USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 4 > Part 33
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In 1823, Dr. Henry H. Childs and other trustees secured a charter which enabled them to open in Pittsfield the Berkshire Medical Institution, from which until its close in 1867 there flowed a constant stream of educated physicians, who minis- tered not only to the health but to the moral and social im- provement of many towns in western Massachusetts.
MANUFACTURES AND MANUFACTURERS
Before 1820 also, advantage had been taken of the abun- dance of water power furnished by the Connecticut, Hoosac, and Housatonic Rivers and their mountain tributaries, and numerous factories were in successful operation, including sawmills, fulling mills, tanneries, nail factories, gristmills, and woolen mills.
Out of the many firms and corporations who developed manufacturing in western Massachusetts may be noted the following: Arthur Schofield Pontoosuc Manufacturing Co., Pittsfield Manufacturing Co., D. & H. Stevens, and J. V. Barker, of Pittsfield; the Beaver Mill of Wells, Brayton & Co., Ingalls, Taylor, & Co., the Union Mill, and the Centre- ville Factory of S. Blackinton & Co., North Adams; Berkshire Woolen Co., Great Barrington; Charles H. Plunkett, Plunkett and Kittredge, and Hinsdale and Richards, of Hinsdale; satinet mill of L. Bassett & Co., Lee; Ayers & Aldrich, Gran- by; Conway Manufacturing Co., Conway; Greenfield Manu-
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facturing Co., makers of doeskins, Greenfield; Otis Manufac- turing Co., Otis ; and Gilbert & Stevens, of Ware.
Cotton mills also abounded, including the Chicopee Manu- facturing Co., Cabot Manufacturing Co., Perkins Mills, and Dwight Manufacturing Co., of Chicopee; Hampden Mills, Hadley Falls; Boston Duck Co., Thorndike Manufacturing Co., and Palmer Manufacturing Co., of Palmer; Glasgow Mills (ginghams), South Hadley; Shattuck & Whittin, Coleraine; Agawam Canal Co., West Springfield; Plunkett, Clapp & Co., and S. C. Russell, Pittsfield; O. Arnold & Co., Richardson, White & Co., Brayton & Co., Greylock Mills, Stephen Brown & Co. (later S. Johnson & Co.) of North Adams; Pollock & Co., S. L. Arnold & Co., Plunkett & Wheeler, R. Leonard & Co., Plunkett & Brown, Adams, Seeley & Co., B. F. Phillips & Co., of South Adams; Elisha Jenks, Cheshire; Munson & Peabody, and the Monument Mills, at Housatonic.
Quite as important among the industries of this section as woolen or cotton was the manufacture of paper. Among early paper mills were the David Ames Paper Co., of Chico- pee; Parsons Paper Co., and the Hadley Falls Co., of Holyoke; Carew Co., of South Hadley; Southworth Manu- facturing Co., West Springfield; L. L. Brown Paper Co., of South Adams ; Warren Wheeler & Co., and John Cariel & Co., New Marlborough; Wiswall, Crane, and Willard, David Car- son & Sons, the Pioneer Mill of Zenas Crane and Martin Chamberlin, Crane & Co., the Bay State Mill of Crane and Wilson, the Defiance Mill of Henry Chamberlin & Co., and the Excelsior of Z. M., & J. B. Crane, in Dalton; the paper- mills of Samuel Church, Owen & Hurlburt, Benton & Garland, Charles Ballard, Smith & May, E. S. May, Platner & Smith, of Lee; and of Gibson & Colt, of Pittsfield.
Noteworthy, also, were the print works of Arnold, Jackson & Co., North Adams; the charcoal works of Chaffee & Sons, Becket; the glass factories of Cheshire and Lenox; the iron mines and iron works of Lanesborough, Lenox, Richmond, and West Stockbridge; the chair factory of Hale & Gould in Erving; the tanneries of A. P. Butler & Co., in North Adams, H. Nelson Dean in South Adams, J. W. Wheeler &
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Co. in Becket, and Benjamin F. Pond in Montague; the boot and shoe factories of Millard & Co., and E. Rogers & Co., North Adams; the confectionery factory of Kibbe, Crane & Co., Springfield; factories for making steam boilers, engines, etc., conducted by Mckay and Hoadley, and later by Dodge and Francis, in Pittsfield; the Springfield Car and Locomo- tive works of T. W. Wason; six carriage factories in Belcher- town; seven whip factories in Westfield; J. T. Trask's match factory in Gill; the gold-pen factory of Warren & Hyde in Williamsburg; the Hampden Paint and Chemical Co. in Springfield; three rake factories in Sandisfield; the works of George Hull & Son for making leather in the same town; the Massachusetts Arms Co. in Chicopee; The U. S. A. Armory in Springfield; the drum factory of Abner Stevens in Pittsfield; the carriage shop of H. P. Dorr in Stockbridge; the factories for making tools and cutlery controlled by the Ames Manufacturing Co. (of Chicopee), Ransom Cook, the inventor of the auger, and the Shelburne Falls Co. (Shelburne Falls) ; the South River Co., of Conway; the Greenfield Tool Co., the American Machine Works, and the Agawam Foundry, in Springfield.
RESOURCES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS (1820-1830)
Briefly to review the condition of Western Massachusetts in 1820 to 1830, the basis was a large newly opened territory, with virgin soil, unwasted woodlands, plenty of free water power, pure air, and unrivalled natural beauty.
This region was peopled by a class of men and women characterized by thrift, industry, restless ambition, intellectual alertness, intense patriotism, and faith in themselves and in God. Natural and divine selection had fitted them for their work.
United and harmonized by common struggles for liberty,- religious, social, and political,-they had at last attained vic- tory and peace. Among them appeared great leaders in clas- sical, scientific, practical, and religious education. While by memories of their former homes, by constant and wide correspondence with older and larger communities, and by
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RESOURCES
reading their own local newspapers, they were vividly aware of the rapid development of culture and comfort in Boston and Hartford and Albany, they were themselves still com- pelled to depend upon their own hands and brains for the' ne- cessities of life.
The new freedom of their churches made them responsible, and therefore tolerant; their town meetings trained them to govern themselves and take an intelligent interest in the gov- ernment of the State and the nation. Fraternities had taught them the advantage of cooperation. Schools and colleges and lecturers sharpened their hunger for knowledge.
Necessity became the mother of their invention; and, as their needs were universal, there quickly was developed that all-pervading "Yankee ingenuity" which has made western Massachusetts famous. From the Revolution to about 1820, every household became a hive of industry. For many years nearly everything needed in the average home was made within its precincts. The typical western-Massachusetts man was a farmer, and besides that acted as his own tool maker, blacksmith, shoe maker, soap maker, chandler, mason, and carpenter. Farmers' wives were also spinners, weavers, tailors, poultry-women, cooks, preservers of fruits and vege- tables, gardeners, and interior decorators.
It is significant that Schofield's "woolen factory" did not at first manufacture woolen cloth, but rather the spindles, combs, looms, and other devices by the use of which women could make cloth at home. The Berkshire Agricultural So- ciety by annual premiums encouraged all kinds of domestic in- dustry, the effects of which may be judged from one example. In 1819, the prize for the largest quantity of articles manu- factured in one family during 1818 was awarded to Mrs. Sarah Perkins of Becket. She reported "448 yards of fulled cloth, 171 and 1/4 yards of flannel, 53 yards of carpeting, 142 3/4 yards of table linen."
By 1820, however, factories and mills had so multiplied that production exceeded local consumption; and in spite of severe foreign competition, many sorts of goods were ex- ported. Springfield and Pittsfield, for example, sent thou-
-
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sands of muskets annually to the general government; many ships were driven by sails made in western Massachusetts, and Berkshire manufacturers were appealing to Congress for the protection of a tariff. The excess of domestic products over home consumption led to the substitution of buying and selling with money instead of the simpler method of barter; and this necessitated the establishment of stores, which at first were often opened in one or more rooms of the village inn.
IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION
Every improvement in pioneer life gave new occasion for travel. Towns sent representatives to Boston; lodges sent delegates to the grand lodge; church conventions summoned ministers and deacons from distant points; students had to journey many miles to college or academy; goods must be carried back and forth between town and country. Hence the need for better roads became imperative. Fortunately the same causes which revealed this need provided the means for meeting it. The organization of towns, fraternities, parishes, colleges, banks, and factories demonstrated the ad- vantage of corporate action, and the methods of effecting it. Lawyers had been trained to make contracts, engineers to construct roads and bridges. Banks and business were ready to supply the necessary initiative and capital. Before 1825 more than twenty turnpike corporations had been chartered by the State in western Massachusetts; and about an equal number of bridge-building companies. For example : in 1797 Asaph White, Jesse King, and others were incorporated as the Second Massachusetts Turnpike Corporation for laying out a road from Charlemont over an old Indian trail to Adams, with the usual privilege of establishing tollgates. The sixth Massachusetts turnpike was run in 1799 from Amherst, through Pelham, Greenwich, Hardwick, New Braintree, Oakham, Rutland, Holden, and Worcester, to the great road at Shrewsbury leading from New York to Boston. In 1803 John Hooker, George Bliss, and their as- sociates were incorporated as the proprietors of the bridge connecting Springfield and West Springfield. The toll for
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each foot passenger was three cents; for each horse and chaise, chair, or sulky, sixteen cents; for each coach, chariot, phae- ton, or other four-wheeled carriage, thirty-three cents.
A usual stipulation was that, when enough tolls had been collected to reimburse the company for the cost of making and maintaining a turnpike or bridge, with an added profit of twelve per cent, the property should revert to the town or State, the tollgate should be removed, and the road opened to the public for free traffic. At least three bridges were financed by duly authorized lotteries, as also were some colleges, and even one or two churches.
The opening of turnpikes and bridges was followed by the establishment of regular lines of stagecoaches, among whose early promoters was Jason Clapp of Pittsfield, who manu- factured his own coaches and, incidentally, provided the spe- cial coach in which General LaFayette rode when crossing Berkshire County in 1825. In 1825 also Isaac Newton, Jr., through the Franklin Post and Christian Freeman "informs his friends and the public that he has purchased the Tavern Stand in the center of the pleasant village of Greenfield," then the head of river navigation, "and every exertion will be made to render this house a quiet resting place to those who travel for business or pleasure." Newton's hotel was built on honor. It was a grand hotel. There were two lines of stages passing by it daily between Boston and Albany. Another line ran from Hartford, Conn., to Hanover, N. H. Elegant coaches rolled up to the hotel piazza in grand style to the music of the driver's horn.
CANALS AND RAILROADS
This feverish development of rapid transit was not confined to the land. An important series of canals was constructed to pass around such rapids and falls of the Connecticut River as obstructed navigation; and these, with an ingenious system of sliding caissons and a series of dams provided with required fishways for shad, rendered the river passable by boats and rafts twenty feet wide and sixty feet long, from the mouth of the Chicopee River to the town of Montague. The cut around
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the falls near South Hadley in 1793 under the direction of Benjamin Prescott of Northampton was the first canal in the United States. About 1825, a project was broached for dig- ging a canal from Boston to the Hudson River. The scheme involved a tunnel through Hoosac Mountain; but the cost of the work, together with the advent of the railroad, caused the plan to be abandoned, and the tunnel was postponed for many years, until George W. Mowbray of North Adams perfected the commercial use of nitroglycerin.
June 14, 1827, the State appointed commissioners for the survey of one or more routes for a railway between Boston and Albany. Only one route was seriously considered; and of that, only the portion between West Springfield and Green- bush, N. Y., was actually surveyed. The report of the com- missioners was chiefly devoted to a discussion of the possi- bilities of horse power acting over the varying grades of the road; a detailed estimate of the way freight that might be expected, which was set at a total of 84,360 tons a year ; and of the number of passengers to be carried, which from a computation of those then using the stagecoaches was expected to exceed 30,000 annually.
This report was submitted by the General Court to the State Board of Directors of Internal Improvements, which, after a careful examination of the southern route previously considered, and also of two other routes further north, re- ported in June, 1829, that the line passing through Worcester and Springfield was the least expensive, the easiest to travel, and the one which would serve the largest population. The board discussed the question of steam versus horse-power, and recommended the latter. It advised that the road be built by funds raised by loans in the name of the State; and sub- mitted the report of Engineer James F. Baldwin, who was working in collaboration with his brother, Loammi, with his maps and detailed items of the several surveys. Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge, once Speaker of the national House of Representatives, seconded the suggestion that railways should be built under the direction and support of the Com- monwealth, saying that a railroad "is among the few improve- ments that a State can most successfully manage," and that
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"what is intended for the beneficent use of the great public should never be placed in private hands."
The General Court did not agree with Sedgwick, and took no steps beyond the incorporation of the Boston and Worcester Railroad Company ; until in March, 1833, it granted to Nathan Hale, David Henshaw, and their associates a charter of the Western Railroad Corporation, to build a road from Worcester to the line of the State of New York. That corporation was organized in January, 1836, with Thomas B. Wales as president, Josiah Quincy, Jr., as treasurer, and Ellis Gray Loring as clerk. New surveys were made, and work on the first section of twenty miles west from Worcester was begun in February, 1837. Oct. 1, 1839, the road was opened for travel between Worcester and Springfield, with loco- motives operated by steam, as horse-power railroads had already become counted among the things of the past.
SOCIAL AND SCIENTIFIC LIFE
By 1855 western Massachusetts was covered by a network of at least fifteen distinct railroads, and these served not only to let the inhabitants out from behind their mountain barriers, but to let in visitors and summer residents attracted by the charming scenery and pure air of the Berkshire hills. Then Lenox became famous as an inland Newport, and furnished a delightful retreat for Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Ward Beecher, Charlotte Cushman, Fanny Kemble, Sam Ward, and numerous members of the "upper crust" of Boston and New York. Herman Melville, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry W. Longfellow found rest and recreation in their homes in Pittsfield. All these and many more formed intimate friend- ships with one another, and with the cultured families of Dalton and of Stockbridge.
The spirit of inventive genius and of initiative in public welfare, which inspired the construction of turnpikes, bridges, canals, and railroads, was seen later in the invention of fric- tion-match machinery in 1836 by Alonzo D. Phillips, of Springfield ; in the promotion of the Union Pacific Railroad by Thomas Clark Durant, of Lee; in the laying of the first
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Atlantic cable, in 1866, by Cyrus West Field, of Stockbridge; and in the invention and demonstration of the Stanley trans- former by William Stanley, at Great Barrington, in 1886.
WHO WERE WHO IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS BEFORE 1861
Years ago it was thought rather clever to tell inquiring strangers that the "productions of Berkshire County are ice and men." None could dispute the primacy of ice; the Berk- shire production of men was remarkable in the history of Massachusetts and of the Union. Witness the following list of individuals prominent in the history of western Massa- chusetts prior to the Civil War. In education it includes Ephraim Williams, founder of Williams College; and the first four presidents of that college,-Ebenezer Fitch, Zephaniah Swift Moore (later President of Amherst), Edward Dorr Griffin, and Mark Hopkins. Stephen West, Alvan Hyde, Samuel Shepard, Timothy M. Cooley, and Emerson Davis were vice-presidents of the college.
Among the trustees of Williams were the following western- ers : John Bacon, Daniel Collins, Israel Jones, David Noble, Theodore Sedgwick, Thompson J. Skinner, Seth Swift, Henry Van Schaack, William Williams, Elijah Williams, Job Swift, Ammi Robbins, Samuel Henshaw, Daniel Dewey, John Wil- liams, Joseph Woodbridge, Nathaniel Bishop, Jacob Catlin, Ezra Starkweather, Thomas Dwight, Daniel Noble, Theophi- lus Packard, Levi Glezen, Thaddeus Pomeroy, Joseph Lyman, Thomas Snell, George Bliss, Herman Humphrey, Isaac Knapp, Ezra Fisk, George Nixon Briggs, Emory Washburn, William Perrin Walker, Charles A. Dewey, Rufus W. Bailey, Na- thaniel Scudder Prime, James McKown, John Nelson, Milo Lyman Bennet, Edward A. Newton, Ralph W. Gridley, David Buel, Henry W. Dwight, William Buel Sprague, Daniel N. Dewey, Edwin W. Dwight, John Whiton, William Porter, William D. Snodgrass, Richard Townley Haines, Horatio Nelson Brinsmade, Henry L. Sabin, Thomas E. Vermilye, Charles Stoddard, Thomas Robbins, John Todd, Absalom Peters, Henry Walker Bishop, Adam Reid, Joseph White, Bradford R. Wood, Charles A. Thompson, Erastus C. Bene- dict, Homer Bartlett, William Hyde, and Nicholas Murray.
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WHO WERE WHO BEFORE 1861
Professors in Williams College were Gamaliel Smith Olds, Chester Dewey, Ebenezer Emmons, Albert Hopkins, Edward Lasell, Joseph Alden, Nathaniel Hitchcock Griffin, Addison Ballard, Isaac Newton Lincoln, T. Edwards Clark, John Bascom, Arthur Latham Perry, and Paul Ansel Chadbourne.
Among the presidents of Amherst College were Herman Humphrey and Edward Hitchcock. Among the trustees of Amherst College were Joseph Lyman, David Parsons, Theophilus Packard, James Taylor, Rufus Graves, Nathaniel Smith, Elisha Billings, Joshua Crosby, Noah Webster (lexicog- rapher), Samuel Fowler Dickinson, Richard Salter Storrs, Alfred Ely, John Leland, Lucius Boltwood, Israel Elliot Trask, Joseph Vaill, Lewis Strong. Professors in Amherst College included Gamaliel Smith Olds, Jacob Abbott, Wel- lington H. Tyler, W. S. Tyler, Sylvester Strong, Nathan W. Fiske.
These western Massachusetts men became governors : Caleb Strong of Northampton, George Nixon Briggs of Pittsfield, and Emory Washburn of Worcester, governors of Massa- chusetts, and Silas Wright of Amherst, governor of New York. The most distinguished resident of Western Massa- chusetts has been Calvin Coolidge, mayor of Northampton, governor of Massachusetts, and twice President of the United States.
The list of Senators of the Federal Government from Mas- sachusetts includes : Silas Wright of Amherst; Julius Rock- well of Lenox; Theodore Sedgwick of Stockbridge.
Among ministers of the gospel the following were most eminent : Thomas Allen, Pittsfield; Timothy Cooley, Granville ; Stephen Williams, Longmeadow; Samuel Hopkins, Great Bar- rington; Thomas Rand, Holyoke; William Allen, Pittsfield; James Ballard, Charlemont; Alvan Hyde, Lee; Jonathan Edwards, Northampton ; John Todd, Pittsfield; David Dudley Field, and Henry M. Field, Stockbridge.
A noted scientist : Dexter Marsh, Greenfield. International jurist; David Dudley Field, Jr., Stockbridge. Farmer-states- man: Jonathan Smith, Lanesborough. Historians: Richard Hildreth, Deerfield; J. E. A. Smith, Pittsfield. Poets : William Cullen Bryant, Great Barrington; J. G. Holland, Springfield,
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and E. W. B. Canning. Military officers: William Eaton, Brimfield; Benjamin Tupper, Chesterfield; Joseph Dwight, Great Barrington; John Stoddard and Joseph Hawley, North- ampton; Ebenezer Mattoon, Amherst; John Brown, Pittsfield; James Easton, Pittsfield; John Fellows, Sheffield; John Patter- son, Lenox. Justices of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts : Charles A. Dewey, Williamstown; James D. Colt, Pittsfield. Journalists : Phineas Allen, founder of Pittsfield Sun; Samuel Bowles, founder of the Springfield Republican; Henry W. Taft, first Editor Massachusetts Eagle, Lenox, 1833, now the Berkshire County Eagle. Novelists: Catherine Sedgwick, Stockbridge; and Nathaniel Hawthorne, resident of Lenox. Actress : Frances Anne Kemble of Lenox.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
BERKSHIRE HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY .- Collections (Vols. I-III, Pittsfield, 1886-1913).
CARPENTER, EDWARD WILTON, AND MOREHOUSE, CHARLES FREDERICK, comps. -The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts (Amherst, Carpenter and Morehouse, 1896).
CUTLER, MANASSEH .- Life, Journals and Correspondence (2 vols., Cin- cinnati, Clarke, 1888)-Edited by W. P. Cutler and J. P. Cutler.
DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. MASSACHUSETTS. BETTY ALDEN CHAPTER .- Early Northampton ( Privately printed, Northamp- ton, 1914).
EASTMAN, SOPHIE E .- In Old South Hadley (Chicago, Blakely, 1912).
FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY, editor .- A History of the County of Berkshire, Massachusetts (Pittsfield, 1829).
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL .- Passage from the American Note-Books (Bos- ton, Houghton Mifflin, 1883).
HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT .- History of Western Massachusetts (2 vols., Springfield, Bowles, 1855).
HYDE, CHARLES MCEWEN AND HYDE, ALEXANDER, compilers .- The Cen- tennial Celebration, and Centennial History of the Town of Lee, Mass. (Springfield, Mass., 1878).
JONES, ELECTA FIDELIA .- Stockbridge, Past and Present; or, Records of an Old Mission Station (Springfield, Bowles, 1854).
LOCKWOOD, JOHN HOYT, AND OTHERS, editors .- Western Massachusetts; a History; 1636-1925 (4 vols., N. Y., Lewis, 1926).
MALLARY, RAYMOND DE WITT .- Lenox and the Berkshire Highlands (N. Y., Putnam's, 1902).
MASSACHUSETTS (Commonwealth) .- Acts and Resolves, Public and Pri- vate, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay (21 vols., Boston, 1869-1922)-Often referred to as the "Province Laws." See especially Vols. 10-11.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
OSGOOD, HERBERT LEVI .- The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Cen- tury (3 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1904-1907).
OSGOOD, HERBERT LEVI .- The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Cen- tury (4 vols., N. Y., Columbia Univ. Press, 1924)-Covers the period 1690-1763.
PERRY, ARTHUR LATHAM .- Origins in Williamstown N. Y., (Privately printed, Norwood, Mass., 1904).
Pittsfield Sun (Pittsfield, Mass., 1800-1820)-A weekly journal; estab- lished as The Sun; title changed May 23, 1803.
RAYNOR, Mrs. ELLEN M., AND PETITCLERC, Mrs. EMMA L .- History of the Town of Cheshire, Berkshire County, Mass. (Holyoke, Mass., 1885). SHELDON, GEORGE .- 1636-Pocumtuck-1886. A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts, with a special Study of the Indian Wars (2 vols., Deer- field, 1895-1896).
SMITH, EDWARD CHURCH, SMITH, PHILIP MACK, and SMITH, THEODORE CLARK .- A History of the Town of Middlefield, Massachusetts (Pri- vately printed, Menasha, Wis., 1924).
SMITH, JOSEPH EDWARD ADAMS .- The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men (2 vols., N. Y., Beers, 1885).
SMITH, JOSEPH EDWARD ADAMS .- The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1734 to the year 1800 (Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1869).
SMITH, JOSEPH EDWARD ADAMS .- The History of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 (Spring- field, 1876).
SPRING, LEVERETT WILSON .- A History of Williams College (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1917).
TAYLOR, CHARLES JAMES .- History of Great Barrington (Berkshire County), Massachusetts (Great Barrington, Bryan, 1882).
WATSON, ELKANAH .- Men and Times of the Revolution (N. Y., Dana, 1856)-Edited by W. C. Watson.
WATSON, ELKANAH .- Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson (N. Y., Dana, 1858)-Edited by W. C. Watson. In- cludes journals and travels in Europe and America from 1777 to 1842, with his correspondence with public men.
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