USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Hadley > Historic Hadley : a story of the making of a famous Massachusetts town > Part 4
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Seating the meeting-house continued to produce hot contentions, as the selectmen were obliged to regard "age, estate," and many sorts of "qualifications." Heads of families sat in their pews in the body of the house, and females in the gallery on the right, while the males were on the left. After 1772 the front seats in the side galleries were reserved for singers. Little children on low benches in the aisles were ever con- scious of the keen old eyes watching them from the gallery where the tithing man was on the lookout for offenders. At any appearance of levity, with a sharp rap on the top of the seat his official staff would be pointed directly at the unlucky wight, who, conscious of the reproving gaze of the whole congregation, wished
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that the floor might open and swallow him up. Before the pulpit, opposite the broad aisle, sat the deacons in a solemn row. On the top of the partition next the aisle was balanced the christening basin, and here the minister performed the rite of baptism, often on infants but twenty-four hours old. A leaf which hung near by, when raised, was covered with a white cloth, and upon the table thus made were placed the bread and wine for the communion service. Among the communicants in an upper region were certain chattels with black faces, the property of their brethren in the Lord.
We should imagine that those old Puritan fathers would have regarded with scorn any attempt to enslave a weaker race, as contrary to those principles on which their very faith was founded. But our heroic ancestors were human and therefore inconsistent. They always had an eye for business ventures which promised gain, and settled the matter with their consciences as best they could. For more than one hundred years slavery existed in the valley towns and the masters and mis- tresses were among the most respected of their citizens. Joshua Boston, chattel, a consistent member of the Hadley church, with dignified carriage and gentlemanly manners, was an important member of the family of Eleazer Porter. His ability to read and write enabled him to become well posted in the news of the day, so that, although a slave, he was glad to fight for the cause of liberty in the Revolution. We may well
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believe that at his death his master felt that he had lost property worth £20, at which old Joshua was valued. Joshua's funeral was attended by many friends, who mourned him for his worth, irrespective of the color of his skin. During a period of six years thirteen negroes died in Hadley and were buried in the old cemetery. The funerals of these servants were "improved" by the ministers as occasions upon which it was proper to defend the institution of slavery and endeavor to reconcile the slave to his bonds. Whipping was the customary punishment for common offenses, yet in those days when stocks and whipping-post and ducking-stool were in active operation for white crimi- nals, this penalty may not have been excessive. The Hadley slaves were treated much like children, and were not subjected to more severe discipline than were the sons and daughters of their owners.
Parson Isaac Chauncey was a conscientious man. He preached long sermons in which were clearly por- trayed the principles of right and justice, yet, like his predecessor, he was a slaveholder and saw no harm in following a practice which he believed was taught in the Old Testament scriptures. His helpmeet, Sarah, died when thirty-eight years old, leaving ten children. The father of this family was also the master of Arthur Prutt, Joan, his wife, and their dusky brood of seven, named respectively, George, Elenor, Ishmael, Cæsar, Abner, Zebulon, and Chloe.
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The fact that Arthur had a surname indicates that he may have been bought from another rather than im- ported directly from the African coast. It must have been difficult for the minister to fill so many hungry mouths on the pittance paid for his services, and a Southern planter would have sold some of these young darkies, but we find no proof that this was ever done. It is very probable that each of the parson's daughters, Mrs. John Graham, of Southbury, Conn., Mrs. Grindal Rawson, of South Hadley, Mrs. Daniel Russell, of Rocky Hill, Conn., and Mrs. Hobart Estabrook, of East Haddam, received a slave when she was married to the minister of her choice, and thus the negro family was kept within bounds. George, the son of Arthur Prutt, died in Whately. The parson's son, Richard Chauncey, brought a slave to the East Pre- cinct, afterwards Amherst, and Josiah Chauncey, a prominent resident of the same town, was the master of Cæsar Prutt.
The Chauncey brothers were violent Tories, and Cæsar, the slave, not sympathizing with their senti- ments, must have run away, for when Captain Reuben Dickinson raised his famous company at the time of the Lexington alarm, the bondman Cæsar stood side by side with other Amherst residents, and did his duty with the rest. The patriotic slave of a Tory master, knowing the bitterness of servitude, was eager to fight for freedom. Years passed. Josiah Chauncey
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and his wife left Amherst, and died in Schenectady, New York. The Revolutionary veterans were awarded pensions, but nothing is heard of Cæsar Prutt. At last, when in April, 1801, Amherst held its annual town-meeting in the old church on the hill, the clerk recorded the following: "Voted, that Cæsar Prutt, a Town Pauper, be Set up at Vendue to the lowest bidder for Vitualling and Beding, and was Struck off to Asa Smith for one year for One Dollar Per week." Alas for Cæsar! We can imagine the decrepit old Revolutionary hero, with black face and snowy wool and trembling, knotted hands, standing before his fellow townsmen, as they auction him off for one dollar per week. Asa Smith, tired of his undertaking, passed his charge along to Samuel Hastings, and thus the sorry tale goes on. Each year, more feeble and infirm, old Cæsar is brought to the town-meeting and sold to the lowest bidder. Suddenly, in 1806, the record ends, and probably the life went out as a candle is extinguished, leaving but little trace behind. In some unknown corner of West Cemetery in Amherst the wornout body was laid away, and his very name was forgotten.
The name of Zebulon, the youngest son of Arthur Prutt, will forever be connected with the history of the ancient bird that perches on the Hadley meeting- house steeple. When the belfry, rising almost one hundred feet in air, with pillars and fretwork, was com-
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plete, the weather-cock, which for more than one hun- dred and fifty years has creaked round and round above the broad street, was placed in its lofty position. This glittering fowl, brought over from England, and almost as large as a sheep, was so attractive to the young darky, Zeb Prutt, that he climbed the spire and sitting on the rooster's back crowed in a manner worthy of the biped he bestrode. The gay and frisky Zeb, who seemed to be not cast down by the fact of his servitude, afterward became the property of Oliver Warner of Amherst.
During the pastorate of Parson Chauncey the people of Hadley discovered that the great useless mountain in their midst might be of some practical value. There- fore the town voted to fence in the north side of " Mount holioke" for a cow and sheep pasture. One tenth of the old township of Hadley was, in their opinion, wasted in this mountain, which was simply an obstacle in their way. The Indians had taken refuge in its thickets, cattle had fallen over its precipices, and altogether it was an undesirable possession, separating the citizens from their children who had persisted in leaving the old home for the untried lands beyond. In 1727 twenty-one of the southern settlers, because they were "8 miles from the place of public worship and the way was mountainous and bad," petitioned to be made into a precinct, now South Hadley. Thus the Hadley church gained a second daughter, but
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lost some valuable supporters. Very soon the "East Inhabitants beyond the Pine Plain" demanded that they also should be "set off," and soon the East Precinct, afterwards Amherst, in its own meeting- house was listening to long sermons by the Rev. David Parsons.
Parson Chauncey, although concealing no regi- cides within his home, had still an ever present grief in the misfortune which had befallen his dearly beloved eldest son Israel. This brilliant young theo- logue, a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1724, after teaching in the academy at Hadley, and preaching in Northampton and Housatonic, was sought by the church in Norwalk, Conn., for its vacant pulpit. Suddenly his career was cut short by an attack of violent dementia, brought on by excessive study. With no asylum for a refuge, the "distracted young man" was confined in a small outhouse in his father's yard, and his midnight shriekings of "fire " passed unnoticed as the ravings of a maniac. Alas, there came a night when the alarm was all too true, and the poor lunatic cried in vain until his room was wrapped in flames which were discovered too late to save his life.
Before the death of his son the Hadley minister had been in great demand for services outside the town. In Sunderland, at the ordination of Rev. William Rand, and at the funeral of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, he spoke acceptable words of counsel and
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sympathy, and when the Rev. Robert Breck of Spring- field, pronounced to be a heretic by one company of Hampshire County ministers, was finally admitted by a second and more liberal council, Mr. Chauncey preached the ordination sermon and gave the charge. The tragedy in his home brought on physical ailments which made it necessary for him to have assistance in the pulpit, and he preached but little after 1738, although he lived until 1745. October 16, 1740, George Whitefield, the English evangelist, who by the sober citizens of Hatfield was refused admission to their pulpit, preached in the Hadley meeting-house and, waxing fervent in his speech, thundered so loud that his voice was heard across the river.
II. The Pastorates of Rev. Chester Williams and Dr. Samuel Hopkins
Rev. Chester Williams was ordained pastor in Had- ley, January 21, 1741, and when good Parson Chauncey passed peacefully to his reward, his brisk young col- league, already in the harness, took full charge of pulpit and parish. This new minister, the son of Rev. Ebenezer Williams of Pomfret, Conn., was grad- uated at Yale in 1735, and soon after his settlement married Sarah, the daughter of Hon. Eleazer Porter, a wealthy and influential citizen of Hadley. The village, no longer a fortified town, was now a thriving rural hamlet. The twenty-one highways, laid out in
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1722 by Samuel and Experience Porter and Lieutenant John Smith, had been improved and widened, and cleared from stones and stumps. Joseph Kellogg, a son of Lieutenant Joseph, kept the ferry at the Aqua Vitæ Meadow. Westwood and Noah Cooke, Ichabod Smith, Joseph Hubbard, Samuel Dickinson, James Goodman, Ezekiel Kellogg, and Benjamin Church, all grandsons of the first settlers, dwelt either in the old homesteads or had built houses for themselves on the broad street. The Marsh family was represented by the aged brothers, Ebenezer and Job, grandsons of John, the pioneer, and their descendants. Captain Job Marsh had built in 1715 a house on land given by the town to his father, Daniel, which is the site of the present meeting-house and town hall. Valiant Cap- tain Moses Marsh, his son, fought in the Louisburg campaign, and after the war settled in his native town and became a most useful and public-spirited citizen. Moses Cooke, the son of Aaron, and possibly others of his generation, were in 1745 still living, and could relate stirring tales of their youthful days when Hadley was besieged like a citadel of old. For the most part the town was a settlement of farmers, and fighting was a well-nigh forgotten art. Lieutenant Noah Cooke was making rope from hemp raised on his land, and Oliver Warner, the hatter, was supplying his neighbors with headgear of the latest style. Some articles of luxury had been introduced, and the aristocrats were
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carrying gold and silver watches, and warming their feet by means of wooden stoves lined with tin made by Eliakim Smith and Samuel Gaylord. Moses Porter had imported a "chair" in which he drove about, and Parson Williams, dressed in the height of fashion, was a conspicuous figure as, mounted on the most valuable saddle horse in the county, he rode up and down the street making his pastoral calls. His wardrobe included one cloak, one gown, two great- coats, six coats, six waistcoats, five pairs of breeches, seven shirts, six neckcloths, three cotton handkerchiefs, three bands, five stocks, seventeen pairs of stockings, and smaller articles too many to enumerate. Silver shoe, knee, and stock buckles, gold sleeve buttons and rings, a silver tankard and snuffbox, were also num- bered among his possessions. When we realize that nine years of married life brought to his home six children we do not wonder that Phillis, a negro slave, was needed in the parson's kitchen.
At this time Jonathan Edwards was preaching in Northampton and all the churches were involved in the controversy regarding the necessary qualifications for communion. A majority of the ministers in the county disagreed with Mr. Edwards' teaching that the Lord's supper was not a converting ordinance. Rev. Chester Williams, the Hadley minister, was the scribe of that memorable council, by which the greatest preacher of New England was sent away in disgrace,
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and Parson Williams, together with Enos Nash, the Hadley delegate, voted for his dismission. Three years after this occurred Mr. Williams was seized with a sudden and fatal illness, and again the Hadley church was without a pastor.
Some mysterious attraction about this time drew the attention of a young Yale graduate toward Hadley. He was the nephew of Jonathan Edwards, and no doubt had often in his visits to the broad street crossed the river and viewed the pleasant meadows near at hand. But something beside scenery must have caused him to become a "probationer " in the Hadley pulpit. After preaching for six Sabbaths he accepted the church's loud and urgent call to settle in the parish. A special fast-day was appointed to prepare for the ordination, and then, February 26, 1755, the ceremony took place and Rev. Samuel Hopkins became the fourth minister of Hadley. His father, Rev. Samuel Hopkins of West Springfield, preached the sermon, and Rev. Stephen Williams of Longmeadow gave the charge. From church to parsonage was only a short journey, and it seemed supremely fitting that the new minister in caring for his flock should pay especial attention to the family of his predecessor. The sudden attraction for Hadley may be explained by the fact that, as soon as decorum would allow, Rev. Samuel Hopkins married Mrs. Sarah Williams, widow of the late pastor, and thus at twenty-six became the step-father of six small
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children, the possessor of many changes of raiment, the owner of a handsome library, and the master of a comfortable and well appointed home.
According to the diary kept by Madam Porter, the mother of Mrs. Hopkins, this year, November 18, 1755, "an awful earthquake" shook the ground beneath their feet and alarmed the inhabitants of the whole county, to whom such a phenomenon presaged dis- aster. But no immediate effects were felt, for although other Hampshire towns had suffered from Indian depredations, yet, since the treaty of Utrecht, Hadley had been unmolested. Encouraged by continued peace, the people had ventured to settle in the outskirts of the town. Two miles to the north, in a sheltered intervale known as Forty Acre Meadow, Moses Porter, great-grandson of Samuel, the first settler, had built in 1752 a commodious dwelling, and installed therein his bride, Mistress Elizabeth Pitkin, granddaughter of Phebe, the third wife of Parson Russell. Hardly had the master of this home welcomed the new minister within its hospitable portals, when military duty called Captain Porter to take command of his company and march to Albany, there to join the regiment of Colonel Williams in its ill-fated expedition against Crown Point on Lake Champlain. Enos Smith, a small Hadley lad, noted with wondering eyes the gorgeous uniform of the sad-faced soldier, who, obeying duty's call, left his heart behind with his unprotected wife
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and little daughter Elizabeth in the pleasant home which he was to see no more. Far away from all neighbors, Mistress Porter looked well after her house- hold, and kept a brave heart through the long and lonely summer. At last the swift express from the north reached Hadley, and her dread was turned to certain knowledge when she learned that six days before, September 8, her brave husband had fallen in the battle of Lake George, and that his body, stripped of its martial trappings, had been left to the mercy of his foes, only his sword being secured for his family. All Hadley mourned for the intrepid captain and sympathized with his widow, left alone to care for her young daughter and to manage her large estate.
But trials had to be endured in those old days, and Hadley women were too busy to indulge in nervous prostration. Madam Porter with sorrowful face went about her daily tasks, and for forty years was faithful
to her husband's memory. Her little Elizabeth, May 13, 1770, was "published" to Mr. Charles Phelps, a young Northampton lawyer, and June 14 the wedding took place. Her son-in-law relieved Madam Porter of her many cares, built the gambrel roof above the old house as we see it to-day, and added to the farm until it included six hundred acres. His daughter, the third Elizabeth, married Rev. Dan Huntington, and his grandson, Frederic Dan, was the late beloved Bishop of Central New York. Madam Porter lived to be
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seventy-eight years old. Her body was carried from her old home to the riverside, placed in a boat, taken down the stream, and buried in the cemetery beside the headstone which stands as a memorial to her husband, Captain Moses Porter, a hero of Old Hadley.
Rev. Samuel Hopkins, the minister in Hadley during all the years of Madam Porter's widowhood, stands out from history's page a unique and interesting per- sonality, quite different from the typical New England parson of the olden time. We see him in his home, expending his salary of two hundred and twenty-two dollars so prudently that his nine children and six step-children were fed and clothed, strangers were entertained, and a little was laid by for time of need. We follow him as, attired in long-tailed coat, knee breeches, a vest with skirts, and buckled shoes, he calls from house to house, and seated in the chimney corner puffs upon the pipe kept for his use, and makes himself at home. But the listener, waiting to hear the good divine expound the doctrine and the law, is sometimes disappointed when unseemly levity takes the place of improving conversation, for the worthy parson dearly loves a joke, even when the laugh is turned upon himself.
One Sabbath, when dining with Governor Strong, he declined some pudding between services, saying that pudding before preaching made him dull, at which the Governor slyly queried, "Did you not eat pudding
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for breakfast?" Parson Hopkins asked an invalid if she would not like to have him "preach a lecture" by her bedside, and received the reply that she would indeed, as she had slept but poorly the night before, and his discourses were always soothing. Complaining that a certain man brought him "soft wood," he was told that he did so because the people were given "soft preaching."
But though a joker for six days in the week, on Sunday Parson Hopkins was dignified in manner and of slow delivery, with so much of judicial argument and wisdom in his utterance that an eminent lawyer remarked that he would make a good judge. He often adapted his sermons to the discussion of special events. The "awful earthquake" called forth two discourses, and a cheerful New Year's sermon, January 1, 1764, declared, "This year thou shalt die." His five sons- in-law, Rev. Samuel Spring, Rev. Samuel Austin, Rev. William Riddel, Rev. Leonard Worcester, and Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, often visited Hadley, and preached in the old church, and sometimes the Hadley pastor exchanged with Mr. Hooker of Northampton, and with Mr. Parsons of Amherst.
When the parson, his wife, her aged mother, and twelve children were crowded beneath the ministerial roof-tree, a sudden misfortune befell the household. The winds, howling over the western hills and sweeping across the Hadley meadows, blew a tiny flicker into
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flame, and at one o'clock in the morning, March 21, 1766, a blaze shot into air which illuminated the country for miles around. Regardless of sermons or silver, the parson hustled his children half naked through the windows, and rushing after them with his little two- weeks-old Polly hugged close to his breast, assured himself that all were safe, and then exclaimed to the raging flames, "Now burn and welcome!" Fortu- nately Madam Porter saved her almanac, and in it recorded these facts for our information. She also tells us that in eleven days a new frame was raised, and that on November 24 the family moved into the rebuilt dwelling.
The years of Dr. Hopkins' ministry were crowded with events upon which hung the fate of the nation. The Hadley farmers were all ready for revolution, for they had been greatly exasperated by the King's sur- veyors who confiscated all trees twenty-four inches in diameter a foot above the ground, to be made into masts for the British navy. In 1765 Josiah Pierce recorded in his almanac, "A mob in Hadley on account of logs." The perpetual wrangling over seating the meeting-house was hushed by the call of the minute men to arms. Giles Crouch Kellogg, Phineas Lyman, Oliver Smith, Josiah Pierce, and Jonathan Warner were appointed a committee of correspondence, and later Ebenezer and Moses Marsh, John Cowls, Ben- jamin Colt, Eliakim Smith, Edmund Hubbard, War-
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ham Smith, and Noah Cooke were added to this committee. In 1774 Josiah Pierce was sent as Hadley's delegate to the first Provincial Congress. A powder house eight feet square was built in the middle lane and in it was stored four and a half barrels of powder. Noah Smith and Warham Smith were sent to Williams- town to get the "great gun that used to belong to the town." On April 29, 1775, at nine o'clock in the morning, news of the battle of Lexington reached Hadley, and at one o'clock fifty volunteers started toward Boston. A committee was appointed to make saltpetre, and Moses Marsh "took the saltpetre oath."
Hon. Samuel Porter, son of Samuel the first settler, and a very wealthy man, died in 1722 leaving an estate of ten thousand dollars. His grandson, Hon. Eleazer Porter, justice of the peace and judge of probate, and Elisha Porter, sheriff of Hampshire County, lived during the Revolution in handsome houses side by side, built probably by their grandfather on land granted to their great-grandfather by the town. They were the sons of Eleazer, who married Sarah Pitkin and died when fifty-nine years old.
The Hon. Eleazer Porter married for his second wife, Susanna, daughter of Rev. Jonathan Edwards. Her word, handed down through her descendants, proves the house in which she lived to have been built in 1713, and therefore that it is the oldest house in town. The visitor to-day gazes with interest on
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the quaint exterior with projecting second story, ex- amines the handsome scroll over the double front door, and then walks into the narrow hall and up the winding stairs, where low but sunny chambers open out on either hand, and a steep staircase leads to a dark and dismal attic. There we see hewn timbers, some of which were taken from the old house built by Samuel Porter, the first settler, and thus a portion of this ancient mansion dates back to those old days when the town was born. Below, at the right of the narrow hall, and lighted by three windows, with deep window seats, and paneled woodwork, and fireplace six feet wide, and handsome corner cupboard, is the room formerly used as a court room. Across the hall is another apartment of the same size, and in each ceiling massive roof-trees a foot square give ample support to the floor above. After the Hon. Eleazer Porter died, this house was the home of his son, Jonathan Edwards Porter, and others of his race and name have followed until in later years it passed out of the family.
Colonel Elisha Porter, the proprietor of the other Porter house, which was built one year later, received orders January, 1776, to proceed with his regiment to Quebec. Such a journey in the depth of winter re- quired much courage, but was accomplished safely, and the Colonel returned in time to witness the sur- render of Burgoyne at the battle of Saratoga, and to
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