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 5
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we would Draw a line between ye Continent and Great Briton. Voted in the affiarmative. Voted that all those Persons that Stand on the Side of the Contanant Take up arms and go on hand and hand with us in Carrying on the war against our Unnatural Enemies, Such we Receive as Friends and all others treat as Enemies. Voted that the Broad alley be a line, and the South End of the meeting hous be the Continant Side, and the North End the British Side then moved for Trial and found 6 persons to stand on the British Side (viz.) Elijah Billings, Jonathan Oakes, Win. Billings, Joseph Catlin, Joel Dickinson and Elias Dickinson. Voted to set a gard over those Enemical persons. Voted the Town Clerk Emmediately Desire Judge Mather to Issew out his warrants against those Enemical persons returned to him in a list heretofore." These six only, of the score or so of tories that may have been in the town, seem to have chosen to at- tend the meeting that day. They were less malignant than in some other towns. And there was little or no violence used against them. A sharp eye only was kept on them at critical times, and their guns were taken away. After the war, Capt. Arms, by much persistence, got his gun again in his own keeping.
In 1778 the town voted to accept the propositions made by the Continental Congress for a union between the states. The towns were of consequence in those early times. Both in this case and . in deliberating a little later upon the adoption of a State consti- tution, the business was conducted almost as if the local organ- ization had been an independent nation. There was no returning of votes for and against to be counted along with votes from other towns, as is now done. The town voted, bodily, one way or the other on the whole proposition, or if it saw fit, on cach of its parts, accepting or rejecting; or advis- ing to such modifications as were desired.
Throughout the revolutionary period the currency was in a very unsettled state. The government issued paper money to carry on the war. This caused inflation and high prices Our fathers, not wiser than others of their generation, under- took to check the rise by establishing fixed rates for work and
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commodities. The following are specimens, from among many, of the prices settled upon. "Men's labor three shillings per day in the summer season ;" "fresh Poark of the best qual- ity," three pence per pound; " good grass fed beef," two pence one farthing; "Best Cheas" six pence; "good Spanish potatoes in the fall of the year" one shilling; "Yern Stockings of the best sort" six shillings "a pare ;" "good Sap. berials" three shillings, and "all other cooper work in propor- tion ;" "good common meals of Victuals at Taverns Exclusive of Sider" ninepence, and "other meals in proportion ;" "Horsekeeping a Night, or twenty-four howers" ten pence; "shoeing horses all round, Steal, tow and heal," six shillings four pence ; "good yerd wide toa cloth" two shillings three pence, and "other cloth in proportion ;" "a man with a sufficient team to plow or drag shant exceed" six shillings per day ; "hors travel" two pence "per mile ;" "to pasturing a horse on good feed" one shilling six pence ;" a yoak of oxen" two shillings, and all other creatures in proportion." It is hard to keep the stream from rising while the rain continues to fall. This leg- islation did not prevent the town from subsequently paying Daniel Newhall fifteen dollars per day for "ten days riding to hire money" to pay soldiers; and twenty dollars for a man's work on the highway.
Near the end of the war it was voted in town meeting to ask the General Court for liberty to make a Lottery with Deerfield to raise money to build a bridge over Deerfield river. An item which I note for the comfort of those who are pained by the corruption of these degenerate days.
When independence came it did not bring at once prosperity with it. The war had made people poor; and they were poor before. Large sums of money had been called for. Many were brought into debt, and this, together with the de- preciation of the continental money to almost utter worthless- ness, caused great distress. The times came when without law a man worked a day for twenty cents in silver. Mean- while, and out of these causes, arose the disreputable troubles connected with Shay's rebellion. Poverty and debts brought it on. The pressure of them is to be admitted in palliation,
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But for the reason in what was attempted, impartial history and all sober reflection have pronounced it folly. Courts were to be broken up and governments overthrown that debts might not be collected. Yet the delusion bore away men of clear minds and of unquestionable patriotismn.' Mal- achi Maynard, Capt. Dinsmore, and our "Capt. Barefoot" and many others, mostly from the southern half of the town, went into the riotous and revolutionary proceedings. And there was great sympathy with the movement through the whole town ; and a very few only resolutely opposed it. Along with inuch other action of the same sort it was voted, Oct. 24th, 1785, to instruct our representative to use his influence in the General Court "to have a Bank of Paper money emitted that shall sink one penny a pound per month." The clearness that belongs through all time to what is financial is in this. We cannot wonder that, meditating on such matters, the men of the south end concluded to rebel.
During all this period Conway was growing rapidly in pop. ulation, both by natural increase and by immigration from abroad. Of those who came in were the Howlands-of whom we have the orator of to-day-with a pedigree straight from the Mayflower, the Wares and the Billinges, with Clary, Par- sons, Childs, Field, Dunham, Ilopkins, Bigelow, Hayden, Stebbins and Andrews, with very many others. The popula- tion of Conway in 1790 was 2092. There were but twolarger towns in the county of Hampshire, embracing what are now the three river counties. These was West Springfield and West- field. The rank of some of the principal towns was then as follows, West Springfield, 2367, Westfield, 2204, Conway, 2092, Northampton 1628, Springfield 1574, Greenfield 1498, Deerfield 1330. The figures for Conway throughont its first hundred years may here be given. Date of Incorporation, estimated population 200. 1769 estimated by Mr. Emerson between 400 and 500; 1776, 905; 1790, 2002; 1800, 2013; 1810, 1784; 1820, 1705; 1830, 1563; 1840, 1409; 1850, 1831; 1860, 1689. The number was at the highest between 1790 and 1800. The farm houses stood thiekly over all the
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hills. There were thirty on the road from the old meeting- house over Field's Hill and Popple Hill, to the Whately line. These houses were well filled withal ; ten or twelve children being often foundin one dwelling. The Schools also were large, innch beyond what they are now. In the Broomshire district there were once nearly one hundred scholars; now there are scarcely twenty. As late as 1816 William A. How- land kept a school of more than sixty scholars in his own, the East side district, (late No. 2,) which district, having almost no children, has ceased to have a separate existence. These are but specimens.
At this period! Conway, suitably to its position as a leading town, had its newspaper. It was the Farmer's Register, pub- lished . weekly in the years 1798 and 1799, by Theodore Leonard. It was printed first in the house now occupied by Osee Adams, (then standing a little south-east of where the Baptist meeting house now is, and afterwards used as a tin- shop,) and later " a few rods north of the meeting house " in Pumpkin Hollow, in the building recently occupied by Lucy Severance. It had for its motto the lines from Thomson :-
" Here truth unlicensed reigns, and dares accost Even kings themselves, or rulers of the free."
Both truth and error must in fact have "reigned " with- out license or other control, in Mr. Leonard's paper. He had no editorial sentiments, and published with a looseness whatever came to his hand, on all sides. Part was Federal, part Republican, part moral, part more thoroughly the opposite than would be tolerated in any paper now cir- culating among us,-which again it is hoped may com- fort a little those that mourn for the times. As a spec- imen of the political discussions then springing up, I give here a few sentences from a "Political Dialogue," printed in the Register, for Nov. 10, 1798, and copied from the "Delaware and Eastern Shore Advertiser "; there being also printed with it a note from the " Dedham Minerva," out of which the whole was taken, deprecating the conclusion that "the editor is advocating the sentiments therein con- tained :"-
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" Ques .- Who were our late common enemies ? Ans .- The British.
Q .- Who murdered in cold blood our sleeping citizens at the Paoli ?
A .- The British.
Q .- Who now courts an alliance with and hugs to their bosom those same Englishmen ?
A .- The Federalists.
Q .- Why do they do it?
A .- Because like them they adore a kingly government.
Q .- Who are the men who uniformly opposed the independ- ence of the United States, and aided either openly or secretly the mercenary legions of George the Third, in devastating our devoted country ?
A .- The Tories.
Q .- Who are the men that have co-operated with these Tories, adopted their political principles, and in concert with them pur- sue measures destructive of the rights and liberties of the citizens ?
A .- The Federalists.
Q .- Who promised the farmers a guinea a bushel for their wheat, if this same treaty was ratified ?*
A .- The Aristocrats.
Q .- Did they ever make good their promises ?
A .- No, nor ever intended.
Q .- Who are the men who in their private and public conver- sations speak contemptuously of a Republican Government, and are loud in applauding Monarchy and Aristocracy ?
A .- The Federalists.
Q .- Who are the men that cajole, and flatter, and deceive the people in order to obtain public appointments, and when in office brand them with the opprobrious epithets of Ignorant Plebians, Swinish Multitude, etc. ? "
And under many more such heavy interrogations are " the Federalists " made to stand. It is plain to be observed that there is herein sounded the key-note on the Republican side, of the long strain of controversy that followed.
* The " British Treaty " of 1795, negotiated by Jay.
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News from Washington was published in Conway in twenty days, and from London, sometimes in sixty, sometimes in nine- ty days. The advertisements were largely of stock, lost or taken up. Asahel Wood, the negro, gave notice to the people that he " proposed to discontinue ringing the bell but once a day, unless some encouragement was given him, by subscrip- tion or otherwise." The poet's corner is full of Delias and Clorindas, after the dull manner of all the poetry of the 18th century.
Mr. Leonard also printed in 1798, the Hymn book of Elder Goddard, already referred to.
With the growth of the town the Baptist Church had before this time been formed. It was organized Oct. 3d, 1788, with eleven male, and probably eighteen female members. The first meeting house was built in 1790 or 1791, south of the Capt. Arms house, and near the spot where the Conway Tool Shop a few years since stood. It was left unfinished, and was not occupied in winter. About the year 1810 it was removed to the place where the present house stands. This, the last house, was built in 1840. Amos Shevi appears to have been the first preacher. But the first pastor was Calvin Keyes, who was ordained Nov. 7th, 1799, and whose pastorate continued more than twenty years. During his ministry . there were two extensive revivals, in one of which, in 1806 or 1807, there were added to the church fifty-five persons, and in another in. 1816, forty persons. The church was disbanded March 24th, 1819, and re-constituted June 12th, 1820. Soon after this Rev. David Pease, who is with us to-day, became pastor. He has been minister of the church at three different times, amounting in all to ten years. During his first pastor- ate the church gained strength, but was still feeble, seldom raising more than $200 a year, for support of preaching. In earlier times it had withheld any fixed salary from its minis- ters, as a matter of principle. For the last eighteen or twenty years preaching has been sustained constantly. The whole amount now raised annually for church expenses, is $1000. The present number of members is eighty-eight. The pastor is Rev. J. J. Townsend.
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This record of the Baptist church should not be passed by without reference to the ill feeling, now happily all gone, which once existed between the Baptists in our town, and the Congregationalists,-or supporters of the so-called "standing order." From early colonial times the general fact in law was ยท that all citizens were taxed for the support of Congregational preaching. Some of the exceptions to this fact will soon be noticed. The working of this law necessarily stirred up bad blood ; especially in the later periods, when " dissenters," as they were termed, began to be numerous. The. Congregation- alists, having been the founders of the colony, and having long liad full and indeed alnost exclusive possession, came to regard the land and the state as their own ; and they looked on a Baptist minister as an interloper. In the quarrels that arose they were most in fault ; as from the nature of the case they must almost necessarily have been. They have got out of this bus.ness to the most discredit and real damage,-as they deserved to. It is still remembered of that most excel- lent and ordinarily well behaving Christian, Parson Emerson, how being at Israel Rice's, where a Baptist Elder was preach- ing, he had to be shown the door of the house for his insolent manners. It is also to be allowed on the other hand, that there were Baptists who were not unwilling to be abused, for the use they could make of it in reproaches .*
The laws of that period have this partial justification only in the fact that our fathers in Massachusetts could not then have been expected to have learned the lessons laid up for the next age; and in the belief they had that religion could not flourish, nor consequently the institutions of civil society be maintained, unless all were compelled to aid in supporting public worship.
It ought also to be stated, since it appears not to be gener- ally known, that provision had begun to be made long before, for relieving the hardships of conscientious " dissenters."
* This has been so in all like cases, and comes of universal human nature. That it was true to some extent among us, has been given to me from the memo- ries of Baptists; and among others, several years since, by a no less valuable authority than the late Mrs. John Arms.
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From a date earlier than the first settlement in Conway it has been legally possible in Massachusetts for a man who be- longed to a Baptist society, and who worshipped with it, to secure the payment of his tax in that direction. It might go first, with all the rest, into the hands of the town treasurer ; but there were means of getting it out again. Yet it is true that the bias of judges, and the prejudices of local officers, might often make this difficult. Moreover there might fre- quently arise a doubt as to the legal fact of the existence of the " dissenting" society, the certificate of membership in which was needed. Regularity of meeting, with preaching, was required. In our town this was doubtless for many years the legal point of difficulty which the Baptists encountered. The law of the State offered no other. In the neighboring town of Ashifield, concerning which so much has been said, this should not have existed. Morever it should be said that in Conway the hardships of Baptist tax payers were more than once relieved by direct vote of the town. That man whose vindication of his rights in his own house against Parson Emerson has before been mentioned, was one of those in whose behalf this interposition was made. This much has been said concerning the law on this point, in order that the errors of the past may be only correctly estimated, and that the good name in history of our Commonwealth may suffer no farther abatement than exact truthfulness requires. The successive steps by which the connection between town and parish was loosened, until in 1834 it was wholly broken up, need not here be traced. It is a sign of progress, and a mat- ter of grateful recognition, that the temper of men is not now so tried or exhibited, and that the fellowship of Christians is not so broken.
There is a story of curious interest concerning certain Baptist apple trees said to have been taken in Ashfield in distress and sold in Conway for non-payment of minister's tax. Being led to suppose that this could not have been a legal business, and that apple trees could never by right of law have been taken for discharge of town taxes of any sort, and wishing to be confirmed in my belief in this point, I have
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secured the opinion at length of my valued friend, the Attor- ney General of the Commonwealth .* He is clear in his statement that the law permitted nothing of the kind. Omit- ting the argument, I quote only some concluding portions :- " It follows as a legal consequence that they could never law- fully be distrained upon. The probability is no such thing was ever done. If it was a good action in law would have lain to recover damages. Since the deed was done so long ago I fear under the statute of limitation no legal remedy re- mains. But we can and you shall denounce the heartless tax-collector. * But you may rest assured no apple-trees were ever taken.
Our ancestors were not fools. But even fools have an insight amounting to genius, as to what is exempt from seizure for taxes and debts. It is in this respect more than any other that the wisdom of the learned in the law is confounded by the teaching of the simple."
The clearest reasoning will not undo what may happen to have been done. But we are taught in what light the matter is to be regarded. That ancient Ashfield man of the lost apple trees is by no means deserving of our sympathy, but he should much rather be blamed for suffering the public law to be so violated upon himself. One of the trees reported to have been thus carried off, is now standing on the grounds of Horace B. Childs, Esq. I have tried the apples, and their taste is as if either the tree had not been removed at all, or had been illegally removed.
The population of the town, as has been said, was greatest near the close of the last century. It was at this period that there began the great outward flow of emigration from us to the westward, which has not ceased to the present time. It went first to Central and Western New York, then to Northern Ohio, then beyond to Michigan and Illinois, and then still further to Iowa, or wherever now the West may be. How many have gone is not known. But the descendants of these children of Conway towards the West must far out-
* Charles Allen, Esq., of Franklin County, who should have been born in Conway.
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number those that still remain upon her soil. One may trav- el over all that region and rest morning, noon, and night, in the homes of these Conway men. Viewed in all its results the going out from us of this great emigration is not perhaps to be regretted. We may wishi, however, that it had not been accelerated and indeed necessitated by the improvident hus- bandry of the first generations of farmers. The soil was thriftlessly drawn from and its riches spent. The steep and fruitful hill-sides were plowed and sowed, and suffered to be washed by the rains, often for many successive years, until they would yield no more. The effects of this wretched cul- ture are still too plainly visible. The process of waste has been arrested; and it may be hoped it is being reversed. It is believed that the productive capacity of the soil is at present increasing rather than diminishing. As interested in the prosperity of the town we must regret however that so much of the best pasturing ground we have, in the east and south, is passing into the possession of non-resident owners.
It is to be said, moreover, that the men of this middle period of our history did not make in all cases the most profitable use. of what the soil could produce. Enormous crops of apples were raised, which went into cider, and then into brandy. It seemed to be making rich those that sold, but it made poor more that bought, or that drank of their own pro- duction. There were probably fifty cider mills and upwards, and there were at the least six distilleries, all in operation at the same time. One of them consumed a thousand barrels of cider annually. Brandy took off much barn boarding, and overthrew many fences and men. Parson Emerson, in 1819, congratulated the town that it had "so few comparatively downright sots." Yet he speaks with earnestness against the evil. And there was need that the word "comparatively " should then be introduced. The change from that time, if it is not complete, is a great and happy one.
The first grist mill was built about the year 1767, by Caleb Sharp. Another was built in 1770 or 1771, below the Thwing place, in the north part of the town. There was also a third for a few years on Bear river, above the Macomber bridge.
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Every one bolted his own grist at first, in a hand-bolt. Saw mills were in operation all along South river, and on some other streams. There were several tanneries, while the hem- lock bark held out. One establishment of this kind is now in operation, located on South river, near the Post office, and owned by Wm. T. Clapp. Very near the site of this tannery Aaron Hayden set up a "fulling mill," about 1780. About 1797 Dr. Moses Hayden, with (his son-in-law,) R. Wells, made an addition of an oil mill. The cakes of meal rolled into the river, save as the boys took them to play "grindstone." In 1810 there was established here a broadcloth manufactory, and again a cotton mill ; and with changes and disasters the concern was finally destroyed by fire, in 1856, under the management of B. W. Wright. The woolen mill of the Conway Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1837, was built nearly half a mile higher up the stream. A larger one, which now stands, replaced the first not far from 1846. It was under the direction and subsequent ownership of Edmund Burke, whose name the upper village bears. And it has now . passed into the possession of Edward Delabarre. Midway between these two is a cotton mill, erected in 1846, by Gen. James S. Whitney and Charles Wells, burned in 1856, while owned by L. B. Wright, replaced, and now owned by the firm of Tucker & Cook. These parties have built in 1866 a fine . stone dam, making a large reservoir, a mile westward up the Aver. Three quarters of a mile below the Post office, Messrs. Tucker & Cook also own a cotton mill, erected in 1837, by Gen. Asa Howland. A large manufactory of tools was estab- lished in Burkeville, under the direction of Alonzo Parker, not far from 1845, about forty rods above the woolen mill. The building was burned in 1851, and the company removed to Greenfield. The South River Cutlery Company began operations in 1851, erecting a building in Burkeville, on the right bank of the river, toward the old center of the town. Here for four or five years were made knives, forks, and great losses, until the business was closed up, and the buildings at length mostly removed. Besides these the comb manufacture was formerly carried on by Dea,
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Jonathan Ware, and by his sons, at the place now occupied by Lemuel S. Boies. And tin ware has been made from an early period, at one time largely in Sherman Corner, and since then at various establishments in the middle of the town. The Conway Stock and Mutual Fire Insurance Company be- gan business in 1849. The Stock Company subsequently went to Boston, and to final grievous dissolution. The Mutual de- partment remains and prospers. The Conway Bank has a Capital of $150,000, and has been in successful operation since 1854.
The first record of voting for Governor of the State, appears in September, 1780, soon after the adoption of the State Constitution. The record is on this wise :
Men's Names who ware Chosen for a Governor.
Number of Votes for the Same.
Honorable JOHN HANCOCK JOHN ADAMS, EsQ.
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For many years when John Hancock, patriot and republi- can, was Candidate for Governor, he took almost the entire vote; though on other offices there was division. As parties began to form near the end of the century Conway became Federalist. There are strong reasons for thinking that purely political considerations would not in our town, have led to this result. There were tendencies, from the time of Shay's re- bellion, and from the revolution, looking in the other direction. But the supposed, or real, pointing of the great figure of Washington was towards the Federal side. And the dread especially of infidel sentiments in religion associated with the name of Jefferson, proved decisive bere, as it did throughout most of New England. Yet there were Republicans in re- spectable numbers .* In 1804 the vote stood, Federal 134,
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