Memorial of Joseph and Lucy Clark Allen (Northborough, Mass.)

mum IMHK MS 1 if/ mi $>emortal I) OF JOSEPH AND LUCY CLARK ALLEN (NORTHBOROUGH, MASS.) BY t THEIR CHILDREN BOSTON George H. Ellis, Printer, 141 Franklin Street 1891 c&¦v Copyright by Elizabeth W. Allen, i891. 2Lo tfee belobeu memory of out bcoil)£i'£ SDfcomas premiss alien anb tliattilUam ifrancisi alien PREFACE. r -*•I one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joseph Allen,August 15, 1890, brought to gether a family gathering at his old home in North- borough, at which were read sketches of his life prepared chiefly for the grandchildren. With some changes, these form the earlier and the concluding portions of this volume. With letters and other memoranda of our father and mother the record is continued to the end. It is seldom that two lives pass on in such an unbroken course together for so many years ; for, though many changes came, their home remained the centre still for all the scattered family. By a succession of circumstances or perhaps by a special adaptation in themselves, ithad also been the home, from first to last, of more than two hundred persons in many varieties of relations, and for periods of months or years, — for such they wished to make it to all who entered its doors. To select that which should give the best picture of the varied life in the quiet town has been our VI PREFACE aim ;and our hope is that to their old friends this record of our parents' lives may prove a pleasant reminder of the days that are gone. c. w. a. Northborough, Massachusetts, January I,1891. CONTENTS. Fags I. Joseph Allen, i 11. Lucy Clark Ware, 29 111. Family Life, 49 IV. The Home School, 87 V. Autumn Days 120 VI. The Last Years, 169 VII. Memories, 200 MEMORIAL I. JOSEPH ALLEN. " Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children are their fathers." year 1790 is a date that does not seem so THEvery far away. One person in our own family connection, still living, was born in that year, and others we have known whose lives went back many years before that date. But these hundred years have covered a very important period of history. France, England, and our own country were passing through great crises, which seemed to overwhelm all smaller interests. Yet the pictures which come to us from poets and story-tellers of life apart from the great world and in quieter scenes give us a broader view, and the life in a small New England town is not less significant than others. In one of the pret tiest and oldest of these towns, Medfield, this year gave life to a little boy whose career is of special interest to us ;and, for the sake of his descendants, we would gather up what we can find respecting his early days. 2 MEMORIAL Our father, Joseph Allen, was born August 15, 1790, on the farm bought by his ancestors from the Indians in 1649, and stilloccupied by their descend ants.* A little sister had preceded him, who died at the age of seven, but whose sweet memory was never allowed to die out of the affectionate family circle. One sister and five brothers came after him ; and, withthe exception of the little sister mentioned, no one of the band passed from this life before reaching the age of fourscore, and all but one with mental powers unimpaired. The old homestead, through all changes, continued to gather them at intervals with children and children's children. His grandfather, Noah (1719-1804), whom he well remembered in his old age, was a man of mark in the town, having held a king's commission as lieu tenant in the colonial militia, and the first of the family who was spoken of in public records by "the grand old name of gentleman." He was .a man of large frame and extraordinary bodily strength, a stalwart wrestler and a formidable antagonist. He once offered to match himself in "tug of war" against a pair of farm horses, bracing himself against the barn-sill ;but the rope (a new cart rope) broke, and the contest was declared drawn. A later ex ploit was to vault over a cow, when past the age of eighty. In an inventory of his effects occurs the following item: "one—Great Bibble, 3.50; Sundry other Books, 50 cts." which shows how little the * The family was apparently from Norfolk,England, from which, it is likely, came many colonists of Norfolk, Massachusetts. Castle Hill, a low wooded and stony eminence, which gives the name to the Medfield homestead, was so called from a camp of surveyors, who conveyed it to the familyinacknowledgment of hospitali ties received. JOSEPH ALLEN 3 fine qualities of that day were indebted to school learning. The father, Phineas Allen (i764-1 836), was a pros perous farmer, open-hearted, quick-tempered, hos pitable, kindly in his dealings with his fellow-men, and without his father's mighty stature. He had en listed in the Revolutionary Army at the age of six teen, and shared the hardships of those trying times. The grandchildren who lived in the house with him inafter years remember how he liked to have them about him, and to tell them the stories of his own experiences, or the traditions handed down in the family from still earlier times, when the terror of attack from the Indians hung over every village. He used to tell how, under King Philip in1676, on their way from Marlboro to Medfield, which they laid in ashes, the Indians threw shavings from the coop er's shop, which gave to the household part of its winter occupation, into the low window of the house, set them on fire, and then hurried to the village. Fortunately, the shavings fell upon a trap-door lead ing into the cellar. The door fell into the cellar, and the fire was extinguished without further harm. Thirty-two houses in the town were burned. Their mother, Ruth Smith, — quiet, frugal, inde fatigably industrious, and benevolent less from warm impulse, like her husband, than from high principle, — was a true helpmeet, never questioning the duty that lay before her. The children were brought up in habits of self-respect, helpfulness, and religious reverence. The boys were taught to shield their mother and sister from hard or exposing work, such 4 MEMORIAL as often falls to the lot of women in a new country. This habit went far to develop the affection which bound them together through their long lives. The life in their native town was not hard and bare, as in some parts of New England, where sterner religious views prevailed. Their minister was Rev. Dr. Pren tiss, a man of broad and generous mind, of thorough education and free from theological trammels, whose whole aim was the higher life of his people. Deeply religious, as all respectable New Englanders then were, it was happily a religion of character that was set before them, to influence their whole lives. Among the recreations of village life, the dances and other social gatherings, the source of greatest enjoy ment was the singing-school, taught in the long winter evenings. There they were well taught to sing by note the old psalmody so strange to us now ; but, besides this, their love of music was re-enforced by a store of old Scotch and English songs and bal lads. These probably came down by tradition ;and many of them were of the quaintest, others of the most pathetic description. The outward life in the old home was simple and primitive, like that of the period generally, but with elements picturesque and pleasing, which have been so well described by some New England writers. But modes of living are a small part of what we remember of our friends : personal traits are what remain impressed on our minds. To us there seems no great gulf between our lives and those of a cen tury ago, as the different generations of the family have kept up so frequent intercourse. Energetic, JOSEPH ALLEN 5 kindly, and open-hearted they were, with a certain mental alertness and readiness to receive new ideas, so that, with different degrees of ardor, they have taken part in the various movements of the time, moral, theological, and social. Alittle record of the brothers and sister who so often gathered with our father at the old homestead, and who all survived him, does not seem" out of place here, as showing something of the significance of life in a small New England town." Of the second son, Ellis, father of the well-known colony of teachers in West Newton, who died— at the age of eighty-two, the following was written : While constantly supervising and workingupon the farm with his sons, he yet interested— himself in all the great questions of the time, anti-slavery, temperance, peace, the enfranchisement of women, education, and others. His venerable head, with his erect form and elastic step, was seen in nearly all conventions of the advocates of the reforms of the day, in eastern Massachusetts. It has been said of him that he was a true type of the Scotch Covenanters from whom he descended,* with the enlight ened and elevating influences of two and a half centu ries added. His honored and dearly" loved friend, William LloydGarrison, wrote of him: Ishall always hold him inremembrance as one of the tried and true of the old Guard of Freedom, whose feet were planted upon the Everlasting Rock, whose faith and courage never faltered as to the ultimate triumph of the righteous cause.

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