Turner's Public Spirit, January 13, 1923

A look back in time to a century ago

By Bob Oliphant

Center.  Owing to the bad traveling there was no school on Thursday of last week.

Mrs. W. R. Carver has been enjoying a trip to New York city.

Mrs. Hilda Bosworth and two children, Elizabeth and Roger, have been visiting relatives in West Lebanon, N.H.

The schools of the town were closed Tuesday on account of the heavy fall of snow.

The Tadmuck club guest night, which was to have been held on Tuesday evening, has been postponed indefinitely.

Cards have been received in town announcing the marriage of Miss Marion Alice Perkins to Milton Crandall MacDonald [sic, McDonald].  Miss Perkins is a daughter of Mrs. William Abbott Perkins of Waltham, whose husband, the late William Perkins, was at one time the principal of Westford academy.

A number of Westford people are planning to attend the Farrar concert at the Auditorium, Lowell, Friday evening

The time for the use of 1922 auto registrations has expired, and the impression that there had been an extension of time as in former years is a false one, as the registrar this year issued numbers at such an early date that all have had plenty of time to secure them before January first, and the use of 1922 plates after that date is inexcusable.

All the teachers of the William E. Frost school and Principal Charles Carter are members of the National Education association, organized to advance the interests of the profession of teaching and to promote the cause of education.  The association has commended the school for an enrollment of 100 percent of its teaching force for the year 1922-23.  There is only one other school in Supt. Knight’s district where all the teachers are members of the association.

The honor roll for the William E. Frost school is as follows: Grades 7 and 8, high honor roll, Jardine Davis, Alice Heywood, honor roll, Angie Parfitt, Lillian Dane, William Anderson, Betty Prescott Elizabeth Carver, Ruth Ryan, Ruth Nelson, Elmer Bridgford, Viola Day, Everett Millis, Alex Gorbunoff, Murton Spellman; grade 6, Walter Bellville, Gladys Whitney, Marion Day, Meole Foster, Blanche Rockwell; grade 4, Marion Pollock; grade 3, Cyril Blaney, Ellen Connolly, William Wright.  Honor roll for Parkerville school, Elizabeth [tear, several lines missing] Concetta Succo, Lida Succo, Alma Thifault, Mildred Healey, Tessie Gorbunoff, Ronald Anderson.  The above-named Parkerville pupils received five or more 1’s on their report cards for the last two months.

Joseph Wall, game warden, reminds all residents to remember to feed the birds during the time when the ground is so heavily covered with snow. Upon request he will go to any part of the town and bring grain to be sprinkled about for the birds

Grange Officers Installed.  Westford Grange held their regular meeting on Thursday evening of last week at which time the following officers for the new year were installed: Clifford Johnson, m.; Frederick Meyer, o.; Mrs. Ethel Fletcher, lect.; Mrs. Josie Prescott, chap.; Frederick Robinson, stew.; Carl Lydiard, asst. stew.; Mrs. Lily Meyer, l.a.s.; Mrs. F. C. Wright, sec.; Austin Fletcher, treas.; the new gatekeeper was not present at the installation.  The installation work was done in a very impressive manner by Willard White, past master of Ayer Grange, assisted by the following ladies: Mrs. Grace Bradshaw, of Groton, marshal; Mrs. Georgie Mason, chaplain; Mrs. Evelyn Harmon, pianist; Miss Marguerite Rand, color-bearer; Miss Alice Rand, floral bearer, all of Ayer.

At the close of the installation the Grange gave Mr. White and his assistants a rising vote of thanks for the fine work presented, after which all repaired to the lower hall, where a bountiful supper in charge of Mrs. F. C. Wright, with an able corps of assistants, was enjoyed by all present.

Congregational Notes.  On last Monday the annual church dinner was held in the vestry.  In spite of the severe storm there were thirty members and three others present.  The annual business meeting followed, in which reports were given by the officers and societies of the church, and new officers were elected, and other items of business were transacted.  The meeting adjourned at five o’clock.

Prayer meeting this Friday evening at eight o’clock.

Social and business meeting of the Young People’s league on Saturday evening at the church.

The pastor will speak on Sunday morning on the theme “The Rivals,” this being the second sermon in a series on the general theme, “The marriage of the king’s son.”  Sunday school at noon.  Junior C.E. at 4:30.  Young People’s league at 6:30.  Evening service at 7:15.

About Town.  On Tuesday morning the W. R. Taylors saw a beautiful fox in their yard.  Foxes are always beautiful to those who have no hens to be purloined.  In the afternoon the S. L. Taylor homestead heard the ravenous cry of a fox out looking for a good hen.

The snow has even made the crows friendly and they are coming up close to the farmhouses, trying to get apples which still hang to the orchard trees.

The Abbot Worsted Company are installing electric lights in their two-family house at Westford depot; also, in the blacksmith shop close by which they also own.

Austin Fletcher has very courageously been making the usual rounds for Wright & Fletcher.  He deserves credit for his early starts on drifted roads.

The generous gift of Leonard W. Wheeler to the Congregational church, which was announced at the church roll call on Monday, is appreciated very much.  It comes from one who has always been interested in the church and is in memory of Mary Williams Wheeler [Leonard’s first wife who died Jan. 6, 1922], who gave herself in a whole-souled, loyal way to every cause of the church.

After getting everybody informed over the seeming mysterious disappearance of Tozo, the handsome yellow cat of the W. R. Taylors, we are glad to report that after an absence of over two weeks it was found.  It had found an entrance in a house that is not inhabited.  It was able to get in, but, like exciting stories we have read, it was impossible to make an exit from the inside out as it had made an entrance from the outside in.  By chance the owner of the house, who lives in Lowell, came out last Saturday to look at his property, and when he opened the door there was the imprisoned cat.

We read with much interest the account of the annual meeting of the Groton Farmers’ and Mechanics’ club.  Especially were we interested in the question of [their] three-days’ fair.  The distance from Old Oaken Bucket farm, the weather and the illness of our health prevented us from attending.  Now when you have roll call yonder (not up yonder) will you count me as emphatically for a three-days’ fair?

Hon. and Mrs. Herbert E. Fletcher and Mr. and Mrs. Herbert V. Hildreth are in Washington, D.C., where our laws are made and unmade, where we send statesmen and other folks, and where we get a change of government every time anyone says higher tariff and with the accent all on higher.

Mr. and Mrs. Roy Keizer (Addie Day) and daughter have moved from the Quincy Day homestead to Berton [sic, probably Burton, N.H.].  Mr. Keizer’s mother died recently and they have gone to live with Mr. Keizer’s father and carry on the farm there.

The engagement is announced of J. Arthur [sic, Arthur James] O’Brien, son of the late James O’Brien, to Miss Mildred Green, daughter of William Green.  Both young people are well known here and their many friends extend good wishes.

The funeral of Lillian Robarge took place in the [West Chelmsford] Methodist church on last week Wednesday afternoon and was an impressive service.  Dr. Crane, pastor of the Centre Methodist Church in Malden, and Rev. E. E. Jackman, of West Chelmsford, spoke beautifully of the character and nobility of the deceased and Mrs. F. L. Roberts, of Lowell, sang.  The village church was filled with loving friends and there were many beautiful flowers.  The burial was in the village cemetery.

On last week Wednesday evening the village of West Chelmsford was saddened again by the passing of Mrs. George O. Jackson [nee Nellie McDonald] at her home.  Mr. and Mrs. Jackson formerly lived in Forge Village in the house which was bought by the Abbot Worsted Company and made over into the Abbot hospital.  Mrs. Jackson had many friends in Westford and West Chelmsford.  Since last summer she had been an invalid and had been tenderly cared for by [paper torn, 2 or 3 lines missing].  Another niece, Mrs. Avery Smith, lives in Ayer.  Funeral services were held on last Saturday afternoon at her home and were conducted by Rev. E. E. Jackman, who spoke helpfully.  The bearers were Alec Fisher, J. Clarence Burne, Avery Smith and Mr. Daley.  The casket was placed in the receiving tomb in Fairview cemetery and later the interment will be made in Maine in the family lot.

The West Chelmsford fire department entertained at Abbot’s hall, Brookside, last week Monday evening in appreciation of favors received from the public.  Invitations were sent to every person in the community over sixteen years old, and responses were as liberal as the unresponsive weather would permit.  On the program of entertainers were Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, soloist; Albert Guerin, soloist; Miss Elna Reis, Warren Dean and Fred Timmings, readings.  T. J. Ellingwood of the board of engineers was orator of the evening.  After the food act came dancing for all.  The local fire department, since its organization, has been prompt and efficient in response to fires.  It has also proved a royal entertainer.

Andrew G. Anderson is ill at his home on the Lowell road, near Brookside.

As a trustee of the Middlesex North Agricultural society we acknowledge the gift of handsome winter flowers from the trustees of Middlesex-North.  They were from the nursery of Mr. McManimon, of Dracut.  As trustee, also, of Middlesex-North he delivered them by automobile and in doing so he slewed into a ditch in Chelmsford on the Lowell road a little east of the “Elms,” the summer home of Miss Ella T. Wright, and it took him three hours to get out of the ditch that he slewed into in three minutes.

Robert Elliott sailed from New York last Saturday with three other men for a two-months’ cruise.

Now that plus costs at Camp Devens is up for trial we rise for information as to what plus cost is.  We are at the foot of the class and desire to be shown.  Perhaps asking a few questions would explain our ignorance.  Would pulling out nails as fast as someone drove them in and continue it for weeks be a plus cost transaction?  Would buying chestnut posts that you did not want in preference to posts you did want and at a far higher price, and then burning them up be a plus cost transaction?  Will someone please clear up our ignorance?

Mrs. James H. O’Brien is ill at her home on Pigeon hill, Stony Brook road.

As long as we are in the small town act we read in modern history “Boxborough Grange won the prize of five dollars for giving the best entertainment during the year at the Pomona Grange meetings.”  Fine!

And we are ready to exclaim “Where, oh where is Henry A. Fletcher, who knows how to discriminate between conservative reasonable hunting and reckless, wild, wasteful extermination?”  We wish to let him know that a large fox was seen in the dooryard of W. R. Taylor Tuesday morning.

First Parish church (Unitarian) Sunday service at 4 p.m.  Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister.  Subject, “A hard thing and an easy way.”

Amos Polley recently cut a pine log on his Rocky hill lot that sawed out 800 feet of board measure lumber.  When the Old Oaken Bucket farm cut off the Frances hill lot some trees were estimated by experts by eye to contain 1000 feet of lumber.

“On ne passe pas” (they shall not pass) was what the French said at Verdun when the Germans came nearer.  Well, “on ne passe pas” is what we say of the Stony Brook road these days and we do not know when anyone will ever pass there.  From Taylor’s Corner to Stony Brook the road is one continual drift.  The road runs from north to south and the storms have blown the snow in from east to west between the stone wall boundaries on each side until the snow is way up beyond the tops of the walls.  It is really quite a wonderful and unusual sight; almost equal to the appearance of the road at the time of the famous blizzard of 1888, so the old inhabitants say.  We are all reminded these days of Whittier’s well-known description of being “Snow bound” at a farm.

Mrs. Bell Dies.  The death of Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell [Jan. 3, 1923, at Chevy Chase, Md., of pancreatic cancer], widow of the famous inventor [who died Aug. 2, 1922, at his private estate in Cape Breton, N.S., Canada], in Washington last week recalls not only some interesting facts in general, but some of special local interest.  Mrs. Bell was Mabel Hubbard, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gardner Greene Hubbard, of Cambridge where she was born in 1859.  All of her life was passed under an affliction of total deafness which followed a severe attack of scarlet fever in her childhood [close to her fifth birthday in 1862].

At this point we desire to quote from the history of Chelmsford: “On June 1, 1866, a school for the deaf was established in Chelmsford, of which Miss Harriet B. Rogers was made the principal.  Among the pupils was Miss Mabel Hubbard.  The school was limited to seven scholars, while Miss Rogers had eight and only two were paying full price, and Gardner Greene Hubbard raised a thousand dollars for the deficiency.  The school had great success and officials of other states visited the school to see how the impossible was brought about, and deaf mutes were taught to speak and articulate correctly and to read from the lips.  About this time John Clark gave $50,000 to found a school for the deaf in Northampton.  Miss Harriet B. Rogers was unanimously elected principal and Miss Mary S. Byam assistant, and the Chelmsford pupils invited to enter the school.  Miss Rogers at first hesitated to close the little pioneer school of Chelmsford.  She finally accepted and opened the Clark school on October 1, 1867.”

Here we quote from the history of Westford academy: “Harriet Burbank Rogers, preceptress, 1855-59 and 1861-63.  The first in this country to introduce a system of teaching deaf mutes to read from the lips instead of using the sign language.  Principal of Clark Institution for Deaf Mutes at Northampton, 1867.”

Miss Rogers was a sister of the [first] wife [Mary Howe Rogers] of Gov. Thomas Talbot of Billerica.

Miss Mabel Hubbard married Alexander Graham Bell in 1874.  She was his inspiration for the invention of the telephone for which he is best known.  His hope that he might find a means of enabling her to hear led him into his study and experiments in phonetics.  Mrs. Bell’s father was deeply interested in Dr. Bell’s telephone invention, backed his scheme and became the first president of the Bell Telephone Company, and in 1867 disproved through his daughter Mabel that the sign language was the [paper torn, line or two missing].  Mrs. Bell contributed articles to many magazine and wrote several plays.  She traveled around the world with her husband and dwelt in many strange lands with him.  Her faith in her husband’s genius was boundless.  She encouraged all his efforts and contributed large sums to defray the costs of his experiments in many fields.  She encouraged the inventor also in behalf of deaf children and in promoting the study of lip readings among deaf adults.

We quote this final thought from the history of Chelmsford: “Mabel Hubbard became the wife of Alexander Graham Bell.  It was his experiments in visualizing the vibrations of speech in order to enable deaf children to read speech from the graphic presentations of the inflections and modulations of the speaker’s words that the invention of the telephone came about.”

Preserve the Skunk.  The following has been kindly sent us and we gladly send it to others through the columns of this paper:

“Protect the skunk” is the slogan of E. A. Swartz, trapper and weather prognosticator, sounding through the snow-clad hills of York county, Me., for on the skunk rests the fate in the future of the goosebone weather prophet.  And this is Mr. Swartz’s line of reasoning, running so true to form that he will try to make it an issue at the coming session of the Maine legislature.

“When winter comes and the skunk’s fur becomes enough to make killing it worth while, the hair over the backbone has two shades of blue, one is light and the other dark.  When the blue is light get hung up to the extent of your credit and turn your cash into coal, for it will be a long, hard, cold, winter with limitless snow.  However, if the blue is dark, much rain will fall, even though it is winter.  This winter the skunk’s fur shows a dark blue streak and before long farmers will be building dams instead of melting snow and lugging and hauling water for their stock.  The skunk the farmers’ enemy, ‘Nevaire,’ [‘never’ with a French accent?] says Mr. Swartz.  Of course he steals a chicken once in a while, but that is a small price to pay for the good it does.  By all means protect the skunk.”

On the above we can say “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky arrives the snow,” and still arriving while we are writing “trumpets” about it.  Do not expect the goosebone of the skunk to be infallible; remember our national Uncle Samuel who is a weather prophet, fails fifteen percent of the time, and the Old Farmers’ Almanac, before which we swear allegiance on the first day of January to its infallible weather predictions, doesn’t always fit the weather to the color of the goosebone.  Sometimes it says good haying weather and so we go to it and the hay stays in the field in the rain.  Again, “Mild for the season of the year,” and we get our ears frozen.  So do not expect the skunk to be weather-wiser than the combined weather wisdom of our uncle and the Old Farmers’ Almanac.

Yes, let us preserve the skunk, not only for his goosebone ability to control the weather, but for his usefulness to the farmer in eating grubs and field mice, and if these fail to be sufficient we are generously willing to contribute a few of the neighbors’ chickens.  But above the dollar view let us preserve the skunk for the variety that it adds to wild life, even if the neighbors do have to unwillingly contribute chickens to its support, and for the benefit of those who love wild life but who have no chickens to contribute to the cause.

Champion Corn-Grower.  We read with encouraging interest last week under Boxborough news and quoted from the Middlesex County Bulletin, “Daniel Shea of Boxborough is the county corn club champion this year having made a profit of $55.15 on one-sixth of an acre of sweet corn.”  This is an enormous yield, being at the rate of over $330 per acre, while $200 per acre is considered an average yield that doesn’t occur near as often as Christmas.  The yield that has a yearly happening like the above holiday is about $100 per acre.  So we congratulate Daniel of the new set in having beaten us old veterans of the old set, who have spells of acting as though we had got to the advanced stage or age or both when as regards farming we are unteachable, having graduated into the know-it-all class.  But Daniel has shaken our faith in our self-centered, self-sufficiency.  All hats off to Daniel.  He says “I should have much more money had not the rain done unusual damage this year.”  Listen, Daniel, while the Old Oaken Bucket farm joins in the chorus, “We should have many more bushels of potatoes to have glutted an already glutted market if it had not rained so much.”  We were both in the same boat and it did rock like as in a deluge.  Perhaps this year we shall get rocked by dry weather and shrink the crop income.

Wild Life Protection.  We started out 1923 with the motto “Importunity” as it relates to forest and wild life.  Now with the permission of the editor and the patience of the reader we wish to quote a little each week from “Wild Animal Bill of Rights,” and before quoting we wish to quote some preliminaries leading up to the “bill of rights.”

Antivivisectionists are watching with interest the efforts now being made by Miss Maude Phillips, president of the American Blue Cross society, and other persons to encourage the use of anesthetics in operations upon animals, and already it is said a more humane attitude is evident in many experimental laboratories in the United States.  An article regarding methods employed at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and published in the Christian Science Monitor on August 26 occasioned widespread comment among people who believe that even animals have rights that mankind is bound to respect.

“No man in the world, perhaps, is better qualified to discuss the rights of ‘the beasts of the field and the fowl of the air’ [a paraphrase of 1 Samuel 17:44 ] than Dr. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York zoological park, who, while not an antivivisectionist, is keenly interested in the welfare of all creatures.  For years he has combated the vicious and ignorant theory that wild and domestic animals and birds are oblivious to torture even when perpetrated by a surgeon’s knife.  He is about to have printed as a poster and given the widest possible distribution his ‘Wild Animal Bill of Rights’ from his recent book, ‘the minds and manners of animals.’

The following quotations are made with Dr. Hornaday’s permission: “Every harmless wild bird and animal has the right to live out its life according to its destiny and man is honor bound to protect those rights.  At the same time it is a mistake to regard each wild bird or quadruped as a sacred thing which under no circumstances may be utilized by man.  We are not fanatical Hindoos [sic] of the castes which religiously avoid the taking of life and gently push aside the flea, the centipede and the scorpion.”

The highest [thought] of a reasoning being is to reason “We have no moral or legal right to act like idiots or to become a menace to society by protecting criminal animals or criminal men from adequate punishment.”  Like the tree that is known by its fruit, every alleged reasoning being is to be judged by the daily output of its thoughts.  “Towards wild life our highest duty is to be sane and sensible in order to be just, and to promote the greatest good for the greatest number.  Be neither a Hindu fanatic nor a cruel game-butcher.”

The above is a most sensible view of wild life and a good reply to those who charge those who emphasize “protect wild life with an attempt to overrun life with rattlesnakes and boa constrictors.”  We hope to publish part of the platform next week.

Graniteville.  Sunday being the Feast of the Holy Name special services were held at three o’clock in St. Catherine’s church by the members of the Holy Name society.  Twenty-five new members were received into the society and after the reception an excellent sermon was given by the pastor, Rev. A. S. Malone.  The services were brought to a close by benediction of the blessed sacrament.  The singing was by the members of the Holy Name society, with Miss Mary F. Hanley at the organ.

The Ladies’ Aid society of the M.E. church is making the preliminary plans for the annual fair and sale that will be held here in the near future.

The old New England climate has certainly put the kibosh on soccer football games for the time being, and it looks as if the important game between the Abbots and Fore River will be delayed for several weeks unless there is a great change in the weather.

The members of the sewing class met at Abbot’s hall in Forge Village on Wednesday evening with a large number in attendance.

The members of the Graniteville Brotherhood held their regular meeting in the vestry of the M.E. church on Wednesday evening with a good attendance.  After the meeting refreshments were served.

We are certainly getting some big snowstorms this season.  The man who predicted an open winter is too busy shoveling snow at present to enable him to pass any comments on the weather of the past few days.  As Dr. Coue would put it, every day in every way the snow is getting deeper and deeper.

The Ladies’ Aid society of the M. E. church met with Mrs. Lucy A. Blood on Thursday evening at seven o’clock.

Albert Parker, our local mail carrier, is very much on the job these days, and in spite of the severe snowstorms he always gets the mail on time.

Miss Gertrude Carpentier, of Brunswick, Me., who has been visiting relatives here, returned to the Pine Tree State this week.

Town meeting day is only a few weeks off and already the political pot is beginning to boil.  There will be many important questions to be voted upon at the February meeting and it will doubtless be a hot session.

Owing to the severe storms this week there were no sessions held in the Westford academy or the Frost school for a couple of days.  The snow shovel has been very much in evidence.

Ayer

Real Estate Transfers.  The following real estate transfers have been recorded from this vicinity: …

Westford—Louis A. Trudel et ux. to Joseph E. Langstaff, land on Main street; William P. Proctor Co. of Chelmsford to Harold H. Fletcher et al. …

Footnotes:

 1“ to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the ‘goosebone’ refers to the supposed ability to forecast the harshness of the coming winter by looking at the coloration of a cooked goose’s breastbone. After cooking the bird around Thanksgiving, the breastbone would be preserved and allowed to dry. It would soon change colors, with darker patterns foretelling a difficult winter.” From the “Southeast Missourian” web site: https://www.semissourian.com/blogs/pavementends/entry/55933.

 2This quote is the beginning of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem The Show According Storm.

 3Maude Gillette Phillips (1860-1951), a Wellesley graduate and an American author, educator and animal welfare activist, was the author of the 1920 book Animalology. The Blue Cross Society was an animal welfare organization in Springfield, Mass. She was influential in passing the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Gillette_Phillips.

 4William Temple Hornaday, Sc.D. (1854-1937) was an American zoologist, conservationist, taxidermist, author and the first director of the New York Zoological Park, now known as the Bronx Zoo.  He was a pioneer in the early wildlife conservation movement in the U.S. and published his book The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals; A Book of Personal Observations in 1922. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Temple_Hornaday.

 5Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie (1857-1926) was a French pharmacist and psychologist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion. Working as an apothecary he discovered what became known as the “placebo effect.” His book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion was published in England in 1920 and in the United States in 1922. He developed the mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Coué.