USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume II pt 1 > Part 29
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In less than two years the four townships were located and si- veyed, and designated by Nos. 1. 2. 3 and 4. and afterward incorporated under the names, in order of the numbers. Tyringham, New Marlboro, Sandisfield, and Becket. The original grantees of No. 2 were citizens of Marlboro, Hampshire county, and thus the new township was called New Mar boro. The name Marlboro, like most of the colonial place names. was brought from England, and signifies a borough or distriet abounding in marl.
The winter of 1739-40 was unusually severe, and it is said that the supplies of the first settler were brought from Sheffield on snow shoes. the only means of communication open to him. The Indians, though friendly in most respects, forbade him to use his gun to kill, or perhaps to drive away the deer. There was as as much prudence as severity in this prohibition, for deer hunting in winter was an important and neces- sary resource of the Indian life. They had a special word for winter deer hunting, Poontoosuck, and this. it will be remembered. was the Indian name for Pittsfield. Deer were then so abundant, and at this sea-
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son so tame. that they would browse on the edges of the clearings. often within sight of the settler's cabin.
The neighboring Indians, though naturally jealous of the whites, seem never to have been actually hostile or dangerous. Indeed there were never many Indians in the territory of the township. We have ac- count of only one family or portion of a tribe, living at the outlet of Lake Buell. These gave no further trouble than the enforcement of the game law above mentioned. But to secure their good will the original grantees, in addition to their grant from the colonial conneil. had obtained a title from the Indians for a satisfactory money prie. This purchase was made from Top-here-an he-och, or Konkapot, and other chiefs of the Housatonic tribe. This deed was ratified by the General Court, and a further grant of 11.000 acres was added, on consideration that seven more families should be added to each township to make sixty-six families in each.
But every border settlement had its log fortress for refuge and defense against possible Indian raids. In such a fort. built on what is now known as Leflingwall Hill, between New Marlboro and Mill River, occurred. it is said. the first birth among the new settlers-twin children of Mr. Philip Brookins, one of whom was still living in 1820.
There were a few instances where some lone Indian lingered about. living a kind of hermit life. The best known of these was old Anthony. who had his cabin and garden patch in the valley where the brook which bears his name joins the Konkapot. He was not a true aboriginal. but a kind of white man's Indian, adopting. in part. the new language. dress. and habit. Even now his valley is a center of surviving wild life. Schools of tront are yet hiding in its deep pools of cold spring water. the partridge bursts ont from the thicket, the king-fisher bores the bank for a breeding place, and the young foxes still bask in the spring sunshine on the warm slopes of the terrace about their burrow. Standing by the heap of stones that are said to have been the walls of the Indian's last cabin one may see how well chosen was the spot. No sound or stir of wild life on the sides of the encircling hills escaped his eye and ear. As the story goes, he used to chase away the early settlers as they were dip ping ont tront from his brook with corn baskets.
Benjamin Wheeler, the first settler, passed the first winter alone. and the second winter alone with his family, whom he had brought from Marlboro in the summer of 1740. According to Rev. Harley Good. win, who compiled, abont half a century ago, a history of New Marlboro. no other settlers came until 1741. In this year came Noah Church. Jabez Ward, Thomas Tattilow, Elias Keyes. Joseph Blackmer, Jesse Taylor, John Taylor, William Witt, Philip Brookins, and soon afterward. Sam- uel Bryan, from Marlboro.
In 1744-5 came Joseph Adams, Moses Cleaveland, Silas Freeman, Charles Adams, Solomon and Nathan Raynsford, and Jarvis Pike, from Canter- bury, Conn. Of the ancestor of the Bullards it is said that he was one of
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seven men who jumped overboard from a British man-of-war. Five were shot in the water; Bullard and Rawson escaped, living three months on roots and berries. They were probably impressed as seamen in the old French wars. This Benjamin Bullard settled over the mountain, on the Monterey road. These first settlers came in the confidence of the long peace which had existed for more than thirty years between England and France. There seems to be no record of other settlers immediately fol- lowing the first, for in 1744 began the long period of hostility between England and France with her Indian allies. During the successive wars there were few accessions by emigration, and some residents doubtless left for safer localities. The settlement of this, as of our other colonial borders, seems to have been regulated by the hope of peace after each treaty or the danger and discouragement which followed each new decla- ration of war.
But when the French were finally driven from their American pos- sessions and English supremacy was established by the taking of Quebec, there must have been a rapid emigration to the new towns from the already crowded sea coast and lower river valleys. This is evident from the increased number of dates corresponding to this period in the old burying grounds, and also from the large number who responded to the call for the war of Independence only sixteen years later. The town- ship, which had been hitherto known as No. 2, was incorporated under the name of New Marlborough, June 15th, 1759, and had at that time more than sixty householders.
In the early period of New Marlboro's existence the history of the church is a large part of the history of the town The church records and the town records are almost duplicates of each other for citizenship and membership were identical. No sooner had the veriest temporal necessities been provided for than, says Mr. Auren Smith, in his cen- tennial address, "the inevitable meeting house became the next thing in order."
Indeed, special provision had been made by the terms of the origi- nal grant both for beginning and maintaining a church, one town lot having been set apart for the first, and one for the second settled min . ister.
In 1741, the very year which brought the first families to join Benja- min Wheeler, a committee of five, Samuel Bryan, Noah Church. Jesse Taylor, Phineas Brown, and Nathan Raynsford, were appointed " to lo- cate the meeting house, to procure the ground for the meeting house to stand on, and to raise the meeting house." They located the meeting house on lot No. 22, and procured a deed of three acres of land " for to set the meeting house on." This wise provision went further even than the founders intended, for it gave to New Marlboro village its open space for a beautiful lawn and park. In 1742 or 1743 came the Rev. Thomas Strong, a graduate of Yale in 1740, and " being of pleasant manners and goodly conversation " was chosen minister on the 17th of July, 1744. A
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committee reported that " the Rev. Thomas Strong have a settlement of 150 pounds old tenure, and an annual salary of 50 pounds in bills of credit so long as he prove a faithful minister of the Gospel." The earliest church record commences thus: "Oct. ye 31 anno Domini 1744, there was a church gathered at New Marlboro, alias No. 2, and the Rev. Thomas Strong ordained to ye pastoral office there." and the same day the first church was formed with five members : Moses Cleaveland, Sam- uel Bryan. Jesse Taylor, William Witt, and Joseph Adams. Six more members were added during the year. Nowhere in New England does the proverbal Puritan promptness in providing for church worship outdo this. This church in the wilderness was ministered to by men of unusual ability. They were men of fine education and presence, of great devo- tion and with a full sense of the sacredness of their calling. The parish. too, was made up largely of young married people, and the early house- holds abounded in health, hope and children. The following from the register of marriage in the vital statistics are names of young married people, most of whom made new homes in the town within the first ten years of its settlement : Rev. Thomas and Elizabeth Strong, John and Abagail Gillet, Elihu and Rachel Wright, Asa and Thankful Sheldon, Jesse and Mary Taylor, Isaac and Mary Chamberlain, Ebenezer and Anna Hall, Elias and Sarah Keyes, Charles and Judith Adams, Asa and Miriam Hammon, Jehiel and Susan Brooks, Jarvis and Sarah Pike. Samuel and Elizabeth Norton, Stephen and Martha Rice, John and Lydia Shaw. Simeon and Mary Hammon, Solomon Raynsford and wife, Joseph and Miriam Adams, Nathan and Elizabeth Harmon.
Mr. Strong's pastorate of thirty-three years shows how well he ful- filled the conditions of his settlement. He was succeeded by the Rev. Caleb Alexander, who retained his pastoral office but sixteen months. There may have been conscientious differences in matters of faith, since he introduced a new confession and covenant, which in turn were set aside by the present one introduced by his successor, Dr. Catlin, who succeeded him, and who was pastor thirty-nine years, dying in 1826. New Marlboro just missed being the birth place of Dr. Adoniram Jud. son, the great missionary, whose father came near being settled over the church in the interval between these two pastorates, at a date correspond- ing to the birth of the illustrious missionary. The Rev. Harley Good. win was ordained in 1826 as Dr. Catlin's colleague, and remained pastor eleven years. The Rev. Chester Fitch followed with another pastorate of eleven years. He was succeeded by Rev. Richard T. Searle, in 1852. The Rev. C. C. Painter and Rev. S. Gale were afterward settled over the church in extended and prosperous pastorates.
Since 1879 the church has not had a settled minister. The pulpit was supplied for five years ending June, 1884, by Principal S. T. Frost, of the South Berkshire Institute.
About 1793 it was thought necessary to build a new meeting house in the town. Difference of opinion as to its location resulted in a new
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
church and society, organized in the south parish, afterward called Southfield, in 1794. The church was organized with twenty-one mem- ¿ bers, all from the first church. The first minister was Rev. John Ste- vens, a graduate of Yale in 1779. He was installed October 220, 1794, and died in his work hardly five years later. He was succeeded by Rev. Nathaniel Turner, a graduate of Williams in 1998. He served a pastor- ate of thirteen years, and was followed by Rev. Sylvester Burt, of South- ampton, a graduate of Williams in 1804. The last resident Congrega- tional pastor was the Rev. S. M. Free. The society at present divides pastoral service with the Methodist society at Hartsville.
In 1820 a third Congregational society and church was established at Mill River by about fifty persons, chiefly members of the north and south parishes. The Rev. Thomas Crowther was the first pastor. This church also had for several years no settled pastor. It shared for five years with the north parish the services of Prof. S. T. Frost, a licentiate of the South Berkshire Congregational Conference.
The Baptist church in Southfield was organized in 1847, with twenty- seven members, and with the Rev. Amos Benedict as pastor. The same is now pastor a second time after an interval of many years. In 1849 a church edifice was erected at Hartsville for the use of the Methodist society of that place, since which time church service has been main- tained.
The Roman Catholic church at Mill River was built in 1865, and has a large attendance and membership.
The Revolutionary struggle was at hand, and on June 17th, 1774. (just one year before the battle of Bunker Hill) a warrant was issued calling for a town meeting, and the choice of a town committee of cor respondence. This was in accordance with the action of the other towns of the State, in response to the call of the committee of correspondence in Boston. At the town meeting held a few days later, Noah Church. Dr. Ephraim Guiteau. Jabez Ward, the first representative of New Marl- boro at the General Court. Zenas Wheeler, and Dr. Elihin Wright were chosen a committee to attend a county convention of committees at Stockbridge. In accordance, doubtless, with the general action of this convention, New Marlboro voted September 12th, 1774, "for a town stock. 224 lbs. of powder, 600 lbs. of lead, nine gross of good flints, and £35 in money."
January 24th, 1775, a committee of inspection was chosen. consisting of Capt. Zenas Wheeler, Jabez Ward. Major John Collar, Captain Caleb Wright, Gideon Post, Eleazar Taylor, and Cyrus Brookins, with instrac- tions that the advice of the Continental Congress bo strictly a thered 10. A committee was also appointed to collect donations for the poor of the towns of Boston and Charlestown, and Dr. Ephraim Guiteau was made a delegate to the Provincial Congress. Committees were also chosen to look after the families of men who might be called upon to go in defense of the country : and pay was voted to minute men, a company of whom
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under Captain Caleb Wright seem to have marched from New Marlboro to Roxbury on the news of the Lexington alarm, to join the besieging army about Boston. The records of the town during that period contain offers of bounty for enlistment and responses to calls for men and means. In Angust, 1777, the selectmen were authorized to impress horses for men to ride to Bennington to resist the invasion of Burgoyne. The last warrant of the township "in his majesty's name" is dated May 8th, 1775 ; afterward the warrants begin " In the name of the people and State of Massachusetts Bay."
It is probable that the New Marlboro men enlisted in the two Berk- shire regiments, one commanded by Colonel Fellows, of Sheffield, and the other by Colonel Paterson. of Lenox.
Both Ebenezer Smith as captain and John Collar as colonel and pay- master served through the entire war. Captain Luke Hitchcock was killed in a duel with his own lientenant at West Point, while the Ameri- can army was stationed there.
New Marlboro has always been an agricultural rather than a manu- facturing town, and producing grass rather than grain. Portions of the valley of the Konkapot give fine rye growths ; seventy acres of contin- uous rye field have been grown year after year on the Clayton flats ; but it is not probable that the earliest settlers, even with the advantages of the virgin soil warm and quick with forest mold. coald count upon crops of winter grain. It is said. however, that they had some success with spring wheat. Indian corn is not certain to mature, the summer being too short and cool. Oats always grow well ; but as other crops which they would naturally follow are not largely cultivated, they are not ex- tensively grown.
Buckwheat is generally successful. For the potato the soil and cli- mate seem peculiarly favorable, and the crop is largely cultivated. Very fine yields of tobacco are grown in the valleys, and this industry, which has been steadily increasing for the last ten years, has now become prosperous and important. The first crop was raised abont 1860.
Of fruits, the cherry, peach, and grape find the climate too severe. but for the apple and the pear the conditions of growth seem very per- fect. The apples grown on New Marlboro hillsides are famous for a richness of flavor joined with a firmness of fibre which saves them from decay. A very superior quality is claimed for the cider also. Small fruits, both wild and cultivated, grow nowhere else more naturally. There is a continual succession of wild berries from early July until September. The blackberry is abundant and excellent, and the blossoms and fruit are a rare show. " the solitary place is glad for them."
In early days butter and cheese were made in every farm house. This town then abonnded in well-to-do farmers, and large households of children were reared and started in life with the profits of this industry. The town then afforded districts of the very sweetest natural produire. Shipments of cheese were then made on a very large scale, and much was
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sent to New Orleans and the West Indies. Country merchants were often extensive cheese factors, and on the days when cheese was deliv- 7 ered long lines of teams made an imposing show. This was the golden age of New Marlboro and other hill towns. They were then business centers and outranked the towns of the valley to which the railroad has since given precedence. New Marlboro had at one time three stores and two hotels, and the dairy products of Sheffield and Great Barrington were often collected in New Marlboro and Sandisfield. The dairy is still the leading industry, but the milk is taken to the factories to be made into butter and cheese, or it is shipped in cans to New York. The town has always produced hay crops of great yield and excellence. But agricul- ture just now, especially in the eastern portion of the town, is suffering a strange and painful decline. Many homesteads have been sold for far less than the cost of their buildings, and others, the dwelling, the ont- buildings, and most of the fences virtually abandoned, are being used as large pasture tracts. The famons saying that the first settlers feared that they could not find enough stone for building purposes, now when boulders cover so large a part of the surface, seems incomprehensible. Perhaps these stones were regarded as unsuitable for building. or more probably they were then covered with vegetable mold and have since been heaved to the surface by frosts which strike deeper than when the earth was protected by forests. Many hundred acres formerly yielding fine crops of hay can not now be mowed, much less plowed. As a conse- quence of this, and perhaps also because of the exhaustion of certain elements of the soil, there appeared, about forty years ago, a shrubby growth known as hard hack ( Potentilla fruticosa) and steeple top (Spirea tomentosa), the two growing together, and this growth now covers entire farms, destroying even much of the pasture. This is one of the most discouraging features of New Marlboro farming, since to clear the land of boulders and hard hack would cost more than its present or per- haps subsequent value. Much of this land, moreover, would require to be underdrained. Nature is providing some compensation in covering much of this land with a growth of pine, which destroys the hard hack and may soon become valuable for timber.
This present unfortunate condition of New Marlboro agriculture must be temporary. When the best portions of the West, now being taken up so rapidly, are occupied, these deserted lands must become valuable, both from their locality and their producing power. To change this land to the finest meadows, by clearing the boulders and hard hack, draining, plowing, and manuring, is said, after careful computation, to cost $40 per acre.
The town has superior water power, and manufactures have, at cer- tain periods, been extensive and prosperous. The Konkapot at Mill River has ten dams in the distance of one mile, and Monterey Lake, now Lake Garfield, was greatly enlarged by a dam and converted into a reser. voir. The reserve supply could also be greatly increased by another,
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almost natural, reservoir, about two miles east of the village of New Marl- boro. Great quantities of paper have been made at Mill River, but it has been found difficult to compete with mills more. favored by facilities for freighting. The early manufactures were very interesting, both in their character and variety.
Before the coming of the first settler the proprietors had contracted with Nahum Ward, Esq., for the building of a grist mill and saw mill on the Iron Works River, now Konkapot. the builder receiving fifty acres of contiguous land, and $120 in money. He in turn gave bonds in the sum of £500 to keep the mills in running order for twelve years Another grant of twenty acres for another grist mill was made to Joseph Black- mer. The Konkapot River was originally called Iron Works River from a forge for bar iron early established on it. Water power and charcoal were easily obtained, and pig iron was brought from Salisbury, Conn., and ore from Monterey. The home demand in this, as in many other things, was met by small local manufactures. Fulling mills were needed for homespun cloth, then almost universally worn. Mill River had two fulling mills and Southfield one. Hats were made in various places in the town, certainly in Southfield and in New Marlboro village. Powder was also manufactured quite extensively in Mill River by Harvey Holmes & Co., in 1833-4. It was used in making the Michigan Canal ; also, it is said, in a canal from Chicago to the Illinois River. It was also used in the construction of the Hartford & New Haven and the Harlem Railroads.
Tanneries were very common, the town supply of leather being the entire dependence. The remains of an old vat are yet visible in New Marlboro village opposite the Shelden place. Near this tannery was a brass foundry for making andirons and other articles of household use. Elihu Burritt, known as the " Learned Blacksmith," and famous as a philanthropist, worked in this foundry for five or six years. He hired here as an apprentice at the age of nineteen. The shop where he worked is now the village smithy.
Of the manufacture of paper in New Marlboro, B. Weston of Dalton said in the Paper World of November, 1880 :
" In 1836 a paper mill was built at Mill River, by Wheeler & Gibson. It was burned the following year, and when rebuilt was located across the river from its first site, where it still stands, and where writing paper has been made by Wheeler & Gibson, Wheeler & Sons, Wheeler, Sheldon & Babcock, Gibson, Crosby & Robbins, George Robbins, Marlboro Paper Company, and the Brookside Paper Company. In 1838 or '39 John Carroll built a small straw-mill on the privilege next below the Wheeler mill. In 1856 he made additions, improvements and changes, and began the manufacture of writing paper, but soon abandoned it for the manufacture of printing paper made from straw, the second mill in the country to make white paper from rye straw. In 1873 Mr. Carroll took into partnership with him James Goodwin and they built another mill on the site below, which they bought from George Sheldon. These mills were afterward operated by the Carroll Paper Company. In 1877 James Goodwin became sole proprietor and still runs the mills.
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making three tons of print paper per day. Above the old Wheeler mill, Beach & Adams, in 1839 or 'go, built a small mill and made printing paper. The several pro- ¿ prietors have been E. C. Brett & Co., Adams & Brett, Paul Face, Wheeler, Sheldon & Babcock, Gibson, Crosby & Robbins, George Robbins, Marlboro Paper Company and the Brookside Paper Company. In the same locality Messrs. Andrews, Sheldon & Adams built a mill for making manilla paper in 1856. George Sheldon soon bought out his partner, and run the mill until 1872, when it was burned and the ruins were sold to J. Carroll & Company."
They rebuilt the mill in 1874, and in 1876 the Berkshire Paper Company was formed, under the presidency of James Goodwin. The establishment has a daily capacity of five tons, and sixty hands are employed.
The following mills and mannfactories are now operated in town. John A. Doncaster's grist and saw mill is at Hartsville. It was first built in 1804, and became the property of Mr. Doncaster in 1870. It has two runs of stones. John G. Calkins' saw and grist mill is located about two miles south from the village of Mill River. It was built about 1830, and became the property of Mr. Calkins by purchase in 1878. In 1859 Dr. John Scoville became the owner of a saw, grist, shingle, and planing mill which was built in 1856. Connected with this is a cheese factory. The establishment is some two miles south from Mill River village. Near the village of Mill River stands the flouring mill of Fred. G. Alexander, which was built in 1858 by Mr. Alexander's father. It has two runs of stones. Not far from the last is the grist mill of Walter Rote, which was built in 1883. F. G. Holt's saw mill and box factory, in the south- eastern part of the town, was built by MeAlpin Brothers about 1844, and was purchased by Mr. Holt in 1871. Wallace Canfield's saw and planing mill, which he purchased in 1876. is located in the south part of the town. It was built about 1844. Henry Sisson became the proprietor of his saw, planing, and pulp mill at Mill River in 1857. The steam saw and shingle mill, tub factory, and feed and cider mill of William B. Gib. son & Son is located in the southern part of the town. It was built by Mr. Gibson in 1865. The saw, shingle, and cider mill of Chauncey Brewer is located near Mill River. At the Hartsville machine shop and furnace heavy machinery is manufactured and repairing is done. It is owned by a stock company and managed by G. T. Sheldon.
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