USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 20
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Another strange story of vague meaning is told of Squire Bar- tholomew, who was working alone one day in the depths of the heavy woods. He sat down by the brook to eat his solitary lunch and on going back to where he had left his jackknife on the log where he was working he found a stranger seated in his place. The man held out the knife toward the owner and at the same time pointed down the brook and the squire obeyed the silent signal.
A more dangerous picture of loneliness is given in the tale of Jonathan Walker, who cut his foot badly and needed assistance. He lived several miles from the nearest neighbors and his wife did not dare leave him to go down the trail for help. She took some of the bloody bandages from her husband's wounds, fastened them around the horse's neck and started him toward the settlement. The animal faithfully went on in the direction he was started and carried the silent but startling message that help was needed.
In the diary of Rev. Mr. Ballantine, of Westfield, is an entry con- cerning the neighbor town :
"Awakened this morning by the ringing of the bell to col- lect men to go in quest of a lad in Blandford, who was lost. He was absent three nights, but was found alive. His father and mother had forsaken him, but the Lord had mercy. A
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man in Murrayfield knew the child was lost and thought he heard a child cry, but he had a hired team and could not afford to let it lie still while he searched."
Rather strangely the early records say nothing about schools, in spite of the fact that the proprietors were expected to set aside a lot of sixty acres for their benefit. Probably parents taught their chil- dren at home what little they could and it was James Carter, a sea captain, who is said to have kept the first school in the house of Robert Black, "because it had two rooms." No school was taught by a woman until 1770. In spite of the lack of facilities nearly all of the men and some of the women in the town could read and write.
Smallpox was a regular scourge in this as in other towns and in 1759 the town was considering building a pesthouse, but inoculation was too modern and nothing was done about it.
Blandford was far from being a quiet, peaceful town during the French and Indian War. Early in the settlement three forts were built about a mile apart to which the people might go in time of dan- ger. These were about sixty feet square, of fine timbers, squared and smoothed. Houses or barracks eleven feet wide faced the center of the fort, with shingled roofs sloping up against the walls. Mr. Keep, who has passed down to us much local history, relates as follows :
"For more than a year all the families were collected every night into these forts as a safe lodging place. And after the people presumed to lodge in their own dwellings the cases were frequent, in which, on an alarm, they would in the dead of night hurry with their families to the fort. When they were in the field for work they would take with them their arms, set one man as a sentinel while the others labored; nor did they deem it safe to meet on the Sabbath for religious worship except they took with them their arms."
Some old men who found this sort of life too strenuous left this frontier town and went to quieter places to end their days. No record is found of how great was the exodus, but the matter was discussed in the town meeting and the decision made was that those who left must pay their taxes along with those who remained.
"Ranging Forces" were organized to scout the woods in 1744 and Blandford men, no doubt, were ready and able. They made
.
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their camps on the bare ground and carried on their backs their muskets, ammunition and equipment, as well as provisions. Trained dogs sometimes accompanied them and a bounty of thirty pounds on every Indian scalp made ears and eyes the keener. Fast days were appointed by the Governor that the people in the homes might do their part. Sometimes there was preaching at the fort on week days and the armed garrison was expected to attend the services in the church on the Sabbath. Nor was there too much religion acquired by the soldiers for Colonel Ephraim Williams wrote to his cousin: "We are a wicked, profane army, more especially New York troops and Rhode Island, nothing to be heard among a great part of them but the language of hell."
The town was full of soldiers who must be cared for and Rev. James Morton, who was pastor at this time, aimed to do his part, but some of his flock censured him for making his house like a tavern and "Rendering himself odeous" for the sake of gain. A council was called in the middle of the winter to consider the matter, but they sided with the minister and excused him on the grounds of Christian- ity, humanity and common civility.
One neighborhood in Blandford received the name of "Devil's half acre." It had a schoolhouse on it, where Methodist meetings were often held and the lively boys of the vicinity took great pleasure in disturbing the gatherings. Reverend Daniel Butler called the resi- dents there "ignorant and quarrelsome" and they seem to have been given to minor law suits, so perhaps the name referred to more trouble than was caused by the boys.
The early 1800's saw a change in the roads of Blandford with the coming of the turnpike, known as the Hampden and Berkshire. . It approached the center by an easier grade than the first settlers had come and pushed on westerly to Lee. The turnpike was kept in repair by an incorporated company which held up travelers by a toll gate every ten miles and collected revenue. The tolls were graduated from twenty-five cents for coach or chariot to three cents by the dozen for sheep or swine. If the tires of the vehicle were six inches or more in width the fee was cut in half, as such tires would do less damage to the road. Some rebelled at paying for what they considered they should have free use of as in the past and in a few cases "shunpikes" were built so that people could pass around the toll gate rather than
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through it. A woman of whom toll was demanded drove the keeper of the toll gate into his house with a horse whip. Law suits followed these cases, but the turnpike always won. Many teams of two to six yoke of oxen passed over the road and great droves of cattle, sheep and hogs went through on the way to the Brighton market. A man in North Blandford, who used to keep the herd drivers over night at his house, was reported to take toll of the hogs sheltered in his barn by letting one drop down through a trap door in the floor.
The northern part of the town has its stories as well as the center. There was the Taggart School named for the Widow Taggart, who bequeathed at her death to the third school district in Blandford "I200 Dolls.," as it reads on the old stone in the burying ground. This is really $1,200 and, while an aid to education, has also promoted litigation. At one time a schoolhouse stood in the district on land partly claimed by one individual and partly by another. One morning the structure was found cut completely in two from top to bottom.
In the Green Woods at the north end it was considered unsafe to be out alone in the evening for fear of wolves and catamounts. There John Noble made a speedy trip to a friend's house after he had looked back and had seen a whole pack of wolves cross his path. At another time, when on his way to market with a load of hams, he had to throw them out one by one to stave off the ravening creatures.
Captain Levi Pease was living in Blandford at the time of the Revolutionary War and was often the bearer of important despatches from General Thomas on the northern frontier to headquarters. He would cross a lake alone at night in a canoe, stretched out at full length and using his hands as paddles, then lie concealed during the daytime. Commissary Wadsworth often trusted him with a saddle- bag full of money with which to purchase cattle and horses and took no receipt for it. His business led him to an intimate acquaintance with land and people in Connecticut and Massachusetts, so that he turned naturally to stagecoaching when the war was over and has sometimes been called the "father" of that movement. At first he was laughed at and often ran with empty coaches, but he soon began to carry the mail and built up a large business.
The Baird Tavern had a neverfailing well of cold water much prized by the occupants of the stagecoaches, two of which passed in the early 'eighties each day going and coming. Each coach was
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drawn by four horses and when they were running "express" the driver would blow his horn a half mile from the stopping place and fresh horses would be run out of the stable ready to be hitched on without delay. Sometimes in the busy season of the traveling year, which was in winter, there would be forty or fifty teams at one inn over night. Farmers drove to Hartford, Springfield or even Boston with their produce and brought back a year's supply of the few neces- sary things not raised on the farm. Stage driving sometimes descended from father to son and at a convention of old drivers held in Spring- field in 1859, the third generation of stage drivers was represented. Getting the mail through was one of the duties of the driver and he prided himself on his record. Watson Boise, who at one time was interested in some forty stage routes in western Massachusetts, once forded Little River in freshet time after the bridge had been washed away, when only the heads of the horses showed above water.
The coming of the railroad changed all this and Blandford roads no longer saw all the traffic to the westward.
Cushing Eels is a name of which Blandford is very proud. Pro- fessor Stephen Penrose, president emeritus of Whitman College, said of him at the Blandford bicentennial :
"Of all the men who have gone from Blandford, there is not one who has made a deeper impression on the world and who has impressed himself more on mankind by his char- acter than Cushing Eels. He graduated from Williams in 1834, was ordained for foreign mission work in 1837 and in 1838 departed from the life of Blandford and the East for the West. He lived a life so heroic, so saintly, so self-sacrificing that he came to be known as the 'St. Paul' of the Pacific Northwest."
His great work was the founding of Whitman College.
Another interesting Blandford personality is Dennison Card Healy, born in 1812. He invented a waterpower machine for turning wooden bowls, graduated in size, out of a block of rough, hard maple. These were marketed as nests of bowls in New York. Later he turned out clock pulleys, boxes, files and parasol and brush broom handles, which were shipped to all parts of the world.
The story of Blandford would not be complete without mentioning the Union Agricultural and Horticultural Society, organized in 1859
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as the outgrowth of a farmers' club. The early fairs were held on the town common and the village street was used for races and parades. After the present fine white Colonial church replaced the old meeting- house the old structure was used as a barn for horse and cattle exhibits at the fair. They now have a fine fair ground of their own on the top of the hill just beyond the church and their fair on the first Mon- day in September is an old home day for the citizens.
The Blandford Club, center of the activities of the summer resi- dents, was founded in 1909 and its clubhouse is a Colonial mansion built in 1822. A nine-hole golf course has been added to the property and tournaments and dances and card parties are frequently held.
Mrs. Josephine E. S. Porter, of New Haven, bought a house in Blandford for a summer residence about 1885. At that time there was no public library in the town and she brought several hundred volumes from her home and loaned them to people. Mrs. Porter gave the present library building to the town in 1892 as a memorial to her son, Edgar Sheffield Porter. Judge Utley, of Worcester, added a gift of $10,000 in memory of his mother, Theodocia Knox, who was born in Blandford.
The Deane Memorial Building houses both the town hall and the consolidated school. It was the gift of Dr. Wallace H. Deane, for many years resident physician of Blandford. The chapel in the center of the town was built by Miss Electa B. Watson and Miss Harriet Hinsdale in 1898. When the schools moved in to the Memorial Building, in 1922, the Grange bought the old schoolhouse and made it over into a hall for their meetings.
The list of Blandford minerals as compiled by Dr. Shurtlef, a native of the town, is quite imposing and includes limestone, asbestos, rose quartz, granite, feldspar, mica, graphite and the "lost" lead and silver mine. There is said to be a large fossil footprint on a ledge near the Cross place and the impression of a snake can be seen on a rock in Beulah Land. Soapstone and whetstone quarries have been operated in Blandford.
Blandford blueberries are unusually fine and find a ready market. Both the high and the low are common to the vicinity, but the latter is more common and much sweeter.
Dr. Plumb Brown, of Springfield, who summers in Blandford, has a list of about three hundred flowers of different varieties which grow
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in the town. But it is a flowering shrub that calls to mind the name of Blandford when each year during "laurel time" the Ladies' Benevo- lent Society of the church serves its annual "Laurel Tea" in the chapel.
Blandford is a native white pine country and has several fine groves of these trees, of which the most notable are those that remain on the ten-acre lot set aside by the first settlers for a common. About forty-six varieties of other trees cover the hillsides and there is a pos- sibility that the chestnut trees swept away by the blight some years ago may again grow up and be a joy to young and old.
Cobble Mountain Dam, newly constructed in the south part of the town, for the use of the city of Springfield, is the highest earth dam in the world. The base of the dam is over 1,500 feet thick, but it slopes to fifty feet at the top. The reservoir floods about 1,200 acres of land and when full holds 25,000,000,000 gallons of water.
In the summer of 1935 Blandford celebrated her bicentennial with a fine two-day program of events, which included a historical parade. A large and well-arranged collection of antiques was exhibited in one of the houses as a special feature of the occasion.
Blandford covers forty-nine square miles in area and has a popula- tion of about five hundred people. Walnut Hill, 1,760 feet, is the highest elevation. Other hills whose names are understandable are Beech, Birch and Pebble, but "Pudding Hill" and Dug Hill arouse the curiosity. Potash Brook, no doubt, earned its name and probably Bedlam Brook did also.
Brimfield and Steerage Rock
Hampden-51
CHAPTER VI
Brimfield and Steerage Rock
The town of Brimfield originally extended eight miles east from the east boundary of Springfield and included the towns of Mon- son, Wales, and Holland, and parts of Warren and Palmer. The town lies at an average elevation of about 1,200 feet and the hills that surround it are irregular, but not jagged in outline. The soil on Tower Hill is upland loam, quite free from the boulders which either east or west of this hill make cultivation difficult. Bog ore was formerly dug in Brimfield and carried to the iron works at Stafford, Connecticut. Alum Pond is mistakenly said to be so-called from its very solid white bottom and the clearness of the water. Roger Williams says that "Allum" was the Nipmuck word for dog. Sher- man's Pond is larger and shallower and contains about sixty acres.
In the western part of the town is Elbow Brook, emptying into the Quaboag at the elbow. Other brooks are Treat, named for the first minister, Penny, Bottle and Erwin's. Along these watercourses are natural meadows, whose annual crop of swale hay was highly prized by the early settlers. The streams flowing through these meadows were dammed so that the overflow would add to their fertility. The water was usually let off in May. Carts were few, so the hay when cut might be piled on the branches of a felled tree and drawn to one spot and stacked. The fall rains often flooded some regions and damaged the haystacks and for that reason one section came to be known as "Poor meadow."
Sheep Pasture Hill lies north of the village street and Steerage Rock is a large boulder on the top of a ridge from which the Indians took their bearings. Breakneck Hill is on the Sturbridge Road. On the hills foxes still have their holes and their runs. Deer reeves continued to be appointed as late as 1789, when it is said the deer disappeared because they were so persistently hunted during the Revolutionary War when buckskin breeches were in great demand. Oak trees were
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more numerous than any other kinds. The several varieties were swamp, black, red, white, yellow and gray. The mast furnished food for the swine, which were allowed to run at large, if yoked and ringed, from the first of April to the last of October. Chestnut trees abounded, with pines and birches, while maples and elms dotted the meadows. "Popple," pepperidge and basket ash are named in the old records. Wild grape vines were found everywhere and some of them
STEERAGE ROCK, BRIMFIELD
of a white variety grew to a great age and were very productive. Pas- ture lands were held in common and not until 1800 were cattle restrained from running at large.
Brimfield has experienced the usual variety in New England climate. In 1815 there was a furious wind storm, which blew down the horse sheds and so frightened some of the people that they sought refuge in their cellars. The season of 1816 had some frost every month and was so discouraging that many decided to go West. 1869 was remarkable for a long-continued rain, when dams broke and a chasm sixty feet wide and twenty deep was washed out in the highway.
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The great blizzard of 1888, when farmers had to tunnel the snow to get to their barns, added to the variety.
There is a tradition that the Indians, in their wasteful method of clearing land for cultivation and for early grazing of the deer, had burned over the land near the present village site, laying bare about 2,000 acres; and they had an important fort on the highest point of Indian Hill, north of Sherman's Pond. Four important Indian trails met here and the view in every direction was extensive. A good spring of water was near by. The fort was known to the English authorities as Quaboag Old Fort and agents sent at different times with mes- sages to the Indians made it their stopping place. The early settlers followed the customs of the Indians in planting corn. The proper time was when the young oak leaf was as big as a mouse's ear and the proper method was to hill the corn, putting beneath the kernels a fish for plant food. The Indian family, John and Sarah Quan, with their children, who once lived near Alum Pond, were of the Mohegan tribe. Around one rock, which seems to have been a favorite resort for game, arrowheads have been found in large numbers.
The first settlers from Springfield camped out for the summer while cultivating their fields and went back to the mother town for the winter. But their tents were torn in pieces by the Indians and their provisions plundered, so the enterprise was abandoned. Afterward two blockhouses were constructed, to which the inhabitants could retreat in time of danger. The town was first known as "the Planta- tion adjoining Springfield to the east of Springfield," and it is stated in the records of the committee of five appointed by the General Court to lay it out that for the sake of convenience they abbreviated it to Brimfield. They first visited the region in September, 1701, accom- panied by about twenty others from Springfield, but after spending two days they returned, unable to decide where the town plot should be located. The committee had been instructed to take possession within one year's time from their appointment in June, settle ten families within three years and seventy within five years, as well as a learned and pious minister. Chicopee Hill, now known as Grout's Hill in Monson, was finally chosen for the center of the town and grants were made to thirteen persons, but they never settled, giving for a reason "the Distress of War." Indian depredations put a stop to the settlement of new townships for a time and, in 1709, the Gen-
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eral Court prolonged the time allotted for the settlement of Brimfield. Later, a strip of land three miles wide was added on the eastern border and what is now the Tower Hill Road chosen for the town street. A road eight rods wide was laid out and the house-lots were to be one hundred and sixty rods deep. But though the land on Tower Hill was better than elsewhere, the first settlers chose to build their houses in a more sheltered spot.
Nathaniel Hitchcock appears to have been the first settler, a name perpetuated in the history of the town, and David Morgan, the sec- ond, each having one hundred and twenty acres. One hundred and sixty-nine lots of this size were laid out and nine of sixty acres. Rev. Mr. Treat was assigned one hundred and twenty acres. William Pynchon and Obadiah Cooley were given grants, though they did not reside in Brimfield, because they had provided iron work for the first sawmill, and two others had land because of having "provided nails of all sorts" sufficient for finishing the meetinghouse. This final divi- sion of land was made in June, 1731, and was a very complicated matter, as the division had previously been made and then voted void, though some of the settlers had already improved their land "with great Hazzard of their lives and substance, living on and defending the same."
A number of small grants of land had previously been made at various times to different persons. One of these was in 1657 to Rich- ard Fellows at Chicopee River, that he might build a house for the entertainment of travelers, both horse and man, and furnish beer, wine and strong liquors. This tavern he built, but did not occupy it more than two years, and from the fact that some farm implements were dug up there years later, it is supposed that fear of the Indians led him to abandon the place.
As early as 1721 the inhabitants took the preliminary steps toward the erection of a meetinghouse, forty by forty-five feet, and the follow- ing year it was raised and roofed, but remained incomplete for more than fifteen years. It was a plain, barn-like building, with neither chimney nor steeple. The upper windows, five on a side, probably had wooden shutters and the lower ones, four on a side, were diamond- paned and hung on hinges. The pulpit, which was voted built in 1732, was on the north side and there were doors on the other three sides. At first the seats were long benches, perhaps backless, but square pews
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were voted to be built along the walls soon after the pulpit was completed. A cushion was voted to be provided for the pulpit, but it was not paid for until three years later and the record does not show whether it was intended for the Bible or the preacher to rest on. The young men got permission to build a pew for themselves in the gallery on one side and eight young women followed suit by secur- ing a big pew opposite. As in other country towns the "seating" of the meetinghouse, or, as it was sometimes called, the "dignifying" of the seats was a difficult task, deacon's wives and widows of ordinary men making more trouble than other classes. In 1757 the committee in charge was instructed to seat men and their wives together, but the young people still sat in the gallery and the poor sat on gallery or pulpit stairs.
Brimfield is one of the few towns which did not quarrel over the position of the meetinghouse. Eight pounds was raised in 1761 "to color the outside of the meeting-house." This must be a sign of both progress and prosperity, as paint on buildings was the exception rather than the rule before the Revolution. The time came, however, when "repairing and propping" the meetinghouse seemed necessary and soon after that a new place of worship was being constructed. The old meetinghouse was sold for $100 and was taken down and some of the paneling used in the Bliss Tavern. The town voted $500 for the raising of the new church and people came from far and near on the appointed day. Each district furnished a specified number of timbers, fourteen inches square and twenty-six feet long. Spikes were bought and ropes hired. Meals were furnished for the day at town expense. These and "keeping the horses" cost $343. One whole side was raised at a time. Mr. Carter, the contractor, went up with it. Only one man was injured, and he seems not to have been quite sober enough to look out for his own footing. The bill for liquor : "Rum, Sugar, Brandy, Lemmons and Wine," was $121.22. The con- tract for building was made in 1805 and Mr. Carter was paid the full sum of $6,666.67 in 1808, though the pews were not all sold until six years later. This new meetinghouse had a steeple and rather imposing columns in front. The sittings were arranged in square pews so that about one-third of the audience did not face the minister. Crimson silk hangings decorated the back of the pulpit, and deaf people were allowed to sit beside the minister. The only provision
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