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CHAPTER VIII
"East Stoughton wants a divorce."
"East Stoughton has been and is today an unmitigated hindrance
and nuisance to Stoughton ... But she should remember that the centre
can ... deal with her in a very parental way, and in a manner that will
give her more respect for her parent than she has ever shown before."1
IT WAS October 1887 when Lemuel W. Standish, editor of The Stoughton Sentinel, wrote those caustic words. He was venting his frustration over recent events in his town, but he was wrong in one critical respect. This was no case of a willful child. Instead, a bad marriage, one that had endured for more than 160 years, was about to come to a bitter end.
For almost a decade and a half after the Civil War, the town of Stoughton, including its eastern village, saw prosperous times. In 1869, for example, there were eight boot and shoe factories just in East Stoughton, and the tiny crossroads was beginning to come to life. The two grocers, O.B. Crane and Lorenzo Wade, did a brisk business in the village, as did the two blacksmithing concerns of S.W. Haley and Waite & Son. John Holmes was the proprietor of the stables, and not too distant was the carriage shop of Bartlett Collins. This business, begun in 1856, was located on the corner of present-day East Main and Bartlett Streets.
East Stoughton also had a hotel (converted to apartments in 1906), run by Ezekiel Briggs, and its guests were mainly associated with the shoe trade. Besides the shoe manufacturers, three other men also played important roles in village life in 1869: Silas S. Gifford, the local doctor; Christopher Dyer, justice of the peace; and Abraham Holmes, postmaster.2
But it was the shoe industry, of course, which gave vitality to East Stoughton. The Littlefields, Tuckers, Blanchards and a few others produced footwear of excellent quality which made their names known far beyond the borders of Massachusetts. Their factories were the economic backbone of the village. Though we have no figures relating specifically to East Stoughton, we do know that in the entire town of Stoughton there were 811 people employed in 1875. Of these, 571 (70%) worked in the boot and shoe industry, and the value of the goods they produced totaled $1,157,632.3
Some writers were even given to overstatement when describing the sense of industry and well-being evident in little East Stoughton. One Boston man wrote that: The people are too busy to trouble each other, and too well off to move away; and so a peaceful, industrious, contented, and increasing population crowds the place. Perhaps becoming a bit carried away, the visitor continued by describing East Stoughton as a thriving town, with busy manufactories, noble private dwellings, churches, school-houses, handsome streets adorned with shade trees, and the elements of "health, peace, and competence"... distinctly visible on every hand. Every breeze that sweeps along brings "health;" no meddlesome and storytelling neighbors mar the "peace;" and as to "competence," one has but to stay, and stick closely to the last [a model of a foot used by a shoemaker], and he is sure of it.4
Throughout the 1860's and 70's the village maintained basic public services. Fire protection came in the form of the Bay State Engine Company No. 3, which was manned by about fifty volunteer firemen. They answered fewer than a dozen alarms a year through the 1870's, and the majority of these were for woods fires.
The early fire companies, including the one in East Stoughton, were as much fraternal organizations as firefighting squads. Many a comfortable hour was spent around a warm stove in the Engine House planning the next firemen's dance, social or picnic. The members thrived on competition, and it was common for one engine company to challenge another to some kind of contest, perhaps rope-pulling or a race to an imaginary fire alarm. After the muster, and providing that the affair hadn't ended in fisticuffs, the challengers and their guests would repair to the Engine House Hall for dinner.
In 1877 the fire department underwent a reorganization which sought to increase efficiency and decrease expenses. In June of that year - after at least of month of no regularly organized fire companies - Stoughton voted to employ ten experienced men to take charge of each engine company. The squads were to have monthly meetings, for which their members would be paid $10 per year.
In 1880 the East Stoughton company, led that year by Hiram Blanchard, took delivery of a brand new steamer, purchased from the Silsby Manufacturing Company of Seneca, New York. In addition to the $3,000 fire engine, the town also voted to build a new reservoir for the village. In the days before a public water system was installed, these reservoirs were strategically placed throughout the town. In case of fire, the department's pumpers drew water from them.
There was still very much of a small town flavor to the East Stoughton fire company even throughout the 1880's. "They are ready whenever duty calls," reported Chief H.F. Woodard in 1881. But duty called them only ten times that year, and even then it usually called them into the woods to douse brush fires. The following year one alarm was sounded for a fire in G.H. Robbins' barn. The Bay State Company arrived promptly and put out the blaze, and to show its gratitude the town paid C.H. Felker $9.31 for refreshments for the firemen.5
If the fire department was marked by an air of informality, so too was the dispensing of law and order. "The law" in East Stoughton during this period was invested in the person of Cornelius Geary, village constable. In East Stoughton, as in most places, the great majority of those arrested were charged with drunkenness or related crimes, such as assault and battery or disturbing the peace. In 1887 Constable Geary earned his $250 salary by delivering eighty-one of the 125 arrested to the only jail cell in the village (upstairs in the Engine House) for a good night's rest.6
The two East Stoughton schools were much more difficult to manage, and the main problems appear to have been overcrowding and lack of student and parental interest in education. As early as 1865 the Stoughton school committee was lamenting the fact that apathy and disinterest were the rule rather than the exception. The District No. 7 school, later called the Littlefield, was especially worrisome. "This school has for some time had a most unenviable reputation," reported the committee. "The numerous absent and tardy scholars were a sore trial to the teacher, and he sought by personal visitation at their homes, to awaken more interest among the parents ... Disappointment was his reward."
Throughout the period from 1865 to 1888 there were approximately 300-350 youngsters in the East Stoughton schools, and overcrowded classrooms were always a problem. The school committee's report for 1871-72 contained one statement that would make any present-day teacher cringe. It said that "Some of our teachers, during the past year, have labored under much disadvantage on account of the crowded state of their rooms. Sixty, seventy, eighty and even ninety children have been crowded into one room."7
The issue of a high school also remained a sore spot between East Stoughton and the centre. The coming of the Civil War buried the question for a while, but it resurfaced in 1864 when Nathaniel Wales moved that the town spend $1,500 for high schools: $900 for the centre and $600 for East Stoughton. This finally passed, but there was still significant opposition from among the villagers.
One historian has written that the money appropriated for East Stoughton wasn't expended until 1867, when Mr. George Sarley was hired to supervise the high school.8 If this is correct, the experiment was shortlived indeed, for by 1871 some villagers were requesting that the town pay to transport students from outlying areas into the Centre so they could attend high school there.
In 1874 the school committee member from East Stoughton complained that "There being no means of public conveyance from our village to the center of town, and the distance being too great for daily travel on foot, our scholars have practically no benefit from the high school." In order to better prepare the village youngsters, the committee upgraded the program at the Gifford School, opened in 1873. When a youngster had successfully completed the grammar school course and had been examined for the high school, he could take courses at the Gifford toward credit for his first two years of high school.9
The social life of the village in the years following the Civil War centered around the two churches. The Ladies Circle of the Baptist church undertook a variety of religious and community projects designed to improve the quality of life in East Stoughton. Several other members of the church were active in the Old Stoughton Musical Society, the oldest choral society in America, its origin predating the Revolution.
The year 1870 saw the installation of the familiar clock in the steeple of the Baptist church. A Howard clock - said to be the only one of its kind outside of the company museum - it has been maintained by the town for 118 years, and it remains in good working order.10
Neither were the parishioners of St. Michael's idle in this period. Finally, after more than thirty years of traveling either to nearby towns or to local homes or halls to hear Mass, the first St. Michael's Church was dedicated on August 11, 1872. Bishop (later Archbishop) Williams of Boston presided over the ceremony, and the dedicatory sermon was delivered by Bishop Lynch of Charleston, South Carolina.
One history of the Archdiocese of Boston notes that this first building was "an unpretentious wooden church," and that it was administered by Reverend Michael Burns of Randolph. In February 1887 East Stoughton and Holbrook were made a parish and Reverend James J. Kelly was appointed pastor of the two Catholic churches in those towns. Father Kelly lived in Holbrook and drove in a horse and carriage to East Stoughton on Sundays. He was likewise summoned for sick calls, funerals and other emergencies during the ten years of his pastorate. By 1892 the Catholic population of the parish numbered 108 families and totaled 604 people.11
What was it, then, that caused Editor Standish to lash out at East Stoughton as an "unmitigated hindrance" to Stoughton? The answer lies in the fact that both sections were growing in prosperity and population, and this accentuated the differences between them. It seems ironic that in times of crisis- war, for example - the people of both sections were able to put their differences aside and join together in a common cause. Once the emergency passed, however, long-held resentment resurfaced and mutual hostility reappeared.
Through the years local historians have devoted much attention toward finding the issue which caused the two sections to finally split in 1887. Some have said that it was East Stoughton's unhappiness over taxes, or education, or water, or fire protection. All of these were troublesome and no doubt contributed to the final break, but they were only symptoms of a larger problem, one which made separation inevitable.
The fact is that the union between Stoughton Centre and East Stoughton was flawed from the very beginning and ought to have been dissolved in the eighteenth century. The villagers always felt isolated from the centre and its people and close bonds never developed. Despite the fact that one East Stoughton man sat on the board of selectmen and another on the school committee, the villagers often charged that they were overtaxed and underrepresented. Even when presented with figures to the contrary, the East Stoughton people felt that they paid a disproportionate share of tax money, and that most of it went to maintain the centre.
For their part, the people at the centre saw their townsmen in the village as penurious whiners, unable to recognize progress and unwilling to pay their fair share toward bringing a higher standard of living to all of Stoughton. They charged that the villagers were never satisfied, and when the centre tried to take action to address their complaints the East Stoughton people immediately cried about higher taxes.
The villagers had, from the earliest days of settlement, enjoyed a good relationship with the village of North Bridgewater, incorporated as the City of Brockton in 1881. Though their eighteenth century attempts to be set off to that town had consistently failed, they nevertheless maintained close economic, religious and social ties that endured for 200 years. Whenever they felt that the people at Stoughton Centre had failed them, the villagers were quick to mention that North Bridgewater, at least, appreciated them. A letter from the village to The Stoughton Sentinel in April 1864 made that point yet again: "Were we not so completely cut off from the Centre by lack of railroad, there would exist a feeling between the two sections - it would seem as though we were indeed part of the town, and they a part of us. As it is now, communication is much more direct with other towns, consequently the intercourse is more frequent, and money and trade which otherwise would remain at home is carried out of town. An immense trade from year to year goes to Boston and North Bridgewater, the merchants of the latter place being aware of [us]... as we notice by your well-filled advertising columns from that place."12
Earlier in the Civil War a similar letter to the same newspaper complained that village taxes were too high, and the writer, seeming to begrudge the $5,000 spent on education, noted that Stoughton school teachers were paid more than the state average.13
The resentment between the centre and the village simmered for twenty years after the Civil War before it erupted. Finally, in April 1886, H.H. Tucker, in protest of what he felt were exorbitant taxes, petitioned the State Legislature to set off East Stoughton so that it could be annexed to Brockton. Aided in this by Dr. Loring W. Puffer, Tucker and his friends had apparently failed to convince the Brockton people that it was a good idea, and this doomed the plan. When the hearing was held at the State House Mr. Tucker was not even present. But the mayor of Brockton was, and he had with him a resolution from the city's aldermen opposing the annexation plan. The legislative committee adjourned without even considering the petition.
At this point Editor Standish entered the fray. Twenty-eight years-old and a direct descendant of Captain Myles Standish, he was opinionated, brilliant and caustic. He opened his editorial guns upon the East Stoughtonites in a one-sided engagement that lasted eighteen months. Dedicated to singing, baseball, and agitation, Standish rarely passed up an opportunity to lampoon the village, and he began in earnest with the defeat of Tucker's petition.
"The drop curtain has fallen," he wrote, "and the drama has turned out a most dreary farce with East Stoughton in the principal role of butt for the audience to laugh at, and with Brockton and Stoughton very much entertained."
In another column, Standish reported that Brockton's Mayor Whipple, when asked if his city would agree to annex the village, replied, "No, we have a little reputation left yet." In Stoughton Centre, reported the Sentinel, "The only regret we have heard expressed ... was that Brockton could not be induced to take East Stoughton, bag and baggage." The editor saw a bright side, however, because hereinafter "East Stoughton will be more supple, now that she finds that she in not a little tin god on wheels, but simply East Stoughton, with her name spelled in ordinary type, too."14
Scarcely had this issue passed when a new, far more divisive question arose. Before the year 1887 the town of Stoughton secured its water from private wells, and for fire protection relied on the small cisterns located throughout the town. By 1886 the Stoughton Water Company, a privately owned concern, was contracted to lay water mains around the center of the town. This system worked well enough, but it was far from adequate because much of Stoughton remained outside of its reach.
Throughout the summer of 1886 business interests at Stoughton Centre, with an eye toward better fire protection and the lower insurance rates that would follow, began a movement to extend the town's water system and thereby increase the number of available fire hydrants. When Editor Standish joined the "waterites," as they were called, a valuable ally was added to the cause. With his contacts in the newspaper business, Standish was able to learn what other area towns were doing to solve their own water supply problems, and his research convinced him that an extended water system was essential to Stoughton's future.15
The special town meeting which convened at Stoughton's new Town Hall on Saturday evening, June 18, 1887 was the first of at least eight such meetings held over the next six months to discuss the water question. Advocates of the plan quickly learned that theirs was going to be no easy task.
The first meeting ended suddenly when, right in the midst of the hottest discussion, the gas lights failed and the hall was plunged into total darkness. The meeting was adjourned until June 25, when it was promised that a respresentative of the Stoughton Water Company would be present to make that company's offer to the town.
Among those who were solidly opposed to the extension of the water system were most of the people of East Stoughton. They felt that it would take some time, perhaps years, for the water pipes to reach them, and they did not want their taxes raised to finance a project that they felt was designed only to help the centre. There was also a rumor circulating through town that East Stoughton intended to get its water from Randolph, and at a lower rate than it would have to pay to the town of Stoughton.16
The second meeting, held on the evening of June 25, was seen as a victory for the "waterites." After some debate, Oscar A. Marden, the district court judge and president of the Stoughton Water Company, put forth the firm's proposal. The company would agree, he said, to furnish the town with thirty hydrants, spaced twelve to a mile, for $35 per hydrant per year, for a term of ten years. Provision was also made for the town to purchase the company outright, if it wished to do so, which it did in 1892.
The "anti-waterites" from East Stoughton tried to stall the discussion in order to prevent a vote. This was an old village trick, one which had served them well during the high school controversy back in the 185's. A motion was made to adjourn until the next regular town meeting in March - nine months away. Amidst much howling this motion was defeated and a committee of seven appointed to study the offer, confer with the Stoughton Water Company and issue a recommendation at a meeting to be held in two weeks.17
In the meantime, an incident occurred which may or may not have been related to the water question, but which served to highlight the dissension between the centre and the village. In anticipation of a raucous Fourth of July celebration, East Stoughton constable Cornelius Geary asked the town to appoint special police officers for the evening of July 3 to help him keep order. The town refused without comment, and Geary was left to his own devices.
Shortly after midnight, as the Fourth came in, trouble came in too. A correspondent for The Brockton Weekly Enterprise who witnessed the early morning scene understated the case when he noted that "Officer Geary had his hands full ...." The newspaperman described to his readers how "the East Stoughton Drum Corps, aided by two cornets and an army of small boys with fish horns, formed a line of march, and for two hours it seemed as if there was to be no sleep for East Stoughton. Bonfires were started in different parts of the square and for a time the whole town was illuminated."
Not everyone was enjoying the celebration. Officer Geary, short handed because no special police were there to help, had posted his son to guard a pile of old boxes. The boy had been there only a short while when the crowd decided that the crates would make good kindling. They stoned the youngster, attempting to drive him away from the boxes.
The boy located his father in the square and told him what had occurred. Neither Geary was particularly daunted by the crowd, and soon the boy returned to the pile of crates - but now he had his father's pistol and orders to shoot the first one who tried to take the wood. No villagers died at the hands of young Geary that night, in fact the boy never fired the gun. Around East Stoughton the next morning there was mild criticism of the constable for deputizing his boy, but there was louder denunciation of the town for not hiring special police officers.18 This incident did nothing to calm the rough waters between the centre and the village.
A third town meeting was held on the water question on July 21, 1887, but the committee of seven townsmen had yet to be named. This was finally straightened out despite another attempt by the villagers to have the whole matter postponed until the following March.
On August 11 the citizens' committee finally explained the town's options as presented by the Stoughton Water Company. Among several choices outlined by the members was one which would have extended the water system over to East Stoughton. In order to accomplish this feat the town would have to agree to lease 150 hydrants, fifty of which would be installed in East Stoughton. The villagers would never have accepted this anyway, but it created great fodder for discussion at the next town meeting.
On the appointed evening, Elisha Capen Monk was on his feet immediately and demanding to be heard. Upon being recognized by the chairman, he launched into a monologue in which he lambasted the village for overburdening the town of Stoughton. Using figures taken from the town's account books, he charged that East Stoughton had never paid its fair share of taxes, even though it enjoyed a disproportionate share of town services. The villagers, charged Monk, were "outsiders" who unfairly drained Stoughton's resources.
While the villagers in the hall fumed, Mr. Monk's business partner, Nathaniel Wales (of Stoughton Centre), pressed his earlier motion that the town hire just thirty hydrants. There was more discussion and finally the vote was taken. Mr. Wales' motion was defeated 123 to 98, a bitter setback for the "waterites." The Sentinel charged that the opponents of water had used "drag net methods of hiring coaches" to deliver votes, and promised another showdown soon.19
The proponents of water extension, perhaps realizing that they could never win enough votes to carry the question, decided on a new tactic. They suggested that the town allow them to create a fire district, and that the water pipes be extended only throughout the district. This would encompass just the area immediately surrounding Stoughton Centre, and only those residents within the district would bear the costs.
For reasons difficult to discern, East Stoughton opposed the district plan as well, even though the villagers were assured that its costs would not affect them. When they again managed to stall the question the people at the centre could hardly contain their anger. "East Stoughton is as contrary as a hog on ice," complained Editor Standish after the seventh special town meeting had adjourned without resolving the question. But again the "waterites" promised to keep up the fight.20
Standish published the editorial mentioned above on October 15, 1887. After calling East Stoughton "spiteful" and an "unmitigated hindrance," he suggested that the village show "more respect for her parent." A week later angry villagers gathered at the Engine House Hall for two purposes. First, they wanted to plan a strategy for yet another water meeting, this one scheduled for October 25, and second, they wanted to excoriate Standish and his newspaper, which they did at length.
An East Stoughton correspondent to The Brockton Weekly Enterprise wrote that "The people here fail to see any reason why they should show any regard for the Centre. 'What has the mother town ever done for us?' is a question that remains yet unanswered."21
The eighth and last water meeting was held on Tuesday morning, October 25, 1887 at Stoughton Centre. The Sentinel described the scene on meeting day: A stranger coming to town Tuesday would have known something was in the wind, for excitement was in the community. The opponents of water expressed the most confidence, and openly boasted that they would quickly adjourn the meeting and that the NEXT meeting would be held in East Stoughton. News came from East Stoughton that the citizens of that hamlet were coming en masse. The friends of progress ... quietly dropped 300 postal cards into the post office nicely addressed to known friends of water, calling them to come to the meeting. They came, both water and antiwater. East Stoughton sent 75 voters in all kinds of vehicles. The hall was full and so were one or two of the voters.
Immediately after the meeting was called to order one of the "anti-waterites" moved adjournment until May 15, 1888. This was the test question, and when it failed by a vote of 168 to 112 it told the East Stoughton men that they were about to go down to defeat. Another motion was made at once, that permission be given for the formation of a fire district, allowing that district to hire fifty hydrants from the Stoughton Water Company. When this motion also passed, the friends of water, secure in the knowledge that they had won the battle and the war, adjourned the meeting.
Newsman Lemuel Standish was hardly conciliatory in his next editorial. "The Stoughton Dog Wags the East Stoughton Tail," cried his headline. "East Stoughton has made a last desperate kick," said the editor, "but old Stoughton was aroused and proceeded to sit down on the unruly member with a degree of solidity that made the ardor of the antis drop with 'a sickening, dull thud,' "22
Two weeks later there was another meeting to plan the formation of the fire district. One group was noticeably absent, and Editor Standish felt compelled to comment upon it: East Stoughton didn't come to the meeting Tuesday evening. No one seemed to miss them much. There was an absence of some of the usual accompaniments of their visits that seemed queer. For instance, we missed the usual rattle of the big coaches as they rolled into town with their loads of voters, then again the triumphant march down the right side of the aisle of the hall, [then] the all up when the vote was taken ....23
By early December several leaders in the East Stoughton community had decided to file a petition with the State Legislature asking that the village be set off from Stoughton. The Brockton Daily Enterprise said that this was done because East Stoughton had been "goaded almost to desperation on account of the stinging editorials which have of late appeared in the Sentinel."24
A more accurate assessment of the situation was published in the Brockton Weekly Gazette. "It has been long evident," said the newspaper, "that there is no cordial bond of union between the east and west sections of the town. When the sections were not fighting it has nearly always been an armed neutrality or a political truce patched up for the purpose of dividing the loaves and the fishes ...."25
On Wednesday evening, December 15, 1887 the villagers met at Engine House Hall to discuss their petition for division. Alva M. Butler was chosen chairman of the meeting and he read the petition. It was brief and to the point: The undersigned petitioners, citizens of Stoughton, Norfolk county, respectfully represent that we desire all of that part of Stoughton east of the following described lines be incorporated into a town separated from Stoughton to be called _______. Said lines to be the Old Colony Railroad, commencing at the southerly line of the town of Randolph and running southwesterly to a point where the Boston and Taunton Turnpike, so called, crosses said Old Colony Railroad, and from thence the Boston and Taunton Turnpike to be the line to the city of Brockton.
The petition was signed by Silas S. Gifford, Charles H. Felker, Hiram Blanchard, Alva M. Butler, George G. Smith, D.H. Blanchard, D.C.G. Field, Gilbert Littlefield, James Keith, G.F. Littlefield, George W. Robbins and L.G. Littlefield.
The villagers crowding the Engine House that evening cheered the petition heartily. The Enterprise said that the sentiment of East Stoughton was "unanimously in favor of division."26
On December 30, 1887 the voters of Stoughton met in a town meeting to discuss the petition for separation. Elisha C. Monk stated that the only opposition the town should have to the request was the proposed boundary line which would separate Stoughton from the newly-created town. After some discussion it was agreed that the division line from the intersection of Salisbury Brook and the Old Colony Railroad be a straight line to the Brockton city limits at the west side of Oak Street. This done, the meeting adjourned amicably.
A committee of five was appointed to introduce the amended petition to the Legislature. Its members were D.C.G. Field, Hiram Blanchard, and Henry H. Tucker from East Stoughton, and Elisha C. Monk and William 0. Faxon from Stoughton Centre. The bill passed the Legislature with no problems and was signed into law on February 21, 1888.
"East Stoughton wants a divorce," wrote Editor Standish. "Who's kicking?"27 During that third week in February an unhappy marriage of more than a century and a half ended.
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NOTES
1. The Stoughton Sentinel, October 15, 1887.
2. East Stoughton information compiled from "The Massachusetts Register, 1869," Lorch Scrapbooks, Avon Historical Society.
3. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The Census of Massachusetts: 1875. Vol. II, Manufacturers and Occupations (Boston: Albert J. Wright, 1877). pp. 193, 345, 392.
4. Elias Nason, The Gazeteer of the State of Massachusetts (Boston: n.p., 1890), n.p., in the collections of the Avon Historical Society.
5. The material on the fire department is found in several volumes of the Stoughton Town Reports kept at the Stoughton Town Offices. Hereinafter cited as Stoughton Town Reports.
6. Stoughton Town Reports, 1887, n.p.
7. Stoughton Town Reports, 1865, Report of the School Committee, pp. 14-15, School Committee Report. 1871-72, p. 41.
8. Flynn, p. 3.
9. Stoughton Town Reports, 1871. p. 52; 1874, p. 13.
10. "History of the Avon Baptist Church," in Rededication: Avon Baptist Church. "Old Home Week, October 17-24, 1948," found in the collection of the Avon Historical Society.
11. Robert F. Doyle, "History of St. Michael's. 1872-1946," in St. Michael's Church, Parish Reunion, May 3, 1946, found in the collection of the Avon Historical Society.
12. The Stoughton Sentinel, April 2, 1864.
13. The Stoughton Sentinel, September 25, 1861.
14. The Stoughton Sentinel, April 24, 1886.
15. The Stoughton Sentinel, August 21, 1886; June 11, 1887.
16. The Stoughton Sentinel, July 30, 1887.
17. The Stoughton Sentinel, July 2, 1887.
18. The Brockton Weekly Enterprise, July 9, 1887.
19. The Stoughton Sentinel, September 3, 1887.
20. The Stoughton Sentinel, October 8, 1887.
21. The Brockton Weekly Enterprise, October 29, 1887.
22. The Stoughton Sentinel, October 29, 1887.
23. The Stoughton Sentinel, November 19, 1887.
24. Brockton Daily Enterprise, December 8, 1887.
25.
26. Brockton Daily Enterprise, December 15, 1887. The full text of the petition was printed in this newspaper on December 5, 1887.
27.