About this time, also, the Fitchburg High School Association was formed and an academy built, and in 1838 the Fitchburg Library Association was organized, both of which institutions were valuable educational influences.

From 1840 to 1860 the town continued to grow steadily.  New paper mills were built in West Fitchburg, the chair business enlarged greatly, the iron business was introduced by the Putnam Brothers, and grew rapidly, and various other branches of industry were begun and prospered.  The Fitchburg Railroad was built, followed by the Vermont and Massachusetts, the Fitchburg and Worcester, and the Agricultural Branch Railroads, all centreing in Fitchburg and bringing an increase of business.

At the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion the town contained nearly 8,000 inhabitants, and during the war Fitchburg did her part, answering all calls promptly and sending her best men to the field.  Her history in that contest is well told by Henry A. Willis, in his history of “Fitchburg in the War of the Rebellion.”  Nine companies were organized in the town, and 750 Fitchburg men sent into the field.

The years immediately following the war were years of prosperity and rapid growth.  March 8, 1872, Fitchburg was incorporated as a city.  The infant township of 108 years before had grown to a city of 12,000 inhabitants.  The little stream which then turned the wheel of the one solitary saw and grist mill had since been harnessed to the work of many mills and manufactories, and on either side were the homes of hundreds, dependent on its power for their daily bread.  Railroads carried the products of these establishments to the limits of our own and to foreign countries, and brought to the busy city from the East and from the West all the necessaries and all the luxuries of life.  Can it be that the dead of past generations, who sleep on the hillside which overlooks the valley, have seen this transformation, and if so, will they behold all the changes of the future?  Then may this and the coming generations prove themselves worthy of those who, during the years that have passed, have been its bone and sinew and life blood.

* * * * *

Sunday travel and the law.

By Chester F. Sanger.

The Legislature of 1884 has placed an act upon our statute book which rounds out and completes an act looking in the same direction passed by the Legislature of 1877.  Chapter 37 of the Acts of 1884 provides that “The provisions of chapter ninety-eight of the Public Statutes relating to the observance of the Lord’s day shall not constitute a defence to an action for a tort or injury suffered by a person on that day.”

Chapter 232 of the Acts of 1877 provided that common carriers of passengers should no longer escape liability for their negligence in case of accidents to passengers, by reason of the injury being received on Sunday.  This act marked a long step forward in the policy of this Commonwealth, and made it no longer possible for a corporation openly violating the law to escape the consequences of its illegal acts by saying to the injured passenger, “You were breaking the law yourself, and therefore you have no redress against us.”