Turner's Public Spirit, September 1, 1923
A look back in time to century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. Cards are out announcing the engagement of Miss Mildred Alberta Upton, of Lowell, and Frank Clifford Johnson, of this town.
Harold W. Kittredge, of Atlantic City, N.J., has been a recent guest of Mr. and Mrs. J. Edward Clement.
Mrs. B. C. Coffin and Mrs. L. G. Weston, of Newburyport, and Mrs. William Lacey and young son, of Lowell, were guests of Mrs. Harry E. Whiting on Thursday of last week.
An auction of household goods was held at the home of Charles O. Prescott on Wednesday of last week. Mr. Prescott, who has sold his house and is removing from town, will take up his residence with his brother Albert in Boston.
Miss Eleanor Fletcher and aunt, Miss Ida Leighton, moved back to town this week from Chelmsford.
A daughter [Arlene Esther Smith] was born to Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Smith, of Chelmsford, at the Lowell General hospital last week [Aug. 22, 1923]. Mrs. Smith was formerly Miss Edna Day.
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph E. Knight have returned from a month’s visit to New Hampshire and Vermont relatives. On Tuesday Mr. Knight celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday in Brownsville, Vt., by a family gathering, forty-three being in attendance. An outdoor party had been planned, but owing to the weather it was necessary to hold it in the Grange hall. The dinner was served by the Ladies’ Aid and a general good time was enjoyed by all present. A large birthday cake, beautifully decorated with eighty-five candles, was one of the features of the occasion. Mr. Knight was the recipient of a purse of money besides a number of other gifts and many birthday cards from friends and relatives, who wish him many more such happy observances.
A daughter [sic, son William Socorelis] was born to Mr. and Mrs. William Socorelis at the Lowell General hospital on last Sunday [Aug. 26, 1923].
A corn roast was held at Keyes’ pond on Wednesday evening under the auspices of the Legion and Auxiliary.
Schools will reopen on Wednesday, September 5, instead of on Tuesday, as reported in last week’s issue.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Whittredge and Mr. and Mrs. George Gramer, of Dorchester, were Sunday guests of Dr. and Mrs. C. A. Blaney.
The W.C.T.U. held an outdoor party on the lawn of Mrs. George Walker on Wednesday evening, which proved a very successful affair.
A number of the pupils and their parents and friends tendered a farewell party to Charles Carter, former principal of the William E. Frost school, and Mrs. Carter, on Tuesday evening at the town hall. During the evening Mr. and Mrs. Carter were presented with a check, and Mr. [torn paper, line missing] success in his new position in Bristol, R.I. Miss Pauline Larson, of last year’s teaching force at the William E. Frost school, has also accepted a position in the same place.
Mr. Campbell and family have taken occupancy of the flat over the J. Herbert Fletcher store. Mr. Campbell is employed as chauffeur by Edward M. Abbot.
The small house on the Groton road owned by Wsladyslaw Naliwacko was visited by the police last week Friday afternoon and all the equipment used in making liquor, together with a quantity of mash and distilled liquor, were seized. The owner was also arrested on a charge of drunkenness and was fined $10 in the district court in Ayer last Saturday morning. He will answer to the former charge in the near future.
About Town. We were all glad to see in last week’s issue the program for the 250th anniversary of the settlement of the town of Dunstable, and I wish to add a few lines that will interest Westford people and the towns in this vicinity in general. Let us all remember the date, September 6, if we have to forget all the rest of the program to remember the date. The address of welcome is to be given by Rev. Henry A. Parkhurst, a native of this town, recalling the fact that he is a graduate of Westford academy, graduating in the class with some of the Old Oaken Bucket farm children. At present he is the minister of the Universalist church in Woodsville, N.H., and we attended his church when visiting there late last autumn. Col. Arthur D. Butterfield, toastmaster of the day, is also a graduate of Westford academy, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dexter Butterfield, of Dunstable, so well and favorably known in this town. Rev. C. Guy Robbins, who is the orator of the day, is at present minister of the Universalist church in Lawrence and is an eloquent speaker.
When I read that the Groton fair is to be held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, September 27, 28 and 29, I was glad that it was to be held three days, but just a little sadly disappointed that it is being held so late in the season, on account of keeping fall apples and other fruit quite so late in this premature ripening season and liability of cool weather, but perhaps it will be unable to beat August at that. Of course eight-cent [sic] wheat and horse racing will keep all right and the social features of the gathering will also keep. At any rate, if snowdrifts do not prevent we are going to be present with our wheat and pumpkins.
Mr. and Mrs. Carlos D. Cushing of Framingham, are spending a week at the W. R. Taylor residence while they are at York Beach.
The weather dropped to 38° on last Saturday at the Old Oaken Bucket farm, which warns us that it will not be long before we have skating and drowning.
The Sandy pond school reunion in Ayer on last Saturday was just one jolly ratification reunion of those who got flogged at the Sandy pond school and other schools, and those who didn’t. Whether they did or didn’t were in a majority I could not tell by physical appearances. I was pleased to congratulate our aged friend and model citizen, Oliver K. Pierce, now in his eighty-eighth year. I selected him as one of the model scholars in behavior at the Sandy pond school.
Miss Dunn of Brookside, who lives at the hub of the village, has rented half of her house to be opened as a variety store. I have not as yet learned the name of the proprietor.
The thunder-lightning shower last Saturday afternoon rained rain and rained hail in the Stony Brook valley, but no damage resulted. In the Nutting’s lake region of Billerica much damage was done to crops by the hail and wind. The hail came in sufficient quantities to enable it possible to make several freezers of ice cream. The rain came in such torrents as to wash the roads and flood the floor of the dance hall at the lake, and South Billerica farmers were badly hit, the wind tearing out tomato vines by the roots and the hail stripping them to fragments, and squash and cucumbers were so badly mutilated as to make them unsaleable.
William A. Wright has sold his small farm on the Boston road known as the Charles Reed place, to Mr. Gates, of New Haven, Conn. Mr. Wright has moved to North Chelmsford, where he has bought a small place.
Miss Luanna B. Decatur is home for a vacation from her school in New Rochelle, N.Y.
Axel G. Lundberg, of Brookside, is suffering from a serious case of blood poisoning in his hand.
The next meeting of Middlesex-North Pomona Grange will be held on Friday, September 7, in Odd Fellows’ hall, Bridge street, Lowell. In the morning session there will be community singing, roll call, vacation experiences, a paper on “Middlesex county beauty spots” by Mrs. Philistia Flint of Tyngsboro; topic for discussion, “Which is the greater menace, the fly or the rat?” Dinner served by Chelmsford Grange. Afternoon session at two o’clock, speaker, Victor F. Jewett, of Lowell, representative for so many years in the legislature; miscellaneous program in charge of the lecturer of Chelmsford Grange.
The monthly meeting of the Village Improvement association on last week Thursday evening was not large except in intentions. Capt. Sherman H. Fletcher and H. V. Hildreth were chosen a committee to consider the question of a tablet for Joseph Underwood, who was prominent in the First Parish church and in town affairs as far back as 1724, or five years before the incorporation of the town, and who owned several hundred acres of land near the center of the town, including the common, which is being raised to the degree of a beauty spot by ploughing, reseeding, gravel walks, flowers and shrubbery. This committee will report at the next meeting of the expense, inscription and where to erect the tablet, and it is up to the association to amend this report, accept or reject it. President Frank C. Wright presided and Alfred Tuttle acted as secretary.
The next meeting of the Grange will be held on Thursday evening, September 6. The lecturer’s program is to be announced.
That long-promised visit of the Royal family and Teachers Nos. 1 and 2 of Harvard to their kindergarten scholar at the Old Oaken Bucket farm was fulfilled Sunday afternoon and Preacher No. 3, he of the excess gray function of the brain, could not come, yet on the whole I was glad that he did not, for the kindergarten scholar was sent to the ropes in facing too much his superiors as it was and to add disadvantage to disadvantage his seconds who had trained him in shadow thinking and had planned to act as prompters were all at York Beach. Through the kindness of Teacher No. 1 he has laid plans or traps to have teacher and preacher face the scholar in the ring alone. Those present were Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Savage, Sr., Mrs. Royal, who has ancient history stored up to uncage to any appreciative inquiry; Miss Martha Kimball, of Littleton, who acted as referee and prompter for the kindergarten scholar in his mental shadow boxing in the absence of his trainers, and Mr. Hutcherson, of Harvard, the driver of the stage coach.
Matthew F. Downs, the proprietor of Ye Old Brick Tavern [266 Groton Road] at the intersection of Groton and Dunstable roads [paper torn, line missing] ninety-eight years old. [Mr. Downs was born Aug. 28, 1825, in S. Vassalboro, Maine.]
- L. [American Legion] Auxiliary dance Littleton town hall Sept. 1, Leo Hannon’s orchestra.
Fruit-Growers Make a Tour. The Nashoba Fruit Producers’ association conducted a day’s auto tour on Tuesday with visits to seven fruit-growing farms. They met at the fruit farm of Charles R. Cadman [present site of Abbot Middle School], of this town, where the gathering made its first inspection. The Drew-Read farm [164 Main St.] was the next listed for a visit; then the Anderson demonstration orchard, Pepperell, where notes were taken of the damage done by partridges budding the apple trees; next, Brookdale Fruit farm of C. E. Hardy & Son, Hollis, N.H. Luncheon was served at the Anderson demonstration farm in Pepperell.
I am sorry that I was too busy threshing eighty-cent wheat to take this educational pleasure trip, if for no other reason than to take notes of the damage done by the partridges budding the trees, for I have not seen any evidence yet to change my opinion that for the damage done (if any, which is doubtful), there is a louder wailing than the grasshopper plague, frost, drought, flood and famine or eighty-cent wheat. If there is any serious reduction of the apple crop caused by partridges the Boston market has not found it out. Besides, hasn’t Nashoba hinted at reducing the quantity of apples and so joined the rest of the holy tribe who want to force food up along the line? If so, the partridge is your cheapest laborer. But extermination is the word sent down the line of thoughtless, cruel methods and we have made a success and a mess of exterminating thirteen species of birds and sixteen more are fast traveling the same road. So testifies John Burroughs, the naturalist, and when we get rid of them all we shall be so over-run with pests that we shall all have to go to farming in the cemeteries or elsewhere, or else science is a fake prophet.
If a few partridges survive annihilation and increase there will be something done in budding trees worth reporting. Someone says that there would not be any reporter if the pests had us all in the cemetery. This is not to be construed as an attack on the Nashoba Fruit Growers’ association, for I believe that it is a splendid cooperative, helpful, healthy organization, and if I can raise money enough from a glutted apple market, even after the partridges have done their best to decrease the crop to a paying basis, why I may apply for membership in the association, but would expect to be black-balled for my attitude on the partridge budding question, and I should be so proud of such a vote that I would frame it and hang it up for the grandchildren to look at.
Nashoba is all right in being on the track of cooperative fruit farming and an effort should be made to increase the consumption of fruit. Cooperative agitation of this whole question by Nashoba by way of lectures in city and town would help the cause along. But for all this I am for the birds, flowers, forests, mountains, valley and trout stream for preservation, with a few harmless disturbances and for a larger fruit diet for the laboring class.
Library Notes. The J. V. Fletcher library gives the opportunity to all to learn more about our new president by reading a collection of speeches and messages “Have faith in Massachusetts,” by Calvin Coolidge, published when he was governor.
Miss May E. Day will attend the fall meeting of the Massachusetts Library club September 3-8. This meeting will be held at Silver Bay, Lake George, N.Y., by invitation of the New York Library association, which meets at the same time. Miss Alice M. Howard will have charge of the library during her absence.
Arabia and Syria is the subject of the third set of pictures from the Library Art club. These pictures have proved of interest to those who have seen them and it is hoped that many more will avail themselves of the privilege. These pictures will remain until September 17.
Graniteville. The Abbots defeated Fall River in a Massachusetts Twilight league game here on Tuesday evening by a score of 7 to 4. Davidson and Shea did the battery work for the Abbots and Marks and Lacaillade for Fall River. This Saturday the Abbots will close the league season here when they will meet the Fall River club in a double-header. The first game will start at two o’clock. Harper, formerly of the Boston and New York American league teams, and Gero, formerly of the Worcester Eastern league team, will do the pitching for Fall River. Al Davidson and “Lefty” Purvere will pitch for the Abbots.
The public schools will open for the fall term on Wednesday, September 5.
Mrs. E. C. Irving, of Boston, is visiting relatives here.
Chandler Perry has recently returned from the Lowell General hospital after having his tonsils removed.
Mrs. J. Ellsworth York, with her daughter Bernice, are visiting with friends in Southbridge. Miss Iona Farron, of Southbridge, is stopping at the York home here.
There will be no services held in the Methodist church on Sunday evening, as many of the parishioners will attend the Epworth league services to be held in Sterling on that evening.
Henry Harrington and Richard Healy, of this village; Thomas Dunn, of New York; Henry O’Brien, of Lowell, and Harold Horan, of Charlestown, have recently returned from a very enjoyable auto trip spent at Old Orchard [Beach], Me.
The Abbot Worsted soccer team will play its first home game at Forge Village this Saturday with the General Electrics of Lynn for their opponents.
- R. Taylor, of the Abbot Worsted Company office in Graniteville, with Mrs. Taylor, are enjoying a brief vacation at the various beaches along the North Shore.
Over Production? An organized effort is being contemplated to reduce the acreage of winter wheat and thus force the price up. If this works, then comes milk, potatoes, apples and poultry for decreased production and higher prices. “Not quite so hot, my little fellows, not quite so hot,” while there is such a thing in name (never in reality) as over production, there is also such a condition as under consumption. To quote from the Rural New Yorker: “There can be no such thing as over production so long as people do not have enough food to eat. It is a matter of distribution.” There never has been in the history of civilization nor likely to be any such condition of over production. We call it such because it looks so on the surface, but evidence points to under consumption and a wasteful and expensive system of distribution.
When some of our mills in Lowell closed down as the result of a strike last autumn several of the mills were glad of an excuse to shut down. Listen, “The goods which we manufacture, overalls and jackets for farmers, [who] are so poor that they can’t afford to buy them.” It looks on the surface like over production, and so it is, considering the inability to purchase, but the inability to purchase is what needs the doctor, and the remedy is not a reduced acreage, but greater consumption, and above all a more honest and less expensive method of getting food to the consumer’s mouth, for right now, while the western farmers are starving to death because of so-called over production of wheat, wheat grains of all kinds took a rise last week. It is like what we cited some time ago, 15,000,000 people suddenly refrain from eating meat during the Lenten season, but meat remains at the same old expensive heights. Sugar goes to twenty-five cents a pound in a year when there is an enormous world crop. Pears sell for thirty cents per bushel and retail for ten cents each and here is something right up to date and on your door mat, in a recent conversation. “I am paying twenty-five cents for three pounds of apples in Boston at the present time.” As per his description of the apples the Old Oaken Bucket farm is getting returns for such apples 1 1/24 cents per pound, with expenses taken out of it, as against [illegible] cents per pound as per consuming purchase.
It is clearly evident that our trouble is not over production, and the remedy is not decreased production. Personally I will be no party to forcing the laboring man’s food up. As long as he remains temperate and industrious I shall continue to take off my hat to him and continue to respect the dirt of toil on his hands and face which is his honest trademark.
New England is suffering today in manufacturing because of under production of New England farmers and manufacturing is tending west and south to cheaper food, help and land. Yes, it is to reduce the acreage all along the line and force food to such an abnormal height that the laboring man will have to pay so much for his food which he cannot possible do without that he will save no money to buy clothes, shoes, hat or handkerchief, and this will tend to close down manufacturing and add still more to our troubles and follies by throwing the laborer out of work and then what shall we all do with our reduced nonsense? The first move he will make will be to shut off his milk altogether and so add to the flooding of the present so-called over production so much so that one farmer lays out the crisis thus, “The farmers have got to the point where they must either go out of the milk business or go into bankruptcy.” Nonsense, a thousand times nonsense, any such statement. It is the chorus that the dairy farmers have joined in ever since the first cow in America was milked, and the ascension of the Millerites, it has not arrived here yet.
Now unless statistics and doctors are all liars, there is a universal under consumption of milk, and for health’s sake we ought to consume at least one quart a day per individual. Do we? Well, no, not quite that; if we did there would be no such thing as over production, past, present, future or to come. Well, because of under consumption there is a large surplus; and why is there a surplus? There now, you have asked the vital question that is at the bottom of all this whole question of over production and under consumption of farm produce. When it costs more to get a quart of milk to the consumer’s mouth than it does to furnish the capital to raise the milk, we should apply the emergency brakes long enough to know why it needs to cost more, and when the western farmers are threatened with bankruptcy (or think they are) because of such enormous crops of wheat while at the same time of this over production bankruptcy grain business, this grain that the farmer make milk of is going up, it is time here also to apply the emergency brakes to know why with bankruptcy wheat prices to the producer there is a bankruptcy threatened to the consumer who makes milk.
Cheaper milk would mean much greater consumption, but how can you get it when there is a continued violation of the law of supply and demand to producer and consumer?
Ayer
Sandy Pond School Reunion. The fifteenth annual reunion of the Sandy Pond School association was held last Saturday afternoon at 2:30 at the old schoolhouse, one of the town’s few historic structures. …
The entertainment for the afternoon was opened with a solo dance by Miss Barbara Fletcher, which was an exhibition of grace and rhythm. … “The sage of the Old Oaken Bucket farm,” Samuel L. Taylor, of Westford, reminisced to the delight of all present. …
Real Estate Transfers. The following real estate transfers have been recorded from this vicinity recently: …
Westford, Byron H Brow to Maggie Graves, land on Lowell road; Gedeon P. Leduc to Georges Gervais et ux, land on First street; Emma M. Wright et al. to George Pozniak, land on North street. …
District Court. Joseph Coture of Westford, was before the court charged with operating an automobile while under the influence of liquor and also charged with drunkenness, his case having been continued from earlier in the week. He was found guilty of both offences and was fined $50 for operating while under the influence of liquor. The other complaint was placed on file.
On Monday morning Noe [sic] Labby of Westford, before the court for operating an automobile while under the influence of liquor, was found guilty and fined $50.
Harvard
About Town. Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Savage, Sr., Miss Martha Kimball and Mrs. Royal called on Mr. Taylor of Westford, Sunday, and a pleasant time was spent at the Old Oaken Bucket farm with the genial host. The company drank from the historic well, water, chilled to the bone coming from China apparently, so deep was the finely stoned well. The Abbot Town correspondent has passed a fine examination and is worthy of a diploma for his acquired knowledge of Harvard and its people. One point still has to be settled—where does the water from Bear hill pond, as a brook, find its way to Stony Brook and thence to the Merrimack river? Will someone familiar with Harvard waterways answer the question?