USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume II pt 2 > Part 32
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It was in 1735 that Tyringham, called " No. 1 of the Housatonic Townships," was laid out with New Marlboro, Sandisfield, and Becket, designated respectively as Nos. 2, 3. and 4. These towns were established to serve as the connecting link between the settlements of the Housatonic and Connecticut valleys. On the 15th of January, 1735, the provincial Legislature voted, "That there be four townships opened upon the road between Westfield and Sheffield, each of the contents of six miles square and that there be sixty-three home lots laid out in a compact and defensible form in each township, one of which to be for the first settled minister, one for the second settled minister, one for the school, and one for each grantee which shall draw equal shares in all future divisions ; that the grantees be such petitioners as have not been grantees or settlers for the seven years next preceding, and give security to the value of $40 each, for the performance of the usual conditions ; and that a joint committee of five be appointed for the purpose."
The committee appointed were Hon. Ebenezer Burrill and Edmund Quincy, of the Upper House, and John Ashley, John Fisher, and Capt. Stephen Skiffe, of the Assembly. The territory was purchased of the Stockbridge Indians by Captain Ephraim Williams and Colonel Nahum Ward. In laying out these townships the nature of the land was per-
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mitted somewhat to suggest their shape, but they were intended to be about six miles square. Afterward there was granted to each an equal share of the north and south eleven thousand acres. The former of these tracts afterward became Bethlehem, the latter Southfield.
To this town a further grant was made of the Tyringham Equivalent, an irregular strip of land joining Blanford on the west. This was granted in consideration of three losses that the town had sustained : First, two considerable bodies of water occupied land within its limits, Six and Twelve Mile Ponds, so called because of their distance from Sheffield : second, two grants had been previously made to private individuals, one called Price's grant, containing 600 acres, and one called Laughton's or Ashley's grant, of 200 acres, the latter lying partly in New Marlboro ; third, in the survey of the Upper Housatonic Township (now Great Bar- rington) in 1736, the northwest corner of this town was taken into that and 4,000 acres were granted as an equivalent for this loss. The Tyring- ham Equivalent, in the year 1773, was incorporated as a separate town with the name of London, and later, together with Bethlehem, became the town of Otis.
The proprietors of this town were citizens mostly of Newton, Weston. and Watertown, in Middlesex county. Their number having been in- creased to sixty-seven, in consequence of the increase of territory, seventy home lots were surveyed. This work was performed, in part at least, by Col. John Ashley, of Sheffield, and William Chandler, and was completed in the fall of 1737. The house lots were laid out. all within the limits of a strip of land three miles wide extending from the southeast corner across the township a little south of the center, most of them falling on the southern slope of the hills that now separate the Tyringham and Monterey valleys. Lot No. 25 was reserved for the first clergyman. No. 21 for the second, and No. 20 for schools. No. 2 was set apart for mills. and another was laid out in its stead in order to make the number remain- ing sixty-seven, and these were drawn by lots by the new proprietors. The remainder of the town and its share of the three tracts mentioned were set off into larger lots and divided among the proprietors. In this survey Samuel Livermore was employed. He afterward became a settler and his name appears in many later surveys.
The settlement of the town was commenced in 1739. The early set- tlements were all made in the southern part, afterward known as South Tyringham, now embraced in the town of Monterey, while the northern part, designated North Tyringham, or perhaps more commonly Hopbrook. from the quantities of hops that grew in its valley, received its first set. tlers more than twenty years later. The first permanent settlers were Lieut. Isaac Garfield, Thomas Slaton, and John Chadwick, who came in April, 1739. It seems, however. from a petition made to the Legislature February 8th. 1743, that Samuel Winchell was living for a time in this place as early as 1735 of 1736.
June Ist, 1739, Capt. JJohn Brewer, of Hopkinton, in return for the
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
mill lot of seventy acres and $60 in bills of public credit, made the fol- lowing agreement with the proprietors :
"To build a good saw mill in said lot, and complete the same in the space of six months, and be obliged and his heirs or assignees to keep the same in good repair all times for the space of twenty five years next insueing and attend the same and saw for the proprietors, when they shall have the occasion, at reasonable rates, and as cheap as the neighboring mills do saw, and also to build a good grist mill on the said lot and finish it within the space of two and one half years next ensuring, and his heirs and assignees to keep the same in repair for the service of the inhabitants for the space of twenty years next ensucing."
Capt. Brewer is popularly supposed to have been the first permanent settler, but in fact he did not move into the town until August, 1739. It is related that he came with a yoke of oxen and cart bearing the necessi- ties of a forest life. The first night he slept beneath his ox cart a little south of Twelve Mile Pond ; by the second he had constructed there. with logs and bark, a shelter, and very soon he had a saw mill in active operation on the site of the mills now owned by J. H. Langdon & Co., in the village of Monterey. In remembrance of him who first settled near its waters, Twelve Mile Pond was at an early date called Brewer Pond, and for over a century was known by that name. Probably the first frame house erected in the town was that of Capt. Brower. Traces of this house are still easily discernible a short distance east of Monterey village, near the house of Francis Heath. In the French war, beginning in 1744, this was one of the three houses which were fortified and garri- soned. One of the soldiers stationed here was William Hale, who had assisted in building Fort Massachusetts, in Adams. He soon afterward became a settler here, and to him is due the honor of erecting the oldest frame house that is now standing in the town. The frame of the eastern end of the house in which Miss Betsey Hale has until recently lived was raised by Mr. Hale when trouble was daily anticipated from the Indians, and so much alarm was felt from this source that at the entreaty of friends he moved with his family to Enfield, Conn. Four years later he returned and finished the house-all this before 1750.
As early as 1735, as shown by the grant of the four Housatonic town- ships, there was a "road between Westfield and Sheffield." The road referred to in this grant passed through the sonthem part of this town. following in or near the present traveled way through Monterey village to Great Barrington: but at the time of this grant it could have been little more than a bridle path following an old Indian trail, and in fact no ovi. dence can be found that this road was made fit for travel throughont its whole length until much later. The first cart road through this town. and the first over the Green Mountain range in Berkshire, was opened in 1737, as shown by a petition made to the Legislature in January. 1735. by eloven individuals, in which it is stated that seven months before that time they made a good sleigh road
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" From Sheffield and the several settlements upon the Housatonic River to Westfield and the neighboring towns, and whereas, before it was very difficult for anybody and for strangers almost impossible in a snow of any considerable depth, without a track which often happens in the winter season to find the way, now by our having marked a sufficient number of trees, on each hand, an entire stranger cannot easily miss it, and the people living in these parts are now able, and in the winter past actually did pass and repass to and from Westfield, with more than twenty sleighs, well laden, through a wilderness which before that was almost impassable on horseback, which being as we humbly conceive a thing of great and public benefit, not only to those of his Majesties' subjects that are already settled and are settling upon the Housatonic River, but will also be of great service to those towns which by your favor and encouragement are about to be settled upon and near to said road, for whereas, before there being no other way of transportation but on horseback. which by reason of the badness and length of the way, was exceedingly difficult, it was almost if not utterly impossible, for his Majestie's subjects living in these parts of the Province to supply themselves with foreign commodities, the never so neces- sary in life, from any town within this section."
This road coincided for the most part with the old trail above men- tioned, but at Monterey village it turned north, passing through what is now known as the " Old Center." in Monterey, and a short distance beyond turned to the west, and then to the southwest by Artemus Dowd's. joining the old trail half a mile east of the Great Barrington town line near the dwelling formerly owned and occupied by Nathan Upham, now deceased). This old road can be easily traced at the present day. It was on the part now discontinued, a little north of where Parson Miner for many years lived, that tradition says Burgoyne's captured army stopped and slaughtered beef on their way over this road from Saratoga to Boston. and it was at the house of Captain Brewer that Burgoyne himself is said to have lodged. In 1742 a road to Stockbridge was constructed, branch- ing from the Albany road one mile east of the lake and passing north of it, over the high land (now known as Mount Hunter, directly on by the location of the first church. In 1750 two cross roads had been opened between these two roads in the vicinity of the " Old Center." As early as 1743 the proprietors of the town granted Mr. Asa Allen a sum of money for clearing a way to Hopbrook. The road afterward became known as the Royal Hemlock. and can still be traced directly over the mountain from the site of the first church.
The first settler in Hopbrook was Deacon Thomas Orton, who, having lived since 1750 in South Tyringham, in 1762 moved over the mountain and put up a cabin near the bottom of its slope where now lies the ham- let, Jerusalem.
Before 1750 the meetings of the proprietors of the township were held in the vicinity of Boston, where most of them lived. In that year, and afterward. they were held in the township, the first four years at the house of Captain Brewer, then in the still unfinished meeting house, of occasionally at the house of John Chadwick. March 6th, 1762, the rosa
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
was incorporated, with the name of Tyringham. probably a corruption of Turing's-ham, the home of the Tarings. It was named from the English town of that name, and it is said to have been suggested by Lord Vis- count Howe, who passed through this place a few days before he fell in battle near Ticonderoga, and who owned an estate in that beautiful old town in England. The first officers of the town were: Captain John Chadwick. Isaac Garfieldl. Eathan Lewis, selectmen ; Benjamin Warren, town clerk ; Capt. John Chadwick, treasurer.
Early attention was given to education by the early settlers, but it was not until 1766 that the first school house was built. In that year one was erected twenty feet square "on ye northwardly end of house lot No. 4?," near the " Old Center " school house. Before this time some of the wives of the settlers taught school in their own houses, for which they generally received 81.21 per week. In 1758 John Chadwick gave the town a piece of land three rods square, at the southeast corner of house lot No. 2, upon which to build a school house, and, finally, but not until many years later, a school house was built there, of which traces are still discernible on the place now owned by J. K. Hadsell.
At a meeting of the proprietors in 1739, before the first settlers came to the town, it was voted to build a meeting house, and a tax was levied on each proprietor for this purpose. The site chosen was a short dis- tance south of where S. C. Carrington now lives. In 1743 the frame. 35 by 40 feet, was erected, but because of fears of an Indian war, and be- cause of the expenses of the French wars, and various discouragements, it was many years before any further work was done-so many that it is related a tree had grown in the meantime within the frame as high as the top. The exact date of its completion is not known, but for at least 35 years it served the purpose for which it was built. In 1796 a larger and more commodious house was erected in the same lot, but nearly half a mile to the south of the first. This was beautifully situated. occupying the highest ground in the park. overlooking the encircling cottages.
September 25th, 1750, the church was organized, consisting of eight members ; John Jackson, Thomas Orton, William Hale. John Chadwick, Ephraim Thomas, Jabez Davis, David Everest, and the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, who, one week later, was ordained pastor. In regard to this or- dination Rev. J. Warren Dow, in a sermon delivered in South Tyring- bam, in 1831, says: "There were then only three settled ministers with- in the bounds of the county. Rev. Jonathan Hubbard, of Sheffield : Rev. Samuel Hopkins (afterward Dr. Hopkins), of Great Barrington ; and Rev. Thomas Strong, of New Marlboro. These. together with Rev. Bon- jamin Cotton, of Hartford, Conn .. and their delegates. Dr. Hopkinsalone excepted, constituted the ecclesiastical council by which Mr. Bidwell was consecrated to the ministrations of the gospel. He was amiable in his private and public deportment, sound in judgment, and uniformly ex- hibited a life constituted, without affectation, of Christian simplicity and sincerity, great integrity and open hearted benevolence." He was a na-
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tive of Hartford. Conn. In the year of his birth his father, the owner and master of a vessel homeward bound from Barbadoes, was lost at sea. The Rev. A. Bidwell was a graduate of Yale in 1740. and in 1745 had been chaplain under Sir William Pepperell, in his attack upon Cape Bre- ton. All his sermons have been preserved. Some of them are now in the Berkshire Atheneum at Pittsfield, and some in the possession of his descendants in Monterey. These are enrions in many respects. Written very fine, and in an original style of short hand, many of them cover but two pages, each three by tive inches in size. Mr. Bidwell died June 2d. 1784, in the thirty- fourth year of his ministry, having admitted, accord . ing to his own record, 95 members to the church. and baptized 378 chil- dren and adults.
Until 1789 the church was supplied by candidate preachers, but on the 25th of February of this year Rev. Joseph Avery, a native of Ston- ington, Conn., and previously settled in Alford, was installed. For many years he labored successfully, but in 1808, the nineteenth year of his pas- torate, a serious trouble arose in the church, occasioned by a party who had become opposed to him. We are told, however, that this party was not composed of the " friends of order and religion, but principally of those who are not in the habit of attaching much importance to the Chris- tian ministry." This party rallied votes enough to obtain his dismissal, at town meeting. As the members of this opposing element refused to do their share in paying him his back salary he resorted to law, and ob- tained judgment in his favor. At this time every voter in the township was bound by the laws to pay a certain amount for the support of the ministry. But by certifying that they had paid the legal sum for the ยท maintenance of preaching in North Tyringham, the opponents of Mr. Avery avoided paying any part of the arrearages dne him, and thus cast the whole burden upon his adherents. So serious was this trouble that it threatened to exterminate all efforts to sustain the church, but it brought about a lasting good, for an attempt was straightway made by a small number of the people to establish a fund for the permanent sup- port of the gospel, in which they succeeded, and by an act of the Legis. lature, June 15th, 1809, they became a corporate society. Moreover, a revival of religion followed close upon the renewed life resulting from the generous giving, and in 1809. 96 were added to the church, nearly all of them the special subjects of the revival.
July 10th, 1811, Rev. Joseph Warren Dow, of Kensington, N. H .. was ordained pastor. He was a graduate of Harvard, in 1805, and an earnest and successful preacher. A sermon was delivered by him at the twentieth anniversary of his ordination, which has been quoted above. This sermon he intended to give at the 25th anniversary, but he was fail- ing in health when he delivered it and died less than two years later. January 9th, 1833. "universally beloved and lamented." During his ministry of 21 years, 192 persons were admitted to the church. His ste- cessor was Rev. Lueins Field, who was installed March 27th, 1833. June
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
12th, 1836, he was dismissed. His connection with the church seems not to have been a happy one, but its short duration seems to be explained by a record presented to the council that dismissed him ; "That the pas- tor had requested a dismissal on the ground of the unfavorable location of the meeting house and the unhappy feelings arising, in his opinion, in the church and society therefrom."
He was succeeded April 26th. 1837, by Rev. Alvan C. Page who had been previously settled in Norwich, Conn. His pastorate lasted until January 25th, 1843. when he was dismissed, having admitted to the church 40 members. over 30 of whom were the result of a revival that occurred during the last year of his ministry. His successor, Rev. Sam- uel Howe, installed July 24th, 1844, was pastor when this part of the town was organized as Monterey.
The settlement of North Tyringham took place very slowly. After Deacon Thomas Orton, who, as has been said above. settled here in 1762. there is no evidence that others came for several years. Tradition says that the next settler was a man by the name of Davis, who built his cabin in the gorge where now is the village of Sodom, and that there was quite a settlement here before any one ventured into the lower part of the valley where the main road now runs. At the beginning of the Revolu- tionary war, however, two clearings had been made and two houses built in this vicinity ; one by Deacon William Hale, on the site of the house of E. G. Hale, his grandson, and the other by Capt. Ezekiel Herrick. where now stands the residence of the late J. L. Crittenden. From old letters in the possession of Mrs. Tyrrel, great-granddaughter of Deacon William Hale, now living in Hartford, Conn., we learn many interesting things in regard to the lives of these early settlers : we obtain some idea. of the hardships they had to endure. and the frights sometimes caused them by the Indians. These were probably scattered members of the friendly Stockbridge tribe, but they were not always thought friendly by the settlers. A small stream flows down into the valley of Hopbrook from the north, called Camp Brook, said to have been so named because here the Indians were accustomed to camp while they made maple sugar from the large trees that still stand in this vicinity, catching the sap in birch bark buckets. In the war of the Revolution the town lost three men. Nathaniel Hale was killed in the battle of Saratoga, October 7th. 1777. and Daniel Markham and a Mr. Culver died in the service.
As we look at the present time upon this beautiful valley, with its fine meadow land and flourishing farms, we can hardly imagine it the unwholesome marsh that all early descriptions represent it, and we may thank our ancestors for the courage and endurance necessary for taking the first steps in transforming a swampy tangle of hops, ivy, and hem- lock into one of the most beautiful valleys of Berkshire. Among those who settled here early were Elisha Heath and Francis Clark, in 1773. Of Mr. Clark's descendants only one remains in town. Daniel Clark, who is a geologist, and has a large and very choice collection of minerals.
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TOWN OF TYRINGHAM.
Very early in the growth of the settlement we find evidence of the variances between the northern and southern parts of the town, which afterward became the ground of its division into separate corporations. When. in 1796. the second meeting house was built in the " Old Center." the location was not at all to the satisfaction of that part of the society living in Hopbrook, who proceeded in the following year to erect one in their valley. This building was covered over very soon, but was not fin- ished inside for many years. It stood where is now the old cemetery in Tyringham village, and it was here that the annual " May training " took place, at which officers were chosen for the militia, a ceremony accompa- nied by a general jollification. At the " May training" all able bodied men between the ages of 21 and 45 had to appear. with gun. powder horn. priming wire, brush, and extra flint. On one of these occasions there was a sad accident. Some young men were firing an old swivel. just outside the church, when the cannon burst, killing Silas Ward, break- ing the ribs of Lyman Webster, and injuring others. Mr. Henry A. Steadman, of Monterey, was a witness of this accident, in fact was stand- ing beside Mr. Ward, at the window just inside the church, when the latter was killed.
In 1825 the Congregationalists were aided by Baptists, who had moved into the town, in finishing the interior of the old church. and Mr. Dow, the pastor in South Tyringham, preached here on alternate Sabbaths.
In the same year the Methodist Episcopal society was organized, and a small house thirty-six by twenty six feet, was built where now Mr. Eli Hale's house stands. This first Methodist church stood eighteen years. then was taken down and sold to Hiram Clark, who made a dwelling house of it near the present Methodist church. and it has sometimes served as a parsonage. The present house of worship was built in 1844. The following is a list of the successive preachers : Rev. Messrs. Howe. Wakely, Ferguson, Van Deusen, Bullock. Sparks, Albert Nash. Andrus, Hiscox, Keeler. Lent, Kerr, Champion. Dickinson, Bates, Lull, Ketcham, McLane, Collins, Corey, Wood. Elliot. Landon. Mackey, Maston. Green. Stickles, Crandall, Hermance, Elsden, Hervy, Sweetman. The present pastor is Re :. Edwin Trevor. The number of full members is forty-one. In connection with the church a Sabbath school is maintainel, of which Albert Sweet has been superintendent for over twenty years.
The Baptist church was constituted August 221. 1827, with twenty members. five males and fifteen females. In 1844 the society ereetel a meeting house, which served for twenty-nine years, being destroyed by fire Thanksgiving day, 1873. In April, 1875, the present house, erected on the same site, was dedicated. The pastors of the church have been : Rev. Messrs. Ira Hall, 1827-35 : Isaac Child, 1836-7 : Alexander Bush, 1838-44 : George Phippen. 1844-50 ; O. H. Capron, 1850-51 ; David Avery. 1851-2 : Foster Henry, 18:2-7: Addison Brown, 1957-61 : I. V. Ambler. 1862-3; Edwin Bromley, 1864-5: E. W. Pray, 1867 --; William Good.
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HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
win, 1869-71 ; Walter Chase, 1872-7 : M. P. Favor, 1877-9 : A. M. Hig- gins (supply), 1879-81. Since October, 1881, Rev. John D. Pope, of Lee. has been pastor. A Sabbath school has been maintained for many years, and since 1851 has had as superintendents : H. H. Hubbard, H. Bassett, J. M. Garfield, Cyrus Heath, L. B. Moore, J. Crittendon, and Charles Slater. The membership is usually abont fifty.
The main energies of Tyringham are expended in agriculture, although the place has always been famous for its manufacture of hand rakes. There are at present three factories thus employed, of which the most extensive, that of Mr. Riley Oles, has turned out over 48.000 during the past year. This factory was built and for many years managed by J. L. Crittendon, lately deceased, to whom is due more than to any other one man the fame of Tyringham in this industry. The manufacture of paper was at one time a great industry in the town. In 1832 the .. Tur- key Paper Mill," so called, was built by Riley and J. W. Sweet. It was started as a hand mill. that is, making one sheet at a time on a wire mould, but soon was supplied with a cylinder machine. In 1834 Jared Ingersoll, George W. Platner, and Elizar Smith purchased the property. and made a grand success of it. Mr. Ingersoll dropped out of the firm at the end of the first year, and the other two parties ran the mill alone for 34 years. At the World's Fair in the New York Crystal Palace they made an exhibit of this mill's prodnet, Mr. H. Howland ruiing and finishing the paper exhibited. At this time they had the reputation of making the best writing paper in the United States. By them was in- troduced the first Fourdrinier machine that was used in the country. In 1869 they rented the property to Watkins & Cassidy, who had run it but a short time when it was burned. A three-engine mill was erected here in 1872, by George W. Cannon, but he did not make a success of it, and the property now remains idle in the hands of Robert Slee, Pongh- keepsie. N. Y. A mill known as the Bay State was built in 1846 by Heath & Boss. It had been run but four years, the first two by this firm and the second two by S. C. Johnson & Co., when it burned down. It was rebuilt, however, by G. W. &. J. T. West in 1851. Having been run by them one year and by J. W. Sweet and J. M. Northrop a second year, it was purchased by George W. West, and managed successfully until 1866, when he sold out to John Trimble. In 1871 the building was destroyed by fire.
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