USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > West Springfield > Account of the centennial celebration of the town of West Springfield, Mass. : Wednesday, March 25th, 1874 : with the historical address of Thomas E. Vermilye the poem of Mrs. Ellen P. Champion, and other facts and speeches > Part 11
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GENEALOGY OF THE WADE FAMILY.
James Wade, a native of Medford, Mass., born July, 1750, died May, 1826, mar- ried Mary, daughter of Rev. Edward Upham, January 15, 1780. Their children, all born in Feeding Hills, Mass., were Martha, born 1782, died 1863, 81 years ; Nancy, born 1786, died 1865, 79 ; Mary, born 1787, died 1866, 79 ; James, born 1789, died 1868, 79; Sidney, born 1793, died 1847, 54 ; Theodore, born 1797, died 1863, 70 ; Charles, born 1798; Benjamin F., born 1800; Edward, born 1802, died 1866, 64.
James, the father, was a shoe-maker and common soldier, was at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and was confined for a long time a prisoner at Halifax. He removed to Andover, O , in 1821, traveling, as was the custom of those times, with an ox team and covered wagon. Benjamin F. and Edward claim to have walked the entire distance. The sons were self-educated, and for a time all school-teachers.
James settled in Watervliet, N. Y., was a physician and had an extensive practice.
Theodore, Charles and Sydney became farmers and settled in Andover, O.
Edward studied law and settled in Cleveland, O. He was a great temperance and abolition advocate, a member of Congress, and committee on commerce from 1853 to 1861. He is said to have been one of the ablest lawyers of the Cleveland bar, honest, high-minded, a genuine democrat.
Benjamin Franklin Wade, distinguished as a zealous opponent of slavery, resides in Ashtabula county, Ohio. He taught school and studied law in his youth ; was admitted to the bar in 1828; was elected a member of the Ohio Senate in 1837; was chosen presiding judge of the third judicial district in that State, in 1847; was sent to the U. S. Senate in 1851 ; was re-elected Senator for six years, in 1857 ; was made President of the Senate in 1867 ; having been selected for that office on account of his resolute character, and inflexible fidelity to the cause of liberty, and has been honored with many trusts. In the early days of the Rebellion, he was appointed chairman of the joint committee on the conduct of the war. In 1871 he was one of the commission to visit San Domingo, and report on its annexation to the United States, and is now attorney for the Northern Pacific Railroad.
GENEALOGY OF THE WHITE FAMILY.
Elder John, who came from England to Cambridge, Mass., in 1632, is the father of most of this name in New England. Daniel, the son of Deacon Nathaniel, the
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son of Captain Nathaniel, the son of Elder John, came from Hadley and settled in West Springfield about 1715. His son Daniel, was a carpenter, and built a house of hewn logs, on the north side of Meeting-house hill, which stood till about 1850. Here were born to him Horace, the father of Sewall, the father of Homer and Wil- liam ; Pliny, the father of Daniel G. and Daniel G., Jr., and Edward, the father of Edward, the father of Chauncey. The last named of each of these branches now own, in part, the homesteads of their grandfathers.
Henry White, connected with the Heman Day family, is the son of Julius, the son of Elijah, the son of Joel, the son of Captain Daniel, the son of Lieutenant Daniel, the son of Elder John.
Francis and Joseph White, are sons of Jared, the son of Martin, the son of Pre- served, the son of Preserved, the son of Daniel, who first settled in West Spring- field.
GENEALOGY OF THE BLISS FAMILY.
Thomas Bliss, an early settler of Hartford, Ct., died there in 1640. His widow, Margaret, removed to Springfield in 1646, with four sons and four daughters ; leav- ing Thomas, her eldest son, married at Saybrook, whence he removed to Norwich.
Of the four sons who came to Springfield, Mass., with their mother, the second was Lawrence. He died 1676.
Lawrence married Lydia Wright, October 25, 1654. They had nine children. Of these, the youngest, Pelatiah, was born August 19, 1674. , He died January 2, I747-8.
Pelatiah married Elizabeth Hitchcock, April 21, 1698. They had nine children. Caleb, the eighth, married Editha Day, January 5, 1739-40. Deacon Caleb, (the father,) died May 22, 1758.
Deacon Caleb and Editha had eight children. Pelatiah, (" Colonel Pelatiah,") was the fifth. He married Ruth Woodworth in 1773 ; died October 29, 1828.
Col. Pelatiah had six children. Jeduthan, the eldest, was born April 10, 1774 ; married Susannah Tracey, 1805. They had eight children, of whom Luke, the present post-master of Mittineaque, is one, and Susan, wife of John D. Smith, of Tatham, another.
Miss Sophia, a daughter of Col. Pelatiah, born March 19, 1781, still resides with her niece, Mrs. Ruth Beals, in Sunderland, Mass.
The youngest son of Widow Margaret Bliss, was John. He married Patience Burt, 1667, and died September 20, 1702. John and Patience had seven children. Ebenezer, the seventh, was born 1683 ; married Joanna Lamb; had eight children, and died November 4, 1761. Rev. John was the seventh of these ; born June 6, 1736 ; ordained November 9, 1765 ; married - White, of Bolton, Ct., and had six children, as follows : John, Betsey, Achsah, Joel W., Hosea and Daniel. Achsah married Ruggles Kent, who came from Suffield, Ct., and settled in West Springfield. Hosea, "Uncle Hosea" as he was commonly called, married -Rogers, and was the chief blacksmith of Ashleyville, for many years. William Bliss, one of the sons of Hosea, still resides in Ashleyville.
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REMINISCENCES OF WEST SPRINGFIELD.
In the early days, one Cooper, a farm laborer, agreed with one Ash- ley, a farmer, to work six months, at $7 per month ; but if for a longer time, he would work at a less rate. Farmer Ashley finally bargained for seven months at $6 per month, which was perfectly satisfactory.
The standard price of land in Chicopee field was, for some time, twenty shillings per acre ; but one tract of seven acres, belonging to a man by the name of Bagg, was actually sold for a " Barlow " knife (a choice specimen of English pocket cutlery).
SEYMOUR BAGG.
About the year 1800, Mr. Jonathan Brooks dug potatoes in Chico- pee field, and took them on an ox cart to "Skipmug," now Chicopee Falls, and sold them for a shilling a bushel. There was neither bridge nor ferry at Chicopee then, and he drove by the way of Springfield bridge, a distance of about ten miles both ways fording the Chicopee river, in order to reach the Ames paper mill employes.
REUBEN BROOKS.
Dr. Lathrop was a short, broad-shouldered man, and, in his latter days, had a tremulous motion and a gruff voice. For nearly twenty years, he visited his brother minister, the Rev. Bezaleel Howard, of the First Church in Springfield, twice a week, usually riding horseback, as he was fond of this exercise. CHARLES HOWARD.
Dr. Lathrop once was somewhat annoyed in trying to bore a hole through a short stick for a beetle, when a half-witted fellow suggested his putting it in a hog's trough, to keep it from turning ; which idea was used and pleased the doctor greatly.
Dr. Lathrop composed with rapidity, and wrote with a quill, turning it round and round, one quill lasting to write several sermons. He usually made his pastoral visits on Monday and Tuesday. He lived with great economy, and no carpet was in his house for many years. He always dressed in black, and when his coat faded, a tailoress came to the house and turned it. Madame Lathrop, also, dressed in plain homespun, and, although she lived in the days of hoop skirts and cor- sets, she never considered them a necessary appendage to the dress of a minister's wife * She superintended well her household, and on every day in the year, except Sunday, a boiled Indian pudding was served at her dinner-table. SEWALL WHITE.
* There are, in the Springfield Museum, specimens of the corsets and hoops used in West Springfield, previous to the year 1800.
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At Dr. Sprague's ordination, in 1819, the event was so unusual there was a great gathering, and when the church doors were opened, the press was so great that coats were torn, and boys trampled on. Stands, for the sale of gingerbread and watermelons, were erected on the north side of the church. AARON BAGG
The large trees that adorn Ramapogue street, were set by Lewis and Ebenezer Day and John Ely, about the year 1774, and were dug at Barber's swamp, back of the house of Hiram Carter, in Tatham. Mr. Lewis Day, who lived to be eighty, and died in Deerfield, N. Y., inquired of Mr. Julius Day, who was visiting him in his last years, if those trees were standing and appreciated. When assured they were, he replied, "Then I get pay for setting them." Ebenezer Day lived near the house now occupied by Samuel Smith. The house had dia- mond-shaped window-panes, and was pulled down about 1830.
JULIUS DAY.
The large button-woods, near the house of Joseph Morgan, in Chic- opee, were set by Darius Ely, when a hired man for Abner Morgan, in 1782.
SAMUEL MORGAN.
June 25, 1776, when a draft was made for the army, forty-four men were assigned Springfield, and forty-eight West Springfield.
1775. West Springfield sent fifty-three men to the war, under com- mand of Capt. Enoch Chapin and Lieutenants Samuel Flower and Luke Day.
News of the battle of Lexington reached Springfield at noon on the second day after it occurred, and the next morning, Col. Patterson's regiment started thence for Boston.
The Shay's Rebellion, squelched January 24, 1787, was aided by the brave Capt. Luke Day, who, after seven years' honorable service in the Revolutionary war, fell into its advocacy at the old Stebbins tavern, now occupied as a private residence by Mr. Lucien Bliss. Adjutant Elijah Day, Benjamin Ely and Daniel Luddington were his associates and abettors. Capt. Day drilled his men on the common, armed them with hickory clubs, and uniformed them with hemlock sprigs. Once they seized the Springfield ferry and searched every man who passed. The government party were distinguished by slips of white paper on their hats.
A newspaper, called the " American Intelligencer," was established in West Springfield, August, 1795. Richard Davidson, an English- man, was the proprietor. Edward Gray soon after bought it, and con- tinued it, weekly, for three years, doing, also, job work, when he re- moved to Suffield, Conn., and still later, to Hartford. Mr. Gray's office was a few rods west of the old meeting-house.
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The Hampden Grays were a famous military company, organized in West Springfield, in 1832, and noted throughout the State for accuracy, promptitude, and the neatness of their uniforms and drill. Linus Bagg, Edward Parsons, Henry Parsons and Enoch N. Smith, were successively its captains, and every private seemed to take pride in its exploits. By a change of law, it was disbanded about 1840.
Nathan Ely, born 1759, was an officer's waiter at the age of 17, in the Revolutionary war. While at Albany, N. Y., the officer had a con- sultation about sending a reliable man to Boston for supplies. From an adjoining room, young Ely overheard the remark, "Send Ely, he is an honest devil, and never swears."
Dr. Lathrop's prestige in divinity did not destroy his sociability with the common people He employed farm help, and was jovial with them. At sheep-shearing time, it was his custom to go and visit the shearers every forenoon, and enliven their monotonous employment by the relation of circumstances and events of the past. His men always knew when he was about to leave them, because he was in the habit of reserving the most unreliable and unlikely story for the last, and when that came on the docket and was under way, his departure was inevi- table.
Thompson Phillips lived at "Aries Little," opposite Mittineaque, and was the leading joker of the town. On town meeting days he stood the " head centre " of attraction for the assembled multitude. Some of his jokes were very personal and pointed. At one time, he gathered a quantity of sorrell seed, and peddled it around as grass seed, under the representation of a new variety, called " Flare Top." At another time, he procured some pamphlets, made entirely of plain white paper, without any writing or printing on them, and offered them for sale as the " dying man's speech," many persons taking them at his word without examination ; but, when confronted by his victims. he got off by exclaiming : " Oh ; he died without saying anything." His like does not reside hereabouts now. His propensity for curt joking was not diminished by the approach of death ; for, in one instance when a neighbor was dangerously sick, he cautiously opened the back door of the sick man's house, and inquired in respectful tone after the con- dition of the sick man, and on being informed that no change was apparent, he gravely inquired, " Are there any hopes of his death, marm?" And many like deeds did this man do.
Jerre Stebbins kept a small store of goods, and exchanged them with the farmers for their productions. Among his commodities for sale were some small grindstones, leaning against the outside of the store One day, Phillips got a farmer to enter the store and inquire
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of Mr. Stebbins how much he paid for cheese ; the price was named, and the farmer promised to bring one in. Phillips and his comrades, in the meantime, had papered up a small grindstone, outside the store, and the farmer delivered it upon the counter, while Phillips and his comrades stood watching for the explosion of the merchant as he opened the package.
PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
A library with forty subscribers, headed by Rev. Dr. Lathrop, was started December, 1775, and divided among the shareholders, October, 1807. It attained the magnitude of fifty-six volumes, was kept in a two-bushel basket, and made the circuit of the parish, lodging with the most responsible families.
Another library started in 1810, which never exceeded the capacity of an ordinary cupboard. had its head quarters at the Town House, and was divided by sale about the year 1840. The present Town library, founded by individual subscriptions about 1854, is increasing in patron- age, and has already attained about 1,500 volumes.
THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COMMON.
This structure, as near as can be ascertained, was erected in the year 1740, and stood upon the Common, east of the old Meeting-house, among a group of scattered trees, which lent a shade of pleasantness to the locality. The style of its architecture is nameless, but has been in use for centuries. and was the base from which has been developed the details of the French style of house building, by Mansard and others, but was known here as the gambrel roof pattern. The frame is still sound and firm, and must have been carefully put together, the size being forty feet long, twenty feet wide and twelve feet high from sill to eaves. It was finished with only one outside door, placed in the mid- dle of the front or south side, two windows each side of the door, two in each end. and four in the back side of the house. It was covered with narrow clapboards, exposing between three and four inches in width to the weather, which appear to have once been painted white. A chim- ney was placed in each end of the house, each containing two fireplaces big enough to contain " back-log and fore-stick," according to the usage of the times.
The lower story was divided into an east and west room, by a hall four feet wide, leading from the front door to the rear of the building, and were used by the smaller scholars, and in which Ann Cooley taught the children for twenty successive years.
The upper room, which occupied the entire length and width of the building, was in the " French roof," and was reached by a flight of stairs starting at the back end of the hall, and turning to the west by one
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CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
broad stair. It was lighted by two windows in each end, three dormer windows in the front, and two in the rear, and warmed in winter by two blazing fires in the fire-places at each end of the room. In this room was kept the " High School" of the town, inasmuch as it was the only one kept in the second story, and served as a college for the large boys and girls, in which, for the period of eighty years, the free dispen- sation of knowledge and birch, has been made according to law, and it is difficult for the human mind to comprehend the full complement of the two commodities named, that have been wielded during the four- score years of their application. How many an unlucky wight, whose diurnal duties brought him to this place, has had his soul blighted and crushed with the application of the embers-drawn stick, as each succes- sive blow came basting across his back, or his calves made to tingle with the repeated applications of government, from the strong hand of the knight, whose duty it was to reign, teach and punish. How many light and tender hearts have been made heavy and sad in the bosoms of the wayward girls, by the withering look, shot like an arrow to the soul, from him who presided over the realm of that long and busy room, the reader can never know, but is left in his reflections to conjecture, that not a few hearts in that sovereign apartment have found their sev- eral affinities, and opportunities " to meet and mingle."
For several years before the building went into disuse for the pur- poses of education, the school district, like all similar organizations, was the scene of annual clamorings by " men of many minds," for a new house, or some improvement of the old, and votes to rebuild or repair, were annually made, and as often rescinded, until the year 1818, when the district voted to raise $800 for a new school-house, which was raised and expended in a brick structure, containing three school-rooms on the first floor, and a hall in the second story for the use of the town, which being completed in 1820, the old school-house on the Common was sold and moved away, after having served the purposes of the edu- cation of youth for eighty years. It now stands on the grounds of Wil- liam White, in use as a storehouse, and is in a good state of preserva- tion after a life of one hundred and thirty-four years.
THE BIG ELM.
One of the largest trees in the State, is the great Elm standing on land of Mrs. Heman Smith, and Mrs. A. W. Allen, situated on the west side of Main street, in West Springfield. The land it occupies was formerly a part of the farm of the late Heman Day, Esq., and the tree was set by him on his twenty-first birthday, January 27, 1776, he having brought it out of the West Springfield meadows on his shoulder,
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it being then a thrifty tree of eight or ten years' growth. He set other trees in the vicinity, but this was his favorite tree, and his dwelling being on the opposite side of the street, he daily watched its luxuriant growth for sixty-one years, at which period he was gathered to his fathers, at the honored age of eighty-two years.
The tree flourished wonderfully, and drew the admiration of many persons from afar. The cut herein presented, was engraved from a pho- tograph of the tree, taken in 1874, and is a correct representation of its features and dimensions ; the circumference of its trunk, at its smallest diameter, measuring on the surface of the outer bark, traverses the space of twenty-seven feet ; its branches extend a distance of one hun- dred and twelve feet, thus sheltering an area of nine thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two square feet, and overhanging a circumference of three hundred and fifty-two lineal feet, affording shade for a regiment of men. The trunk appears to be sound, and the foliages hows a full- sized leaf, as fresh as a tree of twenty years' growth.
It is to be hoped that this last of the big trees of the original " Aga- wam," will be spared by the woodman's axe, and the day far in the dis- tant future when the revolving cycle of time shall lay low this splendid specimen of vegetable growth, emblem of symmetry and of strength ; having already braved the tempests of more than a century, with not a friendly companion standing near to shield it from the blasts of the pitiless storm.
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE ON THE COMMON.
It is difficult to do justice to the memory of this unique and demol- ished structure, because of the conflicting opinions in regard to its con- struction ; but its history is not entirely obscure.
In May, 1695, the inhabitants of Springfield living on the west side of the "Great River," consisting of thirty-two families, presented a pe- tition to the " Great and General Courte," that they " might be permitted to invite and settle a minister," and the town of Springfield appointed a committee to follow the petitioners to the "Courte," and object to that permission. But the "Courte " investigated the matter, and in November, 1696, " ordered that said petitioners be permitted. and al- lowed, to invite, procure, and settle, a learned and orthodox minister, on the west side of Connecticut river, to dispense the word of God unto those that dwell there, and that they be a distinct and separate pre- cinct for that purpose."
In June, 1698, the church was formed, and the Rev. John Wood- bridge was constituted its first pastor, but it does not appear that the inhabitants had any particular place for worship during the first four years of their organization as a church. The inhabitants of the "pre-
21702-
T.CHUBBUCK SPRINGFIELD MO
THE FIRST MEETING - HOUSE. BUILT IN 1702.
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cint," however, commenced the erection of a " meeting-house," and it was completed June 24, 1702, much to their joy and satisfaction. One writer has said that it remained for one hundred and eighteen years, " a curious specimen of ancient architecture. and a monument of the piety and zeal of our fathers ; " the architect being John Allys, of Hatfield. who, twenty-five years previously had erected on the east side of the river. the second meeting-house ever built in Springfield. to take the place of the first small structure. the dimensions of which were twenty-five feet wide, by forty feet long, erected in 1645. by John Burr, the first carpen- ter who ever penetrated the " Bay Path " from the coast to Connecticut river.
The timber for the construction of the meeting-house, was prepared from trees grown on the common. near the spot where the house was placed. and the inhabitants were so few, that all the men and boys of the precinct, could find room to be all seated at once upon the sills of the house after the frame was raised. The house was forty-two feet square, and ninety-two feet in height. The first story, constituting audience room and galleries, was covered with four steep. uniform high roofs, each side being of equal dimensions, and upon each of the four roofs projected a triangular dormer gable, pierced with a win- dow. This story was finished with three outside doors one each in the center of the south, east and west sides, and two windows each side of the doors with corresponding windows above them to light the gal- leries. The pulpit, placed on the north side, occupying the place of a doorway, was lighted by one window on each side.
Above this story was placed another much smaller than the first, having one window on each side of the story. and high roofs and gables like the one below. Upon this was erected a third story, smaller than the second, with corresponding roofs and gables, the body portion of the story having on each side a large opening. to serve the purpose of a bell room ; thus making a succession of houses, one surmounting the other, each being correspondingly and symmetrically smaller than the one directly beneath it.
The upper superstructure supported a strong iron rod, on which was mounted a huge vane of sheet iron, through which were cut several de- vices, and also the figures 1702, the date of the erection of the house. Above this was perched an ambitious rooster, the ever-cherished weath- er-cock of those days, whose reckonings of the weather would beat Sir Robert B. Thomas' Almanac, and even Old Probabilities himself. This animal, and also the one on the meeting-house on the east side of the river, were imported from England ; composed of gilded copper, and were each four feet in length. One is still in use on the First Church in Springfield, but the whereabouts of our chanticleer rests in oblivion.
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The structure was clapboarded, but was never painted. All the win- dows were small, made of leaden sash and glazed with small diamond- shaped glass.
The second story was supported by two pairs of massive beams set transversely, and resting on the eaves-plates of the first story, depend- ing on which were the four corner posts of the second story, which ran down several feet below the cross timbers, terminating in the shape of a heart, being interlocked to the cross beams, and ran up to the eaves of the second story ; these four cross timbers operating as sills for the second story.
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