USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 27
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Agricultural pursuits have held first place in Longmeadow and manufacturing interests have never been very extensive or important. The first of any consequence after the sawmills, gristmills and black- smith shops necessary for the early inhabitants, was the manufacture
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of gold spectacles and gold and silver thimbles, which was begun by Dimond Chandler in 1838. After about ten years he sold his busi- ness and started making buttons. That proved so successful that by 1854 he was employing about forty hands. The concern turned out four hundred gross of buttons a day. Some of the cloth for the more expensive buttons ran as high as three dollars a yard.
At the mouth of Pecowsic Brook was at one time a small pistol factory. Later a papier-maché plant turned out pails, basins, globes and various other articles.
In 1784, the year after the town was incorporated, the school appropriation was forty pounds and the amount was increased yearly as the town grew. The first schoolhouse was built on the green, but as new districts were created schoolhouses were built in them, some- times by the inhabitants of the district. One schoolmaster was Jabez Colton, sometimes called "Master Jabe." He was a Yale graduate and a theological expert, capable of training divinity students. The "Rules and Regulations of the Longmeadow Library Society" were written by him. Apparently a number of people had clubbed together and bought books which were loaned under a rather loose organiza- tion and these "Rules and Regulations" were intended to put them on a more businesslike basis. The meetinghouse bell was to be rung at the time of the drawing of books and if those who lived more than two miles away did not reach the house of the librarian at the stated time they were to be allowed two hours' grace. Fines were levied on delinquent returners and if they became too dilatory a wagon was sent around to gather up the books.
This association passed out of existence after a time and the books were sold at auction. Its successor was the "Young Men's Library Association." Such groups were being formed in many towns about this time, but there were no similar libraries for young women. Whether or not they read the books after the young men brought them home the records do not show. This collection of books was kept in the brick schoolhouse in the center of the town and was wiped out when the building was destroyed by fire in 1852. But with Burts, Cooleys and Newells still in town, the library idea could not perish and it was revived two years later in connection with the Longmeadow Lyceum.
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The broad and beautiful Longmeadow Street has been at different times the subject of many votes, showing how narrow has been its escape from the most serious encroachments by the public or by indi- viduals. The present central section of well kept lawn was originally a long sand-drift and it is largely due to the efforts of Captain Calvin Burt over a period of many years that the soil was enriched and brought into thriving sod. The northern half of this section was occupied for many years by a row of shops and stores under forty- year leases. At the end of the term the leases were not renewed and the proprietors of the shops were not allowed to remain and acquire a right by occupancy. After 1795 no rights to build on the common were granted.
The name of Eleazer Williams is related to Longmeadow not only by his reputed relationship to the first pastor, Dr. Stephen Wil- liams, but also by his early residence in the village for several years while he was acquiring an education. Eunice Williams, the minister's sister who remained with the Indians, was Eleazer's great-grand- mother. His father, Thomas, was urged to send a son to Long- meadow to be educated, and John, another son, came along with Eleazer and was there for a time. But after his return to his own people he seemed satisfied to drop back into their way of living. Eleazer studied for a time with Reverend Mr. Hale, of Westhamp- ton, reading Latin and Greek, and was anxious to learn Hebrew. A letter written by Pastor Storrs says :
"I have heard it objected to Eleazer that he appeared fickle, but who would rationally expect that an Indian would at once become steady. I have heard it said that he was assuming; this no one will think strange who considers how much he has been flattered and caressed by many of the first characters in New England. For some time past I must say that to me he appeared more stable, more meek, and in every respect more promising. His whole soul seems swallowed up in the idea of becoming a preacher of Christ among his own countrymen."
A strange story grew up and was believed by many that Eleazer Williams was really the son of Marie Antoinette, the "Lost Dauphin" of France. The strongest evidence of this seemed to be his looks,
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for he was said to be strikingly Bourbon in feature. There were details of a De Joinville interview in the cabin of a western steamboat and there was in evidence a growing collection of royal relics. Eleazer in his later years, became very keenly alive to his own possible histori- cal importance and brooded on it so long and intensely as to find it difficult to distinguish between the facts of memory and other people's fancies.
In early days there was an institution of which Longmeadow is not inclined to boast. Domestic slavery prevailed to a considerable extent and frequent mention is made in old documents of negro serv- ants. They had their pew in the gallery of the old meetinghouse and in the burying ground their appointed place was the southeast corner. But as no monuments commemorated them, and their descendants have passed away, their history is ill preserved.
In "Marchant" Colton's day-book for 1769 we learn that Colton had a negro man named Jack and, after the merchant's death, Jack became somewhat uppish and in his grumblings one day muttered in the hearing of his mistress, the Widow Colton: "Isn't me as free as anybody ?" "To be sure you are," she replied. "Go about your busi- ness." "Me will," said Jack, "if you turns me out." She, accordingly, led him to the door and with a shove of the hand sent him out of her door into the wide world of freedom. Jack used to come back and plead for restoration, but without avail, and he became a pauper citizen of Springfield and occupied a cabin on the east side of the town brook.
Merchant Colton, who became the richest man of the precinct, was orphaned at the age of seventeen and complained of his uncle Ephraim as being hard with him, so he set up for himself. He was allowed his own cows for a support and his negro servant, Tony, for a helpmate.
In 1719 Stephen Williams, then in the third year of his ministry, wrote: "This day I bought me a servant man. Some of my neigh- bors think it may be for the better; others think not." October, 1718: "I went to Deerfield and sold my boy Nicholas. He seemed very concerned; and surely I was grieved for him, yet I thought it would be for his benefit to be sold to a master that would keep him to business, as well as for my profit." Mention is also made at various times of Tom, Peter, Cato, Phyllis and others. April, 1754: "This
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morning Tom behaved saucily and unbecomingly, so that we were forced to tie him up. Then he appeared penitent and I forgave him." In his prayers frequent and tender supplications are offered for the servants of the family.
It appears from the Williams' diary that his intimate friend, Presi- dent Wheelock of Dartmouth College, owned at least four negroes.
Old-time customs were both good and bad. The people were shut in on themselves and their own community was their little world; they knew each other's affairs pretty thoroughly and there was abundant opportunity for the meddlesome. Hospitality was general and was both a virtue and a solace. The pastor set an example and he speaks of having twelve chance guests at his table one day, and during another seven arrivals to spend the night. The blazing fire of logs on the ample hearth sizzled and snapped and roared a cheery evening wel- come. Pipes, long and short, hung in a handy place along with the tobacco-box. The straight-backed rush-bottomed chairs set back against the wall and the high-backed settles that beat back the draughts and reflected the ruddy glow invited to free and easy talk. There was no next room for the convenience of young lovers, but there were courting sticks prophetic of the telephone-long wooden tubes that could convey from lip to ear sweet and secret whispers.
The merry blast of the stage horn was a more stimulating sound than the shriek of the locomotive or the wild rush of automobiles. Flip irons were always ready on the tavern hearth and "tavern haunt- ing" was one of the bad customs. Carousing all night was one way the young people had of amusing themselves.
The wood sleddings, when the woodpile at the parsonage began to vanish, were joyful occasions for the parson and he never forgot to make a note of them: "January 25, 1757. Neighbors sledded for me and showed a Good Humor. I rejoice at it. The Lord bless them that are out of humor and brought no wood." A selected load of hickory expressly for his study fire rejoiced the good man's heart still more. The "rate days" also were tests of character and feeling. In the great scarcity of money the rates were paid in grain, which the minister made into beef and pork to pay his debts.
It was usual for the spinners and the quilters to help the parson's family and there were repasts of cake and pies, and merry times. Likewise the reapers and mowers lent a hand when the grass and
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grain of the "ministry land" were ripe; but the rum provided by the parson must be of good quality or there might be "uneasiness." The customs of that day looked toward mutual help. At every raising the community gathered with plenty of drink and great good cheer, sometimes "too" merry the parson thought. For a long time there was no appointed sexton. The neighbors dug and filled the grave and carried the bier. It was not the way of the old-time minister to have a definite vacation, but he indulged in long journeys election weeks and commencements, and when the Sabbath found him absent a deacon or some other member of the church would read a sermon.
The Sabbath Day was strictly kept, from sunset on Saturday to sunset on Sunday, except when infringed on in war times, and yet there was more or less of worldly conversation about the meeting- house doors before service and in the horse sheds and neighbors' houses at noon. The tything men also had to watch with considerable vigilance the boys and girls in the galleries.
Mr. Williams held frequent "catechisms" for the children; he met the young men in the schoolhouse for questioning and instruction and the young women by themselves; he held household meetings for prayer and repeated sermons in private houses for the benefit of invalids and aged people. A weekly lecture, set up by the ministers of six adjacent parishes, was for a long time largely attended.
In the early days of Longmeadow the men and women, boys and girls, were all workers if they wanted to have the best repute. Idlers and drunkards were rare exceptions. There was very little cash and trade was mostly by barter, the exchange being either of labor or produce. Agriculture was the foundation resource and the manufac- tures were generally homemade or carried on within the limits of the community. There were the great and the small spinning-wheel and the clacking looms and the darting shuttles, all making household music. There were the spinning and quilting bees, the candle-dippings, the fulling-mills, the cloth dressers and the dye tubs. Shoemakers wrought in little shops with their apprentices, or shouldered their packs and went from house to house shoeing each family by the day or week, after the tanners had prepared the hides. The tailors and tailoresses went about in like fashion when the homemade cloth was ready.
The boys shook the trees and picked up apples; the cider-mills crushed them and the stills made the brandy. Cabinetmakers produced
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excellent furniture ; the millers ground the corn and sawed the timber ; coopers provided barrels and tubs; blacksmiths shod the horses ; woodworkers and wheelwrights made the carts ; the carpenters framed the houses; surveyors measured the lands; and there were masons, hatters, powder manufacturers, inkmakers, printers, brickmakers, net weavers, ropemakers, broom makers, and, indeed, all the handicrafts that were needed for the uses or comforts of those days.
Every farmer was something of a mechanic, or he could exchange his day's work or his farm products for the skilled labor of the village artisan. There were no middle men. Every householder, even the minister, killed his own beef and pork, and loaned or borrowed, as convenience suited. Longmeadow had less need of Boston or New Haven merchants than they had of her farmers to do their winter teaming, although in quiet times of peace large quantities of goods went round by water. The teamsters carried eight barrels of flour to a two-horse load and their charge for freight to Boston was about one dollar a hundred pounds.
Nor should the Longmeadow flatboatmen be forgotten. They belonged to the old days when the Connecticut River was whitened with the great sails of the flatboats, and merry during the summer season with the shouts and songs of the jovial watermen. Little atten- tion was paid anywhere to tidiness of grounds or dwellings. The wood piles and chipyards before the unpainted houses, the rail fences and steaming barnyards that came to the front, the roaming swine and geese, the blowing sand that threatened the underpinning of the old meetinghouse gave no predictions of village improvement societies.
Longmeadow's fisheries were formerly a source of considerable profit and both salmon and shad were wonderfully plenty until the dams impeded them and the factories polluted the water. Almost every family in the early days salted down shad and it was the stipula- tion of hired men that they should not have a too great proportion of that food. Sometimes sturgeon to the size of three hundred pounds were seen leaping high out of the water. The April suns called out the nets for shad or sturgeon and they were spread full length on the village green and put in order.
In later years the fishing rights were divided between six proprie- tors, who either manned the boat themselves or let out their rights on shares. A haul would sometimes bring in four hundred shad. When
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the boatmen, who worked on shares, massed their portion at evening on the beach, the fish were distributed in piles as equally as possible. Then one man would turn his back, and as another pointed to each pile with the cry "Who shall?" he would call out a name, and to the owner of the name would the pile belong. A big sturgeon might make a great commotion in a shad net, but by playing fast and loose was secured.
In what is called the town period of Longmeadow temperance was so vigorously championed that the town's nineteen cider mills and six brandy, gin and whiskey stills were vanquished. This was about 1830. Other innovations were the discarding of wood-sleddings for the min- ister, and doing without meadow gates, and the gates of the home com- mons. No more running at large was allowed the browsing cattle nor the swine and the geese-three cents fine for each wandering goose --- and no more setting of fires in the woods was tolerated.
It has been claimed that the total impression made by Long- meadow village has always been one of quietness and peace, and a charming rural beauty.
Some recollections of a Longmeadow boyhood follow :
"My arrangements are never made to revisit the old place without the thrill of a boy's anticipation at returning home. As soon as the train, sweeping around the curve, glides on the Longmeadow stretch and the familiar landmarks are one after another passed, my childhood begins to come back with delight- ful vividness. Opposite the station, on the river bank, my heart beats quicker; for I recall one April day thirty-six years ago a little fellow with pockets that bulged with baseballs and hands clutching tight his cap lest it be lost. There he would have struggled hopelessly in the swollen river had not a brave man of the town periled his own life and saved mine. He was the old parish sexton, and I regret that he is not alive to know how gratefully I cherish the memory of his heroic deed."
Among other things that the speaker recalled was the old meeting- house, with its high pulpit at one end and the choir at the other, sustained by the bass viol, violin and flute.
"Earnest exhortations from the pulpit and copious drip- pings of liquified soot from long spans of stovepipe furnished
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the spiritual and material droppings of the sanctuary. How delightfully I used to sleep there, if only I could get to my mother's end of the pew and lay my head on her friendly lap; what jolly excursions we made into the sanctuary spire to the great dismay of the swarming bats, when we boys climbed the winding stairway and out on the balcony, which commanded a rich view of mountain and meadow and quiet river. How eagerly did I watch for the crowing of the gilded cock-'the old Probabilities' of the village, before weather bureaus were invented-assured by gravest testimony that he did crow every time he heard another rooster crow!
"Shall we ever forget how we used to be gotten ready for examination by reciting, day after day, the same passages of English history and placing the same examples on the black- board? And when the great day came, how delighted our fathers and mothers were with our astonishing proficiency. But one luckless day a new minister came into the town and school, and after we had been put through our parrot-like per- formance as usual, took the questioning into his own hands. How dumb as oysters we suddenly became !
"Those were the days of the ferule code, the thrashings, the dunce cap, standing on one foot, holding the arm extended at a horizontal, or bending the body forward until the hand touched the floor, with an occasional stroke. Those were the days when, on Saturday night, I wished the western mountains were deep valleys, that the sun, going down, might not so soon interrupt my sport, and on Sunday night, that the valleys were high mountains that the Sabbath rigor might sooner end.
"Not unknown at that time were the tavern and the toddy stick; the horse racings, foot racings, and turkey shootings, which, with their accompaniments, lowered the morals and cheapened the social values of the community."
A "Thief Detecting Society" became necessary at one period, par- ticularly because of a habit for stealing watermelons. The melons were extensively raised and of choice quality and the thieves were so alert it required a good deal of adroitness to catch them. One moonlit night a marauding party from Enfield had tied their horses
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to the highway fence not far from an attractive watermelon patch. The Longmeadow detectives found the horses and fastened one of the forelegs of each to one of his hind legs with twine small enough not to be seen in the moonlight, but strong enough to hold, and the leader divided his forces, a part creeping round to the farther side of the watermelon lot and the rest hiding near the horses. When ready for the onset the detectives allowed the thieves time to throw their sacks across their horses' backs and mount and then rushed forth to enjoy the easy capture of the frantic riders and their stumbling nags.
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"BACONSFIELD," OLDEST HOUSE NOW STANDING IN LONGMEADOW. Erected by Gad O. Bliss in 1720, it is now owned and occupied by George A. Bacon and family. A manuscript history of this place is in the Storrs Historical Collection in the Storrs Museum at Longmeadow.
Longmeadow was famous for its May "Breakfast Association," organized in 1869. It is a social festival and fair, enlisting the united efforts of the inhabitants, and especially of the younger portion, with the object of lending a helping hand in any parish or public emergency in need of financial aid. For several years it accumulated a fund for furnishing the new church, including the organ, and afterward was efficient in canceling the debt left at the completion of the new church.
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It has raised large sums, clear of all expenses, by its annual celebra- tions and proved itself not only a remarkably attractive social occa- sion, but a well-managed business enterprise.
On October 17, 1883, Longmeadow celebrated her one hundredth birthday. On the exact site of the old meetinghouse had been pitched a large tent for the audience, with a smaller one adjoining it for the dinner. Merry groups of shouting boys opened the festivities with games on the green. The red coats of musicians brightened the scene. The steady inflow of omnibuses and private carriages, bicycles and railroad arrivals effectually woke the old street from its wonted quietude.
Many guests from distant places had arrived the day before, and as each hospitable home poured out its inmates, with a succession of East Longmeadow teams coming through the intervening woods, as in the Sabbath days of old, when the entire town worshipped together, the gathering throng filled the settees of the tent. Finally, the stand- ing room, too, was filled, and the number who had been accommo- dated was nearly twenty-five hundred.
On a platform in front of the speakers' stand sat a band of eighteen skilled musicians in scarlet uniforms and with shining instru- ments. The natural dampness and possible chill of the earth floor in the tent was guarded against by a carpeting of soft hay, while the glow of the sun upon the canvas was just enough for genial warmth. The day was filled with a program of music and speeches, but the outstanding event was the "collation" at noon. A hundred waiters in companies of ten with lady captains served twenty-five hundred people in forty minutes. Some of the items of supplies were : Four hundred pounds of beef, ham and tongue; 4,000 rolls, 50 pounds of butter, 1,500 crullers, 50 pounds of coffee, 70 pounds of sugar, five barrels of pears and 300 pounds of grapes. Each family in town had been invited to furnish cake and there were 300 on hand.
A hotel proprietor, observing with amazement the success of the arrangements, said: "The man who organized the details of that collation could feed an army of ten thousand and not a soldier lose his rations."
The Richard Salter Storrs Library is located on Longmeadow Street, near the center of the town, and facing the green. In 1907 Sarah Storrs, a descendant of Longmeadow's second minister, Rev-
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erend Richard Salter Storrs, died and willed to Longmeadow all of her real estate in the town, including the historic homestead and a money bequest, providing that certain citizens whom she specified should incorporate and erect a suitable building to house the library's collection of books. The new Richard Salter Storrs Library is one of the most beautiful buildings in Longmeadow today. The walls are of brick painted white, with a roof of black slate, green shutters and iron railings. It was designed by Smith and Bassette and is quite in harmony with its setting and the spirit of the community. It has 1 5,000 volumes and its circulation is about 40,000 a year.
The Longmeadow Museum had its beginning in the Longmeadow Historical Society, organized in 1899, under the leadership of Rev- erend Stephen G. Barnes. Its purpose is to stimulate an interest in Longmeadow history and to make a collection of documents, furni- ture and other articles illustrating early life in this neighborhood.
In 1911 the society purchased the furnishings of the Storrs family house and this has formed the nucleus of their historical collection. Through the interest and cooperation of the Storrs Library Associa- tion the society is now making its home in the ancestral Storrs par- sonage. Among the many relics that are cherished is a pewter com- munion service of nine pieces which was given to the old First Church in 1737 by Nathaniel Bliss and used until a silver service was bought in 1819. There is also a curious old bureau that belonged to Abigail Davenport, an old gun which was used by Reverend John Williams at the Deerfield capture, and a "courting stick." This is a hollow stick about five feet long and the couple using it could sit a discreet dis- tance apart before the fire with the other members of the family and yet carry on a conversation with each other which would not be heard by the rest.
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