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 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
I
1
695
790
362 .74. 93
P a :
C t
t f a
i
I
u
C h I i
C
t d
0
y
33
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
population covering the ancient territory of West Springfield, not so very far behind that of Springfield in numbers.
The first parish of West Springfield was constituted the 27th of May, 1696, and the first church was organized in June, 1698, about sixty years after the settlement of the place. Two things seem to be implied in this statement: First, that with Puritan piety, their religious organization was first attended to, as it preceded the incorporation of the town by nearly eighty years ; and secondly, that before that time they were accustomed to cross the river to worship in Springfield, which was regarded as the home. The application to the General Court at Boston, to authorize them to form a separate parish, brings this latter fact very strongly to light. It enlarges upon the inconvenience and danger to which they were subjected by being obliged to cross the river, and the General Court, with commendable cau- tion, and in the quaint phraseology of the day, resolved to nom- inate "indifferent men," who should adjudicate and settle the matter.
The oldest burying-ground is said to have been given to the parish by a Mr. Foster. The oldest grave-stones found there are dated in 1711 and 1712; but there must have been many interments previous to that time in the ground in Springfield, which must have the oldest burying-place, and the oldest mon- uments, probably, in all Western Massachusetts.
The first meeting-house was occupied in 1702. It was lo- cated on the Common, near where the new Park Street meeting- house now stands, and almost in front of this new Town House. It was forty-two feet square by ninety-two feet high, in humble imitation, one might think, of the tower of Babel, and well calculated to cause a shudder in all lovers of elegant, architec- tural proportions. It had three roofs, going up to a point, and doors on three sides. There the people met each Sabbath and on public days, for just one hundred years ; for about forty years by sound of drum. In 1743, a bell was procured, which 5
171
34
WEST SPRINGFIELD
was once recast, and on the opening of the new meeting-house was placed in its steeple. The first minister was Rev. Mr. Woodbridge; the second, Mr. Hopkins; both able and popular men in their day, and both bearing names that in succeeding generations have been conspicuous and honored in the theologi- cal and educational annals of New England. From the un- gainly pulpit of that ungainly house they preached the Word with all fidelity ; Mr. Woodbridge for twenty, and Mr. Hopkins for thirty-five years ; and from it, also, were delivered by Dr. Lathrop many model sermons, among the most sensible and excellent in matter, singularly clear and simple in arrangement, and clas- sical in style, ever preached in New England, as his published volumes attest. No man of his day, probably, wrote as many and as good sermons as he. He was said to have written 5,000 ; thus proving that that farming community was not so rude and unlettered that their minister lacked stimulus for study and ex- ertion ; it has ever been thus in West Springfield; and show- ing also that he was not so sluggish as to allow his position to tempt him to indolence in his 'great work. Indeed, in mind, in industry, in influence, and success, he was one of the foremost men in the land. Not more diligently did the people cultivate their fields than he his spiritual charge, which by such hus- bandry became " a field which the Lord hath blessed." Be- sides the volumes given to the press, he left large stores of man- uscript sermons, which, for years after, were accustomed, in the absence of their minister, to be read by his son at deacons' meetings, and always to the satisfaction of the old people, who seemed by the reader and the sermon to be carried back to the days when the venerable man himself stood before them. ] always felt quite comfortable, when necessarily absent, in the assurance that the people would not lose by a deacons' meet- ing and a good sermon from Dr. Lathrop's pile; and I am not certain the people did not sometimes have the same feeling.
The singular old structure, in time became so dilapidated
Ca 0 $ b S a an in th
t
ti
n t P J S
V
t
S t S t f S
fr er
T of
se
35
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
that the winds and the rain had free entrance and exit. It is said, that at a public meeting the rain came down so abundantly that a member proposed they should adjourn under the trees for shelter. And if a pleasant satirical poem, by Dr. Lathrop, was to be literally interpreted, the geese and the cattle found com- fortable quarters during the week, where the Christians wor- shiped on the Sabbath. A copy of this poem was given to me by the late 'Squire Samuel Lathrop, and the good-humored ridicule seemed to have had a happy effect. But diversity of views and wishes as to its location, prevented the building of a new meeting-house for a long time, and somewhat endangered the peace of the Society. The controversy was at length com- posed by the wise agency of Dr. Lathrop, and by the gift of Mr. John Ashley, which now forms the Parish fund, and was be- stowed on the conditions that all parties would agree to the loca- tion he should select, and that the meeting-house should remain there for a hundred years. It was opened in 1802, and has en- dured for seventy-two of the prescribed term of years. Thus came the church on the hill, which became thenceforth the Hill of Zion and the hill of peace. The building contract was for $ 1,400 and ten gallons of good rum ! The pews were occupied by families according to the arrangement of what was called a Seating Committee; the aged persons having the preference, and being advanced towards the pulpit. A mark of respect, and perhaps, also, a gentle reminder that they were getting on in years, and needed to pay particular attention to the words of the preacher. A lot in Agawam meadows is still known as the " Seatin lot," from the fact that the committee, while resting from their work at noon, (beavering, I think they call it,) gath- ered under the elms and seated the meeting-house. A very primitive and even Old Testament mode of doing business ! The seats were free ; but every one was taxed for the support of the standing order, unless he signed off ; i. e., declared him- self to be a member of some other society, to which he paid
1148954
36
WEST SPRINGFIELD
taxes. (This law was altered or annulled, I think, while I was settled here.) The standing order was the Congregational ; ex- clusive of the Episcopalians, Baptists and Methodists. More- over a fine was imposed upon such as absented themselves for a certain time from the regular Sabbath services, and hence the remark, that one went to meeting often enough to save his fine. These and like practices, and the fact that the authorizing and bounding of parishes, i. e., in reality the establishment of churches was a prerogative of the General Court, show how strong a hold the ideas and ways of England still kept over the minds of the colonists. Nor need it create surprise. Men do not, at a bound, reach the goal of final right on any subject, and as little do they emancipate themselves in a moment from old ideas and customs. The truth is that the separate spheres of church and state, and real " freedom to worship God" according to the dictates of one's own conscience, were principles to which no party of the Reformers or of that age had fully attained. Not the established church of England, surely. Not the Puri- tans, as portions of their history show; nor the Presbyterians of Scotland, for there is as much truth as sarcasm in Milton's words, " New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." Those great thoughts grew into principles and usage much later, after many struggles and only on this soil; nor are they everywhere nor yet in perfect practical operation, even among ourselves.
This connection prompts me to say a few words in regard to the ministry of early New England, and their successors. The ministers were, as a general thing, men of decided ability, or they could not have stood foremost in the great enterprise in hand ; men of learning, and many of them of superior culture. They had received all the training the Universities could give ; had taken the several degrees which attested their proficiency, and had had regular ordination, and some of them held promi- nent places in the church of England before they broke from its fold and came to the New World. As far then, as they were
V n
i C t t u
a
t
S
r
P
t d
V
e a
r
b
37
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
leaders, and no other class was so much so, the Puritans were not led, nor was New England settled, by a rabble of vulgar, ignorant fanatics, while the great sentiment which guided their course naturally ennobled them and their deeds. Religion was the motive power, and not commercial gain. A marvelous in- tensity of religious convictions, which in our day we can scarcely understand, and regard perhaps as only a strange scrupulosity about matters indifferent and trivial; these religious convic- tions, which could not be quelled, and would brook no compro- mise, God infused into their souls, to impel them to break the strong ties of kindred and country, to tempt the ocean in mis- erable ships, and to plant themselves on the edge of a wilderness behind which stretched out a vast continent, on whose very borders, even at their entrance, they seemed to hear the com- mand that they should go up upon the length and the breadth of the land to possess it. One spirit animated pastors and peo- ple. No colonists, of whom history gives us any record, were ever impelled by such a spirit, and guided by such leaders. With their piety the ministers brought their learning ; their trained habits of thinking, and of careful preparation for their duties. With their learning they brought their books ; in some instances, libraries containing volumes of profound research and rare value-the best erudition of the age. Education was a necessity of State. An educated ministry was one of the stones laid at the very foundation of the edifice they reared. To pro- vide for this object, and for the education of their children, was Harvard College founded as soon as possible, and ever since, education has been a cardinal point, a glory of New England, and an educated ministry indispensable.
But they were not a morose class, although the position and work of the first generation might well make them very serious. We smile, indeed, to read of the set, and very formal, solemn manners which existed, for example, in President Edwards' fam- ily. Such formality and precision, it is true, were quite com-
38
WEST SPRINGFIELD
mon ; the virtue of reverence was inculcated upon the young with great care; but these manners did not eradicate human nature; rather they raised and refined it ; while the humor, the anecdotes we read of, the pleasantry, the wit which abounded in the social intercourse of many of the old ministers, prove that their real piety was not an enemy to domestic and social enjoyment ; that a timely laugh, and even a joke, were not the unpardonable sin. " A large, roundabout common sense " was conspicuous in their ways. There was a large infusion of this element, combined with great vivacity of spirit, that relieved the strength and dignity of his character in Dr. Lathrop. Many stories of his genial humor and keen, ready wit, circulate in the parish to this day. His physical and moral proportions seemed in happy accord.
They employed the press freely, and by that means supplied very useful reading to the people in the scantiness or absolute want of reading matter from other sources ; for as yet reading rooms were unknown, bookstores rare, and newspapers very few. True they wrote and published chiefly upon theological themes ; they were the absorbing topic, and imbued the com- munity with principles and kept them thinking. And this ac- counts perhaps, in a measure, for the noticeable cast of the New England mind, even yet ; its tendency to discussion ; to moral, political, metaphysical, religious and irreligious speculations. The Mathers ; Shepherd, of whose writings I have in my library two ancient volumes, one published in London in 1655, the other in 1659; Stoddard ; and of the generations following, Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, Dwight, Lathrop,-these were a few of the men whose work exerted a powerful influence in their own day, and live and are likely to live in coming times. This particular region was eminently favored with such ministers and writers, as also with religious light and revivals promoted by their min- istry. "The great awakening " began and prevailed along this valley.
h
1
S
b
a
cl W b tł
a
V
q
t
0
S t
t 0 I
1
1
39
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
These men as a general thing were not indeed elegant orators. Very few of them, probably, would have been chosen professors of elocution in our colleges. Some specimens of most godly men, of this class, I have known, were about as far from elo- quence, in the popular idea of the word, as could well be conceived. And many manuscripts I have seen of Dr. Lathrop's sermons, and of others, written on the smallest sized paper, in a very fine character, and very close lines, (as if paper was very scarce,) would defy all efforts at free reading, not to speak of anything bordering on elocution. But the people were in sympathy with their spirit and their thoughts, and wished no beautifully em- broidered screen interposed between them and the truth ; they were willing its light and its heat should come, without softening its rays, directly to their consciences and hearts. . Their minis- ters, again, were always abreast of their age, and often in advance of it in wise progress, and beyond denial they were a political as well as a religious power. But rash experiments in govern- ment ; abrupt and radical upturning in policy ; change for the sake of change; endless reforms with no time for the edifice to settle on its foundation ; the shaking up of the commonwealth that the dregs might come to the top, such things they neither preached nor favored. Yet here, as all over the land, the revo- lution met the cordial support of the clergy ; as more recently the clergy of the country were almost unanimously on the side of the government in our sad civil war, because they felt the righteousness of the cause. If then your social and political heritage is to be prized beyond that of other lands, let this town, let New England, let the whole country never forget their obli- gations to the Christian ministry in the seed-time of their State. And if infidelity should sneer and communism scoff at priestly politicians and claim to devise a system better than our own ; to rear a temple of civil freedom without a religion and without a God ; to establish a community with no law but the unchecked impulse of raving passion, without personal purity, domestic
40
WEST SPRINGFIELD
order, social morality ; we may boldly reply that but for such agency as the Christian religion and its ministers exerted in our history, we might have had a French revolution but no United States. Nor can our blessings be secured against these and all enemies in time to come, excepting upon the same condition and at the same price of eternal vigilance. The ambition for place and power ; the dreadful relaxation of moral bonds ; pecu- lations and frauds ; admonish us that even now we need a new enforcement of the like agencies. Our morality wanes under the power of a cold, calculating, selfish worldliness.
As Springfield was in the beginning the centre of the whole settlement, the new parishes formed on this side, before West Springfield was incorporated, were styled parishes of Springfield. Thus Agawam (the only portion of the original domain that retains the Indian name) was made a distinct parish in 1737, in- cluding what in 1800 was constituted into the parish of Feeding Hills, and was the sixth parish of Springfield ; afterwards the second of West Springfield. Ireland parish, so named from the unusual circumstance that a few Irish families were located there, was first united with settlers on the east side in 1750, and formed into the fifth parish of Springfield, afterwards the third of West Springfield. Of ministers living I shall speak of no others than my predecessor and friend, Dr. Sprague, who through his long pastorates here and in Albany, has maintained a popularity equalled by few and excelled by none; whose literary labors have been extensive and valuable, and who, in retired age, still gathers around him the respect and affections of very many friends-the reward of a consistent and useful life.
I told you at the outset that the religious and civil histories were so intertwined as hardly to be separable. They are the one history of the one people. The charter for a separate town was granted by the General Court in 1773-4, 120 years from the permanent settlement at Chicopee Plains, and 78 after the or- ganization of the first parish. I say the charter was granted
th fo
in
tr
P ti
it in ha in W
res be cit
Sp
p
te b th Wi
b fo fi S ca fi k
WO It P
ding 5
be
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
- 4I
but in reality it was imposed. For it seems that the application for a separate township came not from West Springfield, but from Springfield, and was carried against the earnest remon- strances of those who were to constitute the new town. The cause of this singular procedure, why the people of Spring- field should thus seek separation from their neighbors, is not known. But the fact to which I have referred, that West Springfield about that time was, or was becoming, the more populous and controlling place, may afford a clue to the mys- tery. If so, Springfield disliked to be ruled, and must have been ambitious to have its own way ; and then it must follow that West Springfield liked to rule, and was not ready to part with authority. Simple human nature in both ! The limits of the town thus incorporated were fourteen miles in length by four in width. Now they are about six miles in length and four in breadth. It became a town in troublous times. The con- troversy between the mother country and the colonies, the main point of which was the claim of the colonists that representa- tion should go along with taxation, was reaching its crisis. In 1774 the clouds had already darkened the sky ; the thunder had been heard to mutter in the distance; the storm came, and in 1776 the Declaration of Independence ended forever the author- ity of Great Britain over these States, and created a new star in the constellation of nations, destined ere a century should have rolled away to rise upward in the firmament and shed its influence for good over all the rest,-over the civilized world. We are beginning to realize the import of that act, and the world begins to realize it also. It was not for ourselves alone. It was one of those grand events, arranged by a superintending Providence, both to indicate and to advance the world's prog- ress. Through its working among the nations, thrones have been cast down, and power has been given to the people against civil and ecclesiastical oppression.
It was a thing to be expected, that some internal commotions
6
Spr Sm P 3
42
WEST SPRINGFIELD
should appear before the political sea could rock itself to rest. Shay's insurrection in 1786 broke out in this region, and West Springfield was, in part, the theatre of operations, a large force of the insurgents being collected here under Luke Day, who gave the most complete description of a demagogue I have ever heard : " I will do as I please, and other people must do as I say." The insurrection arose, it is said, because of the oppres- sive debts contracted by individuals and the State during the Revolution, and chiefly, as we may suppose, from the deprecia- tion of values caused by the unredeemable paper currency, the old Continental money. It was soon and easily suppressed ; but the cause may teach a valuable lesson to legislators con- cerning the demoralizing and dangerous effects of an irredeem- able currency and financial derangements. To compare great things with small, the French revolution and Shay's insurrec- tion may be cited as cases in point.
One of the most important events to the town and the State, after the giving of the charter, was the erection of the bridge in 1805 by a corporate company. The sermon by Dr. Lathrop to which I have alluded, a great literary curiosity, has this title- page : " A Discourse delivered at Springfield, October 30, 1805, on occasion of the completion and opening of the great Bridge over Connecticut River, between the towns of Springfield and West Springfield. By Joseph Lathrop, D. D., Pastor of the first Church in West Springfield. Second Edition, H. Brewer, Printer, Mass." The text was from Isaiah xlv. 18,-" God him- self, that formed the earth and made it, he created it not in vain : he formed it to be inhabited." How apt! Conceive some ancient prophet announcing that sublime text to the Pil- grims on Plymouth Rock! The Scripture the text, their his- tory to be the sermon! The discourse, which displays great ingenuity, is a sort of passage-way for pertinent thoughts from the most widely separated regions, as the bridge itself collects and conveys commodities from the extreme parts of the land.
1 t
a C V
a t t n S
a of
y
a ea
h as
,
14'S
di kı
st
43
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
The lessons inculcated are exceedingly appropriate. The inter- course between the people on the opposite sides of the river for 150 years had been by boats. We may imagine what a won- derful revolution the bridge must have made in the social and business relations of the whole country,-as great, for that day, as the opening of the railroad bridge more recently,-affording a perfect justification of the religious mode of "improving" the great occasion, as the phrase is, which never made the bridge less firm and safe, nor more sightly. It was for many years a toll bridge, but is now free and but one of several.
The building of the town-house on the Common, in 1820, was another prominent public event. And one fact of interest in connection with it is, that portions of the first meeting-house, which had stood for 120 years, and was used for public meetings after the meeting-house on the hill was opened, were placed in this edifice. Beams and rafters that had grown up into stately trees while the Indian was yet monarch and the white man had not trodden the soil; which then for one hundred years re- sponded to hymns and sermons ; and then, for fifty years more, have reverberated with parochial and town-meeting eloquence. How interesting would it have been if they could have been identified and placed in this new and commodious town-house you dedicate to-day. What a connecting link between savage and civilized life ! What tallies notched with the chief events of the settlement! What tales of solemn import; of quaint manners and earnest words and deeds ; of the flight of years and the flow of human generations, would they tell into our ears !
But other interesting antiquities there are. Mr. Aaron Day's house on the Common is 120 years old, and near it is said to be a subterranean passage constructed as an escape from the In- dians. Mr. Richard Baggs' house in Shad Lane is of an un- known age, but very ancient. The grand old trees are also a striking feature in the appearance of the town. The elms in
44
WEST SPRINGFIELD
Ramapogue street, dug at Baber's swamp in Tatham, were set out by Lewis and Ebenezer Day and John Ely over one hundred years ago. Darius Ely set out the large button-woods in Joseph Morgan's yard in 1782. And if Dr. Johnson's remark was just, that the man who makes a tree to grow where there is none is a public benefactor, their names deserve honorable mention. But the monarch of all is the "big elm" in Shad Lane ; so called because the men living there were all engaged in the shad fish- ery, and hence it received the most business-like, but least euphonious or pleasing, of all the names in the town. That district, near the bridge, has now become a dense settlement of operatives in Springfield ; and the aspect of the place is under- going such changes that soon, I fear, the once rural Paradise will cease to be " the loveliest village of the plain." The Big Elm, as 'Squire Heman Day told me, was brought on his shoul -: ders from the Agawam meadows and planted there on his 2Ist birthday. Three feet above the ground it is 242 feet in circum- ference, and its branches shade about half an acre. Planted there in 1776, it is about the same age as the town. It is just as old as our national government, and a beautiful emblem of that tree of liberty that has struck deep its roots into the earth, whose trunk has stood firm and majestic amidst all the storms it has endured, and whose spreading branches cast a healthful shade over the entire continent. "The hills are covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are like the goodly cedars. She sends out her boughs unto the seas and her branches unto the rivers."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.