Pemberton Mills Disaster of 1850 - Lawrence

Pemberton Mill Disaster
Lawrence Massachusetts
January 10, 1860

Disaster Victims. On January 10, 1860, the Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, suddenly collapsed, trapping 900 workers in the rubble. During the rescue attempt, a lantern being used by one of the rescuers began a fire, killing some of those who were trapped but who had survived the collapse.

Most of the 88 victims were women, recent immigrants from Ireland. It was determined that the collapse was caused by inferior cast-iron support pillars, a sample of which can be seen on display at the Lawrence Heritage State Park Visitors' Center. This stone was erected for the grave of the dead left unrecognizable by the disaster.

The Pemberton Mill, built in 1853, was a five story building 280 feet long and 84 feet wide. Its chief engineer was Charles H. Bigelow and its construction was financed by John A. Lowell and his brother-in-law J. Pickering Putnam at a cost of $850,000, "a fortune for those times".

During a financial panic in 1857, Lowell and Putnam sold the mill to George Howe and David Nevins, Sr. for a $350,000 loss. The new owners jammed more machinery into their factory attempting to boost its profits. The mill ran with great success, earning $1,500,000 per year, and had 2,700 spindles and 700 looms in operation at the time of the disaster.

COLLAPSE

Shortly before 5:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon, workers in nearby factories watched with horror as the Pemberton Mill buckled and then collapsed with a mighty crash. According to later court testimony reported by the New York Times, owner George Howe escaped as the structure was falling.

Dozens were killed instantly and more than six hundred workers, many of them women and children, were trapped in the twisted ruins. When the winter sun set, rescuers built bonfires to illuminate their efforts, revealing "faces crushed beyond recognition, open wounds in which the bones showed through a paste of dried blood, brick dust, and shredded clothing."

Around 9:30 p.m., with many people still trapped in the twisted wreck of the factory, someone accidentally knocked over an oil lantern. Flames raced across the cotton waste and splintered wood — some of it soaked with oil. One trapped man cut his own throat rather than be consumed by the approaching flames; he was rescued, but died from his other injuries.^[8] As the fire grew, rescuers, physicians, families of the trapped victims, and spectators were all driven back by the conflagration. The screams coming from the ruins were soon silenced, leaving rescuers to eventually discover only the burned, smoldering remains of “brick, mortar and human bones … promiscuously mingled”.

The Boston Almanac and Business Directory notes the event by describing that:

The Pemberton Mills at Lawrence, Mass., ... (did) fall-in while nearly 800 operatives are at work, and bury many in the ruins. About four hours after the fall, a fire breaks out, and destroys those not extricated from the ruins. More than 115 people perish by the awful catastrophe, and 165 are more or less injured.

The Boston Globe describes the carnage more vividly:

The scene after the fall was one of indescribable horror. Hundreds of men, women, and children were buried in the ruins. Some assured their friends that they were uninjured, but imprisoned by the timbers upon and about them. Others were dying and dead. Every nerve was strained to relieve the poor unfortunates, when, sad to relate, a lantern broke and set fire to the wreck. In a few moments the ruins were a sheet of flames. Fourteen are known to have been burned to death in the sight of their loved ones, who were powerless to aid them.

American Heritage magazine gives this account of the late-afternoon disaster:

Suddenly there was a sharp rattle, and then a prolonged, deafening crash. A section of the building's brick wall seemed to bulge out and explode, and then, literally in seconds, the Pemberton collapsed. Tons of machinery crashed down through crumpling floors, dragging trapped, screaming victims along in their downward path. At a few minutes after five, the factory was a heap of twisted iron, splintered beams, pulverized bricks, and agonized, imprisoned human flesh.

VICTIMS

Estimates of the number killed by the collapse and subsequent fire vary from 90 to 145. Most were recent immigrants, either Irish or Scots, many of them young women. A 2002 fictionalization of the disaster recounted:

Flames spread rapidly, and now terror of fire threatened those waiting to be saved. Mary Bannon, pinned in the wreckage, handed her pay envelope to the friend comforting her and asked that it get to her father. 'Bid him goodbye for me,' she said, 'You will be saved; I will not'.

While Irish and Scots were the majority, the list of the Pemberton Mill's casualties is indicative of New England’s labor force at that time. There were also Yankees from Maine and New Hampshire, immigrants from Germany and Switzerland, and others. All the churches of Lawrence — Baptist, Catholic, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, and Universalist — had parishioners to console after the disaster.

AFTERMATH

The mill above was the new Pemberton Mill

built shortly after the collapse of the first.

The mill still stands today.

The collapse of the Pemberton Mill was determined to have been caused by a number of preventable factors. Ignoring already questionable load limits, extra heavy machinery had been crowded into the upper floors of the factory. Investigators also discovered substandard construction. The brick walls were improperly mortared and supported. The iron pillars supporting the floors were cheap and brittle but had been installed nonetheless.

In the wake of the disaster, area ministers delivered "sermons on God’s inscrutable wrath," but it was apparent that blame lay in the manner in which the factory was built and operated. The Scientific American wrote, "...there is now no doubt that the fall of the building was owing to the most gross negligence and want of fidelity in casting the columns." The tragedy became a rallying point for efforts to improve safety standards in industrial workplaces.

David Nevins, Sr. bought out his partner and rebuilt the mill. After his death it passed to his sons, David Nevins, Jr. and Henry Cotton Nevins. The mill still stands today.

George Howe (1819 – 1899) of Boston was a 19th century merchant, industrialist, and investor. He was, with David Nevins, Sr., co-owner of Pemberton Mill when it collapsed in what is "is likely the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history"^[2] and "one of the worst industrial calamities in American history". According to later court testimony reported by the New York Times, Howe escaped just as the structure was falling.

^{David C. Nevins, Sr. (born 12 December 1809 in Salem, New Hampshire, died 19 March 1881) was a wealthy New England industrialist. He owned the Pemberton Mill, is the namesake of the Nevins Memorial Library, and fathered the Methuen, Massachusetts family of whom an author wrote, "The public spirit and generosity of the Nevins family seems to have no bounds in the town in which they made their home".}

From the Lawrence Eagle Tribune:

Gravestones of Lawrence disaster victims preserved 88 perished in Pemberton Mill blaze

By Yadira Betances

LAWRENCE — At St. Mary Immaculate Conception Cemetery, Jimmy Jacobs has been on a fact-finding mission for five months.

Using a ledger and a map from the 1860s, Jacobs unearthed some of the gravestones of victims from the Pemberton Mill disaster.

"It's exciting," he said. "It means that we can document it for the future."

Pemberton Mill collapsed on Jan. 10, 1860, due to inferior cast-iron support pillars, trapping 900 workers in the rubble. A lit lantern tipped over during the rescue effort, setting the building ablaze and killing 88 people and injuring more than 200.

Most of the 88 victims were women and recent immigrants from Ireland.

Jacobs first learned about the worst mill disaster in the city while in grammar school, and his interest was rekindled last year when he read Alvin Oickle's books, "Disaster in Lawrence: Fall of the Pemberton Mill" and "Pemberton Casualties." Oickle used city and cemetery records in his research for the books.

"I'd heard the story for years and it almost seem like a legend, but seeing the names and their graves brought it home," said Jacobs, director of St. Mary Immaculate Conception Cemetery.

The victims' graves are in clusters, but scattered throughout the cemetery on the Lawrence/Methuen line.

Jacobs went on a fact-finding mission of his own and found 30 grave sites.

What he found astonished and saddened him, he said.

Most of gravestones, while marked, were riddled with misspellings and incorrect ages when compared with the information on cemetery records. A few headstones had sunk underground, and the names, birth dates, countries of origin and epitaphs engraved on them were so well-preserved that they looked new. By contrast, others had been so damaged by acid rain, the weather, and old age that the engravings was no longer readable, and some graves were not marked at all.

"This is an important part of Lawrence history that is dying," said Jacobs, a Lawrence native.

To keep that from happening, Jacobs had put the toppled headstones upright, and, using aluminum and plastic binding, pieced together the stones that have broken.

His hope is to get financial donations to restore the grave markers to their original luster and generate enough interest to preserve them for the 150th anniversary in 2010.

"I've invested 35 years of my life in this cemetery and the city of Lawrence. This is all part of the city and the cemetery history, so it makes it a part of me."

"I couldn't sleep at night knowing I couldn't preserve it for future generations."

Jacobs said the stones are made of marble, which is easy to carve, but does not hold well to the elements. He wants to preserve the stones by using granite, which lasts longer.

Jacobs has an artist's rendering from Rock of Ages in Methuen that shows the restoration of a memorial for a Julia Roberts, who at 11 is the youngest known casualty.

"There is a historical value here and at some point, they'll all be erased completely. It's sad because it is the history of Lawrence and of the whole country."

Bibliography

• Little, George P. (1860). The Fireman's Own Book, Chapter: Destruction of the Pemberton Mills, Lawrence, Mass. . pp. 247-255.
• Oickle, Alvin F. Disaster in Lawrence: The Fall of the Pemberton Mill. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1596295063 .
• Lawrence History Center
  
• Methuen History
• Wikipedia
  

All rights reserved

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino
Acadian & French-Canadian Ancestral Home

Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 - Labor Protest - Lawrence, Massachusetts

The above photo was taken as protesters marched against owners of the mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

My mother sometimes talked about this strike. She was already working in the mills. Immigrant families left Canada in search of work and in hopes of a better life. Agriculture had dried out because our ancestors knew nothing back then about crop rotation but they'd heard there was lots of work in the mills of Fall River, Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts as well as Manchester, New Hampshire. Mills sprung up in many cities and towns. It became a way of life until the mills left in the 1950's and headed south where labor was cheaper than in these northern mills where workers had learned to unionize to protect their rights.

On January 12th, 1912 the labor protest that became known as the "Bread and Roses" strike began in Lawrence.

A new state law had reduced the maximum workweek from 56 to 54 hours. Factory owners responded by speeding up production and cutting workers' pay. Polish women were the first to shut down their looms and leave the mill. As they marched through the streets, workers from all the city's ethnic groups joined them. Over the next months, increasingly violent methods were used to suppress the protest, but the strikers maintained their solidarity. After Congress held hearings on the situation, the mill owners were anxious to avoid bad publicity. They settled with the strikers, bringing to an end a watershed event in American labor history.

The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 changed U.S. labor laws forever.

Background

On January 12, 1912, workers in the American Woolen Company Mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts, opened their pay envelopes to find that their wages had been cut. They took to the streets in protest, beginning a history-making confrontation between labor and capital. The "Bread and Roses Strike," as it became known, broke new ground in several ways. More than half of the workers in the Lawrence textile mills were women and children, and women played a major role in the strike. Most of the workers were unskilled newcomers from the Middle East, southern and eastern Europe. They spoke more than a dozen different languages and practiced a variety of religions and ethnic customs. What bound them together was the need to improve their living and working conditions.

By the turn of the twentieth century, New England's factory towns were generally miserable places. Wages were low, rents were high, and living conditions were crowded and unhealthy. The factory floors were brutally hot in summer and painfully cold in winter. The machinery was dangerous; pressure to speed up production increased the risk of accident and injury.

The photo below is that of a "spinner" girl. Girls and boys worked as young as ten years of age in the mills. It was the same for bobbin girls or lap boys, bobbin girls kept the spinners supplied with bobbins as needed. I really don't know what my mother started as in the mills but I do know that as far back as I can remember she was a weaver in the weave room. I remember my brother being a bobbin boy when he started working in the mills. Later he worked in the "Mule Room". Actually, it was really the Spinning Room but it was called the "Mule Room" simply because the spinning machine was called a "spinning mule". My grandfather, aunts and uncles were all weavers. During World War II the Lawrence Mills wove material for army uniforms as well as blankets.

Under Massachusetts law, schooling was compulsory for children under age 14, but poverty forced many parents to lie about their sons' and daughters' ages and send them to work in the mills. One boy, asked if he'd like to go to school, said that he would love to, but he wanted to eat. My mother was eleven years old in January of 1912 and had left school in sixth grade to work in the mills.

In response to reports on the deplorable conditions at the mills, the Massachusetts legislature voted to reduce the maximum workweek from 56 to 54 hours. The law took effect on January 1, 1912. Although the legislation was intended to help the workers, many of them feared, correctly, that the mill owners would simply speed up production and cut their pay by two hours a week.

When workers opened their first paychecks in January and discovered that what they feared had in fact come to pass, a near-riot broke out. Polish women were the first to shut down their looms and leave the factory; they marched through the streets of Lawrence shouting "short pay!" They were soon joined by other workers drawn from the city's many different ethnic groups.
Because the country's most established labor organization, the American Federation of Labor, drew its membership from mostly white, English-speaking skilled craftsmen, it had no interest in a strike that involved women and unskilled, foreign-born workers. The AFL denounced the Lawrence protest as "revolutionary" and "anarchistic."

The owners were initially unconcerned. Without the assistance of the AFL, the Lawrence workers would never be able to sustain a strike. But the more radical Industrial Workers of the World, (I.W.W.) stepped in and sent organizers to Lawrence. Relief committees were formed to provide food, medical care, and clothing to strikers and their families. One magazine reported, "At first everyone predicted that it would be impossible to mold these divergent people together, but aside from the skilled men, comparatively few [broke the strike and] went back to the mills...."

The strikers employed some new tactics. Large groups went in and out of stores, not buying anything but effectively disrupting business. Huge marches were organized, with strikers singing songs, chanting, and carrying banners. One reporter wrote, "It was the spirit of the workers that was dangerous. They are always marching and singing."

One group of women carried a banner proclaiming, "We want bread and roses too." Roses signified the respect due to them as women, rather than just as cheap labor. The slogan caught on and provided the refrain for a popular new song—and the name of one of the most important events in American labor history. Once it was clear that the strikers had solidarity and leadership, management and city officials responded with force. The state militia broke up meetings and marches; soldiers sprayed protesters with fire hoses in frigid winter weather.

Bread and Roses by James Oppenheim

As we come marching in the beauty of the day, A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray, Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses, For the people hear us singing "Bread and roses, bread and roses." As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men, For they are women's children and we mother them again, Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes; Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread but give us roses! As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread. Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew. Yes it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses too! As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days. The rising of the woman means the rising of the race. No more the drudge and idler - ten that toil where one reposes, But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses!

In February, children of strikers were sent to live with sympathetic families in other cities, a tactic that had been used successfully in Europe. The exodus of the children was a public relations disaster for the Lawrence authorities, and they forbade children to leave the city. On February 24th, a group of defiant mothers accompanied their children to the railroad station. Police surrounded and brutally clubbed women and children alike, then threw them into patrol wagons; 30 women were detained in jail.

Newspapers reported this ugly scene, and people all around the country were outraged. A congressional investigation began. As witnesses described working conditions in the mills and the events of the strike, President William Howard Taft ordered an investigation into industrial conditions in Lawrence and throughout the nation.

By March, the hearings had caused so much negative publicity that the American Woolen Company decided to settle. On March 12, 1912, management agreed to the strikers' demands for a 15% pay raise, double pay for overtime, and amnesty for strikers. The striking workers had demonstrated a powerful lesson: even traditionally powerless groups such as women and recent immigrants could prevail if they worked together.

Bread and Roses Mural

Here is what the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Labor Union said about it:

"One of the most prolific strikes in United States history was the Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. On the heals of a labor victory in legislation, reducing the work week from fifty-six to fifty-four hours, employers in Lawrence’s mills reacted by slashing wages to compensate for lost work. The mill owners expected their workers to be unhappy about the slash in pay, but did not expect the full scale retaliation that followed.

Lawrence at the turn of the century was a city of immigrants from many different backgrounds. These immigrants worked in Lawrence’s mills, and because of their different ethnic backgrounds, mill owners believe that the workers would not be able to organize because of ethnic differences. The owners proved to be wrong. In the first week of the strike, angry workers walked from mill to mill hurling bricks and stones through mill windows encouraging workers in those mills to walk off the job as well as a result of the pay cut. During the first week 14,000 workers walked off the job in Lawrence and were followed by 9,000 more in the coming weeks.

The Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW or “Wobblies,” took a major role in orchestrating and leading the strike. They successfully organized the different ethnic groups who lived and worked together and raised the money necessary to feed and provide for the strikers and their families. Many children were sent away to other cities in order to maintain the resources for the striking workers. This move gained tremendous sympathy from the public, and therefore the factory owners attempted to make sure this practice was stopped immediately. On February 24, 1912, they sent police officers to prevent some mothers and children from leaving Lawrence on a train to Philadelphia. The officers beat up the women and children and caused a public relations nightmare that led to a Congressional investigation of the strike. The owners realized that they had been beaten and finally came to terms with the IWW.

The true heroes of this strike were the women of the city of Lawrence. Women’s neighborhood associations were focused more the womanhood than ethnic identity, and thus became more inclusive and unifying which significantly helped the IWW to organize the striking workers and their families. Women also were prolific forces on the picket lines. They were better than the men at finding scabs who were attempting to cross picket lines, and were often more militant than their male counterparts."

Sources

Mass Moments

Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions, by Tom Juravich, William F. Hartford, James R. Green (University of Massachusetts Press, 1996). Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology, by Joyce Kornbluh (Charles H. Kerr Publishing, 1988). Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream by Bruce Watson (Viking, 2005).

Massachusetts AFL-CIO at http://www.massaflcio.org/1912-bread-and-roses-strike

Labor Notes http://labornotes.org/node/679

All rights reserved

Lucie LeBlanc Consentino
Acadian & French-Canadian Ancestral Home

My Hometown: Methuen, Massachusetts

My Hometown: Methuen, Massachusetts

At the time of the earliest white settlers, what is now Methuen was part of Haverhill. This area extended north of the Merrimack River, westward to Dracut. Friendly Penacook Indians used the bands of the Merrimack and Spicket Rivers to hunt and fish from 1666 to 1683, and about this time residents of Haverhill and Andover settled in the eastern and southern parts of this territory that would one day be. (Source: Early Methuen History by Dan Gagnon)


The City Clerk of Methuen is the guardian of old town meeting records dating from the incorporation of the town in 1726 through the present. A few years ago, the mayor asked me if I might be interested in transcribing these town meeting records. I was indeed quite interested in pursuing this work for two reasons: firstly, it would help all residents of this city known as the "Town of Methuen" to research not only the lives of their ancestors but to understand the work they had done as the fathers of our wonderful town; secondly, I as an Acadian researcher. I knew that early in 1756 Acadians had been exiled to the then village of Methuen. In fact, some 2,000 Acadians had been deported from their lands, in what we know today as Nova Scotia, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Acadians had petitioned the Selectmen of the various villages and towns they lived in either because their children were taken from them or because they were being mistreated by the townspersons who had been assigned their care. Many had no clothes, no food and no medical care. All of these petitions would be sent to the General Court in Boston and today these can be found in the Massachusetts State Archives under the title "French Neutrals" volumes XXIII and XXIV.

As a result of delving into local history, I learned a whole lot more than I had bargained for. Names I had so often heard over the years were en fleshed as I began to read about them in the old town records. Some had served in one capacity or another as the town was established and grew. A real thrill was when I came across a copy of the Declaration of Independence that had been transcribed by Town Clerk Richard Whittier.

At the March 8th, 1775 town meeting, one of the articles was "To see what the Town will act concerning providing bayonets for the Minutemen".

Another article for the April 22nd meeting in 1776 asked for a vote to support the Revolution: "To see if the Inhabants (Inhabitants) in Said meeting consider and etermen (determine) whether they will give their consent that the House of Representatives of this State of Massachusetts) Bay in New England together with the Consel (Council) if they consent in one Body with the House and by equel (equal) voice should Consent agree on and enact such a Constitution and form of Government for this State as the Said House of Representatives and Counsel as aforesaid on the fullest most mAtt (At)er deliberation shall judge will most conduct to the Safty (Safety) Peace and Happiness of this State in all after successions and Generations"

The next entry was written on July 17th, 1776 as follows:

Ordered that the Declaration of Independence be printed and a coppy sent to the Ministers of each Parish of every Denomination within this State and that they generally be required to read the same to their Respective Congregations as soon as Divine Service is ended in the afternoon of the first Lord Day after they shall have received it and after such publication hereof to deliver the Said Declaration to the Clerks of their several Towns or Districks who are hereby required to record the same in their Respective Town or Districts Books there to remain a Perpetual Memorial thereof. In the name and by order of the Counsel –

A true coppy attest John Avery Dystrict Secy

The above order was followed by the Declaration of Independence being entered into the record as shown in the above photo. It was then signed as follows:

Signed by order and in behalf of the Congress
John Hancock President
Attest, Charles Thomson Secretary
A true coppy Richard Whittier Town Clerk

As a result of getting so involved in the history of Methuen I learned first hand how America was built.

Yes, we read our history books and we think we understand all of it but I now realized what people across colonies of this country went through to obtain freedom from England and its king. It was an enlightening history lesson I shall never forget. There are no books that could have brought this reality home to me as did working in the actual records that spoke of the men elected by townsmen to attend meetings in Boston. The sacrifices the townspeople made when 156 men went off to fight in the American Revolution - how they provided ammunition provisions and blankets for them and even contributed to paying them while they served so that their families would not be in want. Townspeople took care of townspeople across the land.

It was exciting to read about the Continental Congress that was to take place in Philadelphia and then to transcribe the Declaration of Independence. What an experience!

When done, I knew that those transcriptions would help so many local people with their family genealogies. Names like Sargent, Rogers, Frederick, Dummer, Russell, Swan, Searles, Nevins, Bodwell, How and so many other founding families.

Now in the process, my second goal was also accomplished when I came across entries the Selectmen had made that concerned the "French families" - those French families were none other than the Acadians or "French Neutrals" who had been deported and exiled to Methuen. To that end, I found the following entries:

At the same meeting, the Town voted and made a new list of jurors. And at the same meeting, the Town voted not to fetch the French family from Amesbury.

We, the subscribers, being chosen a committee to reckon with Capt. Stephen Barker, Town Treasurer, we have proceeded, and have reckoned what he was to receive from the constables, for the years 1756-1757-1758 and 1759, both by rates and notes, and also eleven pounds and nineteen shillings, which he received, that was allowed by the Province to the Town, for providing for the French; and also four pounds, three shillings and two pence which he received from the sheriff of the County of Essex, bestowed on this Town towards the support of the school, making in whole ninety seven pounds, eleven shillings and one penny; and we find his orders to pay out of the Town’s money amount to one hundred and eight pounds, ten shillings and five pence, which is ten pounds, nineteen shillings and four pence more than what he had orders to receive as aforesaid.

Methuen, January 19, 1761

Daniel Bodwell Ebenezer Barker } Committee

We find there is due to the Town from the Province 12-13-0.
January the 19, 1761, on adjournment, the Town accepted the above reckoning and voted that it should be recorded.

Petitions of the Acadians exiled to the Town of Methuen in Essex County
From Volume XXIII at the Massachusetts State Archives we find these petitions from the Acadians to the General Court while they were exiled in the then Village of Methuen.

In the House of Representatives, September 10, 1756

Voted that thirteen of the French Inhabitants now residing in Gloucester be removed to Wenham and that the other eleven now at the Said Town be removed to Methuen and that the Town of Gloucester be at the charge of their removal.

Sent up for concurrence, T. Hubbard, Speaker.

In Council, September 10, 1756, read and concurred, Thomas Clarke, Deputy Secretary - Consented to, W. Shirley

Page 317:

Bill of Captain William Allen, John Low Jr, Thomas Rand. Paid John Mallen for conveying John Muise & family to Methuen.
Bills for Joseph Douset & his family.
January 1756 to May 22nd - Bills for John Muse and family.

Page 402:

To the honorable his Majesty's Council of his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England now sitting at Boston, May twenty-fifth, 1757.

The petition of the Selectmen of the Town of Methuen whose names are hereunto subscribed, Humbly sheweth that your petitioners and their predecessors in the same office have taken great care and pains to support the French people which were ordered to dwell in our Town in such manner as might be least cost and charge to the Province and the necessary and unavoidable cost we have been at for their suport, we have exhibited herewith prayihng that your honors would be pleased to order that the same may be paid to our Town - all which is humbly presented by

John Bodwell, William Russ, Stephen Barker } Selectmen of Methuen

Page 403:

Methuen, March 2, 1757

September 1756 - Received a family of French people of the late inhabitants of Nova Scotia, viz., John Muse and his wife & children, that is his sons and three daughters (viz.) Enoch, about twenty years old; Joseph, about ten years old; Lawrance, about eighteen years old; John, about twelve years old; Joseph, about ten y ears old; Charles, about eight yeras old; Paul, about nine months old; and Margaret, about sixteen years old; and Lydia, about six years old; Mary about four years old. The wife of the Said John hath been very sickly the whole time she hatch been in our Town and the whole family unaccustomed to labor, having chiefly got their livelihood by hunting in their own county.

Daniel Bodwell, Ebenezer Barker ] Selectmen of Methuen

Methuen, May 23^rd, 1757

An account of what we the subscribers have delivered to the above named French since the second day of March last.

John Bodwell, William Russ, Stephen Barker } Selectmen of Methuen.

Page 464

Methuen, September 24th, 1757

To his Exelllency Thomas Pownall Esquire, Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England and to the Honorable his Majesty's Council of Said Province.

We the Subscribers, Selectmen of the Town of Methuen, humbly present the following for your Excellency's and your Honors' allowance, being a true and just account of the necessary cost and charge from the first day of June last past to the date hereof, for the support and relief of French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, which were ordered by the General court to dwell in our Town, namely, John Mewis (Mius) and his wife and nine children (viz.) Enoch, Lawrants (Laurent), Margaret, John, Joseph, Charles, Lydia, Mary and Paul. The eldest of which children is about twenty years old and the youngest is about one year and a half old and the woman during the time of this account hath been very sickly and helpless. We have carefully avoided unnecessary charges and made the account as low as we could, consistent with humanity and justice.

John Bodwell, William Russ, Stephen Barker } Selectmen of Methuen.

Page 547

His Excellency Thomas Pownall Esquire, Governor, and to the honorable gentlemen of the Council of Boston and honorable House of Representatives,

The humble petition of Lawrence Mieuse (Mius) most humbly sheweth

That the Selectmen of Methuen have about the beginning of last March sent him & his brother to work promising them the same wages that any had in place, which work they continued two months. But going for their wages your petitioner had three yards of old linen priced at 70 the yard, two pounds dried cod & one pound of hog's fat, his brother having little more if any. Your petitioner's family consisting of twelve persons have had allowed them by the town six pounds pork per week & one bushel Indian corn, which the Selectmen tell them will be reduced to half this winter. Your petitioner's brother has done work to the value of three pistoles & 15/, which he going to demand was not only refused payment butpushed out. The man following with a fire shovel struck him in the sie with which made him spit blood all that day and caused a great sore which has disabled him from work ever since. The same person says if it had not been for fear of justice he would as soon kill any of them as a frog. And as for yor petitioner's young family and hmself are almost naked for want of work or the price of his labor and alllodged in a very bad house. He has another brother who worked seven months for another man and would give him nothing, for which he had left him, but the man followed him to the house and almost stripped him naked and said if his father stood in his defense he would split his head. And when two poor women lay in they went to the Selectmen to get boards to stop the snow from blowing in on their beds and a couple of old little blankets to cover them, being plundered of everything valuable when moved from their farms, which they now oblige them to pay for. With sundry other grievances too tedious to mention, all of which he submits to your wise consideration not doubting your assistance and in hope of which he shall for your honors as in duty bound ever pray.

Lawrence + Mieuse
(his mark)

Page 548

In Council, January 10, 1758, read and ordered that James Minot Esquire, with such as the honorable House shall join be a committee to consider of this petition and report what they judge prooper to be done in the affair.

Sent down for concurrence, A. Oliver, Secretary.
In the House of Representatives, January 10, 1758
Read and concurred and Colonel Choate & Colonel Buckminster are joined in the affair.
T. Hubbard, Speaker

Volume XXIV Page 14

Methuen, April 15, 1758
Accounts, October 1, 1757 to April 15, 1758

The Said family consists of twelve in number, viz. John Muse and his wife and ten children, namely Enoch, Lawrence, John, Joseph, Charles, Paul, Margaret, Lydia, Mary and Susanna. The eldest whereof is about twenty-one years of age and the youngest about five months old.

Ebenezer Barker, James Ordway, John Mansur } Selectmen of Methuen. Pages 236 to 238

Accounts, March 17, 1759 to December 7, 1759

Extraordinary expenses in sickness with the measles.

Also to taking care of John Mius seven weeks, a French man that was sent by said court to Methuen, but taken sick in said Tewksbury with the fever and afterward the fever and age.

Page 283

To his Excellency Thomas Pownall Esquire, Captain General & Governor in Chief in and over his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, to the honorable his Majesty's Council and House of representatives in said province in General Court assembled at Boston, March 19^th, 1760.

The petition of John Mius, late inhabitant of Cape Sable, humbly sheweth that your petitioner, when he was brought to New England dwelt some time at Cape Anne and then was carried with my family to the town of Methuen, where we have continued more than three years, where many circumstances occur to set forward my calamity, some of which I beg leave to mention to your Excellency and your honors (viz.) that my wife hath (been?] very poor and sickly ever since she been removed at such a distance from the salt waters and being accustomed only to fishing & hunting(?) for a livelihood at Cap Sable and neigther myself or my sons at all used to husbandry we cannot get such wages for our labor at Methuen or in the nieghboring towns as we might at Cape Anne and two of my sons spent the time the two last summers at Cape Anne with much more profit and advantage than they could have done where we now dwell and three of my sons are determined and promised to go thither again the summer ensuing and although under these disadvantages I am obliged to be very chargeable to the Selectmen of Methuen for the support of my family yet I would request nothing more of the province toward the support of myself, my wife and ten children than a house to dwell in at Cape Anne, I and my sons would choose rather than a house to dwell in and thirty dollars a year at such distance from the sea coast as we now live.

Your petitioner therefore humbly prays with submission that your Excellency and your honors would be pleased to take his case into your most wise and serious consideration and so order that your petitioner with his family may be speedily removed from the town of Methuen to the town of Gloucester and your petitioner as in duty bound will ever pray.

John Mius

In the House of Representatives, March 22, 1760

Read and ordered that the petitioner have liberty to remove himself and family from the town of Methuen to the town of Gloucester. But that he be obliged to subsist himself and family after such removal without any assistance from the government.

Sent up for concurrence, J. White, Speaker.

In Council, March 24, 1760, read and concurred, A. Oliver, Secretary,
Consented to, T. Pownall.

Pages 293 and 294

To his Excellency Thomas Pownall Esquire, Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, to the honorable his majesty's Council and House of Representatives of said province in General Court assembled at Boston, April 1760.

The memorial of John Mius, a late inhabitant of Cape Sable, but now residing in Methuen, humbly sheweth.

That your memorialist, laboring under many difficulties and disadvantages in the place of his residence (which occasioneth him to be very chargeable to the selectmen) he sent his petition to this great & honorable court at their last session. In which petition he desired to be removed with his family from Methuen to the town of Gloucester. There to subsist himself and family without any help or assistance from this government, only a house to dwell in at Gloucester. How be it the order of this great and wise court on the said petition is, that the petitioner have liberty to remove himself and family from the town of Methuen to the town of Gloucester, but that he be obliged to subsist himself family after such removal without any assistance from the government. Now your memorialist humbly conceives that as he hath a great family and some of them small & helpless, a comfortable house to dwell in at Gloucester would be much less cost and charge to the government than what the generality of my country people have bestowed on them according to their circumstances. You memorialist humbly prays that your Excellency and your honors would be pleased in your wisdom to reconsider his case and circumstances and so order that I may have a house to dwell in at Gloucester provided at the cost of the province, that so with hard labor and industry I may subsist my self and family without any further charge to the government and your memorialist (as in duty bound) shall ever pray,

Test. Ebenezer Barker

John + Mius (his mark)

In the House of Representatives, April 17, 1760
Read and in answer ordered to the Selectmen of Gloucester be directed to procure a suitable house for the petitioner at the cost of the Province.
Sent up for concurrence, J. White, Speaker.
In Council, April 19, 1760, read and concurred, A. Oliver, Secretary.
Consented to, T. Pownall

Pagaes 346 and 347

June 24, 1760
Essex SS.
To the Selectmen of the town of Bradford in the said county,

Pursuant to the power and directions given by the Great and General Court to a committee appointed to proportion the French inhabitants to the several towns in said county.

You are hereby required forthwith to cause to be removed to the town of Newbury Ann Lower, alis Dosset (Doucet), Hanna, Margaret, & Eliz. Dossit (Doucet) & the Widow Rashne, five French Neutrals, which were sent by order of the General Court to you & then deliver to one or of the Selectmen of Newbury.

You are also to deliver Mary Richards, a French Neutral girl, to one or more of the Selectmen of Methuen.

And you are to make return to me of your doings in the premises with the names of the persons so removed and the particular charge of removing them.

Salem, June 24, 1760 - Benjamin Lynde

COUNCIL MINUTES: pages 410 through 422

July 20, 1760

Methuen
Marron Tebedo (Thibodeau) age 8, from Andover
Joseph Leblong (LeBlanc) from Amesbury age 63
Margaret Leblong (LeBlanc) & infirm age 61
Mary Richards age 13 from Bradford

Page 376

Amesbury, August 7^th, 1760

Honorable sir agreeable to your order sent to us to remove Joseph Leblong & Margaret, his wife, two of the French Neutrals, from our town of Amesbury to the town of Methuen, being twenty miles or upwards. Pursuant to said order we have removed the said Joseph Leblong (LeBlanc) & Margaret, his wife, from the town of Amesbury to the town of Methuen, & have delivered them to the selectmen of said town & herewith send you account of the charge of removing them.

Thomas Rowell, Stephen Barlett J^r, Eph. West, Selectmen of Amesbury.

I was able to connect the genealogies of these Acadian families who had been exiled to Methuen. For instance, John (Jean) LeBlanc was the son of Jean-Simon LeBlanc and Jeanne Dupuis who had been exiled to Westboro, Massachusetts.

As a result of my experience, I look forward to researching more local history and have been doing research in Lawrence, Ma where I grew up.

© Lucie LeBlanc Consentino
Acadian & French Canadian Ancestral Home