Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs Volume I Part 2

Of the teachers of the village school there are several that I remember with grat.i.tude, and I cannot but think that some of them were very good teachers. My first teacher was Martha Putnam, afterwards Mrs.

Nathaniel F. Cunningham. Of her as a teacher I can recall nothing.

Her father, Major Daniel Putnam, was the princ.i.p.al trader in the village. For the time and place his acc.u.mulations were very large.

Nancy Stearns, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Snow, was the teacher of the summer school for many years. But beyond comparison Cyrus Kilburn was the best teacher of the town, and a person who would have ranked high among teachers at any period in the history of the State. He was not a learned man in a large sense, but his habit was to investigate the subjects within his scope, with great thoroughness. Grammar was his favorite study, and he devised a system of a.n.a.lysis in parsing quite in advance of the time. He had the faculty of putting questions and of changing them to meet the capacities of the pupils. He compelled thinking. I attended the winter school about ten terms, and of these not less than six terms were taught by Mr. Kilburn.

In later years we had Colburn's Sequel as the arithmetic. From this I pa.s.sed to algebra and geometry, and during the last two terms I studied Latin Grammar. My school-going days ended in February, 1835, a month after my seventeenth birthday.

[* During the session of the Legislature of 1843 or 1844, I walked with my father on the ice from Boston to Fort Warren, a distance of about three miles. The authorities were then engaged in cutting a channel for the departure of a Cunard steamer.]

II LIFE AS A STORE-BOY AND CLERK

In the month of December, 1830, when I was about one month less than thirteen years of age, Mr. Simeon Heywood, the postmaster at Lunenburg and the owner of a small store, proposed to my father that I should go into his service to remain four years. An arrangement was made by which I was to receive my board and clothes, and the privilege of attending school during the winter months. I commenced my service the 26th of December, 1830, and I remained until December 1, 1834.

My life with Mr. Heywood was a peculiar one. The business of the store was largely in the sale of goods for hats made of palm leaf. The business was comparatively new at the time. For many previous years the women had been employed in braiding straw and making hats and bonnets for market. Gradually, work in palm leaf had taken the place of work in straw. The neighbor of Heywood, Major Daniel Putnam, was doing a large business in hats. The preparation of the palm leaves was not an easy business. The leaves were stripped on the folds by the hand, then bleached with sulphur in large boxes. The leaves were then split so as to produce straws from one twentieth to one eighth of an inch in width. The first process of stripping the leaves on the folds was paid for at the rate of ten cents per one hundred leaves. I devoted my leisure to the work, and thus earned a small sum of money.

Heywood was a shoemaker by trade, and an end of the store was used as a shop. There one man and sometimes two men were employed. From much seeing I was able to make a pair of shoes for myself--rather for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the thing than from any advantage. While at Heywood's store, probably about 1834, I had a disagreeable experience, the recollection of which has often returned. A blacksmith, named Choate, died, and with another boy, whose name I do not recall, I was summoned to watch the body during a night. We occupied an adjoining room, and once an hour we were required to bathe the face of the corpse in spirits of camphor. To this day I have never been able to understand why two half-grown boys were put to such service.

Heywood was more of an inventor than a trader, and becoming interested in the manufacture of nail kegs he made an invention in connection with Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other.

In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention. As a consequence the business of the store was neglected. The invention did not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other devices. The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent lawyer. Heywood also invented a wheel for bringing staves to a bevel and taper, for the construction of barrels systematically. Mr. Heywood remained in town eight or ten years, when he moved to Claremont, N. H., where he died at the age of eighty years or more. He was thoroughly upright, but he had too many schemes for a successful business man.

During my term with Mr. Heywood, I had charge of the post-office, keeping the accounts, which were then c.u.mbrous, and I made the returns once in three months.

During a part of the time a stagecoach ran from Lowell, through Tyngsboro, Pepperell, Townsend Harbor, Lunenburg and Fitchburg, and thence westward through Petersham and Belchertown to Springfield. The distance was about one hundred miles, and I was compelled to be ready to open the mail three mornings each week, at about two o'clock. The driver would sound his horn when he was eighty or one hundred rods away, and it was my duty to be ready to take the mail when the coach arrived at the door.

It was when so summoned that it was my fortune to see the shower of falling stars in November, 1833. From the time I arose until after daylight there was no part of the heavens that was not illuminated--not with one meteor merely--but with many hundreds. Many of them left a long train, extending through twenty, thirty, or even forty degrees. I called at Bard's window and told him that the stars were falling, but he refused to get up, thinking it a joke. The butcher of the town, Abijah Whitney, came out to commence preparations for his morning rounds, but conceiving that the day of judgment had come, he returned into the house and gave up business for the day. In the year 1901, I know of one other person only, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, who witnessed that exhibition, and it has not been repeated.

During my term with Mr. Heywood, and for many previous years, and for a short period afterwards, the business of printing standard books, Bibles, spelling-books and dictionaries had been carried on at Lunenburg by Col. Edmund Cushing. The books were bound, and then sent by teams to Boston. The printing was on hand-presses, and upon stereotype plates. Deacon William Harrington carried on a small business as a bookbinder, and Messrs. William Greenough & Sons erected a building on the farm now owned by Mr. Brown on the Lancaster road, and introduced the business of stereotyping--business then new, I think. These various industries gave employment of a large number of workmen, mostly young men. The establishment of Colonel Cushing was near the store of Heywood, and it was at the bindery that I first saw Alvah Crocker, afterwards known in the politics of the State, and as the projector of the Fitchburg railroad. He was a maker of paper at Fitchburg, and he came with a one-horse wagon to Cushing's place and carried away the paper shavings produced in the bindery. Crocker was a lean and awkward man, remarkable for his voice, which could be heard over the larger part of the village. When in after years we were a.s.sociated in the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives, and boarded at the same hotel, the Hanover House, I was compelled to hear the same voice in constant advocacy of the Fitchburg railroad project.

Colonel Cushing was one of the foremost men in town, but his aristocratic ways made him unpopular, and therefore he failed to secure official recognition. He was the father of Luther S. Cushing, for many years clerk of the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives, then reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court, afterwards a judge upon the bench of the Court of Common Pleas, and then the author of Cushing's Manual. Another of his sons, Edmund Cushing, Jr., was a member of the Supreme Court of the State of New Hampshire. Of his two other sons, one was a clergyman, and one a civil engineer. The sons were all my seniors, and my acquaintance with them was limited, but when I became a member of the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives, in January, 1842, Luther S. Cushing, then the clerk, came to me, and after some words of congratulation, gave me this advice: "Never champion any private scheme, unless the parties are your const.i.tuents."

Good advice, which I followed in all my legislative experience.

During the four winters of my term with Mr. Heywood, I attended the school, studying the usual branches with something of algebra, geometry, and Latin grammar. It was during these years that the teacher, Mr. Kilburn, created such an interest in his plans that he obtained a contribution of twenty-four dollars with which he purchased a twelve-inch celestial and a twelve-inch terrestrial globe.

Several pleasant evenings were devoted to a study of the heavens with the aid of the celestial globe. I attended usually, and thus I gained a partial knowledge of the constellations, and an acquaintance with some of the stars by name and location. The post-office gave me access to several publications of the day, and in one or two instances I obtained a few subscribers to journals, and thus secured a free copy for myself. _The Penny Magazine_ I obtained in that way for two years.

In the cholera seasons of 1832-3 and 1834, the people were so alarmed that they hesitated to take letters and papers from the post-office.

For a time gum-camphor was thought to be a preventive against the contagion.

Between 1830 and 1834 the ambition of the town was stimulated by the building of a new road from Fitchburg to Shirley. It was claimed that a shorter and more nearly level route to Boston from Fitchburg and the country above was thus secured. For a time the travel was considerable, but the teamsters preferred the old roads, the old taverns, and the old acquaintances. The construction of the Fitchburg railroad in 1844 ended the business from the country to Boston over the old highways.

In the month of November, 1834, I had a call from Mr. Joseph Hazen, of Shirley, who asked me to accept the post of teacher in the school at Pound Hill, half-way between Shirley Village and Shirley Centre. The pay was sixteen dollars per month in addition to board. After making an arrangement with Mr. Heywood, by which I was to pay him eight dollars for the twenty-six days in December, I accepted the invitation, and after an examination conducted by the Rev. Seth Chandler and the Rev. Hope Brown, I entered the school the first Monday of the month of December.

In the preceding June I had received my freedom suit of clothes--blue coat, bright b.u.t.tons, black trousers, and buff vest. They were made by Daniel Cross, of Fitchburg, and, when in 1884, I visited that town, and found him still engaged in the business, I ordered a dress suit from his hand.

III CHANGES AND PROGRESS

As I pa.s.s in this record from my childhood and early youth to the responsibilities of life, I am led to some reflections upon the changes in opinions and the changes in the condition of the people in the more than half-century from 1835 to 1899. At the first period there was not a clergyman of any of the Protestant denominations who questioned the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, including the Old and New Testaments. The suggestion could not have safely been made in any New England pulpit that there were errors of translation, and yet the Christian world, outside the Catholic Church, now accepts a revision that changes the meaning of some pa.s.sages and excludes others as interpolations. The account given in the first chapter of Genesis of the creation of the world and of man was accepted according to the meaning of the language used. At the present moment there is not a well-educated clergyman of any denomination who would not either treat the account as a legend, or else explain the days as periods of indefinite duration.

The claim of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Old Testament is denied by many and doubted by others, and the volume is seen and treated by them as a compilation of works or books in which are recorded the thoughts and doings of men and tribes and nations that existed at different periods and flourished or suffered as is the fortune of mankind.

The early chapters of Genesis were then a faithful history; they are now a legend. The Book of Job was then an inspiration; it is now a poem. The reported interviews between Abraham and Jehovah were then thought to have been real; now they are treated as the visions of an excited brain. The ten commandments were then believed to have been delivered to Moses by the Supreme Being; now they are regarded as the work of a wise law-giver. Kings and Chronicles are now authentic histories written by honest men; then those records of events were attributed to the Supreme Ruler of the world.

The domain of prayer has been limited. Prayers for rain, for health, for mild winters and fruitful summers, were then made in all the churches. Now, with many exceptions no doubt, health is sought in obedience to the laws of our being, and the seasons find their quality in the operation of laws whose sources are in material organizations that cannot yield to human impulses.

The sources of knowledge have been multiplied almost indefinitely. In 1835 the daily newspaper was not often seen in country towns, and the circulation of the weekly paper was limited to a very small portion of the families. The postage was an important item. Relatively, the cost of papers was enormous. The mails were infrequent, and the people generally had not the means of paying the combined expenses. Many, perhaps most, of the papers, were sent upon credit, and it was not unusual to find subscribers several years in arrears. Many of the papers contained this notice: "No paper discontinued until all arrearages are paid," as though sending a paper to a subscriber in debt, would compel him to make payment. New books were rare. The farmers and laborers had no slight difficulty in meeting the demands for schoolbooks, and these and the Bible were the total stock in a majority of houses.

The means of domestic comfort were limited to a degree not now easily comprehended. The brick oven and the open fire were the only means of cooking, and the open fire was the only means of warming the houses.

Soon after 1835, and even before that year possibly, cylinder stoves were introduced into shops and stores. Stoves of other varieties soon followed. Upholstered furniture and carpets were not found in the houses of well-to-do farmers even.

The construction of railways and the invention of the telegraphic system of communication have revolutionized business and changed the habits of the people, but only the beginnings of their power are yet seen. They have made it possible for great free governments to exist permanently. Except for differences of languages all Europe might become one state, if indeed, first, the individual states could over- throw all dynastic inst.i.tutions in families, and all forms of hierarchy in the churches. These changes to be followed by the abolition of all forms of mortmain, by the free sale of land, by the distribution of the estates of deceased persons by operation of law, by compulsory education with moral training, and the exclusion of all dogmatic teaching touching the origin or destiny of man. This freedom and the aggregation of small states in vast governments, by the consent of all parties, would be security for the peace of the world. With general peace would come the abolition of great armies, freedom from public debts, and numerous freeholders. These are the conditions of domestic and social comfort, the chief and worthiest objects of the State organization.

In 1830 the movement against the use of intoxicating liquors began--or rather it was about that year that the movement was strong enough to lead a small number of country merchants to abandon the trade. When I went into Mr. Heywood's store, he had one hogshead of New England rum.

That was sold, and there the business ended. As a general rule, the farmers used rum daily during the summer season, and drank freely of cider during the winter. On my father's farm, rum toddy was drunk three times a day during the haying season, which lasted from the 4th of July to the 1st of August, or a little later. There was no general use of liquors at any other season.

At old election*--the last Wednesday in May--at Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, and when my grandfather visited us--which seems now not to have been more than three or four times a year--a pitcher of West India rum toddy was made, seasoned with nutmeg and toasted crackers.

The poverty of farmers with respect of tools, made it almost impossible for farmers to prosper, except by cattle-raising and the cultivation of small grains. Farming is now an art, and the slavery of farm labor has in a degree disappeared. Formerly the business of farming was limited by the home product of manure, but the manufacture of phosphates has enabled the farmer to enlarge his operations in every direction that promises a return.

The railway system had driven the eastern farmer from the cultivation of wheat and corn, as it is not possible for him to compete with the new and fertile lands of the West. In these sixty years the wheat fields have moved from the East to the West. From 1820 to 1840 the valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee furnished the finer flour for the cities of New York and New England. Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia supplied Baltimore and Philadelphia. Then Ohio became the chief source of supply. More recently the wheat region is the upper valley of the Mississippi, and the State of California. The time is not far distant when a return movement will begin. Domestic markets in the vicinity of the great wheat fields will create a demand for other products. With the exhaustion of the soil will come the necessity for the use of artificial manures. Thus will be established a permanent condition of comparative equality between the East and the West.

Already the process has commenced in the culture of Indian corn. For a time the farmers of New England were unable to raise corn, even for farm use, in compet.i.tion with the West. The fodder of the corn has now become valuable to farmers who produce milk for market, and already they are finding it profitable to raise corn, even when the price at the door does not exceed fifty cents per bushel. Coincident with these changes the States of the East have increased in population, and the proportion who live in cities is increasing at a greater ratio even.

The railway system and the system of protection to American industry have been the chief instruments in the augmentation of population generally, and of the gains to cities. These changes have inured to the benefit of the Eastern farmers.

[* Old election in Ma.s.sachusetts was the last Wednesday in May, when, under the Const.i.tution of 1780, the governor was inaugurated.]

IV SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-KEEPING

Of my pupils at Pound Hill an unusually large proportion were advanced in years.* Several of the boys were my seniors, and in size they had quite an advantage over me, although my weight was then about 165 pounds. That cla.s.s gave me very little trouble. The unruly boys were those between ten and fifteen years of age. With a few exceptions the leading people of the town were well-to-do farmers, and nearly every week brought an invitation to a party at the house of some one of them.

An attendance of more than fifty persons was not an uncommon occurrence.

The term of the school was limited by the money, and either from the extra cost of firewood, or some other unusual expense, the school was brought to a close two or three days sooner than was expected. My father was to come for me on a day named, but when my school was over, and I was free, I concluded to walk home, a distance of about six miles, and return for my clothes when convenient.

Just at that time there had been a heavy, warm rain, and a melting of snow, which had raised the streams. When I reached the bridge at the brook on the west side of Flat Hill, the water was over the road to the depth of twelve inches or more. I concluded to wade across, which I did. My mother was frightened, but I escaped without any serious ill effect. My school-keeping days were over. My old teacher, Mr. Cyrus Kilburn, had charge of the village school and I took my seat among the pupils. I remained in the school about two weeks, and then my school- days were over. Altogether I had the training of six or seven summer terms in schools kept by women, supplemented two or three times by a private school of a few weeks by the same teacher, and ten or eleven winter terms. In reading, spelling and grammar I had had a good training. To those branches Mr. Kilburn devoted himself, and I recall his teaching of grammar with great satisfaction. He had no knowledge of object-teaching as applied to grammar, but he was skillful in a.n.a.lysis, and his training was methodical and exact. In fine, he was so much devoted to the work of teaching, that the discipline of the school was neglected. Of this there had been complaints for years. At that time I had a good command of arithmetic, I knew something of algebra, and geometry seemed easy from the start. In composition, so- called, I had had no experience. Once only during my school life was an attempt made by a teacher to introduce the exercise of writing, and that attempt I avoided. In Latin I had not gone beyond the study of the grammar, and the training that I had received was from persons poorly qualified to give instruction.

Once or twice the teacher had been a college undergraduate, and Kilburn's knowledge of the language was measured by his acquisitions at the Groton Academy. Of knowledge wholly useless to me I had learned to read the Hebrew alphabet from Dr. Bard's elementary Hebrew book.

The reading-books, especially Scott's Lessons, contained extracts from good writers and speakers, with selections from the best of English poets, and these extracts and selections, I had read and had heard read so often that I could repeat many of them at full length. Worcester's Geography, and Whelpley's Compend of History were among the books used in the schools.

[* The Pound Hill schoolhouse has been sold to the owner of the Captain Parker place and converted into a shop and tool-house. A photograph has been taken of the venerable relic.]

V GROTON IN 1835

In the month of February, 1835, I read an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Lowell _Journal_, asking for a clerk in a store, application to be made at the office. I at once wrote to Joseph S. Hubbard,* a former schoolmate, asking him to call at the office and get the name of the advertiser. This he did, and gave me the name of Benj. P. Dix of Groton. I wrote to Mr. Dix, and upon the receipt of an answer, I went with my father to see him. The result was an agreement to work for him for three years. Terms, board and one hundred dollars for the first year, one hundred and twelve dollars for the second year, one hundred and twenty-five dollars for the third year. I commenced my clerkship with Mr. Dix the fifth day of March, and in the month of September my contract was ended by his failure. His business was small, his manners were abrupt, his capital had been limited, and his family expenses, not extravagant, had exceeded his income, and bankruptcy in the end was inevitable. His sales were chiefly of boots, shoes, leather, and medicines, of which he kept the only stock in the village.

Mr. Dix was a man of exact ways of life. The sales made were entered each day at the close of business, the cash was carefully counted, and the cash-book was balanced. But these careful and businesslike ways did not save him, and in September he made an a.s.signment of his property to his father Benj. Dix, and to Caleb Butler, for the benefit of his creditors according to the preferences specified in the a.s.signment. Mr. Butler was not a creditor, but Mr. Dix, senior, was much the largest creditor. In fact he had furnished his son with the chief part of the means of doing business. He was a tanner by trade, and he had gradually enlarged his business by employing workmen to make boots and shoes. A portion of his product of leather and all his product of boots and shoes had been turned into the son's store.

The deficiency of means on the part of the son was represented at each settlement by an addition to the debt due to the father. The debts amounted to about five thousand dollars. Following the a.s.signment Mr.

Dix left home, and he did not return until the spring or summer of 1836. Imprisonment for debt in a modified form then existed. He and his family were proud, and he may have wished to avoid seeing his neighbors and acquaintances while his misfortune was fresh upon him.

His wife was a granddaughter of General Ward, who had been the rival of General Washington for the command of the army at the opening of the War of the Revolution. Mrs. Dix was proud, very properly, of her paternity, and of her grandfather's a.s.sociation with General Washington, and neither from her, nor from either of two brothers whom I subsequently met, did I ever hear a word of criticism upon the wisdom of the selection of General Washington. Mrs. Dix had inherited many letters written by General Washington to her grandfather, and they were all written in a tone of sincere friendship.

Mrs. Dix's eldest brother, Mr. Nahum Ward, was one of the early settlers, if not one of the founders of Marietta, Ohio. Mr. Dix went to Marietta, where he was given some employment by Mr. Ward. Neither Mr. Butler nor Mr. Dix senior, had any knowledge of business, and I was employed by them at a small advance in my pay, to sell the stock of goods, and close the business of the store. After such sales as could be made, the remainder of the stock was sold at auction the 23d day of November. During the preceding night there was a fall of snow, and the company came to the village in sleighs. The winter was severe, and the snow continued to cover the ground until the 18th of April, when the stage coaches for the north went on runners for the last time. The summer of 1836 was so cold, that the corn crop was a failure. During the year following corn brought from New Jersey sold for $2.50 per bushel.