USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Westhampton > Memorial of the reunion of the natives of Westhampton, Mass., September 5, 1866 > Part 1
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M. G.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
n 3 1833 01067 0849
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MEMORIAL
OF THE
REUNION OF THE NATIVES
OF
WESTHAMPTON, MASS.,
1866
SEPTEMBER 5, 1866.
Young folks are smart, but all ain't good thet's new ; I guess the gran'thers they knowed sunthin', tu. They toiled an' prayed, built sure in the beginnin', An' let us never tech the underpinnin'. BIGLOW PAPERS Improved.
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WALTHAM : OFFICE OF THE FREE PRESS. 1866.
1781116
3440654
.96
Westhampton, Muss. Memorial of the reunion of the natives of Westhamp- ton, Mass .. September 5, 1866. Waltham, Office of the Free press, 1866. 85 p. 23-m.
Check Tuke older
1. Westhampton, Mass .- Hist. I. Title.
1-11683
F74.W.6\6
Library of Congress
2540
.
Mêstham Mass, -
Contennial.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
CENTENNIAL celebrations, and Reunions of the natives of given towns, are modern features of our New England history. Our country is yet in its youth. None of our municipal com munities have existed long enough to admit of more than two centennial jubilees, and many of them have had but one. Such occasions are replete with the deepest interest to the living descendants of generations which have passed away. They afford an opportunity to gather up, and put upon record, the memories of the past, to pay our dutiful respects to parents, grandparents and still more distant progenitors, and to preserve green in our recollections their household fidelity, their social worth, their unfaltering patriotism, and their consecrated piety.
A want of proper respect for antiquity is said to be one of the grand defects of our.national taste. If it is a blemish in our character, much should be pardoned to the stern neces- sities of pilgrim and frontier life, to the incessant struggle of the first settlers for existence, surrounded by hostile savages and a frowning wilderness, under inclement skies, and, more than all, with an almost total want of sympathy in the land that gave them birth. The fathers of New England had little time to spend in communion with the past. The necessities of the present were all engrossing; and yet, such is the tes- timony of all contemporary and impartial history, that, in addi- tion to their unquenchable love of civil and religious liberty, they had more taste for institutions which were hoary with time, more love of literature and science, more relish for works of art, and a far higher regard for the immortal welfare of their children and their children's children, than have distin- guished any other pioneers the world has seen. It is fitting, then, pre-eminently fitting, that we, their descendants, should honor their memories, defend their names from undeserved reproach, and reproduce in our own lives, but in a far higher
Man 23 May 33
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WESTHAMPTON REUNION.
degree, those virtues which adorned their earthly career, enshrined their deeds in the gratitude of the world, and pre- pared them for the mansions of the blessed.
To hold in grateful regard the memory of our ancestors, is one of the most natural impulses of every ingenuous heart. The bald selfishness, so deftly set forth in an old song :-
"Of all my father's relatives, I love myself the best, And if I am provided for, the Deil may take the rest,"
may be no caricature to some minds. It may exactly reflect their taste, but it must be rejected with disgust by all the dis- interested and the pure. It may have some place among the other abominations of heathendom, but Christian civilization teaches us to "rise up before the hoary head," and to respect even the child, for he is "the father of the man."
It is with these convictions of filial duty, that we put upon record, in this unpretending pamphlet, the profound acknowl- edgment of our deepest obligation to the fathers and mothers of Westhampton. We often see in Massachusetts, the last place on the earth where such an impropriety should appear, the egregious moral solecism committed, of garnishing the sepulchres of the Pilgrims, and at the same time repudiating their faith. Of this superlative inconsistency, the sons and daughters of this town are comparatively innocent. We do not propose to
·
"Give bond in stone and ever during brass,"
to immortalize the memory of our fathers, but we do it upon the worthier tablets of grateful hearts.
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WESTHAMPTON REUNION.
PUBLIC EXERCISES OF THE REUNION.
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5, 1866, was a great day for the natives of Westhampton. It was their first social gathering on the spot, hallowed by all the sacred associations of birth, early recollections, and reminiscences of departed ancestors. The weather was delightful. The company embraced some three hundred natives of the town now residing abroad, a large number of the distinguished citizens of the neighboring towns, and nearly all the present residents, counting up some 1200 souls. The Hampshire Gazette said,- "The literary exercises were of an exceedingly high character, full of historic lore and honorable and merited eulogy of the fathers and mothers of the town, and breathing a high moral and religious fervor, showing how. broadly the foundations of the moral, religious and mental culture of the returned natives had been laid in their youth, and how abundantly the good seed had sprung up to a noble harvest." It was properly speaking a centennial celebration of the settlement of the town, for the earliest inhabitants came in and began to fell the forests just about one hundred years ago, though the town was not incorporated till some twelve years afterwards. The suggestion of a celebration of this kind was first made, a year or two since, by Rev. George Lyman, of Sutton, Mass., but it did not at that time assume any par- ticular form. At the annual town meeting, last spring, the subject was again considered, and it was voted to hold such a reunion ; and Messrs. Matthias Rice, H. W. Montague, R. W. Clapp, E. H. Lyman, and G. B. Drury were appointed a Com- mittee to carry the plan into execution. This committee, though fully aware of the magnitude of the work, and of the sacrifices they would personally be obliged to make to get up and carry successfully through an undertaking so novel and ex- tensive, took hold of it with a will, and by their judicious coun- sels and untiring labors, seconded by the liberal responses of
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.
the citizens and of the natives far and near, they prosecuted it to a successful completion. The committee deserve the sincere thanks of all concerned for their gratuitous and highly useful services.
Of the character of the audience, and of the exercises in the Church, the Hampshire Gazette gave the following pictorial description :
"The natives of the town comprise a noble band of men and women, who would do honor to any locality. Among them are many clergymen of distinction, now settled in various parts of the country, and others who have achieved high and honorable positions in various professional and business callings. No town can boast a nobler ancestry, or point to more creditable descendants than the good old town of Westhampton. Among the clergymen present, natives of the town, were the Rev. J. Lyman Clark, D. D., of Waterbury, Conn., Rev. Dorus Clarke, of Waltham, Mass., Rev. Tertius S. Clarke, D. D., of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Rev. Calvin Clark, of Marshall, Michigan, Rev: George Lyman, of Sutton, Mass., Rev. Chester Bridgman, for- merly settled in Ludlow, Mass., Rev. Prof. Melzar Montague, of Ripon College, Wisconsin, Rev. Enos J. Montague, of Ocono- mowoc, Wisconsin, Rev. Luther Clapp, of Wauwatosa, Wiscon- sin, Rev. James Brewer, of Allen's Grove, Wisconsin, Rev. Anson Clark, of Hartford, Wisconsin. There were also pres- ent, Rev. John H. Bisbee, of Worthington, who married in Westhampton, and is therefore a semi-native; Rev. A. M. Colton, pastor of the First Church in Easthampton, Rev. Henry L. Edwards, of Abington, Mass., and Rev. Osman A. Lyman, of the Lane Seminary, Ohio. Of physicians there were present Dr. Anson Hooker, of East Cambridge, son of the long-time physician of the town, Dr. William Hooker, and Dr. Jewett, of the West. Other professions and business callings were repre- sented by the two able and distinguished historians of the day, Messrs. Judd and Clapp, and by E. Munson Kingsley, Esq., of New York, Zenas M. Phelps, Esq., of Riverdale, N. Y., E. C. Bridgman, Esq., of Brooklyn, and others.
THE SERVICES IN THE CHURCHI
were commenced at 10 o'clock, and every available seat and standing place were occupied. The edifice probably never
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before had so distinguished an audience. The pulpit platform, enlarged and carpeted for the occasion, was occupied by native clergymen, and thickly interspersed in the large audience were the gray hairs and venerable forms of many aged citizens and guests. The exercises consisted of singing by a well trained choir of about thirty members, embracing the maiden in her teens and the veteran of fifty, under the direction of A. H. Bridgman, an opening prayer by Rev. Calvin Clark, the ad- dress of welcome, the historical addresses, and the poem. Their delivery, with the prayer and the intervening singing, occupied two hours and three-quarters, and so deeply inter- ested were all, that no one felt weary or manifested the least impatience throughout. An interesting deviation from the es- tablished programme was the singing, by the choir and congre- gation, of the 78th psalm, deaconed by Rev. Mr. Bisbee. This was done in the good old-fashioned style. Another feature of the exercises 'not on the bill,' reminding one of the earlier times, was the presence of several infant children, whose shrill notes, continued almost without ceasing from beginning to end of the services, apprised the celebrationists that the ma- terial for another reunion many years hence, would not be wanting. No one, however, seemed to feel disturbed by their 'plaintive notes,' they being received as a 'matter of course.' Enoch H. Lyman, Esq. was president of the day."
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WESTHAMPTON REUNION.
1
. .
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
BY R. W. CLAPP.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brothers and Sisters :
All who have come to Westhampton to-day to meet brothers and sisters, friends and kindred, to visit the places of their birth, to look upon the changes which time and hand have wrought, to seek out spots in which they were once interested or from which they ever gained pleasure-WE WELCOME YOU! I stand here, in behalf of this people, to offer you their most cordial greeting. We hope that while you stay you will feel at home with us, and we will endeavor to make our homes such that you may thus feel. Over these rock-ribbed hills you may wander, from these cold health giving springs bubbling forth from their sides you may drink, from their high pointed sum- mits the eye capable of discerning beauty in the picturesque scenery spread out before it, may revel and delight ; wherever amid all our surroundings you can find what will delight the eye and gratify the sense, or if there be any place hallowed in your memories, there we invite you; and there the mid day zephyrs and evening breezes will waft no breath of cholera or foul miasma to poison your life, changing it in a few short hours into the shadow of death. In your ramblings you will see what the hand of man has been slack to beautify and im- prove, yet you may discover that the fingers of the Great Architect have been busy limning and adorning, thereby restor- ing to its primeval beauty the destruction man had caused. Although the little we have to offer you be very small, accept that little for our sake.
When we contemplate the character and standing of many who meet with us to-day, and claim Westhampton for their mother, we feel a little of the sentiment of pride moving our souls, and we are exultant in the thought that we have a com- mon birth place and birth right ; and need not to say, that no Esau's pottage shall buy it from us.
But who are these whose hands we clasp in love to-day, to whom we are drawn by an irresistible attraction? I will not attempt to name you, by any order of nobility. There may be a true classification of titles ; I cannot give it. Doubtless you all feel your royalty. But let me here remind any, if such there are, who have chanced to bring along a feeling of superiority,
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that they must lay it aside ; it can find no favor here. We wish to find in each and all, the man-minister and teacher, editor, lawyer, doctor, geographer and telegrapher, statistician and metaphysician, merchant, artificer, tailor, mechanic, trades- man, farmer-all meet here, where we had our birth, upon a common plane, and here, around this altar of our consecration, would fire anew our hearts with the loves and friendships of former years.
We are glad so many have the heart and means to answer affirmatively to our call. But there are many more who have the right to be with us here to-day, and who, present in their thoughts, will be picturing the countenances, the acts, the words, the whole panorama of this reunion. A kind Providence ·smiles benignantly on all ; but from the full bounties of Ilis store, they have been unable to reap those rich harvests which so many of us have gathered to the overflowing of our measures, and they are poor, as men count poverty, and cannot come. Others, besides, have their chosen fields of labor too remote, to meet with us consistently.
Those who would, but cannot come, must and will be called to mind by us to-day. Let not one of the whole brotherhood and sisterhood that claims this for his or her birth place be for- gotten in our memories here.
I need not speak to you who hear me of the changes which these many years have made. Your eyes will witness them. Quite too often you may be called to weep, as you look upon dilapidated dwellings, desertion, waste-which may remind you of the prophecy, that "Westhampton will yet become a sheep pasture."
Our prayer now is-that if the time must come when of this town it shall be written, desolate, it may not be until the great I AM sweeps all nations into nothingness. Notwithstanding influences are at work which make this prospectively possible, yet, we are not sorry that so many went forth from among us, -one here, another there, carrying . with them a firmly estab- lished faith in Him who rules the Universe, and a strong belief that they had a work to do for Him. By virtue of this belief their influence has been for good. In benefiting and blessing mankind, they are blessed.
I repeat-we are glad so many have heeded the call their Mother sends, and come to-day to commune together upon this hill top. We ask the privilege of hearing every voice. The old dwellers here need it for their inspiration, and the young, to inspire noble impulses and high aspirations.
While we shall endeavor to minister to the outer man, we de- sire you to minister to the finer sensibilities-the head, the heart. The day is yours. WELCOME, WELCOME, THRICE WELCOME !
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WESTHAMPTON REUNION.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
BY C. PARKMAN JUDD, ESQ.
Reverence for our birth place and for the graves of our fore- fathers is a sentiment common to the human race. The savage treads gently over the mound which covers the ashes of his sires ; and the last direction given by the patriarch Jacob, on his deathbed, was to order his sons to bury him with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah.
And to-day we have come together at the graves of our fathers and mothers, to follow their footsteps through the wil- derness, to visit their humble firesides, to talk over their works, praise their virtues, and to engrave, as with the point of a dia- mond, their characters and features upon the inmost tablets of our memories. Nor do we come alone ; we have brought up with us the little ones, the children and grand children, to point out to them the meeting-house where our parents poured out their souls in prayer and praise to the living God, to show to them the fields where our fathers and mothers toiled for our benefit, and where we, their descendants, spent the merry hours of childhood and youth in preparing for the active duties of life. This is the hour of joy, not of sorrow. Our fathers con- quered all the obstacles in their pathway, and to-day we sing hosannas to their name, and scatter the palm of victory over their tombstones.
In May, 1653, a number of men residing in Windsor, Hart- ford, and other places in Connecticut, petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts to grant them a plantation at Nonotuck, above Springfield. In the same month the General Court appointed a committee to divide this land into two plantations. This committee laid out the bounds of two plantations, one on the east side of the Connecticut river, and one on the west side.
The plantation on the west side of the river began to be settled in 1654, and was called Northampton. It embraced the territory now comprised in Northampton, Southampton, East- hampton and Westhampton. Southampton was settled in 1732, and Easthampton had families in it as early as 1700. And before 1690, Northampton had divided and allotted off to the settlers nearly all of its territory, except a tract of land in the west part of the town. This westerly tract of land was four miles wide from east to west, and six miles long from north to south, and was called West or Long Division. Westhampton embraces most of this old Long Division of Northampton.
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WESTHAMPTON REUNION.
The Indian title to these two plantations had been bought for the planters in September, 1653, for 100 fathoms of wam- pum, ten coats, some small gifts, "and ploughing up 16 acres of land on the east side of the Connecticut river the next sum- mer."
The name, Westhampton, first appears on record in a vote of the town of Northampton, in November, 1774. Before this vote the persons living within the present town of Westhampton, were usually called, both by others and themselves, "the inhab- itants of the West or Long Division."
The name seems to have originated in this way. Hampton signifies a town on or near a river, that is a river town. Some of the first settlers upon the Connecticut river, came from Northampton, the name of a city in Northamptonshire, Eng- land, on the northerly side of the river Aufonia. And as the new plantation was far north of all others on the river, and a bold enterprise, the emigrants to Northampton very naturally and appropriately named the new village upon the Connecticut river, Northampton ;- that is, the most northerly town on the river. And Westhampton, being taken from the westerly part of the plantation, was called Westhampton, although the name has no fitness to the character or situation of the town.
The first settlement in Westhampton was made in the south- westerly part of the town, near the present highway which runs from Kingsley's mill by Norton's tavern, to Norwich. Before the town of Norwich was incorporated in 1773, that town with Chester was called Murrayfield, in honor of Col. John Murray of Rutland ; and that part of Murrayfield which joined North- ampton was called Shirkshire and New Plantation. People had moved into Murrayfield in 1760, and Northampton wished to open some communication with the new plantation. And, for this purpose, in 1762, the town of Northampton laid out a road to the boundary line between Northampton and Murrayfield or Shirkshire, called the Shirkshire road. This road probably fol- lowed the old road from Northampton village by Park Hill and King's saw mill on the Manhan or King's river, to the pres- ent line of Westhampton, and thence through Westhampton, on to Murrayfield ; substantially where the present road goes from Strong Kingsley's mill to the boundary of Norwich or Huntington. But this road was simply a line run in the smoothest places through the woods, whose direction was indi- cated by some blaze marks upon the trees. It was laid out very wide, so that travelers on horseback could wind their way, dodging the rocks and trees. It was some time after this, before the road became well trodden into a mere horse path. We must not bemisled by the term road. Indeed, the great route to the west hrough Blandford, which had been used more
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than 60 years, was in the time of the Revolution so bad and rough that it is said to have taken 20 yoke of oxen and 80 men to convey a mortar over the hills to the encampment at West Point.
Abner Smith was the person who made the first permanent settlement within the present limits of the town of Westhamp- ton. He is supposed to have come from Connecticut to Chester or Murrayfield, where he remained a short time, and he removed from thence to Westhampton some time in 1762. - It is certain that he was taxed for a poll this year, for the first time. He first cleared up some land, not far from the spot where Dea. Enoch Lyman used to live. Here he built a log house, sup- posed to be just over the brook where the blacksmith's shop afterward stood. Here on the banks of the Manhan, the settle- ment first began ; here the first opening was made in the wilder- ness. He remained here a year or two and then he built a log house on the south side of the old Shirkshire road, and sold the place to Jonathan Fisher in 1770. This was the beginning of the Fisher place. The second settler was Ebenezer French, who is supposed to have come from Southampton, some time in. 1763. He was concerned in King's sawmill, and finally became the owner of two-thirds of it. This mill brought him to the wilds of Westhampton, where he selected a spot for his planta- tion as near to his mill as he could find on the Shirkshire road. He made a clearing and built a log house very near the old tavern stand of landlord Wright, recently occupied by Martin Wright. Both Smith and French were taxed by the town of Northampton in 1763 and 1764. In the latter year, Smith was taxed for 7 acres of land, 2 horses, 1 yoke of oxen, 2 cows, and 3 hogs, and French was taxed for 20 acres of land, 1 horse, 1 yoke of oxen, 1 cow and one hog. The two families numbered · in all 19 persons, 10 in Smith's family, and 9 in French's. In Smith's family 2 were over and 8 under 16. French had 7 under 16 years old.
In 1765, the only persons in town were the families of Smith and French. They were both taxed. In 1766, Smith was in town and taxed the same as in 1765, but French's name disap- pears from the tax lists, and it is supposed that he sold out and left the town. Thus the population of the town was, in 1766, reduced to the one family of Abner Smith. And as Smith in a few years removed from the town, and left no descendants here to keep alive the memory of their father, the tradition sprung up and has prevailed, that there were no permanent settlements within the limits of Westhampton before 1767.
In 1767, there were only three families in the town, viz., that of Abner Smith, Timothy Pomeroy and Noah Strong, Jr. Tim- othy Pomeroy came from Southampton and purchased the plan-
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tation begun by French. He soon opened a tavern, which was greatly patronized by the hands working at the lead mine.
Old Nathaniel Strong, of Northampton, owned a large tract. of land situate between the Shirkshire or Norwich road and the northerly line of Southampton, and embracing the spot now occupied by Wm. J. Lyman. This land had a great orchard of sugar maples on it, and his boys came out here to make maple sugar in the spring. They brought their supplies with them, on horseback, erected in the woods a tent on poles, covered it with brush, and spent two or three weeks in the encampment making maple sugar. In this way, the land was explored, and his grandson, Noah Strong, Jr., was induced to commence a plantation near the orchard. In 1767, he put up a log house on the westerly side of the Southampton road, about half way between the present residence of Wm. J. Lyman and the road leading to Norwich or Huntington. His family consisted of his wife and two children. Very late in the fall, or early in December of the same year, his third child was born, whom he named Lemuel.
This was the first birth in the town of Westhampton, and it took place under somewhat peculiar cicumstances as they were . related by Rev. E. Hale, and others. In the small country towns, before the year 1794, the service of a physician was not often employed at the birth of a child. This matter was left almost wholly to the care and skill of midwives. But the near- est midwife to Noah Strong was one who lived in Northampton village, and old Mrs. Burt, who lived in Southampton, four or five miles distant. One had been engaged to be present at the approaching birth. But the birth took place in the winter time, and there had been a very severe snow storm, which filled to overflowing all the footpaths and by-ways leading to and from Noah Strong's house. His only neighbors were some distance off: Smith on the west side, and French's family more than a mile to the eastward. The storm made any communication with his neighbors or the midwife very difficult if not impossible. A messenger had been sent through the woods for the midwife ; but she did not come by reason of the deep snow. Word was sent to the neighboring families for aid. But the snow was deep and some time must elapse before any of the neighbors could get there. And some time after the child was born, in steps the midwife, with a hood over her head, and a tunic about her chest, having traveled several miles in snow shoes, without any path, and guided only by the blaze cut upon the trees.
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