USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Wilbraham > Historical address, delivered at the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Wilbraham, June 15, 1863 > Part 10
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Schools, Teachers in Seminaries, Lawyers, Physicians, Mechanics, Farmers, through the land, rise up and call her blessed. May her glory be still further spread ! May her children be still further multiplied !
For many years after the settlement of the town, it was necessary to draw all lumber from the saw-mill at Sixteen Acres. Lewis Langdon erected the first saw- mill, as I have said, about eighty rods below the Ravine Factory on the Scantic in 1750; Abner Badger's saw-mill, on Third Brook, where the old mill now stands, near the late Capt. Chaffee's, was in operation before 1772. In 1762 the town gave Caleb Stebbins of Wilbraham and Joseph Miller of Ludlow a deed of four acres of the Ministry lot on Twelve Mile Brook, as a site for a grist- mill. Some years intervened before there was a grist- mill in the south part of the town; but before the close of the Revolutionary War, and most probably some time previously, Langdon erected a grist-mill, afterwards owned by Benanuel Leach, about a hundred rods below his saw-mill. David Burt erected one shortly after on or near the site of the present mill in the southeast part of the town. One was also erected about the same time by Mr. Wright not far from the residence of the late Benjamin H. Russell, on Middle or Second Brook. In the early part of this century, Mr. Bacon of Brimfield built a grist-mill where the " Ravine Factory " now stands. but sold soon after to Christopher Langdon, grandson of Lewis. It passed through the hands of Jacob Wood and Hubbard Arnold into those of William Moseley, who
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thoroughly remodelled the mill, rebuilt the dam, erected a saw-mill and added a shingle-mill. It was burnt down a few years since, and a wrapping-paper manufactory built on its ashes, which has in turn given place to the present factory. At the "turn of the river," so called, was the saw-mill of Capt. Charles Sessions, and after it fell to pieces, another was erected the north side of the river, near the road, on the spot where the "South Wilbraham Manufacturing Co." has its mill, to make place for which, the saw-mill again crossed the stream to the south side. Before the close of the last century, an attempt was made by Capt. Joel Pease to erect a mill near Mr. Roswell Phelps's on the plains, and a dam was erected ; but the country was so flat that the overflow of the pond was seriously objectionable and the project was given up. Meantime a saw-mill had been erected by Caleb Stebbins at his grist-mill, and Burt also erected one on his dam. At last, as if the waters of the Scantic and its tributaries had not been worked sufficiently hard, Milton Stebbins erected a grist and saw mill just south of the bridge on the west side of the mountain, about thirteen years ago, making from first to last seven saw- mills, five grist-mills, and one shingle-mill.
Nor was this all. Clothing was needed as well as food and shelter. Mr. A. Worthen brought into town from Mendon, in 1803, August 10, the first carding ma- chine and placed it in a building erected by Jonathan Kilborn on the site of the present Satinet Factory on Twelve Mile Brook, by the side of Stebbins's Mill.
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Fulling mills and carding machines were soon erected by Walter Burt near Burt's Mill, by Jonathan Flint just below the village bridge ; and Laban Button, near Burt's had a fulling mill. Beriah Smith and Brothers, who bought out Flint, did a large business in dyeing and dressing cloth. Just below Smith's was Roper's Clover Mill which was famous in its day. He added the man- ufacture of chairs to the cleansing of clover-seed. Walter Burt invented a pair of shears for cutting the nap of cloth, but they worked imperfectly and were superseded by other and better machines.
The amount of wood consumed by the early inhabi- tants gave an overplus of ashes for home consumption, and William King manufactured potashes in the south village near the old meeting-house, and Paul Langdon by the Potash Hill.
Thomas and Hervey Howard erected a tannery at an early day on the road from the street to Stony Hill, and Abraham Avery had one near his late residence. Mr. West followed the business in the South Parish at the foot of the hill by the brook over the bridge, and then on the spot which his descendants now occupy. The Chaffee Brothers, Daniel and Jonathan, had a tannery near the site of the present one.
The time would fail me to name the cider-mills or even the cider-distilleries. Stewart Beebe's was much the largest of the latter. Orchards were very numerous and large on the mountains, and a farmer often made three hundred barrels of cider - and sometimes, with
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sorrow be it spoken, drank thirty and a barrel of brandy to give it tone. The temperance reform, thirty years ago, swept them all away, and we glory in our sobriety and clear cool springs and deep refreshing wells instead of rows of cider barrels and kegs of proof brandy.
To Deacon Sumner Sessions belongs the faith and foresight and energy of erecting the first woollen mill in Wilbraham, which now turns off every day one thousand yards of three-fourth satinet. Below the " South Wilbraham Co.," is the " Ravine Manufacturing Co.," started 1856, whose mill manufactures two thou- sand yards of doeskins a week. The factory of Gates and Nelson on Twelve Mile Brook is in full operation, turning off one thousand yards a week of low grade satinet, and near by it is the mill of Messrs. Ellis and Houghton which makes about two thousand yards a week of the same style of goods. The capacity of all these mills is about eleven thousand yards a week, or six hundred thousand yards annually. Near our. bor- ders, at Jenksville, there have been for many years large mills, whose operatives have furnished a good market for the productions of our soil.
There was no post-office in the town till 1821; all our letters came to Springfield. I have been there for letters in my boyhood. Matthew Gardner brought the first mail to the town in a one-horse wagon, -a poor wagon and a poorer horse; and Coombs, once a week, came riding through the streets, blowing his horn, with the papers. I remember how we children would stare at Mr. Gardner, the wonderful mail-man, as he passed.
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The first regular mail and stage line in New England, if an open wagon can be called a stage, was started by the enterprise of Reuben Sikes of this town and Levi Pease of Somers, 1772. It left the Lamb Tavern in Bos- ton every Monday at 6 A. M., and reached Hartford on Wednesday; another stage or wagon left Hartford at the same time and reached Boston Wednesday night. The same team was driven all the way, stopping nights. The old Sikes' tavern was standing many years ago on the "Great Road " not far from Mr. Baldwin's.1
Many years after, about 1823, a mail and stage line was started from Springfield to Providence; this was the first stage which passed through the South Parish. In 1828, a company was formed to run a line of stages from Hartford to Ware, which went through the town on the main road. Both these lines were suspended after a few years.
Though the line of the telegraph has gone out through all the earth and thus passed through both parts of the town, still its voice is not heard in our bor- ders ; its significant click makes no heart tremble with fear of loss or hope of gain. The message from Boston to San Francisco passes you unheeded as you work in your fields.
Our habitations and domestic habits and comforts have changed not less than our fields and mills. The gar- ments of our fathers changed from skins and breeches to cloth and trousers. Yet the coarse cloth and plain
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colors were of domestic manufacture and dyeing. Wool was spun and woven at home and prepared for garments at the clothier's. The " tailoring " was done at home by women who went from house to house fitting garments. The old horse was roused at an unaccustomed hour of a cold morning, and while the stars were yet bright was started off after the " tailors "; who were in turn hur- ried back that they might do a good day's work and earn their money. We children got down the old but- ton-bag, and with an eye to the attractive in other, gentler eyes selected the buttons, and then with vigor- ous application to the soles of our shoes, made the dull metal glow and sparkle with becoming brightness for its new office. Flax was raised, broken, and swingled by the men ; and all through the winter day and long win- ter evenings the whole house was made musical by the hum of the "foot" and " great" wheel as the mothers spun the flax and the girls spun the tow. The girls were ambitious to have the largest bunches of yarn hung upon the wall and to be reputed the best spinners in the neighborhood. And when the spring came, and the sounding loom and flying shuttle had done their work, there might be seen long pieces of cloth on the clean grass bleaching to snowy whiteness for the tidy house- wife's use, or, what was better, for the garnishing of the womanly daughter's new home ; for when, in spring-time, it was observed that a larger piece of ground than usual was sown to flax. the prophecy was read of all that Hannah was, the next season, to bless John with a happy home
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and loving heart. Cotton cloth is a modern notion, and has driven the prophetic flax and busy wheels and sounding looms from our homes, almost from our men- ories. The braiding of straw and palm-leaf succeeded spinning and weaving, and often the whole family, boys as well as girls, spent the long evenings manufacturing straw hats and bonnets, and palm-leaf hats. The income from this occupation purchased the cloth which had be- fore been manufactured at home. Hundreds of thou- sands of yards of straw braid were sold from the town. This also is past now. The hands of the young are turned to other employments. The "nicely sanded floor " gave place, about fifty years ago, to the first car- pet ; and I doubt if there were a dozen in town in 1810. As late as 1800 there were log-houses here, and some who hear me were born in them. Capt. Paul Langdon had the only clock in the Scantic district for many years, and at nine o'clock in the evening he was accustomed to blow a horn to signify the time to the neighborhood. The first cooking stove was brought into town by Cal- vin Stebbins in 1814; now they are as numerous as the houses. Crockery was rare ; wooden plates, called trenchers, and wooden or pewter spoons were used by adults as well as by children sixty or eighty years ago. Very few men or women and no children wore shoes in summer, and some would have been thankful for them in the winter. A pair of boots was a wonder. Woollen mittens served for kids. Who had a watch in 1800 ? Who hasn't one in 1863 ? Our ancestors of the
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last century and the old people of my boyhood said, " coold " (could), woold (would), shoold (should). They pronounced daughter, "dafter"; nation, na-ti-on ; motion, mo-ti-on. Educational prejudices were as much shocked when Webster directed these words to be pronounced, " nashun," " moshun," as religious prejudices were when Master Morgan ventured to beat time with his hand while singing in church, and when Watts' Psalms and Hymns were substituted for Tate and Brady. But edu- cation spread in spite of the one as religion did in spite of the other. The use of the iron plough did not de- stroy the fertility of the soil, nor did plaster of paris turn the garden into a desert.
In the latter part of the last century and the first quarter of this, there was no market for the farmer which would quicken his enterprise and prompt to thrift, by a demand for the surplus products of his farm. Springfield was but a village, and a poor one, in 1780, numbering but a few inhabitants more than this town. Indeed, this town, before the commencement of the Rev- olution, had nearly as many inhabitants as Springfield. The land, at the foot of the mountains and in the val- leys between them, was more productive than that of the mother town. The surplus rye and corn, therefore, which the farmer raised, was of little value, till distiller- ies were erected at Sixteen Acres, Springfield, Still Water, and Warehouse Point. At these, rye and corn were sold and cash paid in return ; not seldom, a barrel of gin being taken in part payment. After the tempest
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of the temperance reformation swept over the country, the gin distilleries went down with the cider distilleries. The market was closed. But at about the same time the Western Railroad was opened. Springfield immedi- ately grew from a sparse village to a crowded, enterpris. ing city ; and a new and ready market was opened at greatly enhanced prices for all that the farmer could raise. I remember how the farmers predicted that opening that road, by which the productions of the endless, inex- haustible gardens of the west could be brought to our market, would ruin them and render their farms worth- less. Behold the change ! These farms are within less than two hours' drive of one of the best markets in the State, and all the products of the farm now command much more remunerating prices. Thrift has conse- quently taken the place of indifference, and within thirty years the farms of the town have been improved vastly. The desert has become a garden. The moun- tains and the hills, with their wood and stone ; the fields and meadows, with their harvests of grain and burdens of grass, have enriched the population.
Such, fellow-citizens, is the history of our town. No harmful rivalry has seriously disturbed the harmony of the separate parishes, though town-meetings have some- times witnessed a friendly struggle for the honors of office or the championship in wrestling. The winding bridle-paths of the olden time have been straightened, without regard to the symmetry or sacredness of fields, meadows, or gardens. The furor for straightness has
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succeeded the policy of crookedness, and at last the locomotive came roaring, screaming, tearing through the mountain, where the old "Bay Path" once hardly fur- nished footing for Thomas Glover's horse, lifting its col- umn of smoke above the rocks, flashing its cyclopean eye of fire through the darkness, making all the moun- tains rock and reverberate from the Chicopee to the Scantic. From blazed bridle-path to iron railway ; from plodding steed to thundering locomotive; from the old wooden plough, by whose use it would be hard to tell which was the more tormented, the holder or the soil, to the cast-iron beauty ; from the narrow corn-patch and consumptive rye-field to rich meadows and broad and fertile acres ; from cattle which rivalled Pharaoh's " lean kine " in greediness and leanness to fat and sleek oxen and generous milkers ; from swine too lank even for the spirits of Gadara to find a home in, and swift of foot as greyhounds, to porkers whose eyes are closed with fat- ness and which sit dignifiedly to eat ; from sheep whose hairy wool was to be gathered from the bushes of the pastures through which they searched for food to the beautiful merino whose fleece is silk; from unfurnished houses and log-cabins to tasteful homes and rich furni- ture ; from frowsy garments to attractive apparel ; from poor school-books and lean instruction to constantly in- creasing means of good culture, the town has risen during these one hundred and thirty years, and most of this progress has been made within the last quarter of this period.
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Through all its history the town has been signalized by the equal distribution of its property. It has had few men above competency, few below it. None rich; very few poor. The prayer of Agur has been fulfilled here. Healthful competency ; neither poverty nor riches, has been the portion of the town; and she has looked with pride not with envy, Mr. President, upon the splendor of her mother's achievements and renown. Virtue, the usual attendant upon industry and competency, has been the crowning glory of our town. Of crime it has hardly known anything. The murder which startled the whole country, committed on the "Great Road " at the commencement of the century, 1802, was the act of for- eigners. Of calamity we have known also but little. Besides the accident in the last year of the last century, by which five young persons were drowned in Nine- mile Pond, very few casualties have befallen our citizens. We have been preserved from flood and fire. Of vice there has been but little and that little has been grow- ing less, for it is not true that the sons have dishonored the fathers, that vice has taken the place of virtue, irre- ligion that of piety. These fields have not improved more in fruitfulness, these dwellings have not improved more in commodiousness, nor our garments more in at- tractiveness than the population have improved in all true, manly, Christian nobleness. The millennium is before, not behind.
These ancestors of ours were sturdy men. They were hardy, tough, iron-fibred. Their muscles were
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knitted and firm and large. They were strong and vigorous and compact. They were of the Egyptian not of the Corinthian order of architecture; massive more than graceful. Their minds were less cultivated than their bodies. They were of strong appetencies; im- pelled by animal passions more than guided by refined tastes. The refined, the beautiful, the graceful attracted them but little, living as they did among the bears and stumps. Animal desires were most clamorous and first gratified. Their propensities were necessarily of the earth, carthy. They had to contend with poverty and storm and beasts. The strong, the bold, the grotesque were, therefore, attractive to them. What they could wear and eat and drink was most valuable to them. We must be just to these tough pioneers. We must not expect from them what we, with all our superior ad- vantages, have not attained. Their age was not one of poetic ease, but of stern and tough reality, - of hard work and coarse fare, of small means and rigid econo- my, of desperate shifts to escape suffering, and patient endurance of destitution. Under such circumstances, what can a reasonable mind expect but the sterner vir- tues and the coarser vices ?1
In reading the records and studying the history of the town I have found no reason to decry the lapse of the sons nor to apologize for the sins of the fathers. They had their errors; we have ours. We are here to- day to vindicate our own claim to improvement by ren-
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dering a tribute of honor and gratitude to them for the richness of our heritage. By a just appreciation of their industry, economy, patriotism, heroism, do we show ourselves worthy to be their sons.
Honor, then, all honor, as we stand upon the height of the century, to the early settlers of the town, the founders of its institutions, and the fathers of its thrift. Their names shall be household words. They live in their sons and their son's sons even to this day. Indus- try, economy, piety, - these were the crowning virtues of our fathers; they are those of their descendants, im- proved by better culture, enlightened by a purer faitlı. Many of their sons have graduated from college and entered upon the various professions, to which they have done honor, - some have risen to high and responsible stations. And we reckon many more who, without the aids of college culture, have made themselves useful or eminent in professional life.1
The town has produced no one great man who has eclipsed the glory of all others, or who gathered to him- self all the honors of the town. Her sons have shared the talents as they did the wealth of the town, in very equal proportion.
As they nobly bore their share in the burdens and perils of the war of invasion, of independence, so now you rise in the glory of your strength to crush rebel- lion and vindicate freedom. If Warriner, and Warner, and Merrick, and Bliss, and Brewer, and Chapin, and
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Langdon, and Stebbins, and Morris, rushed to the field to throw off the yoke of British oppression, and wring from royal lips the confession of our independence and nationality, their sons, not less patriotic, not less heroic, have left home and wife and child, to wrench from the clutch of traitors the sacred ark of liberty and the holy standard of freedom. The blood of the loved and the brave has been poured out like water that the sin of oppression may be atoned for; and the cry for help from the struggling country, writhing in the scaly folds of the rebellion, will not be disregarded
While Wilbra'am has a man to die, A woman left to close his eye, To eat a single crust.
But the hour has come for the feast and the games. The herald gives the signal. My voice must hush. Sons and daughters of Wilbraham, we stand upon the threshold of a new century. None of us will behold its close. Let us pass on gratefully, trustfully, giving room to the coming generations. Let us so live that those who come after us will honor our memory for our thrift and virtue as we honor that of our fathers.
Pass on, venerable representatives of the past gener- ation. We, in the strength and vigor of mature man- hood, take the torch of civilization from your hands, and the words of exhortation from your lips, with honor and gratitude. Arouse, ye in life's meridian glory ; worthily pass on the flaming brand, loudly pronounce the golden words. Hail, ye youthful company, fresh with the dews
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of the morning, receive the ancestral fire rom our hands, the ancestral wisdom from our lips. Advance, ye future generations. Take the heritage we bequeath to you, and not only preserve but improve it. Announce, as you gather in nineteen hundred and sixty-three to do honor to your ancestors, that the message of this first centennial assemblage to you is, that Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty, immaculate justice the foundation of national perpetuity ; that neither liberty nor perpe- tuity has any firm basis but in personal virtue, virtue none but in knowledge ; and " that neither freedom nor virtue nor knowledge has any vigor or immortal hope except in the principles of the Christian faith and the sanctions of the Christian Religion."
APPENDIX.
The! Chubbuck, Eng" _ Springfield , Ms
WESLEYAN ACADEMY _ WILBRAHAM, MASS. FOUNDED, 1824.
APPENDIX.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE INCOR- PORATION OF THE TOWN OF WILBRAHAM, AND THE SPEECHES AT THE DINNER.
INTHE town clerk of Wilbraham, Mr. H. Bridgman Brewer, while ex- amining the records with Charles Stearns, Esq., of Springfield, dis- covered that it was nearly a century since the town was incorporated. He thought that some public notice should be taken of the day ; and after con- sulting with some of the citizens, he laid the subject before the selectmen, who inserted an article in the warrant for the annual April meeting, 1862, " to see what the town would do in relation " thereto. It was " voted to raise a committee of nine to take the matter into consideration," and "John B. Morris, John W. Langdon, Samuel Beebe, Pliny Merrick, Cal- vin Brewer, William V. Sessions, John Wesley Bliss, Samuel L. Bliss, and John M. Merrick were chosen that committee.
This committee met November 4th, and instructed John B. Morris to correspond with some person to prepare an address to be delivered before the inhabitants of the town on the approaching anniversary, June 15, 1863.
At a meeting held April 6, 1863, the committee organized by choosing John B. Morris, chairman, and John M. Merrick, secretary.
Mr. Morris reported that he had corresponded with Hon O. B. Morris, Rev. Dr. Russell, and Rev. Dr. Stebbins, and that Rev. Dr. Stebbins had accepted the invitation and would deliver the address, and presented the following letters : -
LETTER OF INVITATION.
SOUTH WILBRAHAM, Jan. 30, 1863. REV. RUFUS P. STEBBINS, D. I).
MY DEAR SIR: The town of Wilbraham was incorporated on the 14th of June, 1763, in the third year of the reign of King George the Third. The inhabitants, being desirous of celebrating that occasion, chose a committee to carry the same
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into effect, and have selected you to address them on that occasion ; and I do now, on behalf of said committee, invite you to perform that service, and sincerely hope you will not decline.
Be pleased to give as early an answer as you can conveniently.
Yours, very respectfully, JOHN B. MORRIS, for the Committee. REV. R. P. STEBBINS, D. D., Woburn, Mass.
REPLY.
WOBURN, Feb. 4, 1863. JOIN B. MORRIS, ESQ.
MY DEAR SIR : Accept my thanks for the honor your committee have done me by their invitation to deliver the address at the Centennial Celebration of the incorporation of the town of Wilbraham.
I was born there, and there rest the ashes of my ancestors, near and remote. 1 should feel as if I lacked gratitude if I permited other, even pressing, duties to hinder my saying what history will justify in honor of the place of my nativity.
I therefore accept your invitation, in the hope that the memories of the day may make the place of our birth dearer to those of us who have strayed from it, as well as to those who still cleave to it.
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