USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Tyringham > Hinterland settlement Tyringham, Massachusetts and bordering lands > Part 9
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In the summer of 1912 Tyringham celebrated its 150th anniver- sary by holding the Hawthorne Pageant, a presentation of old Puritan times, written by Constance d'Arcy Mackay. It was a colorful affair, held on the meadows down over the hill across from the Gilder house. The setting was in a natural amphitheater, near the bank of Hop Brook. Rustic benches were arranged in a semicircle on the hillside for the audience and the background for the stage was a grove of trees. The pageant portrayed old Puritan times in Salem. The first number was a chorus of eighteen young women dressed in Greek costume, followed with a prologue by Francesca Gilder, then there was the Indian dance by little boys and the Taffy dance by ten little girls. The play itself had a simple plot of the days of the ducking stool, witches, Indians and little girls lost in the woods. A second part was of Merry- mount, near the Puritan town of Wollaston. These actors were mostly the summer people and a few older residents of town. Most of the appropriate costumes were made by local people. The chief Pageant committee consisted of Constance Leupp, Amy Hutton and Lila Dorman.
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The town's Bicentennial was celebrated in August 1939, too recent to be classified as history. On Saturday morning, the 19th, there took place a long parade of interesting and appropriate floats, bands, and all that goes with a parade. This was followed by sports with prizes and at 2 o'clock an old-fashioned clam bake, with all the fixings. The day culminated with a dance. On Sunday the church held a Com- memorative service with a musical program by prominent guests, and a short historical address.
Preparation for these celebrations required hard, tedious work but the community, proud of its heritage, was willing and eager to meet the task. If the community life in the future is built upon in- tegrity, reinforced by good works and adorned by faith, such as our forefathers had, then Tyringham will be a good town to live in and thereby live up to its American heritage.
CHAPTER XII-SODOM
At the extreme south end of Tyringham Main Road, turn left to follow Hop Brook and you come to a pocket in the hills-a section called Sodom. Here, the end of Long Mountain curves around this little valley, like a protecting mother's arm embracing her child. At the west this clearing opens on to ever broadening meadows toward the "Holler", as the old-timers called the village. Often the question has been asked, why and by whom was this named Sodom? A Berkshire historian, Dr. Wilcox, of Lee, once gave a theory. He said that small groups of colonists from the more settled seaboard area, nettled under the restrictive laws and regulations of Britain, often getting them- selves into trouble with officials. While under British rule they estab- lished the reputation of being lawless gangs. When conditions became "too hot", they moved westward into isolated sections. He suggested that such a group came here and acquired the wicked Biblical name, Sodom.
On the other hand, family history of the first recorded names here, do not bear out Dr. Wilcox's speculation. In town records, the mention of the name Sodom, comes well into the 19th century. This ties in with a more recent discovery that some Jerusalemites, who worked in the McCollum's shops, originated the idea and named dif- ferent sections of town according to their personal sentiments regard- ing those who lived there. Naturally they were loyal to their own, the most beautiful, golden place in town, so Jerusalem it became. There was rivalry and hard feelings toward the men in the south end of town. About this time the controversy arose as to which man in- vented the first machine, Stedman or McCollum. So Stedman's south end became Sodom. The Shaker settlement became Jericho, The City of Roses, and Hop Brook village became Hades, one can only surmise for what reason.
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Ebenezer Heath, descendant of William of Nazing, England, who came to America in 1632 on the ship "Lion", was born in Framing- ham, Mass. in 1707. He moved to Coventry, Conn., where he married first, Lydia Utley. She bore him several children, the oldest, Solomon, fought in the Revolution. After Lydia died, Ebenezer married her cousin, Dorcas Shaughter and from that started a family feud which lasted through four generations. By the fourth no one knew just what the quarrel was all about, only that "my set of Heaths are not related to your set of Heths", as they were called. According to the family tale Ebenezer played around with Dorcas before Lydia died and her family sorely resented the marriage. One result of this Heath complex- ity was that Ebenezer and his sons (half brothers) Solomon and Wil- liam sought refuge among the hills of Berkshire. Solomon located on Jerusalem Road and William settled in Sodom. All three are buried in the village cemetery.
During the first half of the 19th century Sodom was flourishing. Heath had a mill on Hop Brook, far up toward the gorge. Lower down was a blacksmith shop where iron work was done, probably with pig iron from the Forge in South Lee or the Wells Forge in Otis. Then came an up-and-down saw mill with its overshot water wheel. Below the dam was a cotton factory run by Harlow Hubbard and Henderson Downs. These men made cotton batting, twine and candle wicking. After they failed, David Burchard made safety fuse in the same place. In the 1844 census, before the division, there were 500 cotton spindles listed in the town. Next to the cotton factory and above the present lower house, was a four-family tenement house. Grouped among these were other small buildings and barns. Today but two houses are stand- ing, showing no resemblance to their original structures.
William Stedman, son of Capt. Tom, on East Mountain, had a bent for tools and woodwork. He was attracted by Heath's shops in Sodom, but perhaps more so by Heath's daughter, Lucinda. They were married in 1818 and started housekeeping in Sodom.
Mrs. Cynthia Clark, in her advanced years, said that her father, Elisha Heath, was the first man in Tyringham to make rakes. He made them by hand in the long kitchen of his first home that stood away up Camp Brook on the east side. The work was done on shaving horses and work benches with chisels and gouges. The rake bows were drawn through a round die, or rather pounded through, to make them round and uniform size. The teeth were whittled out with a knife. About this same time William Heath in Sodom also made rakes by the same method.
William Stedman was quick to catch the possibilities of rake making and shortly moved to the "Holler" and went to work in the chair shop across from the church. Here he met the opportunities he was looking for and gathered ideas for machines to replace the former hand methods.
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One man who worked for McCollum in the Jerusalem shop had this to say, "There was a dispute between Daniel McCollum and William Stedman of Sodom as to who invented the first tooth machine, McCollum making one out of wood and Stedman the first one of iron. McCollum claimed Stedman stole the principle from him and the event caused a chunk of trouble".
Mrs. J. M. Garfield, in her reminiscences of the old days, said that she was well acquainted with Sodom and William Stedman who invented much valuable machinery in the manufacture of rakes. Whichever man invented the first machine, none was ever patented by him. Stedman's original tooth machine continued in use by his grandson, Marshall Stedman, until his factory burned in 1926. When William made that first machine of iron in 1827, he returned to Sodom, bought the shop, some land and house of his father-in-law, William Heath, and started the line of four generations of Stedman rake- makers.
Under Stedman's guidance, this small section was perhaps the most industrious of any in the township. Several of William Heath's children lived near by and worked in the shop, along with others of the Stedman family. Stedman graded his rakes by branding his own name on them. No brand denoted the poorest or cheapest, Shads, they were called; named so from the fact that in early summer, loads of these rakes were carted to Hudson for market in haying season. The wagons returned with a load of shad fish to peddle on the way home. A rake with Wm. Stedman branded once, meant a better grade, called Single Brand; with two brands it was better yet. In later years the very best rake ever manufactured was marked Extra and was made entirely of ash and hickory woods.
In this shop, also were turned fork, hoe, broom, plow and churn handles, brush backs and mashers. Occasionally a chair was made and often lath was sold for the new homes springing up about this time. Today, in the Pittsfield Museum is a rocking chair and a wooden hay fork made in this factory. Demands for these turnings equaled that for hand rakes.
During this early period of the first established rake factory, most of the products were peddled throughout the County, down the Hudson River and into Connecticut. In an account book of 1843 is an entry: "Let Benoni Stedman have 30 doz. rakes to peddle to Kings- ton". Over the page it says "Account of things that Benoni brings in from peddling.
May 9, brought in 41/2 lbs. of tea at 75 cts. per lb .; 250 clams at 14 per thousand and $19.39 in money.
May 15, B. returned with $12. in money and 21 shad at 6 cts. per hundred.
July 8, B. brought in $29. in money."
On Nov. 3, of that same year, it says: "Samuel G. Shaw began to work for R. Stedman for $15. per month and to furnish a horse when neces-
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Martin Stedman Home in Sodom 1888
William Stedman Rake Factory and Sawmill in Sodom
sary and to furnish one hundred and thirty-five dollars stock in trade at 6% interest. S. G. Shaw trip to New York:
Nov. 30, Received of John Margor & Co.
for 27 doz. fork handles
$27.00
of Brk Freeborn for 29 11/12 doz. fork handles
39.92
of John More for 4 doz. rake handles
1.50
of A & S .. Willette advance for rakes 39.00
$107.42
Paid frt. & cartage for rakes to A. & S.
Willette
$5.50
Paid Margor for frt. on 29 doz. fork handles .88
Paid More for cartage
.25
Passage and expenses
5.37
$12.00
$12.00
Returned
$95.42
Besides peddling from the wagon, considerable amount was carted to the Railroad in Lee and shipped to Boston, New York, Staten Island, Baltimore and Philadelphia. From the account books, some were shipped by canal, but does not specify from what port.
Much of the labor in the factory was paid by the piece as "split- ting 5000 teeth at 18 cts. per thousand. Turning teeth at 50 cts. a thousand. Paid Sidney Anderson 1 days work 75 cts. To putting to- gether 175 rakes at 50 cts. a hundred". No one seemed to work steady, three or four days a week often sufficed. In June "Thomas Whitmore commenced work at 75 cts. a day, first week worked 3 days, second week worked 4 days, was paid in lath, then quit until Feb. Com- menced work again, paid in pickets and money, then quit again." Only the relatives consistently worked for Stedman, the rest was mostly transient help. He never missed the opportunity to make a dollar. In April 1847, Thomas S. Hill moved into one of the small shops to start making and mending shoes, agreeing to pay Stedman one dollar a month. The same month Lenard Still moved into a shop to do some tailoring for two dollars a month, to be paid quarterly. He was credited with cutting vests, 1212 cts. But neither man stayed for long.
The town could count William Stedman as being one of the most progressive men of his time. He became dissatisfied with conditions as they were. His equipment and methods were outmoded so in 1858 he tore down the old buildings, built a new dam, rake shop and saw- mill lower down on Hop Brook, just above the present Depping resi- dence. A letter, written the next year, claims it to be "the most modern woodworking shop west of the Connecticut River". He continued to enlarge his business until his death in 1870.
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The Stedmans and Heaths were hard-shelled Baptists. Old- Timers remembered William Stedman as greatly devoted to his church but even more so to the cause of Temperance. He always attended prayer meetings held in the red school house by the bridge. Stedman, Cyrus Heath and Samuel Fargo organized the first Abolition and Tem- perance Party in town. This made them very unpopular in general. The boys in the village (Hades) made things mighty unpleasant for these men at times. Cyrus Heath had a beautiful pair of horses of which he was most proud. One night the boys sheared the horses' manes and tails, the most severe punishment they could think of, for wherever Heath drove, his offensive leanings were displayed before the public and worst of all, this condition lasted for a long time. Not until the Rebellion were these men able to shake off the disgrace of being Abolitionists.
When William died, his son, Martin Van Buren Stedman, took over the business. In contrast to his father, Martin didn't believe in letting business interfere with pleasurable activities. The Welcome Mat was always out. He and his wife, Maria, entertained friends, acquaintances and peddlers from the Berkshires to Cape Cod-any hour, any day. Their dining room was not always large enough to meet the influx, so he built a platform in the woods across the way, to take care of the hayloads of guests that drove into Sodom. Smudge fires in pans about the lawn drove the mosquitoes away. One great act of hospitality was when he cleaned up the grove, back of the house, beyond the brook and meadow, for Ben Butler's arrival. What a day that was in 1884, when Ben spoke to a crowd of over one hundred citizens and visitors from Berkshire County! For a long time there- after, Butler's Grove became a haven for picnickers and meetings. The name was changed to Crystal Grove for the kind of stone found there, called mortise stone. Then too, there were thirteen kinds of wood growing on the grounds. It was truly a grove of distinction for those days.
Martin Stedman, too, was an ardent Prohibitionist and during the great wave of Temperance Reform, about 1888, many meetings were held in Sodom, with prominent speakers from all parts of the state. Stedman, himself, was often called upon to speak at gatherings in and about town, sometimes he wrote a poem for some special occasion. He loved people and the out-of-doors and foremost was his interest in farming. A sale of beef, grain or potatoes meant more to him than one of rakes. Never physically rugged, responsibility and confinement to shop life never agreed with him.
For some years the rake business sped along on its momentum from his father's industry. Martin's two sons grew to work in the shop, along with his brother, cousins and the Heaths. A European market for hand hay rakes opened wide during the last half of the 19th cen- tury. Stedman shipped rakes, "knocked down", to England and Scotland. The stales, bows and teeth-filled heads were boxed and shipped, to be assembled over there. Winters, with deep snows, oxen plowed these shipments through to Lee Railroad Station. Oles, in the
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village, was also doing a thriving export business in rakes. During Martin Stedman's ownership, a rake handle was called a stale, con- traction from "rake's tail". A rake had a head, teeth, bows and a tail. As recent as 1943, Bigelow & Dowse Co. of Boston, who purchased rakes from William Stedman, was ordering rakes with "bent stales".
They still peddled rakes from a wagon to Hudson and brought back shad fish. Martin's older son, Marshall, started peddling at the age of fifteen and proved a born salesman. From then, his interest was in manufacturing and selling-no farming for Marshall. But he was handicapped by his father's lack of business interest and failing health, and no finances of his own. When he was twenty-eight years old he married Libbie Miner of Monterey, took a partner, George Garfield, in business and set up shop in Garfield's cider mill on Hop Brook, in the "Holler", now the Town Hall. This partnership didn't last long for the rake business was new to Garfield and his two sons proved a drag on Stedman's ambitions.
Next, he bought out his Uncle Charles Stedman, who owned the old Platner and Smith Paper Mill property. He started here with the grist mill and added a lumber and rake business. In a few years he weeded out the unprofitable grain business and reduced the lumber business in order to devote more time to his rake and wood-working industry. Marshall traveled to extend his markets, advertised his mortised head rakes, made ash sieves, fern and headstone crates, the latter for the Lee Marble Works, and steadily progressed the business. He and his son-in-law invented the "Improved Lawn Rake", with a splint back, to compete with the Japanese Bamboo rake when intro- duced into this country. He brought fame to the town through his gift of rakes to four Presidents of the United States.
From his grandfather, Marshall inherited his executive ability, from his father his love of people and recreation. He enjoyed nature, hunting and fishing. He could play the piano or organ, sing and dance, or make a speech and readily made friends wherever he went. As a man once said of him, "Marshall Stedman was a sport as well as a Yankee-an unusual combination". He died in 1935, the last named Stedman to operate the longest established Rake Industry in the United States.
After Martin Stedman's death the Sodom property was sold to Dr. C. C. Jones. During his short ownership the barns burned. From him it passed to H. C. Fordam, Editor, of New York, in 1905. He tried to rename the place, Old Mill Farm, and attempted to rusticate the whole place-slabbed over the exterior of the lower house, built a fieldstone chimney, decorated the interior with crooked, bare branches and rustic furniture. Over the road he erected a rustic arch with the name, Old Mill Farm, across the top. But it didn't last; worms and decay destroyed the arch and slabs, the new name vanished with Fordam, Sodom it was and Sodom it is today.
Following Fordam's early death, Gerald Howe and his mother, became owners. Howe started lumbering the hillside, built two cot-
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tages and for a time it was a gay place. But that too, fell by the way- side. In 1939 Dr. Charles W. Depping of New York acquired the property and redesigned the old house at the end of the road, built a. garage and a new dam that made an attractive pond across the road. Dr. Depping and his wife are now retired and make this their perma- nent home.
Nature has a way of taking over when man once relinquishes his efforts to control her. The mills and shops of the Heaths and Stedmans are no more. The fields and meadows are grown to brush, even Hop Brook has changed its course. Only the whippoorwill and the fox remain the same. Behold, William Heath's Sodom is destroyed! Nature has smothered her.
CHAPTER XIII-JERUSALEM
Jerusalem too, had its era of prosperity. In 1912 William Cargill wrote back to his home town, "I left Tyringham in 1852, there were two rake shops in Jerusalem at that time, owned by Deacon Daniel McCollum and Gilbert Northrup. The McCollum shop was later owned by Dighten Garfield. People who lived in Jerusalem then were Cyrus Heath, Daniel McCollum, Gilbert Northrup, James Wilson, Lenthrie Tinker and George and Heman Cargill. In my boyhood days these were the strong men of the town". In town records, most of these names are listed among the officials.
Tradition says that Solomon Heath, coming with his father, Ebenezer, from Connecticut, built himself a cabin against the huge boulder on the south end of Cobble. His holdings extended from the top of Cobble down through the village and south to below the ceme- tery. In due time he built the Red House where Mr. & Mrs. Asher Treat now have a summer home. From then on his holdings were di- vided among his descendants.
Beyond the Red House, at the top of the hill, Cyrus Heath, grand- son of Ebenezer, lived. His house was one of the most interesting old houses in town, with the ox carved on the wrought iron door latch, as mentioned in Miss Abbot's New England Border. Many older residents were sorely grieved when it burned in 1923 so soon after the Ellis Leavenworths had taken possession. This property passed from Cyrus to his son, Albert Heath. Albert had a daughter, Clara, who married William Stanard. Stanard bought the farm in 1894 for $1,750. This farm is presently owned by Mrs. Sidney Howard who, in summer, occupies the Shaker Meeting House built in 1792. After the old Heath house burned the Leavenworths had this Meeting House moved, in- tact, from Fernside.
In 1867 there were nine houses clustered around the junction of Roads 12 and 13. A little one-story, red house, hedged by tall lilacs and a picket fence, snuggled on the left, across from the Cyrus Heath house. This was the Albert C. Heath home. Albert Stanard lived there when his son, Frank, occupied the Cyrus Heath house.
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As one approached this junction of roads from the village, straight ahead stood the John C. Garfield home. At the back of this stood another small house. At the right, close to the corner, on McCarty Road, lived C. T. Dowd and across from him was another house. At the top of the hill lived F. McCarty and at the far end of McCarty Road was the Bills-Cheever house where more recently lived James McCarty and William Stedman.
Just north of the junction, toward Fernside, lives Robert Littell's family summers. This was the Curtin farm. Timothy Curtin came to Tyringham from Ireland and first lived on the Cheever place. Then he bought a part of the Albert Heath farm and built himself a home. Three generations of Curtins worked the farm and took active part in Town affairs.
About where Shaker Brook crosses the McCarty Road was a lane leading from the road to two factories or shops and a house. The last to occupy the house was Dighten Garfield, son of John C. He also was last to operate the rake shop by the dam. This was demolished by Frank Dorman for Mr. Leavenworth, about 1908. Let William Cargill, who was born in 1831, tell about these shops as he remembered them:
"A fork shop stood a few yards south of McCollum's (Garfield) rake shop, near the bend in the stream, close to the upper end of the mill pond, and was run by McCollum. He had Lenthial Tinker and Stephen Dudley draw forks and potato hooks and Amos Dorman polished them in the basement of the rake shop". He continued, "I commenced to work at rakes when eighteen years old, in this shop which was later known as the Breakenridge factory. I worked there one year for Gilbert Northrup. The next year my brother, John, and I hired one half use of the shop to make 10,000 rakes, Northrup mak- ing the same amount. Enos Northrup furnished the timber and we contracted to manufacture for 412 cents a piece. The next year I had charge of the business for Egbert Wilson who traded his chair-turning factory, just a little south of the M. E. Church on Hop Brook, for the Northrup Rake Factory. Wilson had never made rakes. Those three years were all that I worked at rakes in Tyringham. I then took ma- chinery for making rakes with me to New York State. My first recol- lections of the water power was when it was owned by Whiting Rus- sell and powered a machine and blacksmith shop. They had a lathe for turning iron and a trip hammer to forge out axes and edge tools and shoes for oxen."
"Just below Northrup's shop was the McCollum rake shop, one of the first to make rakes. I remember when he enlarged his business and built a stone dam (the earlier dams were built of logs) across the gulf and put in an over-shot wheel and added pitch forks to his busi- ness. He made about 20,000 rakes a year. McCollum employed several men, among them, Abraham Garfield, Isaac Bristol, Steven Richard- son, David Roche and later Charles Slater. Finally Bristol and Gar- field left McCollum and went to West Becket, near Shaw Pond, where they made rakes under the firm name of Broga & Co."
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E. M. Terrel was born in 1834 and lived in the house across the dam from McCollum's rake shop. He wrote: "I lived in Jerusalem until I was 17 years old. I remember when Arvin Wilson and Loren Collins made forks in a shop near the brook, below the Carl Curtin place, where, afterwards, James Winnee had a house and carpenter shop. Their work was carried to McCollum's fork shop to be polished and handled. Charles Cargill made mop handles and a musical instru- ment called a Seraphine." This was a wind instrument, similar to a melodeon.
Yes indeed, tradition proves that Jerusalem bore strong, coura- geous men-courageous in more ways than one, for it was here that a bloody duel was fought. When Isaac Garfield, the first child born in Tyringham, married Margaret Orton, they settled on the old Orton place, where Brace Road meets Jerusalem. When their son, or grand- son, Thomas lived there, during the first of the 19th century a hog butchering was held at his place. In those days, it was the custom for expert butchers and hog raisers to assemble at such times and brag about sticking hogs, guess on the weight, etc. On this occasion there were present Chester Collins, Eber Slater, Whiting Ayres, Isaac Gar- field and a man named Dart,-all citizens of Jerusalem and inveterate jokers except Dart. Dart was an irascible fellow and a terrible brag.
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