While we have all heard that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” those of us who deal regularly with unlabeled photographs often wish for just a few words to help us.  The Society’s collections include some pictures of an ice storm that hit Acton in November a century ago.  Our photographs had different years written on the backs (1921 and 1922), and we were unsure which was correct. 

Fortunately, diaries can be invaluable for giving first-hand information about events.  In this case, Ella Miller’s diary provided the information we needed.  She often wrote about the weather and mentioned no ice storm in November 1922.  November 1921, however, was a different story. 

On November 10, 1921, Ella wrote, “Thurs. – Everything covered with ice this morning.  Several wires broken in the Centre and limbs broken from trees.”  One might have assumed that the November 10 ice storm was the storm in the pictures until one read more from Ella’s 1921 diary:

Nov. 28: “Mon. – Ice nearly an inch thick on every twig.  Lots of broken wires and limbs strew the common tonight.  A small attendance at school and dangerous traveling under trees.  A sort of sleet, mist, or rain most of day.  No electric lights in town.”

Ella's 1921 diary continues:

Nov. 29: “Tues. – Still raining and freezing on & trees breaking down.  The worst storm of its kind in years.  No school.  Mr. Edwards came to tell me he couldn’t get through & Mr. Smith turned around here with only five [students].  Pa took Aunt Emma & me down street to see the ruins.”

Nov. 30: “Wed. – Sun shining and ice beginning to melt & drop off.  More children at school than on Monday.  Webster’s weighed one leaf covered with ice – 1 ½ lb.  Have begun cleaning up the common.”

Dec. 1: “Thurs. - ... Ice nearly off trees.  No electric lights since Sun. night – gloomy.”

We are very grateful to have photographs of Acton scenes and events at Jenks Library and, sometimes, words to explain them.

The Society recently had an open house after a long period of COVID-related closure.  The date was chosen for its proximity to Acton’s traditionally-celebrated “birthday,” the anniversary of its formal organization as a town on July 21, 1735.  Researching how the town had marked its other birthdays, we came across a scrapbook from Acton's bicentennial celebration in 1935.  The more we read, the more we appreciated how ambitious an undertaking it was for a town of 2600 people.

Acton’s 200th birthday was celebrated with a town-wide, three-day extravaganza.  The event began at sunrise on July 20th with church bells ringing and a town crier announcing the occasion.  The town was also greeted with an “unofficial” cannon salute orchestrated by Nelson Tenney.   A Faulkner family reunion took place that day and brought numerous family members to the old homestead in South Acton as well as an impromptu reenactment of the activities there on April 19, 1775.  The bicentennial celebration officially kicked off with a parade of military units and “motor floats” starting at 3 p. m., forming near the Faulkner House and heading to West Acton over Central Street.  Participants were trucked from there to Acton Center where they were joined by civilian units west of Taylor Road on Main Street.  They marched on Main Street through the center, passing the Monument where they were reviewed by dignitaries such as Massachusetts’ governor James M. Curley, ex-mayor of Boston John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald and other local notables.  The parade ended at the Schoolhouse on Meetinghouse Hill.  After the parade, there were speeches by the politicians and a rendition of “Sweet Adelaide” sung by John F. Fitzgerald.  Florence Piper Tuttle, a poet and Acton native, read “Acton Speaks,” a poem composed for the occasion.  After more speeches and a supper provided by one of the women’s clubs (reports varied as to which one), there was a band concert given by an American Legion Post Band from Watertown. 

On Sunday morning, the churches in town observed the occasion in various ways.  The South Acton Universalist church had a memorial service for Lucius Hosmer, a former member who was born on the site of the church.  He became a noted composer of his time and had written a piece for the celebration that he had planned to conduct.  Unfortunately, he had died unexpectedly earlier in the year.  On Sunday afternoon, there were open houses at fifteen of the oldest homes in town, followed by a concert on the Common entirely devoted to the work of Lucius Hosmer.  His piece “The Acton Patriots,” composed for the occasion, was one of the pieces.  The orchestra was part of the Emergency Relief Administration’s music program.  In the evening, there was a community service that involved the pastors of the town’s churches and a 60-person community chorus under the direction of Harold Merriam.

On Monday July 22, librarian and artist Arthur F. Davis led a 50-vehicle automobile tour over the approximate route taken by Capt. Isaac Davis and his Minutemen company to Concord on April 19, 1775 and then back past the Robbins farm site where a rider had spread the news to Acton that “The Regulars are coming.”  Jenks Library has copies of the annotated tour itinerary.  Next on the day’s agenda was a historical pageant that involved about 10% of the town’s population, held on the Acton Fairgrounds behind town hall.  The E. R. A. orchestra apparently was involved as well.  The celebration wrapped up with a Military Ball on Monday evening at Exchange Hall attended by invited guests (including Honey Fitz) and about 300 couples.  The Liners Broadcasting Orchestra gave a concert there at 8, followed by a Grand March.  Dancing then followed until 1 a.m.

One has to be impressed with the effort that Acton residents put into celebrating their town’s bicentennial.  According to newspapers, they were rewarded with the attendance of large crowds, 12,000 or more showing up on Saturday and 6,000 or more for the pageant.  (It is not clear how accurate the estimates were.  The Herald estimated 10,000 at the pageant.) 

There undoubtedly were many memorable moments for the participants, but judging from newspaper articles about the weekend, the most newsworthy event happened during the parade.  The parade was in three divisions.  First came the grand marshal Maj. Charles S. Coulter on his horse.  He was followed in an open car by first division marshal George L. Towne, the last living member of the Capt. Isaac Davis Post of the G. A. R.  Next came military units, including a band from Fort Devens, followed by a long line of army trucks that were used to transport marchers from West Acton to Acton Center to finish the parade.  The second division was led by its marshal Lowell Cram and the Watertown American Legion band that drew particular attention because of its “girl drum major,” evidently a surprising sight at the time.  Following them were about thirty decorated floats from Acton civic and other organizations such as the American Legion Auxiliary, Boy Scouts, Woman’s Clubs, Odd Fellows and Winona Rebekans, Grange, and the Concord Reformatory.  The third division seems to have been made up of local, civilian and veteran marchers and horse-drawn vehicles.

Governor Curley and the others reviewing the parade by the Monument had just seen the Center fire company go by.  They were then able to see, five hundred yards away, a float farther back in the parade going up in flames.  One can imagine the chaotic scene as the firemen took their chemical apparatus and raced back past the other marchers “with sirens screeching and bells clanging” to fight the fire.  Reports mentioned that hundreds headed toward the excitement, necessitating a good deal of crowd control by local police and American Legion members helping out.

The burning float represented the West Acton Baptist church.  A sturdy framework had been built on top of and all around a truck owned by Jesse Briggs.  The framework was then decorated with religious messages and flags.  The float featured a pulpit displaying an antique Bible from the church.  Driving the truck was the church’s organist, Alden Johnson, accompanied by the truck owner’s son Russell.  When the engine caught fire in front of Horace Tuttle’s house on Main Street, Mr. Johnson pulled over.  The doors being blocked, both men had to climb out of the truck’s windows and jump to safety.  The firefighters were on the scene quickly, but they had a hard time getting to the engine fire, as the float was so well built that it took time to rip it apart.  Somehow, the items on the float that belonged to the church made their way safely into the hands of its pastor, and no one was injured.  The truck, however, had a very bad day.

The importance of the bicentennial celebration to the townspeople who took part is evidenced by the large number of related items that were carefully saved and eventually donated to the Society.  We have programs, articles describing the events, souvenirs, pins, photographs including three copies of a panoramic picture of the pageant’s participants, pageant dialogue written by Evelyn Knowlton, clothing worn in the pageant, a telegram sharing the news that one of the expected speakers was hospitalized, and letters from invited dignitaries who did not attend.   Among the pictures, there is even one of the church float before its demise.  Newspaper photographers were on hand to capture the firemen at work, their pictures accompanying articles with headlines such as “Two Jump from Blazing Float,” “Two Men Leap from Burning Float During Spectacular Parade in Acton,” and “Men Narrowly Escape Flames as Decorated Truck Bursts Forth in Fire at Height of Great Bi-Centennial Celebration with Governor as Guest.”  The Boston Herald may have referred to “the little town of Acton, almost forgotten but sturdy and proud” (July 14, 1935, p.6), but those who attended the parade seem to have found Acton quite memorable.

Sources Available Online:

“Acton Bells Will Ring on 200th Anniversary,” Boston Globe, July 13, 1935, p.20.
“Acton Plans Three-Day Gala Celebration July 20, 21-22,” Concord Enterprise, July 3, 1935, p. 1.
“Acton’s Bi-Centenary,” Boston Herald, July 14, 1935, p. 6 B.
“Acton Celebrates 200th Anniversary”, Concord Enterprise, July 17, 1935, p. 1.
“Acton Marks Bi-Centennial,” Boston Herald, July 20, 1935, p. 15.
“Acton Cannon Booms at Sunup,” Boston Globe, July 20, 1935, p. 3.
“Two Jump from Blazing Float in Acton as 200th Anniversary Fete Opens, “ Boston Herald, July 21, 1935, p. 1.
“10,000 Attend Acton Exercises,” Boston Herald, July 22, 1935, p. 10.
“Faulkner Family Annual Reunion,” Boston Globe, July 22, 1935, p. 19.
“Military Ball Ends Acton Fete – 10,000 Witness Pageant Celebrating Town’s 200th Anniversary,” Boston Herald, July 23, 1935, p. 24.
“Firing of Salute Opens 200th Anniversary in Acton” and “Military Ball Final Event of Observance,” Concord Enterprise, July 24, 1935, p. 1, 4.

Additional Scrapbook Clippings with incomplete references:

“Acton Celebrates 200 Years as a Town,” Boston Transcript, no date.
“Historic Glories of Acton to Be Renewed,” Boston Post, no date.
“Acton Holds Successful Bi-Centenary Celebration,” Concord Journal, no date.
“Expressions of Regret” (from Franklin D. Roosevelt and Carlos B. Clark), no newspaper or date.
"Blaze in Acton Parade Float Provides Thrills for Throng,"probably Boston Globe, no date.
"Firemen Provide Real Exhibition of Quick Work," Boston Globe, no date.
“Churches of Acton Note 200th Observance, Boston Globe, July 21, 1935.
“Church Notes,” (South Acton), no newspaper or date.
“Little Acton,” Boston Post editorial, July 16, 1935 (no page)
“Pageant Brings Acton’s Celebration to Close,” labeled “Boston Globe, July 22, 1935,” but it was not in digitized version (or perhaps edition) of that day’s Globe.

In our previous blog post about the postmaster controversy in 1880s South Acton, we mentioned that one of the underlying factors was probably resentment and distrust related to an ongoing dispute over the payment of bounties to some of Acton’s Civil War veterans.  Despite repeated attempts by Acton’s townspeople to pay them, the veterans had never received the money.  In 1882, Massachusetts enacted a law (Act of 1882, Chapter 93) that would have authorized the town to make the payment, but a lawsuit by a few influential (and high-income) taxpayers had sought to block it.  The course of the controversy was somewhat complicated, but in the long run, to many Actonians, the issue became about more than money.  Resentment festered and found outlets in a number of other disputes in the 1880s.

The Background

Acton sent several companies to the Civil War.  The first, Company E, 6th Regiment, went out immediately upon Lincoln’s call for three-month volunteers in April 1861.  After the men returned from their service around Baltimore, a company with a three-year enlistment was formed.  Company E of the 26th Massachusetts Regiment was organized at Acton in August 1861 and was mustered into service in Lowell on Oct. 18.  They were sent first to Ship Island in the Gulf of Mexico and then to Louisiana.  Another company went out in August 1862 -May 1863, serving in Virginia, and a 100-day company served July-Oct. 1864 around Washington and on prison-guard duty on an island in Delaware Bay.  Both of the latter companies were known as Company E, 6th Regiment. 

As in previous wars, it was important to the town that it supply soldiers to the cause.  Towns were expected to fill a quota based upon population.  If they could not fill their quota, they were threatened with a draft.  Early in the war, patriotism and idealism were enough to get men to enlist.  As the years wore on and the toll of war became more obvious, towns, states, and the federal government started offering financial incentives to induce men to join up.  Known as bounties, the payments differed from place to place and over time.  Not surprisingly, these disparities caused trouble. 

A federal bounty of $100 had been offered since early in the war, but it was deferred until the soldier was discharged (honorably).  The Militia Act of 1862 required the states to institute a draft if they could not meet their enlistment quotas.  In March 1863, Congress passed the Enrollment Act, authorizing a draft system, specifying that all able-bodied male citizens and immigrants who were applying to be citizens from 20 to 45 years of age would, if called, have to serve.  Married men 35-45 would be drafted later than the others, and there were a number of exemption categories, mostly on the basis of the needs of family members.  Most controversially, people could pay for a substitute to go or, if a substitute was not available, pay $300 to the Secretary of War for one to be found.  The Enrollment Act and the ensuing Draft Riots in New York City that summer had pointed to the urgency of getting and keeping men in the ranks.  On October 17, 1863, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 300,000 additional troops, to be raised by the states according to their quotas.  Enlistments would be “deducted from the quotas established for the next draft” which, if a state did not make its quota, would begin on the 5th day of January, 1864.  The Secretary of War upped the federal bounty, with a premium paid to reenlisting veterans.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts was doing its best to fill its overall quota, and its towns were doing the same, offering bounties for enlistment or re-enlistment.  Though originally the intention of the bounties was to support a town’s own soldiers, there was certainly an incentive to fill the town’s quota with any soldiers, wherever they could be found.  There were some unintended consequences of the system, however.  Unscrupulous recruits would sign up, claim a bounty, and never report to camp.  These “bounty jumpers” might then sign up elsewhere, possibly under an assumed name, to get another bounty.  Other frauds were to sign up and collect a bounty even though the recruit knew that he would eventually be rejected from serving (because of a disability or signing up underage, for example).  A more basic problem with the system was that towns that could afford to pay large bounties were more likely to fill up their quotas than towns in greater financial difficulty. 

Disparities of bounties and the substitute exception yielded the impression that the rich were able to avoid the worst consequences of the war while the poor fought.  Some of those who hired the substitutes, considering it a financial transaction, felt that they had the right to be reimbursed for their substitute payment.  Some were of the opinion that those who went as substitutes, because they were paid to go in place of a drafted man, did not deserve the bounty for going to war.  The divide between the poor, whom some judged for enlisting for the money offered, and the rich, who could afford to pay for a substitute, grew.  There is no doubt that some bitterness that festered in Acton after the war was due to this economic divide.

To try to introduce more equity into the system and to deal with some of the bounty-jumping problems, Massachusetts’ legislature passed a number of laws.  In fairness to all parties in Acton’s bounty dispute, even with the benefit today of being able to read the digitized laws of the Commonwealth, the bounty laws make confusing reading.  It must have been quite hard to keep up with them in the early 1860s, during a war, and especially in places with poor communication.  Practice did not necessarily follow the intentions of the lawmakers.  One of those intentions seems to have been that local bounties would stop, although towns seem to have interpreted the laws as limiting local bounties, not eliminating them (See Chapter 91, approved March 1863).  A law passed in a special session in November 1863 (Chapter 254), set a uniform Massachusetts bounty at $325 for those who enlisted for three years.  Though well-intentioned, the new law did not solve the problems.  Rightly or wrongly, a number of towns’ representatives continued promising what they believed to be the maximum local bounty allowed at the time for the reenlistment of serving soldiers, $125.  

Acton’s Veterans Reenlist

Acton’s bounty controversy centered on the soldiers of the 26th Regiment who had been sent to Louisiana in 1861 and served there through the beginning of 1864.  During the company’s early service, the most harm came to the soldiers through disease.  In June, 1863, the Regiment saw action at LaFourche Crossing and later made an attempt to take Sabine Pass.  In the fall of 1863, it went to Opelousas and New Iberia, Louisiana.  A November 27, 1863 letter from Delette Hall to his cousin Henry Hapgood (who had returned from the nine-month company sick) said:

New Iberia is quite a villiage. About 50 miles from Breashear City on Bayou Teche River. This is quite a muddy place in wet weather We have to ditch the ground to keep from being drowned out Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. but was not observed here except by issuing a ration of whiskey to the men. I thought of you all & if I was not there my mind was. I was on Picket & had a piece of salt pork & some hard tack for dinner. Well that was a little better than I had two years ago in Boston harbor. & next year I hope I shall be at home. We shall soon be nine months men our term expires the 18th Oct 186[4] which day we were mustered into the U. S. Service.
It seems a long time to look ahead. I hope the rebs will get enough before the year is out.

Clearly at that point, Delette Hall and his compatriots were not thinking of reenlisting.

At the end of 1863, the Union army needed to keep seasoned men in its ranks.  Experience showed that raw recruits were more likely to desert.  The hope was that reenlisting soldiers would be inured to camp conditions, be willing to follow orders, and stay.  Men who were acclimated to conditions in the South would have been considered an asset to the 26th Regiment. 

To understand what happened to spark the bounty dispute, we have to rely on testimony given much later.  A two-sided supplement printed by the Acton Patriot laid out all that was said at a hearing before the Legislative Committee on Military Affairs, January 26, 1882 (in the Society’s collection and also transcribed by Brewster Conant).  By the time one has read through the claims and counterclaims, one is hard-pressed to know what really happened.  There were contradictions, inconsistencies over time, fading memories, and the influence of “circulars” and petitions on people’s interpretation of events (operating like the social media of the time).  Also, by 1882, the needs of the war were long past, whereas the pinch of tax bills was a present problem.   

Though it is impossible to be completely sure of who knew what and when they knew it, most people in the post-war period seem to have agreed upon a few points.  Acton’s Captain William H. Chapman, veteran of the 3-month original Acton Co. E, 6th Regiment and by late 1863 the Captain of Co. E, 26th Regiment, was also serving as the recruiting officer of the 26th Regiment.  He was aware of the need for trained soldiers and of competition from other Massachusetts communities that he believed were offering local bounties to soldiers to re-enlist, with the quota credit going to those towns.  Concerned that Acton would lose its soldiers to other towns offering financial incentives, Capt. Chapman told the men of the Acton company that Acton would “do as well by them as any other town” if they would reenlist to the credit of Acton.  The going bounty rate at that point seems to have been $125.  In later years, few disputed that the soldiers reenlisted in early 1864 in the 26th Regiment, for 3 years or the duration of the war, believing the promise that Acton would pay them a bounty of $125.  Few disputed that Captain Chapman made the promise.  The original dispute centered on whether or not he had been justified in making the promise and whether the town had the legal (or moral) obligation to keep it.

Part of the problem with the later bounty dispute is that people were looking back many years and judging based upon subsequent events.  At the time that Capt. Chapman was recruiting, the Regiment was in New Iberia, Louisiana.  According to his later testimony, the mails were sporadic and it was not feasible to send messages to Acton by telegram.  One can see how the captain might have felt that he needed to make decisions on the spot.  Back home in Acton, however, there was a recruiting committee who felt that they should be the ones making decisions, particularly with respect to how the town’s money was spent.  They also were more likely to have had a chance to read the laws passed by the legislature.  The recruiting committee denied having authorized the bounties in advance and claims were made that no one knew about the bounty promise, but Luther Conant, longtime moderator, remembered that the issue was discussed at the 1864 town meeting.

The war went on.  After much of Company E reenlisted, the 26th Regiment was sent to Virginia where the company moved into action at Winchester (Opequon Creek) on Sept. 19, 1864, Fisher’s Hill on Sept. 22, and Cedar Creek on October 19.   The company had lost a number of men to disease and also lost five men as a result of the fighting at Winchester, including Delette Hall's brother Eugene.  Some were injured, including Captain Chapman, who managed to survive a gunshot wound to the head.  The Company stayed around Winchester through May 1865.  They spent a month in Washington, D. C., then were sent to Savannah.  They were discharged in September 1865.  Undoubtedly the men expected that when all was said and done, they would be paid their promised bounties.

During the war, the town had paid some recruits bounties.  The 38 members of the nine-month company recruited in the fall of 1862 received $100, with an additional $25 for the 23 recruits “called for from this town on the first quota” who signed up for three years.  The town voted in December of that year that if it were required to supply more men, the recruiting committee was authorized to offer the same bounty to any who enlisted or were drafted.  The 1862-1863 town report listed every man in service and whether or not he had received a bounty payment from the town.  (The state seems to have retroactively reimbursed the $100 bounties paid to the 1862 recruits.)  In November 1863, the town voted that the Selectmen plus three additional Recruiting Committee members would have discretionary powers regarding bounties.  In November 1864, the town voted that their recruiting committee should investigate the claims of the town’s serving soldiers and those who had returned home and that the town should raise $5,500 to recruit men for the war.  Given all of that, it does not sound unreasonable for Capt. Chapman to have thought that the town would back his claim that the town would do as well by its men as other towns were doing.

However, the war ended, (most of) the veterans came home, and the claim had never been paid. 

The War’s Aftermath

At the March 1866 town meeting, Acton debated paying those soldiers who enlisted in 1861 and reenlisted in 1864 the same bounty that had been paid to soldiers who enlisted later and served in the US service for less time.  The town decided to postpone any action until the state and federal governments had taken action on bounties.  According to Phalen’s history of Acton, “As things later developed this proved to be an unwise decision but at that time nobody could have foreseen that by this action the town planted the seeds for its most vicious and prolonged local battle.” (p. 197)

Though this fact was not usually mentioned in the Acton fight, bounty claims took up a great deal of energy on the part of both state and national committees in the post-war years.  The Massachusetts Legislature’s Committee on Military Affairs dealt with petitions of many towns, including petitions from Acton in three different sessions.  Acton voted to pay soldiers’ back bounties in 1872 and petitioned to be able to pay it.  In early 1881, the Committee heard petitions, not only from Acton, but also from Wilmington, Stoneham, East Bridgewater, Andover, and Natick, all rejected.  Acton’s petition went nowhere until the third time it was presented in early 1882. 

In March 1882, the House passed a bill that would allow Acton to raise up to $4,000 to pay $125 to each of the veterans who had reenlisted in the 26th Regiment under the call of the president dated Oct. 17, 1863, were credited to Acton, and were never paid.  The bounty could be paid to the soldier’s heirs if he had died.  In response, at town meeting on April 3 1882, the town of Acton voted to pay the bounties, but the measure passed by only four votes (219 to 215).  By this point, the controversy had split the town down the middle, apparently even at town meeting where Phalen wrote that “The glowering partisans congregated on either side of the center aisle.” (p. 231)  Town meeting records mention that “it was voted to have the area in front and on each side of the Desk kept clear so that voters need not be obstructed in approaching the Polls.”  Whether this was because of hostility or because it was Acton’s largest town meeting ever is not clear.  After the vote, a cannon was shot off in South Acton in celebration (Acton Patriot, Apr. 6, 1882, p. 1)  However, as often happened in Acton politics, a vote taken was not seen as final, but only as an opportunity to reconsider.  Two town meetings followed.  Both sides undoubtedly tried to sway opinions and get out the vote.  The Acton Patriot’s Concord Junction reporter mentioned on Sept. 7, 1882 that “Thomas Clifford was earnestly sought for early Saturday morning by one of Acton’s heavy taxpayers.  His object was to secure his vote against paying the soldiers’ bounty.”  Probably the same heavy taxpayer “offered to bet $100 with any live men that the soldiers get beat.” (page 1)  These efforts did not change the outcome, however. On August 21, an attempt to overturn the vote failed by 204 to 194, and on Sept. 2, the anti-bounty side lost again by 206 to 198. 

Phalen’s history of the town of Acton seems to indicate that the resolution of the bounty issue happened in 1882 with the Senate and House overriding the governor’s veto.  “Thus ended the great bounty fight beside which all other Acton rows seem rather tame.  The payments were made with reasonable promptness with one exception...”   (p. 233).  Searching Acton’s town reports did not yield a record of those payments; in fact, the bounty tax seems to have been assessed, held onto, and then without explanation refunded by the town.  The reason was legal wrangling that went on much longer than is mentioned by Phalen.  Not able to swing the vote in their favor, the opponents served an injunction on the town to prevent payment and hired Judge E. Rockwood Hoar as their counsel. 

According to newspapers of the time and legal synopses, the opposition’s case made its way through the legal system and was heard by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in early 1885.  The case hinged on the constitutionality of the 1882 act of the Legislature (chapter 93) that authorized the town to raise taxes to pay the bounties.  According to the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling, the town of Acton never promised to pay a bounty, did not (directly) receive the men’s services as soldiers, and was not responsible for paying them compensation.  Therefore, it had no debt to them.  Any payment made so long after the fact would be akin to a gift of gratitude to private individuals rather than payment of a debt for a public purpose (as inducing enlistments would have been).  Taxes must serve a public, not private, purpose, and therefore, the 1882 law allowing Acton to raise taxes to pay the veterans of the 26th Regiment was unconstitutional.

The bounty opponents must have thought that the matter would end there, but the dispute had gone too far by that time.  By March, 1887, the town of Acton was petitioning the state to pay the bounties, because Acton was barred from raising the money itself.  (Boston Journal, March 11, 1887, p. 1)  Both sides testified again.  The Society owns a copy of the opposition’s testimony that started with the statement that they were aware that they were “opposing the claim of the men, who, in a critical time in our history, rendered with such distinguished services to the country that it seems almost like robbery, - unpatriotic at least, to withhold from them anything in the way of pensions or gratuities that they may demand.”  The opponents followed up, however, by saying that the Commonwealth owed the men nothing because this was a town matter.  (Of course, the town previously had been kept from paying the claim by this group’s lawsuit.)  The testimony ended with “We would respectfully ask, therefore, that you, as guardians of the public treasury against unfounded claims” would find against the town of Acton.  The Society also owns a copy of the proponents’ testimony.  The testimony mostly reiterated points made before, although it does contain a paragraph of personal attack on the opponents; the sides were portrayed as humble veterans versus the rich.  At any rate, the Senate Committee on Claims reported favorably on the town’s petition.  (Boston Journal, April 15, 1887, p. 3)  In May, the Committee on the Judiciary ruled that the Legislature has the right to appropriate and pay money to individuals, even if it could be portrayed as a gratuity, if there were “some equitable ground upon which such payment ought to be paid.”  (Boston Journal, May 5, 1887, p. 2) 

The legislative debate on the measure was reported in June, 1887.  Some cited fear of opening the floodgates to other, similar claims.  However, the majority, including Mr. Conant of Acton, felt that the resolve was an “act of justice.” (Boston Journal, June 8, 1887)  Finally, the joint Resolve of 1887, Chapter 106 ordered that $125 was to be paid by the Commonwealth to the 31 soldiers (or their legal heirs) of the 26th Regiment who had reenlisted and never received the bounty they were expecting.  The governor had objected to the Resolve, but the Senate and House of Representatives passed it over the Governor’s objections on June 16, 1887.  The fight was finally over.  The veterans got their bounties and apparently it was the people of Massachusetts as a whole who made good on the promise, rather than the people of Acton who had voted repeatedly to pay it. 

It is clear that a dispute allowed to fester for over 20 years was extremely harmful for the town.  Putting off dealing with the problem in the hope that it would conveniently disappear led to infinitely more trouble later.  As the bounty dispute dragged on, campaigns for support, including assumptions, exaggerations, and character slurs, led to increasing polarization.  Both sides’ attitudes seem to have hardened into a belief that they were fighting for the “right.”  Newspapers elsewhere noted Acton’s contentiousness with comments such as “Acton folks are still squabbling...” (Springfield Republican, Aug. 19, 1882, p. 6)

What becomes most apparent is that the bounty dispute reflected divisions in society.  On the one hand were those trying to prevent payment.  They portrayed the veterans asking for bounties as greedy opportunists who had not received a legitimate (or perhaps any) promise of payment before they reenlisted and who were trying to take hard-earned tax money from Acton’s struggling farmers and from families of veterans who had not received a bounty.  Those supporting the bounties believed that the town should make good on the promise.  They portrayed the men against the bounties not as struggling farmers, but as rich taxpayers who were too stingy to pay the money that had been promised to men who risked their lives in the war.  Underneath the accusations were basic issues, especially about who has the right to run the town.  Should it be the influential, well-to-do men who had served (and controlled) the town for many years, or less-wealthy men who perhaps moved about looking for opportunity?  The committee at home during the war had been either elected or appointed and felt they had the right and the duty to act for the town and decide how to spend its money.  Those who were far away in the field at the time felt justified in recruiting for the town.   The fact that there was some justification for both sides’ viewpoints made the divisions much more entrenched.

As is often the case, after all of the conflict that was reported in the newspapers of the day, the actual resolution and payment of the bounties was apparently done without much fanfare.  Though it is likely that the participants remembered the vitriol involved in the dispute, life moved on.  Three years later, Acton had a Memorial Library honoring its veterans’ service.  Acton’s veterans of the 26th Regiment (and of the bounty fight) were proudly listed at the entrance of the new Library.

References:

• Acton Historical Society Documents:
  • Official Record of Acton in Relation to the Enlistment of Men by the Payment of Bounties in the War of the Rebellion (Compiled by William D. Tuttle, Town Clerk)
  • Acton Patriot Supplement, "Soldiers’ Bounties!," testimony of January 26, 1882 (multiple copies)
  • Testimony at Acton Bounty Claim hearing, 1887
  • Military Register of Company E, 26th Regiment
  • Copy of the Tabulated Record of Men Who Re-Enlisted in the 26th Mass. Vols credited to Acton
  • Dedication of the Memorial Library Acton, Mass
  • Acton Patriot
    • “Acton Soldiers,” Feb. 17, 1881, unpaginated, probably page 8.
      
    • “The Other Side of the Acton Soldier Question,” and “Personal Explanation” from Henry Brown, Feb. 24, 1881, unpaginated.
    • “Paying the Acton Veterans,” Dec. 1, 1881, p. 1
    • “To the Voters of Acton,” Dec. 8, 1881, p.1
    • “A Statement from Acton’s Recruiting Committee,” Mar. 9, 1882, p. 1 (includes men who received a bounty from Acton in late 1864.)
    • “The April Town Meeting” and “A Plea for Good Nature,” Apr. 6, 1882, p. 1
    • “The Town Meeting,” “The Vexed Question,” “Injunction to be Served,” and “Who Brought Suit”, Sept. 7, 1882, p. 3
    • “A Rejoinder to the Anti-Bounty Side of the Acton Soldier Question”, April 13, 1883, p. 4
  • The Letters of Henry Hapgood's Family 1862-1865
• Phalen's History of the Town of Acton, especially page 227-233 (Note - timeline seems off, no mention of relevant dates after 1882)
• Acton Town Meeting Proceedings 1863-1889
• Acton Town Reports
  • 1862-1879
  • 1879-1894
• Acton Memorial Library's  Online Civil War Archive (extensive information)
• Acton Memorial Library plaque: The Men of Acton Who Fought for the Union
• Massachusetts' Acts and Resolves of 1863
• Massachusetts Acts and Resolves of 1863, including November Session
• Lincoln's Proclamation of October 17, 1863
• Summary of Mead v. Acton Inhabitants
• Acts and Resolves of 1882, Chapter 93 (Acton bounties)
• Resolves of 1887, Chapter 106 (Acton bounty payment authorization)
• Ford, Oren. (1933). A history of the bounty system used during the Civil War. University of the Pacific, Thesis.
• Newspaper articles cited in the text (there were others as well with brief mentions of the dispute)

In the nineteenth century, people from larger places seem to have regarded Acton as a “quiet farming town,” or even “semi-lethargic.”  (Boston Globe, July 21, 1885, p. 2 and Sept. 16, 1885, p. 8)  It therefore came as a newsworthy surprise that 1880s Acton kept erupting into conflict and then apparently retreating into festering resentment.  Our foray into 1880s Acton started with an article entitled “OUSTING AT ACTON” that reported that two Republican postmasters had been replaced by two Democrats. (Globe, Sept. 5, 1885, p. 5).  That might have been an interesting story, except that South Acton’s incumbent postmaster J. K. W. Wetherbee was in fact a Democrat, as was his replacement.  Trying again, the Globe added to the excitement on Sept. 11 with an article entitled “SCHEMING POSTMASTERS – Charged with Fraud by the Government.” (p. 2.)  This was a story of both politics and potential fraud; to understand what was going on, we had to learn about the role of a small village (fourth class) postmaster in the nineteenth century.

Acton’s Early Postal Service

Today, we are accustomed to having mail delivered to us.  People living in Acton before the twentieth century did not have that luxury and had to pick up their own mail.  Sometimes people had no idea that letters were waiting in a post office; a postmaster would advertise a list of letter recipients in the local paper.  Digitized newspapers show that practice existed even after 1900. (Concord Enterprise, Feb. 26, 1902, p. 8).  Before Acton had a post office of its own, the Concord postmaster periodically advertised that Acton residents had letters awaiting them there.  (See Middlesex Gazette, Oct. 11, 1817, p. 4, for example.)  According to Shattuck’s 1835 History of the Town of Concord, at some early date, a post office was briefly established in Acton in the care of “Mr. Perham” and then reestablished in 1828 in the Acton Center law office of Silas Jones.  Acton has had its own postal service since that time.

In the very early years, mail was not common, and people picking up letters were expected to pay the delivery cost.  The advent of pre-paid postage stamps made picking up letters less expensive to the recipient, but it still entailed a trip; obviously, it was advantageous to have a post office closer to one’s home or place of business.  A village needed a certain size to attain its own post office.  The 1844 arrival of the Fitchburg Railroad led to growth in both West and South Acton.  In 1848, West Acton’s first post office was established in the office of Dr. Reuben Green.   In December 1851, South Acton got its first post office with postmaster Ezra C. Radiman (name spelled variously, exact location as yet unknown).  East Acton, known then by the name of Ellsworth, got its own post office in March, 1873.  The postmaster, l. W. Flagg, had a store there.  North Acton did not have a post office until March, 1886 when Charles Miller was appointed postmaster.

The postmaster would have been responsible for people’s mail and also for money.  One would hope that people were appointed on the basis of their competence, honesty, and incorruptibility, and that may well have been the case in Acton.  In general, being able to appoint the postmaster was considered a privilege of elected officials who apparently often used that power to distribute patronage jobs.  Postmasters were expected not to use their position to promote their political party’s candidates, but the postmaster’s role at the center of village life was certainly a useful connection for politicians.

Until late in the nineteenth century, the location of the post office would depend upon the postmaster.  As the 1800s progressed, Acton’s village post offices were often located in a postmaster’s store.  Having people’s mail would have increased foot traffic to one’s business.  The postmaster’s tenure was not guaranteed; after an election, the position might go to a competitor from the winning party.  Though changes in postmasters are traceable through records, the actual politics behind some of the appointments are not always clear.  For example, in 1855, newspapers including the Boston Atlas (July 19, 1855 p. 2) alleged that the Acton “Centre” post office was being kept in the barroom of the Know Nothing House (a reference to a political party of xenophobic tendencies), but the July 25 Boston Herald clarified that the hotel, apparently run in the past by a Know Nothing supporter, was now run by a Democrat.  The post office had been moved from the shoe shop of John Fletcher to the “public room” of a small county hotel that served no liquor.  (p. 2)

Phalen’s History of the Town of Acton describes old-timers’ memories of the Center post office in the hotel.  It had a “unique contrivance for mail delivery” that operated like a Lazy Susan.  “There were pigeonholes marked with the letters of the alphabet. A person seeking mail would turn the wheel until his initial appeared at the opening whereupon he separated his mail from the rest and departed, unless of course the office happened to be vacant and he were of a curious turn of mind. In later years the device was abandoned and standard boxes installed with a pull bell that would summon the postmaster.” (p. 192)  Changing the post office location would obviously necessitate moving or installing people’s mail boxes.

As mentioned, the postmaster job was considered a patronage position, often jealously guarded by the Representative in power at any given time.  Surprisingly, in Acton, a more evenhanded approach had been taken under the Republican administration leading up to the 1885 brouhaha.  The practice had been to select two Republicans and two Democrats for the four village post offices in town.  (Globe, Sept. 16, 1885, p. 8)  Part of this magnanimity may have been due to the confidence of Acton Republicans that the town was “sure to go Republican.” (Boston Journal, Aug. 18, 1884, p. 2)

The pay of the postmasters was dependent on the volume of business.  According to the Globe (Sept. 11, 1885, p. 2), postmasters of the smallest, “fourth class” post offices did not receive a salary per se but earned percentages of the stamps cancelled at the office each quarter: 100% of the first $50 with declining percentages (60, 50, 40) on amounts above that.  There was an incentive to increase the amount of mail sent through one’s office, but there would be a natural ceiling on the number of letters leaving a small village.  Another source of business would be companies’ “circulars,” essentially advertising flyers that would be sent out in bulk.  The Globe claimed that certain postmasters had concocted “an ingenious little scheme” for the mailing of large quantities of circulars at their offices that, arguably, should have been deposited at the large offices.  Someone in Washington decided that small post offices sending out circulars was a sign of irregularities and sent the postmasters a bill for past commissions earned on the circulars.  The ingenious, accused plotters were the postmasters of Littleton Depot, Littleton Common, South Acton, Townsend, West Townsend, and a few other places.

Caught in this situation was Jonathan K. W. Wetherbee, a pillar of the South Acton community, partner in the highly successful firm of Tuttles, Jones & Wetherbee, long-time town treasurer, selectman, and, on occasion, lender of money to the town.  He had served as South Acton postmaster since the fall of 1870.  When J. K. W. Wetherbee was replaced by another Democrat amidst accusations of fraud, the degree of excitement in Acton was, according to the Globe, more than one might expect from the occurrence of a cyclone or a raging epidemic. (Sept. 16, 1885, p. 8)

Fraud or Politics?

The author of the Sept. 16 Globe article actually talked to J. K. W. Wetherbee to get the postmaster’s story.  Apparently, C. M. Lawrence, Littleton resident and representative of a Boston business, had approached outlying postmasters saying that he wanted to send circulars from their offices.  The Forge Village postmaster had checked with his Washington boss whether he could refuse to accept them, as the sorting was going to add to his work load.  The official response was that the postmaster was required to accept all mail presented to him and that most postmasters would welcome the extra business.  When J. K. W. Wetherbee was offered the same business opportunity, he contacted Washington and was told to send a copy of the circular.  He did and received no reply.  Having fulfilled his obligation, and in light of the response to the Forge Village query, Wetherbee felt confident that the circular business was acceptable.  Several years later, however, he received a bill from the government for over $1,000 in past commissions.  In his interview with the Globe Reporter, J. K. W. Wetherbee stated:

“My office cost me $100 the first year I had it on account of help I had to hire, as my business would not allow of my giving it much of my personal attention, and the office has been broken into and robbed three times.  Thus I think I have been robbed enough already.  It seems rather singular to me that after communicating with the department relative to this circular business, and having my quarterly accounts audited and allowed, that this demand should now be made upon me.” 

After this point, the story seems to have disappeared from the newspaper.  In typical fashion, the exoneration of the postmasters seems not to have been reported.  J. K. W. Wetherbee served as the town’s treasurer and in other positions of trust into the 1900s and continued to lend the town money; clearly the townspeople did not question Mr. Wetherbee’s character.  No one seems to have given credence to the charge of fraud.  Nonetheless, Wetherbee was replaced as postmaster.  There must have been more to the story.

According to the Sept. 16, 1885 Globe, Ruel Williams, a member of the town Democratic Committee selected to go to the state convention, went to see James Tuttle, another Democratic pillar of the South Acton community who was a business partner and brother-in-law of J. K. W. Wetherbee.  Tuttle was told that Wetherbee probably would have to go.  The implication seemed to be that it was due to the fraud charge.  The national Democratic party had just elected its first president since 1856 with a platform that included civil service reform.  Perhaps the local committee was trying to impress the State Committee by “cleaning house.”  James Tuttle was upset that other Democrats in town had not been informed of the potential change, and no one had talked to J. K. W. Wetherbee.  Tuttle had planned to start a petition, but the postmaster change was made before he even had a chance.  He said, “We are all mad, all classes, sects and political complexions.  Yes, indeed, the village of South Acton is stirred up.”  Accusations and counter-accusations from supporters followed, but the change was made.

Though the committee prevailed, they had omitted to consider one detail in their planning.  Tuttles, Jones & Wetherbee owned much of center of South Acton.  The post office had been located in a James Tuttle-owned building, apparently in the news stand of Dana Hayward who worked as postal clerk.  The replacement postmaster Lorenzo Reed found that no location was available in the village for him to establish his post office.  As James Tuttle said, “I don’t propose to turn out good tenants to please him.”  Eventually, the new postmaster, “accompanied by a justice of the peace, visited every property owner in the centre of the village who had land or a building which could be utilized and offered to buy, hire, or lease such, but no opportunity to do so was offered him.”  His only recourse was to move the post boxes to his own residence. (Globe Oct. 20, 1885, p. 2)  People were quite unhappy that they were going to have to trek to his house to get their mail, but eventually the furor died down as people realized that Reed was in a difficult position.  Later, the post office was moved to a small building on the south side of the railroad tracks.

Small town, Big Disagreements

So why did this conflict erupt in the first place?  We have not found anything to indicate that J. K. W. Wetherbee deserved to be replaced as postmaster, or even any reason that anger would specifically have been aimed toward him.  What we did find was that Acton residents in the 1880s were quite disputatious.  For example, as described in a previous blog post, in the spring of 1884, a disputed school committee vote for Superintendent led to two men claiming to be have been appointed, with angry supporters on both sides.  Within three years, a bitter conflict over a teacher led to the resignation of a different Superintendent and most of the school committee.   Rancor and factionalism seem to have been habitual in Acton at the time.

The biggest conflict, and perhaps the root of much of the distrust and anger in town, was a dispute over paying back bounties to Civil War soldiers that consumed a great deal of energy in the early 1880s.  Like the postmaster “muddle,” the bounty fight requires some background to understand and is the subject of another blog post.
 
What Goes Around Comes Around

Lorenzo Reed only served as postmaster until 1889.  Democrat Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 election, politics shifted, and many postmasters were replaced in the following year.  Time moved on, but complaints from South Acton didn’t completely die down.  A petition campaign was initiated to influence the choice of postmaster in 1889, though that did not go far. (Concord Enterprise, Apr. 5, 1889, p. 2)  On July 12, 1894, an item appeared in the Enterprise that fireworks were being sold in the post office, with pointed advice to the postmaster to “read what Uncle Sam says about it.”  (p. 8)  In 1897, there was a petition to appoint Frank W. Hoit as postmaster and to locate the office on the north side of the Fitchburg railroad.  Rumors were flying that the signers of the petition were only schoolchildren; in fact, the petition was signed by the businessmen of the community, including many Tuttles, Jones, and J.K.W. Wetherbee. (January 14, 1897 p. 8)  One of the signers was James Tuttle’s son H. Waldo, who was at the time serving as postmaster himself.  On July 1, 1897, the Concord Enterprise reported that “The old post office is being fitted up for the new postmaster, who is expected to take possession July 1.”  (p. 8) After all the controversy, the post office was back in James Tuttle’s building.

A local newspaper article about South Acton a hundred years ago made us start thinking about what life was like for Acton residents that summer.  The article mentioned that a new staircase and walk were being added to the west side of the old Post Office building, giving access to the newly-formed Young Men’s Athletic club rooms.  “The walk in the rear will be six feet in width thereby [a]ffording the comforts of a piazza, where the members can sit, enjoy the beauties of nature in Theron park, watch the passing aeroplanes which of late has been of frequent occurrence, and wonder when the road sign is to be placed on the fountain.” (Concord Enterprise, August 31, 1921, p. 1)  Curious about long how young athletes would be content to sit contemplating a road sign, we started investigating what people did for recreation in the summer of 1921. 

Reading the local newspaper, it would be easy to assume that summer vacations in 1921 were not so different from our own.  The Enterprise reported on residents’ comings and goings as they had guests and visited friends and relatives.  People vacationed at destinations similar to many visited by Acton residents today.  They often headed to the beaches and mountains of New England, but some set out for places farther afield.  Though not noted in the newspaper, much travel would have been done by train.

Automobiles were by now a more common part of life than they had been at the turn of the century, but residents’ car purchases were still reported in the paper.  On August 31, for example, it was reported on the front page that Dr. Mayell was driving a Buick touring car, selectman Kingsley had a Ford, and Wesley Flagg and John Mekkelson had sport cars.  Residents’ road trips by auto were highlighted in the paper all summer.  It is easy to forget how different those trips would have been from our own experiences of the road, but occasionally an item in the newspaper reminds us of how driving has changed.

The June 29 Enterprise reported on John Pederson’s trip to St. Albans in northern Vermont. (p.2, “Some Trip”)  He drove continuously except to stop for meals, water, gas and oil.  That sounds unexceptional, but it took him 23.5 hours to get there.  The article did mention that Vermont’s roads were rough and mountainous in places.  (The return trip in his truck loaded with furniture took even longer; hopefully he stopped somewhere for sleep.)  John Pederson’s experience puts light on the ambition of Joseph Oliver who was reported in the August 10 paper to be leaving for California in his auto with his camping gear. (p. 1)  It was probably helpful that he had previously been working in West Acton as an auto mechanic.

By the early 1920s, autos were evolving.   In 1915, Massachusetts had become the first state to mandate lights on automobiles, and federal standards for headlights were introduced in 1921.  That summer, the local paper reported on the need for car owners to get their headlamps adjusted by authorized mechanics. (July 27, p. 7)  Garages had sprung up in Acton and elsewhere to meet growing demand for service.  John McNiff had closed up his blacksmith shop after 30 years of labor; he was reported to be contemplating opening a garage.  (May 26, 1920, p. 7)  There would have been competition.  In the summer of 1921, ads ran in the Enterprise for the South Acton Garage, Fitzgerald’s Garage in West Acton, and the recently opened East Acton repair garage of Benjamin A. Kimball and Orville J. Fuller, the latter having already worked in automobile construction and repair for fifteen years.   (June 29, p. 8)  John Coughlin advertised that he would provide service “at your own garage”. (July 13, p. 4)

Having a number of repair shops in town was quite useful.  Despite improvements in automobiles, the downside of increased driving was dangerous interactions.  The August 17 Enterprise reported on two serious accidents at Kelley’s corner the previous Saturday. (p. 1)  In the late afternoon, a seven passenger touring car from Missouri struck broadside a Ford coming from Acton “with such force as to hurl it up against the building which stands at the northeast corner.”  Fortunately, the occupants survived.  Later Saturday evening as Mary McCarthy, Clara Binks, Bertha Gould and Frank Hayward were driving home from Lowell, they were struck by a “big car from Maryland.”  Luckily, the damage was more serious to the cars than to the people.  The paper called for improvement to the approaches to the busy intersection and for caution on the part of drivers.  As one sits in traffic at that intersection of Main Street and Massachusetts Avenue, it is worth remembering to be grateful for stoplights.

Finding Things to Do

Despite the fact that roads had not yet caught up with the needs of automobiles, people in the summer of 1921 were on the go.  Lawn parties were very popular, particularly as fundraisers.  On the evening of July 21, the Acton Grange held its annual lawn party and dance.  As announced on July 13, “The Maynard brass band will furnish a concert in the evening and the Highland Ladies’ orchestra of Somerville will play for the dance.  There will be the usual attractions which make these lawn parties popular events of the summer.” (p. 5)  The party was indeed a success.  With convenient means of traveling, visitors came from Acton’s villages and elsewhere, including quite a few from Maynard.  “It is said, that over two hundred automobiles were parked on the sides of Monument square.”  (July 27, p. 4)

Another popular diversion was “moving pictures,” regularly advertised in the Enterprise.  There were often movies in the Concord State Armory to benefit the Red Cross and at a theater in Maynard, admission 25 cents for adults.  Occasionally, a moving picture was shown in West Acton at Odd Fellows Hall.

Acton residents also attended special out-of-town events.  In June, several townspeople ventured to Lowell to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that offered “the greatest congress of attractions in history” with hundreds of performers and a huge “wild beast” display.  “Not only will you see the artists who occupy the three rings, five stages, the great hippodrome track and the aerial rigging in the tent top, but four spacious steel arenas filled with wild beasts as well.” (June 8, p. 7 and June 29, p. 2)  In mid-August, various people from Acton attended the Pilgrim Pageant at Plymouth.  The paper proclaimed that “Although pageants have been greatly in vogue for the last 10 years or more, this one entitled 'The Pilgrim Spirit’ and written by Prof. George P. Baker of Harvard university in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth has been pronounced by an eminent professor of pageantry as the greatest performance since the pageants of the ancients.”  (Aug. 24, p. 1)

Despite the reporting of some residents’ comings and goings in the newspaper, there were undoubtedly many Acton residents who found their amusement in town.  The first challenge for them would have been to beat the heat.  Shade was appreciated; Acton benefited from earlier residents’ foresight in lining streets with trees.  Ads for electric fans at MacRae’s in Concord appeared in the Enterprise for those whose homes and businesses had been wired for electricity.  (Getting electricity was also newsworthy in 1921.)  Piazzas seem to have been quite popular.  Presumably they offered the chance of catching whatever breeze there may have been and, for those on the more traveled thoroughfares, a chance to see the world go by.  With summer came insects, of course, and the newspaper reported that Edward Conant, Harry Tuttle, George Dusseault and the West Acton Baptist parsonage were all adding screening to their piazzas.  (July 13, 1921, p. 5; July 20, p. 4)

Some of those out on their piazzas would have been able to watch the President’s cavalry escort from the Plymouth Pageant as they traveled to an overnight campsite in Maynard.  Fifty-seven men came through with sixty-seven horses and eighteen mules.  (Aug. 10, 1921 p. 1 and 5)  While references to the military in the Enterprise were fewer than they had been in previous years, war’s aftermath occasionally was mentioned.   In August, Charlotte Conant and Gertrude Daniels organized a clambake and corn roast at the Conant place for twenty ex-servicemen from the Groton hospital.  It was followed by an informal dance in the afternoon at the town hall.  (Aug. 24, p. 4)
 
For those actively inclined, summer meant sports.  The Acton villages had baseball teams, as in the past.  The West Acton team was briefly dubbed the Pirates, but the name does not seem to have stuck. (Aug. 24, p. 8)  The newly organized (or perhaps re-organized) Campfire Girls and the Young Men’s Club had a track meet reported June 15.  Reverend R. J. May coached the young men, and Mrs. May led the Camp-Fire girls.  The paper noted, “It will be unique in having both boys and girls as participants although not competing against each other.”  (p. 5)  In July, the groups were putting on plays at the Congregational Church.  The young men were trying to pay for baseball equipment.   The “Nashoba” Camp Fire Girls, meanwhile, “were completing their beaded head-bands and hope to earn their costumes by their entertainment.” (July 13, p. 6)
 
Golf was taking off as an activity.  During the summer of 1921, the Calvin Whitney farm in Maynard was being turned into the Maynard Country Club.  By August, its charter members included a number of Acton residents, although applications from some who already had been on the waiting lists of the Framingham and Concord clubs were being held back to give Maynard residents priority.  (Aug. 24, p. 1 and Aug. 31, 1921, p. 1)  

When it was time to cool off, a popular spot was a swimming hole on Martin Street (near present-day Jones Field) where there were often twenty people swimming at a time.  (July 27, p. 4)  Apparently, however, there were a few problems with the place as a recreation spot.  On August 3, the paper reported:

 “CITIZENS IMPROVING BEACH – In response to the call for workers issued last week, a number of citizens met at the swimming pool at the Martin street bridge and proceeded to do what they could to improve the general appearance of the place, both in and out of the water.  This spot has long been utilized as a dumping place for all kinds of rubbish, such as tin cans, bottles, lamp shades, bicycle frames in quantity and variety sufficient to stock an old curiosity shop and a generous amount was dragged out of the water and put where it can no longer be a menace to the bathers.  ...  This bathing place has been a source of much pleasure to many people this season, even though those who lived at some distance from the pool were obliged to return home wearing their wet bathing suits, under raincoats.  With the place once put in good condition and a suitable bath house built there, it would be a great public benefit.” (p. 8)

Summertime Wasn’t Always Drowsy

There are always those who push the boundaries to create a little excitement.  On July 6, the Acton Center reporter mentioned that “The Fourth was very quietly celebrated except for the ringing of the town hall and church bells from midnight to daybreak, which act of over-celebration should never be permitted in the future.  Someone who stopped at the drinking fountain on the common as an act of rowdyism, broke the two water pipes.” (p. 7)
 
Another item of interest for many would have been hearing amplification for the first time.  The August 17 paper reported that the meeting of the Acton Agricultural association (attended by 150 members) was followed by a social hour, “one feature of which was the exhibition of a ‘magno box’ attachment to a victrola, by Robert W. Carter, a member of the association, the effect of which caused the music to be heard with wonderful distinctness in homes over a quarter of a mile away.” (p. 1)  The paper did not mention what music Mr. Carter shared with Acton Center, but records advertised for 85 cents in the Enterprise that August were variations of the Fox Trot and songs with  catchy titles such as “Anna in Indiana” and “Molly on a Trolley By Golly With You.”  (Aug. 24, p. 8)

A different kind of noisy excitement was reported from South Acton on Aug. 17.  The milk train was coming toward Martin Street on the Boston and Maine tracks at about 8:40 on a Sunday morning.  The engineer, as usual, blew the whistle in warning.  However, the valve that controlled the whistle could not turn off the steam, so the train stopped at South Acton with the whistle “shrieking at a terrific rate.”  The engine with the disabled valve was backed into a rear yard, still shrieking, and another engine took the milk train to Boston.  “During the time of making the shift and for fifty minutes after the fire had been dumped from the engine, the whistle kept up a continuous shriek causing consternation throughout the town. Many persons rushed to the station supposing it to be an alarm of fire or that some serious accident had taken place.”  (p. 7)
 
The most exciting event of the summer, however, seems to have happened in Maynard.  On the first page of the August 10 issue of the Enterprise was an article entitled “Knickers Invade Maynard – What Will the Women Spring on Us Next?”  Apparently, a woman had the audacity to walk down Main Street dressed in “knickers, just plain pants they looked like, golf stockings, high brown tennis shoes, shirt waist, topped with a bit of rouge on the cheek and hair bobbed.”  The result was commotion, men “pop eyed with astonishment,” and all of Main Street agog at the woman who was (supposedly) “as indifferent to the stare of the world as the sunburned one pieced bathing suit extremist.  Business was suspended as clerks and staid proprietors made for a glimpse ...  At first stunned, curiosity soon let loose a chatter and exchange of opinion as to the new styles.”
 
In 1921, it was apparently a sight worth sitting on one’s piazza waiting for.

In our collection are two maps of Acton and Boxborough with a red outline around part of Acton, dating back to 1868-1869.  At that time, residents of the western part of Acton were proposing to secede and join with Boxborough in creating a new town.  Shown with the maps are the two towns’ relative populations, areas, and tax valuations, and how those would change if the proposal passed.  The new town would take 26% of Acton’s population, 18% of its area, and 25% of its tax valuation.  Previous local historians have puzzled over this village uprising (see references), but recently the Society was fortunate to be given access to a memoir from George C. Wright that discussed the West Acton secession proposal from the perspective of someone involved.  Having access to digitized newspapers from the time added other details to the story.

Decisions over the exact route of railroads and the location of depots led to changes in the relative fortunes of many towns and villages in the 1800s.  Some boomed while others were passed by.  To Boxborough residents in the 1860s, this was an issue of great importance.  After failing to get a depot of their own, Boxborough residents generally went to West Acton to send their produce to market or to get to the city themselves.  For most of Boxborough’s inhabitants, the nearest store was in West Acton.  The central issue from Boxborough’s perspective was that the railroad had changed West Acton’s fortunes for the better.  Boxborough residents were helping it to thrive, and they wanted some of the tax benefits.  Underlying some of the agitation was probably the fact that businessmen with Boxborough roots had moved to West Acton, prospered, and contributed to the growth of their adopted village.

George C. Wright wrote that about the time that the railroad came through in the 1840s, there was a small “boom” in West Acton, a place that had previously barely had enough economic activity to be called a village. (p.2)  Though South Acton eclipsed it as a center of industry and mercantile activity, West Acton certainly grew as a result of the railroad.  While presumably Boxborough’s farmers profited personally from having a railroad nearby to take their goods to wider markets, one can understand that they wanted the benefits for their town that they saw accruing to their neighbors each time they headed east on the turnpike.

The actors in the secession drama seem to vary depending upon who was telling the story.  The petition to the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of Massachusetts, published by the town of Littleton, stated that the 57 signers were a mix of Boxborough and Acton citizens.  However, after tracing each signer, we were able to find a Boxborough listing in the 1870 census or other evidence of Boxborough residence for 50 of them (plus another whose name was probably misspelled).  Two signers had lived in both Boxborough and Acton, and four signers’ residence eluded us.  Absent from the petition are the names of the quite well-known businessmen of West Acton with roots in Boxborough, among them West Acton Meads and Blanchards, and George C. Wright (who spent his teenage years in Boxborough).  According to Phalen’s History of the Town of Acton, the petition’s supporters were the majority of the people of Boxborough and “the disgruntled minority” of Acton citizens who were trying to create a town “cut to their own pattern” that, by weight of numbers, they would be able to dominate.  Phalen said, “The coterie in West Acton that started the scheme was motivated by no altruistic notions with respect to the established families of old Boxborough.... Very shortly the rural community would have found itself perpetually out-voted and more or less ignored except as an expansion area for its vigorous and ambitious new bedfellow.” (p. 203-204) 

Based on the published list of petitioners and Phalen’s history, we might have thought that the proposed new town was really a “Boxborough issue” with the support of a few West Acton outsiders.  However, George C. Wright’s version of events contradicts that conclusion.  

George C. Wright and West Acton’s Boxborough natives were extremely generous to West Acton and did much for its development.  (See our blog post on George C. Wright.)  Over the long haul, they did not come across as the disgruntled “coterie” that Phalen described.  Nonetheless, apparently George C. Wright not only approved, but was a leader of the secession effort.  He wrote that the proposal was backed by “a large majority of the citizens of West Acton,” including native Boxborough businessmen, and that “I was heartily in favor of the project and was chairman of the committee to secure the necessary action by the legislature.  I did everything I could to carry the measure through, sparing neither time or money...” (p. 6) 

Town meeting records from Acton show that the proposed secession of West Acton had been discussed at the November 3, 1868 town meeting.  The citizens of Acton as a whole disapproved.  The vote was 204 to 45 in favor of a resolution that included the following statements:

• Small towns labor under great disadvantage in reference to sustaining social literary and religious institutions
• Acton is too small already and has not a farm or family to spare and should seek to add to rather than cut off any of its population and territory
• The division of the town as proposed would detract from its historic fame
• Acton is ready to receive any part or all of said town of Boxborough. 
• We as a town persistently oppose its dismemberment

 
The town then chose a Committee of seven “to save the town from prospective trouble and ruin.”  They were authorized to hire counsel at the expense of the town of Acton.  The chosen committee members were Luther Conant, William W. Davis, John Fletcher Jr., George Gardner, Aaron C. Handley, William D. Tuttle, and Daniel Wetherbee.

Apparently undeterred by opposition from the rest of the town of Acton, the proponents of the proposal moved forward.  Both sides hired lawyers.  On January 18, 1869, the petition to create a new town (officially known as the petition from “H. E. Felch and others” ) was referred from the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate to the (joint) Committee on Towns.  (The Committee was surprisingly busy with other proposals as well; disagreements over territory were not unique to Boxborough and Acton.  In fact, Boxborough and Littleton had their own disagreement before the Committee in 1868 and 1869, illustrated by the green-shaded properties on our maps.)

The Acton committee against the proposal apparently got busy gathering signatures.  Between January 27 and Feb. 2, “remonstrances” were presented by lawyers and referred to the Committee on Towns.  The remonstrances were labelled with the name of the first signer “and others”, so we know that five anti-secession remonstrances were filed from Acton with the first signers being W. E. Faulkner, Daniel Wetherbee, Luther Conant, Lewis F. Ball, and George Gardner.  (The latter was ”George Gardner and 18 others of West Acton” according to the Boston Herald, Feb. 3, p. 1.)  On Feb. 2, there was also a remonstrance from Simeon Wetherbee and 22 others of Boxborough.  According to the final report of the Committee on Towns (in our archives), the total number of remonstrants was 313. 

Those in favor of the petition also obtained more signatures.  On Feb. 8, the Journal of the House shows that “Mr. Fay of Concord presented the petition of Wm. Reed and others of Acton and Boxborough, in aid of the petition of H. E. Felch and others.” (p. 103)  Non-resident owners of real estate in Boxborough signed a petition in favor of the new town that was presented on Feb. 10  (“Henry Fowler and Others”).  The total number in favor mentioned in the final report of the Committee on Towns was “about one hundred and forty or fifty petitioners.” (p. 2)  The number is surprisingly vague, given the fact that the opposition signatures were counted exactly.  Signing was obviously not considered enough; many supporters and opponents attended the hearings.  The Springfield Republican reported that at some point during the proceedings, the Blue Room “was crowded almost to suffocation by Acton and Boxboro people.” (Feb.20, 1869, p. 2)

In this midst of the petitioning and remonstrating, a call apparently went out for funding and naming the new town.  A correspondent signing as “Maxwell” wrote to the Lowell Courier (Jan. 13, 1869, p. 2):

Clearly there were rumors about the possible naming of the new town.  Local historians have tried to determine what the name might have been.  Phalen stated that no records mentioned a new name, although he had heard a “legend” the name would have been Bromfield. (p. 203-4)  Local historians in the 1990s-2010 era accessed the memory of a couple of descendants of long-time local families who thought that the name was to have been Blanchardville.  Given later Blanchards’ generosity to both towns, this was a plausible name.  However, with the advantage of access to digitized newspapers of the 1860s, we investigated what was said in the 1868-69 period.  We did not find contemporary mentions of Blanchardville (except for a village of that name in Hampden County, MA), but we did find in the Boston Traveler of Feb. 13, 1869 (p. 4) a report on the Boxboro’ and West Acton case that mentioned “the proposed new town of Bromfield.”  The Springfield Republican (Feb. 20, p. 2) confirmed that the name was “Bromfield.”  The Lowell Courier of Feb. 26 (p. 3) reported on the “very lively and interesting” set of hearings held on the new town of “Bramfield.”  It also stated that the petitioners from Boxborough suggested that “such annexation would increase the value of their real estate by giving them a local habitation and a name, particularly the latter.”  The implication seems to be that there was money to be gained from the new name, but whether there was actually a Mr. Bromfield (or Bramfield) “ready to give his hundreds, if not thousands,” we have not discovered.

Newspapers were also helpful in describing the progress of the proposal.  The Boston Journal reported that the Committee on Towns took up the petition on Monday Feb. 1, 1869 and planned to visit the towns in question the following Friday.  Boxborough was nearly unanimously in support of the proposal while 4/5 of West Acton supported it. (Feb. 2, p. 2)  The Lowell Courier, seemingly with an opinion on the matter, reported that “Nearly all the people of both places are in favor of the union.  Some opposition will be made by the town of Acton, which, however, will have left in case of division a territory larger than that of the new town, and nearly double the number of inhabitants.” (Feb. 3, 1869, p. 2)

On Tuesday Feb. 9, the Committee on Towns held an early hearing on the matter.  “Nearly all the legal voters of Boxboro were present, quite depopulating the town.” (Boston Herald, Feb. 9, p. 4)  The arguments centered  on the growth of West Acton since the building of the Fitchburg railroad and that “many of the people of Boxboro had removed thence to get the advantages of the railroad, and all of their business and other interests centered about that locality.  The opposition to the project comes from the town of Acton, the people of West Acton and of Boxboro being united in favor of it.” (Boston Herald, Feb. 9, p. 4)  

On Feb. 10, the Boston Post (p. 3) reported that the hearing continued, but the Post’s only other comment was that “Several witnesses were called.  Their testimony is not of general interest.”  Fortunately, The Lowell Courier (Feb. 26, p. 3) filled in more of the arguments.  In addition to Boxborough’s assertions, West Acton petitioners claimed that the new town would benefit them economically.  (Their plan seems to have been that the town hall and business of the new town would be located in West Acton.)  Notably, there was no claim that the town of Acton had treated them badly in the past.  On the other side, the anti-petitioners from Boxborough wanted to leave their town as it was, quiet and peaceable.  They feared that any benefits of the arrangement would go to West Acton, which would dominate them numerically.  Acton’s opposition included “all but three of the legal voters outside of the territory proposed to be set off, with nineteen living on the territory”.  Among their objections, the Courier noted that the section to be taken from Acton included some of the town’s best farming land.  The result would be an awkwardly-shaped, narrow town with, they feared, decreased property values, increased taxes, and impairment to their schools.  “Why, they ask, should they be impoverished that others may be enriched?”  Other arguments listed in the final report of the Committee on Towns were the fact that Acton had just recently built “a large and commodious town hall,” that they had paid to build and repair roads that would now be part of another town, that having a smaller population would defer for even longer the hope of a high school in the town, and that this could set a precedent for South Acton that might seek its own alliance with the thriving village of Assabet.  (p. 3)

George C. Wright’s memoir added:

The legislators no doubt would have been reminded that much of the monument’s cost had been funded by the Commonwealth.

George C. Wright also mentioned that “Among the influences which worked against us, one was found in George Parker, Esq., a member of the legislature, who was a native of Acton and a son-in-law of Rev. J. T. Woodbury.  Mr. Parker’s opposition was very earnest and effective.” (p. 6)  Rev. Woodbury had been the driving force behind getting the grant for the monument.  (Research indicates that George Gedney Parker, born in Acton to Asa and Ann M. Parker, married Augusta Woodbury.  In 1869, he was a lawyer in Milford, MA.  He had not yet been elected to the legislature, but another of Rev. Woodbury’s Milford lawyer sons-in-law, Thomas G. Kent, was actually part of the Committee on Towns.)   

The closing arguments to the petition debate were made to the Committee on Towns on the morning of February 13.  Lawyers for the opposition, Hon. David H. Mason of Newton and Samuel W. Butler, Esq. made the arguments, including an apparently eloquent recap of Silas Hosmer’s objections.  Also mentioned was the “fact that the village of West Acton, by its numerical superiority, would control the proposed new town of Bromfield, and that not the slightest necessity was shown for the change, or for breaking across old town lines.” (Boston Traveler, Feb. 13, p. 4)  Lawyers for the petitioners, George M. Brooks and George Heywood of Concord, spent 1-2 hours making their case that Boxborough needed help to stop its decline, that Boxborough and West Acton would benefit from the plan, and that the evidence for making a change “came from the best men in West Acton and in Boxboro’.” (Boston Traveler, Feb. 13, p. 4) 

The next week, the Committee on Towns held a private meeting. The result was its report of February 18, 1869 in which “with all but entire unanimity” the Committee found that though the town of Boxborough was indeed too small, if the petition were granted, both the new town and Acton would be too small.  The committee was unconvinced that the new town would grow, having “no water power and no manufacturing interest well established.”  (p. 4) They foresaw future political problems with a town “center” situated so far from the western boundary of the new town.  Overall, the petitioners had not proved that the formation of a new town was best for the “public good.”  In fact, they added:

Boxborough’s willingness to give up its identity ended up working against the proposal.  It is very likely that many residents of Boxborough over the years have looked back on the decision as a fortuitous one for their town in the long run.  Boxborough has maintained its identity and grown its own way.  Proponent George C. Wright, looking back in his later years, had this to say from the perspective of his decades in West Acton:

References (in addition to newspaper articles cited in the text):

• Commonwealth of Massachusetts. House Report No. 72, Committee on Towns, dated Feb. 18, 1869.
• Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Journal of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1869.  Boston: Wright & Potter, 1869.
• Hager, Lucie C. Boxborough: A New England Town and Its People.  Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1891. (see especially pages 26-27)
• Sanderson, George Augustus (compiler).  Petitions, Remonstrances and Acts Relating to Littleton and Boxborough, 1782 to 1869.  Boston: Commissioned by the town of Littleton, printed by George S. Crosby & Co., 1890.
• Phalen, Harold R.  History of the Town of Acton.  1954.
• Pontius, Jill.  “1868: Villagers vote to secede from Acton.”  The Beacon, Feb. 7, 1991, p.4.
• Wright, George C.  “Reminiscences of West Acton and of Personal Life.” Typescript, undated, probably 1900-1910.  (see pages 6-7)
  

In the years before Acton had a high school of its own, students wanting to further their education needed to take opportunities where they could be found.  In Acton’s early days, young men were usually the ones to seek education beyond the schoolhouse; they might be given advanced training or prepared for college by a learned individual, often the town’s minister.  In the 1800s, more opportunities arose for young men and young women; some might board at private academies or, as time went on, commute to a nearby high school.

In the early 1850s, Acton’s advanced students had the option of studying for short periods at a privately-run advanced school.  Our Society’s collection includes a program for an exhibition of F. W. Pelton’s High School in the center district of Acton, starting at 6 p.m. on November 19, 1852.  It must have been a long evening; there were twenty-seven items on the agenda, including two dramatic pieces.

The Exhibition

As evidence of what was going on in the minds of young Actonians in 1852, the “programme” is a revealing document.  Even in a small town, there was obvious interest in the issues affecting the country as a whole.  Abolition was the foremost theme of the evening.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin, though now criticized because of its racial stereotypes, was hugely influential in raising awareness of the evils of slavery.  It had been serialized starting in June 1851 but had only been out in book form since March 1852.  An early performance in Acton, featuring over 30 performers, would have been a notable event.  The song “Little Eva” that followed the performance was based on the book and had recently been published in Boston.  Other items on the program that involved the issue of slavery were “declamations” on Anson Burlingame’s opposition to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, Grimke’s “Bible”, presumably Angelina Grimke’s “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” (1836), and Henry Clay’s attempts to save “The Union” without war.

Other declamations had as their subjects Daniel Webster’s writings on Washington and on “The Present Age,” Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian leader whose words had managed to catch the popular imagination in the United States, Napoleon, and the Whig Party (written by the schoolmaster himself).  We were not able to identify all of the items performed.  Ames’ “Character” may have referred to one of Fisher Ames’ writings, but there is not enough information to be sure.  Stuart’s “Birthplace of Liberty” and Snowball’s philosophy were similarly hard to pin down.  In online searching, some of the titles are now overshadowed by later writings and events.  A search for Snowball’s “Philosophy” led to many references to George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  Searching for “A Nation Mourns” brought up references to Lincoln’s assassination, and “Modern Humbugs” yielded P. T. Barnum’s book The Humbugs of the World, both dating from the 1860s.  (“Modern Humbugs” by Florentinus may have been a tongue-in-cheek piece written by the schoolmaster; see the section on him below.) 

Drama, songs, and poetry were easier to find.  “The Tongue Bridle” was a dramatic piece for “four older girls” published in Boston in 1851.  Thanks to the Library of Congress’ Music Division, we were able to find the 1849 Ossian’s Serenade, the 1851 Oh, Must We Part to Meet No More?, and The Green Mt. Yankee, a Temperance Medley, published in Boston in 1852.  Once we had navigated past references to Led Zepplin songs, we were able to find an 1848 song by I. B. Woodbury that set Tennyson’s poem "The May Queen" to music.  Henry Theodore Tuckerman’s “Love and Fame,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1841 “Excelsior,” and Henry Ware, Jr.’s “To the Ursa Major” can all be found in online poetry collections.

The only item with a strictly Acton theme was Pierpont’s poem “Acton Monument.”  One wonders if the entire poem describing the events of April 18-19, 1775 was recited; even at its debut, the audience became impatient with its length.  Rev. John Pierpont of Medford presented the poem at the celebration of the completion of Acton’s Monument in 1851.  The reverend had the misfortune that day of being slated to recite after an hour-long address by Governor George S. Boutwell and just before the meal was served.  Hungry attendees started eating during his recital of the poem, and the clatter of utensils clashed with the sound of the reverend’s voice.  Apparently, he got quite upset.  Acton’s Rev. Woodbury, who could have tried to quiet the crowd, instead said a quick grace and let the dinner officially begin.  Boutwell’s Reminiscences quote Woodbury as telling the poet, “They listened very well, ‘till you got to Greece.  They didn’t care anything about Greece.” (page 130)  By that point in the day’s speeches, the audience might have been losing enthusiasm for Acton as well.  Later, obviously having calmed down, Rev. Pierpont commented on the situation that

“Poets at dinners must learn to be brief, Or their tongues will be beaten by cold tongue of beef.”  [Boston Evening Transcript, Oct. 30, 1851, p.1)

The audience at Pelton’s High School Exhibition had to have been tired by the end of the evening.  After speeches, songs, poetry, and drama, Arthur Cowdrey capped off the event with a declamation in Latin from Virgil.  Presumably this was to wow the audience.  (Clearly, Mr. Pelton was able to teach his students a range of subjects.)  Miss A. B. Fletcher performed her fourth musical number, and the evening was finished.

Acton’s Private High Schools

We had thought that perhaps F. W. Pelton’s high school was unique to him.  However, a speech by one of his former students explained that Acton’s private high school, at least for a time, was an annual occurrence taken on by a college student during a break from his studies.  It allowed a college student to earn funds and benefited the townspeople by supplementing their publicly-funded education.  Eben H. Davis told Acton’s high school graduates in 1895 that:

“When I was a boy, the only high school in the town was a private enterprise, held but a few weeks in the fall, in the centre of the town, and kept by some college student to eke out his college expenses.  There was no orderly course of studies, but each student selected such branches as his fancy dictated or friends advised, for which he paid his own tuition.  In this way it was possible to obtain a smattering of Latin or Greek, an introduction to the elements of science, and some knowledge of mathematics.  But, in order to fit for college, I had to attend an academy, one hundred and fifty miles from home.  ... I would by no means speak lightly of the schools of my boyhood days... Nor were those brief terms of high school studies without influence.  They opened up to us new lines of thought, and the personality of the teachers, fresh from college and imbued with zeal for a higher education, made a strong impress.  It was through contact with such influences that I was inspired with an ambition to go to college.”  (Town Report 1896, p. 83-84)

Contrary to what we had expected, this high school was not simply for older students who had progressed beyond the curriculum of Acton’s schoolhouses.  Some of the students were fairly young.  From reading school committee reports of the time, we discovered that the public schools in the early 1850s had a summer term and a winter term; the private school in autumn obviously filled a gap, not just of higher learning, but in a time of the year when scholars would not have been able to continue their studies. 

We have not yet found all of the college students who led a private autumn high school in Acton, but we did find mention of a Mr. Cutler who seems to have run a popular private school in the fall of 1848.  The school committee report of 1848-1849 alludes to the difficulties of a Winter Term teacher, Dartmouth College graduate Mr. Whittier, who had come with great recommendations.  “Mr. Whittier, in assuming the duties of his school, was somewhat in the position of the poor king who followed the people’s favorite, when nature’s poet said, ‘As when a well graced actor leaves the stage, All eyes are idly bent on him that enters next.’  Mr. Cutler in his select school had won all hearts, both of parents and children, and they thought his like would never appear again.  This feeling among the leading scholars was a great injury to the school, which ought to have been one of the best.”  We will set aside research into Mr. Cutler’s identity for another day.  If anyone knows more about him or other Acton private school teachers, please let us know.

The 1852 Schoolmaster, F. W. Pelton

We know very little about F. W. Pelton’s brief time in Acton.  We were able to identify him because the 1853 school committee report mentioned hiring F. W. Pelton “of Union College” to teach the Centre School in the winter term 1853 after he had run a private school in Acton Center in the fall of 1852.  The mention of Union College allowed us to confirm that he was Florentine Whitfield Pelton, born in Somers, CT on April 23,1828 to Asa and Lois Pelton.  According to Jeremiah M. Pelton’s Genealogy of the Pelton Family in America (page 477-478), Florentine Pelton left home at a young age, supposedly taught in New Jersey, and furthered his studies at Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham, MA and Union College. 

The year in which F. W. Pelton taught in Acton was an unusual one.  At town meeting the previous April, Acton had elected a School Committee of three clergymen.  All three had left town by the end of the year.  (One was Rev. J. T. Woodbury, discussed in a previous blog post.)  Ebenezer Davis and Herman H. Bowers wrote the subsequent School Committee report.  Two of Ebenezer Davis’ children had attended Pelton’s fall High School.

F. W. Pelton’s winter term at the public school seems to have been much less successful than his private school experience.  (School committees in the nineteenth century could be merciless in their reports, and teachers had no ability to present their viewpoint.)  It is likely that having 52 students of varying ages, with an average attendance of 44, was a contributing factor, as well as the fact that the curriculum would not have been driven by students’ interests as it was in the private school. 

Pelton may already have been in career transition during his Acton period.  He soon made the law his career, studying with C. R. Train and at Harvard Law.  He was admitted to the Middlesex County bar in 1855, and practiced first in Marlborough and then in Boston.  He married twice, first to Laura M. Buck, a graduate of the State Normal School at Framingham, MA, on Dec. 18, 1855.  The couple had two children before Laura died from complications of childbirth in 1860 in Newton where they were living at the time.  Pelton married Mary Reed Whitney in Waltham, MA on Nov. 20, 1862, and the couple had eight more children.  In addition to practicing law, Pelton dealt in real estate and was responsible for the construction of a number of houses in Dorchester, MA.  Toward the end of his life, he retired from the law, focusing on various business ventures.  He settled in Dedham, MA where he died of “chronic peritonitis,” probably a complication of his diabetes, on June 25, 1885 in Dedham. 

We found no reference to Florentine W. Pelton’s time in Acton in newspapers, family histories, or obituaries.  However, his experience there may have led to this thought from the report of the Newton Grammar School Sub-Committee, of which F. W. Pelton was a member in the 1860s: ”If the varied, difficult and exhausting work of the school-room could be understood at home, there would be more sympathy and less fault-finding with the teacher.”  (Annual Report, Mass. Board of Education, Vol. 27, 1864,  p. 92)  Indeed.

The Exhibition Participants

There are many names on Pelton’s 1852 Programme, but there were only a few that we could not track down.  Perhaps those students were not residents of Acton; the school committee report of 1853 mentioned that some private school scholars in the past had come from out of town. (p. 5)  In the rest of the cases, we found individuals who would have been between twelve and eighteen in the fall of 1852.  Among the sources we used were school committee reports; it is not surprising to find that young scholars who were enrolled in an extra school in the fall of 1852 were also commended for excellent attendance at the public schools.  

As best we can reconstruct it, the following is our list of Pelton’s high school exhibition participants:

In August 1920, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote in the United States.  Looking back from today’s perspective, one would expect the event to have been celebrated in the local paper, the Concord Enterprise, with a front page announcement and large headlines.*  In fact, the reporting was subtle enough that it was not clear from the paper when the key event actually took place.  The September 1 Enterprise did present a table on page six that broke down the states’ votes, classifying them by political party.  Among the twenty-eight “Republican” states that had ratified the amendment were Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.  The “Democratic” ratifying states were Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and finally Tennessee.  Connecticut, Vermont, Florida and North Carolina had not yet made a decision, and seven states had rejected the amendment.  (The Enterprise missed Oregon in its listing, so the totals did not actually add up to the necessary 36 states for ratification.)    

It had been a long, difficult slog to get the vote.  Women had to overcome a widespread belief that they were incapable of understanding important issues and of thinking for themselves.   They also had to deal with opposition to the idea of women venturing out of their allotted “sphere.”  Two examples from previous years’ Enterprise columns illustrate what women were up against.

During the 1895 Massachusetts campaign to allow women to vote in local elections, a letter appeared in opposition that stated that “... women, by the very nature of their being, their social and domestic duties, do not and cannot have a practical knowledge of the wants or needs of a large town or city. ... their political action will be governed by their prejudices...” (Oct. 24, 1895, p. 4)  This  opinion elicited a rebuttal that said in part “It is surprising that in this age of advancement and higher education of women, a man of average intelligence can be found bold enough to affix his signature to an article so foreign to reason and justice.” (Oct. 31, 1895, p. 4)  The South Acton writer of the rebuttal clearly overestimated the open-mindedness of the time.  Twenty years later, the Enterprise said in a supposedly fair-minded editorial: “There are a great many deep thinking, intelligent men who honestly oppose suffrage for they believe the success of the movement in this state would project women into a sphere for the activities of which they are totally unfitted.  They believe that the ideal balance maintained in the home would be destroyed and that no great good could be obtained through doubling the voting strength of the state.” (Oct. 27, 1915, p. 2)

World War 1 changed some attitudes.  Among the many ways in which women contributed during the war, women (including Acton’s Lillian Frost) went overseas to work as nurses, ambulance drivers, telephone operators, and in other support roles.  The June 18, 1919 Enterprise mentioned that at least 184 nurses had died as a result. (p. 6)  One week later, Massachusetts became the eighth state to ratify the nineteenth amendment.  No large headlines celebrated that event.  However, on July 2, 1919, the Enterprise editorialized that “with the advent of equal suffrage there will be a betterment of living conditions, greater equality, and protection of the rising generations.  There will be a cleaning-up of many filthy places, and a wiping out of the sore-spots that have disgraced the nation.”  (p. 2)  Clearly, when the women were finally able to vote in 1920, they had many expectations to deal with, some negative and others dauntingly optimistic. 

Once women’s suffrage looked poised to win, the Enterprise reported on efforts to ensure the success of women’s voting.  A critical piece was getting women to register to vote.  Because women could already vote for their school committee in Massachusetts, they could be enrolled as voters in advance of ratification.  (For more information about female school committee voting, see our blog post.)  When aspiring voters met with the board of registrars in their voting district, they had to show that they were citizens, at least 21, and able to read and write English and that they had lived at least one year in Massachusetts and six months in their voting district.  They were also expected to answer questions about parentage and nationality and to prove naturalization if necessary.  (Aug. 18, p. 4)  The first election in which they could fully participate was a primary in September 1920.  As pointed out in the Maynard column of the August 11 Enterprise, “With no district contests among the Democrats there is very little interest shown.”  The Maynard Republican Women’s committee, on the other hand, announced a number of reasons for registering, including participating in a great historical event, honoring the 70 years in which “some of the ablest women of America gave their lives to the winning of this right for women”, and helping to “elect men who will look out for the children’s welfare” and “secure good working conditions for you.”  (Electing women was obviously an issue for another day.)  If those weren’t good enough reasons, women should register because they didn’t “want it said that the women of Massachusetts were behind the women of other States in meeting the responsibilities of citizenship.” (Aug. 11, p. 1)

In Acton, registration was a success.  On Sept. 8, the Enterprise reported that in South Acton, forty-nine women (and nine men) registered (p. 1), while in West Acton, “At the meeting of the board of registrars Thursday night, the number broke all records, when 80 women were recorded and 14 men were added to the list.” (p. 5)  Acton Centre reported “quite a number” had registered for the primary and more were expected for the November election. (Sept. 22, p. 5)

Though fanfare about the first election was fairly minimal in the paper, the West Acton reporter noted on September 15, “The women of Precinct 3 are to be congratulated on their good work at the primaries last week, when they cast their first votes.  Mrs. Albert R. Beach cast the first ladies’ vote here.” (p. 6)

Getting women onto the voter rolls was not enough.  Women had to overcome people’s lack of faith in their abilities, judgment, and knowledge.  One way to combat low expectations was through education.  In Maynard, the Women’s Club sponsored a series of ten classes on government and the duties of citizenship. (Sept.8, p. 4)  In Acton, there was so much concern about women’s ability to handle the physical act of voting that lectures were held  to help: “A citizens’ meeting will be held in the vestry of the Universalist church on Thursday evening, Oct. 21, at 7:30 o’clock under the auspices of the Republican town committee.  Miss Grace Carruth of Boston has been engaged speaker and will address the meeting upon the subject ‘How to Mark the Ballot’ and will be prepared to answer any other questions of present political interest.  Similar meetings will be held during the afternoon of the same day at Acton and West Acton.  All persons interested are invited to attend.” (Oct. 20, 1920, p. 1)  The Acton Woman’s Club, a little behind, scheduled a speaker on Nov. 22 to help its members “in the study of simple non-partisan citizenship.”  (Nov. 10, p. 8) 

Election day came on November 2.  The first women voters in South Acton that day were Grace and Lyde Fletcher who had come back from Watertown the previous evening to be able to cast their ballots.  (Nov. 11, p. 8)  Another female voter in South Acton was Mary H. Lothrop who, with her husband Frank on the way to Florida, “took advantage of the privilege of absent voters and sent their depositions by mail.” (Nov. 10, p. 1)  The vote was especially memorable for South Acton’s Carrie Franklin.  Of obvious importance, she was able to participate in a historic moment, voting with her husband William in a national election. The surprise was that during the 45 minutes it took to cast their ballots and return, their home was burgled.  Money and Mrs. Franklin’s jewelry were stolen.  The perpetrators had apparently watched them leave the house.  It turned out to be three boys from Maynard, later found by the railroad tracks with Mrs. Franklin’s watch.

Overall, when the Enterprise reported on the election of 1920, it had to note that the women of Acton had managed to vote without disaster.  In South Acton, “Out of a total of 313 registered votes, 278 votes were cast, or about 89 per cent, which is probably the largest proportionate votes ever cast here.  The counting was completed and returns complete at 6:30 p. m.  The women manifested great interest and marked their ballots with ease and rapidity.” (Nov. 3, p. 4)  In West Acton, the report was, “No Ballots Thrown Out – With 347 voters in Precinct 3 there were 322 votes cast on election day.  Not one ballot was marked wrong which is a fine showing with so many new voters and a great credit to the ladies.”  (Nov. 10, 1920, p. 2)

The landslide victory of Harding and Coolidge over Democrats Cox and Roosevelt rated huge front-page headlines from the Enterprise on November 3, 1920.  In the following weeks, the paper mentioned more civics lectures sponsored by women’s clubs and organizational details about the League of Women Voters and the Women’s Auxiliary of the Foreign Legion.  In Maynard, there was talk of running a woman for the school board and forming a Parent-Teachers’ association.  There was obviously plenty of work needed to achieve the goals of improving living conditions, fostering equality, and protecting children; they would not happen magically because women could vote. 

When the Nineteenth Amendment officially became law on August 26, 1920, it was a milestone that was achieved after decades of struggle.  Its importance should not be underestimated.  At the same time, it has to be recognized that suffrage was not universal, given restrictions on who was considered a citizen and who was allowed to be registered to vote.  The work did not end that day.

---------------------------------
*All newspaper references here are to issues of the Concord Enterprise that at the time covered Concord, Concord Junction, the four Acton villages, Maynard, Sudbury and sometimes Bedford and Marlborough.  Sometimes a seemingly identical paper was published as the Acton Enterprise.

Gaining an understanding of a town’s history is complicated by the fact that some residents’ stories are much less accessible than others.  Standard town histories from the nineteenth and early twentieth century tended to focus on a small group of socially prominent citizens.  People of color were seldom mentioned.  Anyone trying to learn about the early Black residents of Acton has had very little material to work with.  Records are sparse, and there are sometimes conflicts among the pieces of information that we do have.  To better understand early Acton’s racial diversity, we set out to find all mentions of Black and mixed-race residents (slave or free) in Acton’s early records.  To do that, we used eighteenth- and nineteenth-century documents that sometimes refer to racial diversity with terms that we would not use today.  When quoted here, it is only to give accurate historical evidence about a person’s racial background.  There is much work left to do, but in collaboration with the Robbins House in Concord, we offer what we have learned so far.
 
We will start in 1735 when Acton was set off as a town from Concord.  We are hampered by lack of census records in the early days but will continue to look for more information.  We do have a definitive record that slavery existed in Acton after it became a town.  The 1754 Massachusetts slave census completed by the Selectmen stated that there was “but one male Negro slave Sixteen years old in Acton and No females.”  (The inventory asked for the number of slaves over the age of sixteen; the wording presumably meant that the male mentioned was in that category, rather than being exactly sixteen years old.)  We have no way of knowing if there were any younger slaves.  Unfortunately, the inventory did not list either the name of the slave or the slave owner.  As a result, we have no idea whether he was eventually freed and whether he stayed in town or moved on to another location.
 
Acton apparently also had free Black and/or mixed-race residents during its earliest years.  We are still trying to document their stories.  In South Acton by 1731, there was a William Cutting who, according to a story in a published journal of Rev. William Bentley, (volume 2, page 148) was himself or descended from a “Mulatto” slave who “upon the death of his master, accepted some wild land, which he cultivated & upon which his descendants live in independence.”   (This story is still being researched; our various efforts to confirm those details have not yet been successful.  A 1731 deed from Elnathan Jones to William Cutting is extremely hard to read, but it mentions a purchase price paid to a living person, rather than a gift or inheritance.  Another 1732 deed from Elnathan Jones also seems to be a straight sale.  Probate records have not yielded clues, either.  A possibility is that the story was about an earlier ancestor in a location other than Acton.) 
 
An Acton’s Selectmen’s report dated Feb. 2, 1753 mentions a road being laid out, with one of the boundaries being “a Grey oke on Ceser Freemans Land.”  Both Cesar and Freeman were names associated with free African Americans of the period.  Cesar Freeman’s story is unknown at this point, so we do not know if other Freemans in town records are his relatives.
 
Harvard University has put online a transcribed and indexed version of the Massachusetts Tax Inventory of 1771.  This inventory reported the number of each taxpayer’s “servants for life.”  According to that database, there were two “servants for life” in Acton, assessed to Amos Prescott and Simon Tuttle.  (For relevant entries click here.)  We know nothing about the person assessed to Prescott.  However, it appears that Simon Tuttle’s “man” fought in the Revolution.  At town meeting on March 4, 1783, the town voted to reimburse Mr. Simon Tuttle for “the Bounty for his negro man which was Twenty four Pounds in March 1777 to be Paid by the Scale of Depreciation.”  Simon Tuttle was one of the Acton leaders who was charged with recruiting men to enlist from Acton, and it was common practice for the recruiters to pay bounties for enlistment out of their own pockets on the understanding that they would be reimbursed.  (Acton took such a long time about actually paying the men back that the value of currency completely changed and adjustments needed to be made “by the Scale of Depreciation.”)  The unique thing about this 1783 entry in town records is that the recruit was described at all, in particular his race and the fact that he was considered Simon Tuttle’s man. We have a clue as to his name; Rev. Woodbury's list of known Revolutionary War soldiers from Acton (compiled in the mid-1800s) included the entry "Titus Hayward, colored man, hired by Simon Tuttle."  For more information about this soldier, see our blog post about our research into his identity.
 
Acton did have a free Black population in the years of and following the Revolution.  John Oliver, listed in later census records (inconsistently) as a free person of color, enlisted for Revolutionary war service from Acton as early as April 1775.  John Oliver lived in North Acton in an area near the town’s borders with Westford and Littleton.  We are investigating whether there was a community of Black and mixed-race residents in that area.  What we know about John’s life in particular was discussed in a previous blog post, and the location of his farm was discussed in another.
 
Another Black Revolutionary War soldier with Acton ties was Caesar Thomson who appeared in Acton’s records after the war.  According to an article published by the Historical, Natural History and Library Society of South Natick in 1884 (page 100), Cesar Thompson was a slave of Samuel Welles, Jr., a Boston merchant and the largest landowner in Natick by the time of the Revolution.  When Natick needed men to fill its quota of soldiers, Mr. Welles sent Cesar, whose Revolutionary War service was extensive. (See Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Volume 15, pages 631 and 668).  After serving for several years, he was “disabled by a rupture” and was actually granted a pension in January 1783.   (Pensions were granted to disabled soldiers, though full pension coverage for veterans was far in the future.  Unfortunately, the earliest Revolutionary War pension records were lost in a fire.)  As stated in the 1884 article, Natick town records contain the following notation:
 
“Boston, Feb. 18, 1783.  This may certify, to all whom it may concern, that I this day, fully and freely give to Caesar Thompson his freedom.  Witness my hand, Samuel Welles.  A true copy.  Attest, Abijah Stratton, Town Clerk.”
 
After the war, free man Cesar Thompson lived in Acton. 

At the April 5, 1783 town meeting, a committee was appointed to figure out seating for the meeting house (a regular occurrence).  Seating arrangements were to take into consideration age and property, using the prior two years’ tax valuations.  It was voted that the committee was to “Seat the negros in the hind Seats in the Side gallery.”  Clearly, despite years of fighting for political freedom and equality of “all people,” Acton was not ready to grant equality to all of its own people.  (It should be noted that it was an era in which citizens paid for pews in the meetinghouse, which was not only a church, but the place were town meetings took place.  Presumably, pew placement denoted social status.)   In an 1835 centennial speech, Josiah Adams recounted a childhood memory that reveals how it must have felt to be one of very few people of color in the town at the time.  Young Adams would watch as Quartus Hosmer climbed the stairs to the “hind seat” of the gallery, eagerly waiting for him to reappear with his queue of “graceful curls” held back by an eel-skin ribbon.  (Adams, Josiah.  An address delivered at Acton, July 21, 1835: being the first centennial anniversary of the organization of the town, Boston: Printed by J. T. Buckingham, 1835, page 6)
 
It cannot have been comfortable to be a curiosity to young Actonians and to deal with attitudes made obvious by the meeting house seating vote.  Nevertheless, some residents of African descent stayed in Acton.  John Oliver farmed and raised his family with his wife Abigail Richardson.  (Their known children were Abijah, Joel, Fatima and Abigail.  We suspect, but have not yet been able to confirm, that there were others.)  Cesar Tomson/Thompson was mentioned in town records when, on January 27, 1785, he married Azubah Hendrick (both were of Acton), Azubah was admitted to the church, and their children were baptized (Joseph, Moses and Dorcas).  There is no record of what happened to Azubah, but Caesar married Peggy Green in Acton on December 1, 1785.  He also appeared in town records on Feb. 23, 1789 when his tax rate was abated. 
 
While researching the Thompson family, we discovered that other Massachusetts towns’ vital records might hold clues about Acton’s Black residents.  In Natick, we found two birth records (on the page before the 1801 intention of marriage for Dorcas Tomson, then living in that town): 
 
“Moses Hendrick son of Benjamin and Zibiah Hendrick was Born in Acton September 15. 1780
Dorcas Tomson Daughter of Ceasar and Zibiah Tomson was born in Acton April 1. 1784”
 
In Grafton, we found a marriage intention between Polly Johns and “Moses Hendrick, ‘a native he says of Acton but now resident of Grafton,’ int[ention] Aug. 30, 1817. Colored.”  Until we found these two records, we had no idea that a Black man named Moses Hendrick had been born in town. 
 
Another discovery was that at town meeting in August 1786, the town discussed suing Peter Oliver and Philip Boston “for Refusing to maintain Lucy Willard Child agreeable to their obligation.”  Though both names were associated with free people of color in nearby towns, we have not figured out exactly who these men were or what their connection was to Lucy Willard.  On March 19, 1792, the town paid Simon Tuttle Jr. for assistance given to Peter Oliver.
 
The first full census of the United States came in 1790.   Though only the heads of household were named, it gives us a more complete picture of the composition of the households in Acton.  The census asked for the numbers of free white males (16 or older and under 16), free white females, slaves, and “all other free persons.”  Acton had no slaves in this or later censuses.  The census taker seems to have had some issues with accounting for “other free persons,” and the census scan is in places hard to read, but from what we can see, the following households had free persons of color:

• Jonathan Hosmer’s household - 6 white people and 1 free person of color who lived in our Hosmer House, still standing at 300 Main Street.  Based on the name, we assume that this was the Quartus Hosmer mentioned in Josiah Adams’ recollections.
• Cesar Thompson’s household – 4 free people of color
• Possibly Abraham Hapgood’s household – 7 white people and possibly 1 free person of color (There was one free person of color in the total for that column, and it looks as if the mark is in the Hapgood household, but smudges make it hard to be certain.)

 
The census shows six total free persons of color out of the 853 people in 1790 Acton.  The seven people in John Oliver’s household were classified as white (2 males, 5 females), as were the nine members of William Cutting Jr.’s household (3 males, 6 females).
 
In the beginning of the 1790s, Acton worked to specify those who were not considered legal residents, a step toward defining its responsibility toward the poor.  The Revolutionary War had caused economic distress for many people in the new country.  There were no safety nets as we understand them today.  Then as now, towns were reluctant to tax people for any expenses that could be avoided.  Under the system that had been in place since the early days of the colony, towns could avoid responsibility for supporting poor people if they were not considered legal residents of the town.  Formally, this meant giving people notice that they had not been granted permission to live in town and that they should leave (and therefore that they had no right to expect help from the town if they stayed).  This process was called “warning out.” 
 
From about 1767 to 1789, warning out seemed to be dying out in Massachusetts.  However, a law change in 1789 led to a flurry of warnings out in Acton and elsewhere.  In the 1790-1791 period, town records show that 23 households were warned out of Acton.  Included were a number of Revolutionary War veterans and long-time inhabitants.  John Oliver and Cesar Thomson, their wives, and their children were on the list.  Both families stayed in town, as most warned-out people probably did in the 1790s.  As a practical matter, if those people become indigent, assistance would still have been given them, but the town, relieved of its legal responsibility, could petition the state for reimbursement.
 
Available in Harvard’s Anitslavery Petitions Massachusetts Dataverse is a July 1, 1796 petition from Jonas Brooks to the Commonwealth to reimburse the inhabitants of Acton for “considerable expense in supporting Caesar Thompson a negro man, together with his wife, three small children” who were “not legally settled in said Town of Acton or in any other town in said Commonwealth that your petitioner can find  - That he served as a soldier in the Continental army during the last war...”  The town sent a follow-up petition for state reimbursement in 1797.  As a former slave, Cesar apparently had no legal claim on Natick (despite filling its quota in the Revolutionary War) or Boston, where he might have lived before serving in the military.  After the petitions, we found no more records for Caesar Thompson; whether he died in Acton or moved, we were not able to determine.  We do know that his daughter had moved to Natick by 1801.
 
The 1800 census asked for more information than its predecessor.  Only the heads of Acton households were listed, but the ages of white inhabitants were broken out more carefully.  Acton’s census return had a column for the number of slaves and one for “All other persons except Indians not taxed.”  With entries in that somewhat perplexingly-named column were the households of:

• Francis Faulkner, 7 white individuals and 1 “other person” who lived at 5 High Street in the Faulkner House, still standing.
• Jonathan Hosmer, 10 white individuals and 1 “other person,” still at 300 Main Street.
• John Oliver(s), 5 “other” people, listed last in the census.

 
William Cutting Jr.’s household of seven was again listed as white.  Also of note in the 1800 census is that many of the warned-out families were still in town.
 
Acton’s vital records show that in December 1802, Sally Oliver married Jacob Freeman.  Their relationship to people of the same surnames in town is unclear (so far).  Sadly, Sally and Jacob had only a short marriage marked by tragedy.  Their son died on Sept. 3, 1803.  Jacob died on July 9, 1804 at age 45.  Acton’s death record specifies his race as negro.  (In early 1805, Amos Noyes, Joseph Brabrook, and Edward Weatherbee were paid for goods delivered to Jacob, presumably during his sickness.)
 
1810’s Acton census had a column for “All free other persons, except Indians, not taxed.”  Acton households with someone in that category were:

• John Oliver, 5 other free persons
• Simon Hosmer, son of Jonathan, still at 300 Main Street, 9 white people, 1 other free person
• Sarah Skinner, newly widowed, living at 140 Nagog Hill Road in a house still standing, daughter of Francis and Rebecca Faulkner, 4 white people, 1 free other person.  (Read more about Sarah Skinner in our blog post.)

John Oliver’s sons’ 1810 households were classified as white.  The household of Abijah Oliver had 1 male 45+, 3 females <10 and 1 female 16-25.  Joel Oliver’s household had 1 male <10, 1 male 26-44, 2 females 10-15, and 1 female 26-44.  William Cutting Jr. was also classified as white.

During the 1810s, town records show payments for some Black residents in need.  Between 1813 and 1815, John Oliver was providing help to others, including Abijah Oliver and, when sick, “Abigal” Oliver and Sally (Oliver) Freeman.  In 1811-15, John Robbins and David Barnard were reimbursed for boarding “Titus Anthony.”  Later records give clues that he may have been Black (see below).  (Probably relatedly, in March 1810, town meeting records mention a lawsuit by the town of Townsend against Acton “for supporting Hittey Anthony and Child.”)  Acton town meeting took up Titus Anthony’s case in September 1811; unfortunately, the discussion was not reported in the extant records.  In 1813, David Barnard was paid for providing for the poor and, separately, for “2 payment for the Negro” (name unspecified). 

1820’s census yields more information about Black town residents.  In that year’s report, “Free colored Persons” had four columns each for males and females of differing ages.  Households with entries in those columns were:

• Aaron Jones, 9 white people and 1 male “free colored person” under 14
• Abijah Oliver, all “free colored persons” - 1 male under 14, 1 male 14-25, 1 male 26-44, 3 females under 14, 1 female 14-25, 1 female 26-44
• Nathaniel Hapgood, 6 white people, 1 “free colored” male 14-25
• Simon Hosmer, 10 white people, 1 “free colored” male 45 and over
• Jonathan Davis, 8 white people and “free colored persons” exactly matching the Abijah Oliver family- 1 male under 14, 1 male 14-25, 1 male 26-44, 3 females under 14, 1 female 14-25, 1 female 26-44
• Uriah Foster, 5 white people and 1 “free colored” male 14-26 and 1 male 45 and up
• Joel Oliver, all free colored persons: 1 male under 14, 1 male 26-44, 2 females under 14, 1 female 14-25, 1 female 26-44
• John Robbins, 8 white people and 1 “free colored” female under 14

1820’s total “free colored” population was listed as 17, which does not match the numbers given in the columns, so the accounting is uncertain.  John Oliver’s 2-person household was listed as white.  Regardless of the counting issues, there was obviously quite a community of people of color in Acton during the 1820s.  Most lived in the North and East parts of town.  The households of Jonathan Davis and Uriah Foster would have been near today’s Route 27 in North Acton.  John Oliver’s sons Abijah and Joel eventually moved closer to East Acton; land records indicate that their father helped with financing.

In 1830, federal census takers were given forms two page-widths across that specified ages and sex of both slaves and free people of color and had a “total” column for each family that should have encouraged accurate record-taking.  The only household in which free persons of color were enumerated was John Oliver’s:

• John Oliver, 12 “free colored persons” - 1 male 10-23, 1 male 23-35, 1 male 36-54, 2 females under 10, 2 females 10-23, 3 females 24-35, 1 female 36-54, 1 female 55-99.

John’s son Joel Oliver was listed as white, living with 5 white females.  Simon Hosmer’s family no longer was listed with a free person of color.  This jibes with the hypothesis that the “Quartus Hosmer” mentioned by Josiah Adams lived in the Jonathan/Simon Hosmer household.  In Acton’s vital records, the handwritten register of Acton deaths for 1827 shows:

“June 30 Quartus     a Blackman     61” 

The Hosmer name was not given in the death record.  (This entry was indexed on Ancestry.com as “Quartus Blackman,” but that is clearly an error.)  In Acton’s transcribed and published Vital Records to 1850, the listing appeared under “Negroes, Etc.”  That entry adds information from church records (“C. R. I.”):
“Quartus, ‘a Black man,’ June 30, 1827, a. 61 [State pauper, a. 64, C. R. I.]
 
A state pauper meant that the individual had no “settlement” status.  (Acton could not send him or her back to another Massachusetts town for financial support, but he/she was not officially accepted as having a claim on Acton either.)  By this time, if a person with no official claim on a town was in need based on age, disability, illness or poverty, he/she became, officially, a state pauper, and expenses incurred by the town would be billed to the state.  Apparently, former slaves often found themselves in this position (Cesar Thompson, for example), as well as new immigrants from overseas and anyone not connected to a town by family or marriage.  Quartus’ status as a state pauper means either that he was free but didn’t start off in Acton or that he had started out a slave.  If we are correct that the free person of color in the Hosmer household was this Quartus, he clearly had a long relationship with the family.  The available records do not give us much information about what the relationship was, but we have not found evidence that he had been enslaved by Acton Hosmers.  This Quartus was too young to have been the over-16-year-old slave in the 1754 census, though slaves younger than sixteen were not reported.  The 1771 tax valuation showed no Acton Hosmers with “servants for life.”  He could have been freed by then or could have been enslaved elsewhere in his early years and later entered the Hosmer household as a free working person. 
 
The 1840 census showed “free colored persons” in the households of:

• Luther Conant, 6 white people and 2 “free colored” males ages 10-23
• Rufus Holden, 6 white people and 1 “free colored” male age 24-35

 
The census shows the household of John Oliver, especially noted for being 92 years of age and a military pensioner, as white (1 male under 5, 1 male 5-9, 1 male 90-99, 1 female 5-9, 1 female 40-49).  His son Joel Oliver’s household is also listed as white, (2 males, 30-39 and 60-69, and 2 females, 15-19 and 50-59).
 
During the 1840s, many in Acton were advocating for an end to slavery in general and for improvements in laws affecting the lives of Massachusetts’ Black residents.  A digitized 1842 petition from Acton to allow white people legally to intermarry with other races was signed by 70 women, including Abigail Chaffin who was most likely Abigail Richardson (Oliver) Chaffin, herself of mixed-race ancestry.  (Abijah Oliver’s daughter, she had married Nathan Chaffin, born in Acton to Nathan and Mary Chaffin.  After that point, records always seem to have classified her as white.)  Abigail Chaffin also signed two other anti-slavery petitions in 1842 ( Petition against admission of Florida as Slave State and Petition to abolish slavery in Washington, DC and territories and to end the slave trade).
 
Abigail Chaffin was remembered in a Chaffin family history (pages 269-270) as “one of the most remarkable women ever born in Acton, on account of the wonderful sagacity, industry and executive ability, which characterized her through the whole of her life and... together with mental and physical vigor, to a very rare age.  ...  Even after she was four score and ten she was able to do more for others than she needed to have done for herself.”  After the death of her husband in 1878, she moved in with her son Nathan who prospered in the restaurant business in Boston.  She lived in Arlington for many years, and she died in Bedford in 1911, after having “passed her last years not only in the possession of the comforts, but of the luxuries of life.” 
 
Back in Acton, the 1850 census, for the first time, listed the names of all residents of the town.  A column for race showed the following residents of color:

• Titus A. Williams, age 45, Black, born Massachusetts, living in the poor house
  
• Abijah Oliver, age 87, Black, born Massachusetts, living in the poor house
  

 
The race column for all other residents was left blank (including the 7-person household of Joel Oliver, Abijah’s brother).  The 1850 real estate valuation for the town shows Ephraim Oliver (son of Joel) with buildings valued $375, plus 40 acres of improved land and 20 acres of unimproved land; he was living with Joel at the time.  Abijah Oliver had been farming in East Acton, but obviously he was no longer able to care for himself.  It was not particularly unusual for the aged, regardless of race, to need assistance. 
 
Massachusetts took its own census in 1855.  We have noticed in the past that the Acton census taker that year was particularly careful in recording full names, and the census taker noted more information about race as well:

• Joel Oliver, 77, mulatto, blacksmith, born in Massachusetts.  In the household were:
  • Ephraim Oliver, 45, mulatto, farmer, born Massachusetts
  • Susan Oliver, 33, mulatto, born Massachusetts
  • Martha Ann Oliver, 30, mulatto, born Massachusetts
  • Also, three people whose race was left blank, presumably Caucasian: Esther Oliver (Joel’s wife), age 72, Henry Smith, age 16, Susan Maria Smith, age 12 (almost certainly children of Joel’s daughter Keziah and William F. Smith)
• In the Poor House, among others:
  • Titus Anthony Williams, 49, Black, farmer, born Massachusetts
    
  • Abijah Oliver, 83, mulatto, farmer, born Massachusetts
• In the Household of Andrew Hapgood (farmer)
  • George Lewis, 20, Black, farmer, born Massachusetts
    

 
We have not yet been able to find out where Titus Anthony Williams came from and how he ended up in Acton’s poor house.  The middle name reported in the 1855 census raises the question of whether the “Titus Anthony” who was receiving assistance in the 1810s was actually the same Titus Anthony Williams who spent many years in Acton’s poor house (occupation farmer).  If so, he would have been a young child when he first appeared in Acton’s records. 
 
By the mid-1800s, Acton was changing.  The arrival of the railroad brought new industry and new people to town, and events in Europe brought new immigrants who would have competed for jobs and land.  Most descendants of Acton’s early Black residents eventually left Acton to find opportunities elsewhere.  Occasionally, they were mentioned in later records.  Sickness, disability, loss of a breadwinner, or extreme old age could change economic status.  Acton’s town report of 1855-1856 shows payment to the city of Boston for the support of Elizabeth Oliver (probably the recent widow of Abijah Oliver), and to the town of Concord for the burial of two of Peter Robbin’s family, as well as to Daniel Wetherbee of Acton for goods provided to that family.  (Peter Robbins had recently died.  He was divorced from John Oliver’s daughter Fatima by that time; apparently, his common law wife Almira/Elmira came from Acton, though her parentage is currently unclear.  She is referred to in Acton’s records as Elmira Oliver.)  The 1857-58 report shows money paid to Lowell for the support of Sarah Jane (Tucker) Oliver.  (She apparently married William P. Oliver and then Asa Oliver; their connections to other Acton Olivers are still being worked out).  Others receiving help that year who were not living at the poor farm included Sarah Spaulding (John Oliver’s widowed granddaughter) and Elizabeth Oliver.   
 
The 1860 Federal Census showed the following:

• Household of Ephraim Oliver, 49, mulatto, farmer, born Mass., owned real estate worth $3,000, personal property worth $2,200
  • Joel Oliver, 84, mulatto, blacksmith, born Mass.
  • Susan Oliver, 38, mulatto, born Mass
  • Martha Oliver, 36, mulatto, born Mass.
  • Susan M. and Charles Smith (17 and 15), no race given, born Mass.
• In the Poor House, among others:
  • Titus A. Williams, 53, Black, farmer, born. Mass.
    
  • Betsey Oliver, 77, mulatto, born Mass., “insane (unknown)” – It is unclear what the “unknown’ referred to.  Insanity could have meant dementia or something else.

 
The 1860 census also surveyed the town’s agriculture and gave details about Ephraim Oliver’s farming operation, located at approximately 283 Great Road in East Acton.  Ephraim Oliver owned 43 improved and 10 unimproved acres worth $3,000, plus $100 in farming implements, a horse, four milking cows, and fifteen other cattle.  His farm produced 140 bushels of “Indian corn,” 15 bushels of oats, 40 bushels of “Irish potatoes,” 200 pounds of butter, 10 tons of hay and 5 bushels of grain seed.
 
Though she was not listed in the poor house in the census, Sarah (Olivers) Spaulding was listed in Acton’s 1860 death records as a pauper.  She died, widowed, at age 36 on Oct. 14, 1860 and was listed as a quadroon, daughter of Abijah and Rachel (Barber) Oliver.  (Abijah was married to Elizabeth Barber, so that is probably simply an error.) 
 
The final census in this survey is the Massachusetts census of 1865.  By that time, Civil War and emancipation had set enormous changes in motion.  The census reported the following people of color in Acton:

• In the Daniel Wetherbee household, there were three paupers, among them:
  • Titus Williams, 56, Black, single, born Massachusetts
    
• In the household of Simon Blanchard, 57, farmer
  • Daniel Cory, 25, Black, born North Carolina, single, laborer, could not read or write, on the “ratable polls” list and a legal voter
    
• In the household of Nathaniel Hapgood, 81, farmer
  • James Low (possibly Law), 18, Black, b. Mass., single, laborer
    

 
All other residents were classified as white, including the five-person household of Ephraim Oliver.
 
We still have many questions that need answers.  In the relatively helpful records of the 1860s, we found other mentions of Olivers with connections to Acton that we have not yet been able to untangle:

• In March 1861, Lucy (Fitch) Oliver, “widow of Abijah Oliver”, pauper, died in Acton at age 83 or 85.  We have not been able to figure out who this Lucy is, as we have not yet found her marriage to Abijah mentioned anywhere else.
• 1863 town records show that the town of Acton reimbursed Concord for the burial expenses of ”Elmira Oliver.”  We are not sure why that cost was Acton’s responsibility.
• Asa Oliver was born about 1809, in Acton or Sudbury to John Oliver (possibly born Acton) and Abigail Knowlton (possibly born Westford).  A likely father John Oliver was listed in the Sudbury census in 1800 and 1810.  Asa (of Carlisle) married Sarah Jane (Tucker) Oliver in Acton in 1859, was in Littleton for the 1860 census, and died in Acton in 1868.  He was not listed as an heir of John Oliver (the Acton Revolutionary War pensioner) in John’s 1840 probate file, so to what family did he belong and how were they related to Acton’s other Olivers?  Acton received reimbursement from Lincoln for poor relief given to Asa at the end of his life.  Why?
• Caroline (Oliver) Osburne was born c.  1812 in Sudbury to John Oliver (b. Acton) and Silence __ (b. Sudbury, probably Knowlton).  Caroline married Henry Israel Osburne; both were listed as mulatto in the 1850 census.  Widowed, she died in Concord in 1863.  Who was her father John Oliver? Was Caroline a sister to Asa?

 
Researching the lives of Acton’s Black residents is an ongoing project.  What has become clear from trying to list all people of African descent who lived in Acton from its earliest years to the end of the Civil War is that available records, though far from complete, do allow us to find at least some of them.  The town’s vital records and censuses, the backbone of much genealogical research, are only the beginning.  Though searching the columns of early censuses for people of color was helpful, we discovered inconsistency in the reporting of race that certainly understated the number of Black and mixed-race residents.  Acton’s vital records only reported some of their life events.  By tracing descendants, we were able to uncover new details such as Acton births recorded later in other towns.  Another source was town meeting and expenditure reports that proved when people were in town and where they might have gone, especially if they provided financial assistance to others or needed it themselves.
 
If you are a descendant of any of Acton’s Black and mixed-race residents, have any additional information about them, can correct any information provided here, and/or know of other people who should be on our list, please contact us.  We would appreciate help in bringing their stories to life.