USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 2 > Part 27
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On Friday morning. June 14th, a great crowd collected on the grounds of the Pittsfield & North Adams Railroad Company, to bid the Grays a final good-bye, as they were to leave on the train. The soldiers made their appearance, ninety-four in number, headed by Hodge's Band, and
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ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS.
took their seats in the cars and were off amid the cheers of the assembled crowd. At South Adams the arrival of the train was hailed with great demonstrations, including the firing of guns and singing. At Cheshire a large crowd was present on the arrival of the train and made patriotic demonstrations. At Pittsfield the company formed and marched through the streets. At eight o'clock they again took the cars for their rendez- vous in Springfield. At Springfield they were received by six companies already arrived and escorted to their barracks on the Park. where they were designated as Company B. In the first year of the war every regi- ment had a band, and ITodge's band of North Adams was selected to " mark the time and cadence the step" of the Tenth regiment. The band was made up of genial good fellows whose enlivening strains relieved many a tedious hour of camp and march The band was mustered into the service the same date as the regiment, June 21st, 1861 ; but having some engagements on hand, it was not permanently attached to the regi- ment until July 9th. 1861. The band continued its service with the Tenth until August 11th, 1862, when an order from the War department mustered out all regimental bands, the finances of the country at that time not allowing the expenditure of any money except what was neces- sary for the carrying on the war. The band arrived home at North Adams Thursday, August 16th, 1862. In the winter of 1863, while General Eustis' brigade, of which the Tenth regiment formed a part, was en- camped at Brandy Station, Va., the band was reorganized under the leadership of Burdick A. Stewart, and February 4th, 1864, again went to the front as the band of Eustis' brigade. Shortly after its arrival at Brandy Station Stewart died, and as the band could not agree upon a permanent leader to fill his place, they soon returned to North Adams. From the arrival of Company B on Hampden Park until the close of its eventful service it sustained an honorable part. At Fair Oaks it lost its gallant Captain Smart, and in that and subsequent engagements if con- tributed its full share of martyrs to the cause for which they fought.
After the departure of the Grays, afterward known as Company B of the Tenth regiment, a town meeting was held and the town committee made the following report of expenditures for equipping the company and sending them into camp at Springfield.
Paid for cloth uniforms
$,00.00
Flannel for shirts
150.00
Shoes.
115.20
Caps
76.95
Making and trimming uniforms
707.00
Boarding soldiers 954 82
Soldiers while drilling $58.53
Captain Smart as drill master 70.00
Tickets to Springfield. 126.00
Incidental expenses.
102.93
Soldiers and families South Adams
32.00
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
At the next meeting, in March, 1862, the selectmen reported to the town that they had paid for aid to soldiers' families the sum of $3, 742.40. In this respect the town of Adams was among the liberal towns of the State, as it gave aid to all applicants, even the families of officers. The selectmen say that year in their report, " The wages of the officers seems to be sufficient to support their families but it is out of the reach of the town or its agents. The families of some of the officers being poor and sick we do not wish to deprive any family of a comfortable support whose husband and father is fighting our battles. They should be taken care of by us who are permitted to remain in our quiet homes." At the April meeting in 1862 the town ratilied the action of its selectmen, and voted to raise the sum of $4,000 additional to aid soldiers' families, which suim was expected to be reimbursed by the State.
At a town meeting in July a series of patriotic resolutions were adopted. A great many public meetings were afterward held and many prominent citizens said and did many wise and patriotic things of which no record was made.
Soldiers' Aid Society .- As has already been stated the women of North Adams, before the first company left the town, had organized the North Adams Soldiers' Aid Society. Instantly they went to work, pre- paring supplies for the camp and the hospitals. They made clothing, sheets, coverlids, pillow cases, shirts, night-gowns, dressing robes. hos- pital shoes. and delicacies-tea. farina, jellies. domestic wines, and food, of all kinds. They sent also, books, magazines, papers, and Bibles and prayers, and good cheer continually. They made and sent everything they thought would sustain, comfort, and cheer the sick and wounded men, and the soldiers in the field to keep up their hearts in the great fight for the country. They sent boxes continually during those four memorable years. to the hospitals of New York, Washington, and Har- per's Ferry. Their disbursements amounted to more than $10,000. Mrs. Miles Sanford was the first president, and Mrs. James T. Robinson was the secretary. The women of this society came from all classes and all parts of the village, and held meetings often every day for months, espe- cially when battles were in progress. The last year they had a room in what is now known as Bradford Place, over a store of William Martin's, who also gave them the room without charge. For four long years these women met and worked and prayed. It was in the room in Bradford Place to which came the dispatch announcing the death of the gallant Captain Charles D. Sanford. His mother was at work in the room when the messenger brought the news. Had a rebel shell burst it would hardly have caused more consternation ; had a rebel sword pierced her heart it could have made no more cruel wound.
Soldiers' Monument .- It is to the North Adams " Soldiers' Aid So- ciety " that the town of North Adams owes its Soldiers' Monument. The question of erecting a soldiers' monument had often been discussed, but the difficulty about making an appropriation by the town of Adams for
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ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS.
a monument in the village of North Adams effectually ended the discus- sion. But in 1878, before the town of North Adams had been set off from Adams. the Ladies Soldiers' Aid Society came forward and offered to erect the monument. They had in the treasury abont $1,200, and this sum they decided should be devoted to this worthy object. The arrangements were placed in the hands of Mr. Charles Niles Pike, who by fortunate bargaining with those from whom material was to be obtained, and by offering his own services at a low rate, reduced the expenses of the work considerably. Afterward Mr. C. T. Sampson, Mr. George M. Mowbray, and Mr. Sanford Blackinton contributed liberally to the completion of the monument. and the town of North Adams had been separated from Adams just in time to be able to vote 8300 for the same purpose.
The monument was erected on the Common at the head of Main street. in front of the churches. The statue was carved from a block of Sicilian marble, and represents a typical American soldier standing in the position known as " parade rest." The pedestal is of brown freestone, and is 11 feet high, the distance from the soldier's cap to the bottom of the lower base being about 18 feet. The "die" is in three sections. and on the face of the middle section is carved in bold relief the National shield, ornamented with a laurel branch, and bearing the dates 1861 and 1865. and this incription : "Presented to the town of North Adams by the Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society." It was originally intended to have engraved on the other three sides of the die a list of the soldiers wholost their lives during the war. but this has not yet been done. The town of North Adams gave the land on which the monument rests and enclosed the monument with a substantial iron fence. The monument was dedi- cated on the fourth day of July, 1878.
Grand Army of the Republic .- The origin of the Grand Army Post is as follows : On the 25th of February, 1860, an application signed by William McKay, George L. Rice, Henry J. Millard, W. W. Montgomery, John C. Robinson, C. Frank Luther, H. C. Cunningham, William F. Darby. Wells B. Mitchell, and Miles Sanford, was made to the grand commander of the department of Massachusetts G. A. R. for the organi- zation of a Post in North Adams, and on the 24th of March following the Post was daly organized in the parlors of the Wilson House. The name first given to the Post was U. S. Grant, but this was afterward changed to C. D. Sanford, the heroic son of Rev. Miles Sanford, the chaplain of the Post. At the tenth anniversary in 1879 there had been in all 184 members in the Post, and the membership then was 47. The total amount of money received at that time was $6,923.20. Of this amount $900 had been received from the town of North Adams and expended in decorating soldiers' graves. Decoration day has been observed by the Post every year, and the town of North Adams has made an annual appropriation to be used on that day for that purpose and expended by the Post.
Before the division of Adams the amount was divided between Adams and North Adams, and in late years a part of the appropriation has been set off to the village of Blackinton.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS (concluded).
Dr. Elihu S. Hawkes .- William Wallace Freeman .- Calvin T. Sampson .- Sanford Blackin- ton .- The Johnson Family .- Edward F. Barnes, D.D.S .- Fordyce Joy.
DR. ELINU S. HAWKES.
N ORTH Adams has had few citizens of more note than Dr. Elihn S. Hawkes, few distinguished by as marked and honorable charac- teristics or whose moral influence was so powerful and wholesome. He inherited a combatative spirit which, exhibited by his ancestors as sol- diers in the old French and Indian wars, was manifested by himself in antagonizing evil wherever he found it, with his voice and pen, as he would by his sword or musket had he lived in earlier or later days than he did. During his active life moral courage was more requisite chan physical in a patriotic citizen, and at all times it is the rarer virtue of the two. And moral courage Dr. Hawkes did not lack. He did not fear to believe in the right or to boldly express and act upon his convic- tions.
The Hawkes family was famous in the history of the French and In- dian wars. Sergeant, afterward Colonel Hawkes, who is honorably men- tioned in another portion of this work as commander of Fort Massachu- setts at the time of its capture and destruction, was probably a brother of Dr. Hawkes' great-grandfather, Eleazer, who was killed and scalped in 1746 on the site of what is now known as the Harrison farm in North Adams.
The early history of the Hawkes family extends through several branches in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and is of much interest mor- ally and romantically, but it is impossible to pursue it farther here al- though it is fully and graphically told by Dr. Hawkes and other family chroniclers. It is perhaps sufficient to say that their religious opinions were very decided, opposition to the half way covenant being one which led to the removal of the branch to which Dr. Hawkes belonged from Connecticut to Hadley, Massachusetts, and Bennington, Vermont. Que of the family was persecuted as a Quaker, but she was a woman ; the
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E.S. Hanny
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ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS.
men as a rule were always ready to lay bare the arm of flesh when their country called for its use.
Dr. Hawkes was born at Deerfield. Mass., July 25th, 1801. His father's name was Samuel, who was the son of Seth, the son of Eleazer, before mentioned. Samuel was born in the fort at Charlemont where the people took refuge during the French and Indian troubles. The first event in Dr. Hawkes's life which impressed itself powerfully upon his memory was the total eclipse of the sun in 1806, of which his father took advantage to teach him the divine power through the truths of as- tronomy.
Dr. Hawkes commenced his education at the Deerfield Academy when very young, for he left it at the age of 8 years. He remembered it, however, with affection, and in his reminiscences written in his old age he said that he was as far advanced in all common school studies as chil- dren of the present day are at 10. When he was 8 years old his father removed to Charlemont where the educational advantages were so poor that he was sent to live with his uncle, Dr. Allen, in Buckland. There he remained until he was 14 years old, assisting his uncle, out of school hours, in compounding medicines and thus obtaining some knowledge of medicinal substances. He states that he had not at that time settled upon any definite pursuit in life, but it is evident that he had a predilec- tion for medicine, for he attended the Sanderson Academy in Ashfield expressly to acquire such knowledge of the languages as was a necessary preliminary to the study of that profession. This knowledge he had ac- quired before the spring of 1818, when he was as yet only 17 years old.
His friends thought him as yet too young to enter upon the practical study for the medical profession, upon which he had, indeed, still not fully determined. He therefore became a clerk in a store. In his reminiscen- ces Dr. Hawkes says :
" The four years from the age of 16 to 20 do more toward forming character for life than any other four in human existence and a country store is one of the best schools for the study of human nature. Here we meet with every class and every grade of human society; the cultivated and refined in their decorum and complai- sancy; the uncouth and ignorant in their brawling coarseness and duplicity; the grasping miser in his penurious clutching ; the reckless spendthrift in his voluptuous prodigality; the self-inflated, egotistical dandy with his borrowed or stolen habil- ment, and the tinselled village coquette, with her spangled adornings, but barren mind. In short every class of every tribe of every nation visits the country store, either to get what they want, to look at what they do not want, or to display their verbosity to the chagrin and annoyance of the owner and to the ridicule, if not the contempt, of the clerks. In a place of that description I passed the time from 16 to 20 years, part of the time as clerk and the rest as partner. During that time I was well schooled in the arts, tricks, frauds and corruptions of business life."
We give this extract for several reasons. It is a good specimen of Dr. Hawkes' style as a writer; it recounts vividly an important portion of his life and graphically describes what village storekeeping was in the
572
HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
era before the temperance reformation, when New England rum and im- ported dry goods were sold over the same counter. Exactly truthful as Dr. Hawkes' description of the country store of his time is, it would be a gross libel if applied to the country store of 1885. Half a century of Christian culture has not failed in its mission of making the world better even in country stores.
Dr. Hawkes' experience in country storekeeping had an important influence upon his life and character. Facts which came under his ob- servation in that life intensified the feeling which events in his own family had inspired in favor of total abstinence from the use of alcoholic drink in any form. He became for all his life an unflinching and ardent advo- cate of what is called temperance, but means total abstinence. In the support of any good cause he knew no lukewarm or half-way course.
In the spring of 1821 Dr. Hawkes commenced the study of medicine with Drs. Smith and Clark at Ashfield, Mass .. who had four other students. Drs. Smith and Clark did not agree on all professional points, from which young Hawkes inferred that "the greatest number and variety of views he could get in the course of his pupilage the greater would be his resources for instruction when the time came to gather ma- terial for a practical life." He, therefore, changed his instructor to Dr. Winslow of Coleraine, a popular operative surgeon. In 1823 he attended his first course of lectures at the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield, then in the second year of its existence. His description of the faculty at that time is just, although .as regards some of its members, severe. It shows him to have been a thorough and observant student.
He studied the next year with Dr. Washburn of Greenfield, who had an extensive practice as a family physician, and a wider one as a counsellor. In the same year he went to Boston for study and observation in the Massachusetts General Hospital. and attended a course of lectures at the medical school in that city, then the best field in America for such studies. He next went to the office of Dr. Haynes in Rowe. Dr. Haynes was an eminent physician, but not well versed in surgery, and his student, with his Boston experience, took that department of practice upon him- self.
In the summer of 1825 he took his third course of lectures at Pitts- field and received his degree of Doctor in Medicine, which, as the charter of the Berkshire Medical Institution then required, was conferred by Williams College, and he commenced practice at Rowe in company with Dr. Haynes, whose daughter he married in 1826.
His wife died three years later, leaving an infant daughter, and he was so much affected by her loss that residence in Rowe became painful to him, and in 1829 he removed to North Adams, being then 20 years old, his father-in-law, Dr. Haynes, going with him.
There were at that time three physicians in practice in the town, Drs. Brown, Field, and Brayton. Dr. Field was willing to exchange with Dr. Hawkes and remove to Rowe, Dr. Brown's health was such as to re-
573
ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS.
quire his removal to the South, where he soon died, and Dr. Brayton was about to engage in manufacturing. All were ready to welcome and aid the new comer.
Drs. Brown and Field had just bought out the business of Dr. Hodges, an extensive practitioner, taking a bond which they assigned to Dr. Hawkes. This threw almost the whole medical practice of the vicin- ity into his hands. It was so extensive that he was soon obliged to admit a partner, for which he selected a former fellow student, Dr. Long. Dr. Hawkes had almost the whole obstetric cases of the vicinity, amount- ing to from 120 to 150 in a year.
In his professional life Dr. Hawkes was extremely conservative, and yet progressive. That is, that while he welcomed and adopted all dis- coveries which advanced medical science by recognized scientific methods and after due trial, he had a profound detestation of new schools of medicine. He adhered strictly to allopathy. His professional life was successful in an eminent degree, but he did not confine himself to it. He engaged in many real estate operations, some of which turned out disas- trously, but which in a majority of cases were successful. A newspaper writer says truthfully of this, that "while he always kept in view the present and future welfare of the town, he gained by the purchase and sale of land, together with his rapidly increasing practice, a competency. from which he always gave liberally to public improvements and private charities. Foremost in every movement which should redound to the credit and benefit of the town, he established the first newspaper ever printed in it, purchasing the press and type and paying the cost from his own private funds."
It was mainly through his influence that Mr. Drury of Florida made the bequest which gave to the town Drury Academy, an institution whose beneficial influence is incalculable. He was among the earliest and most zealous friends of the Hoosac Tunnel, and moved the first shovelful of earth when ground was broken in commencing that gigantic work. When he reached the town the predominant and almost exclusive religious de- nominations were Quakers and Baptists. He was himself somewhat affili- ated with the Quakers, but at heart he was a most earnest Congregation- alist. He was a Puritan of the Puritans, and he at once identified himself with the few members of that denomination. By his solicitations and contributions, the first church for their use, a very creditable structure for its time, was built upon land given by him ; and for twenty years he paid one half the salary of the pastor.
In 1863 he removed to Troy and engaged in a commercial venture which turned out so disastrously that it would have discouraged a younger man of less courage and vigor, but he returned to North Adams and so far recovered his prosperity as to leave to his heirs a handsome competency.
During his residence in Troy the battle in the Wilderness occurred.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
and he eagerly responded to the call for volunteer surgeons, giving his services gratuitously and defraying his own expenses.
Dr. Hawkes died May 17th, 1879, in his 78th year. The journal from which we have already quoted some truthful words, wrote with equal truth as follows :
"Dr. Hawkes was a man of culture, a close observer of nature, and a philoso- pher of that school whose teachings are founded upon the Christian religion. Fre- quently called to mourn the loss of near relatives he exhibited that patient submission to the will of God which is the most striking characteristic of the true Christian. On the 4th of March, 1876, his wife died at the age of 63, and since that his grief has delighted in honoring her memory, dwelling with pathetic tenderness upon her Christian graces, and the great loss he had sustained in her death, often repeating these exquisite lines in Dr. King's elegy to his wife:
"Sleep on, my love, in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted! My last good night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake : Till age, or grief, or sickness must Marry my body to the dust It so much loves, and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy tomb."
This lady was Sophia E. Abbey, born in Natchez, Miss., August 21st, 1812, to whom he was married November 4th, 1830.
WILLIAM WALLACE FREEMAN.
The old town of Adams has long been conspicuous for the number of its enterprising, publie spirited, and successful business men; but few of them have contributed so much as William Wallace Freeman to the prosperity of both or either of the sections into which it is now divided, and none have borne a higher personal character.
Mr. Freeman was born at Salem, Washington county, N. Y., in June, 1819, being the youngest of ten children -- eight sons and two daughters -- of Andrew and Elizabeth Freeman. His mother was born in Martins- burg, N. Y. Two of his brothers, physicians, became prominent citizens of New York city.
Mr. Freeman was educated at Washington Academy in his native town, and immediately became clerk and soon a partner in mercantile business there with his brother Marvin. While thus prosperously en- gaged, in 1844, he married Miss Catherine A. Russell, also a native of Salem, and daughter of Hon. David Russell, then representative in Con- gress from the Washington district. Mrs. Freeman, who survives her husband, is a sister of Major-General David Allen Russell, who was killed in the battle of Winchester, September 19th, 1864, after a brilliant career as a soldier. In 1849 Mr. Freeman removed to South Adams, where he opened a large country store. The region is noted for its pro- duction of cheese, and he soon became the leading dealer in that article, both for sale throughout Western Massachusetts and for export to the city markets:
(A). Die Freiman.
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ADAMS AND NORTH ADAMS.
Having accumulated considerable property. he, in 1861, became one of the founders of the Berkshire Bank, afterward the First National Bank of Adams, of which he was cashier from 1861 to 1863.
When the war of the Rebellion commenced and Massachusetts was called upon for aid in the support of the Union, Mr. Freeman telegraphed to Governor Andrew, tendering him all the resources of the Berkshire Bank if they were needful. This was the first offer of the kind received by the great war governor, and was made by Mr. Freeman on his own responsibility, relying, of course, on the support of his associates, which was cordially given. His family are and his descendants always will be prond of this patriotic precedence.
Up to this time Mr. Freeman had been interested in manufacturing property only by the purchase and almost immediate sale of a cotton and a woolen mill near Battenville, N. Y., but he now yielded, fortunate- ly for all concerned, to the almost irresistible impulse of Northern Berk- shire capitalists, and, removing to North Adams, became engaged in . manufacturing enterprises which soon assumed very large proportions. He commenced by purchasing an interest in the Eagle Mill and Print Works, the other prominent owners being A. W. Richardson and Wil- liam S. Blackinton. L. L. Brown, of South Adams, soon bought an in- terest and the firm became Richardson, Freeman & Co. In 1864 Mr. Richardson, the senior partner, sold his interest and the firm became W. WV. Freeman & Co. In 1874, Mr. Blackinton having recently died, the firm was incorporated under the general statutes of the commonwealth as " The Freeman Manufacturing Company."
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