USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume I > Part 24
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He devised and founded the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Mary- land, and alone set at work this institution. For one month in 1846 he was Secretary of War and gave the order to General Zachary Tay- lor to march to the Rio Grande and into Texas, which was the first occupation of that soil by the United States.
Toward the end of 1846 Mr. Bancroft was transferred to the post of Minister to Great Britain. Later President Andrew Johnson appointed him Minister to Prussia, and he filled other posts in the German Empire. He rendered important service to his country in the settlement of the northwestern boundary between the United States and the British Dominions. After his return to America he delivered a memorial address on the life and character of Abraham Lincoln at the request of both Houses of Congress, speaking before them in the House of Representatives in February, 1866. The last revised edition of his six-volume history appeared in 1884 and 1885. He had been engaged for more than fifty years in writing his history, which he began when a young man. The immense amount of labor bestowed on it was so colossal in its purpose that for years he carried
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it on at great expense and with a large number of assistants. At one time there were twenty clerks employed. When he died he had attained an age above ninety.
Captain David Barber, a native of West Springfield, was born in September, 1789, on the Kirtland place, just below the South End Bridge. Among the incidents of his early life was the great freshet of 1801, known as "Jefferson's Flood." The water rose higher than ever before and one night it swept off the western bank near the Bar- ber place, tearing away the entire front part of the house and leaving a roaring flood where the cellar had been. The floating front was finally towed ashore far down the river, while the back part of the house, which the flood left standing, was torn down and another dwell- ing was erected farther back from the river. This was a famous shad-fishing place at that time, but shad, now so much prized, were then lightly regarded. The old inhabitants used to say that people were ashamed to have it known they made shad a regular article of food; more highly esteemed were the noble salmon, which began running up the streams early in April, and were taken in a seine net like shad and often along with them. Twenty-nine salmon, weigh- ing from twenty to thirty pounds apiece, were taken in one day at the old fishing place near Barber's home. When he was five years old his father, who was one of the famous river boatmen of the past, was engaged in boating stone for the old toll bridge across the Connecticut from the quarry at Enfield Falls. The boats were hauled up the river by horse-power, with the horses walking on the beach of the western shore. Often they went far out in the water toward the center of the river to avoid shallows, and sometimes swam the deep holes or the mouth of tributary streams.
Two boatloads of stones were hauled by a single horse, and on one of these horses young Barber, then twelve years old, was perched day after day until the bridge was completed. To go down to the falls and back was a regular day's work. When the bridge was com- pleted Mr. Barber's father resumed his former business and the boy went with him. Before long, however, young David began to be known as Captain Barber, a title which he retained as long as he lived.
When navigation opened he was constantly employed transporting freight from Hartford to Springfield and towns above in the old boats so common on the Connecticut River. These boats were flat-bottomed,
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about twenty-five or thirty feet long, eight or ten wide, and usually carried one mast, which could be taken down going under bridges. Two men were the ordinary crew and fourteen tons was considered a full load. In the early part of the century the boats had no cabins and the captain was accustomed to cast anchor opposite one of the old river taverns that abounded all along the Connecticut in those days, and go ashore for the night with his crew of one.
Sometimes, if the wind was fair, the trip from Springfield to Hartford and return would be made in two days, and Mr. Barber used to tell the story that on one occasion when the south wind blew strong, he made the run from Hartford to the foot of Elm Street in Springfield within three hours. It was high water at the time so he ran straight over the Enfield Falls. Running the falls, especially going down stream, was by no means safe, and often boats were swamped in the raging waters. Three boats were wrecked on the falls one spring, and when one of them, which was laden with grain in bulk, went down, Mr. Barber's boat was so close on the wreck that the crew of the sinking craft sprang on board at a single bound.
Of course, everyone who worked on a boat held himself ready for a ducking at any minute, and one day young Barber came near taking his final plunge. He, with two other boys, had come down the river with a horse, to haul up an empty boat from the uppermost part of Enfield Falls. The horse was hitched to the boat by a long rope in the usual manner, and one boy remained on shore while the other two went on board to make the boat ready. Suddenly the old boat swung into the current and in an instant was making down stream, dragging the poor horse backward through the water in a decidedly lively manner. The boys saw at once there was no chance of stopping the boat and they hastily released the horse by cutting the rope. Then they hurried to lower the mast before they reached Enfield Bridge. They barely succeeded and shot under the bridge like an arrow. They passed the upper falls in safety, but when the boat lunged along to the lower falls it was caught by an eddy and sank in an instant. Young Barber and his comrade barely escaped with their lives. However, they did not give up the sunken boat, but when the flood subsided they worked like beavers to raise their craft and bring it to Springfield.
When Mr. Barber reached the age of twenty-two he gave up his boating life and went to live in Springfield, where he found work in
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the armory. This was in 1811, and the War with Great Britain loomed in the near future. Mr. Barber presently married and lived on what was then called Factory Road, from the fact of its leading to "Skipmuck," where the first cotton factories were built on the Chico- pee River. Later, Mr. Barber bought a lot on Walnut Street and built a new house. The street at that time had a thick pine woods border, but otherwise was just a sandy road leading to the Water- shops and some other trails.
Mrs. Barber often told of picking huckleberries on both sides of the street close to the house, and spoke of the time when only two houses were in sight, for the woods shut out all view of the little clump of buildings on the hill. Yet, curiously enough, the front win- dows of their house commanded a full view of the Connecticut River from the bend below the South End Bridge to a point near Thompson- ville. Mr. Barber often sat by his front window and counted as many as six sailboats from Hartford laden with freight for Springfield and towns above.
Moses Beach, when a boy, was a fifer in the War of 1812, and served the garrison at New Haven Harbor. When he arrived at the age of fourteen he was an apprentice to a cabinetmaker at Hartford, but soon bought a release with money saved by investing his earnings in candles, and doing work on his own account in the evenings. He moved to Northampton in 1820, and in 1822 established a branch business in Springfield on Main Street. Mr. Beach's work was cele- brated. He had the secret of veneering with mahogany, and his com- petitors could not do it nor find out how he did it. For a long time considerable of his fine cabinet work was to be found in the old resi- dences of Springfield.
He was among the first to spend money establishing stern-wheel steamboating on the Connecticut River, between Springfield and Hartford, and devised a plan for taking a steamboat over the falls at Enfield. Mr. Beach invented a rag cutting machine to be used in paper mills, and patented it. This machine was used in all paper mills, and the Ames Company in Chicopee were constantly calling on Mr. Beach for improved devices.
In 1835 he removed to New York City, where he bought from his brother-in-law the New York "Daily Sun" for $40,000. It was then two years old and the first penny paper. From then on it was the main
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business of his life and to him it owed its early reputation. By his energy and enterprise he made a success for his newspaper, and a fortune for himself. In those days "pony express" was used, and his advice to his sons was "get the news always, and always get it first if you can." He, with Mr. Hallock, established "The Associated Press," and on his lines the great American News Company came into existence.
In 1846 he was sent by President Polk as a special agent to Mexico for the purpose of arranging a treaty of peace, and he was
PHILIP WILCOX. TIN CUPPER SKIETRIN
RENAULLENINY
iopetard.
THE OLD TOWN HOUSE, STATE STREET
eminently successful in negotiating a basis on which the war was finally ended. Sam Houston always declared that Texas owed much to the advocacy of Moses Beach.
In 1849 he retired from the management of the "Sun" and during the "gold fever" he equipped and sent a vessel to California which was a profitable venture. The next year he built a costly residence in his native town of Wallingford, Connecticut, where he spent the
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remainder of his life, leaving his home only once to spend a year in Europe for the benefit of his health. He had five sons and three daughters.
Springfield's most notable inventor was Thomas Blanchard, born at Sutton, Massachusetts, in 1788. When he was eighteen he showed much mechanical genius and was associated with his brother Stephen in the manufacture of tacks by hand. In 1806 he invented a machine whereby tacks could be made more perfect than the handmade, and he sold it for $5,000 to a company that made a business of their manufacture. Afterward he invented a machine for turning and finishing gun barrels by a single operation. This invention he extended to the turning of all kinds of irregular forms. It was one of the most remarkable inventions made in that century. While employed at the United States Armory he received nine cents from the government for each musket made by his machines, and this was his only pay dur- ing the first term of his patent originally granted in 1820. In 1831 he received a patent for an improved form of steamboat stern-wheel, which was used on the Connecticut River between Springfield and Hartford and on some of the western rivers.
He built the steamboat "Blanchard" and launched it in 1828; then followed the steamer "Vermont," built on a lot at a corner of Springfield's Main Street and launched in 1829. Other vessels he built were the steamer "Massachusetts" and the steamboat "Agawam."
He introduced many improvements in the construction of railroads and locomotives, and about 1826 he made a steam wagon, which was the first vehicle of the kind made in this country. It was brought to such perfection that it was pronounced a success and he patented it. It was exhibited on the Springfield streets and created the greatest excitement. The boiler held three gallons of water and the carriage weighed half a ton. A bevel-geared wheel running parallel with the carriage wheels was attached to the hind axle-tree. Pinion wheels plied into the cogs of this wheel and the engine had a two-inch cylinder.
In 1851 he devised a process for bending timber by steaming it to use for knees of vessels, arm-chairs, thills and handles of shovels. He constructed machines that would cut and fold envelopes at a single operation. Mr. Blanchard was awarded more than twenty-five patents for his inventions, and from some of them he received ample compensation.
Hampden-21
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A Springfield newspaper editorial notice that appeared in May, 1829, stated that :
"The new steamboat 'Vermont,' built by our ingenious and enterprising townsman, Thomas Blanchard, was on Fri- day last carted from his shop through Main Street to the middle landing, and in the afternoon was launched into her destined element in gallant style, accompanied by an excellent band of music and the loud huzzas of a large concourse of spectators.
"The 'Vermont' was a Falls boat of handsome model, 75 feet in length, 15 feet breadth of beam with a promenade deck that had two cabins forward, with the engine after and the wheel at the stern.
"This is the first steamboat with engine complete ever built in this town, and is intended to ply in the river between Hartford and Bellows Falls."
One of the noteworthy deacons of his time was Moses Bliss. He graduated from Yale College in 1755, studied for the ministry, preached for a while and then retired from the profession, read law and became an eminent lawyer. He was a judge in the old county of Hampshire, a deacon in the First Church, and greatly respected for his learning and devotion to the church of which he was a member. One of his habits that made him conspicuous was his being one of the last of those who wore a cocked hat, powdered wig, knee breeches, low shoes and shining buckles.
Others of the same name helped to make the family an outstand- ing one. When Governor Caleb Strong, of Northampton, and the Legislature were looking over the field of western Massachusetts for the best men to represent this section at the important Hartford con- vention, George Bliss, of Springfield, was immediately selected. In August, 1814, when a British fleet was discovered off the New Eng- land coast, and a call for troops had immediately followed, General Jacob Bliss, of Springfield, started with the Old Hampshire Militia Brigade, and on his staff was Master George's son George, who served with the rank of captain. Governor Strong and Lawyer Bliss had often been pitted against each other in the courts, and both were stalwart Federalists. "Master George's" son, after returning from
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Boston with the troops, took his father from Springfield down to Hartford in a chaise to the convention.
There he served on several important committees, and in a volume printed some years later, the secretary of the convention took occa- sion to refer to George Bliss as a lawyer of extensive learning and unshaken independence, both of principle and conduct, and he added, "no man ever passed through life with a fairer reputation for integ- rity or in a more entire possession of the confidence of the community in which he lived." Mr. Bliss' knowledge of the law was profound, and the zeal with which he conducted the studies of young men and engaged in examinations for their benefit, might easily have led to establishing a law school in Springfield if there had been a college to which it could be attached. He was considered a great oracle on all knotty questions.
George Bliss, in an account of his own life, says :
"I attended the district school kept by a female until I was eight years old, which was in 1801. Then I was trans- ferred to the school kept by a man. Out of school I wan- dered about the streets, or engaged in play with every boy I could find. My father, when at home, was very rigid in his family government, controlling me more by fear than by affec- tion, as was the habit in those days. Afterward I went to the district school, where my most serious recollections are of the master's ferule or rod, with which I made close acquaintance almost daily, yet I fail to recall that anyone at home inquired about my progress at school or aided in my instruction, except occasionally an examination into my ability to repeat the" Assembly's catechism, which in those days was taught us by Reverend Bezaleel Howard."
George Bliss lived at a time when his profession, and society at large, was undergoing a change. He saw it and recognized its force, but he still lived in constant protest to many innovations. One of his griefs was having a favorite son join the Unitarian Church, and he looked with doubt at the number of young men admitted to the bar who were strangers to its traditions. Indeed, New England's revo- lutions in society from 1700 to 1776, or during George Bliss' lifetime (1764-1830), were more marked than anything we have witnessed
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since. Mr. Bliss had heard his father deliver a plea dressed in a gown, wig, silk stockings, and shining shoe buckles, and he lived to see his son confront an array of judges in a gray business suit.
George Bliss, the younger, aided in the support of the Unitarian Church; he gave the site of the city library, besides $10,000 in cash ; and the Home for the Friendless and other local charities knew the extent of his substantial interest. He was president of the Springfield Cemetery, and active in organizations like the Hampden Park Asso- ciation. His death at the advanced age of eighty was full of honors.
Joseph Carew, Junior, was born in Springfield in 1807. The early part of his life he worked in his father's tannery, which was near his residence at the corner of Main and Carew streets. He also worked near at hand on the Carew farm, and there was a two- year period when he attended the Monson Academy. Then, at the age of seventeen he entered the employ of a Springfield firm on Main Street, where he displayed such energy and thoroughness in the busi- ness that the next year he was promoted to the position of bookkeeper. Incidentally, he changed his home in the spring of 1825 to South Hadley Falls. His employers supplied the United States Govern- ment at Washington with paper, and as the firm deemed it necessary to be represented by some one at the capital, Mr. Carew was offered the position. He declined, but finally was induced to serve as a repre- sentative of the company. Thus it happened that he spent the win- ter at the capital, and had the good fortune to hear the debate in the Senate between Daniel Webster and Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina.
While in Washington Mr. Carew secured orders for paper from that veteran printer and publisher of the "Globe," Duff Green, and through him was introduced to many of the celebrated men of those ยท times. In 1830 Mr. Carew went into the paper mill as clerk, and eventually was put in charge of the manufacturing. About 1845 he retired from the paper mill for a time and engaged in a general milling business and the grinding of grain and rock salt, the latter of which came from the island of Nantucket. It so happened that his former employers went bankrupt, and the mill passed into the hands of some New York men, who put Mr. Carew in charge of the prop- erty. He and others organized the Carew Manufacturing Company,
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which carried on with great success, and he and his family gradually acquired a controlling interest.
In 1852 the Carew Company was awarded the first premium by the World's Fair in New York. This was a great surprise to the English manufacturers, and caused a commission of Englishmen to visit the mills for the purpose of seeing the process of making paper by a machine that had triumphed over theirs made by hand.
Mr. Carew was generous in making public gifts, and among others he gave Amherst College the money for a scholarship, to which was added the condition that no one who used tobacco should receive its benefit, he being decidedly opposed to its use in any form, as well as to the drinking of intoxicating liquors. In May, 1881, Mr. Carew died in his seventy-fourth year.
His son Frank, who was treasurer of the Hadley Falls Paper Company, died in 1877, at the age of thirty-nine, from injuries caused by a frightened horse.
In many ways Chester W. Chapin was the leading citizen in the Springfield region. His birthplace was Ludlow and the date of his birth 1798. While still a boy his father moved with his family to Chicopee Street, but died soon afterward, leaving a farm for Chester and his brothers to carry on. He attended school at the Westfield Academy for some time, but when the foundations for the cotton mills were being prepared, he was employed by the superintendent at a dollar and a half a day. In 1822 he was collector of taxes, a service for which he was paid $80. About the year 1826 he bought an inter- est in the stage line from Brattleboro, Vermont, to Hartford, Con- necticut, and the firm of Sargeant and Chapin soon became widely known as stage proprietors and large mail contractors. In 1831, when the first steamboats began to run between Springfield and Hartford, Mr. Chapin engaged in the steamboating business, and made his first venture by acquiring the property of Thomas Blanch- ard, the pioneer of the line. He soon was sole proprietor of the steamboats, and for fifteen years controlled the passenger traffic between Hartford and Springfield. Besides, he was the principal owner of the steamboat line between New York and New Haven, and had a large interest in the line from New York to Hartford.
In 1843 Mr. Chapin was one of the selectmen of the town and was often chosen moderator at the town meetings held in the old Town
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Hall on State Street. He was early interested in the Hartford and New Haven Railroad, and was the principal mover in having the line extended to Springfield. When the extension was opened in 1844, he sold his steamboats running to Hartford and, in 1850, he was chosen president of the Connecticut River Railroad Company, and that same year a director of the Western Railroad, now the Boston and Albany. In January, 1854, he was elected president of the corporation, and soon after began the reconstruction of the road, which needed repair-
PARSONS' TAVERN, 1776
ing. The rails had become much worn, new bridges were essential, and new rolling stock was required for the increasing business of the road.
In May, 1855, the Legislature authorized the corporation to raise money by an issue of bonds, and within a short time Mr. Chapin went to London and negotiated a loan of a half million dollars, which was used to buy iron for renewing the track. He was an early advocate for a bridge across the Hudson at Albany, and a charter was obtained for one in 1856, but the erection was delayed for sev-
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eral years. Finally, however, with Chapin's accustomed energy and perseverance, and the aid of "Commodore" Vanderbilt, the bridge was built. From 1875 to 1877, Mr. Chapin was a representative in Congress from the Tenth Massachusetts District and served on the important Committee of Ways and Means.
One of his gifts locally was $50,000 to Amherst College. Another was $26,000 to the building fund of the Church of the Unity.
Lieutenant Elisha Chapin was born at West Springfield in 1774, and at the age of twenty-four we find him entering the service of the United States as a marine. He was then six feet and one inch in height, had dark eyes, dark hair and dark complexion. He sailed to the East Indies, where he remained most of the time in the vicinity of Sumatra, Java and adjacent islands for the protection of American commerce in that region. After about three years' service, he was honorably promoted and went home. There he married, and in the course of time he and his wife had a family of one son and six daughters.
In the War of 1812 he enlisted again and was put on recruiting service, but later joined the army at Sackett's Harbor, where he remained most of the time while in the service. At the close of the war he was ordered to report at Washington and received an honor- able discharge. After the war, owing to ill health, he did not engage in active business. Instead, he spent his time in his garden and with his books. As a result he became very well informed in astronomy and botany.
Captain Erastus Chapin, son of Captain Ephraim Chapin, was born at Chicopee in 1783. While living in Willimansett, about 1820, he decided he would shift his home to Springfield, and in 1821 built the Hampden House, which was opened to the public in June, 1822, in accord with the following notice :
"HAMPDEN COFFEE HOUSE
"North side of Court Square, Springfield, Mass. The subscriber furnished the new and elegant brick house erected last season on the corner of Court Square for the reception of company. It is deemed by competent judges to be the most commodious building of the kind in the State, west of Boston, and its situation is peculiarly pleasant and attract-
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ive. Travelers and parties of business or pleasure will find every accommodation usual in such establishments and can at all times have access to a room regularly provided with the leading newspapers and journals in the United States. The choicest liquors will at all times be kept, and during the summer months a soda fountain will be attached to the establishment.
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