USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Conway > History of Conway (Massachusetts) 1767-1917 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
The minister
47
THE FIRST CENTURY.
The old meeting house was not warmed by a fire until 1819, fifty years after it was built, when stoves were put up in it. Hot stones and foot stoves were often carried, to mitigate the severity of winter. The minister preached with overcoat and gloves on. And notwithstanding what may be said of the hardy habits of former generations there is abundant evidence that they suffered much from cold.
Another provision for warmth on Sundays may also be mentioned. There was a small log house, called the "Little House," perhaps also the same that is once mentioned in the records as "the Sabbath House," which stood a few rods south of the meeting house on the flat back of the residence and store of William C. Campbell. Here a huge fire was built on Sundays, which was resorted to at morning and noon. Here we may suppose our fathers and mothers had their Sunday noon conversations, always on befitting topics. This house was built as early, at the latest, as 1769. How long it stood I have no means of knowing.
SCHOOLS.
The first action of the town with respect to schools appears in the record of a meeting held in September, 1767, at which it was voted "yt they will hire a Dame to keep school 5 months, and yt Messrs. Nathaniel Field, Ebenezer Allis and Benjamin Pulsifer be a committee to provide said Dame, and appoint where said school shall be kept." The schools were held in private houses. The first schoolhouse was begun in 1773, and finished the next year. Its dimensions were 25 feet by 22 feet. It stood a few rods northeast of the old meeting house, near the middle, but somewhat toward the eastern side of the common, on a spot which would be crossed by a line from the shop lately and long occupied by Phineas Bartlett, Esq., passing over the common to the house of Jabez Newhall. The site of this house, which, through comparison of various dates, has been with difficulty recovered to knowledge, is to be marked by a century elm this morning planted upon it,-a living memorial, which, unlike anything else of all the life of the present generation, may possibly carry its remembrances across the coming century the next hundredth return of the day we now commemorate.
For a few years the sum of money raised for schooling did not exceed twelve pounds, but in 1774 it was increased to thirty
48
HISTORY OF CONWAY.
pounds. Once only since has the annual appropriation been omitted. This was in 1775, and was owing to the great appre- hension that prevailed in view of the approaching hostilities with Great Britain. The amount raised for schools the current year is twenty-seven hundred dollars. The earlier sums were not small in comparison when we consider the poverty of a popula- tion of farmers, few of whom, as yet, owned a horse, or a cart or a plow. Some rudiments of a district system begin to appear in 1776, and in 17.78 the town was formally "squadroned out" for schooling. The districts as we now know them are of much later date.
For about ten years this first schoolhouse was the only one in town. Schools were held to some extent in the outer parts of the town. But this was the principal school. Here, whenever it was in session, the older children came from all parts, boys and girls, young men and women. It thus became, by force of cir- cumstances, a town high school. The branches taught were reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. An effort was made in 1791 to introduce "grammar," a term which seems then partly, perhaps, from its legal use in the name "Grammar School," to have been confined to the study of the classical tongues. It was voted that the Latin and Greek languages should be taught. But the reason of this was "Greek" to our fathers; and the next year it was rescinded.
Private "select schools" have been held for many years. One such was kept twenty-nine terms, to his own credit, and to the great and lasting benefit of the town, by Deacon John Clary. In 1853 the Conway Academy was incorporated. The build- ing then erected with money voluntarily contributed, was des- troyed by fire in 1863, and the present structure was raised on the same spot (on the hill opposite the Congregational meeting house) in the next year. Within the past two years arrange- ments have been made by which there is here kept a high school free for all the children of the town.
It is not known who was the first school-teacher in the town. The first master whose memory has been preserved to us was Master Cole. A teacher was famous in those days according as he lifted up switches upon his unruly boys. The name of Master Cole still sprouts fresh among us, like a twig from a green birch tree.
49
THE FIRST CENTURY.
CEMETERIES.
Another necessity engaged the early attention of our fathers. At the same second town meeting, held in September, 1767, at which provision was made for the services of religion, there was also secured a ground for burial. Previous to this time Mrs. Cy- rus Rice had been buried in Deerfield; and an infant child of Silas Rawson and a child of John Thwing, three years old, at a spot, not marked, a little south of Mr. Emerson's house. The first ground then laid out for burying was that now known as the Emerson Yard, on the slope of the hill east of Mr. Emerson's house. The place is spoken of as lying near "the saw mill" which then stood below, upon the river, where the mill dam now is. Here was brought, in December following, a son of Israel Rice, one year old, drowned while his father and mother forded South River on horseback by night, and, after an interval of fifteen months, John Thwing, the first adult person buried in Conway.
In 1772 land was purchased of Elias Dickinson for a second burial yard westward, in the rear of the meeting house, which had then been placed and built. This ground has been long unused; only the ancient gravestones are on it. In 1845 there was laid out, one and a half miles north of the center of the town, Pine Grove Cemetery, where, since that time, the most of our dead have been buried. There are also other burial places in the remoter parts of the town.
Into these, the villages of the dead, which began at first to be so slowly occupied, have been gathered since, sometimes by rapid and ever by sure accessions, a population outnumbering that which is still found in the houses of the living.
The total of deaths recorded is 2,183. The yearly average for the century is thus 21100. The average for the last thirty years, to the beginning of 1867, has been 27100, while for the last ten years it has been 3310. It will thus be seen that the rate of mortality has increased toward the latter part of this period. This increase is due partly to the fact that the town was occupied at first mostly by people who were young, and like all emigrants they were doubtless more robust and vigorous than the average of the population from which they came. The same causes withal are now reversed in operation; taking away from us the young and leaving the old.
50
HISTORY OF CONWAY.
It may here also be appropriately mentioned that there are now living in Conway (1867) 57 persons-and the enumeration may not be complete-who are above 70 years of age. And there are eighteen who have reached 80 years or more.
ROADS.
It has been commonly supposed that the first county road leading from Deerfield to Ashfield, through Conway,' left the Mill Brook valley just above the old "Hawks' place," passing up the hill to the left by Cyrus Rice's, and thence over the Jonas Rice hill (where Joel Rice now is) to Pumpkin Hollow, from which point it turned northward, crossing South River near the post office, then rising the hill by Franklin Arms's, and continuing on by the Amsden (now Guilford) places into Ashfield. The latter part only of this course is correctly stated. The laying out of the first half of the above described route in town roads can be traced on the Records, and plain references fix the county road on another track. The laying out of this road "from Deerfield to Huntstown" in 1754 has already been referred to. From the record, kept at North- ampton, it is only to be learned that there was then a cart track leading from the top of Long Hill in Deerfield, to a sawmill on Mill Brook (which no doubt was near where the sawmill below the "Hawks' place" now stands), and that just before coming to the mill "the Huntstown Path" turned northward from the cart track "into the woods," and that the said county road was laid out ten rods in width following this path through its whole course. The road kept upon the hills just north of Mill Brook until it reached the spot where Robert Hamilton afterward settled (at Madison Stearns') and then turned squarely to the left across the valley, rising past the place of William Avery Howland and passing over the top of the hill, some distance to the north of the present road, and descending to the old Jonathan Whitney place, northeast of Capt. Charles Parsons'. The next stage alone is in some doubt. The road probably bore toward the north, crossing the river a little above where is now the dam built by Gen. Asa Howland, near his house, and at the foot of the old burying-yard hill, and from thence westerly to the neighborhood of the Baptist meeting house; and thence over
51
THE FIRST CENTURY.
Arms's Hill, as before described. The first bridge over South River was probably at the spot just mentioned. But it was swept away within three or four years, at the farthest, and was never replaced-the passage remaining afterwards a ford- way. The first bridge built after the incorporation of the town appears to have been not far from the post office, where the road now crosses. The fixing of the center of the town and the location of the meeting house near it drew the roads more to the southward; and led finally to the entire discon- tinuance of this middle portion of the old county road. Withal, as to the road over the Jonas Rice hill, from the east, the same attraction to the center, taken in connection with the fact that the southeastern portion of the town became early quite popu- lous, will account for its being, as it certainly was, a line of much passage. The opening of the route next to be spoken of may afterwards have contributed to bring, or to keep, travel on that track.
A second county road, laid in 1785, led from the old meet- ing house over the hill to Consider Arms's (now Elijah Arms's) through what has since become Burkeville, and thence up the river to the large dam lately built, and then, crossing the hill on the south, it struck down again upon the valley a mile and a half above, and continued on to Ashfield, and beyond to the county line. The gap in the valley above the dam was sup- plied in 1824. It was reckoned a hard road to build; and Deacon Elisha Billings eloquently declared in town meeting that it led through a gorge "into which the sun in heaven had not shone since the morning of creation." Still later, in 1837, the river line was completed by the road from the bridge near the post office up the valley to the old gristmill. On the east the road to Deerfield was brought down from the hills to the side of Mill Brook, where it now is, in 1832.
The roads to Broomshire and South Part were laid in 1767; those to West Street, Cricket Hill, and Poland in 1769. The present improved South Part road dates from 1846; the Broom- shire from 1847; the Cricket Hill from 1850; and the new Shel- burne Falls road from 1856.
The tracks at first were marked with a purpose to reach and connect the settlers' houses. The houses were on hills, where
52
HISTORY OF CONWAY.
the soil could be most easily worked; and not in swamps and gullies. So the roads kept well on the uplands. Here, too, they were made with less work, required fewer bridges, and were for these days really better roads than valley roads could have been. Though these highways were at first mere paths for horses and men, and next no more than cart tracks, yet the amount of hard work done upon them within twenty years from the occupation of the town must have been prodigious. They seem to have been early put in creditable shape for the country and the time. It is related that when Dr. Samuel Ware came to Conway, about 1770, his wife, struck with the good appearance of the roads, remarked that "there might some day be chaises in this town"; a womanly fancy which her husband rebuked as wild and extravagant. It was not long, however, before Parson Emerson had a chaise. Others followed him later. Lucius Allis and Elisha Clark grew aristocratic enough after a time to ride each in his "hack." One-horse wagons were not known till the beginning of the present century. The first one was built by Robert Hamilton, who was a clockmaker; and a suffi- ciently solid man to need a carriage. He thought himself the inventor of the institution; and held that there was not another like it in all America. Not far from the same time Dr. Ware built the first single sleigh or "cutter." Before then the lively young people went sleighing upon wood sleds, or haply on a "pung"; saving that it was more fashionable to go horseback.
It may be observed that for conveying their baggage the first settlers sometimes made a rack, like a broad ladder, with stout side pieces between which in front they put a horse, trailing the rear end on the ground. This instrument was called "a car." The men who went early beyond us up the Deerfield River used such; but cast them aside on reaching the smoother country at the foot of the hill toward Shelburne Falls. The strange looking wrecks thus left attracted the attention of a philosophical traveler, who repaired to a native for an explanation. He was informed that Satan with part of a legion had once been traveling down the valley and at this spot, not liking the looks of the road and bethinking him of the river, he had taken to navigation and left behind him his land gear. It may be added that although the
53
THE FIRST CENTURY.
ways in that neighborhood have been much improved, this per- sonage has not been seen there since,-nor indeed in any part of the town. Other cars more modern may this year be run- ning past the hills over which the old racks were drawn.
LOCALITIES.
Some note may here be made of the names of localities in our town. Cricket Hill was so called first by a party of hunt- ers who were annoyed by the crickets as they camped there for a night. Captain Childs, in the calm and confident exercise of that foreseeing faculty which belongs ever to the true his- torian, declares that as "it has been known by that name from that day to this" so it "will continue to be as long as the hills remain." I here officially reaffirm the declaration. "Hard- scrabble" sets forth that it is hard scrabbling on that soil to live. Of Hoosac I have no satisfactory explanation. Broom- shire, as is well known, has its name from the walnut brooms William Warren made and sold in Deerfield, one broom for a pound and a half of pork. He did it because he was hungry; being out of meat for several years by winter. He used to walk first to Deerfield to get a horse and "pung" to carry his brooms. Concerning Shirkshire Captain Childs shall give the narration. "Old Mr. Sherman," he says-it was doubtless John Sherman,- "happened along as the people were upon the roads, and at their request assisted them a number of hours, hoping thereby to earn and get his dinner. But no one seemed willing (as the services rendered were for the public) to bear the burden alone,- they all shirked, and left him to shirk for himself as best he could. Highly indignant at the neglect with which he was treated he left the place in a state of great excitement, saying, 'Let it be called Shirkshire from this day forward'; and so it has been and will be as long as wood grows and water runs." It is an affair of seriousness; and the ordinance looks unchangeable. But one main feature escaped the historian's eye. The time was doubt- less while the district belonged to Shelburne. The thing was not done, as of course it never could have been, in Conway. Remembering this, and considering that it is not just that the children's teeth should be forever set on edge because the father ate no grapes-or other dinner-I suggest that we might
54
HISTORY OF CONWAY.
at once propitiate the hungry and indignant shade of John Sherman and commemorate the integrity and manly vigor of his son Caleb, by calling that district Sherman Corner; or by fixing in some other similar manner that family name upon it. As to Poland, Captain Childs professes that he knows no deri- vation for the name, and thinks it must be due to the deeply planted liberty-loving and slavery-hating instincts of its people,- allying them to the Polanders of Europe. The prevalence there of these noble sentiments is a matter of conspicuous knowledge, and this is the association which the title should ever suggest, but the serious verities of history constrain me to record that the name itself originated in the strife of two boys over the skins of certain slain "Pole Cats." I do not know but the animal may also bear another name. Of "the city" no account is preserved, except that two girls, about to depart from it, left it the name. It obviously comes of the great number of buildings the neigh- borhood has-room for. Lastly, in the center is Pumpkin Hollow. Into it the pumpkins once rolled from the eastern if not also from the western cultivated slope. We hear that there are those who have ventured to tamper with the wholesome and savory and venerable appellation. Let it not be done. Clothed to-day with the prophetic mantle my predecessor dropped, I make it here to be known that, so long as the greatest of those vegetable orbs will roll from the top of Field's or Newhall's hill the valley that lies between shall be called of men Pumpkin Hollow. For the information of the curious mind I will add that the locality sometimes entitled "Church Green" is in Pumpkin Hollow.
CLOTHING.
The dress worn by the first settlers and their families was, as might be supposed, of the plainest fabric. Tow cloth and linsey-woolsey were the common materials for men and boys. Some men, not of the tailors' craft, and not forced either to such a resort, used to cut for themselves the garment that was worn where pantaloons ought to be. Stout linen, checked or striped with blue, was for Sunday wear. The busy wives and daughters spun and wove it; and wore it also for themselves. So they made table and pocket linen, very similar, of which here is a specimen (displaying a checked handkerchief made in
55
THE FIRST CENTURY.
the old time). No Conway man is expected to-day to use one of any other description. Infant children were baptized wearing dresses of this material. Our stylish girls had then for winter flannel frocks, red or of butternut color, which they made and dyed themselves. They became irresistibly charming when they added a Boston ribbon for the waist and neck. Silks, though not absolutely unknown, were very rare. And so, too, was cotton. For many years a first-class bridal suit was of calico. When the town had a representative at the General Court it was often sent for by him. The cost was a dollar a yard. As to the quantity required there are no means at the present time for forming a judgment.
There is evidence withal that what they had they took care of. The young women, coming on Sunday to meeting, would not put on their best shoes until they were near the meeting house; wearing for the most of the way some coarser covering of art- or a finer one of nature. Often, though less uniformly, dresses as well as shoes were thus changed. I know not what ignomin- ious man has cut down that chestnut tree near the western foot of the Jonas Rice hill that was the favorite dressing shelter of the maidens from the East Side and the South Part. As to the boys, shoes were of no account to them except in the very coldest months. Bonnets were prolonged "shakers." There is a South Part story that Capt. Lucius Allis used to keep cider- which may be believed-at some place near the meeting house to be had with the Sunday dinners, and that the women attempt- ing to take a share-which is not so clear-were much embar- rassed by reason of these bonnets. It is not believed that the present style would give occasion to such difficulties. Disre- garding the cider, I do not know but there may be found those who will acquiesce in the change by which the faces of the moth- ers' daughters have ceased to be so entirely inaccessible.
However this almost exclusively domestic provision for cloth- ing may now please the imagination, there is abundant evidence that it did not then adequately protect the body. Captain Childs speaks of the clothing of the early inhabitants as "utterly insufficient"; and facts transmitted to us will sustain his state- ment. That the settlers were generally healthy and that many of them lived to a great age, makes nothing against it. Vigor of
56
HISTORY OF CONWAY.
constitution supported them; and the strength that comes of working and sleeping in good air. Moreover, as to the children the healthiness of the early times is not admitted.
It is pleasing to be able to reflect that notwithstanding poverty of dress and badness of the roads, with lack of car- riages, the first people here did not neglect social intercourse. Malachi Maynard used to come evenings with his family two miles down the hill to call on his neighbor Consider Arms. His wife carried one child, he another; and there was left for him his right hand for a burning pine knot to light the way and keep off wolves. So they refreshed themselves after their day's work. When Mr. Emerson brought his young wife, Sabra Cobb, from Boston in 1770, almost the whole town came together to the reception at the house of Consider Arms. It may be guessed it was a new side of life the lady saw. The report is still heard of the kisses she enjoyed-or endured. On this occasion her resolution to do appears also to have been equal to her fortitude to suffer. Eli Dickinson said the kiss he received was "the sweetest he had ever had." Whereat his wife gave him the boxing he deserved. Mrs. Emerson was a lady if she came from Boston. She had a silk umbrella; and because there was not an umbrella among her people she never carried it; but long after she made the silk into bonnets for her daughters. One day when Mr. Emerson was away a man brought to her house a choice piece of pork. To her horror he told her that his hog had died that morning "of a sore throat." She thanked him graciously, but being afraid her husband would be angry-for his temper rose on due occasion-and wishing to hide a matter for trouble, she threw it away with the refuse for soap. Mr. Emerson, however, had heard of the gift, and came home to inquire, too late, after his expected dinner.
Thus the town was entered upon, cleared, and populated. Man had his home in the wilderness of the deer, and the wolf, and the bear. And the varied scenes of human history began here to be enacted.
WAR.
The Revolutionary War was soon coming on. Our fathers, though poorly prepared at that early day to contribute in car- rying it forward, yet entered heartily upon it. They made haste
57
THE FIRST CENTURY.
in 1774 to assure the Boston Committee of Correspondence that they should join with them in "all Lawful and Salutary Measures for the Recovery of those Inestimable Priviledges Wrested from us, and firmly to secure those that remain, for we are sensible,"- say they,-"yt should we Renounce our Liberty and Priviledges we should Renounce the Quality of men and the Rights of hu- manity." They shortly directed that the selectmen should pro- vide "two barrels of powder and lead and flints answerable for a town stock of ammunition." (From the first the town had kept some "stock" of these articles.) They "Established a Resolve," appointing a committee of thirteen men to have an eye on the conduct of any persons that should "Do or speak anything that tends to Hender Uniting of the People in opposing ye kings laws yt Infringed on their rights," and to adjudge to such persons "a Certain Competency of Punishment to be Inflicted on them not Exceeding the punishment of Contempt and Neglect"; and they added the restriction, "Yt the said Committy nor no Other person shall not have power to go out of this town Except it be to assist a mob in the General Good Cause (viz.) in Prohib- iting Persons taking or holding Commissions under the Present Constitution, Except it be for their own perticular Bisness." This committee of thirteen, as at first chosen, consisted of Deacon Samuel Wells, Deacon Joel Baker, Lieut. Thomas French, Jonas Rice, Oliver Wetmore, Cyrus Rice, Consider Arms, Robert Oliver, James Dickinson, Israel Gates, Josiah Boyden, Elisha Clark, and Alexander Oliver. In July, 1775, the old committee was dismissed, Captain Arms and some others beginning to hold back from extreme measures, and Samuel Crittenden, Jonathan Whitney, Malachi Maynard, James Gilmore, John Thwing, Jonas Rice, Isaac Amsden, Captain Clark, and Israel Rice were put in their stead.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.