USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 2 > Part 6
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In 1821 the Pittsfield (democratic) Hotel had become unprofitable, and it was determined to sell it. In January, 1822, three months before the vote of the medical society to petition, the hotel, grounds and furni- ture were deeded to Dr. Childs, and in that year an informal course of lectures was given to twenty-five students. The result of this course was beneficial, and facilitated the subsequent labor of organizing the institu- tion.
The first meeting of the trustees was held January 31st. 1823, when Henry C. Brown and Joseph Shearer were added to the board. Jona- than Allen and William C. Jarvis, of Pittsfield. Levi Lincoln. of Wor. cester, Daniel Noble, of Williamstown, and Henry Shaw, of Lanesboro. became members during the same year. Rev. Mr. Humphrey resignel in May. On the remaining members, during the earlier years of the school, devolved a vast amount of labor and anxiety.
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The trustees commenced their work with a fund of barely $3,000, mostly in unpaid subscriptions. Measures were immediately taken for the collection of these subscriptions, and in May, 1823, Dr. Childs re- ceived 81,500, and gave a mortgage deed of the "institution." In May, 1826, the trustees paid $1,614 more, and came into full possession of the estate.
In July, 1824, the town permitted the trustees of the college to re- move the old hotel stable to the lot east of the town house and remodel it for the purposes of the college, on condition that the town house was kept constantly insured against fire communicated from the new building. The stable was removed and converted into a neat building, containing cabinet and anatomical rooms and apartments for other pur- poses. Some other outbuildings were erected, and improvements were made in the old hotel building to fit it for a common house, or dormi- tory, as well as boarding house.
In 1823 the Legislature made a grant of $5,000 to the institution, pay- able in five annual installments. The institution lived and flourished on a fund -- including the legislative grant and all paid subscriptions-of not more than $10,000; all invested in the college buildings, furniture, and apparatus.
From 1825 the salaries of the professors and the incidental expenses were derived from the tuition fees of the students, and the compensation thus derived was often meager. The college was constantly in debt, and the professors did not always realize their small salaries, a part being at times retained as a sort of forced loan. In 1843 the number of students had become large, and it was voted to appropriate $100 of the income of the faculty annually as a sinking fund for the discharge of the debts of the institution.
On the 5th of February, 1850, the building used as a lecture room, anatomical theater, and cabinet room was destroyed by fire, with a con- siderable portion of its contents. The trustees took immediate measures to replace it with a structure more commensurate with the demands of the day, and in a more suitable location. A grant of $10,000 was obtained from the Legislature, greatly through the influence of Hon. Ensign H. Kellogg, who was speaker of the House of Representatives, as Hon. William C. Jarvis was when the first legislative grant to the institution was made. The citizens of Berkshire contributed $5.000. A command- ing and conspicuous site on South street was selected for the new build- ing, which was immediately erected under the special supervision of Messrs. Gordon Mckay, George W. Campbell. and M. HI. Baldwin, with the assistance of John C. Hoadley. The college, which was exceedingly commodious and well adapted to its purpose, was dedicated August 5th, 1851.
The boarding house and dormitory was discontinued, and in 1852 the old hotel building, which had been used for that purpose for thirty years, was sold.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
In 1867 the faculty represented to the trustees that expensive ad- ditions to the building were needed in order to afford proper facilities for instruction in modern chemistry as applied to the science of medicine. The cost of this improvement, and also of some necessary repairs, they suggested might be defrayed by a loan, the interest of, which would be met by increased receipts from tuition. On this suggestion it was voted to raise a sum, not exceeding 85,000, for the purpose named, by a mortgage on the real estate of the institution. Three thousand dollars were actually borrowed in this way, of which one thousand were ex- pended for repairs and the introduction of gas and water into the col- lege building. Two thousand dollars were applied to the fitting up of a very perfect chemical laboratory, and the purchase of some costly philo- sophical apparatus. The desperate expedient of running in debt for the sake of proximately meeting the requirements which the age makes on this class of seminaries did not avail. Only thirty five students attended the lecture course of 1867. affording a compensation of but about $130 to each professor. Salaries like this of course could not procure learned and capable men of established reputation, and, although it would have been easy to collect a faculty of young and ambitious physicians. wil- ling to try their "'prentice hands" as preceptors and lecturers. the trustees had no desire to protract the existence of the college on such terms. Permission was therefore obtained from the Legislature of 1869 to transfer so much of the cabinet, library apparatus, and other per- sonal property as might be deemed best to the Athenaeum then about to be established in Pittsfield, and to sell what might not be so desired. together with the real estate, and, after paying the debts of the college, to pay the balance of the receipts to the same corporation.
The building was sold in 1871 to the town, which remodeled it for the use of its high and grammar schools. The price paid was $8.000, of which the Athenaeum received $4, 400, the remainder being required to pay the debts of the college. The cabinets, library, and apparatus had previously been removed to the Athenaeum building.
So many causes combined to break down the Berkshire Medical In- stitution that the wonder is that it sustained itself as long as it did. The final and chief difficulty lay in the fact that it was never free from debt. except for a brief interval at the time of building the new college, and that, although the trustees in that haleyon period voted to set apart $1,000 as a nneleus for a fund, the institution. in fact, never had any such foundation. The sole reliance for meeting the current expenses of the college was on the tuition of students, a variable and precarious resource, which was sure to fail when most needed.
The springing up of liberally endowed schools in the Western States, the war of the Rebellion, which ent off southern patronage, and the grow- ing proclivity on the part of students to resort to the metropolitan schools all tended to diminish the prosperity of this school, which was dependent wholly on its cheap tuition for its support, and the expense
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of living had come to be greater here than in New York or Boston. It was therefore wisely determined to abandon an institution that could not be respectably maintained without an outlay which could be devoted to other purposes with much greater advantage to the interests of science.
In September, 1823, the first regular lecture course at this college commenced with the following faculty : General anatomy and physiology, Dr. Jerome V. C. Smith, of Boston ; surgery and anatomy, and physi- ology as subservient to the theory and practice of medicine and surgery, Dr. J. P. Batchelder ; theory and practice of medicine, Dr. H. H. Childs : obstetrics, Dr. Asa Burbank ; materia medica and pharmacy, Dr. John De La Mater, of Sheffield ; chemistry, botany, mineralogy, natural and experimental philosophy, Prof. Chester Dewey ; medical jurisprudence by a lecturer to be named.
Reading terms were also promised, in which the same branches were to be taught, with the exception of those in Professor Dewey's depart- ment.
The following table of fees was fixed: For all the lectures, 840 ; yearly tuition, exclusive of lectures, $50 ; graduation, $12 ; for Professor Dewey's lectures on the natural sciences, 86.
Students " destined for missionary labors " were admitted without charge.
Students were promised "access to an extensive library, a cabinet of minerals, consisting of about one thousand specimens, and a museum of valuable anatomical preparations."
Although the citizens of Pittsfield looked with satisfaction on the establishment among them of a medical college, they felt a dread of the resurrecting propensities of the students. Wise and humane legislation had not then, as it has since, provided unobjectionable means for obtain- ing anatomical material, and students often resorted to the nocturnal robbery of graves to procure it
In 1820, only two years before the foundation of the medical college, it had been discovered that the body of George Butler, jr., had been stolen from its grave, and it was believed that there was hardly a village in the county where one or more graves had not been robbed. At about that time it was discovered that there was no statute concerning such an offense, and that the perpetrators could only be indicted under the com- mon law for a misdemeanor ; and it was not till 1830 that the first statute for the protection of graves was passed in Massachusetts. The town had attempted to take action in the case of Butler, and the facts in the case were all fresh in the minds of the people in 1822, and in their first circu- lar the trustees of the college strove to allay the apprehensions of the people on the subject. They adopted stringent provisions in the college statutes requiring the faculty to procure their subjects for dissection only from the largest cities, that no student should be concerned in obtaining them, that no private dissection by students should be permitted. and that any who might infringe this rule should be publicly exposed. These
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by-laws did not perfectly accomplish their purposes. It is probable that the graveyards in the immediate vicinity of the college were safer for its establishment, and perhaps, as a large number of anatomical students could avail themselves of the same subjects, and as some of these were bought by the faculty in the large cities, there were not so many illegally obtained as before. But there were frequent and generally credited reports of the desecration of burial grounds in towns at some distance from Pittsfield by students of the Berkshire Medical College.
In 1830 two bodies that had been stolen from their graves in Franklin county were traced to two students of the college and recovered. Intense excitement was aroused in Pittsfield by this discovery, a town meeting was held, and resolutions expressive of the indignation of the people were adopted.
Tradition records other stories, some of which may be true, of the doings of the "body snatchers."
Prior to 1830 the law almost countenanced grave robbery, by permit- ting physicians to have in their possession dead bodies, for the purposes of anatomy, without accounting for the mode in which they obtained them. That year, however, simultaneously with the law for the better protection of burial grounds, an act was passed directing that the bodies of persons dying under certain circumstances should be delivered to sur- geons and medical schools for dissection ; and this, together with the in- creasing supply from the cities, has rendered subjects so cheap that for years there has been little temptation to resort to the odious midnight prowlings of the resurrectionists.
The first president of the college was Dr. Jonah Goodhue, of Hadley. one of New England's self-educated physicians.
The first term of the college opened with eighty students, and the number increased from year to year.
A lyceum of natural history was established at the beginning of the first term of lectures, under the charge of Professor Dewey : and to his lectures before this lyceum others than students were admitted.
In 1829 President Goodhue died, and was succeeded by Dr. Zadoc Howe, of Billerica, who continued in office till 1837, when he resigned. and Dr. H. H. Childs was elected his successor. The non-residence of the presidents had hitherto been an embarrassment to the college. This was removed by the election of Dr. Childs.
At first, under the charter, degrees were conferred by the president and trustees of Williams College, but in 1830 this connection was dis- solved and the Berkshire School became an independent college. In the same year the Massachusetts Medical Society decided that the graduates of this school should be admitted as fellows without fee or examination. which during fourteen years had not been done.
In 1863 Dr. Childs, at the age of eighty, resigned his professorship. though he retained the presidency of the college. He afterward fre- quently addressed the students, by their invitation, with paternal counsel
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and instruction, and also delivered the diplomas at the commencements till 1867. Soon after the close of the lecture term of that year he went to Boston, where, after passing the winter in the family of his son-in-law, Hon. Elias Merwin, he died, on the 22d of March, 1868.
From 1823 to 1835 the average attendance of students was about 85; in 1836 it rose to 105, but fell off in 1837 to 68, and the average from that year to 1844 was not more than 80. From 1844 to 1848, the most prosperous era of the college, the numbers for the respective years were 135, 129, 140, 130, 120. The next year, 1849, showed a catalogue of only 95, and thenceforward the decline continued, although not with perfect uniformity, till the term of 1867 attracted barely 35 students.
A clinique was established at the college in 1854 and was continued successfully till the close of the career of the institution.
Men of brilliant professional reputation, many of them young and full of enthusiastic hope of reviving the fortunes of the college, were from time to time added to the faculty : among them Drs. Pliny Erle, . B. Palmer, Paul A. Chadbourne, William H. Thayer, Corydon L. Ford. R. Cresson Styles, William Warren Green, and H. M. Seeley ; all of whom gave themselves vigorously to the work, but most of them, soon becoming sensible how hopeless was the task, abandoned it for more promising fields. Little, however, as they were able to accomplish for the college. their influence was very strongly and happily felt in the medical society of the county. Drs. Thayer and Styles especially contributed to this result, and greatly intensified the local esprit du corps of the profession by the publication, in 1861, of the Berkshire Medical Journal, a hand- some magazine, of forty-eight pages, in which, besides much general medical and surgical matter of interest, there appeared monthly the trans- actions of the society, and articles from the pens of its members. Al- though the magazine was continued but a single year its influence was lasting.
In the forty-four years of its existence the Berkshire Medical College graduated eleven hundred and thirty-eight doctors in medicine, who held a rank in their profession equal to that of those sent out by any college. It had a large share in the advancement of medical science and the eleva- tion of medical character. It had attracted to Pittsfield, in its faculty and others, persons of culture who had adorned the society of the village while they mingled with it, and left it the better for their presence, and when it could no longer creditably perform the work which was entrusted to it, it gracefully yielded the place to those who could.
During the existence of the college voluntary associations were formed among the students for mutual literary and professional improve- ment. In these, some men, afterward of note, took part. Among these were President Hopkins, of Williams College, and Dr. J. G. Holland, who became a practitioner in Springfield, but soon abandoned his profession for that of literature.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
MEDICAL SOCIETIES.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, which was incorporated in 1781, appointed, 1785, a committee in each county of the commonwealth "for the purpose of encouraging the communication of all important or extra- ordinary cases that might occur in the practice of the medical art, and for this purpose to meet, correspond, and communicate with any indi- viduals, of any association of physicians in their respective counties, and make report of their doings."
Drs. Erastus Sergeant and Oliver Partridge, of Stockbridge, were appointed for Berkshire county, and it was hoped that a county associ- ation would soon be formed.
In June, 1787, fifteen physicians, all from towns in the southern part of the county, met at Stockbridge for the purpose of forming such a society; but the " tumults of the times " (the Shays rebellion) prevented any further action except the choice of officers, till the 12th of June when articles of association and rules were drawn up and signed by fourteen physicians. One of the rules was the following: " No member shall introduce his pupils into the practice of medicine unless they be first examined by the censors, and recommended by them to the associ- ation for a certificate of their qualifications, which certificate shall be signed by the president and countersigned by the secretary."
These censors were Drs. Timothy Childs, Erastus Sergeant. and Eldad Lewis, and at the next meeting of the society, which was held at Pitts- field, in January, 17SS, three young men, who had been approved by them, received the required certificate. Their names were Elijah Catlin, Reuben Backman, and Jacob Hoyt; and their diplomas in medicine were the first ever conferred in Berkshire, by any authority higher than that of an individual preceptor. The association adjourned to meet at Stock- bridge in June; but it never again assembled.
Probably the bitter feuds resulting from the Shays rebellion, which were not favorable to the fraternal association of the members of any profession, prevented the meetings. Dr. Whiting, the president of the society, was imprisoned and heavily fined for participation, and other members may have been implicated in it.
In November. 1794, a second Berkshire medical association was formed, but it had no member from Pittsfield or any town north of it. It continued only two years.
In February, 1818. the Legislature granted a charter for the Berk- shire District Medical Society, and in July, 1819, the fellows of the State - society. resident in Berkshire, were called together at Lenox to consider its acceptance. The charter was not accepted at that time. It was finally accepted in 1820, at a full meeting of the Fellows, and the following officers were chosen: president, Dr. Timothy Childs; vice-president. Dr. Hugo Burghardt; secretary, Alfred Perry; treasurer, librarian, and cabinet keeper, Dr. Charles Worthington.
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Dr. Timothy Childs died February 25th, 1821, at the age of 73 years. having been in the active practice of his profession till within one week of his death.
Dr. Hugo Burghardt, of Richmond, was chosen his successor as president of the medical society, and Dr. H. H. Childs was elected vice- president.
After the incorporation of the medical college the semi-annual meet- ings of the society were held at Pittsfield on commencement day ; the annual meetings convening, as before, at Lenox. From 1820 to 1834 the meetings appear to have been kept up with considerable spirit, although in the earlier years of that period there was often no quorum.
From 1834 to 1837, owing to a difference with the parent society, which refused to admit graduates of the Berkshire Medical College on the same terms with those of the institution connected with Harvard Univer- sity, there were no meetings ; but in September of the latter year, the State society having yielded that point, the Fellows of the district society and other physicians of the county met at Lenox and revived the old or- ganization. There is no record of any further meetings till March, 1842, when, in response to a call in the county newspapers, they again met at Lenox, chose the usual officers, and resumed their regular meetings, which have not since been interrupted.
At the semi-annual meeting in November, 1858, it was determined to hold the regular monthly meetings at Pittsfield, and in 1862 the annual meetings were transferred from Lenox to the same place.
In 1871 the Pittsfield Medical Society was formed, its object being the encouragement of social intercourse among the members of the pro- fession, and the promotion of scientific culture. The Pittsfield society has entertained the members of the county society at its monthly meet- ings ; thus, in some measure, equalizing the cost of attendance, they being free, by their location, from traveling expenses.
On the 15th of August, 1876, a meeting of physicians of North Adams and vicinity was held in the parlors of the (then) Arnold House, North Adams. These physicians (six in number) " engaged in a discussion up- on the need of a more hearty co-operation and fellowship among the phy- sicians of North Adams and vicinity," and the preliminary steps were taken for the formation of a society for mutual improvement and a closer and more cordial social and professional intercourse.
At another meeting. on the 22d of the same month, the North Berk- shire Medical Society was organized by the adoption of a constitution and the choice of officers. This constitution provided for monthly meet- ings, and that "members shall take their respective towns in alternate order in entertaining the association at the office, residence, or other con- venient place, and that it be left to the option of the member entertaining to provide or not refreshments, but if provided they shall be of the simplest kind." It may here be stated that there have been flagrant violations of this regulation by the provision of sumptuous repasts.
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The meetings have been very well attended, and the society has had members from Adams, North Adams, Cheshire, Williamstown, Pownal, Clarksburg, and Readsboro. At the meetings papers on various profes- sional topics have been read, and these have elicited spirited and able discussions. These papers and discussions have brought out conservative as well as progressive views, and they are believed to have been profit- able to all who listened or participated.
To insure uniformity in charges the society adopted a fee bill, and to prevent imposture by "dead beats" a black list was prepared, bearing the names of those who were constantly running from one physician to another as their credit failed with each. It pretty effectually broke up that custom, and the people now expect to pay.
The association has been of great benefit to its members. They have become acquainted with each other as physicians, and have become broader in their views, as well as more charitable toward each other, and have forgotten petty jealousies and rivalries ; and consequently, as a profession they have become more compact, and command to a fuller ex- tent the confidence of the public. It has also been of benefit to the pub- lic. It has proven that the faculty have a regard for their own respect and services, and expect to be remunerated for them ; and consequently the public have had more respect and consideration for the profession. This action and reaction between the profession and the people has been healthful.
The presidents of the society from its organization to the present have been: N. S. Babbitt, G. C. Lawrence, A. M. Smith, H. J. Millard, O. J. Brown, H. S. Phillips, H. Bushnell, M. Smith. Secretaries: O. J. Brown, H. Bushnell, H. J. Millard, H. Maloney, J. H. A. Matte, D. E. Thayer, C. J. Curran.
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CHAPTER XX.
AGRICULTURE IN BERKSHIRE.
Early methods .- Societies for the promotion of agriculture .- Berkshire Agricultural Society .- Housatonic Agricultural Society .-- Hoosac Valley Agricultural Society.
T HE agriculture of early times in Berkshire county was such as is never seen now. Very few now living here have witnessed the process of preparing the virgin soil for the first crop. The timber was often girdled in advance, so that when felled, as it often was, in what are termed windrows, much of it would burn as it lay, being partially or wholly dried, by kindling a fire at the windward end of these rows. After the first burn some of the remaining fragments were "niggered " into pieces that could be easily moved, and these were drawn together with oxen and "logged up" for the final burning. Many in a neighbor- hood usually joined in this work, and the "logging bees" were at the same time occasions when work was done and social intercourse enjoyed. When the burning was completed and the ashes were collected the ground was sometimes made ready for the seed by harrowing with a three cor- nered harrow, which was often hewed from a crotched tree, with either large wooden pins set at intervals, or large and strong iron teeth. Such a harrow was drawn over the ground among the stumps to fit the soil for its first crop, when the roots were not sufficiently decayed to permit the use of a plough. In using this primitive harrow in these clearing's the driver found it necessary to keep at a respectful distance, for it often bounded from side to side in a manner not compatible with safety at close quarters. In cases where ploughing could be done the old bull plough was used. This was an uncouth implement with a wrought iron share and a wooden moldboard, such a tool as is now rarely seen, even among relics of the past. In rare cases a wooden plough hewn out of a crotched tree was used. The wheat sown or corn planted in ground prepared in this rude way often gave good returns, such was the fertility of the soil before it was exhausted by repeated cropping. When a crop was grown and ripened it was ent with sickles, a handful at a time. Sickles may occasionally be seen at the present day ; but there are few who ever saw
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