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Summary-
The Town of Whitman, during the year 1975, celebrated its
100th year as an independent entity. The present-day
town was incorporated on March 4, 1875, being created from the
South Ward of Abington (about two-thirds of its area) plus the
"Auburnville" section of East Bridgewater (the other third).
At that time, its official name was "South Abington," a
cumbersome title which it bore until March 5, 1886 when, by
popular referendum, it changed its name to "Whitman," honoring
one of its outstanding early families.
But the history of this Community goes back another two
hundred years earlier than 1875. There are in fact,
three hundred years of what we now know as "Whitman."
The first hundred years, 1675 to 1775, spans the period from
the Indians to the American Revolution. The second
hundred years, 1776 to 1875, begins with the struggle for
American independence and includes the industrial expansion,
the Civil War and development of the school system up to the
time of the great High School trouble that brought forth the
division of the Old Township of Abington and created Rockland
(1874) and the present-day Town of Whitman. The third
hundred years, 1876 to 1975, our modern age can almost be
remembered in entirety by 'old-timers' around town. One
of the features of the Centennial year was the publication of
"Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow," an official paperback
booklet, sponsored by the town's Board of Library Trustees.
It is an exceptionally fine collector's item, combining the
qualities of a souvenir and a thumb-nail history of the town.
The editor was Russell H. Gardner, local researcher and
historian of merit. The historical text put into print
for the first time, one concise writing of the results of new
research and a re-evaluation of earlier known data.
The First Hundred Years
1675 - 1775
Why was this frontier section of Old Plymouth Colony
settled in what we now call Whitman? Land Titles were
established and became available to citizens. Incredible
as it seems today, all of what is now Whitman, was originally
in the far northeastern corner of Old Bridgewater. The common
lands (those parts not already given out to individuals as
Land Grants), were divided and made available by the
"Bridgewater Proprietors," mostly between the 1660's and the
1680's. The Bridgewater Proprietors were the first
settlers of Old Bridgewater, acting as a committee
representing the town for this purpose.
Three large parcels of land, previously granted by the
Plymouth Colony General Court, were wholly or partly in what
is Whitman today. All of the other early land titles
were established by the Bridgewater, Proprietors by division
of the common lands.
Access to the lands in present-day Whitman was originally by
way of Indian paths. One major trail, which has come
down in history as the "Satucket Path" ran somewhat north and
south, approximating Washington Street, as it connected the
Wessagusset section of Weymouth with the Indian fields in East
Bridgewater near the head of the Satucket River where the
water 'gushes forth' from Robbins Pond.
In 1675-6 “King Phillip’s
War”, which spelled annihilation of the Indian tribes of
Southeastern Massachusetts, was raging. There were no white
settlers in this community as yet. But by 1686, the
Chard brothers (Samuel & Caleb) came from Weymouth and
purchased one of the Land Grants. They bought the 116 acre
parcel plus the 12 acre swamp which lay on the high ground
near the junction of Walnut and Washington Streets. This
grant had originally been given to the children of Remember
Briggs, an old-comer to Plymouth Colony who had died before
receiving his portion. The Phineas Pratt grant, the NW
of the Chards, was to be settled later by two sons of John
Shaw of Weymouth.
The
third Land Grant that was to figure in Whitman’s history was
the large parcel called the “Torrey Triangle” that included
the swampy lowlands between Washington and Plymouth Streets.
The list of men who purchased the Torrey Triangle included the
names of John Porter and Joseph Green who erected, in 1693,
the first sawmill in this area at the outlet from the swamp.
This was the “Little Comfort” mill, so-called, built to
encourage potential settlers to buy land and build houses.
The dam for this ancient mill stood very nearly at the present
dam site for Hobart’s Pond in Whitman’s East End. This
primitive form of land-promotion worked and homesteaders did
begin to come in. The land in this area was under the
jurisdiction of Bridgewater, but the first settlers came from
Weymouth and Hingham.
The First Settlers
We can name 15 early
families, in addition to the Chards and Shaws, who were or had
been in residence here by the time the Township of Old
Abington was incorporated on June 10, 1712. They were (in
order of arrival) Thomas Tolman, John Gurney, Phillip Reed,
William Dyer, Joseph Josselyn, William Hersey, Nicholas
Porter, William Reed, William Tirrell, Ebenezer Whitmarsh,
Daniel Axtell, Benjamin Gurney, John Harden, Benjamin Staples,
and Samuel Poole. Most of these families had sons who grew up
to become citizens of the community. All lived along the main
highway (the Satucket Path) with the exception of John Gurney,
Joseph Josselyn, and William Dyer, who settled near the Mill
in the East End and had access to the highway via “Goose Herd
Lane” which approximated present-day South Avenue.
William
Hersey, who came from Hingham between 1704 and 1706 and ran
the sawmill, is credited with being the “father of Old
Abington,” in that he probably organized the movement for all
of the early settlers as far north as the Plymouth Colony line
to apply to become a separate township with its own church.
This was finally accomplished in 1712. The new town was
called by the name of Abington at the urging of Massachusetts
Bay’s royal governor Joseph Dudley who wished to honor his
English patron, the Countess of Abington.
Town Officers
In the spring of 1713, when
the first town meeting was held there were about 31 families
living in (Old) Abington. Two-thirds of them were in the
southern part that is now Whitman. The other third were in
present-day Abington Centre and North Abington. There was
nobody living as yet in West Abington nor in present-day
Rockland.
At that
first town meeting, 11 men were elected to public office. Six
of them were from the Southern section: William Hersey
(Selectman and Moderator), William Reed (Selectman and Town
Clerk), William Tirrell (Selectman), Joseph Josselyn
(Constable), Nicholas Porter (one of the two highway
surveyors), and Ebenezer Whitman (one of the two fence
viewers). These categories, plus the treasurer, were the
only town offices in the beginning. Other offices were added
only by necessity.
A field
driver was named in 1716. He was Samuel Gurney from the
southern section and he was authorized to drive stray cattle
to the pound. An early pound keeper (1729) was Thomas
Tirrell, who was running an inn where 237 Washington Street
now stands. He was already acting as “Tything Man” (keeping
order in all-day church service as well as collecting taxes
for its upkeep and had been since 1725. Elisha Lincoln,
who lived where the Ford Agency is now located near the “big
chimney” in the East End, was named the “hog reeve” in 1721.
Richard Whitmarsh, a tanner who lived on Harvard Street, was
named “leather sealer” in 1724.
The
southern settlement, which was to become the South Ward, and
eventually become Whitman, was not only larger in population
than the Centre, but also was to furnish important leadership
for the entire old township.
The Hobart Family
In 1723, Isaac Hobart, a
young unmarried man aged 23, came from Hingham to work for
John Harden, the blacksmith. Harden’s place was where Millett
Farm is now located. Young Hobart married Harden’s daughter,
moved to the East End, and founded the important family about
whom several volumes could be written.
Aaron
Hobart, an important man with the military title of Major in
the time of the American Revolution, was son of Isaac.
Shortly after the end of the war Aaron was promoted to Colonel
in the local regiment and has come down in history with this
title. Benjamin Hobart, an attorney and author of the
“History of Abington” (1866), was a son of Colonel Aaron
Hobart. He lived on the old Elisha Lincoln site,
previously mentioned; and Judge Aaron Hobart who had published
his early “Historical Sketch of Abington” in 1839, was a
nephew of Attorney Benjamin Hobart.
Colonel
Aaron Hobart made use of the water power at the mill privilege
his part in honoring American independence by casting
cannon for use by the Revolutionary forces as told in the
booklet “Abington and the Revolution” published by the
Abington Bicentennial Commission in 1975. The more one learns
of the Hobart family, the larger they loom in the history of
what is now the Town of Whitman.
The Colonial Wars
The years leading up to the
American Revolution included the “Old French War” of 1744-1748
and the “French and Indian Wars” of 1754-1760. The south part
of Old Abington furnished military officers in the persons of
Captain Obadiah Reed, Captain William Tirrell, Lieutenant
Ephraim Spooner (later elevated to Captain) and Ensign Elisha
Hersey ( later Lieutenant) for the former. During the “French
and Indian Wars”, 45 men from what is now Whitman are found
listed as soldiers. Five are known to have lost their lives
in the service.
Whitman
is also proud of the old brick cottage in which the “John
White family” of French neutrals was given refuge during this
war period. The house still stands at 351 High Street. It
was built by Bachelor David Porter about 1730 and is thought
to be the oldest original house still standing in Whitman.
The
story of the revolutionary period is covered in the
Bicentennial Booklet previously mentioned but it is worthy of
mention at this time that Aaron Hobart, Samuel Poole, and
James Hersey were members of the Committee of Seven which drew
up Old Abington’s “Nobel Resolves” which expressed the same
sentiments as the better known Plymouth County Resolves and
Suffolk Resolves, by 4 years earlier.
Bell Founding
“In 1769”, says Benjamin
Hobart, in his History of Abington (1866, p140-1) “ a deserter
from the Bristol Army, a bell founder by the name of
Gillimore, was employed by Colonel Aaron Hobart”. The town
records on 8 January 1770 of Old Abington give his mane as
Thomas Tallamore, and records of Old North Bridgewater ( now
Brockton) spell his name Gellomer. The reader can take his
choice. Mr. Hobart says that his father sent representatives
to Boston to teach Paul Revere to mould and cast bells, this
being the beginning of the famous Revere bells that are now
collector’s items.
Church Trouble
Midway
between the two sets of Colonial Wars, the embarrassing
interfamilial church trouble occurred in 1749. This was an
important episode in the Town’s history because it seems to
have been engineered by the people of the southern part,
possibly at the instigation of old Mr. Samuel Poole. The
overt reason for dissatisfaction with their minister, Reverend
Samuel Browne, of Abington Centre, was that he was that he too
likely to rationalize sin rather than thundering fire and
brimstone from the pulpit. Some of the interest may have been
response to Reverend Whitefield’s dramatic evangelism which
was then swaying urban centers, but a study of the local
dissenters shows them to have been a geographical faction, and
this can be interpreted as the beginning of the southern
community’s desire to be independent.
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The Second Hundred Years
1776 – 1875 |
As we
all know, the American War for Independence was finally won
with the assistance of our French allies. But even before the
surrender of the British at Yorktown in 1781, Massachusetts
people had set about organizing a government. A proposed
state constitution had been sent out to all the towns for
criticism. Aaron Hobart, James Hersey, and Samuel Bates were
among the committee appointed on 1 May 1780 to study the
manuscript and make a response.
Second Parish Created
In 1806, a religious unrest in the southern
community again came to the forefront. This time, it was
headed by Deacon Ebenezer Whitman, who had been born in
Whitman, but had moved to Harvard Street in the Auburnville
section of East Bridgewater. The East Bridgewater society had
gone Unitarian, whereas the Whitman society were of the old
Armenian persuasion now known as Congregationalists.
Deacon
Whitman and his neighbors were being taxed for support of the
East Bridgewater church but were hitching up their horses and
driving to Abington Centre every Sunday where they were also
paying their share of upkeep of that society. They knew that
the people in the southern part of Old Abington were also
chafing at their troublesome transportation problems in
getting to church services – especially the people of the East
End. Therefore, the two groups banded together and requested
the state legislature to set them of as a separate parish.
This was in 1806. Centre Abington
put up a stiff fight against the loss of their members of the
old religious society, but lost the battle, and the “Second
Parish” was incorporated in February 1808. The jurisdictional
boundary was almost identical with that of Whitman today, and
this move can definitely be counted as a step toward
independence for the Town.
War of 1812
Only four years were to pass
before the outbreak of the “War of 1812”. This war had no
popular cause to fire up the people as a whole, but rather,
was concerned with protection of American shipping on the high
seas.
However,
one of the more colorful stories concerning a local citizen
came out of that war. Alexander Nash, who lived in the
tiny cottage that was later to be moved back behind 663
Washington, joined the crew of an American ship, the
“Neufchatel”. Only 5 days out from Boston, it was taken by 3
British ships and the captured crew was taken to England where
they were held in Dartmoor Prison. Young Nash eventually made
his way back to his home town and lived until 1847, no doubt
reiterating his experiences many times over. His daughter,
Mehitable, married William P. Corthell, a man of importance in
what is now Whitman.
In
retrospect, it seems that Americans were not able to settle
down to a period of development until after their early
foreign wars were settled. The year 1830, or
thereabouts, ushered in the machine age.
Tack Manufacturing
Tacks
had been manufactured laboriously for a number of years by
hand cutting slivers from strap iron and hammering out flat
heads individually with a hammer. But several people began
developing machinery which could lessen the labor and increase
efficiency. Of interest to us is Jesse Reed, who lived in
East Bridgewater but worked in a machine shop – the south
village of Old Abington. His machine caught on, so that by
1830, six men in the village were using it to manufacture
tacks: David Gurney, Jacob Bates, Johnathan R. Gurney, David
Jenkins, Daniel Lazell, and Asaph T. Peterson.
In 1836,
David Gurney purchased the mill privilege on Island Grove Pond
and moved his business there in order to have water power to
run his machines.
Benjamin
Hobart also developed a large tack manufacturing business,
using both water and steam (either/or) in the East End. He
built the big chimney there when he installed his steam plant
in 1859. At that time he was running 60 machines.
David
Brainerd Gurney, who inherited his fathers’ estate in 1862,
brought the business back to Whitman in 1874 at which time he
built the big chimney for his steam-powered plant at 746
Washington Street. When he changed over to electricity in the
1880’s, he was running more than a hundred machines. The
D.B.
Gurney Co. is still manufacturing fine quality tacks, as we
all know, and is shipping to both national and international
markets.
The Railroad
The “Old Colony
Railroad” was built in 1846, running through the East End to
connect Boston with points south. Mr. Benjamin Hobart wrote
that the abrupt gravel hill at the west end of the milldam was
lowered at that time and furnished file for the roadbed
through Bear Meadow en route to Hanson. This change in
elevation allowed the brick factory building that stands in
the 300-block on South Avenue to be built on the spot. The
railroad, thus furnishing freight service, proved a great
impetus to industry in what was to become Whitman.
Gun House Moved
In 1843,
the much moved “Gun House” was jacked up from its location
near the corner of Washington and Summer Street in the center
and moved to an empty lot just north of Mt. Zion Cemetery on
Washington Street in the south village. This can be
interpreted as setting the stage for this village’s all-out
participation in the Civil War (q.v.). The story of the
peripatetic Gun House is told in the “Ab and Rev” booklet.
Shoe Machinery
In 1858, Lyman Blake
invented his shoe-sole sewing machine. He had been born in
East Abington but his family had come back to the south
village to live with his grandfather, so he grew up in the old
Samuel Blake cottage that originally stood between the
Congregational and Baptist churches on Washington Street, but
was later moved to where it now stands at 99 Broad Street.
This
machine, which truly modernized the shoemaking industry, was
backed and marked by Isoudor McKay, a big machine shoe
owner in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This one machine, when
viewed in hindsight, can be credited with helping putting an
end to the Civil War, because the Union soldiers could not
have been adequately shod, using the old hand-sewn technique
of attaching the soles by hand. Government statistics prove
more than half of the Union soldiers marched in shoes made in
the Abington area. The non-industrialized south could not
hope to hold out against the better-equipped northerners.
Without the shoe-sole sewing machine it would have been
impossible to manufacture shoes in sufficient numbers within
the time limit imposed by the war. The Walter Pearson Machine
Shop, which still stands on Vernon Street, had the local
franchise for manufacturing McKay’s machines.
The Civil War
Ft. Sumter, S.C. fell
to the Rebels on 14th April 1861. On the following
day, President Abraham Lincoln issued his first call to arms.
Company
E of the 4th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer
Militia was based in the South Village and was under command
of Captain Charles F. Allen, who lived at 113 Temple Street,
Whitman. Captain Allen had an ear to the ground and
anticipated the trouble brewing. As soon as he received the
word of the President’s call, he sent out runners to alert all
his men. They assembled at their “Armory” during the
night.
Although
their headquarters was no longer the old “Gun House”, the fact
that the focus of activities for this militia company had been
transferred from the center to the South Village had
undoubtedly helped maintain the spirit in this community.
Captain Allen’s company was in suburb condition and ready for
action.
They
assembled on Washington Street in front of their Armory. A
plaque on a granite Column marks the spot in front of a block
of stores that was later built just to the north of the
Whitman Savings Bank.
In a
blowing northeaster, the company proceeded to the railroad
station at the East End of where they took the 7 a.m. train
for Boston. Their orders were to report to Boston Common, but
because of the rain and mud, Captain Allan went directly to
the State Capitol and signed his group in at 8:15 am on
Tuesday, 16th April 1861; the distinction of being
the first company in Massachusetts to respond to the
President’s call, beating such nearby towns as Cambridge,
Watertown, and so on. Co. E. bedded down for that night on
the floor in Faneuil Hall and the next morning entertained at
the old Kneeland Street station on route to New Bedford. They
finished their trip by boat going to Fortress Monroe, VA.
Where they served their term of enlistment.
It is interesting to note
that the town reports of (old) Abington list the war
fatalities for the years 1862-65, and that most of the men who
lost their lives were aged in their late 20’s or early 30’s.
They were men who had volunteered their services solely in an
attempt to preserve the Union, and many left widows and
children behind when they lost their lives.
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