Antique Charm in Wendell

Over time, Wendell has lost a large number of homes that once graced its hills – due, more often than not, to fire. The antique homes that do remain are, therefore, a great treasure to the town. One outstanding example is found close to the center at 38 Lockes Village Road, owned since 1985 by Marianne Sundell.

It’s not always easy to exactly date a house, but Thomas Sawin (1810-1873), Wendell’s first historian, states in his notes that this house was built in 1839 for Miss Sally Taft. The county’s Registry of Deeds confirms that “Sally Taft, a single woman,” bought the property in 1839 from blacksmith Benjamin Cannon. In looking at deeds prior to that year, it’s interesting to note that there were at least three previous owners who were also blacksmiths and that there had been a dwelling home on the property before the one built by Sally Taft. Of note, too, is the fact that in 1829, the earlier house was sold by Timothy Taft, Sally Taft’s brother, who was executor of the estate of Daniel Rogers, a nearby neighbor.

Timothy and Sally Taft were two of the nine children of Asa Taft and Molly Stone of Westminster, MA and, of those nine, four spent many years in Wendell: Sally (a nickname for Sarah, born 1791) died in Wendell at age 85 of “paralytic shock;” Rhoda (born 1778), a spinster, lived with Sally for seven years before dying of pleurisy in Wendell in 1846; Timothy (born 1780) eventually left Wendell with his wife and kids to settle in Clinton, NY; and Levi (born 1786), unmarried and a knitter by trade, lived with Sally for a while, and died of dropsy in Wendell in 1852. Both the 1858 and 1871 maps of Wendell show Miss Sally Taft as the resident of the house in question, and research reveals that Sally sold the house in 1874 (two years before her death) to Osgood L. Leach (1848-1915). Leach, who was about 26 and working at a saw mill at that time, later became a lumber manufacturer – like his father, Luke Leach, who is reported to have built the Meetinghouse and many of the homes around the Wendell Common.

Sally Taft lived in the house at 38 Lockes Village Road for more than three decades. Being an ordinary, single woman in the mid-19th century, the chances of finding any clues as to her character and personality would be slim were it not for historian Thomas Sawin who painstakingly recorded oral interviews with certain Wendell residents and made a list of the town’s inhabitants in the mid-1800s, complete with his own assessments of their characters. Sawin, who knew Sally personally, informs us that she worked as a “tailoress,” that she was “social and economical,” and “is what she seems.” She was also a Congregationalist. Startlingly, Sawin includes some of Sally’s own words, recorded on paper in a vivid account of what she called the “Mormon fanaticism” that grew up in Wendell in the 1830s and 1840s. As told to Sawin by Sally:

“David Nelson, a Baptist and a chair-maker, on his way home from Athol perhaps, fell in company with two Mormon itinerants and was inveigled by them and invited them to town and to his house. He appointed a meeting in his hall and people came from far and near. Afterwards meetings were held in school houses for several weeks. The clergymen attended a few times and comforted them, but to little fanfare. Some were led away by the strange men and strange doctrines. The others forsook them. Their rendezvous subsequently was the hollow between Bear Mountain and Benjamin Hill and hence took the name of Mormon Hollow. They attempted to heal the sick by faith and even to raise the dead in one or more instances. One was made insane by their fanaticism and was found in a pond naked and wild.”

Adding to these characterizations of Sally is part of a letter penned by a nephew of hers, Dwight Emerson Armstrong (1839-1863), to his sister, both of Wendell, from a military camp in Virginia just after the devastating Battle of Fredericksburg. He wrote:

“You need not give yourself any trouble about my sufferings; it is not so bad as you imagine it to be. I have got toughened to it, so that heat and cold, storm and sunshine, have as little effect on me, as it does on that old bundle of cloaks and hoods that used to travel around in Wendell with Aunt Sally Taft inside of them.” [Note: six months later, Dwight Armstrong died in the Battle of Salem Church in Virginia.]

After Sally Taft sold her house in 1874, there was a succession of thirteen other owners, ending with Marianne Sundell. The tenth owner, in 1966, was Ed Judice, a photographer who contributed much to Wendell’s archives. He was also uncle to Ed Hines, the current president of the Wendell Historical Society. When Hines was a teenager, he helped Judice gut the living room of Sally Taft’s house. Of all the owners of the house, Sally Taft and Marianne Sundell owned it for far longer than anyone else, 35 and 37 years respectively. Sundell has cared for the old home lovingly and its age and beauty afford all passers-by a deep pleasure.

A Family Gone Extinct?

Eight or nine years ago I took many trips to the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester to read the copious notes made in the mid-1800s by Thomas Sawin of Wendell; he hoped to write a history of his town, but died before he could accomplish his mission. Using both his notes and my research, I put together the first written history of Wendell (Wendell, Massachusetts, Its Settlers and Citizenry, 1752-1900) and attached our two names to the book. Periodically, I go back to Sawin’s notes to search for stories that for one reason or another I didn’t pursue, and last week I was brought up short by the following terse notation: “Jonathan Littlefield, #39, 1806-1830, family extinct by typhus fever.” An entire family wiped out by typhus?! This time I needed to find out more.

“1806-1830” is Sawin’s estimate as to the dates Littlefield lived in Wendell, and “#39” indicates the location of Littlefield’s house on one of Sawin’s extraordinarily accurate maps. It lay on what is now a discontinued section of Bullard Pasture Road. Wanting to check out the site, I parked my car at the present end of the road and walked about a quarter of a mile down what is now just a trail, past an old road on the left, until I found the cellar hole which is all that remains of Littlefield’s house. Compared to many cellar holes in Wendell, this one is large, measuring about 25 feet by 30 feet. Across the “street” from the cellar hole is something even more interesting: a four feet high stone wall, still mostly intact, that forms a large rectangle with rounded corners that may have been a big holding pen or pasture for animals. My take-away from this was that Mr. Littlefield must have been a fairly prosperous man. But who was he?

Research revealed that his first name was not Jonathan, but Jotham. He was born on January 21, 1772 in Holliston, MA, and he married Chloe Mann in Medway on April 4, 1799. Their first child, Elliott, was born a year later, followed by Eliza in 1801, Chandler in 1803, Elmer in 1807, Caroline in 1808, Edson Lysander in 1813, and Adams Metcalf in 1817. If there were more children, they died in infancy and their births were unrecorded. No trace can be found of Jotham’s occupation, but – like most Wendell men at the time – he would have called himself a farmer. His first purchase of property in Wendell occurred in early 1805 when he bought the 59 acres where he built his house. He added to this property in 1807, 1825 and 1826, so that he ultimately owned a total of almost 100 acres on both sides of the road.

In 1820, the family lost nineteen-year-old Eliza. The penmanship in the old Congregational Church records is hard to read, but the cause of death looks like “nervous fever,” a terminology sometimes used to describe typhoid fever which is caused by food or water contaminated with Salmonella. The following year, Elliott, Elmer and Caroline all died of typhus fever, a different illness caused by the bacteria Rickettsia which is transferred from rats and opossums to humans through lice, ticks, mites or fleas. The decimated family survived until September 1828 when Jotham and Chloe died within ten days of each other. The cause of their deaths is not given in the church records, but the timing suggests that a contagious disease was to blame. Their deaths left the remaining children – Chandler (age 25), Edson (age 15), and Adams (age 11) – parentless. Chandler would have been the logical choice to take charge of the two younger boys, but he was deemed “non compos mentis,” as seen on the 1829 deed transferring Jotham Littlefield’s real estate to Elihu Bullard.

On this deed (Franklin County Deeds, Book 63, Page 306), farmer and stonecutter Martin Grout is listed as the young men’s guardian, empowered to sell their father’s property at public auction for their benefit. Incidentally, Grout built the jail and two bank vaults in Greenfield and he was foreman on the construction of the state prison in Concord, MA. Elihu Bullard, yeoman in Wendell, who purchased the Littlefield property for $870, was actually related to the boys: Jotham Littlefield’s sister had married Malachi Bullard in Medway and three of Malachi’s siblings – Julia, Silas and Elihu – all settled in Wendell about the same time as Littlefield. (Here, although it is of no interest to anyone but me, I have to add that I now live on part of Silas Bullard’s old farm.) The four-foot stone wall enclosing a pasture or an animal pen across the street from the Littlefield property could have been built by Jotham Littlefield or Elihu Bullard (1782-1847) or Elihu’s son, Albert Bullard (1812-1871).

I have found very few errors in Thomas Sawin’s notes, but he was mistaken in declaring that the entire Littlefield family perished from typhus fever. However, none of the three surviving members lived long. Chandler died in Wendell in 1835 at the age of 32. Edson and Adams both moved east to Salem, MA where Adams married, had four children, worked as a shoemaker and died of dysentery at age 29. Edson also married, had three children, and was the proprietor of a riding academy and gymnasium; he died of tuberculosis at age 54.

In Holliston, MA there is a 1721 saltbox home that was opened in 1750 as Littlefield Tavern, and George Washington is said to have stopped there in 1789. The name Littlefield was and remains prominent in that town. Sadly, the Wendell contingent of the Littlefield family did not fare as well.

4′ stone wall that enclosed a large pasture or animal pen across the road from Littlefield’s house.

This cellar hole is all that remains of Littlefield’s home at the end of Bullard Pasture Road, Wendell.

Bowen’s Pond, Then and Now

A few days ago, on a brilliant late summer morning, I stopped my car by Bowen’s Pond on Wendell Depot Road – as I have done so many times – to admire the scenery. This spot is one of the most beautiful in our bucolic town. Ringed by tall trees, without a house in sight, the pond always fills me with peace and feeds my soul. Now, however, the tranquility and beauty of the pond are threatened: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has approved the demolition of the dam which creates the pond. Deeply saddened by this, I set about to learn what I could about the history of this site, but – right off the bat – I ran into some conflicting ideas about when and by whom the dam was created.

We know from a 1795 map and from Thomas Sawin’s mid-19th century notes about Wendell that first-settler Luke Osgood erected a sawmill and a grist mill in this location. Born in 1747, Osgood couldn’t have done this until he reached adulthood, so let’s say that was about 1770. Corroborating this are (1) a 1936 Enterprise & Journal article which clearly identifies Osgood as the builder of the dam and (2) the pond was once called Osgood’s Pond. However, the 1795 map has a notation explaining that these mills were used only in spring and fall, which could mean that no dam (and thus no pond) existed at that time. It could also be that Osgood built his dam after 1795 and before his death in 1836.

Another possible builder is Luke O. Leach (1807-1898), Osgood’s grandson. Just before Osgood’s death, he deeded his property to Leach, who was a master carpenter and lumberman and is said to have built many of the houses around Wendell’s town common as well as the Meetinghouse. Building a dam just upstream from his sawmill would have enabled Leach to run the mill nearly year-round, thus meeting his need for lumber. As further support for Leach being the builder of the dam, Wendell Depot Road, which runs alongside the dam, was not in existence before 1837; prior to this date, it would have been difficult for lumber to be transported from the mill.

The best I can do, then, is to date the dam as having been built between 1770 and 1837. And what happened next? Luke Leach joined the throngs of men who went west during the Gold Rush, and while he was away, in 1851, his sawmill was destroyed by fire. Eighteen years later, the freshet of 1869 badly damaged his dam. (Rain began on October 4 and it poured torrentially for 48 hours; the huge rise in waterways took out roads, dams and bridges from Delaware through New England.) After this, Osgood’s Pond became Bowen’s Pond, but the freshet had greatly reduced its volume. The attached photo, taken in the early 1930s, gives a good comparison of the prior level of the pond (note the tree line) with the existing level at that time. Then, as announced in the Enterprise & Journal of August 6, 1936, Luke Osgood’s great-great-great granddaughter, Edith Bowen Hartjens, decided to rebuild the dam, thus restoring Bowen’s Pond to “its old time level.” The headline proclaims “Old Landmark To Be Preserved” and the article opines that “old timers, in particular, will welcome the replacement of this dam. It is a healthy exception to the general tendency today to destroy these linking landmarks with the past.” (Emphasis mine.) The motivation behind Hartjens’ restoration was simply, according to the article, “to beautify the property.”

So, here we are, about 200 years (give or take a few) since the dam was built and 85 years since its restoration. Wildlife of all kinds has come to depend on the water in Bowen’s Pond, especially in drought years like this one when all the local streams and fire-ponds have dried up. And it’s been shown that people benefit psychologically from the sight and sound of water; I know that I feel a sense of calm come over me as I pass by the pond. I’m not sure what’s driving the current property owner’s push to have the Commonwealth remove the dam (liability issues have been suggested), but I sorely wish that he would reconsider.

Bowen’s Pond, 1930s, pre-restoration. Photo from Katharine Bentley.

Bowen’s Pond and dam, 2022

A Murder on Bear Mountain, 1892

Stories – and follow-up stories – about the murder of a woman living in Wendell in 1892 were reported in newspapers across New England. What follows is a synthesis of those many articles – and, be forewarned, the details are grim.

On Sunday, September 4, 1892, after a night of drinking, a young lumber camp worker named Edward Begor of Orange went with his cousin Arthur Begor to visit 58-year-old Mrs. Abigail Rogers in her one-room hut on the north slope of Bear Mountain, facing the village of Farley. Arriving around 3AM, the two men continued their carousing with Mrs. Rogers, who had an “unsavory reputation.” When the sun came up, Edward built a fire in the stove and Rogers cooked a breakfast of potatoes, pork and eggs, griddle cakes and tea. Edward complained about the griddle cakes and quarreled with Rogers. Arthur went home, but Edward stayed for a while before setting off to spend the day with the hermit James whose well-kept hut was located part way up the side of Rattlesnake Mountain.

Nothing more was known until the following Thursday, September 8, when Fred Dudley, a 14-year-old boy employed by the Orange Knitting Company in Farley, was sent up to Mrs. Rogers’ hut to pick up mittens that she had been “finishing.” There, Dudley found the dead body of Mrs. Rogers buried under a heap of old clothes on the floor, and he raced back to the mill to report the horrible news. In Wendell’s death records, Mrs. Rogers is listed as having died that day and the cause given was “shock caused by fracture of the skull, resulting in rupture of the brain and hemorrhage.”

The local police went to work immediately and on Saturday, September 10, Edward Begor, the suspected murderer, was arraigned in an office at the Greenfield jail – an unusual proceeding prompted by the large crowd that had gathered at the courthouse hoping to catch a glimpse of Begor. The Boston Globe of that date embellished its report with the following description of Begor: “He looks like the typical brigand in facial appearance. A Capt. Kidd mustache of jet black droops at the long, wavy ends, just enough to give him a most savage appearance, and a swarthy complexion, low brow and flashing black eyes go to make up an appearance which is anything but prepossessing.” He pleaded “not guilty” to the charge against him and the judge ordered him returned to jail to await a hearing.

With Begor in jail, the police continued their investigations. Adding to the mystery surrounding the crime was the matter of the suspect’s name. As it turned out, he was born Edwin O. Beauregard in 1871 in Ellenburg, New York where his mother died when he was only a year old. His father’s people were from Sainte Hyacinthe, Quebec. As an adult, Edwin Beauregard became Edward Begor, a last name used also by his father and his father’s brother (Ezra Begor, who died in Wendell in 1898). The French Canadian lumber camp workers wouldn’t talk about Begor, but by the time of the hearing on the last day of September at the Greenfield courthouse, the prosecution’s main witness was Arthur Begor who related not only the events as he knew them, but also certain subsequent conversations that he had with Begor. The prosecution attempted to fix the time of the murder as the morning of September 4 and to show that not only was Begor the last person to see Mrs. Rogers alive, but also that he had quarreled with her, that he was heavily intoxicated and that he wanted to get even with her for his having done jail time some time back for an offense reported by her. Arthur supplied the prosecution with a motive for the murder when he explained that Begor had told him that Rogers had $55 wrapped up in handkerchiefs and stored in a salt box. “The entire case,” opined the Greenfield Gazette and Courier, “is a presentation of the lowest side of country degradation. The woman’s hut was a house of the most filthy order; she was a character of the toughest and most immoral sort; the errand of the boys in going to her house in a state of half intoxication at two o’clock at night was to keep an engagement of the grossest immorality, and there is from beginning to end no redeeming feature in the disgusting story.” The presiding judge ordered Begor back to jail to await his appearance before a grand jury.

But after a few months in prison, Begor made a tactical error: he told his story to a fellow convict in hopes of getting some tools with which to break out of prison. The other convict reported Begor to the authorities and worked with them to get Begor, without his knowing it, to give a full confession which was overheard by detectives. Here is my paraphrasing of the content of his confession which was written up in the Boston Globe, April 20, 1893: Edward and Arthur, after drinking for hours at Wendell Depot, walked the seven miles to Abigail Rogers’ hut, arriving there early Sunday morning, September 4, 1892. (Rogers’ hovel was frequented on Saturday nights by young boys, some only fifteen years old. Plenty of liquor was consumed “and then the old woman would execute a skirt dance with exceedingly limited skirts.”) When the boys got to Rogers’ hut, they drank more and then all three slept. In the morning, Arthur was sickened at being there and left, but Edward stayed. Rogers and Edward drank more and quarreled. She called him a vile name and he struck her with his fist. Then, “wild with passion”, he grasped an iron skillet and struck her twice over the head. She fell to the floor. He began searching for her money, but when he saw her eyes following him around the room, he “went out to the woodpile, took from it an ugly club, went back into the house and with one deadly blow killed the helpless old woman.”

With Begor’s confession, the grand jury had no trouble indicting him for Rogers’ murder, and he was later sentenced to hard labor at the Charlestown state prison for life. On his way to prison, Begor told a Globe reporter “It was liquor that made me do it…it was not money that made me kill her. My only motive was that she made me angry and I was so ugly drunk that I did not know what I was doing.” But, he added, “I shall do the best I know how at the prison. If I show the officers that I can be trusted, I may get a pardon some time. God knows I hope so.”

Over a decade later, in May 1905, the Greenfield Gazette and Courier, reported that efforts were being made by Miss Ethel Farley, on behalf of her late father, State Senator Joseph B. Farley, to secure a pardon for Begor. Begor had once been an employee of Farley’s and Farley believed that Begor, essentially a good man, had been sufficiently punished for the crime he committed while under the influence of liquor. Apparently, Miss Farley’s attempts were in vain because the same newspaper, eight years later, wrote of another appeal to the governor to pardon Begor, citing his perfect behavior in prison. This time the appeal was successful: the Governor pardoned Begor on March 12, 1913. However, Begor’s freedom was short-lived. The next and last word about him is his death certificate, recorded on April 11, 1915 in Keene, New Hampshire (home of his brother, Horatio), where he had been a resident for five months. The cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis. Edward Begor was forty-four years old and had spent twenty-three of those years behind bars.

And what of Abigail Rogers? Who was she? Who were her people? Where was she buried? All we know is that she had a son, loving letters to whom were found among her effects after her death, but we do not know his name. The 1890 census burned, so we cannot look for her there. Thomas Sawin, who made copious notes about the residents of Wendell in the mid-19th century, mentions an Artemas Rogers (born 1804), but he appears to have had only a son, no daughter. Sadly, adding insult to injury, history has left no record of this poor soul.

Photograph: Adeline Potter Markle as an older woman

Florrie Blackbird of Wendell shared the following letter written by one of her ancestors, Adeline Potter Markle. Adeline’s father, Reuben Potter (1785-1833) of Wendell, and mother, Sarah Congdon (1789-1856), married in Hadley, MA where Adeline was born on April 1, 1822. It appears that the family lived in Hadley, but they must have been frequent visitors to Wendell which was home to so many of their relatives. After Adeline’s father died when she was 11 years old, she, her mother, and her siblings traveled west to Mattawan, a village in Antwerp Township, Michigan. There, on June 9, 1842, 20-year-old Adeline married 30-year-old Jacob Coddington Markle, a farmer and transplant from Marbletown, NY. He became a successful and fairly wealthy farmer, and they had eight children, three of whom died as babies. Although this letter home reveals how much Adeline missed her family, she and Jacob stayed in Antwerp for the rest of their lives. He died in 1886 and she died two days before Christmas, 1894. Here is her letter, addressed to her uncle Josiah Clark in Wendell:

Dear Uncles, Aunts and Cousins

It is with pleasure and delight that I shall attempt to address you although I do not know whether you will ever get this letter or not. It has been so long since we have heard from you that we have almost given up that we have any friends in Mass…We have neglected to write. I am well aware the cares of a family are crowding upon me and take up most of my time. I will now attempt to give you a description of our family and how we are getting along. We live on the same place we first move[d] on when we came to Michigan but we have sold it and expect to move in the spring but we shall not go far. Mother is living with us. Her health is at times rather poor but is as good as could be expected for one that has seen troubles and endured hardships as she has since we have come to Mich. Franklin [Adeline’s brother] has moved about 20 miles from here. He is married as I suppose you know and has got one little girl two years old in April. Franklin often speaks of you all and would be glad to see you all but does not talk of ever going back to live. Sophia [A’s sister] is married again and has moved to Indiana. Her husband is quite well off. She has got 2 boys one almost 6 and the other one year old. She was out to see us in the forepart of winter. Was well and enjoying herself very much. Her health is much better than it was east. She has not had any fits for 5 or 6 years. She likes it in Indiana much better than she does here. Now for myself I can say that I have a good home and enjoy myself well. I have a kind husband and three little children one 7 years a boy the next a girl almost 4 and the youngest a little boy a year and a half old. Their names are Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Ann and George Washington. My husband and myself have talked of coming down to the east in the course of a year or two but we may be disappointed. The world is full of disappointments trials and troubles. Oh my friends if I thought I should ever return once more to my native land and behold those happy faces and tread again those steps and places and see them as they were how happy I should be but perhaps it can never be. I fear sometimes that it never will but I do hope and expect to see some of you again if my life should be spared. Why cannot some of you come and see us. It is not going far to come out here. It is more the dread than the journey. There is so many of you that I should think some of you might come. It is not like going to California. I would like to know whether any of you have had any inclination to go to the gold mines. There are considerable many going from Mich. My husband has had something of the golden fever but I do not think he will go and leave his family. Times are not very hard here now. Provisions are reasonable cheap and it is very healthy at present. The country is improving very fast. It will not be long before it will be an old settled country. We have a considerable plenty of fruit in general. The railroad that starts from Detroit passes in plain sight of us so you see it is a quick passage from you to us and what a pleasure it would be to see you all…There are a good many inhabitants around us but we rarely ever see anyone that we have ever seen before or anyone from the eastern states. We have schools and meetings in general very handy. We live now 5 miles from the nearest village in general the face of the country is beautiful. Well watered and quite level. We have had very little snow this winter as yet and very mild weather. It looks some like spring and soon it will come in all its beauty and loveliness and soon…we shall all be numbered among the dead [illegible] though you cannot imagine how much we want to see you and shall it ever be. I do not know whether this will find your number all in this world or not. How anxious I am to hear from you. I suppose that all of you have changed since I have seen you and tis probable that some of you I should not recognize at sight…If grandmother still lives which is most impossible, tell her I remember her yet and always shall. Tell Mary Ann Clark I still wear that little lock of hair which she sent me and it serves to awaken deep feelings of remembrance of former friends that I knew in former days. Tell Jesse and Samuel and Luther that if they was to come out here we would engage not tu hurt them. Tell them that they can buy a farm very cheap if they wish to buy. Tell Aunt P[atience] and Aunt A[nna] that I often think of them and can well remember just how they looked when I saw them last. I suppose that some of you my cousins are married. If so I wish you and them a long life of peace and happiness. I desire to be remembered to you all and all that shall enquire after me I shall insist upon an immediate answer to this scribble…You must excuse all mistakes in this hurried letter for tis amid the noise of children that I am writing. When you write give me a long letter and put in all the particulars of each and every one and how you are getting along…I will close this scribble and subscribe myself gratefully and respectfully your sincere niece and cousin.

Adeline Markle

Our post office is so [close] we can visit it daily and I shall visit it often till I get an answer.

I will send you a small lock of hair of each of my Children.

Daniel Ballard, Bookkeeper

We know from Daniel Ballard’s papers, owned by both the Swift River Historical Society and the Greenfield resident mentioned in the three previous posts, that Mr. Ballard was a consummate bookkeeper. He kept careful track of what he owed and what was owed to him, as seen in the attached 1851 record of accounts between Mr. Ballard and Mr. Luther Wyman, a shoemaker on Wickett Pond Road. Wyman owed Ballard 50 cents for 2 quarts of molasses, $1 for borrowing Ballard’s “waggon” and breaking it, $2.50 for shoes “returned for Mrs. Rice” and $14.25 for Ballard’s board and horse-keeping on August 18th. On the other side of the page, Ballard owed Wyman $5.98 for shoes for his wife and daughters, $2.25 for two pairs of shoes for Mrs. Rice (which were subsequently returned to Wyman for some reason) and $2.25 for a pair of “gater boots.”

What we want to know from this, of course, is who was Mrs. Rice and why was Mr. Ballard buying shoes for her? There was a Harriett Rice, wife of Charles Rice, living in Ballard’s neighborhood in the 1850s, so-  if she were indisposed – perhaps Ballard was simply being neighborly. Or, maybe this was Elizabeth Rice, consigned to the Wendell Poor Farm sometime prior to 1870 – in which case also, Mr. Ballard would have been being charitable. More research is in order.

 

The Good Old Days!

Here is an 1820 Wendell Tax Bill sent to Mr. Josiah Ballard, father of Daniel (the subject of the last post) and owner of the large and lovely Ballard Tavern on the corner of Jennison and Old Stage Roads. Josiah owned 200 acres, was a farmer and did much business in both lumber and real estate. Google tells me that Ballard’s $6.44 tax in today’s dollars would equal $124.31! The bill was issued on August 24, 1820 and was due on October 1, 1820 – but Mr. Ballard didn’t get around to paying it until March 29, 1821.

Levi Benjamin, the tax collector that year, was born in Worcester in 1762, went to Montague and from there came to Wendell in the first decade of the 1800s. His farm was on what is today Davis Road, just beyond Facey’s Sugarbush Farm. His son, also named Levi, was mentioned in my October 20, 2015 post: he married Rebekah Emerson in 1822 and left Wendell soon thereafter on a forty-one-day trip to Madison, Ohio where the couple settled. Levi Sr. died in Wendell in 1841.

Daniel Ballard Family

Last Tuesday, I attended a “Farewell” gathering for Helen and Bob Haddad, long-time residents of Wendell and owners/restorers of the Daniel Ballard house which was built about 1785 on Jennison Road. Coincidentally, on Wednesday, I had a meeting (as mentioned in my last post) with Daniel Ballard’s great-granddaughter! She – along with her mother – amassed a roomful of documents, letters, photographs, notes, and newspaper clippings relating to many generations of Ballards and she was very generous in letting me look at what I could in the  three short hours I was with her. I didn’t find anything more on the Wendell Liberty Party, but I did take pictures of other items of interest which I will share here in the coming weeks.

For now, here is a photograph of Daniel Ballard III (1840-1917) on the left, and his brother, Milton (1844-1866) on the right. They were two of the nine children of Daniel Ballard II (1802-1870), who was the grandson of Daniel Ballard I (1728-1808).

Both Daniel III and Milton served in the Civil War. Daniel enlisted in the 52nd Infantry, MVA at the age of 22 and served in Louisiana for nine months; when he returned home his appearance was skeletal, and it took him a long time to get his health back. Milton, who was with the 34th Mass Infantry, MVA, returned from the war, but died shortly thereafter of the chronic diarrhea given him by the war. Milton was twenty-one years old at his death. These two young men were part of the 60 to 70 Wendell men (10% of Wendell’s total population) who fought with the Union troops.

At the death of their father in 1870, Daniel III and his brother, Albert, took over the family lumber business.

In 1874, Daniel II bought a farm in New Salem and remained there for the rest of his life, serving that town in many different capacities.

The Liberty Party in Wendell, 1848

A Greenfield resident and a descendant of Daniel Ballard (Ballard House on Jennison Road) recently donated some old papers found in her family home to the Wendell Historical Society. Among these papers are death records, property title transfers, town warrants, school committee assessments of teachers in the mid-1800s and more. One item of particular interest to me announces a meeting of the Liberty Party of Wendell. Here is what it says:

Liberty Meeting – The members of the Liberty Party of Wendell are earnestly requested to meet at School House No. 6 near Mr. Levi Wilder’s, Friday evening the 21st instant at 6 o’clock, to see if they will be represented at the Liberty Convention at Boston the 26th of January [-] a full attendance is important as other business of interest will come before the meeting. Whigs and Democrats who are opposed to Slavery and in favour of Northern rights are invited to attend. January 15th 1848, Per Order Town Committee.

Daniel Ballard must have stuck the announcement in his pocket or laid it on his desk because, on the back, there are some scribbled calculations, the dimensions of several trees (Mr. Ballard had a sawmill), and a note that says “Stephen Graves Dr. to D.B. March 1848 “- indicating that Daniel Ballard later used the back of the announcement as scrap paper.

Having never heard of the Liberty Party, I went immediately to Google where I learned that it was the first third party in American history that tried to break into a stable two-party system. Although short-lived (1840-1848), it was important in transforming the abolition movement from an apolitical one to a political one. It made deliberate efforts to incorporate both women and African-Americans into itself and most of its members held evangelical beliefs. In 1848, it merged with another third party, the Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into the Western Territories, arguing that free men on free soil made for a morally and economically better system than slavery.

I will be meeting with the papers’ donor soon and hope that among the many items she still has in her possession there will be more information on Wendell’s Liberty Party (how many members in Wendell? who were they?). Stay tuned.