Category: Southborough immigrants

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What the Burial Book Reveals about the Irish by Sally Watters

As our nation engages is a tug of war about what our history is and what should be taught in schools, perhaps we can learn a lesson by looking at a small portion of the history of our own town. Some Americans today are trying to ban teaching lessons that reflect badly on their ancestors and I am sure that we would like to think that the bucolic town of Southborough’s history does not include any of the uglier chapters of the country’s past. What began as a quest for the identity of a girl named Martha buried in the Old Burial Ground ended up as a hunt for more information about Irish immigrants in Southborough, and unearthed the prejudice that manifested itself in Southborough in the nineteenth century.

There is a marker in the Old Burial Ground for grave 74 that merely says Martha. Members of the Historical Society have long wondered who Martha was. Our only clues were the people buried near her, but we could establish no definitive connection to any of them. Knowing there was a Burial Book that meticulously recorded deaths and burials in Southborough from 1794-1862, I began the pursuit of the death of any Martha during that time span. I realized that the time period 1727-1793 was not included in that source, and that since the Rural Cemetery opened in 1842, most burials after that date would not have been in the Old Burial Ground. After cross checking all the recorded deaths with tombstones in the Old Burial Ground and burials in the Rural Cemetery. I was left with three possible women named Martha in the Old Burial Ground who are unaccounted for. Uncertainty remains as to Martha’s last name. The Old Burial Ground is the resting place of all three of these Marthas, but does the stone belong to one of them, or to a Martha who died before 1794 or after 1862?  There are over six hundred unmarked graves in the Old Burial Ground. To further add to the mystery, Martha’s stone was carved by James O’Connor who was active carving stones between 1870 and 1902. Was the stone a late addition or was Martha one of the few people interred at the Old Burial Ground after 1862, the last year for the Burial Book I was using?

As often happens when doing historical research, it is easy to go off track. The Burial Book frequently has additional information beyond just the name of the deceased and the dates of death and burial. Sometimes the cause of death is included. If the deceased did not die in Southborough, but is buried here, the place of death is included and conversely, if the person died in Southborough but is buried elsewhere, that information is also included.

Starting in 1845, the effects of the industrial revolution and immigration began to be reflected in the Burial Book. The railroad had reached town by then. On November 11th, 1845, the railroad claimed its first known victim in Southborough when David Melison was “killed instantly by cars running over him in Southborough.” He was buried in Hopkinton. The Burial Book notes that his family was in Cambridge, Vermont. He would not be the only victim of the early railroad. On October 2, 1851 an “Irishman, name and residence unknown, was killed by the cars at Cordaville.” He was buried in Roxbury. Three weeks later, Mary Jane Mulligan, age 3, daughter of Thomas Mulligan, Irish, was killed by the cars at Cordaville. She was buried in Hopkinton. On November 14, 1851, Pamela Morse, age 59, was killed by the cars at the Depot. Lois Wallace, 66 was killed by the cars in Southborough on June 20, 1862. We know that fatalities on the railroad tracks have continued to occur into current times, but fortunately at a lower rate than in the early years of the railroads.

Not only did the railroad begin to make an appearance in the Burial Book, but starting in 1847 the word Irish begins to be used beside the names of some of the deceased when James Murrer, Irishman, drowned. He was buried in Worcester. On June 29, 1851, Luke Brady, Irishman, drowned in Cordaville. He was buried in Westborough. In 1852, three people named in the burial book were identified as “Irish.” Two of them were buried in Worcester and one in Hopkinton. On March 3, 1853 the two-year-old son of James Delling, Irishman, died. He was buried in Hopkinton.  Three more people were identified as Irish in 1854 and were all buried in Hopkinton. In 1855 Marie Carter, age 14, died in a fire at Cordaville factory, one of three people identified as Irish to die that year. She and one of the other Irish were buried in Hopkinton. The third was buried in Boston.  The following year, on June 29, 1856, Mrs. Ellen Brock, Irish, was killed at Cordaville along with her two-year-old daughter and the following day, Mrs. Lynch, Irish, was also killed at Cordaville. The Burial Book does not specify how they were killed. All three were buried in Hopkinton. What is very evident from the Burial Book is that the deceased who were Irish were being singled out with a label of national origin that was not deemed necessary for the other people who had died. It also is obvious that those who are identified as Irish are not buried in the Rural Cemetery in Southborough. Most of them are buried in Worcester, Westborough, and Hopkinton. The late 1840s and the 1850s was the time of a large influx of Irish immigrants into the United States as they sought to escape the ravages of the Potato Famine. As is so often the case with the entry of people who are somehow different from those already here, there was fear of the unknown, in this case people whose Catholicism set them apart. The Federal Census of 1860 for the Cordaville section of Southborough shows many people who were born in Ireland with names such as Mulligan, Cleary, Dowd, Kelly, Murphy, Burns, Sullivan, and Fitzgerald. In the state census of 1855, most were listed as shoemakers, but by 1860, a lot were designated as mill operators. The people of Southborough may have welcomed the Irish to town to work in the new mills and factories, but they did not welcome them to share the Rural Cemetery as their final resting place in death.

As I examined the recorded deaths for 1862, I noticed that Patrick Cleary, Irish, was not listed as having been buried in another town. What had happened? The footnote provided a clue, noting that he had died in Manassas, Virginia. Another mystery opened up for me to explore.  Who was Patrick Cleary?  As I suspected, Patrick was in the Union Army during the Civil War. He enlisted in May of 1861, just a month after the outbreak of the war and mustered into Company K of the Massachusetts 13th Infantry on July 16, 1861. He saw action at Harper’s Ferry, Bolivar Heights, and Falling Water before becoming ill on the march from Winchester to Centreville, VA.  He died of pneumonia at a field hospital in Manassas Junction, Virginia. His body was returned to Southborough where he was interred at the Rural Cemetery.

What was Patrick Cleary’s connection to Southborough and why, with the Irish designation after his name, was he not buried in another town?  Patrick was born in Drohega, Ireland in 1841, the son of Edward and Catherine Carney Cleary, His name first appears in Southborough in the 1855 Massachusetts State Census, where he is living in Cordaville with his parents and four younger siblings. All the members of the family are listed as being born in Ireland except for three-year-old Edward who was born in New York. The next youngest child, six-year-old Monaca was born in Ireland. The family was in Southborough by November of 1851 when Edward Sr. was listed as a member of the Southborough militia. That same year, Edward Sr. ran a missing person’s ad in the Boston Pilot seeking information about his brother, “Patrick Cleary, a native of Killahara near Tipperary,” who had emigrated from Ireland circa 1838, first to NY and thence to Boston and had last been heard from in Worcester County. Any information about Patrick was to be sent to his brother Edward Cleary in Cordaville.  I could not find any evidence that Edward Sr. was ever reunited with his brother.

In the 1855 Massachusetts state census, Edward is listed as a shoemaker, but in the 1860 federal census, he is listed as a “pedler.”  The oldest daughter Mary, who would have been 18 in 1860, is no longer living with the family. His son Patrick, now 19, is listed as a bootmaker, and daughter Ellen, age 15, is a mill operator. Evidence points to Edward Sr. having died sometime in 1860. He was listed in the Federal Census of 1860 in Southborough, but in an application for a mother’s military pension filed in 1866, Catherine says she has been a widow for about six years and that her husband had died in New York. The death of his father, Edward Cleary, could help explain Patrick’s decision to enlist in the military the following year. As the eldest child, he had to help support his widowed mother and younger siblings.  According to Catherine’s testimony for the pension, Patrick had been helping support the family since 1857, when at age sixteen he went to work as a bootmaker. In 1866, Catherine was awarded a mother’s pension of $8.00 a month retroactive to 1862. In her testimony she stated that she owned no property and had no other income. Catherine had first applied for a pension in 1863, but the application was not approved at that time. Three acquaintances testified that Patrick had supported his mother since 1857, helping pay her rent, and that after Patrick enlisted, the town of Southborough paid her $3 a week until his death.  Both the 1863 and the 1866 applications stated that she was living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her 1863 application was witnessed by Mary Cleary and Nellie (Ellen) Cleary, Catherine’s two older daughters who were also living in Philadelphia.  By 1866, Ellen was married to John Swope. Both Ellen and John swear in a statement that Patrick’s father had died six years earlier in New York, and that his widow Catherine had not remarried. I could find no further information about any of Patrick’s siblings. No other member of Patrick Cleary’s family is buried in Southborough. His mother Catherine died around 1890

The town fathers reluctantly recognized the sacrifice that this young Irishman had made and allowed his burial in the town cemetery. He was the first Catholic to be buried in Rural Cemetery. The story has been passed down that at first he was interred in the paupers’ section of the cemetery, but some of his fellow soldiers were incensed by this slight and demanded that his body be moved to a different section of the cemetery. His body was moved, but remained without a marker until 1879 when a military marker was placed at his grave site. Life had not been easy for Patrick who came to the United States at about age 10, worked as a bootmaker, enlisted in the army early in the Civil War, and like so many soldiers in that war, died of disease, not on the battlefield. His death did begin to break down the unwritten rule that had kept Irish Catholics out of the Rural Cemetery, although it would be several decades before the gates were opened wide.

It seems hard to believe that prejudice against Irish Catholics was strong enough to keep them from being buried in the local cemetery. Should I, as the descendant of early Anglo settlers of this town, try to keep this history from being taught to spare myself any feelings of guilt? Should we ban the teaching about the inconvenient facts in our history, or is it an opportunity to learn about the damage that prejudice can cause?

On March 17th it is said that everyone is Irish when people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Fortunately for the Irish in Massachusetts, March 17th is also Evacuation Day, a holiday designated to celebrate the evacuation of the British troops from Boston in 1776. Like the early Christians who chose to shield the celebration of the birth of Jesus by observing Christmas during the Saturnalia festivities, the early Irish immigrants were able to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day under the cover of Evacuation Day. Today many more people are aware of St. Patrick’s Day than of Evacuation Day.

Happy Evacuation Day and Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all!

Thanks to Molly Leavitt for her help in the search for Martha and her knowledge about Southborough’s Civil War veterans.

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More Treasures from the Basement

 

As I hinted last time, the basement hasn’t finished yielding up its social history treasures, for along with the Franklin Institute minutes, two weeks ago we also rediscovered the accounts of the Young Mens Lyceum.  As a document of social history, it is impossible to underestimate the value of this remarkable record.

The Lyceum was a debating society, much like the earlier Franklin Institute.  But this time, the notation covers the years between 1840-1861, perhaps one of the most turbulent periods in United States history, often referred to as the “Silver Age.” For in addition to the much debated Mexican-American War, our  expanding nation was dealing with the growth of  industrialization, a rapid rise in immigration, and the slow fragmentation of the Union over the issue of slavery. You might think that the inhabitants of agrarian Southborough would  have worried more about the local weather than the political clouds in Washington, but thanks to this record, we now know that wasn’t at all the case.

Here’s a look at some of the debate topics, with a bit of historical context added in, to give you a better understanding of just how up-to-the-moment our citizenry was:

29 November 1842: Which is the most beneficial to the United States: commerce or agriculture? (Voted 6 to 2 for commerce)
This is a very interesting result for what was then entirely agricultural Southborough, and shows that the rising tides of industrialization were beginning to spread out along the lines of the new railroad. Within the next decade, in fact, Southborough would have its first large-scale mill at Cordaville.

The mills at Cordaville originally produced cheap cotton cloth for the Southern slave markets, and only later turned to woolen blanket production,  highly ironic considering the fierce abolitionist stance of many Southborough inhabitants.

21 March 1843:  Have females the right to active part in public affairs? (Voted yes) The Lyceum, unlike the Franklin Institute, also seems to have had  a female “editress,” whose job appears to have been gathering news-bits of the day for presentation to the members.

22 February 1844: Is it right or expedient to prosecute vendors of spirituous liquors? (Voted 5 to 4 yes.) 
Massachusetts was technically dry during this period, but sellers of hard liquor weren’t hard to find, and the close vote is indicative of the popular stance — publicly opposed but privately for.  The state would try various solutions until eventually agreeing to license liquor vendors in the 1870s. Southborough remained officially dry even longer, and our thirsty citizens needed to cross the river to Hopkinton, where  those in search of  liquor, cards and other pleasures could find several famed houses of mixed repute.

Henry Clay, the “Great Pacificator”

23 September 1844: Can abolitionists consistently vote for Henry Clay? (Voted 2-6 against)
1844 was a presidential election year, and Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, was running against Democrat James Polk. Polk, from Tennessee, was a slave owner. Clay, from Kentucky, had also owned slaves, but was considered “soft” on slavery as he decried the institution and favored gradual emancipation and repatriation of slaves to Africa — a view shared at the time by Abraham Lincoln. Southborough, however, was a hotbed of abolitionists, and true to their convictions, the Lyceum members could not bring themselves to support Clay, despite his carrying the rest of the state.

24 December 1844: Are rewards of merit conducive to the best interests of our common schools? (Voted 4-5 against)
Corporal punishment was still a favored means of discipline in our schools in 1844. This practice would change markedly over the next twenty years, as Southborough formed a school committee and introduced semi-permanent female teachers, as opposed to the previous system of interim male tutors. Note, too, the date: 24 December. Christmas as a major holiday was still decades away, to be popularized by Queen Victoria’s German consort, Prince Albert.

3 March 1847: Ought the so-called free states remain in the Union? (Voted not to remain.) A very hot topic, this question was debated again on October, 6th, 13th and 20th. The vote taken on the 20th, 9-1 to remain in the union, reversed the previous opinion. Still not settled, the question was taken up once more, on November 16th and 22nd, this time the results being far closer, 8 to 6 to remain. This back-and-forth is truly fascinating, as it reveals that Southerners weren’t the only ones contemplating secession — something that’s never mentioned in our history texts — and that the residents of Southborough were more or less divided on the question. Imagine if the North had seceded and left the South to its own devices!  Alternate historians have speculated that lacking the industrialized north, the Southern states would have looked to the Caribbean and Central America for resource markets, extending slavery throughout the region.  A very different world indeed….


4 November 1848: Can a true patriot vote for Cass or Taylor for President at the coming election?
1848 was another presidential election year, and this time the candidates were even less palatable to the Lyceum members. Taylor, though nominated by the Whigs as the hero of the Mexican-American War, shared none of their values. Cass, a Southern Democrat, (though he was born in New Hampshire) was equally unacceptable. That left former president Martin Van Buren, who

Results of the 1848 election

ran as an independent.  The record of the Lyceum says it all: “The question was discussed for an hour and half but with little earnestness owing to the fact that there being no one to oppose from principle, and it was then decided 4-1 in the negative.”  This result should give some heart to modern day residents: it appears that the 2016 election wasn’t the first  where voters went to the polls holding their noses.

24 January 1849: Which contains the greater evidence of a supreme being, nature or the bible? (Voted Nature 5-1)
Given the Pilgrim founding of Southborough, this is another really interesting result, as you might have expected  more traditional religious views, but it seems that our Lyceum members shared more than a little streak of transcendentalism.

28 February 1850: Which has been treated worse, the Indians or the Negros? (Voted 7-1 for the Indians)

20 February 1850:  Is it probable that the country will be benefited on the whole by the discovery of gold in California? (5 to 4 against)
Southborough wasn’t immune to the call of California gold, and the Society possesses a fascinating series of letters from a former resident who left to try his luck — but that’s a story for another day.

23 February 1850: Which is worst, the slanderer or the thief? (Voted 4 to 2 for the slanderer)

16 October 1850: Ought Massachusetts sustain the Fugitive Slave Bill? (Decided unanimously against)
The Fugitive Slave Act, part of Henry Clay’s Great Compromise of 1850, allowed anyone suspected of being a fugitive slave to be arrested on merely the claimant’s sworn testimony of ownership. The law was widely despised and resisted in the North, as the residents of Southborough clearly reveal here.

31 March 1852: Is a monarchical or republican form of government better adapted to the promotion of the arts and sciences? (Voted  3-10 for the republic)

Great Britain has just hosted the Crystal Palace Exhibition showcasing British industry and arts, and this question is undoubtedly the result of some nationalistic chaffing.  Americans would have to wait until the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 to see something similar.

22 December 1852: Should the annexation of Canada be encouraged? (8 to 6 for)
There was serious discussion in both the US and Canada (especially Quebec) about annexing all or part of Canada to the US, which wasn’t as far fetched as it sounds to us today. The Dominion of Canada had yet to be formed, and many viewed the territories to the north as ripe for acquisition, as the Alaska Purchase would confirm in 1867.

27 December 1859: Is the reading of fiction beneficial to society? (Voted no)
So much for Dickens! Interestingly, the Society, in conjunction with the Library, possesses the 1852 founding documentation (including book lists) for our Library, and its one of our future projects to study and digitize these records. It would be interesting to see exactly what books were considered “beneficial.”

3 January 1860: Is John Brown to be justified in his conduct at Harper’s Ferry? (Voted yes)
The 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It was put down by the US Marines, and Brown, a long-time resident of Springfield Massachusetts, was tried and hung for treason. That the residents of Southborough would support this violent action is indicative of just how fiercely anti-slavery many of the Town residents had become.

24 January 1860. Is one nation justified in forcing civilization upon another? (Voted no)
An astoundingly modern view, given the nationalism of the Victorian age.

26 March 1861: Should foreign immigration be encouraged? (Voted 15-6 no)
Hardly surprising in Southborough where the founding Yankees were beginning to feel the pressure of Irish immigration.

9 April 1861: The very last entry of this incredible record. The Civil War was about begin and soon many members would be putting courage to the same convictions they had earlier professed at the Lyceum.

“Owing to the small number present,” reads the record,  “it was thought best to have no discussion. Voted to adjourn sine die.”

And thus the golden age of Southborough’s debating societies came to a muted end, drowned out by the drums of civil war.

Neither the Town, nor the Nation,  would ever be quite the same again.

 

 

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The Outlaws of Cordaville

[It seems hard to think of Southborough as a wild-west kind of town, but for a while from 1860s-1890s the area around the Cordaville mill was a pretty rough place. The Kelly family, Irish immigrants who came to work in the mills, had settled around Oregon road and soon were running a protection racket (your house might suddenly go up in flames unless you agreed to pay up; a bootlegging operation; a widely notorious whorehouse; and another, Chattanooga, where women were also available. Needless to say, “proper folk” were appalled, but the gang was entrenched and enjoyed the support — loyal or otherwise — of the locals. It wasn’t until the coming of the reservoir system that this changed: As part of the deal to take the land for the reservoirs, the city of Boston was forced to supply and pay for 5 police officials — the beginnings of the Southborough Police Department — and the end of the Kelley gang. 

You can get some sense of the goings-on from this amusing article from the Westborough Chronotype dated Saturday Morning Jan 26, 1895, which was reprinted in the Boston Advertiser the next week. “License” by the way, is the right to sell liquor in a town. At the time, Southborough and the surrounding towns were ‘dry.’ Eds.]

•••••••

Cordaville is a village, lying partly in Hopkinton township, partly in Southborough, and partly in Ashland. Southborough is in Worcester County; the other two towns are in Middlesex County. The Kelly wine place is in Hopkinton; but it lies within 160 rods of the Southborough line and for this reason may be legally raided by officers of Worcester County.

The three towns have generally voted no license; and when license has received the popular vote Kelly has always been refused a license because of his reputation. “But men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.” License or no license, Kelly’s is always open.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t keep Kelly from selling gin. Middlesex has about 17 deputy sheriffs, Worcester 28; Hopkinton has 5 constables, Ashland 3, Southborough 6; Yet even with the State Police added the army isn’t enough to eject Kelly.

77.34.4 Cordaville Train wreck 1 copy
In addition to the dangers of the Kelly gang, Cordaville residents faced other threats, such as the not-so-infrequent wrecks on the B&A line, such as this on in 1912, which happened to be a deliberate derailment in order to rob the train.

“Yes,” said Constable Tidsbury of Ashland, “no license was voted in all three towns, except Hopkinton, and there the vote was so close that the selectmen refused to sign any licenses; but for all that liquor is sold in all three places.”

Then he related the same tale as before, that if Hopkinton selectmen gave him authority he would proceed to raid the Kelly mansion.

Driving over to Southborough from Ashland, I asked my driver why it was that at the Central House, Ashland, it was necessary to go up stairs to get a drink. “Oh” he answered, “they’re ‘fraid to let the girls serve it at the dinner table ‘fraid they’ll drink it themselves. They’re of no count; they come over from Worcester County, them girls did.” (This illustrates the unhappy feeling between the citizens of the two counties in juxtaposition, and it is largely because of this feeling that the Kelly’s et al.  are suffered to maintain themselves). “At our hotel,” my driver continued, “yer don’t have to go upstars. Matt Tierney does the biggest business, though. He’s wholesale as well as retail. He’s got bar’ls an’ bar’ls ‘er larger, ‘en whiskey, and he’s got a re’lar rowte through 5 ‘er 6 towns.”

“Why does the town vote no license and then allow liquor selling?”

“Oh, I guess there’s some sort of deal.”

The road leads through “Chattanooga.” The name is appropriate, for the place is evidently a battlefield. In some houses even the doors are gone; none have their windows entire. This is the habitat of the “hoboes” who labored on the water works, when they labored at all. Cordaville has a new lockup since “der gang” smashed the old one.

In the two counties of Middlesex and Worcester there is one brave officer of the law: Constable Dorr. For 35 years he has fought the Kelly gang. He it was who looked down the barrel of a revolver in the hand of desperate Jim Rafferty. Jim tried to prevent Mr. Dorr from making an arrest, but the old man said shoot away! I intend to arrest this man.” Jim fired, but by some miracle the bullet glanced along the side of the old hero’s head, and Jim didn’t got a chance to fire again! For this playful act on Jim’s part the court gave him 18 month’s vacation. The short sentence was doubtless due to his reputation as a man of war.

But even Mr. Dorr has declared a truce against the Kelly gang. Since the loss of all his property by fire last July he has been living with his daughter; his wife is an invalid and for the sake of his family the valiant and venerable old man has relinquished the war.

Since the burning of Mr. Dorr’s buildings and the attempted burning of the mills, (Mr. Wilson, the manager, is also an uncompromising enemy of the Kelly’s,) the gang is held in greater awe than ever. More than one who talked with me said; “Don’t print my name in the paper, I beg you, else we shall feel the vengeance of the Kelly!

I asked Selectmen Morse of Hopkinton why such a set of outlaws was allowed to remain in town. “We’ll we’ve raided them 15 or 16 times but we don’t seem to get anything. You see Mr. Chaflin, he’s chairman of the selectmen. He said he was going to drive them out.”

 

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When Southborough Was a Mill Town

A circa 1900 advertisement for Cordaville Woolen Mills
A circa 1900 advertisement for Cordaville Woolen Mills

In 1847 Milton H. Sanford of Medford purchased several parcels of farm land along the Sudbury (then Concord) river in Southborough, Ashland and Hopkinton. One of them conveyed the mill privilege – the right to dam and use the water of the river. In addition to this ample power source, the area was attractive for milling because of the proximity to the new Boston & Worcester railroad, which ran through the site. Not only would transport to far-away markets be assured, but the railroad would supply the workforce needed for the new facility. Sanford began building workers’ houses on Parker and Cottage Streets, and by 1850, a company store on Main Street, later named Fitzgerald’s, which still stands. The village he named for his wife Cordelia.

By 1854 the Cordaville Manufacturing Company consisted of a cotton factory and a building that housed a machine shop and planing mill. The company produced a rough fabric for use by slaves on the Southern plantations, as well as woolens. (For reasons of culture and geography the South had few manufacturing centers of its own, and most industrial mill production was carried out in the the Northeast with its abundance of river power and ample immigrant work force, then shipped southward.)

millonpondcordaville web
The mill pond with the mill buildings, looking east

The workers for Sanford’s mill were largely newly arrived Irish immigrants, who had fled the devastating potato famine that had begun in 1847 and would eventually lead to the emigration of almost 2 million souls. Approximately sixty workers were employed at the mill; two-thirds were women, and paid only half that of their male counterparts.  The influx of Irish to the mill caused the first Catholic mass to be said in Southborough, on Easter Day 1849, in Wilson’s Hall above the company store.

A fire — a very common occurrence in mills with their highly flammable cotton dust — destroyed the original mill complex and killed three workers in 1855. It was rebuilt, this time including both water and steam-powered apparatus. With the outbreak of war, Sanford quickly abandoned the manufacture of plantation goods, and instead manufactured woolen blankets for Northern troops. This quick response allowed his Cordaville mill to survive when many competing mills failed due to the loss of the Southern market. The mill’s location on the principal rail line between Boston and points West also helped; it was a major transport line for the Federal army.

In 1864, the complex was sold and the business converted to a joint stock venture, the Cordaville Mills Company. By 1870, the mill had grown considerably. There were now two mill buildings, an office, three freight houses, a waste house, a picker house and factory store, now operated by the Wright brothers, which also housed the post office. The village of Cordaville grew with the addition of its own train station, school, and in 1872, St. Matthews Church; and in 1876, a jail. That same year, the company was reorganized as the Cordaville Woolen Company, and the shift to steam power, already underway, accelerated — aided by a prolonged period of drought in the 1880s that dried up many mill ponds. Once again, this timely shift to steam allowed The Cordaville Woolen Company to remain a profitable concern well into the next century.

b&a station
Cordaville Station with Fitzgerald’s visible behind

By 1928 however, the corporate model of a company owning an entire village seemed out-dated and unprofitable, and the Cordaville Woolen Company was sold off in pieces. Individual workers were allowed to buy their homes if they wished, and the owner of the company store, a certain Mr. Fitzgerald, purchased it as well. Under various owners the mill buildings continued in one industrial capacity or another until 1957. After that, the buildings sat abandoned; by 1974 the complex was deemed unsafe, and was torn down by the Town of Southborough, which sold off the bricks of the once proud buildings. (The fate of the mill buildings much resembled that of Cordaville’s H.H. Richardson-designed train station, which the Selectmen voted to demolish in the 70s with seemingly little public opposition. The stone was sold to a builder in New Hampshire.)

The loss of the Cordaville Mills is but one of Southborough’s many historical “if-onlys”.  If only the buildings had been allowed to survive a little longer, the nascent historical protection movement would have realized their incredible value as a mixed commercial, office or residential site. Can you imagine how handy a condo complex with a hip restaurant and bar right next to the commuter rail station would be viewed by today’s consumers? Or how much land might have been preserved from controversial state-mandated 40B projects if we had converted the complex to affordable housing and filled Southborough’s quota of units? Of course hindsight is 20-20, but Southborough needs to be far more vigilant these days in protecting its remaining architectural heritage.

More images of industrial Cordaville and Southville:

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A Short History of Route 9, The Road You Love to Hate

For those of you stuck almost almost daily in gridlocked traffic on Route 9, staring at nothing but ugly concrete Jersey barriers and electronic billboards advertising products you don’t need, we thought you might like to read about life in another time, and how the road you love to hate came into existence in the first place.

The following are excepts from a charming account read before the Brookline Historical Society December 26, 1906, by Edward W. Baker ~Eds.

In the summer of 1906, a few enthusiastic golfers planned a day’s play at the Worcester Golf Club, and one beautiful summer morning we assembled in Village Square, Brookline.

We boarded the open electric car marked “Wellesley, Natick, Framingham and Worcester” at almost the identical spot where, years ago, we would have climbed into a great, lumbering, four or six-horse coach. Probably in those days we would have preceded our departure by drinking a mug of cider or flip, or perhaps a little spiced wine, in the tap room of the old Punch Bowl Tavern, which stood on the northerly side of the square, and whose hospitable doors were always open under the sign of the Bowl and Lemon Tree.

whitescornertrolley
This is the “Air Line” trolley station stop at White’s Corner, 1904. It was here the train branched off into open country, regaining the Turnpike past Westborough.

Until the town line was reached, just beyond Hammond street, the car kept the rate of speed to which we are accustomed within city limits, but, after reaching the open country in Newton and beyond, the speed increased to express train rate and we whirled along smoothly and so rapidly that about two hours after leaving Brookline we reached the square in Worcester.

It was a most delightful ride in the fresh morning air, through beautiful scenery of hill, valley and meadow, amid surroundings of great interest, both on account of their present significance and historical associations. The return trip was under the light of a clear, bright moon, and, if anything, was more pleasurable than the outward journey in the morning. The next week the same party took another ride in the same way as far as Framingham, where the day was spent at the Framingham Country Club, whose grounds are opposite one of the recently completed basins of the great Metropolitan Water Supply system, and whose club house, directly on the line of the car route, is the old Josiah Temple house, built in 1693 by Caleb Bridges, and adapted in a most artistic manner to its present use.

These trips brought vividly to the writer’s recollection an outing which he enjoyed with a schoolboy companion sometime in the seventies, when, with a horse and buggy, we drove from Brookline to Worcester, taking two days for the trip, with stop-over at Westborough, which was reached late in the afternoon of the first day. After spending some weeks on a farm a few miles beyond Worcester, we drove back to Brookline.

Going and coming we kept to the old turnpike road, which the trolley cars now follow, and, boy-like, we went prepared for adventures with highwaymen and possible savage beasts. But the journey was lacking all such excitements, and gave us only the experiences of a drive along a quiet, little-used, and in. some places almost forgotten country road, narrow and grass-grown for long stretches, over-shadowed by the foliage of the low-bending trees and bordered by vines and wild flowers.

The contrast in the manner of traveling, and the great changes along the road which have taken place in the last thirty years, emphasize the fact that the extension and improvement of the means and methods of traveling are the most important factors in the growth and development, not only of the termini served, but of all the intermediate country, and every town between Worcester and Boston has waxed or waned in its growth and progress according to its facilities far transportation…

History is the story of successions and the causes thereof.

Before the white man settled on Shawmut, as the old peninsula of Boston was called, the Indians had their paths or trails westward through the wilderness between the Bay and their settlements on the inland lakes and streams in the Connecticut Valley and beyond.

When the Wabbaquassets came from what is now Woodstock, Connecticut, with sacks of Indian corn for the nearly starved colonists in the fall after Governor Winthrop arrived (1630), they travelled to and fro by one of their trails which no doubt had been frequently travelled before and was easily followed by what were to them well known landmarks.

The earliest English travellers westward, so far as known, were John Oldham, Samuel Hall and two others who, in 1633, started for Connecticut to look for a good place for a new settlement, as if anywhere within twenty miles of Boston was not new enough in 1633!

Knowing of the trail used by the Indians three years earlier, they followed it from Watertown, because they realized it would be the easiest line of travel; would strike the fording or crossing places of streams, avoid bad swamps, and, what was of equal if not greater importance, would take them by the Indian villages scattered along the route, where they could obtain food and lodging.

Boston_Post_Road_map
A map showing the colonial post roads. (Click to enlarge) From this it’s easy to see how a more direct route straight west to Worcester seemed like a good idea — and indeed it was, for the railroads!

Other pioneers started out by the same route, and little by little the original trail became recognized as an established line of travel. Followed by larger parties and by those who took their families, their horses and cattle, the faintly marked path became deeply worn and clearly defined. It was known as “the way to Connecticut,” [Today’s Rt 20, ~ eds.] and the early records of grants of land in what are today Wayland, Sudbury, Marlborough, and other towns specify areas of more or less acres along the “Connecticut Path,” as it was designated, which, after it became still more broadly marked, was named the” Connecticut Road.”

In what is now Wayland, formerly a part of Sudbury, the old path forked. The northern branch, passing through Marlborough, Worcester, and Brookfield, was known as the” Bay Path,” [Today’s Rt 20; the southern fork is now Rt 126; see the map at left ~eds.] and extended straight to the Connecticut River and the settlement of Agawam, now the City of Springfield.

With the growth of the Colony the travel in both directions grew heavier and heavier, and in the progress of time what had been a path through forest and across clearing, faintly traced by the soft moccasins of the Indians, developed into what was termed “The King’s Highway.” After the Revolution, it lost its royal title, and is commonly referred to in the records as “the great road” or the” post road from New York to Boston.”

For over one hundred and fifty years the “great road” was the trunk line to Worcester, but the zenith of its glory was reached just one hundred years ago, when, so far as” rapid transit” was concerned, it was rendered quite out of date by the building of the Worcester Turnpike in 1806 and 1807.

Chapter 67, Massachusetts Acts of 1806, incorporated the Worcester Turnpike and authorized Aaron Davis, Luther Richardson, Samuel Wells, Charles Davis and William H. Sumner, Esquire, to layout a turnpike from Roxbury to Worcester, “commencing at or near Roxbury street and running near the house of Stephen Higginson, Jr., in Brookline, thence near Mitchell’s Tavern in Newton, thence crossing Charles River near General Elliott’s Mills and running near the house of Enoch Fiske in Needham (this part of Needham is now Wellesley), thence to the Neck of the Ponds, so called, in Natick; thence near the house of Jonathan Rugg in Framingham; thence near the house of Deacon Chamberlain in Southborough; thence near Furbush’s Tavern in Westborough; thence near the house of Jonathan Harrington in Shrewsbury; thence crossing Shrewsbury pond and running north of Bladder pond to the street in Worcester near the Court House; with power to erect four toll gates thereon, at such places, not being on any old road, as the committee appointed by the Act shall determine.”

The proprietors were authorized to demand and receive at gates where full rates were charged, the following tolls:

  • For each coach, chariot, phaeton or other four-wheel spring carriage drawn by two horses – 25 cents., and 2 cents. for each additional horse.
  • For every wagon drawn by two horses – 1O cents., and 2 cents for each additional horse.
  • For every cart or wagon drawn by two oxen – 10 cents and if by more than two, 12 1/2 cents.
  • For every curricle – 1 cents.
  • For every chaise, chair, sulkey, or other carriage for pleasure, drawn by one horse -12 1/2 cents
  • For every cart, wagon or truck drawn by one horse – 6 1/4 cents each.
  • For every man and horse -4C. For every sleigh or sled drawn by two oxen or horses – 8 cents., and 1 cent for each additional ox or horse.
  • For all horses, mules or neat cattle led or driven besides those in teams or carriages – 1 cent each.
  • Swine or sheep – 3 cents by the dozen.

 

80-11.12 view from stepple copy
In this incredible view, taken from the steeple of Pilgrim Church before the Civil War, you can appreciate how open and rural travelers on the Turnpike would have found Southborough, and how happy they would be to settle into a cup of ale or hard cider at Woodbury’s Tavern after struggling up the hill in Fayville. The Turnpike’s lack of respect for topography meant it could never be used for significant freight as teams could not make it up the most severe grades.

 

Certain exemptions were made by which no tolls could be demanded from foot travellers; from those driving to or from their usual place of public worship; from those passing on military duty; or from those living in the town where the gate was located, unless they were going beyond the limits of the town: and one could also go without charge to and from the grist mill, or on the common and ordinary business of family concerns.

It was supposed that this turnpike would give the maximum speed in the minimum time because it was laid out on the simple mathematical principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The turnpike engineers paid little attention to grades, and seemingly forgot that the actual distance traveled may be as long over a hill as around its base, to say nothing of the greater effort to the traveler climbing up one side and holding back when going down on the other.

Stagecoach and tavern days reached the high level of their development along the line from Boston to Worcester from 1830 to 1835, after which the once popular route took its place in history as the “Old Worcester Turnpike,” its usefulness almost entirely taken away by the completion of the Boston and Worcester steam railroad….

Cordaville Crossing
Passengers at the Cordaville Road train station. From the 1840’s to 1900, the easiest way to go to Boston, or to any point east or west for that matter, was to take the train.

Although of great benefit to the traveling public [for three decades], the Worcester turnpike did not prove a profitable enterprise to its proprietors, even with sub-divided tolls. It paid few dividends, never six per cent, and finally the whole capital involved was totally lost. [Another cause of financial failure was active toll-avoidance on the part of many who used the road without payment, simply detouring around toll gates. Eds.]

[After the 1850s} there was little if any through-travel, and except for short stretches through the populous sections of towns, it retained not a shadow of its former popularity. Moss-covered stone walls or dilapidated weather-beaten fences marked its bounds; with here and there a turnout to enable the thirsty horses or cattle to drink from some clear-watered brook which flowed lazily under the roadway. The quiet and peacefulness along the way was undisturbed except by the clatter of the bell on some cow’s neck as she fed along the faintly marked side-path on the way to and from the nearby pasture.

For over fifty years, the old turnpike dozed and nodded in this sleepy sort of a way, until in the first years of the twentieth century its slumbers were disturbed by the sudden shock of the electric current, which, revolutionizing nearly every form of industry, has affected the problem of transportation in particular. Again the engineers and contractors covered the ground, and when they had finished their work the old road was so altered in appearance that never again can it be recognized, even by itself.

91.3.11 Italian Workers on the trolley copy
After the work on the reservoirs was complete, many Italian immigrants stayed to work on the new trolley line. Here the tracks are being laid in Southborough.

Today, the “broom-stick trains leave ye ancient highway in Brookline where the arch stands” for “the street in Worcester near the Court House” every half hour or less, and carry thousands of coach-loads of passengers at high’ speed, without dust, cinders, or other similar discomfort. Every seat is an outside seat in pleasant summer weather, and in cold or stormy weather the easy-riding cars are well warmed and comfortably furnished. In 1906, we might repeat the words of the historian of seventy years ago, when he said in regard to the stage coach lines of 1836, “the speed of traveling and its facilities have been increased almost beyond measure.”

Editor’s Note: We wish the sentiments of 2016 were equally so optimistic. With the rise of automobile ownership after the invention of the Model-T Ford, public transportation began a rapid decline. In 1930, both to accommodate rising automobile traffic and to provide a works-project during the Depression, the State decided to remove the trolley line and lay a four-lane concrete highway over the Boston-Worcester route, naming it Rt 9. As the predecessor of the modern freeway, it brought all the problems that we today associate with urban sprawl to communities west of Boston, essentially dooming the road (except in a few remaining short runs here and there) to be one long concrete commercial corridor. State planners estimate that the land along the roadway remains only half “built out” and predicts a doubling of the current traffic by 2030.

90.10.142 Little Deefoot Barn copy
Route 9 in the 1940s, looking east on the Southborough border with Westborough, almost unimaginably different today.

 

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When Politics Wasn’t Subtle

In this election year, we thought we’d show you a very interesting piece from our collections, “a sample or model” ballot that was distributed by the Republican Party in Southborough.

Of course, this kind of thing would never be allowed today, but in those free-for-all days, political parties fought for every new vote, especially from newly arrived immigrants. Until 1905 when laws were tightened, every immigrant was granted a certificate on arrival to US shores, and after five years, was considered a US citizen once they applied to their local town clerk, registered, and swore allegiance to the United States. Thus major political parties printed sample ballots like these to guide new voters through the process, with not so subtle suggestions as to whom they should vote for. This was particularly important in Southborough, which had experienced a large increase in immigration, mainly Irish at this point working in the Cordaville and Southville mills, but soon to be Italian as well — laborers for the newly formed reservoir system.

 

02.200 ballot front copy

 

02.200 ballot front

Those with a keen eye may be wondering why there was voting for governor in 1889, which would be an off year now; until 1960 however, governors ran every two years. Harvard educated John Quincy Adams Brackett of Arlington won by the way, and served a single term until defeated for re-election by a Democrat. The governorship would remain largely in the hands of the Republican party until the 30s; state and local politics would shift to the Democratic side, at least in large urban areas, in the new century. Suggested ballots like these would totally disappear… except in very special historical collections like ours.