USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Hampden county, 1636-1936, Volume II > Part 8
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Stearns was a pillar of the church that he attended and often enter- tained visiting ministers. One such-a gentle, hungry-looking soul-
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was present at dinner, when a large fish was the main feature of the menu. In response to an inquiry if he would have some of the fish, he replied in a highly elegant manner that must have rejoiced Mr. Stearns' mother : "I will thank you for a small portion."
His words amused his host very much and he received what unquestionably was a small portion. It didn't last long and then Mr. Stearns urged him to have more of the fish. Back came his plate with the same polite "I will thank you for a small portion."
This time also his words were interpreted literally and the serving of "small portions" continued until nothing was left of the fish but a huge bony framework. Again Mr. Stearns pressed him to have more, and again this called forth the stilted acceptance. Then Madame Stearns watched with horrified eyes while her son placed the entire skeleton on the minister's plate. The host's little grand- daughter was likewise watching, but not in horror. She left the table hurriedly to laugh in peace.
Madame Stearns never forgave her son for this escapade. Such treatment of a minister was beyond her comprehension. After the dinner she had a long and earnest talk with the clergyman and did her utmost to make an apologetic explanation.
Her sense of humor was very attenuated. The only jokes that were acceptable to her were those that her church paper, the "Chris- tian Register," published in a column styled "Pleasantries." At these she laughed tolerantly, but the same jokes from another source found no response. She spent much time in her later years in efforts to guard people from her son's wit, or in trying to soften the impact of it by careful explanation. "George really doesn't mean that," was a comment she often made after one of his humorous conversational extravagances.
Simple pleasures appealed to Stearns most and he pursued them with a childlike frankness. One of these pleasures was the owning and driving a good horse and the attraction that horses had for him led to his buying steeds of widely varied pedigrees and values. His ownership usually was limited to one at a time, which he kept in a stable back of his house. He was a familiar figure on the road between Chicopee and Springfield driving to and from business. His vehicle was a big, broad buggy, comfortable but plain, and not in the least spruced up and constructed in such a fashion that it swayed like a boat.
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People used to prophesy that some day he would be spilled out of his buggy, his method of driving was so easy-going. He always drove with very loose reins, and when he wanted to stop he had to lean way back to take up the slack. When he wanted to speed up a little he pulled on the reins and the horse knew what that meant. He never kept a horse if it showed any signs of shying, which was fortunate, because one that couldn't be trusted would have been fatal for such a driver.
But though he insisted on having safety in a horse's temperament and habits, his chief delight was speed, and he often went dashing along the highway at a pace that would put him in jail today. He used to say, "They don't know how to build a crosswalk in Chicopee." You see he drove so fast that when he went over a crosswalk he always got jounced.
Among Stearns' admirers was a boy named William McClench, later president of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany, and they lived on the same street. That was before Chicopee had a fire alarm system and when anyone discovered a fire he'd begin to holler. Mr. McClench said :
"Again and again I've gone to the door in the evening thinking I heard somebody crying 'Fire!' and found that it was Stearns driving home after court from Springfield and shouting 'Lantern ! Lantern !' as he approached his house. Mau- rice, his coachman and man-of-all-work, was somewhere on the premises expecting him, and Stearns wanted him to be out in the yard with a light when he drove in.
"He would start speeding at the top of the hill some distance from his home. If he was returning in the daytime his announcing shout was likely to be addressed to his wife in the words: 'Em! I'm coming, Em!'
"Mr. Stearns was my ideal of a lawyer, and soon after I graduated from college I saw him drive into his yard one night and stepped over to speak to him. I asked him if I could study law in his office.
"'Of course you can, William,' he said. And that led to an intimate association with him, the memory of which I always shall treasure."
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Stearns bought a victoria for Mrs. Stearns. It was a beautiful vehicle of the very latest design. Maurice, the hired man, was to sit on the high front seat and drive and she could go out any time she chose. They rigged him up in a coachman's uniform, but he didn't look the part and he objected to wearing such duds. Mrs. Stearns didn't enjoy the victoria either. She would rather ride with George, and that meant going in the buggy, for he had to use something he could speed in. They rode a good deal together and she got along very well if her bonnet strings were tied tight enough so that in a sudden spurt the bonnet didn't flop down on the back of her neck or over an ear.
He was likely to drive up to the door and take her out for a ride in the early morning of a day when he had an important case in court. I suppose he thought about the case some and the ride put him in proper trim to do his best.
One horse Stearns invested in was a silver-tail buckskin that he called Brimstone Maid, she acted so. He sold her to a tinsmith, but she wasn't any better suited to the tinsmith than she was to Stearns, for almost the first thing she did after the change in ownership was to run away with a load of stoves.
Stearns owned some really fine horses. Those he acquired he made pets of and lucky was the trotter that captured his favor. Now and then one like Calamity, or the gray mare Maud, won a perma- nent place in his affection. Calamity could trot a mile in less than two-forty and it took a good horse to do that in those days.
Maud pleased him because she would take care of herself on the road. He used to say, "I'd just as soon put the reins down round the whip when I'm driving her."
He pensioned Maud in his will by leaving fifteen hundred dol- lars for the care of her. She was never again to have saddle, bridle, harness or shoes on her, and when she got infirm and so old she couldn't eat, she was to be put humanely out of the way. At length that time came. She had been staying on what Stearns used to call his "farm"-a suburban place of a few acres that he acquired for his hired man to live on-and there she was shot and buried.
Just north of the thickly settled part of Springfield was a long, straight, level stretch of road in the Brightwood section, and thither the local men who owned speedy horses resorted on every pleasant
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afternoon, when the traveling was good, to exercise their trotters and race with one another. There was about a mile of that straight road, with open field and pastures on each side separated from the highway by a substantial post and rail fence. A crowd always gathered to look on and the fence served the onlookers for seats. The horsemen used to start at the north end near the foot of Rockrimmon Hill and how they would holler and yell coming down the course! They had some good hot races and if they were going neck and neck at the end of a mile they might keep on clear to Memorial Church Square. When they turned round they'd walk their horses back to kind of rest 'em up.
In winter they'd be out there with their sleighs. One or two win- ters they raced on the river, but it wasn't easy to get down and up the bank and keeping a clear track on the ice cost too much.
A good many driving horses grazed during the summer in a big Chicopee pasture on the hill where the high school is now, and every Sunday morning there'd be a bunch of the owners there to talk horse and look over their steeds.
Stearns used to illustrate his and Henry Harris' trading habits by telling the following lion story :
"Barnum's circus showed up at Hampden Park one day and Harris was on hand to see what there was to see. He was very much taken with a big shaggy-headed lion in one of the cages. 'That lion seems very good natured,' Harris said to the keeper.
"'Yes, he's a pet,' the keeper said, 'and clever, too. Come on into the cage with me and see what a fine fellow he is.'
"So Harris went into the cage and patted the lion and walked around him to view him from all sides. The more he saw of him the better he liked him, and a great longing came over Harris to own that lion. 'Would you sell him ?' he asked the keeper.
"'Why, yes; I don't know but we would,' the keeper said. 'It's getting toward the end of the season.'
"'What's your price ?' Harris inquired, and, being a horse- man, he looked in the lion's mouth to see his teeth and get an idea of his age.
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"'A couple of thousand dollars,' the keeper answered.
"'You deliver him at my barn in Chicopee and I'll take him,' Harris said.
"The keeper agreed and Harris paid the two thousand. Late in the day the lion arrived. So Harris had him put in a box stall and he spent all the evening playing with the lion and feeding him.
"He didn't get to bed very early and he didn't get up very early, and when he did get up there seemed to be consider- able going on out in his stable, judging from the noise. He went to investigate and as he opened the door-r-r-r-r! whang! -the lion roared and made a dash against the bars of the box stall. Harris stepped toward the stall and the lion let loose another of his thunderous roars and made another dash. This sort of thing soon convinced Harris that what the lion wanted was him and he looked anxiously out of the stable door.
"Just then I happened to be walking down the street. I heard the roars and the crashing and turned into the yard. Hello, George ! come in here,' Harris called to me.
"'What have you got in there ?' says I.
"'A lion,' Harris replied. 'I bought him yesterday of Bar- num's circus for two thousand dollars.'
"'He doesn't seem to be very good tempered,' says I.
"'He's a devil,' Harris declared fervently.
"'Want to sell him ?' I asked.
"'Yes,' Harris said. 'You can have him for two dollars.'
"'And the price was so ridiculous that I had to take him.'"
A while after this lion story had been circulated Harris said to Stearns : "I want you to come and look at my new hoss. Somebody has made me a present of one."
They went to Harris' barn and when Harris opened up a stall and said, "There's the hoss," Stearns got one of the surprises of his life. The "hoss" was an old fat hog with a halter on and tied just like a horse to the manger.
Word was passed around that Harris had acquired some unusual sort of pony. Curiosity was aroused and many people came to see it
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-even those from far enough away so they hitched into a buggy and drove.
In a letter written in February, 1892, Mr. Stearns says: "I am an uncomely cripple as a result of the inflictions of that horniest, hoofiest and most viciously-tailed devil of all the gang, the gout."
He suffered a good deal from these inflictions in later life and to ease the pain often sat with his foot on a stool. Gout was one reason why he played solitaire. Playing that was an aid to forgetfulness of pain and also of business. He used to say: "This is all that saves my life. If I didn't have my solitaire I'd go crazy."
You see he'd been studying all through the day over his law cases until his brain was fagged out. He couldn't have lain down and slept. When he was nervously tired like that he had to sit up and do some- thing that was quieting.
He knew four games of solitaire and these he had been taught by as many different persons. One of them he learned from Moody Ferry and another from Elizabeth Skinner.
Stearns named each of his solitaire games after the person who taught it to him and he used to talk to the game he was playing as if it were a living companion. "Now, old Moody Ferry, come on," he'd say. Or he'd say: "Liz Skinner, you'll have to show a little more speed. It's getting to be the old man's bedtime."
Every evening he played all four games and if they chanced to be unduly prolonged he would hasten the end by drawing one, two or three cards-three was the limit.
On one occasion, while the solitaire was in progress, a visitor of the skinflint variety dropped in and tried to get certain legal informa- tion by adroitly leading the conversation in a direction that allowed the asking of a carefully prepared hypothetical question. But Stearns wasn't to be caught that way. He was seeking mental relaxation and he was very jealous of being interrupted. He kept right on playing and turned aside attempts to discuss business by talking about the game, but he was perfectly sweet, amiable and polite about it. As soon as the visitor left, however, he turned round to the members of his family and said, "That fellow came in to get something for nothing, and the old man fooled him."
Sometimes he pursued similar tactics with reporters who were insistent on getting opinions from him that he did not care to give.
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One peculiar thing about Stearns at the Hampden Park races was that he wore an overcoat, for which there really was no occasion at that season of the year. He even had the collar turned up. It was just a manifestation of the habit he had of coddling himself.
Once when he wasn't feeling well and was spending a day or two at home in bed, his friend, Attorney William H. Brooks, came to see him. After the call was over and Brooks was on his way out, Mrs. Stearns said to him, "Mr. Brooks, just look here," and opened the door of a large closet.
It was amply provided with shelves and the shelves were filled with bottles of patent medicines. Stearns used to imagine he had all sorts of diseases-sometimes one and sometimes another -- and if he saw a medicine advertised to cure whatever disease he fancied he had at the moment he would go and buy it. Then he would take it a little while and if it didn't have any effect he would let it alone and try a different remedy. Those shelves of patent medicines illustrated a very curious trait in a man of Stearns' mental caliber.
None of the medicines gave him much satisfaction. He grew worse and gradually relinquished his law work. One day he asked another lawyer to sit at his side while he tried a case. "My heart is troubling me," he explained, "and I don't know as I can pull through." When the time came to make the plea to the jury he said to his col- league : "You'll have to argue this. I'm not able." That was his last case.
He soon dropped work entirely and gave his whole attention to the recovery of his health. But nobody took this very seriously, because if he had a cold or other little ailment he generally made considerable talk about it. Really, he was in a condition that was critically enfeebled, and failing strength led to his transferring his home to Brookline, near Boston, in November, 1894.
That he should leave his old home was a tragedy. He was a genial and loyal friend, and a courteous and considerate host. He was devoted to his family and his affections and ambitions centered in that big, rambling house at Chicopee. It was the most delightful place in the world to him and he always left it with reluctance. He was no lover of society in the fashionable sense, and he preferred to see friends at his house rather than go to theirs. He hated restraint and conventionality and wanted freedom to live his life in his own way;
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and the chief essential of that was keeping close to his home and his wife in his accustomed surroundings.
So Stearns was a sorry man when he sold his Chicopee home, and scarcely had the deal been made when he offered considerable more than he had received in an unsuccessful effort to buy back the place. The ties that bound him to it were such that probably no other could have been home to him.
One of the newspapers noted as a reason for his going that he was "afflicted with rheumatism, bronchitis, and a large and varied assortment of other diseases." Another paper remarked, "Why a man in ill health should leave the Connecticut Valley and hie himself to the east winds of Boston is an unanswerable conundrum-one of the eccentricities of genius, which there is no explaining."
Just before his departure he said :
"A person with my sensitive bronchial tubes and rheumatic tendencies can have no good health in the neighborhood of the Connecticut River bottoms. I am coughing all night and ach- ing all day. If I do not find the change as agreeable to me as I expect, I shall take my wife and a tooth brush and start for some other clime."
He thought he would discover ways to occupy and amuse himself in Boston and he wanted to be near his Boston physician. Besides, he had an idea that he could have a horse at Brookline and get out to ride every day all winter, for the roads there would be cleared of snow when they would be difficult or impassible in the Chicopee region.
After he was settled in his new abode he was inclined to be opti- mistic and said in a period of buoyancy : "My old home was damp, while here the sunshine follows me all the day long." But he became terribly homesick. He remarked rather wistfully to a former neigh- bor who called on him: "The stars don't look quite the same as they did from my old home in Chicopee." When this former neigh- bor asked him what he would most like to see, he replied, "I'd rather see a piece of Chicopee sky than anything else."
All who knew him shared his hope that he would be benefited by the change of surroundings, but he steadily lost in strength until the end came at the age of sixty-three, after months of suffering borne
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with patience and courage. Everybody loved him and there was mourning in all the places where he had in any way been known. At the time of his funeral in Chicopee a local Irish contractor said to his employees : "All our work is to stop this afternoon. Not one of you is to lift a hammer or use a saw while that man is being buried." That was typical of the general feeling.
His body lay in state in the city hall, an honor never accorded to anyone else, the mayor issued a proclamation, and the funeral was in the biggest Protestant church. Crowds came and important judges and lawyers were present from all over the State. The streets were lined with mourners and everywhere was an atmosphere of pensive quiet. There was more sorrow in the town over his death than there had been over any other person's in all its history-and the people did not think of the great lawyer, but were saying, "Our George is gone."
A Bellamy Club was formed in Springfield on December 18, 1934, for the purpose of studying "Looking Backward," a book written by Edward Bellamy, of Chicopee, forty-six years previous. About fifty interested people attended the first meeting, including Mrs. Marion Bellamy Earnshaw, daughter of the novelist. This was the first Bellamy Club to be organized in Massachusetts, although from New York to California, from Europe to South America, socie- ties had already been formed by enthusiastic groups that had been reading the prophetic writings of this Massachusetts journalist who foresaw social and economic changes.
Edward Bellamy was born in Chicopee Falls, March 26, 1850, and lived there all of his life except for short periods. His father was the Baptist minister at Chicopee Falls for thirty-five years. Edward spent a short time at Union College pursuing a special course in the study of literature and at eighteen he had a year abroad, mostly in Germany. While there his eyes were opened to social ills and "Man's inhumanity to man." He studied law and was admitted to the bar, but preferred a career as a journalist instead.
Bellamy was for a while on the editorial staff of the Springfield "Union" and also of the New York "Evening Post." With his brother, in 1880, he founded the Springfield "Daily News," but his heart was not in the directing of a newspaper. He commenced con- tributing short stories to current magazines and finally wrote novels
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of striking originality and power. For a time he studied psychic phenomena and wrote a romance of immortality called "Miss Luding- ton's Sister." His historical novel, "The Duke of Stockbridge," which he wrote in 1879, did not appear until after his death. The scene was set in the time of Shays' Rebellion and showed his sympathy for the unfortunate debtors.
W. D. Howells described Bellamy's book, "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process," as "one of the finest feats in the region of romance."
"Looking Backward," the most popular of Bellamy's romances, was translated into several languages and has preserved his name until this day, when many of the inventions he prophesied have become realities. He foresaw television, but it interested him only a little.
EDWARD BELLAMY
He was chiefly concerned with social values and spiritual gains and the economic security which would make possible the best. Bellamy's socialism differed from some, in that it had no place for dictatorship, but instead advocated complete democracy. Private property was not to be abolished, but in the year 2000 everybody was to have a house and land and income. Production was to be publicly controlled and surplus materials piled up so that nature could not ruin the scheme. America was to be one great corporation with the citizens as share- holders. This was all to be accomplished by gradual methods so that there would be no class war.
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The sensation created by "Looking Backward" was due to its intrinsic qualities, to a charming style, and to its adroitness in pre- senting its doctrine as "an enlightened self-interest or wholesale com- mon sense." A million copies of this book were sold and clubs to carry out Bellamy's ideas began at once to be formed. The author, who before this had been modest and reticent, now took a vigorous and enthusiastic share in the propaganda for nationalism.
"Equality" was a sort of sequel to "Looking Backward" and advocated that each should have equal access to material things by a process of levelling up and not by levelling down. Eight principles were suggested: the abolishing of profit; the abolishing of money; equal distribution of the total wealth each year; the abolishing of private capital; equality of the sexes; individual service for the per- formance of common labor; regulation of industry; and security for all throughout life.
In 1891 Edward Bellamy founded in Boston the "New Nation," a weekly supported mainly by the earnings of his book, "Looking Backward." Two years later he published a pamphlet on "How to Employ the Unemployed in Mutual Maintenance." In this he wrote : "These men and women do not need charity from the state or any- body else. All they need in order to be fed, clothed, and sheltered is to be set to work to support one another."
Bellamy's health began to suffer from his intense work, tubercu- losis developed, and he went to Colorado in a vain attempt to con- trol the disease. When it was evident that the change of climate could do nothing for him, his wife, Emma Sanderson, of Chicopee Falls, whom he had married in 1882, brought him back to spend his last days in the valley which he preferred to all other places. He died May 22, 1898, in Chicopee Falls. A memorial edition of "Look- ing Backward," a book that stirred the world, was issued in 1917.
Chicopee was already a booming industrial center in the middle 'seventies. The products of the various factories were finding their way outside the confines of New England to more distant places and the tiny mills which had started on the banks of the Chicopee River became substantial and well known industries. In proportion to the growth of the mills the population increased at a steady rate. The Irish, already settled in the town, were followed by many of French descent, who went to work in the mills.
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One of the best known among the thriving Chicopee factories was the J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company. The firm began by manu- facturing small pistols under the name of the "Massachusetts Arms Company" in 1849, but later purchased property from the Ames Manufacturing Company and under the inventive leadership of Joshua Stevens continued this fine industry. As time went on the firm extended its activities into the manufacture of double-barrel breech- loading shotguns, single shotguns, sporting rifles and pocket pistols ; later it expanded still further into the making of fine machinists' tools, such as calipers, dividers and double-lipped countersinks. The fire- arms achieved a great popularity, especially among hunters in this country and abroad, and to own a "Stevens" was to own a valuable piece of property superior in accuracy, durability and beauty of design. In January of 1896 Mr. Stevens and Mr. Taylor, an associate, sold their stock to other interests and retired, but the famous name of Stevens was still retained.
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