USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Hadley > Historic Hadley : a story of the making of a famous Massachusetts town > Part 6
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mill just finished, and the school just started, and the little town which he had labored to establish just gaining a foothold in the valley, Ruling Elder Goodwin abandoned the whole undertaking, packed his house- hold goods, and in 1670 removed to Farmington, Conn., near to his former home.
It seems to have been impossible for Mr. Goodwin's determined will to brook opposition, and finding that men were of many minds in Hadley as well as in Hartford, he decided to give up the struggle as all men seemed to be against him. In bitterness of spirit he brought in 1672 a suit in the Springfield court against Peter Tilton and the other trustees for "intruding themselves upon the committeeship about ye estate of Edward Hopkins, improved in Hadley, contrary to the mind of the said Mr. Goodwin, trustee to the sd estate." The case was dismissed, and seven months later, in 1673, William Goodwin, the last Ruling Elder of Hadley, died a broken-hearted man.
The court commended his services in the following words:
"The Corte considering the admirable intenseness, the indefatigable care and paynes that Mr. Goodwin hath expressed to promote and advance the affairs of the scoole, both for its foundation and progress Doe thankfully accept thereof." "They acknowledge the good hand of God in sending those reverend fathers and worthy Gentlemen the said Trustees to dispose of
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such an estate to these remote parts of the country and of this colony, for so worthy and eminent a work."
Elder Goodwin's daughter Elizabeth remained in Hadley as the wife of John Crow. Deacon Rodney Smith, who died in Hadley in 1890, was a lineal descendant of William Goodwin.
Although it may have seemed that his endeavors in behalf of Hadley youth were not appreciated by his generation, the children of the town have in these later days reared to his memory a noble monument. Be- neath the shadow of a patriarchal elm it stands, a handsome brick library building, containing beside the well selected volumes a room filled with curios and relics of old Hadley days. Here we see the interleaved almanacs in which Josiah Pierce traced his quaint records, a panel from the old first meeting- house, and many other articles rescued from the shadows of the past. Over the entrance appears the inscription, "This building was erected in the year 1902 in memory of Elder William Goodwin, one of the Hadley pioneers, by his descendant John Dwight, and other friends and citizens of the town."
The death of Elder Goodwin gave Parson Russell and the Hon. Peter Tilton each a chance to exercise his individuality in the management of school affairs, which soon became complicated by the outbreak of the Indian war. Being far beyond the stockade, the school mill was for two years protected by a small
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garrison until, one dark night in 1677, the people of Hadley saw the northern sky illumined by flames, and knew that the greater part of the school possessions were no more. Part of the mill-dam remained, but while the woods were lurking places for the enemy the town considered it useless to rebuild the mill, so the farmers again carried their grain to Hatfield, and the mill site was deserted. These were gloomy days for the Hopkins school, and Parson Russell must have seen his cherished vision of a flourishing classical institution and even of a college fade in the distance. But still he and his colleagues kept stout hearts, and faced the situation, not knowing that worse was yet to come.
Robert Boltwood, an influential Hadley pioneer, cast longing glances at the water power going to waste at the ruined dam of the school mill, and taking advantage of the decline of grammar school interest among the people boldly declared he was not afraid of Indians, and offered the town £10 for the site and remains of the dam. The bargain was completed, and in 1678 Boltwood built his mill, and equipped it with mill- stones of red sandstone brought from the brow of Mt. Tom. We can imagine the disappointment of Parson Russell at this action, and his indignation at the prevailing indifference toward the classical course in the school. The Hopkins money had been put into the mill, and the mill was burned. The remainder of
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the school funds having been given by Hadley people, and their desire being to have an English school, the matter seemed practically settled. March 30, 1680, Parson Russell called the attention of the county court to "the languishing estate of the school." His plea that the mill ought to belong to the school was pre- sented with so much eloquence that the court decided that it should "not allow of so great a wrong," and ordered that the town should pay Boltwood what he had spent in rebuilding, and restore the mill to the trustees.
In 1682 the exchange had not been made. Philip Smith had been elected to the board of trustees in the place of his father, and to their future sorrow the remaining trustees had chosen Samuel Partrigg in the place of Peter Tilton, resigned. Russell and Cooke, for the trustees, appeared in the Springfield court and told the whole story, describing the lands and moneys received, the moneys spent for cellar and "craine" and chimney and oven and house over mill and "Damm," the income of £26 a year derived from the mill, and the tragic manner in which their grammar school had vanished into thin air. Samuel Partrigg, a man of great wealth and influence, favored the English school. With this disaffection within the board itself the case was hard indeed! Parson Russell pleaded, and wrote letters, and urged the matter until even his courage failed. Some question of title stood in the
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way, and matters rested there. In 1683 Robert Bolt- wood agreed to give up the mill for £138 in grain and pork. Then Robert died and Samuel his son would not fulfil his father's bargain.
Parties of influence outside of Hadley felt much sympathy for Parson Russell as he thus battled almost alone for the classical school so dear to his heart. October, 1686, John Pynchon, in a letter to Mr. Russell, said:
"I am hartily sorry Mr. Partrigg is so cross in ye businesse of the school." "Nothing will be done as it ought to be until he be removed, wh I suppose the Predt and Council may do." "Mr. Tilton fully falling in with him, is as full and strong in all his notions as Mr. P. himself." "Mr. Tilton said it would kindle such a flame yt would not be quenched. But if to do right and secure public wright kindle a flame, the will of the Ld. be done."
November 19, 1686, a town-meeting was called in Hadley, "when the sun was a quarter of an hour high," to consider school matters. Captain Aaron Cooke and Joseph Hawley, sent to examine into the school situa- tion, after wearisome waiting, received from Tilton and Partrigg, a committee from the town, a report that there was "no complaint." Then the school com- mittee appeared, and Parson Russell, quoting scripture, gave seven long reasons why the school moneys must be used for a grammar school. Partrigg in reply also
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quoted scripture and said, "He that can teach Gram- mar is surely better fitted to teach English than he that hath no Grammar in him."
Finally the town committee clinched the argument by declaring that an English school must as a matter of fact be a grammar school. The council dismissed Mr. Partrigg, and a committee of arbitration decided that Samuel Boltwood should be paid for what he and his father had expended for the mill, and that the property should be delivered to the trustees of the Hopkins fund "for the maintenance of the school to which it belongs." The last clause was open to almost any construction, and a paper passed through the town for signatures disclosed the fact that only eleven men and one woman believed that the school in question should be a grammar school instead of an English school.
But the hard-fought battle for the continuance of classical instruction in Hadley was won, and the mill passed into the hands of the trustees, who used the income for the grammar school until the great flood of 1692 swept the whole structure away down the stream. The mill was presently rebuilt, and for a time John Clary was the miller, and after him Joseph Smith and his son Benjamin, and grandsons Erastus, Caleb, and Benjamin. The rent was used for the support of the school, which throughout the quarrel had kept up its regular sessions.
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In 1720 the school committee, as the board of trustees was now called, consisted of Chileab Smith, Thomas Hovey, Samuel Porter, Sergt. Joseph Smith, and Deacon John Smith. In 1733 the record states:
"We the subscribers, Lieutenant Westwood Cooke, Lieut. John Smith, and Eleazer Porter of the Scool Committy in Hadley have made Choyce of Deacon Samuel Dickinson to serve as a committy man in the room and sted of Lieut. Thomas Hovey, one of the scool Committy, he being aged and crazy and declines the service any longer. And we have also made Choyce of Mr. Job Marsh to serve as a Committy man in the room and sted of Mr. Joseph Smith, one of our late scool committy men now deceast."
Thus one by one the older members of the school committee dropped away and their successors were chosen by those who still remained. Moses Cooke, Deacon Joseph Eastman, "Ensine" Moses Marsh, Deacon Enos Nash, Samuel Gaylord, David Smith, Elisha Porter, Edmund Hubbard, Charles Phelps, Oliver Smith, Enos Nash, and Elisha Dickinson each took his turn in looking after the interests of the Hopkins grammar school. Sometimes the committee lent the town the money to pay the teacher, so that it seemed a little doubtful by whom he was engaged, but so long as he continued to teach the "Latin Accidence" it made but little difference.
In 1743 the school committee, Eleazer Porter,
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Westwood Cooke, John Smith, Samuel Dickinson, and Job Marsh, engaged Josiah Pierce of Woburn, a graduate of Harvard in 1735, to teach the Hopkins school, and unlike the short terms of his predecessors, his administration lasted until 1755. His home was on the present site of the church and town hall. His salary of £275 a year, with the use of twenty-five acres of land, and a pittance gained by serving as town clerk, kept his family in comfort. Although not a minister he occasionally supplied a pulpit, for which he received ten shillings a Sunday. The entries in his interleaved almanac have given us many facts about those old school days in Hadley. Somehow the select- men lost their grip upon both pupils and parents, for Mr. Pierce had sometimes five and sometimes thirty scholars in his school, and children came or not as they and their parents pleased. One day the record reads, "No school because no scholars sent." November 19, 1742, we find this entry :
"This day being the day before Thanksgiving I keep school all day as I have heretofore, willing to attend; if parents will let their children attend; but they the most of them, letting their children play about the streets rather than send them to school, I determine not to attend ye school in ye afternoon of such day hereafter."
After twelve years of service Mr. Pierce left Hadley to teach in Northampton and South Hadley, but in
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1760 he returned and was again for six years the teacher of the grammar school. Afterwards he kept a "cy- phering school" in Amherst until obliged to close it for want of wood. This veteran school teacher knew some things beside the lore of books, for in 1763 he showed the Hadley farmers how to raise a new crop, that of potatoes, red in color and not at first considered as fit to be eaten. Eight bushels of this queer sort of "root" Josiah Pierce put into his cellar that first winter, and three years later his crop was sixty bushels. After a time he seems to have found raising potatoes more profitable than drilling Latin verbs into the minds of stupid scholars, for we see him no more in the school- room, and three hundred bushels of potatoes produced upon his land in 1769 supplied the whole town. Josiah Pierce died in 1788, having made his record not only as a teacher of the dead languages but also as an agriculturist far in advance of his time.
The first day of the new year, 1816, was memorable in Hadley. In a town-meeting held that morning it was voted to ask the General Court that the Hopkins fund should be devoted to the maintenance of an academy for the benefit not only of Hadley but of the surrounding towns as well. This petition was granted. The people were now united in their desire for a pre- paratory school, and the wisdom of Parson Russell's policy was vindicated by the descendants of those who fought so bitterly against it. The trustees of the
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grammar school, Seth Smith, William Porter, Jacob Smith, William Dickinson, and Moses Porter, after the incorporation of the academy was complete, chose Rev. Dan Huntington, Rev. John Woodbridge, Rev. Joseph Lyman, and Isaac C. Bates as additional members of the board, and began to make plans for a new academy building. Part of the home lot of Chester Gaylord was secured as a site. Many persons contributed building material, supplies, and labor, and others gave from fifty to eighty cents in money, and so the work went on. Another year saw a fine three- storied brick building on the site of the academy building of to-day. It was an elegant structure for a rural town, and people came to see it from all the country round. Its entire cost was $4,954.90. De- cember 9, 1817, the new building was dedicated. Rev. Joseph Lyman of Hatfield made the prayer, and Rev. John Woodbridge preached the sermon from the text, "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." The first school session in the new building was held September 10, 1817, with Rev. Dan Hunt- ington, preceptor, Giles Crouch Kellogg and Miss Sophia Moseley, assistants. The next year Mr. Hunt- ington received $500 salary, Mr. Kellogg $20 a month, and Miss Sally Williston $12 a month and board.
The new school building fronted on the middle lane, and the main entrance opened at first directly upon the sidewalk, but soon the trustees were allowed to
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enclose part of the lane for a school-yard. Two class- rooms occupied the lower floor, and five rooms, used for recitations and to contain scientific apparatus and the beginning of a library, occupied the second floor. The spacious third story, known as Academy Hall, was the pride of the town. At the east end, on the stage four feet above the floor, embryo orators spouted poetry, and read compositions at the Wednesday after- noon rhetorical exercises, to the edification of admiring friends. Here debates were held on abstruse subjects, exhibitions were given, lecturers spoke words of wis- dom, and diplomas were awarded to those who had attained a "ripeness and dexteritie" in all sorts of learning. Truly the days of prosperity for classical education, so fondly dreamed of by Parson Russell, were at last realized by Hopkins Academy, the daughter of the grammar school.
The funds in the hands of the academy trustees, the year the school was opened, were increased by a grant from the General Court of half a township in Maine, which was sold, the proceeds being turned into the school treasury. The academy prospered greatly, ninety-nine students, sixty-five from Hadley, being enrolled the second year. Tuition was from three dollars to three dollars and a half a quarter, and board, including room rent and washing, was one dollar and a half a week. Those whose necessities required it found work to help defray their expenses. All pupils
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were compelled to attend church and prayer meeting and the Bible was a most important text-book. Mr. Huntington was the preceptor until 1821. Other pre- ceptors were Rev. Worthington Smith, D.D., afterward the president of the University of Vermont, Oliver S. Taylor, who died in 1885 aged one hundred years, Rev. John A. Nash, who came to Amherst and estab- lished Nash's school, George Nichols, afterward rector of Hopkins' Grammar School in New Haven, Timothy Dwight, of the class of 1827 in Amherst College, and Rev. Ezekiel Russell, D.D., Amherst College, 1829, who became pastor of Olivet Church, Springfield.
In the early days of Hopkins Academy four of the principals each found a wife among the assistant teachers. In 1831 one hundred and fifty young men and one hundred and twenty-one young women were enrolled among the students, one hundred and forty- eight of these being from out of town. The fame of the academy extended west and south, and pupils from Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Florida entered to prepare for college. In 1831 the question arose as to the rights of the trustees to allow the benefits of the school to extend to so many outside of the town, and the matter was taken into court and decided in favor of the trustees. As free high schools became common, academies everywhere declined, and the insti- tution in Hadley suffered with the rest. Finally in 1851 began the last controversy about the Hopkins
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fund, when in town-meeting Samuel Nash, Esq., Dr. Bonney, and P. S. Williams, Esq., were appointed a committee to see if the school could not be made free to the town. Year after year the matter was brought up, discussed, and left undecided. The trustees claimed that "the town has no more exclusive rights to the funds of the Hopkins Academy than to those of any other literary institution," and that "the trustees believe that it is the best for all concerned that the charter of our academy remain unmolested." At last in 1860 fate seemed against the trustees, for the academy building, on which no insurance had been placed, was destroyed by fire.
Then came the opportunity of the town. March 26, 1860, it was voted:
"Whereas, in the Providence of God, the Academy building has been destroyed by fire and thereby a favorable opportunity presented to the town for an effort to make available to all the inhabitants of the town the benefits of the school fund which was given by the town and by benevolent individuals for the promotion and advancement of learning; therefore, voted; that the town will erect a building suitable for the accomoda- tion of a Free High School, provided the trustees will enter into an arrangement and agreement with the town that they will appropriate the annual income of the fund to aid in support of such school."
The trustees, though at a disadvantage, were still loth to give up their charter, and clung to the name
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"Hopkins Academy." When finally overpersuaded, they insisted that the new high school should be built on the site of the old academy. The town objected, and a board of arbitration, to which the matter was submit- ted, stood five to five, and there the matter rested.
For two years school was kept in the basement of the church. In 1862 Levi Stockbridge, Horace Cook, and Theodore Huntington were added to the board of trustees, and the offer was made that if the town would pay $300, the school should be free to Hadley pupils for one year. This proposition was accepted, and five years after the first vote was taken the subject of a high school building was again cautiously intro- duced, and at last it was voted to place it on the site of the old academy. The triumph of the trustees was thus made complete. Hopkins Academy of ancient lineage was thenceforth to be a school free to all pupils of the town able to meet the entrance requirements.
During these years the school meadows had been gathering Hatfield soil washed over by the river, which made a new channel and thus created an island. This finally was added to the mainland, and thus the sixty acres first given by the town became in 1844 a hundred and fifty-eight acres, which the trustees were granted leave to sell, thereby increasing the fund to $57,325. The mill privilege at North Hadley was sold to L. N. Granger for $300. The trustees in 1890 owned ten acres of land on Mount Holyoke, eleven in Hockanum
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Meadow, four and a half in Aqua Vitæ Meadow, five in the Great Upper Landing, two in the Great Lower Landing, besides sundry investments in stocks and mortgages.
Many graduates of this famous old academy have preached the gospel throughout the earth. Jeremiah Porter was a home missionary on the western frontier. Elijah C. Bridgman and James G. Bridgman carried the good news to China. Dyer Ball went out to Sin- gapore. John Dunbar was a teacher among the Pawnee Indians. Dwight W. Marsh and Lyman Bartlett were sent to Turkey, and Henry M. Bridgman was a pioneer missionary in South Africa. A long list of ministers, thirty doctors, twenty-five lawyers, are included in the roll of honor. Among the eminent educators we find William D. Whitney of Yale, Levi Stockbridge, president of the agricultural college at Amherst, Professor Richard H. Mather of Amherst College, President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College. Thirty-eight ministers secured their wives among the Hopkins alumni, and in this list we find Miss Eunice Bullard, who married Henry Ward Beecher. Major General Joseph Hooker and General Joseph B. Plum- mer are among those educated in the Hopkins school who served their country in the civil war. Verily old Parson Russell and his colleagues who established and maintained the integrity of the grammar school in Hadley builded better than they knew.
CHAPTER V
THE WEALTH OF THE RIVER AND THE FERTILE MEADOWS
FAR up among the northern hills the brimming waters of two crystal fountains united in a tiny rivulet, which trickled southward toward the sea. " Heart Lake" and "Double Lake" through which it passed paid tribute, and four rippling mountain brooks has- tened to swell the stream. Now dashing over rocks and boulders, now broken into roaring cataracts, now flowing in a somber sheet within the shadow of rugged mountain peaks, with steady persistence the river shaped its course. Salmon and sturgeon leaped amid its rapids, and wild birds skimmed its shining surface. Flocks of pigeons, pausing in their flight, whitened the shores, and timid deer drank undisturbed the clear and sparkling waters. Beside the river, all along the way, solemn pine forests guarded curve and shallow, while single trees on bank and hilltop kept untiring watch. The summer breeze blew softly through these dark woods, and tiny blossoms peeped timidly up through crevices in the brown carpet of dry pine needles. No sign of civilization marred the freshness
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THE CONNECTICUT RIVER AND THE MEADOW PLAIN Looking North from the Railroad
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of the picture. The native hunter as he glided in his light canoe from shore to shore seemed closely akin to the creatures of the woods and waters. This undis- covered country was the red man's heritage and his ancestral home.
The Indians christened their river "Quinnetuk," the long river with waves. "Quonektacut" was applied in later years to include both the stream and the land along its shores. The little rill from the north, its tortuous journey over, found at last its outlet, and four hundred miles from its source poured a mighty flood into Long Island Sound. In place of mountain cliff and rocky headland, pebbly beaches and sloping grassy banks and open meadow lands added new beauty to the smiling landscape. But still the dark pine forests, untouched by woodman's ax, crowned every eminence, and clung persistently wherever they could find a foothold. Therefore the Indian added to the harsh word "Quonektacut" the poetic title "River of Pines." This name has long since been forgotten. The grim and gloomy pines which gave the words their meaning disappeared before the settlers' rude attack, and the river Indians themselves vanished to make way for the colonist and his civilization. A few dry bones and arrow heads are all that remain of these ancient owners of the Connecticut valley. The romance of the river has departed and its tale is still untold.
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This historic stream was a most important factor in the settlement of the valley towns. When Indian trails were the only traveled paths and highways were un- known, this natural waterway formed a connecting link between the isolated villages by means of which they were kept in touch with each other and in com- munication with the outside world. The founders of Hadley knew the river as a somewhat fickle friend, which in its angry moods proved a serious menace to all within its reach. In early spring the frozen highway was suddenly transformed into a roaring torrent. A moving ice floe from the north swept down with irresistible force and miniature icebergs ground against each other with savage fury and were pounded to fragments among the rocks and rapids. Then, a mighty flood, the swollen river spread far over the meadows, and, receding, left a deposit of rich soil which would produce a bountiful yield of hay and grain. The colonist loved his river in all its moods. He built his house where, from the open door, he could discern its shining surface. In time of inunda- tion he kept his canoe fastened to the door-post, and until the water entered the dwelling refused to leave his home. When he discovered that the fickle stream by cutting through a neck of land had in a night removed a portion of his estate to a neighboring town, still with an unconquered spirit the valley farmer met these new conditions, subdued the forces of nature
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