USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Tyringham > Hinterland settlement Tyringham, Massachusetts and bordering lands > Part 4
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As the population decreased and families left the fringe areas, they concentrated in the valley-so, one by one, these outer schools closed. The last to succumb was the South Center. Toward the middle 1890's the south room of the center school house, which had been used for a public library, was converted to a Primary Room with Miss Blanche Garfield (Mrs. Alton Rouse) as its first teacher. The upper grades only, used the North Room. Miss Maud Mclaughlin from East Lee was that teacher.
In 1911 there were 40 pupils in the Primary Room and 20 in the Grammar Room. The school at the south center was still in operation with 6 or 8 scholars. The teachers at the Center School were paid $8. per week and boarded themselves. Since then there has been another change: only the first five grades with one teacher use the south room at Center School-all other pupils are transported by bus to Lee.
CHAPTER IX-INDUSTRIES
As has been noted, Tyringham originally consisted of the present town and Monterey. This first settlement was on the mountain, be- tween the two valleys, known as the Old Center which included Bear- town and Smith Hill. As previously mentioned, the first industry was located below Lake Garfield, on the Konkapot River. These early settlers established their homes on the hills-high, drained, open to the sun and winds, with a view of the surrounding country. But the industrial minded soon moved into the valleys where the streams could provide the power for their shops.
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Before the Revolution, according to British law, it was illegal to manufacture in this country. All raw materials were expected to be shipped to the Mother Country for production. Literally, the early implements made here for individual use were contraband.
Following the war, inventive ingenuity came into its own. Tyring- ham could boast an active industrial life. Its population in 1800, before the division, when at its height, was 1,712. Gristmills and sawmills appeared on every stream running down into Hop Brook. Traces of the old dams can still be found.
About 40 rods east of Francis Clark's house (Gelsleichter's) bricks were made in 1798. Their manufacture was continued there for many years. North of the house a lime-kiln produced considerable lime. Opposite the lime-kiln a still house was built in 1809 with two stills where brandy was distilled from cider until the advent of the Washingtonian Temperance Reformation in 1830. Near the still was a cider mill which was used nearly half a century. Apples were plenti- ful and the demand for cider great. There was another cider mill on Camp Brook.
On the brook running down Smith Hill was a wood-working shop where Smith made bedsteads, wooden churns and butter bowls. Charles Slater has a chair and a rule made here by his ancestor, Smith. Aaron Garfield supplied the people with coffins, boots and shoes. Later Lucian Heath had a cobbler's shop in his home, likewise did Jared S. Tyrrel in his shop on the present Hale Bros. farm, in 1850 or before.
The far-reaching fame of one enterprise arrived in Wisconsin via Dorr Miner who was reared on the old Miner farm at the Old Center. In his doting years he talked of the man, Abraham Collins, who carved tombstones, famous for their cross-eyed angel faces. In the oldest Tyringham cemetery, (Monterey) can be seen these angel carvings, each a little different, some with wings extended from the egg-shaped faces and all with closed eyes or cross-eyes.
The village proper was once a craft center-crafts or small in- dustries appeared all along Hop Brook where three dams supplied water power for those not fashioned by hand. The upper dam was just southeast of the Union Church. There were two shops here, taking power from the same mill pond. One was a rake-shop owned and oper- ated by Solomon, Harry and Daniel Heath. (One record says they were brothers). William Cargill, in his reminiscences said, "There was a two-story building close to the Heath shop with rooms overhead to live in, which my uncle, Charles Cargill, occupied when he manufac- tured Kealers in the shop below. He had a machine that would take rims about 1/2 inch thick from outside cuts of maple logs about 7 or 8 inches long, making what was called a nest of tubs, all sizes. B. F. Johnson built the house on the corner by the church (the parsonage) and followed Cargill in making Kealers. This shop, he afterward con- verted to a cotton factory. In time this burned."
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In one of these shops, Egbert Wilson had a chair turning factory which in 1850 he swapped for Breckenridge's rake shop in Jerusalem. This included the farm and house where Artist Picken now lives and the Clifford Canon farm at the foot of Cemetery Hill, as well as the water privilege and shop on Hop Brook. Breckenridge concentrated his manufacturing interest to rake making and after several years passed the business on to George Oles who did a thriving trade in rakes. Cor- win Downs was the last man to make rakes here and he added cider making. After he died the shop collapsed and the dam washed out in a flood.
The village smithy, south of the bridge above the post office, must not be overlooked. Around 1840 Elbridge Terrel plied the trade and built the house next door. No doubt there were other blacksmiths before him. When Terrel's two little girls were smothered in the sand bank by the church, he deserted the town and was never heard from again. John McCarthy came from Otis and shod horses here. The smithies came and went but in 1886 George Kopp came to town, mar- ried Lillie Stedman, bought the blacksmith shop and stayed for about 25 years. Then Tom Curtin had it for a number of years. In between, Myron Ward worked for George R. Warren in his wagon shop attached to the blacksmith shop and may have operated the latter.
By the second dam just above the Jerusalem Road bridge was a cluster of shops. On the east side of the road, across the bridge, Es- quire Ezra Heath owned a rake shop. Joshua Boss and Henderson Ward did the manufacturing for him. When Heath failed in business the shop was never used again. Across the road, in the bank back of the library, Heath had another shop where he made thread spools and scythe rifles. Before her death in 1928, at the age of 87, Frances Thompson remembered playing with spools in the top story of this rickety factory, when she was a child.
About where the library stands Esquire Tom Garfield made rakes; nearby, Hiram Dorman had a blacksmith shop and farther down the stream Joe Wilson made chairs and did wood turning. After this chair shop burned, Ezra Heath and Joshua Boss, in 1846, built the Bay State Wrapping Mill where they made wrapping paper. The next owners were Johnson and Fargo. This mill too, burned, was rebuilt by the West Brothers, who specialized in wall paper, then sold to John Tremble who manufactured paper, but it, too, burned in 1870. In the census of 1855, this mill worked 100 tons of rags and made 65 tons of paper valued at $14,300. and employed five hands. When Fargo had this mill he also owned the store and post office located in the house across from the present post office. The West Bros. acquired this with the purchase of the Paper Mill.
Probably the first industry on Hop Brook was a sawmill on the site of the present Stedman Rake Factory-although there is no positive date of the first sawmill in Sodom. In 1787, Jan. 30, John Winegar of Lee paid 200 pounds to John Rusell, Justus Battle and Ishmall Spink of Tyringham for "privileges of the stream called Hop Brook at and near the Sawmill standing on said brook together with a
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convenient place to set a grist mill". Also, "the mill yard and garden at the northwest end of saw mill joining said brook with the privileges of building mills etc. through Lot #46, except incumbrances of Mat- thew Dunham". Signed by William Ingersoll and Jacob Miers.
This proves there was a sawmill on this spot before 1786. Among some old papers is the bill of timbers sawed by Thomas Stedman on his first sojourn here from Rhode Island, for construction of the house across the street built in 1793 by Battle. The oldest residents living can remember the ruins of this sawmill. It stood nearer the dam from the rake factory and was last owned by Daniel Heath. The mill stones from the gristmill built by Winegar were exposed in the bank of the brook at the north end of the rake factory during a flood in 1938. One is now in the garden across the street, the other is in the Garden Center in Stockbridge. The Stedmans bought the saw mill of Seth Mix of Claverack, N. Y. who in turn had bought of Enos Cooley. In 1805 William and Thomas Stedman paid the mortgage held by William Ashley of Hudson "on a tract of land in Tyringham containing about 4 acres with a sawmill and gristmill standing thereon situated on a stream called Hop Brook". No one person seems to have retained this property for long.
The fame of Berkshires' pure spring water drew the attention ot paper-makers recently over from England. So in 1832 Riley Sweet and Asa Judd built the old Turkey Paper Mill, named and designed after the old Turkey Mill at Maidstone, Kent, England. It was built in the shape of a turkey, body parallel with the brook, the head consisting of the boiler room and chimney on front, the tail across the brook with a spread in three small chemical buildings. This was successively owned and operated by the firm of Ingersoll, Platner and Smith, fore- runners of the Smith Paper Co. in Lee, where the lure of the railroad led them.
Paper from this mill took the World's first premium in London which gave it widespread fame. The building was erected by Elizur Smith with his partner, Platner, who had bought the Hop Brook water privilege where the first gristmill stood. It was a wooden structure. considered large for that day. They bought springs on both sides of the valley and laid wooden conduits to carry the pure spring waters to the mill. Some of these have been unearthed in recent years. These men were the first to import a Fourdrinier machine into this country and therefore the first to make water-marked paper. This famous mill employed sixty men besides many women and shipped tons of writing paper abroad. At one time it boasted the loudest steam whistle in the world. It was claimed that every time the whistle blew, the boilers consumed one cord of wood to produce the necessary steam. It was so loud and clear it could be heard in Otis, Lee and Stockbridge. It, undoubtedly, aroused the ire of that staid, proper community of Stockbridge.
The original mill was powered by a huge water wheel but as the business increased and additions made, the company installed two steam boilers in the room on front, and built a 54-foot chimney.
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There were not the safety devices in those days and there were some bad accidents. In 1850 one of the boilers exploded. Most of it whirled through the roof, knocked out a piece of the ridge of the main building and landed in the brook back of the mill. At the same time a stick of cordwood was shot, like an arrow, across the street into the wall of the boarding house.
In 1858 a queer accident happened in the mill. A hogshead of soft soap was standing in one of the rooms; a workman fell in, alone, he nearly lost his life but was discovered just in time and pried out of the sticky mess. No one knew why the soap was there or why he fell in.
Regardless of all the mishaps, the workers were happy and had many good times there. One of the best citizens in the town was Ira Vanbergan who was the superintendent for many years. He was greatly respected by the employees and always referred to as a gentle- man. Long after the papermill was gone, Mrs. J. M. Garfield said, "I have the rag room in my mind's eye today : rows of girls with dust caps on their heads, standing before sinks with woven wire bottoms and something standing up in front like the point of a scythe. With this they removed buttons, then cut the rags in strips, placed them in a basket and weighed them-so many pounds for a day's work." Every- one was proud of the old Turkey Mill. While this industry was flourish- ing, the company built a blacksmith shop just north of the mill. Casius Scranton was its last smithy. They also built a store below the board- ing house and two tenement houses-one of four tenements, known as The Long House, stood between the boarding house and the Dan Heath home, and the other, north of the blacksmith shop, of two tene- ments.
Ingersoll stayed with the company but a short time and when Mr. Platner died Smith formed a stock company with his nephews, De Witt C. Smith as treasurer and Wellington Smith as manager, with himself a directing member, then moved to Lee. Shortly the old mill burned in the year 1869, one of the worst fires in the history of the town. There was a gale wind and the next day the Whitney family, living above Graden Hill in West Otis, found scorched paper in their yard.
Another mill was built on the same foundation by new owners. John Canon had the largest interest in this, being also interested in a paper mill at Goose Pond, Lee. This company made photographic paper. During his ownership he sold the sawmill below the dam, to Daniel Heath who had previously operated it. But Canon failed in both mills and the Tyringham mill changed hands again and its name had become The Berkshire Mill.
Thirty years after the Old Turkey burned, the late Marshall Stedman bought the property from his uncle, Charles Stedman, who had operated a saw and grist mill about four years. It was here that Stedman continued the long line of Stedman rake-makers previously in Sodom. During his ownership many changes were made he had the 54-foot chimney removed, added an extension on the south end
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The Berkshire Paper Mill - Main Street - about 1893
Stedman's Rake Factory Main Street 1900
Stedman's Mill Pond 1904
for his sawmill, built a machine room that extended over the brook to a foundation on the opposite bank, built a new bulkhead and penstock and installed a new water wheel. He met with adversities too; in 1900 a flood washed away his machine room and a year's stock. He rebuilt a room, parallel with the brook, attached to the main building. In Jan. 1926 the factory and his entire stock went up in flames. It was a bitter cold day with a gale wind that threatened the whole village. By May of that same year he was manufacturing rakes in a new stream- lined building, with mostly new machinery. After his death in 1935, Charles Myers, his son-in-law bought and operated the rake business. But Myers died suddenly in less than six years. His widow, Eloise Stedman Myers continued the business for two years, then sold to Earl Beauregard of Blandford. He, in turn, sold to Robert Ezequelle in 1945, the present owner. His manager, Howell Stanard, has worked in this factory for over thirty-five years.
During the Civil War charcoaling mushroomed overnight. It had begun before the war, boomed during it, receded, spurted again in the railroad impetus, and gradually died out when our hardwood forests became depleted and the New American Improved Bessemer method for making steel halted the demand for charcoal iron. During the height of this industry, each autumn our hillsides sparkled at night, like fireflies in the meadows and smoked by day from the burning pits. The high flared-rack wagons rumbled along the roads, headed for the Wells Forge in Otis, or the ones in South Lee, in Van Deusenville or Richmond-even as far as the big Mt. Riga Iron Works in Lakeville, Conn. The schoolhouses were filled with new names from Canada and France. Their fathers were skilled in the art of "pit" construction. . They lived in rough cabins in the woods. Some of their descendants are leading citizens of neighboring towns.
The Indians developed an industry here in Tyringham long before the white men arrived, viz .: the art of making maple sugar from the large grove that surrounded the Garfield home, (McDowell's). Store sugar, carted from Hudson, the commercial center of early Berkshire, was expensive. So each spring the settlers made and stored their own soft maple sugar in wooden buckets to alleviate the high cost of sweet- ening.
When the late Robb de P. Tytus, in the early 20th century, intro- duced the most modern and efficient equipment for producing and shipping this delectable commodity, the old grove hummed with fame. Year after year, age has destroyed these once beautiful trees, nibbling like a mouse at cheese, to convert them to dust. A few naked trunks remain standing, blanched and straight, like proud sentinels of the past. At this writing, the Howard and Slater farms alone produce maple syrup for sale, in limited amounts.
The leading occupation of the town always has been and is agri- culture. The hillsides were cleared, tillage begun and increased. All about ran a network of roads; many, many have disappeared. Farmers carted their butter and cheese to Hudson, Hartford and Bridgeport to exchange for other supplies. Money was scarce. Often sheep were
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bought with promissory notes to be met in wool. In the records of 1781 Tyringham raised 5,947 lbs. of beef for the army. Flax was raised in the north end, later tobacco flourished in the south part. Stone mills ground their grain into flour and meal. The statistical returns for 1865 listed 792 sheep, 196 oxen and steers, 105 horses and colts, 475 cows and heifers. Today we have only five active farms; woodlands and overgrown pastures replace fertile fields and grassy hillsides.
Freshets and floods helped to eliminate many of these early in- dustries. In 1869 Main Street was flooded and much damage resulted. The dilapidated blacksmith shop on the De Witt Heath property was washed away and obliterated by this flood. In February, 1900, a freshet washed away Stedman's machine room that extended over the brook and carried his rake stock down stream to land on the Hale meadows. It also dropped one end of Warren's wagon shop, damaging the foundation. Again, in 1933 the Stedman dam was badly damaged and the basement of the rake factory. The water overflowed the bank of Hop Brook, in front of Orchard House, and carried debris and fish down the main road, in front of the rake factory. One by one the dams gave way to floods, never to be rebuilt. Often the floods took place during the spring when ice floes stacked on the dams.
In the census of June 1, 1885 is recorded the following under In- dustries of Tyringham: Corn and brooms manufactured 1081; lumber for market 250,000 ft. hemlock, 75,000 ft. chestnut and pine. (The lumbering industry employed 25-30 men, yet the value of the lumber was set at only $28.75); 3,130 cords of firewood valued $7,042.50. The town contained 425 sheep, producing 1,300 lbs. wool, 75 horses, 118 oxen over three years old, 64 steers aged 3 yrs., 50 aged 2 and 90 yearlings. Average value of horses set at $90. and two-year-old oxen $60. The town produced 10,500 lbs. butter and 53,000 lbs. cheese, 90 acres devoted to Indian corn, 5 to wheat, 25 to rye, 90 to oats, 80 to potatoes, 33 to buckwheat, 1200 acres to "English Mowing" producing 1500 tons English hay, 7 sawmills, 4 rake factories, 10,000 lbs. maple sugar, employing 40 hands for from 4 to 6 weeks each year. The famous Turkey Mill worked 400,000 lbs. rags, 6000 lbs. chloride of lime and consumed 2000 cords of wood. It manufactured 25,000 reams of paper valued at $60,000. and employed 71 hands. The Bay State Mill worked 100 tons of rags, made 65 tons of paper valued at $14,000. employing 5 hands.
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CHAPTER X-OLD HOUSES AND INHABITANTS
What does it mean, an Old House? Perchance to live in one and dream,
It means: a patched ceiling, a paneled wall, a view of the west gate in the hills o'er which hang painted skies.
Sometimes soft lights or song, silent prayer, creaky rockers, rattling shutters, rusty hinges, squeaking doors
Bring dreams of olden days, Castles-in-Spain by open fires, imaginary forms on wide-boarded floors.
One sees generations of old folks, babes, brides and debonair grooms; laughter, love and not a few tears.
For it's borne brawny bodies and stooped shoulders with peace of mind, calm content down through the passing years,
Who watched the swirling snow, the rain and sun; who smelled a lilac or a rose through morning dew by the gate.
Here was hospitality, spirit of Life-essence of things near lost, yet vitally needed, e'er too late.
It stands-symbol of a way of life for which a new house vies.
Only those who've loved and lived in an Old House know what it means.
Reading in the town records, the names of the men who forged this township No. 1, the question comes to mind, which man lived in which "Dwelling House"; for out of the many families who came and went, such a very few of the individual homes can be located in record or tradition. This much can be learned-the occupants were God- fearing, stalwart, rugged individuals. They had a mind of their own and were not afraid to express it. They stuck to their personal convic- tions to the point of being ostracized by family and society, or even going to jail.
At the crossroads, "Morse Four Corners," beyond Stedman's Pond over Smith Hill, on the right, is Art School Road. The land on the corner of this road once belonged to the Hale farm. Deacon Wil- liam Hale, descendant of one of the first settlers of America, was one of the first men to settle in Housatonic Township No. 1. In the French War he assisted in building Fort Massachusetts in Adams and was stationed in Stockbridge. He settled in Tyringham in 1747 and erected one of the oldest frame houses in the town, now owned by the Pear- son family of New York. That is, he built first, only the east end, but when he received the Indian alarm (there had been murders in Stock- bridge) he took his family and moved to Enfield, Conn. Four years later he returned and finished the house before 1750. In 1764 he was unanimously chosen deacon of the church and during these early years, held many important town offices. He must have been an edu- cated man for he and Jabez Davis were the first town surveyors. In the center of his house he built a dark room where the women folk
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could gather during thunder storms. Deacon Hale married Hannah Brewer, daughter of Capt. John Brewer. They had seven sons and four daughters. One son, Nathan, was killed at Bemis Heights during the Revolution. Betsy Hale, a descendant, was living in the house in 1885.
William was an enterprising man and saw the future possibilities found in a new township. When Hop Brook territory was opened for settlement he took Lot No. 13 for himself and later deeded it to his sons, William, John and Gideon Hale.
Back at the Four Corners, opposite Art School Road, is the Mt. Hunger Road and on its right is Garfield Gables. Rev. William Williams of Weston drew this Lot No. 38 which he transferred to Isaac Gearfield of Weston. Isaac came to Housatonic Township No. 1 in April 1739 at the age of 22. In three years he was on the committee to find a minis- ter. Isaac married Mary, daughter of Capt. John Brewer, who was also born in Weston. In 1762 Isaac Gearfield was chosen a selectman; that same year his house was appointed a work house (for the poor) and he the Master of the Work House. In 18 years he owned a mill in South Tyringham.
A descendant of his, Helen Garfield, wrote in 1905: "My great grandfather and a comrade were the first settlers of the town and were there three months before seeing any other human being". Some of Isaac Gearfield's (Garfield) sons settled in Hop Brook.
BEARTOWN
Beartown, once the stronghold of wolves, bears and men, is lo- cated on top of the mountain between the Old Center, Monterey, and South Lee. Along the ridge of this mountain was a string of farms and homes of many, perhaps most, of the earliest settlers of the town. Traffic through this settlement was constant, going to and coming from the market centers along the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers.
Wolves harassed the farmers, raiding and killing their flocks and livestock until in desperation the voters offered a generous bounty for their hides. Bears were so numerous that posses were formed to hunt them at night. During one of these hunts, John Chadwick found a man as far up a tree as he could get, the bear at the foot, complacently waiting. After his rescue imagine that man's chagrin for weeks there- after. He never did live to hear the last of it for from that day to this, the mountain has been known as Beartown.
Sturdy were the dwelling houses these men built from virgin timber in the forests close by, with plenty of rocks for the foundations and chimneys, and always a bubbling spring on the house lot. This rugged mountain top called for sturdy men, too. They had to be tough, both physically and mentally, frugal also, in order to survive as long as they did. The ministers found it pretty difficult to get any kind of a contribution from these men. A circuit preacher, after a vain attempt, once said, "It is as hard to convert one of these Beartown men as it is for a shad to climb an apple tree, yea, tail foremost".
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