Turner's Public Spirit, September 15, 1923
A look back in time to century ago
By Bob Oliphant
Center. Rev. E. P. Bisbrow, of West Boxford, will occupy the pulpit at the Congregational church on Sunday and a large attendance is desired.
Arthur G. Hildreth has resumed his duties as teacher in the Newton technical high school.
The Alliance will hold a meeting in the Unitarian church parlors on next Thursday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock. All women of the parish are urged to attend.
Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Sutherland entertained their nephew, Wentworth Collier, of Arlington, the past week.
John G. Fletcher, in company with two college friends, is enjoying an auto trip to Vermont, New York and Canada.
The annual agricultural fair under the auspices of the Congregational church will be held in the town hall on Wednesday afternoon and evening of next week. Fancy work, aprons, candy, etc., will be on sale as usual. There will also be a mystery table for the children and a display of fruits and vegetables. It is hoped that all who can will bring things for this display, which is always one of the attractions of the fair. A harvest supper will be served in the lower hall and at eight o’clock an entertainment consisting of music, readings, etc., by outside talent, will be presented. It is hoped to make the affair as successful as in past years.
- Herbert Fletcher has been appointed a notary public.
The Ladies’ Aid of the Congregational church held an all-day meeting with the Misses Green on Thursday.
Mrs. Millet and young son, William Atwood Millet, of Brockton, are the guests of the former’s aunts, the Misses Carrie, Lillian and May Atwood [at 4 Graniteville Road].
The annual carnival of the Legion will be held in Forge Village on this week Friday and Saturday.
Miss Blanche Lawrence, of the William E. Frost school, spent the weekend with friends at Canobie Lake.
Mrs. Mary A. Grant and granddaughter, Jean Grant Whiting, have returned to Westford after spending two weeks with relatives in Rockport.
Natalie, the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Prescott, has returned home, having spent some time with her aunt in Lowell.
School Notes. The academy enrollment has increased to 80, 43 girls and 37 boys.
Miss Precious, teacher of music, hopes to have a boys’ orchestra this year and will conduct a girls’ glee club this year, the same as last year. The latter proved a popular school feature last year.
Miss Katherine Ott and Daisy Bashford spent the weekend at their homes, the former in Shrewsbury and the latter in Norwood.
About Town. There was a special meeting of the Grange on Wednesday evening to receive applications for membership. The next regular meeting will be held on Thursday evening, September 20. This will be educational night and reception to the school teachers, in charge of Mrs. Frank C. Wright. Let us all get acquainted with our new teachers of whom there are many.
Mrs. Esther Snow, Perry T. Snow and Mrs. George F. Snow went to York Beach on Wednesday to see the waves.
Miss Lottie L. Snow, of West Chelmsford, returned last week from a trip abroad on a tour of England, France, Switzerland and many other points of interest. She arrived in New York last week Friday and spent the weekend and holiday with Mr. and Mrs. George (Taylor) Howard, of Bound Brook, N.J.
Perry and Stanley Snow [teenage sons of Frederic A. & Esther P. (Taylor) Snow] have been catching black bass in ye old Stony Brook that runneth through ye Old Oaken Bucket farm. Just how these black bass got into ye waters of ye old Stony Brook is not quite clear, as I am not aware that it had been stocked with that variety of fish.
Here is something for Nashoba and I will hear you recite when I go over to the Acton fair next week. McIntosh apples is the subject. Why do I get large, handsome apples and free from scale and scab on a worthless piece of ground with soil so poor that it would not raise 50 ½ pounds of hay per acre, when on far better soil and better cultivated treatment I get small and inferior apples? Why does one-half of a McIntosh tree bear saleable apples and the other half rather inferior cider apples? Why does a McIntosh blossom every year and does not bear any year? Why do I get the best and largest Baldwins on a poor and gravelly soil when two rods off on good corn, potato and hay land I get inferior apples in size and color, so discolored that they are unsaleable except at a cider apple price in Boston market? (Of course I cannot sell them and make cider and continue to shout for Volstead and national prohibition.) Speak right up loud, Nashoba, as though you had the goods and gray matter to answer with.
Mrs. Charlotte Billson, who died at her home in West Chelmsford last week, was an efficient helper in all that pertained to the welfare of a village, a constant attendant at the village church when health permitted. Besides her husband, George Billson, she left six sons, Harry and George Rudkin, David and Amos Billson, Walter Smith and Gordon Butler. Of these sons David Billson is well known in this vicinity as an efficient helper for many years for the H. E. Fletcher Co. The funeral was held on last week Thursday, Rev. E. E Jackman of the village church conducting the services. Mrs. Nellie L. Roberts, of Lowell, sang “Lead, kindly light” and “A perfect day.” The bearers were the six sons. Interment was in West Chelmsford cemetery.
The annual hallelujah outing, social and sporting, of the Lowell Fins, Furs, Feathers and Fun, otherwise known as the Lowell Fish and Game association, will be held on Thursday, September 20, at Willowdale park on the shore of Lake Mascuppic [in Tyngsboro and Dracut]. Transportation will be by auto. All members will meet at the Hood building on Thorndike street, Lowell, at 12:45 with the usual street parade. Upon arrival at the park dinner will be served, followed by short speeches from invited guests. The program of sports will include trap shooting, running races, quoits, pillow fights, cup races, potato races, etc. For a more definite and itemized program call on Joe Wall, vice president, who lives in Graniteville.
Let us not forget our loyal Legion annual sporting event at Abbot’s park, Forge Village, this Friday and Saturday.
The Old Oaken Bucket farm folks, children and grandchildren, are planning to attend the Acton fair next week Friday and Saturday. Acton is one of the adjoining towns of our infantile love, which now with some of us has continued to three score years and eighteen, for in Woodlawn cemetery rests the dust of early ancestors who fought at the Old North Bridge under command of Capt. Davis, of Acton, immortalized “By the rude bridge that arched the flood, where once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard ‘round the world.”
Miss Grace Wood, of Lowell, and Mrs. McDaniels, of Cambridge, both summer residents at the Rev. Leonard Luce house [25 Main St.], have given a wayside pulpit to the Unitarian church.
Mr. and Mrs. John A. Taylor have left the Old Oaken Bucket farm, where they have been in recreation, for Ann Arbor, Mich., where Mr. Taylor will take a teachers’ graduate course at the University of Michigan, where there are 12,000 students. They left on Monday for their new environments.
Rev. Frank B. Crandall, of Ayer, was a visitor in town on last week Friday and climbed to the new and far-reaching view of the Stony Brook valley and suburbs and environments from the high elevation of Little Tadmuck hill, directly south and close by the old Capt. Peletiah Fletcher place known in modern language as the Decatur place [54 Lowell Rd.].
The Mervin Steeles are moving into the John H. Decatur house on the Lowell road, the house where they have been living for thirty years, near Westford station, having been sold to Mrs. Graves.
- Arthur O’Brien is the champion large potato raiser in the Stony Brook valley. The hay scales record one that weighted four pounds. Reliable witnesses were at the hay scales when it was weighed.
Luanna B. Decatur returned to her school at New Rochelle, N.Y., last Saturday.
Sunday service at the Unitarian church at four o’clock. Preacher: Rev. Frank B. Crandall the minister; subject, “Separate worlds.” Through the generosity of Miss Wood and Mrs. McDaniels the church is to have a wayside pulpit which will be erected on the church grounds, near the street, in front of the building.
Incendiary Fire. In ten minutes after the fire alarm was sounded the Abbot hose company was at the fire at the discontinued Nabnassett schoolhouse on Oak hill road, near Lake Nabnassett. The fire was set outside the building apparently on one of the blinds, and the smell of kerosene was noticeable. The fire was discovered about nine o’clock on last week Wednesday evening by a passerby, who sounded the alarm that called out the Westford and West Chelmsford fire departments. The former had three miles to run and did it in ten minutes. The building is owned by George C. Moore, of North Chelmsford, and the fire, owing to quick response of the fire companies, was extinguished without serious damage to the building. From all appearances it seems to be the work of the same person who set fire to the Gage icehouses at Forge Village, town farm barn, Healey’s house near the brick tavern, all in Westford, and about the reasonable same time Capt. Monahan’s barn, the village church and attempted burning of Historic hall in West Chelmsford, and Marshall’s hall in Westford and West Chelmsford. The state police have not been able so far to trace out the incendiary, although threatening letters are in their possession, but they are not yet able to connect up the handwriting.
250th Anniversary. Westford was well represented at the 250th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Dunstable on last week Thursday. The weather that always has to be reckoned with was ideal in its special favors to encourage a large and lovable attendance. John F. Kelly, chairman of the board of selectmen and member of Westford Grange, gave a short but most appropriate address of welcome and introduced Rev. Henry A. Parkhurst as president of the day. Mr. Parkhurst made a telling address of welcome to his native town and was frequently applauded. Some of us who listened to his pleasing offhand address recalled when he was a member of the old Dunstable cornet band in its palmy and efficient days and some of us recall when he graduated from the Westford academy.
He was followed by Rev. C. Guy Robbins as orator of the day, who gave a most eloquent and scholarly review of the life of the old town of Dunstable, from early beginning down to its 250th birthday; the town where he was born and educated. He recalled as a child of tender years with his parents he was presented fifty years ago at the 200th anniversary and he little thought that in fifty years from that date he would be chosen to give the historical address. “Two hundred and fifty years is a long period of time. Allowing 30 years for a generation, eight generations have come and gone since this region was opened to the white man.”
He quoted words of Judge E. Rockwood Hoar at the 200th anniversary; “Dunstable is the smallest town in Middlesex county and today she seems like an old mother sitting by the hearthstone her family reduced in number, her daughters changing their names as they formed new alliances, but welcoming to the old homestead and to the Thanksgiving table a numerous progeny.” The speaker said that a spirit of patriotism went abroad among all the people. Sixteen men went out from Dunstable in the war of 1812, and sixty-four served in the great civil war; nine went out into the world war, all of them living to return home.
Dunstable is not rich in names of those who have attained fame, but she has done better than that. She has raised up citizens of character, who have been content to live the simple, quiet life, doing their duty at home, to the community and to the state. Perhaps the most notable of the sons of Dunstable was the Hon. Amos Kendall, postmaster general from 1835 to 1840, who removed to Kentucky and became a tutor in the family of Henry Clay and later went into political life. On his death he left large sums of money to various charitable and benevolent institutions.
Mr. Robbins will be remembered by many as a graduate of Lawrence academy and former member of the old Dunstable cornet band. He closed with the poem “In Flanders’ Field [sic],” which he said adequately presented the problems of today.
At one o’clock the Nashua military band led the march to the dinner. Col. Arthur D. Butterfield, a native of Dunstable, and a graduate of Westford academy, was after-dinner toastmaster, and the following responded to toasts, lack of space preventing the reporting of the responses: “Our state,” Hon. John Jacob Rogers, of Lowell; “The district schools,” Evangeline Kendall, of Dunstable; “The pastors,” Rev. Alfred Noon, formerly of Pepperell, and now of Tyngsboro; “Dunstable thirty years ago” Rev. Bartlett H. Weston, a former minister of Dunstable; “Our summer homes,” John K. Whittier, a summer resident; “Our children,” Judge John R. Spring, of Nashua; “The town,” James E. Kendall of Dunstable, a long-time selectman, who said, “I am the eighth generation of the Kendalls in Dunstable”; “The band,” James Tolles, of Nashua, and leader of the Nashua military band, who said, “In the Nashua military band there are six or seven men who played in the old Dunstable cornet band”; “Talks of the olden days,” Capt. Sherman H. Fletcher, of Westford, who briefly reviewed the history of the Spaulding Light Cavalry, “I followed Capt. Christopher Roby as captain of the company which was led in marching by the Mounted Dunstable cornet band—it was a novelty at the time, being the first and only mounted band in the state”; “Our legislature,” Robert H. J. Holden, of Shirley, who said “I deplore the fact that the people of my district have not more frequently expressed to me their wishes in regard to legislative matters.” Hon. Lewis A. Parkhurst, of Winchester, and a native of Dunstable, author of the bill, “A new state prison,” briefly spoke on “Reminiscences.” He said “If Congressman Rogers seeks promotion Winchester will be right there with the votes. I am glad of one thing—Rev. Henry A. Parkhurst is my cousin; we sadly need a minister in our family.”
The dance and toasts were followed by fancy dancing on the lawn of Mrs. Calvin Austin. The dancing was under the direction of Miss Elizabeth Rayners, of Melrose, who did a solo dance, “The moth.” This was followed by a minuet under the direction of Mrs. William A. Dale, of Melrose and Townsend. The dancers in the minuet were Misses Olive V. Dale, Helen and Evelyn Barnstead, of Washington and Fanny Fletcher of Lowell, and Messrs. Kenneth Dale, Howard Fletcher, Earl and Dudley Bagley, of Townsend and Ayer.
At 4:30 another concert by the Nashua band and impromptu sports were held near the dinner tent. At six o’clock there was an organ recital in the new church by Miss Evelyn Hathaway, Miss Lucy Dennett, violin, and Miss Frances A. Scott, reader.
The day closed with an anniversary ball in the town hall, with a concert from eight to nine o’clock by Hibbard’s orchestra, of Lowell; dancing from nine to one o’clock.
It may be helpful to quote a little ancient history taken from the program: “The original Dunstable was a baronical [sic] domain 200 square miles in extent, reaching from Chelmsford to Londonderry, N.H. It was incorporated by the general court as a town October 16, 1673, upon the petition of Jonathan Tyng and others, and was named in compliment to Mary, wife of Edward Tyng, father of Jonathan, who came from Dunstable, England, in 1630. From that domain have spring the towns of Tyngsboro, Pepperell, Townsend and parts of Groton and Dracut in Massachusetts, and Brookline, Hollis, Hudson, Pelham, Milford, Amherst, Merrimack, Londonderry, Litchfield and Nashua, N.H.”
Graniteville. Both masses in St. Catherine’s church last Sunday morning were celebrated by the pastor, Rev. A. S. Malone, and were largely attended. The Sunday school will resume session on Sunday following the summer vacation.
All the public schools opened on last week Wednesday for the beginning of the fall term.
The Abbot Worsted soccer team defeated the Fore River club of Quincy in an Industrial league game at Abbot field, Forge Village, last Saturday, 3 to 0. This Saturday the Abbots will play the American Woolen team of Lawrence at Forge Village.
The members of the Ladies’ Aid society of the M.E. church met with Mrs. H. N. Fletcher on Thursday evening.
The members of the Brotherhood held a special meeting in the M.E. church on last Monday evening.
Charles Merrick, of Boston, who has recently returned from a trip abroad, has been a recent guest of Dr. and Mrs. Fabyan Packard.
Leo Provost left on Tuesday for Emmitsburg, Md., to resume his studies in Mount St. Mary’s seminary.
Ayer
District Court. On last week Friday morning the continued case of Charles Kardell, of Westford, came up for hearing. Kardell was charged with carrying a revolver without a permit, with being drunk and with assault and battery. The court found him guilty in the first two complaints and dismissed the third one. The drunkenness complaint was placed on file and a fine of $100 was imposed for carrying a revolver without a permit. He appealed and was held in $600 bail for the appearance before the superior court. Atty. John D. Carney appeared for the government and Atty. John M. Maloney for the defense.
Wladyslaw Naliwaski, of Westford, was before the court charged with keeping and exposing liquor for sale. This case was the result of a raid by the Westford officers at Naliwaski’s farm where about 100 gallons of mash and two gallons of moonshine were found. The officers testified that at the time of the raid Naliwaski admitted that he was selling liquor in Lowell and in Westford. No evidence was offered by the defence [sic]. The court found him guilty and imposed a fine of $100 and suspended the sentence for one month. Atty. John D. Carney appeared for the government and Atty. John M. Maloney for the defense.
Farewell to Commander. Thursday evening was a banner night in the history of Capt. George V. Harrett camp, S. of V. [Sons of Veterans]. Four candidates were initiated and a member reinstated. Comrades of the Grand Army were present from Shirley, Westford, Harvard and Ayer. This was the last meeting at which Commander Clarence W. Stetson presided, as he leaves town for Honolulu next month. …
Footnotes
“Mr. and Mrs. George (Taylor) Howard” is a little confusing. George Howard was married to Martha Jane Taylor. Martha’s sister, Esther Perry Taylor was married to Frederic Allen Snow who was the brother of Miss Lottie M. Snow. The Taylor sisters were daughters of Samuel Law and Alta Mahala (Schellenger) Taylor. Samuel writes the “About Town” section of The Westford Wardsman.
This quote is from the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s (1803-1882) famous poem “Concord Hymn”.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
See https://poets.org/poem/concord-hymn
Perhaps the most famous poem of World War I, “In Flanders Fields” was written by Canadian physician and Lt. Col. John McCrae on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of a friend and fellow soldier who was killed at the Second Battle of Ypres in the Flanders area of Belgium.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
We are the Dead. Short days agO
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.