USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 11
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Many foreign laborers came to Holyoke while the dam was being built and they made for themselves quite a village of little shanties on the ground now given up to Prospect Park and the region back of it. This village was known as "The Patch," or "Black Patch," or "Black Shanties." It was an interesting community and had many
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peculiar characteristics. A shanty was built by putting up four upright posts, to which rough boards were nailed, and then a roof of over- lapping boards was put on top, places cut for a door and for two or three little half windows, and finally a lot of turf was cut and piled up to the eaves all about. A man would come into town in the morn- ing, buy a thousand feet of hemlock boards and have his shanty up by night, and the next morning he would be ready to go to work on the dam and take boarders. Inside the shanty the earth was smoothed, scantling laid and a rude floor of boards put down. Underneath a little hole was dug for a cellar and a trap-door cut in the boards to get at it. A place was sawed in the roof and a bit of tin tacked about it and the stovepipe run through into the open air. Under the V of the roof was a loft, reached by a rough ladder, where the boarders slept. A partition of boards, or in some instances only an old blanket, usually cut in two the lower room. On one side was a sleeping apart- ment, on the other the kitchen. In the loft were no beds, but there was plenty of straw and here the boarders lay something after the manner of sardines in a box.
Board was rated at three dollars each per week. The food served was plenty and good, if not esthetic in its nature, and included mainly hog's head, corned beef, pork, coffee, bread and "paraties." Most of the shanties were little affairs, but there was one with a length of forty feet, where thirty boarders were kept. The houses were ranged along irregular and narrow streets about which the hogs, hens and goats roamed at will, picking up the refuse. Behind the houses were little hovels for these creatures, though it is possible that in some cases they lived right with the family. The women of the neighborhood, as well as the children, were quite apt to go barefoot as long as mild weather lasted. Many houses were whitewashed within and kept with great neatness.
The inhabitants of "The Patch" came from various counties of Mother Ireland and a clannish feeling seemed to prevail among those who came from the same region, which led to some desperate fights. Still, though quite free in the use of a shillalah and quick to anger, after a row the combatants were apt to be very good friends. While one of these diversions was going on the place was just about as safe as a powder mill, and those who were outside at such times were very sure to keep outside. Then there were family troubles. A man and
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his wife, and quite likely the children, too, would be all in a turmoil of slapping and screeching. But it was best to let these things settle in their own way, for if an outsider interfered, they would all turn around and give him "a most awful licking."
In the summer of 1849, when the dam was nearing completion, cholera broke out in "The Patch." It was very hot, the little village was crowded and the surroundings of the buildings were in many cases quite unclean. This and the salt food which they ate, which inclined them to drink great quantities of river water, brought on an epidemic. It made quick work. A man would be taken sick in the night and be dead before daylight. Whole families were swept away. There being no Catholic cemetery in Holyoke in those days, the dead were carried to Chicopee.
Religion, which up to this time they had little use for, assumed importance on the breaking out of the cholera, and soon regular Catholic services were begun in the old Exchange Hall, then just built, though in the summer previous occasional services had been con- ducted under a large elm tree which stood in a pasture where is now the corner of Dwight and Elm streets.
Father John O'Callaghan was the first parish priest and started the building of St. Jerome's Church in 1856, having, as he said, "raised ten thousand dollars from friends throughout the valley, including quite a number of Protestants." At one time he became involved in a controversy with Rev. Mr. Walker, pastor of the Second Congregational Church, and is said to have more than held up his end of it. He did not believe in hired pew sittings, but held that all should have the opportunity to worship without price and should con- tribute to the full measure of their ability.
The cholera lasted but a few weeks and a little later the dam was finished and proved a complete success.
After the dam was finished business began to boom, there were big mills going up, houses multiplying along the newly laid out streets, and the enthusiasts thought the place would be a city inside of five years. But in 1856 dull times came, the big Lyman mills were shut down all winter and property owners of the vicinity were in the depths of despondency. The entire store trade on High Street could have been cared for by a single person. Time hung heavy on the mer- chants' hands and on pleasant days you would usually find a group of
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them in an open lot in the vicinity pitching quoits while they watched for customers. On one day the proprietor of a certain shoe store remembers that he had but a single interruption, when he made a sale of one cent's worth of shoe strings. On another day it had happened that there had been a light rain during the night, just enough to wet down the dust, and toward noon one of the merchants observed that a
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single wheel track had traversed High Street. That was the only team that had been on the street that morning. He called together his brother merchants to consider the matter. A committee was appointed to investigate and find out what the man's business might have been, though there were those who thought he was not on busi- ness at all, but simply out for pleasure.
More than one man lost his all by buying land when the town was on the boom, which later became next to worthless on his hands. One
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example was that of the Chapin Brothers, who had a store at "Bap- tist Village." It was a general country store and took farm produce in exchange and was doing quite a thriving business. They were bankers as well in a small way, taking such moneys as the farmers of the region chose to leave with them and paying interest thereon. This firm, in expectancy of the city's rapid growth, bought up a tract north of South Street and east of their village, known as "The Plain," and built on it half a dozen small houses. But they had made a miscalcu- lation and they presently failed. This failure made a great commo- tion, as owing to their banking business the whole community in the west part of the town was more or less involved.
Exposed windows in vacant buildings were a temptation to the boys of those days and the glass of these dwellings was broken by the stones they threw, and the uncared-for houses which had to wait twenty years for occupants made a dismal looking group.
It is remembered that in these dull years just preceding the war the Hamilton House, then known as the Holyoke House, was offered for sale for $20,000. It had just been built at a cost of $1 10,000, but no buyers could be found even at the price quoted.
The system of canals as first constructed differed considerably from the present system. There was an upper level canal taking water from the bulkhead at the dam and extending nearly south for half a mile. Parallel to this was a raceway canal on a lower level four hundred feet distant and between the two were many passages for water which was sufficient in each instance to turn a powerful water- wheel. A second canal furnished water to mills on the lower side and emptied into the river. Locks for the passage of boats connected all these canals with the river.
While the dam and canals were being built five hundred men were making a reservoir on the hill capable of holding 3,000,000 gallons of water, which was pumped from the river and which served the town until more was needed in 1872. The Manchester Grounds were supplied from a spring not far away, the title being the Mt. Tom Aqueduct Company.
Before the completion of the dam the growth of the village was such that many talked of separation from the town of West Spring- field. In 1849, at a meeting held in the village, it was decided to ask the next Legislature to divide the town and call the new part
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Hampden. The community had already been called Ireland Depot, New City and Hampden City. The Legislature incorporated the town March 14, 1850, and called it Holyoke, after the mountain up the river which had received its name from Elizur Holyoke, an early resident of the valley.
At the time the dam and canals were building, Baptist Village, two miles distant, was losing its importance and Holyoke soon absorbed it. One factory had already been built and another was in process of construction; tenement houses had been erected by the Hadley Falls Company, gangs of men with teams were grading the surface of the ground and laying out streets and private individuals were building many houses and stores. Business and professional men were com- ing in and in the summer of 1850 there were thirteen persons and cor- porations each paying taxes on $10,000 and over. In that year also the first waterwheel run by water from the great dam was set in motion and the first work done in Factory No. I of the Hadley Falls Company.
Moses Pomeroy, who lived with his brother Phœbus on a moun- tain farm, had an imaginative disposition and a turn of humor. He must have lived until about 1850. One of his claims was that rattle- snakes were so thick sometimes on his farm that it was impossible to hay and that he went out one day with a dump cart and pitched in a writhing load of them which he carried home and fed to the pigs. Moses' rattlesnake tale had some basis of truth for in the late 'fifties twenty-six rattlesnakes were killed at one time at the mouth of Snake Den in the trap rock.
In Exchange Hall concerts, lectures and public meetings were held for many years. It was headquarters for the velocipede craze when it was at its height and staid citizens would pay fifty cents for the privilege of whirling around the hall and taking a flying dive when they tried to make a sharp turn. The velocipede was a forerunner of the later high-wheel bicycle. It looked somewhat like a modern low bicycle, except that it was crudely built with wooden wheels and iron tires. The pedals were on the front wheel. After riding it a person usually called it a "boneshaker" instead of a velocipede. A high speed could not be attained even on a smooth, level surface and it was practically impossible to ride up hill.
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Human nature was much the same in the late 'fifties and 'sixties as now, for it is related how a green employee from Vermont was sent from one store to another for ten cents' worth of "white lamp-black." He finally returned, announcing that he "couldn't get a durned bit on't in town."
Holyoke furnished about four hundred soldiers during the Civil War and Jasper Harris, of Holyoke, wrote the following account of his impressions of Andersonville Prison :
"We arrived at the Andersonville station at dark on the evening of May 9, 1864. The next morning we were marched toward the stockade, a quarter of a mile away. Just before arriving at the main gate we came to a rise of ground from which could be seen the whole stockade and most of the inside of it. I shall never forget the gloomy and depressed feeling with which I looked on the horrible sight. The high log stock- ade was composed of straight young pines, cut sixteen feet long, hewn on two sides, the bark peeled off, and then the log sunk on end in a trench six feet deep, close together, leaving ten feet at least above ground on the inside. Crosspieces were spiked to each timber horizontally, making a fence strong enough to hold cattle instead of men.
"Rations were issued daily, being drawn into the stock- ade by a mule team, and when divided and sub-divided fur- nished each man a pint and a half of cob meal and from two to four ounces of bacon. For a few days we received two common sized sticks of cord wood to be divided among ninety men.
"If I should attempt to write a complete description of Andersonville and its horrors, of Wirtz, his guards and his bloodhounds, and all the sights and incidents which came under my own eye there and at other prisons during my eight months' stay, of the murders and robberies amongst our own men, of the hanging of six of them by a court of our own men-it would fill the pages of a large book, while a part would be descriptive of such monstrous cruelty and so striking to sen- sitive minds that I am afraid it could not be believed if written."
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Dr. Long, a physician in Holyoke, was famous for his vapor baths, a most ingenious contrivance by which the patient was stripped, wrapped in blankets and placed over a kiln of hot stones on which were thrown vinegar and other medicinal liquids so that hot, pungent vapors slowly rose about the patient.
Whiting Street was associated with four other men in the boating business. He was a unique New England character of great sagacity, though many are apt to think of him as a sordid lifelong miser whose deathbed charity redeemed him. But Whiting Street, though he had some traits common to misers, such as careful hoarding of wealth and extreme parsimony in personal expenditure, was far from being one. His table always abounded with good, wholesome food and people who worked there or dined temporarily never complained of quantity or quality. He loved to accumulate money for the joy of accumulation rather than for what it would bring, which gave the public a false perspective. But when the subscription for the founding of the Massachusetts Agricultural College was started and Whiting Street was called on he headed the list with five thousand dollars. The cause appealed to him.
He was a judge of men and not narrow in his business dealings. A successful young merchant bargained with him for the larger part of what is now the Highlands back in 1864 for about $6,500. Agree- ing on the price he said to Mr. Street: "I don't like to give back a mortgage, but I'll get an endorser or several of them for my note." "Jim," said Uncle Whiting, "I don't want any endorser. I just want your note." This man who worked so hard and lived so simply left his possessions to the "worthy poor" of the regions with which he was familiar. Not to the Protestant or the Catholic, or the native Ameri- can or the Irish poor, not to white or black, just the "worthy poor." When the will was made public the "Springfield Republican" rose to the occasion with an appreciative editorial that was a classic.
There was a swing ferry between Holyoke and South Hadley Falls which was one of the most ingenious schemes ever developed along that line. No other ferry on the Connecticut River was like it, though there was said to be a similar one in Pennsylvania. The ferry was located a short distance below the present South Hadley Falls Bridge, where the river suddenly narrows to form a neck of water. Because of this natural formation of the river the current
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is considerably stronger there than at wider points and has equal force from one bank to the other. The swing ferry could never have been operated had it not been for this phenomenon, since it required a strong current all the way across even at low water.
A wooden pole perhaps fifty feet high was sunk in the middle of the stream. A pier of stone was placed on the upper side to form a breakwater in the winter time when the ice rushed down against it. A long wire cable about the thickness of a man's little finger stretched from the pole to the ferry. It was so arranged that it could slide along a frame on one side of the boat, fastened at either end, depend- ing on which side of the river the ferry was headed for. The boat was placed diagonally against the current and the force of the water pressing against it sent it across to the opposite bank. An oarsman stood at the back to direct proceedings and to make sure the boat did not go too far down stream. An ingenious contrivance guarded against this, however. A box containing a coiled spring was placed at the point where the wire joined the ferry. If the boat got down- stream too far so that the pressure became too great and strained, the spring broke and a bell rang to warn the oarsman. He then steered the ferry upstream to the right position.
Sometimes the wire broke and the boat was swept down the river with the current. In such a case it had to be poled back to its starting place. While most horses did not mind the regular trip very much, they were often quite excited when the boat broke loose. Nor was it only the four-footed passengers that were seized with fear at such a time and felt a great relief when they once more reached solid land.
The boat was a flat scow carrying a maximum of six double teams, three in a row. A bench was fastened on one side for the foot passengers. In order to protect against anyone falling overboard, a chain was placed across the front and rear. There was no back on the bench, however, and one old-timer tells of being scared by a restless horse and falling backward into the icy river.
The fare was ten cents for a single team, twelve cents for a double team and three cents for a foot passenger. The swing ferry was a good business proposition, since it was a simple and inexpensive con- trivance to maintain and there was no other way to cross the river between the Hockanum Ferry at the foot of Mt. Holyoke on the
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north and Chicopee Bridge on the south. Consequently the ferry was loaded on every trip.
The business was incorporated with Sampel Snell, Mosely Smith and the Connecticut River Railroad included among the stockholders. One other stockholder, who lived in South Hadley Falls near the river, used to sit in the window of his home with a spy glass all day long checking up on the number of passengers to make sure the records were being kept straight. The swing ferry was a landmark for many years, but was gladly abandoned with the building of the bridge.
There is not another city in the East that can show such swift and at the same time substantial growth as Holyoke enjoyed during the two decades following the Civil War. In a few years it became the greatest papermaking center of the country. Travel soon outgrew ferry accommodations and sometimes there would be fifty, sixty and even eighty two-horse teams patiently waiting a chance to cross to Holyoke, with an equal number waiting to make the reverse trip. In 1870 a petition for a bridge signed by 1,500 citizens of Holyoke and surrounding towns was sent to the Legislature. When a committee from there came to inspect the site a roaring flood had swept away the ferry boat and all the visitors could do was to wave their hands at the crowd assembled on the South Hadley side. A bridge 1,600 feet long was opened for. travel in 1872. While it was being built and the water was low in the summer, teams sometimes drove across on the river bed. The original bridge was shaky and teams weren't allowed to go faster than a walk. The Granby and South Hadley milkmen didn't always observe the regulations at three o'clock in the morning and about once a year a policeman would be stationed there on a night shift and the police court in the morning would resemble a dairy convention.
The next big piece of work was the building of the Holyoke and Westfield Railroad at a time when the population was only 10,000. Bonds were issued by the town and the road completed in 1871. An excursion train was run from Northampton on the opening day and such was the rejoicing it was reported that there were only two sober men in the crowd.
The want of an adequate water supply prevented suburban devel- opment for some time. A season of drought came in 1871, the pump- ing machinery of the reservoir works broke down and people went to
HOLYOKE PUBLIC LIBRARY
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springs along the river for their drinking water, while the domestic supply was teamed up the steep grade in barrels. After considering five plans for relief, it was decided to take over Ashley and Wright ponds and once more bonds were issued and the work begun. The ponds comprised a flowage of one hundred and eighty-five acres and were promptly acquired with the land adjoining. Then came the question of a branch main to the Manchester Grounds, which the Water Power Company did not favor, but which went through and a land boom started. The territory nearly all changed hands on paper for speculation and when the panic of 1873 came most of the lots went back to be resold to genuine home builders.
An interesting character at this time was a German named Wag- ner, who had a parcel delivery business. In those days the vehicles were called "job wagons" and the man lettered his wagon himself, spelling it "Gob Wagon," much to the delight of the boys.
Many of the leading citizens of Holyoke had a part in the estab- lishment of the library in 1870. It was housed in the Appleton Street School and the first librarian was Miss Sarah Ely, a remarkable woman. Not only did she have a complete knowledge of what the library contained, but an intuitive insight into what appealed to the youthful mind. Her selection was almost magically attractive to all classes. Some thirty years later W. S. Loomis started a movement for a new library building to which the citizens contributed most lib- erally, the two first gifts being of $10,000 each from William Whiting and William Skinner. Mr. Whiting was president of the library asso- ciation for forty years. The Holyoke Water Power Company donated a lot on Maple Street and a fine building was completed in 1902.
The Holyoke Museum of Natural History and Art, located on the upper floor of the public library, was opened to the public under the curatorship of Burlingham Schurr, naturalist, in February, 1927, after about a year of preparation on the part of the curator in getting together suitable exhibits and arranging them for display.
The Joseph A. Skinner case of mammals represents a typical swampy section such as may be found on the Mount Holyoke Range. A pair of exceptionally fine specimens of raccoons, one extra dark and glossy, are shown true to life apparently in quest of food near a pool of water. A muskrat is near the entrance to its home, and the burrow in the bank at the water's edge has been broken away to disclose a
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nest containing four baby muskrats. Upon a log projecting over the water's edge is a baby porcupine feeding upon some choice bits of vegetation. A mink is cunningly stealing its way beneath the pro- tecting branches as it searches for prey. A snarling bay lynx upon a stump seems to defy any interference with its liberty in the wild- wood. At the base of a small pine tree and almost hidden among fallen branches and rank growing ferns and grasses is a family of the almost extinct black rat, sometimes called woodland rat.
The William F. Whiting case of reptiles illustrates how turtles deposit their eggs in the ground and the fact that some species of snakes lay eggs while others give birth to young is well illustrated by a water snake with young and a black snake with eggs. The manner by which snakes shed their skins is clearly shown. That many snakes are very serviceable in destroying mice and small rodents is evidenced by certain specimens in the act of swallowing such prey. Frogs and other life of the swamps, as well as a great blue heron, are shown in most characteristic manner.
A beautiful winter habitat case illustrating native wild life in the season when our woodlands are mantled with snow and in which the setting depicts to a considerable extent the food habits of birds is in memory of the late Newton H. Russell.
Mr. Russell was prominent as an energetic and zealous worker in behalf of all conservation issues. Birds, wild life, trees and all the productions in nature were very dear to his heart and he manifested an interest for all things in nature in many ways.
One of the first large habitat groups to be installed in the Holyoke Museum was the black-crowned night heron case, presented by Joseph A. Skinner. A nest with downy young just hatched plainly shows the "egg bill" on the tiny young. Another interesting thing about these young in the nest is the variation in sizes. . This showing of the sizes in the young demonstrates that the black-crowned night heron begins sitting as soon as the first egg is laid. Three, four, or five eggs are laid, the hatching of the young bringing about a few days differ- ence between the first and last bird hatched, thus it is that one or two birds in all broods of the black-crowned night heron develop and mature more rapidly than the others in the nest.
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