USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 7
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The water privilege on the north side of the river was sold to Wil- liam Bowman and Benjamin and Samuel Cox, who manufactured paper there for fifteen years. The Chicopee Manufacturing Com- pany later acquired the water right. In 1822 the Dwight brothers acquired land and water power at Chicopee Falls and the Boston and Springfield Manufacturing Company was organized soon after.
The Springfield Canal Company was started in 1831, when much of the present city was still swamps and bushes. When George Prayer drove the stake where the upper end of the canal was to be, John Chase, agent for the company, said: "You can tell people you were the man who drove the stake for a new Lowell." The building of the canal brought the Irish to Cabotville. They were paid seventy- five cents a day and three "jiggers" or drinks. A dam across the Chicopee River, and the canal, one-third of a mile in length, were com- pleted in 1832. Mr. Chase surveyed and laid out the lands of the
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Canal Company with a view to securing the greatest number of corner lots possible.
As one mill after another was built, their completion was cele- brated by balls to which came everyone from far and near. Mr. Chase and his wife were fine dancers and generally opened the ball. They also had what were called "lighting up" and "blowing out" balls, which were the events of the season. The mills were lighted between September 20 and March 20, and balls at the beginning and ending were in order. The opening of these mills and shops called many of Mr. Chase's friends from New Hampshire, his native State, and they were hard workers. John Denison spent most of his life in the town and teamed for the company. He carried goods to and from Boston and other cities and once he nearly met with a fatal accident in crossing the Connecticut River on the ice with his loaded team. The ice gave way and he lost his goods, but was fortunate enough to save himself and his horses. Just as typhoid fever ravaged "The Patch" in Holyoke at the time of the building of the dam, so did "Cabot fever" run through Cabotville in 1839. On one day nine lay unburied in the small village.
The First National Bank of Chicopee began its existence in 1845 with John Chase as president. Someone who had a spite against him once instigated a run on the bank by collecting all the claims against the bank that he possibly could and presenting them for gold payment. He instigated others to do the same and the situation became serious. Finally, "Uncle John" dressed himself in old clothes to avoid recog- nition, was driven to Springfield in the evening and took the train to New York. No one knew that he had gone except Gilbert Walker, the cashier. He came back the next night and walked up from Spring- field with a bag of gold on each arm. This successfully stopped the run.
The Dwight Company bought the property of the Cabot Company and the Perkins mills in 1856 and absorbed all cotton manufacturing interests. When cotton manufacturing was begun in Chicopee it was under difficulties. All the raw material and the finished product had to be transported by team or by equally slow water navigation. Sperm oil lamps furnished the only artificial light. The operatives had to work fourteen hours a day and the pay was small.
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Deacon Silas Mosman and his sons were workers in the Ames shops, which manufactured cutlery. This company made the fine presen- tation swords of General Grant, General Butler and others, costing $2,000 each. Among their notable works are the handsome bronze doors made for the Capitol at Washington and costing $57,000. The Ames Company cast the equestrian statues of Washington in the Boston Public Gardens and Union Square, New York City; the Lincoln monument at Springfield, Illinois; and that of Benjamin Franklin placed in front of the Boston City Hall. To the unveiling of this the Ames workmen went on a special train. Bells were also cast for public buildings, among them the New York City Hall bell, which was six feet high and weighed over 8,000 pounds, and the Epis- copal Church bell in Hartford. During the Civil War a force of over seven hundred men worked day and night making cannons, swords and sabres. Some of the Ames military output was sold abroad to France, England and Turkey. Nathan P. Ames, Jr., hap- pened to come to Chicopee because he and Edmund Dwight chanced to be the only passengers one night on a coach to Boston. There was a midnight supper and a change of horses in Springfield as Ames was returning from a tour of the country and Mr. Dwight, before morn- ing, had made a contract with Ames to furnish him a shop, machinery and water power, without rent at the beginning, if he would come to Chicopee.
The Ames brothers were men of great genius, untiring energy and high Christian character, and their influence on the early life of Chicopee cannot be too highly estimated. They were always ready to assist any project that would benefit Chicopee and were among the leaders in business, social and religious life for many years.
Richard B. Inshaw came from New York to Cabotville about 1836 to take charge of the fine engraving for the N. P. Ames Com- pany. He was fond of sports and hunting and is said to have kept forty-five sporting dogs at one time. He had rare birds and other choice animals about his cottage and he and his wife both enjoyed entertaining visitors.
The Connecticut River Railroad was opened from Springfield to Northampton with a station at Cabotville on December 13, 1845. A branch railroad was opened to Chicopee Falls the next year. The
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increased business brought a dense population to the Chicopee River region.
In 1848 they petitioned the Legislature to set off a separate town to include Cabotville, Chicopee Street and Willimansett by the name of Cabot. On April 25, 1848, the Legislature voted to set off from the town of Springfield the territory including the villages of Cabot- ville, Chicopee Falls, Chicopee Street and Willimansett as the new town of Chicopee.
The name Chicopee is an Indian word variously written on old records and different meanings are given to it by historians. Some claim it means the "River of Elms," another that it probably comes from the word "Chikee," meaning it rages or is violent, and the word "pe," meaning water. Other versions spell it Chickuppe, meaning cedar country water; Checkoby, violent water; or Chikabee.
Willimansett is also given variety in spelling, as follows: Willi- mansit, Wollomansit, Willimansitseep. The name Cabotville was used about 1850 because the Boston Cabot family had put so much capital into the mills.
Skipmuck or Skipmaug, the section about a mile up the river from Chicopee Falls, is said to mean overflowed fishing place.
Town officers were elected at the first meeting, appropriations made for schools and the new town went in debt to purchase a "poor farm." The town hall, with its imposing tower and great bell, was built in 1871.
The first attempt to get a bridge built between Willimansett and Holyoke was made in 1857 and from then until it was completed, in 1893, there was an intermittent battle between the two places. The struggle began in earnest in 1886, when $400 was subscribed to fur- ther the project and the matter was carried to the Legislature, which seemed sympathetic. Lawyer W. H. Brooks, of Holyoke, gallantly protected Willimansett's desire to have the bridge erected where the present bridge stands, while Chicopee's array of talent that argued for having it farther down the river included Ex-Governor Robin- son, the famous local lawyer George M. Stearns, and Ex-Mayor McClench. When the Act ordering the building of the bridge was passed, Willimansett had a wild celebration and Stratton and Eldridge, two men who had worked hard to get the measure through,
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were drawn about the village in a carriage by the jubilant populace. The completion of the bridge was also grandly celebrated.
A railroad bridge with a footpath on one side had been in use for some time before the new bridge was built and a toll of two cents was charged each person on week days, but Sundays they might pass free to church in Holyoke. Orange Chapin Towne was station agent at one time and the method for taking freight from the cotton mills on the Holyoke side of the river was to board a freight train, load up the car and trust to the grade to bring it back again to the Willimansett side. The railroad station was a schoolhouse originally.
The late Governor George Dexter Robinson came to Chicopee in 1856 as principal of the high school immediately after his graduation from Harvard College and then studied law in his brother's office in Cambridge. He returned to Chicopee and entered upon a career in the courts and in politics which has made his legal abilities respected and his name widely known.
The first Baptist Church was organized in Chicopee Falls and accommodated members of that faith from South Hadley Falls and Willimansett. Beulah Chapel was the first Baptist church in Willi- mansett and was built in 1888. Reverend Edward Smith Ufford, its first pastor after organization as a church in 1893, was widely known by his famous song, "Throw Out the Life Line," a favorite of Moody and Sankey. His "bicycle sermons" attracted much attention as well as his lecture on "Darkest London," illustrated with calcium lights.
A fire in 1872 partially destroyed the Grace Episcopal Church building and it was not rebuilt until 1885. The parish house was opened in 1893 and was continuously available day and night, except during the time of services on Sunday. There was a smoking room and pool tables, a gymnasium and showers. Outside sports were carried on in their season and one rector, the Reverend Newton Black, inaugu- rated a camp for boys on Shepherd's Island in the Connecticut River opposite Northampton. He had a fleet of canoes in which the boys paddled up the river to the camp, where during their two weeks' stay they lived an open air life free from clothing and undue restraint. Group after group in succeeding years fished and swam and paddled and learned to live squarely. So unusual was the atmosphere created by the little rector that "Mr. Black's boys" stood for honesty and
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trustworthiness wherever they came in contact with the country peo- ple. Many of them have come back as grown men to visit Mr. Black who, forty years later, still paddles to "The Island."
The first daguerreotype taken in the United States was taken in Chicopee by A. S. Southworth. An exhibition of them was displayed in Boston on the day that Harrison was inaugurated as President in 1841.
Many a boy and man knew Chicopee because of the Victor bicycle made by the Overman Wheel Company. They claimed that their factory was the only bicycle plant in the world where a complete bicycle was made from handle bars to tire. Other manufacturers put money into racing machines for advertising purposes, but the Over- man Company kept men on wheels day after day for testing purposes only. They invented the "dynamometer" to measure the power required to drive a bicycle.
As boys knew Chicopee because of the Victor bicycle, so did farm- ers know it as the home of the Belcher and Taylor Company, makers of agricultural tools. The "Yankee Blade," a patented feed cutter, was made by Bildad B. Belcher and two other men in 1852. A corn sheller came next and then a set of plow patterns was bought. The famous Lion plow, the cylinder plow and the conical plow followed. The Bullard Tedder rights were bought as well as several kinds of rakes. A disc harrow, called the "Yankee Pulverizer," was a popular implement, and later the manufacturer felt that he was giving the farmer an easy life when he produced the sulky plow. One hundred and ninety different sizes and styles of plows were at one time or another on the lists of this company and twelve styles of feed cutters, of which they probably sold more than any other manufacturer in the world.
An outstanding Chicopee citizen was George M. Stearns, one of the ablest, wittiest, and best loved of American lawyers. He was the son of a hill-town minister and such was his boyhood reputation that he was called "the parson's devil." His father was a fine scholar, with a nature that was abstracted and mild, and he lived much more in the world of his own thought and studies than in that close about him. Stearns used to say :
"When I was a little fellow I could crawl around, over him, dance on the table, straddle his neck-anything-and it was all right so long as I didn't tip over his inkstand.
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"In the course of time I arrived at the age of seventeen and the question came up as to how I was going to make a living in the world. I'd got to do something.
"My father was poor and there was no getting rid of the necessity I had to pitch hay, dig potatoes and fork manure- and none of these things exactly suited me for a life work. Of the outside world I knew very little, but I often rode with my father and had been in Greenfield a number of times. To my youthful fancy Greenfield was the hub of the universe, and I didn't suppose it rested with ordinary mortals to see a larger or more important place. In Greenfield were several lawyers of my father's acquaintance, and it always seemed to me they had the finest houses and best turnouts, and in fact, the softest job. Therefore, I thought the law was what was best suited to me. My father sometimes took boys who wished to get a better education than could be had locally and gave them such aid as fitted them to enter college. Among those who came to him were John and Royal Wells. John started a law office in Chicopee. He was a good boy and he was a good man. If he had temptations, he never gave way to them; and in my opinion he was so good he didn't have temptations anyway. When I made known to my folks a wish to be a lawyer, they said, 'We'll send you to John Wells.' They at least were sure I would be carefully looked after. So in August, 1848, I made my advent into Chicopee and swept the office and received a salary of fifty dollars a year. When I came to Chicopee it had a population of about eight thou- sand and the small brick dwellings along Exchange Street were occupied by the solid residents of the village.
"There were no sidewalks except in front of two or three of the stores. None of the residential streets had any and the man who laid out a gravelled path in front of his house was thought to be rather high-toned and pretentious. Dirt paths straggled along the wayside and on occasion a board was laid down in the early spring to prevent your going knee deep in the mud.
"Manufacturing was chiefly represented by three cotton mills that flanked a canal on the borders of the Chicopee River
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and never has there been a handsomer set of women than those who used to work in our mills here. They were well edu- cated, well behaved Yankee country girls. No sooner did I start in earnest at the law office than with the eager foolish- ness of a boy to do a man's work I went rattling around pick- ing up all sorts of jobs to get my hand in. I would take every case possible and at any price. If a man had no money, I would do the work for nothing, because I at least got the prac- tice. We had some great legal fights here and things were kept hot and interesting. I used to have some of the liveli- est bouts with a young lawyer named Sever- ance-and a smart, quick-witted fellow he was.
GEORGE W. STEARNS
"When it was known that he and I were to cross swords in a case, standing room couldn't be bought in the jus- tice's office. A curious phase of the matter was that every lawyer in town had his own jus- tice and was dead sure from the beginning to win any case he chose to
bring before him. You might sue a man for tipping over the city hall and the decision would be in your favor.
"The Irish were just beginning to come to town and the place was full of fights. There was a curious clannish divi- sion among the immigrants and the man from County Kerry would lick the first man he met from County Clare, or try to; the O'Briens would fight the O'Tooles, and so on. One family-the Higgins-won special fame. They could lick all
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the other families in town. In one fight there were fifteen or twenty engaged on each side. About a bushel of hair was gathered on the spot after the fracas and a teacupful of teeth. The case made lots of work for the court. It lasted three or four days. In the midst of the trial two of the women con- cerned caught each other by the hair and swung around the room in a most furious fashion. It took ten minutes to sepa- rate them and get their teeth out of each other and disen- gage their hands from one another's hair.
"One rather funny incident that I recall has to do with a little Irish boy who pumped the organ at the Unitarian Church. William McClellan was the organist and it was a great wonder to the little shaver at the pump handle how the music was made. One Sunday, in the middle of the vol- untary, he filled the bellows full and tiptoed to the corner to peek round and see William's fingers 'go it.' But the wind soon began to give out and the music wavered and threatened to collapse. William, puzzled to know what the matter was, looked up and saw his pumper sticking up his head around the corner. The boy was all excitement. 'Give it to 'em on the high notes!' he exclaimed in a thrilling whisper. 'Give it to 'em on the high notes !'
"William's father, Captain McClellan, had charge of the water works and the organ boy's father, Arthur Burns, got a job with him. Burns was a bright, capable fellow, but he used to get tight once in a while and one day when he went to Worcester on the captain's business he came home drunk. Captain McClellan wouldn't have anyone around who drank and Burns had as good as lost his situation. However, the next day he was on hand as usual and by and by put his head in at the office door.
"'Good morning, Captain,' was his greeting, delivered in his blandest way, and then he proceeded to explain the Worces- ter affair.
" 'I got off the train,' he said, 'and went two blocks south and then I turned to the left and walked up one street and at the next corner a wind struck me from the north that cold it
Hampden-41
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'u'd freeze a man to dith in no time. And, sir, what did I do? I see a saloon, just before me, and I had the prisince of mind to go right in and take a drink. It saved me life.'
"One time William said to Burns: 'Well, how many of you were out last night?' 'Four,' Burns said, 'there were four of us.' 'Who were they ?' William inquired. And Burns answered : 'The two Crogans was one, myself was two, Mike Finn was three, and-and-who was four? Let me see, and he counted on his fingers as he continued : 'The two Crogans was one, Mike Finn was two, myself was three, and, bedad ! there was four of us, but I couldn't tell the name of the other. Now it's myself that has it. Mike Finn was one, the two Crogans was two, myself was three-and-by me soul ! I think there was but three of us after all.'
"Well, there have been great changes within my recollec- tion. The first time I went to Boston I traveled in a chaise with a trunk strapped to the axle underneath. The second time I went on the cars-rude affairs with narrow seats and a loose-hung strip of hair cloth for a back. But by contrast that manner of traveling was princely and it didn't seem right to enjoy such luxury. Yet steam power has not been wholly a benefit. Modern smoke and smudge and clatter have made the nymphs, fairies and woodland gods of simple times a fad- ing fancy. Cities have been built and big mills filled with crowding life, but the country villages have been depopulated. "It has the look as if New England's hills and plains were to become just grazing ground for cattle, while the popula- tion all concentrates in the hurrying manufacturing cities."
Stearns in his maturer years as a lawyer always drew a crowd when he had a case in court. He has been described as "short, round and as genial as an old-fashioned stage driver."
He was unassuming, showed a marked disregard for convention- alities and was wholly without trace of conceit or arrogance. His smooth-shaven face had a humorous, quizzical expression and he was noted for his abounding good nature and keen sense of the ludicrous. His head was pushed down between his shoulders and he was of a build that took the symmetry out of any suit in a little while. He
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was slow in his movements and to see him wearing his wide-brimmed black slouch hat and an unpretentious suit of brown or gray, a stranger might well think he was an old-time second-class minister.
In summer he wore a linen duster-a light, long, buff-colored coat, which he pulled right on over his other clothes. Most men wore one then. Some protection was needed as the roads were so dusty. Stearns would put on his just as he was leaving home, hoping the rest of his clothing would be at least fairly clean when he arrived at his office. Also, he would have a bandanna handkerchief tied around his neck.
He was a philosopher full of sweetness and light. "The Sage of Chicopee" he was called, and listening to him was a pleasure to anyone not on the opposite side. He assumed a rustic drawl in embellishing his witty sallies, which were clean and hearty and never malicious. His humor bubbled and sparkled incessantly and broke out at the most unexpected times. His speech abounded in tenderness and fine feeling and rarely has there been an attorney who could so quickly and surely swing a jury from tears of sentiment to tears of laughter.
His illustrations were striking enough to be understood by the dullest mind among the chance hangers-on at the courts where he practiced, homely enough to appeal to the humblest farmers drawn to serve as jurymen, ingenious enough to interest his fellow-lawyers, and appropriate enough, no matter how unconventional, to be allowed by the judge. His pleas were works of art. Wit, pathos, argument, joke, story and logic followed each other in a torrent and the whole court room audience would come under the spell of his eloquence. Stearns was called the outstanding lawyer of western Massachusetts. Tales of his pleas used to be as plentiful as butterflies in June.
An early name for an important section of Chicopee was Cabot- ville, so-called from one of its founders, and the local militia in the middle of the last century took to itself the title of the "Cabot Guards." Stearns used to say: "One of my earliest recollections is of the old Cabot Guards, on the occasion of their annual muster, rolling around here in search of blood and other drink."
They did their part in enlivening the town and Stearns did his, though in ways rather more original. He and Severance, another young lawyer, engaged in a curious escapade one Sunday. They went up the street about noon to where two fair sized elm trees stood on
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opposite sides of the way. Stearns climbed into one and Severance into the other and when the good people were walking home from meeting they heard voices up in the elm trees. Those two lawyers were going on as if they had a breach of promise case in court. They were shouting their arguments back and forth across the street, and the case evidently involved some of the local residents, because they were calling people's names right out. It was too funny for anything. Stearns and Severance were pretty wild young men and they were looked at cross-eyed by many of the Chicopee townsfolk.
Once when the question of ministers' salaries was being discussed at a Unitarian convention Stearns was asked for his opinion and he said :
"I believe a minister should receive a salary that would enable him to have enough wholesome food so he will be properly nourished. If he's obliged to live on canned goods you can't expect to get anything from him but canned goods sermons. We had a preacher at our church one Sunday who was a lean, cadaverous sort of a man and looked as if he had never had a square meal and wouldn't know how to enjoy a square meal if he did have one. The morning sermon was as lean as the parson looked and the text was to the effect that we are nothing but groveling worms of the dust. Well, it was very pessimistic and depressing. I invited him to be my guest for the day. He was a young fellow and I knew by the sparkle of his eyes that he had something in him. We had a good dinner and how that man did eat! In the afternoon he took a nap while I hitched up the old gray mare and my wife and I went for a ride. Later, we gave the minister a good sup- per and you ought to have seen the transformation in the man when he appeared in the pulpit that evening. We didn't get any dismal preaching from him either. He took for his text 'God created man in his own image little lower than the angels.' The fact is you can't get good work from a minister any more than you can from a horse unless you provide the means for his being comfortably housed and well nourished."
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