The First 100 Years of the Northborough Historical Society

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Preface
‘‘The Northborough Historical Society has managed to meld the serious mission of collecting and preserving the history of Northborough with … a sense of community and a spirit of fun. The magic of this combination stems from a talented, generous, and friendly membership.” These words seem as true today as they were in 1995, when Ernest Racine penned them as part of his report as president of the Society. On November 22. 2006 the Northborough Historical Society reaches its one hundredth birthday – a good time to look back at an organization devoted to preserving the past, furthering community, and having fun. A history of such an organization would seem to be a worthy enterprise, perhaps even fun in itself.
Before describing the manner in which our history came to be compiled and acknowledging the people who made it possible, it is necessary to explain what this work purports to be and what it is not. It is not, of course, a history of the town of Northborough, Massachusetts. It is a history of one organization in the town – but the organization most concerned with maintaining a record of the town itself since that town gained its independence more than two centuries ago. Furthermore, Society members over the years have sometimes been town leaders and frequently men and women active in other phases of Northborough life. To read about them is to make contact with people who helped shape the town’s destiny. Although the Society and not Northborough itself is here the star attraction, the town may perhaps be regarded as a featured player.
The Northborough Historical Society is in some respects a microcosm of the community, its activities a reflection of the cares and concerns, the ups and the downs of the town. Was it merely a coincidence, for instance, that the Great Depression was a period of struggle and frustration for the Historical Society as well as for the community
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generally? Did it just happen that (he extraordinary involvement of hundreds of townspeople (not all of them Society members by any means) in the planning and carrying out of the town’s bicentennial celebration of 1966 coincided with the one of the most fruitful periods in the history of the organization? We of the Historical Society have some reason to believe that the narrative which follows will in its way reveal the character and conditions of the community that the Society has sought to commemorate. Northhorongh.
In 2003, with the centennial of the Historical Society on the horizon, it occurred to those attending the monthly meetings of the Board of Museum Trustees, at which the curator and historian make their regular reports, that these meetings might prove an appropiiate setting for the planning and development of such a history. As designated historian. I realized that my office implied a major responsibility for the production of such a work, but I also knew that I might expect assistance from the talented, generous, and friendly members who monthly sit around the meeting table with me in the Society’s archive.
When I asked for such assistance. I was met with the enthusiasm and energy that is typical of this organization. In the first stage of the project, the trustees and curator served mainly as researchers. Relevant topics were identified, and the volunteers began to examine minutes, newsletters, annual reports, newspaper articles, photographs, texts of papers read at meetings, and other memorabilia of the Society, as well as the recollections of longstanding members. These researchers generated a great quantity of information, invariably in a form convenient for the historian, who otherwise would have had a much more daunting task. Inevitably, many of the fruits of their labors would not fit into the pages that follow but will remain on file and be available for future reference. Because this history has been conceived as a popular rather than a scholarly work. I have not included a documentation of sources that would have added considerably to its length and probably interested most of its readers very little.

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Two contributors chose to compose essays. Jodie Martinson on the origins of the Society and curator Ellen Racine on the state of the collection. Their work is incorporated into the history substantially as they submitted it. The former has also supplied the editor with several revealing documents that he otherwise would most likely have missed. The nature of other assignments suggested to the volunteers that they submit their reports in the form of lists and other types of compilation from which the historian could select representative or illustrative selections for inclusion within the text. Carol Bostock researched membership, and Eugene Bostock (not a trustee at the time ) volunteered to examine the finances of the organization. Lynne Desrosier examined physical locations and facilities. Judy Bissett the papers and other programs offered at Society meetings over the century. Judith Gustafson concentrated on regularly recurring and special projects undertaken by the organization. Priscilla Hele was assigned the special task of researching the course of the Society’s developing awareness of collecting contemporary records and artifacts. Robert Kennerly, the associate curator, who did not live to see the history become a reality, offered his insights on musical instruments and paintings in the collection. I have attempted to assimilate the results of these individual researches and to incorporate other topics that did not fall within the scope of these assignments.
As the project developed, the volunteers found themselves reading drafts and suggesting improvements, selecting the illustrations, and engaging in discussions of the many aspects of preparing the manuscript for publication. Along the way the trustees collectively made a vital decision: to devote to the support of this publication a considerable portion of the funds available to them, from these funds, it should be noted, many other expenses essential to the successful operation of the museum and the archive must also be met.
This publication has also been supported in part by a grant from the Northborough Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Thc historian wishes to acknowledge several other contributions to this project. Several trustees assisted the curator in the selection of the illustrations: she has applied her artist’s eye to their arrangement on the

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pages that follow. Ellen is also responsible for the cover design. Ernest Racine’s expertise has been invaluable in preparing the text for the printer. Christine Ellis proofread the text, as she has a number of previous Society publications. And as the dedication of this book suggests, it is also in effect the product of unknowing helpmates – people who kept the organization and the record thereof alive, often in cramped and inconvenient quarters and other adverse conditions, over the course of a century.
For the deficiencies that remain in these pages the historian assumes full responsibility, hopeful that they are not so many as to mar the experience of accompanying the Northborough Historical Society through the course of its first century.

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Introduction: Why in 1906?
Why did the Northborough Historical Society arise when it did? It is clear that the main impetus came in 1906 from Josiah Kent, the pastor of the town’s first Church, as is the fact that he successfully communicated his enthusiasm for such an organization to the dozen or so founding members, The question may therefore be put this way: Why did the idea of a historical society become a vital part of the thinking of Kent and his friends, and why at that particular time?
A historical society was certainly not a new phenomenon in 1906, They had long existed at the state level, Massachusetts having established one as early as 1791. and by the mid-nineteenth century all states cast of the Mississippi River could boast of state historical societies. Most of these organizations were privately funded, their instigators usually educated professional men (although seldom professional historians). Late in the century historical societies began springing up in cities and towns also.
But what brought about historical societies in relatively small communities? What led cities and towns which had never bothered to celebrate their past in any systematic way to begin to do so around 1900? As we shall see, the stated motive of the knot of men and women who established the Northborough Historical Society was to rescue the town’s history from ‘’oblivion.” The fear of losing the past obviously reflects an awareness of change. Memory keeps unusual past events – great storms, spectacular fires, the community’s contribution to great wars – alive, but there exists little incentive to keep systematic records of a way of life that remains substantially the same over the decades and generations.
Early in the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution had altered the character of many New England cities and larger towns and literally created others. Chelmsford, Massachusetts, for instance, is older than nearby Lowell. But when circumstances made the idea of large-scale textile mills on the Merrimack River practicable, a new community quickly

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arose, soon far outstripping Chelmsford in size. Industry also affected villages and small towns. Lacking the dynamic which generated Lowell. Chelmsford and many other New England communities grew much more slowly. Agriculture and small, specialized manufacturing operations predominated.
Northborough’s first textile manufacturer began operation as early as 1814. But the Assabet River is not the Merrimack, and as long as mills dépended on water power, Northborough could never become an important mill town. As the century wore on. however, the Chapin and Wood mills became significant employers locally. Over the course of the nineteenth century, various other manufacturing enterprises developed: makers of combs, buttons, small parts for musical instruments. In 1897. however, the largest group of employed males – nearly 25% of the total – worked as farmers and farm laborers, and another 20% as spinners, carders, weavers, loom fixers, and other mill operatives. Of the others, about 19% are identified as unspecified laborers who worked in a variety of settings, including at that time the labor-intensive aqueduct then under construction through Northborough.
Something that happened that year in Northborough exemplified a development that already was transforming life elsewhere and would shortly have the same effect on Northborough. Electricity came to town in the form of overhead wires strung along the Post Rond (Main Street) to permit the passage through the town of the Worcester and Marlborough Street Railway. The trolley itself did much to change life in town, but the availability of electrical power led to many other changes. After Thomas H. Blair introduced street lights a few years later, businesses, town offices, and residents began to connect. Soon telephone wires also stretched between the poles. Before the end of the century, another novelty began – occasionally – to appear on the Post Road: the automobile. Transportation, communication, the farm, the factory, the home – all were transformed by this new technology, although not always immediately or at the same pace.
We are accustomed to think of new inventions and applications as providers of new opportunities, but they also threaten the old and familiar ways. Would the telephone and ready transportation mean that people would write fewer letters? Evidence in the Society archive and in similar repositories elsewhere indicate that already in the late nineteenth century fewer people were filling several pages in writing to friends and absent

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family members. Would personal mobility subvert home life? Would the advent of motion pictures result in the decline of reading? New ways of doing things raised questions about whether people would continue to be able to perform or even understand the routines typical of their grandparents’ or parents’ lives.
In the new century most Northborough workers continued to be farmers and factory- hands, but work was becoming less steady in the two textile mills, and instead of several small manufacturers of ornamental combs and other small specialty items which had once given employment to dozens of townspeople, the single remaining comb factory was now turning out mainly cheap celluloid items. Farmers’ sons showed much less inclination than their fathers to toil in the stony New England soil.
Another change was the vast number of immigrants pouring into the United Stales. A preponderance of earlier immigrants – English, Irish, Scottish – had been formed in cultures similar to the American. The previous few decades had seen a surge in newcomers from French Canada attracted primarily by the prospect of work in one or the other of Northhorough’s two textile mills along the Assabet River. The newest of the newcomers were more likely to have migrated from southern and eastern European countries and to arrive entirely unacquainted with the English language and American customs. Would this influx overwhelm the predominant culture of the past three centuries?
Those Americans who thought of themselves as Anglo-Saxon, with ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, or at least not long afterwards, tended to be the most concerned. It is hardly an accident that the founding members of the Northborough Historical Society all bore Anglo-Saxon names. Even the considerable minority of townspeople of Irish or French Canadian descent, some of whose families had lived in Northborough for fifty years or more, were rarely to be found among the early members of the Historical Society. Of course the early members, unlike the typical residents of Irish or French lineage, were largely – though not entirely – educated and professional people. Being a descendent of the old stock meant more, however, than did educational level.
In time the membership of the Historical Society would become more broadly representative of an increasingly diverse community, but for many years those desiring membership had to be sponsored by existing members and elected by the full body. There is no record of rejections of
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prospective members as unfit. It is simply the ease that those seeking membership virtually always tended to fit the already recognizable profile. And there is no doubt that the Kents and Howes and Brighams served the organization well, infused it with the spirit to endure at a time when the possibility of the historical record falling into “oblivion” began to seem an ominous possibility.