Turner's Public Spirit, March 29, 1924
A look back in time to a century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. A baseball league made up of teams from the high schools of Ayer, Groton, Littleton, Westford, Pepperell and Lunenburg has been formed. The season will start the last of April and continue until the first week in June. Two games will be played with each of the out-of-town teams in the league.
Principal William Roudenbush attended a meeting of the schoolmasters’ association held at the Boston City club on last Saturday.
Miss Mary G. Currier and John Grant Hepburn, of Miami, Fla., were married on March 17 at the home of the bride’s parents in Lake City, Fla. After the wedding Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn left immediately for Miami, Fla., where they are to make their home. Mrs. Hepburn is the granddaughter of Wayland Balch of this town and her many friends wish her much happiness in her married life.
The Tadmuck club will hold an assembly in the town hall on Friday evening, April 11. The affair is an invitation party, and a five-piece orchestra from Lowell will furnish the music. Dancing will be from eight to twelve, and there will be novelties and refreshments.
Twins, a son [Clifford Sargent Johnson] and a daughter [Mildred Edna Johnson], were born to Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Johnson on March 24 [at Lowell General Hospital].
The reading circle of the Tadmuck club met with Mrs. William Roudenbush on Wednesday afternoon.
Mrs. George Walker has been spending a few days in Marblehead.
Hoyt Knight, of South Royalton, Vt., and Washington, D.C., has been a recent guest at the home of his father, Joseph E. Knight.
Miss Ella F. Hildreth, a well-known resident, was found dead at her home early Tuesday morning. Her sudden death will prove a great shock to her many friends. She was the daughter of the late Charles L. Hildreth, who for many years was superintendent of the Lowell Machine Shop, now known as the Saco-Lowell. Her father passed away about fifteen years ago [1909]; her only sister [died 1849] and mother [died 1889] passed away some years before that. Her nearest surviving relatives are six cousins, Charles W. Hildreth, of this town; Dr. John L. Hildreth, of Winchester; Mrs. Augusta Tenney [nee Hildreth], of New Ipswich, N.H.; Miss Elizabeth Hildreth, of New York; Mrs. I. E. Griffiths, of Rutherford, N.J., and Mrs. Ella Frost, of Colorado Springs, Colo. Miss Hildreth was a member of the Tadmuck club, Middlesex Woman’s club and Molly Varnum chapter, D.A.R., of Lowell, and the Boston Horticultural society.
William McQuarrie recently underwent an operation at a Lowell hospital, and at last reports was improving.
At the Congregational church on Sunday morning the pastor, Rev. Edward Disbrow, will take for his topic, “The power of small numbers.”
A meeting of the missionary society was held at the home of Mrs. John Felch on Monday afternoon.
Earl Stoddard, who has been at the Lowell Isolation hospital with the scarlet fever, has returned to the home of Mrs. Julian Whitney.
Master Roger Bosworth is showing improvement.
Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Sutherland and daughter Lillian were the guests of Concord relatives on last Sunday.
Seven members of the Auxiliary attended the county council meeting held in Ayer on last Saturday—Mrs. Edward Clements, Mrs. Frank Banister, Mrs. Joseph Wall, Mrs. J. B. Gray, Mrs. Charles McLean, Mrs. Norman Young and Mrs. H. E. Whiting. The next county meeting will be held in Lexington on April 26.
Frank C. Johnson was elected as finance officer of the local post of the American Legion at the meeting on Monday evening.
Charles Robey is still at the Lowell General hospital.
David L. Greig is improving nicely from the effects of his accident.
About Town. Walter Fletcher has had two mumps, and now he hasn’t any. One extreme follows another, whether it is mumps or the weather.
Thus early we send along the message: Governor Cox proclaims “Be kind to animals week” for observance from April 7 to April 12, to commemorate the founding of the first society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in London 100 years ago.
The board of selectmen have appointed Clifford Johnson to the extension work of the Farm Bureau in town.
The next meeting of the Grange will be held on Thursday evening of next week, when the third and fourth degrees will be conferred on a class of seven.
I have received a letter from our townsman Emery J. Whitney, dated Kissimmee, Fla., March 18. He says “I have just been reading in the Wardsman that I am ill with pneumonia. There is no truth in the item whatever.” Just how this story started I am unable to explain, as I was not the originator of it, but we will all back water on it.
Amos Polley, on the Morning Glory farm, has bought twenty bushels of seed potatoes for planting, which are ten bushels more than last year. Ditto the Old Oaken Bucket farm close adjoining. Both have the land ready and are only waiting for the Lord to say “yes” with the weather, and there will be a movement of dust, dirt and potatoes like unto a total eclipse of the sun. Both join in the advice to all who are not prepared to keep up in this precocious procession to get a move on.
White sea gulls were seen last Saturday flying over Stony Brook above Brookside. From the standpoint of nature preserving her balance and the variety of this balance that adds so much as an inspiring offset to our modern carnal materialism, it seems to some of us that the threatened weakening of this balance with a possibility of extermination is a low type of cruel and barbarous pleasure. If anyone thinks differently I will load up with guns of a heavier caliber if I have to borrow them from the writings of nature’s naturalist, John Burroughs.[1]
Mrs. Mark Jenkins returned home from California last week, where she has been spending the winter.
A flock of wild geese were seen on Sunday flying in the direction of Dr. Cook’s north pole.[2]
The next meeting of Middlesex North Pomona Grange will be held on Friday, April 4, in Odd Fellows’ hall, Bridge street, Lowell, observed as neighbors’ day, with Hillsborough County Pomona of New Hampshire as guests. Morning session, “The psychology of actions; when to bid and when not to bid,” from an auctioneer’s standpoint, Charles A. Wright, of Billerica, from a farmer’s standpoint, Elbridge Noyes, of Tyngsboro. Afternoon session in charge of the visitors. Evening session at 7:30 with the conferring of the fifth degrees and inspection by deputy.
It seems by well founded rumor that we were too previous at our annual town meeting and voted to hitch up the cart before the horse in that we voted to borrow $125,000 to build the new schoolhouse at Forge Village and addition to the Graniteville school before we received permission of the legislature to do so. As the result of this we have got to vote all over again at a special town meeting, and as the breezy March winds report conversations it will be as risky as skating on thin ice to get a two-thirds vote to borrow this money, unless the town votes to straighten up happenings since our annual town meeting. If they are not satisfactorily changed the Forge Village schoolhouse is likely to be doomed. Personally, it seems as if the Forge Village schoolhouse should be voted on its merits and perhaps it will when we come to have our pictures taken at the coming special.
Edward F. Dickinson, of Billerica, committee on farmers’ institutes for Middlesex-North and who has been spending the winter in Washington, D.C., and vicinity, has informed the Stony Brook correspondent [i.e., Samuel L. Taylor] that the next and last institute of the season will be held at the church in North Tewksbury on Wednesday, April 2. An interesting program has been arranged.
Presidential Candidates. The Man About Town names as a candidate Senator Ralston, of Indiana, for president on the democratic ticket. But something is wrong with Ralston. Does anyone know what it is? Well, now see here, brother, if you will not sprawl it all around so that it would get me into something worse than the Teapot Dome, I will tell you. I read within a few weeks in some paper in discussing the outs of the various democrat conditions of Ralston, it said “pro-German during the world war.”[3] Of course this evidence is a good deal like Roxie Stinson’s in the Daugherty investigation.[4] Now if you want one of the very best men to nominate for president name Governor [William Ellery] Sweet of Colorado; and I will back up this statement from the Congregationalist, a modern thinking, tolerant, sane, sensible, helpful, hopeful religious paper. Listen, brother, while I quote:
“Our people largely consider Mr. McAdoo out of the running; they think he got too much oil in his salad. One of the most interesting suggestions for a candidate for the democratic party was that made by William Hard in the Chicago Daily News. He claims that Col. House and other leading democrats are bringing forward Governor Sweet of Colorado. With Coolidge and Sweet running we should have as fine a race as a presidential election has ever offered. Mr. Hard says of Governor Sweet: ‘Sweet is a millionaire; he is also the favorite of the trades union and organized farmers of Colorado. He is rich and gets elected by the enthusiasm of those who are far from rich. Nevertheless, since he is a business man it is calculated that he will have the respect of the business part of the community. He is also ardent for the Young Men’s Christian Association. He goes to religious gatherings and makes uplifting speeches and also generous contributions. He is an earnest religious character and through long work on behalf of religious organizations on a nation-wide scale is believed to have a big hold on the church vote. He is also bone dry and was so when it was unpopular to be so and he is triumphantly bone dry now.’”
Church Notes. First church (Unitarian)—Sunday service at 4 p.m. Music: Lord’s prayer, Mason, and versicles, chants by chorus choir; “Come unto me,” Conte, Miss Eleanor Colburn, soprano. Preacher, Rev. Frank B. Crandall, the minister. Subject, “The ideals of Congregationalism.” Church school at 3.
The renovation of the vestry has made that part of the building to be in keeping with the church auditorium.
On Sunday the preacher will point out some of the great ideals that are bound up with the idea of congregational polity and worship.
Graniteville. A mad dog running through the streets here on Thursday of last week caused considerable excitement for a time. Officer William L. Wall was called upon, and with the assistance of Charles Dudevoir, soon rounded the animal up and put a bullet in him. Before this the dog had bitten Charles Benson on the hand, and the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas McCarthy. Both received medical treatment from Dr. Fabyan Packard. After the dog was shot, the head was sent to Boston for examination, where it was found that the animal was suffering from rabies. As a result, those who were bitten received special medical attention from Dr. Packard.
At the Lenten devotions held in St. Catherine’s church on Wednesday evening the services were conducted by the pastor, Rev. A. E. Malone. The sermon was preached by Rev. Fr. Sullivan, of Haverhill. The services were largely attended.
The motion picture, “The Passion Play, of the life of Christ,”[5] given under the auspices of the Epworth league of the Graniteville Methodist church, was presented to a large audience in Abbot hall, Forge Village, on Thursday evening.
A large collie dog owned by Joseph Walker attempted to cross the mill pond here about ten o’clock last Saturday morning, but fell through the thin ice and was unable to get out. His barking attracted the attention of John J. Payne and his brother Henry, who made a quick trip to the home of Armand Degagne, where they secured a boat. The young men were forced to break the ice almost to mid-stream, and finally succeeded in reaching the animal. The collie was hauled aboard and all hands made their way to shore in safety. The trip was a difficult one and was not without its danger, as the boat leaked badly, requiring constant bailing out. It looked for a time as though the whole party would take an involuntary bath in the cold water. Joe Walker, the owner of the dog, who had arrived on the scene in the meantime, quickly wrapped a big coat about the collie and administered first aid. The dog did not appear to suffer much from the experience.
The Abbot Worsted soccer club is expected to play Shawsheen in the semifinal for the state cup in Boston on Saturday.
George Arliss in “The green goddess,” with Alice Joyce, David Powell and Harry T. Morey, at the Strand, Ayer, March 31 and April 1.
[1] “John Burroughs (1837-1921) was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the conservation movement in the United States.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burroughs.
[2] “Frederick Albert Cook (1865-1940) was an American explorer, physician and ethnographer, who is most known for allegedly being the first to reach the North Pole on April 21, 1908. A competing claim was made a year later by Robert Peary, though both men’s accounts have since been fiercely disputed.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Cook.
[3] Samuel M. Ralston (1857-1925) “was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1922 and became popular among the national Democratic Party as an early front-runner for the presidential nomination in 1924, but he dropped out of the race because of his failing health, and died the next year.” His Wikipedia article makes no reference to him being pro-German during World War I. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_M._Ralston/
[4] Harry M. Daugherty, of Washington Court House, Ohio, helped orchestrate President Warren G. Harding’s nomination for the presidency at the Republican national convention in 1920. Harding appointed Daugherty as Attorney General of the United States on March 4, 1921. Jess Smith was a friend and influence peddler for Daugherty. In 1909 he had married 19-year-old Roxie Stinson, 16 years his junior, and they divorced in 1910 but remained friends. Daugherty’s tenure as Attorney General was rife with “allegations of shady deals with a bevy of unsavory characters. In poor health and depressed over his part in the scandals, Jess Smith died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 30, 1923.” In March 1924 Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana led a select committee to investigate Daugherty’s alleged malfeasance. Wheeler was told that Roxie Stinson had heard a lot about this through her husband’s relationship with Daugherty so she was the first witness called and began testifying March 12, 1924, five days before this issue of The Westford Wardsman was published. “Roxy gave eye-popping accounts of payoffs, secret meetings, the clandestine exchange of stock certificates, and suitcases of liquor that Smith brought back to Washington C.H. despite national prohibition. … She told her interrogators that Jess had been ‘the tool of a Kaiser-like man.’” For more on this story see https://www.recordherald.com/2018/04/03/looking-back-remembering-roxy-stinson/.
[5] This was probably “The Life of Christ” originally produced in 1908 by Pathe in three reels in color. It was expanded to seven reels in 1914, and in 1921, a modern prologue was added. See https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/a-brief-chronological-survey-of-some-of-the-major-movies-a-tv-programs-featuring-jesus.html.