USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 36
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With this signal triumph the business was now on a solid founda- tion. There were still difficulties to be reckoned with. Everything which was used in the manufacture of the new machine had to be made on the spot, as it was not possible in those days to have various parts made to order and shipped merely by writing to some large factory. The problem of efficient and highly-trained technical help still existed. But aside from these ripples the business was well on its way toward success and in 1870 the present company of Gilbert and Barker was formally launched.
There was one more storm to weather. In the panic of 1873 money was at a premium, and frantic people, trying desperately to keep themselves from being wiped out, could get only one dollar in gold for every $2.75 in greenbacks. In Springfield alone two-thirds of the business concerns took advantage of Federal laws allowing general bankruptcy. Gilbert and Barker felt the pinch badly and were on the verge of capitulating more than once, but the company managed to hold on and ultimately paid dollar for dollar.
After this period business improved steadily and was aided mate- rially by new developments in the technical field. In 1880 a mixing regulator was used, whereby the admission of air was introduced in such a way to make the gas uniform in quality and made possible the use of ordinary batswing burners and later the Welsbach burner.
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Another advantage appeared ten years later when oil burners and oil burning systems came into use for forging, welding and hardening, and the company had become so strong that it added this new field to the line and became a foremost manufacturer in it.
The greatest individual change to shape the destiny of Gilbert and Barker was the change from horse-drawn vehicles to automobiles. This opened up a tremendous field which the company was quick to take advantage of, and the Gilbert and Barker gas tanks and pumps came into quick and plentiful demand as gasoline stations and dis- tributing stations grew like mushrooms all over the country. In 1914 it moved to the West Springfield location near the Boston and Albany buildings and today it is one of the largest industries in the vicinity of Springfield.
Besides the Gilbert and Barker Company other manufacturing plants are : Wico Electric and Manufacturing Company, makers of igniters and other electrical appliances; the Strathmore Paper Com- pany and the Southworth Paper Company, manufacturers of high grade paper; the Springfield Glazed Paper Company, manufacturers of glossy finish paper; Boston and Albany Railroad shops for loco- motive and car repairs; West Springfield Chemical Company, pro- ducers of chemicals; New England Box Company, which turns out boxes and other articles made of lumber; Perkins Machine and Gear Company, which turns out gears and other machine products ; the Gen- eral Fibre Box Company, makers of corrugated paper boxes; the National Library Bindery Company and the Springfield Wire and Tinsel Company.
During the past few years many of the automobile dealers of Springfield have moved to the west side of the river and opened auto- mobile salesrooms and repair shops. These are located along Memo- rial Avenue and it is sometimes referred to as "Automobile Row."
The Hampden County Improvement League grew out of a move- ment first started by Horace A. Moses, the head of the Strathmore Paper Company. He had a vision of improving agriculture and rural living conditions and a desire to bring city and country into a better understanding of each other's problems. Mr. Moses, with the aid of other public-spirited citizens throughout the county, began organiza- tion work in 1912 and the following year the first extension work was started in New England.
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This was two years before the Smith-Lever Bill made State and Federal money available for this kind of work in any of the Northern States. Thus, the Hampden County Improvement League started out wholly on private funds secured through donations and member- ships and built such an effective organization that it was used as a model for other counties when public funds were assigned to them. It was the pioneer in this type of work, though other places, through chambers of commerce and local financial aid, had employed "county advisers" and they had begun work with boys and girls and women.
As the work grew and its value became apparent Hampden County with other counties sought additional funds to meet the growing demands on it. Now the county aid to agriculture law, first passed in 1918, allows the county to finance the entire budget.
When the United States entered the war in 1917 a branch of the extension service was organized in Holyoke. Its main work was that of operating a canning kitchen, where special training was given in preserving food. Later other phases of homemaking were added and finally the Holyoke Home Information Center was opened. Spring- field now has a similar organization.
Under the Hampden County Improvement League the boys and girls are working in over twenty different kinds of 4-H clubs. The H's stand for health, heart, hand and head, and include live stock projects, sewing, canning, room improvement, forestry, wild life con- servation and many other subjects. The men in rural regions are learning better farm practices and business management, while the women are taking up matters running from child training to recrea- tional activities. The work is largely carried on through trained local leaders and hundreds are enrolled yearly. The league has a substan- tial building on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition.
The Eastern States Exposition movement was started in 1912 by a group of widely known citizens representing all sections and inter- ests of New England headed by Joshua L. Brooks, of Springfield. They wished to develop agriculture, industry and commerce, and felt that the best way to show strength or uncover weaknesses was by com- paring results. Springfield seemed a logical center with the final result that the Eastern States Agricultural and Industrial Exposition grounds were located just over the river in West Springfield. A charter was secured in 1914 and the National Dairy Show was invited to hold its
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1916 meetings and exhibition in connection with the dedication of the proposed new plant.
The requirements for this big show included an auditorium large enough to seat 5,000 persons, an industrial building containing at least 60,000 square feet, and barns large enough to stall 1,000 head of live stock. By the appointed date, even greater accommodations than those specified had been provided in permanent buildings of brick, steel and concrete, and the National Dairy Show held the most suc- cessful exhibition it had ever put on.
In June, 1917, one hundred and twenty-two firms and business houses cooperated in holding an industrial and export exhibition, such as has never been equaled in New England. The first general show
SPRINGFIELD COUNTRY CLUB
was held in October of the same year, with an attendance of 138,000 people, and featured food conservation and war programs.
The government took over the exposition grounds and buildings the following year and until midsummer of 1919 the plant was used as a military storage depot. The annual fall exhibitions were resumed when the property reverted to the management at the close of the war and have been continued since without interruption. The expo- sition plant now has eleven permanent brick, steel and concrete build- ings, thirty other buildings, and covers one hundred and seventy-two acres of ground.
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts have con- structed attractive buildings on the Avenue of States to house their
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respective exhibits. Other states are making plans for similar buildings.
A unique addition to the beauty and interest of the exposition is the collection of Colonial buildings known as Storrowton, the gift of Mrs. James J. Storrow, of Boston. These buildings, attractively landscaped and grouped around a common, simulate a country village and will perpetuate for all time the best of our early New England architecture.
The first to be erected was the Gilbert house, which was built in West Brookfield in 1794 by two brothers. The timber was hand hewn and put together with wooden pins and handmade nails. Like the other buildings, which have since been brought to Storrowton, it was taken down board by board, and beam by beam, and every board and beam numbered so that it might go back into its original posi- tion when it was set up again. A huge chimney occupies the center of the house and fireplaces open into most of the rooms, several of which are sheathed with unpainted pine.
The little lawyer's office, with its green blinds and rounded roof, came to Storrowton from Middleborough, where it was built by Zachariah Eddy about 1800. It still contains his furniture and books.
The old Potter house is a veritable mansion and was built in the "North Precinct" of Brookfield about the time of the Revolution. Captain John Potter did most of the work himself and made all the nails, latches and hinges and cut the elaborate woodwork. The hall upstairs has an arched ceiling and was used for dancing and public gatherings.
The town of Whately produced the red brick schoolhouse, which was built of local bricks about 1810, and from Chesterfield, New Hampshire, came the granite blacksmith's shop with its hand bellows and forge and heavy sling for shoeing oxen.
New Hampshire also provided the village with its meetinghouse, which stands quite suitably on a rise of ground at the head of the common. It has panelled wainscoating, pews of unpainted pine and a white pulpit with overhanging sounding board.
The oldest structure in Storrowton is a little cottage from Taun- ton, which was built in 1767, and serves as office for the Home Depart- ment of the exposition.
The town house, which was originally a Baptist meetinghouse, originated in Southwick, and the Atkinson Tavern, which contains a
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country store as well as a tap room, came from Prescott in the Swift River valley, which is to furnish Boston's water supply. A recon- structed old barn in the village is the scene of many gatherings and dances.
The Eastern States Exposition has a growing number of exhibitors and with its many buildings represents an investment of over $3,000,- 000. Every year, on the third week of September, it attracts an audience of over 300,000 visitors drawn from every State in the Union and from Canadian provinces. Joshua L. Brooks has served continuously as president since its organization in 1912.
Wilbraham and Its Academy
CHAPTER XXII
Wilbraham and Its Academy
What is now the town of Wilbraham was a part of the territory of Springfield, the settlement of which was begun by William Pynchon and his associates ninety-five years before the settlement of Wilbra- ham. On the east side of the town was a strip four miles wide called the "Mountains" or "Outward Commons of Springfield."
For fear that Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Massachusetts, would take away the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as he threatened to do, and thus cause all unappropriated lands to revert to the crown, the inhabitants of Springfield, in 1685, after reserving three hundred acres to the ministry and one hundred and fifty acres for schools, divided the remainder of the "Outward Commons" among the one hundred and twenty-three heads of families in the settlement. The territory was divided into three portions and then the lots num- bered from one to one hundred and twenty-five. The numbers were drawn from a box like a lottery, and at the same time was drawn from another box the proprietor's name.
Game was abundant and continued to be for a long time. Deer filled the pastures and the woods; wild turkeys ran in flocks over the fields and hills; the ponds were covered with ducks; and the squirrels on the trees filled the air with their chattering. Muskrats swarmed on the banks of the streams and beavers built their dams across them. Beasts of prey were not abundant, but sometimes bears made their appearance, much to the annoyance of the first planters and the terror of their children. It was not uncommon for devout aunts to still the restlessness of the children who were left in their care by telling them that the bears would come and carry them away into the woods and eat them.
Not many Indians inhabited this territory when the village was settled, but a family lived at a place since called Indian Rock and
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frequently came to the tavern in the village for supplies. There must, however, have been a large number about at some time for quantities of spears, arrowheads, axes, hatchets and soapstone dishes have been found in the fields. The dishes were made from some soapstone boulders probably deposited in the glacial period and the tools were pieces of trap-rock brought from the Holyoke range. Three Indian fireplaces have also been found on top of a hill, in a triangular posi- tion, about twenty feet apart. They were made of stones, none larger than a person's head, laid in a circle leaving a space in the center about twenty inches across. One was still well filled with the ashes of many fires.
The story is handed down from around 1740 or 1750 of a little girl who was riding with her parents on a sled near the close of a winter day, when they saw a short distance ahead, three Indians come out of the woods and stop in the road. The frightened child cowered under the blankets, but the father drove right on to where the Indians were standing in the snow by the side of the road, and each was holding out his hand and saying "tobac," "tobac," "tobac."
In 1727 Nathaniel Hitchcock purchased part of the lots drawn by John Hitchcock and three years later came from Springfield Street and cleared and broke up two acres of ground and built a log hut. After sowing his two acres with wheat, Hitchcock returned to Spring- field Street with his young wife to spend the winter.
In May, 1731, he came again with his wife to his narrow field and low hut and lived there by the mountains a full year, with no neighbor nearer than Springfield Street. Nine miles from friends he planted his corn, gathered his wheat, mowed his grass, dried and stacked his hay, and husked and stored his corn under the roof of his cabin. The follow- ing spring Noah Alvord and his wife settled near and the two neighbors often worked together with ax or hoe. Gradually, but one by one, others followed and Moses Burt, an industrious weaver and reed- maker, came to the region, probably in 1733. Samuel Warner settled on Stony Hill, Daniel Lamb on the Bay Road and Thomas Merrick, father of the young man bitten by a rattlesnake, immortalized in song, took up a piece of land.
Few and scattered as the settlers were they were not indifferent to the education of their children. When there were but eleven families in the "Outward Commons," Springfield appropriated three pounds
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for the support of a school there. The Testament was the text book in schools, as well as the oracle in the church. Dilworth's spelling book was their guide in spelling, nothing was taught of geography and little arithmetic. Instruction was given in the houses of different families in turn. These houses were plain framed houses, the saw- mill at Sixteen Acres supplying the lumber. They were poorly fin- ished, scantily glazed, rarely even partially plastered, and meagerly furnished. But the pioneers were hardy and industrious and pros- perity as bounteous as they expected was their reward. The cleared fields were small and insecurely fenced. The penurious soil did not make large returns, at best, for their labor, and the bears and squir- rels shared the scant harvest. The settlers were far from store and mill and there were no roads for wheel carriages, nor did they have any to use. From the sides of the mountain the friendly smoke of the settlers on the banks of the Great River could be seen rising above the trees, but between there spread out an unbroken forest, with swamp and meadow and a placid pond. The way was long and dif- ficult to the meetinghouse by the river and snows blocked their path in winter. When Sunday morning came, Daniel Lamb could comfort- ably make his way along the Bay Road to the sanctuary, but the others, some on horseback, their wives on pillions behind and a child on the pommel before, and some on foot, started in the early morning for the meetinghouse nine miles distant, by way of Pole Bridge Brook over Stony Hill, entering the Bay Road near Goose Pond. The young men and maidens preferred to walk and sometimes the way up to Zion seemed all too short to them; but the elders wearied of the trip, the briers were sharp, the swamps were miry, the fords were insecure, and the storms were drenching. Nor was it only by storms they were drenched. One winter Sabbath morning, Miss Peggy, clad in her best, was riding her horse across a shallow marsh when the thin ice broke and she fell into the freezing water. The place since then has been known as "Peggy's Dipping Hole."
In May, 1740, twenty-six names were signed to a petition sent to the Bay for incorporation as a separate precinct, and Spring- field and Longmeadow Precinct having given permission to their setting off "for the benefit of the gospel ministry," consent was received so that there would no longer be "a dearth of the word of
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the Lord" on the "Mountains." There was joy in the homes when the success of their petition was known and the ax was plied more vigorously now that there was prospect of building a meetinghouse. The dwelling house of David Mirick was the scene of the first precinct meeting and William Pynchon came from Springfield to be modera- tor. The subjects before them were the choice and settlement of a minister and the location and erection of their house of worship. Six different meetings were held in the next two months. One of the difficulties was to decide the amount to be paid to the minister, as coin was "variable and uncertain as to its value." Finally, the "cur- rant market price" of wheat, Indian corn, rye, barley, oats, flax, beef and pork was the basis agreed on, and the minister was to be paid one hundred pounds a year for the first four years with an increase later. The deed of the "Overplus Land" given for the first settled minister of the precinct was considerable trouble as signatures of the heirs of the one hundred and twenty-five original proprietors of Springfield had to be secured. Noah Mirick, who had already preached a num- ber of Sabbaths for them, was asked to be their first settled minister and they agreed to "cut and boat" a sufficient quantity of timber for him to build a dwelling house on a spot which he should choose.
When we recall how few were the residents and how poor their possessions the salary offered Mr. Mirick seems generous, but evi- dently he was not quite satisfied, for another vote was taken to "hew, frame, and raise" his house. In the meantime, as was usual, advice as to their choice was asked of neighboring ministers, and two of the settlers journeyed to South Hadley, where three divines gathered for the purpose, expressed their approval of Mr. Mirick. He accord- ingly accepted the position, though in his letter to the fourth precinct which had called him, he says that the matter "looks dark enough" and their "encouragements" are but "small."
Plans were soon made for the ordination, which for some reason they first voted should be held at Springfield, but finally a large oak tree was selected as the proper place and a rude pulpit of rough boards was built and seats of boards and logs arranged around it. The morning of the great day in June came, but it was cloudy and lowering. Delegates had come from Hadley, Springfield, Long- meadow and Brimfield, and the grave council was gathered in one of the houses while the people waited by the oak. A long delay came
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because it was discovered there were only six church members in the new precinct and the rules stated there must be seven. At last grace was given to one man, who stated that he had long thought of joining the church. His name was accepted to make up the required number and the delay was over, but in the meantime the gathering storm had increased and the audience adjourned to a neighboring barn, where the services were carried on and the "Worthy Mr. Mirick" ordained and settled as pastor.
Now began the struggle of the people to pay what they had pledged, first of all the cost of the ordination service, which included the building of the temporary pulpit, and the entertainment of the "ministers, scholars and delegates" and their horses over night. Another weighty matter under discussion was the location of the meetinghouse. After considering the matter for a month and holding four meetings they had only decided that it should be set somewhere on the "Over Plus Land," which was a strip across the precinct from east to west, four miles long and eighty-two rods wide. So once more the precinct turned to outside towns for advice, this time choosing a man each from Somers, Brimfield and Enfield. They duly viewed, listened, deliberated and agreed, with the result finally announced that the meetinghouse should be set by a small, black oak tree marked by a cross, southerly of a "run of water," a few rods west of the top of Wigwam Hill. This hill had received its name from the fact that it had been the home of the last Indian in this vicinity-a squaw who lived alone, the last of the vanished race.
Apparently the citizens dutifully accepted the decision and turned their attention next to building the minister's house. Nothing seems to have been donated in this parish and every man was paid for his work or it was credited on his tax. Mr. Mirick was soon occupying his house, and in the winter of 1743 various men drew pine boards, quarter boards, cedar shingles and "spruce shingles without sap" up to Wigwam Hill for the building of the meetinghouse. Farm work evidently occupied them during the warm months, and in the mean- time a faction arose which wanted the house of worship set by the "West Road," a half mile away from where the timber lay seasoning, and from the minister's house. Committees were called in from neighboring towns to advise, votes were taken and retaken, money was paid out for temporary places to hold services; men were entertained
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and paid for riding around to view the spots under discussion, and for four years the timbers lay rotting on Wigwam Hill. One vote advised building there near a "pine tree," another "at a walnut stad- dle," but finally when a "fast stone" marks the place work is begun and the meetinghouse was ready for occupancy late in 1747. Charles, son of Isaac Brewer, was baptized there on December 25, 1748, and the following month a precinct meeting was opened in the meeting- house, but adjourned to Nathaniel Hitchcock's house, probably because it was too cold for the transaction of business, though they might have stood it if warmed by the fervors of religion.
There is no record of any dedication service and the building was a mere shell for three years. The timbers of the frame were all exposed on the inside, the seats were loose boards or slabs with legs in them; the pulpit was a rough box; not a trowel of mortar nor a bit of paint was anywhere to be seen. The boards on the floor were loose; little glass was in the windows, the winds whistled through the crevices, and the snow drifted over the seats. Not until 1752 was it voted to further finish the meetinghouse, by "ceiling and plastering" to make it warm.
From the door of the church the whole valley of the Great River from Mt. Holyoke and Mt. Tom on the north to Hartford on the south was visible, a white cloud of fog lying low along the tree tops indicating the course of the stream. When the frosts touched the forest in autumn, how the red maple flamed among the trees, and the green of the pines and the yellow of the walnut caused the whole vast landscape to appear like a gorgeous carpet. On Sabbath morning the people wound their way through field and bridle path and cart road to the meetinghouse, some coming from Burt's Mill, five miles away; some from the hill south of Scantic. The procession, on horse- back and on foot, had only one wagon, that of Paul Langdon, who generously took in others than his own family. The horses were hitched to the trees about the meetinghouse during service. The con- gregation rose from their benches as the worthy Mr. Mirick entered with wig of powdered hair in a cue, dressed in small clothes and bands and silk stockings with shoe buckles of silver. He read a hymn, then handed the book-the only one-down over the pulpit to Deacon Warriner, who "lined" it out to waiting people. The congregation stood during the long prayer, and sparrows above and babies below
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