USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 2 > Part 33
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Perhaps these resolutions reached the ear of the government and their loyalty to Madison's administration procured for Cheshire the honor of boarding a hundred or more British prisoners, mostly officers, in 1813 ; many of the latter were in the hotel built by Moses Wolcott in 1795. The house is still standing, though modernized and occupied by Mr. Felix Pelitclerc. The hotel proprietor was then Daniel, son of Cap- tain Daniel Brown of the Revolution. Among the prisoners boarding with him was Lieutenant James Rowe of the British navy, captured on Lake Champlain in 1812. He was an agreeable young officer, and he said when he came to this country he thought to look about and visit awhile, and then return; and should have so done had he not been captured-a second time-by Miss Lucy Brown, granddaughter of the captain, in a marriage engagement; nor was he sorry that the second capture resulted from the first. They, when the war was over, moved to Canada, where
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their descendants are still living. The captain, Daniel B. Brown, died in 1840, at the age of ninety-four; his son, Daniel, in 1842, aged seventy.
At a legal town meeting held September 24th, 1814, a committee chosen therefor reported the following, and it was unanimously adopted:
"While the energies of our country are put in requisition to repel our sanguinary enemy, and the free institutions of our government are to be perpetuated only by compelling redress for the innumerable injuries resulting from arrogance and cupidity:
"While the enemy by their devastation and cruelties are disregarding all estab- lished usages of war and the law of nations; pouring forth upon the defenceless in- habitants of our frontiers their red allies, whose tomahawks drink only the blood of the innocent and unoffending, betraying, to the same merciless slaughter, those whom the fortune of war has thrown into their hands, wantonly destroying undefended towns and even monuments of arts and taste as well as the repositories of scientific knowledge share the same undistinguished ruin from the vandalism of modern Britian: And while the undaunted valor of our brethren in arms is shedding an imperishable blaze of glory on our country's name, who, by their deeds of honor, are rendering perpetual the inestimable inheritage purchased by the blood of our fathers:
" At such crisis, he is undeserving the name of American whose hand shall with- hold the requisite means to place the energies of our common country in a complete preparatory state to chastise our insolent plundering foes, in whatever point danger may assail: Therefore,
"Resolved, That we will immediately provide every necessary munition of war, not only for our townsmen subject to military duty, but also for the exempts, able to bear arms, and hold ourselves in constant readiness, instantly to obey every call of the government or demand of the times.
" Resolved, That we view with sincere satisfaction the restoration of unanimity among the citizens of our country --- in the exclusion of unfounded prejudices, and foreign attachments, for the more honorable and patriotic sentiments of Love of Country and its sacred institutions.
"Resolved, That we will immediately furnish the selectmen with the necessary funds to carry into effect the object of the foregoing resolutions.
" JOHN WELLS, 'AMBROSE KASSON, "ALLEN BROWN, 1 Committee.
" ETHAN A. FISK,
" FRANCIS FISK,
" DEXTER MASON, moderator."
In this meeting they voted $750 to defray expenses of soldiers at $15 per month.
Turning from town to church records again. it is learned that Elder Nathan Masou, born in Swansey, Mass., 1726, was baptized in 1750, in 1763 became a pastor, twelve others constituting the church. They'all soon afterward sailed to Nova Scotia and grew into a church of sixty members ; but not liking the land or government, the twelve with the elder came to Lanesboro in 1771, where they found six more Swansey brethren, and, uniting, formed a church of the Six Principle Baptists, holding connection with the Rhode Island yearly meeting. Within two years they numbered 200, forming the nucleus of several churches. In
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
1788, Elder Mason, with a majority of his church, dissented from the strictness of the Six Principle plan, and formed the Second Lanesboro Baptist Church. When Cheshire was incorporated, in 1793, partly from Lanesboro and partly from Adams, this and the church on Stafford's Hill were both in Cheshire. Elder Werden's, being the first established, was called the First Baptist Church, the Six Principle, from which Elder Mason seceded, the Second, while the newly formed church of Elder Mason's was the Third Baptist Church, so called. In 1789 this church united with the Shaftsbury Association, having forty-four mem- bers. In 1700-91, he, then sixty-three years old, must have had a great revival, or gained many of the Second Church, or both, for they reported to the Association 112. In 1793 they reported 163, Elder Leland being as- sociated with Elder Mason. His nameis down as minister in charge till 1800. He died at Fort Ann, N. Y., 1806, aged eighty. Elder Leland says of him : "His character was fair and irreproachable. He was a man of peace and godliness, preaching seven days in a week by his life and con- versation."
In 1817 this church was dropped from the Association, though hav- ing 199 members. Dissatisfaction with Elder Leland because he would not break bread (as he did not believe much in the need of communion, though strong on baptism), was the real cause of a new Third Church springing up January 15th, 1824, under the care of Elder Elnathan Sweet, who had studied under Elder Bloss of Stafford's Hill. March 6th, 1834, the Second and Third Churches united and formed the present Baptist Church in Cheshire. Of the Third Church the present Baptist Church in Lanesboro is a branch.
In 1849, February 15th, a petition with these six names: Barnet Mason, H. P. Brown, J. G. Northup, Justice B. Land, Ira Richardson, and William Clark, requested Justice of the Peace H. J. Bliss to call a meeting March 31st to form a Universalist Society. It seems a meeting house had been previously built by friends of the cause. for the meeting was called to meet in their meeting house, built, no doubt, by individ- uals. The society as then formed was composed of seventy members. With changing fortunes it has continued, having at this date thirty-tive members.
A Methodist Episcopal church was organized in the town by Rev. John Cadwell, in February, 1844, with twelve members, over whom was installed as their first pastor, Rev. John Crowl. Their meeting house with a seating capacity for 200 persons was built in 1848-9. The society has now some fifty-five members.
After 1793 letters for the northern towns were directed aright, but sent to Pittsfield, and thence by private post riders and accommodating neighbors to their destination ; and those uncalled for were advertised in the Pittsfield Sun after 1800, with ninety days' grace. After that they. visited the post office department in Washington. A note from the first assistant postmaster general gives the following facts concern-
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ing the Cheshire post office: Cheshire post office established January 22d, 1810 ; John Leland, jr., first postmaster ; Edmond Foster, 2d, July 1st. 1816 : Noble K. Wolcott, 3d. October 1st, 1818: Russell C. Brown, 4th, May 27th, 1835 ; Homer H. Jenks, 5th, March 30th, 1860 ; Peter A. Trottier, 6th, December 24th, 1861 ; Henry C. Bowen, 7th, February 15th, 1869.
In the cemetery one may read on a monument "Captain Edmond Foster, U. S. A , died 1834, at the age of 50." December 12th, 1808, he was appointed ensign of the regiment of riflemen, and his commission was signed by Thomas Jefferson. July 5th, 1812. he was made first lieuten- 'ant of the Ninth regiment of U.S. Infantry, and this commission was signed by James Madison. In March, 1813, he was promoted to a captaincy, with the name of James Madison on his commission. He was in the bat- tles in Brownsville, Fort Erie, and Lundy's Lane. At the last named place his right shoulder cap was shot off. As lieutenant and captain he served under Winfield Scott. His son, Lieutenant Daniel Foster, died in 1883. aged 55. He was in the Forty-ninth regiment of Massachusetts volunteer militia in the late Civil war ; thirty-two men in the company were from this town, and were in the battles of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
In Company B, Thirty-fourth regiment. was E. M. Hubbard, who died, aged 34, in 1864, at Andersonville, Ga. His monument is in the same lot.
In describing the boundary of the town mention was made of one Stephen Whipple. His parentage can be traced back 267 years to John Whipple, born in England in 1617. He was married about 1644, in Dor- chester, Mass .. to Sarah , born in Dorchester, of Pilgrim ancestors, in 1624. They moved to Providence town in July. 1659, with seven chil- dren. afterward increased to eleven, eight sons. In 1660 he received a grant of land. and in 1674 a license to keep a public house. He was of considerable note in State and town affairs, a co-worker with Roger Wil- liams, and a military character enough to merit and have the title of "Captain John Whipple." He was buried in Providence in 1685. Ben- jamin, his fifth child and son, born about 1652, was married to Ruth Matterson, of Providence, in 1686, raising three boys and three girls. He settled on a farm of 300 acres, whereon to this date some of his tribe live. He was buried on his farm in 1704. His first child. named also Benjamin, was born in 1688, and in 1722 married Sarah Benon, a French lady, by whom he had eight children. In 1733 he married Esther Miller, who bore him eight more. He was a manufacturer of leather and shoes, as well as a farmer. When seventy-five, in making shoemaker's wax. he dropped some on his foot, resulting in the loss of a leg. Nature kindly compensated him by giving him two new teeth afterward, by the aid of which he lived till he was ninety-nine, and then was buried on his farm. ١ . Stephen, the second son of the second wife, was born in July, 1735, about four miles west of Providence, and was married in 1760 to Zilpha Angel.
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who bore him twelve after their kind. When the eighth was a year old, in 1777, they left Providence for Cheshire, buying a farm in the south- east corner of the town, on which the famous sand bed of the Berkshire Glass Works is located, which works his grandson; Stephen T., now in Pittsfield, was largely instrumental in organizing. His children are here briefly mentioned :
Freclove was married to William Barnes, moved to Rockland, Vt, had eleven children : Asel married Lucy Wood, moved to Hardwick, N. Y., had three children ; Andrew married Polly Perkins, moved to Pownal, Vt., had twelve children ; Samuel married Temperance Post, stayed on the farm, and had ten children ; Mary was married to Lyman Warren, went to Canada, and had nine children ; Oliver married Polly Hatch, went to Shaftsbury, Vt., had three children ; Zilpha was married to Thomas Hix, moved to Burlington, N. Y., had three children ; Stephen married Louisa Edgerton, settled in South Shaftsbury, Vt., had five children ; Angel married Celinda Wright, moved to Rosco, Ill., had eight children ; Benjamin, the youngest, married Amy Tyrrell, remained in Cheshire, and had eight children. Seventy-two children could call Stephen "Grandpa Whipple."
Of Samuel's children, Tempe was married to John Bliss, and died in Cheshire, leaving two daughters : Amanda was married to Levi Bradford, had two girls, one now living, Mrs. Henry Shaw (Josh Billings). Elias married Phila, daughter of Deacon Alpheus Brown, of Windsor. Of that marriage the writer of this is the product. Perry, youngest son, married Sarah Miller, had three children. Perry and wife inheriting the original farm, have sold it and now reside in the village of Cheshire.
Israel Cole was born in England near Wales, and removed with his parents to live a short distance north of Dumbarton Castle, in Scotland. When 17 years of age he was commissioned as a privateer by George III. He went to the West Indies where he took two prizes of rum, etc., but in trying to get a third prize he was captured and thrown into prison. After three years confinement he was redeemed by his government and put on board a vessel to be taken home. He, with fourteen others, being good sailors and supposed to know the way to Glasgow, was put in com- mand of the vessel, and for reasons best known to himself landed 20 miles north of Boston, and going ashore did not return but went to Roy- alstown where he married a Miss Wood. Three sons, Jonathan, James, and Israel, were born before 1796 when the family removed to Cheshire ; Ebenezer, David, and several daughters were born after that date. Jona- than was the father of L. J. Cole now in Cheshire. Israel, 2d, located in Pork Lane. His son, Israel 3d, married Mary, daughter of Caleb Brown, of Cheshire. He was given his time at the age of 19, after which he worked for six or eight years for $8 per month. He followed the busi- ness of farming all his life. By industry and economy he accumulated a large property. He resided on one farm in Adams for 47 years, near the Cheshire line. He owned another farm in Cheshire. He made cheese
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for 53 years. He gave one day's curd for the "big cheese" for Presi- dent Jefferson in 1801, and in 1829 sent one weighing 100 pounds to Presi- dent Jackson, from whom he received the following letter :
" WASHINGTON, MAY 5, 1829.
" SIR:
" I have rec'd to day the large and fine cheese which you and Mrs. Cole have been so kind as to present to me, and I accept it with much satisfaction as a proof of your joint respect for my character. Its value is much enhanced by the consider- ation that it is an offering from those whose industry and management in this branch of domestic economy deserve the thanks of the Country.
"In regard to the naval resources of the United States upon which you express a desire to have my opinion, it gives me pleasure to answer that I have not the least doubt of their sufficiency to place us on a par, at no distant day, with the most powerful nation in the world. This period however and the necessity for the naval power to which you allude must depend upon many considerations which I could not enumerate in this letter. Be pleased to present me respectfully to your lady and believe me your
obliged servant, "ANDREW JACKSON. " MR. ISRAEL. COLE, Adams, Berkshire county, Mass."
In politics he was a decided democrat and he always voted as he thought for the greatest good of the country. He was a member of the Baptist church. He died in September, 1859, in his 88th year.
His wife, known as " Aunt Molly," was born in Cumberland, R. I., in 1777, and died in 1870. A few days before her death she gave the fol- lowing recital of her early history :
"My Father and Mother with three children, myself the youngest, started for the far ' up country' in a cart containing the family provisions for the journey and all the household goods drawn by a yoke of oxen. We traveled from 5 to 8 miles per day, much of the way through a wilderness where roads had to be cut and bridges made. After a long and tedious journey of 150 miles and nearly a months time we reached our new home, a log hut nearly two miles N. W. of the present village, on a path known now as Pork Lane. Our cabin was very small and we had to partition off nearly one half of it for a fold for our sheep to keep them from the wolves whose nightly howlings echoed among the surrounding mountains. After three years my father (Caleb Brown) being a carpenter by trade, conceived the idea of a small framed house. He was cautioned by his neighbor against so wild a project. He realized his idea and became the owner of a small framed house still standing and in a tolerable condition for so old a house. In it ten children were born making thirteen in all, of whom twelve lived to maturity."
- Aunt Molly was the third child of a mother not then 20 years old, having been married at the early age of 14. Aunt Molly was married at 19, when but one vocation was open for a livelihood to those without means-farming-a business for which both herself and husband were re- markably well fitted as results indicate ; for probably no equal results were ever achieved in Berkshire county, in the single business of farm-
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
ing, and that in the line of cheese making. For 52 consecutive years she 'made cheese, meanwhile rearing a family of eight children.
Born in the early part of the Revolutionary war, in poverty and under great need of economy and physical effort, with a naturally good constitution, great ambition, and a strong determination for success in life, her constant activity and great labor had hardened and tempered every fiber of her being; and she wore out so easily that she suffered but little pain, while her mind was a remarkable instance of calmness and strength to the last.
Doctors deserve a better record than they get. Their services to the sick are soon forgotten on their recovery. John Johnson, William Jenks, David Cushing. Isaac Hodges. Seagrave, Nathaniel Gott, John Lion, - McSouth, Mason Brown, and Drs. L. Cole and Thayer, still living. have helped to prolong the lives of the citizens. Dr. Cole, for many years helping others, has the happy skill of prolonging his own life, being now more than eighty years old. His two daughters, Mrs. Raynor and Mrs. Petitclerc, have just written and published a very full and interesting history of Cheshire.
Cheshire from the first has been an agricultural town ; extensive dairies have been utilized, as the mammoth cheese sent to President Jef- ferson, in 1802, would testify, as would the governors of the several States to whom the president sent portions.
But various industries have from time to time been introduced, partly because of elements existing in the soil and partly. in later years, from convenience of transportation by railroad. Beds of sand, suitable for glass making. were early discovered, and the Cheshire Crown Glass Works were built and commenced operations in 1813. The capitalist of the concern was Captain Daniel Brown, and the company consisted of his sons, Darius and John, John D. Leland, son of Parson Leland, and a man named IInnt. The works were situated near the present works of the Gordon Company. Though they stood directly over one of the finest sand deposits in the country. the proprietors were not aware of the fact, and brought their sand from the Lane bed. three miles distant.
These works ran only between two and three years, but sufficiently to financially ruin the proprietors. With the closing of the Cheshire Works glass making in Berkshire county ceased for a generation, though the sand from the Lane bed was taken to Sand Lake, N. Y., and to Keene, N. H., for many years for glass purposes. This sand is more than 99 per cent. pure silex and has no superior for glass making. But its inland situ- ation and the difficulties attending the transportation of the glass to market prevented any further manufacture till 1847, when the present works at Berkshire were started by the Berkshire Glass Company. The original incorporators were Samuel Smith, W. D. B. Linn, and William T. Filley. The works were built in 1853, under the superintendence of Mr. A. K. Fox, whose works at Sand Lake were destroyed by five, and what was left of the Sand Lake works was brought to Berkshire.
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The works have since been in constant operation, with the exception of one year during the panic of 1857-8, and have been much enlarged under the present management, which began in 1858, when the original Berk- shire Glass Company failed. In 1858 a division of the works and sand beds was made, the works and real estate being bought by Page, Robbins & Harding, of Boston, and the sand beds by George W. Gordon, of Boston. In 1862 Mr. Robbins sold his interest in the business to Mr. Page, and till 1883 the firm name was Page & Harding, and Page, Harding & Company. In 1883 an act of incorporation was obtained, and it has since been known as the Berkshire Glass Company. The plant embraces one plate and ca- thedral and three window glass furnaces. During the last ten years the ribbed plate and rolled cathedral glass have been made largely here. and only here in the United States. The cathedral is made in a great variety of colors and tints. The quality of the work done has always been of the highest standard, and it is the only glass made in the country which is equal in quality to, and commands the same prices as, the best of for- eign manufacture. .
Cheshire Glass Company was incorporated May 2d, 1849, Waitstill Hastings, John L. King, and Charles Stearns, associates and successors. were the corporators, with capital stock of 825.000 and not to exceed $50,000. This was mostly a manufactory of window glass. In 1853 the first plate glass manufactory in this country was started in Cheshire. Afterward the company removed its works to Lenox and has since been known as " Lenox Rough Plate Glass Company."
Iron ore was also found among the mountains. This, with the ad- vantage of the new outlet by the railroad, resulted in the Cheshire Iron Works, incorporated April 17th, 1848. The corporators were James N. Richmond, George M. Well, Russell C. Brown, and their associates : with real estate not to exceed $200,000.
The immense exportation of sand to all parts of the country created a need of barrels, and so there grew up, about 1855, a large saw and stave mill near the depot, for transforming the trees on the mountain sides into barrels and other needed wares.
J. B. Dean and Alanson Dean, father of Warren B., were its enter- prising originators, themselves descendants of Zebedee Dean, a black. smith, who came from Taunton to Cheshire in 179S. J. B. was the youngest of his three sons.
In its earlier history millions of feet of lumber were sent seaward to California. That trade has ceased, but the mill now owned by Warren B. Dean is still a success, employing fifty men and turning out its more than a million feet annually.
This same J. B. Dean is president and his son, George Z., treasurer of The Cheshire White Quartz Sand Company, organized in 1876, and crushing, not washing, about 3,000 tons for the manufacture of glass.
Three years later, in 1879, originated The Berkshire Glass Sand Company, now usingthree pulverizing mills and shipping about 10,000 tons
1
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
of sand annually, with F. F. Peticlerc president and agent of the com- pany.
One cotton factory in the north part of the town is in successful .operation ; and the long unused tannery, just north of the village, is at , this time undergoing a kind of legitimate transformation into a shoe fac- tory. These factories and the eighty-seven farms give labor enough for the inhabitants of the 400 houses of Cheshire.
After the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency Elder John Leland, who was an aegnaintance, a friend, and a warm supporter of the newly elected chief magistrate, conceived the project of sending to him a unique testimonial of the esteem in which he was held in Cheshire.
He accordingly proposed, from his pulpit, on the Sabbath, that on a certain day such as were so disposed should bring their milk, or the curd which it would make, to the cider mill of Capt. John Brown to be made into a mammoth cheese, to be sent as a present to the president. A suit- able hoop was prepared and placed on the cider press in the mill, and into this the curd was placed as it was brought by the contributors, and after the proper preparation it was pressed by turning the screws, pre- cisely as the people expressed their cider from pumice into which the apples had been converted. So liberally had the people responded to the invitation of Elder Leland that the cheese was found, when properly cured and dried, to weigh sixteen hundred pounds. It was the largest cheese that had ever been made and nearly every family and cow in Cheshire had contributed toward it. It was not practicable to take it to Washington on wheels, but about the middle of the following winter it was placed on a sleigh, and driven to Washington by Elder Leland, who presented his people's gift to the president with an appropriate speech, to which Mr. Jefferson replied. In the course of his speech the presi- dent said "I will cause this auspicious erent to be placed upon the rec- ords of our nation, and it will ever shine amid its glorious archives. I shall ever esteem it among the most happy incidents of my life. And, now, my much respected reverend friend, I will, by the consent, and in the presence of my most honored council, have this cheese cut, and you will take back with you a portion of it, with my hearty thanks, and present it to your people, that they may all have a taste.'
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