Bits of Sandwich History
By Joan Russell Osgood
Hard Times…Cheap Chairs and Janitors vs. Teachers
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In March 1898, our School Committee met at the Jarves Street home of Mr. S.I. Morse to discuss and vote on warrant requests to come before the Annual Town Meeting. Our Henry T. Wing School, which would later house all students from grades one through twelve, would not be built for another 29 years, so all decisions regarding the upkeep of the five village schools and the oversight of the education of our student population fell entirely upon the School Committee. So in 1898 they voted to allow each school a sum not exceeding $10 for repairs and improvements and that “two dozen cheap chairs be bought by the finance committee for [the] schools.”
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In the Annual Report of the School Committee that same year, Superintendent of Schools Burt Jay Tice reported that “one of the most defective things connected in any way with our schools is the janitor service.” He stated that as much as he would want to pay teachers more, he recommended that “we first pay our janitors better.” The yearly budget for janitors—it doesn’t say how many there were—was $311.48.
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He continued, “We have good teachers [but] one of the worst things is that we cannot keep them.” Duh. He told of one teacher whose $1,000 annual salary was insufficient and so had resigned to take a position paying $1,500.
Sandwich Men Hit the Jackpot
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The Louisiana State Lottery Company was chartered in 1868 to produce revenue to help rebuild the state after the Civil War. For years this company was extremely profitable. Citizens from across the country were able to purchase lottery tickets through the mail. In fact, 90% of the tickets were sold from outside Louisiana. The lottery’s net profit reached over eight million dollars by 1890. The cost to purchase one ticket ranged from twenty-five cents to one dollar.
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1889 Louisiana State Lottery Ticket
Source: Xavier University of Louisiana
The Sandwich Observer remarked in 1889, “Sandwich has got the fever of speculation in Louisiana lottery tickets bad. Young and old are building air castles.”
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Well, a couple of fellows in town actually did beat the odds. Hugh Brady Jr. and William Johnston jointly held a winning ticket which paid one-twentieth of the total prize of $300,000 amounting to a total of $15,000. I imagine they split the winnings between them. The Observer continued, “This will set the boys right on their feet.” I should say. Good for them!
I could not find any information on Willliam Johnston. But Hugh Brady Jr.’s family was well-known in Sandwich. They owned Brady Island located in the village on Route 6A across from the old fire station. The town has owned the island since the 1960s.​
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Back in the 1800s Hugh Brady Sr. bought the property from the Tobey family and built a house and farm on it. He worked in the Boston & Sandwich Glass Factory and was also a railroad crossing tender. Records differ, showing 10 to 16 children born to Hugh Sr. and his wife Bridget. Our lucky lad Hugh Jr., then 23-years-old, was one of their sons.
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Oh, and if you’re wondering, in those days there was considerable opposition to the Louisiana lottery and lotteries in general. Eventually a federal ban on the transportation of lottery tickets across state lines shut it down. However, as the saying goes, where there’s a will there’s a way. The company moved their operations to Honduras and continued to sell tickets illegally in the U.S. until 1907.​
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Look Before You Leap
It’s 1892 and this story begins in a voting booth. The Sandwich Observer noted it as an “amusing story.” I agree, but to fully understand it I found that there was a back story to be told. So, we’ll talk a bit about that first.
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After months of campaigning, the November 8, 1892 national election was front and center. Back then Election Day was typically a festive event with plenty of politicking going on. The presidential candidates were Democrat Grover Cleveland, Republican Benjamin Harrison, and James B. Weaver represented the People’s Party.
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Women were excluded from voting until the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920–-don’t get me started! (The Massachusetts legislature did pass a law allowing women to vote in 1879–-but it was limited to voting for school committee members.)
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Through most of the nineteenth century, states did not print and provide voting ballots for Election Day. I did not know this. I must have been asleep in Bob Fenton’s Sandwich High School history class when he covered it.
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In fact, there was no expectation that a vote would be cast in secret! People would gather at public polling sites to watch and listen as each voter stepped up to an election official and publicly voiced their choice.
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Finally a solution appeared. In 1888, Massachusetts passed “An Act to Provide for Printing and Distributing Ballots.” Our state would now bar politicking within the polling place, provide booths for privacy, and print a paper ballot that included all the candidates that would be handed out to voters at the polling sites. Massachusetts and New York were the first states to adopt this secret balloting process.
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1878 Greenback Party National Election Ticket
​Source: American Antiquarian Society
Town of Sandwich ballot box c. 1800s
Courtesy: Taylor White, Town Clerk
​In Massachusetts and a few other states it was a bit better. Voters would submit their votes by handing over pre-printed party-supplied (Republican, Democrat, Whig, Greenback, etc.) paper tickets. These tickets—they were not called ballots—were very colorful and of course everyone knew which color represented which party. So frankly, that method didn’t ensure secrecy, either.
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Back to our townsman in the 1892 voting booth. He had been handed one of these new ballots—quite different than prior elections. When going into the booth, he checked his watch. Upon exiting the booth and depositing his ballot, he reached into his pocket for his watch “to see how long it had taken him to vote.” It wasn’t there. As the newspaper article relates, that’s when all hell broke loose.
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The gentleman immediately thought his watch had been stolen. The doors were guarded and no one was allowed out. The polling room was searched and his pockets turned inside out. No watch. Just when a search of the townsmen detained in the room and the election officers was about to begin – drumroll, please – the watch was found! In his boot. It had slipped from his hand when he thought he’d put it in his pocket.
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I mean, wouldn’t you know if a pocket watch was in your boot?
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Oh well. The Observer ends the article with, “The sensation of the day came thus happily to an end.”
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Our life lesson if you lose something: Look before you leap and always check your boots.
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Joan Russell Osgood is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives