Newell Heard
We have already learned from the biographical notes of
brother-in-law William Grout, that Newell Heard married Jerusha Grout and lived
in the Grout-Heard house. Both Grouts and Heards were well established and
respected in the town. On the Heard
side of the two-family house they raised two children Abigail and John. John
became a professional photographer, and several of his photographs of the
family are included in this study.
In writing about the Grout-Heard house, niece Mary Heard later wrote, ÒWilliam
Heard (II), my uncle, was born here and lived in the
village. He was a man of strong
character and quick temper. But
behind his rough manner and sharp tongue was a warm heart and ready hand to
respond to every call for help and sympathy in trouble and sickness. When the Civil War broke out, he said
to Mr. Charles Campbell, ÔI am too old to go, but if you will enlist, I will
run your farm while you are gone.Õ
And he did as he had promised.Ó
(handwritten note at Historical Society) Newell also visited the Wayland
servicemen after the Antietam battle, with news and supplies from the SoldierÕs
Aid Society.
Newell, originally a carpenter by trade, was the owner of
the Red Store, a grocery and dried goods store that was also a gathering place.
For almost fifty years he was the town postmaster. The Annals of Wayland said of the Red Store: ÒThis store was a
great resort for the ..villagers, who on fall and winter evening, gathered
there, and many is the grave question of church or state that has been settled
by the social group as it sat on the nail kegs about the fire of that old time
grocery store.Ó
According to Mary Heard (Our Old Church, 1920): ÒUncle
Newell was a man of scrupulous integrity and Mrs. Lydia Child once said that
Ôif Diogenes had passed through Wayland in his search for an honest man, he
would surely have placed his lantern before the house of Newell Heard!ÕÓ