USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Conway > History of Conway (Massachusetts) 1767-1917 > Part 18
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due time, several of her pupils and daughters of the missionaries made the long journey and themselves were broadened and inspired by a course at Mount Holyoke Seminary. This at length brought the son of the Cherokee chief East to examine the different schools. He decided that the Holyoke system was the best, and so there was founded a Cherokee Female Seminary. My younger sister, Pauline, was one of three or four graduates of Mount Holyoke to teach in it. And to-day the daughters of that tribe are about as cultivated, and ambitious to do good, as those in New England. Not only did Mary and Pauline help to being about this great change, but, like Ruth of old, they found the best of husbands by obeying the feeling of duty and going far away to a different service. The eldest married Rev. Robert Loughridge, missionary in the neighboring Creek tribe. He published a dictionary of that language and the little Robert, whom she trained with so much care, is now instructor in the University of California. Pauline married Rev. Oswald Woodford, one of the brightest in his large class at Yale, and they left teaching the Cherokees to be home mis- sionaries to Kansas just when she was in the throes of that bloody strife between raiders from Missouri and sons of New England, armed with rifles and determined to prevent slavery getting root there. Our second sister, Caroline, taught some years and then married a lawyer of Buffalo, who added to his professional duties great success in Sabbath School work. Joseph, the oldest son, inherited his father's fondness for mathe- matics and mechanical contrivances. When a mere youth he constructed the model of a railroad bridge which should be so stiff as to support a long train with hardly any vibration. On applying for a patent he found the principle had been virtually used in building the bridge below Niagara. He rose as civil engineer to be a large constructor of railroads. He felt that work in the South had a great civilizing influence. He was appointed to help in surveying the Isthmus of Tehuantepec for a ship railroad. They published an interesting volume of reports. Although he died in Alabama, just at the breaking out of the Rebellion, Southerners erected a handsome monument over his grave.
When I was at home on vacations and used to tell my little
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brother John stories, as he stood by my milking stool, I little thought of him as becoming so eminent a scholar. While professor of Languages in Iowa, and then in Bowdoin College, he not only put enthusiasm into the studies of his classes, but also carried on the study of Sanskrit, and mastered several modern languages of India. At his early death he had accu- mulated many materials for an extended work on India.
At my own graduation from Andover, my mother having died, father disposed of his farm and went West with me to do over again the thousand helpful things he had been doing for the church in his native town. Thirteen years of his long life yet remained and, although he was already sixty-five, he threw himself into the work of building up a thriving young town in the West with the enthusiasm of young manhood. The field assigned us was Sparta, Wis.
I have not mentioned another line of usefulness which my parents' lives took on in their Massachusetts home. Very plain though it was, and attended with some hardships, yet families of some eminence desired their sons, exposed to city temptations, to come for a time under the influence of these wise parents. Dr. Muzzey, a surgeon of note in Cincinnati, had his boy Dela- van with us for quite a time. He became private secretary of President Johnson. Deacon Safford of Boston first sent Daniel, bright but rather wild. He became a merchant in New York City. His younger and more scholarly brother George followed, who for over thirty years was pastor of the College Church at Burlington, Vt. Dr. Anderson, of the American Board, sent his son Edward, who has preached to important churches, as in Quincy, Ill., Norwalk and Donaldsonville, Conn.
Going half a mile north from the home of my parents, some sixty years ago, we should have come to the family of Isaac Marsh. It was his little granddaughter whom the pastor, Rev. Samuel Harris, adopted, as he had no children of his own. Thus, this little Lucy exchanged great poverty for the best of home life and training in the schools of Pittsfield, Mass., and Bangor or Brunswick, Maine. Finally she was prepared to be the wife of Dr. Edwin Parker, for forty years pastor of the Second Congregational Church, Hartford. 1
On the eastern slope of Cricket Hill is a small burying ground
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in which is a headstone, bearing the name Elisha Clark. He came, with a family of little children, from Harwich, Barnstable County, Mass., in 1774. His farm lay a little east, so that he belonged to the Allis District, or South Part. Other children were born to him, till their number reached ten. Follow this stream into the next generation, and see how it broadened and deepened. Marcy had eight children, Hannah ten, Elisha, 2d, ten, Scotto five, Oliver fifteen, Tabitha thirteen, Thomas five, and Thankful five. Here were seventy-seven grandchildren of that one Elisha. They spread to many towns, and some have a noble record in Conway, as we shall now see. Scotto Clark married a daughter of his pastor, John Emerson, and one of their children became the wife of Rev. Adams Nash, as we have already seen. A second daughter, Sabra, won the heart of a young instructor in Amherst College, the son of Rev. Thomas Snell, D.D., of North Brookfield. They were married in 1828 and he was appointed professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1834. Both lived to a good old age. Professor Snell's pupils cherish his memory as of one genial, accurate, and thorough. How we enjoyed those beautiful experiments he performed in natural philosophy, mostly with instruments which his own hands had constructed. Said an Amherst lady recently, "Professor Snell had a lovely family of daughters." Another family of Clarks was that of Ebenezer, who lived in that district, near Whately line. In this was Rodolphus, who practiced dentistry here for a time, and was a deacon of the Congrega- tional church. He removed to Dubuque, Iowa, to be followed by his brothers, Albert, a lawyer, Asa, a druggist, and Lincoln, a dentist. These four young men had fine opportunity to help mould society in that vigorous state.
Only a little north of Scotto Clark's home was that of Marshall Field's father. It stood just over the brow of almost a mountain, with a fine view to the east and south. By climbing the higher peak close by, the village of Conway and the pretty hills all about it are spread out like a map, at one's feet. This surpassing beauty of view together with that rugged hillside to be climbed, whenever he went to the village for church, school, or an errand at the store and post office, must have been a very valuable force in shaping this boy's, Marshall's,
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young life. Winter storms often howled fiercely round his home and blocked the road either way. A neighbor tells me that he was driving by this John Field's home, when a gust carried his sleigh quite out of the road, and up against Mr. Field's barn. Climbing that hill had something to do with the energy Mr. Field has shown in accumulating his vast estate. Had not the wide and charming views ever spread out about him in childhood, a tendency to broaden him, so as to be the master mind, capable of managing a business, reaching to distant lands, yet systematizing it, so that he can leave each department to its proper superintendent and himself rest from care of details? Besides these striking features of nature envi- roning Marshall Field's home, we love to think of that mother, for whom a tablet has been placed by his sisters on the walls of the Congregational church she loved from childhood. It reads: "In Loving Memory of our Mother. Fidelia N. Field entered into Rest Sept. 22, 1865. By her Daughters."
It is interesting to think that Conway has given the country three so able business men. Besides Mr. Field in Chicago, is William C. Whitney, former Secretary of the Navy, and now prominent in New York's great business enterprises; and his brother, Henry M. Whitney, who has been hardly less noted for similar energetic work in Boston. Their father was noted, while living among us, as a ready and forcible speaker. At one town meeting the question of purchasing a fire engine was debated. A gentleman from the northern part of the town made an impassioned appeal against laying burdens upon the out parts to support the center. He seemed likely to carry the day. But General Whitney rose and most skillfully turned his argu- ment round, securing a unanimous vote for the engine. After the Whitneys left here, Mrs. Whitney presented the Congregational church with a pipe organ, and Marshall Field gave two thousand dollars toward rebuilding its church, which had burned down.
Other useful families lined that road which passed over Field's Hill, as the Browns, the Allises, the Footes. But let us turn to the Hoosac neighborhood. Close by Francis How- land's was the birthplace of Lincoln Clark, grandson of Scotto Clark, and one of Conway's best contributions to the good of our country. He was born in 1800; at twenty-five graduated from
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Amherst College; taught and at the same time studied law, for the next five or six years; then married Julia A. Smith of Hadley, Mass. She was a lady of much refinement and prepared to be his efficient helper in all noble aims. From 1831 to 1836 he is described as a very successful lawyer in Alabama, being twice sent to the State Legislature, made a judge of the Circuit Court, and attorney general. He then moved to Iowa, and became member of Congress. Afterwards he practiced law in Chicago for years, until a very severe attack of typhoid fever broke down his health completely, and he came to loved Conway for his last days. Two daughters and four sons were given to him, and the history of the Clark family describes him as always
the side of justice and right.
Conway has sent out a noble band of ministers, and another scarcely less useful one of lawyers. The old homestead of William Avery Howland, close by that of Lincoln Clark's father, had a little later children that were to make their mark in the world. An oration delivered at our Centennial by William Howland, Esq., of Lynn, Mass., shows finely his patriotism and broad views of our country's needs. Many were the honors won by his younger brother George. For about five years he was instructor in Amherst College, and later one of its trustees, as has been and is his brother Walter. We were proud to hear of George as so successful, at the head of the Chicago High School for twenty years, then superintendent of all the schools in that great city, and finally president of the State Board of Education. The family of William Avery Howland furnished others to worthily represent the town in different spheres of labor. We were all delighted with the address of Walter M. Howland, Esq., at the laying of the corner stone of our new library building. Its beauty and appropriateness made the large audience rejoice that this duty had been assigned to one so capable and so hearty in his regard for the welfare of Conway. Not without a just pride does this family trace its genealogy, on the mother's side, to Thomas Clarke, mate of the "Mayflower," and, on that of its father, to John Howland, who came in the "Mayflower." Very properly has the present representative of the family, Walter M. Howland, been made governor of the Mayflower Association in Chicago.
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Let us now turn to two very useful families living near each other fifty years ago, in the north district of Broomshire. Many still remember Col. Austin Rice's erect form and dignified bearing. Some can recall his lovely wife and bright, happy family. A few still remember the large Bible class Colonel Rice taught in the southeast room of the old church vestry. I remember rather dreading the searching questions, which came round to each of us in turn. He died in 1880, having rounded out, to within two days, a long and useful life of eighty-six years. Having been for many years a trustee of Mount Holyoke Seminary, his death called out this tribute of affection, which appears in the history of that institution: "He was remarkable for the symmetry and consistency of his Christian character. While firm in his adherence to principle, he was most kind and genial. In business matters he was active, enterprising, and judicious, yet a liberal and systematic giver, who lived to help the Lord's work-a minister to the poor. Humility was joined to unfaltering trust, and the Friend, who had walked with him in life, did not fail him in death."
We are not surprised that of such noble parents sprang a son, Charles Baker Rice, who has been quite a favorite of the town. To him was assigned the duty of gathering up the chief events in our town's history, and presenting them on the inter- esting occasion of its one hundredth anniversary. That address shows him an indefatigable worker and original thinker. How delightful that he is closing a long and useful ministry by his present great service in bringing happily together many pastor- less churches and unemployed ministers!
Opposite the hilltop where stood the home of Austin Rice . was that of Deacon John Clary. His father, Joseph Clary, was born in 1751, and early established himself in a house thirty or forty rods southeast of the present brick house, built in 1808. . From Joseph Clary's family came a daughter, who married Deacon Christopher Arms, and another, the wife already named of Deacon Joseph Avery. Deacon John Clary, a son of Joseph, became one of Conway's notably useful men. In attempting to go through Amherst College, he was checked, by hemorrhage of the lungs, and obliged to spare himself from severe physical labor all his days. Born in 1802, temperate habits prolonged
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his valuable life to the good age of seventy-seven years. Hi select school, of twenty-nine consecutive terms, was a ver great blessing to our young people at a time when the highe grade of schools was not as abundant as now. That his averag of pupils was thirty-six, during all these years, shows a hearty appreciation of the school's value. He inspired great number: of these pupils to attempt teaching themselves, and sent other: forward upon more full courses of study. Deacon Clary was a leading worker in many other ways. He earnestly studied God's word, using Burns's notes, then freshly published, as his chief aid and was admirable in church and neighborhood prayer meetings. With the help of Colonel Rice and Dr. Rogers he maintained a large Sabbath School in Shirkshire on Sabbath afternoons. Deacon Clary's son, Francis, was one of our choice young men, who left college to be a color bearer of the 31st Massachusetts Regiment in the Civil War. The little book in which the lady whom he was intending to marry sketches his life as a soldier shows him as brave a soldier of Jesus Christ as he was of his country. Death ended very beautifully this nobly useful life. With his fellow soldiers, he was lying low be- fore Port Hudson, to escape its sharpshooters, and to await further orders. A companion, lying a few feet away, was ex- ceedingly thirsty, and young Clary raised himself slightly to toss his canteen of water, when a bullet struck him fatally in the neck. His words were: "I am wounded, some one else must take the colors now."
To teach the slaves Francis helped to liberate, his sister Martha gave her best years, wearing herself out in this generous service. Her younger sister, Susan, taught about fifteen years in the seminary at South Hadley, and then accepted an invita- tion to help build up a little center of instruction in Pretoria, South Africa. She made the voyage safely, but could reach Pretoria only by a very severe ride on a rude stage conveyance over the hills and across immense plains. So rapidly did they proceed that she could hardly cling to her seat. Her school had to be commenced in the damp vestry of a church, and this precious life ended only a year after she left her pupils at South Hadley. Other workers have succeeded her. A fine building was erected, and her spirit of consecration cannot but
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have found fruit, where such great events have since tran- spired.
Passing from Broomshire to the district of Poland on the west, a very pleasant recollection comes to me of a small boy who came from Poland to do chores at my uncle's, and attend our Cricket Hill school. We became quite fast friends. I remember speaking a dialogue with him, in which we smoked the pipe of peace together, using bits of dried grapevine for pipes. His name was Austin Bond. When the state undertook the herculean task of building Hoosac Tunnel and afterwards run the cars for a time upon the road thus opened, Austin Bond kept its books and handled about twenty-seven millions of its money. At the close of this great responsibility the Springfield Republican humorously dwelt upon an error in Mr. Bond's accounts, to the enormous amount of three or four cents. This has not prevented his being made the auditor of accounts for North Adams ever since.
Going west from Poland schoolhouse half a mile, and there turning to the right, you will, after a few rods, find traces of an old road. Following this down the hill and bearing to the left you soon come to an old cellar hole beside a pile of rocks and un- der the overhanging hill. Here in 1804 was born the world's greatest telescope maker, Alvan Clark. Those beautiful Chapel Falls furnished the power for a gristmill, which led Alvan's father to build down in this depressed and out-of-the-way hollow. The foundation stones are still visible where his mill stood, at the base of the falls, evidently catching the water at its last plunge to turn the overshot wheel of those days. Was it the beauty of those falls which made the boy so fond of sketching pictures? As he grew to manhood one face painted itself upon his heart. It was that of Maria, the eldest sister of Newton and Franklin Pease. He lived only a few hundred yards over the line in Ashfield, and she just this side in the edge of Conway. If we cannot claim the whole of him, we can his better half. He rose gradually to fame, painting miniature pictures, engraving on copper, inventing a new and valuable instrument for measuring the exceedingly minute angles in estimating the distances of remotest stars. Then with exceeding patience he fashioned the great lenses which have brought those
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stars near. One of his telescopes is mounted at Yerkes Observa- tory, Lake Geneva; another at the Naval Observatory, Wash- ington. The Russian government ordered one of monster size. He himself discovered many double stars through his own instruments, and honors were showered upon him from this and other lands. But they were gained by persevering toil. He did not begin to make lenses till he was over forty. And so we may believe that she who bore him two sons and two daughters was a sympathetic helper in all his high aspirations.
Going north a little ways from the early home of Maria Pease, we should have come to that of Gideon Cooley. His daughter, Julia, married Rev. Thomas Norton. One of their parishes was the old town, out of which was carved the large manufacturing city of Brockton, Mass. Did the bustle of incoming business, and the starting up of machinery, make of their son an inventor? We have noticed heavy doors brought, by what is called the "hand spring," swiftly together, and then as gently closed, as by a human hand. Young Norton invented this contrivance, to prevent the discomfort of slamming doors.
We have now glanced at the six school districts of Conway, naming some useful men and women in the history of its outer parts. Let us come to the threefold village which forms its center and heart. Pumpkin - Hollow claimed for a long time the principal church, town hall, store, tavern, harness shop, and was as much the center of business as of the town's scattered population. Let us begin with its cluster of useful families. Good old Doctor Rogers lived sixty or seventy years ago where is now Arthur Delabarre. Often might he be seen with saddle bags and faithful horse threading the hilly roads, to bring relief to weary patients. I shall never forget his cheerful and devout exclamation as he entered my sick room. A too quick exposure after an attack of scarlet fever had brought me to the borders of the grave but, by counsel with neighboring physicians, Dr. Rogers was guided to some simple remedies which wrought in twenty-four hours a marked change for the better. As he opened the door of my room, on the following morning, his first and reverent utterance was: "How strange .a harp of thousand strings should keep in tune so long!"
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Almost opposite Dr. Rogers lived William Billings. His grandaughter is now the wife of Judson Smith, D.D., an honored secretary of the American Board. Next south of Mr. Billings was Phineas Bartlett, a man of sound judgment and stanch integrity, who was town treasurer for twenty-three years in succession and justice of the peace for a like long period. An- other useful family was opposite, that of John Howland, whose wife was the granddaughter of that early and prolific settler, Elisha Clark. Here were eleven children and here, too, was long kept the library owned by many and a blessing to the town.
On the hill south of John Howland's lived Capt. Henry P. Billings. We were then favored with quite a number of gen- erals, colonels, and captains. This Mr. Billings married a sister of President Hitchcock. The family has well served this and other communities. Many of our youth have been helped to higher attainments in music, and the town's business continues to be as honestly and carefully looked after as in the days of Malachi Maynard or Phineas Bartlett. Henry W. Billings, Esq., a son of Captain Billings, has served the town continuously as clerk since 1861, and as treasurer since 1864.
North of John Howland's lived the family of Newhall blest like so many others with the best of mothers. She was first Mrs. Josiah Tilton, who came with her husband from Brighton, Mass. Mr. Tilton had there a good business in supplying the Boston market with beef. The cattle were brought by drovers, a veteran one coming all the way from Conway. A desire to change his busines to that of farming was thus awakened. Mr. and Mrs. Tilton came here in their own carriage with $3,000 or $4,000 in a trunk swinging from its axle. Every night this precious trunk was unstrapped and placed beside their bed. They bought a farm two or three miles north of the center and after her husband's death Mrs. Tilton married Mr. Jabez Newhall. This worthy mother and grandmother had much to do with the usefulness of the family in church music and other ways.
As we ascend the hill to the west John Packard is on our right, who is president of the Savings Bank, the Electric Railroad, and the Co-operative Creamery. He is a brother of Azel Packard, cousin of Emory Meekins, partners in the
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Springfield firm to which I have alluded. I recall it again to say that Mr. Meekins' sister married a returned missionary, Rev. William Arms, who has since been the esteemed pastor of a church in Sunderland, Mass., and of one in Terryville and in Essex, Conn.
Halfway up this little hill, west of the old first meeting house, we come to a house notable for the many valuable workers who have gone out from it. First let us speak of the early family of Wares living there. The father was a physician. His son, Rev. Samuel Ware, won the title of D.D. Bethiah Ware became the wife of Moses Miller, long the minister of Heath, Mass. Sally Ware married Rev. William Bonney, and Eliza- beth, Rev. Theophilus Packard, for a long time pastor in Shelburne, the next town north of us. I remember well hearing him on exchange, and thinking him a forcible preacher. After moving West his wife was quite carried away with the "Woman's Rights" movement, published some books, gave addresses, and carried the idea so far that she ceased to be helpful in her own home and parted from her distressed husband.
After the Wares left, my uncle, William Avery, sold the old John Avery farm on Cricket Hill and came to this house to live. For some fifteen years he was a great invalid. His good wife did everything to keep up his spirits. She gathered up the news from all quarters and kept his mind alive with interest in it. He was rolled about the house on a little bed that he might see as much as possible. He amused himself with the study of French, and by such sensible recreations almost completely recovered health. So grateful and eager for work had he grown that he delighted to work not only for the comfort of his own home, but also for poorer homes among the factory operatives. Sometimes he used to be called "the missionary of the village."
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