The Westford Wardsman, May 5, 1917
Center. The following Boy Scouts went to Lowell last Saturday and took examinations for first-class scouts: Morton Seavey, Fred Robinson, Bertram Sutherland. Those who took the examinations for second-class scouts were Raymond Shea, Howard Judd and Herbert Shea. All the boys successfully passed the tests which were given in the woods at the end of the Andover street car line.
The Westford Tigers, a promising ball team of the Frost school, went to Littleton on Wednesday afternoon for a game with the Littleton grammar school and played at Littleton Common. In a six-inning game the Westford team were the victors by the score of 8 to 6.
John R. Draper’s Westford friends will be interested to learn that he has entered the coast guard service.
Rev. Charles P. Marshall, formerly pastor of the Congregational church here, now pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims, Plymouth, has been in town this week, the guest of Charles O. Prescott.
Mrs. Pond and her grandchildren, Hazel and William Pond, have been spending the spring vacation at Mrs. C. A. Blaney’s.
The community sing took place at the town hall on Monday evening. Mrs. W. R. Taylor, of the music department of the Tadmuck club, who has so successfully directed these gatherings, was not able to be present on account of a cold and in her absence Miss Eva E. Fletcher took charge.
The auction sale of the [John] Frank Chandler property at the north part of the town last Saturday was well attended by many people from the Center; in fact, the farm was bought by Timothy Sullivan of this village for $3400. Mr. Sullivan did not state his plans as to his use of the property, but it is expected that with his three boys he will carry on the farm. Livestock and personal property also sold readily and at good prices. [This farm is actually in Tyngsboro off Dunstable Rd. abutting the Westford town line. J. Frank Chandler is the grandson of William Chandler (1791-1874) of the Chandler Farm on Flushing Pond at 18 Tyngsboro Rd., Westford. See Middlesex North Registry Deed Bk. 571, p. 446.]
Arthur E. Day has purchased a new Oakland touring car.
There will be a meeting of the Red Cross branch society this week Saturday afternoon at 2:30 in Library hall. This is an important meeting and every member is urged to be present, and any who wish to join please come that the work may be further organized and gotten under way. This is a work that calls for sacrifice of time and strength and at this crisis should take first place and a ready response is expected and hoped for. The three departments of work will be preparation of bandages, sponges and gauzes, the knitting and the sewing and everyone can help with one or the other.
At the Congregational church las Sunday the men’s choir sang for the last time for this season most successfully. Hearty commendation is due Leonard Burland and Miss Hartford, organist, and the large choir of the men of the congregation, who have done so well these preceding weeks. On Sunday Miss Atwood resumes her place at the organ and the girls’ vested choir will sing.
The polls opened Tuesday morning at 6:30 and closed at four in the afternoon for the election of delegates to the constitutional convention—Hon. Edward Fisher, of Lowell, was a candidate to this convention and no doubt secured a good support in his home town, but as a whole it was a quiet election as far as this town was concerned, there being only sixty-nine votes cast. [The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention assembled in Boston on June 6, 1917, and completed its work in August, 1919. The Convention, composed of 320 delegates from across the state, submitted 22 amendments and a revised draft of the constitution, all of which were accepted by the voters. A nice summary of the convention may be found at www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1944083.pdf.]
Announcement has been received by Westford friends of the marriage of Miss Evelyn Cortelyon Hamlin and Ernest Milburn Reid, of Providence, R.I., Friday, April 27, at Providence, R.I. After a short wedding trip their home will be at Silver Spring, R.I. The bride has many friends in her native town of Westford who wish her much happiness and prosperity in her new life.
The minstrel show under the auspices of Westford academy, given at the town hall last week Friday evening, proved one of the most successful affairs of the kind ever given. There was simply a capacity audience present to greet the young entertainers, who were ready with hearty appreciation for their efforts. Miss Mary B. Raynes was the musical director and Miss Harriet Mansur was the pianist and great credit should be given these two ladies for the successful outcome of the affair; also, to the teachers of the academy. The songs were bright and new, the make-ups were good, and the jokes and local hits were most original. As the result of their efforts the school will have a fund of over sixty dollars toward the purchase of a Victrola. At the close of the entertainment the hall was cleared and dancing was enjoyed until midnight.
Several from this village attended the May breakfast on Tuesday in West Chelmsford, in charge of Mrs. Herbert E. Fletcher.
Since the resignation of Mrs. Margaret H. Bannister, mail messenger, Walter Fletcher at Westford depot is temporarily carrying the mail until the new messenger is appointed.
W.C.T.U. The meeting of the W.C.T.U. at which the Ladies’ Missionary society were the guests of the afternoon at the Congregational vestry, Wednesday, was well attended and full of interest. There were about fifty present, and Mrs. Charles H. Wright, president of the Union, presided, and extended gracious welcome to all. Rev. H. A. Lincoln conducted the devotional service and musical numbers enjoyed were a trio consisting of Mrs. Wright, Mrs. Blaney and Miss Edith Wright; also a solo by Mrs. Charles D. Colburn. Miss Julia Fletcher was the accompanist. Miss Loker, president of the Ladies’ Missionary society was introduced and spoke interestingly of some of the work and plans of that organization, after which Miss Nellie F. Hill, secretary of the Frances Willard Settlement of Boston and Bedford was introduced.
Miss Hill was a speaker who combined intelligence and enthusiasm in all that she said and presented an inspiring picture of the very practical and Christian work being done by the Settlement for women and working girls, and also for the boys and girls of the tenements in the vicinity of the Settlement. She also sketched the work and scope of the interests at Llewsac Lodge in Bedford.
At the close of the exercises afternoon tea and a social hour were enjoyed in charge of Mrs. S. L. Taylor and Mrs. A. H. Burnham. Mrs. J. Willard Fletcher and Mrs. S. A. Walker presided at the tea table. There were pretty decorations of arbutus and the national colors.
About Town. Mrs. Delia Boynton, owing to a miscalculation in stepping, fell last week Friday and shifted the normal locality of some bones. Mrs. Boynton is in the eighty-sixes, but is apparently only a temporary lay-off.
At the Charles W. Whitney farm eighty-six chickens were recently carried off by rats in one night.
At a conference of governors in Washington with President Wilson and Secretary Lane [Franklin Knight Lane, Secretary of the Interior, 1913-1920], the food supply was pronounced serious and all farmers and their allies were seriously urged to increase the acreage. Massachusetts only furnished 15 percent of her food supply; can’t we increase it to 15 ½ percent without having a nervous breakdown, palpitation of the heart or a lame back with a plaster on it. [During the first week of May 1917 the Council of National Defense, composed of the six Cabinet members, called representatives from each state to Washington to confer with the federal government on the prosecution of the war. Many governors came to represent their state. James J. Storrow II (1864-1926) represented Massachusetts, on behalf of Gov. Samuel W. McCall (1851-1923). Storrow was a Boston-area investment banker who was instrumental in forming General Motors, served as the second national president of the Boy Scouts of America, and led the campaign in 1910 to dam the Charles River to form the Charles River Basin. Storrow Drive is named in his honor.]
Timothy Sullivan on the Boston road bought the Frank Chandler farm on Scribner hill, Tyngsboro, just over the Westford line. The farm and all of the personal property was sold at auction last Saturday.
For first earliness inquire of George P. Greenwood, Billerica, who planted an acre of sweet corn on April 15.
The May breakfast dinner at the village church, West Chelmsford, netted fifty dollars in gross income and an incalculable sum in the newness of social life in these new environments.
The Amos Polley Prairie farm folks have got busy and are laying new pipe connection from the pasture crossing the highway and electric tracks to the house and barn.
The J. Willard Fletcher folks have the new contract for carrying the mail from Westford station to Westford Center.
Mrs. Mina Spaulding, of Lowell, will give a dramatic reading in the town hall this week Friday evening, entitled “The dawn of tomorrow.” Mrs. Spaulding will be remembered with delight by all who heard her recently in “Peg o’ my heart.”
Interesting Address. Under the management of the Middlesex County Farm Bureau, John M. Abbott, of Bellows Falls, Vt., the newly-elected agent of the bureau and farm advisor, gave a talk on “Food supply, past and present.” Going back, it was shown that crops increased so much faster than population that there was over production to the extent of a glutted market on all grain crops, and corn was burned for fuel in the west, and the farmer was underpaid for his labor. Under such conditions the New England farmer could not compete in raising grain. Today, we have the other extreme—population is gaining faster than the food supply, hence the high cost of living, and Massachusetts that produces only 15 percent of her food supply has got to change back to a greater extent to her earlier system of farming. He advised a radical increase in the acreage of corn, more wheat and beans. It was claimed to be easy to raise twenty bushels of beans to the acre, which at $6 per bushel would be a paying crop—can be raised on 300 pounds of fertilizer to the acre and the least labor of any hoed crop to raise them.
Wheat is booming in various parts of New England at the present time. Aroostook has three flour mills and more are to be built. The present outlook in the west for winter wheat is not encouraging, and a shortage of 50,000,000 bushels is estimated, and spring sowing only 20 percent increase in acreage.
Present indications tend to a decreased acreage in potatoes in all large potato sections, except in Aroostook, where there is a considerable doubling up. The high cost of seed and scarcity of labor tends to a decreased acreage. He advised every farmer to put his hand to the plow for an increased acreage of crops that the west has been raising for us, unless you wish to face a serious shortage next winter. With Miss Edna Colburn at the piano everybody sang “America.”
Graniteville. A large flag pole has recently been erected on top of the machine shop of the C. G. Sargent Sons Corporation here and on last Saturday morning at 11:30 Old Glory was furled to the breeze by the shop superintendent, F. L. Furbush, assisted by the chief rigger, Francis Woods. The flag, being so high in the air, certainly shows up to good advantage.
The first of the May devotions were held in St. Catherine’s church on last Tuesday evening, and in spite of the disagreeable weather there was a large number in attendance. The services were conducted by the pastor, Rev. C. P. Heaney, and consisted of the recitation of the rosary, followed by the benediction of the blessed sacrament. The regular choir was in attendance.
F. J. Sullivan, of this village, who is now employed in Ashburnham, was interlocutor at a minstrel show given in aid of St. Dennis’ church of the above-named town recently, and scored quite a hit. Incidentally “Sully” was heard in a pleasing recitation.
Mr. and Mrs. David Finn, of Pawtucket, R.I., were guests of the Wall family here last Sunday, coming over the road in their Hudson touring car.
Work continues here to be good in all branches and plans are now under way to reopen the boarding house of the C. G. Sargent Sons Corporation in order to accommodate the large number of men employed in the shop and foundry.
Mrs. Elizabeth Buckingham, who has been ill for the past few weeks, is convalescent.
J. B. Carmichael, who has been on the sick list for the past few weeks, has returned to his duties in Sargent’s shop.
A new modern backstop is being erected at the Abbott [sic] ball park, and a drinking fountain is also being installed. The infield will soon be laid out in regulation big league style and all will be in readiness when the time comes to play ball.
Andrew Johnson has recently returned from Detroit, Mich., where he went last fall with Mr. and Mrs. J. Fred Wall. He reports that Mr. Wall has a lucrative position with the Metropolitan Insurance Co., and he and Mrs. Wall feel much satisfied with their surroundings in Detroit.
At a meeting of the baseball club held in Healy’s hall on Monday night the following were elected on the board of directors for the ensuing year: William F. Buckingham, P. H. Harrington, J. E. York, Albert R. Wall, R. J. McCarthy, Alfred Prinn, James B. Healy, Isaac Hall, Thomas Hughes, Edward Riney. The board of directors will meet at an early date to form plans for the coming season.
The election of last Tuesday did not arouse a great deal of interest here, and in consequence a small vote was cast. Edward Fisher, of Westford, former state senator from this district was elected a delegate from this fifth congressional district [to the state Constitutional Convention].
Ayer.
News Items. The interest in the probable location of a military camp here still holds first attention. The Boston papers gave the subject prominent space last week. There was nothing in the articles, however, other than was printed in this paper several weeks ago. In answer to many inquiries it can be said that there is no truth in the statement that Ayer has been selected as a site as yet.