USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume II pt 1 > Part 30
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In 1866 Orella Taft established these works, which became the property of the present owner, Robert L. Taft, in 1873. They are located near Clayton village, in the southwest part of the town, on territory that formerly belonged to Sheffield : hence their name.
The clay which is mined here is used in the manufacture of fine pot- tery, and is also utilized to some extent in the manufacture of paper. It is washed to free it from sand and other impurities, then dried, after which it is sent to consumers in various parts of the country. Fifteen hands are employed and some 1,500 tons are annually produced.
Several families contend for the honor of the first wagon in the town,
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like the Grecian cities over Homer's birthplace. The story goes that on the great day of general training the owner, whether a Hall, a Sheldon. or a Hart, treated a select, favored few to a ride. Pat AAlexander, with pardonable exuberance, standing up in the wagon, danced a breakdown, whistling meantime an accompaniment. But this irreverence was sternly rebuked by the owner with: " No whistling in the wagon. Get right out." This was about 1800. The present century was well advanced be- fore the highways were much better than the wood roads in the forests. They were seldom worked, and were often almost impassable. One of the mortars for the works at West Point was dragged over Blanford Hill by twenty yoke of oxen and sixty men. Much of the traveling was on horseback, more on foot. A family Sabbath scene on the way to church would have given a picture like the flight into Egypt ; mother and baby riding upon the horse, the able-bodied and unincumbered walking by their side. Loads were moved by oxen, and more easily in winter when the roads were in the best condition for business and travel. Some of the early settlers, among others the Gniteans, a family which gave to the town a doctor, a deacon, and a member of the Provincial Congress. moved to the " far west, " as Central New York was then calle l. and they made the journey with oxen and sled. Hudson was at that time the Berkshire port of entry. It stood at the head of ship navigation. then a very significant fact, and as roads were improved it became a famous center, and a terminus of stage lines.
The products of farms and dairies were carried to Hudson and the same teams brought back the heavier groceries, such as salt, and per- haps flour. These were not usually sold at country stores, and each family laid in a year's supply for itself. Corn meal and rye flour were then in general use. The amount of the travel and freight from Berkshire to the Hudson is shown by the fact that one of the early rail- roads in the United States was built from Hudson eastward toward Bos- ton. Somewhere between 1812 and 1820 the first one horse wagon came into the town. Country taverns were frequent all along these routes, Many an old house is pointed out as " once kept for a tavern." A huge fireplace marks the bar room, and the ball room can still be recognized. The first meeting of the proprietors was held at the " house of widow Sarah How, innkeeper, of New Marlboro," for which use of house land- lady How was paid one pound, two shillings, and three pence. At these "wayside inns" teamsters and travelers met like the characters in the Canterbury Tales. Around roaring chimney fires they interchanged what would now seem old news, of events of state and nation weeks and months after they had transpired. The first good roads came with the first mail stages. A splendidly equipped opposition stage line. owning seventy five horses and nine stages, running between Hartford and Albany, was estab- lished in 1834. These stages were known as the Red Bird Line, famous all over the United States. The Red Bird Line was originated by Amos Kendall, postmaster general under Jackson, and was a part of his design
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of reorganization of the postal department on a plan which has remained essentially unchanged. The postmaster general was a Massachusetts man by birth. and was said to have been especially proud of this par- ticular line. Old residents yet remember how General Scott, on his way from Hartford to Albany and thence to the Northern Frontier to look after threatened difficulties with England, reached New Marlboro at four P. M. and passed the night at the old hotel. and allowed him- self to be seen by looking down from the upper piazza. "We lost 85,000 on it," said one of the original stockholders," " but we had a good deal of fun." This arrangement brought mail one day from Hart- ford, the next from Albany. Before, the mail had come once a week. The highest point on this route between Hartford and Albany is about three miles east of New Marlboro village.
It will be seen that New Marlboro was then decidedly central in po- sition. The great line between Boston and Albany, and Hartford and Albany met near its border ; while the new line on the latter route made the village its midway station.
The mail had for many years been carried on horseback. The first post office was established September 15th, 1806. The commission, from Gideon Granger, postmaster general under Jefferson, reads as follows: "Know ye that confiding in the intelligence, ability, and punetnality of Stephen Powell Esq., I do appoint him Deputy Post Master of New Marlboro." The entire quarterly receipts of 1808 were six dollars, and five dollars in 1809 .- decidedly a " Star" route. The older and smaller of the signs nailed over the present post office is said to be the very origi- nal of 1806. To this day the stage to Great Barrington is the communi- cation with the outer world. Daily morning news reaches New Marlboro in the evening, but news brought by stage seems to have a special flavor. like that said to be imparted to overland tea. Railroads thus far have gone by and around. A plan (and certainly the town) was agitated over a branch road from Canaan to Mill River. The Massachusetts Central "might have been " and may yet be. This should pass through Otis. Monterey, Hartsville, and the northern portion of New Marlboro.
The South Berkshire Institute was formed in 1855 and opened in 1857. It was built by stock subscription among the citizens and former resi- dents. Mr. Edward Stevens, of Saratoga, was a prominent promoter and patron. The Rev. Richard Searle, then pastor, was active in securing friends and funds. It opened with Mr. MeIntosh principal, with fair patronage. and continued, with varying success, until 1860, when Mr. and Mrs. Parsons became principals. This was its golden age. The manage. ment was popular, it was prosperous war times, and the present system of town high schools had not then been established. For ten years there was a large attendance and financial profit. Mr. Parsons added new
* Harvey Holmes, who has furnished valuable data for this work. He is still living, in Great Barrington, au octogenarian, and get preserves the commendable habit of turning a handspring on each birthday.
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buildings and introduced steam heating, the stockholders giving him the property on these conditions. In 1870 it was purchased by Mr. Tracy. He was a thorough scholar and teacher, but the terrible business reaction and decline and the new competition of graded schools made all con- cerned lose heavily, and the school was finally closed. It had another successful revival for six years under the principalship of Prof. S. T. Frost. It has lately been used very successfully as a resort for summer boarders, for which it is most admirably adapted It has accommodated 150 guests, and it is one of the best patronized and most popular houses in Berkshire. The air and scenery are Berkshire's best. Thompson's famous picture, "The Land of Beulah," was painted from the view down the valley of the Barrington road.
In the southeastern part of the town, near MeAlpin's or East Indies Pond. there lived for several years in the early part of the present cen- tury, a lone man named Timothy Leonard, who filled very completely the character of hermit. He came from Dutchess county, N. Y. His dis- like of women, and his saying, frequently repeated. " They say they will and they won't," led to the belief that he had been crossed in love. He had a cabin and a little clearing of a farm, and he was skillful in hasten- ing his garden growths by a peculiar preparation of the hill with leaves and mold. He was a skillful trapper too, and had a way of preserving his food, especially his meats, as well as his valuables in dug-outs wrought from logs with covers fitting very closely. A partial fermenta- tion was thus induced, something in the fashion of the more modern silo. and was a kind of substitute for cooking. He died alone and was buried in his own soil, " without benefit of clergy." It is said, however, that the body was removed. in the interest of rural science, to the office of a country doctor, and a tradition of his reburied bones still haunts a cer- tain New Marlboro highway.
Our ancestors had a fashion of naming natural objects according to their distance from some well known starting point. Thus Three Mile Hill, and Ten Mile Pond. now Lake Garfield, showed their distance from Great Barrington. Lake Buell, formerly Six Mile Pond, received its present name in centennial year by vote of the town assembled there. It had been the scene of a sad accident-when a boat containing a pleasure party of eight was capsized and three of the party were drowned. It was the occasion of a very mournful rustic ballad, almost as striking in its way as the accident, detailing in the narrative style of the period each incident and personality. A young man named Buell displayed great skill, strength, and coolness in resening the survivors, and his name was given to this lake. It is second to no other in beanty. Its shape and border are complete as from a purpose of Nature, and in its setting of surrounding woods it gleams " like an eye of the forest."
In 1879, 80,000 land locked salmon and 30,000 lake tront were plant- ed in Lake Buell under State supervision. Messina or migratory quail have also been introduced. Neither of these exotics have thus far been
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HISTORY OF BERESHIRE COUNTY.
very often heard from. New Marlboro brooks have always been famous for trout. Fine bass are taken in Lake Buell.
The abundance of brushwood cover makes partridges plenty. Rab- bits are very numerons and as a consequence. perhaps, also foxes. The fox and the raccoon are the largest game that now survives civilization. The wild cat is an occasional visitor, and may rarely breed on Dry Hill. A bear sometimes strays down from the northern mountains, attracted by the abundance of berries.
Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts gives to New Marlboro three belts of rock running in north and south lines and substantially parallel. The eastern and largest belt is of gneiss, differing slightly from granite in its stratified and slaty disposition. In the center of the township runs a belt of the Housatonic valley limestone, metamorphic and showing iron deposits of little or no commercial value. In the west of the town runs a belt of mica slate, which gives place to quartz near the Sheffield line. The original boundaries of New Marlboro were Tyringham on the north, Sandisfield on the east, Sheffield on the west, and Connecticut State line on the south. In 1851 a portion of the northern part of New Marlboro was taken to form the township of Monterey, and in 1871 East Sheffield, now called Clayton, was added.
Dry Hill, a spur of the Hoosac range, the highest land of the town. has a height of 1,600 feet. Much of the summit and sides are in accord with its name, but half way down its southern slope the under drainage is stopped by a stratum of clay and bursts out in huge springs, some of which supply the village of New Marlboro. Its western end has a very striking overlook of Lake Buell and the Barrington road. It is a land- mark for the whole valley, and dark must be the night if no gleam is re. vealed on its bald gray summit.
Hartsville is near Lake Buell in the northern part of the town. It has ten or fifteen residences. a grist and saw mill, a foundry and machine shop, a store, a post office, and a Methodist church.
New Marlboro is north from the center of the town. It has abont twenty residences, a post office and a store ; and what was the South Berkshire Institute, which is elsewhere spoken of, is located here.
Mill River, on the stream of the same name, sometimes called Kon- kapot River, is the largest village in the town and is the place where the town business is transacted. It has about fifty dwelling houses, a grist mill, two saw mills, three paper mills, three stores, a hotel, a post office, and two churches.
Southfield, near the geographical center of the town, has abont twenty residences, two churches, a store, and a post office.
Clayton, a village of about a dozen houses, is situated near the line between New Marlboro and Connecticut. It has a store and a post office. and the Sheffield China Clay Works, from which it takes its name. are located near it.
In the summer of 1875 the town was visited by a very remarkable
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rainfall. The extraordinary volume seems to have been limited to the upper valley of the Umpachene, over an area of perhaps two square miles. The terms " water spout" and "cloud burst," still used to describe it. may not be scientific, but they suggest the character of the fall and the impression they produced. Two clouds seemed to come together from opposite points of the horizon and their appearance was very unusual and ominous. All the bridges on the Umpachene were said to have been swept ont with the first rush of the flow, and the rain to have acenmu- Jated everywhere on the land ankle deep where it fell. Large portions of the highway between New Marlboro and Southfield were entirely washed ont and abandoned, leaving to this day a river bed many times too large for the present stream, thickly laid with huge boulders, which were washed here or brought down by the great force of water from the ravines and hillsides above.
In his centennial address at Lake Buell in 1876 Mr. Auren Smith. alluding to the then late war of the Rebellion. used the following language:
" The scenes which transpired from 1861 to 1865, in relation to the preservation and perpetuity of these United States under one government, and that government the government of the United States, are too painfully fresh and vivid in the minds of every one to need reviewing. The votes passed by the town in relation to our citizens who went out as soldiers and the records of duties discharged would fill a volume and demand an hour on which I must not intrude. Suffice it to say that our town expenditures, on account of the war, which were never reimbursed, were $25,778.52. The roll of honor on our town book, 'Soldiers' Record,' bears the names of 202 persons, of whom more than a score (21), in the expressive language of our fathers, went out to return no more forever. One hundred and nine enlisted and served in Massachusetts regiments; twenty-four in Connecticut regiments; nineteen elsewhere; and at the close of the war we had standing to our credit, over and above all calls, a surplus of twenty-two men."
Benjamin Sheldon, son of Elisha Sheldon, of New Marlboro, fol lowed the business of farming and the practice of law in that town during his life. He died about 1840, aged fifty-seven. He was married to Sarah Robbins. a native of Sandisfield. She died about 1831, aged thirty-seven. Two sons and a daughter survive: Benjamin Robbins, judge of Supreme Court, Rockford. Ill .; Henry A., Binghamton, N. Y .; Sarah (Mrs. Ches- ter Fitch), Rockford. Ill.
John Walker Millard. was born in Cornwall, Conn., February 8th. 1811, and removed to this town when a young man, with his parents. Joel and Azuba (Sherwood; Millard. He was married to Martha Harmon, born in Suffield. Conn .. May 27th, 1812. He became a successful dairy farmer and acquired an extensive domain. He left New Marlboro in 1861, and now resides in Rockford, Ill. He has two daughters living in Illi- nois : Sarah Jane, wife of John Castle, Milford ; and Marietta (Mrs. H. H. Stone), Rockford.
Nathan Chapin, of New Marlboro, married Elizabeth. daughter of Zenas Wheeler, one of the prominent men of the town in Revolution-
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
ary times. By her he had seven children. The sixth, Ellen, is the wife of George D. Broomell, of Chicago.
Henry Palmer, son of a Revolutionary soldier, was born in Stoning- ton, Conn., in September, 1768. He lived nearly forty years in New Marl- boro, and died there in March, 1848. Hannah Dennison. his wife, was a native of the same place. They raised ten children, five of whom were born in Connecticut. Charles Dennison, the eldest, died in Weth- ersfield, Conn .; Prudence (Mrs. Milton Adam>) died here : Lucinda die in Sandisfield, having been three times married, her first husband being Wheeler Rhodes ; Nathan died here ; Emily (Mrs. Alanson Cook) lived at Cohoes, N. Y., and died while on a visit here : Billings resides in Great Barrington ; Maria, Waterville, N. Y .: Frances M. and Nehemiah. here : Flora L. (wife of Roswell Baldwin, deceased), Utica. N. Y. : Jeannette H. (Mrs. Luther Herrick). Rockford, Ill. The latter was married in 1847. and settled with her husband, who is a builder, in Rockford. in 1853. They have two children-Horace Palmer and Mary Jeannette-who reside with their parents. Roswell Baldwin married Flora L. Palmer in 1840. soon after settled in Ctica. N. Y., and died there July 3d. 1859. Of his nine children five are now living. Anna Maria Mrs. Edwin Blair, died in Madison, N. Y .: Henrietta Frances (Charles Rewell) lives at Water- ville, N. Y .; Elizabeth Jeannette ( Wheeler L. Pittman , Rockford. Il .: Henry Wheeler died at Denver, Col., where he went from his home in Utica, to escape asthma contracted in the war of the Rebellion ; Mary Eliza (S. R. Gordon), Buffalo, N. Y .; Harriet Nancy (Frank L. Bush) and Margaret Louisa (N. E. Harter), Utica. N. Y .; Frederick Palmer, Elmira, N. Y .: Florence Rosamond, born three months after her father's death, died at fifteen months of age. Mrs. Baldwin has twelve grand- children and two great grandchildren. Her daughter (Mrs. Pittman) mar- ried Harrison H. Millar, who died in 1872. leaving two children-Marcia Jeannette and Harriet Elizabeth. Marcia married Charles P. Le Vee. and lives at Little Falls, N. Y. She has two children -- Mildred Harriet and Jessie Margaret.
CHAPTER XV.
TOWN OF NEW ASHFORD. BY BENJAMIN F. MILLS, A. M.
Situation and Boundaries .-- Settlement and Early History .- Roads .- Natural Features .- Quarries .- First Meeting .- Incorporation as a District .- Incorporation as a Town .- The Rebellion .- Schools .- Church .-- Statistical.
N EW ASHFORD is in the northern part of the county, bounded by Williamstown on the north, by Adams and Cheshire on the east, by Cheshire and Lanesborough on the south, and by Hancock on the west. Its length from east to west is nearly four and three eighths miles, and its width from north to south three and one eighth miles, and it con- tains about thirteen and one half square miles.
It was at first called New Ashford plantation, and its settlement he- gan as early as 1762 by emigrants from the eastern part of this State, from Rhode Island and Connecticut. Among the early settlers were Nathaniel, Abel. and Gideon Kent, Uriah, Peter, and Eli Mallery, William Green. Jacob, Lion. Samuel Gridley. Jonathan. Hezekiah, and Caleb Beach, Sam- uel P., Jared, and Benjamin Tyler, Abraham Kirby. William Campbell. Amariah Babbit, Evans Roys, Capt. Samnel Martin, Solomon Gregory, John Wells, Comfort and David Barns, Ebenezer Mudge, John and Dud- ley Hamilton, Jonathan Mason, and Andrew Cornish.
Of those who came later and in the first years of the present century were Gaius Harmon, Dudley Holdridge. Samuel Lewis. John Baxter, James Foot. John Pratt, Jonathan Sherwood. and Benjamin Sherwood -- who built the house on the hill where William White now lives-Jacob Cole, Isaac Dean, Ishmael Spink. Stephen Goodell, Henry Dewey, and Jonathan Ingraham.
Later, and before 1822, came Perigreen Turner, who built the house which for more than half a century was a tavern.
The first tavern was kept in the house occupied many years by Leland White, where Gorton White now lives. It was kept by William Stark- weather, who represented the district in the General Court the first of which there is a record.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
February 10th, 1787, voted "to have William Starkweather a repre- sentative to the General Court the present session."
Voted " to have a committee of three men to form instructions to Mr. Stark weather."
February 17th, 1787, voted " that the committee to form instructions to Mr. Starkweather shall have liberty to give them verbally."
Among the active and prominent men in the early years of this cen- tury, besides those already mentioned, were John Stills, Jason White. Ebenezer Cole. Francis Jordan. Samuel Baker, Richard Whitman, and Nathaniel Harmon.
Following these, and previous to 1846, were John Roys. Kiler and Milton Kent, Uriah, Eli. and Samuel Mallery, Samuel T. Clothier. Caleb Brown. Sumner Southworth, and Simeon M. Dean.
In the settlement of the town the Beach family occupied " Beach Hill." where their descendants still live, their farms being yet among the mo , productive in town.
Gideon Lewis built the mill now owned and occupied by Lester A. Roys, and east of the mill on the road toward Saddle Mountain were Jason White. Ebenezer Mudge, the family of Barnes, and John Pratt. The Tylers settled in the north part of the town and built the house which is the first on the county road from Williamstown. It was built in 1805. and was a tavern for more than twenty-five years, and known as Tyler's Tavern. Samuel P. Tyler was a lieutenant at the battle of Bennington. Upon the stone which marks his grave is this: " He fought for the free- dom of his country at Boston and at Bennington." It was narrated of him that in one of these battles a cannon ball passed near his head. blew off his hat, and produced deafness through his life. He died in 1839, aged 86 years. Eli Mallery settled on the old county road, south of the Tylers. and Uriah Mallery on the old county road south of the site of the first tavern, and built the house since occupied by his descendants. Amariah Babbit settled on what is now called the . Baker Road," and Ebenezer Cole lived in the same section of the town. Jonathan Ingraham, who came from Pelham, Mass., about 1790. and who served in the Revolu- tionary war, located in the northern part of the town, and eas; of the old county road, and in the same section were Evans Roys and the Goodell family and Ishmael Spink.
Gains Harmon, from Suffield, Conn., who was also a soldier in the war of the Revolution, settled on the farm now owned and. occupied by Elihn Ingraham, and farther east on the same road was Richard Whit- man. The families of Baxter, Stills, and Jordan locatel in the south- west part of the town. on or near the present county road. The Kents located in that part of the town where the meeting house now start ls and for a century were prominent actors in public affairs. None of the name reside in the town now.
Formerly the county road passing through the town was located on high ground, thus avoiding the streams, and dispensing with bridges.
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About 1825 the road in the north part of the town was much improved by being laid near the east branch of Green River, and in 1841 on the petition of " Liberty Bartlett and seven others." and against the vigor- ous protest of the town a county road was located and built from near the south foot of " Mallery Hill" to intersect the old county road near the meeting house, thus obviating every hill except the "Dugway." This improvement cost nearly $1,000, and was a heavy tax for the town.
New Ashford is a rough and mountainons town. situated principally on the steep and rugged hills which start from Saddle Mountain on the east and the Taconic range on the west and which here approach each other. In the narrow valley between these hills and along the rise of the western branch of the Housatonic and the eastern branch of Green River are some small tracts of feasible land, producing grain and grass, though the soil in general is hard and of an indifferent quality. The town is well watered. This branch of Green River runs northward across nearly the entire width of the town into Williamstown where it receives the branch from Hancock and finds it way into the Hoosick. The rise of this stream is near the rise of the western branch of the Housatonic which flows sonth into Lanesborough.
The town contains valuable quarries of blue and white marble, which were opened about 1822, and for twenty years or more furnished a con- siderable branch of industry. The business became unprofitable when railroads were located in close proximity to marble quarries as in Ver. mont and in the southern part of this county. The cost of transporta- tion from the quarry to the place of shipment was sufficient to destroy the business. In 1882 a survey for a railroad was made from Pittsfield to Williamstown connecting the Housatonic Railroad at Pittsfield with the Troy & Greenfield Railroad at Williamstown passing through New Ashford and near these marble quarries. The construction of this road might revive this industry and add much to the prosperity of the town.
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