USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Conway > Celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Conway, Massachusetts : at Conway, June 19th, 1867 : including a historical address by Rev. Charles B. Rice poem by Harvey Rice oration by William Howland and the other exercises of the occasion > Part 2
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Having thus reached a spot where the town has an organi- zation and a name, we may properly stop to gather up some facts of interest with respect to its earliest inhabitants.
The town, as was to have been expected, was first occupied upon its eastern border and within the district now known as "East Side." IIere, upon the slope of the hill looking to- wards Deerfield, was the farm and dwelling house of Cyrus
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Rice, the first settler of Conway .* Mr. Rice was from Barre. His house was upon the south side of an old and now unused road that led from the vicinity of John Field's, past the place lately occupied by Bradley Packard, to the present county road a little distance above the old tavern stand long known as the Hawley place. The first house was about twenty-five rods southeast of the spot now marked by an ancient cellar with bricks and rubbish, on which the family afterwards lived. A mound of stones has lately been raised on the original site.} Here, as already mentioned, occurred the first death in our town. Here also was born the first child of Conway-Beulah Rice. The family had also sons ; one of them, Stephen, became the father of the poet of this occasion, who is thus a lineal de- scendant of the first man.
Other settlers soon followed. A half mile south of Mr. Rice was Israel Gates (Barre)} on a spot now occupied near the house of Cephas May. Still southward was the first
* There is a conflict of authorities as to the time of his coming. Mr. Emerson puts it in 1762. Capt. Childs makes it to have been in 1763. I was once led by some indications to follow him, and fix upon in later years. It is upon my state- ment to that effect that Dr. Holland gives the date in his "History of Western Massachusetts." But besides the weight due to the authority of the older witness, there are facts incidentally mentioned by Mr. Emerson that seem decisive. He says that the wife of Mr. Rice died soon after his coming to Conway, that she was bur- ied in Deerfield, and that his daughter Beulah, was the child of a second wife. Now Beulah is known to have been born Jan. 10, 1764. If, therefore Mr. Rice
· was not in Conway previous to January of 1763, we must suppose, first, that he moved here in the dead of winter; and second that within the first quarter of that year he went through, besides the removal itself, with the sickness, death and burial of one wife and the courtship and marriage of another. Either of these supposi- tions is too unlikely to be easily credited.
Since writing the above I have been shown a communication in the Conway " Farmers' Register," giving the date Oct., 1762. This confirms the already well settled conclusion. The probability is that Mr. Rice came early in 1762; cleared land, planted crops and prepared a house,-brought his family in the fall, and Mrs. Rice soon dying, married again in the following spring.
+ Mr. Alonzo Rice of Deerfield, a grandson of Cyrus Rice, was able to point out the exact spot ; contributing thus, as many others whose names can not be men- tioned, have been forward to do, to the preservation of these ancient memories.
# The place from whence the settlers came, when known to me, will be given in parenthesis.
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house of Josiah Boyden (Grafton), a revolutionary soldier, and probably the second man to come. His son David was the first boy the town had. And a daughter Mary, born Aug. 24th 1767,-the day of the first town meeting, and afterwards the wife of Medad Crittenden, is still living among us and is the oldest inhabitant of Conway. Not far off were John Wing and Elijah May, neither of them of the very earliest ; and also, probably, David Parker. Half a mile west of Cyrus Rice, where John Field now lives, was James Dickinson (Somers). Northwest from him was John Bond (Grafton), and farther on westerly, at the top of the hill, Jonas Rice (Grafton), where his descendant Joel still lives. South of Jonas Rice, on a road now closed, was John Boyden (Grafton), a revolutionary soldier. And northwest again from James Dickinson was Joseph Catlin (Deerfield), near by the present Josiah Boyden's. In his barn Mr. Emerson preached his first sermon. And here, still earlier were baptised at one time seven infant children.
North of this eastern district, and where is now the great elm he planted, and at the place now occupied by Madison Stearns, lived Lient. Robert Hamilton (Barre), long a soldier in the Revolution .* Beyond, over the Hoosac hill, Consider Arms owned the land and sent his son Henry later to live upon it, where another Consider, grandson of the first, now is. Northwestward was George Stearns, father of all the Stearnses. Further on Dea. Caleb Rice, moving afterward to the top of Arms' hill, and to Genesee : and beyond him Silas Rawson. And still westward, Dea. Joel Baker (Sunderland) building soon, for Dennis Childs of the present time, what is now the oldest and what was probably the first framed house in Conway. Here is the oldest apple tree and the first tree in the town to bear fruit, which oldest tree is also found in other locations. South of Joel Baker, where Dexter Bartlett now lives, was Adoniram Bartlett, father of many Bartletts and authors of much wit; moving afterwards to the east of Rob-
* Robert Hamilton planted his elms in 1770. One has long since fallen, struck with the lightning. The tree still standing is now IS feet in circumference, and it spreads its branches over a circle of more than 100 feet in diameter.
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ert Hamilton. And next towards the center Dea. Jonathan Root (Montague) and Daniel Stow, prominent but not early settlers. Half a mile north, near Morris Brown's, was John Thwing (Bristol, R. I.). Northwest from thence at John Clary's, Benjamin Pulsifer soon lighted for a little before his later settlement at the east side. A little below was Tim- othy Thwing, son of John, planting apple trees for his own and the Broomshire orchards on the place which the family still keep. Amariah, son of Timothy, is with us to day, the old- est man in our town, having his mind yet clear, and with his natural force not spent.
Beyond the river, in Broomshire, was Israel Rice (Grafton), where Austin Rice now lives, and northward in the order of the present houses Timothy Rice (Grafton), Theophilas Page (Conn.), Wm. Warren (Grafton), John Batchelder, on the town farm, and a half mile beyond, where a cellar now remains, Nathaniel Goddard (Grafton). East of Israel Rice were John Broderick and Michael Turpey (Ireland). And southeast for a time, John Sherman (Shrewsbury), father of Caleb and John, where John B. Stearns now lives.
Israel Rice and Wm. Warren were the first of these set- tlers. Mr. Warren with the father of Mr. Rice .explored the neighborhood and bought lands in 1762, the year of Cyrus Rice's coming. Two years later William and Israel undertook to visit their estates, but losing the former track up the Deer- field and striking the sharp banks of the South River at or below the point of Hoosac they could not cross and went back disconcerted. The next year they effected a landing, cross- ing near the present bridge, and prepared, Mr. Rice the frame, Mr. Warren the logs, for a house. In 1766 they brought their families. One hung sheets over his frame for his bed- room, the other spread bark over his logs, whereupon it rained twelve days.
Jumping over Broomshire hill to the north end of "West street," we find Samuel Newhall (Leicester) where Joseph New- hall now lives. South towards the four corners, David Harring- ton, with his son Jason, a Revolutionary soldier. West by Win. Stearns, Jonathan Smith (his son living later by the Broom-
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shire ferry). Westward still over the hill, Dea. Caleb Allen, on a fine slope that keeps his name; and northwesterly James Warren (on the Tobey place). Returning to the main road, at the Harding place was Daniel Newhall (Leicester), popu- larly called "Wig Newhall," revolutionary soldier, father of the Daniel of stories and humorous memory, and of other Daniels in long succession, though gone from Conway. Westward again, Capt. Prince Tobey, and over the brow of the hill, where Rodolphus Rice now lives, Jabez Newhall (Leicester). South again on the main track from Daniel Newhall were Horton, David Whitney, (Grafton or Upton) gone to be first settler of Phelps, N. Y., and later, perhaps, Benjamin Wells, where George Stearns now is.
Rising the hill by the old road, we pass on the left the spot on which John Emerson built his house and set his elms in 1770 :-- we may find Abner Forbes, Esq., sitting under the shadow of his trees. And if now we are tired or thirsty, the house of Capt. Thomas French, "Innholder," is in sight upon the flat, two thirds of the way up Arms' hill before us .* This "Principle Inhabitant " of Conway walked to the Deerfield line on his own land,t went into office-holding beyond any other man, wrote his name in great letters, "Test. Thomas French" on the town book, fell into idleness, cheated the Continental government in salt, took to the lawyers, forged, sat in the pillory and died a vagabond. Not waiting with him, we may look up if we can his brother Tertius ; and find Nathaniel Field, not far, it is to be guessed, from the foot of Arms' hill, west of the Baptist meeting house. Down on " the Flat," uncertain where, we may search for Asa Merrit, great-grandfather of Charles of West street. On the hill beyond, northeast of Charles Parsons, we may call on Jonathan Whit- ney, at the house, now gone, where town meetings were often held.
*This house, as Samuel Flagg has it from his father, was afterward trundled down the hill to a site a little northeast of the Baptist meeting house, where it now stands, occupied by Morris Brown.
+Traditionally.
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Over all the land that can be seen from this point in every direction, but especially, it may be guessed, on a site a little to the east of Jonathan Whitney's, lives Caleb Sharp. He is half negro and half "Indian, or something else," it is said, which last statement may be rested in. He is a vigorous man, a builder of saw mills and grist mills ; and has already before or by the incorporation of the town, a grain mill running where the mill now stands. With him will presently appear his successor "Black Cæsar*" (Cæsar Wood), in later times "Saxton and Grave Diger," who also, as the ancient memories tell us, "did every sort of a thing." After him soon is coming, third in the line, Asahel Wood, " respected by every body old and young," and again, fourth in succession, Thomas Cole, who will continue to the first centennial.+
Turning south, towards where the Congregational meeting- house now stands, Aaron Howe will shoe our horses, or Major James Davis, if we have not passed him before by the Baptist meeting-house, and if wherever he is we can find his shop, will tap our boots .- A questionable matter, for he is the man whose newly put on sole Adoniram Bartlett lost from his foot, "Carelessly," as he said, "because he took it from the stirrup." If we wait a little this Davis will leave his shop for the continental army. Still southward and west of the road as we go into Pumpkin Hollow we pass the log houses of Joel and Elias Dickinson, the latter the owner of the " center lot " and living in Jabez Newhall's garden. Elijah Wells calls to us from the western hill; by H. B. Childs, and Gersham Farnsworth shortly on the other ear. But hastening out of this swamp, the best part of which Jonas Rice would not take at twenty cents an acre, though for the rest of his lot he gave a dollar, and running up Field's Hill, we pass near the summit Alexander Oliver, a Lieutenant in the army of the Revolution,
*Two negroes bore then that great name. Another lived in Hoosac. It was concerning him that the story has reached us how one of the Arms family being inquired of respecting the authority his brother had in Hoosac, made answer that "Henry had been Governor there ever since the death of Cæsar."
t This is a derivation of energy and morals,-otherwise " Tom," was a fugitive slave from New York.
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and Robert Oliver, and James Oliver, a tory refugee and one of the three that the town furnished that went away with the British. Under the hill south is Capt. James Look (Martha's Vineyard, 1768). We may hurry as best we can through Hardscrabble, by Elisha Clark on the west side, and by Ebenezer Allis at the Fairfield place; and beyond at the southeast we will halt at the always hospitable stand where John Allis now lives by the home of his grandfather, Capt. Lucius, (Somers, Conn). Here if the Davis boots have failed others may be borrowed, for Capt. Allis has a pair of fashiona- ble ones, or rather the only pair in the district, which he lends to his neighbors when they go a journey in style.
Capt. Allis was a principal inhabitant. Besides his boots he had one of the only two carts that for twenty years were known beyond Field's Hill. And over and above boots and cart he had some public spirit. He bought, it is said, and gave to the town the common by the old church. Withal he rode at first seven miles, Sundays, to the Deerfield meeting, horseback, with his wife, and with a child in the arms of each. And with many other Conway men, he helped take Burgoyne.
A half mile southeast were Elijah Wells and Matthew and Simeon Graves (Whately). And a like distance, more to the north, James Gilmore, where Israel and Thomas L. Allis, of the Capt. Lucius stock, now live. Still beyond, on the edge of Whately, at the Foote place, Samuel Wells, where was a hotel. Westward again a mile from Capt. Allis, and on the present Whately road, was Amos Allen, "Capt. Barefoot." He fought in the war of the revolution. He needed to borrow no boots. He got his commission and his title coming from the army over the Green Mountains with bare feet in four inches of snow.
Passing west to Cricket Hill, we find Capt. Abel Dinsmore, a revolutionary soldier, where his grandson, Alvan Dinsmore, now lives. William Gates was his next neighbor at the north. Southwest was Gideon Cooley. He brought his wife and all his other goods on the back of a horse; and the wife filled her bed-tick with the leaves of the wood. Not far off was Nathan- iel Marble. Going to the Northwest we pass the farm of Dea.
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John Avery (Dedham), now uninhabited, but stoutly occupied for two generations, and reach the stand of Malachi Maynard (Westboro), where his daughter Lucy and his son-in-law Ze- lotes Bates now live.
The town had men on the hill in those days, and later. Malachi Maynard was a genuine old New Englander and a puritan, and a good specimen of both ; strong in body and in mind resolute, independent, upright, religious, staying put in his place. He had but six weeks schooling, was twenty-six years town treasurer, figured in his head and figured right, and settled right after he had figured.
South of Malachi Maynard was Solomon Goodale. North- ward was Samuel Crittenden, in 1772, father of Medad Crittenden ; a name still kept among us by the memories it brings of a life manifestly growing though all its long later years into the likeness of the life that is to come.
Looking from Cricket Hill toward the Southwest at the date of the Incorporation, there was probably no settler's house to be seen. (Indeed it may not be quite certain that there was one on the Hill itself at that time. Mr. May- nard came in 1768). . Isaac Nelson may probably have been the earliest. Richard Collins was where Hiram Collins now lives as early as 1770. Solomon Hartwell (Dedham) was soon planted north of John Bradford's. Also two brothers of Malachi Maynard, Moses and Calvin: one south of John Bradford, the other north of Edward Bradford. Ebenezer Tolman was here in 1772. Twenty years later there were farms still uncleared in the districts that have since become " city." So late as that Shubael and John Bradford were first occupants. Caleb Beals was early in Poland, north of the Lucius Bond place. Also Jonathan Oakes upon the Chester Wrisley place. And Ebenezer, another of the Maynards, upon the Capt. Phillips' farm, with Reuben Hendricks hard by him. And far northwest across the river, still a fifth May- nard brother, Timothy, living but four years ago, ninety-nine years old.
Coming down the valley we are near by at the house of Capt. Consider Arms, (Deerfield) the opposite side of the road from
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the one now occupied by the Arms family. Consider Arms was one of the earliest settlers in the limits of the town, one of the greatest landowners, a leading public man, and everyway a "principle inhabitant."
Passing again our grove and the Inn of Capt. French, and over the Arms hill northwest, by the Goddard who brought the boy, Eleazar Flagg, to the place where Samuel Flagg now lives, and past the neighbors Stebbins, Whittemore, and Woodward, all later comers, we go down upon the large farms of Isaac and Elisha Amsden (Deerfield), now occupied by Walter and Earl Guildford. Beyond them the settlement, as at the southwest, was somewhat later, Solomon Field (Surrey, N. H.) was of the first, in 1772 or 1773. He was the man who killed the bear who gave his name to the river that is called Bear River. His grandson, Consider, still keeps the place. Near by him toward the south were Jesse Severance and Zadac King. Toward the east Sylvanus Cobb (Deerfield) at Charles Macomber's, and northward Samuel Wilder (Deer- field), Aholiab Wilder, and farther on Wm. Halloway and Seth Godfrey ; none of these last, perhaps, first settlers ; and returning from the north school house, Nathan Bacon, and still later, though himself the son of an early inhabitant, where Ryder had lived, in the center of the district and the central man, Caleb Sherman.
There were doubtless some other carly settlers whose names are not here mentioned, but there can have been but few such. On the other hand some of those whose names are given, though for the most part the first occupants of their farms, were relatively late in coming. Dividing the town by a line from Broomshire through the center to the South Part, the eastern half contains almost all that were on the ground at the date of the incorporation.
The number of families was about fifty, and the whole population, the households being then small did not much if at all exceed two hundred.
These were the men, who, as Mr. Emerson writes, had come in, " planted themselves down on new and unimproved spots of land, and with small property but good resolution com-
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menced the arduous but honest and respectable business of earning their bread by the sweat of their brow." They were, with a few exceptions, very poor at their coming. They were not well furnished with tools nor with animals for farm work. Wm. Warren's apparatus consisted of one cow, one axe, one hoe, one chain and one "bung-town copper." It was usual to go to Deerfield or Hatfield to hire cattle for plowing, or other team work. It was not for several years that a man commonly owned either oxen or a horse. During this period it was customary to carry grain to mill upon the back. One bushel was the usual load. There are many accounts, howev- er, of larger quantities having been carried from great distances. Amos Allen (" Capt. Barefoot ") brought two bushels of rye from Hatfield, taking it but once from his shoulder, and that at the mill where it was to be ground; other acccounts resolutely put it at three bushels. Malachi Maynard also brought from Hatfield, in bags, nineteen shad and two pigs, the pigs being of considerable size. He rested at mid- night on the top of Popple Hill, leaning against a tree, and fearing to remove his load lest he could not replace it. He used to say that "he was more glad at breakfast for those shad than ever after for all the income of his farm."
Our fathers made up thus in vigor and resolution for the lack of means. So too did the mothers. Mrs. Joel Baker built her own oven, which did good service for herself and her neighbors, her husband providing stones and mortar. The wife of Alexander Oliver, on the top of Field's Hill, was accustomed in summer to do her washing at the brook, one hundred rods north, down the steep slope. Having finished the work, Capt. Childs tells us, 'she would take her two pails of wet clothes, one in each hand, her baby under her arm, and her wash tub on her head, and go up the hill home.' . It may be hoped that this was only while the lieutenant was away in the army fighting for his country and his wife.
Considerably later, between 1780 and 1790, John Sherman, son of John and brother of Caleb, ran eight measured miles in 56 1-2 minutes, and on a hot August day. A wager of eight pounds had been laid that he could not do it within an
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hour. He ran on the Deerfield road, from near the foot of Arms' hill to "Eagle brook." He had previously, to make the matter sure, gone over the course by night, his brother accompanying him on horseback, and giving him the time at every mile stake, "it being moonlight."
There is much that is common in the way of living with new settlers everywhere. The condition of things here one hundred years ago repeats itself now at the farthest west. Yet not with exactness. Most of the men who have gone lately to the new lands have not been so poor as these settlers were. The age is not so poor. Materials and implements of all sorts are more abundant and much better. For the prairie country at the west, too, it makes less hard work than those stony and wooded hills did. The whole township at the period of its settlement was densely covered with timber, much of which was of great size. It can hardly be said that any of the original forest is still standing, to show what it was. There are spots that have never been cleared, but the heaviest growth has been removed A few single trees may remain. Most that we see are but puny representatives of those our fath- ers felled. Some of us, not old now, have found the stumps of pines and chestnuts, five or six feet or more in diameter. We are not likely to have come upon the largest. John Allis has this year cut a chestnut upon the lot of his grandfather, Lucius, full six feet across at its butt. There is one maple at least standing that is 18 1-2 feet in circumference .* Others
larger are known to have fallen. Enormous hemlocks, growing and prostrate, covered the low and level grounds and blocked up the ravines and river banks. Adding to this the rough surface in many parts, it made tough work and gave a hard look at first to the country. Thomas L. Allis narrates it from his grandfather that about the time of the setting off of the town, Eliphalet Williams of Deerfield rode on horseback all day over it, as best he could, and told his neighbors at night he would not give the horse he rode on for the whole of it. Others judged better of its value. The great trees stood for hearty soil as well as hard work.
*On the Timothy Rice place owned by Levi Page.
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They made stout houses too, and substantial " back logs"_ such of them as were not too large.
To illustrate still further the style of living prevalent among the early settlers, I will quote from the address of Capt. Childs : "Many families had but one cow for some years. Milk porridge was very common fare. At those seasons of the year when milk failed, bean porridge was the usual substi- tute. They were frequently entirely out of meat in March. It was usual then to go to the river and buy a horseload of shad, which might be had in any quantity for a copper each. Indeed they were so plenty that they were considered not as a rarity but as a drug, and were resorted to from necessity and not from choice. Roast potatoes alone frequently consti- tuted the entire meal. One man said to me 'I have often seen the time when I would have given more for a roast potato than I would now for a roast turkey.' They had no tea except bohea, and but precious little of that."
The roasting of potatoes carries us back to times when cook-stoves were unheard of and when enormous fireplaces ventilated and occupied, if they did not warm, the houses. The privation of tea may not strike us all with force. And the like may be said of the necessity of liv- ing upon Connecticut river shad. As to the fish indeed we know that it got into bad repute not wholly on its own ac- count. The ill savor it had was the taste of the lack of meat. Long after, if by evil chance, a farmer was brought to the buying of fish in Spring he might be likely to hear inquiries after the state of his pork-barrel. It is told of one in later times that, having come prematurely to the last layer, he went about among his neighbors to procure a lamb, whose wool he said his wife was in want of. Not finding any, and being at last in despair, he muttered, forgetfully to himself, that he believed he should go and buy some codfish.
It may be remarked withal that as to food the scarcity was only in the first years. Once cleared the land brought forth abundantly. The fields yielded wheat, and sweet grasses for the cattle were ready to cover the hills.
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