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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
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Gc 974.402 Am47amh Amherst past and present
AMHERST
Past and Present
Maffachufetts Bay
16:30
1930
Tercentenary in New England
AMHERST Past and Present
Being an historical sketch of the founding and development of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, and its institutions, together with a guide to the principal points of interest.
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AM
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INCORPORATED
ERST
1759
MASS
Prepared by ANNA PHILLIPS SEE for the AMHERST TERCENTENARY COMMITTEE 1930
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
en Si JEFFERY AMHERST.
AMHERST, PAST AND PRESENT
Amherst comes of noble blood. As child of Hadley, grand- child of Hartford and Wethersfield, great-grandchild of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, she inherits the best in the Puritan tradition.
They were great Englishmen, those first settlers of Boston 300 years ago. It took vision, courage, and deep religious con- viction to dare plan, under guise of a trading company chartered by the king, the removal of a people, a government, and a church to the wilderness of New England.
The leaders were persons of position and wealth in the old country, their followers drawn from the hardy yeomanry or thrifty mechanics. The Puritan party in England had arrived at the conclusion that reform in church and state was impossi- ble. Forced loans and illegal taxes impoverished the people; men without character headed the church and the army; Parlia- ment was dissolved and King Charles openly proclaimed that he would rule without one. Because there was little hope in the Old World for liberty-loving and religious men, the Puritans planned to migrate to the New, there to mould a church and state to their own ideas.
The would-be colonists had sufficient influence to get their charter rights transferred from London to New England, a. transference which allowed them almost unlimited authority. With this charter in hand, Governor John Winthrop and a com- pany of 800 sailed from England in twelve ships led by the- Arabella, and seventy-six days later landed at Salem. On Sept. 17, 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims had founded their smaller colony at Plymouth, they took possession of the hilly peninsula that is now Boston, naming it after the well-beloved English town. Here they established a Commonwealth which gave ex- pression to those principles of civic and political liberty and democracy which today form the basis not only of our own American government but of all the free peoples of the earth.
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The founders first organized a church and civil government; then schools. They had brought with them the spirit of English culture, for no less than seventy of the colonists were Cambridge University men. Within seven years after their ar- rival the General Court made appropriations for a "colledge" at New Towne (Cambridge.)
In Boston church and state were one, for only members of the church were freemen and voters. This caused trouble with settlers who came later. At Cambridge Rev. Thomas Hooker and his parish did not favor the restriction of the suffrage to church members or the accumulation of power in the hands of the magistrates. They accordingly petitioned the General Court for permission to remove to the Connecticut River valley.
In the summer of 1636 the Hookerites with other Bay Colonists migrated overland and settled the towns of Hartford and Wethersfield. Three years later Hooker preached his nota- ble sermon the theme of which has become a commonplace of American democracy, namely: "The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people." In 1639 the freemen of the Connecticut towns adopted a written constitution that con- tained the germs of the constitution of the United States.
From this progressive colony, a generation later, came the founders of Hadley. The churches at Hartford and Wethers- field had divided on theological questions; the minority decided to move farther up the river and establish a town and church of their own. Through Major John Pynchon of Springfield, land was bought from the Norwottuck Indians and in 1659 the broad street and home lots of Hadley were laid out and partly oc- cupied. Rev. John Russell, leader of the Wethersfield group, became pastor of the church. He is remembered as the heroic parson who for many years secretly sheltered in his home the Regicides Goffe and Whalley.
The eastern section of Hadley, which later became Am- herst, was long considered fit only for wood and pasture land and as such was allotted to various individuals. The first record of settlers is the vote of Hadley in 1730 to lay out an acre of land as a cemetery for the "East Inhabitants" who then num- bered eighteen. This acre is included in the present West Cemetery. In 1734 the settlement was made "Third Precinct
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of Hadley" on condition that it settle a "learned and orthodox minister" and erect a church. The minister secured was the Rev. David Parsons; the first meeting-house was built on the site of the present college Octagon.
The divisions of this Third Precinct are indicated today by the roads running north and south. The Commons at the Center, East Street, and South Amherst are parts of those roads and show the original width. Amity Street is the old highway to Hadley.
The first church of the precinct under Rev. David Parsons grew and developed along with the community, for in Colonial days the church was a town institution supported by the taxes. Differences in the First Church resulted in a division and in 1782 the Second Parish was established at East Street.
February 13, 1759, Hadley Third Precinct was incorporated as a separate town. It was technically only a Dictrict as it did not gain full rights of township until the eve of the Revolution. Governor Pownall in signing the act of incorporation named the town "Amherst" in honor of his intimate friend, the popular General Jeffery Amherst who had the year before captured Louisburg from the French. The name Amherst is of Saxon origin and signifies border of a forest.
In the township of Amherst several settlements developed which have become the villages of today: the Center, East Street, South Amherst, North Amherst, and Cushman. The area of the town is about twenty-nine square miles and the population, according to the last census, 5,972 exclusive of 1,300 students. Amherst still retains the Town Meeting which is held the first week in March. This expression of pure democ- racy has been functioning since the incorporation of the settle- ment as a district in 1759.
"The district of Amherst was indeed a wild and lonely place," writes Alice M. Walker in "Mary Mattoon and Her Hero of the Revolution". "Its farms were as fertile as any in the Connecticut Valley. The dwellers in its scattered houses raised corn, rye, and barley which was bolted by hand and ground in the mill at Mill Hollow (Mill Valley). Taxes and ministers' salaries were paid in grain. Horses and sheep roamed in the woods on the mountainsides but cows were under a
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keeper. Long and lean swine fought bears, wolves, and rattle- snakes in the depths of the forests and were allowed on the highways only when decorated with a yoke."
Most Amherst settlers were hunters and so good marks- men; moreover the Colonial wars had taught certain of the men to fight. At the outbreak of the Revolution the majority of the townsmen were eager to defend human rights even with their lives, as might have been expected from a Boston-Hartford- Hadley ancestry. But a group of the highly educated classes, as was the case elsewhere, remained loyal to the king. The Amherst Tories, led by Rev. David Parsons, were a notable company and included the lawyer Simeon Strong, Esq., whose home is now the property of the Amherst Historical Society- These Tories were censured and in some cases confined to their farms or imprisoned at Northampton.
The body of citizens furnished its due proportion of men, money, and supplies for the war. Capt. Reuben Dickinson gathered together a company of Minute Men at the time of the Lexington alarm. After these were disbanded he raised another company that was present at Bunker Hill. Later companies from Amherst and vicinity fought in General Gates's army at the battle of Saratoga and young Lieut. Ebenezer Mattoon wrote home a vivid account of General Burgoyne's surrender. It was an exciting day for Amherst when the conquered general, with half his army, marched along the town's southern highway (the old Bay Road) on the way to Boston.
During the winter of 1786-7 Amherst was involved in the insurrection which swept over the whole western half of the state. Hard times and oppressive laws and taxes followed the Revolution and many of the courthouses were closed by mobs. The Shays Rebellion, which had its focal point in this section, culminated in January, 1787, when Capt. Daniel Shays of Pel- ham with nearly 2,000 insurgents undertook to capture the United States arsenal in Springfield. Defeated by the militia under General Shepard and pursued by state troops under General Lincoln, Shays and the remnant of his army fled through Amherst and sought refuge in the Pelham Hills, to be later dispersed at Petersham.
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While the rebel leader's headquarters was the old Conkey Tavern in Pelham, the Clapp Tavern in Amherst was the scene of frequent meetings, Landlord Oliver Clapp being a close friend of Shays. This old inn built about 1737, when Amherst was still the Third Precinct of Hadley, stood on the east side of what is now East Street Common. It was one of the best-kown hostelries in the early days of the town. During the Revolu- tionary War it accommodated for the night a detachment of General Burgoyne's officers who had been captured while at- tending a dance near Saratoga. The weary prisoners marching to Boston were glad of their straw bed on the floor, but not so Landlord Clapp. Straw was inflammable and fires disastrous in pioneer times.
THE TOWN COMMON
Clapp's was but one of the many good taverns that flour- ished in Amherst in stage-coach days. Inns at that period were not only a necessity for the traveller but they were the town's social center and a window into the outside world. The Baggs Tavern which succeeded Clapp's at East Street was especially popular with stage drivers. They found its excellent flip and
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toddy antidotes for summer heat and winter cold. Another well-known hostelry was Cook's Tavern on the Bay Road.
The inn, however, with a reputation even outside the state was the Boltwood Tavern on the corner of Amity and Pleasant Streets, opposite the new First National Bank building. On this corner, after 1757, there always stood some sort of inn until the burning of the Amherst House in 1926. Here from 1806-38 "Uncle Elijah" Boltwood kept one of the best taverns in western Massachusetts. Its old registers bore the names of many men of national, even international, repute. Around its bar-room fire nightly sat learned ministers and doctors, mem- bers of the General Court and of Congress; and yet such was the character of the landlord that the professional man and the farmer met in true democracy.
In front of the Boltwood Tavern swung the lion sign now preserved in the Historical House. Before this sign stopped the coaches of the stage line from Boston to Albany, N. Y., via Northampton, or the vehicles of the route from Hartford, Conn., to Brattleboro, Vt. It was a familiar yet splendid sight to be- hold these stages dashing up and down Amity Street-four powerful horses, a mud-bespattered coach, an autocratic driver blowing his horn!
In coaching days the Boltwood Tavern was not the civic center of the town, but East Street. As late as 1825 town meetings were held in the Second Church and the first Post Office was located in that section of the community. There was but one mail a week which came by stage from Northampton. In the bag also arrived the Hampshire Gazette from which the farmers gained knowledge of the world.
At East Street lived Gen. Ebenezer Mattoon who, after serving in several campaigns of the Revolution, had returned a veteran officer at the age of twenty-three. When the Americans captured General Burgoyne they replaced their antiquated cannon with his better equipment. The old guns were given to the officers and a six-pounder fell to Lieutenant Mattoon who brought the battered relic home to Amherst.
Ebenezer Mattoon was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1776. He received a Lieutenant's commission in the Revo- lutionary War and afterwards became prominent in the State
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Milita, rising steadily in rank until he became Adjutant-General (retired) in 1816-18. Among the many civil honors bestowed upon him were those of High Sheriff of Hampshire County, State Representative and Senator, Congressman and Presiden- tial Elector. The loss of his eyesight was a handicap that eventually ended his political career.
Great rivalry existed between East Street and the Center. The former furnished more votes, possessed General Mattoon and the old cannon, and was known as Sodom. The Center righteously called itself Zion. It boasted of its academy-and afterwards of its college-and took pride in the fact that the great lexicographer Noah Webster was one of its citizens. When Webster moved away from Amherst, the East Street people triumphantly rang the church bell and fired the cannon of '76.
The old gun was frequently loaned by General Mattoon for patriotic celebrations in either section of the town. One of its latest appearances was in 1825 when news came that the Gen- eral Court had at last granted a charter to Amherst College. The cannon was, however, sometimes "borrowed" without the General's leave and hidden by one faction only to be stolen by the other. In the summer of 1831, after a particularly hard "scrap" in which Amherst students aided the Center, the old gun mysteriously and finally disappeared.
Though the town functioned for many years at East Street, education throve at the Center. From earliest days Amherst had schools, but the founding of Amherst Academy in 1814 marked an era in the town's history; henceforth its development was to be along the line of education. An offshoot of the acad- emy was Amherst College founded in 1821. Because of the academic atmosphere of this beautiful town among the hills, college preparatory schools for boys and boarding schools for girls were numerous. The best known were the Mt. Pleasant Classical Institute, one of whose pupils was the lively Henry Ward Beecher, and a later institution, Mrs. Stearns's School for Girls. In 1867 the Massachusetts Agricultural College was located in Amherst.
Though more sufficient to herself than most towns because of her schools, Amherst desired to be linked with the rest of the
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country. £ The stage-coach excellently served its day, but when it was proved that the iron horse could safely draw trains at the thrilling rate of twenty miles an hour, the town yearned for a railroad.
In the early part of the 19th century, railroad building was in the air. Amherst soon joined the race and valiantly did she struggle for half a century. The first railroad to enter the town was built by public subscription of which $50,000 was furnished by Amherst citizens. This road, which connected Amherst with Palmer, was called the "Amherst and Belchertown Railroad", and the first passenger run was made in 1853. The road event- ually became part of the New London and Northern, now the Central Vermont Railroad.
AMHERST TOWN HALL
Amherst next looked for some railroad connection east and west. The opportunity came when the Massachusetts Central was organized to join Northampton with towns to the east- ward. Joyfully Amherst subscribed for stock to the amount of
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$100,000 and awaited the construction of the road. And wait she did for eighteen disheartening years! At last in 1887 the citizens beheld the first through train from Boston to North- ampton pull into their station. Seventy-five persons boarded the train, presumably to assure themselves that the road was actually an accomplished fact!
Though Amherst was an agricultural community, the water of Mill and Fort (Freshman) Rivers attracted many and diversi- fied industries. The Cushman mill, established in 1835, was in operation until recently. At the Center, the Hills and the Burnett hat factories are outgrowths of the little straw hat shop started by Leonard M. Hills at East Street in 1829. This small business centralized the labor that had been done in homes. For years palm leaf had been distributed among families where it was split by hand, braided, sewed, fashioned into hats, and exchanged for goods at the local stores. Mr. Hills's business prospered to such an extent that in less than fifty years the firm of L. M. Hills & Sons was the largest of the kind in America. After many changes the business was sold to G. B. Burnett & Son. In 1877 the Hills Company was organized and both con- cerns still make hats in factories near the Central Vermont Railroad station.
The earliest newspaper issued in Amherst was the "New England Inquirer, Oct. 1826, published by John and Charles Adams." Forty years or so after the starting of the Inquirer, the Amherst Record appeared, inaugurating a policy of local news. The paper subsequently became the property of E. W. Carpenter and C. F. Morehouse by whom it is still issued. This firm published in 1896 a full and accurate history of the town which must always be the authoritative source of information.
Local events, however, lost significance in 1861 when the South rebelled against the government of the United States and involved the country in civil war. Patriotic feeling ran deep and strong in Amherst, prompting her to give loyally of her money, her service, and her sons. Out of 374 men who fought for the Union, fifty-eight sacrificed their lives. In 1862, at the battles of Roanoke Island and Newbern, N. C., Amherst troops in the 21st and 27th regiments gave splendid service at the cost
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of several lives. It was in the fight at Newbern that Lieut. Frazer A. Stearns was killed while rallying his men to charge. He was the son of President Stearns of Amherst College and a student in the class of '63.
The body of Lieutenant Stearns was sent home to Amherst where funeral services were held in the First Church (College Hall). To the church in which sorrowing townspeople were already assembled marched the students of Amherst College in a body, the members of the Junior Class wearing badges of mourning. Three weeks afterward the college received a six- pounder brass gun taken in the battery where Lieutenant Stearns was killed. This gun General Burnside, commander of the Department of North Carolina, had presented to the 21st regiment as a "monument to the memory of a brave man". The regiment, after suitably inscribing the gun, sent it to Am- herst College where it is now preserved in the old Morgan Library.
The war seemed to mark the passing of the old-fashioned Amherst with its lack of sidewalks, street lights, running water, and sewers. Sidewalks as such did not exist until 1869 and the mud of former days was appalling. An early alumnus of the college said that his permanent recollection of Amherst town was that he lived in rubber boots!
A lighting system came later than sidewalks, though sadly needed earlier. In that dark period a few public-spirited citi- zens maintained oil lamps in front of their homes but persons abroad at night had to negotiate the puddles by the light of swaying lanterns. Not until 1873 were lamps installed at the Center. A part of the night watchman's duty was to light and extinguish these ten oil lamps. Oil was soon replaced by gas furnished by the newly formed Amherst Gas Company, and this in turn by electricity in 1894.
The town as early as 1814 had possessed some sort of ap- paratus for fighting fires. At this period in New England, fire companies were also social clubs that celebrated at least once a year with a grand banquet. In 1838 occurred the great fire that destroyed an entire block on Main Street, including the former home of Noah Webster. After this the town voted to raise $1200 for the purchase of a new engine and the repair of the old
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AMHERST POST OFFICE
one. Part of the revenue of the old fire companies came from the sale of grass on the Common. In 1860 an engine house was built on Pleasant Street in which 100 buckets were kept for the use of the citizens; the Hook and Ladder Company stored its ladders in different parts of the town. Inasmuch as wells fur- nished an insufficient water supply the town, assisted by indi- viduals, built ten reservoirs with a capacity of 5,000 gallons each, three of which were on the Common.
After the disastrous fire of 1879, which destroyed Mer- chants Row on South Pleasant Street, the demand for a water system became imperative. As a result the Amherst Water Company was organized in that year. The introduction of Pelham water was followed by a sewer system.
A desire to beautify the town caused the formation in 1857 of the Amherst Ornamental Tree Association. This was reor- ganized in 1877 under the name of the Village Improvement Association. Most of the trees that are the glory of Amherst were set out by this society and the Common was transformed from a swamp into the attractive park of the present day. The reclamation of the Common was due largely to the efforts of
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Austin Dickinson who engaged and carried out the advice of Frederick Law Olmsted.
The Common is a section of the original highway that was reserved for "particular or public use". In the early days of the 19th century that part of the Common south of College Hill was a parade ground; north of the hill, pasture land drain- ing into a frog pond. The Common was used on nearly all public occasions. After the founding of Amherst College, Com- mencement Day was the great annual event, overshadowing even July 4th and "General Muster." At Commencement, which occurred in August, the Common was the meeting place for visitors who drove in crowds from neighboring towns and tied their horses to the encircling fence. Peddlers and auction- eers plied their trade from booths, tents, or stands. For several years liquor was sold without a license, but the rising temper- ance sentiment put an end to the practice. For years cattle shows were held on the Common.
The impulse toward beautiful surroundings no doubt influ- enced the selection of a site for a new burial ground. Until the Wildwood Cemetery Association was organized in 1887, the old West Cemetery had served the major part of the community. Wildwood is a beautiful tract of seventy-four acres lying north- east of the town. It is on high ground the crest of which bears a growth of fine old trees.
The Town Hall was constructed at a cost of $58,000 in 1889. For many years there was but little building in Amherst except in connection with the colleges. In the last decade, how- ever, the usefulness and attractiveness of the town have been increased by the erection of several public buildings, notably the new Post Office, St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church, and the Amherst Fire Department on Pleasant Street; The Jones Li- brary and First National Bank on Amity Street; the Amherst Building which replaced the block recently burned on Main Street; the Senior and Junior High Schools on Lessey Street; the Lord Jeffery Inn on the Common at the corner of Spring Street; and the Munson Memorial Library at South Amherst.
Amherst has always been a literary center. In the long list of writers who have at one time or another called the town their
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home, Noah Webster the lexicographer stands first in priority of time. Helen Hunt Jackson (H. H.) who was born and spent her childhood in Amherst, ranks among notable writers. All that came from her pen was popular but the romance "Ra- mona", which roused the country to right the wrongs of the Indians of California, is an outstanding book. A friend and contemporary, as well as a life-long resident of Amherst, was the poetic genius Emily Dickinson. Eugene Field and his brother Roswell lived for twelve years with their aunt Mrs. Thomas Jones at 39 Amity Street, now the home of the Hon. Cady R. Elder. In the Jones House, after it was bought by her father, Mary Heaton Vorse began writing her novels and short stories.
At the present time Robert Frost is on the faculty of Am- herst College, Walter Dyer of Pelham winters in town, and Ray . Stannard Baker (David Grayson) lives at 40 Sunset Avenue. Madame Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi, poet and biographer of her aunt Emily Dickinson, keeps a residence at 44 Main Street.
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FIRST NATIONAL BANK
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AMHERST ACADEMY
The early 19th century saw the people of Amherst desirous of better educational advantages for their children than were offered by the district schools. These were probably no poorer than the schools in other new England villages. They did not, however, satisfy Amherst, which numbered among its citizens an unusual proportion of college-bred men. "In the period 1771-1823 thirty-nine natives of this town were graduated at Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Williams, and Middlebury." And this in an isolated farming community of less than 2,000 people all told !
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