Turner's Public Spirit, August 23, 1924
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
About Town. Senator James A. Reed, of Missouri, says “All this opposition to demonstration day comes close to idiocy.” Talk about saying a mouthful, James, you’re it.
The annual Decatur-Taylor picnic reunion sociable was demonstrated on Tuesday afternoon on Little Tadmuck hill. Most of us were most all there physically and otherwise. [The two families were neighbors on Lowell Road.]
The unexplorable Great Sahara desert is to be explored by an expedition already fitting up. Six-wheeled automobiles are to be used in this extremely sandy Sahara instead of four-legged hump-hunch-back camels.[1] This is better than being president, Henry.
The trustees of the Middlesex North Agricultural society held a meeting in Lowell on Wednesday to make arrangements for the annual charity fair to be held in the Auditorium, Lowell, in September. The full program and date is to be announced later.
The boys of the Y.M.C.A. camp at Lake Nabnassett gave their annual minstrel show on Monday on [an] improvised stage built among the tall pines. About 400 visitors were present. It was a most humorous, laughable success. A collection was taken up for the benefit of the West Chelmsford Improvement association and the Camp Improvement association. The camp reefed sails and struck tents Thursday morning and camp life stands adjourned until the good songful summer time of 1925.
Remember this week Saturday afternoon and evening and keep it for the cause of Coolidge and Dawes [Republican candidates for President and Vice President] and all the others that are associated with them in political principles involved—state, county, senatorial and representatives—as it shall be set forth and exemplified with music and dancing, games, mid-way and orations by those who want your ear and your vote. They are all worth your attention. All this and more on the Whitney playground. The Abbot Worsted Company band will furnish the music to tickle your feet and inspire your head so that you will dance right and vote right. If they cannot do it your case is hopeless.
West Chelmsford still seems to be in the throes of what appears to be incendiarism. Two fires occurred there early last Saturday morning. Both fires were upon town property. The first, about one o’clock, was an attempt to burn the ladder house and ladders of the West Chelmsford fire department. This fire was discovered by two local men returning from Boston, who gave the alarm and the fire was quickly subdued. About 3:45 the second fire started on one of the woodsheds connected with the schoolhouse. This was totally burned to ashes and was so far toward the ash condition when the fire company arrived that all their efforts were directed to saving the large, new, handsome schoolhouse, which they succeeded in doing. Incendiarism has certainly gotten to be bold and defiant fighting apparatus that is used in fighting the fires that are soon to follow.
Center. Miss Lillian Sutherland is visiting with friends in New Hampshire, and taking in the observance of Old Home day in Swanzey.
A son weighing ten pounds was born on Wednesday of last week at the Ayer private hospital to Mr. and Mrs. George Hartwell, of Littleton. Mrs. Hartwell was Miss Marion Woodbury, of this town.
Miss Blanche Lawrence was in town on last week Friday, calling on friends here.
Rev. and Mrs. John H. Blair were in town on last Tuesday, calling on friends.
Alfred Sutherland, of Boston, spent the weekend at his home in town.
John G. Fletcher was in town for the weekend.
Mr. and Mrs. Dean Bosthwick [sic] and daughter, and Charles Bosthwick, of Miller’s Falls, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Stiles, of Athol, and Miss Helen Blanch, of West Haven, Conn., were weekend guests of Mrs. Harry Stiles.
The Spalding Light Cavalry association held a reunion at Whitney playground last Saturday with a large attendance of former members present. The towns of Littleton, Chelmsford, Groton, Ayer and Shirley sent delegations. In the afternoon there was a clay pigeon shoot which was won by Fred Morrison, of Chelmsford; John Wilson and Edward M. Abbot were tied for second place, which was finally won by Mr. Wilson. At 6:30 a banquet was served in the town hall with 150 men and women present, followed by an entertainment in the upper hall. Thompson Blood, of Concord Junction, Miss Ruth Brewer, Miss Alice Smith and Mr. Patterson furnished the entertainment. At the business meeting Capt. Sherman H. Fletcher was elected as president; Capt. John J. Monahan, of West Chelmsford, vice pres.; Hon. Edward Fisher, of Lowell, sec.; Charles E. Bartlett, Chelmsford, treas.; Hon. Edward Fisher, Capt. John J. Monahan, Herbert V. Hildreth, ex. com.; Charles E. Bartlett, Oscar R. Spalding, William A. Kemp, Alonzo H. Sutherland, John Feeney, outing com.
Mrs. Arthur D. Bosworth, of Lebanon, N.H., is the guest of Mrs. Phonsie Isles and Mrs. Hilda Bosworth.
The republican outing to be held at Whitney playground on this Saturday at one o’clock is sure to draw an attendance of hundreds of voters from northern Middlesex county. All candidates on the state ticket are invited and many will surely attend. Other features will include a baseball game between the Littleton A.A. and Chelmsford A.A., a concert by the Abbot Worsted Company band, and mid-way, with dancing in the evening. Admission will be free at the grounds [paper torn, line or two missing].
Forrest White was in town over the weekend.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Young have recently installed a radio.
Charles Robey, who had an abscess removed from his foot recently at the Forge Village hospital by Dr. Coburn, is improving rapidly.
Wiley M. Wright spent the weekend with friends in Worcester.
George Walker is at his home in town.
About Town. Of the 5200 reported as attending the Henry Ford Wayside Inn outing of Middlesex county, Westford contributed the most aged person, Matthew F. Downs, who will be ninety-nine years of age on August 29. He looked the very picture of many years sitting in his rocking chair with the pleasant countenance of his lifetime welcoming his friends and others. While your correspondent listened to the reminiscent chat of his lifetime with him as his granddaughter, Mrs. Slade, of Framingham, and his three great-grandchildren, the Misses Slade, Henry Ford came upon the picture and was introduced by one of Mr. Downs’ great-grandchildren. We will give next week a brief history of the events leading up to his ninety-ninth birthday.
Everywhere we travel the Baldwin apples bear out the universal remark, “How small they are.” Let us account for it in part by the clearly proven evidence that they have clung to the tree much better than most other varieties. On the Old Oaken Bucket farm several McIntosh trees blossomed white, but they did not develop far enough towards appleville to even come to a “sat,” while others developed apples large enough to fall onto the ground, and they made a specialty of falling and kept up the show until the show closed for lack of apples to fall—but our beloved old forever standby, Baldwin, has not entered this modern show of ye modern variety but is doing several helpful shows better. As a rule the apples are all small this year. On the Old Oaken Bucket farm there is a grafted Baldwin tree of noticeably large apples on a parent stock of exceptionally small native apples.
Perley E. Wright, always active in the sunlight of up-to-date reliability, was auto master of ceremonies in conducting a class of learners over to Wayside Inn on last week Wednesday. The day, the friendships new and old, was a lasting inspiration to live by. While we did not quite catch all of the friendships that were on the stroll it was catchy and entertaining. We missed most of the Townsend Harbor reserves, and caught only an inspiring glimpse in the distance enough to cheer us on to say, “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.”
The W. R. Taylors and the F. A. Snows returned from York Beach on Monday after ten days of splashing up the waters of the Atlantic and the beating up of the waves.
Having increased the valuation of the town to a little over $4,000,000, the assessors are able to announce a tax rate of $30.
Motor Trip. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler recently enjoyed a camping trip on which they drove around Lake Winnipesaukee. Some of the road between Alton and Wolfeboro was far from choice, but the wonderfully beautiful views of lake and mountain compensated. In Tuftonboro on the lake shore they visited a splendid private natural history museum, beautifully housed, open daily to the public, maintained by the owner, a Boston dentist. Also, recently, after camping in the Athol tourist camp ground they followed down the Swift river valley, which Boston proposes to use as a water supply reservoir[2], to Belchertown, thence they went through Holyoke to Westfield, where a pleasant call was made on Leonard Burland, formerly of this town, and his wife and two children. Mrs. Burland was Pauline Wallace, daughter of Rev. David Wallace, at one time pastor [of the Union Congregational Church] in Westford, but now in a parish in the east end of Long Island. Next came an interesting visit to the Gillett nurseries in Southwick[3], where much attention is paid to wild flowers and ferns. Their road the next day led past the ruins of old Newgate prison by the abandoned copper mine in Granby, Conn. This is now a very picturesque ruin of an institution quite noted in its day.
Graniteville. Charles E. Robinson [about 19 years old] of this village is spending the month at Camp Alfred Vail, Oceanport, N.J., a C.M.T.C. [Citizens’ Military Training Camp] camp for the signal corps. Last August he went to Camp Devens as an infantry man. He is a son of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Robinson of this village.
Mrs. W. J. Robinson, who was taken to the Lowell General hospital on July 26, has returned to her home and is slowly recovering from a serious operation.
The Abbot Worsteds Junior team played a 2-2 tie game with the Y.M.C.A. campers at Long Island pond on Monday evening. It was a well played contest from start to finish.
Miss Bernice York of this village is now spending a few days in Pepperell as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Fred O. Parker.
The Abbots will play a league game at North Cambridge this Saturday and many of the fans from this vicinity will take in the game.
The Abbot Worsted Co. band will give the last open-air concert of the season at the school playground in Forge Village on Saturday evening. A very fine program has been arranged and it is expected that this concert will be largely attended. These concerts have proven to be very popular this season.
Many local people will attend the big republican outing that will be held in Westford on next Saturday afternoon. This affair will be followed by a dance in the evening at the town hall.
Many local followers of the Abbot Worsted baseball club will journey to [paper torn, about two lines missing] will be staged between the Abbots and Dan Leahy’s North Cambridge team. The Abbots will play the fast Osterville team, champions of the Cape Cod league, at Abbot park here on Sunday afternoon. It is expected that the Greater Boston league season will close this week.
Pepperell
An Enjoyable Picnic. On Wednesday of last week fully sixty from here attended the annual picnic of the Middlesex County Extension Service at the Wayside Inn, South Sudbury. The crowd gathered in good season and in such large numbers that the program and arrangements previously made were quickly outgrown. It was estimated at least 5000 attended. The old inn was open for inspection all day long and there was a constant waiting line outside. The well-preserved contents proved very interesting. As a memento of the day Mr. [Henry] Ford[4] had supplied for distribution an attractively illustrated booklet, telling the history of the inn and containing a program of the day’s events.
The junior athletic contests were run off in the morning with Westford winning the county championship. …
A basket lunch was enjoyed at noon which was followed by a program of speaking. Shortly after Henry Ford sauntered out onto the field and was soon lost to view by the interested crowd anxious to get a glimpse of their host of the day. He made a few remarks and was swallowed up again by the crowd. …
[1] In 1924-1925 Frenchmen Georges Marie Haardt (1884–1932) and Louis Audouin-Dubreuil (1887–1960) were the first to cross the Sahara by motor car (Citroën half-tracked vehicles). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saharan_explorers.
[2] The Quabbin Reservoir was built on the Swift River between 1930 and 1939. It is the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin_Reservoir.
[3] In 1928 this nursery published a 40-page booklet, available online, commemorating their 50th anniversary in business: Gillett’s Hardy Fern and Flower Farm, Southwick, Mass., 1878-1928, 50th Anniversary. The booklet was written by Kenneth E. Gillett, son of the nursery’s founder, Edward Gillett (1849-1931). See https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/144238.
[4] “Henry Ford was the last private owner of the inn. He purchased it in 1923, from Cora Lemon. The following year, he purchased 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land surrounding the inn, from John Duncan Pearmain, with the aim of developing it into a historically oriented village and museum. ‘He fell in love with it at first sight,’ said John W. Burke, the Ford family chauffeur of 42 years upon his retirement in 1956 at the age of 65.
“Although his original aims were not accomplished at the Wayside, he did establish the non-profit institution that operates the inn and associated museum, watermill, and archives today. …” Quoted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wayside_Inn_(Sudbury).