USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Holyoke > Complete program of Holyoke's seventy-fifth anniversary and home coming days > Part 6
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Furmence Hamel came to Holyoke from St. Paul, Canada, about the year 1860, with a fam- ily of eight sons and two daughters. Although he had been a school-teacher in Canada, he went into the Lyman Mills, and not satisfied with this work, found employment with the Newton Paper Company. The last 23 years of his ac- tive life were spent in the employ of the Con- necticut River Railroad Company. With retire- ment he became an acknowledged authority on local history of the industrial era and possessed a fund of event and anecdote always interest- ing, and well nigh inexhaustible.
Charles Provost came to Holyoke in 1868, with "more children than dollars." He became a laborer for the Water Power Company, then later learned the building trade, and in 1874, with Gilbert Potvin, erected his first block in Ward One. He enjoyed a long and useful career in real estate which gave him a competence.
Henry E. Chaput, M. D., came to Holyoke from St. Hyacinthe sometime before the turn of the century. For many years he carried on a successful practice of medicine in the city.
Odilon Z. Charest was born in 1857, in Three Rivers, Canada. Coming to the city in 1878, he found employment with the Holyoke Furni- ture Company. After ten years with this com- pany he went into business with M. St. Marie and carried on in this business for many years. Possessed of a generous civic spirit, he served on the School Committee for several terms.
Dr. Felix J. Cloutier was educated at the Col- lege of St. Therese L'Assumption and graduated in medicine from Queen's University at King- ston, Canada. He came to Holyoke in 1889, and engaged in the successful practice of medicine over a long period.
Jacques L. Demers came here when 50 years of age and set up in the portrait and photo- graphie trade which he followed with marked success in the 90's.
Valere Ducharme was educated in Canada where he also learned the grocery and the meat business. In 1886, he came to Holyoke and opened up a grocery store and meat market with E. D. Durocher as partner. In 1889, he bought out his partner's interest and thereafter car-
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ried the business alone over a long period of years.
Alfred D. Durocher was born at Farnham, Canada, in 1864, and was edneated at Farnham College. After learning the grocer and meat business he came to Holyoke and established a business on Cabot Street which became very prosperous.
Orphir E. Genest, attorney and counsellor at law, was edneated at the seminary in Three Riv- ers and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1882. A member of the Board of Registrars for five years, he was appointed probation offi- cer in 1896, a position which he held for many years.
Leon J. Laporte came to Holyoke with his wife and seven children in 1868. Until the time of his death he was engaged in the tracking business.
Anthyme S. Menard came as a young boy with his parents to the city in 1865. IIe studied medicine and took his degree from the Univer- sity of Vermont in 1888. After practicing for a few years he established a drug business with which he was long identified.
Adelard M. Potvin came to Holyoke in 1871, from St. Ours, Canada. Early in life he began his business career in a men's furnishing store. In 1890, he opened up his men's furnishing and hat store which he conducted with marked suc- ress. He was an ardent Republican and served on the Board of Aldermen as member-at-large for five years.
Val. Moquin came to Holyoke in 1868, and engaged in business over a period of more than 30 years. In his later years he came to be one of the largest real estate operators in the city. For three terms he served as fire commissioner, first on the old Commission and later on the new.
Dr. Franeis X. Patoel graduated from the University Vietoria Medieal School and prae- ticed medicine in Holyoke after 1873. He served on the Board of Health.
Another name closely identified with the early life of people of French extraction in Holyoke was that of Joseph M. LaFrance. He joined the local Fire Department on May 13, 1869, at about the age of 17, serving for a period of 54 years and rising to be Deputy Fire Chief of the city.
In his early days on the force he had a rep- tation as a sprinter and was a valuable man to run with the hose reel. The hose of that period was made of lengths of leather riveted together. A reel carried 800 feet and was heavy. The apparatus of the early period consisted of two hand-drawn reels of hose and a Relianee steamer.
The Windsor Hotel, "one of the handsomest buildings in the valley," was the scene of one of Holyoke's most destructive fires in respect to material damage in the year 1899. It was called "Holyoke's half-million dollar fire." Fire fighting was hazardous in those days as it is today. Chief LaFrance was injured several times in the line of duty.
These were a few of that courageons band which in mid-century found resource and faith to cast its lot with the United States of Amer- ica ; to leave home and homeland behind and to seek residence and fortune among a strange and alien people; newcomers in a robust and grow- mg civilization of which they and their children were now henceforth and forever to be an in- tegral part. Some of them came from St. Onrs ; some of them came from Trois Rivieres; some of them came from "L'Acadie, home of the happy." All became good Americans. These were the forbears of many of the people of Freneh descent who are living in Holyoke to- day. These were the grandfathers or great- grandfathers of many a Holyoke lad who took the opportunity to prove his Amerieanism at Belleau Wood, or Chatean-Thiery, the Anzio Beachhead, or Okinawa.
INDUSTRIAL UPS AND DOWNS
The first Town Meeting of the newly created Town of Holyoke was held on the 22nd of March, 1850. The population at that time was approximately 3700, of whom more than a thou- sand were newcomers with the mills. The first Selectmen were: Alexander Day, Joseph Mor- rison and Amos Allen.
A first manufacturing plant established on the canal line was that founded by Joseph C. Par- sons and commonly known as the Parsons Paper Company. The capacity of the mill was large with eight "engines" of great power, and two Fourdrinier machines of precision construction. Two artesian wells were sunk in the rock to a depth of 150 feet to ensure a constant supply of pure water.
The purpose of the Parsons company was to make fine writing papers as for letters, notes. blank books and ledgers. Its line of manufac- ture was somewhat at variance with the original purposes of the power company which had been determined upon production of cotton. Colonel Aaron Bagg was also interested in the organiza- tion of this company and was for many years President of the Corporation.
Hampden Mills were constructed by the Had- ley Falls Company and completely furnished
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with textile machinery made in the company's shops for an interlocking group of which Patrick T. Jackson, a large stockholder in the power company, was the leading factor. The intent of this organization was to manufacture "fancy vestings, pantaloon eloth, and sundry." The
SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH Corner of High and Dwight Streets
mills are now known in Holyoke as the Mack- intosh Mills. Jackson Street was named after the founder.
The Holyoke Paper Company, a somewhat smaller organization, was set up in 1857, and was the first mill to be built at the southern end of the canal system. The site of this original manufactory is now ocenpied by the hydro- electric plant of the Holyoke Gas and Electric Department.
SOCIAL GROWTH
That period subsequent to the completion of the dam and prior to the panic of 1857 was characterized by enrichment in the civic, so- cial and religious life of the community. The Second Congregational Church Society was founded. The old North Chestnut Street Sehool was built. The Episcopal Society, Trinity Church, later to be ealled St. Paul's, was or-
ganized. The Methodists united, holding serv- ices in Lyceum Hall on High Street. The Sec- ond Congregational Church Society built its first church at the corner of High and Dwight. Father Jolm O'Callaghan, the first Catholic priest in Holyoke, was assigned to the town and forthwith founded St. JJerome parish. Classes were started in the first Holyoke High School, located in the Galludet-Terry Hall. Work was begun on the construction of St. Jerome Church on Hampden Street. The First Unitarian So- ciety was organized.
A police force of ten good men and true was set up. R. G. Marsh was clected the first chief of an effectual volunteer fire department. Later the Fire Department was given three to five hundred dollars for maintenance and W. B. C. Pearson beeame chief.
In the year 1857, the roster of the Mt. Tom Hose Company contained the names of many of the young bloods of the town, such as: Jones S. Davis, William II. Dickinson, L. P. Bosworth, W. A. Judd, R. P. Crafts, R. Pattee, O. S. Tuttle, B. F. Mullen, John D. Hardy, E. P. Ford, Barney Bigelow and John T. Lynch. Isaac Osgood, D. E. Kingsbury, T. W. Ordway, C. H. Heywood and W. S. Loomis were clerks of the department for many years.
Among the names approved by the Board of Engineers as firemen in that year were Rufus Mosher, E. D. Shelley, Wallace Warner, Dom- inick Crosson, Homer Crafts, S. S. Couch, R. G. Marsh, John H. Clifford, John R. Baker, V. W. Dowd, J. C. Morrison, E. W. Loomis, Ben- jamin Roberts, O. A. IIenry, A year later Rob- ert Mitehell, B. F. Makinster, E. Whitaker, Les- ter Newell, C. HI. Roby, T. C. Page, Thomas Kelt, John C. Smith and J. A. Cleveland were added.
Still other members at one time or another in this era were N. W. Quint, M. W. Prentiss, R. W. Prentiss, L. N. Williston, Samuel Snell, C. A. Corser, H. B. Ingraham, G. C. Marsh, John Cleary, T. W. Doyle, W. HI. Blake, C. H. Knapp, L. N. Barry, Horace C. Walters, William Brad- ley, Aaron Baldwin. C. H. Flanders, J. N. Per- kins, Robert Voss, Ernest Kreh, Fred Kreimen- dahl, Thomas Buswell, A. J. Rideout, C. II. Richards, J. S. Webber, W. C. Newell, John Merriek, H. J. Sawtelle, W. S. Perkins, E. W. Wellington, O. B. Pier, F. Ebel. Among those who served as assistant engineers were Amos Russell, B. F. Perkins, Richard Pattee. S. B. Fairbanks, J. S. Webber, Milo Chamberlain, S. Snell, W. J. Summer, W. W. Loomis, J. M. Dun- ham. J. D. Hardy, J. P. Donahue and J. W. Davis.
The Firemen's Musters were more or less so-
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cial oceasions for the men of those days. Com- petitions were held in sealing, hose-laying and related activities. The Hook and Ladder Com- pany was the dude company of the tine. Mem- bers of this company often appeared at the an- nual parades with stove-pipe hats, white gloves and cane. Other members of the organization wore flaming red shirts and business-like rain hats.
The Holyoke Lodge of Odd Fellows was founded and the Mt. Tom Lodge of Masons was organized. The Lyceum movement was still in flourishing condition in Holyoke. Beginnings were made for what was later to be the widely- known St. Jerome Temperanee Society.
BOOM TIMES
These were prosperous times for Holyoke. The first half of the decade was a boom period and Holyoke was a boom town. Money was easy. Credit was available. It was a time to do things in a big way, and Holyoke was the place to do it. Fifty-nine lots for mills or busi- ness sites were sold by the Falls Company in one year. Exchange Hall was built. The Ly- man Mills Company was organized with a cap- italization of a million and one-half dollars. The Prentiss Wire Mills were established. The Had- ley Falls Bank and the Holyoke Savings Bank were created. The new town splurged in the erection of the ultra-modern Holyoke House (Hamilton Hotel) which cost a eold $100,000 and was rated one of the best hostelries in the State.
A census taken in 1855, showed a popu- lation close to 5000 and no less a person than the Governor of Massachusetts went on reeord as predieting that within a decade Holyoke would be a city of 50,000 people. These were the times to think big and to spend freely. Actually the incorporation of the Lyman Mills Company marked the beginning of the textile industry in IIolyoke. The "Hampden Free- man." Holyoke's first newspaper, began pub- lieation in 1849.
Many pretentious houses and stores were built during this period by private individuals. Busi- ness ventures were organized on an ambitious seale. Professional men were coming into the city and as early as mid-century there were thir- teen persons and corporations in the town pay- ing taxes on property valued at more than $10,000.
In the mill section of the town, a trouble- some element began to make itself felt, a eon- siderable part of it transient and hard to keep under control. Unruly spirits were abroad and
Sunday was for them a day of intoxication and uncurbed license. They made themselves at home and made everybody else uncomfortable. For a time the police were unable to cope with this problem adequately and citizens were often compelled to take matters into their own hands.
A town magistrate's court was set up in a small wooden structure on John Street. Its in- evitable concomitant. the lockup, was a small briek building, later devoted to keeping tools used in earing for Hampden Park, located in the alley baek of Maple Street.
The banks had plenty of money and were willing to loan it. Small business men, seeking to ride to affluence on the tide, rushed headlong into venturesome speculations. Merchant and manufacturer increased his capital outlay at every turn. Even the gigantic Hadley Falls Company had overreached itself. Skies were blue. Not a storm cloud was to be seen on the economie horizon.
COLLAPSE
Then the bubble burst. The first of the rail- road building panies was at hand, caused large- ly by the dislocation of great reservoirs of fluid eapital in the construction of endless miles of track, which would not get earnings for a full generation. When it came time to move the crops of Amcriea in the fall of 1857, there just wasn't enough money to go around. Many of the great New York banks failed and all of them suspended speeie payment. Another one of those periodie depressions which have plagued American economic life throughout our history was at hand.
All at once business folded up. The people of the country no longer had the money to buy the products that were made in Holyoke, Massa- chusetts. Cotton eloth couldn't be sold in suf- ficient quantity and at sufficient price to pay the overhead on mammoth mills and millsites. Workers were laid off and payrolls stopped. Purchasing power was nil. The big Lyman Mills shut down all winter and property owners in the community who had bought at high prices were in the depths of despond.
The entire trade in the stores could have been cared for by a single elerk. Time hung heavy on the merehants' hands and often on pleasant days they spent mneh of their time in an open lot, pitching horseshoes while they watehed for eustomers. On a morning, when a light fall of rain during the night had wet down the dust on the street, one of the merehants observed that by noon only one team had left its tracks. Another shoe store owner served just one cus-
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THE TOWN LOCKUP
tomer during a 12-hour day and sold him a penny pair of shoe laees.
Chapin Brothers, who ran the general store in Baptist Village and who carried on an in- formal banking business among the farmers of the region. failed. With their failure went the savings of many of the people at a time when they needed money most. The pride of the town, the new Holyoke House, was offered for sale at $20,000-with no takers,
The Hadley Falls Company was caught off base. The first dam failure had cost heavily and now all fluid capital was tied up in land and buildings. The whole project had been premised npon the sale of land and water power. Now no customers could be found. All of its properties were sold at auction in 1859 to a group headed by the same Alfred Smith who had built the wing dam in 1827. The price was $325,000 for property on which more than $2,000,000 had been spent since 1847. In 1859. the Holyoke Water Power Company was in- corporated and took over the entire holdings from Smith at a price of $350.000.
The new Holyoke Water Power Company, organized in 1859, was successful from the start. In the early days it had a go-getting policy of bringing new industries to Holyoke. In this respect its policies were liberal as was also the policy of the Town, and later the City. Because of the bargain purchase at rock bottom of the '57 panic. and the distress price which it paid for a magnificent capital resource, this organ-
ization was able to make concessions and to offer substantial inducements to newcomers on the Holyoke industrial scene.
LIFE OF THE TIMES
Workers in the mills were on the job at 5 o'clock in the morning. When 6 o'clock came they were allowed half an hour for breakfast; at 12:15, three-quarters of an hour for dinner; and at 6:30 another three-quarters of an hour for supper. Often they continmed work until 9 o'clock in the evening. Wages were low.
The cost of living in those early days was not high. Board could be had in the Patch for three dollars a week. Food was substantial though of a simple nature. Many articles and staples which are now deemed necessities were luxuries in those times. Butter, for instance, was hard to get. Molasses had general usage for cooking rather than sugar. lee in summer was used by but few, a single company supply- ing all of Ilolyoke and South Hadley Falls.
Many families among the working people raised their own porkers, goats, chickens and vegetables. Occasional families kept a cow. Protein could always be had in the form of fish from the river.
Some of the older men and most of the wom- en wore shawls instead of coats and jackets. Overshoes were a thing unheard of. Boots were worn for the most part by men and boys and
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HIGH STREET FROM APPLETON-(An Early Picture)
served very well in the muddy streets. All men shaved themselves and oceasionally ent one another's hair. High silk hats, commonly known as stovepipe hats, were just the eorreet thing for elderly gentlemen, dressed up in their Sunday best. A select few eould display white bosom-starehed shirts, with high straight or winged collar, and generous grey cravat.
Sunbonnets for the women with stiffly starehed visors and fetching edge ruffles were held on by streamers tied in bow-knots under the chin. Hairdressing was not yet an organ- ized profession and each woman did her hair up in her own particular way, one of the most popular styles of hairdo being the "waterfall." The old rattan broad hoopskirt, worn by women in the Civil War days, gave way in time to the simpler wired skirt which did not take up so mnch room in getting around.
Those were the days even before the horse cars or the trolley cars and the many, who did not have horse and carriage at their disposal, walked. In times when work was hard to get men were known to walk to Easthampton, do a long day's work, and then walk home again Before the building of the St. Jerome Church, both men and women walked to Chicopee on Sundays and then back again, and thought little of it.
Steam-heated apartments were not yet in vogue. Wood was used for heating much more commonly than coal, and many of the towns- men ent their own wood at times when mills or
business was slack. One wood stove could be made to heat four rooms, but required frequent stoking.
There were no movies, no theatres prior to the building of the Opera House. One-ring cirenses toured the country and dropped into Holyoke onee or twiee a year with their flan- boyant shaking, melodramatic offerings. Occa- sional troupes of travelling actors exhibited in Exchange Hall or Chapin Hall. People appre- ciated the beauty of natural scenery. Boating was a popular recreation.
In the winter of 1860, Jones S. Davis organ ized the sleigh-ride of sleigh-rides that was the biggest and best and most glamorous of all the sleigh-rides that had ever been or ever was to be. Every wood and hay sled of the Lyman Mills was pressed into service and fitted with low seats and plenty of straw. When it was found at the last moment that not enough horses were available to pull the sleds, an ox team was pressed into service, and the driver spent an exeiting evening goading his eattle along and trying to keep up with the earavan. "A good time was had by all." but to make the story end right the patient oxen finally revolted and tipped their particular load of merrymakers into a snow bank. This sleigh ride was long talked about along the streets by the Holyoke Dam although some averred that it was a deviee to promote satisfactory labor relations for the company.
Smallpox broke out in the fall of 1872.
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Rumors said it was first contracted by a woman employed in the rag room of one of the paper mills, engaged in the sorting of foreign rags. Many people were exposed, and within a short. time so many were afflicted that the pest-house was unable to care for all. Those having the d scase in a light form were allowed to be taken care of in their own homes, a red flag being placed near the door, to warn people of danger. All schools were closed and church attendance dwindled to nothing. Some of the more timor- ons Hled the town.
It was a common practice for the workers on the dam and the new mill projects to save as munch as they could ont of their dollar-a-day wages and when the hoard had grown sufficient- ly large to send it back to the old sod to help pay passage of a sister or brother, or wife. One workman had labored long and faithfully, seek- ing what little overtime there was to be had after a twelve-hour day, denying himself lux- uries and saving each week. Finally the day came when there was enough to pay his wife's way over to America. It was a proud accom- plishment. The money was sent.
Two months later, when the woman arrived at the Holyoke station, she did not find her has- band. After several moments of bewilderment, she was identified by company officials who made themselves known and as gently as they conld. informed her that her husband had died of the plague. They gave her such work as they coukl. Children who came over later found work among the families of the town. The woman was the grandmother of the late John J. Lynch.
A serious spreading of distemper in horses broke out at about the same time. Half the horses of the community were out of use or dead. So drastic was the shortage of horse- power that for a time men could be seen in the streets, pulling and pushing wagons to del ver merchandise. Wheelbarrows and farmers' 2 0x teams were used to deliver coal and wood.
EWINGVILLE AND TIGER TOWN
Many designations of various smaller areas of the general community which were used dur- ing the last half of the nineteenth century have lost meaning with the growth of the city and the merging of all of these smaller areas into one. That locality in the vicinity of what is now the Holy Cross Church was known as Ewing- ville. The Pinehurst region of today was known as the Newton Woods or the Violet Hill section because of a prolific species of sand violet which grew in great abundance there. South Hol- yoke was Tiger Town ; the Bowers Street region,
Depot Hill. The lower, level section of Ward One was called the Flats. Ingleside was much as it is today ; and Rock Valley.
Near the junction of Sargeant Street and the first level canal was an old brick yard, which furnished most of the brick, and a large part of the sand and gravel used in the construction of the early mills and business blocks. Its owner, a Captain MeClellan in the beginning, sold out to L. B. Bosworth, who in turn conveyed the plant to the Lynch Brothers at a later date. The yard was operated with profit until the clay gave out, perhaps around 1880. For a number of years Ilolyoke was referred to as the "'Brick City."
The Island above the dam began to form shortly after the successful damming of the river, and was well above the low water level by 1860. Gradually this island enlarged over the last half of the century until it reached its preseni size. A filling-in process still continues above the dam in the river bed. It is predicted that some day the whole area of the river, bo- tween the old dam and the new, will be filled with silt to within a few feet of the surface of the water, an invincible re-enforcement of the lower construction.
A dollar was to be made in real estate, par- ticularly in the rental of places of business, a condition which led to the building of many business blocks. The Galludet-Terry block was the first of these blocks to be constructed, im- mediately followed by the Exchange block which for years was the most desirable such structure in town. The Chapin block was on the corner of Main and Race Streets, the Fuller block on the east side of High Street near Oliver; the Martin block on the corner of High and Hamp- den. The Hutchins block, twice burned and rebuilt, stood on the site of the present Stiles structure. A. and S. B. Allyn owned a build- ing at the corner of Iligh and Dwight.
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