Turner's Public Spirit, August 4, 1923
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. Harry E. Whiting, chief of police, with his wife and daughter Anna, left last week for a vacation with his mother in Danville, N.Y., going over the road by auto.
Miss Maud Robinson has been the guest the past week of Mrs. John Plum in North Adams.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Meyer leave August 8 for a vacation at Massapequa, L.I.
Miss Dorothy Latham was in town last week on a farewell visit to friends. Miss Latham sails from [sic, for?] Vancouver on August 18, where she will be engaged in social work for a term of four years.
Leslie Sherman and Oscar Anderson were patients the past week at the Lowell General hospital, where they had their tonsils removed.
Mr. and Mrs. William Munroe, of Cambridge, and daughter Betty, were guests this week of Mrs. Margaret Munroe.
Robert Abbot spent the weekend in Manchester.
Miss Rachael Gill and John Fletcher were weekend guests of Mrs. J. Herbert Fletcher.
The rain of Saturday and Sunday made it necessary to cancel the Abbot-Gardner game, which caused much disappointment to the many Westford fans.
Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Sargent, of Enfield, N.H., drove to Wayland on last Saturday. On the return trip on Sunday they took Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Kingut [sic, probably Knight], who will spend the month of August in Enfield.
Mrs. C. P. Smith, of Springfield, Vt., was a guest of Mrs. S. B. [Sidney Boynton] Wright this past week.
Mrs. Charles Robinson entertained her sister and husband over the weekend.
Mrs. R. B. Donahue and two daughters, of Dorchester, were the guests of Mrs. S. B. Wright recently.
Munroe Hill, of Belmont and Boston, was a guest at the home [of] George A. Brigham this past week.
Carl Lydiard took a group from here to the lawn party in Tyngsboro recently.
Mrs. John A. O’Connell met with a painful accident, cutting her hand severely this past week.
Mrs. Hilda Bosworth, Misses Marjorie Seavey, Maud Robinson and Dorothy Smith left on Monday by auto for Maine.
At the Congregational church last Sunday morning a large audience gathered to hear the farewell sermon of the pastor, Rev. John H. Blair. Seven were admitted to membership [paper torn, line or two missing] served. At the close of the service Mr. Blair was presented with a purse of gold in appreciation of his faithful work here. Mr. Blair has accepted a call to a Baptist church in Philadelphia. His marriage to Miss Hazel Hovey, of Arlington, takes place next month, and the best wishes of the church go with them. It is with regret that his many friends see this young man go from our church. His strong personality, his splendid voice, his work among the young people, the sick and aged, untiring efforts in every way, has endeared him to the townspeople. It has been indeed a privilege for this little church to have a man of his ability. The high standard of Christian living he has given us will never be forgotten. In the evening Mr. Blair gave his sermon in songs, a group of beautiful hymns, to a large and appreciative audience.
Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Hovey, Miss Hazel Hovey and Rev. John H. Blair were dinner guests last Sunday of Mrs. Warren K. Hanscom.
“Uniforms of the United States army, 1775-1918,” the second set of pictures sent by the Library Art club, is now on display in Library hall. The many changes in color and style of uniforms since the revolution are of interest. The set will remain until August 20.
About Town. David L. Greig has sold his handsome home woodlot to Oscar R. Spalding.
Foxes are playing with the poultry in the Stony Brook valley every morning. “Early to bed and early to rise”—well, never mind the rest of it because it is not true, but keep on you foxes, just the same as if it were true, for you stole fifteen Guinea hen eggs that were about ready to hatch at the Banister farm. I do not want you killed, but I want you all parked with other wild life that is inclined to be destructive and thus preserve the balance of nature against overplus [sic] abnormal commercialism.
I almost forgot the annual reunion of the Spalding Light Cavalry at the Center next Thursday afternoon. Dinner, sports, pigeon shooting (mostly clay ones), entertainment and various other brands of modern illusions. Everybody be present and sit on the front seat.
Listen to, and look, too, at the signs of the close approach of the millennium. Those who want cheaper bread have joined forces with those who produce and ask the government to force the price up by law, and those who want cheaper farm machinery have joined forces with labor, who make farm machinery, and are striking for higher wages to prevent cheaper farm machinery. A case of the lion and the lamb laying down together. Well, well, who cares which lays down inside the other at last? Enough for us to know and rejoice that the millennium is close onto us.
The Old Oaken Bucket farm folks attended the funeral of Mrs. John A. Kimball in Littleton on Thursday.
A daughter, Muriel Clifford, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Borel on July [no date given] at Huntington Sanitorium [sic], Long Island. Mrs. Borel was formerly Miss Inez Lybeck, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Lybeck, whose summer home is on the Lowell road. Mr. and Mrs. Borel plan to spend the latter part of the summer in Westford.
Just a word of correction in regard to the Underwoods. As reported in last week’s issue, in regard to Timothy Underwood, it read “Timothy Underwood, another son of Joseph Underwood, Sr., was chaplain of a company of fifty-seven men under Col. William Prescott, who as minutemen marched from Westford on April 19, 1775, and helped to ‘fire the shot heard around the world’.” It should have read Capt. Timothy Underwood, instead of chaplain. Now while I am making this correction I will add a little more original in regard to the Underwoods, and in a condensed way state that they were prominent enough in the early history of the town so that their names appear on twenty-two pages of Hodgman’s History of Westford.
Hurrah! To think that Teacher No. 1 is coming over from Harvard and will bring Teachers No. 2 and 3, and perhaps 4 or more with him to visit the Old Oaken Bucket kindergarten scholar. One of the above teachers is certainly well vouched for as preacher, song singer, carpenter, painter and farmer, and well backed with an abundance of gray matter in his upper apparatus. But for all this formidable array of teachers against kindergarten I will not throw up my hands until the count of nine is passed. During the interval before the questionnaire ring meet I am in training, practicing holding onto the ropes and am reconciled to say in the spirit of Teacher No. 1, if not in the same words, I don’t care who beats me in brattle or rattle, potatoes or “punkins.” In this spirit I more than gladly welcome the hand-picked reserves of Harvard in this questionnaire ring contest.
Several of the Old Oaken Bucket farm folks, Esther T. Snow, Perry and Stanley Snow, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Baker and daughter, of Pittsfield, motored on Tuesday to Salem Willows and visited other points of interest—the “Witch” house, “Hawthorne’s house of seven gables,” the “Ropes house” and flower garden, now the property of the City of Salem being the gift of the Ropes sisters, now deceased. It was a most delightful and inspiring trip, more so to some of us who were never in Salem before. All that marred the trip a little was a lack of legal guide boards as the law complies them to be maintained. I do not know how many times we became dizzy, turning around so often to get onto the right road. Some one of the autos was turning around about all of the time, and we did not carry anything with us but the eighteenth amendment.
The Caledonian club of Lowell held their annual outing at Lake Nabnassett last Saturday. Music by the bagpipe band, jumping, running, boating, bathing and a grand temperate hurrah of a good time, all of the time, was characteristic of “Scots who hae [sic] with Wallace fought.”
Miss Irene Wreggs, a well-known resident of Lowell, died last week Monday at the Wescott home, Dracut, aged eighty-seven years. She was the daughter of Robert and Ruth (Heminway) Wreggs, natives of England. She has no near relatives living. She will be remembered by the older residents of Brookside and vicinity, where for many years at the old Levi Fletcher residence [120 Lowell Road], “The Elms,” now owned and occupied by Miss Ella T. Wright, she was employed as a companion for Miss Wright’s aunt, the late Miss Sarah Richardson, and later was companion for Miss Wright. She was splendidly reliable and efficient, and a splendid example of mind your own business. The funeral was held on last week Wednesday afternoon, the services being conducted by Rev. Frederick S. Beattrie, assistant minister of St. Anne’s Episcopal church, Lowell, of which the deceased was a member. Interment took place in the Edson cemetery, where the committal service was read by the officiating clergyman.
The Old Oaken Bucket farm sent off the first potatoes and apples to Boston on August first. Do not misconstrue “first” as meaning that it’s the first into Boston market from anywhere. Any kindergarten knows better than that. I merely report it not as anything wonderful, but as a sort of signal to let some folks now that I am not asleep [paper torn, line or two missing] now until after I meet the Harvard reserves.
Field day, dance, etc., Long pond, Littleton, Aug. 4, afternoon, evening.
Eighty-Cent Wheat. With wheat at eighty cents per bushel seems to have created about as much United States trouble as $2.25 wheat and world war, and now we form a new farmer-farmerette labor party that wills it that the United States government must come to the rescue and fix the price of wheat. But hold, it is easy to recall that during the world war, when the government fixed the price of wheat at $2.25 there was a whole chorus of protestation, which in substance read, “If the government had just minded its own business and let wheat be bought and sold by the law of supply and demand, we could have got $3 for our wheat.” When the law of supply and demand is all coming your way and excessively against the consumer, you say to the government “Mind your own business,” but when the law of supply and demand is against you, then you want that part of the universe known as the world turned outside in and on to the rescue. The way some of your elected rescuers roar a noise about eight-cent wheat, it may lead to an injunction on the law of gravitation.
That’s right, beloved. Joshua of old made the sun stand still at noonday until things came his way. You recently elected Joshuas; what’s to hinder buying on the world revolving in space all loaded up with eighty-cent wheat? I wouldn’t try it on the sun; it would be lacking in originality and you might get yourselves in the laugh column for imitating Joshua. Try it on the old earth, closer [to] home and troublesome wheat. Some of you Joshua folks have lungs like the roaring of a wild beast in jungles of Africa, where we all resided at one time. Well, now, your powerful, roaring voice shout “Presto change-o, slap-o” and you will be surprised at this injunction on gravitation how quickly wheat will take to export trade. Just what you want; and it is just as sensible as some of your other plans to force wheat up; a noisy attempt to reverse the laws that govern human life from the cradle to Arthur Conan Doyle’s unseen shores. It is an attempt to reverse inherent universal law by which the universe is run.
Clipping. The following is taken from the Boston Herald of August 1 under the column of Selections from Our Mail Bag and headed “The good old academies”:
I have been much interested in the publication in The Sunday Herald of the “Portraits of a Half Century,” written by the Hon. Samuel L. Powers.
In the edition of Sunday, July 29, he has given a very excellent account of the late Joseph A. Willard, for many years clerk of the superior court. Mr. Powers speaks of his early schooling as attending a private school in Cambridge. I wish to add that in 1824 he attended the Westford academy. Hon. John Wright (born in Westford in 1797) was preceptor in 1824, afterwards for many years agent of Tremont & Suffolk mills in Lowell and also state senator from that city. In the general catalogue of the academy Mr. Willard’s history is as follows:
Willard, Joseph A., 1824, Cambridge. Member home guard, Cambridge; M. A. & H A. Co.; Deputy sheriff Suffolk county; Assistant clerk, superior court, Suffolk county four years.; Six years clerk inferior court.; Thirty years chief clerk superior court.; Published “Fifty Years with Judges and Lawyers;” Married Penelope Cochrane of Cambridge. [Died North Woodstock, N.H., 1904.]
Institutions like Westford academy, scattered throughout New England, in the early days brought forth many men who in after years were prominent in the affairs of our country. Hon. John D. Long our beloved governor [1880-1882], was preceptor 1857-59.
Sherman H. Fletcher
Secretary Board of Trustees
Westford Academy
Harvard
News Items. In reply to the apt and brilliant “pupil” from Westford, who freely expressed his sentiments on the eighteenth amendment in the last issue of this paper, we beg to inform him that Teacher No. 2 was not responsible for the entrance of that item in the About Town column, and furthermore, the pupil’s sentiments, as expressed, are in full accord with those of Teacher No. 2. Such a practical, truthful and pertinent handling of this much-abused subject might well be placed where all would read and ponder.
To the Editor. Hardly has the ink got dry on my pen from writing remembrances of old Harvard when on reading the Westford news in your paper of Saturday, July 28, my esteemed friend, Samuel L. Taylor, says his back is up and has already thrown his hat in the ring and challenges me to present my facts in regard to the statement I wrote for your paper on July 14.
Now in the first place I am a staunch temperance man, “but a prohibitionist never.” Not but what I would be, but prohibition does not prohibit and never has. Before prohibition came the government received a vast amount of money each year in revenue from the liquor manufacturers, and the state and cities from the license fees. Now I am willing to admit that a good many men drank to excess, and not only hurt their homes, but the community at large, and they and the cities and state would be better off and the country also if the majority of people would stop drinking. But they do not and they will not, and I, as a humble citizen of this country, do not see how a minority can place on the statute books a law and enforce it against a majority that do not want it, and that law at the present time happens to be the Volstead act.
Instead of the government and cities receiving any money for the right to manufacture and sell liquor they are now paying out many millions of dollars, not yearly but monthly, trying to stop the manufacture and sale of it—and it all comes out of the taxpayer, and we are not making any headway. I read the papers daily and for some four years have read the Literary Digest, and let what I read sink in and thinking it over thoroughly, have come to the conclusion that the country is fast filling up with too many men of the Jesse James spirit, only worse. What Jesse James and his brother did years ago was tame to what is going on now all over the country. There are many men in the government employ today who are drawing large salaries from the bootleggers also.
My good friend speaks about good old Vermont, and I agree with him, but the whole country at large is not composed of men who think like the men in good old Vermont. Some twenty years ago I spent part of one winter in the great prohibition state of Maine. I have traveled much and seen much of the country, but in that large town and at the hotel where I boarded rum and whiskey was flowing freely from early morn until late at night. No pains were taken to cover it up, and as I remember, never saw a drunk all winter. I like a man or newspaper that has some convictions, for you generally know where to find them, but for information I like the Literary Digest, for it never expresses its own mind, but expresses the minds of the leading men on both sides of a question on every great thing that pertains to this government and also the larger governments of the world. Give me something to read that tells both sides of the game and then one can form some idea and decide for himself.
Does my good friend know that from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, south of the Canadian line, there are large numbers of men who are in league with the liquor runners and would put up the hardest kind of a battle to protect them, even to murder? Also, all up and down our coast line there are these same breed of men, only they are worse, and the many brutal murders that have been committed the past few months that we read about in the daily papers, and a better account of them in the Literary Digest, ought to convince the most skeptical man that these very men would not be in the business they are only for the Volstead act.
My claim is that before we had prohibition we had saloons, and by closing them up it has educated thousands of young men to stop at nothing, even to murder, as long as they can gain their trade or business of rum-running; that they never would have done only for the Volstead act. For several years now there have been many men in New York and other cities who counterfeit the government stamps that are put on whiskey bottles, and they are used by the millions. There are a great many chauffeurs who run these whiskey auto trucks through the country who have and wear counterfeit government detective badges, and I could go on indefinitely and tell of more—but what is the use.
Now, my good and esteemed friend Mr. Taylor, please do not think that I am for free rum and whiskey—I am in favor of some moderation of the Volstead act, like many more fair-minded men in this beautiful old country of ours.
Did you notice that all during the war that if you or I or the other poor fellow wanted to buy a small bottle of Jamaica ginger for our family we could not get it for love or money? Plenty of desperate men in all the cities could buy it by the gallon or large quantities and make moonshine and get away with it, but an honest-to-goodness man could not get a drop to save his life.
My good friend says his back is up; also, his Scotch dander. Well, I am half Scotch myself and am proud of the fact; also, am honest in my convictions when I wrote “If the government was establishing an up-to-date college to educate high-class criminals then the eighteenth amendment to the constitution has surely accomplished the purpose.”
Another reason I have is this: At the present time there are many thousands of citizens in the country who are making moonshine whiskey who before the Volstead act was passed were good, straight men in every way, but are now making more money than ever and buying up out-of-the-way old farms to ply their trade, and have known of case after case where they were taken to court, still and all, and the government could not prove a thing against them. I have had a large business man tell me within a few months that in his city, and it is well governed, that one can get all the whiskey they want, and most of the police will tell a man where he can find it. And mind you, this is in a nice city and has a fine set of police as any city in the state. “What is the meaning of it?” you will ask. The minority cannot run the majority is my answer, which is trying to be done by the government today. We are also more than likely to get into trouble with some foreign power by this law that tries to govern the entry of foreign ships into our ports with liquor or wine aboard, and the good Lord knows we have troubles enough at home without getting mixed up with foreign nations about whether they can have liquor or not on their own ships for their own use.
I trust that when my esteemed friend reads this his back and Scotch dander will automatically fall down and when Teachers Nos. 1, 2 and 3 call on him at the Old Oaken Bucket farm in August he will be glad to see them.
- S. Savage, Sr.
Ayer
Real Estate Transfers. The following real estate transfers have been recorded from this vicinity recently: …
Westford—Frederic W. Barrows to Philetus A. Olney et ux., land at Nabnassett pond; George L. Lawton to Thomas H. Brosnahan et al.; Gedeon P. Leduc to Rudolphe Richard, land on River street; Annie Gertrude Sargent, et al. to Clifford F. Johnson et ux., land on Chamberlain road.
The Man About Town. Have you noticed how the Abbot Worsted boys are plowing through the opposition? The man who longs to see good ball games can always get his fill in Graniteville.
Shirley
Birthday Anniversary. Relatives of Comrade William Jubb will meet at the home of his daughter, Mrs. L. J. Edgarton, on Saturday and Sunday to celebrate his eighty-second birthday, which occurs on Saturday. Mr. Jubb was born in England and came to this country with his parents when nine years old, being the third of six children. Other children were born later. The father, Thomas Jubb, was a cloth finisher and settled in West Chelmsford. He worked in the Middlesex mills in Lowell. Mr. Jubb offered to enlist in Westford in 1861 at the beginning of the war, but being very small of stature was told they wanted men, not boys. While working for a carpenter the following months he helped to erect the flagpole in Westford which was hewn from a tall pine tree. The pole has been reset in recent years. In 1862 he did enlist and was assigned to Company E. with Capt. Hines, 33rd Regiment, Volunteer Infantry. The regiment went to Fredericksburg and during the first year was under five generals, McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker and Meade.
He was at the battle of Gettysburg and then traveled 500 miles, which took thirty days, to Lookout Mountain. At the battle of Lookout Mountain he received a wound in the left side. They lost one-third of their men. General Grant then took command and the regiment fought at Missionary Ridge. When the men reached Chattanooga half of them were bare-footed and were receiving no government rations. He marched with Sherman to Atlanta and while on picket duty at Dallas, Ga., in the spring of 1864, was taken prisoner and sent to Andersonville prison, where he spent the summer, where the average length of life was ninety days. He was transferred to Florence [SC], where he remained until March 4, 1865, when with others he was taken to Wilmington [NC] and exchanged for southern prisoners and then sent north.
After his discharge he married Miss Augusta Holden and later came to this town to live, where three children now reside. There are others who live out of town. His wife died several years ago [1907], and after spending a winter in Florida, in the fall of 1921 he went to Tampa, Fla., and visited other places, staying until this spring, when he came home for the summer and is enjoying himself caring for a garden and visiting his friends. He has bought an orange grove in the western part of Central Florida, and a small home in St. Petersburg, where he thoroughly enjoys the social life in the winter months. He is a wonderful story-teller and is always welcome at social gatherings either at home or in the south. He is a member of George S. Boutwell post, G.A.R., of Ayer, and of Shirley Grange.
The children for years have looked forward to the visit of Comrade Jubb to the public schools just before Memorial day. He will return to Florida this fall and the best wishes of the community will go with him.