erected two drinking fountains, one on the " common " near the railroad station, the other at the junction of School and Main Streets. It has concreted the walks in the Memorial Cemetery, and set out eight hundred and sixty trees. The present membership is one hundred and fifty.

In 1839 a society was organized in town called the Thief Detecting Society. For many years it was very active in capturing thieves and recovering stolen property, but after the establishment of the police the work was done by these officers of the law, and the old society - their days of usefulness over - met only on the occasion of their annual dinner. The first president of tliis organization was Nahum Fisher; the clerk, M. M. Fisher. During its fifty years of life it had one hundred and forty-four members. In 1888 the membership was fifty-five, and at their annual meeting it was voted that they should reorganize under the name of the Westborough Park Association, and have for their object the establishment of a park. Dr. F. E. Corey was chosen the first president of the new society.

Maxufactures. - The efforts made before the Revolution to encourage home industries and discourage importation met with considerable success. No large manufactories were established. Most of the common articles of every-day life were made by hand at the fireside and in the blacksmith's and carpenter's shop. Most of the available \vater-)>o\ver was utilized for sawing and grinding.

Fifty years ago tlie people of the town were principally supported by agricultural pursuits, yet we find traces of manufacturing, on a scale large enough to furnish a surplus for other communities.

The manufacture of boots and shoes, sleighs and straw-goods began at an early date in the industrial history of the town and still furnish employment to a large number of persons. In 1837 20,092 pairs of boots and 120,656 pairs of shoes were made, worth $148,774. Males employed, 360 ; females, 214. Many employes worked at home and did not give their whole time to this business.

Before 1857 sleighs were made in small quantities by individuals, the number of persons employed averaging less than two in each establishment.

At that time a large shop was built and occupied by Burnap, Forbes & Co., who made about 500 sleighs annually. Forbes & Fisher succeeded to their business and increased the production to 800 sleighs. The business is now carried on in enlarged buildings at the same location on Summer Street by D. W. Forbes & Son, who make about 1200 sleighs each year.

The firm of Vinton & Spaulding engaged in this business about the same time as the firm of Burnap, Forbes & Co., in the shop near the stable of Andrew Guild, which has been burned. Bacon & Williams made sleighs first in the rear of Smith's Block, on East Main Street, and later in a large shop at the corner of Milk and Phillips Streets. Corning Fairbanks, at Piccadilly, Wm. H. & F. Sibley, on Parkman Street, W. F. Brown, on the north side of the railroad, opposite Boardman Street, J. O'Brien, on Bingham Street and Frank Brigham, in Smith's shop, have all manufactured sleighs.

The manufacture of boots and shoes on a large scale was begun by J. B. Kimball & Co., who built a shop on Main Street beyond the residence of C. Whitney. A few years later they built the brick block now standing at the corner of Main and Milk Streets. In 1859 their business was moved to the building on Brigham Street, knownas the Steam Mill.

Many firms and individuals have manufactured boots and shoes, including Otis Newton, Moses Newton, Urial Bragg and Thomas Bryant (in the " Old Arcade"), George Forbes, C. M. Holmes, John H. Pierce and others.

The principal firms are now Gould & Walker, who manufacture in the building erected by an association of citizens of the town at the corner of Milk and Phillips Streets, employ about three hundred persons and produced last year five hundred and forty thousand pairs of shoes, valued at five hundred thousand dollars.

George B. Brigham & Sons, who occupy a large factory on Cottage Street, employ one hundred and seventy persons and produced last year three hundred thousand pairs of shoes, valued at three hundred and twenty -five thousand dollars. The head of this firm has for many years been a prominent boot and shoe manufacturer. He occupied first a building where Spaulding's Block now stands and later moved into his shop on Cottage Street. From there he went to the corner of Milk and Phillips Street, where he was burned out a few years ago and carried on business for a short time in Southville before the new building was erected.

Brooks & Wells, of Boston, manufacture in the steam mill, employ one hundred and seventy persons and prjduced last year one hundred and twenty thousand pairs of shoes, valued at one hundred thousand dollars.

Straw goods were first manufactured by machinery in the L of the straw-shop on South Street by Bates, Parker & Snow, in 1863. A large part of the sewing was still, for some years, done in families in this and adjoining towns. The business is now carried on by Bates, Wightman & Beeman. The straw season is usually short, when compared with other manufacturing. The number employed by this firm in winter and spring is about two hundred, with a production of seven thousand cases of hats and bonnets.

The largest straw-shop in town is that of the H. 0. I'ernard Company, north of the railroad station. In the busy season they employ about nine hundred persons, and have produced sixty thousand cases of hats and bonnets in one year. For many years George N. Sraalley, who bad begun making straw goods with Mitchell in 1865, w'as general manager of thi.s compan}' in Westboro', while II. O. Bernard conducted the New York City department. The company was incorporated under the laws of New- York in 1885 with a capital of two hundred thousand dollars.

The White Cycle Company has recently erected I'Uildings for the manufacture of bicycles and tricycles under the patents of Frederick White. The principal building is one hundred and fifty feet long. The first machines will be put on the market this year.

In 1804 the First National Bank was organized with a capital of $100,000. J. A. Fayerweather, the first president, still holds that office. S. M. Griggs was the first cashier, and for about twenty years George O. Brigham has been cashier of the national bank and treasurer ot the savings bank.

Westborough has become quite a commercial centre for the adjoining towns. There are now about si.xty stores in place of the two or three which supplied the farmers with the few articles they did not produce in the early part of the century.

For a busy manufacturing town, with a large part of its population young men, its temperance record is not excelled by any in the State. The absence of saloons among the numerous places of business is quite noticeable. The number of votes for license is usually less than ten, with about one thousand names on the voting-list. For many years the town has, in its by-laws, required the selectmen to enforce laws for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and has generally elected selectmen and officers who have energeticall)' attended to this duty.

Since 1820 the population of the town has steadily increased. The growth has not been rapid, but has been more uniform than the census returns would indicate. From 1850 to 1855 the gain was nearly furtj'- eight per cent., as returned by the census. About one-half of this increase, however, was due to the large number of boys in the State Reform School at the latter date. In 1885 the slight falling off in population was not due to a decrease in the number of permanent residents.

lu 1816, when the population was about one-fourth of the present number of inhabitants, there were but eight persons in town who paid over $20 in taxes, and but two who paid over $50. There were fortyeight who paid over $10 towards the total tax-levy (including State, county, town and ministerial rates) of $2663.62. The following were the highest tax-payers of that year :

Before 1864 the tax rate was generally less than one per cent., and the people did not expect or require so much from the town as a municipality tlien as now. Reservoir water, public library and readingroom, high school instruction, street lights, concrete and brick sidewalks, engine-houses, paid Fire Departments and night watch are all innovations of the present generation. Even common schools were

The character of the population has largely changed. In the early part of the century the people were nearly all descendants of the settlers who came to this country between 1630 and 1675. The first immigrants to reach Westborough in considerable numbers came from Ireland, and engaged in making boots and shoes and as laborers on farms. As early as 1855 one-sixth of the population was of foreign birth - 447 out of 545 immigrants coming from Ireland. They came with but little property, and were generally illiterate. The men had been so long accustomed to consider the ownership of land a great privilege in the old country, that the majority eagerly seized the opportunity to buy homes for themselves. While the average wealth has been much less than that of the native inhabitants, the records of our overseers of the poor show very few permanent paupers among them or their descendants. Most of those who have occupied the town poorhouse during the past forty years have been insane or weak-minded people of American ancestry. Probably a larger per cent, of those of foreign descent have received temporary aid in their own homes in times of business depression, as those engaged in manufacturing pursuits are less apt to be frugal and saving than the farming population.

In 1885 the foreign element had increased to 781, or about one-seventh of the people in town. About two-fifths of the whole population is now of foreign parentage, - 1144 are of Irish descent, and 163 have French Canadian parents. More than 200 others have parents born in the British Provinces. About thirty per cent, of the population is Catholic.

The average size of the 1033 families in town in 1885 was 4.72. They lived in 860 different houses, or only one and one-fifth families on the average in each house. The town is remarkably free from the large and crowded tenement-houses, so common in manufacturing communities. There are 136 farmers in town, employing about 200 laborers. Most of those working in the boot and shoe-shops are men and boys, while the majority of those employed in the straw-shops are females. The large number of women and girls who come from homes in Maine and other New England States to work in the strawshops causes an excess of females over males of 292, or about 12 per cent.

Eli Whitney was born on the fiirm now owned by William H. Johnson, December 8, 1765. He, like the other farmers' sons, spent bis early years in assisting his f^ither, but he found many odd moments to give to mechanical experiments, and when a boy of fourteen he had won such a reputation as a skilled mechanic that the surrounding country people brought to him any little jobs requiring more skill and knowledge than they themselves possessed. ' At sixteen his father furnished him with money to begin the manufacture of nails. With the profits of his business and his salary as a school-teacher, he was able to go to college, and he entered Yale in 1789. This ended his life in Westborough. When he left college he went to Georgia, and there invented the simple piece of machinery with which his name is always a.9sociated. Lord Macaulay says : " What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the progress and power of the United States." Judge Johnson, of South Carolina, says that by the use of this machine "their lands are trebled in value." Blr. Whitney never enjoyed the benefits of his invention - the model was stolen from his workshop. But he became a wealthy man from the manufacture of fire-arms for the United States. Two miles from New Haven is a little town, which he built for his workmen, called Whitneyville. He died January 8, 182.5.

Elijah Brigham was born July 7. 1751. He was a graduate of Dartmouth, and commenced the study of law, but finally settled in Westborough in company with Breck Parkman as a dry-goods merchant. He served Westbrook for many years as Representative to the General Court, Senator and Councilor ; for sixteen years he was judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and for eight years a member of Congress. He died in Washington, February 22, 1818.

Horace Maynard was born in the house now occupied by Darius Warren, August 30, 1814. He graduated at Amherst College - then went to Knoxville, Tennessee, as Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He became one of the ablest lawers of the State. In 1857 he commenced his life in Congress, where he served for eighteen years. In 1875 he went to Constantinople as Minister Plenipotentiary, In 1880 he was appointed Postmaster-General in President Hayes' Cabinet. Doctor Washburn says of him ; "He was first, last and always an American." His tall, gaunt figure, long black hair and striking features were well known in Westborough, although he identified himself with the patriotic people of East Tennessee, where he was their first citizen.

Westborough is situated on the Boston and Albany Railroad, thirty-two miles from Boston and twelve miles ea.st of Worcester. The numerous hills are generally free from large rocks and ledges, and are often used for pastures. The highest elevation, " Fay's Mountain," rises seven hundred and seven feet above the sea-level, and is one of the principal points used in the topographical survey of the State at the present time, and is the only point in this vicinity where the copper bolt, marking one of the points used in triangulating the State about fifty years ago, now rt mains ia place.

The large area of cedar swamps and meadows on the tributaries of the Sudbury and Assabet Rivers are a prominent feature in the landscape. The absence of outcrop from the underlying rocks interferes with an investigation of anything but the surface geology. A coarse-grained hornblendic gneiss and micaceous schist are common rocks. Some fine specimens of andalusite have been found on the "Fay Farm," near Whitney's Hill.

Everywhere can be discerned vestiges of the great ice-pack covering the country during the glacial period. The elevations of the town, with the exception of two or three, are typical drift deposits, with the prevailing lenticular or morainal forms of hills of that class. In various localities are found true moraines, with a local appellation of " hog backs." These moraines are products of the era of local ice action, following the recession of the great glacier. The boulder clay and modified drifts (both characteristic glacial deposits), with several clay beds, are found within the town limits. A large area of swamp and plain land in this and adjacent towns in postglacial times formed the bed of a large lake, in which were deposited the washings from the adjacent hills, transported to the lake by powerful streams. The shores of this great lake can be traced by the terrace levels found on the sides of some of our hills.

The streams on the western slopes of the town run into the Assabet River, while the central and eastern brooks run into the Sudbury River. The former river is for a long distance the boundary between Westborough and Northborough, while the Sudbury separates this town from Hopkinton.

The largest pond within our limits is Chauncy, called by the Indians Nnggawoomcom, the great lake. This covers one hundred and seventy-seven acres. Tliere is a small pond in the southern part of the town called Cedar Swamp Pond, and near Boston Hill the dark and gloomy sheet of water, which still retains the name given to it by the Indians, Hoccomoi^co. Mr. Parkman, in his brief sketch of Westborough, published in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, says that the name of Hobomak - their evil spirit - was given to it from some supposed infernal influence which a man was unhappily under, nigh that pond, from morning till the sun .sat. Hon. Horace Maynard, while editor of the Amherst Horce CoUegiamw, wrote for that paper the Legend of the Pond, as related to him by one of the old Indians who used to come to his father's house for cider. A beautiful Indian maiden, who had been woa by the chief of the tribe in this vicinity, on the eve of her marriage, slipped away from the assembled company in a mischievous freak, and springing into her canoe, shot across the pond, in order to conceal herself in a natural bower at the farther end. Unfortunately she was seen by a former suitor for her hand, who, in a moment of passionate revenge, threw himself into the pond, swam quickly under the water until he reached the canoe, when with one agonizing shriek the Indian maiden was dragged beneath the surface. The chief on the opposite shore had seen her disappear, apparently without human aid. In the course of a year he, too, fell a victim to the lover's revenge, but he was not permitted to find pleasure in his murderous acts. Every year, on the anniversary of the maiden's murder, he was impelled to go to the shores of Hoccomocco, there to embark in a phantom canoe, see his victim materialize from blue flame and hear again her death-shriek. The third time, knowing it would be the last, he gathered his tribe aliout him, confessed his sins, embarked in the fatal boat and disappeared in a vivid flash of lightning in the middle of the pond. After that, for many years, whenever an Indian passed the Hobomak, he threw in a stone on the spot where the warrior was last seen. And now at low water, the tradition says, the pile of stones may still be seen.

The writer of this sketch is indebted for much valuable information to Rev. H. P. De Forest, formerly (if Westborough, who has given much time to its local history, and to Mr. Edward C. Bates, now in Harvard University. Mr. George K. Merrill has furnished facts relating to the geology of the town.

Rev. John D. Potter

Rev. John Dyer Potter, the well-known evangelist, was prepared for college at Leicester Academy. He entered Yale College, where he remained three years, and instead of graduating he went to Williams College to have the benefit of the lectures of its distinguished president, the Rev. Mark Hopkins, D.D. He decided to enter the Gospel ministry, and pursued his studies in that direction with Dr. Nelson, of Leicester, and at the Theological Seminary, Andover. He was subsequently licensed to preach, and began his lilework, an evangelist, to which he felt that he was called of God. He commenced his labors at the national capital. After remaining here a few months he went to Old Hatfield, Hampshire County, Mass., where his efforts were crowned with very gratifying success. He also met with similar success at Danielsonville and Thomaston, Conn., also in Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa and in New York and New England. His labors in Connecticut extended into one hundred and fifty towns. It may truthfully be said that Mr. Potter is one of the succe.ssful evangelists of the age. He is commanding in personal appearance, without any affectation of personal dignity. His address is earnest and magnetic. His mental discipline and study of men make his language clear, pointed, refined and, at tirae^, truly eloquent. His views of the great doctrines of the evangelical system are graphically and explicitly stated, and his searching scrutiny of character, his exposure of sin and denunciation of " all ungodliness and every worldly lust," both in private life and public affairs, are unsparing, and yet there is no personal bitterness contained therein. Mr. Potter belongs to that honored line of evangelists pre-eminently represented by Whitefield, Nettleton and Finney, the Paul of modern evangelists.

E. B. Phillip.S.

Late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, near the easternmost corner of England, at Rainham, St. Martin's, was born "George Phillips" (son of Christopher), who, graduating at Caius College, Cambridge (a.b. 1613, and a.m. 1617), was one of the clergymen of the Church of England whose Puritan convictions led them to join Governor Winthrop's party, which sailed from England April 12, 1630, to found the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was " Minister '' on the Governor's ship, " Arbella," which landed just two months later at Salem.

Watertown was one of the earliest settlements made by these colonists, and of the church there George Phillips was the first pastor. The thirty acres allotted to him included part of what is now Mount Auburn Cemetery, and which, rising in gentle wooded slopes above the Charles River Meadows, remains to this day probably much as it looked to its first white owner. He spent the remaining fourteen years of his life at Watertown. A man strong in his opinions, he was, perhaps, the founder of those forms of church and town government peculiar to New England. Certainly he was, in the first years of the colony, almost the only advocate of the representative assemblies that have since been the most characteristic features of her civil and ecclesiastical government.

Theophilus, the son of George, spent his life at Watertown. With the first settlers of Worcester County came Joseph, grandson of the English emigrant, and opened a farm on the summit of the high hill to the south of Worcester, now partly in Auburn, partly in Oxford. Joseph's son, Jonathan, was a farmer of Sturbridge, a soldier in the campaign of 1758 against the French and Indians and deacon of the Baptist Church.

Ebenezer Humphrey, born in 1756, the son of Jonathan, was long a physician at Charlton, and served aa surgeon in the patriot army at Saratoga. His son, Ebenezer Morgan, born in Charlton in 1792, lived the last sixty years of his life at Westboro', and at the age of eighty-one resigned his position as agent of the railroad company, which he had occupied for nearly thirty years. In 1818 he married Ann Maria Brighara, daughter of the Hon. Elijah Brigham and Sarah Ward Brigham, and granddaughter of Gen. Artemas Ward, the first commander of the Continental Army at the siege of Boston, and descended in the fifth generation from John Cotton, the contemporary and friend of George Phillips.

They had two children - Elijah Brigham and Harriet Maria. Elijah Brigham Phillips, the subject of this sketch, was born in Sutton August 20, 1S19. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Westboro'. Like so many other ambitious New England boys of that time, after attending the town schools, he studied a year at the neighboring academy, Leice-ter, and thence, after passing a short apprenticeship in a village store (Charles B. Davis', at Old Concord), he went "down to Boston" to seek his fortune. He was destined to become the most distinguished railroad manager of Worcester County birth.

When nineteen years of age he commenced his railroad career as a receiving-clerk at the freight station of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. It is notable that young Phillips and one other man were able to do the work for the office, which handled all the railroad commerce Boston then had with the country to the west of it, while to-day the similar work requires a force of several hundred. This was indeed the infancy of the railroad. Only nine years before the first train propelled by steam-power had been run in England, and it was only during the preceding five years that the first steam roads running out of Boston had been finished to Lowell, Worcester and Providence. No one then appreciated how completely this new agency was to readjust and enlarge individual and national life. It is estimated that forty per cent, of the present wealth of Europe would have been impossible without railroads. Even more <lependent upon its steam arteries has ben the growth of this country. A new force was put into the service of man. Here arose the great problem of how the new power should best be applied, where it it should act and how it should be controlled. All this was to be decided each year in greater magnitude and with increasing complications. This young man starting life in the Boston freight-office, ambitious, energetic, untiring, devoted to his task, was for more than fifty years to grow with this growth, and be an active part in it, first as subordinate, later as administrator. Always anxious to be useful wherever wanted, he became thoroughly familiar with the details of the transportation of passengers and freight, and of the accounts which they occasioned. Succe.ssive promotions followed until he was given charge of the freight business of the company at Boston. In the summer of 1852 he was master of transportation when offered the superintendency of the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad, then building in Northern Ohio. He removed to Norwalk in October, 1852, and his office and home were removed to Cleveland in the fall of 1853.

Between Norwalk and Toledo there stretched an almost unbroken forest of heavy timber, for a large part through the Black Swamp, where, during the first months that trains ran, the rails frequently disappeared below the black mud. All this has long been converted into a rich farming counlry. The road ran parallel to the shore of Lake Erie, and this, with the connecting roads, which were finished about the same time, competed with a line of fine steamers for the host of travelers then moving from the New England and Middle States to the farther West. It was one of the first instances where the railroad proved its superiority to the best water facilities, and a few years of ineffectual struggle forced the steamers to relinquish the passenger business to the railroad, and thenceforward only freight-steamers plied upon the lake. In 1858 Mr. Phillips was recalled to Massachusetts as superintendent of the Boston and Worcester Railroad. This position he filled during the years of the war, when troops and supplies were conveyed in large quantities from Boston, which was the luustering-point for eastern New England. It wa» upon a train of the Boston and Worcester Railroad that the advanced regiment of the great Northern hosts (the Sixth Massachusetts) first took cars and started for the seat of war. In September, 1805, Mr. Phillips assumed the presidency of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, lying between Chicago, Toledo and Detroit, and having a mileage of five hundred miles, then one of the largest ill the United States. This company had been in poor condition, but now it hadentered upon a very prosperous era of improvement, both physical and financial.

Mr. Phillips was hardly established in his new office when he had to deal with a powerful strike, organized by the locomotive engineers. The enginemen over the whole road (with the exception of one man) retiised to perform their duties. Mr. Phillips thought their position indefensible, filled their places with new men and vindicated the discipline of the road. Mr. Phillips made large purchases of land in Chicago for stations and yards for the company and built the handsome passenger station, which was destroyed in the great fire of 1871 and then rebuilt. Among his staff were Charles F. Hatch, afterwards general manager of the Eastern Railroad, and of the Chicago, St. Paul and Omaha Railroad; Charles Paine, later general manager of the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad ; C. P. Leland, still auditor of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, and Henry Pratt, now trea-urer of the Michigan Central Railroad. The Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad Company was consolidated. May 8, 1869, with the Lake Shore Railway to form the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railro.ad, extending from Buffalo to Chicago, with about one thousand miles of road, and with Mr. Phillips as the first president of the new corporation.

Mr. Phillips was a warden of Christ Church, Chicago, when, in 1869, the bishop of Illinois brought Charles Edward Cheney, the devoted rector of that church, before an ecclesiastical court for the omission of a word in the baptismal service. Mr. Phillips' conscientious love of justice led him to enter vigorously into the defense of his rector, and as senior warden he took a leading part in the subsequent appeal to the Civil Court, where the decisions of the former court were pronounced invalid. The proceedings, however, led to the formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church.

In December, 1870, Mr. Phillips entered into partnership with Charles L. Colby, of Boston, which was afterwards merged into the Phillips & Colby Construction Company, for the purpose of building the Wisconsin Central Railroad, projected to run in Wisconsin from Menasha and Portage City to Ashland, on the southwestern shore of Lake Superior. The line from Menasha to Stevens Point (sixty-five miles), and from Portage City to Stevens Point (seventy-one miles), passed through a thinly-settled farming country, but from Stevens Point to Ash'and (one hundred and eighty -six miles), it traversed a forest uninhabited save by lumbermen. At that time Northern Wisconsin, comprising all that lay north of a line drawn from Green Bay to St. Paul, was a dense forest of nearly twenty million acres undisturbed by farms or railroads. The Wisconsin Central was one of those typical American railroads, not built to serve an already existing community, but destined to open an entirely new country for the u.-e of mankind. A land grant of one million five hundred and seventy thousand acres was the incentive for its construction and experts promised rich iron lands upon its upper part. Both these promises were only partially fulfilled. Much delay was made in the delivery of land titles, and only after a dozen years of exploration was the rich ore found, and then where a branch road of thirty miles was required to reach the ore-beds. In the life of Mr. Brassey, the most famous of English railroad contractors, is no record of an undertaking of such difficulty as that which confronted the Phillips & Colby Construction Company. They projected a railroad from end to end of this great area of wilderness, in a country where the winters were long and the forest growth so thick that the soil remained a wet mire almost the whole season that work was possible. Men and supplies all had to be sent in from Stevens Point or enter from the Ashland end after a circuit of four hundred miles by lake from Chicago, and it was necessary to first prepare "tote" roads for their passage through the woods.

The great fire of 1872 in Boston and the panic of the next year crippled the capitalists, who furnished money for the enterprise, which by these losses was delayed and rendered much more difficult. The line was completed in June, 1877. From 1874 on Mr. Phillips made his home in Milwaukee. He operated the Wisconsin Central until 1878, when he removed to Chicago, intending to rest for a year, but he was shortly after appointed by the United States District Court for .Southern Illinois receiver of the Grayville andMantoon Railroad (now part of the Peoria, Decatur and Evansville). This company he reorganized and improved. June 1, 1879, upon his election as president of the Eastern Railroad of Massachusetts for a second time, he removed from the West to Boston. In this office he spent three and a half years of increasing prosperity for his company. Its lease to the Boston and Maine corporation was much discussed, and in 1883 that company leased the Eastern Railroad. Mr. Phillips believed that the resources of the latter company were not then sufficiently appreciated for it to obtain the terms which were warranted by its merits. Along the north shore it commanded a very exceptional passenger business ; in Boston it owned large and very valuable terminal grounds of increasing value, to the Boston and Maine as well as to itself, and it owned practical control of the Maine Central, which gave both roads connection with Maine and the provinces. In 1879-80 he served with Judge Colburn, of Dedham, and Mr. Samuel M. Felton, of Philadelphia, as a commission to arbitrate between the State and the Fitchburg Railroad Company.

During the early months of 1883 Mr. Phillips devoted himself to the management of the Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad. What has been called the " war of the gauges " had waged during the preceding years. Volumes had been written, the technical journals had teemed with its debates - the Prussian Government made elaborate investigations. Several of the earlier roads built with a width of six feet between the rails had been narrowed to the commoner gauge of aliout four feet and nine inches. Why should not this in turn be superseded by one of three feet ? About 1875 three local roads had been started with this narrow gauge from Delphos, a small town in Northwestern Ohio. By a singular series of extensions and accretions with short pieces of similar road the Toledo, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad liad, in 1883, gathered under one management upwards of eight hundred miles of narrowgauge road, comprising a ni.ain line from Toledo through Delphos to St. Louis; a stem from Delphos extending south to Dayton, where it branched into two lines, one going to Cincinnati and the other to the iron and coal fields of Welleston and fronton, in the southeastern part of the State. Mr. Phillips was not a believer in the narrow gauge, but the road had such small capitalization and commanded such valuable territory that, had sufficient capital been forthcoming, the property could have been made profitable.

In 1883 Mr. Phillips was elected president of the Fitchburg Railroad, then extending from Boston to the Connecticut River, and running its trains over the State road to North Adams. This mixed management of the Hoosac Tunnel and the forty miles of

In 1886 the Fitchburg found a rival company emulous of the ownership of the property of the State. After mouths of negotiation.s, terms were finally made in January, 1887, when a contract was made with the Oovernor and Council of Massachusetts for a consolidation of the Fitchburg with the Troy and Greenfield Railroad and Hoosac Tunnel, extending from Greenfield to the Vermont line. The Hoosac Tunnel, with a length of four and three-quarters miles, was begun in 185-, that Boston might have a second and more favorable line to the West. In 1875 the tunnel was completed, but it was not until 1887, when it was thus put under one strong company, that the original purpose was accomplished, and one corporation operated the line from Boston to Troy and Rotterdam Junction, giving direct connection with the five great companies which cross the State of New York and also with the Erie Canal. The labor of the president was arduous in the negotiations with the State, with the Boston, Hoosac Tunnel and Western Railroad and with the Troy and Boston Railroad, and in the subsequent organization of the parts into one working whole. In 1885 the Fitchburg consolidated with the Boston, Barre and Gardner, giving access to Worcester with its population of seventy thousand.

Mr. Phillips has always been progressive and foremost in adopting new inventions favorable to increased safety and economy of working. Thus the Boston and Worcester, while he was superintendent, was the second management in the country to adopt the Creamer Brake, the best automatic brake previous to the invention of the Westinghouse Air-Brake in 1870. On the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana and again on the Wisconsin Central he introduced the Tyler Switch, then unknown on the Western roads, - a simple device that in several notable instances prevented loss of life that would otherwise have occurred. On the Michigan Southern, too, he was the first west of the Alleghanies to adopt the Miller Platform and Coupler, one of the greatest improvements ever made in car construction. He was an early advocate of strong safety- chains upon passenger cars and of stronger decks upon bridges. In 1888 he gave the first large order in New England for the equipment of freight-cars with air-brakes. His annual reports of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and of Eastern Railroads were models of fullness and clearness to be imitated by neighboring roads. Mr. Phillips married, February 2, 1845, Maria Rebecca Ayling, daughter of Henry and Mehitable (Copelaud) Ayling, of Boston. They have three children - 1st, Henry Ayling, born August 19, 1852 (S.B., M.I.T., 1873), married October 4, 1888, Florence Elizabeth Waters, daughter of Colonel Asa H. Waters, of Millbury ; 2d, Anna Maria, born December 21, 1856, married February 2, 1885, Cyrus A. Page, publisher of

A friend who has known Mr. Phillips intimately for nearly quarter of a century, and who holds high oflicial rank in one of the great railroad corporations of the country, writes of Mr. Phillips that his natural luve of justice has always enabled him to deal with < utire fairness to all with whom he has had relations; tliat industry and zeal in duty he has always highly appreciated, while abhorring with the spirit of a typical New Englander anything like laziness, and has set a grand example of fidelity himself; a good disciplinarian, he expects a man to do his best; he hates shams and is very quick to detect one; he combines with a conservative prudence the radical ideas of progress in all that afl'ects safety or economy in the details of his profession ; faithful to the interests entrusted to his care, straightforward and true to all his engagements, he is an exemplar of that commercial honesty the scarcity of which is so much lamented in the railroad world of to-day.

Nathaniel E. Paine

Nathaniel Emmons Paine was born July 14, 1853, at New Hartford, Oneida County, N. Y., the home of his grandfather, Dr. John A. Paine. His father, Horace M. Paine, M.D., was settled at the time in Albany, N, Y., engaged in the practice of his profession. His mother. Miss Charlotte Mann, the daughter of Mr. Salmon Mann, of Norfolk, Mass., was one of the early graduates of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Dr. Paine therefore inherited the advantages and influences of an educated ancestry; and, with two generations of successful physicians preceding him, a strong bias as well for the medical profession.

In August, 1855, his father removed to Clinton, Oneida County. The years spent at Clinton were of great advantage to the growing boy. The duties required of him on his father's larm made him strong and muscular, and gave him an acquaintance with practical affairs, often sadly missed by city-bred children.

In 1865, Dr. Horace M. Paine again removed his family to Albany, and directly re-established him.self as one of the leading physicians of the city, a position which he continues to hold with ever- increasing honors and appreciation.

His oldest son, the subject of our sketch, was a pupil for some time at the Albany Adademy, and afterwards studied with Professor Lewis Collins, until he was admitted to Hamilton College in 1870. His college course was one of great advantage to him, but it was not until he reached the studies of the senior year that he found real delight in his work. While engaged in chemistry the young student showed unusual qualities of precision, patience and unwearied apjilication, which less congenial studies failed to bring out. The record of his college work was closed at his comyix. (S^^^^^^^^^^^^t^t/ c^^^^^.

niencemeut by the taking of the first chemical prize, an honor which was a foregone conclusion for some months, owing to his well-known laboratory work.

On his return to his home in Albany, the young man matriculated as a student in the Albany Medical College, a department of the Union University. But his medical work by no means began at this point. During the vacations of his college course he was engaged in assisting his father in his office; while, in fact, he was daily under the influence of the profession from childhood, being early acquainted with visiting physicians and their conventions. During Dr. Paine's childliood and youth were the days of the trial and development of homa^opathy in New York State. He witnessed the struggles of the early years of its State and county societies, the founding of its hospitals, and finally the establishment in 1874 of its State Asylum for the insane at Middletovvn, Orange County, the first institution of its kind in America.

While this pioneer work properly belongs to the recital of the lives of his grandfather and father, it exerted a wide influence on the growing boy, giving him a familiarity with organization, and many lessons in the necessity of tact, patience and discretion in the bringing about of desired measures. His medical studies were supplemented by a continuous experience with his father in his wide practice, so that he entered upon his chosen work under especially fevorable circumstances. That his course in the Medical College was a .successful one is attested by the fact that, on his graduation, he had the honor of being valedictorian of his class, and received also a prize in obstetrics.

Directly after his graduation he sailed for Europe, where, for over a year, he studied in Germany - the greater part of the time in Vienna. He found in .special post-graduate courses, and in the opportunities offered by the large hospitals, the best means of adding to his knowledge and experience.

Returning to America in 1877, Doctor Paine expected to engage in private practice in Albany, New York, but an offer to become an assistant ]3hysician at the Middletown Homcropathic Asylum led him to that special work, in which he has since been engaged. He began his duties May 1, 1877. Doctor Paine entered upon his new field of work with much enthusiasm, and bringing to it, as he did, a keen mind, well trained by years of preparation, as well as ready sympathies, he soon became endeared to his p.atients, and received for his work the commendation and appreciation of the trustees and superintendent. Three years and a half were thus well spent in the daily routine of hospital work. During this period Doctor Paine invented several means of restraint for his patients, which have been proved by years of use to be of great value in the treatment of the insane, and which have been adopted by many institutions in the country.