By Isabel Morse Maresh
March 29, 1990
Life goes on in the back or forgotten part of Northport as much as the Cove and shore sections. From an article in an 1887 Republican Journal, entitled "A Healthy and Desirable Location," it would seem that life was good. I had always thought so as I grew up in the house built by John Hurd.
The article starts, "We have in the town of Northport four men whose united ages are 318 years. They are Amos Pitcher, 76; John Hurd, 81; Benjamin Stevens, 85; and James Clark, 76. They all live in the same school district (Brainard School), and on adjoining farms. All have occupied their farms more than 60 years, and by industry and frugality, they have all secured a competency. They all are in full possession of their mental faculties, each living with his youngest son. These sons are worthy men with wives who are ambitious to make a pleasant home."
These men were all loyal to their country in its hour of peril, always voting men and women to carry on the war, and contributing liberally in their private capacities. Hurd and Pitcher each gave their country a son.
Hollis M. Hurd fell mortally wounded on the bloody field at Shiloh, and young Pitcher died in a hospital near Washington, D.C. Mr. Hurd and Mr. Clark and their wives were members of Farmers Pride Grange.
Pitcher, Stevens, and Clark were born in Northport, while Mr. Hurd came here shortly after his marriage.
John Hurd was descended from Edmund Heard of England, who was a linen weaver who died in 1626. Instructions in the will of Edmund Heard were that he was to be "Buried in the churchyard of Claxton, near my wife." He left to his eldest son, Luke Heard, when he arrived at age 21, the best loom in the shop, six pieces of pewter, a spit, and a little table in the parlor.
Luke Heard, also a weaver, was born in England and came to the newly settled American colonies about 1636, settling in Newbury, Salisbury, and Ipswich, Mass. He died at about age 40, leaving his sons very little money, his books and the instructions in his will "that my two sons be brought up to writing and reading, and when they are of age to be put forth to such trades as they should choose."
The Hurd descendants of Northport were prominent men, building the farm buildings and farming the land, as well as holding town offices.
John Roscoe Hurd was the son of John and Lydia (Griffin) Hurd. He married Eliza J. Townsend and carried on the family farm. The Cheese Factory, probably a neighborhood cooperative, was on his property and the building still stands.
Hurd's only daughter, Lydia Annette, was a young school teacher who married Leslie C. Dean. After her untimely death at age 39, her only son, Roscoe Hurd Dean was raised on the family farm by his grandparents.
The Hurd descendants are still in the old neighborhood and are fine citizens. They have always been talented people and of exemplary wit. Alice Drinkwater, a teacher of many terms at Brainard School, said of Roscoe Dean, that he was the smartest pupil that she ever taught.
Not to be forgotten are the wives of the hardy farmers. The 1887 article says of them: "Those honored mothers have reared large families of children and lived to see them occupy respectable positions in society. To the efforts of these mothers, let us ascribe an equal share of the prosperity of these homes. To these, and such, is New England indebted for that society which challenges the admiration of the world."