Turner's Public Spirit, July 25, 1925

A look back in time to a century ago

By Bob Oliphant

Center. Many people from the surrounding towns attended the old-fashioned dance at the town hall on Tuesday evening. A committee of Grange members, consisting of Frank A. Wright, Clyde Prescott, Charles Robey and Clifford Johnson, was in charge of the affair, and there is a possibility that another dancing party will be given some time in August.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Perry, of Moncton, N.B., are the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Fred L. McCoy. Miss Ruth McCoy [daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred McCoy], who was their guest at their home in Moncton, returned with them.

The Misses Julia and Gertrude Fletcher are attending the Unitarian conference at Star Island, Isles of Shoals.

The Westford baseball team defeated a team from the boys’ camp at Nabnassett, 4 to 3, at Whitney playground, Monday evening.

Alfred Sutherland, of Boston, was the week-end guest of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Sutherland.

The Abbot Worsted Company band has been heard in several concerts in the villages and will hold another at Westford Center in the near future.

Joseph C. Walker, who has had one of the school barge routes the past year, has resigned, and the [school] committee voted at their last meeting to put the job up to bid. The route is from Forge Village to Westford academy by way of Pine Ridge.

The Oratorio society repeated its program at Boxford last Saturday before a large audience from Westford, Boxford and Haverhill. The program was similar to that given at Forge Village recently, and at the last rehearsal the members of the society presented the president, George E. Wilson, with a large picture, and the secretary and treasurer, Mrs. Perry Shupe, a fountain pen. A luncheon was served.

Mr. and Mrs. Byron H. Brown (Amelia Lambert) and young son, Byron H., Jr., have been recent callers in town. Since returning from Florida they have been on an auto trip to Bar Harbor, Me.

Mrs. Adeline Buckshorn is reported on the sick list.

Dr. Harry Coburn is at present in New York city, where he is taking special courses in medical work. Dr. Cowles, of Peabody, is filling his position with the Abbot Worsted Co.

Mr. and Mrs. William Woodward, of Rockport, were in town last week, calling on friends. Mr. Woodward was at one time principal of Westford academy.

Miss Alice Howard is acting as librarian during the absence of Miss May E. Day.

Master Har… [paper torn, line or two missing] Hugh Ferguson for several years past, has gone to reside with his mother in New Bedford.

Miss Louise Chipman has been elected as teacher at the Parkerville school, and Miss Anna Sheehan at the Cameron school.

Miss Jennie Ferguson and her sister, Mrs. W. L. Woods, of Winter Hill, are taking summer courses at the University of Vermont at Bar Harbor.

Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Ferguson have been entertaining Mr. Ferguson’s sister, Miss Eliza Ferguson, and nieces, the Misses Inez and Margaret Ferguson, of Granby, Quebec.

About Town. Frederick A. Hanscom, Emory J. Whitney and Samuel L. Taylor motored to Harvard on Tuesday afternoon. The people that we met and interviewed brought back the days of the little red schoolhouse. The apple orchards of Harvard, like the people, looked thrifty. I have not seen such sturdy looking orchards and so an extensive acreage with the possible exception of the Read-Drew farm in Westford since the boyhood days as I saw in this auto trip to Harvard. It looks as if by the way the trees in Harvard were drooping down with apples, and some propping up, that somebody should be proposed for membership in Roosevelt’s Ananias [i.e., Liars] club, when the government crop report states that there will be a very light crop of apples this year.

Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Taylor motored to Framingham last Sunday to the summer home of Mrs. Taylor’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carlos D. Cushing.

The Read-Drew farm have been thinning their early apples. It is estimated to cost about fifty cents per tree. The Old Oaken Bucket farm beat that price—the party that did the thinning [i.e., the owner and uthor of this article, Samuel L. Taylor] worked for nothing and without board.

The Flushing Pond House, a little way off of Groton road, was raided last Saturday night by Federal officers with officers from Ayer and Westford, and thirty-five people found present. Liquor was also found, and liquor and folks taken to the Ayer police station.

Postmaster-General New [Harry Steward New (1858-1937), Postmaster General 1923-1929] is authority for the statement that none of the re-rating schedules in postal rates to raise more revenue by increasing the postal rates have resulted in a decreased revenue and a change is recommended to former rates. [On April 1, 1925, 1¢ postcards were raised to 2¢. On July 1, 1928, the cost for postcards was dropped back to 1¢ and was not increased to 2¢ until 1952. One ounce letters remained at 2¢ from 1885 to 1932 when they were raised to 3¢.]

With a favorable season it is unaccountable why corn should be so backward. Last year, before this time, we of the Stony Brook valley were sending sweet corn to market. This year it will be well into August. Much of it has not got to the tassel silk stage.

Have just received an interesting letter from Principal William C. Roudenbush of Westford academy, who is on his vacation. The letter was dated Liverpool, N.S., July 19.

Dog days arrived Wednesday, a few days before the Old Farmer’s Almanac was ready for them. They got into gear before they were astronomically due here.

Recent breaks [i.e., break-ins] in the Cold Spring postoffice, resulting in money losses, have been traced up, cleared up and settled up by discovering the guilty party, which does not implicate any resident of the town.

Harmon Whitten has bought the grass on the adjoining John H. Decatur farm.

Ralph P. Cutting, an engineer on the Boston and Maine railroad, who owns a farm on Main street, is bondsman in the sum of $500 in the appealed case of David Sherman, tried in district court in Ayer on last week Tuesday.

I certainly missed in the hurry of other correspondence the interesting letter of E. S. Savage, as reported in the issue of July 11, and I am just reading it on July 19. That gasoline tax of two cents per gallon, amounting to $12,000,000 for the benefit of road improvements is something worth collecting. In Massachusetts we decided that we did not want roads as good as that would come to. His description of the general prosperity of the western farmers is refreshing in direct contrast to the down-and-out whining of the farmers’ bloc crowd which wants the government to come to the rescue of all of the financially embarrassed with a chance to tack on a rider and include rag-pickers and peanut stands. Those large redwood trees, one being large enough to build a church to seat 500 people, must have age enough to upset scriptural calculations in regard to the age of the world.

As a bearing upon the prospective wheat crop the Farm Journal says: “Winter wheat has been up against a succession of unfavorable conditions, winter killing, slow spring growth, lack of rainfall and finally frost and freezing. There is a broad belt of wheat territory roughly running from the Ohio river to the latitude of Indianapolis or Springfield, and from Ohio to Northern Missouri, where wheat was quite generally in bloom when the freeze came. In this district and other scattered localities there is already evidence that wheat heads did not fertilize. Spring wheat starts with a condition materially below normal from lack of rain and reserve moisture. No section of the near northwest has to date a normal moisture supply, and many of the best districts are sensationally deficient.”

The Sunday school of the Tewksbury Congregational church held their annual picnic at Lake Nabnasett on last week Thursday afternoon. Many friends of the Sunday school accompanied them in two truck loads and many private conveyances. Swimming, boating and games ran the joyous hurrah of a time generally and all temperately enacted. Nabnassett is fast becoming it. Several Lowell clubs held their outings there last week. It is free from moonshineism as it relates to a defiance of national prohibition.

The annual concert given by the Chelmsford band and the attending lawn party, under the management of the Benevolent society of the [West Chelmsford] village [Methodist] church, held last week Thursday evening, Cameron park, West Chelmsford, was attended by an unusually large attendance, and all close by parking space for autos was early occupied. Miss Lottie L. Snow was in charge of the lawn party end of the band concert program. Everything was cheery and helpful, including the encore applause given the band. The tables did a flourishing business, many being sold out early.

The band concerts by the Abbot Worsted Company band are just splendidly invigorating. Would it be any less invigorating if more than fifteen-minutes’ notice of time and place were given, and even this short notice not under Westford town news? Think it over and let us know what you think about thinking it over.

Fruit Producers Gather. Members of the Nashoba Fruit Producers’ association held their annual summer meeting at Westford, on Wednesday at the farm of G. H. C. Cadman[1], more than 100 being present from Worcester and Middlesex counties. Announcement was made of the formation of the Souhegan Fruit Producers’ association by farmers around Wilton, N.H. The association was formed under guidance of the Nashoba body, and the two will cooperate in every way.

The men spent two hours in going through [paper torn, line or two missing] number of trees, ranging in age from 6 to 100 years. It is considered one of the most intensely cultivated in this region.

After the inspection there was a picnic luncheon and this was succeeded by an informal meeting. Chief among the speakers was Dr. E. S. Guba, new pathologist of the Massachusetts Agricultural college, who spoke on orchard diseases. Other speakers were Warren Whitcomb, also of the college, and Leslie R. Smith, state department of agriculture. The afternoon was spent in visits to other orchards here, including those of George Drew and W. E. Wright.

Ayer

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

Westford—Dennis Burke est. by adm. to George H. Burke, land on Tenney road; Charles G. Sargent est. by trs. to C. G. Sargent’s Sons Corp., Westford, land on Fourth street.

District Court. On Monday morning three more liquor cases from Westford were before the court as the result of an extensive raid made in that town late last Saturday night by the local officers assisted by officers from some of the surrounding towns. Joseph T. Maillhot of Westford, charged with keeping a liquor nuisance in that town, pleaded guilty and was fined $100. On a charge for exposing and keeping liquor for sale he was found guilty and the case placed on file. Louise S. Avignac of Westford, charged with exposing and keeping liquor for sale in that town, pleaded guilty and was fined $100. August Levasseur of Lowell, charged with exposing and keeping liquor for sale in Westford, pleaded guilty and was fined $100. Attorney John D. Carney appeared for the government in all three cases.

Littleton

News Items. Littleton orchardists attended the Nashoba Fruit Growers’ association conference in Westford on Wednes

[1] The Cadman orchards were located on the site of the Abbot Middle School, 25 Depot Street, Westford.