Class 
 
 F-2itt 
 
 Book ^S:^ 
 
 Gopyiight N°_ . 
 
 COPVRIGHT DEPOSrr 
 
THE 
 
 History of Springfield 
 
 in Massachusetts 
 
 FOR THE YOUNG 
 
 BEING ALSO IN SOME PART THE HISTORY OF 
 
 OTHER TOWNS AND CITIES IN THE 
 
 COUNTY OF HAMPDEN 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES H. BARROWS 
 
 >ni»iiiiiii«iiiiiijii|||iiiiiiiiiriiiini)iiiii\ii »n((ii)iii((ii)iiiii)iiiwiui)iWHJiumii«uiiHiMiiiniiiiiiim\« 
 
 PUMLISHED BY 
 
 The Connecticut Valley Historical Society 
 Springfield, Massachusetts 
 
 1909 
 
^^\ 
 
 s« 
 
 6^ 
 
 Copyright iQOg 
 
 By 
 
 Connecticut Valley Historical Society 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Comes Received 
 
 APR 3 lyoa 
 
 _ CopyrltfBt Entry ^ 
 OlA^iS Ol. ''^^C, No, 
 
 2,3 
 
 5 SDC 
 
TO 
 
 THE CHILDREN AND YOUTH 
 
 OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 AND THE Neighboring Towns and Cities 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 written that they may know what is 
 interesting good and true in the lives 
 of those who have gone before them 
 in this part of the connecticut valley 
 
 IS 
 
 DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I— Pages 1-20 
 
 Geological History of Springfield and Its Neighborhood. The Lay 
 
 OF THE Land and the Run of the Water. 
 
 Poem: To the Connecticut River 
 
 CHAPTER II.— Pages 21-40 
 
 The Settlement. The Smithy. The Meeting-House. 
 
 Poem: The Works of God. 
 
 CHAPTER III.— Pages 41-58 
 The Early Government. The Pynchon Family. Witchcraft. 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— Pages 59-70 
 
 King Philip's War and its Causes. Battles and Burnings in the 
 
 Connecticut Valley. 
 
 Poem: The Statue of the Puritan in Merrick Park. 
 
 CHAPTER v.— Pages 71-86 
 
 King Philip's War Concluded. The Burning of Springfield. 
 
 Captain Holyoke and the Falls Fight. Close of the War. 
 
 CHAPTER VI.— Pages 87-102 
 Settlement of Chicopee and Other Towns. The Revolution. 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— Pages 103-112 
 Shays' Rebellion. The Constitution. 1783-1789. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.— Pages 113-130 
 
 Old Times and New. The Change to Modern Ways. The First 
 
 Steamboat. The Armory. Distinguished Visitors. 
 
 Poem: The Arsenal at Springfield. 
 
 CHAPTER IX.— Pages 131-144 
 The New City. Anti-Slavery. The Civil War. 
 
 CHAPTER X.— Pages 145-166 
 
 A Look Backwards. The Spanish War. The Twentieth Century. 
 
 Anniversary Hymn. 
 
The Founder of Springfield. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD AND ITS 
 NEIGHBORHOOD— THE LAY OF THE LAND 
 AND THE RUN OF THE WATER. 
 
 The Site of SpRiNtiFiELD as thi; 
 
 SPRINGFIELD is located on the bank of a fine river. It 
 is true that the river is not deep enough for any but the 
 smaller craft, but in the summer many pleasure boats 
 skim over its surface. The city itself, as seen on the approach 
 from the west or south, with the broad river in the foreground, 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 3 
 
 and its buildings rising on gradually retreating terraces, all 
 embowered in foliage, is, indeed, as was said of an ancient 
 city, "beautiful for situation." 
 
 Before the days of railroads, or even of good wagon roads, 
 the river was of great consequence to Springfield in the way 
 of commerce. It was by the river that the early settlers got 
 their beaver skins and other goods to market, floating them 
 down the stream and thence by sea to Boston. In the summer 
 the river helps to cool the heated air. From the city to 
 its source, near the Canadian border it is about three 
 hundred and seventy miles and from the railroad bridge in 
 Springfield to the lighthouse at the river's mouth seventy- 
 one and a half miles more. The Agawam, which beyond 
 Mittineague is called the Westfield, is one of its principal 
 tributaries. While its name divides into three English words, 
 this is a mere accident, yet it does cut in two New Hampshire 
 and VeiTnont and the eastern and western portions of Massa- 
 chusetts and Connecticut. The Indians named the stream 
 and in their language Connecticut means "the long river." 
 
 This is but one of many Indian names that belong to the 
 locality of Springfield, some of which are in use today, like 
 Pecowsic, Nayasset, Chicopee and Agawam. Mittineague was 
 in Indian Menedgonuk, but has been worn by usage into the 
 smoother form. The Indian place-names which are left to us 
 in New England, like Wallamanumps, Massacksick, (Long- 
 meadow) and Massachusetts are not so musical as those in the 
 language of the western tribes, like Cayuga, Shiawassee and 
 Minnehaha; but they all have a meaning which is worth 
 finding out. 
 
 Besides her share in "the great river," as the English 
 settlers called it, Springfield has also a river almost all her own, 
 a little one, indeed, but just big enough to be called by that 
 
HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 name. Its sources are at the foot of the Wilbraham moun- 
 tains whence it flows by its north branch and south branch 
 till these meet at the Watershops pond. After tumbling over 
 two dams below the point of union the river loses itself in the 
 Connecticut, near York street. It was so useful in the earliest 
 times of the white settlers in grinding all the grain and sawing 
 all the lumber that they thought "Mill River" a good and 
 
 honorable name, 
 and if those 
 who come after 
 us are sensible, 
 by that name it 
 " will always be 
 , known. It still 
 turns the great 
 vvheel at the 
 vVatershops and 
 thus has a hand 
 m making the 
 1 ifles of the United 
 States army. 
 
 Next to Mill 
 river, the stream 
 that has been 
 most important 
 in the town's history, excei)t the Chicopee, or rivers that 
 are no longer in the limits of Springfield, was the "Town 
 brook." The Town brook, called in its upper part "Garden 
 brook," rises to the east of St. James avenue bridge and 
 flowing down the valley, formerly divided near the comer of 
 Spring and Worthington streets, one branch going north and 
 circling to the north of Round Hill on its way to the river, 
 
 Mill River at the Watekwuops. 
 
 From "Marco Paul at the Springfield Armory," by Jacob 
 
 Abbott, 1853. 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 5 
 
 while the other branch reached Main street, near Worthing- 
 ton, and flowed along the easterly side of the street, which it 
 crossed near York street and thence entered the river. But 
 the waters of the once famous " Town brook" are now diverted 
 into sewers, where they do a very useful, if very dirty work. 
 The brook as it flowed by Main street was once a clear, good 
 stream in which to fish. Such has been also the doom of other 
 pretty rural brooks that once flowed among grassy banks 
 from the slopes of the higher lands in now thickly settled parts 
 of the city. Some of them, before the days of steam, were 
 ponded by dams in order to create power for small factories. 
 
 One of these ponds covered the region of Avon Place. 
 There is a little brook which even today rises not far from the 
 comer of State and Walnut streets and flows, for its whole 
 course, unseen to the river, passing on its way just in front of 
 the High School. It once formed the "Card Factory" pond 
 and turned the wheels of a factory east of the Wesson Hospi- 
 tal. But in dry times the little brook was not able to do all 
 the work required of it; so it was helped by a huge mastiff, 
 who was made to walk in a treadmill and thus by the brook 
 and the mastiff together, was the machinery kept going, a 
 singular example of manufacture by dog power. Springfield 
 has even yet some share in the Chicopee river, which touches 
 its northeastern border, and to it Indian Orchard owes its 
 importance. 
 
 There are a number of natural ponds, mostly fed by unseen 
 springs. They either have an outlet under ground, or else the 
 water flowing in is so nicely balanced by the water passing 
 into the air by evaporation that they need no outlet. Where 
 this balance is destroyed by the lessening of the supply of 
 water, as by the cutting of trees, the pond diminishes in size 
 and incidentally peat is formed. An example may be seen 
 
HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 on the Wilbraham road beyond the North Branch. Goose 
 pond, at first called Swan pond, because of the swans that 
 stopped there on their spring and autumn journeys, was the 
 very largest pond, and stretched northward from Winchester 
 square. It was built over not many years ago. Two Mile 
 
 pond seems likely 
 
 .-". to meet the same 
 
 ^. ..-:."...• fate. Five Mile 
 
 pond, named from 
 its distance from 
 Main street, is 
 divided by the rail- 
 road. Island pond, 
 so called from its 
 single island , a 
 floating bog, is nearer, but little known. Loon pond is a pretty 
 sheet of water and Venturer's pond is a pleasing feature of 
 Sixteen Acres. The Sixteen Acres mill pond is perhaps a 
 natural pond caused by a rock dam. In all there are ten 
 natural ponds. The map accompanying this chapter shows 
 the natural features and localities as they were in the days of 
 the original settlers of Springfield. 
 
 Before describing the lay of the land it is necessary to know 
 something of its history; how in the story of the earth's 
 making it came to be just what it is, its rocks and soil, its hills 
 and valleys. To do this takes us back, perhaps, millions of 
 years; for man's history is as nothing compared with that of 
 the rocks. Deep down below the earth's surface lies the real 
 floor on which all things above may be said to rest. It is 
 composed of the strongest and oldest of the rocks, called crys- 
 talline. It was by the action of earth's great fires, melting 
 and fusing together the original raw materials of the world, 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 7 
 
 that the crystalHne rocks were made. Look at a block of 
 granite and you will find it made up of several things that 
 could only have been got together by fire. 
 
 Although crystalline rocks lie at the bottom, the}^ have 
 sometimes got pushed up by the mighty forces of nature and 
 so have made mountains. If you climb mountains even no 
 higher than those surrounding Springfield, and find an exposed 
 surface, you will come upon the hard rocks out of which they 
 are built. In the valley they are not seen because of the over- 
 lay of later rock and soil. Underneath Hampden county lies 
 ■a, bed of gneiss, a rock resembling granite. It is quarried in 
 Monson and out of its blocks the Court House and Hall of 
 Records have been constructed. 
 
 After this solid old floor of gneiss was laid down, some 
 very interesting things happened in this part of the Connecticut 
 Valley, the story of which only the student of geology can 
 fully appreciate; but something of it may be told here. There 
 was, first, the rising of the mountains; the easterly range 
 running between Wilbraham and Monson and the westerly, 
 through Blandford and other towns. This rising made the 
 present Connecticut Valley. Then the whole valley between 
 these mountains, extending as far north as Greenfield, sank 
 below the level of the ocean and of course the salt water 
 flowed in. On the heights of the present Wilbraham, Bland- 
 ford and other towns where the highlands penned the waters 
 in, the tide rose and fell and the sea fishes, perhaps whales 
 and sharks, could swim from East Longmeadow to Holyoke 
 and beyond. In those times sand and mud were being carried 
 down by the Connecticut river from the northern mountains 
 in a way which will be described further on, and dropped in 
 the bottom and on the shores of this inland sea. Reptiles and 
 ^eat birds walked on the shore. In the end this sand hardened 
 
8 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 and became a rock called sandstone, having sometimes im- 
 printed in it the footsteps of these living beings. Sometimes 
 too, raindrops left their marks in the sand and the raindrops 
 and tracks have remained to tell a very old story in after ages. 
 Specimens like that on this page may be seen in the Science 
 Museum ; but the best collection is in the museum of Amherst 
 College. It is this ancient sandstone, called by geologists, 
 triassic, which is taken from the quarries of East Longmeadow. 
 
 .^ ^ 
 
 { 
 
 '^ J 
 
 /-^ 
 
 
 
 
 FoOTI'RINT AND RaINPRINT.4 IN THK ThIASSK SANDSTONE 
 
 OF THE Connecticut River. 
 
 It was while the water extended from the Wilbraham 
 mountains to the Blandford range that a great event happened 
 a few miles from Springfield, caused by tlie action of sub- 
 terranean fires. A great crack opened in the eartli and up 
 rushed a mass of melted matter which finally cooled into the 
 hardest kind of rock, a rock called trap. This rock formed 
 Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke and all the range southerly 
 which makes the line between West Springfield and Westfield. 
 Again the earth opened and the molten volcanic matter thrown 
 up at this time, a smaller mass than the other, formed a low 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 
 
 and short range of hills extending through the western part of 
 West Springfield and Agawam. The volcanic rock can be 
 seen exposed to view in the trap rock quarries; also in the 
 railroad cut between Tatham and Paucatuck in West Spring- 
 field. Out of it is made the 
 macadam for the streets. At 
 the northern part of these 
 breakings forth of earth's sub- 
 terranean fires, there was a 
 small volcano which probably 
 continued fuming after the 
 range of hills, whose making 
 was connected with it, had 
 been formed. The remains 
 of the crater of this long ex- 
 tinct volcano can still be seen, 
 not far from Titan's pier at 
 the foot of Mount Holyoke. 
 It was after this that, in 
 an era not so very far from 
 our own, perhaps, another 
 one of Nature's great forces, 
 not directly fire or water, but 
 connected with both in its 
 origin, set itself in operation 
 
 to make changes in the SUr- volcano Wokk: Map by William Orh. 
 
 face of the earth in this neighborhood, and indeed, over a large 
 part of North America. This was the Great Glacier, a sheet of ice 
 that, starting in the Arctic regions, probably Labrador, ex- 
 tended, in some places, half a mile thick all down the continent 
 to a line drawn a good deal south of Springfield. Half a mile 
 measures the distance from Court Square to the lower Armory 
 
10 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 gate on State street. The glacier was, as all glaciers are, 
 really a great ice river; for it flowed slowly southward, bend- 
 ing itself to go between the mountains in its course and bear- 
 ing the fragments along with it. These fragments, when the 
 
 glacier finally melt- 
 ed, were dropped in 
 places far away 
 from their starting 
 point and are now 
 ^^^^^ called boulders. In 
 ''yz^ some places they are 
 lif^ thickly strewn, but 
 "^are not so common 
 \in the immediate 
 valley, for reasons 
 that we shall see. 
 One of them, how- 
 ever, now making 
 a memorial stone on 
 Benton Park, was found on the highlands near Brush Hill 
 in West Springfield. 
 
 The mountains, composed of the hard crystalline rocks, 
 like the White mountains, and of trap, like Mount Tom, stood 
 firm against the grinding power of the glacier, but many of 
 the hardened deposits of sandstone were worn down. We 
 cannot always tell just what damage was done to the sand- 
 stone by the glacier and just what by the wearing of it away 
 by the waters; but if you notice how high Mount Sugarloaf 
 stands above the meadows of South Deerfield and Sunderland, 
 and even how the sandstone hill at the south end of Main 
 street is higher than the land around it, you will see how much 
 bed-rock has been carried off to Connecticut which was once 
 
 Boulders Dropped by a Glacier and Water-Worn 
 Cobblestones. 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 11 
 
 alongside. This bed-rock, broken up fine, as it would be by 
 gradual water wear, makes the red earth so common in Suffield, 
 Hartford and other Connecticut towns. It is some of Massa- 
 chusetts that went down stream. At Locust street the sand- 
 stone is close to the surface and the sewer is cut in the solid 
 rock which extends southerly from a comer of the South 
 Main street school. 
 
 When the great glacier melted away it left a big pond 
 bottom stretching from j\Iiddletown in Connecticut on the 
 south to Holyoke on the north, easterly to the Wilbraham 
 and west as far as the range of hills that separates West 
 Springfield from Westfield. This big bottom became filled 
 with water and is known to geologists as the Springfield 
 lake. For a long time this lake remained. When you leave 
 Court Square for Holyoke in the street cars your course is 
 along the old lake bottom, the banks on either side being in 
 plain view, until you reach the top of the bank itself at the 
 Holyoke City Hall. The powerful current of the Connecticut, 
 entering the lake at the gap between Mount Holyoke and 
 Mount Tom, as also Chicopee river coming down from the 
 northeast, made important changes in the lake bottom. What 
 were they? 
 
 Away to the north were the mountains of crystalline 
 rocks, the White mountains and the Green mountains. Heat, 
 cold and frost were slowly w^earing them away. Pebbles and 
 sand came from them and fell into the little streams that ran 
 among the hills. These pebbles and sand were carried down- 
 ward by the streams into the great river. The river carried 
 them into the great Springfield lake and gradually they were 
 dropped on the bottom. If the current was powerful it carried 
 the pebbles further; if it lacked, then not so far: the sand 
 being lighter, would always go further than the pebbles. We 
 
12 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 have called the large pieces of rock, pebbles; but when they 
 started on the southern journey they were rough edged. By 
 tumbling over each other in their downward course they 
 became rounded into pebbles. It was because this process, 
 was kept up for ages that the crystalline rocks underneath 
 Springfield are covered deep with something quite different. 
 Where the pebbles fell in masses they made gravel beds, the 
 like of which can be seen on the line of the railroad, not far 
 from Oak Grove cemetery. 
 
 But the history of the sand dropping is the more interest- 
 ing. Remember that, when the flow of water was swift and 
 strong, the lighter grains went on and only the heavier ones, 
 were dropped. When the current slackened, the heavier 
 grains stopped further up stream and the lighter ones in the- 
 spot where the larger ones were at first. So we expect to find 
 layers of sand of varying thicknesses, one or the other, according 
 as the current was swift or slow. 
 
 Sometimes the sand varies in color, as underneath Maple- 
 avenue in the Peabody cemetery. The children who dis- 
 covered this by digging holes to China called one layer of it. 
 "fireman's sand," for its red color. In fact Armory Hill, 
 extending for miles east, is covered with sand of varying sized 
 grains. On the brow of the hill at Union street the grains, 
 exposed in building are coarse and good for mortar; a little 
 distance east, on Walnut street, they are finer and not so good 
 for this purpose. After you have noticed these different kinds, 
 of sand, look at one of the great stone posts at the gates of the 
 Armory and you will find that it is composed of just such 
 sand, only the mass of grains is compacted into stone, the 
 color of which is a brown red. This post was taken out of the- 
 quarries of Longmeadow, where the sand droppings of a time 
 long before the period of the great glacier had been pressed 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 
 
 13 
 
 into stone by the great weight above them, making a stone 
 or rock called sandstone. Some sandstone is red and some is 
 brown, and it is called sedimentary, because made out of the 
 sediment, or settlings, of water. 
 
 Sometimes the mixture of sand and mud (the mud was 
 only a wet mass of grains so fine as to be almost unnoticeable) 
 did not harden enough to make sandstone but only got 
 pressed into a shelly state that was almost and yet not quite 
 stone. This substance is called shale and mav be seen in a 
 bank at the foot of Walnut ___.^^^ 
 
 street. When the masses ^x^-<Z^~^ — ""'•.^-^<^'' 
 
 of grains are so fine as to 
 be nothing more, when in 
 the water, than mud mixed 
 with a certain sticky 
 substance, the deposit, or a piece of shale. 
 
 droppings, is called clay, such as can be seen at any brickyard. 
 Clay banks mean, of course, that the water out of which the 
 fine particles were laid down, was moving very slowly, perhaps 
 scarcely at all. Remembering, then, that deep, down are the 
 crystalline or fire-created rocks, we can read in the sandstone, 
 the shale, the gravel and the sand that lies above them the 
 various movings of the 
 waters in this part of the /, i 
 
 sea, or, later, the Spring- 
 field lake. Nay, more; 
 for at the Science Mu- 
 seum may be seen a 
 specimen of stone all 
 rippled over with the 
 wave marks of the 
 water that flowed back s,.Kvn,.,K,. jjo.k. 
 
14 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 and forth over the muddy shore. Such deposits of sand, mud, 
 clay, etc., as have been described, give to the earth, when a 
 section of it is laid open, a kind of layer-cake effect, called 
 stratification. 
 
 There is another thing about the geological history of 
 Springfield that ought to be noted. The lay of the land is 
 very far from level ; what is the cause of it ? The reason is in 
 the fact that the great body of water which once flowed through 
 the valley, being some of the time more of a lake than a river, 
 had, at difterent periods, dift'erent levels and made for itself 
 more than one set of banks. 
 
 If you will go down to the river, at the foot of State street, 
 you will find the bank somewhat high and rather steep. The 
 stream is well shut in and may rise and fall in spring and 
 summer without much effect except in the lower sewers. 
 Look across and you will see that the western bank is not so 
 high; in a freshet the water will be covering the Agawam 
 meadows. If it were not for the artificial bank or dyke, 
 Merrick would then be overflowed. Nevertheless, by con- 
 tinual deposits of mud the river is building for itself a higher 
 western bank. How long this process of filling the river 
 bottom and building the river banks has gone on is unknown ; 
 but certain it is that twenty feet down in the side of a well, 
 near the western end of the Chicopee bridge in West Spring- 
 field there lies on its side a great tree two feet in diameter. 
 
 It is tlie action of water, building up land in some places 
 and wearing it away in others, that makes Springfield, in its 
 most populous part, so uneven, yet picturesque. Imagine 
 yourself standing at the foot of State street: turn about and 
 go up the street to Dwight and you will then begin to ascend 
 an incline, until, when you reach the statue of the Puritan, 
 or better, stand in front of Christ church, you are on another 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 
 
 15 
 
 bank of the river, as it once was. Pursue your walk up State 
 street, and entering the Armory gate, go to the brow of the 
 hill and you can see, in imagination, a still larger river or 
 rather, lake, stretching at your feet. Then you have passed 
 over two levels and are on the third. It would be well if these 
 levels were called terraces, as they are in geology. The lower 
 one extends through the whole length of the city; the next 
 appears near Brightwood and with Chestnut and Maple streets 
 
 A Bank of the Ancient Lake. 
 
 at its western border, loses itself under Crescent Hill; the 
 highest is continuous throughout the city and extends to the 
 eastern limits. We may call the three the lower, the middle 
 and the upper terrace. They are indicated on the map on a 
 preceding page. 
 
 The lay of the land in Springfield is not only affected by 
 the motion of the great body of water from north to south, 
 but in a lesser degree by smaller currents flowing westward. 
 If one should start at Cornell street for a walk, along the very 
 
16 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 brow of the hill, keeping as close to it as he could, except for 
 the houses and private grounds that would prevent it being 
 exactly close, and end his walk at Long Hill, he would find it 
 a long walk indeed, much longer because of the windings and 
 turnings of the different small valleys and ravines that cut 
 into the general line of the bank. These are the work of 
 water, either surface water or water bursting from springs in 
 the higher lands and cutting channels in the earth by carrying 
 the earth itself away. In Springfield this process is pretty 
 much stopped now, but it can still be seen going with striking 
 effect, at a place on the old Smith farm (now Fitch farm) in 
 Tatham in West Springfield, a place that has for years been 
 known as the "Cave Hole." The great ravines in Forest Park 
 were produced in this way. 
 
 Just how all the separate hills and hillocks of Springfield 
 were made would be an interesting study and a few of them 
 may be mentioned. Round Hill, for example, provokes a 
 natural inquiry as to how it was made. There it is, all of sand, 
 standing right up between its three enclosing streets. How 
 
 9 ^^gmMimmlc 
 
 ?f- 
 
 Flagg's Hillock and Summkrhouse. 
 
NATURAL FEATURES 17 
 
 did it come there ? One explanation is that while the sand lay 
 that much deep in the valley, strong currents flowing in the 
 old lake washed out the sand all around and for some reason 
 left this mass of sand standing alone. It would be interesting 
 to guess, likewise, on the geological history of Flagg's hillock, 
 .at the bend of the Bay road beyond Oak Grove cemetery. 
 This is the highest hill entirely within the limits of the city, 
 being 260 feet above sea level; but the slope of Necessity Hill, 
 at the point where the Hampden road crosses the boundary 
 line into East Longmeadow is about sixt}^ feet higher. 
 
 Such then were the forces, — fire, water, ice, gravitation, and 
 lieat and cold,— that make the lay of the land and the run of 
 the water what it is in Springfield today. They were power- 
 ful forces that did a deal of rough building work, sometimes 
 in a very rough way. But when plant life began and the sand 
 and clay were covered with a life-giving soil, all over the plain 
 ■of the upper terrace came the evergreen pine, and down on 
 the middle terrace were chestnuts and maples and on the lower 
 terrace, there took root those grand elms, which have not yet 
 ■ceased to be the pride of the Valley. In the Science Museum 
 may be seen a section of one that stood on Elm street, near 
 the Hall of Records, and rose to the height of one hundred and 
 fifteen feet. Thus a scene of geological interest became at 
 last a scene of sylvan beauty. 
 
 Fully to appreciate these changes, climb the stairs of the 
 Arsenal at the Armory, on a summer day, and come out on 
 the open platform. To the east and west are the mountains 
 that once confined the sea; to the north are Mount Tom and 
 Mount Holyoke that remain to tell the story of volcanic 
 ■outburst. Beneath is the river, the mere relic of its ancient 
 self, but still majestic. All about is a mass of green leafage, 
 in which more than in almost any other city, Springfield is 
 
18 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 embowered. The crash of mountains, lifting their heads for 
 the first time to the sky, the flash and smoking of volcanic 
 fires, the rush of molten lava to the surface, the awful approach 
 of the great glacier, carrying destiniction on every hand, the 
 strange huge reptiles that trod the shores of the inland sea, — 
 are forever gone. To the chaos and disorder of the old earth's 
 making has succeeded peace. The time is ripe for man ; for 
 human happiness and love. It was into this scene of quiet 
 beauty that the forefathers came to establish their homes. 
 
NATURAT. FEATURES 19 
 
 TO THE CONNECTICUT RIVER. 
 
 From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain 
 
 That links the mountain to the mighty main, 
 
 Fresh from the rock and swelling by the tree, 
 
 Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea — 
 
 Fair, noble, glorious river! in the wave 
 
 The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave ; 
 
 The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar 
 
 Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore: — 
 
 The promontories love thee — and for this 
 
 Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss. 
 
 The young oak greets thee at the water's edge, 
 Wet by the wave, though anchored in the ledge. 
 — 'Tis there the otter dives, the beaver feeds. 
 Where pensive oziers dip their willowy weeds. 
 And there the wild cat purrs amid her brood, 
 And trains them in the sylvan solitude, 
 To watch the squirrel's leap, or mark the mink 
 Paddling the water by the quiet brink ; — ■ 
 Or to out-gaze the gray owl in the dark, 
 Or hear the young fox practising to bark. 
 
 Thou dost not stay, when Winter's coldest breath 
 
 Howls through the woods and sweeps along the heath — 
 
 One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast. 
 
 And wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest. 
 
 Down sweeps the torrent ice — it may not stay 
 
 By rock or bridge, in narrow or in bay — 
 
 Swift, swifter to the heaving sea it goes. 
 
 And leaves thee dimpling in thy sweet repose. 
 
 Yet as the unharmed swallow skims his way. 
 
 And lightly drops his pinion in thy spray. 
 
 So the swift sail shall seek thy inland seas. 
 
 And swell and whiten in thy purer breeze. 
 
 New paddles dip thy waters, and strange oars 
 
 Feather thy weaves and touch thy noble shores. 
 
 —Brainard, 1797-1828. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT.— THE SMITHY— THE MEETING-HOUSE. 
 
 T WAS in mid-May of the 
 year 1636 that the settlers 
 of Springfield left Roxbury 
 to find themselves a home in 
 the valley of the Connecticut. 
 There were not many, perhaps 
 twenty, perhaps forty, who 
 came at first. How man}^ chil- 
 dren there were we do not 
 know; but there were at least 
 two. Their names were John and Mary Pynchon. John and 
 Mary were both under twelve years old, but old enough to 
 walk some part of the way and some of the time they probably 
 rode on one of their father's horses. In fact, their father, 
 William Pynchon, was the leader of the expedition and the 
 founder of the new plantation. There could have been no 
 better man for the purpose. He was alike good and true, 
 brave and kind, and understood how to deal with white men 
 and Indians. John and Mary grew up to be like him in many 
 respects. 
 
 The travelers were, of course, some days, perhaps a week, 
 on the journey; for they had only the forest path to follow, 
 good enough for Indians, but not so good for people incum- 
 bered with luggage and traveling with horses or cattle. At 
 night they made a camp around a blazing fire and some one 
 
22 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 probably stayed awake to keep a lookout for Indians, while 
 the others slept. When the morning broke, they read the 
 Bible together and sang psalms before again starting on their 
 way. As John and Mary Pynchon were born in England 
 they were doubtless interested in the flowers that marked the 
 springtime in the new world and amused themselves every 
 day, gathering columbine, lady's slipper, wake-robin and the 
 novel kinds of violets. Now and then they would see Jack- 
 in-the-pulpit sticking up his head under a green canopy, and 
 curious pitcher plant meadow-cup, not yet in bloom. In the 
 dry woods they would pick partridge berries. As for dande- 
 lions and buttercups, that now make such a bright show in the 
 spring, Mary and John were to reach this region quite ahead 
 of them ; for these are English plants that in after years were 
 to spread over the country from seeds brought by the colonists. 
 
 At last the settlers arrived on the banks of the wide-rolling 
 Connecticut. The shade of the forest was behind them and 
 here were pleasant open spaces and rippling waters and the 
 bright sun shining over all. To the north was a mountain, 
 outlined against the sky somewhat like a couched lion, but 
 later to be known by the simple name of Mount Tom. In this 
 new home they w^ere, perhaps, sometimes lonely, thinking 
 of the homes over in England, but they were not exactly 
 alone. Older inhabitants of the land were about them, the 
 friendly Indians who lived on the banks of the Agawam and 
 on the heights of Long Hill and who were glad that the settlers 
 had come, and sold them land on which to build and to plant. 
 
 To John and Mary Pynchon the Indian children must have 
 been both queer and interesting as they rolled down the banks 
 in play or shot toy arrows at imaginary game. On the plains 
 east of the river, and in fact, all about, their fathers and 
 grandfathers, time out of memory, had chased the deer and 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 23 
 
 the rabbit and for many years to come the arrow heads that 
 they lost in the chase will be turned out of the soil by those 
 who never saw an Indian. A Springfield boy found one of 
 these in the garden, years after another in a hen yard, and 
 a third at the foot of a telegraph pole where workmen had been 
 upturning the soil. The Indians could neither read nor write ; 
 they have gone, leaving their histoiy untold as men write 
 histor\^; but the stone implements they made and the names 
 they gave to rivers, ponds and hills, remain to tell how they 
 lived and what they thought. 
 
 The Indians planted some com and pease; they taught 
 the newcomers how to make the savory succotash, and the 
 dish and the name, just as they gave it, are likely to last. 
 But they lived mainly by hunting and fishing and did not use 
 much planting ground. So they were willing to sell to William 
 Pynchon and his companions a long stretch of excellent land 
 on both sides of the river. Their own planting grounds were 
 at the mouth of the Agawam river, near which they cured 
 their fish for winter use and they sold to the settlers Massack- 
 sick, (Longmeadow), Usquaiok, which is the land in the 
 neighborhood of Mill river, and Nayasset, the meadow land 
 stretching north from Round Hill. All these lands were good 
 for planting and pasture. That extending up the hills back 
 from the river on both sides had no value to the Indians but 
 for hunting, and they seem to have been willing that the 
 whites should use it in common with them for that or any other 
 purpose, like the cutting of firewood. The land was made 
 over to the settlers by a written deed, the meaning of which 
 was carefully explained to the Indians, and their chief men 
 signed it by making, each, a picture at the bottom. Their 
 pictures included an arrow, a canoe, a bow and a feather, 
 things of everyday Indian use. The price paid was ten 
 
24 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 fathom of wampum, ten coats, ten hoes, ten hatchets and' 
 ten knives. 
 
 Why did the settlers choose this place right here in the 
 valley, close by a tribe of savages, instead of establishing 
 themselves on the highlands or remote from the river? First, 
 because the land, all Massacksick, Usquaiok and Nayasset,. 
 was excellent land for cultivation; and, again, because being 
 near the river was like being today on the line of a railroad. 
 The Indians were continually going up and down the stream 
 in their canoes and, by the river, beaver and other skins could 
 be sent away to market and other goods brought from Boston' 
 or England. Mr. Pynchon w^as a shrewd trader and made much 
 money by buying skins of the Indians to send away. The 
 beaver, almost humanly wise in building its curious dams, 
 has been, of course, long since gone, and is not now found 
 nearer than northern Maine ; but in those days, the region 
 about and above Westfield was the heart of the beaver 
 country, for the valley trade. The otter, (page 18) a fish- 
 eating animal, was once common, but is now very rare here- 
 abouts. 
 
 .-V Settlement with Wellsweep and Virginia Rail Fence. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 25 
 
 Just where the houses of the settlers should be on this 
 great tract of land which they bought was, of course, an 
 important question. At first they expected to settle on the 
 Agawam meadows, and, in fact, had put up one house there; 
 but the Indians told them that the meadows were flooded in 
 high water; so they decided in favor of the east side of the 
 "Great River," as they began to call the Connecticut, and 
 they did, in fact, call it by no other name for a hundred years. 
 From Round Hill and above, down to Mill river lay a good 
 stretch of plough land, good for com and wheat, and right 
 across the stream was ample pasture. This meadow land 
 was bounded on the east by a long narrow marsh, so full of 
 hummocks that they began to call it "hassocky marsh." 
 It occupied land between the present Main street and the line 
 of Chestnut and Maple streets. Its west boundary was the 
 brook mentioned in the previous chapter. It must have been 
 somewhat troublesome and of course was filled long since; 
 but by jumping from one hummock to another, the high and 
 dry land could be reached, where there was a heavy growth 
 of trees, some of them probably maple and chestnut ; so that 
 Maple and Chestnut streets are properly named. 
 
 From these trees could be cut Avood for the fire or timbers 
 for canoes; but good, large canoe timber was so scarce that 
 after a man, with much labor had got a canoe made, he was 
 not allowed to sell it out of the town without consent of the 
 inhabitants. It having been decided where the street should 
 be, the houses all on the west side, each settler's land extended 
 in a rectangular form eastward from his house across the 
 marsh to the upper terrace and westward across the river for 
 some distance into the meadows there. A century and a 
 half were to pass before there would be a bridge over the 
 stream. Connecting the street with the river was a narrow 
 
26 
 
 IllSrOUV OF SPKINCiFIELD 
 
 lane in the line of the present Elm street and another which 
 is the present Cypress street. At the foot of the first lane, 
 close to the river, were the training field, the burying ground 
 and the pound. Another lane was opened to the "lower 
 landing" at York street. 
 
 Nothing has been told us about the early house building, 
 but many settlements resembling that in the picture have 
 
 been made in New 
 England and other 
 parts of the country. 
 It was warm weather 
 and at first there were 
 ]:)robably rude camps, 
 made of the boughs 
 of trees. The first 
 liouse was presumably 
 of logs, the cracks 
 filled with clay or mor- 
 
 Thatching the Shed. tar tO kcCp OUt tllC 
 
 cold. For a roof there would be a thatch of straw or 
 grass. When the long snowy winter began, so unlike 
 the short open winters in England, where flowers sometimes 
 bloom in I^\'bruary, they perhaps felt very comfortably 
 settled. It may be that some f)f the first houses were not of 
 logs. The falls in Mill river were set to work as soon as the 
 machinery of a saw mill could be got from Boston; and the 
 result was boards and shingles and (.-lapboards, for those who 
 could afford them. When the first crop of grain had been 
 raised and threshed out with the flail, the same little stream 
 was set to the grinding. No wonder that they called it Mill 
 river, regardless of the Indian name. Its mills were all in all 
 
'1 HE SETTT.EMFAT 
 
 27 
 
 to them, for now, tlianks to it, they had good housing and 
 wholesome Hving. 
 
 In some respects, indeed, they hved better tlian in tlie old 
 country. They had to get used to much colder winters; and 
 many conveniences which they had enjoyed before, they could 
 not have here. But the land easily gave them enough to eat 
 in greater plenty than England could have done ; partly 
 because of their cultivated fields, partly because of the wild 
 ^ame, such as quail, partridge, ducks and pigeons. In fall 
 and spring the pigeons passed over sometimes in such num- 
 bers as almost to darken the sky. These they caught in nets. 
 Game birds were shot witli a fowling piece for scattering the 
 shot among a number of birds at once, like that on the shoulder 
 of Miles Morgan in the Court Square statue. If woodchucks 
 ■or moles became troublesome to the crops, there w^as a simple 
 way of catching them bv bending down a slender staddle 
 
 fitted with a slipnoose and slightly fastening the end by a peg. 
 When the offender nibbled the bait and was caught, he was 
 jerked into the air and hung suspended. 
 
 Established at last in the wilderness, all alone except for 
 a few Indians, how was it that the forefathers, grown-ups and 
 ■children, employed themselves? What did they do for work 
 
28 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 and play? There was plenty of work: cutting down trees for 
 firewood; hollowing great logs for canoes; planting com in 
 spring, hoeing it in summer and husking and threshing it in 
 the autumn; boxing pine trees on the plains and making the 
 oozing pitch into tar and rosin; cutting grass for hay and 
 getting it into stacks for winter use. In these things the 
 young folks, and even children, must have had an important 
 share. The many mechanical helps to labor in these days were 
 lacking and it was a time when "many hands make light 
 work," even little hands. 
 
 In that day and, indeed, well along into the nineteenth 
 century, boys and girls had to invent and make many more 
 of their playthings than they do now, when so much is done by 
 machinery. Girls could make rude dolls and boys make traps 
 and snares and little water wheels and pin boxes out of the 
 
 stems of elderwood. Here is an English 
 boy of five hundred years ago who 
 probably made the windmill he is 
 whirling, just such a one as boys make 
 now; and below is "Mary Bump," 
 an aged Springfield doll. Her body 
 is a corn-cob. There was not much 
 art but there was invention and imagi- 
 nation, and it is from these, in the end,, 
 that art comes. 
 
 Some of the comforts of the old 
 country were wanting, but they were 
 more than made up in the spirit of 
 freedom and independence in a land 
 where some great lord could not turn 
 the people off the soil if he chose, and 
 where they could worship God in the way they pleased. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 29 
 
 It was not so in England. Only Mr. Pynchon had been 
 a landholder there and not many years after the settle- 
 ment of Springfield the fierce struggle going on in Eng- 
 land for political and religious liberty ended in a civil 
 war, which cost King Charles his crown and life. The 
 fact that the settlers here had land for the using of 
 it made them all farmers, whatever calling they had followed 
 in the old country. To cultivate the soil w^as the most natural 
 
 Old-Time English Children Playing Horse. 
 
 and easy thing to do. At first there was no minister (we 
 are speaking of all the early times) who was not also something 
 of a farmer, as many ministers were even down to Dr. Osgood 
 in the nineteenth century. 
 
 But there is one trade which is very necessary even to a 
 small community of farmers; there are horses and oxen to 
 be shod, plows mended and all sorts of farming and domestic 
 implements to be repaired, and in a place so far away from 
 the rest of the world as Springfield, these would sometimes 
 need to be made on the spot. For all this there was need of 
 a blacksmith. After ten years had passed no one had come 
 to the settlement who could do this work or do it well. There 
 
30 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 are many kinds of smiths, like whitesmiths and locksmiths, 
 and how many people gave especial attention to smithery is 
 plain when one stops to consider how common is the name 
 of Smith. But the blacksmith is, in a young settlement like 
 Springfield, the most important of all. The townspeople felt 
 that they must have a blacksmith, and just as one puts up a 
 bird box expecting the birds to come and nest in it, they 
 actually paid Francis Ball in w^heat for building a blacksmith 
 shop when there was no smith in sight. It had a chimney 
 and forge, and one door and a window. There were rings in 
 the chimnev. 
 
 .^a tbc sparhs; bouj thn? rtp ! 
 
 let the aniiil lino ! 
 l^?ammcrctl barD, ujclDcb tight, 
 
 3 ton to ivon shall ciino. 
 
 The Iniilding done, Mr. Pynchon, through his agent in 
 London, Ixmght a l)lacksmitl-i ; a strange thing to do, but this 
 is the way it came about. There was war between England 
 and Scotland and in the battle of Dunbar the Scotch were 
 defeated and many of tliem ])rought as prisoners to England. 
 Not knowing what to do with thcin, the English, following 
 the custom of those days, sold them into slavery, but not a 
 slavery for life. In the end they were to be free. Such was 
 the lot of h^lm Stewart, who was sent to Mr. Pynchon in this 
 plantation and at once established in the new smithy. This 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 31 
 
 was a great blessing to the village and, one can well imagine, 
 a source of never ending interest to its children. There is a 
 charming mystery in the union of two pieces of red hot metal, 
 whose explanation, if there be one other than the power and 
 mystery of God himself, lies far back in the secret laws and 
 workings of nature. 
 
 All that Longfellow has written of the Village Blacksmith, 
 
 " A mighty man is he 
 With large and sinewy hands," 
 
 was doubtless true of John Stewart, as all the children be- 
 lieved, when they looked in at the open door. When the 
 blacksmith had paid by his work for his passage over the sea 
 and the other expenses ]\Ir. Pynchon had incurred for him, 
 he was given his freedom by Pynchon and the town presented 
 him with the smithy. 
 
 About the time that the smith}^ was built it was decided 
 ta build a meeting-house. Before this, when the townsmen 
 met to make rules for the plantation, or all the people met for 
 worship, they had gathered in a private house, or in summer, 
 perhaps, under some wdde-spreading ', , 
 
 tree. Everything was as yet very simple 
 as compared with the old country, 
 where they had churches of stone, 
 some of them quite beautiful with 
 tower and colored windows, and curious 
 carvings without and within. Notice 
 the contrast between the churches repre- 
 sented on these pages. In the sim- g.^rgoyle or eavespout, 
 plicity of the new world one building ^''"'^'^'' Stratford, Exg. 
 must serve for all public gatherings, be it public worship 
 or town meeting. So they spoke not of the church, 
 
82 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 but called the building the " meeting-house." In the language 
 of the law, in Massachusetts, this is the word still used. Town 
 and church were pretty much the same in the early days of 
 New England and the whole village supported the one and 
 only minister. 
 
 It was planned that the meeting-house should be forty 
 feet long and twenty-five feet wide; that it should have two 
 floors or stories, the lower one to be nine feet high. For a 
 time the upper one was used for storing grain, until, at last, 
 the people began to be afraid that the heavy weight would 
 come down upon them and they took away the floor and 
 built galleries round about the sides. But this was not for 
 several years. The building having been planned, it was de- 
 cided that it should be placed on the spot which is now the 
 southeast comer of Court Square. Thomas Cooper was em- 
 ployed as the contractor who should construct it. He agreed 
 to take his pay in wheat, pease, pork, wampum, debts and 
 labor. It is easy to see from this what, in those days, was 
 most common in passing from hand to hand. Not a penny 
 of English money was to be paid for building the meeting- 
 house; it was too scarce. Wampum was the money of the 
 Indians and made of shells. Upon the meeting-house there 
 were built two turrets or little towers. One was for the bell; 
 in the other a watchman could stay during service or at other 
 times, should the Indians be hostile, and watch lest some 
 Indian thief steal into the village or even a whole war party 
 make a sudden dash into the street. 
 
 In order that we may see all the townspeople gathered 
 together, in these early days, let us make in imagination our 
 attendance at the meeting-house at the hour of public worship 
 on some Sunday, The sacred day had begun at sundown of 
 Saturday and will end when the Sunday's sun has set behind 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 33 
 
 the Berkshire hihs. It is, we will say, the year 1663. Passing 
 along the main street and turning down the lane that has 
 since been widened and called Elm street, we enter, as all 
 the people do, by the side door on the south. There seems to 
 have been no door opposite the pulpit. We find ourselves 
 directly under one of the galleries. Some of the people are 
 
 CHt'RrH OF ( ) 
 
 already seated and others are coming in. They know it is the 
 time of service, not because they have any clocks or watches 
 (most of them), but because John Mathews has been beating 
 the drum up and down the street and because the bell in the 
 turret is now ringing. 
 
 The people are seating themselves just where it has been 
 voted that they shall sit. Anyone who should sit elsewhere 
 would be liable to a fine of three shillings and four pence. 
 
34 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 We are taken up the alley, as they called it, on the south side 
 and are shown into a seat not far from the pulpit. Just 
 before us, in the front seat, are some of the selectmen, among 
 them Thomas Cooper, the builder of the house. Back of us 
 is Thomas Day, who had married his daughter, Sarah, but 
 neither Sarah Day nor her mother is sitting with the husband. 
 In those days it was not thought proper that the women should 
 sit with the men, and the women all found seats together. 
 Up in the gallery we notice Miles Morgan in the place where 
 the selectmen have appointed him to be in order to check 
 any disorder among the boys or young men. Most of them 
 are sitting there. Next the pulpit, in the deacon's seat, dis- 
 tinguished in some way from the other seats, is Deacon Chapin. 
 Just how he looked or how Miles Morgan looked, if one gazed 
 directly into their faces, nobody knows; but the statues in 
 their honor show us what kind of men they were, what sort 
 of garments they wore and how they appeared as they went 
 about the town. The sculptor has represented Deacon Chapin 
 on his way to "meeting" and ^liles Morgan going afield with 
 his hoe and fowling piece. 
 
 Most of the people whom we see in the audience are of 
 English birth or descent, but Reice Bedortha probably came 
 from AVales and John Riley was from Ireland. Peter Swink, 
 who sits under the gallery, is a black man in the family of 
 Mr. Pynchon and in the seventh seat is John Stewart, the 
 Scotchman. Longfellow writes of tlie vihage l^lacksmith that 
 
 " He goes on Sunday to tlie cliurcli 
 And sits among his boys," 
 
 but our blacksmith seems not to have been blessed with any 
 family except his wife. We may suppose, though, that when 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 35 
 
 at his smithy he made friends with the children who 
 
 " coming from school, 
 Looked in at the open door," 
 
 if, indeed, there was a school in those days. 
 
 We notice an especial seat, which we are afterwards told 
 was made for a guard of soldiers, and therefore called "the 
 guard's seat." No guard now occupies it, for the Indian 
 war, that raged in the Connecticut colony about the time w^hen 
 the town was settled, is long since over and the Springfield 
 Indians have always been peaceable; so the guard's seat is 
 occupied by boys, who like to get together in it or to sit on 
 the pulpit stairs. Anthony Dorchester sits with them to keep 
 order, for even old time boys were mischievous. Sometimes 
 .on week days they broke the meeting-house window^s in their 
 games, and this meant a fine of twelve pence apiece. 
 
 ' In some of the New England churches wealth and rank 
 determined where people should be seated. This was at times 
 and perhaps always, to a certain extent, regarded in Spring- 
 field ; but not so much as in some other places. Age was also 
 regarded. As much as the forefathers loved freedom and as 
 much as they, in their sturdy principles, have done to promote 
 equal rights for all, they were not yet free from many old 
 world notions about rank and the importance of property in 
 giving a standing in society. Outside the church these things 
 are very liable to be wTongly estimated, but inside it might 
 be supposed that those who studied the Bible would remember 
 what is there said: "The rich and the poor meet together; 
 the Lord is the maker of them all." Yet even as late as the 
 early part of the last century, in the old white church of West 
 Springfield, an all-compelling custom did not admit of a young 
 
36 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 woman taking a front seat in the gallery where the unmarried 
 women sat, unless she wore a silk gown, and of course some 
 could never afford it. Thus sometimes do men forget that 
 God is no respecter of persons and only a pure heart counts 
 in his sight. 
 
 First Meeting-House in West Springfield. 
 
 Soon the minister enters. He wears a black gown and white 
 neck band. As he approaches the pulpit stairs, the boys who 
 are sitting there give way and he mounts to his high seat. 
 He prays and reads from the big Bible and then begins his 
 sermon. There is no clock ; but by him stands the hour glass, 
 and, if the sermon is very long, he has to turn the glass and 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 37 
 
 start the sand running again. Sermons were long in those 
 
 days. Paper, too, was scarce and costly, and for this reason 
 
 they were written so fine that they had to be read slowly. 
 
 When the minister has finished the people pass reverently 
 
 out, pursuing their several ways up and down the village 
 
 road, which is indeed the Main street, but almost the only 
 
 one. Some of the 
 boys have stopped on 
 the edge of the has- 
 socky marsh and are 
 looking into the brook. 
 They are planning to 
 fei drop a fish line in 
 there tomorrow. Per- 
 haps, if they cross the 
 
 marsh, they will flush a crane. 
 
 A smithy had been built and a meeting-house, but as yet, 
 
 after the lapse of forty years, there had been no schoolhouse. 
 
 We read in the town records of no teacher paid by the town. 
 
 Perhaps there were, irregularly, dame schools, taught by some 
 
 woman, who like Goody Two 
 
 Shoes, received her pay di- 
 rectly from the parents. The 
 
 most that the children learned 
 
 was probably reading and 
 
 writing, and it was not com.- 
 
 mon for girls to write. Even 
 
 some of the men, as Miles 
 
 Morgan, could not write. In 
 
 1675 there arrived in the 
 
 A Dame Schdol. 
 
 In other days 
 Our fathers learned the horn-book and the rule, 
 They toed the line or topped the dunce's stool; 
 An ancient dame presided as they read, 
 . "P\ ■ 1 T^ J. And if they erred, her thimble rapped each head ; 
 
 town one JJaniel JJentOn, Each Uttle girl a sampler made, in time, 
 
 And wrought thereon her simple faith, in rhyme. 
 Esther W. Bates. 
 
 who was qualified to teach. 
 
dlaiL^i^adl. 
 
 38 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 He was at once employed for this purpose. He wrote 
 a fair hand and was chosen to write the records of 
 the town business. For a time he taught in a private 
 house. Then a schoolhouse was built. It may seem strange 
 that it was placed on the upper Ferry lane, now Cypress street ; 
 but the land was w^ell taken up at the center of the village 
 
 and then, again, the children would 
 '// ^® coming from not only as far 
 
 south as Long Hill or Longmeadow, 
 
 AUTOGKAPH OF THE FiRST , , f. , , f^, ■ 
 
 Schoolmaster. but aS tar nortll aS ChlCOpCe. 
 
 After a while a rule was made that for every child in attend- 
 ance the parent must furnish a load of wood for the school- 
 house fires. It w^as a simple school, not of much value for 
 older boys and girls, perhaps. There was reading, writing 
 and spelling, and perhaps some arithmetic ; and if Daniel 
 Denton came from England, as perhaps he did, he had some- 
 thing to tell the children of the Old World which they would 
 never see and of which there were no newspapers and very 
 few books to tell them. There were no Sunday schools in 
 those days and perhaps the best teaching in the school was 
 concerning the great things of God such as those set forth in 
 the following verses, which were taught to some of the Spring- 
 field children in the nineteenth century by Dr. Peabody, of 
 whom we shall read later on. 
 
Tin: SF/rXLEMEXT 39 
 
 THE WORKS OF GOD. 
 
 To be Spoken by Children. 
 
 The God in whom I ever trust 
 Hath made my body from the dust ; 
 He gave me hfe, he gave me breath, 
 And he preserves me still from death. 
 
 He made the sun, and gave him light; 
 He made the moon to shine by night; 
 He placed the brilliant stars on high, 
 And leads them through the midnight sky. 
 
 He made the earth in order stand; 
 He made the ocean and the land; 
 He made the hills their places know, 
 And gentle rivers round them flow. 
 
 He made the forest, and sustains 
 The grass that clothes the fields and plains; 
 He sends from heaven the summer showers, 
 And makes the meadows bright with flowers. 
 
 He made the living things; with care 
 He feeds the wanderers of the air ; 
 He gave the beasts their dens and caves: 
 And fish their chvelling in the wa\^es. 
 
 He called all beings into birth 
 That crowd the ocean, air, and earth ; 
 And all in heaven and earth proclaim 
 The glory of liis holy name. 
 
 —Peabodw 1799- 1847 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EARI>Y GOVERNMENT —THE PYNCHON 
 FAMILY— WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 WE HAVE already seen that the meeting-house was the 
 town house as well as the church; here the men of 
 the plantation met to arrange all its business. One 
 who did not come or who was late had a fine to pay. Even 
 Deacon Chapin was fined for an absence, such was the import- 
 ance which the forefathers placed upon a careful attention 
 to public affairs. In our own day the President of the United 
 States has often set the example for others by leaving his 
 
42 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 pressing duties at Washington and travelling many hundred 
 miles, in order to cast his vote, a vote that counted among 
 the thousands no more than any other. 
 
 After eight years the plantation decided to place its affairs 
 in the hands of a committee, a committee which should be 
 chosen once a year; so they selected Henry Smith, Thomas 
 Cooper, Samuel Chapin, Richard Sikes and Henry Burt, to serve 
 for the first year. They were called "select townsmen" or 
 "selectmen" and were given power "to order anything that 
 they shall judge best for the good of the town." After that 
 the voters generally met only once or twice a year. Some of 
 the declared duties of the selectmen were to lay out public 
 highways, make bridges, repair highways, see to the scouring 
 of ditches, to the killing of w^olves, and to the training of 
 children in some good calling. Some of these duties, like the 
 laying out of streets, still belong to the city council and some 
 have become obsolete. 
 
 It seems odd to read about the scouring of ditches, for 
 ditches are more used in the old countries, especially in 
 Holland, for the dividing of lots, than here ; but it was necessary 
 to keep the town brook clean, for in it the villagers washed 
 their fresh-killed beef and pork, and from it, to some extent, 
 they probably got water for domestic purposes. For two 
 centuries the town brook was a very useful institution and 
 deserves to be remembered. 
 
 The selectmen were especially charged with the killing of 
 wolves, for these were a great trouble, howling and hungry 
 when their food w^as scarce and picking up cattle and stray 
 pigs that happened to be in the outlands. The town owned 
 a wolf trap. Its stout jaws, hidden by a screen of leaves, 
 when stepped on by the unwary animal, would come together 
 with a powerful snap and hold him by the leg. He could be 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 43 
 
 baited by a bleating lamb as in the picture. Another scheme 
 was to so adjust a gun that it would go off when the wolf 
 stepped on a certain spot, to get the bait of meat; but occa- 
 sionally an innocent cow got killed instead of the wolf. A 
 large reward, ec^ual in money of today to about ten dollars, 
 was paid by the town for every wolf killed and the slayer had 
 to bring the ears, or the head or the tail of the beast to the 
 selectmen for proof. 
 
 In those days children were more disturbed \\-ith stories 
 about wolves than bears, but when in later years, the wolves 
 had been killed off, bears began to be troublesome, for they 
 liked pig pork, butchered by themselves, too well; so a 
 reward was offered for bears and also for catamounts or 
 panthers. It was not only the wild animals that the select- 
 men had to look after. Everybody 
 kept pigs and the porkers were always 
 watching for a chance to roam about 
 and root up pastures and break 
 through fences with their strong 
 snouts. In the fall they were looking 
 for acorns, just as they do now in 
 the southern states. So the town 
 ordered that they should wear a yoke 
 and have a ring in the nose. 
 
 It must have been difficult to 
 make a yoke stay on a pig and manv 
 were careless about it; so John 
 Stewart, the blacksmith, was given 
 power to catch every stray pig that 
 was not yoked and rung, and then 
 having put a yoke on his neck and 
 a ring in his nose, to collect pay of 
 
44 HISTORY OF SPUING FIELD 
 
 the owner. A man who looked after swine in this way was 
 called a hogreeve and for a long period hogreeves were 
 annually chosen. There were also officers called field drivers, 
 who were to take to the town pound any horse or cow- 
 found straying, especially if doing damage. The pound 
 was on the northwestern part of what is now Court Square 
 and w-as in charge of a pound-keeper. In after years it was 
 on the spot where now Pleasant street is located. 
 
 Another duty of the selectmen was that of perambulation. 
 Perambulation is a very long word for a very long walk 
 which is sometimes necessary in order to set right the bound- 
 ary lines of a town. In our time, upon every road leading out 
 of Springfield, except where the boundary is a river, may be 
 found a substantial stone, marking the division between the 
 city and the next town ; but in early times the lines were 
 marked in a very rude way and on the occasion of one perambu- 
 lation the book of the town records reads that "we first marked 
 a little white oak by a pine stump, then next the bottom of 
 the hill we marked a pine staddle and laid stones upon a rock 
 and just over the brook we marked an ash staddle and then 
 next a pine tree standing on the south side of the county 
 road and laid a heap of stones on a flat rock in the road." 
 
 This custom, known as "beating the bounds," the settlers 
 brought from the old country where perambulation from very 
 ancient days had been attended with great ceremony. The 
 lord of the manor, with a large banner borne before him. 
 priests in white gowns and with crosses carried aloft and 
 others with bells and banners, followed by many people, 
 walked in procession around the bounds of the entire parish, 
 singing and stopping to take refreshments and having a gala 
 time generally. The procession kept to the exact bounds 
 through fields and even directly through a dooryard, or 
 
THE SETTLEMENT 
 
 45 
 
 even a house, if it stood on the hne. If a river formed the 
 boundary, the procession walked along the shore, while some 
 of the party stripped off their clothes and swam alongside, 
 or, if the stream was navigable, some persons rowed along in 
 boats. Sometimes boys were thrown into it at certain places. 
 When a wall, or tree, or post was near the line, boys were 
 swung against it and bumped. These were called "bumping 
 places" and when the boys became old men their testimony, 
 as to the location of the line, was considered especially valuable, 
 as to any point where they had been bumped. PeramVjulation 
 of town boundaries is still the law in Massachusetts; but the 
 towns were too large and the people too full of serious work 
 for ceremony and the woods and swamps too numerous to 
 make perambulation anything more than an occasional attempt 
 to see that the bounds were all right. 
 
 In the beginning of the previous chapter it was said that 
 William Pynchon was the founder of Springfield and that 
 he was good, and wise and kind. We must now return to him. 
 While John and Mary Pynchon are growing up to manhood 
 and womanhood, he has remained the chief man of the planta- 
 tion. He was the richest man in it, in fact, the only man 
 who had any considerable wealth. He 
 had the most land and the most cattle. 
 Of the cattle, Mrs. Pynchon took the 
 immediate charge, and if she was like 
 many farmers' wives of the early times, 
 she had a good many cows to milk with 
 her own hands and some of the churn- 
 ing to do. Her husband, though a 
 planter, was more prominently a mer- 
 chant and had to spend much time in 
 fur trade with the Indians and seeing 
 
46 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 to the importation from Boston or Europe of things that the 
 settlers needed and could not make. Besides, he owned 
 the mills which ground the com and sawed the logs on 
 Mill river. 
 
 And then, again, he was obliged to spend much time in the 
 public service, because he was the man best fitted to do it, 
 as everybody acknowledged. He was the judge before whom 
 all the people brought their disputes for trial at law. He was. 
 a member of the General Court, which met at Boston and 
 made laws for the whole colony. Although he lived away up 
 here, several days' journey through the woods from Boston, 
 he was held responsible, as treasurer of the colony, for whatever 
 money belonged to the Colonial government. 
 
 It is a very important fact that the Indians, who, if they 
 had been wrongfully treated might have caused much trouble, 
 found in him one who would do exact justice between them 
 and the whites. For fear of him as a judge, an Indian feared 
 to wrong a white man and because of him and his just ways, 
 in trade they liked to deal with the white man. Pynchon 
 feared no man ; but he feared God and was a man of good will 
 toward men. When the people met for town business it was 
 he who was always chosen to preside. He lived in a wooden 
 house on the spot which would now be the corner of Main and 
 Fort streets and next north was the house of his trusted 
 friend, Thomas Cooper. Posterity is fortunate in the existence 
 of a portrait of him, painted from life. It is now in the Essex 
 Institute, at Salem. He is the only citizen of Springfield, in 
 its first century, the likeness of whose face is known. 
 
 Like many good men who are called upon, by their high 
 position, to do difficult things and sometimes to oppose the 
 wishes of other people in doing them, there were those who 
 did not understand and admire William Pynchon. But they 
 
THE PYNCHON FAMILY 47 
 
 did not live in Springfield. Some of them lived in Hartford. 
 At a certain time, when grain was very scarce, it was necessar}' 
 for the people of Hartford, Windsor and this plantation to 
 buy com of the Indians. Mr. Pynchon was given power, by 
 all the towns of the valley below, to buy com for them all at 
 a certain price and if he could not buy it at the price, to offer 
 more. The Indians held off and would not sell at a price that 
 was reasonable. Mr. Pynchon did not buy; he thought it 
 not best that the Indians should know of the weakness of the 
 colonists; and he did not wish to disturb the market price 
 for com, feeling that this would be bad, not only for his own 
 trade with them in the future, but for all the colonists. He 
 believed in suffering some present loss, in order to keep a 
 lasting gain. The people of Springfield believed with him, 
 but those of Hartford did not. 
 
 Both towns were suffering for lack of grain, and the cattle 
 were getting poor, — Mr. Pynchon's, like those of everybody 
 else. Still Pynchon stood firm. He felt that the white man 
 must be firm and self- sufficient in presence of the savage; 
 and there were Indians up and down the valley who had done 
 much injury to the whites in the Pequot war and might, and 
 in fact did, later, do more. Connecticut had conquered the 
 Indians with the sword, but Pynchon believed in the arts of 
 peace. He believed in suffering for the sake of peace; in 
 getting people to do the things they ought to or the things 
 that one wants them to do, of their own free will and not by 
 force. Springfield was more exposed to dangers of the Indians 
 and to the evil results of disturbing the regular course of trade 
 with them than Hartford. 
 
 So Springfield and Hartford differed about this matter and 
 Hartford sent up Captain Mason, a famous Indian fighter, 
 with money in one hand and sword in the other, as it were. 
 
48 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 He was ready to give a higher price for the corn or to fight the 
 Indians if they would not sell. They felt obliged to yield. 
 Mr. Pynchon suffered many hard words from Hartford and 
 Windsor about the matter, but Massachusetts stood by him, 
 as especially did his own town, and in his honor the name of 
 the plantation was changed from Agawam to Springfield, 
 which was the name of his old home in England. In the parish 
 church of old Springfield may be seen an ancient tablet 
 bearing his name as one of the church wardens. 
 
 After this Mr. Pynchon again found himself in difficulties 
 with the neighboring colony. That colony had a fort at the 
 mouth of the river, kept for protection against the Indians 
 and Dutch, and insisted that Pynchon 's boats should pay 
 toll when they passed it. The tolls were to go towards its 
 maintenance. This Mr. Pynchon would have been willing to 
 do if both Massachusetts and Connecticut could have had 
 control of the fort ; but he did not relish the idea of taxation 
 without representation, an idea against which all the colonies 
 afterwards revolted and thus brought on the Revolution. 
 So he refused to pay toll. Massachusetts stood by him and 
 required a toll on Connecticut ships sailing into Boston harbor. 
 Then Connecticut gave way. 
 
 But now came real trouble for William Pynchon ; for even 
 Massachusetts, except Springfield, turned against him. Wil- 
 liam Pynchon was not only a man of wisdom and peace but 
 of godliness. For this reason he thought and studied much 
 on the goodness of God to his children and the duty that they 
 owed to Him. He loved and studied the Bible and had his 
 own thoughts about it. Here in his house on Main street he 
 wrote a book which he got printed in London and which gave 
 his thoughts on these things. It was called "The Meritorious 
 Price of Our Redemption." 
 
THE PYNCHON FAMILY 
 
 49 
 
 Some copies of this book came to America and three copies 
 are still in existence, one of them in the Boston Athenaeum. 
 Because this book was, in some respects, contrary to the 
 opinions then held, it caused much excitement, particularly 
 in Boston and the neighboring towns. The General Court 
 condemned it. By order of this court the book was publicly 
 burned in Boston and its author remo\'ed from his position 
 of judge at Springfield. 
 
 
 »f'-r>r' 
 
 HlKNlNC. oh P\N<H(JN ]'.<IOK. 
 
 All these unhappy results of Mr. Pynchon's desire to set 
 before the world what he believed to be the truth were a 
 serious blow to him. He had the best intentions and, perhaps, 
 supposed that his efforts to do good would be met with a 
 spirit of kindliness. On the other hand he found himself 
 
50 HISTORY OF SPRIXGFIELT) 
 
 punished and in the way of continued persecution. For 
 himself he might have endured this. Already there had been 
 thorns as well as roses in his path. Founding a settlement 
 in the wilderness and being mainly responsible for its safety 
 and happiness had not been easy. Yet he was not a man 
 who would sacrifice the public's interests for his own. He 
 apparently thought that though the settlement would suffer 
 somewhat if he left it, yet, under all the circumstances, the 
 responsibility had better be thrown on younger men, after 
 his own leadership had become so much interfered with as, 
 perhaps, to be an embarrassment to his fellow townsmen. 
 Looking back from the long future and in view of the after 
 career of his eldest son, who was early thrown upon his own 
 resources, it really does seem that William Pynchon chose, for 
 Springfield, what was the wisest course, in deciding to return 
 to England, which he did in the year 1652. With him went 
 his friend and minister, Mr. Moxon, and his own daughter 
 Sarah, with her husband, Henry Smith. Thus ended the public 
 career of one of the truly great colonial leaders, to whose 
 character and the character of those whom he naturally drew 
 about him, much of the stability and purity of the public and 
 private life of Springfield has always been, and let us hope^ 
 for a long time to come, will be due. When Springfield learns 
 what she owes to him. his statue will be seen in one of her 
 public places. 
 
 It was a dark day for Springfield when W'ilham Pynchon, 
 Mr. Moxon and Henry Smith set out to spend the rest of their 
 lives in England. It was the loss of the leaders. Other and 
 younger men must now be called upon and it remains to be 
 seen how well they would fulfill their duties. As it turned 
 out, there were good men and true to do what the lost leaders, 
 had done, namely, to work together for tlie good of the town. 
 
THE PYNCHON FAMILY 
 
 51 
 
 As we look back we see that of these men, the four most 
 prominent were John Pynchon, Samuel Chapin, Elijah Hol- 
 yoke and Thomas Cooper. Others there were who worked 
 loyally with them. Deacon Chapin and Thomas Cooper we 
 know already as selectmen. Who was Elijah Holyoke? In 
 answering this last question we will take our last glimpse of 
 Mary Pynchon. Hers is the first girl's name of any we know 
 among the very first settlers and we could wish that more 
 ^^ was known about her. When 
 
 she came from England she was 
 about the age of the girl in this 
 picture. Soon after she had crossed 
 the ocean to the New World her 
 own mother died and it was after 
 her father had married again that 
 she came to Springfield. As she 
 grew into girlhood so attractive 
 was she that when she was but 
 fifteen years of age Elijah Hol- 
 yoke of Hartford asked for her to 
 be his wife. Her father giving his consent, 3^oung Holyoke 
 removed to Springfield and they lived happily together for 
 seventeen years until her death. 
 
 In Holland's story "The Bay Path," there is much that 
 is imaginary about Mary Pynchon, but aside from what is here 
 told, scarcely anything more is known than is contained on 
 the stone at her grave in the cemeterv: 
 
 <iW^ ^-=:rr3S= 
 
 Upon a bank of violets sweet. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 " She that lies here was, while she stood, 
 A very glory of womanhood." 
 
 It was for either her husband or her son. Captain Holyoke, 
 that the mountain was named. 
 
52 
 
 HISTORY OF SIM{IX(; FIELD 
 
 But the hopes of the town might well have been placed on 
 John Pynchon, who had many of his father's qualities of 
 character and some others that were equally useful. Though 
 bom in England, he was but a boy when, after the long ocean 
 voyage, he first saw the New World, and he grew up truly an 
 American. Perhaps he could not, like his father, read the 
 Bible in the original Hebrew ; and he may have known nothing 
 of Latin and Greek, all of 
 which William Pynchon 
 had learned at the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford. It 
 may be, too, that his 
 father had taught him 
 something of these things. 
 There is good reason for 
 supposing that he was 
 studious as a boy and 
 when he became a young 
 man he was so much of a 
 scholar that he was some- 
 times expected to preach 
 a sermon of his own writ- 
 ing in the years when 
 the people met for wor- 
 ship, with(mt any min- 
 ister. On other occa- 
 sions, Deacon Chapin or another would read a printed ser- 
 mon of some clergyman. 
 
 But John Pynchon had other training which was, perhaps, 
 more useful to Springfield. He had grown up alongside the 
 Indian boys who lived on Long Hill and the Agawam side 
 and well knew the Indian character. This, in the trying times 
 
THE PYNCHON FAMILY .53 
 
 that afterwards arose with the Indians was of much conse- 
 quence. Sometimes he was called upon to settle differences 
 between the Indians and other settlements, even as far west 
 as Albany. The Indians called him "brother Pynchon." No 
 likeness of him remains, as boy or man. In those days of 
 hard struggle for a livelihood, probably none was ever made, 
 but the picture on the previous page shows how he might have 
 looked, in his earlier years, studious boy as he was. 
 
 As the successor of his father, John Pynchon became the 
 great merchant and trader of the valley. His vessels went 
 dowm the river with merchandise to be landed at his own 
 wharf in Boston. As an incident of his extensive operations 
 with the Indians and others he furnished a good deal of work 
 to the women and children of Springfield by giving them 
 shells to string into wampum at a given price per fathom. 
 These shells were either white or blue-black and were gathered 
 by Indians on the shores of Long Island. Having been duly 
 shaped they were sent to vSpringfield to Pynchon and sold to 
 him by the bushel. On being strung they became wampum, 
 the money of the Indians, and also to a large extent of the 
 settlers. Their value arose from the fact that they were so 
 much used by the Indians for ornaments, just as the value 
 of gold arises from the fact that, worthless as it is in the most 
 useful arts, it is universally in demand for jewelry and, like 
 the peculiar wampum shells, \'ery scarce as compared with 
 other metals. From a study of John Pynchon's account books, 
 the historian, Judd, has stated that over 20,000 fathoms of 
 wampum were strung by the women and children of this 
 vicinity. As six feet make one fathom we have a string of 
 beads which would reach from Court Square in Springfield 
 through West Springfield to the Holyoke City Hall and back 
 again through Chicopee. 
 
54 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 Besides being merchant and preacher, John Pynchon was 
 also the recorder or register of deeds, the presiding officer in 
 town meeting and the captain of the train band. He was 
 also the judge before whom suits at law were tried and by 
 whom law breakers were sentenced. There were some laws 
 that he had to execute and some punishments that he had to 
 inflict that seem strange to us. An 
 ordinary punishment was standing 
 in the stocks, an instrument of 
 discomfort so put together that 
 the feet, arms and neck of the cul- 
 prit were pinned to a fixed position 
 and his face exposed to public 
 ridicule. The whipping post, even 
 down to a late period, was a promi- .stocks. 
 
 nent object on the street and to it some of the wrong-doers 
 were tied and whipped on the bare back. One of the rules of 
 the army of Massachusetts w^as that, if any soldier should 
 blaspheme, his tongue should be bored with a hot iron; but 
 probably this punishment was not inflicted. Men were fined 
 for wearing long hair and women were fined for wearing better 
 clothes than they could afl'ord. 
 
 One of the most interesting trials that ever took place in 
 Springfield occurred in the last years in which Judge William 
 Pynchon held Court. It was the trial of Hugh Parsons for 
 witchcraft. In England many thousand people had been 
 hanged because they were thought to be witches in league with 
 the evil one to injure others. In Springfield this suspicion fell 
 on Hugh Parsons, whose house was at the south end of the 
 street, near Mill river. 
 
 Witches were always supposed to be ugly in appearance. 
 Parsons was not a very agreeable man and probably not good 
 
WITCHCRAFr 
 
 looking. He was a brick mason and used to wear a red coat. 
 Having, for some reason, got provoked with Blanche Bedortha, 
 he said to her, " Gammer, I shall remember you when you little 
 think on it." Parsons probably forget all about it, but no so 
 Blanche Bedortha. She kept thinking of him and wondering 
 if he was casting the evil eve upon her. Evervthing strange 
 
 WiTCHEti 
 
 that happened she laid to Hugh Parsons aided by the devil. 
 She looked out on the marsh, w^here Mill river entered the 
 Connecticut and saw strange lights. No doubt it was innocent 
 " Will-o-the-Wisp." One night, when she went to bed in the 
 dark, some sparks came from her flannel waistcoat, such 
 little sparks as electricity brings in cold weather. But she 
 knew nothing of phosphorescence and electricity ; neither did 
 her neighbors; so they began to think that Hugh Parsons 
 was really a witch. The belief spread up the street, encouraged 
 by every trifling coincidence. Parsons called at Mr. Edwards' 
 house for milk and soon after the cow dried up. George 
 Lancton took a bag pudding out of the pot and, laying it on 
 
" An, AX'iioi! All, WiTci 
 
WITCHCRAFT 57 
 
 the table, it separated right in the middle. Jonathan Taylor 
 dreamed that he saw snakes on the floor and that one of them 
 with a black and yellow stripe hit him on the forehead, when 
 a voice like that of Parsons seemed to cry " Death." 
 
 By this time the excitement was great and Parsons was 
 arrested. As the constable was taking him past the house 
 of Goody Stebbins, (where is now the southeast comer of 
 Court Square), on the way to Judge Pynchon's, she cried out, 
 "Ah, witch! Ah, witch!" and fell in a fit. At the hearing 
 before the Court it was decided that, on account of the im- 
 portance of the case, Parsons must be sent to Boston where 
 he would be tried on the charge of having "had familiar and 
 wicked converse with the devil." His trial was accordingly 
 held there and he was convicted by the jury, but he was 
 finally acquitted by the General Court. Naturally he never 
 returned to Springfield. In the picture the course of the 
 town brook is seen and, in the distance, the wooded heights 
 of the upper terrace from Crescent Hill to Fort Pleasant avenue. 
 
 John Pynchon, the first judge, the fair recorder, the honest 
 dealer, the able manager with the Indians, the godly teacher 
 in a pulpit that had no minister, lived through all the events 
 narrated in the next two chapters. In these he appears as the 
 brave captain, major and colonel. "Major" was the title by 
 which he came to be generally known. As he grew old such 
 was the respect in which he was held and the gratitude that 
 in the dark days when his father and mother had left the 
 plantation, he had remained to be its protector, leader and 
 friend, that he is described in the old records as " the worship- 
 ful Major," "the worshipful Colonel" and as "the worshipful 
 Major Pynchon, Esquire." His residence was in a house which 
 stood on Main street, near the comer of the present Fort street, 
 a house of brick, built by him and designed parth^ for defence 
 
58 
 
 HISTORY OF SPHINGFIELl) 
 
 in war, so that it came at 
 last to be known as ' ' the 
 old fort." Attached to the 
 rear of it was a part of the 
 old wooden building in 
 which his father lived. 
 
 The old fort stood until *> 
 1831, but nothing remains 
 of these relics of the past, 
 except a box made from 
 the wood of the wooden 
 house and a hinge from one 
 of its doors. These are 
 the property of the Con- 
 necticut Valley Historical 
 Society. Major Pynchon. 
 honored and loved, lived to 
 a good old age and died in 
 1703. A good picture of liis 
 house is given on this page 
 in the book plate of the 
 Historical Society. The view 
 
 behind the house as in old times takes in the river and the 
 West Springfield meadows. Besides the Indian and the Puritan, 
 the steeple of the First church is seen from another point of 
 view, with Mount Tom in the distance. The plate was designed 
 by Clare (lardncr, once a pupil of the S])ringfiel(l schools. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KING PHILIP'S WAR AND ITS CAUSES.— BATTLES AND 
 BURNINGS IN THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY. 
 
 UP TO the time at which we have now arrived there had 
 been peace between the colonies of Massachusetts Bay 
 and Plymouth on the one hand and the various Indian 
 tribes on the other. In the Connecticut colony there had been 
 a war so bitterly waged by the whites, aided by their allies, 
 the Mohegan Indians, that it had resulted in the utter destruc- 
 tion of the Pequot tribe. 
 The Pequot war happened 
 about the time of the settle- 
 ment of Springfield and though 
 it made the settlers in this 
 part of the valley very cau- 
 tious in dealing with the In- 
 dians, and taught them that 
 they lived in the midst of 
 danger, yet nothing hostile 
 occurred. Massasoit, the fa- 
 mous chief of the Wampa- 
 noags, was a neighbor of the 
 Plvmouth colonists and had 
 always been their friend. The 
 Narragansetts, wlio lived in 
 Rhode Island, influenced by 
 the good will of Roger Wil- 
 liams for them, liad kept the 
 peace after the close of the Pequot war. 
 
 King Philip. 
 From "Indian History for YounK Folks" 
 Francis S. Drake. Copyright 1884 by Harper 
 and Bros. 
 
 by 
 
60 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 The tribes of the interior,— those Hving in what is now 
 Worcester county and in that part of the valley extending 
 from Hartford to Northampton, — were known by the general 
 name of Nipmucks or " fresh water" Indians. They were small 
 tribes, apparently independent of each other, and having each 
 a chief, or sachem, who was advised by a few others of the 
 most knowing of the tribe called Sagamores. The Indians 
 who lived at the mouth of the Agawam, and had their fort, 
 where, perhaps, they spent the winter, on Long Hill, were 
 called the Agawams. They were about two hundred in 
 number and their sachem was Wequogan. 
 
 It was only natural that when the whites of these colonies 
 were so few in number they should make every effort to make 
 friends with the Indians. Possessed as they were with fire- 
 arms and the arts of civilization they were but weak, living 
 in a wilderness among so many savages. Besides, they were 
 taught by their religion that the Indian was a brother man 
 to whom it was their duty to bring the blessings of the white 
 man's religion. 
 
 There were men like John Eliot and Daniel Brainerd, who 
 suffered great hardships and underwent much toil in order to 
 get the Indians to accept Christianity. In fact they were 
 reasonably successful, for in fifty years after the Pilgrims 
 had landed on Plymouth rock, there were as many as two 
 thousand "praying Indians." Some of these were sincerely 
 religious but all were called "praying Indians" who had begun 
 to desert savage life and attached themselves in friendship 
 and service to the whites, showing a willingness to leani the 
 civilized way of living. They afterwards showed their good 
 will by taking English names. There was, for example, in 
 the Plymouth colony an Indian named Toto, who went by 
 the name of Sam Barrow, probably because of his friendly 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 61 
 
 connection with a family of that name. Massasoit took his 
 two boys, Wamsutta and Metacomet, to the governor, re- 
 questing that they be given EngUsh names. They were 
 therefore named respectively, Alexander and Philip. It was 
 this Philip who figures so largely in this and the succeeding 
 chapter. 
 
 But, sad to relate, not all the whites were good to the 
 Indians. Many bad men came to America and settled in the 
 colonies. William Pynchon and his companions realized what 
 might be the evil results of this in various ways and for many 
 years no one was allowed to settle in Springfield who was not 
 acceptable to the town. For a new settler someone had to 
 become responsible that he would behave himself. In the 
 seacoast towns this was not so easy. Consequently troubles 
 arose and the whites sometimes bore themselves proudly 
 towards the Indians. This, of course, irritated the Indians, 
 for they felt that they had courteously allowed the whites to 
 settle in their country and were entitled to respectful treatment. 
 Here is an example of what happened. 
 
 There was a sachem named Squando, chief of the Soko- 
 nokis and a man of nobility and character. One day his wife 
 was paddling down the river Saco in a canoe with her infant 
 child. Some English sailors, coming along in a boat, said that 
 they had heard that Indian children could swim like young 
 ducks, and proceeded to upset the canoe. The child sank, 
 at once, to the bottom of the river; the mother, by diving, 
 brought it up, but although alive, it died shortly after. This, 
 of course, was an extreme case but it illustrates the%vicked 
 way in which the more ignorant or grosser members of a 
 superior race sometimes look down upon and annoy those of 
 a weaker race. 
 
62 HIS'] ORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 There were also, on the part of the Indians, those things 
 that annoyed the whites. The Indians were inclined to thiev- 
 ing; neither did they feel the importance of telling the truth. 
 A long training in civilized life had taught the whites that 
 truth telling is not only right but that without it business 
 cannot well go on. The mind of a savage does not understand 
 this ; so that, as was said by Mr. Moxon, the first minister of 
 this town, "An Indian's promise is like taking a pig by the 
 tail." 
 
 But without regard to the right and the wrong in the 
 character of the white man or the red man, there was another 
 cause, perhaps enough in itself, to lead at some time to a 
 union of Indians against the whites, provided any leader 
 should appear great enough to unite them. The whites came 
 more and more to possess the land. It is true that they bought 
 it of the Indians and at a price that seemed fair to both parties ; 
 but, all the same, the Indians saw their hunting grounds dis- 
 appearing and the game growing more scarce. They were 
 trained to hunt and not to dig ; all the com was raised by the 
 women. Besides, if the praying Indians kept on increasing, 
 the true glory, as they understood it, of the Indian character 
 would be gone. No more war; no more scalping; no more 
 of that wild life which they so thoroughly enjoyed. Instead 
 of Indian braves there would only be peaceable Indian farmers. 
 Today there are, on the Indian reser\'ations, farmers, pros- 
 perous and happy, having pianos and sewing machines in 
 their comfortable homes; but an Indian, of colonial days, 
 if he could have foreseen this as possible, would not have had 
 it so, simply because he was bom a wild Indian in a wigwam. 
 A tame fox may be petted and well fed, but a wild fox, half 
 starved, as he generally is, would never choose to become 
 a tame one. 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 63 
 
 So, after fifty years had passed since the settlement of 
 Plymouth, the Indians were reasoning among themselves in 
 this way: " Now is our time. If we do not at once unite our 
 scattered tribes and destroy the English, they will, in the end, 
 starve us out. They will soon grow so powerful that resist- 
 ance would be hopeless. It is true that we cannot fight as 
 they do. They have plenty of firearms and we must depend 
 partly on our bows and arrows, but then we need not meet 
 them in open battle. We can worry them out, we can shoot 
 and poison their cattle, bum their houses and bams, and lie 
 in wait for them in their fields and in the forest paths. When 
 the men are away from home we can tomahawk the women 
 and children. They may be more numerous than we are, but, in 
 this way, we can in time destroy them all or drive them back 
 whence they came." 
 
 Som.e of the old sagamores gave different counsel, but this 
 was the spirit that possessed the younger men of the tribes 
 in Massachusetts. The disastrous Pequot war in Connecticut 
 had taught the Mohegans that such reasonings were in vain 
 and, under the leadership of the wily Uncas, they had been 
 for a long tim.e the allies of the English and were prepared 
 to join with them even in war against their own race. 
 
 To bring all this unfriendly feeling against the whites to 
 a head, there was needed a warrior, who by his personal 
 qualities, could unite under him the various tribes. »Such a 
 man was Metacomet, Massasoit's son, called Philip by the 
 English. He had now become chief of the Wampanoags 
 and was thoroughly convinced of the importance of making a 
 stand against the whites. He is known in history as King 
 Philip, and indeed, he had many kingly qualities. He was 
 large in stature, of commanding appearance, agile and swift- 
 footed as any Indian brave, and of superb muscular training. 
 
64 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 As a leader he was quick to see and to do; and what he did 
 not think safe or wise for himself to do he knew how to set 
 others on doing. 
 
 After war was once begun he would appear, now in south- 
 eastern Massachusetts, now in Rhode Island and all at once in 
 the Connecticut valley, like an angel of death, unseen in his 
 coming or going, but his presence always recognized by the 
 sign of burning villages and slaughtered English. He was, 
 like other Indians, treacherous; yet, toward those who had 
 befriended him personally, he proved, in the war, to be kind 
 and magnanimous. Before an attack on a certain town, he 
 directed that two small children of an old friend, should be 
 spared; and he would not let Scituate be destroyed because 
 in that town lived a family of Leonards who had befriended 
 him. 
 
 Perhaps nothing could make Phihp more impressive than 
 he was by nature; nevertheless on state occasions, it was his 
 habit to assume a certain splendor of decoration. One of his 
 decorations was a belt about ten feet long which went over 
 his shoulders and being brought forward, hung down before 
 him, nearly to his feet. It was embroidered with black and 
 white wampum in figures of beasts, birds and flowers. Still 
 another belt embroidered was placed on the head and hung 
 down behind, and a third, ornamented with the figure of a 
 star, was worn on the breast. These belts were edged with 
 the red fur of some animal. 
 
 The war began in June, 1675, within Plymouth colony, 
 not far from Mount Hope, Phihp's residence. Several villages 
 were laid waste and some soldiers killed; but on the whole, 
 thanks to the vigilance of Captain Church, a skillful Indian 
 fighter, Philip was not very successful; so that he and his 
 warriors were fortunate in escaping to the region of the 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 
 
 65 
 
 Connecticut valley, where the settlements, being more sepa- 
 rated, could be easier attacked. 
 
 It was in early August that a horseman came riding in hot 
 haste into the Main street of Springfield, announcing to the 
 excited inhabitants that their neighbors of Brookfield, thirty 
 
 miles away, were in great dis- 
 tress. The horseman was 
 Judah Trumbull. He had 
 k^ft Springfield but a few hours 
 before. Arriving at Brook- 
 field he had found the village 
 m fiames and the villagers 
 ?nned up in a single house, 
 --, ~- ^_ fighting for 
 
 their lives 
 ^ against a horde 
 of savages who 
 were besieging 
 it. Concealing 
 
 himself, Trumbull crept up near enough to take in the situ- 
 ation, then rushed to Springfield, as fast as his horse 
 could carry him. 
 
 Lieutenant Cooper immediately raised a troop of horse- 
 men and hurried to Brookfield. On arriving he found that 
 help had just come from another source. The Brookfield 
 people were saved; but sad was their story. They had all, 
 eighty-three in number, including women and children, 
 gathered in a fortified house. To this the Indians tried to set 
 fire in the hope of killing the inmates as they rushed out. 
 To this end hay and fagots were piled against the side of the 
 house and fired ; but the blaze was put out from within. 
 Blazing arrows were then shot upon the roof; but holes were 
 
 .luDAH Trumbull's Ride. 
 
66 
 
 lllSrOKY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 cut in the roof and the fire put out. More water being wanted, 
 a man who went to the well after it was shot. A woman, 
 too, was killed by a bullet that entered through a loophole 
 made for firing a musket from within. In a last effort to fire 
 the house the Indians got a cart, lengthened the tongue or 
 pole by splicing on other poles and, loading it with combus- 
 tibles, set it on fire. Then they tried to push it against the 
 
 The Att.^ck on Brookfield. 
 
 house, l)ut one wheel getting caught in a i-ut, the; cart turned 
 round and exposed those who pushed it to shots from the 
 house. .V shower, just then coming up, extinguished the fire. 
 Brookfield having been destroyed, it was naturally to be 
 expected that Philip would now give his attention to the 
 settlements up and down the valley. None knew whose turn 
 would come next. Springfield was no longer the northern 
 settlement. Above were Hadley and Northampton, Hatfield 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 67 
 
 and Deerfield, and still further north, Northfield, the most 
 exposed of all. The only settlement to the west, in the valley, 
 was Westfield. Of all the forces in the valley Major Pynchon 
 had command, and in each town of course there was a military 
 company. In his plans Major Pynchon showed more wisdom 
 than the commissioners of the united colonies, who had 
 general charge of the war. He proposed to disarm the peaceful 
 Indians, like the Agawams, before they had a chance to do 
 mischief. 
 
 It was decided first to disarm the Nonotucks who lived 
 near Northampton. For this purpose, two companies, imder 
 Captain Lathrop and Captain Beers, after relieving Brookfield. 
 were marching thence northwards when they overtook the 
 enemy near Mount Sugarloaf. The Indians suddenly stopped, 
 plunged into a swamp, and poured a volley of bullets into 
 the English. Into the swamp rushed the troops and, shelter- 
 ing themselves behind trees, they and the savages fought for 
 three hours. In this, the battle of Hopewell Swamp, a number 
 were killed on both sides. 
 
 Then followed an attack on Deerfield and next on North- 
 field, under the command of Sagamore Sam and One-Eyed 
 John. Some of the inhabitants of Northfield were killed and 
 eventually the settlement was abandoned for the rest of the 
 war. While Captain Beers and his company were marching 
 to the relief of Northfield they fell into an ambush. An 
 ambush was a favorite mode of warfare with Indians. They 
 would carefully pick out some narrow passage, through which 
 they believed their enemy would go, where, concealing them- 
 selves behind rocks and trees, and waiting until the enemy 
 were so far in the pass as to make retreat difficult, they would 
 make a sudden and deadly onslaught. Captain Beers and his 
 force were thus caught while they were crossing a brook. 
 
68 
 
 IIIS'IOJIY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 Thrown at first into confusion, they finally rallied and fought 
 their way out of the ravine. Then on a slope of a hill, now 
 known as Beers mountain, they made a last desperate resist- 
 ance; but the Captain and most of his company were killed. 
 A few days afterwards, when Major Treat came along, he saw 
 the heads of the slain stuck on poles by the travelled path, 
 the sign and threat of Indian vengeance. 
 
 About the middle of September Captain Appleton with his 
 
 
 company were 
 ^'J marching from 
 :v3 Deerfield to 
 t r Hadley. In the 
 ?I neighborhood of 
 :I Mount Sugarloaf 
 ; - they stopped by 
 
 "e a brook to pick 
 
 '-'-4 
 
 f^. the wild grapes 
 
 W^ that hung 
 ,i<:jU> temptingly on 
 ■" ' -' " the vines about 
 them. It was 
 an excellent 
 place for an am- 
 bush and the 
 Indians well 
 knew it. No sooner were the troops scattered and their 
 arms laid aside than the very bushes seemed on fire from 
 the guns of, perhaps, hundreds of Indians, Pocumtucks, 
 Nonotucks, Nashaways, Squakheags, led by Sagamore Sam, 
 One-Eyed John, Muttaump, and, quite likely, Philip himself. 
 The slaughter was well nigh complete. Almost the only person 
 who escaped had thrown himself into the bed of the brook 
 
 Tliis cut is from "The Little Readers Assistant," by 
 Noah Webster, author of the Dictionary. It shows the 
 clever escape of an Indian ally of the whites who, being 
 pursued by one of King Philip's men, hid behind a rock 
 and, raising his headgear on the barrel of his gun, drew the 
 fire of his enemy. To reload the gun, a flint lock, took so 
 much time that the first Indian escaped. 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 
 
 69 
 
 and pulled the bushes over him. Although stepped on by 
 more than one Indian, he lay quiet until all was over. This 
 conflict is known as the battle of Bloody Brook. A monument 
 near by now marks the burial place of the slain. 
 
 Cradle of the Pvnchon Family, now in the Old Day House. 
 
70 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 THE STATUE OF THE PURITAN IN MERRICK PARK 
 
 With sober foot unswerving, lip severe, 
 
 And lid that droops to shield the inner sight; 
 Dark-browed, stern- willed, a shadow in the light 
 
 Of alien times, and yet no alien here; 
 
 Revered and dreaded, loved, but yet with fear; 
 He moves, the somber shade of that old night 
 Whence grew our morn, the ghost of that grim might 
 
 Tliat nursed to strength the Nation's youth austere. 
 
 Mark the grave thought that lines the hollow cheek, 
 
 The hardy hand that guards the sacred book. 
 
 The sinewy limb, and what the thin lips speak 
 
 Of iron will to mould the era — look 
 
 In reverence, and as ye mutely scan 
 
 The heroic figure, see, rough-limned, a man! 
 
 — Wkitnwre, 1852- 
 
/~ '~^^ 
 
 .':; \ 
 
 
 The Indian Stockade on Long Hill as it Probably Appeared, Looking S. E. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 KING PHILIP'S WAR CONTINUED —THE BIRNING OF 
 
 SPRINGFIELD.— CAPT. HOLYOKE AND THE FALLS 
 
 FIGHT— CLOSE OF IHE WAR. 
 
 THE war was by this time well begun throuij^hout the two 
 colonies. The upper settlements of the Connecticut 
 seemed to be at the mercy of the savages. They were 
 now gathering in the neighborhood of Hadley, which appar- 
 ently was to be the next point of attack. It was to Hadley 
 therefore that the English soldiers were sent. Major Pynchon 
 believed that some troops should nevertheless be left in the 
 
72 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 other settlements for fear of a surprise ; but the commissioners 
 of the colonies made the mistake of not taking his advice. 
 In another respect he was overruled. With his usual fore- 
 sight and knowledge of Indian character he had suggested 
 that the Agawams should be deprived of their firearms and a 
 permanent guard placed in their fort. They were as yet 
 peaceable and, being few in number, it could have been 
 easily done. But he was obliged to content himself with taking 
 a few hostages, who were then sent by him to Hartford for 
 safer keeping. 
 
 The gathering of troops at Hadley of course required 
 Major Pynchon's presence there as commander of the army 
 in the valley, and in accordance with orders he felt obliged to 
 take with him nearly all the able-bodied men. Scarcely any 
 men were left in the town, except a few old men, like Deacon 
 Chapin, who was then in his last sickness, and boys under 
 eighteen. 
 
 Springfield's defenceless condition and iinportance gave 
 Philip his opportunity. Through spies he knew what was 
 going on. The blow was not to fall on Hadley, after all. To 
 join forces with the Agawams, in the Long Hill stockade, 
 was easy. He had only to hurry his light-footed braves down 
 the line of the desolate Wilbraham hills and no one would be 
 the wiser till it was too late. The farm houses of the open 
 country were few and scattered and the occupants had 
 fled into the villages for protection. 
 
 By what defences had Springfield been made ready for an 
 Indian onslaught? JMajor Pynchon and his fellow townsmen 
 had their own way in this respect and they were fairly prepared. 
 The Pynchon house, by its construction, being of brick with 
 walls two feet in thickness, was in itself a good defence. 
 There were two other houses in the lower part of the street. 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 73 
 
 which, although built of wood, were especially protected 
 against assault. Into these the inhabitants could flee. The 
 ordinary means of garrisoning houses was by palisades. 
 
 A palisade was made in this way. Trees of convenient size 
 were cut to such a length that when 
 placed firmly in the ground they would 
 rise above it to the length of ten or 
 twelve feet. Having been roughly hewn 
 to a post-like form, or, if the work was 
 hurried, perhaps not hewn at all, they palisaded houses. 
 
 were then set close together around the house to be protected. 
 They were also fastened together by a rude rail, held, it may be, 
 by nails or withes. Sometimes several houses, or as at North- 
 ampton, a whole hamlet, were thus enclosed. Loopholes were 
 made here and there through which those from within could 
 fire at an approaching enemy without much danger that a 
 bullet or arrow would enter the loophole itself. At the entrance 
 of the stockade or palisaded place, one line of posts was made 
 to overlap the line from the other direction at a distance just 
 wide enough for a man to pass. The narrow passage could 
 thus be easily defended. Of course, if the enemy could get 
 upon a rock or tree in the near neighborhood, they could fire 
 upon the house, so that occasionally some one was shot when 
 opposite a window. Feather beds, as was the case in Brook- 
 field, could be hung against the inside wall to deaden the 
 bullets that might penetrate the wall itself. It was with 
 palisades that the Long Hill fort was constructed and the 
 settlers wisely adopted the Indian mode of defence. The 
 Indian fort or stockade was situated on the spot where now 
 stands the house of the Vincentian Fathers. When exca- 
 vations for this building were made the ashes of the 
 
74 HISrOHY OF SPRIxNGFIKLI) 
 
 ancient fires were uncovered and discolorations of the 
 soil showed where the posts had been. 
 
 It was into this fort on Long Hill that some of Philip's 
 warriors secretly entered on a night in early October, 1675. 
 There were among our local Indians only about forty fighting 
 men. They were probably so peaceably disposed, by reason 
 of their weakness, their familiar intercourse in the village, and 
 the fair treatment which they had always had, that had it 
 not been for the incitements of Philip, they might have taken 
 no part in the war. They were nearer to Connecticut than 
 the Indians of the upper valley and in the Pequot war the 
 Connecticut Indians had been taught a severe lesson. But to 
 destroy Springfield was part of Philip's plan; he needed the 
 help of our Indians and his clever arts prevailed. 
 
 On Monday, October 4th, Major Pynchon set out for Hadley 
 with his men. His object was to locate the Indians harboring 
 around there and bring on a decisive battle at once. Meantime, 
 Indian braves who had fired Brookfield and other places, 
 were secretly got into the Long Hill fort. The terrible disaster 
 and slaughter of women and children that impended was only 
 saved from making a bloody page of history by a single 
 circumstance. The Agawam hostages were still in Hartford 
 and their relatives probably insisted on their relief from 
 certain death by getting them out of the hands of the whites 
 before the expected attack. Had this not been done some 
 Indian would have betrayed the whole plot. Accordingly 
 some messengers were sent to Hartford, who in some way 
 effected the escape of the hostages. In passing through 
 Windsor, either going or coming, the messengers or the 
 hostages happened to come across Toto, an Indian who lived 
 in a white family. Toto became aware of the plot and as he 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 75 
 
 showed great excitement about something, he revealed it, 
 on being questioned. 
 
 No time was to be lost. The fate of Springfield now hung 
 on a family in Windsor, whose name we would be glad to know. 
 A swift messenger was dispatched to the doomed town. 
 Leaving his horse, probably, in West Springfield, and rousing 
 the citizens there, he crossed on the ferry, with some of them, 
 at dead of night. The alarm was given all down the street. 
 The people fled at once to the fortified houses and a messenger 
 was sent to Hadley after Major Pynchon. 
 
 It is probable that the Indians intended to make the attack 
 at night. The betrayal of their plot and the sudden rush of 
 the people for safety may have disconcerted their plans 
 At all events the morning broke with no sign of danger and 
 some of the people went back to their homes. It was hard for 
 them to believe that the Agawams had become their enemies. 
 
 At this time the town was in command of Thomas Cooper, 
 then known as Lieutenant Cooper. He no longer lived in his 
 old place on Main street but fifteen years before had removed 
 to that part of the town now known as Agawam and had a 
 sawmill on Three Mile brook. He was an old man, but yet 
 hale and hearty. He was not only a carpenter and farmer; 
 he was something of a surgeon and in the absence of regular 
 physicians, went far and near to set a broken bone. This he 
 did in kindness and with no charge. In the absence of lawyers 
 he also practiced before the courts. He was so often called 
 to serve as selectman that he sought to avoid the office. 
 He was particularly successful in dealing with the Indians 
 and was probably personally acquainted with each one. 
 Green, in his history, says that his descendants, of whom some 
 still remain, may well place him beside Deacon Chapin as one 
 of the pillars of the town. 
 
76 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 Another man besides Cooper, Chapin and the minister, 
 who remained when the miUtia went to Hadley, was Thomas 
 Miller. He was the constable and perhaps for that reason 
 was left behind. Unlike Lieutenant Cooper, he was probably 
 not on particularly good terms with the Indians. In his 
 younger days he had, for some reason, struck old Reippumsick 
 with the butt of his gun and the old man brought the younger 
 one before Judge William Pynchon. As the matter was liable 
 to lead to difficulties with the Indians, the judge called in 
 several men, including the minister and Thomas Cooper, to 
 sit with him as advisers. The result was that ]\Iiller was 
 sentenced to be whipped at the public whipping post fifteen 
 lashes, which, rather than undergo, he finally made his peace 
 with the Indians by the payment of four fathoms of wampum. 
 Perhaps unpleasant feelings remained on both sides, for ten 
 years afterw^ards Miller complained to the court of KoUa- 
 baugamitt, Mallamaug and other Indians for striking his wife 
 and throwing sticks at his children; whereupon ten men 
 riding hard on five horses were sent in pursuit of the fleeing 
 Kollabaugamitt, Mallamaug and other assailants into the 
 country of the Nipmucks. Kollabaugamitt and Mallamaug 
 were caught and fined by the Court in fourteen fathoms of 
 wampum. Although the Indians did not like Thomas Miller, 
 yet, as he was constable and had been fence viewer, pound- 
 keeper and committee on the allotment of new lands, he was 
 evidently reckoned a worthy citizen. 
 
 It is true that with the coming of the morning of the 
 eventful day the people had returned to their homes. Most 
 of them, of course, were women and children and the distress 
 and anxiety must have been great. The defenders of the 
 town had gone, and, although sent for, they might be unable 
 to return. There may have been reports of strange Indians 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 
 
 77 
 
 seen about the fort, and with another night death and destruc- 
 tion might be upon the village. At some hazard Lieutenant 
 Cooper determined to resolve these doubts. Taking Thomas 
 Miller with him, both mounted, they rode down the street in 
 the direction of the fort. Arrived at some point not far from 
 the bridge at Mill river, probably just across the stream 
 where the road passes alongside the natural bank at the foot 
 
 The Ambush of Lieutenant Cooper and Consj uu.k Mii.i.Ejt. 
 
 of Long Hill, a shot was heard and then another. Miller was 
 instantly killed. Cooper fell from his horse, but remounting, 
 started up the street. Another shot made a mortal 
 wound. He reached the nearest gamsoned house and gave 
 the alarm, but immediately died. 
 
 Much as Thomas Cooper had done for the town in his life, 
 in his death he really saved it from a great slaughter, for the 
 
78 HISTORY (W SPRINGFIELD 
 
 alarm was none too soon. The people had no sooner got into 
 the fortified houses than the Indians, whooping and yelling, 
 broke from the fort and were upon the town. 
 
 "Alas, that direful yell, 
 So loud, so wild, so shrill, so clear, 
 As if the very fiends of hell, 
 Burst from the wildwood depths, were here." 
 
 As compared with an Indian warwhoop, the howling of a 
 wolf or the cry of a panther had no terrors to the forefathers. 
 At the head of the savage band were Philip's chosen braves, 
 close followed by the more timid Agawams, armed with fire- 
 arms and bows and an'ows. Some carried blazing pine knots, 
 prepared to bum the houses, bams and haystacks. Thanks 
 to the Windsor Indian, Lieutenant Cooper and the palisades, 
 no one was killed in the mad rush up the street except Pente- 
 cost Matthews, wife of the old town drummer, and Edmund 
 Pringrydays, who was wounded and died a few days after. 
 Some thirty houses were burned as were about twenty-five 
 bams stored with fodder for the winter. Crossing the marsh, 
 the enemy burned the house of correction, near the present 
 comer of State and Maple streets. In a short time the whole 
 town, from the mills on Mill river to upper Ferry Lane (Cypress 
 street) was a burning, smoking ruin. Nothing escaped but 
 the garrisoned houses, the meeting-house and one or two 
 houses near it. Before being fired, the houses were plundered 
 of their valuables. One Indian got a pewter platter, which 
 holding up before his person, either in defence or defiance, an 
 enraged townsman sent a bullet through both platter and 
 Indian. The platter remained in the town for nearly two 
 centuries. 
 
 While the Indians were still in the village plundering and 
 burning and looking for an opportunity to kill the besieged, 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 79 
 
 Major Treat of Connecticut arrived on the West Springfield 
 side of the river with a company of soldiers. Could they have 
 got across, the Indians would have fled, but the latter kept 
 them back. Major Pynchon, however, having got the message 
 sent the night before, had set out in great haste with the Spring- 
 field men, whose wives and children, mothers and sisters, 
 were in the "sacked and burning village." Perspiring with 
 exertion and anxiety, they at last arrived on the scene. Their 
 approach was the signal for the retreat of the Indians. These 
 hurried eastward across the plain and encamped for the night 
 about six miles away, tradition says at Indian Orchard. 
 The next day they plunged into the forest to the north. The 
 Agawams, afterwards uniting themselves with other tribes 
 to the west of the Hudson, became, as a separate tribe, forever 
 lost to sight. Although now and then a wanderer appeared 
 about the home of his childhood, never again did Springfield 
 have a tribe of Indian neighbors. 
 
 One old squaw was left in the hasty flight. Perhaps she 
 tried to follow the tribe and fell behind because of her age. 
 Captain Moseley of Boston, who was engaged in the army of 
 the valley, but not in Springfield, declared that she was torn 
 in pieces by dogs. If true, this heinous act requires explana- 
 tion and apology. Perhaps only a few were responsible. The 
 shocking barbarities of the Indians were beginning to arouse 
 the colonists to a fearful revenge. Captive Indians, including 
 Philip's wife and little son, were sold into slavery in the West 
 Indies, and even in Plymouth the heads of slain Indians were 
 exposed on poles. There is nothing, however, on the part of 
 the whites as barbarous as an act of the Indians in roasting a 
 captive and eating slices of his flesh while yet alive. 
 
 The saintly Eliot, who had been a successful missionary 
 to the Indians, tried, with others, to lessen the brutalities of 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 war, so far as the whites were concerned, but without success. 
 The Indians, however, had not so much feehng about this 
 matter, even as concerned their own people, as one might 
 expect. They looked upon death with a sort of indifference 
 and probably felt that scalping and being scalped, burning 
 alive and being burnt alive were a part of the glory of war. 
 When Toto, mentioned in the fourth chapter (page 60), having 
 himself killed nineteen whites, at last fell into the hands of 
 
 Inhians Killing a White Captive. 
 From Noah Webster's "Little Header's Assistant." 
 
 Captain Church, he was told to prepare to die. He admitted 
 that the sentence was just and said he was ashamed to live. 
 He asked only the favor of being allowed to smoke a few whiff's 
 of tobacco, which having done, he said he was ready. Then 
 one of Captain Church's Indians sank a hatchet in his brains. 
 At last winter began to set in, a time when even the Indians 
 could not accomplisli much in the way of active warfare. 
 Philip and his Wampanoags retired from this region and 
 intrenched themselves in a swamp in the eastern part of the 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 81 
 
 State, where they were attacked with great slaughter. But it 
 was a sad state of things here in the valley, with Deerfield, 
 Northfield and Springfield destroyed and only Hadley and 
 Northampton remaining. Springfield was in great straits. 
 The people huddled together in the few houses and bams that 
 were left and some probably found shelter on the west side 
 where there were some houses. Major Pynchon was much 
 inconvenienced by the crowding of his own house and dis- 
 tressed by his great loss of property, — his grist mills and saw 
 mills destroyed and the people who owed him unable to pay. 
 It seemed like the ruin of his fortune, yet this is the way he 
 wrote to one of his children, then in London: 
 
 "Dear Son: I would not have you troubled at these sad 
 losses which I have met with. There is no reason for a child 
 to be troubled when his father calls in that which he lent him. 
 It was the Lord that lent it to me, and he that gave it hath 
 taken it away, and blessed be the name of the Lord. He hath 
 done very well for me, and I acknowledge his goodness, and 
 desire to trust in Him and to submit to Him forever. And do 
 you, with me, acknowledge and justify Him." 
 
 There was some talk of abandoning Springfield. Major 
 Pynchon himself thought he would be better off to remove 
 to Boston, where he had some property left. But, strong in 
 the sense of duty, which was a family trait, he wrote to Gov- 
 ernor Leverett in language of 
 
 manliness and fortitude: /t^L ^P / 
 
 -I resolve to attend what ^-f/^^^^n^^ 
 
 God calls me to do and to ^ ^^ 9 
 
 stick to it as long as I can, ^ 
 
 ^ . 1 T 1 1 . AUTOGHAPII OK JoH.V PyNCHOX. 
 
 and, though 1 have such great 
 
 loss of the creature comforts, yet to do what I can in defending 
 
 this place." Thus he furnished a good motto for all the sons and 
 
82 HISTORY OF SPRINGP^IELD 
 
 daughters of Springfield in times of stress and difficulty: 
 "STICK TO IT!" 
 
 At last the dreadful winter passed into an early spring, 
 so that the crops were got early into the ground. The hopes 
 of the people began to revive. They had not much more to 
 lose and if the war might only be successfully ended in the 
 campaign of the advancing year, all might yet be well. But 
 the Indians had been greatly encouraged by the successes 
 of 1675, and their dreams of sweeping the white men out 
 of New England seemed nearer to becoming true. They started 
 early on the war path. 
 
 On a day in March a small party of Longmeadow people, 
 who, out of fear, had been deprived of all church services 
 since the memorable fifth of October, were on their way to 
 the meeting-house at the center. They were protected by a 
 few mounted soldiers, men from the eastern part of the state, 
 who had been garrisoned in Springfield since the disaster. 
 The company had got as far as the brook at Pecowsic, just 
 where it comes out from Forest Park, when they were set upon 
 by Indians. John Keep of Longmeadow was killed, his wife 
 captured and his children either killed or captured. The 
 Indians escaped into the region of the park and made for the 
 north. As soon as Major Pynchon was notified he set oft 
 with others in pursuit, and overtaking the band, rescued a 
 woman. It was learned from her that some, at least, of the 
 attacking party were our own Agawams. 
 
 Still bolder moves than this were made. Connecticut, 
 after the Pequot war, seemed to be reasonably safe, but now 
 an invasion into that colony was made; and Simsbury, only 
 a few miles from Hartford, was attacked. Town after town 
 in the eastern part of the colony was attacked or destroyed 
 and the colonists were almost in despair. It seemed as if 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 
 
 83 
 
 savager}^ were indeed winning the day against civilization; 
 as if a great continent were to have no better vise than as a 
 hunting ground for wild Indians. 
 
 But when it seemed darkest, it was really just before a 
 decisive blow that shattered the Indians' hopes in a day. 
 To show how this came about it is necessary to go back a 
 little. Early in March the Indians, in one of their marauding 
 expeditions down the valley, had captured a Springfield boy, 
 
 Mrs. Rowlandson and John Gilbert at Turners Falls. 
 
 John Gilbert by name, whose father had lived in Longmeadow, 
 but was now dead. John, who perhaps had wandered too 
 far east of the village in order to snare partridges or something 
 of that sort, was taken as far north as the present town of 
 Hinsdale in New Hampshire. Here he fell very sick and 
 was finally cast out into the cold along with a little Indian 
 child who had lost both its parents and was thrown out to 
 die. They were found by Mrs. Rowlandson, the captive wife 
 of a minister. With great difficulty she got the youth to a 
 
84 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 fire and he grew better. He watched his chance to escape 
 and on his eighteenth birthday he succeeded. On reaching 
 the settlements he was able to give very important informa- 
 tion. It had not been known where the Indians of western 
 Massachusetts were located, whether they had gone over into 
 the Hudson valley or had remained nearer at hand. Could their 
 rendezvous be discovered, and the whole body be surprised 
 by a sudden onslaught their power for evil might be broken. 
 
 When John Gilbert reached the settlements he made it 
 clear just where the Indians could be found. It was at some 
 falls on the Connecticut river, near the entrance of a river, 
 now called Miller's river. It was a good place for fishing and 
 here the Indians, by drying fish, were making themselves 
 ready for the summer campaign. 
 
 As soon as this information became known to Captain 
 Turner, after whom the falls were eventually named, he 
 decided to attack at once. He was now in command in the 
 valley. Major Pynchon having been allowed to resign at his 
 own request. Pynchon, though a wise counsellor in the war, 
 did not consider himself especially fitted for active military 
 operations. Although he did not go to Turners Falls, 
 Springfield was well represented there by Captain Samuel 
 Holyoke, the son of Mary Pynchon, a young man of brave 
 and ardent temperament. He was second in command. The 
 Indians were encamped directly on the bank of the river. 
 With a sudden and terrible onslaught Captain Turner was 
 among them without warning. Those who were not slain in 
 their wigwams, plunged madly into the river and were carried 
 down the falls to certain death. Such was the pitch of despera- 
 tion to which the English had come in their fight against 
 extinction by the savage that Captain Holyoke slew five old 
 men, women and children with his own hand, as they were 
 
KING PHILIP'S WAR 85 
 
 hiding under a bank. This is horrible to relate, like as it is 
 to the stories of an older time ; but when the life of a people 
 is at stake means are not nicely measured. At best, war 
 is terrible. 
 
 The noise of the attack had aroused another band of 
 Indians who were not far off and they at once attacked the 
 invaders. It w^as said that Philip was approaching with a 
 thousand warriors. The victory of the English was now 
 turned into a retreat, and, owing to certain circumstances, a 
 retreat which it was very difficult successfully to manage. 
 To make it worse, Captain Turner was shot and the command 
 devolved on Holyoke. Already he had nearly lost his life 
 with the vanguard. His horse had been shot under him. As 
 several warriors rushed upon him he killed one and his men 
 drove back the rest. It was, nevertheless, his self-possession 
 and courage that saved the day, and he marched into Hadley 
 the surviving victor of the famous "Falls Fight." 
 
 But the strain of those hours was too much. He returned 
 to Springfield and in a few short months died from the effects 
 of the exertion, a sacrifice to the cause of civilization in the 
 Connecticut valley, and, indeed, the whole state. It is, 
 perhaps for him, more likely for his father, Elijah Hol- 
 yoke, that the mountain is named which looks down on the 
 scenes of his life and victory. 
 
 The Falls Fight, notwithstanding the rout of the English 
 at the end of it, was really a great disaster for the Indians. 
 It broke up the fisheries, on which Philip depended for his 
 supplies during the summer campaign. Many sachems, 
 sagamores and braves were killed, and Philip, almost in despair, 
 left the valley of the great river for his own country. As it 
 turned out, the Falls Fight, in which John Gilbert and Captain 
 Holyoke of Springfield had borne so important a part, was the 
 
86 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 last great event of the war, except the death of Philip himself. 
 The Indian cause seemed all at once to collapse. Bereft of 
 his family, his supporters killed in the Swamp Fight of the 
 preceding winter and the Falls Fight of May 18th, Philip 
 himself was at last corralled by Captain Church in a swamp. 
 Swamps were a favorite place of refuge with Indians. As 
 Philip was jumping from hummock to hummock in his flight, 
 he was shot by an Indian, an ally of the English. Thus ended 
 King Philip's war, so far as he was concerned, in August 1676. 
 It was continued for a time by sachems on the Maine and 
 New Hampshire coast, and then peace was arranged. 
 
 Henceforth the Indians of New England were a doomed 
 race; doomed to weakness, disease, intemperance and decay. 
 It had been the glory of Massasoit to win by kindness the 
 friendship and good will of a new continental power. It was 
 the fate of his son to destroy that good will and make his 
 people, as a race in New England, first, to be feared and then 
 to be ignored and forgotten. Two centuries were to pass 
 before savage warfare was to cease beyond the Hudson and 
 on the slopes of the Rockies, and the last Indian warrior 
 engaged in conflict with the American people, Geronimo, 
 of the dreadful tribe of Apaches, h£is died the week that 
 this work goes to press; but for New England its Indians 
 were soon to be as if they had never been. 
 
 "Alas for them! — their day is o'er. 
 Their fires are out from hill and shore ; 
 No more for them the wild deer bounds; 
 The plough is on their hunting-grounds; 
 The pale man's axe rings through their woods; 
 The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods; 
 
 Their pleasant springs are dry ; 
 Their children, — ^look! by power oppressed. 
 Beyond the mountains of the west 
 
 Their children go — to die!" — Sprague. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SETTLEMENT OF CHICOPEE AND OTHER TOWNS. 
 THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Chicopee Falls in 18:38. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD had as yet but a very small population; 
 all told there could not have been more than a few 
 hundred people. But the Springfield of that time, the 
 time of King Philip's war and for many years afterwards, 
 occupies a large place on the map. The Indians having gone, 
 there were none to dispute the English ownership, except the 
 settlements made independent of Springfield and there were 
 none of these in Massachusetts, except Westfield, nearer than 
 Hadley and Northampton. Enfield and Sufiield had once been 
 practically a part of Springfield but it was finally decided that 
 
88 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 they lay beyond the Massachusetts Hne. Although some went 
 from Springfield to help settle Westfield, this town wanted 
 Westfield to be independent. Some went over the river to 
 establish their homes even before the war, like Lieutenant 
 Cooper. 
 
 Notwithstanding this scattering and the fact that the cen- 
 tral village might be weakened by it, there was a friendly 
 feeling all around and the dwellers on the west side are spoken 
 of in old records as "our neighbors." Longmeadow was 
 early granted a separate school and although there was a 
 locality named Longmeadow Gate, it did not divide the in- 
 habitants except in the matter of place. John Riley went as 
 far away as the southern part of the present Holyoke and 
 may be considered as the first settler of that city. Riley's 
 brook perpetuates his name. In fact, when we consider the 
 territory included and the settlers who branched out in one 
 direction or another, for the sake of getting good, large farms 
 all to themselves, yet were really inhabitants of Springfield 
 and voted in its town meeting, we would find old Springfield 
 to embrace the present towns or cities of Holyoke, West 
 Springfield, Agawam, Chicopee, Ludlow, Wilbraham, Hamp- 
 den, Longmeadow and East Longmeadow\ The early settle- 
 ment of Longmeadow was of the great meadow itself, down 
 by the river, Chicopee was settled largely by Chapins and 
 there were so many boys in the Chapin families that the name 
 is unusually common hereabouts. So for many years was 
 the name of Bliss ; and no wonder, for Luke Bliss had sixteen 
 children and Jedediah Bliss had as many and one over. For 
 the sake of the good land and the river travel, the early settlers 
 kept pretty near the water, but in 1721 Nathaniel Hitchcock 
 decided to go to "the mountains," as they were called, and 
 built for liimself and his wife a house within the present limits 
 
NEIGHBORING TOWNS 89 
 
 of Wilbraham. Others soon followed him. These Manchonis 
 mountains were the Indian hunting grounds. 
 
 When the settlement of Wilbraham commenced there was 
 one squaw remaining nearly half a century after her tribe had 
 been gone. Her wigwam was on a little brook near the hill 
 since called "W^ig\vam Hill." "Alone," says Stebbins in his 
 history of Wilbraham, "the last of that mysterious race, 
 who had chased the deer over these fields, trapped the beaver 
 in these streams, speared the salmon in these rivers, enjoyed 
 the freedom of these hills, kindled their evening fires by these 
 springs, and, as they smoked their pipes, beheld the western 
 sky lighting up, as the sun went down, as if with the smile of 
 the Great Spirit and of the braves, who had fallen in battle, 
 and buried their kindred under these trees, she lived solitar}^ 
 the curiosity of the early settlers, harmless, quiet, meditative, 
 seldom entering any dwelling and providing for her own 
 wants. At last she disappeared; of the manner of her death, 
 or of her burial place, no man knoweth. She passed away, 
 as a shadow of the vanished race and joined the company of 
 her fathers." In 1750 Captain Miller went out and settled 
 Ludlow. It thus happened that there were, before the Revo- 
 lution, dwellers within the limits of all the cities and towns 
 which have been made out of the old Springfield. 
 
 When different localities came to be settled or used it is 
 interesting to see what old Indian names they kept and what 
 new ones they got. Take, for example, the Mill river valley. 
 The land where the lesser river joins the greater one was known 
 to the Indians as Usquaiok, which was, perhaps, the name 
 of the stream. Mill river meant more to the settlers than 
 Usquaiok, yet, just across the Connecticut they kept for the 
 stream and the town, the word Agawam, the fish curing place 
 of the Indians, where there were salmon and shad in plenty. 
 
90 
 
 HISTOin OF Sl'RINGFIELD 
 
 Following up the Mill river valley, we pass the Water 
 Shops, an odd name, indicating the use of water power. Fol- 
 lowing the south branch we come to the neighborhood of 
 Wachogue, formerly called Wachuet, an Indian word mean- 
 ing "land near the hill." There were once "great Wachuet" 
 and "little Wachuet," good meadow lands near hills on or 
 near the Hampden road. Further on, along the stream, there 
 was a good lot of land which measured about sixteen acres 
 
 ("hudi'ee from Spbingfield Street, 183S. 
 
 in extent. This was allotted to early settlers and "The 
 Sixteen Acres" grew into the name of a locality. Still further 
 up was a tract called "World's End," because beyond this, 
 for a time, nobody wanted to go. 
 
 The dingles or old ravines which cut into the terraces of 
 the thickly settled parts of the city all had their names. At 
 the beginning of St. James avenue was, and is. Squaw tree 
 dingle and, near the Chicopee line. Hogpen dingle. The 
 dingle below the \\\\sson Hospital was wSkunk's Misery and the 
 
NEIGHBORING TOWNS 91 
 
 one beginning at Avon Place was Thompson's dingle. To 
 the south are Long dingle in Forest Park, and Entry dingle, 
 which last is in Longmeadow. These localities are shown 
 on the map in the first chapter. 
 
 Suppose, now, we follow up the Chicopee river for a time, 
 beginning at its mouth, at the place which the Indians called 
 Chicopee. Passing Crowfoot brook, named for an early- 
 settler on its banks, and through the center, we arrive at the 
 ancient Schonunganuck, now Chicopee Falls. Not far beyond 
 is Skipmaug or Skipmuck. Noticing the outlets, as we pass, 
 of Skipmuck brook, Poor brook and Higher brook, and 
 the curve at Bircham's Bend we come to Indian Orchard, 
 a name of which the origin is lost; The original locality of 
 that name was on the north side of the river within the 
 present town of Ludlow. 
 
 We will return by way of the old Bay road. Crossing 
 Poor brook again and coming into State street, near Squaw 
 tree dingle, and where "the log path,' ' now upper State street, 
 formerly left the Bay road, and crossing the Connecticut, 
 let us follow the course of the Agawam. We would pass through 
 Ramapogue at the West Springfield common and, reaching 
 the stream just beyond, pass under the high bluffs which were 
 once the banks of the old lake. We cross the little "Silver 
 stream" flowing out from the hill in Mittineague or iVIened- 
 gonuck and, passing through the village and a mile or more 
 beyond, we come to a great bend called "the neck." The 
 Indians, however, called this place Ashconunsuck. Just 
 above is Tatham or Tattum, the meaning of which nobody 
 knows. Pursuing our way west we cross Block brook and, 
 rounding the course of the stream where it runs between the 
 ridges of trap, we arrive at the fertile interval known to the 
 Indians, and still known, as Paucatuck. This hamlet is the 
 
92 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 last before we reach the Westfield line. Paucatuck brook 
 rises some miles to the north, beyond Bear Hole. Thus we 
 see how English and Indian words of description are mingled 
 in our names of places. 
 
 Although, as we have seen, the Indians, as tribes, were 
 no longer left in this part of New England, yet they continued 
 to wander back from time to time and were occasionally 
 employed on the farms. The danger from Indians was not 
 yet over, but it was now the red men of Canada who kept the 
 settlements in alarm. They had never been heard of before 
 in these parts, but about ten years after King Philip's war 
 ended and for more than half a century afterwards there were 
 at times wars between England and France, which affected us. 
 The French had settled Canada and, allying themselves with 
 the Indians there, they made invasions of New England, 
 particularly down the valley of the Connecticut. Northfield, 
 Deerfield and Brookfield were most exposed. Men were killed 
 and women carried captive to Canada. 
 
 In Major Pynchon's day he was the military governor of 
 the whole valley, and once when Brookfield had been attacked, 
 he sent a force in pursuit of the Indians who were making fast 
 for Canada. Among the pursuers was the same Thomas 
 Gilbert, who had once escaped from Indian captivity. The 
 Indians were overtaken while at breakfast. Six of them were 
 killed, and nine guns, twenty hatchets and about twenty 
 horns of powder taken. It was just like John Pynchon, 
 writing an account of the affair, to say, " 'Tis God, not our 
 twenty men that hath done it." Although the French were, 
 from time to time, raising such dark war clouds to the north, 
 yet in 1718, there arrived in Springfield a Frenchman who 
 followed the ways of peace. He was a peddler, Samuel Malle- 
 field by name, and appeared riding an iron gray horse. He 
 
NEIGHBORING TOWNS 
 
 93 
 
 brought more goods than one horse would carry, so, doubtless, 
 the goods came by water from Hartford. There is in existence 
 a list of all his wares, from which it appears that he brought 
 something for everybody, — handkerchiefs, penknives and ink 
 horns for the men, silks, fans and laces for the women and 
 jewsharps and httle books for the children. Among a multitude 
 of other things were over 1 1 ,000 pins. All this we know because 
 no sooner had the peddler arrived than he fell sick and died, 
 and a complete inventory of his goods was made for the 
 Probate Court. 
 
 But the peddler, vSamuel Mallefield, especially interests 
 us, not so much because he came on an iron gray horse and 
 brought 1 1 ,000 pins, but because on his deathbed he directed 
 that all his property, after paying his expenses, should make 
 a fund for the relief of the poor. The town accepted the 
 bequest and erected a stone of table form to the memory of 
 the French peddler, which may be seen among the ancient 
 stones on the Pine street side of the 
 cemetery. Very many years were to 
 pass before his example would be fol- 
 lowed; but in 1863 James W. Hale, 
 a benevolent grocer, left most of his 
 fortune to supply the worthy poor 
 with coal, fuel and flour, from what 
 is now called "The Hale Fund." 
 These two men were the forerunners 
 of many kind people who have made 
 gifts and bequests for the use of the 
 city. 
 
 We are now come to the great days of the Revolution. 
 Its battles were waged far away from Springfield; but, besides 
 sending her men to join the-<armies of freedom, she had little 
 
 Jambs W. Hale. 
 
94 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 glimpses and side-lights of events as they passed and made 
 history for the now United States. It was on a day in June 
 of the year 1775 when one, standing on Main street, near the 
 Court House, and looking up street, might have seen a cavalcade 
 of horsemen approaching from the north. They had just 
 crossed the river and had turned into the Main street from 
 
 ^bk^i 
 
 ■J'avfkn, Main and Ki-m Sikkki> 
 
 the upper Ferry Lane, now Cypress street. They advance 
 down the street and halt in front of tlie tavern at (the present) 
 Court Square. The central figure is a tall and really fine- 
 looking man of dignified yet pleasing countenance. It is the 
 new General, George Washington, on his way to Cambridge 
 to take command of the Continental army. With him is 
 General Lee. "He was," says Irving, in his "Life of Wash- 
 
THE REVOLUTION 
 
 95 
 
 ington," "in the vigor of his days, forty-three years of age, 
 stately in person, noble in demeanor, calm and dignified in 
 his deportment. As he sat on his horse with manly grace, his 
 military presence delighted every eye." After dinner at the 
 tavern, the afternoon saw the party again on their way up 
 State street and along the 
 old Bay road. We may 
 believe that General Wash- 
 ington, who was an ob- 
 servant traveler, drew rein 
 for a moment at the Wait 
 monument, then rather 
 new, and read the inscrip- 
 tion carved for the benefit 
 of wayfarers. 
 
 The battles of Lexing- 
 ton and Bunker Hill had 
 already been fought. The 
 minute-men of Springfield 
 were already stationed at 
 the fortifications around 
 Boston. Here is a letter, with misspelling corrected, which 
 one of the young soldiers from Springfield wrote to his father. 
 It was written about the day of Washington's arrival, written 
 from the very town whence the settlers had started, as told 
 in the second chapter, 
 
 \ Roxbury, June 29, 1775 
 
 Honored Father: 
 
 After my regards to you I take this opportunity to let you 
 know that I am well, as I hope these lines will find you and all my 
 brothers and sisters. I have some news to write. In the first place 
 there was a skirmish between Charlestown and Cambridge and the 
 
 Wait Mcmmkni. 
 
96 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 King's troops drove our men out of our intrenchment because thev 
 had no powder and they have intrenched on Bunker's Hill and our 
 men have intrenched on Winter Hill where the regulars retreated 
 
 to when the first battle 
 was at Concord which was 
 June 16. They fired the 
 same day at Roxbury and 
 threw bombs and car- 
 casses in order to set the 
 street on fire, but by the 
 goodness of God they 
 did not, for our men, as 
 soon as they had set 
 it afire, would go up and 
 put it out and they fired 
 no more until last Satur- 
 day. Then they fired again and tried to set it on fire but they 
 would go and put it out. One of our men took one of the car- 
 casses and brought it up to the General before it went out. 
 And they set two or three houses afire. But they were as fierce 
 as a bloodhound to put them out. Then the Rhode Islanders 
 went down on the Neck with two or three field pieces and 
 fired at them and made their sentries run to the breast-work. 
 And then they fired upon our sentries and killed two of 
 them. We are building a fort in Roxbury and digging a 
 trench across the Neck. No more at present, so I remain your 
 obedient son, 
 
 JuDUTHAN Sanderson. 
 
 It is plain that this young fellow was heart and soul with 
 the cause of the Revolution. So were the citizens of Spring- 
 field generally, prominent among them being William Pyn- 
 chon, grandson of the "worshipful Major." There were those, 
 however, who stood by the King. "Adamses, where are you 
 
THE REVOLUTION 
 
 97 
 
 going?" said Colonel Worthington to the great patriots, 
 Samuel and John Adams, when they appeared in this town 
 
 Discussing the Uevolution. 
 
 in 1776, on their way to the Continental Congress. "To 
 Philadelphia, to declare these colonies free," was the quick 
 response. "Look out for your heads," replied Worthington. 
 
98 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 #», 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 The sound of battle was far away ; but occasional travelers 
 and soldiers returning from Ticonderoga and other posts kept 
 the people fully interested and informed. It was this remote- 
 ness of Springfield from the seat of war that, with other 
 reasons, induced General Washington to designate the town 
 as the place for the government manufacture of arms. He 
 chose the plateau on which the Armory is now located, on 
 
 the western edge of what he 
 calls in his diary, describing the 
 country between the Hill and 
 Indian Orchard, "an almost 
 uninhabited pine plain much 
 mixed with sand." The location 
 chosen was then the town's 
 training field, but it was readily 
 yielded to the new enterprise. 
 
 One of the great events in the 
 early years of the Revolution, 
 which is in a way connected with 
 this and neighboring towns, 
 was the surrender of the British 
 General Burgoyne at Saratoga. 
 Indeed, some of the soldiers of this vicinity were there and 
 remembered the event as taking place on a clear and beautiful 
 day in September. Standing in military array they saw the 
 British general and six thousand of his troops pass by to the 
 place where the latter laid down their arms. The soldiers of 
 freedom were poor and wore no uniforms, but "they stood 
 well arranged and with a military air." "The men," wrote 
 the Hessian General Riedesel, then serving in the British 
 army, "stood so still that we were filled with wonder. Not 
 one of them made a single motion, as if he would speak with 
 
 Costume of the Eighteenth Century. 
 
THE REVOLUTION 99 
 
 his neighbor. Nay, more, the lads that stood there in rank 
 and file, kind nature had formed so trim, so slender, so full of 
 nerve that it was a pleasure to look at them and we were all 
 surprised at the sight of such a handsome, well formed race. 
 Not a man was to be found, who as we marched by, made 
 even a sign of taunting, insulting, exultation, hatred or any 
 other evil feeling. On the contrary they seemed as if they 
 would do us an honor." 
 
 General Riedesel commanded some German troops from 
 Hesse-Cassel who had been hired by the king to serve in 
 America. In fact the great mass of the English people had 
 not much sympathy with George the Third in his attempt to 
 crush the liberty of the colonies. They were not eager to join 
 the army and go to America for this purpose, so that the king 
 bargained with the Grand Duke of Hesse-Cassel for 22,000 
 soldiers to fill up his army. It is not to be supposed that these 
 mercenary troops had any heart in the war ; but there was no 
 German freedom in those days and they were compelled to go. 
 Once here, both the English and German soldiers realized that 
 the cause of liberty was the same everywhere and that what 
 the Americans were fighting for was just what they themselves 
 needed in their own country. It is not surprising that many 
 of them deserted and made their homes in the United States. 
 
 In the army that surrendered at Saratoga was a large 
 body of Hessians, with their general. All these were ordered 
 sent as prisoners of war to Boston. As there would not be 
 enough to feed them if all went by the same route, three de- 
 tachments were formed and one of these was sent over the 
 moimtains into and down the valley of the Westfield or 
 Agawam river, by way of Springfield, It was at the close of 
 a wet day in October when this large body of retired soldiers 
 emerged from between the ridges of hills that divide Westfield 
 
100 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 from West Springfield, and encamped on the West Springfield 
 common. More comfortable quarters, however, were found 
 by many at the farmsteads. 
 
 In a large farmhouse in Paucatuck lived a little boy, Seth 
 by name, whose father had but recently, gun on shoulder, 
 come back from the scene of the surrender. He was intensely 
 interested in stories of Ticonderoga and the doings about there 
 
 Revolutionary Officers in a Farmhouse at Paucatuck, West Springfield. 
 
 and one can imagine his excitement when a party of fifteen 
 or sixteen officers from the two armies arrived at his father's 
 house with the purpose of spending the night. The 
 officers made themselves comfortable in the house and hung 
 their swords and trappings above the blazing hearth-fire to 
 dry. To the end of his life the boy remembered the glistening 
 
THE REVOLUTION 101 
 
 steel and brass of the swords and scabbards as they flashed 
 in the firelight. As for the common soldiers they staid out 
 in the sheds at the cost of a good pile of cider apples that were 
 waiting for the press. In the morning camp was struck on 
 the Common, the farmhouses emptied of their visitors and 
 the whole host crossed the river to Springfield, whence they 
 proceeded towards Brookfield. 
 
 But not all went. An Englishman named Worthy thought 
 that this part of the country was good enough for him and 
 contrived to drop out, as did a German named Wagoner. 
 Worthy used to say that when the British common soldiers 
 got over here they found that the Americans had the right of 
 the cause. One other deserter there was, a horse, too lame, 
 perhaps, to go further. He, too, found friends in West Spring- 
 field and to the end of his days went by the name of "Old 
 Burgoyne." 
 
NOKTHEAST ClIKNEJ; nl C'l H K 1 S(,M \Ul-, 1 ^,^0. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SHAYS' REBELLION.— THE CONSTITUTION.— 1783-1789. 
 
 SHAYS' Rebellion was one of the unfortunate incidents 
 in the history of Massachusetts. It is interesting because 
 it shows a people, almost a majority, in opposition to 
 the regular action of a government which they had just set 
 up; and it is important in a history of Springfield because 
 it was here that some of the most stirring scenes occurred. 
 Sometimes it has been called an insurrection, sometimes a 
 rebellion. An insurrection is a rising to prevent the operation 
 of the laws by force of arms. A rebellion is such an opposition 
 widely extended. In this case the movement, by spreading 
 through the state, passed from an insuiTection to a rebellion, 
 although not a bloody one. It is included in the years 1783- 
 1787. What was its cause? 
 
 During the Revolution the colonies had been too poor to 
 pay the soldiers properly, too poor indeed, properly to feed 
 and uniform the men; men who had, perhaps, left wife and 
 children at home to get a very poor living on the farm while 
 the husband and father served the cause. Money often had 
 to be borrowed for them to live on. But the soldiers were 
 paid in paper money, good so long as it would pass for the 
 value stamped on its face, but it would so pass only so long 
 as it could be exchanged for that which had a value in itself, 
 gold or silver. In the colonies there was not enough gold or 
 silver to go around and be exchanged for all this paper money ; 
 so it began to get worthless, and the more that it was printed 
 and given out the more worthless it got. 
 
104 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 But the soldiers needed real money. When they got home 
 to their farms they found, perhaps, that the oxen, which had 
 not been needed for work during their absence, had been 
 killed for beef. Now that the farmer himself was exchanging 
 the gun for the plough, new oxen must be bought, or a new 
 horse. Perhaps the farmer who had served in one or two 
 campaigns was drafted for another and had to borrow money 
 to pay for some one to go to the war in his place. The money 
 was borrowed in coin and now the returning soldier found 
 nothing in his hands with which to pay, except the now 
 
 almost worthless paper. The former 
 price of a yoke of oxen would scarce 
 buy three mugs of cider ; and if a man 
 had borrowed a hundred dollars, he 
 must now get four thousand dollars in 
 paper money to make it good. This 
 farmer, pictured in an old broad side, 
 "The Looking glass for 1787," has 
 filled a bag with paper money and 
 even then has scarcely enough to 
 pay his taxes. 
 
 When things came to this pass 
 everybody was alarmed for the 
 future. Business, of course, came 
 very much to a standstill and it was hard to sell any- 
 thing with which to pay anybody. People to whom 
 debts were due began to collect them. If tlic debtor 
 could not pay he was brought before the court and 
 his farm or personal property was ordered to be sold 
 to raise the money, and when nobody wanted to buy 
 nothing would bring its real value. The debtor was ruined 
 and under the old law of imprisonment for debt might have 
 
SHAYS' REBELIJON 105 
 
 to go to jail. Thus it came to pass that a sense of distress, 
 suffering and alarm overspread Massachusetts and involved 
 a considerable portion of the population. The large portion 
 of the people who were not so greatly troubled might have 
 done more to make things better. They might have passed 
 certain laws which would have tided over the difficulties for 
 a time till the cause was removed; but they were not wise 
 enough to do so. 
 
 The result was that here and there people began to consult 
 together to see what they could do. All the danger was 
 coming through the courts by the ordering of the collection 
 of debts, so the malcontents decided to prevent the sitting 
 of the courts. This was, of course, a high-handed proceeding. 
 The courts had been established by the people of Massachu- 
 setts for the purpose of doing justice between man and man 
 and they tried hard to do so. The judges were not responsible 
 for the laws but it was their duty to enforce them. The 
 people had made the laws and it is pretty hard to justify the 
 resistance of a free people to laws of their own making, even 
 though some may unjustly sujffer by it. In this case historians 
 do not justify; they have done no more than to excuse on 
 the ground of great provocation. 
 
 Early in the history of the insurrection an important 
 court was to be held in Springfield. The Court House stood 
 on the east side of Main street, south of Sanford and, being 
 just across the town brook, was reached by a small bridge. 
 It was the sitting of the court here at this time that the insur- 
 gents wished to prevent. Not wishing to proceed to bloodshed 
 they left their guns of the Revolution at home and came 
 armed with clubs. They gathered before the door of the 
 Court House in so solid a mass that the judges as they arrived 
 found their way obstructed. Before the judges walked the 
 
106 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 high sheriff, General Mattoon of Amherst. "Make way for 
 the court," said the sheriff. Nobody moved. "Make way 
 for the court, I say," he repeated; and struck David Smith, 
 Jr., of West Springfield, a painful blow with the flat of his 
 sword. It is said that one man was thrown into the brook. 
 However that may be, the crowd then gave way and the court 
 was duly held. 
 
 There soon got to be a feeling among the towns, particularly 
 towns in Hampshire, Berkshire and Worcester counties, that 
 something was wrong that might be righted; so that from 
 Springfield and elsewhere delegates were sent to a convention 
 to talk about these matters and see what could be done. 
 But nothing was effectively done and the opposition to the 
 sitting of the courts kept growing. Sometimes it succeeded; 
 but not so in Taunton, where Judge Cobb, a former general 
 of the Revolution, was holding court. When the insurgents 
 arrived, he urged them to yield to the laws, concluding with 
 these words: "Sirs! I shall sit here as a judge or die here 
 as a general." The mob dispersed. At last there appeared 
 military leaders and the forms of military organization and 
 there was no longer an insurrection but a rebellion. 
 
 The rebellion took its name from one of these leaders, 
 Daniel Shays of Pelham, a hill town not far from Ludlow. 
 Shays had no great ability but he had served with credit as 
 a captain in the Revolution, he was a good talker and, in 
 concert with Luke Day of West Springfield, Eli Parsons of 
 Berkshire and an ex-minister named Ely, was very successful 
 in rallying the malcontents about him. Luke Day is reported 
 to have said that liberty is liberty to do as you like and make 
 everybody else do as you would have them. Perhaps, if he 
 ever said it, he did not say it seriously; for true liberty is 
 freedom subject to laws made for the good of all, as Day 
 
SHAYS' REBELLION 
 
 107 
 
 and every other soldier of the Revolution well knew. Day is 
 thought to have been abler than Shays, but Shays was acknowl- 
 edged as the leader and even in adjoining states where the 
 same troubles prevailed "Hurrah for Shays!" became a 
 popular cry. 
 
 As between the cause of Shays and that of law the people 
 of Springfield were 
 
 divided. Springfield, -"1^^ 
 
 because of the Court 
 House and the Ar- 
 mory, became at 
 once a great center of 
 interest, as to which 
 side should prevail, 
 so that September 
 
 Defending the Court House in Shavs Ki:iiEi.i,i(iN. 
 
 26, 1786 is memorable in our history. On that day the highest 
 Court of the Commonwealth was to sit here, composed of the 
 chief justice and three other judges and Shays meant to 
 prevent it. His camp was near the comer of Main and Ferry 
 streets. His men had no uniforms but could be told from the 
 rest by a sprig of evergreen worn in the hat. The other side 
 wore a piece of white paper in the same way. General Shep- 
 
108 HISTORY OF SPRINGP^IELD 
 
 ard of Westfield, a brave and magnanimous officer, was in the 
 town with a force ready to protect the court. 
 
 Then there were seen three thousand armed men marching 
 up and down Main street, ready to fight each other on sufficient 
 provocation. Almost all of them were from outside towns; 
 but among the citizens themselves, neighbor was set against 
 neighbor and the next moment men might be firing from one 
 house to the next. The excitement was great, women and 
 children trembling with fear; and we are not told whether 
 school kept or not. Men were continually coming in from 
 other towns and joining one camp or the other. More than 
 one company of the state militia which arrived to support 
 General Shepard, carried away by the "hurrah boys" of the 
 other side, deserted in a body to Captain Shays. 
 
 But there were staunch men left to the government side. 
 Dr. Chauncey Brewer, going one night to see a sick person 
 had to pass through Shays' lines and was an-ested by the 
 sentries on Main street and brought into camp. Captain 
 Shays ordered him to take the white paper from his hat. 
 "No, Sir," said the doctor, "I shall not do it! Just give me 
 a place to sleep." Twice he was ordered to doff the badge 
 and twice refused. At last he was allowed to go home with 
 his badge on. When the judges arrived they got safely to 
 the Court House but as the grand jury did not dare to come 
 nothing could be done. So the Shays party, having really 
 accompHshed its object, went home. 
 
 By this time the governor was thoroughly aroused. More 
 and more he saw steady government going to pieces before his 
 eyes and felt that something must be done. Loyal troops 
 must be got and the state had no money to pay for them. 
 He had to borrow money of Boston citizens to raise an army. 
 This he did and was able to place General Lincoln at the head 
 
SHAYS' REBELLION 109 
 
 of 4,500 men. Of the troops raised here in the valley, General 
 Shepard was in command. He at once proceeded to make 
 himself strong at the Federal barracks, now called the Armory. 
 None of the present buildings were there then ; but there was 
 a building containing arms and in the woods a powder maga- 
 zine, of which Magazine street is still a reminder. 
 
 Captain Day was, meanwhile, drilling his men on West 
 Springfield Common and making occasional raids. He cap- 
 tured General Parks and Doctor Whitney in their sleighs 
 and making a dash into Longmeadow, pulled one man out of 
 bed and took him to West Springfield. Eli Parsons with his 
 men of Berkshire was posted in Chicopee, so that, with Shays 
 at Pelham, able quickly to descend upon the towns to the 
 east, Springfield was in this way so surrounded that it was 
 hoped to prevent General Shepard from being reinforced until 
 Shays had captured the guns and ammunition at the arsenal, 
 of which he was much in need. In fact. Day did capture, at 
 Chicopee bridge, a supply of provisions sent to Shepard from 
 Northampton, and Shepard began to be desperately afraid 
 that he could not keep his force together until Lincoln's army 
 should come up. 
 
 By this time Lincoln's army was on the move to relieve 
 Shepard and Shays saw that he must attack the arsenal at 
 once or lose his cause. So he came off the heights of Pelham 
 and appeared in Wilbraham with 1,100 men. The women 
 and children of Wilbraham fled to Somers, but Shays kept 
 on his way to Springfield. It was in the dead of winter and slow 
 marching; so that Shepard was warned of their approach by 
 a swift horseman from Wilbraham. He arranged his forces 
 in two divisions; one on Main street, to keep Day from 
 crossing over on the ice to join Shays and the rest he drew up 
 before the arsenal and planted a howitzer in a good position 
 
110 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 with several cannon to the rear. Several times he sent his 
 aids on horseback to meet Shays on the Sixteen Acres road 
 and demand what he wanted. Shays' reply was that "he 
 wanted barracks; barracks he would have and stores." He 
 was told that he must purchase them dear if he had them. 
 
 It was about four o'clock when Captain Shays with his 
 more than a thousand men was seen moving down the present 
 State street by Benton Park from off the Bay road. Reaching 
 the vicinity of the present memorial boulder, they halted. 
 General Shepard sent an aid to inform Shays that if he came 
 nearer he would be fired upon, whereupon Shays started his 
 men. Two shots were then fired by Shepard, not aimed directly 
 at the rebels but only intended to frighten them. This having 
 no effect, a howitzer full of grape shot was discharged into the 
 center of their column. This caused a disturbance and the 
 second or third shot put the whole army to rout. They turned 
 and fled in confusion without firing a gun, leaving several 
 of their comrades dead on the field. 
 
 With such a ridiculous ending to the dreaded march of 
 Shays, one cannot speak of the field of battle, and in all the 
 rebellion there was nothing that came any nearer to a battle. 
 Had Shays been more of a leader he would have done either 
 less or much more. As it was, he proved very like that king 
 of France, who, with 20,000 men marched up a hill and then 
 marched down again. Henceforth there was no fear for the 
 safety of the Armory until the days of the Civil war. 
 
 If we may still use military language of such a fiasco, we 
 would say that Shays, after the rout, fell back on Five Mile 
 pond, where, making a stand, he next day joined Parsons in 
 Chicopee with such of his men as had not deserted. General 
 Lincoln meanwhile arrived on the scene, emerging from the 
 Bay road and joining Shepard at the Armoiy. Being the 
 
SHAYS' REBELLION 
 
 111 
 
 superior officer, he was from this time in charge and proceeded 
 at once to break up what was left of the rebeUion. A part of 
 his force pursued Shays to Amherst whence he retreated to 
 the fastnesses of Pelham where he, perhaps, thought that 
 nothing but death and taxes could get him. He afterwards 
 went for safety into the State of New York where he died in 
 poverty. His life and exploits, real and imaginary, were made 
 the subject of a ballad which became a popular song, even 
 beyond the limits of Massachusetts. The entire ballad of 
 nineteen verses may be found in the "Poets and Poetry of 
 Springfield." The ancient music is here given. 
 
 M)- name was Shays in for-mer days, In Pel-ham I did dwell, Sir, 
 
 ^i4r-dHid=:1=if 
 
 4"^H-^ — ^—^ — ii~ 
 
 :p=zp=zpzzp: 
 
 :tu=t==t:=^ 
 
 -• — m — •- 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 #__^_ 
 
 p=?=^=zE=t 
 
 ::1zz:::|==:j: 
 
 1^ 
 
 Hut now I'm forced lo leave thai jjlace, Re-cause I did re - bel. Sir. 
 
 &SEFE33E:E 
 
 :1: 
 
 d^t^tr-. -r 
 
 iPzzpzzp" 
 
 cf=-y^t--ti: 
 
 IB 
 
 General Lincoln ordered another part of his force to cross 
 the river to encounter Day, who was still posted on West 
 Springfield common ; while the light horse meanwhile went up 
 the river on the ice to cut off any union of Day with Shays, 
 Day's men precipitately fled to some point beneath the 
 terrace of the ancient river bank, perhaps not far from the site 
 of the old white church where they made a stand and prepared 
 themselves to receive an attack. Another flight and they 
 
112 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 were on the heights where they were met by the Hght horse. 
 
 Then began another rout. Some fled to Northampton and some 
 
 fell out by the way. Among the latter was one Cooley who 
 
 .^_^^^^ hid under a conven- 
 
 js"'^*r'^m^s^. jgj^|. haystack and 
 
 thereafter went by the 
 fe name of ' ' the haystack 
 Colonel." 
 
 The backbone of 
 the rebellion was now 
 broken. General Lin- 
 coln was kept busy 
 for some months in the counties of Worcester, Berkshire 
 and northern Hampshire in suppressing small outbreaks ; but, 
 finally, a general pardon was granted to those engaged in 
 the rebellion who would take the oath of allegiance, which 
 they all did, and "lived happily forever after." 
 
 Shays' Rebellion, though local, had results affecting the 
 whole country. The news of it reached Washington, in the 
 quiet of his Mount Vernon home, and he was greatly stirred. 
 That such a glorious peace as ended the Revolution should 
 be succeeded by such disorder he thought a disgrace. It was 
 not a resistance to tyrants but free men resisting a govern- 
 ment which they had themselves set up, — a government of 
 law replaced by anarchy. He seemed to see the great work 
 of his life undone. It was partly for this reason that be began 
 to give the great influence of his character and wisdom to the 
 creation of a strong central government which might help 
 the states to maintain order. He again became the leader 
 of the people, and, in part, out of such apparently unfruitful 
 soil as Shays' Rebellion grew the final union of the states and 
 the adoption of the Constitution. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OLD TIMES AND NEW— THE CHANGE TO MODERN WAYS — 
 THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.— THE ARMORY- 
 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS — 
 
 1789-1852. 
 
 ELL me about old 
 fashioned times," a 
 small boy used to say 
 to his mother, mean- 
 ing the times when 
 she was a girl. What 
 really are the "old- 
 fashioned times?" 
 What is the old world 
 and what the new? 
 We use these words in different senses. We say that modem 
 times began with the invention of printing and the discovery 
 of America and, again, we say that ancient history is 
 the history of the world before Christ, which we call B. C. 
 But when we are thinking of old and new in Springfield 
 we might properly say that the old fashioned times gave 
 place to the new in the period between the birth of the 
 nation by the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 and 
 the incorporation of Springfield as a city in 1852. During 
 this period the ways of life had greatly changed and 
 causes began to be which later resulted in still further changes. 
 In the earlier days, men and women, boys and girls, lived 
 in a different way. Their work, their amusements, their 
 
114 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 studies, their mode of travelling and even of eating and 
 drinking were different. The change in so simple a matter 
 as getting a drink of water is typical of everything else. Once 
 a well sweep (page 24) stood by every door, except where 
 there was a convenient spring. "The old oaken bucket, the 
 moss covered bucket" is no more; there is not now a well 
 sweep within the limits of Springfield. One of the first ancient 
 customs to pass away was that of slavery. From the days of 
 John Stewart there had been slaves in Springfield, all, with 
 
 Map op Hampden County. 
 
 that exception, black. Finally, people all felt that slavery 
 was neither profitable nor right, and although the slaves had 
 always been kindly treated as members of the family, yet 
 the custom vanished of itself without the passing of any law 
 against it. 
 
 In this period, by the separation of Chicopee, Springfield 
 came into the geographical form in which she has since re- 
 mained, except for a slight change in the south line, and was 
 henceforth the largest in population of the towns in the 
 valley. For a time tliis was not so. West Springfield, at one 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 115 
 
 time, grew so rapidly as to be ahead of the mother town, and 
 in the Revolution was called on to furnish more soldiers than 
 Springfield; but the census of 1810 showed Springfield the 
 more populous. Springfield, too, became the shire town of a 
 new county. In the old county of Hampshire, which ex- 
 tended from Connecticut to New Hampshire and Vermont 
 and was flanked east and west by Worcester and Berkshire, 
 Northampton had been a county town. When the old county 
 was divided, the middle section 
 retained the old name, taken from 
 one of the old counties of Eng- 
 land. The northern section was 
 named for Benjamin Franklin and 
 the southern for John Hampden, 
 a famous English patroit, who, 
 believing that "Resistance to 
 tyrants is obedience to God," went 
 of his free will to jail rather than 
 pay the unjust ship money tax 
 imposed by King Charles. He 
 received his death wound fight- 
 ing for the cause of Jiberty on one 
 of the battlefields of the English 
 revolution. 
 
 Returning now to the ancient 
 ways of life, we remember, as 
 said in the second chapter, that in the very earliest times 
 the people lived in houses made of logs and thatched with 
 straw or grass. For windows they often had only oiled paper 
 instead of glass. But things had gradually improved ; so that 
 many of the boys and girls whose fathers went as soldiers in 
 the Revolution lived in much larger and more convenient 
 
 John Hampden. 
 
116 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 houses. Nevertheless, the best of those houses were rather 
 cold in winter. Neither furnaces nor stoves were known. 
 The only fire was in the great kitchen fireplace, with some- 
 times another fireplace in the parlor. The great fire, built 
 from huge sticks, crackled and roared and looked very warm, 
 as indeed it was, if one was near enough to it. It boiled the 
 kettle, hanging on the crane, and baked the buckwheat cakes; 
 but while it gave out heat it was sucking in a deal of cold 
 from all parts of the house, so that one would be warm in 
 front and cold on the back, unless he sat on a settle. A 
 settle was a seat with a high back extending to the floor. 
 Sometimes the chimney place was so large that the settle 
 was inside and one could look up and see the stars. 
 
 When bedtime came the great fire was useless. It con- 
 sumed a vast quantity of wood, the preparation of which made 
 the sound of "chop, chop, chop," a very familiar one at every 
 house, and, as there would be no one to feed it during the 
 night, it was carefully covered with ashes, in order to keep the 
 
 coals alive until the next morning. 
 vShould it go out in those days when 
 matches were unknown, somebody 
 would go to the neighbors for live 
 coals. The bed rooms were, of course, 
 pretty cold, but, thanks to the great 
 feather beds, the sleepers got warni 
 after awhile and were able to keep 
 so, sometimes by the aid of close 
 curtains, all around and above the bed. Just before getting 
 in it, the bed would be heated by the warming pan, a 
 brass pan containing live coals and moved about between 
 the sheets. 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 117 
 
 In the meeting-house there were no fireplaces; but the 
 women tried to keep warm by the aid of a Httle footstove, 
 filled with hot coals. The children, too, were often very cold 
 in school. In the school house at Tatham little Lydia 
 would find the pie frozen in the dinner basket under her 
 seat, but she lived through it all to a healthy old age. It is 
 not so much what we endure as how well we learn to endure, 
 that counts. 
 
 People made 
 their own but- 
 ter and cheese 
 and the boys 
 milked cows and 
 churned butter, 
 while the girls 
 early learned to 
 spin ; for the 
 cloth generally worn was made in the family and for 
 this reason called "homespun." It took continual spin- 
 ning to make the clothes for a large family. The flax for 
 linen was raised on the farm, then dressed and carded; the 
 wool, too, was raised at home. For the colors, if brown was 
 wanted, the children had to gather butternut leaves for the 
 
 dye. With all this, milking and 
 churning, spinning and weaving, 
 planting and hoeing, haying and husking, thresh- 
 ing and gathering apples for cider, all going on 
 in the family, there was not much time for 
 young folks to go to school. 
 
 One of the most useful farming tools was the 
 flail. With it all the grain that made bread for the family 
 was pounded out by hand on the bam floor. The thumping 
 
 pooTsroxE ^M) Wakminc. Pan. 
 
118 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 of the flail was as 
 familiar as the 
 chopping of the 
 axe as it cut the 
 cords of wood for 
 winter use. An 
 old-time farmer 
 used to say that 
 he could always 
 tell whether the 
 man doing the 
 threshing was working by the day or the job. If the former. 
 
 the flail seemed to say, "By — —the day, by- — -the 
 
 day, by— — the day;" if by the job, the flail sang merrily, 
 " By-the-job, by-the-job, by the job, job, job." Such is 
 human nature that one is apt to accomplish more when he 
 works for himself. When the right to do this is entirely cut 
 off the result is slavery. 
 
 Notice the farming operations, pictured on these two pages. 
 Late in March or early in April comes maple sugar making 
 and when the weather gets warm enough to put the sheep 
 into the water, their wool is first washed and then sheared; 
 
 during the slack 
 time of summer, 
 when planting 
 and hoeing are 
 over, rails can be 
 split for mending 
 the fences, and in 
 the fall the boys 
 can catch rabbits. 
 All these were 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 119 
 
 familiar scenes 
 hereabouts in 
 olden times and 
 are now in some 
 parts of the 
 country. One 
 who wishes to 
 recall in imagi- 
 nation the way of 
 jiving in the old 
 days may visit the 
 Day house in West Springfield and see the ancient relics. 
 
 But about the beginning of the nineteenth century several 
 events happened, which in the end changed all this and made 
 Springfield, first, a large town, and then a city. The chief 
 of these was the discovery of the useful power of steam; this 
 meant steamboats and railroads. Others were the invention 
 of the power loom and the spinning jenny, moved at first by 
 water power; this meant the gathering of people into mills 
 and the disappearance of cloth manufacture from the family. 
 Modem machinery, in which Thomas Blanchard, of this town, 
 won much fame as an inventor, began to take the place of 
 human hands. The family life was all changed. There was 
 less to be done 
 and the bigger 
 boys could go 
 to school in 
 summer, when 
 before they 
 could only be 
 spared in the 
 winter. With 
 
120 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 all these changes there was more demand for work and 
 more people began to come from other countries. 
 
 As population increased the wild animals gave way before 
 it. The panther retired to forests more remote; the beaver 
 left the streams and the deer went further north and were not 
 seen after 1820. The last bear known at Bear Hole came 
 out of that dark lair about 1790 when Seth Smith was hoeing 
 com. Wild turkeys lingered but the last survivors were those 
 on Mount Nonotuck about 1850. The beautiful salmon that 
 once leaped and danced in the rapids of Schonunganunk 
 entirely disappeared, soon to be followed by the sturgeon 
 and the shad, 
 
 A century and a half had passed after the settlement and 
 as yet all the crossing of the river had been by canoes, skiffs 
 and scow ferry boats, when one day the minister of the old 
 church foretold a bridge in coming time. "Parson Howard 
 talks like a fool," said Colonel Worthington. But Parson 
 Howard was right and in 1809 the first bridge was completed. 
 Not being strong enough it went down stream; but in 1816 
 another was ready that was to outlast the century. Its great 
 timbered arches were an object of admiration. When the 
 large droves of cattle that once passed through the country 
 were going over the bridge, running, pushing and throwing 
 their horns about, it was up these arches that the foot traveler 
 could run for safety. Both the bridges were built with money 
 raised by a public lottery, for it was not until later that the 
 evils resulting from getting money by chance were so clearly 
 seen as to make games of chance to be forbidden by law. 
 
 How Springfield looked from the river, below the town, 
 in 1796, was described by President Dwight of Yale College, 
 who was taking a horseback journey up the valley. "We 
 took," says he, in his "Travels in New England and New 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 121 
 
 York," " a road along the bank of a river from Suffield through 
 an almost absolute wilderness and crossed a ferry, one mile 
 below Springfield. On the river we were presented with a very- 
 romantic prospect. The river itself, for several miles, both 
 above and below, one-fourth of a mile wide, was in full view. 
 Agawam, a considerable tributary on the west, with a large 
 and handsome interval on the tongue between the two streams. 
 
 joined the Connecticut at a small distance above. The peak 
 of Mount Tom rose nobly in the northwest, at a distance of 
 twelve miles. A little eastward of the Connecticut the white 
 spire of a Springfield church, embosomed in trees, animated 
 the scene in a manner remarkably picturesque. On this side, 
 immediately below the ferry, rose several rude hills, crossed 
 by a sprightly mill stream. At their foot commenced an 
 extensive intervale called Longmeadow; abo\-e which, in 
 
122 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 the midst of groves and orchards, ascended the spire of Long- 
 meadow church. The evening was just so far advanced, as, 
 without obscuring materially the distinctness of our view, 
 to give an inimitable softening to the landscape. 
 
 "We arrived at sundown. The town is built chiefly on 
 a single street, lying parallel with the river nearly two miles. 
 
 The Old Toi.i. BRiixiK. 
 
 The houses are chiefly on the western side. On the eastern 
 a brook runs almost the whole length; a fact which is, I 
 believe, singular. From the street a marsh extends about 
 forty or fifty rods to the brow of an elevated pine plain. 
 The waters of this marsh are a collection of living springs, too 
 cold and too active to admit of putrefaction on their surface; 
 and for tliis reason, probably, the town is not unhealthy. 
 Part of this marsh has been converted into meadow. When 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 12S 
 
 the rest has undergone the same process, the beauty of the 
 situation will be not a little improved. The houses of Spring- 
 field are more uniformly well built than those of any other 
 inland town in the state, except Worcester. An uncommon 
 appearance of neatness prevails almost everv^vhere, refreshing 
 the eye of a traveler." 
 
 On a Monday, the 27th of November, 1824, a crowd of 
 people was gathered at the foot of Elm street and at other 
 places on the bank of the river. They were watching the com- 
 ing of the first steamboat seen in Springfield. The Barnett 
 must have been an object of great interest as she rounded the 
 bend of the stream and steamed towards the town. On this 
 occasion the following are supposed to have been the words of 
 
 THE STURGEON TO THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 " Wliat fur ye're makiii' such a dashin' 
 
 And through the water such a splashin'r 
 I'll tell ye what it's no the fashion 
 
 In these 'ere parts, 
 To make such a confounded buzzin'; 
 Take care or ye'll disturb our dozin'! 
 What are ye? first or second cousin 
 To the Sea Sarpent?" 
 
 Thus did a local rhymer express himself in one of the news- 
 papers. It was in this period that river steamboats were 
 displacing stages, afterwards themselves to be displaced by 
 railroads. The sturgeon, a fish about as big and long as 
 a man's body, has not, it is believed, been seen in this part of 
 the river for the past twenty-five years. 
 
124 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 A line of small steamboats was established between Spring- 
 field and Hartford. On one of these Charles Dickens embarked 
 when he came to this town in 1842. "It certainly was not 
 called," he wrote, "a small steamboat without reason. I 
 should think it must have been about half a pony power. 
 Mr. Paap, the celebrated dwarf, might have lived and died 
 happily in the cabin, which was fitted with common sash 
 
 windows, like an ordinary dwel- 
 ling house. These windows had 
 bright red curtains too, hung on 
 slack strings across the lower 
 panes, so that it looked like the 
 ])arlor of a Lilliputian public house, 
 which had got afloat in a flood 
 or some other water accident, and 
 was drifting nobody knew where. 
 But even in this chamber there 
 was a rocking chair. It would be 
 impossible to get on anywhere, in 
 America, without a rocking chair." 
 It was just before this visit of 
 the great novelist that the railroad 
 had been built from Boston to 
 Springfield. The people of the 
 town had been eager to bring this 
 to pass. They knew that great things would come of it and 
 Justice Willard declared in a public meeting that one would be 
 able to go from Springfield to Boston "between sun and sun." 
 But when he added "and back again," there were those who 
 thought it a wild prophecy. Pictures of the early engines and 
 cars look queer to our eyes. The passengers had to endure some 
 bumping over rough track but they welcomed something faster 
 
 Connecticut River Steamboat 
 
 IN A Flood. 
 From "Marco Paul at the Spring- 
 field Armory" 1853. 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 125 
 
 than the old yellow stages, with four horses and a bugle, that 
 connected Springfield with Boston, Albany, Hartford and 
 other towns. The chief engineer of the new railroad was 
 Major Whistler, whose portrait hangs in the City Library. 
 He brought his boy James with him when he came to reside 
 here. James used to amuse his schoolmates with his clever 
 drawings and afterwards went abroad, where he became one 
 of the famous artists of the world. His paintings and etch- 
 ings hang in the great galleries of Europe. 
 
 When the rail- 
 road was built 
 from Springfield 
 to Hartford it 
 made necessary 
 the removal of 
 the ancient ceme - 
 tery at the foot of Elm street. The training ground and the 
 pound had long since gone and for the cemetery there was now 
 provided a beautiful tract of hill and dell which, for a cemetery, 
 is exceptionally near the heart of the city, yet so full of birds 
 and squirrels, old oaks and tall pines, as to be interesting to a 
 naturalist. To this place was removed the dust of Mary 
 Pynchon, of her brother, the Major, of the brave Captain 
 Holyoke and the good French peddler. The selection of this 
 spot was made by William B. O. Peabody, clergyman, poet, 
 naturalist and a man of pure and refined character, w^hose life, 
 most of it spent here, was a blessing to the town. By reason 
 of his knowledge of birds the celebrated Audubon once came 
 here to visit him. Verses by him are given on page 39. 
 
 Tw^o notable men visited Springfield at about the close of 
 this period. One was Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, 
 a champion of freedom, an exile from his countrv, and a 
 
126 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 master of thirteen languages. He made here an address in 
 
 English. The other was Father Mathew, the great apostle 
 
 of total abstinence, whose wonderful work in Ireland had filled 
 
 the world with his fame and 
 made the temperance reform 
 respected and popular. By 
 his own efforts for temperance 
 he had remarkably reduced the 
 amount of crime committed 
 in his own country. Coming to 
 Springfield in 1849 and stand- 
 ing in the church of his own 
 faith, then located on the cor- 
 ner of Union and Willow 
 streets, he administered the 
 pledge to people of all faiths. 
 Many societies that are 
 today organized for total 
 
 abstinence bear his honored name. 
 
 The Armory has been a great help to the prosperity of 
 
 Springfield. We 
 
 have seen that 
 
 Washington ap- 
 proved of the 
 
 location here. 
 
 When president 
 
 he passed through 
 
 the town and his 
 
 diary describes his 
 
 careful in spec- mminii ^<-.ja*r*,^_..«_-«iir 
 
 tion. Little haci 
 
 as yet been done; but later such buildings were erected as 
 
 Theobald Mathew. 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 
 
 127 
 
 allowed a large manufacture. As the words are used in the 
 United States, an armory is a place for the manufacture of 
 arms and an arsenal a place where they are stored. It was 
 
 decided that the 
 
 f^nii^or 
 
 V^to ceiling, 
 
 * * 5!-' L^n 15 fellow. 
 
 heavy work of 
 forging the bar- 
 rels should be 
 done at the Water- 
 shops, where the 
 trip hammer 
 could be run by water power, 
 and on the hill, "Armory Hill," 
 should be done the lighter work 
 of filing, milling and assembling. 
 Walnut street was then run 
 straight through the woods and 
 over the plain to connect the two 
 parts of the Armory, and on the 
 hill there began to be, as it were, 
 almost a village by itself, com- 
 posed largely of armorers, with 
 even lawyers' offices, and a bank. 
 So distinct were these commun- 
 ities that there was rivalry be- 
 tween the boys of the "Hill" 
 and the "Street," and snowball 
 and other fights were common 
 between "Hillers" and "Streeters." When a boy of either 
 set passed the line of School and Spring streets he was sub- 
 ject to attack by the boys of the other side. 
 
 The Armory has long been noted for its excellent guns 
 and the old "Springfield musket" did good service in the 
 
128 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 Civil war; but, good as it was, the present Springfield rifle 
 shows what may be accomplished by continual improvement. 
 The tower of the Arsenal is eighty-eight and one-half feet 
 high and among those who have ascended it for the fine view 
 of this valley was the poet Longfellow. In his day a floor 
 was nearly filled with guns, stacked in frames. His attention 
 was called by Mrs. Longfellow to the fact that these stacked 
 arms resembled the pipes of an organ ; and to this circumstance 
 is due one of the finest poems ever written in the cause of 
 universal peace. The prophecy in the second stanza was fully 
 realized a few vears later in the Civil war. 
 
OLD TIMES AND NEW 129 
 
 THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceihng, 
 
 Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; 
 But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing 
 Startles the villages with strange alarms. 
 
 Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, 
 When the death-angel touches those swift keys! 
 
 What loud lament and dismal Miserere 
 
 Will mingle with their awful symphonies! 
 
 I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, 
 The cries of agony, the endless groan. 
 
 Which through the ages that have gone before us. 
 In long reverberations reach our own. 
 
 On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, 
 
 Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, 
 
 And loud, amid the universal clamor. 
 
 O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. 
 
 I hear the Florentine, who from his palace 
 
 Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, 
 
 And Aztec priests upon their teocallis 
 
 Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin; 
 
 The tumult of each sacked and burning village ; 
 
 The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns; 
 The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage; 
 
 The wail of famine in beleaguered towns; 
 
130 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, 
 The rattling musketry, the clashing blade; 
 
 And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, 
 The diapason of the cannonade. 
 
 Is it, O man, with such discordant noises. 
 
 With such accursed instruments as these, 
 
 Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
 And jarrest the celestial harmonies? 
 
 Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, 
 
 W^ere half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts. 
 
 Given to redeem the human mind from error. 
 There were no need of arsenals nor forts; 
 
 The warrior's name would be a name abhorred! 
 
 And every nation, that should lift again 
 Its hand against a brother, on its forehead 
 
 Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain! 
 
 Down the dark future, through long generations. 
 
 The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; 
 
 And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
 I hear once more the voice of Christ say, 
 "Peace!" 
 
 Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals 
 
 The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! 
 
 But beautiful as songs of the immortals 
 The holy melodies of love arise. 
 
 —Longfellow, 1807-1882 
 
JmMm^w^ 
 
 Entrance to Springfield over the Old Toll Bridge. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE NEW CITY.— ANTI-SLAVERY.— THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
 WE have now come to the year 1852. As the new world 
 reckons youth and age, Springfield was no longer 
 young. With age had come numbers ; the population 
 had reached 12,000 and the town was already not only a 
 mother of towns, but a grandmother. The size of the popula- 
 tion made necessary a change in the method of government. 
 For over two hundred years the voters had all met together 
 for the town business, gathering first under some tree, then 
 in some private house, next in the meeting-house and last in 
 the town hall on State street. At first the settlement was 
 called a plantation, for this is all it was, a tract of planted 
 ground in a wilderness and surrounded by wild beasts and 
 Indians. This word had long been replaced by the word 
 
132 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 "town," meaning a community whose affairs are governed by 
 selectmen chosen by all the voters meeting together in one 
 place. 
 
 This plan now becoming impracticable because of the 
 increasing number, the General Court of Massachusetts granted 
 a charter or body of laws for the regulation of affairs by 
 which the government was to be by a city council and mayor 
 chosen by the voters meeting in wards, then first created. 
 Upon the acceptance of this charter April 21, 1852, the old 
 town became a young city, the first in western Massachusetts. 
 From this time there has been no essential change in the 
 territorial limits, but each census has shown continued growth 
 of population. 
 
 Every town which has been incorporated into a city has 
 its corporate seal. A seal is an engraved stamp which, being 
 impressed upon paper or wax, shows that what is written or 
 printed on the paper is genuine and has such authority as the 
 owner of the seal can give it. The effect of the seal on the 
 paper is, of course, to make a raised impression, but some- 
 times a likeness of the seal is printed from a plate like type. 
 By such a printing a book or document is not really or legally 
 sealed, but for many purposes this is sufficient. The real 
 seal is in the custody of the city clerk. 
 
 The seal of the city of Springfield, as adopted, was de- 
 scriptive of what the town had been and 
 then was. In the lower left-hand quarter 
 is a view of the river with boats and with 
 houses on the bank. In the right-hand 
 quarter is the house built by John 
 Pynchon, or "old fort." Above, nearly 
 the whole field is occupied by a view of a 
 railroad train passing out of the station, as the station was then, 
 
THE NEW CITY 133 
 
 and crossing the river. In the upper part of the seal is the 
 United States Arsenal. Thus here are represented commerce 
 by rail and river, manufactures and history. There is not, as in 
 the seals of Connecticut and Vermont, any suggestion of 
 agriculture. This only shows how the old "plantation" 
 was becoming lost in the modem city. 
 
 When the charter was accepted the first thing to be done 
 was to elect a mayor and the members of the city council. 
 The latter was composed of a board of nine aldermen and a 
 common council. There were two candidates for mayor and 
 both eventually held the office; but for the first time Caleb 
 Rice was chosen. He was then the high sheriff of the county 
 and had removed to Springfield from West Springfield. He 
 had a daughter Elizabeth, who, when she grew to womanhood, 
 went to Italy for study and married a citizen of that country. 
 She wrote verses and, under her married name of Bianciardi, 
 published a book called "At Home in Italy." 
 
 Soon after the incorporation of the city there was built a 
 City Hall, a large and towered building, holding all the city 
 offices and also having a big audience room for public meetings. 
 There was a bell in the tower that took up the work of the 
 church bell, in announcing to the people, in the ancient 
 fashion, that the hour of nine o'clock at night had come. 
 It was also the bell of the clock, striking the hotirs. The nine 
 o'clock bell was at last discontinued and in later years re- 
 placed by the so-called curfew or bell at half -past nine. F'or 
 half a century the City Hall was a favorite for large political 
 meetings, fairs and concerts, but in 1905 it was destroyed by 
 fire and the great bell fell to the ground. 
 
 An exhibition was being held in the large hall. xVt the 
 noon hour this hall was nearly deserted. A kerosene lamp 
 was burning and a monkey got loose. Whether the monkey 
 
134 
 
 HIS! ORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 overturned the lamp and caused the fire is not certainly- 
 known. The fire was the occasion of a fine example of devotion 
 to duty by two assistants in the office of the city clerk. Their 
 names were Edith M. Ware and Bertha B. Fuller. They had 
 both been pupils in Springfield schools. For the protection 
 of the priceless records of the city there was a great fire-proof 
 vault. It was necessary to take out the records during the 
 day for use, but at its close they were replaced in the vault. 
 
 
 City Hall. 1854-1905. 
 
 At the beginning of the fire the city clerk was absent. When 
 the knowledge of the fire reached his ofBce it had made much 
 headway and danger was near. The first impulse, of course, 
 would be to flee, and, indeed, everyone was fleeing from the 
 building ; but there were the heavy books of priceless records 
 lying about. The two clerks gathered them all up, placed 
 them all in the vault and then shut and locked the ponderous 
 door. This took time and courage. Meanwhile the fire was 
 upon them and they were but just able to escape; in fact, 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY 135 
 
 Miss Fuller, arriving at the door of the building, was so over- 
 come by the smoke that she had to be rescued by others. 
 
 Thus the lesson of doing one's duty, having been early 
 learned, received its magnificent illustration in the face of 
 danger and death and becomes a part of the history of the city. 
 We recall the motto of John Pynchon, when, self-interest 
 tempting him to remove from Springfield and leave the to^vn 
 
 to its fate, he wrote that he should q .a ^^ ^ 
 
 While Springfield was yet a town, there began to be a great 
 deal said about slavery, as it existed in the South, and its 
 spread into the new states. Among the people of Springfield, 
 some of them were deeply interested. Most of them believed 
 that slavery was wrong and a curse to the country and some 
 wanted to do what they could to help the slaves. The laws 
 were against them and forbade aiding a runaway slave, but 
 they believed there was, in this case, a higher law, above the 
 laws of men. Accordingly they arranged with others of the 
 same opinions, who lived in other states, to aid the slaves 
 who tried to escape from their masters. 
 
 When a slave, traveling through the woods by night and 
 successful in eluding the bloodhounds on his track, at last 
 got into a free state north of Maryland, he would go to the 
 house of one of the friends of freedom of whom he had heard 
 in some secret way. Here he would be kept through the day 
 and at night he would start for the house of some other friend, 
 further north. Thus he would keep on until he reached Canada, 
 and, that being a British province, as soon as he touched her 
 soil he became lawfully free. The line of escape from Mary- 
 land to Canada, by reason of the secrecy and night traveling, 
 was called "the underground railroad," and the houses of 
 the friends of freedom made the different stations. 
 
136 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 ^l\lb.^ 
 
 The house of Doctor Osgood, minister of the old church, 
 no longer the only church, was one of the stations. It was 
 on Main street, just below Howard street. When the runaway 
 arrived, before light in the morning, he was given a break- 
 fast and put to bed in a little back 
 room which the Doctor called "the 
 prophet's chamber." At night he 
 started again on his journey. In 
 one of these years as many as fifty 
 slaves were sheltered by the min- 
 ister. It is evident that Doctor 
 Osgood was a man of sympathy 
 and kindness and had the courage 
 to stand by what he believed. He 
 was interesting in other ways, blunt 
 and witty in his speech, as illus- 
 trated in the stories still current 
 about him. All his life in the minis- 
 try was spent in Springfield and he died an aged and honored 
 man. When he was visiting a school, as a member of the 
 committee, the teacher wrote a figure " 9" on the blackboard, 
 without closing the loop at the top. " What's that," said the 
 doctor, "a hook?" This amused the scholars and probably 
 made the teacher more careful about figures. 
 
 Among the citizens of Springfield who took an active 
 interest in anti-slavery, there is none more famous than John 
 Brown, but he was not then famous; he was only known as 
 a wool merchant with his warehouse near the railroad and 
 his house at one time was on the north side of Franklin street, 
 about one hundred feet from Main street and is yet standing. 
 He was more concerned about slavery than wool. His soul 
 was on fire with indignation, that man should hold property 
 
 S\MUEL B. ()sGr><)l) 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY 
 
 V3'i 
 
 .A i)() //' 
 
 in man. He prayed much about it; but what could he, a 
 wool merchant, do except to help the slaves along on the under- 
 ground railroad, as others 
 did ? There was no sacri- 
 fice that he would not 
 make. His famil}- felt 
 as strongly about slavery 
 as he did and on one occa- 
 sion father, mother and 
 children agreed that some 
 money which was needed 
 for furnishing the parlor 
 of the Franklin street 
 house should be used for 
 the runawav slaves. 
 
 The Slave Motiikk. 
 
138 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 One evening there was an address by the eminent Charles 
 Sumner, who, as senator from Massachusetts afterwards was 
 almost killed on account of his speeches against slavery. 
 After the address Sumner and Brown went into the back 
 store of Rufus Elmer, a Main street shoe dealer and ardent 
 abolitionist. They were talking of the slavery question, when 
 Sumner said, "Mr. Brown, slavery is doomed; but not in 
 3^our day or in mine." Brown, raising high his hand, brought 
 it down w4th decision, saying devoutly, "I hope to God to 
 die in the cause." 
 
 Not long after he went to Kansas and engaged in the 
 struggle to make the new state a free state. He and his family 
 risked their lives there and one of his sons was killed. He 
 became widely known as " Ossawatomie Brown." He then 
 went to Virginia and attemped to set in execution his plan to 
 free the slaves, bv arming them with pikes. It failed and he 
 was hanged for treason against the commonwealth of A^ir- 
 ginia. But the countrv was stirred and this event was one of 
 those that brought on the Civil war. It was not long before 
 the soldiers of the National army were going to battle 
 with the song of 
 
 "John Brown's body lies mouldering in the gra\-e 
 But liis soul goes marching on." 
 
 Its strains were wafted back to his old home in Springfield 
 and the children in the public schools were singing it. Brown 
 made a mistake as to how slavery could be ended, but his was 
 a great heart true to God and his fellow men, and really helped 
 in the overthrow of slavery in a way that he did not think. 
 
 John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day: 
 " I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in Slavery's pay. 
 But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free. 
 With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me! " 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY 139 
 
 John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die; 
 
 And lo! a poor slave-mother with her little child pressed nigh. 
 
 Then the bold, blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew 
 
 mild, 
 As he stooped between the jeering ranks and kissed the negro's 
 
 child! 
 
 The shadows of his stormy life that moment fell apart ; 
 And they who blamed the bloody hand forgave the loving heart. 
 That kiss from all its guilty means redeemed the good intent, 
 And round the grizzly fighter's hair the martyr's aureole bent! " 
 
 — Whit tier. 
 
 On April 5, 1857, died Springfield's last survivor of the 
 Revolution, familiarly known to the children as "Grandpa 
 Edwards." He had long been a 
 feature in the processions on the 
 Fourth of July, riding in a carriage 
 and returning the salutations of the 
 bystanders. His funeral was the 
 occasion of military display, with 
 martial music. 
 
 There used to be much gay color 
 and decoration in the militia, all of which was laid aside for 
 serious business when the Civil war came on in 1861 . The City 
 Guards, who were out at Grandpa Edwards' funeral, wore blue 
 frock coats, light trousers and looked very formidable in their 
 towering bear skin hats. The Horse Guards used to wear red 
 coats, white trousers and chapeaux, like those of the Knights 
 Templar, carrying a black or white plume. They carried sabres 
 and had pistol holders each side of the saddle. The Light 
 Infantry, who had flourished before 1 844, wore red swallow-tailed 
 coats, white trousers, and on their conical hats wore fountain 
 plumes, that is, several plumes drooping. By their side they 
 carried canteens. The parade ground was the plain around 
 
140 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGITELI) 
 
 The Spirit of Training Dav. 
 
 the lately accepted Gerrish Park. Training Day was one of 
 the great days of the year to old and young. 
 
 As the last of the soldiers of the Revolution were dropping 
 
 into their graves, 
 events began to 
 happen which in 
 the end brought 
 forth a mightier 
 armv than was 
 ever marshalled 
 in this country be- 
 fore or since. One of these, as we have seen, was John 
 Brown's raid in Virginia, voicing the feelings, though not 
 the policy, of a large part of the north ; but the culminat- 
 ing one was the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. 
 Brown ineffectually struck at slavery, but it was for the great 
 president in the midst of a war that shook the very foundations 
 of the nation, to strike slavery down and give freedom to 
 millions of people. 
 
 It was at Chicago, in 1860, that Lincoln was nominated, 
 and the president of the convention was George Ashmun of 
 this city, a distinguished and able man. He had been in 
 Congress and was an intimate friend of the great Daniel 
 Webster, whose famous speeches had already taught the 
 people that the Union could not legally be broken by the 
 secession of any one or more of the states. Webster used often 
 to be in Springfield, visiting Ashmun, and together they fished 
 in the brooks of Granby or limited woodcock within the 
 present limits of f'orest Park. 
 
 A memorial of Ashmun remains on the lawn, where was 
 once his residence, at the comer of School and Mulberry 
 streets. Standing there with his little daughter and looking 
 
THE CTVn. WAR 
 
 141 
 
 at a small sapling, he remarked, "As the twig is bent, the 
 tree's inclined," and twisted the two stems of the sapling. 
 The great elm still stands to teach its lesson that it is in child- 
 hood and youth that character is formed. 
 
 After the Chicago Convention 
 had nominated Lincoln, Mr. Ash- 
 mun, as chairman of the com- 
 mittee, went to Mr. Lincoln's home 
 to inform him of the fact. Some 
 friends had sent in a hamper of 
 wine that the committee and others 
 might drink his health. But ]\Ir. 
 Lincoln, having early in life seen 
 the evil of intemperance, never 
 touched strong drink or offered it in 
 his home. On this occasion, also, 
 he showed the courage of his opin- 
 ions and cold water took the place 
 of wine. 
 
 The inauguration of Lincoln 
 w^as quickly followed by the loss 
 of Fort Sumter at the hands of the rising South. From 
 Springfield, of course, went forth brave men who should fight 
 the dreadful battles of a four-years' war, to save the Union. 
 Where are now Wilbraham avenue and other streets east of 
 it was a regimental camp, drilling and awaiting orders to move. 
 
 The children had a share in the great events. The girls 
 made "comfort bags" which held needles, thread and other 
 little needful things for homeless soldiers who had no sisters 
 to sew on buttons or mend a rent and the boys collected money 
 to pay for those things. There were men needed in the Armon' 
 as well as on the field and the works were run night and day. 
 
 
 AsHMUN Memorial,. 
 
142 
 
 HIvST(Jin OF SPJiLNGIlELl) 
 
 For four years the war went on, with alternating successes 
 and defeats for the north until at last the victories won by 
 General Grant indicated that he would, in the end, bring all 
 out right. Guiding all was the wise Lincoln, criticised, reviled, 
 
 Making Comfort Bags. 
 
 weighed down with responsibiHtv, but looking always to a 
 Higher Power for help for himself and the nation. 
 
 One day the bells of Sy)ringfi.el(l rang out with joy; the 
 President had made a proclamation freeing the slaves. It was 
 very different from the time when the bell of the old Methodist 
 church on the corner of Union and Mulberry streets was 
 tolled, the day when John Brown was hanged. Only a few 
 years had passed and what, at first, seemed an idle dream of 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 143 
 
 an enthusiast was now an accomplished fact. Thus "Man 
 proposes and God disposes." With great wisdom Lincoln 
 had chosen the day and made the proclamation in which may 
 be read this sentence, " Upon this act, sincerely believed to be 
 an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military 
 necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankimd and 
 the gracious favor of Almighty God." 
 
 In the spring of 1865 came the close of the war, quickly 
 followed by the martyrdom of the President and the linking 
 of his name as saviour of the country with that of Washington, 
 its father. The regiments from Springfield and vicinity were 
 mustered out of service and, returning to the city, made 
 their last march through Main street, their ranks thinned by 
 death and themselves looking worn and tired. But they had 
 done their share in proving the truth of Webster's words, 
 "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." 
 Upon the results of the Revolution and the Civil war the 
 nation rests in security. 
 
 It was not many weeks after the end of this war that 
 General Grant made a brief visit to this city. He had fought 
 many battles in which his soldiers were armed with the 
 Springfield musket, and of course, he was interested in the 
 place of its manufacture. He inspected the Armory on the Hill 
 and also the Watershops. He was greeted by a great crowd 
 of citizens near the railroad station and taken upon a high 
 platform whence he was introduced by the mayor, but he 
 made no speech. His deeds were mighty, but on public 
 occasions his words were few. There seemed to be nothing 
 military in his appearance, except a narrow cord of yellow 
 braid around his hat and the single star on his shoulder. 
 
 Among those who came to this city and spoke in the cause 
 of freedom in the days of anti-slavery and the Civil war were 
 
144 IIISrOHY OF SPHINGFIKLD 
 
 Carl vSchurz, the exiled German patriot, who, after becoming 
 a citizen of the United States, becamie a general in the army 
 in the Civil war and afterwards a famous statesman; and 
 Frederick Douglass, once a slave and afterwards an eloquent 
 orator, who held high positions in the gift of the nation. An 
 interesting woman who resided here w^as Eliza Farrer, a writer 
 for children. She had had many experiences in various parts 
 of the world and wrote about them in a book, which she 
 called "Recollections of Seventy Years." 
 
 Two men who had a very wide reputation were the 
 editors, Samuel Bowles and Josiah Gilbert Holland. 
 Doctor Holland wrote many books, of which his " Letters 
 to Young People" were practical and popular. He wrote 
 "Bay Path," an historical novel about Mary Pynchon, and 
 started the Century magazine. There is a line profile of his face 
 on his monument in the old cemetery, made by St. Gaudens, 
 the famous sculptor of the statue in honor of Deacon Chapin 
 on Merrick Park. Samuel Bowles, the second in the line of 
 four journalists of that name, was one of the founders of 
 modern journalism. He was once unjustly imprisoned in 
 another state for telling the truth about a man who did much 
 evil; for he believed that his journal should be outspoken 
 when the pubHc interests were at stake. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 A LOOK BACKWARDS— THE SPANISH WAR— THE 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY. 
 
 X THE year 1886, Springfield celebrated the two 
 
 liundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement. 
 
 A quarter of a millennium had gone by and people 
 
 looked back and compared the then present with the 
 
 past. There was an oration and a great procession, 
 
 including an historical pageant in which many boys 
 
 and girls took part. The times of William Pynchon 
 
 were illustrated in costume by those in the procession. 
 
 The chief marshal was William Pynchon, seventh 
 
 in descent from the founder. 
 
 It is when looking back from one of these 
 
 1 I . . ^ . 
 
 view pomts that we realize how great has been 
 
 the progress of the city in this long period. In this last 
 chapter it will be well to select two examples and see how 
 the modern times differ from the old. One of these exam- 
 ples shall be the means of putting out fires and the other 
 the education of children. 
 
 In early days houses were, some of them, shingled, but 
 many thatched with straw. Of course great care had to be 
 taken lest a spark should get into the straw, as it might do 
 from a burning chimne\' or from some one carrying coals 
 through the street. So the town voted that no one should 
 carry uncovered fire along the street and that every man 
 should sweep out his chimney every month in winter and 
 every two months in summer. He was obliged also to keep 
 
146 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 a ladder of sixteen rungs for better getting at the roof. One 
 man was fined for smoking on a haycock. In order that 
 water might be always at hand the ditch or brook in front 
 of the houses was to be kept well scoured and a good stream 
 running. So when fire came and the roof caught some went 
 up the ladder and others passed up water from the brook. 
 Until after the Revolution this was the only way of putting 
 out a fire. 
 
 At last some of the citizens bought a little fire engine and 
 
 gave it to the 
 church for the use 
 of the town. Of 
 course there was 
 no steam about 
 it; the power of 
 steam was not 
 vet known. The 
 engine was merely 
 a pump on wheels. 
 There was a small 
 reservoir for water, called a tub, and the pump handles were 
 long wooden rods at each side called brakes. In order to 
 see it in action let us suppose that it is the year 1810, a year 
 in which a fire occurred in a house on the corner of Dwight 
 and State streets. Whoever has discovered the fire has shouted 
 the alarm. Everybody who hears it shouts "Fire! Fire! 
 Fire!" at the top of his voice. The cry is taken up until 
 probably from Mill river to Round Hill people are shouting 
 "fire!" The bell on the old cliurcli is ringing. Everyman is 
 obliged to keep a fire bucket and some have bags in which to 
 carry out articles to a place of safety. When a man leaves 
 his house he catches up his bucket, or if he is not at home, 
 
 ^mvmifmimmif TiT 
 
THE OLD FIRE DEPARTMENT 
 
 147 
 
 his wife tosses it out to some one who is hurrying by and will 
 give it to the owner when he meets him at the fire. 
 
 Meanwhile the engine men have opened the door of the 
 engine house, then standing at a place which is now in the 
 roadway of State street, near Market. The machine is pulled 
 out and run up the street to the burning building. Men are 
 
 jfc- 
 
 r yife*^ 
 
 V/'*^''- 
 
 l<r^(Vf kJS/^G 
 
 
 1 llh lU KMN 
 
 now running to the scene from all directions. No sooner are 
 they arrived than they take their places in a double line 
 which runs from the house to the town brook. Up one line 
 the buckets full of water are passed only to go rapidly back 
 again when they have been emptied into the tub. Everybody 
 works lively and the tub is kept full. .\ man standing on the 
 engine directs the stream upon the fire through a short hose. 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRlXCiFIELl) 
 
 The hose is so short, only five feet in length, that the engine 
 must be got very close to the building, and even then it is 
 not very effective to reach the roof. The men at the brake are 
 working with might and main, and between their efforts and 
 those who have got upon the roof and poured on water, the 
 fire is put out. Some of the boarding is burned but the huge 
 beams are only charred, even yet to stand for three-quarters 
 of a century before the old house was to give way to a modem 
 building. 
 
 It was some years after this that a longer hose came into 
 
 use and also a 
 
 X ~^^^^ ~". f^JJISi suction hose, so 
 that the engine 
 standing by the 
 brook could suck 
 up its own w^ater 
 and the firemen 
 could reach with the long hose the Main street houses. As build- 
 ings on Main street increased in height this was very important. 
 One night the Hampden house at the northeast corner of 
 Court Square took fire. As the hose was being taken up the 
 stairs the firemen met a colored songstress, who had given a 
 concert that evening. She was known as "the Black Swan." 
 Frantic with excitement, she exclaimed, "Save me, I'm the 
 Black Swan." "Look out, then," said a fireman, "or you'll 
 get your feathers scorched." Of course the town brook was 
 of no use except in the old part of the town, so, as the city 
 increased, large reservoirs kept full by rains were constructed 
 under the streets. Several of these remain, as, for example, 
 one on Union street near Mulberry. The old engine was in 
 time replaced by another and then others were added, the 
 "Lion," the "Tiger," the "Niagara" and the "Cataract;" 
 
THE OLD FIRE DEPARTMENT 149 
 
 then the "Eagle" and the "Ocean;" and there was a hook 
 and ladder company manned by Germans. 
 
 It was in those days of several hand engines that " Fire- 
 men's Muster" was a favorite holiday. The procession was 
 gay with the red coats, shining black hats and blue trousers 
 of the men as they pulled at the ropes attached to their 
 engines and hose carts. After the procession the "Lions" 
 and the "Tigers," the "Niagaras" and the "Cataracts," the 
 " Eagles " and the "Oceans' ' would have a grand trial of strength 
 to see whose engine was best and who could pump the hardest 
 and reach the highest point on a tall flagstaff, or, it might be, 
 the steeple of the First church. The best engine, if well manned, 
 could wet the rooster. To the comb of the 
 rooster the distance is 169 feet. The bird 
 himself is five feet high. He came over 
 from London about the year 1750 and 
 has looked down on generations of firemen 
 and upon soldiers going out to several wars. 
 A likely tradition has it that an eagle 
 once alighted upon him and was shot from 
 below. In 1902 one of these birds was seen hovering over St. 
 Michael's cathedral. 
 
 They are almost all gone who tried to reach the rooster in 
 friendly rivalry with the old hand engines, and in these days 
 the firemen have so much serious business that there is not 
 much opportunity for sport. The great steam fire engines, 
 the chemical engines, the hose tower, the extension ladders, 
 the electric alarm and other devices for coping with big fires, 
 aided by a water service that makes tlie town brook and ram 
 water cisterns seem ridiculous, form a marked contrast 
 between old and new times. If a man's house burned down 
 he lost all and his neighbors helped him to erect another. Now 
 
150 
 
 HISTORY OF SrUlNGFlELl) 
 
 he collects the insurance from some company that he has paid to 
 guarantee him against loss. The fine building of the Springfield 
 Fire and ]\Iarine Insurance Company probably had in itself a 
 cost of construction equal to the value of all the buildings in the 
 town when the Indians gave it to the torch. 
 
 We have already seen how simple the schools were in olden 
 times and what sort of things the boys and girls used to do when 
 out of school. The schools did not change much until the nine- 
 
 Ancient ScHOOi.Hoi'SE OF West Springfiei.i). 
 
 teenth century. There were but few things taught and those 
 not particularly well. Nevertheless hard work counted, as 
 it always does when applied to something useful. .\s in the 
 second chapter we made an imaginary visit to the meeting- 
 house, so we will now look into one of the schools of a hundred 
 years ago, say, the school on Armory Hill, or in the Water- 
 shops district or at Putts Bridge or some other school 
 of the outer districts. In the summer the school has been 
 taught by a woman, but now the farm work is over and the 
 big boys, no longer needed for work, are coming in for their 
 winter schooling. 
 
OLD TIME SCHOOLS 
 
 151 
 
 A man is needed for the winter term and a strong one, 
 for the big boys Hke to show their strength and will measure 
 it with the teacher the very first day. Some years they suc- 
 ceeded in putting a schoolmaster 
 out of doors; they have even 
 been known to rub him in the 
 snow. If he could not handle 
 them his usefulness was over. 
 The teacher of this year was 
 a good wrestler. He determined 
 to meet the boys in a friendly 
 spirit and challenged the strong- 
 est for a wrestling match. He 
 won and was henceforth tlie 
 master, and thus he was always 
 called ; a title that meant a 
 good deal, when the spirit of 
 insubordination was liable to 
 break forth, as often it did, in 
 .an old time school. This was 
 not so strange, considering the 
 fact that the teacher was supposed to rule with a rod. If 
 it was not a rod, it might be a birch stick and many a boy 
 has been sent out 
 to cut one for his 
 own back. This 
 old master wished 
 only to cause tem- 
 porary pain in his 
 punishments, so 
 he generally used 
 a strap, which 
 only stung for a moment. The boys called it "the tug." 
 
152 
 
 HISTORY OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 NEW ENGLAND PRlAfER. 
 
 As we enter the schoolroom we see the master at a rude 
 
 desk in a comer. He is engaged in mending pens. They are 
 
 11 of goose quills and to be 
 able to put a neat point on 
 them is one of his valitable 
 accomplishments. On the 
 desk is a sand box. Blot- 
 ting paper is unknown, and 
 to dr}' the ink some black 
 sand is poured upon it out 
 of pin holes in the sand 
 box. The older children 
 who have need to write 
 ha\'e long desks in front of 
 them, while the younger 
 are seated on benches with 
 no backs. Perhaps the 
 writing lesson comes first, 
 in which case the master 
 produces some slips of paper 
 neatly written with such 
 sentences as, "Command 
 
 the mind and then the pen;" and these the scholars copy. 
 
 These copies the teacher would take with liim if he went 
 
 to another school. The reading lesson 
 
 may be from the "English Reader," or 
 
 from "Webster's Spelling Book," or, ])er- 
 
 haps, from the "New England Primer," 
 
 in which last the younger scholars learned 
 
 to remember the alphabet by such verses 
 
 and pictures as those on this page. iMotice that 1 and J were 
 
 considered as equivalent in old printing. 
 
 As runs the Glass, 
 Man's life doth pass. 
 
 My book and Heart 
 Shall never part. 
 
 Job feels the Rod, 
 Yet blesses God. 
 
 Proud Korah's troop 
 Was swallow'd up. 
 
 The Lion bold 
 The lamb doth hold, 
 
 TheMoon gives light 
 In time of night. 
 
 G H IJ K L M 
 
OLD TIME SCHOOLS 
 
 i.y.i 
 
 Peculiar punishments were more common in olden times 
 than now. The dunce cap belongs to a forgotten past but the 
 writer remembers a so-called dunce-block, — the end of a 
 huge beam painted red, in one of the lower grades of the 
 Springfield schools, u]^on which silly boys were made to sit. 
 
 There are now 
 scarcely any coun- 
 try schools left in 
 vSpringfield and the 
 country work and 
 s]wrts have largely 
 passed away. Few 
 boys know how to milk and no 
 girl can spin. The husking bees 
 that made good times in the 
 great bams on Main street are 
 no more. Thanks to pond and 
 
 To The 
 Centr.\l Street Coasters- 
 Shout, boys and girls, 
 
 The victory's won! 
 The cranky folks 
 
 Can't spoil your fun. 
 Bring out your sleds 
 
 An' let 'em speed; 
 The aldermen 
 
 Have all agreed 
 To let you have 
 
 The jolly treat 
 Of coasting still 
 
 On Central street. 
 1887 
 
 hill, skating and coasting are yet 
 in vogue, although for the safety 
 of all, including children, restric- 
 tions have to be imposed upon 
 coasting on the more traveled 
 streets. Sometimes tlie young 
 people have successfully opposed 
 restrictions, as appears from some 
 in the Homestead. A spirit of inde- 
 pendence, if in obedience to the laws, is admiral^lc, as in 
 the case of the Boston boys who remonstrated witli Cicncral 
 Gage when the British soldiers spoiled their coasting. 
 
 Notwithstanding the more meager results and rougher 
 ways, yet, so far as we can judge from what old scliolars have 
 left on record about it, the school life of other (hiys contributed 
 
 the placing of the.se 
 contemporarv verses 
 
154 
 
 HIS'l'OIIV OK SPRINGFIELD 
 
 to that hap})y joycmsness which belongs to childhood and 
 youtli. Take, for example, from the High School Portfolio, 
 published by the boys and girls in the fifties, these verses 
 from wliicli the fun bubbles up above all the mishaps. 
 
 WADING THROUGH THE SXOW 
 
 When the winds are blowing 
 
 Hard, with all their might, 
 And the snowdrifts measure 
 
 More than half your height, 
 Friends and schoolmates, ha\'e you- 
 
 Now I want to know — 
 Ever had the pleasure 
 
 Of wading through the snow? 
 
 ThK \\i: AlllEllXANK OF 
 
 THE Old Uk;ii School, 
 
 COITKT SllUAKE, SHOW- 
 ING Bi'LLET Holes. 
 Heh;mt, Thuee Fket. 
 
 Dozen books to carry. 
 
 Dinner basket full. 
 And a great umbrella. 
 
 On our way to school. 
 Sixty miles an hour 
 
 Railroad cars do go; 
 Mercy! don't we beat 'em 
 
 Wading through the sno 
 
 w .' 
 
 Falling into snowdrifts. 
 
 Dropping everv book, 
 Losing all the cookies 
 
 And the ])ie we took; 
 Feet and fingers frozen, 
 
 Patience nearly so; 
 Ain't it awful funny 
 
 Wading through the snow? 
 
 Opposite the arsenal 
 
 Half past eight we see ; 
 Goodness! we must hurry, 
 
 Else, tardy we shall be. 
 So we set to running 
 
 Fast as we can go. 
 Take two steps and tumble 
 
 Headlong in the snow. 
 
 Finally we halted 
 
 At the schoolhouse tloor. 
 With our journey ended. 
 
 And our danger o'er; 
 So with joyful faces 
 
 Up the stairs we go; 
 Think again you'll catch us 
 
 Wading through the snow? 
 
OLD TIME SCHOOLS 
 
 155 
 
 It was vears after that the same girl described her life 
 in one of the grammar schools in some verses, from which the 
 following are taken, called 
 
 A TRIBUTE TO AX OLD TEACHER 
 
 Our memory wakes, and we recall 
 The little, dreary, sandy yard, 
 
 The schoolroom with its dingy wall, 
 
 The straight-backed benches, stiff and 
 hard ; 
 
 Tlic songs, long since, gone out of date, 
 With which the schoolroom used to ring; 
 
 And the old-fashioned book and slate. 
 Yes, we remember everything. 
 
 But over all has come a change ; 
 
 This is an unfamiliar place ; 
 The only thing that is not strange 
 
 Is our beloved teacher's face. 
 
 Oh, could we take our dusty books, 
 
 And once more trudge away to 
 
 school, 
 
 And sit beneath those gracious looks 
 
 That softened e'en the strictest 
 
 rule, 
 
 ' This is an Unfamili.\u Place." 
 
 And could we hear his words of praise. 
 That were so precious to our ears. 
 
 And feel the patience of his ways. 
 
 That never failed through all those 
 years, 
 
 E- We should not tease and vex him now 
 With whispering, carelessness and noise; 
 Of course, we should have sport somehow, 
 But we should be good girls and boys. 
 
156 
 
 mS'l ORY OF SPRlNGFIEIvD 
 
 Springfield schools rank high among those of the country : 
 in what respects do they excel those of the olden time? In 
 many ways. In the matter of buildings they are better housed 
 and equipped. They excel in teaching children to put their 
 thoughts into writing; in bringing them near to nature by the 
 study of birds and flowers ; in giving them the usefulness and jov 
 that come from knowledge of drawing and painting ; in connect- 
 ing their studies 
 with the many good 
 books of a large city 
 library and the col- 
 lections in the Art 
 Museum. The kin- 
 dergarten and man- 
 ual training work 
 are new. In general, 
 the methods of 
 teaching have so im- 
 proved that more 
 can be done in the 
 same time, and the 
 principles laid down 
 by the great philoso- 
 pher, Francis Bacon , 
 
 "Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone." 'lUd bv modem 
 
 educators have been most successfully applied. 
 
 There was, in the schools of Springfield, a l)oy who, as he 
 grew up, became a lover of good books, good pictures and 
 good deeds. When he graduated from the high school his 
 spoken essay, composed by himself, was on the subject, "The 
 Measure of Life." It is remembered that in it he tried to make 
 his schocjlmates feel the trutli of the saving " Mim sliall not 
 
OLD TIME SCHOOLS 157 
 
 live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out 
 of the mouth of God." Thus early did he conie to know that 
 the best things were to be chosen. He passed through college 
 with credit but not long after that his earthly life closed. 
 Nevertheless through him several things were made possible 
 for Springfield. His name was Eugene Aston. He had a 
 refined taste in art and for him is named the "Aston Collection 
 of Wood Engravings," in the City Library. 
 
 The art of engraving on wood is an interesting one but 
 now, unfortunately, becoming obsolete. It is one of the ob- 
 jects of this history to show by its illustrations what work 
 can be done by drawing or engraving with lines as compared 
 with the work of photography. In the Aston Collection may 
 l)e found some of the best examples of wood engraving 
 that this country has produced. The effect is obtained with 
 a sharj:) tool making lines on the surface of a block usually 
 of the wood of the pear tree. As the block sometimes splits, 
 the printing is generally done from an electrotype which 
 ingeniously duplicates in the metal the raised and depressed 
 surfaces of the block. 
 
 Springfield has had good engravers on copper and steel, 
 like Goldthwaite and Chubbuck, and on wood, like Cleaves 
 and Howard. The cuts on pages 68 and 80, from a school 
 l)Ook of early days are rude indeed, as compared with the 
 highly finished work of Cleaves on page 121, or the piece of 
 commercial work over-leaf. In this book photography has 
 been used in reproducing engravings from old books, as on 
 pages 26, 41, 45 ; but where the lines of the original are 
 delicate, as on page 134, they cannot be equalled in the 
 copy. The cuts on pages 3 1 and 54 are printed from elec- 
 trotypes of blocks loaned by the publishers of Webster's dic- 
 tionary, a book which has carried the name of Springfield 
 
1.58 
 
 IIlSTOin OF SinUXCiFlKl.l) 
 
 all over the world. Illustrations like those on pages 77 and 
 115 are photographic reductions of pen drawings. The 
 engravings on pages 118-119 are repro- 
 ductions from Anderson, the pioneer wood 
 engraver of America. 
 
 This cut of a gun by Howard is electro- 
 typed from wood. It would be well t(j 
 take a magnifying glass and see by what 
 delicate lines the engraver got the mottled 
 effect of the French walnut knot of which 
 the butt is made. Notice also how the 
 surface of the iron parts is made to sug- 
 gest the original. Results of a verv differ- 
 ent kind and yet equallv artistic though 
 often less difficult can be ])roduced by the 
 use of a very few lines, as in the cut of a 
 woman churning, on page 45. In both cases 
 careful drawing is of the \'ery first impor- 
 tance. Good coloring cannot make up for 
 bad drawing. 
 
 It was in the nineteenth century that 
 people began to be especially interested in 
 the earlv historv of the town, (icorgc Bliss. 
 Oliver B. Morris, and his son, Henry Morris, 
 gave much attention to this sul\iect and the 
 latter was the first President of the Con- 
 necticut Valley Historical vSociety. This 
 society was organized in 1(S76. the Centen- 
 nial year, when the peo])le of this country 
 really began to look back on the nation's past. 
 Its volumes of pul)lished ])roceedings contain 
 interesting reading about old Springfield. 
 
THE STUDY OF LOCAL HlSTOin ir>!) 
 
 The city is also known outside by the historical publica- 
 tions of the house of Gurdon Bill, who was the donor of the 
 Soldiers' i\Ionument on Court Square, and its successor, the 
 C. A. Nichols Company. The publications of this house include 
 Holland's "Life of Lincoln," Abbott's "History of the Civil 
 War," "Our First Century," "History for Ready Reference," 
 a book much used in school and college, and " Rise and Fall 
 of Nations." Green's "History of Springfield," published at 
 the time of the quarter millennial of the city, largely as a 
 personal contribution of Air. Nichols to the occasion, is a 
 monumental work reflecting credit on author and publisher. 
 To it this book is indebted for fourteen plates, like those on 
 pages 20, 33, 121. Other books dealing with local his- 
 tory, to wliich the reader is referred for further study, are 
 Morris' "Early History of Springfield," Holland's "History 
 of Western Massachusetts," Copeland's "History of Hampden 
 County," Everts' "History of the Connecticut Valley," 
 Ellis and Morris' "History of King Philip's War," Burt's 
 "First Century of the History of Springfield," King's "Hand- 
 book of Springfield," Wright's "Indian Deeds of Hampden 
 County," Ward's "Springfield in the Spanish-American 
 War," Stebbins' " Wilbraham," Bagg's " West Springfield , " 
 Chapin's "Inhabitants of Old Springfield" and " Old High 
 School," Storrs' " Longmeadow, " Palmer's " Chicopee Street," 
 and Barrows' "Poets and Poetry of Springfield." 
 
 "I have but one lamp," said Patrick Henry, "by which 
 my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience." The 
 experience of the past, embodied in history, as it becomes 
 better known, helps us better to understand our own time 
 and thus to make better the coming times. Interest in histor- 
 ical study is sometimes promoted by the drama, as with 
 Shakespeare's Henry VIII and Richard III. How this can be 
 
160 HISTORY OF SPIilN(iFIEIJ:) 
 
 done locally was shown by the historical pageant presented 
 by the Central High School in 1909, in which costume, music 
 and action united in presenting to the imagination a striking 
 picture of Colonial days. 
 
 In 1892 occuiTed the four hundredth anniversary of the 
 discovery of America by Columbus. In Springfield the event 
 was celebrated by the Hebrews. Rejoicing in this free republic, 
 they gathered for religious services; and also listened to an 
 address by one of the sons of Springfield, descended from the 
 two townsmen who met their death at the foot of Long Hill, 
 as described in the fifth chapter. 
 
 As may be inferred from designs of the citv seal, manu- 
 factures and trade have long since replaced agriculture as 
 the basis of Springfield's prosperity. William Pynchon himself 
 was a trader, an honest and successful one, and there have 
 been others like him in these respects, some bom here and 
 others coming from elsewhere. Our mechanics and manu- 
 facturers alone would make an interesting study. They are 
 the direct representatives of William Pynchon, who dealt 
 in native furs and foreign goods and made boards and shingles. 
 If they know the history of the town they have before them 
 his illustrious example of honorable dealing. 
 
 It was just before the Civil war that Horace Smith and 
 Daniel B. Wesson became partners in the manufacture of 
 pistols. When the war came on there was great demand for 
 pistols and these two men acquired fortunes, for they w^ere 
 good mechanics and understood business. They trusted each 
 other and others trusted them and wanted their good work. 
 They did not kee]3 all their wealth to themselves and their 
 families. One of Mr. Smith's ways of doing good was by 
 helping young men and women to an education. He enjoyed 
 this; and, dying without immediate heirs, gave most of his 
 
SOME FORMS OF PUBT.IC SERVICE 161 
 
 property to charity. The Horace Smith J^^und perpetuates 
 one of his own favorite ways of doing good. His Ufe may be 
 taken as an illustrious example of Benevolence, a quality 
 of character which is not denied to any, whether rich or poor. 
 
 Daniel B. Wesson was also benevolent, for, although he left 
 a numerous posterity, he devoted an important part of his 
 estate to the building of two liospitals. For our purposes, 
 however, we may take his life as illustrating another moral 
 qualitv. Whatever he made or had made, he determined 
 should be made the best it could be, whether it was a pistol 
 or a great hospital or the fence about the hospital. On one 
 occasion, reading that a pistol of his manufacture had fallen 
 from a shelf and. being fired by the fall, killed a woman, he 
 lay awake nearly all night studying a device for preventing 
 such an accident in the future, and before morning broke he 
 had the invention in his mind. He thought whatever was 
 worth doing at all was worth doing well and his life may be 
 taken as an illustrious example of Perfection of Workmanship, 
 a quality of highest import and almost universal application, 
 if only in something so humble as the putting a point on a 
 jjencil or making a loaf of bread. 
 
 A second man, Primus P. Mason, may be mentioned here, 
 of the race of Peter Swink of the third chapter, who by industry 
 and thrift acquired property and, dying without issue, exe- 
 cuted a cherished plan by giving his estate to found a Home 
 for Aged Men. 
 
 In early times it was the men who did most of the things 
 of which history has to tell; but in later times the women 
 have taken a useful part in the public life of the city. Among 
 them was Clara T. Leonard, who gave herself, heart and soul, 
 to prison reform in the interest of women. Deeply interested 
 in the welfare of the young, she founded the Hampden County 
 
162 
 
 IITS'lOin' OF SPRINGFIEIJ) 
 
 Children's Aid Society, whose work is still going on. A second 
 organization working for the same purpose is the Society of 
 St. Vincent de Paul, named for the famous French x^hilanthro- 
 pist. Both exist for the care of homeless and suffering children. 
 Another devoted woman was Adelaide A. Calkins, who, with 
 Ellen B. Merriam, a graduate of the Springfield High School, 
 was the first among the women of the city to fill one of its public 
 offices by becoming a member of the school committee. She 
 gave twelve years of fruitful service to the cause of education 
 and other years as an official of the Commonwealth towards 
 improving the almshouses of the State of Massachusetts. 
 United in friendship, Mrs. Leonard and Mrs. Calkins spent 
 manv vears in work for the common good. 
 
 Adelaihe a. Cat, kins. 
 
 Clara T. Leonard. 
 
 In 1898 there was war between the L'nited States and 
 Spain, growing out of inhumanities practiced by the vSpanish 
 authorities on the Cubans. The seat of war was the island of 
 Cuba. (Jnc morning in May the Springfield companies of 
 the Second Regiment, composed almost entirely of young- 
 men, some of them scarceh^ out of their boyhood, marched 
 from the State Arsenal tli rough Main street to the railroad 
 station. How much the composition of the citizens had 
 changed since the early days when they were almost all of 
 
THE SPANISH WAR 
 
 163 
 
 English or Scotch stock is shown by the fact that among the 
 Hst of officers and privates occur names that are Irish, Ger- 
 man, Scandinavian, French, Itahan and Hebrew. 
 
 The regiment camped in Framingham and soon was on its 
 way to Florida, whence it was to embark. ]\Ierrily did the 
 soldiers sing 
 
 " Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching; 
 Cheer tip Cuba, we will come," 
 
 but once on Cuban soil they 
 were face to face with the 
 horrors of war. Young 
 Arthur Packard, who first 
 enlisted at fifteen, was killed 
 at the battle of El Caney. 
 Thomas Boon, having been 
 transferred to the signal 
 corps, was sent up in a 
 war balloon for observa- 
 tions on the enemy at the 
 siege of Santiago. The 
 balloon, ha\-ing been struck at a great height by fragments 
 of a shell, fell, and young Boon was caught in a tree and 
 entangled with its anchor and was afterwards dropped in 
 the water of a creek. He received severe injuries which 
 proved fatal after his return to Springfield. 
 
 There were others in these companies who met then- death 
 on the battlefield or at the hand of exposure and disease, 
 including Henry Macdonald, chief of the city's police. They 
 died for the freedom of Cuba and their names arc on the monu- 
 ment at the foot of Round Hill. There was an old saying of 
 
 Akthlk H. Packari). 
 
164 HIS'JOR^ OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 the Romans, "Duke et deconmi est pro patria mort,'' — "It is 
 sweet and fitting to die for one's country." These went at the 
 call of their country to die for the people of another land and 
 their names and deeds are cherished, together with the names 
 and deeds of those who fell in the making and the saving of 
 this nation. Equally honored, however, although not mourned, 
 are those who returned to live honorable lives under the 
 banner of peace. 
 
 In the year 1800 the population of Springfield was 2250; 
 in 1900 it was 62,059. A large part of the latter increase had, 
 of course, been due to immigration from abroad. The large 
 families of the older stock had become the exception and now 
 came people from Sweden, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Greece, 
 Armenia and China. There had been an increasing Irish and 
 German element from earlier times. There were people of 
 French descent from Canada but not in any number from 
 France itself; nor from Spain, Portugal or Japan; but there 
 were Hebrews from many countries. These all have come, 
 giving up their old allegiance, to take the name American, 
 to defend the Constitution and to love and honor the Stars 
 and Stripes. Like the ancient settlers of Pynchon's day, they 
 have had to give up many old ways and to learn what, for 
 this country, are better ones. Like the earlier settlers it is 
 for them gradually to lose sight of old customs, the old 
 language and the old nationality in the fusion of peoples in the 
 new land. "Americanism," as President Roosevelt has said, 
 " is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character; 
 and not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent." 
 
 This chapter ends with the nineteenth century. The last 
 century of the second millennium of the present era was about 
 to begin, called the twentieth century. The people of Spring- 
 field felt the importance of the event. As the hour drew on to 
 
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 1G5 
 
 midnight, some gathered in their places of worship, others 
 were upon the streets or awaiting in their homes the next 
 stroke of the clock. The bells of the city rang out all together, 
 tolling in slow and measured strokes the death of the old 
 century. When the public clocks began to strike the hour of 
 twelve, the bells changed to joyful notes of greeting for the 
 century just beginning, and the great guns on Armory Square 
 began to thunder their salute. This was in the two hundred 
 and sixty -fifth year of the history of Springfield and the one 
 hundred and twenty-fifth year of the independence of the 
 United States. 
 
166 HISTORY OF SPUINGFIEI.D 
 
 ANNIVERSARY HYMN 
 
 Sung May 25, 1886 
 At the 250th Anniversary of the City of Springfield 
 
 Tune: " Portuguese Hymn." 
 
 O God of our fathers! Their Guide and their Shield, 
 Who marked out Thy pathway through forest and field. 
 We stand where they stood, and with anthems of praise 
 Acknowledge Thy goodness, O x'Vncient of Days! 
 
 Thou leddest Thy people of old like a flock; 
 They trusted in Thee as their Sheltering Rock ; 
 The centuries pass, — Thou art ever the same, 
 And children of children still trust in Thy name. 
 
 'Twas here in the wilderness, silent, untamed, 
 The gospel of freedom and grace they proclaimed, — - 
 The gospel of home, of the school, of the plow, — 
 And this City of Homes is their monument now. 
 
 O God of our fathers! By river and wood 
 Where Pynchon and Holyoke and Chapin abode, 
 Our heritage blossoms with glory and praise, 
 To Thee, our Defender, O Ancient of Days! 
 
 —J)yey, 18:19-1890 
 
APR 8 I9US) 
 
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 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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