USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Brookfield > An address on the early history of old Brookfield, Mass., delivered at West Brookfield, Mass., his native town, by the Rev. L. T. Chamberlain at the invitation, and under the auspices, of the West Brookfield branch of the Quaboag historical society. And remarks by his brother, the Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, of New York, at the after-dinner exercises > Part 1
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Gc 974.402 B79c 1988963
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01105 9067
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/addressonearlyhi00cham
AN ADDRESS
ON THE
EARLY HISTORY OF OLD BROOKFIELD, MASS.
DELIVERED AT WEST BROOKFIELD, MASS.,
HIS NATIVE TOWN, BY
The Rev. L. T. CHAMBERLAIN, D. D.,
OF NEW YORK.
AT THE INVITATION, AND UNDER THE AUSPICES, OF THE WEST BROOKFIELD BRANCH OF THE QUABOAG HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
AND REMARKS BY HIS BROTHER The Hon. D. H. CHAMBERLAIN, OF NEW YORK,
AT THE AFTER-DINNER EXERCISES.
PRESS OF LARKIN & CO .. 250 FULTON SE , BROOKLYN, N. Y.
ADDRESS.
1988963
Mr. President, Fellow-citizens, and Friends :
The motive of our gathering to-day is, withal, so kindly fraternal, that I venture now and here to ac- knowledge the privilege, as well as honor, which has been conferred upon me by your invitation to address you. The very announcement of your Society's exist- ence, woke in me anew a fond remembrance of these familiar scenes. I thought of the heritage which was mine in the days when for me, as for so many others on this soil, poverty enjoined a frugal life, and neces- sity compelled to self-supporting labor. Days where- in the thirst for learning rose, in spite of hindrance, to be a master passion, and the prospect of wider Christian service turned self-denying preparations into simple and exultant joy. Even those days seemed distant as I recalled them, and it was therefore the easier to let the interest which they awakened, enlarge itself to include those greatly remoter times which this Society is to preserve from oblivion's touch.
Surely it were an impoverishment of life, almost to the verge of destruction, were we to sever ourselves from the long and memorable past. The span of our earthly existence is, at most, so brief that, taken by itself, it
tends inevitably to discourage the thought of both human dignity and human worth. The consciousness of personal feebleness, the little that we can individ- ually achieve in the present, the still less that we can hope to contribute to the future,-this also sets itself against an inspiring conception of man's place and mis- sion. If here we are but unconnected atoms, seen for a day and disappearing with the sun, it will require a rarely vigorous faith to uphold the conviction that ours is either a considerable or an abiding value. I know that the thought of the race, in its longer en- durance, presents itself as a welcome aid. It stands, of course, that the assurance of immortality brings august sanction to the hope that we are of real con- cern. The transcendent realities of redemption from above, seal absolutely, and for each soul, the warrant of life's large import. Yet for all that, it were a loss needless and immense, to give up the tie which binds us to what has gone before.
There is for us a venerable past. To reach back to the date of man's appearance on the scene, even the traditional six thousand years will not suffice. It is maintained that while animal species now extinct, were numerous and widespread ; even before the zones of temperature were wholly fixed, or the shores of con- tinents had taken their completed form ; mankind had begun to be and to do. Indeed there are those, not a few, who incline to hold that through ages and avons
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before man as man distinctively appeared, there was an evolving from the lower to the higher, from the simple to the complex, from the non-sentient to the sentient, the " roof and crown " of it all to be attained in the final advent of those who stood erect and were conscious that God had made them in his own gra- cious likeness.
And yet, Mr. President, even though we count only the period which authentic human history covers, there is a past, the thought of which, and much more the knowledge of which, tends to uplift and ennoble our individual life. It is on record that since our race first drew breath, the drama of rational life has been marked by scenes of surpassing interest and surpass- ing power. Arts have been fashioned and wholly lost. Literatures have shone forth and disappeared. Systems of law have been framed and blotted out. Governments have prospered and declined. Civiliza- tions have risen in splendor and gone down in thick darkness. Personal heroism has brought undying honor to our common nature, and personal baseness has done its worst to drag that nature down to shame. Messages from heaven have summoned the sons of God to walk in white, and the servants of evil have set themselves in array against whatever is pure. While, out of it all, has emerged the radiant fact that the forces of truth are really on the winning side, and that the kingdom of right is destined, sooner or later,
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to take to itself the full dominion. Is it not worth while somewhat to trace for ourselves that long and desperate struggle? Can it be otherwise than inspir- ing. this to assure ourselves of that final and beneficent triumph ?
I kimiw of nothing which can take the place of his- tomed study. Like travel, it permits us to visit climes and people Like music, it both charms and thrills. Like art. it gives ideals and teaches to construct. Like literature, of which it is itself a part, it disciplines and informs the mind. Like science, it proclaims the reign of law. Like religion, it reflects the being and character of God. It is true, that " nothing solidifies and strengthens a nation, like reading the nation's own history; whether that history is recorded in books, or embodied in customs, institutions and mon- uments." To all who hear me, and especially to my younger friends, I commend the study of history in all its length and breadth.
And comparatively rare, permit me to say, are the localities around which cluster such varied historic in- terests, centered in which are so many historic rela- tionships, springing from which are such ample his- toric influences, as belong to the territory cared for by the Quaboag Historical Society, and especially to that part of the territory included within West Brook- field's bounds. I speak in sober accuracy, when I affirm that every rood of these Quaboag hills and val-
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leys, has its association with events deservedly mem - orable. No ploughman among you turns a furrow, no gardener digs with spade, no woodman fells a tree, no husbandman drives his flocks and herds to pasture, no housewife keeps the home, no pupil goes to school, no foot walks on highway or in byway, no eye looks toward either point of compass, without having to do with a recorded past which becomes the more impress- ive the more completely it is recalled and understood.
In one of the world's great paintings, the artist has pictured, in the foreground, the actions and actors of the selected day and generation ; but beyond in the distance, and above in the upper air, he has also traced in outline the deeds and doers of the ages preceding. They toofare given a place in the panorama. To them as well is assigned participation in the actual scene. The artist's conception is fruitful in its suggestions. Not difficult is it for the instructed imagination to bring back to these scenes the forces and the factors which went before. Here, where we stand, civilizations contended, and races met in predestined strife. Here, in what was once a frontier settlement, the ambitions, the enmities, of old-world kingdoms found tragic devel- opment. Here, at the hands of colonists who thought themselves but isolated individuals, the plans of Prov- idence were grandly accomplished for all time to come !
For example, it is wholly impossible to understand
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the presence on this Plain and vonder on Foster's Hill, in 1660, of the prospecting men of Ipswich, with- out bearing in mind the forces which had already moved all Christendom to look westward, and had actu- ally brought Pilgrim and Puritan to New England's rocky shores. It is absolutely needful, in the explan- ation of that one scene, to take into account the struggle for civil and religious liberty, for freedom of conscience and of speech, which had long been main- tained under Elizabeth and James I. You cannot comprehend the impulse which brought men and women from a relatively secure eastern Massachusetts to this spot, in the heart of the wilderness and in the midst of savage enemies, without including the pre- paratory experiences of those settlers,-in their orig- inal leaving of their English homes, in their voyage across the wide and stormy Atlantic, and in their maintenance of themselves through the early trials of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. You must. of necessity, recognize the fact that they were antece- dently possessed by a world-wide spirit of adventure ; that, in truth, they themselves were borne on the tide and crest of a world-wide movement. You are called upon to discern in them not only persons, but also principles; not only free individuals, but also the foreordained pioneers in humanity's latest and high- est achievement.
And, similarly, when you look upon the wild native
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tribes among whom these pioneers sought a dwelling- place, you are required, as the first condition of even an intelligent view, to recall the history of those tribes, and to mark well their position and purpose. Never will you understand the acts of either of the parties to the conflict which was fought out on this soil, unless you remember that the Indian had possessed the land from time immemorial, holding it by the, to him, inde- feasible right of hunting and fishing and planting of maize. You cannot fairly sit in judgment, until you perceive that it was practically impossible for the In- dian to understand the legal force of written contracts, even though he had willingly set to them his formless mark, or to realize the obligation of allegiance to an unknown sovereign who was said to exercise jurisdic. tion from his throne beyond the sea. It is requisite that you give weight to the fact that the traditional, the inherited, life of the Indian, was that of a warrior whose courage was shown in a disdain of physical suf- fering, and whose coveted glory was measured by the scalp-locks of his foes.
Mr. President, there is a " climate of opinion " which marks each race and age. The Greeks, with their su- perb culture, had but one name for enemy and stran- ger. The Romans, with their imperial civilization, wantonly tortured their slaves at will. It was common for Roman parents to expose their malformed infants to wild beasts. Their older children they frequently
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sold into slavery or put to death. A Roman emperor, even the illustrious Trajan, in one hundred and twen- ty three days, forced ten thousand prisoners and gladi- ators to right to the death in the amphitheatre. Nor, for the parallel of Indian atrocities, need we look so far from home. It is said that seventy-two thousand persons were put to death under Henry VIII. alone, on the simple charge of theft. In a single year of his reign., three hundred were executed for soliciting alms. Ofir English and revered ancestors attached the death- penalty to two hundred and twenty-three acts. If a man injured Westminster Bridge ; if he cut down a young tree: if he was disguised on the road ; if he shot at a rabbit; he was hanged. Time was, in Chris- tian England, when the death-penalty was inflicted by slowly immersing the condemned in a cauldron of boiling oil. Harrison, the regicide, the honorable judge who voted for the beheading of Charles 1., was condemned, by the highest English tribunal, to be " hanged, revived, maimed, drawn, and hanged again." Late in the eighteenth century, Edmund Burke assert- ed that he could obtain the assent of the House of Commons to any bill imposing the punishment of death. In Colonial days, our own Virginia made ab- sence from church-service a crime, and for the third offence prescribed the penalty of death.
It is in accordance, then, with these tokens which history puts in evidence, that you are to judge the In-
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dian whose savage life had never been illumined by the Gospel's light. I submit that such just and pertinent considerations, though they make none the less awful the war which raged on this spot, do operate to mod- ify the blackness of darkness in which the scene is usually viewed. Believe it, there was much of human nature on both sides of the relentless strife !
Little wonder, however, that the men who visited the Quaboag Indians in 1660, choosing Foster's Hill as the proposed town site, with the South Brookfield meadows on the one side, this arable level on the other side, and our Wickaboag Pond in the near distance,- little wonder, I say, that those men inclined to delay. So far as the Massachusetts government was concerned, the desired grant of land had been freely accorded, provided a settlement was effected within three years ; and it was recognized, by the grantees, that the forfeiture of the grant would be a serious misfor. tune. Yet immediately subsequent to 1660, Oneko, son of Uncas, with a band of Connecticut Mohe- gans, made war on the Quaboags, and the gen- eral state of Indian affairs became threatening. It was not, therefore, until 1665, when the land had been purchased from the Indians themselves, for about $400 of our present money, that the first two houses were built and some corn planted. Two years later, in 1667, the Massachusetts General Court re- newed the original grant which, by its terms, had ex-
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pired, and gave desired permission to organize a town- ship, and to conduct township affairs, including the settlement of a minister and the maintenance of pub- lic worship. In 1673. the slowly increasing town was incorporated, with Brookfield as its official and signifi- cant title.
It is interesting to observe the names and former residences of those heads of families who signed the pe- tition for the town's first incorporation :- John Ayres, Sr .. of Haverhill ; Richard Coy. Sr., of Wenham ; John Warner, William Prichard, James Hovey, Thomas Wil- son, and John Younglove, of Ipswich ; Thomas Millet, Samuel Kent, and James Travis, of Gloucester : Thom- as Parsons, of Windsor : Judah Trumbull, of Rowley ; Edward Scott and Hezekiah Dickinson, of Hadley. Those were the men who, with their families, made up the Brookfield outpost. Only Springfield, settled in 1036, was further westward. Hadley had been settled only fourteen years, and Deerfield only four years ; and these were the nearest neighbors. Worcester had not yet been incorporated. Evidently, it was a haz- ardous venture, and in less than two years the hazard proved disastrous
In the spring of 1675, various troubles arose between the Brookfield settlers and the adjacent Indians. Nor will you at all wonder, when you consider the actual situation. On yonder hill, the white man's slender town ; on the high plain by yonder pond, a populous
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village of the Quaboags ; between the two, this goodly plain which the white man, having purchased, had di- vided into individual holdings, but which, previously, had been the great common cornfield of the Quaboags. Meantime, the Indian had learned intemperance by the aid of the white man's rum, and some of the white settlers had caught the ways of lazy and lawless im- providence, from the degraded Indian. Moreover, in other places than Brookfield, the general antagonism was increasing. Dispossessed, albeit by written con- tract, of favorite hunting grounds and cornfields, and thus circumscribed in their territorial freedom, many of the more thoughtful Indians were seized with the fear of ultimate extermination. The manifest superi- ority of the white man was, to those Indian minds, prophetic of their doom. Massasoit who had been the first Indian chief to befriend the colonists, and who, in his later life, probably lived on this very spot as the sachem of the Quaboags, was now dead, and Philip, his daring, ambitious son, was the leading spirit among the Indians of both eastern Connecticut and central Massachusetts. To Philip came the resolve to strike for self-preservation, while yet there was apparent chance of success. In that desperate resolve, the younger men of the Qua- boags were his secret allies. Accordingly, on the first day of August, 1675, when the twenty cavalry- men, sent from Cambridge to safe-guard the Brook-
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field settlers, sought a conference with the Quaboags and their associates, the troops were led into an ambush beyond the present New Braintree line, where five of their number were killed, together with three volun - icers from our Brookfield, namely: John Ayres, William Prichard and Richard Coy. Many others were wounded, and the survivors, with extremest difficulty, made their way back to the settlement. Another Brook- field man, James Hovey, had been elsewhere killed, and the remnant of the soldiers, together with all the surviving settlers-men, women and children-eighty- two in all, took refuge in one of the houses on Foster's Hill. Then ensued that awful siege, four days and nights of absolutely incessant attack and defence. Bul- lets and arrows piercing the walls of the extemporized fort : two men killed ; others wounded ; balls of fire hurled against and through the roof ; masses of hay and other combustible substance ignited and pressed against the building ; the ammunition of the defenders well nigh exhausted ; the defence seemingly hopeless ; and then, following the timely rain, the sudden, unex- pected appearance of Major Willard with his command, and the raising of the siege !
Yet how sad the scene on which the rescued settlers looked, that eventful 5th of August,-every home burned, all the fields laid waste, the horses and cattle for the most part destroyed or driven away ! Surely it is not surprising that the survivors took refuge in the
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securer regions to the eastward, and wholly abandoned the Brookfield settlement.
That was the first signal success of the Indian over white soldiers, and it bore its swift and baleful harvest. Attacks upon the other towns of central Massachsetts followed. Within a brief period, there fell, of citizens and soldiers, not less than one hundred and forty,-in Brookfield twelve, in Whately nine, in Deerfield two, in Squakheag eight, at Beer's Plain twenty-one, at Bloody Brook sixty-four, in Springfield five, in North- ampton six, in Hatfield ten, and in Westfield three. Though what is known distinctively as " King Philip's War," ended in the following year, yet for a full de- cade, until 1686, no attempt was made to resume the Brookfield settlement.
I have said that on this spot the ambitions and en- mities of old world kingdoms found tragic develop- ment. Bear in mind, I pray you, that in those early days this new continent was the magnificent prize for which France and England strove with utmost force. Bear in mind also that it was the policy of the French, whenever special conflict between France and England arose, to incite the American Indians to attack the English colonists in both open battle and secret am- buscade. You will thus perceive that here, in this town- ship, were felt directly those strifes whose origins were beyond the sea. In 1686, when Brookfield was finally re-settled, France and England were at enmity, and the
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Indians were. therefore. the more hostile. Accord- ingly, in 1688. our settlers thought it requisite that a strong fort - known as " Gilbert's Fort "-should be built, with surrounding stockade ; and the chosen site was that afterward occupied by the " old brick school- house," of West Brookfield, at the junction of what are now known as North Main and Maple Streets. Nor was the precaution superfluous. A few years later Wolcott Village, scarcely more than three miles from the fort, was destroyed, and eight or nine persons were killedFor carried captive. It was thereafter that sen- tiles were stationed on " Warding Rock," northeast front the fort. to watch continually for the approach of
In 1668, the Peace of Ryswick was proclaimed by Franos and England, and the French-Indian atrocities wore temporarily abated. Even at that date, Brook- tell fed but twelve families. Only four years later, France all England were again at war, and in Massa- chamoit's the effects were soon and wofully manifest. Deerfield was wholly laid waste by the French and In- drank in 1704. More than twenty houses were burned, tony inhabitants and nine soldiers were killed, and five soldiers and one hundred and six inhabitants were tikch prismers Thenceforth, as may readily be im- agood, all the frontier settlements were in constant dem. In this town, additional fortified houses were built, not improbably at least one such house in each
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exposed district. Yet for all that, two citizens were killed here in 1706; one killed and one carried captive in 1708; two killed in 1709 ; and six in 1710. At length with the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the town was per- mitted a season of comparatively peaceful growth, and having increased to fifty families, was incorporated for the second time. Yet as late as 1722, the daily military record of this township runs as follows: "Two men guarding meeting-house on the Sabbath "; " Guarded the people to plough and to plant ' ; "A scout sent up to the turn of Ware River"; " Guarded the people fenc- ing their meadows" ; "Guarded twenty-three men in making hay."
At last, from 1744 to 1763, came the final struggle between the English and French, interrupted only by the brief truce of Aix la Chapelle. A new fort was built on Coy's Hill, and Brookfield both watched at home and sent valiant soldiers to the front. In 1763, the great Treaty of Peace was signed in Paris, and the French power on this continent, and for the most part Indian attacks upon the New England colonists, were at an end.
But even then, it was only the combatants and the scene of strife which was changed. For, ten years later, in 1773, came the beginning of the Revolution. In that memorable year of 1773, the town of Brook- field pledged itself to the town of Boston, "to main
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tain in every legal and proper way those rights and lib- erties for our children, which with so much labor, blood, and treasure were purchased by our ancestors." In that same year, Brookfield also took unqualified action against the introduction of British tea. In 1774, the town raised a company of minute-men, in accordance with the wish of the Provincial Congress, and in the following year provided for additional companies. So that, the news of the British advance on Lexington and Concord, reaching Brookfield in the afternoon of April 19th, 1775, three Brookfield companies set forth for the conflict that very night. In the battle of Bunker Hill some of those men fought. At a town- meeting, May 22d, 1776, it was voted, that " this town will support the Honorable Congress in the measure, if they, for our liberty, shall see fit to declare the Col- onies independent of Great Britain."-thus anticipat- ing the national Declaration of July 4th, by full forty- three days It is on record that, the following year, fifteen Brookfield citizens enlisted " for the war," and that sixty five others were enrolled " for three years " It is matter of history that, until the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, October 19th, 1781, Brook- field fulfilled to the utmost her patriotic obligations.
Fellow citizens, was I not right in claiming that this is historic ground? Was I not wholly justified in averring that what was done in our Brookfield and especially in this West Brookfield, had its
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causes far off as well as near, and that its results were wide and lasting? Of a truth, it requires no long pilgrimage to bring us to scenes of distinguished achievement. Here were displayed those qualities which glorify humanity and sanctify the very soil ;-- courage superlative, discretion consummate, steadfast- ness invincible, patriotism unsurpassed. For one, I thank God that He gives to us the privilege of mem- ories so inspiring and of associations so honorable.
But we must not permit ourselves to think of the earlier Brookfield life as wholly absorbed in the sheer struggle for self-preservation. Besides the most ardu- ous manual labor, and in the midst of almost incessant conflict with desperate foes, there was a characteristic devotion to higher ends. In both the first and second settlements of the town, provision was made for the building of a meeting-house and the securing of a minister. Those first two meeting-houses were on Foster's Hill, the first being built in 1667, the second in 1719. Toward the salary of the pastor, the General Court, for many years, made an appropriation of $100, annually ; but the needful supplementing of that sum, as well as the building of the meeting-house itself, came from the willing people. To the meeting-house they added the indispensable horse-sheds, and to the pastor they gave not only parsonage and barn, but also wood for sitting-room and kitchen, and land for cultivation. John Younglove, the first minister under
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