History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

390 HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
The industries of Townsend, aside from agri-
culture, liave been numerous. John Wallace and
his brother, men of Scotch-Irish origin, came here
soon after the settlement of the town, and located
on Nissequassick Hill. They were coopers in Bos-
ton, but chose this town for a permanent residence
on account of the large quantity of white-oak tim-
ber found here. Coopering has been the leading
mechanical pursuit in Townsend since it was in-
troduced by these men. Until within the last half-
century no machinery was used in making barrels
but, since the disappearance of the original growth
of the white-oak, barrels have been made from
white-pine, and machinery has been extensively
utilized in preparing coopering stock. This busi-
ness has brought a large amount of money into
the town. In ISTi, according to the deceiuiial
census of the state, the capital invested in this
branch of industry was $202,700 ; amount of
goods manufactured, $:34.4,25-i. The lumber-mills
of the town are, at present, almost exclusively
used in the interest of the coopering business.
There are two leather-board mills, which turn out
many tons of product annually ; and two grist-
tlie manufacture of spiiniing-wheels, potash, and
cast-iron ware, all of which trades and occupations
are now extinct.
Townsend has had its full share of ingenious
mechanics, the Richardsons, Whitneys, and Ste-
venses ranking in this class. Long ago Levi Richardson,
through the influence of General Varimm,
M. C, became the patentee of a spiiniing-wheel,
and of a self-setting machine for sawing boards.
Samuel Whitney, a blacksmith, was the inventor
of tiie machine known as the Woodworth
Planer. He had the castings made, to which lie
applied the knives and "feeding" part, made by
himself; and he put the machine successfully at
work in presence of men wlio are still among
the living. Neglecting to apply with sufficient beasts."
;
promptness for letters-patent, the place where his
model was stored was broken into, and drawings
taken, from which another model was made.
William Stevens, an excellent machinist, was
the inventor of a self-setting gear for the stave-
saw, wliich is in constant use in the coopering
business, and is a great labor-saving contrivance.
Asa Whitney was a prominent mechanic, from
the same blacksmith-shop of his brother Samuel, to
whom reference has just been made. As a railroad
engineer he was at the head of the profession.
When the Erie Railway was being built, he was
consulted by the directors on the question of its
gauge, to which he gave an elaborate opinion in
favor of the 4-feet 8i-inch gauge, which, had it
been then adopted (as it recently has been), would
have saved the railway millions of dollars. At
the close of his life, in 187-1, he was engaged in
Philadelphia, at the head of the firm of A. Whit-
ney & Sons, in the manufacture of car-wheels.
By his will he left $50,000 to found a chair of
dynamical engineering in the University of Penn-
sylvania. He left a large fortune, and was the
only Townsend man known to the writer who was
mills sent out, ill 1874, $20,000 worth of "corn, ever a millionnaire.
rye, and wheat, ground into meal and tlour. The Let this synopsis of the history of an old town-
town has had clothiers, saddlers, morocco-dressers, ship be closed by a single quotation, which should
wool-carders, and hatters, besides tliose engaged in awaken everywhere a greater res])ect for the mem-
ory of those great minds which, during all the
])ast, have been continually adding to the aggre-
gate of human knowledge and happiness, from
the time of Tubal Cain, the first known cunning
artificer, to that of our own Middlesex County
Morse, whose first message over the wires was,
" "
What hath God wrought !
"The people of the present owe everything to
the past ; and without the accomplishments of
those who have preceded us, man would be simply
a barbarian in tjie wilderness, crouching in a cave,
shivering in the cold, afraid of the thunder, trembling
before the liiihtiiini,', shuddering at the mys-
terious voices of tlie winds, without even a knife
or a hatchet to defend himself against the wild