USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Gardner > History of Gardner, Massachusetts : from its earliest settlement to 1860 > Part 5
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deeds in one general office of registry, instead of entering them on the books of the town where the land was situated, and the right of absentees to sue for the collection of debts, were the subjects of complaint in a petition, concluding with the request that precepts might be issued for meetings, to express public sentiment in relation to a revision of the Constitution, and if two-thirds of the qualified voters were in favor of amendment, that a State convention might be called. The existence of this body was continued by an adjournment to Worcester. The petition was immediately forwarded to the General Court. A copy was subsequently submitted to the town, at a meeting held October 2nd, for the purpose of receiving a report from the delegates. It was then voted, "That Mr. Daniel Baird be requested to inform the town whether this petition was according to his mind, and he informed the town it was; but that he did not approve of its being sent to the General Court until it had been laid before the town." The petition was read para- graph by paragraph, rejected, and the delegates dismissed.
On the 16th of October, in compliance with the request of 34 freeholders, another town meeting was called : after a long and warm debate, the former delegates were re-elected to attend the convention, at its adjourned session. A peti- tion had been offered, praying consideration of the measures proper in the alarming situation of the country, and for in- structions to the representative to inquire into the expendi- ture of public money, the salaries of officers, the means of increasing manufactures, encouraging agriculture, introduc- ing economy, and removing every grievance. Directions were given to endeavor to procure the removal of the Leg- islature from the metropolis to the interior ; the annihilation of the Inferior Courts; the substitution of a cheaper and
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more expeditious administration of justice; the immediate repeal of the supplementary fund granted to Congress ; the appropriation of the revenue, arising from impost and ex- cise, to the payment of the foreign debt; and the withhold- ing all supplies from Congress until settlement of account between the Commonwealth and Continent. Resolutions, introduced by the supporters of government, expressing disapprobation of unconstitutional assemblies, armed com- binations, and riotous movements, and pointing to the Leg- islature as the only legitimate source of redress, were re- jected. The convention party was triumphant by a small majority. While the discussion was uged, a considerate citizen inquired of one of the most zealous of the discon- tented, what grievances he suffered, and what were the prin- cipal evils among them? "There are grievances enough, thank God !" was the hasty reply, " and they are all princi- pal ones."
The jurisdiction of the sessions was principally over crimi- nal offences, and its powers were exercised for the preser- vation of social order. No opposition had been anticipated to its session on the 21st of November, and no defensive preparations were made. On that day, about sixty armed men, under Abraham Gale, of Princeton, entered the north part of the town. During the evening, and on Wednesday morning, about one hundred more arrived from Hubbards- ton, Shrewsbury, and some adjacent towns. A committee presented a petition to the Court, at the United States Arms Tavern, for their adjournment, until a new choice of repre- sentatives, which was not received. The insurgents then took possession of the ground around the Court House. When the justices approached, the armed men made way, and they passed the open ranks to the steps. There, triple
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rows of bayonets presented to their breasts, opposed farther advance. The Sheriff, Col. William Greenleaf, of Lancas- ter, addressed the assembled crowd, stating the danger to themselves and the public from their lawless measures. Reasoning and warning were ineffectual, and the proclama- tion in the riot act was read for their dispersion. Amid the grave solemnity of the scene, some incidents were interposed of lighter character. Col. Greenleaf remarked with great severity on the conduct of the armed party around him. One of the leaders replied, they sought relief from griev- ances : that among the most intolerable of them was the sheriff himself : and next to his person, were his fees, which were exorbitant and excessive, particularly on criminal exe- cutions. " If you consider fees for executions oppressive," replied the sheriff, irritated by the attack, "you need not wait long for redress ; for I will hang you all, gentlemen, for nothing, with the greatest pleasure." Some hand among the crowd, which pressed close, placed a pine branch on his hat, and the county officer retired with the justices, decorated with the evergreen badge of rebellion. The clerk entered on his records, that the court was prevented from being held by an armed force, the only notice contained on their pages that our soil has ever been dishonored by resistance of the laws.
To this period the indulgence of government had dealt with its revolted subjects as misguided citizens, seduced to acts of violence from misconception of the sources of their distress. Conciliatory policy had applied remedial statutes wherever practicable, and proffered full pardon and indem- nity for past misconduct. Reasonable hopes were enter- tained that disaffection, quieted by lenient measures, would lay down the arms assumed under strong excitement, and
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that reviving order would rise from the confusion. But the insurgents, animated by temporary success, and mistaking the mildness of forbearance for weakness or fear, had ex- tended their designs from present relief to permanent change. Their early movements were without further object than to stay that flood of executions which wasted their property and made their homes desolate. That portion of the com- munity, who condemned the violence of the actors in the scenes we have described, sympathized in their sufferings, and were disposed to consider the offences venial, while the professed purpose of their commission was merely to obtain the delay necessary for seeking constitutional redress. All implicated, stood on safe and honorable ground, until the renewal on the 21st of November, of the opposition to the administration of justice. Defiance of the authority of the State could no longer be tolerated without the prostra- tion of its institutions. The crisis had arrived, when gov- ernment, driven to the utmost limit of concession, must ap- peal to the sword for preservation, even though its destroy- ing edge, turned on the citizen, might be crimsoned with civil slaughter. Information was communicated to the execu- tive of extensive levies of troops for the suppression of the judiciary, and the coercion of the Legislature. Great exer- tions were making to prevent the approaching session of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, on the first week of December. Gov. Bowdoin and the council, resolved to adopt vigorous measures to overawe the insurgents. Or- ders were issued to Major General Warner, to call out the militia of his division, and five regiments were directed to hold themselves in instant readiness to march. Doubts, however, arose, how far reliance could be placed on the troops of an infected district. The sheriff reported, that a
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sufficient force could not be collected. The first instructions were therefore countermanded, a plan having been settled to raise an army whose power might effectually crush resis- tance ; and the Judges were advised to adjourn to the 23d of January following, when the contemplated arrangements could be matured, to terminate the unhappy troubles.
The insurgents unapprised of the change of operations, began to concentrate their whole strength to interrupt the Courts at Worcester and Concord. They had fixed on Shrewsbury as the place of rendezvous. On the 29th of November, a party of forty from Barre, Spencer and Leices- ter, joined Capt. Wheeler, who had established his head quarters in that town during the preceding week, and suc- ceeded in enlisting about thirty men. Daniel Shays, the reputed commander-in-chief, and nominal head of the re- bellion, made his first public appearance in the county soon after, with troops from Hampshire. Reinforcements came in, till the number at the post exceeded four hundred. Senti- nels stopped and examined travelers, and patrols were sent out towards Concord, Cambridge and Worcester. On Thurs- day, November 30th, information was received that the Light Horse, under Col. Hitchborn, had captured Shattuck, Par- ker and Paige, and that a detachment of cavalry was march- ing against themselves. This intelligence disconcerted their arrangements for an expedition into Middlesex, and they retreated in great alarm to Holden. On Friday, Wheeler was in a house passed by the horsemen, and only escaped being captured, by accident. Another person, supposed to be the commander, was pursued, and received a sabre cut in the hand. The blow was slight, but afforded sufficient foundation for raising the cry that blood had been shed, and rousing passion to vengeance. The wounded insurgent was
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exhibited and bewailed as the martyr of their cause. As the Light Horse retired, it was discovered they did not ex- ceed twenty. About a hundred of Shays' men rallied, and returned to Shrewsbury, following a foe whose celerity of movement left no cause to fear they could be brought to an encounter. Search was made for the town stock of powder, removed by the vigilance of one of the Selectmen, Col. Cushing, whose house they surrounded, and whose person they endeavored to seize, but he escaped. Consultation was held on the expedieney of marching directly to Worcester, and encamping before the Court House. Without clothing to protect them from cold, without money, or food to supply the wants of hunger, it was considered impracticable to maintain themselves there, and on Saturday they marched to Grafton and went into quarters with their friends.
The party left at Holden, found one object of their meet- ing, the junction with the insurgents at Concord, frustrated. Those who belonged to the neighboring towns were there- fore dismissed, with orders to assemble in Worcester on Monday following. Shays retired to the barracks in Rutland, and sent messengers to hasten on the parties from Berkshire and Hampshire, in anticipation of meeting the militia of government at Worcester.
On Sunday evening, the detachment from Grafton entered the town, under the command of Abraham Gale, of Prince- ton, Adam Wheeler, of Hubbardston, Simeon Hazeltine, of Hardwick, and John Williams, reputed to be a deserter from the British army, and once a sergeant of the continental line. They halted before the Court House, and having ob- tained the keyes, placed a strong guard around the building, and posted sentinels on all the streets and avenues of the town to prevent surprise. Those who were off duty, rolling
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themselves in their blankets, rested on their arms, on the floor of the Court room.
As the evening closed in, one of the most furious snow storms of a severe winter commenced. One division of the insurgents occupied the Court House: another sought shel- ter at the Hancock Arms. The sentinels, chilled by the tempest, and imagining themselves secured by its violence from attack, joined their comrades around the fire of the guard room. The young men of the town, in the spirit of sportive mischief, contrived to carry away their muskets, incautiously stacked in the entry-way, and having secreted them at a distance, raised the alarm that the Light Horse was upon them. The party sallied out in confusion, and panic struck at the silent disappearance of their arms, fled through the fast falling snow to the Court House, where their associates had paraded. The guns were discovered at length, and the whole force remained ready for action several hours, frequently disturbed by the fresh outeries of their vexatious persecutors.
The increasing fury of the storm, and the almost impas- sable condition of the roads, did not prevent the arrival of many from Holden and the vicinity, on Tuesday, swelling the numerical force of malcontents to five hundred. The Court was opened at the Sun Tavern," and in conformity with the instructions of the Governor, adjourned to the 23d of January, without attempting to transact business. Peti- tions from committees from Sutton and Douglas, that the next session might be postponed to March, were disregarded.
Worcester assumed the appearance of a garrisoned town. The citizens answered to the frequent challenges of military guards : the traveler was admonished to stay his steps by
* United States Hotel, 1836.
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the voice and bayonet of the soldier. Sentries paced before the house of Mr. Allen, the clerk, where Judge Ward re- sided, and the former gentleman was threatened with vio- lence on his own threshhold. Justice Washburn, of Leices- ter, was opposed on his way, and two of his friends, who seized the gun presented to his breast, were arrested and detained in custody. Justice Baker, on his return home- ward was apprehended in the road, and some of his captors suggested the propriety of sending him to prison, to expe- rience the corrective discipline, to which, as a magistrate, he had subjected others.
On Tuesday evening, a council of war was convened, and it was seriously determined to march to Boston, and effect the liberation of the State prisoners as soon as sufficient strength could be collected. In anticipation of attack, the Governor gathered the means of defence around the me- tropolis. Guards were mounted at the prison, and at the entrances of the city : alarm posts were assigned ; and Major General Brooks held the militia of Middlesex contiguous to the road, in readiness for action, and watched the force at Worcester.
During the evening of Tuesday, an alarm broke out, more terrific to the party quartered at the Hancock Arms, than that which had disturbed the repose of the preceding night. Soon after partaking the refreshment which was sometimes used by the military, before the institution of temperance societies, several of the men were seized with violent sick- ness, and a rumor spread, that poison had been mingled with the fountain which supplied their water. Dr. Samuel Stearns, of Paxton, astrologer, almanac manufacturer, and quack by profession, detected in the sediment of the eups they had drained, a substance, which he unhesitatingly pronounced to
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be a compound of arsenic and antimony, so deleterious that a single grain would extinguish the lives of a thousand. The numbers of the afflicted increased with frightful rapidity, and the symptoms grew more fearful. It was suddenly recollected that the sugar used in their beverage had been purchased from a respectable merchant of the town," whose attachment to government was well known, and the sickness around was deemed proof conclusive that it had been adul- terated for their destruction. A file of soldiers seized the seller, and brought him to answer for the supposed attempt to murder the levies of rebellion. As he entered the house, the cry of indignation rose strong. Fortunately for his safe- ty, Dr. Green, of Ward, an intelligent practitioner of medi- cine, arrived, and the execution of vengeance was deferred until his opinion of its propriety could be obtained. After careful inspection of the suspected substance, and subject- ing it to the test of different senses, he declared, that to the best of his knowledge, it was genuine, yellow, Scotch snuff. The reputed dying raised their heads from the floor : the slightly affected recovered: the gloom which had settled heavily on the supposed victims of mortal disease was dis- pelled, and the illness soon vanished. Strict inquiry fur- nished a reasonable explanation : a clerk in the store of the merchant had opened a package of the fragrant commodity in the vicinity of the sugar barrel, and a portion of the odoriferous leaf, had, inadvertently been scattered from the counter into its uncovered head. A keg of spirit was ac- cepted in full satisfaction for the panic occasioned by the decoction of tobacco so innocently administered.
Bodies of militia, anxious to testify their reviving zeal, were toiling through the deep snow drifts. Gen. Warner,
* The late Daniel Waldo, (Sen.) Esq.
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finding that no benefit could be derived from their presence, sent orders for their return to their homes, and the insur- gents enjoyed the triumph of holding undisputed posses- sion of the town.
On Wednesday, December 6th, they went out to meet Shays, who arrived from Rutland with 350 men. As they re-entered the street the appearance of the column of 800 was highly imposing. The companies included many who had learned their tactics from Steuben, and served an ap- prenticeship of discipline in the ranks of the Revolution : war- worn veterans, who in a good cause would have been invinci- ble. The pine tuft supplied the place of plume in their hats. Shays, with his aid, mounted on white horses, led on the van. They displayed into line before the Court House, where they were reviewed and inspected. The men were then billeted on the inhabitants. No compulsion was used : where ad- mittance was peremptorily refused, they quietly retired, and sought food and shelter elsewhere. Provision having been made for the soldiers, Shays joined the other leaders in coun- cil. At night, he was attended to his quarters, at the house of the late Col. Samuel Flagg, by a strong guard, preceded by the music of the army, with something of the state as- sumed by a general officer. Precautions against surprise were redoubled. Chains of sentinels were stretched along the streets, planted in every avenue of approach, and on the neighboring hills, examining all who passed. The cry of " all's well," rose on the watches of the night, from those whose presence brought danger to the Commonwealth.
Committees from some of the neighboring towns, and many of the prominent members of the conventions, assem- bled with the military leaders, on Thursday, the 6th of De- cember. Their deliberations were perplexed and discordant.
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The inelemency of the weather had prevented the arrival of the large force expected. The impossibility of retaining the men who had assembled without munitions, subsistence, or stores, compelled them to abandon the meditated attack on Boston, then put in a posture of defence, and more pacific measures were finally adopted. A petition was prepared for circulation, remonstrating against the suspension of the habeas corpus writ ; asking for the pardon and release of the prisoners ; a new act of amnesty; the adjournment of Courts until the session of the new Legislature in May ; and expressing their readiness to lay down their arms on conpli- ance with these demands. In the afternoon, Shays' men and part of Wheeler's, to the number of five hundred, began their march for Paxton, on their way to the barracks in Rutland. About a hundred more retired to the north part of the town.
Friday was spent in consultation. Aware that public sentiment was setting against them with strong re-action, the mercy which had been rejected was now supplicated. Letters were addressed to each town of the county, inviting the inhabitants to unite in their petitions. Shays himself, in a private conference with an acquaintance, made use of these expressions. "For God's sake, have matters settled peaceably ; it was against my inclinations I undertook this business ; importunity was used which I could not withstand ; but I heartily wish it was well over."
In the evening, the Court House was abandoned, but the sentries were posted at almost every door of the outside and interior of the public house, where the leaders remained in consultation.
Another snow storm commenced on Saturday morning. Luke Day, with 150 men from Hampshire, reached Leices-
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ter, but was unable to proceed in the tempest. About noon, all the insurgents in Worcester paraded before their head quarters, and were dismissed. The companies of Ward, Holden, Spencer, Rutland, Barre, and Petersham, after moving slowly through Main street in distinct bodies, took up the line of march for their respective homes, through roads choked with drifts.
The condition of these deluded men during their stay here, was such as to excite compassion rather than fear. Destitute of almost every necessary of life, in an inclement season, without money to purchase food which their friends could not supply, unwelcome guests in the quarters they occupied, pride restrained the exposure of their wants. Many must have endured the gnawings of hunger in our streets : yet standing with arms in their hands, enduring privations in the midst of plenty, they took nothing by force, and trespassed on no man's rights by violence : some de- clared they had not tasted food for twenty-four hours ; all who made known their situation, were relieved by our citi- zens with liberal charity.
The forlorn condition of the insurgents was deepened by the distress of their retreat. Their course was amid the wildest revelry of storm and wind in a night of intense cold. Some were frozen to death by the way; others, exhausted with struggling through the deep and drifted snow, sunk down, and would have perished but for the aid of their stouter comrades : when relief was sought among the farm houses, every door was opened at the call of misery, and the wrongs done by the rebel were forgotten in the sufferings of him who claimed hospitality as a stranger.
The whole number assembled at Worcester never exceeded a thousand. The spirit animating the first movements had
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grown cold, and Shays expressed to an acquaintance here, the impression that the cause had become gloomy and hope- less. In conversation with an officer of government, he disclaimed being at the head of the rebellion ; declared he had come to the resolution to have nothing more to do with stopping courts : that if he could not obtain pardon, he would gather the whole force he could command, and fight to the last extremity, rather than be hanged. When asked if he would accept pardon were it offered, and abandon the insurgents, he replied, " yes, in a moment."*
The delay of government, while it afforded time to circu- late correct information among the people, left the insur- gents at liberty to pursue their measures. The Court at Springfield, on the 26th of December, was resisted, and in- telligence was received of active exertions to prevent the session of the Common Pleas, at Worcester, on the 23d of January. Longer forbearance would have been weakness, and vigorous measures were adopted for sustaining the Ju- diciary. An army of 4400 men was raised from the Coun- ties of Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, Hampshire and Worces- ter, for thirty days service. General Benjamin Lincoln, whose prudence, and military skill peculiarly qualified him for the important trust, received the command. Voluntary loans were made by individuals for the armament, pay, and subsistance of the troops.
* The retreat of Shays not only afforded the friends of order occasion for triumph, but sport for wit. An Epigram, from one of the prints, affords a specimen of the poetry and jest of the time. The name of the common car- riage, the chaise, and that of the insurgent leader, had then the same spelling as well as sound.
" Says sober Will, well Shays has fied, And peace returns to bless our days. Indeed ! eries Ned, I always said, He'd prove at last a fall back Shays ; And those turned over and undone, Call him a worthless Shays to run."
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On the 21st of January, the army took up the line of march from Roxbury. The inclemency of the weather, and the condition of the roads rendered a halt necessary at Marlborough. The next day the troops reached Worcester, notwithstanding the effects of sudden thaw on the deep snow, and were quartered on the inhabitants, the houses being thrown open for their shelver and comfort. Here they were joined by the regiments of the county. The town contributed its quota liberally. In the company under Capt. Joel Howe, were twenty-seven non-commissioned officers and privates. In the artillery, under Capt. William Treadwell, were en- rolled forty-three of our citizens. Nineteen served under Capt. Phinehas Jones. Seven dragoons were embodied in a legionary corps. Lieut. Daniel Goulding was at the head of a troop of cavalry. The late Judge Edward Bangs, Timothy Bigelow, afterwards Speaker of the House of Rep- resentatives of Massachusetts, and Theophilus Wheeler, Esq., served as volunteers.
Detachments of insurgents collected at Rutland, New Braintree, Princeton, Sterling and Sutton, but, intimidated by the military, hovered at a distance, while the Courts pro- ceeded. On the 25th of January, Gen. Lincoln hastened westward for the relief of Shepherd, and of the arsenal at Springfield, invested by Shays and Day.
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