Interviewer - I just want to mention this is Richard O. Lahue, Sr. Today is February 4, 2010, and we're at 9 Clear Street in Chelmsford.

Richard Lahue - Well, I think probably the first thing you were concerned with Chelmsford, I think the first I came involved in, or any time in Chelmsford, was about 1934. My brother was a contractor, and he started building homes.

Interviewer - That was Warren?

Richard Lahue - In Chelmsford.

Interviewer - Warren Lahue.

Richard Lahue - And so I began to work. My father died when I was in high school, and so that left my mother with seven children. And there was no Social Security or anything.

And so I arranged in school, high school, for me to get my classes in the early morning and get out in the afternoon and go to work for my brother. So I did that, and my mother was determined that I was going to get through high school. And so I continued to work for my brother for, well, right up until probably just before the war.

And I got a job down in the defense factory, down in the fleet, United Shoemaking Corporation, and they were making 37-millimeter guns for the war. And I worked 12 hours, four 12-hour days and two off. So it kind of, every day you gained one, and two days a week you were off differently.

So I'd go shopping with my wife down at the beach, I mean, in Lowell. And I'd go up the street, and it looked like I was the only adult that wasn't crippled or something on the street. And I was exempt because I was working in the defense factory, and I also had a small boy, son.

But, you know, I felt so guilty. I said to my wife, I'm going to enlist. And it was a difficult thing to do, to go leave your wife and family at home.

But anyway, I did, and I registered up in the draft board, and I finally went up in the Navy. And that was a very interesting part of my life, because I was assigned to what they called the armed guard. And they were gunners on emerging ships.

And we delivered, in fact, the slogan is, We Aim to Deliver. And I was just on the gun crew. The rest were merchant marines that run the ship.

And one of the first trips I made was to Murmansk, Russia, which was right off the coast of Norway. And that's where the German submarine pens were. And they were sinking ships left and right then.

And it was very cold, and we went up there in the fall and in the winter, where it's dark 24 hours a day after you go over the Arctic Circle. But anyway, I went to Russia, and it was quite a trip. Lots of interesting things happened, but I don't want to dwell on that.

You're more interested in the Chelmsford things than that. But I could tell you a week of stories about being in the Navy. But anyway, when I came out, my brother wanted me to come back to work for him.

So I came back to work for him for, oh, three or four years. And then my wife became interested in the Historical Society. And we got—that's when the Murrays offered the house to the Society.

This is in the 1960s? Albert Murray. 1960s sometime?

Sixty-six or seven. And so—and we—at about that time, the library wanted us to get out because they wanted to utilize the rooms upstairs where the Historical Society hid their— whatever they had. And a lot of stuff was stored in Bartlett Barn and in the schoolhouse.

It was an old red schoolhouse. They put a few things in there. And so she became involved, and Miss Stevens was a retired schoolteacher.

She and my wife used to go up when they finally got it and started to put things away and separate things. And they went up every day, took their lunch, and they had a great time together. And then a little later on, we got a couple of more teachers, Wilma Norton and Helen Poland.

They were teachers, and when they retired, they became quite active. And they had quite a club, and they'd work on things and separate them along with Julia Fogg, who was—became curator. And prior to that was Eleanor Parkhurst, but she didn't spend too much time doing anything up there.

She was almost an honorary title more than anything. But Julia was quite faithful, and she was very meticulous and wrote everything down and marked everything. And so it began to take shape up there.

But it was through that that my wife got me interested in working up in the Historical Society. Then came along the—we had to raise money to— Murray's request was that we raise enough money to maintain the place before he would give it to us. Well, at that time it was $60,000.

I know it seemed like a lot of money, but anyway, I got on the horn with a few other people, and we eventually raised—or at least had pledges and stuff for $60,000. And then they turned the house over to us, and they put a few stipulations on it. But the IRS didn't allow some things.

They said, you can't give it an old order, either one or the other. So anyway, we got paper scored away and became incorporated. So I started to work there, and I would go up sometimes to help my wife.

And then there was so much to do there because they cleaned the house up. They didn't leave anything. They even took the light fixtures.

So we didn't have much money. So my wife and a couple of other women, Helen Farnham, said, Well, we need some curtains here. We've got to make this place look like it's being used.

So just about that time, the library found some histories in the cellar of the library. Some were bound, and some weren't. And so they gave us, I think, five copies.

And so we— Is this the town history book? This is the Chelmsford history.

Interviewer - By Reverend Waters or by— Waters History. Waters History, okay.

Richard Lahue - And so they decided to sell it to get some money to buy the curtains, so they did. And my wife was able to buy one. But they sold them.

They left one in the Byam House and in the library, and the others they sold. And incidentally, over the years, people gave some or idea of them. And some of them wanted to get paid for them.

We gave them a decent price, and I could turn right around, and I could sell it for twice that. In fact, the last one I sold for $250. So anything like that that come along, if I get any money, I put it in the treasury.

We tried to build up the treasury. And then I got to getting some things that we could sell. And then we went into pewter dishes with the town seal engraved on them.

And I put them in stores and back in the Radisson Hotel and other places. And they didn't take any money for it. They just sold it to us and for us.

And Lynn Marsala down here at the coffee shop, she had a display case, and she sold a lot of stuff for us. And then we went into selling the collectable bottles. And they decided that they would do it and asked me if I would look into it and sort of take charge of it.

So I did. And I started selling them. And the first ones we bought, we got $200.

And I went here to say, go. At $10 apiece, they went in two weeks. So then the next time, I ordered 250.

And in the meantime, some of the women were telling people about them, and they wanted them. And pretty soon, it started to grow. So then we started buying 500.

And we did the first five. I stayed away from churches and clubs because I thought that's the way of raising money, and I shouldn't be having the church motif on it because that was the way of raising money. And some of the churches did eventually.

But anyway, we made about $15,000 on those. And I suggested, I was on the board, and I suggested that we split the profits from it. Half would go to the Museum Trust and half would go to the Historical Society because the Trust had to maintain the building, and there was very little in that.

And so I did a lot of carpenter work up there. What is now the, oh, just as you come in to the military room, the next one, the document room, that was all windows in the back of the wall. And I took them and closed it off.

And so we could put that big thing with all the drawers in it, which we got from the library. They were going to sort out. And so anyway, that was one of the things.

And then I worked on, next thing came along was the greenhouse. And the kids were breaking the windows up there on the greenhouse. And so we thought, it's just no benefit to us.

So I was teaching school, and eventually I went into teaching industrial arts in school, and I got my degree, went back to school. And the principal, I went into a new school, and the principal, I don't know, I don't think he was there a week. And he called me into his office, and he said, you know, we've got a brand-new school here, he says, and they didn't even put a pole in there to put my coat on.

He said, do you think you could do that? I said, oh, sure. So I went around the other side of the building, and I see an ambulance out front.

He had a heart attack right after that and died. And by the time I got back, they were taking him out, and he was blue. So they wanted to do something in his memory.

So they wanted to start a program of horticulture in the school. So I told my principal and the superintendent that we're going to sell the greenhouse. It's just funny.

It just happened at that time, and that's what they were looking for. So the principal and the superintendent came up to see it, and they said, oh, sure, they'd love it. So they bought it, and we took it all down to school.

They had the city truck come up and take a lot of the glass and stuff and take it down. And we had the technical high school, all the various departments, the masons, electricians, plumbers, and everybody put it back together and get it so that it was operating. And then we had a class that taught the kids.

They'd go in and plant the seed and see how the flower thing. I took home a little. Because this is middle grades, you know, it's 5, 6, 7, and 8.

And so it was nice to go every time I went. And we had a court, an open court in the school. As you went around the car, the inside was open.

So that's where they put it out there so you could go right out into that open space. Is this the Parkhurst School you're talking about? Is this the Parkhurst School?

No, this is the public school. Oh, no, I didn't teach in Chelmsford.

Interviewer - Oh, okay. It's on Haverhill. Oh, so is that where the greenhouse went then?

Richard Lahue - Yes.

Interviewer - Okay, and the greenhouse was from the Murray House, now the Historic Society at 40 Byam Road in South Chelmsford. Where on the property was the greenhouse located originally? Right behind the military room.

Richard Lahue - It was a door. Was it attached? On the back.

It was attached on the back. It was attached to it. Oh, okay.

So it's completely gone now. Yeah, because Mrs. Murray used the military room. That was her parting shed.

Okay. And there was a big boiler there to heat the greenhouse. And she had it all set up with a sink and everything, and she loved to putter.

And they raised orchids and everything. It was a very nice setup. But it really wasn't conducive for what we wanted.

So I had a friend of mine make up those cabinets. I put the glass in with sliders and everything and set them in place. And then right in the floor between the first two was the boiler.

And it was too big. I couldn't get it out, so I flipped it on its side. So that's underneath the floor there.

And so I bought a rug and put the rug down. I worked there all the time, just like going to work. So were you retired when you started?

Well, before I retired, I used to go every day after school and check the mail and check the messages and, you know, check the heat. And I really kept my eye on it. And there was always something to do, you know.

And so the longer I was there, the more things we did. But when I retired, it was like a full-time job up there. I went every day and worked practically all day there.

And then we decided that we wanted to have a meeting room. So we took the barn and made that into a meeting room. And I did get somebody to do the heavy work there, but I did most of the glass and the work in there and put the floor down and made the passageway downstairs, cut that floor in so that we had the ramp and made the cabinet down the bottom where the Indian stuff is.

I put all those tools on those, you know, big pegboards. I put everything out on two horses and set it all out. And I wired them on, and then we just hung it on the wall.

And I wanted to do one on the left-hand side because we began to get more things. But anyway, I never did get around to that. And later on, we made the country store.

And then we made the shelves for those big books, the Evening Leader and the Sun, the bound newspapers. And I had plans to... Who was the person, again, that worked on those shelves?

Interviewer - You mentioned a name. Who was the person that built those shelves?

Richard Lahue - Oh, who built the shelves was a very big guy. Well, it was a guy that worked for them, but he was the one that I contacted. And he built those shelves for those books, and I gave him the measurements and stuff so that we could get them in the right height.

And then... But Jimmy Scarth was the one who went to Sturbridge and looked at the country store there, and he took a lot of measurements and things. And this store was pretty much like it as far as the measurements of the shelves and stuff was.

And Jimmy built what was in the store. After he was through, I furnished it. I put all the stuff on the shelves, and I kept getting stuff in the summertime.

Oh, and George Parkhurst has put out that book in Chelmsford, and I sold 800 of them. Chelmsford History. This George Parkhurst's you're talking about?

Yeah, he put a book out, Pictorial History. And my wife and I helped him pick out the pictures. In fact, we put it on a dining room table and picked out the various pictures.

We had to keep cutting it down because it got too big and it was very expensive to have published. But we began to sell them, and we made $5 per book on them, and I sold 800. I sold more than George Parkhurst.

And so they said, Well, you've raised a lot of money. We checked about the time we was doing the store, so we said, In your travels and in the summertime, my daughter has a place at the beach in Northampton, and so we get on all summer. So I always go out with my wife up through Wells and Route 11 there and go through and find things that we didn't have that we could use in the store.

And so I spent some of that money for that, for buying things we didn't have, just so it would light the counter with a big cheese thing and that sort of thing we didn't have. And so it would look more like a store. But as I got things, and then Henry Erickson had a lot of stuff in his barn, and he said, Why don't you go in there?

He says, Oh, no, he died. And his daughter said to me, Why don't you go in there, she says, and take anything you want to put on the store? Well, it was great because I found a lot of things in there that had been there for years and that you wouldn't find anywhere else.

So I took everything I wanted and put them on the shelves, and then I got a lot of medicine bottles from another guy, Barry, I forget his name, Kentucky, and he just collects bottles. So he gave us some medicine bottles, and finally we got the thing. And then Mrs. Paignon, Mabel Paignon, was the postmaster, mistress in South Chelmsford, and she gave us that. She had to buy that when she was postmaster, and she had it in the store there right in South Chelmsford. And she gave it to us, and it was great because there were a lot of names on there with people that had camps around Baptist Pond, and their names are still on the front of them there. And it was kind of ironic because just about that time, Mrs. Wilder, Ethel Wilder, she had a camp there on Baptist Pond, and she lived in the Byam house for a while. You know, she rented the apartment for a while after she sold her house, and she was good. She was like a mother to me. But as soon as the alarm went off, she'd open the door, and she'd talk all day if I'd let her.

But she was good, you know. She would let people in, and she loved to do it. She just, because she, up until she retired, she had charge of the girls' dormitory in Lowell, University of Lowell.

And then she went out to Tewksbury, and she had charge of the candy stripers, all the programs and stuff. So she was just used to dealing with people. So she was very good.

She had a nice disposition. Well, anyway, we, as I say, I'd go there every day and get messages. People wanted to leave stuff.

People wanted to know if we wanted this or not. And then eventually we had so many uniforms and things that really didn't have a place for them, so we made that nice big cedar closet up in the attic to store them. And then we had to put heat in there, so we put heat up in the attic with stuff in the ceilings because we didn't want these big vents going up through the rooms.

And then I built that toilet downstairs. Charlie Watt Sr., used to call me every day when I was going to school, and I'd just get home about 3.30, and he'd say, you want to go up and work? So lots of times I didn't want to, but I'd say okay.

So we'd go up, and he was a contractor, and he built a lot of houses, and he owned a lot of property, so it was very handy. And so we did a lot. We jacked up the big posts underneath the meeting room and put new bases on.

They were sinking in the dirt. They didn't put a good footing in. And we took the posts out and put some cement piers in and put them back, and then, you know, a lot of hard work went into that.

But it was nice. I enjoyed every minute of it. And, you know, we tried to improve the place as much as we can.

And then somebody left some money in memory, and we put that rod eye railing going down the grand steps. And then somebody else left something. We put the lamppost in.

And then eventually I had that granite sign out front made. My brother left a couple of grand, and a few other people helped pay for that. And so, you know, it was always something to do.

And then I got some turban from Jerry Luzell, and I had the town come and put it in the front of the lawn and didn't cost us anything. We got the granite for nothing. And so, you know, I was constantly getting things from different people.

They would give things. I got Anissa Brown to give a load of gravel, one to fill in the driveway. It was getting soggy.

And then we decided to put the big parking lot in there and get one fellow to dig it out and somebody to bring in some gravel. And then we paid a guy to pave it, but he gave us a break. He lived in Chelmsford.

Kutrumpis is his name was. And so, you know, as I say, every day it was just kind of a new experiment. And then somebody wants something up in the obituary or they were looking for a name or something or something I could look up in the history, both Waters and the other one.

What the heck was his name? Who was the minister? Allen.

It was Allen. Allen's history. But we had a lot of this.

There's a lot of stuff, and you'll probably know now, even out in the barn, that big file cabinet is full of deeds and all kinds of stuff that needs to be recorded. You know, and I don't know. And then I kind of made one of those rooms into the office up there and put them shelves in the big closets and put the filing cabinets in and tried to file stuff that I was dealing with.

And then we had a friend of mine, John Hamilton, his name was. He was a curator at Lexington at the Masonic building down they built. And he told me that I went down to see him, and he told me to take all those old books we had, the early library, not the London Library, the library that was in Holmes.

You couldn't take the books out then. You could go in and read them, but you couldn't take them out. This is the social library collection?

Interviewer - Huh? This is called the social library?

Richard Lahue - Yes, and that's the ones that are in just before you go into the meeting room. So we had all those taken down there, and they fumigated them all because they had little, some of them had little bugs in them. And they treated them and didn't cost us anything because that's what they did down there anyway.

And so, you know, then some woman passed away, and she was a buy-in, and she wanted us to have her bedroom set, and she was down in Falmouth, I think it was. So her daughter called me, and she lived in Maine, and she told me that she would meet me in Falmouth, and I borrowed a truck off Hubie Scoble who ran the Meat Market, and I went down with a guy named Harry Shedd, and we picked up this is the bedroom set that's in the meeting room in the corner, and all the pieces that went with it. And then, you know, somebody else would call and say, we've got such and such, can you use it?

And I'd say, sure. Like the clock on the, they fixed it up, the people fixed it up and got it running and everything, and they gave it to the society. But I was constantly looking for things, and I got, I talked to Hazel Stevens.

I used to work with her a lot, because she always was up there.

Interviewer - Tell me a little bit about Hazel. What's Hazel's background? What was she like?

Richard Lahue - Well, she was a schoolteacher, but she was very stern. She was a typical old maid and a typical schoolteacher, and I talked to people that had her in school. She taught in the Morey School in Lowell, and she's a kind of a, kind of a hypochondriac, actually.

If you coughed, she, I think she was so afraid of getting something. She was germ conscious, but she was a good person. And she lived on High Street, and she, you know, she had a few bucks.

And so she wanted to leave, you know, a remembrance of her in some way. And so when we started to, we're thinking about doing the room out there in the back. Charlie Watt died, and his son-in-law and daughter and wife, she was on aboard too, Mrs. Watt.

And they said that they would donate some money to go towards making that into a room. So we told, I told Hazel that one day, one night. I used to pick her up and bring her to the meetings.

And she was kind of pouting a little, and I couldn't imagine what was wrong. So she said, well, I intended to leave something so that, you know, my name would be perpetuated. So if you want to give as much as them, we'll make it the Watt-Stevens room.

So she did. So that satisfied her. But the son-in-law, Edgar Dana, ran, owned Dana Wallboard.

And any time we needed anything, never charged us a dime. In fact, underneath the meeting room was open, and it was cold out there. So he said, oh, I got a guy that owes me some money.

He says a insulating guy. We'll have him come and insulate it. And then he had some other guy that owed him some money.

He got the Wallboard, and he had a guy cover the whole ceiling with the Wallboard and paid for it. And then when we were going upstairs, that closet up in the attic, we needed some Wallboard. So I went up, and I said, gee, I need some 3-H Wallboard.

Oh, get a half-inch, he says. It's more rigid, and it doesn't cost so much more. So I said, do you think when the truck comes, I said, we've got to put some plywood up there.

I said, we're making a closet. Do you think when the truck comes that they could, with the lift, take the stuff? Sure, he says.

You tell the guy while he's there. So we took out the window up on the top, and, boy, he raised 10 minutes. We had all the plywood and stuff up in the window up there.

So, you know, it's nice to know these people, you know. And he's still nice. I ran in the other night over to Glenview.

Nice guy. And the son now runs it, but they were awful good. And I'd say, where's the bill?

He'd say, what bill? You know, he just never would send it. So they all did their share, and they thought, you know, they were helping out, so it was good.

And so then, oh, as time went on, I, well, in fact, inside in the, what is called a dining room, we took all the, Mrs. Murray had that full of glass and bottles and all kinds of stuff. And they took everything out there. And so she owned, no, it wasn't her.

It was a lady named Pearson. And the glass floor and the chunks of glass works lived on Pine Street, not too far from where the glass works were. And up in the attic was a whole lot of glass, this glass that was whimsies, they call them, that the workers had made after hours.

And they'd have some glass left, and they would pour and make some kitchenware or kitchens and different articles you could use in the kitchen. And so the, let's see what, oh, she called. Oh, Gardner, her name was, Mrs. Gardner. And she lived up in New Hampshire, but she said that she would like to, for us to store it in a respectable place where it would be protected. So then I put those glass doors in the dining room to keep the glass, to get glass behind it there. And with the intention that in ten years she would give it to us.

So a little longer than that, but we got after it and eventually straightened out with the lawyers and her lawyer and stuff, and we finally got it. And because there were Corning Glass Works wanted it, and they had one piece of Chelmsford glass, and then there's a piece of Chelmsford glass at Sturbridge Village. But we have the biggest collection of Chelmsford glass.

So that was a kind of nice to get a hold of that.

Interviewer - Now, you said that the glassware was in an attic on Pine Street?

Richard Lahue - It was in an attic in this house that was the original house of the glassblower, Hirsch. The name was Hirsch. And the Hirsch family came over from Germany, and they were glassblowers.

And he was the foreman of the glassworks, and he had a nice house on Pine Street there. Well, this stuff, it was in the attic, and she was a descendant of them, and it was left to her. The house was left to her.

And she found this stuff up in the attic.

Interviewer - Now, that's called the Turner Glass Collection. What's the connection there?

Richard Lahue - Well, yeah, because it was left to the, well, she just inherited it. Is she a Turner family? Yeah.

Okay. And so that's how we got it from her. And my wife went with Hazel Stevens and two or three other people and packed it all to move it up to the house there.

My wife was involved a lot in it. She loved it and loved working up there. She was good at keeping records and things.

That's her whole history. Oh, yes. She passed away in 2004.

We were married 65 years. Went to school together. But anyway.

Interviewer - Did you go to school in town here or another? What town did you go to school in?

Richard Lahue - Oh, I was born in Draco. Draco, okay. And I lived in Draco and went to elementary schools there.

And then the Depression came along. My father had a business in Lowell. He made a lot of stuff for the mills, brushes and room attachments and things that had patents on them from my grandfather.

And my father carried it on. Of course, when all the mills moved down south, there was nothing to do. And the Depression come along and he lost the business and lost the house and lost a lot of property.

He owned right next to the factory and moved some of the things out. Oh, so he moved to Draco. And while we were there, my father moved a lot of the stuff there so he could carry on some of the business.

And it just was tough. But I only lived short. My mother used to go out and do iron shirts and do laundry for people.

And we kept going. Each of the kids had things to do. I worked on a farm when I could.

And, you know, we got through it anyway. But my father died at 54. My mother was only 50 and had lived with all these children.

And, of course, there was no Social Security or anything at that time. So we all had to pitch in and keep the, you know, home fires burning. But we eventually, you know, worked things out and we all turned out good.

I just lost two sisters in 209. One was 96 and one was 83. And I have a sister off of California now.

She's 93. And she's a sharp as a tack. She calls me every week.

Just the two of us left now. And but she's... The family was good.

We got along well.

Interviewer - Can I just change of pace? I'd like to ask you, you lived on Billerica Road in a house that was really historic.

Richard Lahue - Well, the first, I think, in Chelmsford. My brother started to build houses up beyond the Glenview, that whole hill, on Princeton Boulevard. Princeton Boulevard, okay.

There's 60 house lots there. And I built one of the first ones in 1940. I got married in 1940.

When I first got married, I lived in Colonial Apartments in the center where the bank is now. It was an Odd Fellows Hall. My brother took that over and made apartments out of it.

And I got one of the first apartments. And I got a little off the rent. It was like the janitor, you know, they cleaned the halls and stuff.

And then he started to build a house for me and I moved in in February of 1941.

Interviewer - So the house he built was by the Glenview?

Richard Lahue - It was, yes. It was on Arbor Road, 5 Arbor Road.

Interviewer - Okay, let's backtrack for a second. You said your brother purchased the Oddfellows Hall? Yes.

At that time?

Richard Lahue - Well, that was before that.

Interviewer - Is that after it had been a movie theater?

Richard Lahue - Oh, yeah, it was a big hall up there. They used to have wrestling matches and all kinds of things originally there. In fact, St. Mary's Church used to have services in there before the church was built. But there was all kinds of things going on there.

And down below was a meat market. And there was a real estate office.

And then my brother made it over in the front of the building. He made over the meat market. And they moved like next door.

And then he built on an addition. And Carl Peterson, the real estate guy, had an office there. And then on the other side next to the left-hand side of the building was another store.

And then upstairs, Dr. Willis had an office. And then on the other side was a beauty shop in the front. And the rest were apartments.

And I got the first apartment there. And I stayed there until I moved into the house. I lived on Harbor Road for 13 years.

And my children were born there. Let's see. Yeah, they were all born there.

And then I moved to 41 Borough Road. And it just so happens I lived there for 13 years. And my oldest son got married and he was getting married.

And he didn't have a place to live. And so I bought the house 22 Worthen Street, which is next to the Blake funeral home. And that had three apartments.

And so he lived there. And then he eventually bought a house down Evergreen Street. And just about that time, my daughter was getting married, so she lived there.

And then my son, Bob, went in the Navy. And so we had this big house in Borough Road that was really too much for my wife to take care of. But I had spent a lot of time there going over it and building it.

It was beautiful. And so then I started to fool around on 22 Worthen Street and took down a room there, a big family room. And I had two rooms upstairs.

And my daughter lived downstairs. And her children, Michael came along and the older boy. And he had the greatest time with his grandmother because he used to run up and down the stairs.

And every day... So did you live upstairs then? I lived upstairs.

Okay, this is after you sold the Billerica Road house. Yeah, then I moved from Billerica Road and I sold that. And so they lived there.

So then friends of mine lived here. Mr. and Mrs. Emmons. And he used to help me up to buy them a house.

He was a nice guy in his 80s and he was very handy. And she was meticulous on things. And she would help up at the buy them a house too.

But he used to have a few things while he was working with me. And he'd say, I can't get anybody to come and do this and do that. Little things.

And I said, I'll come down. So I used to come down and I'd fix things for him. And point up his chimney and stuff.

And he'd want to pay me. And I said, what's a friend for? I said, but if you ever want to sell that house, you let me know.

So, oh, I waited about five, six years. And one day he called me. It was just during the bicentennial.

We were so busy. And I was on I don't know how many committees. I was out every day.

And he said, well, we're ready to sell the house. He said, oh, gee. I said, I couldn't even think of a mover now.

I said, gee. But I tell you what. I said, I'll come over and see her and talk to you about her.

So I come over here. And right here in this little room. And I said, now, Henry, I'm interested in the house, but I just can't.

Oh, it's all right. We don't have a place to go yet, he said. We've got time to work on it.

So he said, I said, you tell me what you want for it. And I'll tell you yes and no and no hard feelings. That's fine with me, he said.

He said, we've had it appraised, he said, with two appraisals. One was 45 and one was 44. But if you want it for 37, you can have it.

I almost flipped off, didn't I? I said, are you sure, Henry? I don't want people to think I took advantage of it, you know.

Nope. Only costs $8,000. That's what he said.

1950.

Interviewer - And then you had done work for him through the years. I'm sure he appreciated that, too.

Richard Lahue - So I got it for $37,000. But upstairs wasn't finished. When he moved here, her parents were alive, and they lived here with them.

And then they both passed away, and so they lived here for quite a while. Well, they built a house in 1950, and I bought it in 76. So they lived here that long.

But right a short while after that, he had an aneurysm and died. Oh, she called me, and she said, Henry's passed away. And I'm thinking, boy, I have just a handshake here.

And I said, well, I don't know what you want to do with the house. I'm still interested. Whatever you and Henry agreed on, that's what we're going to do, she said.

So I said, okay. And I'll bet you there were five or six people around here waiting for this house. I've had people come in and say, oh, I didn't even know it was for sale.

It was never for sale. So because they custom built it, you know, and they were very fussy about everything. And down cellar, he's a big tall guy, 6'3", and he said, I said, geez, it's an awful high ceiling down here.

He said, I was so sick and tired of bumping my head everywhere, I made sure that there's enough room to go there without bumping my head. So the ceilings are quite high down cellar. But very nice, and I've done a lot of work.

But anyway, I helped. So anyway, when he died, she was alone here, and she didn't know what she was going to do. And they had been looking around for an apartment.

And so I said, so anyway, when I said I would take the house here, my daughter was very upset. She said, oh, you're moving it. So they went out there next Sunday looking for a house, and they found one down here in East Sheppard Lane.

And she said to me, you want to come and look at it with me? She said, you know, we kind of like it. So the people had built a house in Westlands, and they had the two houses, and they were kind of in a bind.

And so I looked at it, and they wanted $39,000 for it. And I said, I'll give them $35,000. And they took it.

Interviewer - So that's within a couple of blocks of here, is it?

Richard Lahue - It's just down East Sheppard Lane. And so, oh, I did some work over there, too. I built a bathroom upstairs, and built a porch, and built another room on it.

I was doing it for everything. The kids, I've been building for the kids for years, one thing or another. But anyway, she moved there.

And so that meant that the apartment was empty downstairs. So I said to Mrs. Emmons, well, why don't you look at the apartment here? So sure enough, she moved in.

I helped her move, and I sent her rugs out and had them cleaned and did everything I could for her. And so she lived there for a while. And, you know, she was kind of fussy.

The stove wasn't right. She was used to her stove in her now. So I put a new stove over the wall.

So I put a new one in, and oh, that wasn't it. I was just kind of sick, so I decided, I don't think I'll keep the house. It's such a nuisance.

Every time I go over there, there's something wrong. So I said, I'll sell it. Well, in the meantime, she decided to move.

So she moved up on Wilson Street in the brick apartments that are across McFarland Manor around the back on Wilson Street. And so that was fine. That's fine.

I bought all this stuff, and that was their couch. And he had it made special. Years ago, we worked in a place over there on Middlesex Street that made furniture, and he had that special made.

So it kind of fitted here, you know. So I bought it back and a few other things from her that she didn't need. And then she lived there for a while, and then she passed away.

She was getting along in years. So I've been here ever since. And my daughter's close by, and my Bob lives in Westford.

My son, the other one, lives in Nashua. But when I was working with Charlie Watt, he had built some houses on Watson Lane, and he had a son he lived with. And there was a house, Mrs. Lambert's, and then there was Edgar Dana, the guy on the wallboard place. And he built them all. So Mrs. Lambert moved out. No, she died, and the son wanted to sell the house.

So Charlie bought it back from him. So then he did a few things, and he had an ad in the paper, in the Boston paper. And he wanted to show it.

So he was working with me. He said, I can't go with you today because, he said, I got an ad in the paper, and I got to be there. So I said, geez, I think my son might be interested in it.

And he lived on a woodbine next to Tumulus's, the first street up from Tumulus's. And he had bought a house down there. And I put a new bathroom in there for him.

But anyway, I called my son, and I said, Charlie gave me the key. He told you to go and look at the house and see if you were interested. And he said, oh, his eyes just lit up.

The more he looked at it, the more he looked. So he decided to take it. And Charlie said, I could have sold it a couple of times, but I didn't like the looks of the people.

And after all, they were going to be my neighbors, and I landed abutted. So anyway, he afterwards told me, best thing I ever did, he said, was sell it to your son. Hell of a neighbor, he said.

He's always doing something for me. So anyway, he lived there for quite a while. But then he retired after 30 years.

He had an RFD mail route in Westford around Flushing Pond and Groton Road and that area. And after he retired, he still gets a pension now, but he works for every day. He takes the mail from Westford Post Office to Forge Village, Graniteville, and Nabnasset.

And he picks the mail up there and takes it back to the post office twice a day. And that's besides his pension. He also was in charge of the maintenance of all those buildings.

He was like a subcontractor. He didn't get any benefits like that. And he does that.

He said, what am I going to do? He said, I'm so used to being out. I can't sit at home doing nothing.

So he says, all right. Between his pension and the money he gets from doing that other work. Let me change directions again since the clock just chimed.

Interviewer - You said you lived on Worthen Street next to Blake Funeral Home. I wondered if you knew the location of the Billy Fletcher House that was torn down in 1916.

Richard Lahue - I was there before it was torn down.

Interviewer - Oh, really?

Richard Lahue - Tell me about it. I was there before they caught him and built that house.

Interviewer - That's a fairly new house on the right side of Blake.

Richard Lahue - When he didn't build it, a guy named Carey built it.

Interviewer - Ray Carey. Ray Carey, a big developer in town.

Richard Lahue - He built the brick house behind.

Interviewer - Didn't he do some major shopping center developments like Chelmsford Mall?

Richard Lahue - Yes, he had the Chelmsford Mall.

Interviewer - So he built the house where the Fletcher House was.

Richard Lahue - And it never finished. It never did get finished. I don't know.

There was a controversy. He put up some steel work down in the parking lot. He was going to have a parking garage.

And they stopped him because of the wetlands down there. So the steel was there for a long while and eventually took it down. But it was just about that time that he was building that house too.

And I don't know whether he was just ticked off or what, but he never finished it.

Interviewer - He had financial trouble at the time.

Richard Lahue - Yes, there was something wrong.

Interviewer - Let me ask. I was curious. I know where the new house is, but where was the Billy Fletcher House relative to the new house?

Right there. And there was a big barn to the left of that.

Richard Lahue - Right where that house is.

Interviewer - Okay, same site.

Richard Lahue - Because my brother built the funeral home. Oh, did he? Yes.

And that was part of that land. But they bought like a lot, but it went deep to get the footage. But the Billy Fletcher House, I remember when they tore it down.

Interviewer - I've seen some pictures of it, and it looked like it was pretty well worn out. Oh, yeah, it was old. Now, was somebody living in it at the time?

Richard Lahue - Not at the latter part of the time. It was kind of run down. But, hey, I've got postcards of it.

I've seen your postcard collection. It's very nice. My wife's got quite a collection.

It's a big, big thing. On Chelmsford and Lowell and surrounding towns. But she loved it.

She was a busy thing. God, she got into everything. But anyway, I don't know what you were telling them about that.

Interviewer - Well, there was another thing I wanted to ask you about. You mentioned you were very, very busy during the bicentennial celebration on several different projects and committees that you were working on. I wondered if I could just...

I think you worked on the schoolhouse, because I remember seeing a plaque inside with your name on it. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the beginning of the project, how it was acquired, what it looked like, what was inside it.

Richard Lahue -

Well, there were several things at that time. They had the toll house was stored in back of the schoolhouse, way up in back of the schoolhouse. So we decided to take that out of there and I had my friend Charlie Parlee, his brother Henry owns the lumber yard in Littleton, and he has one of the big front end things to lift lumber up.

He came, picked that darn thing right up and brought it down and put it on the lawn in front of the old town hall. And it was kind of like a little information booth, but it was kind of decaying on the bottom. And I think the town had some guy that was working on the highway department and thought he was a bit of a cop and he started ripping off the clapboards and I had to stop him because they were hand-hewn and he was just ripping them off like they was paper.

And I said, God, you can't duplicate those things. Don't do it anymore. So I said, I'll finish it.

So I had to kind of salvage some, but the very bottom ones I had to put some new ones, put some new sills in. And they stayed that way during about a whole year, bicentennial. And, in fact, I had Mrs. Oh, what was her name?

She wrote the book on the Middlesex Canal. I got it in there. But anyway, I had her come and autograph the books there in the Toll House.

And she wrote another book, The Limerick Daughter, Limerick Daughter, and that's about the Toll House. And she comes from Winchester. Anyway, that was part of that deal.

So then I was on the bicentennial committee and George Parkhurst was chairman. And he said, Dick, we're going to do something about the schoolhouse. He said, I think we can get some money to start to do some work on it.

And so he said, would you look after that? And I said, yeah. But I also, at the same time, I made over 100 plaques, wooden signs, for the various houses.

So I had charge of, have you seen that big blue pamphlet we put out for the bicentennial? It's got all the houses and the map on the back and it has the monuments and the cemeteries and everything of interest and it's keyed on the back. And I had charge of that, the sites and homes.

And any home that was 100 years or older could qualify, but we had to get some information on it. So I scuttled around. I had different people in different parts of the town trying to look up the history or find out about it.

But Jane Drury was very helpful because she had inventory, quite a few. So I got some stuff from her. But anyway, we put this pamphlet out and I was working on that.

And then we come to the schoolhouse. So that, as I say, was used until we took the furniture and stuff out for the farmhouse. And then the park department was used there.

John Gray used it for the park department. They put the lawnmowers and stuff in there. And so we had to...

So they wanted to do it over. So we had pictures of what it looked like before. And so I had a guy named Bob White come.

He did the brickwork. The windows were all blocked up in the front. We had them take them out and they had to redo the front of the main door and put the two windows back in, put a new chimney on the back and from the ceiling up so we could vent the heating system.

And so we got... Peter McHugh was the building inspector at that time and he had a shop on 10 Pike Road. And so I got him to build the...

He was supposed to build all the pews or the desks like it was one, the seat in the back as one. And, well, it went on and on and on. It wasn't progressing.

And what it was that he wasn't making enough money. He just had... He just about paid for one half.

So I said, okay, he did a nice job. So I went up to the school and got in the carpenter shop and the carpenter shop up there made the other half for us. And we had the...

I made that closet in the corner and put the meter board and everything on there. We had underground wires come in. The electricians from the school come in and did all the wiring there for us.

And we put a new gas furnace up in the attic. And there was a bell that was in the academy on Academy Street. And I said, it's around here.

Somebody's got it. Sure enough, we found out our Emerson had it. And, but there was one of the...

Was it Ted Emerson or Brad Emerson? Brad's father was in the farm across the street. And so I took it down to a place that I used to have work done and they welded the arm on it so it would swing.

And I put it up in the attic there and there's a rope on it so the kids used to go in and pull it and ring the bell.

Interviewer - In the Ascension Notes of the Historic Society it says that the mechanism is broken. It's jammed and it won't ring. Did you fix it after that point?

As far as you know, would it ring right now?

Richard Lahue - What?

Interviewer - Would it ring right now? Is it functional? It should ring.

It should ring, okay. Yeah. Because when you pull on the rope it doesn't do anything.

Richard Lahue - Somebody must have pulled it too hard and it's probably flipped around. Somebody has to go up through that little door.

Interviewer - But as far as you know, it's been repaired and should ring.

Richard Lahue - Oh sure, it should. I think that somebody's pulled the rope too hard because it's supposed to go back and forth. You're not supposed to pull it too hard.

But if you do, I think it makes a flip to pull it too hard. But it does work. Or it did the last time I was there.

I hadn't been in for a while. And we had some Boy Scouts wanted a project so they put a wooden flagpole out front but it eventually rotted and fell down. But that was another project that was part of that.

It was all during the same time. That was John Holden and his son? John Holden had something to do with it.

I think his son was involved in it. And John and I, of course, you know, we had guests from England. Mrs. Snow and her husband and guests from Ontario and Canada. And they were here for a week. And I got a picture with them in front of the old school house there. And that was very exciting.

We had a lot of things going on. We had the ball up at the Elks and tree planting in Bartlett Park. Something going on all the time.

And my daughter's oldest boy, he was just a little fella, and he marched around in his tricorn hat. He got into everything. He had one hell of a time for a kid.

You know, just growing up. He was four or five years old. And he went with me everywhere.

He used to, when I was working in the schoolhouse, I did all the woodwork inside the schoolhouse. And I'd put the floor down and he'd come with me and I'd give him a little can of nails and he was pounding them in the floor and some of them would get bent over. Once in a while he'd hit his finger and he'd go...

But he wouldn't tell me because he thought I'd take him home. He wanted to be with me.

Interviewer - A couple more schoolhouse questions for you.

Richard Lahue - Huh?

Interviewer - Schoolhouse questions. When the historic society stored equipment in there, was there a wood floor or was it a dirt floor?

Richard Lahue - Oh, no. It was a cement floor.

Interviewer - Cement floor. Okay. And did you take out the cement floor and put in a wood floor?

No.

Richard Lahue - You call them sleepers. They just put in like two by fours down.

Interviewer - So it was smooth. Did it have a slope to it?

Richard Lahue - No. There was a big granite piece in front of the door. They had a big door because they used to keep the town hearse in there.

One horse town hearse. We had it for a long time. After they took it out of there, we ended up the historical society.

Who has it now? Garrison? Well, it's a long story about that.

Garrison House has it, but every Fourth of July, a guy named Arnold Wilder from Westford would come down and he and I would rub it down with some kind of oil he had and dress the leather and grease the wheels and get it all ready for the thing because he had a horse and he used to pull it. And I used to ride a couple times. I rode with him on it.

Bucky Berkinshaw let me take his tall hat and the tails and stuff and I rode on it with him. And that was the end of the parade. And there was a sign in the window that said, The End.

Anyway, after we had to get out of there, so we took it. We had it for quite a while. But it belonged to Berkinshaws.

So I was renting space. I rented space up there. I used to put six cars down in the big cellar.

Four cars in the back. And before we had the store, I had four cars in the back. Little smaller cars.

I could get them in. And we used to get, I forget, we started off at $25 a month. And each year we'd put it up a little bit because storage costs were going up.

And when I found out what it costs for one of these storage places for a 10 by 10, it's $75 a month. I said, Gee, we're selling space too cheap. Besides, we got a fire alarm and a smoke alarm, you know, and nice cement floors and stuff.

So we used to raise about a couple of thousand a year, which paid the insurance on the whole building. And so, oh, what was I telling you? I don't know.

I've lost my train of thought there.

Interviewer - We were talking about the hearse. Oh, yeah.

Richard Lahue - So I said to young Berkinshaw, I said, you know, he wasn't as likable as his father. And so I said, you know, Dickie, we've taken care of that hearse for several years. We don't own it.

And if you want to keep it up there, I expect that you're going to pay rent, either that or take it out. Well, she was, his wife was very, I mean, his mother was very upset to think that we were charged. She's, you know, she looked down her nose at you.

But anyway, oh, geez, she was upset. So I said, well, sorry, mate, take it out, the damn thing. It took up too much room with shafts and everything.

It took two spaces. So they finally wound up getting it to the garrison house.

Interviewer - Well, before we switch tracks again, I'm leading you into the garrison house, but I wanted a little background on some people. You mentioned Julia Fogg earlier. Who?

You mentioned Julia Fogg. Oh, yeah. And Eleanor Parkhurst.

And I'm wondering if you could just tell me what they were like and some of the things that they were involved in in town that you worked on with them.

Richard Lahue - Well, Julia was, as I said, she was the curator for quite a number of years.

Interviewer - Of the Historical Society.

Richard Lahue - Yes. And, of course, she was a Warren. You know, that's the old family, the Warren family.

Interviewer - Becky Warren's curator.

Richard Lahue - And because Becky's father, Franklin, is the son of Edwin. And Edwin and Julia was brother and sister. Okay.

And they lived on the farm down there on Boston Road. Julia's husband died very young. And then was she a teacher also?

She taught piano.

Interviewer - Oh.

Richard Lahue - She was a piano teacher. In fact, one of my sisters took piano lessons from her. And she was also something in church.

I think she was like the secretary to the Unitarian Church for a long time. But she was very busy at the farmhouse. She kept track of everything.

Kind of slow and pokey, but very thorough. And she used to kind of, she didn't move fast enough for me. You know, I just like to get things done.

And anyway, she was curator until she was unable to do it. So she took some things home. And so we, on the board, decided that we'd get somebody else.

So let her do some work at home so she could feel that she was still doing something. But she, we met a couple people. But Judy would begin to, Judy Fichtenbaum had begun to take an interest.

She was more interested at that time working at the Concord Aquarium. But she began to spend more time at the Historical Society. And I worked with her on the accessions.

We used to meet once a month. And any accessions come in, we'd look at it and see whether it was what we would want to keep. And then we'd put a number on it.

We worked with Don Pattershall and Lucille Ervin. And she took care of that. And she kept all the records on it and gave it a number.

And we put numbers on each article. It would depend what it was, whether it was cloth or metal or whatever. Sometimes you just paint it on.

Sometimes you put a tag on it. But that was a job that, that was one day a month. And that kept track of things.

As far as Eleanor, well, actually, Eleanor didn't do an awful lot out there. She worked for the newspaper, you know, Newsweekly. She wrote an article, a lot of articles.

And she wasn't really doing much. That's why they replaced her as curator. She just wasn't doing what a curator should do.

Apparently, she didn't have the time. And she kind of resented it because she left everything to the Garrison House. She left them a lot of dope, too.

See, it was handed down to her. She had arts and unfiltered owned property up on High Street and it was left to her. And she had the printing shop and the building on the corner where McHugh was.

That was her father's and then the big house there and Acton Road. So she did all right.

Interviewer - Did you hear anything about a committee to update the town history?

Richard Lahue - She was working on it. It was supposed to be done right around the Bicentennial. And it went on.

I wanted to work on it, but I'll get somebody to work on it. I get a couple of people, but she just, I don't know, she just never seemed to spend enough time on it. And she didn't want anybody else really working on it.

She kind of discouraged them. And I was always, because I wanted to update it, you know, from what is on. And she said, well, I don't know where the stuff is.

Interviewer - I do.

Richard Lahue - Oh, you do. But she had a lot of stuff she was working on.

Interviewer - We're actually getting ready to publish it this year.

Richard Lahue - Oh, good. Good. I'm glad because I had spoken to Jane, too, about it.

She was very friendly with Eleanor. And I think she got a lot of stuff from Eleanor, from her estate.

Interviewer - Jane inherited the manuscript files for the book. Good. And she passed it along to Linda Prescott.

Richard Lahue - Oh, yeah.

Interviewer - And some of the files actually came to the Society.

Richard Lahue - Oh, yeah, she's on the Historical Commission.

Interviewer - So in the Historical Commission, we did a rearrangement in our files last year. And I was a lucky person to discover the manuscript. So I've organized a team of transcribers, and I'm doing the editing myself.

Richard Lahue - Oh, good. I worked on the Historical Commission for several years. In fact, I've run a lot of committees.

I was on the Historic District Commission for 17 years. And I was on the pick of the town colors. Well, it's just one committee after another.

Interviewer - Let's talk about the Historic District for a few minutes.

Richard Lahue - Tell me about your adventures there. Well, that's quite a process to even have the town vote, because there's all kinds of restrictions. And the way the law was written is that you could decide which exclusions you could have.

If there were some things in there that you wanted excluded, you could vote that. And they had a committee of five, I think. And they worked a long time on it to get through the process and have the town approve it.

And when they did, of course, they formed a committee. And the committee was about five people with two alternates. And we used to meet once a month.

And, you know, there always was an application for a judgment. And we'd have a hearing and tell the people what the law was and what they could do, what they couldn't do, and try to help them get through it because they owned property and they didn't know what they could do, what they couldn't do. And some of them didn't even know the law existed.

And, you know, it was kind of a hassle at first to get people used to it. But eventually they realized that they wanted to do anything. If there was any architectural change, they would have to come before the board.

But the town did vote exclusions. The color of paint and the color of a roof, roofing. And I think it was three things that they excluded from the original law.

But everything else was included in it. And it's a pretty good law because we had to go before the court a couple of times and then we'd get rulings from the Mass Historical Commission, which sent us court rulings from other towns. And I never saw, they never lost one.

The court said that's the law and that's what you've got to comply with. And in town we fought with the telephone company for five years to do something with the telephone building there. And I had to go before a judge in Concord.

And the judge says, well, how long have you been doing that? I said, five years to get here today. He says, go to court next week.

Interviewer - I said, you fool around long enough. So tell me about the issue with the telephone building. Was it not colonial looking?

Richard Lahue - They wanted to extend it in the back. And they wanted to put on some kind of an air conditioning unit, too, on the roof. But we wanted, and the windows were all boarded up.

Not boarded up, but bricked up. So we wanted the building to look like a building, not a bank. And that was one thing, to open up the windows and put new windows in.

And I've forgotten all the other things that were requested, but they hemmed and hawed and then they were going to put a big heating unit right out in the front on North Road. And he said, well, you know, why don't you move it where it's around the side or the back or something where it's not going to deter the looks of the place. So it was all those things, and they poked.

It's like changing, getting them to pull out a telephone pole. You know, they just procrastinated on and on and on. You don't get anywhere with them.

So when the judge did go to court, boy, he made them, he fined them, and he made them comply with the regulations. But it was a long haul. And we had other guys that came in and followed right in a shirt shop down in the Sweetser building.

Well, let's see what's here. There's a sign company here, you know, right around the corner on Chelmsford Street, that brick building. Across from Wilson Street?

No, not Wilson Street. Across from Wilson? No, no, right around from McHugh's building, the next building on Chelmsford Street.

Used to be the post office at one time.

Interviewer - Oh, yes. That's the same brick building I was thinking of.

Richard Lahue - So that's just before Brad Emerson's office.

Interviewer - Right. That building. Yes.

There's a Chinese restaurant on one side. There's a Chinese restaurant on the right.

Richard Lahue - Yes, on the end, yes. But that was Hadley's Market at one time, a meat market, and the other side was the post office. And when I grew up there, as I say, I moved into the apartment in 1940.

Anyway, let's see. What were we going to talk about?

Interviewer - Well, we got into the – I think it's called the – well, the Sweetser block that we were just talking about. But that triggered another memory. You had mentioned Hubie Scoble ran a meat market.

Hubie Scoble? Yes. And you mentioned that there was a meat market to the right of the Odd Fellows Hall.

Richard Lahue - Yes, that was Eno.

Interviewer - What was his name? Eno. George Eno.

Okay. Where was Hubie Scoble's meat market?

Richard Lahue - What was what? Hubie Scoble's meat market. Oh, it was in Alpine Lane.

Okay. It's about – well, it's probably down where the family dentist is there. Okay.

In that area.

Interviewer - Now, what we were talking about before was the Historic District Commission and some of the things that went on. We went from the telephone building to another story.

Richard Lahue - Oh, yeah, there was – oh, yeah, there was – and this guy that sold shirts. T-shirts. Huh?

T-shirts, right? Yeah, stuff. And he put big signs up and off.

He was just a pain. And he'd come in. He would tell us what we were going to do.

He said, we used to rotate the chairmanship. I happened to be chairman at that time. He said, you don't run it.

You don't call the shots here. We do. And the sooner you run it, the better and the sooner we'll get along here.

And I said, you've got to comply with it. You get a big black sheet and put over that sign until you get approval. And, of course, they get teed off.

You know, they don't like anybody. They don't tell them what to do. But some of them, they had no intentions of obeying the law.

They're just going to do it. You can't tell me what to do. I own the property.

So he was one of them. He was a real school ball. But anyway, we straightened that out.

And, oh, it was signs. Signs were an issue. We had quite a bit of trouble with George.

I don't know what the heck his name was. Kalos? I don't know.

Was it Greek?

Interviewer - Kalos. Originally, it was Kalogeropoulos.

Richard Lahue - Yeah, he was such a pain. And we had a barber in there, and he put a barber pole up to the turns, you know, without getting a hearing. And he eventually had to take it down because he didn't get a hearing.

And we almost went to court. I guess rather than go to court, he took it down. But he was a pain.

But those things, well, 17 years I was on there, there was something all the time.

Interviewer - I remember there was an American video store there, and there was an issue where they had flashing Christmas lights. Were you on there when they did that?

Richard Lahue - Yeah. They cut it down a little bit, and they cut it down a little bit. But just enough to be annoying, you know, not comply with the law.

But those were all things we had to go through, and it was just part of the process. But I'm proud of what we did because we kept a lot of people from doing things which would have messed up the, you know, the atmosphere in the center. Even when Dr. Currie was building the bank building there, that's where the farm was. And there was a silo on the pond. I said, you want to give it a little bit of flavor there and make it look like a farm? There was a farm there.

I said, you put a building. So they made that teller window out the back there like a silo. And those are all the things that were suggested.

Interviewer - There was a preservation restriction on that property.

Richard Lahue - Yeah.

Interviewer - Did the Historic District Commission institute that?

Richard Lahue - Yeah. It took in that whole area. And, oh, let's see.

We had a lot of trouble with the guy, Wilson, with the sign. He had a Century 21, a great big orange sign. And we asked him.

We thought if we could get a little more colonial look in the sign there, especially on the corner and stuff.

Interviewer - Which building was this?

Richard Lahue - That would be the old passage on the corner.

Interviewer - Oh, yes. It's the Century 21 landmark.

Richard Lahue - Yeah. Landmark. Yeah.

And he bought the building, the brick building, across the street, next to where the bank is now. And that, oh, he wanted to tear down. It was a brick planter all the way across the front of that.

And he wanted to do something to it. I forget. And I said, well, that was built later.

I said, I'd rather you tear the darn thing down. It doesn't go with the building anyway. And it was falling apart.

So that house was built by Fiske, Eustace Fiske. They owned the big house in the corner. But they built that brick house for him.

He lived there with his two daughters. And I lived up to 41 Thoracic Road.

Interviewer - So you're talking about Keefe Law Firm, the brick house next door to the Fiske house?

Richard Lahue - Well, that's a law office. That was a living house, their residence, Eustace Fiske. And he was an insurance firm with business and all.

Oh, I don't know. Let's see. It more or less tells you what went on a little bit and what the procedure was.

And they could get, there were three different certificates. One was a certificate of approval and one was of hardship. In other words, if what they wanted to do caused financial hardship on them, you could make an exception to it.

But they gave out very few of those. They used to cry that, but that's a proven. And we were pretty strict, but it worked.

It worked a lot of work. And I think it shows it in the center. You know, different buildings and the things that they wanted to do.

And people would tear off railings on the house and they wouldn't want to replace them. You know, you're changing the architectural features of this house. So you've got to put it back.

That's what went on. You really had to have a pretty strict set of rules. Anything else you want to?

Interviewer - Well, let's backtrack and look at the history of Garrison House because I know your brother was involved with that and Eleanor Parkhurst. Let's start at the beginning on the Garrison House.

Richard Lahue - Well, my brother bought land on both sides of the street there where the Garrison. He bought the Garrison House and he bought all the land across the street. He built some houses in there.

And he formed the Garrison House Association. He gave them the house. But he owned the land on the left outside where they moved that building.

And years later, I guess he sold it to them. But he spent a lot of money there. He was on the board for a number of years and made a lot of money.

Interviewer - He was on our board too. You did mention that back in 1959, the Garrison House had been offered to the Historical Society.

Richard Lahue - I don't know whether it was. It was turned down. Oh, was it?

Yeah, the Historical Society turned it down. Oh, yes, I do because, what was his name? He lived up on Westford Street there.

It was one that said no, that they wouldn't accept it.

Interviewer - It was too much to bite off. It was too much work involved for the cops to handle.

Richard Lahue - They didn't have any money to do anything.

Interviewer - Money or people in town.

Richard Lahue - So they didn't refuse. Then another thing they didn't do was, the Sweets House was left to the Historical Society. Now that's where Brad Emerson's office was.

On Chester Street. Yes. Mr. Sweets lived there. I didn't know that. And they gave it to us. But the board was the same way.

Christie Petty, that's the guy's name I was thinking of. He was on the board and he was very conservative. And I think we would have done all right on that.

But anyway, they didn't accept it. And lo and behold, Brad Emerson was on the board. And he decided to buy it.

Interviewer - So he bought it from the Society? Or did the Society turn it down before?

Richard Lahue - I think he did because she left it to the Society. And I can't remember the particulars now. But I think that was it.

He bought it and I think the money went to the Garrison House from it. I don't know why it went to the Garrison House. I don't know why it didn't come to them.

Unless it went to the estate. I've forgotten what year it went to. That was a while ago.

Interviewer - So anyway, Warren owns the Haywood Garrison House now.

Richard Lahue - The what?

Interviewer - The Haywood Garrison House now. And he built the development across the road. And what happens next?

After 1959 now, the Association has been formed.

Richard Lahue - Yeah, well, they got somebody to live in it. To kind of take care of it. I think they paid a little rent.

And they started to improve it. My brother had some work. He had his men work on it for a while.

And then they built the blacksmith shop. They got a blacksmith shop from Eleanor Parkhurst. They moved it in two sections.

Yeah, that was on Maple Road. Yeah, it was next to the building there where Sally Field was. And they gave that to the Garrison House.

They moved it. And they had somebody that used to demonstrate. I forget who it was.

I know who it was. But on Sundays, they would have somebody working on it. And they did quite a bit of work there.

Quite a bit of work inside for the apartment. And outside they had that. That was a muster field, they called it.

Until that house they got there. The... Hill Jock.

Hill Jock House, yeah. Moved it up there. And I guess it's all been fixed up.

They haven't been in it. But it wasn't there for quite a while. But Eleanor left quite a bit of money to the Garrison House.

So they were, in fact, had the money. Some of it was used to move that house. And, you know, talking about money, I induced Hazel Stevens to lay about 60 grand.

I talked to Ralph Parlee. Gave him all the information he needed for his taxes. And he gave us $60,000.

$25,000 to the museum and $25,000 to the... He could have given us half a million. Because when they settled the estate, they had to pay $1,200,000 in taxes.

He could have given us half of that. And it wouldn't have hurt him a bit. But he was a nice guy.

I liked Ralph. I think he thought he was doing the right thing. But even Charlie told me, he said, it's a shame they had to pay.

He worked so hard on that farm to make that money and then just had to give it to the government. Tell me a little bit about Ralph and Charlie.

Interviewer - Tell me a little bit about Ralph and Charlie Parlee.

Richard Lahue - Oh, Ralph is... Ralph's father died when he... Well, all the boys, there's six boys.

Father died and the mother run the farm. And she did a good job. Which location was this?

Which farm was this? This is where Ralph lived.

Interviewer - What's the address?

Richard Lahue - Well, Pioneer Road. It's... The Dutton House was on that corner.

Interviewer - That's the corner house in 72. It was falling apart.

Richard Lahue - Where they had the little stand. And Charlie... Oh, the Dutton House.

Charlie bought the Dutton House. Yeah, okay. So are we talking about...

No, I'm talking about the red and old brown houses where Ralph lived. That was the farm. Okay.

With big chicken coopers. And Ralph ran chickens for years and years. And eggs.

You know, he sold eggs. Hard worker. And this is the young Henry.

Young Henry you're talking about. He's the electrician. That's the one that's been involved up on...

When they have the open house there. The farm...

v Interviewer - That's young Henry. Okay, so you call him young Henry. Now we're talking about older Henry.

Richard Lahue - Who lives... Ralph lived in the house. Ralph...

The nursery was the Dutton House.

Interviewer - Yeah.

Richard Lahue - Which Charlie still owns.

Interviewer - Right.

Richard Lahue - And the next house was the farm. Ralph's. And the next house was Henry's.

Interviewer - Yes.

Richard Lahue - Okay, young Henry. But he lives in Ralph's house. And Ralph left in the farm.

Interviewer - Okay. Anyway, we were talking about what kind of people were they, Ralph and Charlie. I know Charlie did a lot of developments in town.

Did you work on any of these projects with him? Did I what? Did you work on any of these development projects?

Or do you have any insight into...

Richard Lahue - No, I didn't work on anything with him. Charlie's a good friend of mine. In fact, he used to...

For years, when I was the teacher, I had breakfast with him every day. It skips him and three other guys. And all the rest of them have passed away.

But Charlie is still a friend of mine. I still go out with him for breakfast when he's home. And we go out to lunch once in a while.

Interviewer - He's in Florida now.

Richard Lahue - But the boys, there's six boys. There were six boys. Ralph was the oldest.

And then there was Fred. And he lived on the old Chelmsford Road in Westford, about 25 acres there, a nice home. And he worked at GE for 48 years and never missed a day.

He thought the place wouldn't run without him. And then there's a brother, Edward. And Edward was in the Air Force down in Mississippi.

And he owns a farm down there. He's retired. But he worked as a civilian employee at the base there for quite a while.

He had another brother that lives in Lowell. And his son, Mark, owns the farm in Tyngsboro where you can get strawberries. And it's quite a farm.

He's brought a couple next door to him. So he owns a lot of land there. That's Mark and his wife from that.

She's an engineer. She worked on the big thing in Boston. But when things began to get uneasy, she could see things weren't going right.

Big dig you're talking about? Yeah. She didn't want to.

She thought things were getting a little bit too crooked. So she got out and now she works on the farm with him. And they've enlarged it a lot.

They put a nice building up and they sell all kinds of stuff, canned fruits. But you could pick your own there. He's quite a farmer.

He's got a degree in chemistry and engineering too. So he knows what he's doing. And Ralph helped him a lot.

He let him take a lot of equipment when he first started. And he wound up with it when Ralph died. He just automatically kept it.

In fact, young Henry thought that it was Ralph's and he would fight with him over it. He'd fight over Charlie for building the nursery. He spent a lot of money foolishly and it didn't do any good because he didn't gain anything.

And I don't think even the older Henry is too chummy with Charlie. I don't know. I don't know why.

Probably a little jealousy there or something. But they all did good, the boys. Charlie, he's a multimillionaire.

He's very charitable. Does a lot of good. If anything goes on in town, if they don't hit Charlie up for $20,000, $25,000 or something, he's good.

And his wife is. She gives a lot to church. She's watched several priests.

Automobiles and missionaries. And she's quite chummy with Father Gagnon. And they went to Sarajevo together on two or three trips.

Charlie was there when the tanks were coming down the road.

Interviewer - You mentioned some other people in town that you had breakfast with. Yes.

Richard Lahue - John Carr was one. And he was on a boarded registry. And then I had Charlie Berger who ran the Chevrolet place in Billerica.

Berger and Allen, Berger and Chevy. He used to meet me. He lived right over here.

We built him a house right down the street here. And for years we had breakfast together. And then Arnold Parlee, who's a cousin to Charlie and Ralph.

And he was, he owned a lot of equipment, excavating and stuff. And I used to have him do a lot of stuff for me, too. Fill and stuff I needed.

He'd always bring a load of stuff for nothing. Good guy. They're all very charitable.

But Ralph was a nice guy. He really was very sincere and a hard worker. And he married a schoolteacher.

They were kind of chummy for a long time. And then she retired from teaching the first grade, Muriel Bridges. And they got married.

Oh, God, he must have been 50 or so when they got married. But they went a lot. Every year they had conventions, places, strawberry growers and things.

They would go together. She enjoyed it. They learned a lot.

I remember going with Ralph down to a town called Wheatley. It's on the Connecticut River. And we went down and got strawberry plants.

And they dig them up in the fall and freeze them. And then in this big, long, like a warehouse, they had these men and women. It was dirty because all the dirt was dried.

And it was awful dusty. But they packed them in clumps of 25 and packed them in boxes. And they were different kinds.

And he'd get new ones every year. Because he said, The difference between what it cost and what you made was terrific because they grew better if you put new ones in every year. And so they planted new ones every year.

And he'd get down there and get them from the farms in that area. Beautiful, along the Connecticut River. The farms and everything were beautiful.

But I liked Ralph. I used to stop in after Muriel died. And I'd stop in and have lunch with him.

And he was just a nice guy to talk to.

Interviewer - Well, let's switch tracks again for a minute. Just tell me a little bit about the clock winding job in town.

Richard Lahue - Well, there was a fireman named Spaulding who wound it for years every Sunday. And then he moved. He was a fireman.

And he moved down to Maine. So my oldest boy was always interested in that, always hung around town. And he was really closer to Henry Erickson than he was to me.

He used to say all the time. And so he was around the town all the time. And I don't know why.

I think I had something to do with it. I'm not sure. But we got him the job of winding the clock.

And he loved it. And he was very precise about it. He would wait in his car until it came on the radio.

And he would set his clock. And he'd go, it took so long to go from there. Climb the ladder, get up there.

And he would set that clock, make sure. He didn't have to reset it very often. It was right on.

And he'd wind it 125 turns to bring up the weights for the gong. And 125 turns to run the clock. And those weights were on cables.

And they went over and they'd go down through those big pillars in the front of the church. Oh, I didn't know that. And when Ralph House went up to inspect it, the police was getting, they could see signs of rot and ants eating the wood, the capped cotton or ants.

And he went up there. And that little roof over the granite steps there was down two or three feet. And he kind of jumped down.

He went right through. They landed on one of those granite squares under the post. And nobody died from the results of it.

And he was just going up inspecting it to tell them what he thought they needed to do, you know. Sad thing. And so I went right up afterwards.

And I picked up all the wood that would come down because you couldn't match that stuff. And I put it in the church so that when they fixed it, they would have the same pieces to put back in there. But anyway, my son used to wind the clock there. And then once a year, a company, Howard Company from Boston, would come and oil it and just look after it. But it didn't need an awful lot of attention. But it stopped one time.

It had so much snow on it, the hands wouldn't move. And finally they had to have somebody come and look at it. But he looked after that thing like it was his own.

And my grandson would go with him. I thought he would continue to do it. But Dick sold his house and moved to Nashua, so he gave it up.

But he only got $200 a year for that. I mean, he did it because he loved it, but he didn't get it for the money. But he always wanted to do that.

And he wound up doing it for many years. With all the kids, I kind of instilled in them that they ought to have a little public service. My daughter was the clerk to the Historic District Commission.

And she's good. She kept the notes and notifications in the paper, ads and everything. She did a good job on it for as long as I was on it.

And my son Bob, he's very interested in Westford and his kids. He was in everything. But they all contribute to something in the community.

And I think you'll all benefit by it. It's good for you.

Interviewer - Well, to wrap it up, I wondered if you had any favorite stories that you wanted to tell about service in town or events in town.

Richard Lahue - Well, let's see. An interesting person was Fletcher. Sam Fletcher.

He was in a plumbing business with Donovan, Fletcher and Donovan. The two boys eventually got into it. But he used to love to go hunting way up in Canada with a bunch of guys from town, a guy named Adams that lived on Thin Park Road and George Stewart. And another guy had breakfast with George Stewart. He was superintendent of the water department. But Sam gave me some big buffalo gloves, long ones, and they were up in the Byam house in one, I think, on the trunk in the bedroom.

Interviewer - Made with real buffalo hide.

Richard Lahue - Yeah, and he used to wear them when he would go hunting up in Canada. And he's a great storyteller. He'd go on and tell you about different people there, you know, in town.

And I used to love to talk to him. In fact, I made a video with him and Henry Erickson. And somebody, I think it's up to Byam house.

And I'd get the two of them talking like this. Remember this? Remember Gene?

It was so interesting. And let's see. We had a fellow that, he was kind of an odd duck and he lived in South Chelmsford.

And his name was Bob Burton. And he was a great guy. He'd get up at town meeting and he would go on. He would criticize the highway department. He would criticize everything. Nobody was doing anything right.

And he could do it better. And he got after the snow plows. And so they gave him a job with a snow plow and one of these big graders with a wing plow.

And the first time he run, he took about 17 mailboxes down. So that was the end of him. But he was a town character.

He's a funny guy. And there used to be a guy named Ernie. He worked for Emerson on the farm.

He didn't live in the house. He lived in the shed because his boots were all covered with cow manure and everything. And he'd come into Jack's there and smell to high heavens.

And everybody would get away from where he smelled so. But he worked on the farm there. He was living there, but I don't think he could pay too much.

But he was a town character. And there's several guys I remember. Bill, I don't know what that was his name.

He lived in a little trailer down about where Zoom, where the Zoom cleaning place is. It was like a dugout and somebody took gravel out in there at one time. It was before 495.

And he had a little bit of a cabinet when he lived in there. Didn't do any harm, but you could see him walking up the street. He kind of waddled.

He was a little handyman. He'd do things for different people. And then he wound up in a nursing home in Lowell.

And I used to go down and buy him tobacco and go in and see him. But he was related to several people in town.

Interviewer - The Greenwoods used to have a sewer operation. The Greenwoods used to have a sewer operation right there back where the ice cream shop was.

Richard Lahue - Oh, yeah, well, that was for the hotel before sewerage. That was to, you mean that building behind Zoom?

Interviewer - Well, no, no. The Greenwoods used to own land before 495. And Emerson used to own land up to a point.

And then the Greenwoods had some land, and they put in sewer pipes. So that was in the same area where this fellow that you're talking about lives.

Richard Lahue - Right.

Interviewer - And Mr. Greenwood, Bob Greenwood's father used to work for Ted Emerson at the farm also. You mentioned this fellow worked there. It seems like there was a connection of people living there.

Richard Lahue - Yeah, he worked for everybody. But he bought a piece of land from Emerson. And he built a house.

And he had a little farm himself. That's where Charlie built those office buildings there, Meeting House Road. And he had a little two-wheeled horse carriage that he'd run around in.

And Beano was quite a character. He was on a lot of boards as a selectman. He was on the Board of Health.

And, in fact, it was through him that started his son Raymond on making the cement septic tanks. He was on the Board of Health. And the Board of Health passed a rule that you had to have septic tanks.

So his son went in the business of making septic tanks. And he used to do sewer work. And did a lot of work in North Chelmsford.

And he used to say, nobody has any trouble with my drainage system. Well, most of them went right into the culverts in the street. So that's why North Chelmsford got sewered first, because it smelled of high heavens there.

All the sewage was running into the drainage ditches. I could tell you hundreds of stories I've read over the years of these people doing different things. Like even the watering trough that's up in the center, it was gone for a long while.

And I got a little teed off because I wanted... And there used to be two iron doors that opened up. And they used to pour the ice in there.

And there was a fountain there. And you could get a drink right there beside that watering trough. And it was gone.

So I come to find out Emerson had it down in the yard. And he used it for the horses to drink out of. So we finally got it back.

And he's the guy who took the bell out of the academy. You know, and a lot of the posts that are between his house and the bank, in the back there, those granite posts, they were once around the common. The common was covered with, you know, around them.

And I don't know if you know Davis. Albert? Albert Davis?

He was on the board with me.

Interviewer - So Albert Davis lived next door to Emerson Farm. Almost next door, two houses next to Town Hall.

Richard Lahue - Yes, he did. Well, he was brought up there. He lived down on Pine Avenue later years.

But that was a Richard Davis, Richardson Davis house. It was two families. What the hell was his name?

He was on the board with me. I was going to tell you about him. He's an interesting person, too.

Very smart guy. Oh, he's the one who told me that his father was one of them that put them up. His father was an engineer, and he worked on putting the railroad, Street Railway in Boston.

He was an engineer, and he went to MIT, and so did Harold, Jard, Jard Davis. That's his name. And he told about his father.

He did that, and Jard, he worked for Raytheon later years, but he was a smart cookie. He didn't look at it. And he left us quite a bit of dough, too.

Didn't know he had it. You never know it by, you know, the way he acted and everything. He was very conservative.

But he was an interesting person. Bright, intelligent. Well, you know what?

I think our time's up. So I'll give you a break. Oh, it isn't 4 o'clock yet.

Okay. Well, I hope you've learned something.

Interviewer - We appreciate it very much.