USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Palmer > Historical address delivered at Palmer, Mass., July 5, 1852, in commemoration of centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town > Part 1
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الحكومة
Gc 974.402 P18w 1778996
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 1812
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historicaladdres1852wils
AN
HISTORICAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT
PALMER, MASS., JULY 5, 1852,
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE
Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town.
BY THOMAS WILSON FIRST PASTOR OF THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
PUBLISHED BY VOTE OF THE TOWN.
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LOWELL : S. J. VARNEY, (27 CENTRAL STREET,) PRINTER, 1855.
1778996
F 84466 .976
WILSON, THOMAS, 1822-1899.
An historical address delivered at Palmer, Mass., July 5, 1852, in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the town. Lowell, S. J. Varney, printer, 1855. 60p. 21cm.
56-474
SHELF CARD
CORRESPONDENCE.
DEAR SIR :- PALMER, August 25th, 1852.
The undersigned were appointed, at a meeting of the citizens of Palmer, and others, on the 5th of July last, being the occasion of the Centennial Celebra- tion of the organization of said town, to solicit a copy of your Address, delivered at that time, for publication.
We hope it may be your pleasure to gratify the citizens of this town, as well as numerous others, interested in the history of Palmer, by furnishing, at your earliest convenience, a copy of your very interesting and invaluable Historical Address, for the purpose aforesaid.
Be assured, Sir, of the very high personal regard entertained for yourself and family.
REV. THOMAS WILSON.
J. B. MERRICK,
F. MORGAN,
FRED. T. WALLACE.
GENTLEMEN :-
AUGUST 27th, 1852.
The Historical Address which the citizens of the place, from their personal and local interest, have directed you to obtain for publication, is cheer- fully placed at your disposal. In complying with your request, so cordially con- veyed, I sincerely regret that it was not in my power,- from the brief time allow- ed for the preparation of a discourse of this nature, and from the pressure of im- perative professional duties,-to render more fitting honor to the character and doings of the early fathers of the town. I hope, however, that what is here done may rescue from utter oblivion, important and interesting facts connected with their history ; and that it may furnish, to the present and future inhabitants of Palmer, an acceptable, though slight and inadequate, memento of the deeds and virtues of their ancestral generations.
With sentiments of respect and esteem I remain
Yours, very truly, THOMAS WILSON.
To MESSRS. J. B. MERRICK, F. MORGAN,
Committee of the Citizens of Palmer. FRED. T. WALLACE,
PREFACE.
THE citizens of Palmer, at their annual meeting in March, 1852, appointed Rev. THOMAS WILSON to prepare an historical account of the early settlement and subsequent progress of the town ; to be given as an Address, in connection with other services that were to be held, commemorative of the first CENTENNIAL AN- NIVERSARY of the INCORPORATION of the TOWN of PALMER .*
In accordance with this appointment, the following brief and unavoidably im- perfect sketch was prepared, and delivered before a large gathering of the citizens, in a grove near the Town-House, on Monday, July 5th ; though the appropriate time for the centenary celebration would have been on the 23d of January previous. This filial duty would more justly have belonged to some native of the place; or at least, to one whom long residence among the people, and an intimate acquain- tance with the aged especially, would have better qualified for the work. As it was assigned otherwise, however, the commission has been executed as well as the circumstances of the case would allow.
The records of the original Proprietors, together with those of the town and the first parish ; and the journals of the Colonial and State Legislatures, in the archives of the Commonwealth, have been the principal sources from which the materials have been gathered. Valuable assistance, also, was derived from "Parker's History of Londonderry, N. H." in regard to the emigration to this country, from the north of Ireland, of the Scotch Presbyterians by whom this town was chiefly settled. Other sources of information have been carefully and labori- ously examined ; but much yet remains to be done to do full justice to the depar- ted worthies of the town; and the feeling of regret is an honest one, which the gleaner of these historical relics entertains, that a more skillful pen was not em- ployed to put these pleasant but fading reminiscences of past generations in a more acceptable and enduring form.
It was somewhat appropriate, however, that one whose own birth was in that land whence the worthy and patriotic fathers of this town primarily originated - "auld Scotia "- should be selected to pay due respect to the virtue, heroism, and indomitable love of civil and religious liberty, which characterized the noble dead. The grateful work, therefore, was engaged in with something of filial reverence and ancestral pride.
* See Appendix C.
ADDRESS.
" THE Ancient of days " has implanted in man a reverence for antiquity. This feeling is alike honorable in him who manifests it, and respectful to the object or person toward which it is shown. He who placed this graceful sentiment in the nature of the human race, allows it to be cherished in every form and degree which can harmo- nize with the paramount law of virtuous progress.
Whatever is old is to man, who is himself so short-lived, invested with peculiar interest. To gratify his taste for the antique, he will sometimes, like " Old Mortality," sit down among the crumbling tombstones of ancient worthies, and patiently re-chisel the half oblit- erated inscriptions ; at other times, he will traverse the most perilous seas, and scale the almost inaccessible mountains, and brave even ap- palling dangers, to look upon some mouldering relic of by-gone ages ; or to feel the inspiration, flowing in upon the soul, from some scene famed far back in the records of time. Hallowed emotions are kin- dled in the heart by such contemplations. Past ages come rolling back as we stand in the midst of scenes thus " hoar with grey an- tiquity." And even though we may never visit them in person, the ever-ready and nimble imagination - that wierd and subtle power of the mind - will, at our bidding, present them in visionary but im- posing array.
It is, indeed, true that the annals of this town present few, if any, of those stirring events which claim a prominent place on the page of history. No fierce battle fought upon our soil, has ever emblazoned its name in lines of blood. No wonderful curiosity of nature has ever brought hither a crowd of sight-seeing travelers. No brilliant achieve- ment in art or arms, has ever rendered any of its sons illustrious. No famous production in literature, or memorable discovery in science,
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has ever claimed its paternity here. But yet, in this small and no- wise conspicuous town, among the goodly fellowship of sister commu- nities in this good old Commonwealth, events have transpired that are worthy to be remembered ; especially by the descendants of those who here lived, and loved, and died. As the centuries go by, it is well to recall the scenes of the past, and the actors in the busy drama of human life, whose remembrance is fast fading away. There has been exhibited on this soil, and within the bounds of this township, a noble endurance of privation and suffering ; an heroic struggle against the difficulties incident to a pioneer life, such as were inevitable, but not less trying in the early settlements of this region ; and a devoted patriotism amid the sorest trials - which ought to embalm the depar- ted worthies in the hearts of a grateful and emulous posterity.
The principle of religious liberty was the leading central idea with the founders of this new and greatest of Republics. It found fitting exponents in the early settlers of this town. This sentiment, when fully roused, is stronger even than the love of civil and political free- dom. That exemption from control and dictation, which the con- science demands, and for which men feel bound, by the hopes of life eternal, to contend, can hardly fail to be secured by resolute souls. As the English Puritans fled from their comfortable homes to this western wilderness, not so much from the civil goverment as from the hierarchy, and the laws which enforced conformity to the estab- lished Episcopal Church ; so did the Scottish Covenanters - some of whose descendants are gathered here to-day - emigrate to escape re- ligious rather than political evils.
Before entering upon a detailed account of the settlement of the largest and most prominent colony which virtually founded Palmer, it may be interesting to advert briefly to some of the circumstances in the " father-land," which constituted the leading cause of many of the settlements in New England. Even the most cursory examina- tion of this point will clearly show that it was firm and conscientious adherence to religious principle, which brought most of our ancestors to this distant land ; and led them to establish an empire whose chief and most glorious characteristic is entire freedom in matters of divine worship. It was for conscience's sake that they left their native land and their cherished homes ; and, amid sorrow, suffering, and death, " sought a faith's pure shrine " upon these inhospitable shores. Re- ligious toleration was a virtue in political ethics, to the attainment of
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which the people of that age had not arrived. This principle, though confessedly just and wise, has been of slow growth. Hence in Eng- land, notwithstanding the light and influence of the ever-memorable Reformation, various laws were passed enjoining uniformity, not only in sentiment, but in the forms of religious worship ; subjecting to se- vere penalties, all who refused obedience. The adherents of even the reformed religion had not yet acquired that truly catholic spirit which gives to every one the "right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience." Submission to the most intolerant statutes was enforced with such extreme vigor, that a voluntary exile seemed to many the best mode of escaping from the penalties of non- compliance.
The stringency of the laws, and the relentlessness of their execution, excited the strong and determined resistance of many in all ranks, who fearlessly withstood this encroachment upon their rights, demand- ing greater simplicity and purity of worship than that allowed by the established Church of England, hence, by way of reproach, they were called Puritans ; and as their sufferings, under the oppressive acts which so chafed and galled their spirits, tended to deter any ex- cept the conscientious and sincere friends of Christ, and of the purer worship, from uniting with them,-serving thus to sift the precious wheat from the worthless chaff,- the term, though otherwise intended, became one of honor ! It was strikingly significant of the superior purity, both of their religion and their lives. Their deep and in- wrought dislike to the arbitrary enactments of their government, in- duced our Puritan fathers to seek in this then newly discovered land a settlement, founded on the principles of religious toleration, as well as of civil liberty. It was a determination, fixed and resolute, not to submit to dictation in matters of faith and modes of worship which prompted their self-denying course. They preferred to hazard every- thing, to endure anything, rather than surrender this right, which they prized dearer than life itself, of " freedom to worship God." With an inextinguishable thirst for liberty in the moral as well as in the natural and social world, they could not bear to be thus trammel- ed in their religious privileges. No other motive save that of duty was sufficiently powerful to influence these men to abandon all that was endeared to them by the associations of home, and kindred, and country, for a hostile wilderness beyond the ocean. It was a pure and holy purpose which prompted them to make the sacrifices they
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did. They claimed " an open Bible and a free conscience." Their purpose was to establish "a Church without a Bishop, and a State without a King." They sought, therefore, a home in this far-off land, where they might freely enjoy all that their hearts held dear, as citizens of the State and members of the Church. For this they braved the storms of winter, and the perils of the sea; and on the bleak and frozen rocks of Plymouth they raised an altar at once to freedom and to God !
It is indeed true that the Presbyterians, who primarily settled this and a few other towns in New England, were different in forms of church government from that noble band of christians of the Congre- gational order who constituted the Plymouth Colony ; yet in all their views of divine truth and religious duty, in zeal and firmness to resist civil and ecclesiastical domination, they fully harmonized with each other, and were " fellow sufferers for conscience sake."
The emigrants who chiefly settled the town of Palmer were what is called " Scotch-Irish," being the descendants of a colony of Protes- tants which emigrated from Argyleshire, in Scotland, and settled in the province of Ulster, in Ireland, about the year 1612. They were induced to go there by the fact that in the reign of James the First, on the suppression of a rebellion of his Catholic subjects in the north- ern part of Ireland, two millions of acres of land, almost the whole of the six upper counties, were transferred to the King, who thereupon became desirous of supplanting the native rebels by those who would be more loyal, and therefore held out strong inducements to his other and more reliable subjects to occupy the land. ITis Scotch and Eng- lish dependents were encouraged by liberal grants to leave their own homes and settle upon this forfeited tract of land, as it was expected that those turbulent spirits in the " Emerald Isle," who had so often defied the authority and arms of the British government, might by means of this colonization be awed and controlled.
This will account, in some measure, for the bitter enmity which was manifested by the Catholics, the native Irish, toward these Protestant settlers, who occupied the soil from which their countrymen had been forcibly expelled. The great Isish rebellion which occurred thirty years after, in the reign of Charles I., had its origin in the animosity with which the Irish Catholics regarded the Protestants, and in the natural and burning desire they felt to wrest back their ancestral pos- sessions, The plot of this general massacre was fortunately discover-
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ed in Dublin, on the day before the time fixed for its execution ; but in the other parts of the island, and particularly in Ulster, the most cruel and wanton destruction of lives and property ensued. Accord- ing to some historians, no less than one hundred and fifty thousand persons perished.
The emigrants from across the channel, who settled on the lands of the expatriated Irish during the early part of the seventeenth century, went there chiefly from mercenary motives. They received accessions from time to time of their countrymen, who were impelled by the like hope of gain. But in the latter part of that century, many fled there from Scotland to escape the bitter persecutions and horrid barbarities inflicted by the Roman Catholics upon the Covenanters, in the reign of James II. This bigoted and infatuated monarch exhibited a hatred to Protestantism, and a devotion to Papacy, the most excessive ; and during his whole reign strove most zealously to eradicate the one and establish the other. No one of the Puritan sects was so particularly the object of his aversion as the Presbyterians of Scotland. While he was viceroy of that kingdom, during the reign of his brother, he had persecuted them with an unrelenting severity which he was in nowise disposed to mitigate after he had ascended the throne.
Those districts in which the Covenanters were most numerous were overrun by companies of soldiers, who practised the most wanton cru- elties upon all who fell into their hands. Among the leaders of these persecuting and blood-thirsty bands, the most noted was James Gra- ham, of Claverhouse ;- " a soldier," says Macauley, " of distinguish- ed courage and professional skill, but rapacious and profane, of violent temper, and of obdurate heart ; who has left a name which, wherever the Scottish race is settled on the face of the globe, is mentioned with a peculiar energy of hatred. To recapitulate all the crimes by which this man, and men like him, goaded the peasantry of the Western Lowlands into madness, would be an endless task."
By such brutal persecution, in a land most dear to them, the imme- diate ancestors of many who settled in this place were induced to flee to Ireland, and join their countrymen who had preceded them. But even there, their repose was short. Although during the time of Cromwell, and for a few years after his decease, the Protestants were protected from the inveterate enmity of the Irish Catholics, they were at length called to undergo privations and sufferings almost unparal- leled. The pages of history can furnish but few instances of such un-
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daunted bravery, unwavering firmness, and heroic fortitude as were displayed by then in the midst of their fiery and protracted trials.
Their position, in the land of their adoption, was everyway most uncomfortable. They were surrounded by the native Irish, who ad_ hered with tenacity to the Church of Rome, while they regarded their new neighbors with embittered feelings not only as supplanters, but as heretics ; and though they were then subjugated to Protestant power, and not permitted openly to persecute as they had done, yet a spirit of hostility still existed, which sought every opportunity to vent itself in acts of revenge. Many circumstances, in addition to the original strong traits of character which separate the Scotch from the Irish, had served to inflame and strengthen the enmity existing be- tween them.
MACAULEY, adverting to the hostility manifested by the Irish Catho- lics toward the British Protestants who had settled in Ireland, says : " On the same soil dwelt two populations, locally intermixed, morally and politically sundered. The difference of religion was by no means the only difference, and was perhaps not even the chief difference, which existed between them. They sprang from different stocks. They spoke different languages. They had different national charac- ters, as strongly opposed as any two national characters in Europe. They were in widely different stages of civilization - there could, therefore, be little sympathy between them, and centuries of calami- ties and wrongs had generated a strong antipathy. The relation in which the minority stood to the majority, resembled the relation in which the followers of William the Conqueror stood to the Saxon churls, or the relation in which the followers of Cortez stood to the In- dians of Mexico. The appellation of Irish was then given exclusively to the Celts, and to those families which, though not of Celtic origin, had in the course of ages degenerated into Celtic manners. These peo- ple, probably somewhat less than a million in number, had, with few exceptions, adhered to the Church of Rome. Among them resided about two hundred thousand colonists, proud of their Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith. The great preponderance of numbers on one side, was more than compensated by a great superiority of intelligence, vigor, and organization on the other. The English settlers seem to have been, in knowledge, energy, and perseverance, rather above than below the average level of the population of the mother country. The
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aboriginal peasantry, on the contrary, were in an almost savage state."
It was in view of such evils and sufferings, experienced both in the land of their birth and adoption, that a large body of them were again disposed to leave their homes for another country. They were the more encouraged to do this, by the flattering representations which had come to them, of the civil and religious privileges enjoyed by the American colonies. In order to see whether these reports were cor- rect, and whether they would be justified in removing ; and also, to secure a place of settlement, they sent a messenger early in the year 1718, with an address to Governor Shute, of Massachusetts, express- ing a strong desire to remove to New England, if they could be as- sured of the permanent enjoyment of their civil and religious rights. The desired encouragement being given, they immediately turned their property into money, embarked in five ships for Boston, and ar- rived there August 4, 1718. That portion of the emigrants who had been under the pastoral charge of Rev. James McGregor, in Ireland, wished to remain together that they might still enjoy religious ordi- nances under the ministry of their favorite teacher, who had accom- panied his flock to their new home in this western world. After considerable search and many privations, they finally settled upon a fine traet of land in New Hampshire, which they named Londonderry, in honor of the town in Ireland from which they had just emigrated. Quite a number of this body of emigrants, on arriving at Boston, saw fit to remain in that city, and uniting with those of their countrymen of their own faith whom they found there, formed the " First Presby- terian Church and Society," over which the Rev. John Moorhead was installed pastor. It was styled the "Presbyterian Church in Long Lane," afterwards Federal Street.
Another portion of this company of emigrants repaired to Worces- ter, and there attempted to form a settlement and enjoy religious pri- vileges, under the ministry of one of the four pastors who had accon- panied them to this country ; and although they were an industrious, orderly and pious community, yet in consequence of their being for- eigners, especially from Ireland, and introducing the Presbyterian mode of worship, which was before unknown in New England, the prejudices of the Congregational churches, the " standing order" of the State, were so strong and bitter toward them, that they were compelled to leave the place. They consequently separated, and
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were dispersed through the country. Some of these families settled in PALMER, others in Coleraine, some in Pelham, and a few in other towns in Massachusetts ; and being joined by emigrants, from time to time, from the old country, formed those Presbyterian societies which existed for many years in those several places.
Such is a brief account of the origin of the principal colony which first settled within the limits of this town, about the year 1727. Some years previous to this, however, several families had entered upon the territory, and erected their humble log dwellings amid the primeval forest. The honor of being the first settler of Palmer, so far as I have been able to learn from documentary or traditional evi- dence, belongs to JOIN KING. He probably came here sometime during the year 1717. A letter from his mother, dated " Ednars- ton, (Eng.) April 20, 1718,"* speaks of him as being married and having one son, born, it is supposed, in Boston. She refers to the " hardships" he had experienced since he left home, and expresses her sorrow to hear that he " lived in such a desert place, without neighbors." She says also, "I shall never overcome my grief to think you are so far off;" but with a mother's solicitude for the spi- ritual welfare of her child, she adds, "I am glad to hear you live under the ministry of the gospel ; I pray God to give you grace to im- prove by it." He probably attended the church in Brimfield, as that town was incorporated December 24, 1731, having been granted to petitioners, and settled by persons from Springfield, in the year 1701. It therefore undoubtedly possessed such religious privileges before Mr. King entered upon his solitary forest home in this place. The spot where the rude log house was first erected by him cannot now. be precisely determined. It was somewhere on the plain where the " Depot-village" now stands. Tradition says that this pioneer fami- ly spent the first night of their sojourn here at the spring on the hill side, near the old grave-yard, where their dust now slumbers. Some apple trees are said to have sprung up near by from seed dropped by them from the fruit they were eating.
Several of Mr. King's sons, of whom he had eight, and three daughters, settled in the immediate vicinity of their father, along the north bank of the Quaboag, or Chicopee river. From them not only the neighborhood where they lived received its name of the "King's row," but the whole township is often called " Kingsfield," but more
* See Appendix F.
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commonly "Kingstown," in the county and colony records. The more usual name, however, in these and in the town records, is the " El- bow-tract," or the "Elbows ;" a designation doubtless derived from the angles made by the union of the Swift and the Ware rivers with the Chicopee, at whose junction, as the name implies, the manufacturing village of "Three-Rivers " is situated. This part of the town was first occupied by Mr. James Shearer, who died in 1745. It was some- times called the " Dark-Corner," because prior to its occupancy as a manufacturing place, there were but three families in all that region, and most of the land was covered with a dense mass of the primative forest. The town was designated by these various appellations, until the name it now bears was given to it a century ago at its incorpora- tion as a District. Previous to that time the inhabitants had repeat- edly applied to the Colonial Legislature to be invested with the pow- ers of an incorporated town, and had sent several persons, at different times, to the " Great and General Court," to advance their interests in this respect. These early efforts were not successful; and it was not till thirty-five years after its first settlement that an act of incor- poration was secured, and even thien with one essential limitation.
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