USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Springfield > Historical address delivered before the citizens of Springfield in Massachusetts at the public celebration, May 26, 1911, of the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the settlement; with five appendices, viz: Meaning of Indian local names, The cartography of Springfield, Old place names in Springfield, Unrecorded deed of Nippumsuit, Unrecorded deed of Paupsunnuck > Part 10
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wittnesses hereunto are
the mark (mark) of Paupsunnuck John Holyoke Abell Wright
the mark of (mark) Lowontock an Indian witness
The mark of the grantor is apparently the figure of an animal but the paper between the outlines has fallen out. The deed is backed as follows:
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APPENDIX E
Deed fro Paupsunnick for Land at Westfield on this side woronoak River (Where Tho Noble dwelt) & So Pacatuck & Askkanuncksit &c I Purchased of her
Also:
The Purchase of the Land on this side of Woronoak River of Paupsun- nick.
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY
OF TOTO
THE FRIENDLY INDIAN WHO STRUGGLING WITH CONFLICTING EMOTIONS IN HIS LOVE OF JUSTICE AND SYMPATIIY FOR THOSE WIIO CHERISHED HIM DISCLOSED THE PLOT OF KING PHILIP TO BURN THE TOWN OF SPRINGFIELD AND MASSACRE ITS INHABI- TANTS AND THUS SAVED MANY LIVES.
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The Memories of the Civil War
AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE E. K. WILCOX POST OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, DECEMBER 24, 1891.
Several citizens of Springfield, in appreciation of the services of those who bore arms in the late war, have united in presenting to this post the memorial volumes which lie before you. I have been requested to represent these gentlemen in the formal ceremony of presentation, and to address you in a more extended and formal way than is usual on such occasions. I trust that what is said will bespeak the thoughts and feelings, both of these donors and of all our citizens. The privilege of making this gift has fallen to a few; but they are many who appreciate the sacrifice offered by these veterans in the defense of the country. The theme shall be,
THE MEMORIES OF THE WAR, THEY SHALL NOT PERISH
Veterans: It is now more than a quarter of a century since the fall of Richmond, and the fact that so many of you are spared, so many still engaged in active duties-shows the worth of your offer- ing. It was not the wasted life, the worthless end of an existence- it was the vigor of young manhood when the blood is quick in the veins, the pulse high, the spirits free, the ties which bind to life many and dear, which you offered in defense of the Union. This you gave, with the risk of receiving in return death, disease, a maimed body, the serious impairment of your business career.
E. K. Wilcox Grand Army Post has received an elegant Christmas present and the large number of the members of the post and their friends made manifest their apprecia- tion of their gift at Grand Army hall last evening. The present is an elegant set of five volumes of memorial war records from William H. Haile, D. B. Wesson, J. H. South- worth, O. H. Greenleaf, and John Olmstead. The chief purpose of the volume is to contain a personal war sketch of every member of the post, but in addition to this memorial record the volumes include an historical sketch of the post and its founder, personal sketches of the givers, supplementary war sketches and resolutions passed by the post upon its dead comrades together with a record of burial. Accompanying the volumes are three hundred blanks to be given to the members to be filled out and these will furnish the data with which to make up the books. About a hundred and fifty of the post and their friends were present and it was an occasion of general congratula- tions. The presentation speech, which is printed in full elsewhere, was delivered by Charles Il. Barrows. Col. Warriner introduced the speaker, and at the close of the speech, Commander Tinkham, in behalf of the post, made a few remarks of acceptance. Mrs. Eva Parsons sang the Star Spangled Banner .- Springfield Republican, December 25, 1891.
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THE MEMORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR
The war was a sad incident in our national history. Many foresaw it, all dreaded it, wise men sought earnestly to avoid it. But the conflict of ideas had become irrepressible; the issue must needs have been settled amid the clash of arms. And though the memo- ries of a civil war are not to be recalled except with those feelings of reconciliation that belong to a true and lasting peace; yet the deeds of heroism, whether they be signal instances of glory or the humble service of patient suffering, cannot but be perpetuated by a grateful people in every way in which they may prove an inspiration to after times. This we may forgive, even to the vanquished, that, so far as their heroes illustrate those virtues that adorn humanity, they should be cherished in the hearts of comrades to whom they were near and dear. The memory of the just shall live; but happy they whose lives, though pure and devoted, were also justified by the cause in which they were given. Such, O veterans, is the case with you, and in later years, as men shall look backward, whether they be of the North or of the South-and read the story of the war, all shall confess that with you were the large results. By you has a great republic been spared from disgraceful dissolution; by you has free labor been ennobled; by you has civilization been sensibly ad- vanced. Freedom, American freedom, has been justified of her chil- dren. | When such a work has been achieved, shall it be forgotten? What record shall be most enduring, what mode of expression most apt and beautiful, in which to commemorate it? Let art and litera- ture vie with each other for the privilege, and when either has pro- duced something worthy to remain, let all the people say well done.
For those of us who lived in the days when the cause of freedom in this country was, let us hope, for the last time on trial, no monu- ment can equal in importance the actual presence of those who were themselves tried in the fiery furnace of war. While they remain we may look upon more enduring monuments as of greater interest to posterity than ourselves. The veteran's son as he hears the thrill- ing narrative from the lips of his father; the friend who looks with pained sympathy upon the temple of the human body maimed or crippled-all of us who feel from a keen recollection of its origin the sadness of Memorial day, have that within us which wakens as noth- ing else can do, the tribute of grateful praise. Who that stood in the streets of this city to witness the return of the 27th Massachusetts, and calls to mind the tired, haggard, shattered ranks of home-coming soldiers, needs anything else to remind him that war is sad and ter- rible? It was sung into the hearts of children in the strains of "Ells- worth's Avenger," and "Just before the Battle, Mother."
And after the passage of a quarter of a century, stolid must be the man, who, upon the sacred Sabbath of the soldier's year, can look upon that line of veterans as they go to decorate the graves of
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THE MEMORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR
their comrades with tears and flowers, and not feel within himself the quick response in swelling breast and moistening eye? Men who but yesterday were fellow-citizens, meeting you on the street and trans- acting business in the marts of trace, become for the time trans- figured. Glory, like the gentle mist of evening, seems to settle upon their whitening brows,-a halo more beautiful, more honorable than any crown. By such scenes as these is kept alive the sentiment of patriotism. Sentiment did I say ?- belittle not the word. What is prompted by sentiment is done purely, holily and has favor in the eye of God and man. Sentiment gives color to existence, blending insensibly with common duties and weaving the thread of gold through life. Facts are the motionless blocks out of which life is made. Sentiment gives the inspiration to put them into forms that are good and true and beautiful. It is declared in natural law, as in revelation, that not cold logic, but burning love, moves the world. "Far from me and from my friends," said a great philosopher, "be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."
In whatever way, therefore, the recollections of the heroic deeds of our own day may be recalled to future generations and stimulate to love of country, reverence for antiquity, a laudable pride in worthy ancestors, we shall be quick to welcome the expression whether in granite column, or bronze effigy or literary memorial.
In this country the present age is both more ready and more able thus to express itself than any that have gone before. As we read the familiar story of the Revolution and see amid how many great events, great as any in the world's history, the foundations of the republic were laid, we ask why that age did not erect more monu- ments commemorative of the times. Bunker Hill, the Washington monuments at Baltimore and in the capital city, are the work of later generations. The answer is, Our fathers had not the means. They wrought their great works in comparative poverty of resource except intellectual vigor and moral strength. A complete cycle was to pass before the succession of centenaries turned back the thoughts of our countrymen to those who had bequeathed the precious heri- tage of liberty. Then we began to honor them by marking historic spots with tablet and shaft, gathering relics and preserving ancient buildings. Springfield has shared in the growth of this sentiment and the ability to express it. To-day, I think, it would be felt a disgrace quite unendurable to see her ancient fort, the mansion of the early Pynchons, to which her citizens fled for refuge in the days of Indian onslaught, demolished before her eyes. Were authority to fail for
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municipal action, such men as those for whom I speak would come to the rescue and save to posterity a relic so unique and precious. It is now 60 years since this venerable building perished from view- the very year it was entering upon the third century of its existence, at a time, we may believe, when the community possessed neither the wealth nor public spirit existing to-day.
But there is one particular in which we may yet make partial amends. Springfield in the spirit and traditions which underlie her institutions and determine like an unconscious presence the genius of her people, owes a debt of gratitude to her founder. Unlike the pioneer, marked by avarice or ambition, who swayed the early his- tory of some other settlements, William Pynchon may claim unchal- lenged the approving sentiment of mankind. As an administrator, just and fearless; as a trader, thrifty and honorable; as a Christian, both liberal and devout, he stands the type of good citizenship. Had not his dealings with the Indians been at once so firm and just as to give no occasion for conflict, he would have shown himself a warrior brave and invincible. Not too often can his life be made an example to youth, a benediction to all who bear the burden of affairs. In some more visible form his spirit should be brought before the view of passing generations. "William Pynchon," says our local historian, "founded Roxbury, the mother of 14 New England towns; he founded Springfield, the mother of 13 New England towns and god-mother of as many more. Roxbury has named a street after him, so has Springfield; beyond this William Pynchon has no pub- lic memorial in this country."
The civil war makes an epoch in our history more marked than any except the Revolution itself. It decided great constitutional and social questions, and the return of its citizen soldiery to the ranks of industry was followed by such an outburst of achievement in the arts of peace as reminds one of the splendor of Athens after the final defeat of the Persians at Thermopyla. Something like this took place in England after the overthrow of Napoleon in his long- continued invasion of the peace of Europe. In scientific discovery, in applied mechanics, in the culture and appreciation of the fine arts, the country has thenceforth advanced rapidly to her place among the nations. While the increase of the national wealth has, with no parsimonious hand, been shared with those whose costly sacrifices, in themselves and their near kindred, make such prosper-' ity possible, we are learning how gracious it is to create lasting memo- rials of their deeds. What a host of monumental shafts have risen in their honor! Who can say how often the spark of patriotism, slumbering in the breast, has been fanned into the flame of a divine emotion as the passer-by has surveyed the magnificent column in some populous city, or, standing before the simple monument on
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some rural green, has read with silent respect the brief list of heroes who gave to the little community its share in the great glory? When shall the field of Gettysburg, scattered over with rich memorials, cease to be the Mecca of all who love the Union?
Civic architecture too, has found a new motive. Architecture, in whatever branch, was an art having no existence in this country previous to the war. Our public buildings were mere copies of those abroad and our dwelling-houses showed no individuality. Since then the art has begun to be. It has shown signs of giving us some- thing new, not, however, in the field so fully occupied by the great examples of the old world. Ecclesiastical architecture, for instance, seems to have exhausted itself in the great cathedrals of Europe. In them it has fully expressed the thought of the church. It has told the whole Christian story. It oppresses you with its very full- ness of detail. You shall see in the cathedral at Antwerp all sacred history in the marvelous wood-carvings that line its walls. But in the artistic adaptation of our dwellings to the variety of tastes, the union of the beautiful with the practical in our commercial buildings, we have achieved something creditable, and as I said a moment before, in civic architecture a new motive has appeared. This is the public library, the town-house, constructed as a memorial hall, and while serving a useful purpose, receiving as a memorial a variety of new features in artistic expression. One need go no farther than Monson or Rockville to see how even the small towns can be- come of interest to the tourist because art has shown to patriotism how to express its honor of our soldiers, living and dead, in appro- priate symbolism. Beginning with the Harvard memorial hall in 1865, this movement, in which for the first time in America archi- tecture has shown itself the exponent of the people's thought, has gone forward with more popular feeling behind it than will ever be elicited in the project for a great metropolitan cathedral in New York.
The literary memorials of the war are second to none. Strange indeed would it have been if so gigantic a struggle of men and prin- ciples had not left its permanent mark in literature. To go no further than the memoirs of its greatest general were to find a parallel to Cæsar's Commentaries made with masterstrokes of simple English. Lowell's Commemoration Ode at the dedication of Harvard memo- rial hall is said to have touched the high-water mark of American poetry and if we seek for lyric strains of spirit and power, beside Tyrtæus, the lame schoolmaster whose verse inspired his Spartan countrymen to success in the Messenian war, beside Deborah, the prophetess poet of the host of Israel, we place our own Whittier, upon whose venerable head rests the blessing of a nation dedicated at last to that full and perfect liberty of which he sang.
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Such memorials as these before me are of essential value. They will make one of the most precious possessions of this poet. They will be of private use and public interest. They will tend to perpetu- ate the virtues which they record, as son, grandson and great-grand- son shall read here the record of his ancestor he shall feel that there is within him true blood, which if the occasion ever happen it is his sacred duty to shed in defense of his country. Granted that it is to the last degree un-American to rest content with a worthy ancestry, to forget that in the full competition of forces moral, economic, social, each must needs be the architect of his own fortune; yet far from each of us be the purpose of withdrawing from any man that pride of lineage which makes him feel that he inherits a character for virtue, for honor, for patriotism, to be kept unsullied; a fair name to be handed down unstained. Rather let such motives be increased and directed to the public good. On these pages shall be written the records of every soldier of this post, his birth, his enlistment, his months and years of service, his camp life, his engagements in skir- mish and battle, his sufferings in southern prison, his glorious wounds, his honorable discharge-all these shall be faithfully recorded in a fair and legible hand. His after life shall be briefly told, and when his sands are run, here shall be inscribed his death and burial. When the last of the post, looking about for his comrades, shall behold himself alone, he shall instruct some son of a veteran to inscribe within these pages the death of him, the last survivor, and to deposit the entire records in the custody of the library of the city of Spring- field. There let them rest never to be removed; but to remain ac- cessible to all who seek for proper purposes information of their contents. May heaven protect them and grant that neither by the action of the elements, "by malice domestic or foreign levy" they may ever be destroyed.
It is a great mistake to undervalue the permanence of literary memorials. God hath chosen the weak things of this world to con- found the mighty. Except the pyramids, those sentinels of time, themselves the evidences of man's belief in his own eternity, the great structures of his hand have risen but to perish-scattered columns, broken arches, obscure foundations-these testify how vainly man has sought to perpetuate his work. Stone, iron and brass have become as wood, hay, stubble. Meanwhile valuable history, noble sentiments, recorded in distant ages upon the fragile pages of parchment or papyrus, are to-day a part of the world's literature. How divine in its proportions, how majestic in its beauty, stood the Parthenon upon the Athenian Acropolis, the one perfect building of all time, the richest result in the way of art or religious devotion, of the prosperous years of peace that preceded the Peloponnesian war! Yet its dimensions must now be reconstructed in imagination, like
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some extinct animal of a former geologic period, out of the broken fragments that remain; while the names of hundreds in stations high and humble who had a part in the great war that followed its erec- tion still live in the classic pages of Thucydides. In the 9th century before our era, King Joash gathered from all Judah money to repair the magnificent temple of his predecessor, Solomon; and it is re- corded that under the superintendence of the priest Jehoiada, the workmen set the house of God in his state and strengthened it. A little before, the blind poet of Smyrna was composing the flowing lines of the Iliad; a short time after, the doings of these workmen were written down in the dry books of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah. The temple is no more, but the records of its construction and repair are read to-day and the verses of Homer have lived to make his name immortal.
Standing here, as I do, on behalf of the donors, any reference I may make to them must be with a certain delicacy. I feel sure I speak for them in saying that they believe themselves second to none of our citizens in their cordial wishes for the well-being of this organization, even as they were at the time of war behind none in ardent devotion to the cause of the Union. They are representative of the business interests of Springfield and vicinity. They are rep- resentative of the great industrial system which makes this country as a producer of values the peer of any in the world. This system, based upon free and self-respecting labor, presented before the war a marked contrast to the situation in the South, where a single over- powering industry depended on servile labor and supported an aris- tocracy of social and political power. The one was progressive- the mother of invention, rich in its complexity, even as civilization itself; the other was conservative and crude-an attempt to make a modern state out of primitive conditions. The one found its leadership in the captains of industry who could organize labor, marshal economic forces, and by strokes of genius, vastly increase the productive powers of the community. The other grew, indeed, to great proportions as the world's demand for cotton increased, but, confining its growth to a single direction, offering no induce- ment to skilled labor and modern business enterprise, it had within itself an inherent weakness when compared with its northern rival.
Whether these two be called industrial systems or systems of social order, no student of the times can fail to see that when they met in open conflict the one had a vast superiority to the other. Behind all comparison in the number of men, the character of the military equipment, advantage in the field of operation, there were differences in the skill and inventive genius of the men engaged, in the command of large and varied resources of production, which go far to explain the final result of the war, and might themselves have
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indicated at the beginning how it must necessarily terminate. At its opening the northern states were so advanced in industrial inde- pendence as to form a striking contrast to the condition in which they entered the two wars with England. During the opposition to the stamp act in 1775 a convention of this province resolved that the freedom, happiness and prosperity of a state depend greatly upon providing within itself a supply of articles necessary for sub- sistence, clothing and defense. Thus they sensed their own weakness soon to become apparent. Washington, encamped at Cambridge, like a lion crouched to spring, was obliged to postpone the siege of Boston nearly a year for want of powder. Through the Revolution there was a scarcity of lead. There were not sheep enough to clothe the people, and our sometimes trouserless soldiers excited the laugh- ter of their French allies. In various places there were salt famines and the bleeding tracks in the snow at Valley Forge show how de- pendent were our people upon the mother country, even for the coverings of their feet. These things created discontent in the army and prolonged the war. Even as late as the war of 1812 our soldiers in the West suffered more from insufficiency of blankets than from the depredations of the enemy. Our dependence went beyond the munitions of war and covered most of the conveniences of life. Long after the second war with England the paper used in Congress bore the water-mark of the Emperor Napoleon. Washington, looking back on some of these experiences, declared it to be the duty of a free people to give attention to such industries as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly for military supplies.
At the beginning of the rebellion the South was in a predica- ment similar to the whole country in 1776. Her tillage was rude and manufactures scanty. She raised cotton and wool, but did not make the fabric. She had rich beds of coal and iron, but only one large blast furnace. She was clothed and shod by Europe and the North. She was short of banking capital. She had few railroads for the conveyance of troops. When, after the war began, the rails wore out, new ones could no longer be provided. When the locomotive broke down, unless a northern prisoner consented to repair it, there was no mechanic to do it. In respect of material resources, in respect of the capacity to organize labor in such new ways as the necessity of the moment demanded, she was handicapped from the start. Such things count for a great deal in modern warfare. Some of her citizens, commenting on this condition at the beginning of the war, expressed their fear of the consequences.
How different was the case with us, you all know. We were in these essentials well-nigh self-dependent and commanded credit abroad to make good the deficiencies. We had skilled labor in
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plenty and the men who knew how to organize it. General Grant tells us in his Memoirs that with his army he could build a railroad and equip it. Out of this great industrial system came the men who defended the Union; a citizen soldiery who counted more, man for man, than any hitherto put into field. Into this system they returned, to make it for the future, as in the past, a bulwark of national de- fense. All honor to the veterans who left their place in the ranks of industry and ventured life in the cause of the Union. They will be first in according a share in the great result to those who, not having been called to the field, gave such a direction to business enterprise at home as strengthened the resources of the government and main- tained its threatened credit. What was done in this direction then, in the face of difficulties, done courageously, honestly, with sound business methods, was done in honor and will be held in remem- brance.
Ladies and gentlemen: When a few years since a young citizen of rare genius published a national ode of exceeding beauty, a would- be critic inquired what particular reason then existed why a national ode should be written. Such is not the voice of patriotism. We turn our thoughts backward with true pride to the final successes of the Union cause in the last years of the war; we look forward with satis- faction to the assembling of nations in '93 to behold the triumphs of peace. There should be no middle point when the pulse beats less quickly in patriotic emotion, or the love of country is left to flicker and burn low. Confident that government by the people is best and full of the largest possibilities if the people keep themselves pure and true in politics and private life, let us go on, expecting in the coming days as much to make the land and the age worth living in as has been already granted to ourselves and our fathers.
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