Turner's Public Spirit, March 1, 1924
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. The officers for 1924 of the American Legion Auxiliary were installed on Monday evening. The installing officers were Mrs. Lizzie Nye, of Swampscott, vice president of the state department, assisted by Mrs. Hattie Mower, of Lynn, Essex county council executive officer. The newly-installed officers are as follows: Mrs. Martha G. Whiting, pres.; Mrs. Gladys D. Hildreth, vice pres.; Miss Marion Lord, sec.; Mrs. Edna Clements, treas.; Mrs. Margaret Banister, chap.; Miss Edith Spinner, sergt.-at-arms; Miss Lucinda Prescott, hist. The executive committee is composed of Mrs. Bertha Hildreth, Mrs. Joanna Cameron and Miss May Lord. During the evening an excellent supper was served in charge of Mrs. Josie Prescott, assisted by Mrs. Augusta Wilson, Mrs. Margaret Banister, Mrs. Bertha Whitney, Miss Lucinda Prescott and Mrs. May Young.
Miss Eleanor Youlden and Francis McCall, of Somerville, were weekend guests of Mr. and Mrs. Perley Wright and Mr. and Mrs. Perry Shupe.
The Legion dance on last week Friday evening was well attended. The Essex coach was awarded to Mr. Eaton, of Concord, the holder of the lucky number.
The oratorio society organized on last week Thursday evening, the officers being as follows: Warren Hanscom pres.; Mrs. Perry Shupe, sec. and treas. At the entertainment hour Mrs. Shupe was in charge.
At the Congregational church on Sunday morning Rev. Edward Disbrow will take for his sermon topic, “Cementing friendship,” and in the evening, “The golden mean.”
Harold Wright [age 10], son of Mr. and Mrs. Perley Wright, met with [a] painful accident on Wednesday, slipping from one of the swings while playing on the school ground, the board striking him on the head and inflicting a bad gash.
The school committee organized last week with the same officers as last year: W. R. Taylor, chairman; Mrs. Eva Wright, secretary. The attendance officers appointed were J. A. Healy, Graniteville; Everett Miller, John Sullivan, Forge Village; Charles Edwards, Brookside, and Willard Beebe, Graniteville. Dr. C. A. Blaney was appointed as school physician for the remainder of the school year. It is hoped that the parents will co-operate with the teachers in the matter of attendance. It will facilitate matters if the parents send a note explaining the absence of a child or sign any inquiry regarding the absence, which may be issued by the school department.
Mrs. Blanche Parsons and grandson, Master Lawrence Kluge, of Gloucester, have been recent guests of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Whiting.
The honor roll of the William E. Frost school for the last report was as follows: Grade 3, Albert and Helen Sedleski, Ethel Mann, Ada Nutting; grade 4, Cyril Blaney, William Wright, Howard Wright, Florence Gates, Ethel Bell, Ruth Mtteer [sic, Mateer], Richard Strong, Richard Wells, Evelyn Foster, Erliene Downing; grade 5, Inez Blaney, Wallace Downing, Harold Wright; grade 6, Varnum Swanson, Merl Foster, Evangeline Dureault, Harold O’Connell, Blanche Rockwell, William Carver, Dorothy Heywood, Donald Wright, Isabelle Zanchi; grade 8, Elizabeth Carver, Viola Day, Betty Prescott, Alexander Gorbunoff, Ruth Nelson, Ruth Nesmith, Angie Parfitt, Helena Desmond; grade 7, Greta Lundberg, Gladys Whitney, Alan Bell, Mildred Healy, Marion Day.
Mrs. H. W. B. Cotton, of Lexington, executive officer of Middlesex County Council, Ladies’ Auxiliary, A. L. [American Legion], was present in Ayer on Wednesday afternoon to give instruction to officers of the nearby units. Martha G. Whiting, Edna K. Clements and Margaret Banister were the officers from Westford who attended.
Miss Marjorie Seavey, of the Salem high school faculty, spent the weekend at her home here.
The County Farm Bureau held a motion picture show in the town hall on Monday evening which was largely attended.
The Village Improvement society held a meeting in the town hall on Thursday evening.
Mrs. [Mary J.] Roberts, mother of Mrs. Arthur Burnham [nee Addie M. Morse], passed away at the home of her daughter early last Saturday morning. Mrs. Roberts came to make her home with her daughter several years ago. Besides her daughter she is survived by several grandchildren. The funeral services on Monday were private. The remains were placed in the tomb at Fairview, the burial to be later in Vermont, where she formerly resided.
About Town. The third farmers’ institute of the season under the management of Middlesex-North Agricultural society, will be held next week Wednesday at the Grace Universalist church, Princeton street, Lowell, with forenoon, afternoon and evening sessions. The principal speaker will be James Tufts, Sr., dean of professors of Phillips academy, Exeter, and trustees of New Hampshire State college, who will address the gathering on the subject of “Interesting the boys in agriculture.” The afternoon will be taken up solely with the discussion of “Farm problems.” Other speakers will be Allister F. MacDougall, of Westford, managing director of the Middlesex County Extension Service, and Rev. Isaac Smith, pastor of Grace church. Evening session at 6:30 when a trio of entertainers from Boston will give an entertainment.
The Dramatic Reading Circle connected with the Tadmuck club will hold a meeting on Wednesday, March 5, in the J. V. Fletcher library at 2:30 o’clock. Zona Gale’s “[The] Neighbors,” and Harold Brighouse’s “Lonesome-like” [both being short plays] will be read and discussed. Anyone interested in the study of modern plays whether a member of the Tadmuck club or not will be cordially welcome. Be present with your sewing and listen, if you do not care to take part.
Miss Clara Endicott Sears’ recently published book, “Days of delusion,”[1] should be of interest to Westford citizens, since a number of anecdotes of the town are included in it.
Recently we read of the death in Lowell of Mrs. Luther E. Shepard [nee Louise C. Newhall]. She was the oldest living member of the Kirk street church. She was the widow of the late Luther E. Shepard so well known in Westford as the principal of Westford academy for several years [1854-1857] in its more elderly days when the academy building was located west of the common, since moved [in 1907] and re-arranged for a fire engine house. With others, I plainly recall Principal Shepard as he walked the streets with cane to assist him in his lame, club-footed impediment. He was a scholar and exacting disciplinarian. After leaving Westford he studied and practiced law. As he did not marry until after leaving this town, Mrs. Shepard was but little known here.
In the last two weeks many camps in the vicinity of Lake Nabnasset have been entered and much valuable property stolen. On last week Wednesday H. A. Fletcher caught Adolph Frisette as he was in the act of entering a camp and held him at the point of a gun until the arrival of Chief Whiting, who in spite of the storm and bad roads made a quick trip. Frissette [sic, Adolph Frizette of West Chelmsford in 1912 Chelmsford City Directory] was locked up, and in court on last week Thursday sent to Concord in violation of his parole. Mr. Fletcher has put in a lot of time and work on this case and has been ably backed up by Chief Whiting, who is without doubt the most efficient police officer the town has ever had.
Lieut. H[aines] H. Lippincott, A.M.S.T.B., chaplain of the United States navy, has been visiting at the home of I. [sic, F.?] A. Snow in West Chelmsford. During the world war he served as chaplain on a battleship [U.S.S. Iowa] and has since been kept as chaplain. He has a wonderful hold over young men. He was asked to give the opening address at Radio Station W.T.A.R. at its official opening on the night of December 18. His address on “Waves of wonder” has been printed in a booklet. In his address he spoke of the amateur station I.B.W. in Massachusetts which he operated in the old spark days. This refers to the amateur [radio] station which he made and operated at the home of Mrs. George Snow, West Chelmsford. It was one of the first in this section. He also referred to his own amateur station, 2O.H., which he owns and operates at Tuckerton, N.Y. [sic, N.J.] His address was very scholarly and showed a mastery of radio on his part. W.T.A.R. is the new broadcasting station of the Reliance Electric Co., at Norfolk, Va.
John A. Taylor of Ann Arbor, Mich., who is to conduct an excursion party to Europe, including the world war battlefields of France, was overseas with the Y.M.C.A. during the world war, so that some scenes in France will look familiar.
The Progressive Poultry club of Westford is planning to have a poultry exhibit in connection with the achievement program in the spring. Not only will the club members exhibit, but the townspeople will be asked to show their birds also. One of the local poultry men is to be the judge.
At the hearing before the county commissioners in Lowell last week Monday on the petition of W. R. Taylor and others of Westford for relocation and repairs on the Littleton road from Westford and Littleton town line to the Boston road, near the Amos Leighton farm and past the East Littleton railroad station, Arthur G. Hildreth of the board of selectmen and other not selected men spoke in favor of these improvements. It was stated that at the recent annual town meeting Westford appropriated $4000 for maintenance of state and county roads and would be willing to toss in $1000 of this on this road. There being no remonstrants the commissioners and selectmen went to studying geography and finances. The town being willing and the county being willing to have them study, we are expecting to hear them recite their lesson there sometime during the coming season.
The pussy willows have begun to push a puss and soon the frogs will begin to whistle a peep; then the weather will begin to spring a spring and then we shall all be happy until the mosquitoes begin to sing a song for which they never have received an encore. They certainly are not easily discouraged for they have been singing concerts 6000 years, according to bible arithmetic and several millions of years according to the other fellow’s arithmetic. By either figuring don’t they have gall to sing to us so many years without having even an original invitation?
- Arthur O’Brien is hauling logs for John J. Dunn, of West Chelmsford, to the David L. Greig lot, where Oscar R. Spalding will set up a portable sawmill in April.
The next meeting of the Grange will be held on Thursday evening, March 6—agricultural night; speaker to be announced.
The next meeting of Middlesex-North Pomona Grange will be held on Friday evening, March 7, in Odd Fellows’ hall, Bridge street, Lowell. Morning session, discussion, “Does money spent in beautifying the farm and village property pay a dividend in dollars and cents?” “Should profit be reckoned in anything but cash?” Dinner served by Westford Grange. Afternoon session, illustrated lecture on “California,” by Rev. Percy E. Thomas. This program is up to date in everything. Let us find out by the discussion of these questions if we are not playing the game of life altogether too much in the role of a Teapot Dome business, a too lop-sided money affair, in which the highest ideals of mind and spirit are buried by the rubbish of the wreckage.
The highest point that the weather has ventured to ascend for the last two weeks without having a dizzy spell and falling down was 40 above at sunset last Sunday at the Old Oaken Bucket farm. May sunset continue if that’s what’s the matter with the thermometer.
First church (Unitarian)—Sunday service at 4 p.m. Music, Versicles and Lord’s prayer chanted by chorus choir; “Ora Pro Nobis”, [by] Piccolomini, Miss Eleanor Colburn [soprano]. Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister. Subject, “Not good if detached.” Church school at 3.
Library Notes. Those book lovers who read and enjoyed “Vanity Fair” will want to follow the series of Thackeray letters now being published in Harper’s magazine. These were written during the years of 1854-1862 and “reveal the affectionate nature of the man and his tender solicitude for his daughters, as well as the greatness of the novelist. One passage in particular telling of the completion of ‘The Newcomes,’ is of memorable beauty and significance.”
Mrs. Margaret Deland’s new novel “The Eliots’ Katy,” is now appearing in serial from in the same magazine.
Some of the new books recently added to the library are the following: “Best short stories of 1923,” O’Brien; “The midlander,” Tarkington; “Paul Revere and his famous ride,” Farrington; “Snow and ice sports,” Jessup; “Life and letters of John Fiske,” Clark; “Letters of Richard Watson Gilder,”; “Social life in ancient Egypt,” Petrie; “Barnum” (the circus man), Wermer; “Challenge of youth,” Stearns, and “The rover,” Conrad.
Humane Scraping. I read with public interest under Groton news the article entitled “Hard sledding.” This article cannot be silenced by quoting the familiar principle, “The greatest good of the greatest number.” This principle is only proper and just to quote and apply when there is no other way out without an unwarranted expense. Of course it is evident that transportation on runners in the snow season, whether it is logs, lettuce, hay or hayseed in the limelight of school children is but a very small percentage of the travel compared with the automobile travel. Now if there was no way to reasonably divide this trouble up then we would have to apply the old adage, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and so, as wheel travel being such an excess over runner travel, it would be proper to scrape the roads to suit the automobile travel. But there is a way to compromise this up in the role of give and take.
First, there is no need of scraping the roads clear to the ground. Compromise by leaving four inches of snow. Oh, I know what you are going to say, “Can’t carry so heavy a load on the truck; can’t travel so fast with the automobile.” But you have not added anything to my knowledge by tossing out your own, but is the winter season such a rush season with you that where you have been in the habit of carrying two tons, you cannot get along if you do not carry but 1999 pounds and 15 ounces, and make another load of the rest? Are you not willing to contribute a little snow to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to relieve the dumb horse when it comes from unscraped back roads and lands with a big load on runners at the main road scraped so bare that there isn’t any more snow on it than in southern Florida? Must the animate horse that suffers pain bear the entire burden of a ton becoming two when the runners strike this snowless road? Is it not in the line of humaneness to animals that your inanimate engine that is not susceptible to pain should divide part of this burden by hauling its load through a little more snow?
The second objection, “Can’t travel so fast with the automobile.” Well, that’s an unanswerable argument in favor of leaving more snow on the roads. That’s just it, and it is what we are after, for no law or emergency brakes have yet been devised to prevent the dangerous mile-a-minute speed. If we can do it with snow, how happy everybody ought to be except the undertaker; it would interfere with his weekly business quite a little.
I have two specimens of snow-scraping before my ears and eyes as I am writing this. The Lowell road and the Stony Brook road which interangle [sic] sometimes and sometimes they right angle just as you happen to feel about it. The Lowell road is scraped down to the dust vein and you know what one “het-up” day will do it. The Stony Brook road is scraped so that the auto truck or truckless auto, or the logging sled, can easily travel over it, and they are doing it, and one day of zero sunshine weather will not start the dust blowing, for there are six inches of snow before you arrive at dust.
Personally I have no interest in the matter except public welfare. I am shooting this, brothers, for I am four-thirds woodchuck in the winter time and [have] no use for runners or wheels in the winter time but when spring arrives stand out from under, for I shall have neither time nor disposition to apologize for results. This warning I recently received from a nearby neighbor and he asked me to pass it along. So you can insure or not.
Death of Former Resident. Word has recently been received in town of the death of Augustus A. Wright at Tacoma, Wash., aged seventy years. He was the youngest of eight children of Benjamin L. and Elizabeth Wright and was born in Westford in 1854. The Benjamin Wright house was on the Groton road, the first house west of the Erastus Wright place, and now owned by Willard T. Reed. Augustus Wright went to California in the early days of the gold rush[2] and later on he joined the vast number which thronged to Alaska during the Klondike days. He was also a pioneer of Seattle and a well known lodge member, being a charter member of the I.O.O.F., and a member of the W.O.W. [probably Woodmen of the World] of Centralia. He had lived in Tacoma three years. He is survived by a sister, Mrs. M. E. Sherwin, of Keene, N.H.; a niece, Mrs. G. W. Bean, of South Tacoma, and a sister-in-law, Mrs. C. M. Childs. Of his father’s family I can recall but one, Morton G. Wright, [a brother of Augustus A.] who saw service in the civil war, having enlisted from this town on April 22, 1861, in Company C, 16th Regiment, and was promoted to corporal.
As the Benjamin Wright family evidently moved from town at an early date it may help to bring to the mind of the older residents who Augustus A. Wright was, as related to a few of the other well-known Wright families of Westford as uncle and cousin to him, the Erastus Wright family on the Groton road, Horatio Wright family, formerly living where Horace E. Gould now lives and less closely related, the Capt. Timothy Prescott Wright family, formerly of Forge Village. In closing I will add that the Wright schoolhouse on the Groton road was named for the northern Wright families, who once flourished in the north part of Westford.
Modern and Ancient. The Literary Digest for January 12 published an article which has put the entire Sunday school on edge. It is entitled “Two-cent Sunday school and the results,” and contains extracts from a survey conducted by Prof. Walter S. Ahearn, chairman of the committee on education of the Sunday School Council and International Sunday School association. Referring to the survey which required four years of hard work, Prof. Ahearn says:
“When the institute found that more than $4,000,000,000 worth of property is stolen every year in the United States, that 15,000 murders and homicides occur in the same time, that it costs the government more than $600,000 a year to guard the mail sacks on railroad trains, that juvenile delinquency is mounting at an alarming rate and other similar facts, it felt that the time was ripe for an inquiry into the apparent failure of the home and church to inculcate adequate standards of moral integrity.”
Now while it is too bad that it is too true, that probably too much of our Sunday school teaching is lugged from too far back of an ancient rear distance and, worse yet, it is not interpreted in terms of modern thought and language. Yet for all this, what has been taught is not so much responsible for our modern ills as what has failed to be taught and let us not be too eagerly willing to throw all the cause of this modern [crime] onto the defects of church and Sunday school while still holding that a little more up-to-date modern interpretation and application of ancient stories united with some modern Teapot Dome in place of too much of the ancient story of Jonah and the whale, which is true and useful [if] modernized would do much to help us shed our modern coat of sin and prevent us growing another one. But then, what can we expect if we find ourselves growing good so fast that we have voted ourselves empty jails and parole, patrol probation sentences.
Probation Officer Ramsey of Lowell will be with us at the First Parish church on Sunday evening, March 9. He is an advocate of probation and the author of “One chance more.” He has kindly sent me a copy. But watch your watermelons and peaches just the same.
“Fine” Trapping. The trial of Charles E. Wacome, of Lowell, in the district court in Ayer last week for violation of the law relating to setting traps, recalls the why for the law. As I recall it now the law was enacted in 1913. The petition for the law was headed by Mr. Pilman, of Ayer, who I think is the owner of the fox reservations in Harvard. The petition was referred to the committee on fish and game for a hearing. The hearing developed that much cruelty developed in this unrestricted trap-setting that valuable dogs had been caught in traps in below zero weather and remained in the traps more than a week, to be tortured to death by frozen starvation. Some of this happened in the vicinity of Ayer as well as other parts of the state. Such was the extreme cruelty of this unrestricted trap-setting that the committee reported a bill so drastic that the house repudiated it and recommended the bill and reported the bill that was exemplified in the district court in Ayer last week, and it would seem that a fine of $130 was drastic enough to prevent responding to an encore by this trapper or any other trapper.
In this connection I will add that a trapper from Lowell has called at the Old Oaken Bucket farm several times this winter. On the Stony Brook that runs through the Old Oaken Bucket farm traps were set without the owner’s name marked on them. The last time he called, about three weeks ago, he said, “Someone is stealing my traps.” Asked where he was setting his traps, he replied “Graniteville,” and then I asked him what kind of game he was trapping, he replied “Otter.” I do not wish to be understood as hinting that he was the man who was fined in Ayer last week, for we have got one Vanderlip[3] coming to trial in the United States for the too free use of his tongue, and do not want another one until we see how he comes out. The individual I refer to had the marks of an honorable person, as I sold him apples on three different occasions as he expressed his satisfaction and delight at the apples and price. This is not to be construed as an advertisement, for I am sold out. What remains will be given out to choice friends.
Critics Criticized. I was glad to hear from V.T.E. again. I have been so busy and monopolized more than my share of the paper that I couldn’t find space or time to attend to the case of V.T.E. His last fire at the critics of President Wilson I should have been tempted to have made a most saucy and stinging reply, which would have made the hair of V.T.E. too short to stand up endways. But Mr. Wilson has passed into final audit and it is not showing a proper respect towards the unanswerable departed to enter into a newspaper discussion of why his public acts caused him to have such a large number of severe critics.
I will just say in passing that ex-President Wilson was a brilliant personality in many ways, and never have we had a president who got so much that he asked for and fulfilling in a political way the words of old, “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.” [Matthew 7:7 and Luke 11:9] But this brilliant life was clearly counter-balanced by an excess bump of ego that was handed to him from heredity and which the presidency augmented with increased momentum. This ego was most plainly visible when he crossed the ocean to run the world, including the United States, and Vice President Marshall was not even allowed to play second fiddle while President Wilson was in Europe. To this ego he owed the defeat of his league of nations. No compromises; I am it; the only it that will be tolerated. In view of this and these, and more, there is far more justification for his having critics than for the critics being criticized after the V.T.E. roll of honor.
There were two extreme views of Wilson. One view got clear into the point of hatred, so that figuratively speaking, they could say, “He can do no good,” and his silly, worshipped idolaters could say, “He can do no wrong.”
Of Historical Interest. In looking over some old papers and books I came across a book called “The biennial register of the officers and agents in the service of the United States.” It is dated September, 1837. Among them were names of many who afterward were prominent in the affairs of our country as well as many of a local character whose descendants, if any are living, may be interested.
Martin Van Buren was president.
Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, was at the head of the treasury department.
Samuel Swartout was collector at the port of New York. Under his administration, a defalcation [misuse or misappropriate of funds, either by fraud or unintentionally] of a large sum of money was discovered that stirred the country as bad as the Teapot Dome does now.
Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, was secretary of war.
Winfield Scott was brigadier general, afterward head of the army at the outbreak of the civil war.
General Robert E. Lee was first lieutenant.
General Braxton Bragg was second lieutenant.
General Jubal A. Early was second lieutenant, of the confederate army.
General P. G. T. Beauregard, who commanded the rebels that fired on Fort Sumter, was a cadet at West Point.
Zachariah Taylor was colonel of the First Regiment of Infantry, afterward elected president of the United States.
Among the union officers either holding a commission or a cadet at West Point were General William T. Sherman, General John Sedgwick, General Henry W. Halleck, General Phil Kearney, General McDowell, General Buell, General Keyes and many others. In the navy was Joel Abbot, of Westford, a lieutenant, afterwards commander of the navy yard in Charlestown; Admiral David G. Farragut, Commodores Wilkes and Foote. In the senate were Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts; Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, afterwards president; John C. Calhoun of South Carolina; James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, afterwards president; Henry Clay, of Kentucky; Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. James K. Polk was speaker of the house afterwards president.
Among the representatives from Massachusetts were John Quincy Adams, Caleb Cushing and George N. Briggs, afterward governor [of Massachusetts 1844-1851]. Sherman D. Fletcher, of Westford, was a messenger in the house of representatives at a salary of $2.50 per day. Roger B. Taney was chief justice of the supreme court. Amos Kendall, born in Dunstable, was postmaster-general.
The following were the list of postmasters in this locality with the annual compensation:
Acton, Silas Jones $51.89
Bedford, J. A. Merriam 56.39
Billerica, Marshall Preston 91.96
Boxborough, Lyman Bigelow 20.76
Carlisle, J. V. Heald 20.26
Chelmsford, Joel Adams 65.97
Concord, John Keyes 243.05
Dunstable, J. Cummings, Jr. 30.69
Forge Village, Luther Prescott 10.68
Groton, Caleb Butler 211.18
Harvard, J. P. Whitcomb 103.15
Littleton, Jonathan Hartwell 68.41
Lunenburg, Asa Whiting 68.57
North Chelmsford, Benjamin Adams 76.02
Pepperell, Andrew Emerson 123.06
Shirley, Thomas Whitney 42.98
Tewksbury, Jacob Coggen, H. E. Preston 23.76
Townsend, Joseph Adams, Jr. 97.37
Townsend Harbor, Paul Gerrish 12.26
Tyngsboro, Daniel Richardson 50.92
Westford, John W. P. Abbot 66.63
New Hampshire
Brookline, David Harris $16.63
Hollis, William Butterfield 51.34
Mason, Willis Johnson 25.41
Mason Village, George Elliot 42.30
Nashua, John M. Hunt 336.76
New Ipswich, Sampson Fletcher 225.83
- H. F. [Sherman H. Fletcher]
Graniteville. The Abbot Worsted soccer team showed the results of careful training by defeating the Fore River team of Quincy in an American cup game on Saturday, 2 to 0, and putting the kibosh on the Pacific Mills team of Lawrence in a league game, Sunday, 7 to 0. The Abbots by beating Fore River on Saturday will now meet Fall River in the semifinal of the American cup series. Where the game will be played is a question. Pawtucket, R.I., Quincy and Shawsheen would like to land it, and Pawtucket looks like the most logical place.
Mr. and Mrs. F. Russell Furbush, who have been spending the past few weeks at Palm Beach, Fla., are expected to return home in a few days.
Mr. and Mrs. Fred M. Defoe of West Boylston with their little daughter Evelyn have been recent visitors here.
Death. Mrs. Marianna LeDuc, wife of Henry E. LeDuc, died Saturday at her home, after a brief illness, aged 28 years. Her death has caused sincere regret among her many friends throughout this community. She leaves, besides her husband, four children, Claire, Henry, Caroline and an infant son; her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred LeCroix, and five sisters, Mrs. Joseph Cote, the Misses Laura, Helen and Florence LeCroix, all of Graniteville, and Mrs. Charles St. Lawrence of Nashua, N.H., and a brother, Henry LeCroix, also of Graniteville.
The funeral of Mrs. Marianna LeDuc took place from her home in Third street, this village, on Tuesday morning at 8:30 o’clock. At nine o’clock a funeral mass was celebrated in St. Catherine’s church by the pastor, Rev. A. S. Malone. The choir, under the direction of Miss Mary F. Hanley, sung [sic] the Gregorian chant. There were many floral offerings and spiritual bouquets. The bearers were G. P. LeDuc, F. J. LeDuc, J. Omer LeDuc, James H. Payne, Joseph Cote and Charles St. Lawrence. Burial took place in St. Catherine’s cemetery.
[1] The full title of Mrs. Sears’ book is Days of Delusion: A Strange Bit of History. It is about the great religious excitement of 1843, the year that William Miller predicted the end of the world and contains an interesting account of what happened in Westford that not-so-fateful night. Mrs. Sears book can be read online at: https://books.google.com/books/about/Days_of_Delusion.html?id=7UhCAAAAIAAJ.
[2] The California gold rush started in 1849. Since Augustus Wright was born in 1854 he could not have gone “to California in the early days of the gold rush.” The Klondike Gold Rush in northwestern Canada took place in 1896-1899.
[3] “Frank Arthur Vanderlip Sr. (1864-1937) was an American banker and journalist. He was president of the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank) from 1909 to 1919, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1897 to 1901. Vanderlip is known for his part in founding the Federal Reserve System and for founding the first Montessori school in the United States, the Scarborough School and the group of communities in Palos Verdes, California. … During the Teapot Dome Scandal hearings in 1924, Vanderlip testified about what he believed to be a scandal during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Because he spoke out vigorously in defense of the public’s right to know about various issues, Vanderlip was forced to resign from the boards of directors of almost 40 companies. He subsequently led a quieter life at his homes in New York and California.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_A._Vanderlip.