[Illustration: Harriet Jane Hanson at 18.]
LOOM AND SPINDLE
OR
Life Among the Early Mill Girls
WITH A SKETCH OF
_“THE LOWELL OFFERING” AND SOME
OF ITS CONTRIBUTORS_
BY
HARRIET H. ROBINSON
AUTHOR OF “WARRINGTON PEN PORTRAITS,” “MASSACHUSETTS IN THE
WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT,” “THE NEW PANDORA,” ETC.
INTRODUCTION
BY THE
HONORABLE CARROLL D. WRIGHT
“_Work is a shame to none; the shame is not to be working._”--HESIOD
NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1898,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.
TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON.
PRESSWORK BY S. J. PARKHILL & CO.
INTRODUCTION.
Whenever the history of economic conditions in this country shall be
written, the author will express his gratitude for all works giving
the details of especial epochs and phases of industrial life. Among
them he will find no more interesting experience than that attending
the entrance of women to the industrial field. The author of “Loom
and Spindle” contributes something more than her personal experiences
at Lowell during the early years of the textile factories,--she
contributes an inside view of the workings of a new system of labor,
which had been transplanted from England, and which originated with the
application of power to spinning and weaving.
The attractions of good wages and comfortable environment were the
inducements held out by American manufacturers at Lowell to secure a
class of operatives which should bring success to their experiment.
The prejudice against mill operatives, as shown by investigations
in England, would otherwise have delayed the establishment of the
factory in America; that is, the factory as controlled by a central
power. With the attractions offered, it was natural that the women of
New England should accept situations as weavers, spinners, etc., in
the great textile works; but they brought with them their educational
and religious training; and, as they were grouped together, it was
natural also that they should continue the cultivation of their minds,
especially under the broadening influences of mental contact. It is
this aspect of the factory system to which Mrs. Robinson has addressed
herself. It was an experience in which she took part; she saw it all,
and was a part of it. She, with her associates, chief among whom were
Harriot F. Curtis, a writer who attained an enviable position, the
Currier sisters, Mrs. Chamberlain, Eliza Jane Cate, Harriet Farley, the
sculptress Margaret Foley, Lydia S. Hall, Lucy and Emmeline Larcom,
Sarah Shedd my first teacher, and others, who became well known in
literary, benevolent, and other walks in public life, gave character to
the early factory days in New England, which are usually referred to
not only as unique in their features, but for the purpose of supporting
the idea that modern conditions are not as attractive, and that there
has been a thorough deterioration not only in the people employed in
factories, but in their home-life. Something of this note is sounded
in the last chapter of this book; yet it must be recognized that the
factory system has been and is a power in civilization,--a factor in
developing it, in truth.
The factory girl of the early period was not degraded through her
employment or her surroundings. She stepped out of factory life into
professional or semi-professional occupations. She was succeeded by a
class originally beneath her, the members of which have in their turn
graduated from the factory, and stepped into higher callings. This
process has been repeated, the destiny of the factory being ever to
reach down and lift people up out of lowly into higher conditions.
This gives the surface appearance of deterioration, when the real
fact is that through the factory the lower orders, so far as mental
capacity is concerned, are being constantly elevated. The author sees
this, yet naturally cannot help regretting that the heterogeneity of
the factory population--natives coming from many lands, with differing
social ideas, with little or no training, with few opportunities for
advancement, with low earning capacity, and with varied languages--has
changed the atmosphere of the factory community. The human lives
involved are worth more in this atmosphere than they were in the
cloddish labor out of which they have risen.
“Loom and Spindle,” valuable as it is for its details of economic
history, for the inspiration which comes from studying the lives and
characters of noble women, teaches the lesson which the author and
her associates taught,--that whatever is honest in employment is in
the service of God. Their lives emphasize the fact that the modern
system of industry has exercised a wonderful influence in securing
intellectual stimulation, and in dignifying every honest calling.
CARROLL D. WRIGHT.
WASHINGTON, _May, 1898_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION iii
I. LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO 1
II. CHILD-LIFE IN THE LOWELL COTTON MILLS 25
III. THE LITTLE MILL-GIRL’S ALMA MATER 40
IV. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS 60
V. CHARACTERISTICS (_Continued_) 83
VI. _The Lowell Offering_ AND ITS WRITERS 97
VII. _The Lowell Offering_ (_Continued_) 109
VIII. BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF SOME OF THE WRITERS FOR
_The Lowell Offering_ 132
IX. THE COTTON FACTORY OF TO-DAY 202
LOOM AND SPINDLE.
CHAPTER I.
LOWELL SIXTY YEARS AGO.
“That wonderful city of spindles and looms,
And thousands of factory folk.”
The life of a people or of a class is best illustrated by its domestic
scenes, or by character sketches of the men and women who form a part
of it. The historian is a species of mental photographer of the life
and times he attempts to portray; he can no more give the whole history
of events than the artist can, in detail, bring a whole city into his
picture. And so, in this record of a life that is past, I can give but
incomplete views of that long-ago faded landscape, views taken on the
spot.
It is hardly possible to do this truthfully without bringing myself
into the picture,--a solitary traveller revisiting the scenes of youth,
and seeing with young eyes a city and a people living in almost
Arcadian simplicity, at a time which, in view of the greatly changed
conditions of factory labor, may well be called a lost Eden for that
portion of our working-men and working-women.
Before 1836 the era of mechanical industry in New England had hardly
begun, the industrial life of its people was yet in its infancy, and
nearly every article in domestic use that is now made by the help
of machinery was then “done by hand.” It was, with few exceptions,
a rural population, and the material for clothing was grown on the
home-farm, and spun and woven by the women. Even in comparatively
wealthy families, the sons were sent to college in suits of homespun,
cut and made by the village seamstress, and every household was a
self-producing and self-sustaining community. “Homespun was their only
wear,” homespun their lives.
There was neither railway, steamboat, telegraph, nor telephone, and
direct communication was kept up by the lumbering stage-coach, or the
slow-toiling canal, which tracked its sinuous way from town to city,
and from State to State. The daily newspaper was almost unknown, and
the “news of the day” was usually a week or so behind the times. Money
was scarce, and most of the retail business was done by “barter”--so
many eggs for a certain quantity of sugar, or so much butter or farm
produce for tea, coffee, and other luxuries. The people had plenty to
eat, for the land, though sterile, was well cultivated; but if the
children wanted books, or a better education than the village school
could give them, the farmer seldom had the means to gratify their
wishes.
These early New Englanders lived in pastoral simplicity. They were
moral, religious, and perhaps content. They could say with truth,--
“We are the same things that our fathers have been,
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, we feel the same sun,
And run the same course that our fathers have run.”
Their lives had kept pace for so many years with the stage-coach and
the canal that they thought, no doubt, if they thought about it at all,
that they should crawl along in this way forever. But into this life
there came an element that was to open a new era in the activities of
the country.
This was the genius of mechanical industry, which would build the
cotton-factory, set in motion the loom and the spinning-frame, call
together an army of useful people, open wider fields of industry for
men and (which was quite as important at that time) for women also.
For hitherto woman had always been a money-_saving_, rather than a
money-earning, member of the community, and her labor could command
but small return. If she worked out as servant, or “help,” her wages
were from fifty cents to one dollar a week; if she went from house to
house by the day to spin and weave, or as tailoress, she could get but
seventy-five cents a week and her meals. As teacher her services were
not in demand, and nearly all the arts, the professions, and even the
trades and industries, were closed to her, there being, as late as
1840, only seven vocations, outside the home, into which the women of
New England had entered.[1]
[1] These were teaching, needlework, keeping boarders, factory
labor, type-setting, folding and stitching in book-binderies.
According to the census of 1885 (that of 1895 is not yet
tabulated), wherein the subject of “Woman in Industry” was
first specialized, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, there are 113
industries, which, subdivided, make 17,357 separate
occupations. Women have found employment in 4,467 of these,
while of the 113 general branches, they are found in all but
seven.
The Middlesex Canal was one of the earliest factors in New England
enterprise. It began its course at Charlestown Mill-pond, and ended
it at Lowell. It was completed in 1804, at the cost of $700,000, and
was the first canal in the United States to transport both passengers
and merchandise. Its charter was extinguished in 1859, in spite of
all opposition, by a decision of the Supreme Court. And thus, in less
than sixty years, this marvel of engineering skill, as it was then
considered, which was projected to last for all time, was “switched off
the track” by its successful rival, the Boston and Lowell Railroad,
and, with the stage-coach and the turnpike road became a thing of the
past.
The course of the old Middlesex Canal can still be traced, as a
cow-path or a woodland lane, and in one place, which I have always
kept in remembrance, very near the Somerville Station on the Western
Division of the Boston and Maine Railroad, can still be seen a few
decayed willows, nodding sleepily over its grass-grown channel and
ridgy paths,--a reminder of those slow times when it took a long
summer’s day to travel the twenty-eight miles from Boston to Lowell.
The Boston and Lowell Railroad, probably the first in the United
States, went into operation in 1835. I saw the first train that went
out of Lowell, and there was great excitement over the event. People
were gathered along the street near the “_deepot_,” discussing the
great wonder; and we children stayed at home from school, or ran
barefooted from our play, at the first “toot” of the whistle. As I
stood on the sidewalk, I remember hearing those who stood near me
disputing as to the probable result of this new attempt at locomotion.
“The ingine never _can_ start all them cars!” “She can, too.” “She
can’t.” “I don’t believe a word of it.” “She’ll break down and kill
everybody,” was the cry.
But the engine did start, and the train came back, and the Boston and
Lowell Railroad continued an independent line of travel for about the
same number of years as its early rival; when, by the “irony of fate,”
its individuality was merged in that of a larger and more powerful
organization,--the Boston and Maine Railroad, of which, in 1895, it
became only a section or division. But let us not regret too much this
accident of time, for who knows what will become of this enormous plant
during the next fifty years, when our railways, perhaps, may be laid in
the “unfeatured air.”
The first factory for the manufacture of cotton cloth in the United
States was erected in Beverly, Mass., in 1787, and in 1790 Samuel
Slater established the cotton industry in Pawtucket, R.I.; but the
first real effort to establish the enterprise was in Lowell, where a
large wooden building was erected at the Wamesit Falls, on the Concord
River, in 1813.
The history of Lowell, Mass., is not identical with that of other
manufacturing places in New England, and for two reasons: first,
because here were gathered together a larger number of factory people,
and among them were the first who showed any visible sign of mental
cultivation; and, second, because it was here that the practice of
what was called “The Lowell factory system” went into operation, a
practice which included the then new idea, that corporations should
have souls, and should exercise a paternal influence over the lives
of their operatives. As Dr. John O. Green of Lowell, in a letter to
Lucy Larcom, said: “The design of the control of the boarding-houses
and their inmates was one of the characteristics of the Lowell factory
system, early incorporated therein by Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell and his
brother-in-law, Patrick T. Jackson, who are entitled to all the credit
of the acknowledged superiority of our early operatives.”
Cotton-mills had also been started in Waltham, Mass., where the first
power-loom went into operation in 1814; but, for lack of water-power,
these could be carried on to a limited extent only. It was therefore
resolved, by gentlemen interested, that the “plant” should be moved
elsewhere, and water privileges were sought in Maine, New Hampshire,
and in Massachusetts. Finally, Pawtucket Falls, on the Merrimack River,
was selected, as a possible site where a large manufacturing town could
be built up. Here land was bought, and the place, formerly a part of
Chelmsford, set off in 1826, was named Lowell, after Francis Cabot
Lowell, who, through his improvements, was practically the inventor of
the power-loom, and the originator of the cotton-cloth manufacture as
now carried on in America.
Kirk Boott, the agent of the first corporation, (as the mills,
boarding-houses,--the whole plant was called), was a great potentate
in the early history of Lowell, and exercised almost absolute power
over the mill-people. Though not an Englishman, he had been educated
in England, had imbibed the autocratic ideas of the mill-owners of
the mother country, and many stories were told of his tyranny, or his
“peculiarities,” long after he ceased to be a resident.
Of his connection with the early history of Lowell, it is stated that,
before the water-power was discovered there, he went as agent of the
purchasers, to Gardiner, Me., and tried to buy of R. H. Gardiner,
Esq., the great water privilege belonging to his estate. Mr. Gardiner
would not sell, but was willing to lease it. Kirk Boott would not
agree to this, or Lowell might now have been on the Kennebec in Maine.
Then he came to Chelmsford, and saw the great Merrimack River and its
possibilities, and set himself shrewdly to work to buy land on its
banks, including the water-power. He represented to the simple farmers
that he was going to raise fruit and wool, and they, knowing nothing of
“mill privileges,” believed him, and sold the greatest water-power in
New England for almost nothing. When they discovered his real design
in buying the land, and the chance for making money that they had
lost, they were angry enough. A song was made about it, and sung by
everybody. It began thus:--
There came a young man from the old countree,
The Merrimack River he happened to see,
What a capital place for mills, quoth he,
Ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-toot, ri-noot, riumpty, ri-tooten-a.
The next verse told how he swindled the farmers by inducing them to
_sell_ the water-power for nothing:--
And then these farmers so cute,
They _gave_ all their lands and timber to Boott,
Ri-toot, ri-noot, etc.
He was not popular, and the boys were so afraid of him that they would
not go near him willingly, for many of them had known what it was to
have his riding-whip come down on their backs. There is one still
living who remembers how it felt. This old boy remembers that one
Fourth of July Kirk Boott raised the English and American flags over
his house, with the Stars and Stripes _under_ the English colors; he
would not change them at the suggestion of an indignant mob who had
gathered, and they did it for him. Kirk Boott’s house and garden were
located on the spot where the Boott Corporation now stands. The house
was a very fine mansion and stood near the river, and the garden was a
wonder to everybody, fruit and flowers were brought to such perfection.
So he did fulfil his promise after a sort to the former owners of
the land, for he raised fruit on some of it, and the wool he raised,
metaphorically, and pulled (as the song intimated) over the eyes of the
deluded farmers.
The Merrimack Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1822, a
factory was built, and the first cotton cloth was made in 1823. It
was coarse in texture,--the kind that might be used to “shoot pease
through,”--though it was not sleazy, but thick and firm, something like
thin sail-cloth, and it costs “two and threepence” (thirty-seven and
one-half cents) a yard.
The first calico printing done in Lowell was on the Merrimack
Corporation, and the prints were of very poor texture and color. The
groundwork was madder, and there was a white spot in it for a figure;
it cost about thirty cents a yard. This madder-color was the product of
an extensive cowyard in the vicinity of the print-works, and the prints
were “warranted not to fade.”
I had a gown of this material, and it proved a garb of humiliation,
for the white spots washed out, cloth and all, leaving me covered with
eyelet-holes. This so amused my witty brother that, whenever I wore it,
he accused me of being more “holy than righteous.” Dyers and calico
printers were soon sent for from England, and a long low block on the
Merrimack Corporation was built for their accommodation and called the
“English Row.” When they arrived from the old country they were not
satisfied with the wages, which were not according to the agreement,
and they would not go to work, but left the town with their families
in a large wagon with a band of music. Terms were made with them,
however, and they returned, and established in Lowell the art of calico
printing.
The “Print Works” was a great mystery in its early days. It had its
secrets, and it was said that no stranger was allowed to enter certain
rooms, for fear that the art would be stolen. The first enduring color
in print was an indigo blue. This was the groundwork, and a minute
white spot sprinkled over it made the goods lively and pretty. It
wore like “iron,” and its success was the first step toward the high
standard in the market once held by the “Merrimack Print.”
Before 1840, the foreign element in the factory population was almost
an unknown quantity. The first immigrants to come to Lowell were from
England. The Irishman soon followed; but not for many years did
the Frenchman, Italian, and German come to take possession of the
cotton-mills. The English were of the artisan class, but the Irish came
as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” The first Irishwomen to work
in the Lowell mills were usually scrubbers and waste-pickers. They
were always good-natured, and when excited used their own language;
the little mill-children learned many of the words (which all seemed
to be joined together like compound words), and these mites would
often answer back, in true Hibernian fashion. These women, as a rule,
wore peasant cloaks, red or blue, made with hoods and several capes,
in summer (as they told the children), to “kape cool,” and in winter
to “kape warrum.” They were not intemperate, nor “bitterly poor.”
They earned good wages, and they and their children, especially their
children, very soon adapted themselves to their changed conditions of
life, and became as “good as anybody.”
To show the close connection in family descent of the artisan and the
artist, at least in the line of color, it may be said here that a
grandson of one of the first blue-dyers in this country is one of the
finest American marine painters, and exhibited pictures at the World’s
Columbian Exposition of 1893.
In 1832 the factory population of Lowell was divided into four classes.
The agents of the corporations were the aristocrats, not because of
their wealth, but on account of the office they held, which was one of
great responsibility, requiring, as it did, not only some knowledge of
business, but also a certain tact in managing, or utilizing the great
number of operatives so as to secure the best return for their labor.
The agent was also something of an autocrat, and there was no appeal
from his decision in matters affecting the industrial interests of
those who were employed on his corporation.
The agents usually lived in large houses, not too near the
boarding-houses, surrounded by beautiful gardens which seemed like
Paradise to some of the home-sick girls, who, as they came from their
work in the noisy mill, could look with longing eyes into the sometimes
open gate in the high fence, and be reminded afresh of their pleasant
country homes. And a glimpse of one handsome woman, the wife of an
agent, reading by an astral lamp in the early evening, has always been
remembered by one young girl, who looked forward to the time when she,
too, might have a parlor of her own, lighted by an astral lamp!
The second class were the overseers, a sort of gentry, ambitious
mill-hands who had worked up from the lowest grade of factory labor;
and they usually lived in the end-tenements of the blocks, the short
connected rows of houses in which the operatives were boarded. However,
on one corporation, at least, there was a block devoted exclusively to
the overseers, and one of the wives, who had been a factory girl, put
on so many airs that the wittiest of her former work-mates fastened the
name of “Puckersville” to the whole block where the overseers lived.
It was related of one of these quondam factory girls, that, with some
friends, she once re-visited the room in which she used to work, and,
to show her genteel friends her ignorance of her old surroundings, she
turned to the overseer, who was with the party, and pointing to some
wheels and pulleys over her head, she said, “What’s them things up
there?”
The third class were the operatives, and were all spoken of as “girls”
or “men;” and the “girls,” either as a whole, or in part, are the
subject of this volume.
The fourth class, lords of the spade and the shovel, by whose constant
labor the building of the great factories was made possible, and whose
children soon became valuable operatives, lived at first on what was
called the “Acre,” a locality near the present site of the North
Grammar schoolhouse. Here, clustered around a small stone Catholic
Church, were hundreds of little shanties, in which they dwelt with
their wives and numerous children. Among them were sometimes found
disorder and riot, for they had brought with them from the _ould
counthrey_ their feuds and quarrels, and the “Bloody Fardowners” and
the “Corkonians” were torn by intestinal strife. The boys of both these
factions agreed in fighting the “damned Yankee boys,” who represented
to them both sides of the feud on occasion; and I have seen many a
pitched battle fought, all the way from the Tremont Corporation (then
an open field) to the North Grammar schoolhouse, before we girls could
be allowed to pursue our way in peace.
We were obliged to go to school with our champions, the boys, for we
did not dare to go alone. These “Acreites” respected one or two of us
from our relationship to the “bullies,” as some of the fighting leaders
of our boys were called; and when caught alone by Acreites coming home
from school, we have been in terror of our lives, till we heard some
of them say, in a language used by all sides, air-o-there owes-o-gose
e-o-the ooly-o-boos’ ister-o-see. (There goes the bully’s sister.) This
language was called Hog Latin by the boys; but it is found in one of
George Borrows’ books, as a specimen of the Rommany or gypsy language.
These fights were not confined to the boys on each side; after
mill-hours the men joined in the fray, and evenings that should have
been better employed were spent in carrying on this senseless warfare.
The authorities interfered, and prevented these raids of the Acreites
upon the school-children, and the warfare was kept within their own
domain. It lasted after this for more than ten years, and was ended by
the “bloody battle” of Suffolk Bridge, in which a young boy was killed.
The agents were paid only fair salaries, the overseers generally two
dollars a day, and the help all earned good wages. By this it will be
seen that there were no very rich persons in Lowell, nor were there any
“suffering poor,” since every man, woman, and child, (over ten years
of age) could get work, and was paid according to the work each was
capable of doing.
The richest young lady of my time was the daughter of a deceased
mill-owner; her income, it was said, was six hundred dollars a year!
And many of the factory girls made from six to ten dollars a week! out
of this, to be sure, they paid their board, which was one dollar and
twenty-five cents a week.[2]
[2] In addition to this, the corporation paid twenty-five cents
a week to the boarding-house keeper, for each operative. But
this sum was soon withdrawn, the girls were obliged to pay it
themselves, and this was one of the grievances which caused
the first strike among the Lowell factory operatives.
By this it will be seen that there could not have been much aristocracy
of wealth; but (as in most manufacturing cities to-day), there was a
class feeling, which divided the people, though not their interests.
For, as has been said, the corporation guarded well the interests of
its employees; and as the mill-hands looked to the factories for their
support, they worked as one man (and one woman) to help increase the
growing prosperity of the city, which had given to them a new and
permanent means of earning a livelihood.
The history of Lowell gives a good illustration of the influence
of woman, as an independent class, upon the growth of a town or a
community.
As early as 1836, ten years after its incorporation, Lowell began to
show what the early mill girls and boys could do towards the material
prosperity of a great city. It numbered over 17,000 inhabitants,--an
increase of over 15,000 during that time.
In 1848 over one-half of the depositors in the Lowell Institution for
Savings were mill-girls, and over one-third of the whole sum deposited
belonged to them,--in round numbers, $101,992; and the new-made city
showed unmistakable signs of becoming, what it was afterwards called,
the “Manchester of America.” But the money of the operatives alone
could not have so increased the growth and social importance of a city
or a locality. It was the result, as well, of the successful operation
of the early factory system, managed by men who were wise enough to
consider the physical, moral, and mental needs of those who were the
source of their wealth.
Free co-educational schools were established in Lowell as early as
1830-1832, and a rule was made by the several corporations that every
child under fourteen should attend them three months in the year.
Master Hills taught the North Grammar School, after it occupied its
present site. I remember him in 1835; and I pause when I think of this
teacher, and wonder if, in some other sphere, he remembers whipping a
little girl to overcome her persistent denials of an accusation made
against her, thereby forcing her to tell a lie. She was accused by one
of her schoolmates of taking a one cent multiplication table from her
desk, and tearing it in two. For this slight offence, he, a strong man,
unheeding her denials of the charge, with a heavy strap, struck with
his whole strength on the tender palm of the little hand of a child of
scarcely ten years. He punished her till she could not see, for pain
and terror, and then she gave in, _whipped into a lie_, and said she
did it.
The punishment over she staggered to her seat, thinking that at last
it was all over. But the end was not yet, for she had to learn by this
early experience that one is but the beginning of a sum, and that she
must tell many lies and keep on telling them, in order to maintain her
position. Her little schoolmates said, “Why did you not say sooner
that you did it, and save yourself all that whipping?” She could not
tell them the truth, for they would not believe her. Her dear mother
said, “If you wanted another multiplication table, why did you not ask
me for one?” But she could not even confess the truth to her. Her good
aunt accosted her with, “You sinner! do you not know what becomes of
liars?” She could not justify herself to avert _that_ awful fate, and
so she went on throwing out lie after lie (a heavy ballast), to save
herself and to maintain her standing as a liar, till she was heartily
sick of the whole matter, and wished that she had stuck to the truth,
even if the master had killed her.
I have known Master Hills to go secretly behind a boy, who was playing
at his desk, and strike him with a heavy strap across the back.
Whipping was an every-day occurrence, and was done before all the
children during school hours. A boy was made to lie across a chair,
and was whipped in that position--not always through his clothing. Let
us charitably hope that this cruel treatment of children was the fault
of the times and of the arbitrary rule that was thought necessary to
govern a community in those days. The day of children’s rights had not
yet dawned.
Master Jacob Graves followed Mr. Hills, and he was the first teacher
that I remember who used moral suasion, and instilled into our minds
what honor among children meant. He taught us to be truthful for
truth’s sake, his rule was mild and pleasant, he never punished with
the rod, and his kind, remonstrating voice was more powerful than any
whipping. In later life, many of his scholars sorrowed with him in his
misfortunes, and now his memory lives in their hearts, a tender and
pleasant recollection.
The first church edifice built in Lowell was St. Anne’s. It was built
under Kirk Boott’s reign; and, without regard to the difference of the
religious opinions of the operatives, the Episcopal form of service
was adopted. Every operative on the Merrimack corporation was obliged
to pay thirty-seven and a half cents a month toward the support of
this church. This was considered unjust by the help, many of whom were
“dissenters,” and they complained so loudly at the extortion, which was
not in the contract, that the tax was soon discontinued.
The Freewill Baptist Church was built largely of money belonging to
over one hundred factory girls, who were induced by Elder Thurston’s
promises of large interest to draw their money from the savings-bank,
and place it in his hands. These credulous operatives did not even
receive the interest of their money, but, believing in him as an elder
of the church, they were persuaded, even a second time, to let him have
their savings. This building has had a curious and eventful history,
“from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” According to Mr. Cowley’s
history of Lowell, nothing had succeeded in it; and, to a believer in
retributive justice, it would seem as if even the building deserved to
be under a ban till those hard earnings were restored. The money wasted
there represents so much of lost opportunity of education, lost means
of comfort and maintenance, lost ability to keep or help the dear ones
at home.
Early in the history of Lowell, Universalism became popular, and a
large congregation, mostly young people, were soon gathered. This quite
frightened those of certain other sects, and their ministers preached
openly against the new doctrine; discussions and controversies were
rife, and whether there was a hell or not, was the chief topic of the
day among the factory people. That there was not was, of course, the
more agreeable, and, with the fearless ones, the more popular side.
There was a very benighted idea in the minds of many as to what this
new religion really was, and “Infidel,” and “Atheist,” were the names
applied by other denominations. Doctrinal feeling was strong, and
young people who went with the “awful Universalists” received no favor
from the other sects. The Unitarians also came under the ban, but the
Universalists were the more condemned; and the good work they tried
to do was hindered in more than one direction by this unchristian
persecution.
As a matter of local history, it may be well to add here, that in
its earlier days Lowell furnished quite a number of distinguished
men. Among its physicians may be mentioned Dr. Elisha Bartlett,
who was widely known as a man of scientific culture and of many
accomplishments; the Daltons, father and sons, later of Boston; and
Dr. Gilman Kimball, the celebrated surgeon. Lieutenant-Governor
Huntington also practised medicine there, as did Dr. John O. Greene,
the antiquary. Wendell Phillips was in a law-office, and John Nesmith,
manufacturer, was lieutenant-governor during a part of Governor
Andrew’s term of office. In Freesoil days John G. Whittier edited a
paper there, and John H. Warland and H. Hastings Weld were in the same
profession. Colonel William Schouler began editorial life in Lowell,
assisted by William S. Robinson (“Warrington”), who went from Concord,
Mass., in 1842. Mr. Robinson also published _The Lowell American_,
one of the first Freesoil papers, from 1849 to 1854. William Worthen,
of the firm of D. Appleton & Co. of New York, was formerly of Lowell,
a Worthen being one of the founders of the city. Warren Colburn of
“Colburn’s Sequel,” the mathematician, was agent of the Merrimack
Mills. John P. Robinson, who was so severely lampooned by the poet
Lowell (“John P. Robinson, he”), moved to Lowell from Dover early in
life. The Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, once Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
lived with his mother on the Tremont Corporation. Major-General B. F.
Butler was one of its most widely known citizens. Henry F. Durant, the
founder of Wellesley College, studied law in the office of his father,
William Smith, and Major-General N. P. Banks was bobbin-boy, and
afterward editor there. The late Rev. W. H. Cudworth, and J. W. Hanson,
D.D., now of Chicago, were cousins and Lowell boys, and were both
chaplains of Massachusetts regiments during the Civil War. James McNeil
Whistler, the painter, was born in Lowell, in 1834.
Lowell has never been a book-publishing place; but it is a curious fact
that the first American edition of Hayward’s translation of “Faust” was
published there in 1840 by Daniel Bixby, afterward of New York.