Mower Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Ebenezer Mower of Tatnuck died Feb. 14, 1861, aged 100 years and four months. A month after reaching 100 he voted for Abraham Lincoln at the November town meeting in 1860.
Looking over his life from the century vista, Mr. Mower must have remarked more than once, “Those were the exciting years.”
When he was three his parents brought him to see the raising of Old South Church.
When he was 15, he saw an express rides gallop into Worcester just before noon of April 19, 1775. Spurring his exhausted white horse, the rider shouted down the main street:
“To arms! To arms! The war is begun!”
Flanks heaving and the white of its eyes showing, the mudstained, spur- scarred horse collapsed of exhaustion. Another horse was brought on the run. The express rider leaped into the saddle and was off again.
The bell began to ring. Cannon boomed. Runners leaped over paths and muddy streets shouting the news.
Within an hour the Minute Men, their powder horns flying, were assembling on the Green, as Capt. Timothy Bigelow shouted out the orders.
That day the Minute Men, 110 strong, marched to war.
Ebenezer watched them go. When others began to “jine” up, he may have had the feeling, too. But his father was a Royalist – and the sons of Royalist did not run to join the forces of George Washington.
Mower street, named in 1851, runs from Pleasant street northwest to the Paxton town line.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
