73 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE CHOSEN TO PREPARE 



SUITABLE REPORT ON THE DEATH 



OF BENJAMIN P. WARE. 



The Essex Agricultural Society desires to put on record 

 its high appreciation of the character and career of Benja- 

 min Pond Ware. For two generations, the term extending 

 from 1848 until his death at the age of 84, Feb. 7, 1906, 

 Mr. Ware was a member of this Society, serving it constant- 

 ly in every various function, and for sixteen years, from 

 1875 to 1891, he was its president. He was born in Sa- 

 lem, Apr. 9, 1822. He was the son of Erastus Ware, a 

 typical New England farmer. The father came of sturdy, 

 puritanic stock, descendants from an old-world ancestry 

 through the pioneer, Robert Ware, who left Suffolk, Eng- 

 land, for Dedham in New England, in 1634, and received 

 a grant of land in the part of Dedham now Wrentham, 

 being a householder, in 1642. Coming from Wrentham in 

 Suffolk he probably gave the name of Wrentham to his 

 part of Dedham, where he died the second man in impor- 

 tance in the town. Erastus Ware had left Wrentham for 

 Danvers in 1810, and had at once become an authority in 

 milk-farming and in the special problems which husbandry 

 involves when conducted in populous sections and near 

 city markets. He married a Wardwell, a daughter of one 

 of Washington's life-guardsmen, — and from 1820 to 1845, 

 he was in charge, together with his sons Horace and Ben- 

 jamin, both born there, of the great Pickman Farm in Sa- 

 lem, — four hundred and twenty odd acres in area, — the 

 largest aggregation of tillage land under one title in this 

 county. In 1831, Erastus Ware bought the old farm in 

 Marblehead since identified with the name, and here he 

 was a pioneer in the practice of opening his doors to sum- 

 mer guests. At the old farm house, in 1835, he received 



