Ingenious Machinists by Connors Anthony J

Author:Connors, Anthony J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2014-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

For some time the Merrimack Company directors had been concerned about Ezra Worthen’s health. Although he was only forty-three years old in 1824, Ezra had suffered from heart disease for several years, and had been advised by his doctor to avoid overwork. Appleton had been in contact with Samuel Batchelder, an accomplished mill owner in his home town of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, regarding the possibility of his assuming the position of agent should a new company be formed in Chelmsford, while at the same time keeping Batchelder in mind for the position of superintendent of the Merrimack Company in the event of Worthen’s disability.19

On June 18, while supervising workmen digging a building foundation, Ezra Worthen died. According to one account, he had become impatient with the inefficient digging of one of the workers and taking the shovel in hand, demonstrated how to use it efficiently. The exertion brought on the heart attack that killed him instantly. In another account he was merely “conversing with a person in the street,” but in any event, “one of the most useful and inventive men that our country can boast of” was dead. He had served the company well in his two years at Chelmsford, was both respected and well liked by those who worked for him, and was remembered as “a most benevolent man [who] clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and was never more happy than when administering to the wants of the poor & distressed.” His body was returned to his home town of Amesbury for burial.20

Moody’s reaction to his friend’s death is unrecorded, but given their long partnership and their having remained in touch during Paul’s decade away at Waltham, it would be safe to assume that he and his family were greatly saddened, particularly as the families had just been reunited in Chelmsford. In addition to the impact on his family, Paul had to consider the death of a contemporary, two years younger, working in a high pressure environment under the unrelenting eye of Kirk Boott, certainly a sobering thought. Yet as a company man, Moody would have been proud of the Merrimack Company’s efforts to ease the burden on Mary Worthen. A week after her husband’s death the directors voted to award her $750, or one-half of Ezra’s annual salary. Ezra also left ten shares of Merrimack stock, and Mary was allowed to subscribe for three shares in the second subscription of October 1824, and for six shares of the associated Locks and Canals Company, which she must have been able to afford on her own, since it is highly unlikely that the special arrangement to pay for the stock out of dividends would remain in effect after Ezra’s death. We know little about Mary’s life, but apparently there was enough money (or a benefactor) to send her son William, only three years old when his father died, to prep school in Boston. He graduated from Harvard in 1838, and began his long and distinguished career in hydraulic engineering working with Loammi Baldwin Jr.

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