USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 1 > Part 8
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Mr. Henry Van Schaack. as supervisor of the district and a large owner of real estate in it, was deeply interested in the disputed territory, and his brother, Peter; a real estate lawyer of high repute in New York city. appears to have been retained as counsel, besides having a personal in- terest in some of the later grants which, as he maintained. superseded the earlier ones. In 1773 he addressed a paper, addressed ultimately it not directly to the Legislature, in which he expresses an opinion that the precarious titles to a large portion of its landet estate were a more serious evil to the province than " perhaps even those which are produced by the invasions of our national and constitutional rights by the British parlia- ment."+
The courts of justice had long been filled with a succession of lawsuits regarding titles and boundaries, while lands lay in a masme uncultivated. because the tenants in actual possession were deterred from making im provements by the uncertainty whether they would be " preserved" in that possession by the patentes who finally succeeded in his snit. The
* A District in New York at this time, and until offer the Blobguay conteggi I with a townshipor town in New England, and with towns in New York at a later date + Mr. Van Schaack was afterward one of the most de voted loyalists.
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inaccuracies of former times prevented that precision of description which would have prevented these disputes, and Mr. Van Schaack avowed that the great patentees had taken advantage of these uncertainties to ask the indulgence due to transactions in the infancy of the colony, and extend their claims beyond their right. He mentioned two classes who especially suffered from this state of affairs. Many settlers had entered upon lands. supposing them to be vacant in fact as well as in law, but apparently having no other title than that acquired by occupation, the payment of an annual quit rent to the Crown, and the betterment of the Mods by their manual labor and expenditure. The other class comprised those who held lands under grants from His Majesty's Provincial Council site sequent to those under which large patenters held the princely domains in which, as they maintained. the later grants were included. This class. Mr. Van Schaack considered the greater sufferers, on account of the labor . and expense they had incurred in preferring their petitions. In this connection he made the point that, in order to prevent the very mischiefs which had nevertheless arisen. the (provincial) council upon every appli- cation for land. had given an opportunity for all prior grantees. if there were any, to assert their titles, and then, after solemn argument, Lad determined whether the land petitioned for had or had not been pre- vionsly duly granted. In this view of the case he thought it " extremely equitable that the claimant who knew of these proceedings and did not assert his title should be barred of his rights, if he had any ; it being a reasonable supposition that in his own opinion at the time he had node. but based his later pretensions upon the discovery of circumstances affording color for a new and more extensive claim than he had originally made." Mr. Van Schaack further urged that the encouragement of old dormant claims could never be advantageous to a community, but that the Legislature had always considered the reverse the better poljes. Ile did not charge the courts of law with any wrong doing in receiving the older claims, but conceded that they could do no otherwise. The remedy for the evils enumerated he asked from the Legislature, by whom he thought it could alone be provided. This remedy was the adoption of a mode of settling contested boundaries by commissioners to be appointed by the Legislature " on the request of all parties interested, or if sont. positively refused then without their consent, as their dissent must be construed to flow from a sense of their own defects in titles." Similar methods, he said, had been used to settle contests between different colo nies, not were instances wanting where " different puttenters have sub- mitted to the same equitable mode of decision a mode preferable to the verdict of twelve ignorant men." These "twelve ignorant men " were what is known to the law as a jury of twelve good and true men of the precinct, and it is difficult to see how jurisdiction in these cases could be taken from them and transferred to commissioners appointed by the last islature, without the consent of the jantis interested, ora violation of a principle of the British constitution so highly prized by the white as
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the right of trial by jury, little as British of American togies of entier days cared for it. when it came in confilet with the royal prerogative or the authority of the representatives of royal Hathority in the colonies.
Mr. Van Schaack in another part of the paper shows incidentally on which side the royal influence and feeling lay. He says, in effect, that. if the remedy he proposes is refused, the actual possessors of land and the claimants under the later patents will not be the only sufferers. The original great grantees to whom the mischiefs mentioned are chargealle.
" Will share in the disadvantage and perhaps gentlemen of large estates white equitable conduct has hitherto secured them, may hereatter be involved in the gen- eral rain. The inaccuracies of their patents may expose them to the pretogifts construction of vacating the royal grants for uncertainty. Some late instances of the conduct of administration may convince us that the large possessions in this prov. ince have already excited their jealousy. However disagreeable this doctrine may be, it certainly has not hitherto been extended too far, nor can we reasonably appre. hend so many evils from it as from the present situation of our titler. It can inihre but few landholders to an enormous extent, whereas at present the evil extends to hundreds and thousands. Besides should the Crown vacate some grants, i: is mon likely that in the future grants it would prefer those who by their manual labor bad rendered the lands more beneficial, or those who have the authority of later patente more fairly and as openly obtained, and strengthen by the general sense of the comay of the vacancy of the land to support their claims "
There is much in this paper which suggests thought upon various ante- Revolutionary topics besides the settlement of Berkshire. The evila of which Mr Van Schaack speaks were undoubtedly real, and the picture of them not overdrawn. Under these same evils, settlers upon Berkshire soil would have labored had it fallen within the limits of New York. Their shadow overhung it until the settlement of the boundary question in 1773. although long before that date its people had much confidence in what the final result would be.
The student of history will inquire with wonder why this settlement was finally made so amicably and with so little apparent opposition from the New York authorities, conceding, as it did. to Massachusetts almost all and practically all that she had ever claimed, and much which at the time of the earliest settlement in Berkshire they seemed determined to hold. The wonder is the greater since, in case of an appeal to the Eng- lish Privy Council, New York could have supported her claim by as much stronger color of right than that which in other cases had afforded that not over judicial tribunal a pretext for shredding away large portions of the Puritan province, which even at that carly day they believed was looking forward to the time when it could assert itself a Puritan common- wealth. An appeal to the Privy Council was want to go hard with Massachusetts. Mr. Van Schaack's paper gives a hint of what may he the reason that it was not resorted to by New York in this case.
When the patent of Westernbook was granted and when Event Wou dell, with the aid of the governor of New York, made his appeal to the
GENERAL HISTORY
governor of Massachusetts, the Schuylers. Wendells. Livingstons. Van Rensselaers, and other possessors of large grants, were high in New York . provincial authority and in the favor of the royal government. The jal- ousy of their large landed estates, of which Mr. Van Schaack speaks. sopa sprang up in England or was inspired there by those who were contest- ing their titles and boundaries in the provincial coutts. Probably as a result of this jealousy, and certainly increasing it, these gentlemen carly went into opposition, and before 1778 had become prononcent which leaders. Thus, contrary to what might otherwise have been expected. and contrary to the general rule in other provinces, the great lander pro prietors of New York were, at the opening of the Revolution, found among its most zealous supporters. Such threats as those thrown out by Mr. Van Schaack of vacating their entire patents by appeal to the Privy Conneil, did not tend to diminish their zeal or make them less ready. when the time came, for a declaration of independence. On the other hand the suggestion of royal favors to be expected by smaller lemans in , case the Crown should reassume the ownership of forfeited territory. or territory which it declared forfeited. no doubt helped much to make the people of Kinderhook and King's Districts almost unanimously loyalists in 1774 and 1775.
While this state of things existed the provincial government was not likely to be very earnest in supporting the claims of the Westenbook proprietors in the Housatonic valley, and. so long as the Massachusetts boundary was kept twenty miles away from the Hudson River. New York, with its imperial extent of territory, could well afford to spare what she claimed between that line and the Connecticut River, rather than add to her already perplexing controversies another for the purpose. of securing what then appeared to be. for the most part, a region of rugged hills and swampy valleys, the best portions of which were already occupied by hardy settlers whom it might be difficult to disposes. The quit rents of these lands, even if they had been as great as the New York governors had estimated them, would not have justified an attempt to collect them at this cost. Nor. little as the Westenhook proprietors were pleased with the thought of losing the lands which they claimed on the Housatonic, were they in a condition, or perhaps disposed, to make a des cided contest for them while great events and local policy were combin ing to mould that public feeling which engendered and nourished the Revolution.
There was a still more immediate and irresistible reason for maintain. ing inter-provincial comity, since it was essential to the efficiency of the league which the northern colonies were soon afterward compelled to form in order to save the British empire in America from the absolute destruction threatened by the French and Indian alliance in Canada. For this end patriotism and necessity required the sacrifice of all minos issues.
Whatever may have been the motives which combined to effeet it the
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
long pending boundary disputes between New York and Massachusetts were at last satisfactorily settled without any of the violent proceedings. either in law or by force, which were reasonably to ho feared in 1727. The wisdom of the suspension of legal measures at that time, and the mutual forbearance enjoined by the two governors, were thus freely jus- tified. The consequent delay was certainly beneficial to Berkshire in the end. To be sure, the settlement of the two Housatonic townships was retarded for a few years, but it afterward went on with the greater confi- dence and security. And so of all Berkshire : the boundary line finally agreed upon is much farther west than Massachusetts could have prob ably obtained by an appeal to force or to the Royal Privy Conucil : for to the latter arbitration it must finally have come. It is only just. how- ever, to say that the council showed no disposition to meddle in the mat- ter, but advised the parties to settle it between themselves as well as they could ; which may be added to the reasons why that course was pursued, and may have been the decisive one. In any view of the case Massachu setts, was the gainer, and also Berkshire, which might otherwise very probably have been a part of the State of New York. Massachusetts yielded somewhat of her original pretensions by consenting to a line not to approach nearer than twenty miles to the Hudson River. When the agreement was made this seemed to be of little moment to either party : nor, as compared with the great issues of that day, can it be historically considered of importance. Still the establishment of the course of the Hudson as the basis of the line caused it to deflect northward consider. ably to the east, and took from Berkshire a strip of land which was sup. posed to be included in it, and which would have given the county its perfect proportions. The line was run, 1787, by Rev. Dr. John Ewint. a distinguished Connecticut saran. David Ritterhouse, the first American astronomer of note, and Thomas Hutchins, the national geographical gon eral. No exception could be taken to the composition of the board. nop was any taken to its decision. There was a slight error in the running of the line at the south, which was probably caused by a local disturbance of the compass, and which operated slightly in favor of Massachusetts : but northward of the center of the present county, some valuable terri tory, which had been believed to belong to Massachusetts, and been held under her jurisdiction, was found to come within the limits of New York. In this was included a portion of the Lebanon and Hoosae valleys. Had the line been found to lie as it was supposed to do. Lebanon Springs with their romantic and beautiful vicinity would have been incorporated with the Berkshire region, of which they seem naturally to form a put . the long and narrow town of Hancock would have been divided into two. in the lower of which would have been the Shaker communities now in Hancock and New Lebanon. But speculation on what might have been is unnecessary. In this chapter, while endeavoring to state clearly the original character of the first settlement of Berkshire. the difende at tending it and their removal, an attempt has been made to foreshadow a
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subsequent history of great local interest, and hardly less as forming no small part of the history of the nation.
EARLY CUSTOMS.
More than a century and a half have passed since the first settlements in Berkshire county, and changing circumstances have brought with them such changes in many of the customs of the people that one of the pres- ent generation can form only an imperfect conception of what some of those customs were.
People are usually slow to adopt those modifications in their habits which changes in their environments render desirable. Like the Wolshe man, who persisted in balancing the wheat in one end of his bag by a stone in the other, because his father did so, they follow the beiten track which their ancestors pursued, and often only turn from it when changed circumstances actually compel them to do so.
The march of improvement and progress of invention make slow ad. vances, except in those cases where necessity compels people to follow the one, or loudly calls for the other.
The rude implements and appliances that were in use " when the country was new " were inventions which grew out of the necessities of the times, and were adapted to the circumstances in which the people found themselves. Time wore on, and those circunstances gave place to others. Inventions followed these changes ; but in many cases, as in those of the cast iron plough, the grain cradle, and the horse rake, the inventors only lived to see their improved implements scoffed at and de. rided. Thus have people always done, and thus they will, to a greater or less extent, continue to do. As in the physical world, however, one condition is evolved from another by the slow process of natural selec. tion, so in these cases the fittest are in the end the survivors.
The first settlers in this region came when the primitive forest was growing, not only here but in the country through which they had passed for many miles. The first roads, which were simply widened Indian . trails, were then barely passable. Of course they could bring only those articles of household furniture. or those agricultural implements that were indispensable. The first work of the pioneer was to prepare a dwel- ling place for his family. There were no mills for the manufacture of Inmber, and the first houses were necessarily built of logs, fastened by notching at the corners. They were usually from fifteen to eighteen feet square, and about seven feet in height, or high enough to just clear the head of a tall man. Often no floor was at first laid. A fire place was prepared at one end by erecting a back of stones laid in mud instead of mortar, and a hole was left in the bark or slab roof for the escape of the smoke. A chimney of sticks plastered with mud was afterward erected in this aperture. A space of a width suitable for a door was ent off on one side, and this was closed, first by hanging in it a blanket, and after- ward by a door made with split plank and hung on wooden hinges. This
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
door was fastened by a wooden latch, which could be raised from the out- side by a string which passed through a hole above it. When the latch string was " pulled in " the door was effectually fastened. The expres. sion used of a hospitable man-" his latch string is always out "-had its origin from this primitive method of fastening a log house door hole was usually cut in each side of this house to let in light, and when glazed sash could not be procured greased paper was used to keep out the blasts and shows of autumn and winter. Holes were bored at the proper height in the logs at one corner of the room, and intre these the ends of poles were fitted, the opposite ends, where they crossed, being supported by a crotch, or a block of the proper height. Across these poled offers were laid, and these were covered by a thick mattress of hemlock boughs, over which blankets were spread. Thus were the earliest bedstebls con- structed ; and on such a bed many a pioneer couple reposed as sworth as though "sunk in beds of down." In the absence of chairs, ide seats were made with an axe and auger, by boring holes and inserting -legs in " puncheons," or planks split from basswood logs, and hewn smooth on one side. Tables were often made in the same way, and after a time a floor was constructed of these puncheons, with a bare space in lieu of a hearth about the fire place. A few necessary pieces of crockery, or sometimes wooden trenchers, were kept on rude shelves till. after a few years, lumber of which to make a cupboard could be pro- cured.
A dinner pot. a dish kettle, a tea kettle, a frying pan, and a bake kettle constituted the entire stock of iron ware. The bake kettle-a utensil that is now never seen-was a shallow vessel, with logs some six inches in length, so that it could be set over coals on the hearth. It had a cover with edges turned up so that coals could be heaped on it. This was used at first for all the baking of many a pioneer family. The fire. place had, instead of the iron crane with which it was afterward furnished. a transverse pole, called a lug pole, laid across two others, so that it could be moved backward and forward at a sufficient height to prevent burning. On this, " trammels." or hooks, so fashioned that their length could be adjusted, were hung.
This room, thus furnished, served all the purposes of a kitchen. drawing room, sitting room, parlor, and bed room, and, not unfrequently. workshop also, for temporary work benches were erected, and sleds or yokes and many other farming utensils were made and repaired there during stormy days or evenings. The light for such evening work was furnished by the blazing fire, or sometimes by a "shut." which was nagle by placing a rag for a wiek in a dish of " coou's oil." or the fat of some other wild animal.
Here, also, as time went on, were heard the raking of hand cards and the white of the spinning wheel: for in these days the cloth for both the summer and winter clothing of the family was homemade, and all the technicalities of the process, from picking the wool to "taking out the
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GENERAL HISTORY.
piece," were as familiar to every member of the family as any household . word.
At first. before the establishment of cloth dressing mills, the dyeing or coloring, even of all the woolen cloth, was done by the pioneer wives; and after clothieries made their appearance everything except " fulle cloth" was made at home. The properties and the proper method of compounding for different colors, of Nicaragua or Nie-wood, fustie, in- digo, madder, copperas, alum, vitriol, etc., as well as the various indig. enous barks and plants, were known to every housewife The old die tub, which is still remembered by the older people, had its place at the side of every hearth, where it was frequently used as a seat for the chile dren in cases of emergency, or when the increase of the family was mos. rapid than that of chairs. Peter Parler (Mr. Goodrich calls it " the institution of the dye tub, which. when the night had wanted and the family retired, frequently became the anxious seat of the lover, who was permitted to carry on his courtship. the object of his addresses sitting - demnrely in the opposite corner."
The flax brake, swingling knife and board, and hatchel. are never seen now ; and one of the present generation would be utterly unable to guess . their uses were they shown him. Then, the pulling and botting and all the details of dressing flax were known to every child : and the process of spinning the flax and tow, weaving and bleaching the different qualities of cloth, and making the thread for all the family sewing was part of the education of every girl. Then, cotton cloth was to a slight extent man- factured in this country, and practically beyond the reach of most farmers Woolen goods, other than those of domestic manufacture, were seldom seen. A " broadeloth coat" was an evidence either of unpardonalde van- ity or of unusual prosperity.
It is hardly necessary to speak of the ordinary food of the first sop- there, such as hasty pudding. Johnny cakes, or corn pones, the meal for which was ground in a pioneer mill. or wooden mortar ; or of the dainis. such as short cakes. mixed with the lye of cob ashes and baked in emings. on the hearth, that were set before visitors. The simple and substantial diet of the people then was adopted because circumstances would permit no other. They were too poor to pamper their children with sweetments or to stimulate them with tea or coffee ; and the incidental result was a degree of robust health such as children in later times do not acquire.
During some years after the first settlement of this region trade was carried on in a manner quite different from the way in which it is too- conducted. Now, all produce has a cash market and a cash value; and all the necessaries or superfluities that are purchased se reckoned accord. ing to the standard. Then, there was not sufficient money in the country to be made the medium of exchange, and trade was carried on almost wholly by what was formed barter. By reason of this nearly exclusive exchange trade mercantile establishments were quite unlike those of the present time. Then, every store was a sort of commercial microcosm.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
Every merchant kept dry goods, groceries, crockery, glassware, hand- ware, dye stuffs, iron, nails, paints, oil, window glass, school books, sta- tionery, rum, brandy, gin, whiskey, drugs, and medicines, ending with a string of etceteras; or "every other article usually kept in a country store." Things were sometimes curiously grouped ; as, for example, silks and iron, laces and fish, pins and erow bars, pork and tea, molasses and tar, cotton yarn and log chains, wheel heads and hoes. cards and pitch forks, scythes and fur hats. In exchange for these the pioneer merchants received almost every article of country produce. Coarse grain was often converted into spirits, for distilleries sprang up early. Pork was " packed," feathers, butter, cheese, etc., etc., were received in exchange for goods and sent to market where they were exchanged for goods to be sold in the same way, and so the barter trade was kept np.
Gradually since then trade has changed till it has reached a cash basis, and along with this change has come another important one -- the division of business. Now dry goods, groceries, hardware, books. drugs, liquors., etc. etc., are separate branches of business ; and produce dealing is separate from all of them.
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