USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Charlemont > Charlemont as a plantation : an historical discourse at the centennial anniversary of the death of Moses Rice, the first settler of the town, delivered at Charlemont, Mass., June 11, 1855 > Part 3
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The other prisoners were led to Crown Point and thence to Canada. The lad was ransomed after a captivity of six years.
" King was carried to France, thence to England, whence he at length returned to Northampton, his native place." 2
On receiving the alarm, Mr. Taylor hastened to Deerfield for succor, and returned the same night with twenty-five men. They proceeded up the river in the morning to Rice's fort, but only to witness the desolations of the preceding day, and to render their kind offices to the stricken family in the burial of the dead. Sad, indeed, was this the first burial day in Charlemont ; sad, when sons and daughters, and their little ones, looked for the last time into the mangled face of the aged sire, and buried him in silence and gloom beneath his own soil. His grave was made upon the slope of the hill near his dwelling ; and here also, by his side, they buried the young man, Phineas Arms, who had fallen with him in the field.
Their graves remain with us to-day. And here shall I not be pardoned for asking if the time has not come, when the descend- ants of the venerable man, and the citizens of the town which he first settled, will see to it that the sacred spot, set apart by him as
1 It was in this flight that Dinah Rice made those marvelous, if not fabulous "jumps," of sixteen or eighteen feet each, with which tradition has made us familiar.
2 Hoyt's Antiquarian Researches.
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a burial-place forever, and the hallowed depository of his mortal remains and those of his children's children, shall be guarded by an appropriate inclosure, from the intrusive ploughshare, and the unhallowed feet of cattle and swine ? 1
Of Phineas Arms, we know but little. He was the son of William and Rebecca Arms, and was born at Deerfield, October 1. 1731. He was admitted to the church in that town, on the 4th of May, five weeks before his untimely death.
Capt. Rice was the ninth of the eleven children of John Rice and Tabitha Stone, his wife, and was born at Sudbury, October 27. 1694 ; and was in the sixty-first year of his age at the time of his death. He was the great grandson of Edmund Rice, who emigrated from Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, England, and settled in Sudbury, in the year 1638 or 9, in that part of the town now called Wayland. He was an intelligent, energetic, and greatly useful man in his town. He was for many years a " commissioner to end small causes," and frequently chosen as a deputy to the General Court. He died at an advanced age, leaving a large fam- ily. His posterity are numerous, and widely scattered over the land.
Capt. Rice married Sarah King, at Sudbury, November 16, 1719, where his first child, Samuel, was born August 10, 1720. Soon afterwards he removed to Worcester, and kept a tavern upon the ground since occupied by the United States Hotel. Here his remaining children, six in number, were born. While at Wor- cester, he was captain of a company of cavalry.
In 1724, he was posted with others at Rutland, in a garrison commanded by Capt. Samuel Wright. The date of his removal to Rutland is not known. He had two brothers, who lived in Rutland, where many of their descendants are still to be found ;- Edward, an older brother, born in 1689, and Aaron, who com- manded a company in the French war, in 1658, and died that year, at Crown Point.
Capt. Rice's subsequent history has already been detailed, so far as it is now known. Of his character, we know little more than what is revealed in the acts of his life. Doubtless it was of that strong cast, which our carly New England institutions and the
' I am happy to say, that the town has instructed the Committee appointed to publish this Address, in inclose this oldest of its burial-places with a substantial
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perilous times in which he lived were so well calculated to pro- duce. Early and thoroughly instructed in the great doctrines of the Bible ; fearing God and revering law, whether administered in the family, the church, or the state; intelligent, industrious, hardy and fearless ; our Fathers were fit men to lay broad and deep the foundations of a mighty empire.1
After the death of Capt. Rice, the people of Charlemont suf- fered no further Indian depredations. The forces, raised for the reduction of Crown Point, were already on their march ; and the contest began to be transferred from the border settlements to Lake Champlain and Canada. Hereafter, the French and their Indian allies found work enough in defending their own territories, and less time for plunder and bloodshed in New England.
During the summer of 1755, twenty-five men were stationed at Charlemont, but none of them at Rice's fort, on account, doubt- less, of its exposed position under the hill which commanded it. Having received from the General Court the promise to furnish eight soldiers for a new garrison, Samuel Rice and his brothers removed the fort from their father's house, and built a new one around the house in the meadow.2 In the spring of 1757, he was allowed to enlist six soldiers to be stationed at the new fort, who were " to receive the same pay, and be discharged at the same time as the other soldiers stationed in the town."
The petition of Mr. Rice for this object, presented in April, 1757, makes among others, the following statements : "That there is scarce any improvements (as is known to members of this Court) but what is made by your petitioners ; that they annually raise a considerable amount of grain and other provisions, having now near twenty acres of winter corn in the ground, and mow more grass and keep more cattle than the whole place, and are the own- ers of the only corn-mill in that part of the county." " Your petitioner also begs leave to say that Charlemont was granted on certain conditions of settlement, which, had they been complied with, the place would have been a fine, flourishing town." 3
From the fall of 1754 till the spring of 1762, while the war was raging, the country was so absorbed in the momentous contest, that little or no progress was made in the settlement of the town. The meeting-house frame still stood uncovered; of the three years' tax, granted in 1752, only the tax of two years had
1 Appendix H.
2 Appendix I.
3 Appendix J.
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been assessed ; and no general proprietors' meeting was held in the town during that period. A single meeting of the non- resident proprietors-described in the notification as the " propri- etors of the common and undivided lands "-was held in Boston, at the house of Capt. Nathaniel Richardson, August 26, 1761, of which Col. Jonathan White was moderator. Caleb Dana, Esq., and Col. White, were appointed a committee " to see that the frame set up in said town, be covered and inclosed, and also to lay the lower floor." Mr. White was likewise directed " to clear the way from the river to the meeting-house, and to make it fit for waggons to pass."
The year wore away, however, and nothing appears to have been done ; for we have a brief record of another meeting, " legally notified " and held at the house of Mr. Taylor, in Charlemont, on "yo 2d Thirdsday" of April, 1762, to choose a committee " to finish the meeting-house and give them their instruction; " but with no results-the meeting being adjourned, after choosing Silas White moderator, to the 15th of April-" at which time," says the clerk, " there was no meeting."
Still another meeting of the " proprietors and inhabitants " was duly called and held at Mr. Taylor's house, May 27, 1762. At this meeting, Col. Jonathan White and Aaron Rice were chosen assessors in the place of Moses Rice, deceased, and Eleazer Hawks, who declined serving longer on account of old age. Col. White, Joseph Wilder and Aaron Rice, were chosen a committee to settle with the treasurer for the two years' tax ; and " to see to covering the meeting-house, or, if the former frame will not do, to set up a new frame and cover it."
The certificate of the committee, dated May 31, shows that the treasurer had received and disbursed £122 19s. 10d., and that there remained of the two years' tax uncollected, £60 3s. 4d.
The committee decided that the " former frame would not do," and on the 27th of June following, made a contract with 'Thomas Dick, to build a new meeting-house, which is in these words :
" Know all men by these presents, that I, Thomas Dick, of Pel- ham, in the County of Hampshire, Innholder, For and in considera- tion of a former obligation I gave to Mr. Othniel Taylor, Treasurer of Charlemont, to build a meeting-house in Charlemont, do by these presents covenant and engage to set up a frame in said town, in the place where the old frame now stands, it being 35 feet
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by 30, and 18 feet post, to cover the outside with chamferred boards and the roof with boards and shingles, and to put up weather boards, to lay the lower floor with boards on sleepers or joice well supported, and to complete the same, workmanlike, by the last day of September next. Otherwise, on failure thereof, to pay said Treasurer 26 pounds for the use of said proprietors.
" THOMAS DICK.
"N. B. The proprietors are to find boards, nails and shingles, and rum for the raising."
The parties, I believe, performed their contract, and the house was erected upon the site of the old frame; but it was never finished ; nor can I learn that it was ever occupied for public wor- ship. The inhabitants were few in number, and for the most part of small means ; the penny tax on the proprietors' lands came in slowly ; besides, the situation of the house was most inconvenient for the "river people ; " and hence its completion was not likely to call forth any special efforts from them. Its removal soon became the subject of discussion ; and one of the objects of the last proprietors' meeting of which we have any account, held June 5, 1765, was "to see if the proprietors will agree to move the meeting-house to a more convenient place." It was not removed, however, but continued to stand till the year 1769, when it was sold to the late Col. Asaph White, who remodeled the frame and erected it upon his premises as a dwelling-house. It was occupied as such by himself and his son, Lieut. David White, for more than half a century.
Two proprietors' meetings were held in 1763; both at the house of Othniel Taylor. At the first, June 17th, it was " Voted, To discontinue the road laid out from the river so far as Col. White's house, and order it laid out east and west from said White's house to the county road, as near where it is now trod as may be with convenience."
From the accounts allowed, I give the following as showing how the meeting-house was "set up," and preaching supplied at that time :-
£ s. d.
Joseph Wilder for underpinning the meeting-house, 2 13 4
Aaron Rice, boards for the same, 5 00
Paid for " nales " for same, 1 10 0
Sam'l Rice's acc't for the Raising, 3 16 6
Artemas Rice's acc't for provision for the raising, &c. . 3 04
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[Whether the word " provision " included the important item in the contract with Mr. Dick, of " rum for the raising," does no! appear ]
Als Col. White's ace't for money paid in, May and s. d.
October, 1762, for Mr. Huntington, 5 6 8
Same for " Keeping " Mr. Swan, 2 20
Paid Mr. Swan for preaching 6 days, 8 03
It was also " Voted, To allow ten pound of the money yet to be gathered for preaching ; and that . Mr. Taylor and Mr. Aaron Rice be desired to provide a preacher.'"
At the second meeting, held October 20th, Messrs. White, Dana and Wilder, were chosen a committee to petition the General Court for a new penny tax, for three years, on all the lands in the township. " Except the lands of the Honorable Thomas Hancock, Esq., Captain David Baldwin, and the heirs of Mr. Kinnicome," (Cunningham,) " who have generously given away one half of their lands to settlers ;" and also " for a grant of lands to be laid out in the unappropriated lands of the Province, in lieu of the land taken of Charlemont by Coldreane."
In pursuance of this vote, on the 6th of June, 1764, Mr. Wilder presented a petition to the House, reciting the circum- stances under which the place had been settled, and asking for the proposed tax, expended " for finishing the meeting-house, support of the gospel, and clearing the roads in the said place." The house received the petition favorably, and granted an order of notice to the proprietors to show cause at the next session. This order was not concurred in by the Council. At the next session, however, the matter was revived by the Council, and the petition, with the remonstrance of William Read, Esq., referred, January 30, 1765, to a joint committee of the Council and House. But I do not find that any further proceedings were had upon the petition.
Meanwhile, the period of the proprietorship was drawing to a close. The last meeting of the " proprietary " was held at the house of David White, June 5, 1765, when it was agreed " to set apart lot number one, of four hundred acres, east of Mr. Rice's farm ; lot number -, of about five hundred acres, at the falls ; 1 and the remainder in lot number three, for the public lots."
" This lot, whose number is illegible, was situated, I suppose, on the left bank of the Deer field, at Shelburne Falls, and is the site of the village.
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A committee, consisting of Col. White, Othniel Taylor and Aaron Rice, was chosen to make application to the General Court for a tax of one penny an acre on all except public lands, and also for an act of incorporation.
In answer to the second branch of their petition for the pur- poses aforesaid, an act of incorporation was granted, June 21, 1765 ; and " Thomas Williams, Esq., was empowered to issue his warrant" to call the first town meeting.
The application for the tax did not receive the immediate action of the General Court. Nevertheless, the act of incorporation embraced a provision, looking to favorable action in the future, " That all taxes that are, or are to be raised for settling a minister, for building a meeting-house, clearing and repairing roads, be levied on the several proprietors of said Plantation, according to their interests, until the further order of this Court," &c.
At the following winter session, on the 4th of February, the petition for the tax was sent down from the Council to the House, and there " read and revived," and the non-resident proprietors ordered " to be notified to show cause on the second Wednesday of next May Session." Further proceedings on this petition were superseded by the subsequent action of the town.
On the 6th day of January, 1766, in obedience to the warrant of Thomas Williams, Esq., the inhabitants of Charlemont assem- bled in its first legal " town meeting," at the house of David White, and completed the organization of the place by the election of town officers. At a subsequent meeting, on the 31st of March, Aaron Rice was chosen as the agent of the town to petition the General Court for the long delayed tax upon the lands.
Mr. Rice entered upon the work with his accustomed energy and zeal. He presented to the General Court, June 4th, a petition detailing, more fully than the previous petitions had done, the past history and the present condition of the town. Among other things, he says that the " grantees have so conducted their affairs, as to have at this time, (after thirty years,) only thirty families settled ;" notwithstanding the tax previously granted and raised " for building meeting-house, mills, and the support of public worship," that the " meeting-house is only raised and covered, and they have no minister settled ; and that one-half of the inhabitants are in low circumstances, whereby they are unable to do those things for themselves ;" and he prays "that the non-resident
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proprietors may be obliged to fulfill the conditions of settle- ment, so far as belongs to them," and for the grant of the three years' tax beforementioned.
The petition was read, and an order passed by both Houses, " that the non-resident proprietors be notified to show cause why the tax should not be granted, and why they had not complied with the conditions of the grant."
February 6, 1767, Mr. Rice's petition was read again in the Council, and, with the answer of William Read, Esq., referred to a joint committee of both Houses. The committee reported on the 17th, the following order, which was agreed to, and approved by the Governor the next day.
" Ordered, That there be a tax of one penny per acre, yearly, granted for three years, upon all the lands in the town of Charle- mont, (public lands excepted,) and that the money thereby arising be applied as follows, viz : fifty pounds, part of said money, towards finishing the meeting-house already set up in said town, and that the remainder of it be applied to pay for preaching the gospel and settling and supporting a minister ; and that said tax be final, so far as respects those proprietors who have settled a proportion- able number of families in said town. The petitioners to enter an account of their doings in the Town Books."
The acts of incorporation and the penny tax now granted, bring us to the close of the administration of affairs by the proprietors. And here let us pause for a moment, and review the ground we have traversed. We have seen, thirty years before, the grant of the territory to the town of Boston, coupled with certain strict conditions with regard to its settlement, and the establishment of the institutions of religion and of education therein ; we have seen it sold at auction, to a single purchaser, and by him aliened in large tracts, to others, with little reference to the performance of these conditions ; we have beheld the pioneer settler wending his way with his family up the Deerfield-the Pocumtuck of the Indian-and erecting his cabin on the banks of the " sweet rolling river,"1 and, after a few years of successful labor, fleeing before the savage foc, and his dwelling burnt, and his improvements de- stroyed ; and, as peace returned, we have seen him return and build again ; and, after him, other adventurers taking their places beside him on the " river " and on the " hill ;" we have seen the
! This is said to be the interpretation of the Indian word, "Pocumtuck."
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" Place called Cherley Mount " assume the organization of a plan- tation, and the evidences of improvement and the means of comfort multiplying ; and, as the wilderness began to smile, we have seen the cloud, black with terror and death, bursting upon the infant settlement, and the patriarch of the valley laid in his bloody grave, and all improvements stopped, and the cleared lands beyond the protection of the forts, abandoned and growing up again to a wil- derness ; and finally, when the dreary contest had closed, and the savage enemy had been driven from their borders forever, we have beheld the returning settlers clearing their fields and struggling hard to lay the foundations of a prosperous community, to secure for themselves and their children the privileges which you and I have so richly enjoyed. And now we behold them, a little band of " thirty families," incorporated and organized as the town of Charlemont.
As yet, however, the blessings which our New England Fathers ever prized the highest, and struggled the hardest to secure-the church and the school-had no existence among them. True, we have seen, for the second time, the meeting-house " set up and covered," but it still stood unfinished and unoccupied by worship- ers. Occasional religious services had, indeed, been held by various preachers, but no pastor had been settled, to "go in and out " before the people, with his daily and weekly ministrations. Hitherto the pioneer families on the river had looked to Deerfield for special religious privileges. The leading members of these families united themselves with the church in that place, and for many years frequently resorted thither for the enjoyment of those privileges ; especially for the celebration of the Lord's supper, and the baptism of their children.
Nor does it appear that any attempts had been made to provide public school instruction for their children. The children of that troubled day had no other school than the fireside. But here they were not neglected. With the English Bible as the text-book, and father and mother as instructors and exemplars, they drank in those principles and acquired those traits of character which well stood them, instead of the more varied acquirements of the schools, and amply qualified them to act nobly their parts in the stirring scenes of danger and of triumph so soon to open before them.
It has not been my purpose to attempt to give a connected his- tory of the town after its incorporation ; still, I should fail to do
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justice to the early Colonists, without giving some notices of their further and finally successful efforts in establishing the institutions of religion and of education, and also of their patriotic labors and sacrifices in support of the American Revolution.
No sooner was the penny tax for the support of preaching granted, than they commenced the work of providing a pastor for the town. On the 16th of March, David White was sent to Wal- pole, to invite the Rev. Jonathan Leavitt to preach as a candidate. And on the 24th of July following, it was " voted and agreed," in town meeting, " to settle a minister as soon as may be ; " and, in accordance with the advice of the " neighboring ministers," the town " proceeded to choose and call the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Leavitt to the work of the ministry among us." In case of his acceptance, it was furthermore voted to give him " One hundred pounds settlement "-sixty pounds the first year, and forty pounds the second ; and also an annual salary as follows : " Fifty pounds the first year, and to rise two pounds a year for five years, and there to continue until there are sixty families in town, and to rise one pound upon each family that shall be added above sixty, until it comes to eighty pounds a year, and there to remain during his continuance with us in the work of the ministry ; and likewise to find him his wood."
In town meeting, August 8th, held at the meeting-house, " Voted, To build another meeting-house, half way from the one already built to Mr. David White's dwelling-house, or the nearest convenient place thereto, 45 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 20 feet posts ;" and AAaron Rice, Jonathan Taylor and Jonathan Hastings, were made a committee " to settle the place."
At a subsequent meeting, held September 1, " at David White's house," Mr. Leavitt's answer to the " proposals " of the town was presented and accepted, and a committee chosen to provide for his installation ; Aaron Rice, Othniet Taylor and Gershom Hawks, the committee. It was also "agreed to build Mr. Leavitt a house, the description of which may be found in the old book." The house was built on the lot of one hundred acres, which had been set apart for the first minister, as already described.
The installation, preceded by a solemn fast, and closed with feasting and rejoicing, according to the custom of the fathers, was duly celebrated, probably in the month of September.
The committee " settled the place " for the new meeting-house ;
.
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and another committee disposed of the old edifice and built the new one, upon the brow of the mountain, south from the "min- ister's lot," overlooking the Deerfield, and since known as the " Meeting-House Hill." The house was finished in the summer and fall of 1769.
Meanwhile a church had been organized, with Aaron Rice and Gershom Hawks as deacons. The records of this church (if indeed it kept any) are lost ; and with them the means of ascer- taining the date of its organization.1 Other hands have sketched the history of this church, with ample notices of its able pastor. I shall, therefore, content myself with adding, that Mr. Leavitt continued for fourteen years to minister acceptably to the united church and town in this house "set on a hill." And it was a goodly sight, to behold the men, women and children of that day, from the most distant parts of the town-from the east end and the west end and across the Deerfield-for the most part on foot, save here and there a man on horseback, with his wife on a pillion behind him, wending their way on each returning Sab- bath, up the steep mountain's side, to worship the God of their fathers on its summit. At length, dissensions having arisen, Mr. Leavitt's dismission was voted by the town, and the meeting-house was closed against him, August 19, 1781. As these acts were not ratified by an ecclesiastical council, he continued to be the legal pastor, and to preach in the school-house on the Hill, to his friends who chiefly resided in that quarter of the town, till the formation of the church in Heath, April 15, 1785, when they withdrew, and the first church in Charlemont ceased to exist. Their meeting- house was taken down and removed to Heath Centre in 1789, where it was occupied as a house of worship until 1833.
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