Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 33

Streets were lighted with gas but there were less than 2000 domestic consumers. There was a central telegraph office, but telephones were not to come for nearly fifteen years. There were three hotels, the Bay State, pride of the community, the Exchange, dating back to Sikes' Coffee House of 1784, and the Lincoln House at Elm and Main Streets. The Massachusetts SPY, founded by Isaiah Thomas in 1770, had been in daily circulation since 1845, carrying news of the world in closely packed columns of fine type, and crowding the balance of its four pages with local advertising and with persuasive testimonials concerning the efficacy of such compounds as Dr. Hill's Female Regulator and Constitution Life Syrups. The Evening Gazette, sole competitor of the Spy, began publishtrig in 1851 and outlived its rival, which suspended in 1904.

Worcester had an abundant supply of banks. There were seven national banks, four of which later were merged with the original Worcester National Bank. The Mechanics National was the only other to retain its identity. There were also four institutions for savings, all of which are still in existence, the Worcester County Institution being one of the oldest saving sbanks in America. The State Mutual Life Assurance Co. had been in existence since 1844, and the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Co., since 1823.

The water supply of the city had been augmented by the building of the Lynde Brook reservoir and the Bell Pond aqueduct in 1864. Phinehas Ball was engineer in charge of this work. Worcester also had the distinction of being the first city in the United States to purchase land for a public park (1854), although the site of Elm Park was not developed until twenty years later. The area adjacent to the park was used by the Agricultural Society for its annual fairs from 1853 until the land was sold for building purposes in 1899.

Worcester was a city of churches then as now, with an edifice for about each 2,000 of its population. The early settlers were predominantly Congregationalists, and that sect built the largest number of churches. The other sects that had

webmaster@wpi.edu

Last Modified: Fri Jul 30 11:15:25 EDT 1999