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Gc 974.402 Sp8wr 1781136
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GG
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01101 2942
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THE GENESIS OF SPRINGFIELD mass.
The Development of the Town
Harry Andrew Wright
1936 JOHNSON'S BOOKSTORE Springfield, Massachusetts
181136
The Genesis of SPRINGFIELD
The Development of the Town
F
£449
.983
Wright, Harry Andrew, 1-72 .
The genesis of Springfield : the development of the town is. Harry Andrew Wright. Springfield, Mass, Johnson's Look- store, 1986.
47 D. illus. (incl. maps, facsim. ) 23 ..
1. Springfield, Mass. Mist. 2. Pynchon, William, 15002-1002. I. Tit !.
36-11011
M 830
Library of Congress 1.7.1.SAW97 - Copy 2. Copyright 1 91657 974.12
CHILL: CARU
.986
F 8449
COPYRIGHT, 1936, by Harry Andrew Wright Springfield, Massachusetts
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission
THE F. A. BASSETTE CO. PRINTERS
FOREWORD
A UTHORITY for the statements here made, is in the greater part, to be found in the Town and County Records, the Account Books of John Pynchon and the Collections of the Massachusetts His- torical Society.
Such sources will be so obvious and available to any de- siring confirmation or amplification of these statements that it seems needless to indicate them in detail. To do so would entail the annotation of nearly every sentence on some pages and result in a bewildering array of footnotes, with a conse- quent confusion to the casual reader, for whom this brochure is intended. Definite Volume and Page numbers will gladly be supplied to anyone interested.
Due to his lifelong residence and interest in the com- munity it has often been suggested that the compiler of this monograph write a history of early Springfield. This he has been hesitant to do, principally because he realizes that there evidently exists material necessary for such a work which is not at present available. Documents, letters and account books of the 17th century, relating to New England and to the Pynchons, are in private hands and unknown to students of the period. If such could be made accessible, they would be of the utmost value in the completion of an intriguing story.
This message carries with it a plea for information as to the present whereabouts of such documents.
HARRY ANDREW WRIGHT
Ingersoll Grove, Springfield, Massachusetts.
New Year's Day, Nineteen Thirty-Six.
WILLIAM PYNCHON
N EARLY three hundred and fifty years ago in the parish of Springfield, Essex, England, there lived a young man named William Pynchon, destined to become the founder of Springfield, in Massachusetts.
His environment was one of culture and refinement. His grandmother was a daughter of Sir Richard Empson, one of the ministers of Henry the Seventh. This lad of gentle birth and breeding lived in the days of romance and brave deeds - days of cavaliers and adventurers, of sea rovers and explorers. About the time of William Pynchon's birth, Shakspere wrote his first play. He was but nine when Richard Hakluyt completed that English epic, "The Princi- pal Voiages of the English Nation," with its true and thrill- ing stories of the greatest sailors the world has ever known. When he was thirteen, the Virgin Queen died. In his fifteenth year, Weymouth came back to Devonshire with his five kidnapped savages and his glowing accounts of that country since known as New England. That same year came the Gunpowder Plot. Capt. John Smith was making picturesque voyages and publishing countless reports of his discoveries, during the formative period of the young man's mind.
When he was twenty-six, Shakspere died and Pocahontas came to England as the wife of John Rolf, to be feted and dined at London, only thirty miles away. Two years later, Raleigh was beheaded in the tower.
The times and the events were such as to breed in an im- pressionable lad, a thirst for adventure and a longing for "traffiques and discoveries."
Pynchon grew to be a man well versed in affairs, of broad aggressive thought and logical mind, keen, clear sighted and practical. He was'acute, resolute and self assertive, with an indomitable will and a perseverance that recognized
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no obstacles. He was an insatiable student, ever seeking the right and the truth. His character was singularly com- plex, for while almost to the point of fanaticism he was a disciple of democracy and a champion of free speech and equal rights, yet he distrusted that phase of Puritanism which tended away from royalty.
Some years after the death of King James, he began to hear of the plans of a company that proposed to wring religious liberty and fortune from the new world. Alluring tales were told of the success of the French and Dutch in that great land beyond the seas, tales of inexhaustible stores of fish, lumber and furs as well as anticipation of precious minerals; of "rivers that stretch themselves far up into the country, even to the borders of divers great lakes where they kill and take most of their beavers and otters."
When he was solicited to become a member of that com- pany, which was to be controlled by men of wealth, men of title, men who could adequately finance a great commercial enterprise, he was much interested. While he had no particu- lar quarrel with the established church, yet he craved money for the benefits it brought, and the romance of the scheme appealed to him who had spent his life in that quiet country town. The political horizon in England was very dark and the fortunes of the people were in jeopardy. The reckless extravagances of Charles the First had resulted in taxes which bore heavily on the father of four growing children. Men who refused to pay enforced loans were thrown into jail, with the writ of habeas corpus denied them.
At length, it became evident that the King was determined to rule without a Parliament, and the die was cast. On March 4, 1629, a royal charter was granted to the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, and William Pynchon was one of the twenty-six patentees named by the King.
The Genesis of Springfield The Development of the Town
S PRINGFIELD was established by William Pynchon, who was born in Springfield, Essex, England about 1590 and came to Massachusetts in 1630, at the age of forty, mainly for economic reasons. He was of the leisure class with a good education and legal training. It was at a time when taxes in England were becoming increasingly burdensome and when the fortunes of the people were im- periled by the unwise acts of King Charles I. Conditions were not unlike those which we have been experiencing in recent years.
William Pynchon settled at Roxbury, where he lived for about five years and where he initiated his successful fur trading career. Associated with him at Roxbury were his son-in-law, Henry Smith, and Jehu Burr, a well-to-do carpenter whose principal claim to fame is that he was an ancestor of Aaron Burr. These three planned and financed the Springfield enterprise. Being practical and experienced in such affairs, they provided for the project two "great shallops"; prototypes of modern sloops.
With two scouts, John Cable, a carpenter and his assistant, John Woodcock, Pynchon presumably sailed for the Con- necticut in September, 1635, and selected the land at the junction of the Agawam and the Connecticut as the site for the future town, making a tentative bargain with the natives for the requisite land. Evidently leaving the two scouts to put up a house and plan for the winter, he went back to Boston, returning in the spring of 1636 to find that the
43 23 Sugh 1636
Wow forte fraiget of 16 zum 3 28.0 mi 4-23 Rapping et 350g cum ).
Now for 24 Juni" m le 23arelor al 45 y cium
. Per for & payant on 21 par-63. X
1
2.10. for 36. falgame & t.y. wamy allo 18.5 165.15.
35
1
& 10 atter fiml &x 4 heures
William Pynchon's account with John Winthrop, Junior, covering the shipment of household goods, from Roxbury to the Connecti- cut, of the Springfield pioneers. Other accounts show the ap- portionment to the individual settlers.
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Reckned wth Mr Jo Winthrop Junior this 23. Sept 1636
Dew for the fraight of 16 Tunn in the Blessing at 355 p Tunn
28. 00. 0
Dew for 24 Tunn in the
Batchelor at 455 p Tunn
54. 00. 0
Rcd for the pay ent of 21 sheep
63. 00. 0
pd for the passage of my Son Smyth
& 3 Daughters & 1 maid 2. 10. 0
for 36 fatham & 12 h. wamp at 105 18. 5.0
165. 15. 0
Resting of the first bill 35. 1.0
& 10 otter skins & 4 bevr skins weight 3 lb. 1/2
Transcript of William Pynchon's account with John Winthrop, Junior.
Pynchon's accounts and correspondence show that the cargo of the Blessing of the Bay was landed at Saybrook, while the Batchelor came up as far as Watertowne (Wethersfield) or Newtowne (Hartford).
4
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Indians had raised the price of the land. For this reason, coupled with other complications, he was compelled to move to the east side of the river. The settlement was designed as more than a mere trading post. It was one of five similar outposts on the west side of the Connecticut (Saybrook, Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor and Springfield), planned as barriers against. the Dutch, who threatened occupation of the valley. A mere question of detail was not allowed to affect the general policy, and the settlement was carried on in spite of minor discouragements. Many of the prospective settlers, however, "fell off for fear of the difficulties," as Henry Smith wrote. Of the eighteen men who agreed to come or who actually did come here prior to 1638, William Pyn- chon, Henry Smith and Thomas Horton, alone became per- manent settlers. Three newcomers arrived in 1638 and re- mained, but it was not until 1639 that the real settlement began.
Returning again to Boston, Pynchon arranged for the shipment of forty tons of freight and household goods in Governor Winthrop's two ships, the Blessing and the Batche- lor, then engaged in furthering the settlement of Saybrook, under John Winthrop, the younger. Sixteen ton carried by the Blessing was discharged at Saybrook and twenty-four ton in the Batchelor was delivered at Hartford or Wethers- field, all being brought up the river to Springfield in Pyn- chon's two shallops. Though there was at one time a trail known as the Bay Path, connecting Boston and Springfield, there is no evidence that it was known or used by the English at this time. Presumably the settlers came in the shallops or on the ships which brought their goods, and in the case of some of the Pynchon family, at least, this is known to be a fact, for there exists the account for such a passage of Pyn- chon's son-in-law, his three daughters and their maid.
It was not until July 15, 1636, that negotiations were com-
.
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pleted for the purchase of the land, and the marks of the Indians were secured to the deed. The land was bought in three parcels, the Agawam Meadows; the Long Meadow, and the strip from the Long Meadow to Chicopee River. For the three tracts the Indians received 20 coats, 18 hatchets, 18 hoes, 18 knives and 18 fathom of wampum. Computing these at their cost in England and adding the expense of the freight and adventure, which today would be called overhead and insurance, the value of these, based on the purchasing power of the dollar, as reduced to modern values, would be about $600. It is often said that the Indians were not given adequate compensation for their land, which is today of such value as to make it seem obvious that they did not receive fair treatment. The present-day value of the land, however, depends largely upon modern conditions; the original value of the land plus the improvements. The land has, of course, increased in value but the compensation would have in- creased proportionately. If Mr. Pynchon, instead of paying $600 for the territory, had elected to sit quiescent and put this sum out at 6% compound interest, and his heirs had followed the same plan to the present day, the total would now amount to nearly 231/2 billion dollars, a sum far greater than the national debt of normal times. It is not easy to compute the present value of the land and its improvements, but it could hardly equal that sum.
The necessity of moving to the east side of the Connecticut was most unfortunate and discouraging. Here was but a narrow spit of land, in length from Round Hill to York Street and in width from the river to the Main Street. On the west was the river and on the other three sides an almost impass- able marsh, probably the remains of a prehistoric bed of the river in an era when the Main Street district was an island in fact. East of the marsh, extending to the top of Armory and Crescent hills, was a fairly heavy growth of timber,
As the Hassocky Marsh would have appeared in 1636
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As the Hassocky Marsh would have appeared after being drained by the ditch which became the Town Brook.
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designated as the "wood lots." All the high ground beyond, and to the Wilbraham Hills, was spoken of as "pine barrens interspersed with unimprovable swamps." This marsh, which was called the "hassocky marsh," was quite wet and covered with hillocks or hummocks of coarse grass. In the old country they used to dig out these hassocks or hummocks by the roots and dry them and they were used in the churches as kneeling stools. As time went on, a frame work was made of wood and stuffed with that same grass, and covered with cloth, and so our grandmothers got the hassock of the house- hold and the name for it. Scattered about this marsh were sizable ponds. Until modern times, Frost's pond, a favorite skating place of our fathers, covered the area now enclosed by Market and Court Streets and Harrison Avenue. The "Laundry pond," in 1875, was at Hillman Street. In the last century it was not unusual to skate on the marsh from the Town to Brightwood.
Nearly connecting Round Hill and the hill at the junction of Locust and Main Streets was a lower hill, a sort of back- bone running the entire length of and parallel to Main Street. It is impossible to determine how high this hill was, but in 1675 the second First Church was ordered to be built on that hill and in 1728 the horse sheds were located at the foot of the hill, so that it must have been of noticeable height. At a parish meeting, May 27, 1749, it was "voted to level the hill where the old meeting house stands, in such manner as shall be proper for the suitable setting of the new meeting house in that place." A vestige of the hill can be seen today in the mound on which the Court House stands and it is even more apparent at Bliss and Howard Streets. Further confirmation of its existence is shown in the County Records of October 1, 1832, giving the original lay-out of West State Street as 379 feet westward from Main Street to the brow of the hill, thence 924 feet to the bank of the river. To one
1
Hill at Locust and Main Streets, about 1880.
A Vestige of the "Hill" at Howard Street Looking East from Columbus Avenue, 1936
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familiar with engineering procedure, this breaking of the course indicates a hill too high to see over. This data defi- nitely indicates the highest point, though it unfortunately gives no suggestion of the height of the hill.
The Town Street was laid out along the edge of the marsh and the bank of the marsh determined the present-day line of Main Street. At the South, the street ended at the im- passable marsh and turned west to the river with a lane which is now York Street, and at the north it also turned to the river at the lane which is now Cypress Street. A third road was "the way to the Training Place," now Elm Street. On the west side of Main Street, from Cypress to York, the home lots, some forty in number, were laid out. William Pynchon and his associates, his sons-in-law, Elizur Holyoke and Henry Smith, George Moxon, the pastor, Deacon Chapin and Thomas Stebbins, all lived in what was then, as it now is, the most desirable part of the town, that section between State and Lyman Streets. The majority of the home lots were eight rods broad, running westerly from the street to the river, but on the easterly side of the street each lot owner had a strip of the same width as his house lot, running to the top of the hill. That on the lower ground was a part of the marsh, later known as the wet meadow, with wood lots be- yond. Pynchon's house was at the corner of Main and Fort Streets. It was undoubtedly of wattle-and-daub construc- tion, that is, a kind of stucco made from mud and straw, and with a thatched roof. In 1660 John Pynchon built in front of it the brick house which became known as the Old Fort, and then the little house of 1636 became the ell and kitchen of the big house. In 1831 the brick house was pulled down and entirely destroyed and the original William Pynchon house is said to have been moved to Cross Street, where it remained until about fifty years ago. There are people still living who remember such a house, as it stood on the hillside, below the Colony Club.
SWISS LAUNDRY.
House formerly standing on Cross Street, which on insufficient evidence is reputed to have been built by William Pynchon in 1636. The Orne mansion (site of the Colony Club) in the background.
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This story is based on such questionable tradition that it cannot be taken seriously. A practical person would hardly have moved across the town, a moderate sized, two century old building, hastily constructed, under primitive conditions. Existing photographs of the house in its final location show roof lines such as to date the building as late as the 18th century, at least. The growth of the tradition is such a perfect example of how such stories come to be, that it is well to rehearse the facts.
The tale seems to have originated with Dr. Alfred Booth who was born in Longmeadow on October 10, 1824 and came to Springfield two years later. He grew to be a man of precise ideas with a keen analytical mind. In 1868 he wrote a series of historical articles for local newspapers and his statements seem not to have been questioned. He could hardly have remembered the house in its original location, but he cer- tainly had ample opportunity to know it in its ultimate state. He said that the John Pynchon house, "was the first brick house; built here as early as 1660, and torn down in 1831. A small wooden back part, built years after the main structure, was moved to the east end of Cross Street and fitted up as a small dwelling."
Judge Henry Morris, in a paper read January 6, 1879, at a meeting of the Historical Society, said that "the new house was built of brick, in front of the old house, the old house serving as an appendage to the new. It is not improbable that the older house was that in which William Pynchon lived. When the brick house was taken down in 1831, this wooden building was removed to Cross Street and fitted up for a dwelling. It had often been repaired and in its present condition bears but little outward likeness to the original structure. But in some of its parts it is probably the oldest building in the city."
King's "Handbook of Springfield," published in 1884,
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said, - "The wooden house which had been the home of William Pynchon was connected with the new brick house and made to serve as an appendage to it. It was removed in 1831 to the easterly part of Cross Street, where in an altered state, in 1883, it serves as a dwelling house. There are still marks of antiquity about it."
Charles H. Barrows, in his "Historical Address," published in 1916, said, - "Upon the demolition of the 'fort', the wooden annex, which Judge Henry Morris, perhaps on the authority of his father, Oliver B. Morris, believed to have been a part of the original house on the same spot, occupied by William Pynchon, was removed to Cross Street. To it I took the artist (Copeland) who was making pictures for King's Handbook and his drawing is accurate except for the fanciful rural background. This wooden building was de- molished about thirty years ago by Milton Bradley."
Thus we have the sequence. In 1868 the house was said to have been built years after the main structure. It might. have been any one of the numerous outbuildings erected on the Pynchon property at any time within a period of nearly two hundred years. Eleven years later it was said that it was not improbable that it was William Pynchon's house. Four years later, in a publication written for popular con- sumption, it had positively become William Pynchon's. After a lapse of another thirty-two years, a careful lawyer, of the old school was less positive. He was of an historical mind and suggested a bit of skepticism.
The choice of words makes it appear obvious that each of these later writers quoted the earlier, so much so that it seems desirable to go back to the first and discard the later story, concluding that the building in question has no histori- cal interest or value whatever.
One of the earliest lot divisions was that for the ministry, extending from Besse Place to the south line of Forbes &
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Wallace front building. Here lived the successive church pastors until 1806, when it was divided into three parcels and sold by order of the General Court. By 1846 it had again become an entity under the ownership of the Barnes family and so remained for five years. Vernon Street was cut through, and then the division began anew.
From the street to the river the house lots were divided by fences, which a town order directed should be either of five foot paling or else of five rails. The same order provided for the compulsory joining of neighbors in the building of a division fence between two lots. The rail fences were of a substantial type, the rails being let into mortises in the posts. Such fencing must have been instituted quite early, for on November 23, 1638, it was "ordered that a foot path and stiles be allowed through every man's lot and next the great river."
Within these enclosed house lots were not only the houses and outbuildings, but orchards and gardens as well. None of the early buildings were of the type later familiar on the western frontier and known as log houses. Log houses were first built in America by the Swedes who came to Delaware in 1638, but it was many years before a knowledge of such construction spread to Massachusetts. The earliest log house of which there is any local record was that built by David Morgan for John Pynchon in 1678. This was at Round Hill, which had been given to him in 1654 for a sheep pasture and was undoubtedly to house a sheep herder.
Construction of the first Springfield houses followed the methods and design familiar to the early settlers when they lived in England. The roofs were thatched; the sides were of weather boarding or wattle-and-daub. These newcomers, appalled by the unexpected severity of the winters, found that the mud-stucco siding succumbed to the rigors of ice and snow and for protection they were forced to overlay it with
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additional outside covering of boarding. The development of local building construction is plainly shown in known ex- amples of early Springfield.
The house built for the first minister in 1639 had wattle- and-daub sides and a thatched roof. The first church, of 1645, was also of wattle-and-daub, but the roof was shingled. Seven years later the outside was clapboarded. The shop built for the village smith in 1646 was "boarded both roof and sides." The first schoolhouse, built in 1679 had sides of clapboards and a roof of shingles.
The tendency away from thatched roofs was in a great measure due to fear of fire. Chimneys were of clay-daubed timbers. Such construction was common and satisfactory in England, with its mild winters, but throughout New Eng- land, a series of disastrous fires gave cause for eventually banning such hazardous construction.
The fire terror was ever present. If the household fire became extinguished through neglect, it was customary to send to a neighbor's for glowing embers to rekindle it. Dur- ing transportation, a fickle wind might carry sparks to a flimsy roof, so that it was ordered that no person should "carry fire in the street without a covering." In addition it was provided that "every householder shall have in readiness about his house a ladder about sixteen rungs or steps, at least, to prevent the damage of fire."
In many New England towns building construction was influenced by an abundance of stone but here it was equally influenced by an utter lack of it. The town proper, the meadows west of the Connecticut, as well as the high ground east of the town were all absolutely devoid of stone of any kind. Such was the scarcity that the minister's house built in 1639 had "the sides of the cellar planked."
Evidence of the value placed on building stone is shown in the selectmen's order of February 10, 1652-53, which
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"granted to Rowland Thomas liberty to carry away those stones he hath dudged in Powscowsack River by the end of June, no man to molest him in the mayne time but in case he leve any after that tyme it shall be free for any man to take them."
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