USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Brimfield > Historical celebration of the town of Brimfield, Hampden County, Mass > Part 12
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
currency and silver coin, or the new bills, were called by way of distinction. In 1752. March 16, the town ofli- cers were re-chosen. the persons chosen at first not hay- ing taken the oath prescribed by the General Court, that. they had not been concerned in paying or receiving any bills of eredit of other provinces. The object was to drive out the currency of the adjoining colonies. A spe- cial act of the legislature made valid. the doings of the town and town officers. The necessities of Congress in the War of Independence made imperative the issue of bills of credit in such quantities, that they rapidly depre- ciated in value, till finally it took almost a wagon load of money to buy a wagon load of produce. Paper dollars compared in worth to silver, as $105.00 to $100.00 in 1777; 8325.00 in 1778; 8742.00 in 1779; 82,934.00 in January, 1780; $7,400.00 in December. 1780; when the paper currency became practically worthless. Many who had sold surplus lands, or hoarded up their pay for service in the army, in the belief that this Continental money would ultimately be redeemed, lost it all, often all they were worth. Counterfeits of this currency, also abounded. In 1782, May 16, it was voted that the collector of taxes, Capt. John Sherman, should be allowed, in the settlement of his account, €270 which had been paid him in counter- feit money. In 1786, Congress ordered that gold, silver and copper currency should be minted, and the public ac- counts kept in dollars, cents, and mills. It was in 1795, that the legislature ordered that town accounts should be kept in dollars and cents; yet the reckoning by pounds, shillings and pence, was kept in use for some years after 1800. In 1796, oceurs the first instance on the town rec- ords of the use of the character ($) for dollars.
No more marked change in social habits can be men- tioned, than the change in the drinking usages of our community. It is presumed that previous to the Revolu-
143
DRINKING USAGES.
tion, nothing stronger than cider or beer was a common beverage. Charges of bushels of malt are found in old account books. Seven to ten bushels constituted the or- dinary supply of a family for a year. Dim recollec- tions are mentioned, of an old malt house that stood near the brook in Mr. Wyles' lot, opposite the Hitchcock school. The loose army life induced habits of dissipa- tion, and the erection of distilleries made cider brandy an article abundantly supplied. Flip, a mixture of rum and beer, half a pint of rum to a quart mug of beer, stirred with a red-hot iron ; and toddy, a mixture of rum and wa- ter with sugar and nutmeg, stirred in with a toddy stick, were the favorite drinks. The notion prevailed that such alcoholic beverages were needful, both for men and for women, to bring out or to retain the full physical strength. Mowers in the hay-fiel Ineeded frequent potations. Min- isters in their association meetings, attendants at funerals, all social gatherings, must be provided with an abundant supply of alcoholic beverages. The people were fast be- coming a set of drunkards. The most frequent charges in the store-keepers' books were for rum, or wine, or for · brandy. In an old account book kept by a neighbor of Rev. Nehemiah Williams, rum was charged to the parson several times, and at the foot of one account we read, " this all settled except the rum."
Cider brandy was distilled in three or four places in the town. Men drank up their farms, spending for liquor more than they could earn. Westward of the store on the corner, might be seen, every spring, a double row of barrels, showing how large a quantity of liquor was sold every winter. Cider, after 1723, was made in large quan- tities, and in some families a hundred barrels would be only the year's supply. Publie attention was at length aroused to the alarming prevalence of drunkenness. The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemper-
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
ance was formed in Boston. 1813. February 5. It aimed only to prevent excessive drinking. But Christian people, ministers and laymen, knew not for a long time what could be done to arrest the spread of intemperance. It is said that a committee was sent by the church, in the neighboring town of Sturbridge, to remonstrate with a brother, who was thought guilty of drinking to excess. He welcomed them cordially, and as it was a cold night, urged them to take a little " su'thin'" to warm them. This disposed of, they intimated that they had come on a business errand. But he never did any business without taking a little " something " first, and his visitors approv- ed his practice and took " something." But so protracted was this sacred rite of hospitality, and so absorbing, that the errand was forgotten. The next day, the committee reported to the church, that they had visited the brother, and were happy to report that be had given them Chris- tian satisfaction.
When the Litchfield Association, moved by a sermon preached by one of the ministers, on the evils of drunk- enness, appointed a committee to consider measures for repressing the vice, that committee, after five years' de- liberation, reported that nothing could be done. Dr. Lyman Beecher moved that the committee be discharged and another appointed, with instructions to report forth- with. He was appointed in accordance with this motion, and reported that Christian people should agree to use no more ardent spirits. The idea was taken up, and urged upon people, from the pulpits of New England, and after the adoption of the principle of total abstinence by the American Temperance Society, (organized, 1826, February 13,) the temperance reformation was in the full tide of successful agitation. It was difficult, at first, to refute the charge of meanness and inhospitality, if friends were not invited to take something to drink. After 1828,
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INDUSTRIAL HISTORY.
the custom of proffering liquor, to every visitor, had en- tirely passed away. Until 1838, there was no backward movement in the current of this reform. 1848, July 4, there was a grand celebration of the successful effort to close the liquor-selling hotel. Amid the various changes in methods of associated effort, or legislative enactment, the general sentiment of this community has been in fa- vor of the most advanced and pronounced temperance principles.
The great changes that have taken place in the indus- trial life of the community, and in the appliances for per- forming the varied work of life, deserve special mention. It was the cultivation of the soil that first attracted set- tlers to this region, and the pursuit of agriculture has ever been the chief occupation of the people. In no other business of life. it is said, do we find those engaged in it, so firmly attached to old methods, and so opposed to all innovation, as in farming. But I believe that a similar statement can be as truthfully made of every other calling. It is a principle of human nature that leads a young man to do as his father and his grandfather did before him, knowing well the dislike he may expect to meet if he does differently from other people. What interest was excited when the young farmer of 1818 brought home a cast-iron plow to replace the old wooden mold-board plow. "It will break to pieces at the first trial," said the old folks, and young Cyril R. Brown was afraid he had made a mistake, when he found a crack in his iron plow. But castings, in those days, were not very smooth, and bog ore made very tough iron. Eaton Hitch- cock, the blacksmith who first learned of Capt. Judah Lyon, of Woodstock, how to make the patent iron plows of Jeptha Wood, assured his over-fearful customer that it was only a sand-crack-only an imperfection, not the ruin he had imagined that it was. The real superiority
19
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
of the plows stood the test of trial, notwithstanding the superstitious objection frequently made, that iron would poison the soil. With better plowing began also an era of deeper plowing. Then followed a controversy about the comparative merits of shallow furrows, or stirring the sub-soil. The wasteful exhaustion of the fertility of the soil, taking off' erop after crop, draining all the elements of vegetable nutrition, never replacing them, as is now done, with composts and fertilizers of all sorts, has had its natural result. Much of the land, for instance, in the north-eastern section of the town, once accounted most valuable, is now so deficient in bone-producing elements, that sheep pastured on the hill-side there, will have the foot-ail in three years' time. Associated with the igno- rance of agricultural science, was the superstition that made new obstacles rather than removed difficulties. Flaxseed, for instance, was not to be sown till the moon was on the wane and nearest the shape of a flaxseed. But calves must be weaned, onion seed sown, pork killed during the increase of the moon. Changes in the prod- ucts needed for the wants of the community, have pro- duced corresponding changes in the system of agricul- ture. Wheat was never raised to any great amount. Rye was the staple grain cultivated for bread. Rye doughnuts, that would now be thought capital things for foot-balls, were eaten and relished as only vigor- ous appetites can make food relish. The economical house-keeper would make of rye meal the under crust of the pie, reserving wheat flour for the upper crust. And so we have our common phrase in regard to other people's betters-the upper crust. But the fertile prai- ries and big flouring mills of the West, and the railroads bringing their products almost to our doors, have made wheat flour cheaper and more abundant than rye was fifty years ago. When Marquis Converse kept the hotel,
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SPECULATIONS.
some visitor who knew the style of cookery in vogue, sang out :
" Upper crust, wheat; under crust, rye ;
Mrs. Converse, I'll take some more of that pie."
1731, the General Court offered special bounties for five years for raising flax, but now it is no longer raised, even for the seed. There are few now living who can tell the various processes through which the flax passed after it was pulled and rotted. For a time farmers fatted pork and carried it to Boston. Now, very few manage to raise and pack more than is needed for home consumption. The farmer of this generation would think a journey to Boston to sell his produce, an absurd undertaking. . Un- cle' Lyman Upham used to tell of going to Boston with a load of pork, and taking some dressed poultry also. On his way he stopped at a tavern, and sold a turkey for fifty cents. On his return, he stopped at the same tavern, and needing dinner a little in advance of the regular hour, the same turkey, stuffed and roasted, was set before him. Riding always gives one a good appetite, and ' Uncle ' Lyman soon left nothing but bones. He paid fifty cents for his dinner, and thought that for once in his life He had got the best of a bargain.
Wages were very low, but the farm help was usually some young man in the neighborhood. He had a char- acter to maintain, as well as his livelihood to make. He served his employer faithfully for what would be called the merest pittance now ; but he was economical in his habits, and had fifty dollars coming to him out of the sixty dollars due for six months' work and board. We must not think that those were "hard times." That is one of the growths of later years. Plain food. out-door life, simple amusements, made these quiet farmer folk happy and contented.
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
" Their best companions innocence and health, And their best riches ignorance of wealth. Thrice happy they who crown in scenes like these A youth of labor with an age of ease."
Farmers have not been free from the excitement of speculative prices for particular products. Many will remember, for instance, the " Morus Multicaulis" mania of 1839. The attempt had been made at various times, not only to establish the silk manufacture in this country, but also to rear silk worms, which it was stated was an industry that could be carried on at home without inter- fering with ordinary avocations. Mulberry cuttings, called trees if they were over twelve inches high, were sold from twenty to fifty cents each by the thousand, in the nursery. Mulberry buds were sold at fabulous prices. Massachusetts, and other States, offered bounties for rais- ing silk. But the whole enterprise, mulberries, silk worms and silk factories, came to grief, when the test of practi- cability was applied.
The greatest change in dairy farming has been the substitution of the co-operative cheese factory for the farmer's cheese-room. Instead of the laborious processes of former days, keeping many a farmer's wife, with some stout boy, constantly busy in making or curing the cheese, the work is now done for them by two or three persons, who, with the aid of steam and various labor-saving con- trivances, take care of the milk from hundreds of cows.
The Worcester County cheese-factory was built in 1864 (the first one in Massachusetts). It went into operation in April, and closed in October, 1864. Capital invested, $4,600; which has since been raised to $5,200.
Whole amount of milk, 936,916 pounds.
Whole amount of cheese,
92,100
Milk for a pound of cheese,
10.1
Number of cows, about 400.
Net price of cheese paid to the farmer, Total,
. $19.18 per 100
$17,664 78
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MANUFACTURES.
1867.
Whole amount of milk,
2,045,209 pounds.
Whole amount of cheese, .
202,239
Number of cows, about 550.
Milk for a pound of cheese,
. 10.11 66
Net price of cheese paid to the farmers,
$12.27 per 100
Total,
$24,830 09
1876.
Whole amount of milk,
701,189 pounds.
Whole amount of cheese, .
69,464
Milk for one pound of cheese,
10.09 66
Net price paid to the farmers, Total,
$9.13 per 100
$6,346 23
In 1870, the Brimfield cheese factory company organ- ized with a capital of $2,400. The farm barn of Silas C. Herring, Esq., was purchased, and refitted for this busi- ness. The last year it made, in two and one-half months, 14,000 pounds of cheese, sold at 12} cents a pound, which brought $1,750.
Potash was made in a very wasteful way by the early settlers. The land was cleared by felling the trees, which were piled twenty or thirty together. After a few weeks drying, these piles were set on fire and kept burning till entirely consumed. The ashes were leached in big ves- sels, by pouring upon them a quantity of water repeat- edly, till it was as strong a lye as could thus be obtained. This was then boiled down till a crude potash was left, as the residuum after evaporation. This was cleansed in a very rude way, and then packed in barrels for market. Potash kettles used to stand on the south side of the road, near Dea. Dauphin Brown's, nearly opposite where Dea. Solomon Homer used to live. Tar was made in a similar wasteful way. A large tract of land in the south- ern part of what is now Monson, is called in the Propri- etors' Book, Resin Plain. Dr. James Lawrence, who lived in what is now Wales, had on his land a tar kiln. The
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
fat pine logs were heaped in a pile, and a trench dug around it. The logs were set on fire, and the resinous ooze that ran out under the heat into the trench was scooped up and packed in casks for sale. Charcoal burn- ing. for a time, was somewhat extensively carried on. The Blanchards' scythe factory in Palmer, the iron works at Brookfield and in Stafford, once made a market for wood lands and for charcoal. The railroad company for- merly took numberless loads of wood, but the increasing use of coal has made firewood cheap. It is with diffi- culty, now, that the farmer can get the privilege of fur- nishing the railroad with chestnut sleepers, or sleepers of any kind of wood.
Pottery making was once a branch of industry in the town. The clay was dug out of Sherman's pond, the water being dammed out when the pond was low, so that clay pits could be dug at the south end of the pond. James Moore, in a shop on the side-hill back of where Mrs. Alfred Pierce now lives, made earthen milk- pans. Bricks have been made in various parts of the town. Those used in building the Russell house, on the road to Sturbridge, were burned from clay dug in Stone- iard's Meadow. James and Dady Blodget had a brick- yard in the north-west part of the town, on Penny brook, near the Palmer road. A. W. Crossman & Son have a brick-yard now in operation a little farther north, with a track connecting it with the Boston and Albany rail- road, previously owned by Morris and Hiram C Powers. Bricks were made by Sylvanus Thompson on his place, now the " Poor Farm "; also by Major Nathaniel Parker, and his son, Nathaniel, Jr., on the farm now owned by Porter A. Parker.
At one time there was a malt house or brewery west of the lower Holland road, on land now belonging to Alfred Lumbard. Malt was made at "Little Rest " by William
151
TRADES.
Blashfield, in the building now used by Alfred Blashfield for a wagon shop. At East Brimfield, Lieut. Alfred Allen had a distillery ; Col. Issachar Brown, one on Nich- ols' hill, afterwards carried on by C. B. Brown, at the place now owned by Emory Livermore. Cider brandy was the article manufactured, for which a license was taken out as required by law, and Lyon, Wyles & Nor- cross had a still for this in 1816, on Mr. Wyles' land, east of the brook.
In Alexander Hamilton's Report on the Manufactures of the United States in 1791, it is stated that only the manufacture of wool hats supplied the actual demand. Every town of any size had its hatter's shop, and the home sales usually kept the hatter busy at work. The first hatter in Brimfield of whom I have found any trace was Elisha Avery, who had his shop where Mr. Edward W. Potter now lives. He became deeply embarrassed by debts incurred, left town one night, and nothing was ever heard from him afterwards. Gad Hitchcock, the father of S. A. Hitchcock, Esq., was a hatter by trade, and worked at the business till changes in the manufacture made it no longer profitable to carry it on. John Moore, 1797, and George W. Bates, were engaged in this business during the periods designated. Joel L. Fuller, (afterwards Fuller & Tieknor,) for several years carried on the business quite extensively ; too much so for success with the limited capital at their command. Business was afterward car- ried on by Luke Parsons, for several years.
Another trade that, like the hatter's, was once an active industry of the town, but now abandoned, is the tailor's. William Moore and Thomas Moore were the first tailors. The Moore family lived where Ira B. Brown now resides. Benjamin Salisbury, or Captain Salisbury, as he was com- monly called, at one time did a very large business. He learned his trade in Boston, and cut in better style than
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
was usual at the time. He employed half a dozen girls . to sew. He built the house where Mr. Blair now lives. Afterwards he removed to Stafford, Conn. About the same time Dea. Charles Barrows, and after him his son Eli Barrows, carried on the trade, employing several hands in their shop. Aaron Hobbs' name I find men- tioned as a tailor here in 1815. Others who have been in this business are Stephen Needham, Simon B. Ward, William Butterfield, Andrew Mills, and Josiah Burley. J. F. Frederickson was the last tailor that resided in town. He was a native of Germany, and returned to his native country when he gave up working at his trade here.
When every family expected to make at home the clothing needed by every one of the household, when the cloth of linen, cotton, or woolen, was woven in the hand-loom that was a part of the usual household furni- ture in every farmer's home, the business of dressing woolen cloths furnished employment for some individuals in almost every town. These clothing-works, as they were called, were built on small brooks that furnished sufficient water power to turn the rude machinery em- ployed to assist in the processes of carding the wool, full- ing the cloth, or dressing it, ready to be made up into gar- ments. Mr. Brown had his clothing-works at the foot of Danielson hill, on the north side of Erwin's brook. These works included a carding machine and building for same ; also clothing-works in another building ; a part of the time both being owned by the same person, at other times, separate owners. The now almost obliterated traces of the dam and sluice, and of the foundations of the buildings, are all that mark the spot which once was one of the business centers of the town. Alvah Flynt, Rufus Flynt, Thomas Wells, Joel Garfield, Russell Gar- field, Emery Wight, Theodore Field, Luke Church, and
153
TRADES.
John Newton, succeeded Brown. About 1847. Daniel N. Green bought the clothing-works at the foot of Danielson hill, and fitted up the shops for a tanning and currying business, and the business was commenced by Charles G. Lyman. A controversy arising as to the right of the owner to flow the land of the town (the pauper farm), the town bought the premises and the buildings were sold and removed. On the north side of the road to Sturbridge, where it turns abruptly from the road to East Brimfield, Albigence Newell had his clothing-works. His loom has been used, of late years, for weaving rag carpets. At the falls in East Brimfield where the cotton factory was afterwards built, Asa Gates, for many years, had his clothier's shop and fulling mill. He sold out to Joseph Baker, and moved to Monson. Other persons, who car- ried on the business on the same site, subsequently, were Mr. Clapp, Mr. Blodgett, Jairus and Elijah Abbot. Theo- dore Field built clothing-works, south of the grist-mill at Eaton pond, about 1800. He sold in 1810 to Maj. Nathaniel Parker, who sold the land and buildings, in 1814, to Absalom Lumbard, who continued in the business till near the time of his death. Oliver Blair was also a dresser and clothier, having his shop just over the line in Warren, near Linus Homer's mill.
The mill privilege at East Brimfield is supposed to have been first used for a saw and grist-mill by William Janes. He lived on the Janes farm, where Capt. Wm. J. Sherman now lives. In the winter time, he would ride on a hand sled over the snow down to his mill. Frequently he would find thirteen or fourteen customers waiting for him, who had come with their hand sleds and a jag of grain from the various neighboring towns : Union, Hol- land, and Wales. This mill was afterwards owned by Peleg Cheney Janes, who lived where Edwin A. Janes now resides. But at length, 1815, February 20, in con-
20
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HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
nection with Col. Israel E. Trask. Elias Carter, Augustus Janes, and Elijah Abbot, Mr. Janes formed the Brimfield Cotton and Woolen Manufacturing Company, contributing for his share, the dam and water privilege. The com- pany put up a wooden factory building, four stories high. Mr. Carter built, for himself, the house in which Albigence Newell lived for so many years. The tenement houses, and Mr. Varney's house, as well as the one next this and the other on the opposite side of the street, were built a few years later. When the frame of the factory was raised, Cheney Janes said that such buildings usually paid for themselves in two years; he would be content if this building paid for itself in three years' time. Alas! the enterprise proved unsuccessful, and in less than three years' time bankrupted most of those who had engaged in it. The factories did not, at first, make cotton cloth. They carded the cotton and spun the warp. This was sold to be mixed with wool in making satinets, or distrib- uted around among the weavers who had looms at home, to be by them woven into cloth. The account books of the store-keepers of Brimfield, in 1814, show credits for weaving so many yards of cloth at so much per yard. It must be remembered that the cotton manufacture was at that time in its infancy.
The power loom was invented in 1785, by Rev. Dr. Cartwright. Stringent laws and watchful custom-house officers prevented the exportation of machinery from England. But Samuel Slater, who came to Pawtucket, R. I., from England, in 1789, brought over in his head, such familiar knowledge of cotton machinery, that he built machines which were in use in the mill there, as late as till 1830. It was through his employment by the Slaters, that Mr. S. A. Hitchcock became connected with the manufacturing interest, from which he derived so large a proportion of his wealth.
155
TRADES.
The factory at East Brimfield passed into the hands of Colonel Trask, who mortgaged the property, in 1816, to Wyles, Lyon, and Norcross. Artemas Wisewell, of Brim- field, and others in Monson, formed, in 1815, the Union Cotton Factory Company. These two companies had their names changed in 1820, February 14; and June 12, of the same year, were united under the name of the Mon- son and Brimfield Manufacturing Company. In 1834, it came into the possession of Porter & Perry. Dea- con Porter; in 1844, withdrew from the concern, con- centrating his interests in Monson. Mr. Perry's sons then became partners with him, and on his death, suc- ceeded to the management. On the death of Ezra Perry, Jr., in 1852, the property was sold.
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