USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume II pt 1 > Part 17
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In 1724 Josiah Yale, of Wallingford. Conn., bought a traet of fifty acres in the northwest part of the town, now included in the fine farm of Hon. Elizur Smith. The marriage of .. Captain Josiah Yale to Ruth Tracy," September 26th, 1776, is the first which appears in the records of the town. Mr. Yale, during all his life, was a very useful and public spirited citizen. When the church was built, in 1800. it is said that he contributed his only iron bar as a crank for the bell, because he knew the iron was good, and that he purchased four pews because money was scarce and buyers few. He was in public office of some kind during nearly all his life. He died in 1822, aged seventy. Among his descend ants still in town is Hon. Wellington Smith, who is a great-grandson.
Peter Wilcox, of Killingworth, Con .. also came at an early date and seems to have been the first settler on the site of the Center village. His honse was at the corner of Main and Franklin streets, on the present grounds of Elizur Smith. He owned all the land in the south part of the
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village from the river to Fern Cliff, and from Park street to School street. The lot on which the church was built was purchased from him.
Among the earliest settlers in South Lee was Amos Mansfield, who. with his son. Theophilus, built there a grist mill, and afterward a foun- dry. The name of most frequent occurrence in early doemments is that of West, families of that name being found in all parts of the town.
Most of the earliest settlers came from towns in the neighborhood. from Connectiont and from New York. A few, however, were from Cape Cod, and following their lead, there begin, about 1775, a numerous it- migration into town from that section, especially from the towns of Barn stable, Sandwich. and Falmouth : the distress caused by the Revolution- ary war compelling the inhabitants to seek a livelihood ekowhere. This immigration continued until the close of the war, and in some degree to the end of the century, and this element of the early population became at last the controlling one. The Cape settlers located mostly in the eastern part of the town, which came in consequence to be called " Cape Street." a name which it still bears. Job Hamblin, who came in 1775. located on Hamblin's Hill, on the farm until lately in the possession of the family, and now owned by P. M. Shaylor. W. H. and D. P. Hamblin are his descendants in the fourth generation. About the same time came Seth Barlow, the progenitor of the numerous families of the name for merly m town. fe settled on the hill near Asahel Dodge. Samuel Stanley. the first tanner of the town, located in the same neighborhood, as did. somewhat later, Ebenezer Jenkins, John Crosby, and David Baker. Nathan Ball, who came into town in 1775 by way of Stockbridge, logited on Ball Hill, on the Lenox road, where Charles B. Nye now lives. The name, once so frequent, has now but a single representative. Luther Ball. who is a grandson of Nathan. Lemnel Crocker fixed his habitation where Mr. Lyman Perry now resides : Elisha Crocker, who came in 1770. in the western part of the town, where, at the age of Si, still lives his youngest son. Lucius Crocker : Joseph Crocker settled on the William Cone farm, about a mile south of the Center. Cornelins and Nathaniel Bassett and Nathan Dillingham came in 1978 and located in what is now the Center of the town. Ansel Bassett, a younger brother of Nathaniel. settled at a later date where his grandson of the same name now lives Other leading names of the Cape families, though some of them came much later, are Goodspeed, Child, Percival, Fessenden. Gifford. Thatcher. Sturgess, and Hinckley.
The journey from the Cape was in those days a long and hard one. Captain Joseph Crocker moved his family the entire distance on an ox cart, his aged mother and himself riding in advance on the same horse. It took Job Hamblin forty days to go to Boston and back for a load of salt. A part of the distance there were no roads or bridges, and the travelers were compelled to find their way through the forests by marked trees, and to cross the streams on fallen ones. Coming in winter. as some of them did, they could only make their way over the deep drifts ou
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snow shoes. At a later period the settlers facilitated the journey by sending their household goods from the Cape by water to Hudson, N. Y., and thence by a much shorter land route into Berkshire. Articles of furniture thus transported by the first settlers are still preserved as heir- looms in the families of their descendants. The style of living was in the extreme of pioneer simplicity and roughness. The houses were made of logs, and small at that, so that it is difficult to understand what disposal was made of the large families of children, numbering, as they frequently did, ten, twelve, and even fifteen. But the soil in its virgin freshness was fertile, even on the hillsides, where they mostly settled to escape the malaria and the heavy timber of the valleys. Of wood there was an embarrassing superabundance. The brooks were alive with trout and the forests with game. The groves of maple furnished ample supplies of sugar; and, in contrast with the barrenness of the Cape, the region seemed ;to the weary immigrants on their arrival a paradise of plenty. It was indeed the glowing accounts sent back by the first comers that gave impulse to the subsequent currents of emigration in this particular direction. These settlers from the Cape were a strong and rugged race, Pilgrims of the Pilgrims in descent and spirit, and to their staunch New England virtues the stable character of the town in its early history is mainly due.
'T'here continued to be accessions also from other sources during this period. Among them was John Freese, who came into town from Egremont, in 1783, and seems to have been one of the first settlers on Cornhill. He lived first near the site of the present brick school house, and afterward on the spot now occupied by the house of Henry Smith. His farm was of almost provincial dimensions, extending from Cornhill to the top of Beartown Mountain. The Freeses were of Dutch descent and still re- tained many of the quaint customs of the old country, among them that of keeping on hand a supply of mahogany coffins and satin grave clothes imported from Holland. They were intimate with the Van Burens, of Kinderhook, and the future president, Martin Van Buren, was, in his boyhood, a frequent visitor at the Freese homestead on Cornhill. The sons, on coming to maturity, removed to Brunswick, Ohio, and the only descendant of the family now in town, is Miss Sarah Goodspeed, whose mother was a daughter of John Freese.
It is somewhat remarkable that after its more than a century of his- tory, four at least of the children of the first settlers of the town are still living, viz .: Isaac Bassett and Mrs. Charles Hinckley, children of Na- thaniel Bassett, aged 88 and 82 ; Lucius Crocker, son of Elisha Crocker, aged 87 ; and Nancy Baker, daughter of David Baker, aged 80.
It was not until after the establishment of the church, in 1780, that the Center began to rival "Dodgetown" as the principal hamlet. In 1778 Nathan Dillingham built the " Red Lion" tavern, on the corner of the Pease lot, opposite the Center school house. This was the first two- story house in town, and was kept as a tavern until 1834. About the
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same time Nathaniel Bassett built the rear part of the house now occu- pied by his daughter, Mis. Charles Hinckley. Cornelius Bassett located near him on the site of the residence of Wellington Smith, and Corne- lius T. Fessenden on the spot now occupied by R. A. Webster. These honses, with that of Peter Wilcox, at the corner of Main and Franklin streets, constituted, it would seem, all there was of the Center village in the first stage of its history. There was not a house of any kind on the west side of what is now Main street, and not five acres of cleared land in the vicinity of the present site of the village. The building of the church had the effect to attract settlement in this direction to some ex- tent : but it was not until the manufacturing interests of the town began to predominate over the agricultural that there was any considerable ag- gregation of population at the Center. It is impossible to determine the precise number of inhabitants in the territory at the incorporation of the town in 1777. The usual estimate has been from one hundred and fifty to two hundred. But from the number of men in town, as indicated by early documents, it would seem that this estimate is too small, and that the population of the town at its organization must have been three or four hundred.
Five different tracts or grants were included in whole or in part in the town of Lee at its incorporation: "Hoplands." " Watson's," "Wil- liams," "Larrabee's," "Glassworks."
The district known as the Hoplands was taken from Great Barrington. The name was derived from the great quantity of wild hops formerly grow- ing on the banks of Hop Brook. It extends nearly across the south part of the town, with a breadth of about three miles, and contains something over 5,000 acres. According to the Great Barrington tax list for the year 1777, there were then living in the Hoplands twenty-seven persons who were paying either poll or property tax in that town. Their names were as follows : George Bennett, Benjamin Backus. William Benja- min, Simon Calkins, Renben Cary, Noah Crocker, Isaac Davis, Isaac Da- vis, jr., John Davis, Charles Freeman, James Gardner, Jemima Howk. William Ingersoll, Moses Ingersoll, Aaron Ingersoll, Amos Mansfield, Theophilus Mansfield. James Mansfield, Amos Stanton, Rufus Stanton, Reuben Pixley, Matthew Van Deusen, Jeremiah Wormer, Aaron Wor- mer, Eleazer West, Daniel West, Noah Ellis. Being remote from the rest of the town and separated from it by the Beartown range, it was natural that the people living in this district should desire union with Lee at its incorporation. The separation from Great Barrington was ef- fected without opposition from its inhabitants. The proceeds of certain lands set apart by the original proprietors for school purposes constitute what is known as the " Hopland School Fund," which has led. some- what unfortunately for the best interests of education. to the perpetua- tion as a separate school district of the distinction between this section and the rest of the town. The lands in this tract are among the best in
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town for farming purposes, and its abundant water power has contributed largely to the town's prosperity.
Watson's Grant, a portion of which was embraced in the town of Lee on its eastern side, comprised a large tract purchased originally from the Stockbridge Indians, in 1757 8, by Robert Watson. of Sheffield. At least Watson claimed to have made the purchase, and disposed of the tract, as its rightful owner. to a company of sixty proprietors residing mostly in Hartford, Conn. The claim of Watson was, however, repudi- ated by the Indians, and the Hartford proprietors, to secure their title. were compelled to re-purchase of the Indians themselves. The tract coll- prised the town of Washington and parts of the towns of Middlefield. Hinsdale, Lenox, and Lee. It was called by various names successively, as Watsonton. Greenock, Hartwood, and finally the southern part was incorporated into a town called Washington. It was from this town. the incorporation of which preceded that of Lee by only a few months. that the strip included in the latter town was taken. It runs along the whole eastern line of the town from north to south, and it was the largest of the tracts that entered into its composition. The records in full of the original Hartwood proprietors are now in the keeping of the town clerk of Lee.
Larrabee's Grant lay in the northern part of the town, in the vicinity of Lenox Furnace. It consisted of a tract of 500 acres granted by the province in 1740 to Lieutenant John Larrabee, as a reward for military services, he having been for many years the commander of " Castle Wil- liam," in Boston Harbor. Its boundaries were quite indefinite. and it is impossible to determine how much was included in Lee. The portion must have been small, as it is not mentioned in the act of incorporation. The ambiguity of boundary led to a long controversy between Lee and Lenox, which was settled in 1820 by the establishment of the present boundary. This accounts for the perplexing iregularity of the town line in the neighborhood of Lenox Furnace.
The Williams Grant, or, as it was sometimes called. the .. Minister's grant," because of the number of clergymen among the original propri- etors, one of whom was Jonathan Edwards, forms the northwest part of the town. It was a tract of 4,000 acres granted in 1730 to Colonel Eph- raim Williams and associates in exchange for 280 acres of valuable meadow land in Stockbridge desired by the Indians. Colonel Williams had for his share 900 acres around what is now known as Lanrel Lake, and it was from this part of the traet that the portion included in Lee was taken.
The grant known as Glassworks embraced the territory in the center of the town between the other tracts and running westward to the Stock. bridge line. It consisted of about 1,500 acres, granted, in 1754, to a com- pany in Boston, as a bounty to encourage manufactures, of which glass was one. The greater part, if not the whole, of this tract seems to have passed into the hands of Peletial West, Joseph Hatch, and Eleazer West,
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in the years 1768-71, as the deeds to the first settlers in this part of the town are given in their names.
According to the plan accompanying the petition for incorporation, the dimensions of the several tracts were as follows :
Hoplands. 5. 171 acres ; Glassworks, 1,563 : Williams. 650; Hartwood or Watson's, 6,853 ; making a total of 14, 237 acres. The original surveys, however, were very imperfect, and these figures are much too small. The total acreage of the town, according to recent estimates, is about 16.000.
The first movement for the incorporation of the inhabitants of these giants into a town was made several years before the object wasattained, a petition to that effect, dated January 6th. 1774. being on file in the Massachusetts archives. The reasons given for asking incorporation_are the great inconvenience to which the people were subjected ou account of their distance from the churches and main body of the people of the towns to which they were attached, and the mountainous character of the intervening country. Forty-five names are appended to this petition, and they are of interest as giving the completest list now obtainable of the earliest settlers. They are as follows : William Ingersoll. Isaac Davis, Isaac Davis, jr., Peletiah West, Amos Stanton. Eldad Kebble. Jonathan West, Peter Wilcox, Samuel Wright. Eliphalet West, Elijah West, Daniel West, Daniel Church, Oliver West, Eleazer West, Elisha Free- man, Levi Nye, Abner West, David Kellogg. Ozias Strong, Seth Backus, Joshua Backus, Benjamin Backus, Thomas Ewer. Hope Davis, Ebenezer Swift. Asahel Dodge, Elisha Dodge, Samuel Hatch. John Nye, Aaron In- gersoll, Elisha Grant, Jonathan Foot, Jonathan Foot, jr., Simon Calkins, Joseph Handy. John Winegar. Theophilus Mansfield, George Bennett, Nathan Bennett, Ephraim Hollister, Matthew Vandensen. Jeremiah Wormer, Moses Ingersoll. Malatiah Hatch. As intimated in a second petition, without date, but doubtless belonging to the early part of the year 1777. the delay of incorporation was due to " the contention between Great Britain and the Colonies." This second petition, besides some of the names of the first. has also many new ones of settlers who had in the interim come into the territory : it thus becomes a kind of water mark to indicate the progress of the town. This petition was at onee granted. and the act of incorporation was passed October 21st, 1777. There seems to have been some rivalry between the people of this district and those of Hartwood on the east, having reference to the strip of territory from the Watson grant which has been spoken of, as the original Lee petition was followed, May 25th, 1774, by one from Hartwood also asking for in- corporation, keeping " the original bonnds." The coveted territory was at first actually included in Washington, which took the place of Hart- wood as the name of the eastern town at its incorporation, April 12th, 1777, only to be taken from it again a few months later, October 21st. when the bill for the incorporation of Lee was passed. There is a mani- fest propriety in the final disposition of the land in question. from its pro- graphical connection with the other grants included in the valley town.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
There is, in the names chosen for the two towns, a reminiscence of the Revolutionary times in the midst of which they came into corporate being ; the first being taken from the commander-in-chief of the Ameri- can army, then only at the dawn of his fame, and the second from the officer who was thought at the time to rival, if not to surpass Washing- ton in military genius, General Charles Lee. Though the reputation of the favorite was so speedily tarnished, the young town did not deem it necessary to repudiate the name by which it had been christened. Lee was the twenty-first town incorporated in Berkshire.
The first town meeting was held in the log house of Peter Wilcox. December 220, 1777, at which the following officers were chosen : mod- erator, William Ingersoll : clerk. Prince West : selectmen. William Ingersoll, Prince West, Jesse Bradley. Oliver West, Amos Porter ; treasurer, William Ingersoll ; constables, Reuben Pixley. James Pen- oyer ; highway surveyors Daniel Church, Job Hamblin, John Nye, William Ingersoll; tythingmen, Abijah Tomlinson, Samuel Stanley; leather sealer, Samuel Stanley ; committee of correspondence, Wil. liam Ingersoll, Jesse Bradley, Oliver West. The greed for office, if it existed at that time, must have been abundantly satisfied by the plural honors indicated in the repetition of most of the names in this first list of town officers. The paucity of population was doubtless one reason for this accumulation of public duties on a few in- dividuals ; but it seems to have been the rule in the early history of the town to put and keep in office the men deemed best fitted for the re. quired duties, thus anticipating the principles of modern civil service re- form. The records show that Josiah Yale served twenty years on the board of selectmen ; John Nye, twenty-two: Joseph Whiton, ten. Prince West, the first town clerk, served five years in this office; Nathan Dillingham, thirteen : Daniel Wileox, twelve ; Hubbard Bartlett, fifteen : Ransom Hinman, twenty-one. If all these officers were as well qualified for their duties and took as much pride in them as Mr. Hinman, it is no wonder they were kept in place for such long terms of service. He was the writing master of the town, and his records are models, both in their completeness and their calligraphy. In his " Publishments" of mar. riage he especially delighted to show his skill as a penman, and it is a fact that marriages were sometimes hastened in order to make sure of his services before his possible loss of the office. The same rule was follow- ed in the legislative as in the town offices. In the first thirty six years of the town's history it was represented in the Legislature by only four different men ; Ebenezer Jenkins serving eight years, Josiah Yale, six. Jared Bradley, seven, Joseph Whiton, nine.
The records of the town have been preserved in such completeness as to give a very definite picture of the simple, democratic ways of the fa- thers. The town meetings were held in various places : the house and barn of Peter Wilcox, Major Dillingham's tavern, and finally, after 1780, in the Congregational church. If the opinion attributed to Daniel
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Webster is correct, that the New England town meeting was the great school of American freedom. the early inhabitants of this town ought to have been well versed in its principles, for they certainly had abundant opportunity. Town meetings seem to have been called on the slightest possible occasion. In 1780 there is record of ten meetings, in 1754 of fourteen, and in 1786 of fifteen. They were notified at first by a notice on the whipping post, which, as if to symbolize the close connection be- tween law and gospel, was planted near the church. At a later date the grist mills of the town. as places of constant resort, were used for that purpose. There was as much discussion over the hundreds appropriate for the expenses of the town, as over the thousands required at the pres. ent time, and the proper adjustment of the burdens of taxation was as vexatious a problem then as now. Even the embezzlement of public money was a thing not entirely unknown in those primitive days, one of the first cases of discipline in the Congregational church being that of a prominent town official for an offense of that nature.
The early records of the town show on almost every page traces of the Revolutionary conflict in the midst of which its history began. The "Committee of Correspondence," named in the first list of town officers, had reference to the war, and, as in most other New England towns. a similar committee was chosen annually until the establishment of peace. June 19th, 1780, the town voted "to come into a way to raise the men now called for," and also "to give each man twelve pounds bounty in hard money." As the sum raised was one hundred and eight pounds. the number of men then called for must have been nine. At the next meeting, July 11th, 1780, it was voted " to give the two men the same bounty that the other six months' men had." To the three months' men forty shilling per month in addition to their wages, or a " grain equiva- lent," was voted, the money to be raised by fines. As the election for governor a few months later shows a total of only thirty nine votes. W. can see how nearly exhaustive was the draft upon the military force of the country in the later stages of the great struggle. March 27th, 1781. it was voted " to raise the sum of seventy-five pounds silver to pay five soldiers to serve in the Continental army," and also to repeat the appro- priation for two years to come. Again, July 14th, 1781, it was votel. after some opposition it would seem, to raise five men for the three months' service, the town to be divided into classes for that purpose. At the same time it was ". Voted to comply with the requisition of the Gen- eral Court to raise the beef now called for." Similar votes appear elsewhere. August 28th, 1781, forty two pounds were raised to pay for three horses bought by the selectmen for the use of the State. The de- preciation of the Continental currency in the struggle is indicated by the action of the town meeting, January 15th, 1781, when it was voted that grain should be received for taxes at the following rates : wheat at $72 per bushel : rye, 848 : Indian cor. 826 : oats, 827.
Enough of the personal experiences of the soldiers of the town in the
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campaigns of the Revolution has been preserved to give life and reality to the history. The Bassetts, Nathaniel and Cornelins, had both served as privateersmen before coming to Berkshire, and had passed through many perilous experiences. Nathaniel was also in the army under Washington, at Dorchester Heights, and was in the first boat load of sol- diers to take possession of a fort which Washington's masterly strategy had compelled the British to abandon. Coming to Berkshire in 1979. he was induced again to enlist. Being stationed at West Point, he was sent with his company to Verplanck's Point in furtherance of Arnold's plan to seatter the American forces, and thus facilitate his treasonable pur- pose. He assisted to drag a cannon through the woods to the banks of the Hudson, from which the fire was opened on the British ship, Vulture. which had brought Andre from New York. This compelled the Vulture to drop down the river. thus leading to the capture of Andre, and to the flight of the traitor. Bassett saw Arnold as he passed in a boat to take refuge on the Vulture. Mr. Bassett settled permanently after the war in Lee, where he died in 1846, at the age of eighty eight. leaving nearly 100 descendants. His cousin. Cornelins Bassett. receiving $100 prize money from his privateer service. was led from patriotic motives to invest the whole in Continental currency, which he afterward gave for a watch. did that he exchanged for the lot on which the Red Lion Tavern was built. Fenner Foote shared in the disastrous expedition of Arnold to Quebec, in the winter of 1776-7. and was in the battle of Stony Point. Mr. Foote lived to the age of ninety-two, dying in 1847. Asahel Foote. his brother, served in two enrollments. an aggregate of twelve months, at Schoharie and West Point. He was present at the latter place when the "great chain " was stretched across the Hudson to stop the progress of the enemy's ships up the river. Captains Jesse Bradley and Amos Por- ter were both brave and efficient officers, and saw much service. Joseph Willis was at the battle of White Plains, in Colonel Shelden's regiment of Light Horse. Joseph Handy, after serving in the army his full enlist- ment of three years, enlisted again in 1981 for another three years. It is a sad commentary on the gratitude of republics to learn that his widow was the first pauper in the history of the town. Such patriotism cer- tainly merited a better reward than panperism for the dependents left behind at death.
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