On the 250th anniversary of the battle at Concord's North Bridge and its aftermath along the British soldiers' return route to Boston, we honor those Acton men who went, not knowing what the future would bring. 

Three of Acton's participants in the events of April 19, 1775 never came home; Captain Isaac Davis, Abner Hosmer, and James Hayward.  Sadly, we do not have many records and artifacts that could help us paint a full picture of their lives.  We know that 22-year-old Abner Hosmer was unmarried, brother to Jonathan Hosmer who built our Society's Hosmer House.  Abner was a mason living in his father's home on today's Prospect Street.  Isaac Davis was a farmer and gunsmith with a young family, living on today's Hayward Road.  They were both in Acton's minute company and were killed by a British volley at Concord's North Bridge.  One can only imagine the anxiety and later grief that day in the neighboring households.

James Hayward was a schoolteacher who was exempt from militia service because he had lost a toe.  He went anyway, and having stopped during the afternoon for a drink at a well in Lexington, was shot by a British soldier.  He died eight hours later.

Acton's minute company under Captain Isaac Davis and its militia companies under under Simon Hunt and Captain Joseph Robbins were all present at the bridge. Captain Davis' company membership is quite well documented.  Unfortunately, we do not have membership lists for Acton's militia companies who served that day.  At the Acton Historical Society, we are still working to discover and share as much information about the town's Revolutionary War history as we can, including the service of its townspeople.  Two sources that may shed some light on participants in the Concord battle are a newspaper article from sixty years later and a listing donated to the Historical Society by a descendant of Captain Joseph Robbins.

In August, 1835, a Massachusetts newspaper reported on the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Acton's establishment as a town.  The article mentioned honored guests who had been present at the Concord battle; Solomon Smith, Thomas "Throp" [Thorp], Aaron Jones, Joseph Chaffin and John Oliver.  Three of the men had been minutemen, but Aaron Jones' and John Oliver's participation in Concord was not mentioned in later compiled lists.  This source only came to light when old newspapers started being digitized and shared online.

The other potentially helpful source came from the papers of Joseph Robbins.  It is a listing of those who served under him "in the year of my command" to May 15, 1775, with some additions of those who went for six weeks and those who served in 1776.  Though it is hard to read, and it is not clear why he created it, this original document does give us names of those who served under him in the earliest part of the American Revolution. 

Sources:

• Rev. James Fletcher's Acton in History
  
• Harold Phelan's History of the Town of Acton
  
• History of the Acton Minutemen and Militia Companies, Charles R. Husbands, 2003.
  
• "Centennial Celebration at Acton," Norfolk Advertiser (Dedham, MA), Aug. 15, 1835, p. 1

Experience has taught us that lists of military veterans are not always complete or correct.  Previous blog posts have highlighted several such cases in Acton.  See, for example, the stories of John Swift, Jonathan Hosmer (Deacon, his son and his grandson), James Emery, Isaac Ramsdell, and William Rodway.  We know to check sources carefully.  One would think that we would be used to confusion by now, but we recently came across a case that was quite a surprise.

James Fletcher’s Acton in History described the War of 1812 service of the Davis Blues, Acton’s militia company led by Captain Silas Jones.  The company was called up for the defense of Boston in September-October 1814.  The most exciting part of their service seems to have been their march through Boston to the cheers of onlookers.  The Davis Blues served in South Boston until the threat of invasion passed, and they returned home without seeing action.  Fletcher included in his history all the men on the company payroll (written in his father John Fletcher’s handwriting, as he was the clerk of the company at the time).  Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in the War of 1812, published as the official record of those who served, listed S. Jones’ company who served at Boston, probably using the same source (p. 100).   Though the list does not include Acton residents who enlisted in the army earlier in the War of 1812, it seemed to be a complete listing of those who went with the town militia to the defense of Boston in the fall of 1814.

Among the men listed as members of Silas Jones’ Davis Blues were Jonathan B. Davis, Ebenezer Davis, and Luther Davis.  The Davis Blues were named after Captain Isaac Davis, killed at the Concord battle on April 19, 1775.  Jonathan B. Davis was his nephew.   Ebenezer Davis and Luther Davis came from a different family that descended from Gershom Davis who bought about 664 acres of the north part of Acton and some other pieces of land from Thomas Wheeler in 1738.  Members of the Gershom Davis family for many years spelled their surname “Davies” to distinguish their family from others.  Over time, the Davies spelling mostly fell away.  By the 1800s, distinguishing among the Acton Davis families became increasingly complicated, and as time went on, there were marriages between their descendants.

Ebenezer Davis, Sr.’s life was described in an earlier blog post.  His second cousin, company member Luther Davis (“Davies”) was born in Acton on Sept. 23, 1793 to David Davies and Mary/Polly Hildreth.  After his service with the Blues, Luther moved from Acton.  He was in Waltham, MA by the time he married Elizabeth Wiswall Trowbridge in Newton, MA on Jan. 19, 1823.  Their daughter Mary E. was born in Waltham in November 1823.  Their son David G. was born in Newmarket, NH about 1827.  The family then moved to Lowell where eighteen-month-old son Stephen T. died in Oct. 1830 and daughter Sarah T. was born about 1834.  The 1840 Lowell directory shows Luther living at Law St., near “Massaic Falls” (which, though spelled differently, seem to be on the Concord River).  His widowed mother Mary was living with him.  The 1840 census confirms that Luther was living in Lowell with three children (two girls and a boy), a female in her 30s and a female in her 70s. 

Blues veteran Luther Davis died of TB in Lowell on Nov. 16, 1842.  Probate documents list him as a laborer, but Lowell’s vital records list him as a speculator.  His personal estate, primarily home furnishings and a saw, amounted to $63.37.  Elizabeth never remarried.  Lowell directories show Mrs. Eliza W. Davis (with no occupation listed) in a house at North St. in 1844.  In 1845, son D. G. Davis, a clerk, is listed as boarding at Mrs. E. W. Davis’.  In 1849, a Mrs. Elizabeth Davis was working as a nurse, living in a house on South St.  Continuing to work as a nurse, Mrs. Elizabeth was boarding at William Hale’s in 1851.  In 1853 she was living with her daughter Sarah who had married John York the previous year.

Our information about veteran Luther and Elizabeth (Trowbridge) Davis would probably have run out at that point if we had not consulted pension records for the War of 1812.  There we came upon an index card for Luther Davis who served as a private in Capt. S. Jones’ Co., Massachusetts Militia from Sept 18, 1814-Oct. 29, 1814.  The card stated that he had died Nov. 15 or 16, 1842 in Lowell, MA.  He had married Elizabeth W. Trowbridge on Jan. 19, 1823 in Newton and left her a widow.  All of those facts match our research except for a notation on the pension index card that “Soldier served as substitute for Ebenezer Davis.”  (The practice of hiring substitutes had been used to fill quotas during the Revolutionary War and persisted into the Civil War.)  This was a surprise to us, because the official published list of War of 1812 veterans and the town history made no mention of it.  Taking this at face value, we conjectured that because Luther Davis was a cousin of Ebenezer, he agreed to substitute for him, for reasons that we can only speculate about.  As so often happens with historical research, however, digging deeper into records upended our theories.

Complications Arise

Luther Davis’s widow Elizabeth W. applied for bounty land that she was entitled to under the Act of March 3, 1855.  She must have been shocked to receive a letter from the Pension Office dated at the end of 1856 that Luther Davis, veteran of Silas Jones’ 1814 Mass Militia company, had already been issued a warrant for 160 acres of land; her claim was inadmissible.  (Claim 115653)  By that time, Elizabeth had moved west with her daughter and son-in-law, first to Grant Co., Wisconsin and then to Manomin, Minnesota.  Elizabeth had to write for help to Acton where, fortunately, some members of the Davis Blues were still alive.  Those members sent affidavits on her behalf stating that another Luther Davis also served during the company’s 1814 service in Boston.  At the time, everyone in the company knew who he was and that he was a substitute, and throughout his service, he apparently had answered to Ebenezer’s name.  More than forty years later, Congress passed an act that made veterans of the war who had served at least 14 days (or in a battle) eligible for bounty lands.  The substitute named Luther Davis therefore applied for and received a warrant under his own name, not realizing that this would keep the member Luther Davis’s widow from obtaining the land warrant to which she was entitled.

Captain Silas Jones, clerk of the company John Fletcher, and the substitute Luther Davis all provided sworn statements explaining the situation.  (Ebenezer Davis, Sr. had died by that point.)  The company member Luther’s widow Elizabeth, daughter Sarah and son-in-law John York submitted documents confirming the details of Luther and Elizabeth’s married life and Elizabeth’s movements after being widowed.  The statements being consistent, Elizabeth eventually received the 160 acres to which she was entitled.  Official recognition of her claim was dated later, but Elizabeth and the Yorks apparently settled on land in Brooklyn Township in May 1856 (in today’s Brooklyn Park).  John York farmed on the sandy soil not far from the Mississippi River.  Elizabeth’s daughter Sarah died before 1875, and Elizabeth kept house for John.  John apparently gave up farming and worked as a teamster.  They were in Minneapolis in 1875.  In 1878, Elizabeth moved to Larned, Kansas.  From there, she applied for a widow’s pension to which she became entitled under the Act of 1878.  She lived with son David who was farming in Browns Grove (Burdett), Pawnee County, Kansas according to the 1880 census.  Elizabeth received a pension until her death in 1882.

Digitized Confusion Causes More Confusion

The actual pension file of the Davis Blues member Luther Davis did eventually clarify that a different Luther Davis, unrelated to the Blues member Luther Davis and his second cousin Ebenezer, also served in the Davis Blues as a substitute.  However, confusion is bound to continue.  As mentioned, published lists of the veterans of the War of 1812 and Captain Silas Jones’ company credit the service to Ebenezer Davis and do not mention a substitute.  The Luther Davis pension index card at the National Archives, digitized online, incorrectly indicates that the actual member of Silas Jones’ company was the substitute.  In fact, we did not find a military record that positively identified which Luther Davis was the substitute.  However, he was not hard to find.  When Elizabeth (Trowbridge) Davis needed help with her case in 1857-1858, she wrote to Acton and received affidavits from the substitute Luther Davis and others.  The only adult Luther Davis living in Acton, according to the 1855 state census and the 1860 federal census, was widower Luther Davis who lived across today’s Great Road from the land that had been farmed by generations of Ebenezer Davis’s extended family.

Substitute Luther Davis was a brother of Blues company member Jonathan B. Davis and a nephew of Captain Isaac Davis.   Making research even more confusing, he also married an Elizabeth (surname Horne).  They had two children, Luther and Alice.  At some point in the mid-19th century, they built a home at today’s 292 Great Road.  A farmer, Luther the substitute died in Acton in 1868 at the age of 81.  There is no evidence that he used the bounty land he had applied for; presumably he sold off his right to it.

In honor of Veterans Day, we acknowledge the service of two Acton men who shared both a name and service with the Davis Blues in Boston in the autumn of 1814.

One of the ongoing frustrations of Acton historians is the fact that we cannot list all of the Acton residents who participated in the battle at Concord’s North Bridge on April 19, 1775, during the aftermath that afternoon, and in the days before the American army became organized enough to have helpful service records.  The membership of Acton’s company of minute men under Captain Isaac Davis was documented in later years.  In addition, we know that there were two Acton militia companies that also participated in the events of April 19, the East Company under Captain Joseph Robbins and the West Company under Captain Simon Hunt (who took over from Major Francis Faulkner to free him for other duties).   When town histories were written, the only members of the militia companies who were known were three officers who served under Captain Robbins.

In what must have been a dream-come-true moment for our predecessors at the historical society, in the early 1990s, Joyce Robbins, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Captain Joseph Robbins, donated some papers that had come from the Robbins home in Acton.  The documents had been taken out to Nebraska in 1906, made their way to California and New York, and were now coming home.  Acton historians were thrilled to discover that one of the papers, dated two hundred and fifty years ago today, was a list of men who had signed up to serve as a militia company, thinking themselves “Ignorant in the Military Art and Willing to be Instructed.”  They chose as their officers Joseph Robbins (captain), Israel Heald (lieutenant) and Robert Chaffin (ensign).   While this document does not by itself prove who was actually at the battle the following spring, it does give us a list of initial East Company membership and a much better understanding of how Acton residents responded to 1774's tumultuous months of grievances and escalating reactions from both the British government and the colonists.

We are grateful to the Robbins family for preserving that fragile document for over 200 years and to members of the historical society whose careful work on the Robbins papers and whose research into the Acton minutemen and militia companies continue to help us in our own efforts to make sure that Acton’s stories are remembered and shared.

Captain Joseph Robbin’s Militia Company as of Sept. 29, 1774 (not every name is clear):

On the reverse side:

Josiah Davis
James Edson
Joseph Brooks
Moses Woods
Sam.el Parlin
Joseph Robbins, Junr.
Joseph Emery
James Law
Daniel White
Daniel Fletcher [?]
Oliver Emerson
At bottom, upside down: Boston Wheeler

Perhaps there are more documents in a closet somewhere.  If anyone has documents with more information about Acton’s militia companies or other pieces of Acton’s history, we would be delighted to hear from you. 

For those interested in learning more about Acton residents in the Revolutionary War, including recent findings, see the Military History-Revolutionary War section of our History Resources page.

This summer, after almost 150 years in operation, the prison in West Concord (most recently known as MCI-Concord) was closed.  Near the Acton border, the prison has been a familiar sight to generations of Acton residents, especially commuters finding their way through the rotary traffic near its walls.  Many might not know much about its history.  Inspired by two pictures of the prison in its early days that are in our collection, we set out to learn more.

An article in the July 30, 1874 Boston Evening Traveller described plans for the new prison and its possible benefits to the area.  The booster-like tone at the beginning of the article makes one suspect that the reporter had an Acton source (possibly a Wetherbee of East Acton).  The article mentioned Acton’s flourishing villages, its Revolutionary War history, and its center “on an eminence, commanding a fine view of the surrounding country, and overlooking one of the best farming districts in the country” (quite a claim).  It also mentioned the long-lived Wetherbee Tavern that did business on the old stage route.  The tavern’s stable could house one hundred horses, and often a hundred teams would stop there to feed during the day.  There was a store and a post office, and along the road, “a hundred magnificent elms afforded shade for man and beast.”  The old grist mill was across the road.  The place had been unchanged for fifty years, but change was upon it.  A couple of elegant residences and a large mill had been built, and a railroad now went through it, intersecting with the Fitchburg Railroad in a place that was now called Concord Junction. 

In 1873, the Prison Commissioners had decided to build a new state prison near Concord Junction to replace the aging prison in Charlestown.  They bought 85 acres from Mrs. Elmira Cook and then took 27 more acres by eminent domain.  In choosing their site, they hoped that they could draw on two sources of water; pumping from Nashoba brook into a “stand pipe” and drawing water from “Magog Lake, a large sheet of water covering some six hundred acres, of a great average depth, about three miles from the prison grounds, with a fall of one hundred feet.  The water from both sources has been analyzed and pronounced remarkably pure.”  (The second source is now known as Nagog Pond, then also known as Lake Nagog, located in Acton and Littleton.)

Another advantage of the site was the railroad tracks that ran through the proposed prison grounds (Framingham & Lowell/Nashua, Acton & Boston) and nearby (Fitchburg Railroad).  Stone and brick could be brought right up to the site.  To show a Traveller representative how easily building materials could be delivered, Acton’s Daniel Wetherbee (director of the Framingham & Lowell Railroad) and John Fletcher helpfully arranged for a tour of the Fletcher & Reed quarry in Westford.  Another Acton businessman, George C. Wright, serving in the 1874 Massachusetts House, worked hard to get the votes needed to bring the prison to Concord, hoping to gain “a great advantage to the business interests of this vicinity,” according to his reminiscences.

The article did acknowledge that some in Acton and Concord were against building the State Prison there.  The author optimistically wrote that “The building will be a splendid specimen of architecture and highly ornamental, and from its sightly position will be a noted landmark and attract large numbers of visitors.  The buildings outside will also be of the best quality...  within ten years from the completion of the prison, there will be a village here of thousands of inhabitants, all of the better class of artizans and mechanics.  In a pecuniary point, the benefit to all the farmers for miles around will be immense, and such a public institution as our State Prison will give a celebrity to the towns of Acton and Concord that they will not be ashamed of.”

The State Prison Comes to Concord

Despite political opposition locally and from some across the state, plans moved forward.  The Oct. 2, 1877 Boston Journal described the work in process, giving us details that are illustrated by the prison pictures in our collection. 

The most prominent part of the prison buildings was an octagon from which wings radiated.  According to the article, the northern boundary of the prison enclosure (surrounding eight acres or more) consisted of the west wing, the octagon, the east wing, and a 180’ wall extending from the east wing.  In front of that, “facing the road, and outside of the walls, is a handsome brick house two stories high, with a French roof.  This house, [is] to be occupied by the Warden and his deputy, a portion being devoted to offices and sleeping apartments for some of the officers... [The wing] on the east is to be the Warden’s dwelling, the deputy taking the other. ... Each family will have its own front door, the entrances being quite elegant and approached by stone steps.”  A connecting building led from the center portion of the house to the octagon.  These central areas were used for administration and officers’ apartments, and there was a dining hall for State officials who might be visiting.  A driveway under the connecting building was used to deliver a convict to the prison.  A new prisoner would enter the warden’s office for registration, be brought to the guard room in the second story of the octagon, and then be taken to his quarters.  (There would also have been practical issues to deal with such a bath, a haircut, and the issuance of a new uniform before the prisoner joined the others.)  In the lower part of the octagon were eighteen solitary cells, “about five by seven feet in size, with a height of a little over seven feet, arranged to be perfectly dark, but thoroughly ventilated, the ventilating arrangements here and in all other parts of the building being excellent, securing a good supply of air to each cell, and at the same time guarding against all possibility of communication by means of the flues.”  Above the guard room in the octagon were the hospital and also tanks for storing and distributing water.

The second of our pictures shows the octagon and what was probably the east wing.  The article said that the east wing contained 175 cells, about 9 feet long by 6’4: wide and 7’6” high.  Their doors were grated and opened onto a corridor lighted by the large, barred windows in the exterior walls.  The cells, in double rows, were in the center of the building.  A 20” thick wall separated the rows of cells, and the individual cells were separated on the sides by 16” thick walls.  There were five tiers of cells on top of each other, with the ceiling of one cell (usually flag stone) serving as the floor of another.

The first prisoners were moved from Charlestown on May 16, 1878 and the remainder moved in during the following week.  Not surprisingly, problems arose.  A prisoner named Whelton escaped almost immediately.  Apparently, he was in one of the few cells that had a window and managed to find a weakness in the system of iron bars that reinforced the cell wall’s brickwork.  He used an iron window-weight to pound out brick-work near the window casement that had not been reinforced with iron.  Fortunately, Whelton only made it into the prison yard.  A more successful escape of five prisoners was orchestrated by George H. Proctor on September 30.  Proctor, the prison organist, had gained enough trust that he had unusual privileges, carrying messages among prison officers and running errands.  He had at some point assisted in replacing some cells' locks.  Having a machinist’s skills, he was believed to have used that experience to have created a key that could unlock cell doors.  His compatriots faked a scuffle that got them all confined to solitary cells.  Later that evening, Proctor, not having been missed, released them.  They got to the prison yard and made their way to the back where a gate allowed entry for deliveries via a sidetrack of the Framingham & Lowell Railroad.  Apparently, they found a plank that enabled them to climb an outer wall, force down the lever that opened the gate, and make their way out of the prison.  (At least some of them were recaptured, but it took months and, in Proctor’s case, years.)  These and other attempted escapes led to security enhancements in the early months of the prison’s existence. 

In July 1878, a fire burned down most of the 400’, three-story, brick workshop where many of the inmates labored during the day under contract to various manufacturers.  It was believed that the materials used in the picture frame manufacturing shop had spontaneously combusted.  The lack of an adequate water supply to fight the fire, despite proximity to a river, elicited a new set of complaints about the new facility and the people responsible for it.

Prison labor, whether under contract to outsiders or for needed work at the prison, contributed to balancing the prison budget.  The Acton Patriot of August 8 reported that inmates would, to the extent possible, be involved in rebuilding the workshop.  At the same time, prison labor was being used to build a 230’x25’ piggery outside the prison walls.  An unexpected historical tidbit was the Sept. 26 Acton Patriot‘s news that a dedication ball at the piggery was enjoyed by 75 couples until 1 am, when three cheers went up for prison officers who were in charge of the festivities.  Gates Band of Acton provided the music. 

Revelry aside, the most serious and long-lasting concerns about the new prison were about the adequacy of the implemented plans for obtaining fresh water and for sewage disposal.  Reading the complaints and proposed solutions is quite instructive about public health issues that we too often take for granted.  One of the complaints about the new prison in 1878 was the fact that there was a water-closet [toilet] in each prisoner’s cell, “which cost thousands of dollars and which he did not need.” (Springfield Republican, July 26, 1878, p. 8).  Pumping water to the prison was apparently more problematic than anticipated.  Wells were dug, but the need for more water was already being discussed in August 1878, with the town of Concord offering 200,000 gallons daily.  (Concord at the time was drawing water from Sandy Pond in Lincoln, not Lake Nagog.  The Warden favored getting Nagog water, it being “of some importance that the State would have the exclusive use of the water thus supplied, subject to no restriction or interference by any person or corporation.” Boston Journal, Nov. 27, 1878, p. 1)  Meanwhile, Concord residents were concerned about the possibility of prison sewage flowing into the river.  Remedial work began on waste disposal.  On November 22, 1878, the Boston Journal reported: “The alleged defect in the system of drainage, which gave the Concord people cause for complaint, has been remedied by the construction in the yard of a cistern eighteen feet deep, through which some 200,000 gallons of water passes per day, and is discharged into the Assabet river.  All the solid matter remains in the cistern, from which it is removed once a week, and buried in deep pits in the prison yard.  By this arrangement all danger of pollution of the waters of the Concord river is avoided.”

That assessment was evidently overly optimistic.  Complaints about sanitary conditions in the prison and the smells of sewer gases continued, leading to a health inspection in November 1880 and recommendations that the ventilation system be improved and that prisoners be required to scrub more carefully their water-closets and washbowls.  Problems persisted.  The State Prison report for 1881 mentioned that water for cooking and drinking was being obtained from wells on the prison grounds, and there was concern that sewage distributed nearby would contaminate the wells.  Despite earlier proposals about water availability, the Massachusetts State Prison report (Oct. 1882) stated that “The water-supply will never be satisfactory or sufficient until it is obtained either from Lake Nagog, by the State, or from the town of Concord.”  (p. 9)  The same report asserted that the prison had not been given enough money to improve its disposition of sewage unless the legislature would repeal its requirement that sewage be purified or cleansed before any discharge from the prison be allowed to go into the Concord River or its tributaries.  The Oct. 1883 report described a new system that had been designed, separating disposal of storm water (roof and surface drainage) from sewage.  The plan also dealt with water discharge from the gas-house (with its “pungent odor”), moulding shop (the output from its sinks and water closets that had been flowing through an open ditch), and hat shop (40,000-70,000 gallons mixed with felt fiber and dye refuse), all of which had apparently been draining into sink holes on the prison grounds.  The prison’s water-sourcing problem was solved in October 1883 by finally contracting with the Town of Concord to supply water.

The State Prison Goes Back to the City

The newspapers of the late 1870s and early 1880s reported extensively on the drama and political disagreement over the move of the state prison to Concord from Charlestown, what to do with the old prison, personnel changes, and whether the state had overspent on the new prison and continued to overspend on operations.   There were already calls in the summer of 1878 to send prisoners back to Charlestown.  Finally, a decision was made to return prisoners with longer sentences to the state prison in Charlestown and to turn the Concord facility into a Reformatory “for the more corrigible male offenders” (Prison Commissioners Report, Jan. 1885, p. 6), from the State and county prisons.  The change became official in 1884, but the bulk of the transition happened in the following year.

Despite the return of the State Prison to Charlestown, the rosy predictions of the 1874 Boston Traveller article did in some ways eventually come to pass.  Concord Junction (later West Concord) did indeed grow, in part because of prison employment.  Some Acton farmers and businesses benefited from the existence of a ready market nearby.  Lake Nagog, classified as a “great pond” and therefore not legally controlled by Acton and Littleton, became a source of water for the town of Concord and was piped along Acton’s Great Road in the early 1900s, providing water to some East Acton residents along the way.  Whether or not the high hopes of Acton’s proponents of the new prison were totally fulfilled, our sources do not tell us.

Some Sources Consulted:

Revolutionary War Soldiers Remembered Belatedly, Part 2

Research for our previous blog post on Revolutionary War soldier Isaac Ramsdell led us to a list of men recruited for service in the company of Capt. Wilbur Hudson Ballard (General Nixon’s Brigade, Col. Ichabod Alden) that included Acton soldiers Stephen Shepard and James Emery.  The document stated that James Emery was killed in service on Oct. 8, 1777.  We were very surprised to discover a second Acton resident who had died in service but was not on Rev. Woodbury’s list of local Revolutionary War soldiers and was not mentioned in our local histories. 

Unlike Isaac Ramsdell whose early life is still unknown to us, James Emery had clear Acton roots.  James’ grandfather Zacariah was mentioned in some of the earliest town meeting records.  (Though he is said to have lived in Chelmsford, he must have lived in Acton in some of those years, as he was chosen as highway surveyor, constable, and committeman in several town meetings).  James’s father John was born in Chelmsford but settled in Acton on land owned by Zechariah.  John appears in town meeting records starting in the 1750s.  He served as highway surveyor and constable for the town.  John and Mary Emery had a large family, most of whom show up in Acton vital records:

• Mary, born May 4, 1746, died Feb. 12, 1750
• Samuel, born Feb. 9, 1748-9, died April 20, 1754
• Elizabeth, born Dec. 25, 1749
• Mary, born Nov. 20, 1751
• John, born Nov. 20, 1753
• Samuel, born Feb. 9, 1755
• James, born March 13, 1756
• Joseph, born Aug. 3, 1757
• Noah, born March 25, 1759, died Feb. 8, 1760

Other children mentioned in a later genealogy of the family (Skowhegan on the Kennebec) were:

• Lucy, born June 13, 1760
• Sarah, born about April 8, 1761
• Two Abels who died young.

John Emery, James’ father, was listed as a member of Acton’s Alarm Company #2 in 1757, doing militia duty at the time of the French & Indian war.  (There does not seem to be a record of his going to Canada during that time.)  By the mid-1770s, the political sympathies of the Emery are quite clear.  James’ brother Joseph was on the 1774 sign-up sheet of Acton men who formed a militia company under Captain Joseph Robbins, thinking themselves “ignorant under the Military Art and Willing to be Instructed.”  John Emery appeared on Captain Joseph Robbins’ list of men who were under his command on May 15, 1775 and for the year 1776.  (It is unclear from Captain Robbins’ list whether John Sr. or Jr. is on the list, or both.  John Emery is the only name that shows up twice.  It is possible that both father and son were meant, without specifying a “Jr.”, or that John Jr. did two different stints, or perhaps a different Emery was meant.  Depending on the source, John Sr. is either credited with Revolutionary War service or not.)

Fortunately, James Emery and his brothers did show up in other records.  The compendium Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War has three entries for James.  In one, a “James Emery, Concord,” was listed as “Private, Capt. Asahel Wheeler’s co., Col. John Robinson’s regt.; marched Feb. 4 [year not given, probably 1776]; service 1 mo. 28 days.”  Given that he was assigned a town of Concord, this might seem to be a different James, but similar entries involve his brothers.  John Emery, “Acton (also given Concord)” and Samuel Emery were credited with the same service.  Acton’s John Oliver also served in that company and testified in his pension application that he was stationed in Cambridge at “the colleges” during that period. 

Another entry for James Emery came from a “List of men raised to serve in the Continental Army from Capt. Simon Hunt’s co., Col. Eleazer Brooks’s regt.,” dated Acton, Sept. 5, 1777.  Simon Hunt mentioned:

• Emory, James: residence, Acton, engaged for town of Acton, joined Capt. Parker’s co., Col. Allden’s regt.; term 3 years.  Colonel (Ichabod) Alden’s Regiment was the original name of the 7th Massachusetts Regiment.
• Emory, John: engaged for town of Acton; joined Capt. Toogood’s co., Col. Nixen’s regt. (also known as the 6th Massachusetts Regiment or the 4th Continental Regiment); term 3 years or during war.
• Emory, Samuel: engaged for town of Acton; joined Capt. Toogood’s co., Col. Nixen’s regt.; term 3 years or during war; reported also returned by Concord.

The title of Simon Hunt’s list implies that all three men served at some point in Simon Hunt’s company, although we have found no other information about that service and have not seen an original or scanned copy of that list.  The Massachusetts Line went through various reorganizations as the war progressed.  During 1777, there was a great deal of organizational change and a focus on much-needed, longer-term enlistments.  Records can be confusing as a result.  Pay and muster records state that James Emory of Acton enlisted on April 14, 1777 for a period of 3 years.  He served as a private in Capt. William Hudson Ballard’s co., Col. Alden’s (sometimes written Brooks’) regiment, joining the company on July 2.  The regiment was assigned to the Northern Department and was at Saratoga.  James, John and Samuel’s regiments were not involved in the first Saratoga battle but were in the second on Oct. 7, serving as part of Brigadier-General John Nixon’s Brigade under Major-General Benjamin Lincoln.  Both the 6th Mass Regiment and the 7th took part in storming Breymann Redoubt (also known as Breymann's Fortified Camp) in that battle.  Though the evidence is less clear, James’s younger brother Joseph seems to have enlisted in one of the shorter-term militia units that came to support the right wing at second battle of Saratoga as well.

A return of men recruited for US service by Captain Wilbur Hudson Ballard (listed as Nixon’s Brigade, Colonel Alden) specifies that James Emery was killed on Oct. 8, 1777.  (There was a clear distinction between men who were “killed” on Oct. 7-8 and others listed as “died” at other times.)  Given that the second Saratoga battle took place on Oct. 7, either James was unlucky enough to be involved in late action, or injuries that he received in the fighting the day before proved fatal.  He was 21 years old.

After serving in the Revolution, James’ brothers John, Samuel, and Joseph and James’ brother-in-law Jonathan Davis (husband of Elizabeth), along with John Emery Sr., moved to Canaan, Maine and farmed near each other.  James’ three other sisters married and settled in Maine.  Three out of his four sisters’ husbands served in the Revolution.  The family became actively involved in their new community, and local histories mention their Revolutionary War service.
Back in Acton, when Reverend Woodbury made up his list of Revolutionary War soldiers, he omitted all of the Emerys.  Perhaps no one was left in town who remembered them, or perhaps they were no longer considered “Acton,” because John Sr.’s land had become part of the new town of Carlisle in the intervening decades.  Whatever happened later, James Emery was born in Acton, was counted as an Acton recruit, and died an Acton resident.  Acton should remember his service.

Sources Consulted:

• Acton, MA: Early Town Meeting Records, Vital Records.
• Coburn, Louise H.  Skowhegan on the Kennebec.  Skowhegan, Maine: The Independent-Reporter Press (printer), 1941.
• Fletcher, James.  Acton in History.  Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1890
• Hanson, J. W.  History of the Old Towns of Norridgewock and Canaan.  Self-published.  Boston: 1849.
• Husbands, Charles R.  History of the Acton Minutemen and Militia Companies.  Acton, MA, 2003.
• National Park Service.  The Decisive Moment – 7- Breymann Redoubt.  Accessed June 3, 2024.
• Phelan, Harold R. History of the Town of Acton.  Cambridge, Mass.: Middlesex Printing, 1954.
• Secretary of the Commonwealth.  Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War.  Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers, 1899.  Emery (and variations):  Volume 5. 
• Snell, Charles W. A Report on the Organization and Numbers of Gates Army, September 19, October 7, and October 17, 1777, including an Appendix with Regimental Data and Notes. National Park Service, 1951.
• Weddle, Kevin J. The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.

Scans online:

• Recruiting Account, Capt. William H. Ballard, Col. Alden’s 7th Mass. Reg:  Return of Men Recruited for the Service of the United States of America by Captain Willm Hudson Ballard Officer of General Nixons Brigade, Colonel Ichabod Alden Regiment from Massachusetts Bay. 
  
• A Copy of Ration Money Drawn in Captain __ Company of Boston in  x year 1777 & paid out __ (folded card blocked part of the title when scanned)
• Return of Subsistence due and Drawn by the Men of Capt. William Hudson Ballard’s Company.

By the time local historians tried systematically to document Acton’s Revolutionary War soldiers, quite a bit of time had passed.  Rev. James T. Woodbury worked on the project during his pastorate in Acton (1832-1852).  We do not know what written sources he had access to, if any.  He did talk to townspeople and came up with a list of 181 men who had served in the Revolutionary War.  Rev. Woodbury noted at the bottom of the list that he believed it to be incomplete, and research has shown that it was not perfect.  (See blog posts on the service of Jonathan Hosmer and his son Jonathan, for example.)

Occasionally, we come across a Revolutionary War soldier who lived in Acton and served for the town but somehow eluded Rev. Woodbury’s and later lists.  This Memorial Day, we would like to recognize two such men, Isaac Ramsdell and James Emery.  Both lived in Acton in the 1770s, were counted for Acton’s enlistment quota during the war, and died in service.  Their relatives left Acton in later years, and by the time of Rev. Woodbury’s research, apparently no one was left to tell their stories.

Isaac Ramsdell

So far, we have not discovered anything about Isaac Ramsdell’s early life.  Complicating research, his surname has numerous variants such as Rams(dall, dill, dale, dle, doll), Ram(dall, dill, del, dle), Ramsden, or Ramsell.  The first time Isaac appeared in Acton’s records was a marriage intention, filed in Acton on December 1, 1769, stating that he and Abigail Temple were both residents of Acton.  Their marriage, performed by John Cuming Esq., took place in Concord on Dec. 21, 1769.  A much later Acton record (difficult handwriting has been transcribed as “James” but seems actually to be Isaac) indicates that Isaac and his wife came to Acton from Concord in 1770.  No land records were found for Isaac.  Church records, however, tell us that three children of Isaac “Ramsden” and his wife were baptized in Acton in April 1775.  Sarah, child of Isaac and Abigail “Ramsdal,” was baptized July 6, 1777.  Dorathy Ramsdel, daughter of Isaac and Abigail, was baptized January 14, 1781.  Acton records make no mention of Isaac’s death. 

Despite indications that Isaac may have come to Acton from Concord, we had no success finding Isaac there.  Concord vital records make no mention of his birth.  We did look for other Ramsdells (or variants) in Concord.  A Mary Ramsdil married Ezra Cory in May 1766.   Also, Acton records show a marriage between Elener Ramsdal of Concord and Eleazer Sartwell of Acton in 1755.  Eleazer and Elener lived in Acton and had many children in the years leading up to the Revolution.  If this were a family connection, it could explain why Isaac came to Acton.  He may also have had Chelmsford connections; an Isaac Ramsdell owed a poll tax there in 1773.  Following up on those potential connections, unfortunately, did not allow us to track down where Isaac came from.

We first learned about Isaac Ramsdell’s war service from his widow’s pension application.  An Act of July 4, 1836 finally made widows of enlisted men who served in the Revolution eligible to apply for pensions.  By that time, many corroborating witnesses would have died or moved to unknown locations, so widows had to provide what information they could.

When her pension application was being prepared in late April 1838, Abigail was 91 years and 7 months old.  Hannah, eldest child of Isaac and Abigail, made declarations instead of her mother, testifying about what she knew of her father’s service.  Though young during the war, she stated that she distinctly recollected “all the material and principal circumstances of her Father’s services and death.”  She mentioned that she could “well remember” Capt. Isaac Davis calling her father “before he was up in the morning to go to Concord.”  Hannah stated that her father was one of Isaac Davis’s Minute Men and that he participated in the “Battle of Lexington,” as the events of April 19 were known in earlier days, that he immediately enlisted for three years, and that at or before the expiration of his three years’ service, he reenlisted for another three years under Captain Joseph Brown of Acton.  She believed that he served at Rhode Island, Ticonderoga and other places, that he was in the battle of Bunker Hill and at the taking of Burgoyne.  She remembered his uniform and a fife that he carried in a side pocket.  He was home on furlough in December 1779 but returned to active service in the spring.  Hannah could “well recollect” the news of father’s death reaching her mother in Acton.  Isaac was drowned at “King’s Ferrying Place” in 1780.

Some of Hannah Ramsdell’s recollections are surprising, given what we know (or thought we knew).  It has been assumed that all members of Isaac Davis’ company are known, unlike those of the Acton militia companies that served on April 19, 1775.  Hannah was very young at the beginning of the war and could be forgiven for not remembering accurately.  However, her mother would certainly have known who roused her husband that day.  It is possible that they lived near Isaac Davis.  Assuming that previous lists were correct in excluding Isaac Ramsdell, he probably was in one of the other two militia companies, most likely the “West” company under Capt. Simon Hunt.  It is also possible that he went along with the Minute company unofficially, but it is surprising that others did not mention it, given the interest of local historians in that company.

At a March 1, 1779 town meeting, article four asked if certain men’s taxes (all in military service at the time, including a very hard-to-read Isaac “Ramsdal”) could be abated for 1776.  Whether this had anything to do with military service that year, we cannot tell.  (The town dismissed the article.)  However, from the records we do have, it would seem that Isaac’s service likely started before 1777.  Simon Hunt filed with Col. Eleazer Brooks a listing (dated Acton, Sept. 5, 1777) of men who had been raised from his company to serve in the Continental Army.  This indicates that those men had already served with Simon Hunt.  Among them was Isaac Ramsdale, engaged for the town of Acton, who joined “Capt. Core’s co.” for three years or the duration of the war.  On Feb. 26, 1777, James Barrett, muster master, reported to the State of Massachusetts Bay that he had paid a bounty to certain men since his last report.  Among them were five from Captain Cory’s Company in Col. Kise’ Battalion, including Isaac Ramsdell.  (The others were Jeremiah Temple, Isaac Russell, Silas Cory and Stephen Cory).  Continental Army pay accounts state that Isaac served January 2, 1777 to December 31, 1779 in Capt. Job Whipple’s company of Col. Rufus Putnam’s Regiment and was credited to the town of Acton where he was a resident.  Captain Whipple reported on clothing issued to his men in 1777; Isaac received a coat, vest, breeches, shirts, shoes and a hat.  He also appears on muster rolls of Capt. Job Whipple’s Company, Col. Putnam’s Regiment, August 5, 1778 (White Plains), Sept. 9, 1778 and Oct. 1, 1779 (at Camp Bedford).  Given the dizzying number of reorganizations of the Massachusetts Line during the war, it is not surprising that Isaac’s company membership is confusing.  Jeremiah Temple’s records also show him both in Captain Cory’s and Captain Whipple’s companies.

Hannah stated that her father served with Captain Joseph Brown.  Two 1780 muster rolls from the 15th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by Col. Timothy Bigelow confirm that Isaac Ramsdell was a member of the company of which Joseph Brown was a captain.  A muster roll dated July 28, 1780 from Camp Robinson’s Farm (covering the Jan.-June 1780 period) reported that Isaac was “on Command,” presumably doing special duty and not in camp that day.   There were many camps in the Hudson Highlands whose exact location was nearly forgotten and had to be researched many years later.  Apparently Camp Robinson’s Farm was a large encampment about 1.5 miles east of the Hudson River across from West Point at Garrison, NY.  A muster roll taken at Camp “Tenneck” for the month of July 1780 but dated 31 August stated that Isaac Ramsdell died July 28, 1780.  A further card in his file states that his service in the 15th Mass. dated from April 1779.  He had enlisted for 3 years but died July 28, 1780.  It was Hannah’s statement that specified that he drowned at “the King’s Ferrying place.” 

Kings Ferry was a strategically important crossing point between Verplanck’s Point and Stony Point on the Hudson River.  It was the first narrowing point on the river north of New York City.  It saw constant use and many historically significant events throughout the war.  By October 1779, it was controlled by the Americans.  There is no record of what Isaac Ramsdell was doing there while his company was being mustered about twelve miles north at Camp Robinson’s Farm on July 28, 1780.  All we know is that something went wrong, and he drowned that day.

Isaac Ramsdell left his widow Abigail with 3 small children and another on the way.  According to Hannah’s statement and later records, the family consisted of:

• Hannah – eldest child, born in Acton, apparently one of three children baptized in Acton in April 1775.  Hannah’s daughter Rebecca was baptized in Acton June 2, 1799.  Hannah never married.  She lived for many years in Henniker, NH and died there July 11, 1854.  Her age was given as 83.
• Mary – born in Acton, apparently one of three children baptized in Acton in April 1775.  Married Martin Murphy in 1799 and had at least four children, one of whom was named Isaac Ramsdell Murphy.  Mary may have lived in Wrentham at one point, but later in life, she and Martin lived in Northbridge, MA.  Martin died in 1844, and Mary died Feb. 22, 1847 in Northbridge.
• Rebecca – Apparently one of three children baptized in Acton in April 1775.  According to Hannah, “she died the year following my Father’s decease age 7 years,” so she lived approximately 1774-1781. 
• Sarah – born in Acton, baptized July 6, 1777.  According to Hannah’s statement, “She died before my father.” 
• Dorothy – baptized in Acton Jan. 14, 1781 (born after her father’s death, according to Hannah “the 5 day of Dec after my Father’s decease”, Dec. 5, 1780).  Dorothy married William Green of Stow on Sept. 9, 1802 in Acton.  She remarried John Kirk on Feb 2, 1809 in Weare, New Hampshire.  He died in 1853, and Dorothy died Dec. 15, 1870.

Research for our latest blog post involved searching the 1855 Massachusetts census for all Acton residents who were born in Ireland.  Using one of the available online indices, a list could be generated quickly, and then linked images of the census forms allowed us to check each individual’s details and make sure that we had not missed anyone in town born in Ireland.  Aside from some creative name-spelling and questions about ages, we thought we had a complete list of Acton’s 1855 Irish-born population.  We should have known that the process was too simple.

A few years ago, the Society received a donation of a book containing a handwritten “Census of Acton taken June 1st 1855 by Samuel Hosmer, Agent for Selectmen & Assessors.”  This 1855 census listing was entirely handwritten, not a set of filled-in census forms.  Because we have easy online access to census images through genealogical websites, it had never seemed important to study our census book in detail.  While working on the Irish data, however, we took a look at what was actually in the book.  To our surprise, on the first page, in the first household, there was a young Irish woman who was not included in our list of Irish-born residents.  Thinking that it was perhaps an indexing problem with the spelling of an Irish name, we tried searching the online 1855 census database for the Massachusetts-born individuals in the same household.  They were also missing.  Moving down the handwritten page, we found that none of the people listed by Samuel Hosmer in the first 6 Acton households, plus part of the seventh, was included in the online index.  Three commonly-used online databases gave us the same result; none of them included people from the first 6+ households in our handwritten 1855 census book. 

The first person who appeared both on our book’s first page and in Ancestry’s 1855 census database was Emma Francis [sic] Estabrooks, age 1 year, 11 months.  The online image of the census form showed that Emma was listed on the first line of a filled-in, preprinted Acton census form.  There should have been a previous form that listed her parents, but when we tried to access the previous page, we found that there was no image other than the cover of a bound volume Census of Massachusetts 1855, Vol. 19, Middlesex Co., Acton to Cambridge.  We had the same result using FamilySearch and another online database; presumably, they all used the same source.  (Though stated sources and dates vary somewhat across the different databases, they seem to have come originally from microform/microfilm of the census held at the Massachusetts State Archives.)  It appears either that the original filming missed the form that contained the first 6.5 households in Acton’s enumeration or that the first form was actually lost.  Either way, the indices and digital images of Acton’s 1855 census that are being used regularly for research are missing 36 Acton residents.

We offer here the missing page 1 of Acton’s 1855 census for everyone who is searching for the following 36 individuals.  Some were life-long Acton residents, but others only seem to appear in Acton’s census records here.  All listed individuals were born in Massachusetts, except as noted.  Seven of the missed individuals were born in Ireland.  (We included them in our blog post on Irish in 1850s Acton.)

Samuel Hosmer’s 1855 Census of Acton:

Dwelling & Household 1

• Daniel Weatherbee, 41, male, Miller
• Clarisa Weatherbee, 37, female
• Clara Weatherbee, 16, female
• Daniel James Weatherbee , 11, male
• Emma Weatherbee, 7, female
• Charles Carroll Weatherbee, 3:4, male
• Frank Weatherbee, 10m, male
• Lowell Stearns, 31, male, Trader
• James Ephream Billings, 31, male, Miller
• Henry Farrar, 22, male, Miller
• Calvin Putnam Harris, 18, male, Trader
• Hannah Toomy, 19, female, b. Ireland

Dwelling & Household 2

• Henry Augustus King, 30, male, Shoemaker
• Mary Elizabeth King, 24, female
• Melville Augustus King, 4 11m, male

Dwelling & Household 3

• Edward Weatherbee, 73, male, Farmer
• Susannah Weatherbee, 69, female
• Edward Weatherbee Jr., 45, male, Farmer
• Mary Conway, 46, female, b. Ireland
• John Conway, 15, male, Farmer, b. Ireland
• Jonathan Barker, 78, male, Farmer

Dwelling 4 & Household 4

• Thomas Moore, 28, male, Farmer, b. Ireland
• Ellen Grimes Moore, 27 (Noted: age not positive), female, b. Ireland
• Joanna Moore, 2:6m, female
• Patrick Moore, 1:3m, male

Dwelling 4 & Household 5

• Cornelias Colorne [Colonne?], 27, male, Farmer, b. Ireland
• Hannah Colorne, 23, female, b. Ireland
• John Colorne, 4m, male

Dwelling 5 & Household 6

• James Francis Jones, 24, male, Farmer
• Elizabeth Jones, 20, female
• Elizabeth Sophia Jones, 5m, female
• Elisa Haynes, 17, female

Dwelling 6 & Household 7

• Joseph Esterbrooks, 35, male, Farmer
• Nancy Raymond Estabrooks, 30, female
• Sarah Eldora Estabrooks, 8, female
• Joseph Warren Estabrooks 5:8m, male
• Emma Francis Estabrooks 1?:11m, female (indexed)
• Ada Estabrook, 4m, female (indexed)
• James Brown, 20?, male, Farmer, b. Ireland (indexed)

 
Note that the name Weatherbee was more often spelled Wetherbee in Acton.  The name Esterbrook(s)/Estabrook(s) is differently spelled even within the same family here and appears in different forms in various Acton records.  Further research did not help us to confirm the Irish name Colorne and what other forms it might have taken.  Records for other individuals in the 1850s yielded other possible names such as Coborne and Coline.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we explored Irish immigration into Acton.  The most useful starting point was the 1850 federal and 1855 Massachusetts censuses.  Earlier censuses only listed the name of the head of households, usually male.  The 1850s listings give us the name of every person in town, as well as their (sometimes approximate) age and birthplace.  The population during the 1850s reflects changes in Acton caused both by Irish Famine immigration and the arrival of the railroad.

The 1850 census of Acton listed 107 people born in Ireland, or 6.7% of the total population of 1,605.  Twenty-five of the Irish-born individuals in Acton were female.  (A clear error in the household of Ebenezer Davis Jr. was corrected in our statistics; research showed that the birthplace of Ellen Grimes and Charles Robbins was switched.).  The 1850 Acton census gave no occupation for any female, so we can only guess what they were doing.  Some women were living with a male who was probably the husband, sometimes with children.  In other cases, females lived in a household of a seemingly unrelated family.  They probably were doing domestic work.

Of the 82 males born in Ireland, almost all who were of working age were laborers (71).  Thirty-one were living on a farm and probably working there.  Not one of the Irish laborers was listed as a farmer, a term that in the 1850 census apparently was reserved for those whose farm produced more than $100 of products.  However, three of the Irish-born men owned real estate that included improved land and buildings.  The town’s tax valuation for 1850 shows that John Grimes had 2 acres of improved land, Francis Kinsley had 1.5 acres, and Thomas Kinsley (listed in the 1850 census as Thomas “Wamsley”) had 3 acres.  None showed up on the agricultural census for that year.

Only three Irish-born men had occupations other than laborer.  Twenty-six-year old Nathan Smith was working as a blacksmith for Jonas Blodget.  Michael Phaelan was working as a “Switchman” for the railroad, an employer that provided opportunities to many Irish in the nineteenth century.  It is very likely that some (or many) of the men listed as laborers worked for the railroad.  Finally, Jerry McCarthy was listed as a Boarding House Keeper.  Along with (presumably wife) Catherine and two children, he provided a home to eleven Irish laborers. 

In the 1855 Acton census, there were 111 Irish-born individuals out of a total population of 1,680.  The Irish population percentage had not changed much, but the gender mix did.  Forty-four were female (39.6% of the Irish-born population, up from 23.3% in 1850).  Again, females’ occupations were not noted. 

Of the 67 Irish men of working age, 27 were listed as “farmer,” a term that seems to have been used in 1855 for anyone working on a farm.  (Land ownership was not specified in this state census, although it can be discovered from other sources.)  Two Irish-born men were listed simply as “laborer.”  The 1855 census specified that 27 men were working on the railroad, almost all as “repairer,” although Michael Phelan was working as a “Switch Tender.”  There were eight Irish-born men who had other occupations.  Daniel McCarthy was working as a tailor.  John Caully (name has possible interpretations such as Canly or Carelly) and Morris Sexton were apparently working at the flannel print works as a “flannel printer” and a ”dyer,” respectively.  Michael Falan and Martin Fay were Wood Sawyers, and Thomas Kinsley was a Stone Layer.

One has to wonder how the early Irish immigrants were received in Acton.  Comparing the 1850 and the 1855 census lists, we found that many people from the earlier list had moved on by 1855.  Given significant variations in ages and sometimes in names, it is impossible to match the two lists precisely, but the maximum number that we conjecture might possibly have been on both lists is 23 people.  Whether that reflected the climate of the town or simply other opportunities elsewhere, we cannot tell.  There may have been a variety of responses to the new arrivals.  We do not have a local newspaper available until later, so surviving newspaper reports that were repeated in other places were likely to feature the worst.  One such story that circulated in September 1849 accused Acton’s selectmen of shockingly uncharitable treatment of a family of Irish immigrants in crisis.  After the story appeared in Boston papers and was picked up in others, Boston’s Daily Evening Transcript reported on an inquiry into the matter and clarified that the tragedy had actually happened in a different town and had not involved Acton’s selectmen at all.  (The downside of our having access to digitized old newspapers is that we also have access to old rumors and reporting errors.)

Whatever the welcome they received, Acton’s Irish residents proceeded with their lives after the huge upheaval of immigrating.  Between 1848 and 1855, 37 children were born in Acton to Irish-born parents.  Some Irish-born Acton residents had enough to show up in an 1855 Acton agricultural valuation:

• Thomas Moore worked ½ acre that produced 50 bushels of potatoes.
• John Grimes owned 2 oxen, 3 cows, cultivated an acre of corn and a half-acre of potatoes that both produced 25 bushels, owned 2 oxen and 3 cows, produced 4 tons of hay on four acres, and had 30 apple trees that yielded 30 bushels. 
• John Coborne (alternative versions of the name were Colorne or Coline) cultivated a half-acre of corn that yielded 10 bushels and a quarter-acre that yielded 10 bushels of potatoes.  He also had 15 apple trees that didn’t bear fruit that year. 
• John McCarthy had a cow and a swine and cultivated a half-acre of corn yielding 10 bushels, an acre of rye yielding 3 bushels, a half-acre of oats yielding 6 bushels, and an acre of potatoes that yielded 40 bushels.  He also mowed an acre of both “English” and meadow hay, grew beans, and had 10 apple trees that produced a bushel of apples. 
• Thomas Kinsley owned a horse.  He cultivated a half-acre of corn that yielded 12 bushels, a half-acre of potatoes that produced 36 bushels, mowed a half-acre of English hay, and had 50 apple trees that produced 15 bushels. 
• Francis Kinsley had a cow, a heifer and 30 apple trees that produced 20 bushels.
• Morris Sexton had 25 apple trees that didn’t produce a crop that year. 
• Michael Phelan had 2 swine.

It was a beginning.  Some of the early Irish immigrants stayed and became part of the fabric of the town.  Other Irish immigrants joined them in later years.  Some of the early Irish left town, perhaps for better economic opportunities or for a place where they felt more at home.  Whatever their experiences were in Acton, we would like preserve their stories.

Sources:
1850 Federal Census of Acton (online)
1855 Massachusetts Census of Acton (online)
Census of Acton taken June 1st 1855 by Samuel Hosmer, Agent for Selectmen & Assessors (handwritten)
Vital Records of Acton, MA

Newspaper articles not actually describing an Acton event:
Boston Courier, Sept. 13, 1849, p. 4
Boston Evening Transcript, Sept. 13, 1849, p. 1
The (Springfield) Daily Republican, Sept. 13, 1849, p 2
Boston Daily Evening Transcript, Sept. 20, 1849, p. 2
Salem Gazette, Sept. 21, 1821, p. 2 (quoting Boston Atlas)
The (Gettysburg, PA) Star and Banner, Sept. 28, 1849, p. 5

Picture of Ireland courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory, image 49687

A scene that no doubt caused more pleasure for the children in the picture than the adults was captured by Maynard photographer Robert C. Swaney.  The photograph came from South Acton and was clearly taken on the Boston & Maine Railroad.  The photo is of a “switcher” (also known as a switching engine) that was used to move rail cars around railyards such as South Acton with its busy and complicated tracks.  Whether or not the derailment happened at South Acton, we can only guess. 
 
We tried to find out more about this photograph.  Researching the Boston & Maine railroad’s engine #1327 did not yield any helpful results.  (Someone more knowledgeable might be able to date both the large lights on the front and the back and the painting style of the name and numbers on the engine and tender.)  The next step was to find out more about the train’s mishap.  Though we found many train accidents in the local newspaper as well as various mentions of a switching engine and crew, we did not find an article about a switcher derailment at South Acton.  We did find one reported in Concord Junction news on the first page of the Jan. 4, 1911 Enterprise.

We then researched the life of the photographer embossed on the mat of the photo.  We found two pictures in the Maynard Historical Society’s digital archives that were by Robert Swaney, one of Maynard businessmen around 1910 and the other of the local Smoke Shop in 1911.  Further research  established the time period in which Robert Swaney would have been in Maynard taking pictures.  Robert Clayton Swaney was born in West Lubec, Maine.  His father George brought his family to Stow, MA about 1893.  Apparently, they lived in the section known as Rock Bottom or Gleasondale that straddled the Stow/Hudson line.  Robert’s mother, who lived to be 100, lived in Gleasondale for 60 years.  Robert was a machinist living in Hudson when he married Hepsey Senior of Stow in June, 1899 in Gleasondale.  In the 1900 census, he was living with his wife and his newborn son in Marlboro, MA.  Marlboro’s 1905 directory reported that he moved to Stow, but a 1907 directory placed him in Ayer, MA, working as a motorman.  (Apparently, he worked on a line from Ayer Junction to Lowell at one point.)  In 1910, he was living in Hudson with wife Hepzibeth and two sons.  Robert Swaney was listed as a Maynard voter on March 2, 1912, a “motorman” living and working in Maynard.  A 1913 Maynard directory also placed motorman Robert C. Swaney in the town at 55 Acton St.  We discovered from the Enterprise newspaper that he worked for the Concord, Maynard and Hudson Street Railway in 1915 (March 24, p. 9).  An obituary in the Beacon mentioned that at some time, he worked on the line from Maynard to West Acton that passed through South Acton (Nov. 23, 1972, p. 14).  We also found that a monograph in our collection about the Street Railway features a picture “from the collection of Robert C. Swaney.”  When Robert registered for the draft in Sept. 1918, he was living on Haynes St. in Maynard, working as a machinist at La Point Machine & Tool Company in Hudson.  A note on the 1912 Maynard voter list reported that Robert C. Swaney moved away from town in Jan. 1920. 

Research did not turn up any more connections to Maynard.  In the 1920 census, Robert Swaney was living with his wife at 1 Bennet St., Hudson, working as a foreman at a machine shop.  They were still there in 1930.  In 1940, they had moved to Stow, and Robert was working as a foreman at a brake lining factory.  Wife Hepzibeth died in 1948.  In Oct. 1949, Robert married Mildred A. Gallant who was born in Littleton and had lived in Acton for many years.   The 1950 census seems to have Robert and Mildred Swaney living with Robert’s widowed mother Laura both in Stow (High Street) and Hudson (64 Wilkins Street).  (In both cases, his age was significantly understated.)  A Hudson 1951 directory showed Robert living there with wife Mildred and his widowed mother Laura.  He was superintendent at Standco Brake Lining Company.  Robert Swaney lived for many years in both Hudson and Stow, but he died at a nursing home in Sudbury on Nov. 18, 1972.  His wife Mildred had died that June.

Having learned much more than we had expected about the photographer of our picture, including the fact that he had Acton connections, we found no evidence that he worked regularly as a photographer, or for very long.  Robert C. Swaney would only have had a mat made with a Maynard address from, at the earliest, late 1910 to 1920.  We are not sure where our picture was taken.  It would be logical to think that if the accident happened in South Acton, Swaney might have taken the picture during his time working for the street railway that made its way regularly through South Acton (about the 1910-1918 period).  One of the boys has a “C” on his sweater, which could imply a Concord location.  On the other hand, Acton at the time was sending its high school students to Concord for their education; they, too, could have been sporting a “C.”
 
If anyone has any further information that can help us to identify this picture, please contact us.