USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 2 > Part 34
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The great cheese and its reception had already become noised abroad, and Elder Leland made a kind of triumphal march back to Cheshire.
CHAPTER XXXIL.
TOWN OF CLARKSBURG.
BY GEORGE B. GRIFFITH.
Descriptive .- Statistics .- Settlement .-- Briggsville .- Religious .- Industrial.
T HE natural beauty of Berkshire in the vicinity of the East, the old Bald, or Hoosac Mountains, where two thirds of Clarksburg lies, needs only to be seen to be appreciated. Here may be seen rocks with furrows chiselled into them by primitive icebergs, for the tremendous volcanic upheavals of the chaotic period left this part of New England in a desolate and shattered state, which must have been wild indeed, un- til the great submergence, the deluging waters of a later geologic age rounded off the asperities of the surface, and left a series of graceful and majestic mountains and pleasingly undulating valleys.
From any of the great hills mentioned may be seen old Greylock, king of mountains, which always rises the center of a grand picture ; about him are the groups of lesser peaks that make his court; there is Mt. Adams, a spur of the Green Mountain range, there the beautiful curves of the Taconics. Thriving villages climb the slopes in one direc- tion ; there the hills are clad with forest ; the valleys are diversified with field and woodland, bright streams, and wonderful lakes. Who can won- der that amid such scenic charms the poet and painter delight to wander, or that Berkshire county has always been regarded by its inhabitants with pride and affection.
"Where run bright rills, and stand high rocks, Where health and beauty comes, And peace and happiness abides. Rest Berkshire Hills and Homes. The Hoosac winds its tortuous course,
The Housatonic sweeps, Through fields of living loveliness, As in its course it keeps."
East of Williamstown, which lies at the foot of the Taconic Hills and just behind the spur of Mt. Adams, is found the delightful village
:
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
of Clarksburg ; shut in on the west by a lordly mountain wall, 2,270 feet high, and bounded north by Stamford, Vermont, east by Florida, and south by the growing, bustling village of North Adams.
The straight line of the Pittsfield & North Adams Railroad cuts the southern valley just below Clarksburg in twain ; the Troy & Boston Rail- road bisects the western valley, while the two branches of the Hoosac -- the north branch of which flows the whole length of Clarkburg-unite at North Adams and flow on westward through the other valley that di- vides Greylock from Mt. Adams. It has well been said that these three deep valleys, with the village at their point of junction and the magnifi- cent mountain walls that shut them in, give the beholder a picture the beauty of which cannot be eclipsed by any scene that New England can furnish. One writer, while visiting this locality, reverentially said, " It is good to be here ; let us make tabernacles and abide ; for surely there shall never rest upon our souls a purer benediction."
The town of Clarksburg has the form of a parallelogram, seven miles long and two and a half miles wide, in the extreme northern part of the county, about 120 miles northwest of Boston, and 25 miles north from Pittsfield. It contains eighteen square miles of territory, ninety good farms, some one hundred and thirty dwelling houses, and more in process of erection, two good stores (at Briggsville), several manufactories, a town library, 720 people, with a valuation of $247,300. The land, though quite rugged, is productive. The great mountain in the western part of the town, already referred to, was an important station in the trigonometri- cal coast survey. Its latitude is 42° 44' north, and longitude 73° 9' west.
The number of persons in town between the ages of five and fifteen years is 147 ; number of different scholars of all ages in the public schools during the past year, 155 ; number attending over fifteen years of age. three; average attendance in the schools during the year, eighty ; num- ber of schools, three-a very creditable and large school house having been recently erected in Briggsville ; amount of State school fund. $215.16 ; amount appropriated by the town for schools in 1884, $700.00. Clarksburg has nearly ninety ratable polls, and the taxes for 1883, as per tax list, amounted to $4,342.97; the population having increased 317 since 1840. Clarksburg has a debt of $8,362.25. This town was incor- porated March 2d. 1798, and, very unfortunately, the town records for the first twenty years have either been lost or so carefully stored away that no one can find them. According to Dr. Field's early annals of Berkshire county the settlement of Clarksburg was commenced in 1769. by Captain Matthew Ketchum, Nicholas Clark, and others. It is said that when Colonel William Bullock measured out the grant which bears his name he was compelled, in order to complete his complement of 23. - 040 acres, to extend it around Bernardston's grant. He intended to reach to the line of Vermont, but not knowing precisely where it was, and care. ful not to lose any part of his grant by going into that State. he stopped a mile short of the line, and proceeded westward four or five miles along
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TOWN OF CLARKSBURG.
the north line of Bernardston's grant and Adams. The part of Bullock's grant which lies north of this grant and town and west of Monroe, to- gether with the gore which separates it from Williamstown and Vermont, originally constituted Clarksburg. A part of it was annexed to Florida, May 2d, 1848.
This town was named from one of its leading families. The Ketch- ums, of whom there were several that came from Long Island, Nicholas Clark, and his brothers Aaron, Stephen, and Silas, came in at nearly the same period, hailing from Cumberland, R. I. A man by the name of Hudson is supposed to have been the first white person who felled a tree in the town ; and hence the name of Hudson's Brook, which passes under the natural bridge soon after its entrance into the town of Adams. The petitioners desired to have the town incorporated by the name of Hudson, from the man just referred to, but who was not known to have continued there more than one or two months. Why the name inserted in the pe- tition was altered. the petitioners never knew.
The act of incorporation thus describes the town's boundaries :
" Beginning at the northeast corner of Williamstown, and thence running east on the line between this Commonwealth and the State of Vermont, seven miles; thence south to the line of Bernardston grant, about two and a half miles; thence west on said line to the east line of Adams [this distance it is believed is about two miles]; thence north on said line to the northeast corner of Adams [about one quarter of a mile]; thence on the north line of Adams to the east line of Williamstown, thence north on said line to the first mentioned boundary."
The town contained 10,400 acres originally. As early as 1829 there were four mills, which were kept in operation nearly all the time. North- am's Brook courses down from the southern side of East Mountain into the Hoosac River. passing through the region known as Huntersfield, and its northern branch, together with Hunter's Brook. Muddy Brook, and Beaver Creek, furnishes motive power of value to the town. At Briggsville, where is a post office (the first in town, established two years and a half since, with A. A. Lee as first postmaster), is located the new brick woolen mill built in 1866, with C. W. and H. B. Briggs as proprie- tors. The present name of the concern is "The Linwood Woolen Com- pany," with L. W. Barker, president ; H. P. Briggs, treasurer; E. H. Farnsworth, bookkeeper. Here is located the Clarksburg reservoir, which furnishes Hoosac water to several mills below. The woolen mill referred to was established in 1862, and here are manufactured the well known cassimeres which are still in such good demand. The mill has eight sets of cards and employs 140 hands. Tasty and commodious houses have been erected by the company for their operatives : other new buildings and business improvements are contemplated, and an air of thrift and comfort is noticeable. Here also is located the well filled store of C. J. Whitney, the present postmaster and town clerk, and a short dis. tance above, on the Hoosac, is the store of F. W. Welsby, with a grist and saw mill attached, on the site of the first mill and store in town. Here
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
for many years was the old red wadding and wooden bowl mill, now owned and conducted as a manufactory of calico boxes and dressed lumber, by Clarence W. Gallup. There are also one or two other mills doing a sung little business in this neighborhood. Elezar Ketchum, a descendant of one of the first settlers, now living in Virginia, once owned a large prop- erty on the river road, and Waterman Brown, a famous school teacher, who died in AAdams about ten years since, and who held nearly every town office in the gift of the people, were frequently seen in this vicinity. Near by, on the middle road, stood, and still stands, the building which a hundred years ago was known as the old red tavern. There it is, on the same county road, but what a different aspect it has assumed since it was purchased by the Rev. Mr. Jackson ! The free use of shining paints and the construction of fancy trimmings and porticoes on the outside, and the elegant fitting up inside, has wholly transformed the venerable structure, while the grounds, under the careful management of a trained gardener, are covered with beautiful flowering plants.
Half a dozen improved telephones now place Briggsville in immedi- ate connection with North Adams, and towns in Vermont and New York. Jeff Davis (not the one of Southern fame) handles the ribbons on the stage route between Clarksburg and North Adams, running daily as far as Readsboro', Vt., also beyond these points. While there is neither church, lawyer, nor doctor in the whole length and breadth of Clarks- burg, the town does not langnish. People in the northern part go to meeting in Stamford, Vt., a short drive, and those in the southern section attend divine service in North Adams. There were formerly two Sab- bath schools in Clarksburg ; one has been discontinued, or rather merged in the Union Sabbath school, sustained by the Baptist church at North Adams, with George N. Darby as superintendent. For the past two years there have been several conversions in the Methodist class at the Four Corners, a collection of houses about two miles above Briggsville. Some twelve new members have, during that period, united with the church of that denomination at Stamford, Vt., whose pastor, Miss Bessie Delavan, settled there two years since, holds stated and gracious meet- ings among the families in that part of Clarksburg, the attendance often numbering as many as forty souls.
About fourteen years after the first settlement, according to Field's early history, the inhabitants of the unincorporated land in what is now Clarksburg, and Stamford, Vt., united in building a house of worship, nearly on the line of the States. The walls were built of spruce logs. peeled, and the bark constituted the roof. It was used in the summer for two or three years. About the same time there was a revival, and twenty-six belonging to Clarksburg joined the Baptist church at Cheshire Four Corners. A preacher was sent among them by the church to which they belonged ; but his questionable conduct prevented his usefulness, and he was soon dismissed. It is further said that in 1799 a second revi- val occurred under the preaching of one Dyer Stark, a Baptist, who set-
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TOWN OF CLARKSBURG.
tled in Vermont, near the line, and a church was formel. of persons be- longing in Stamford and Clarksburg, called the First Baptist Church of Stamford and Clarksburg, which numbered about sixty members. Those who united with the church in Cheshire in the first revival had by this time died or removed from the place. Near the same period a Methodist class was formed in Clarksburg and Stamford (the germ of the present organi- zation) embracing thirty-seven members. In 1809 a Baptist preacher by the name of Paul Hines settled in Stamford, held occasional meetings in Clarksburg, and some religious excitement prevailed. Of the two denom- inations mentioned, the total members in Clarksburg numbered, in 1820, about thirty, while at the same period there was only one Congregational professor of religion in the town. There has never been stated religious preaching in Clarksburg for any length of time. The people in olden times occasionally gathered on the Sabbath, for prayer and conference, in their central school house. and once in a while assembled to listen to an evening lecture from a neighboring minister. But this does not prove that there is any lack of religious interest ; the contrary is shown by the awakening at the present day, while the facilities of attendance in adjoin- ing towns has been the main reason why no church buildings have been erected within the limits of Clarksburg. No better or more faithful communicants are found on the church books of Adams and Stamford than those whose names are there written as belonging to the little moun- tain town of Clarksburg.
As of yore, the principal families have burying places on their own grounds, in some of which their neighbors are still permitted to inter their loved ones. All these burial places are kept green and trim, with good fences neatly painted. The central and most often visited cemetery has belonged to the Clarks, and very recently the last of that honored family was thither borne, with " cold hands folded o'er his breast."
In addition to the industries mentioned as conducted on the princi- pal stream is the planing mill of George Hall. The manufacture of bricks was once a lucrative business, and a wool carding mill used to flourish here. During and prior to the late war there were powder mills in the place, and through the Rebellion and up to 1869 three establishments of this kind were pressed with orders £ Powder to the value of $36,000 has been manufactured in a year, and Inmber to the value of $4,300 pre- pared for market.
An explosion occurred in E. R. Tinker's powder mill in May, 1869, killing Mr. Milo Day, a highly esteemed citizen, who had recently married.
Though the soil of Clarksburg might be termed hard and stony there are many thrifty farmers in town, and agriculture is necessarily the chief business of the people. Lumbering is carried on to a considerable extent, stock raising also, and there are not a few fine horses and choice flocks of sheep. Lumber consists mainly of oak, chestnut, spruce, and hemlock. and that upon East Mountain, which is still well covered, is regarded as
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
most valuable. Between the mountains the soil is excellent for grazing. and butter to the value of $1,800 has been sold in a year. Though the climate in winter is often very cold, the snows deep in the mountain dis- tricts, and the facilities of communication limited. the air is salubrious and the inhabitants are healthy.
There was once an excellent Farmer's Grange in town, but in time it was discontinued, and the members have joined similar organizations in the larger places near by.
A representative of the Clark family has been town treasurer and collector since the town was incorporated till the last of that name was removed by death. Nicholas Clark was the first collector.
The death rate of Clarksburg does not average more than twelve annually. In 1883 there were thirteen deaths, eleven births, and ten marriages.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
TOWN OF DALTON.
BY J. E. A. SMITH.
Grant of the Ashuelot Equivalent .- Settlement .- Dr. Marsh .- The Chamberlin Family .- The Revolution .- The Williams Family .- Incorporation and early Town Meetings .- The Shays Rebellion .- Ecclesiastical History .- First Meeting House .- Rev. Theodore Hins- dale .- Congregational Church .- Methodist Church .- St. Agnes' .- Town Hall .- Library. -Water Works and Fire District.
P REVIOUS to the year 1739, the territory which may be proximately described as covering the present southern tier of towns in New Hampshire and Vermont was claimed by Massachusetts, with a very strong show of right ; but in that year the British Privy Council, to whom the controversy had been appealed, rendered a decision, conspicuous among its many iniquitous acts regarding Massachusetts, awarding to New Hampshire the disputed territory, and with it several hundred thou- sand acres more than she had ever claimed. In violation of all right and in contradiction of the council's own precedents as this decision was. Massachusetts had no remedy. She could do nothing but submit to the wrong and make the best of it.
Not doubting her right to do so, she had made grants within the ravished territory to various parties, either for money received or in recompense for valuable public service, and the grantees, as required by the terms of the patent, had, in some cases at least, planted settlers upon them ; generally by selling settling lots. The decision of the Royal Council rendered the grants absolutely void. Men, however, in those days were of more value to the embryo States than land, and the more so if they were willing to make their homes upon a frontier often harrassed, and constantly threatened, by the French and Indian foe ; in which every house was a " Castle Dangerous."
New Hampshire was therefore glad enough to confirm the ownership of actual settlers in the lands occupied by them. These, however, formed but an insignificant portion of the whole : a few hall cleared farms in a vast expanse of forest. These forest traets were held by large proprietors
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
for purposes more or less speculative, under titles with an implie I, if not an express, guarantee from Massachusetts for their validity. She did not hesitate to take the honest course, and gave the grantees full satisfaction. Among these were Oliver Partridge and others, of Hatfield, in Hampshire county, who had obtained the grant of a township in the southwest cor- ner of what is now the State of New Hampshire, which took the name of the Lower Ashnelot from that of the river which there joins the Connec- ticut, there being also an Upper Ashuelot township on the same river. These gentlemen had a very potent influence with the provincial govern- ment, both at the Province House and in the General Court, and probably made their own choice of an equivalent for their loss among " the unap- propriated lands in the county of Hampshire," whose limits, it must be remembered, then extended to the as yet undetermined western boundary of the province, which their recent experience taught them to keep as far away from as possible.
They chose wisely. About midway between the northern and southern borders of Berkshire county, and of the State as well, the beau- tiful upland valley of the Housatonic expands on the east into the valley of Dalton. The spectator, at this day, gazing down into it from any elevated point in Pittsfield, which lies on the West, admires its broad beanty and apparent repose. If he enters it he will find the beauty no illusion ; but he will discover that the repose is only that of nature, and not always that. for the river which winds through it is often swift and even restless, keeping all alive the thriving and busy people of the wealthy and handsome town of Dalton ; driving them almost as irresistibly as it does the wheels and other machinery of their far famed mills.
When, abont a century and a half ago. the Hatfield company selected here their equivalent for their lost lands on the Ashuelot River, in New Hampshire, it of course lay in forest ; and its sparkling streams impelled its extremely scant aboriginal population to no labor more arduous than the catching of a few trout. Whether the selection was made with any view to the water power, which has since given it wealth, is perhaps doubtful, as, except for grist mills and saw mills, it was at that time held of small account. But Colonel Partridge and his associates, however short sighted in politics, had a far look in business ; and it is to be ob- served that their original choice on the Ashuelot is rich in water power, and that in laying out the township, which took the name of the Ashuelot Equivalent, they gave it the unusual proportions of 4.10 miles in length by three in breadth, including what has since been incorporated in the town of Hinsdale ; and that within it is some of the best water in Berk . shire.
The dimensions of the grant made in 1743, as an equivalent for the loss of the Lower Ashuelot township, are given in the parent as 1,571 rods long by 760 wide, with the exception of 300 acres in the northeast corner which had previously been granted to Andrew Stone, containing 9, 423 acres.
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TOWN OF DALTON.
In an index to an early volume in the registry of deeds for old Hamp- shire county there is mention of a deed of land to Edmund Dwight, of Hatfield, but there is no date ; the name of the grantor is not given, and the deed is lost from the records. Mr. Dwight was, however, certainly owner of a large part, if not the whole of the township very soon after it was granted, as in 1744 he sold to Waitstill Hastings three undivided eighth parts of it, and two eighths to Oliver Partridge and Israel Wil- liams. In 1748 Hastings sold an eighth part to Moses Graves, who. Jan- uary 1st, 1750. conveyed it to Colonel Israel Williams. By order of the General Court, and by the action of the Superior Court, the grant had. in 1749. been divided into lots. and allotted out in five divisions among the proprietors. The eighth part sold to Colonel Williams comprised Lots 1, 10, 28, 39, 46, 62, 71. 74. SS.
Dr. Field states that the settlement commenced about 1755. It is possible that some slight preparations for settlement, by girdling and fell- ing trees, may have been made in the summer of 1754, although we have no evidence of it ; but on the 29th day of August in that year the panic created by the Indian massacres put an end to all attempts at settlement in Berkshire north of Stockbridge until about the year 1759. Even in Pittsfield, where the settlement had made some progress, and where there were four forts, the land was not cultivated except so near them that the farmers could find a speedy refuge. The permanent settlement of Dalton cannot therefore date many months before the spring of 1760, if it was as early.
The Chamberlins. Merrimans, Lawrences, Boardmans, Greens. Gal- lups, Atwoods, and Parks were among the first settlers ; but it is difficult to say with certainty at what precise date each came in. The first settle- ment was, however, made at the south part of the town, near the Pitts. field line, where Dr. Perez Marsh, Nathaniel Kellogg, and Joseph Cham- berlin made their homes, all of them being long known afterward as lead- ing citizens. William Cady, Josiah Lawrence, and Abijah Parks settled at the eastern part some eight or ten years later, but there is no reason to believe that other heads of the families above named did not come in during the period between the close of the French and Indian wars and the year 1770.
Dr. Marsh married Sarah, daughter of Col. Israel Williams, and by this alliance became connected with the Partridges, Stoddards, Diekin . sons, and other principal families of the provincial days of Western Massachusetts : if he was not so before, as is not anlikely, for the pro- vincial aristocracy were much given to intermarriages. Dr. Marsh was one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas for Berkshire. nominally, from 1765 to 1781, although, as will be seen by reference to the county history, the people did not permit the court to sit after September, 1774. nor the judges to exercise any of their functions. Dr. Marsh had a per- haps more enviable distinction in his six beautiful and accomplished daughters, who made his house a social center, and whose marriages were
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
singularly fortunate. Sarah married Israel Park ; Martha, Thomas Gold; Eunice, and after her death, Elizabeth, Darius Learned ; Lucretia, Wil- liam Miller ; and Sophia, Fordick Merrick ; all of Pittsfield. Martha was the mother of the wife of the poet Longfellow. Jonathan Allen, who thus married two granddaughters of the most noted and decried tories in West- ern Massachusetts, was the son of the fighting parson of Bennington field, the most radical of the whig leaders.
Dr. Marsh is not included in the list of early physicians in the town, and seems not to have practiced, at least in his later years. when he kept the leading tavern, in which he was succeeded by his widow, after his death in 1785.
From the earliest settlement of the town, the Chamberlin family. as is apparent from their frequent mention in the general story of the town, has had an active and prominent part in all its affairs of every class. Eliphalet Chamberlin was one of the selectmen chosen at the first. town meeting, and Ansel E. Chamberlin was chairman of the board precisely 100 years later. In the meantime the family has rarely, if ever, been without an official representation in the affairs of the town. The family sprang from three brothers, who came from Wales and settled at Colches- ter, Conn. The first Chamberlins who came to Dalton, however, were of a branch which had removed to the State of New York. The later came from Connecticut.
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