USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Great Barrington > History of Great Barrington, (Berkshire County,) Massachusetts > Part 26
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297
COLONEL ELIJAH DWIGHT.
land) in 1783, Frances Rebecca Ryley, who survived him less than three months. He left two sons, Philip Ryley, who died in 1808, leaving issue, and Frederick Horton, who was living in 1853." (1)
Colonel Elijah Dwight.
Elijah Dwight, who was a son of General Joseph Dwight, was born at Brookfield, Mass., April 23, 1740, and appears to have lived there for some years after the removal of his father to this county. The first mention we find of him is in 1756, when at the age of sixteen, and a resident of Brookfield, he was the com- missary of the hospital in his father's regiment at Fort William Henry on Lake George. But he came to re- side in Great Barrington as early as 1761, when, at the first meeting of the Judges of the newly organized county of Berkshire, he was appointed Clerk of the Courts and Register of Probate for the county, which positions he held for the space of twenty years. In 1765, he was in business here as a merchant, having been licensed by the court to sell tea, coffee, and china ware, and after the Revolution he was engaged in trade with Captain Walter Pynchon, under the firm of Dwight & Pynchon. He was the clerk of the town from 1764 to 1770, and town treasurer from 1768 for several years, and again from 1782 to 1790.
In the war of the Revolution, influenced by consci- ·entious convictions, Colonel Dwight remained conser- vative and neutral, and while he did not co-operate with the majority of his townsmen in resistance to British rule, he refrained from opposing the measures which they adopted. But such was his integrity of character and honesty of purpose that he maintained, in a remarkable degree, the esteem of his townsmen, who, when the war was at an end, repeatedly honored him with substantial proofs of their confidence and re- gard by electing him many times to offices of honor and trust. In 1785, Colonel Dwight represented the town in the General Court, and was re elected repre- sentative the next year, but declined serving; he was
(1) Sabine's Loyalists of the Revolution.
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HISTORY OF GREAT BARRINGTON.
again chosen to the same office in 1790-91 and '93, but in each of these years was also elected to the State: Senate, of which body he was a member for eight years from 1786 to 1793 inclusive. In the convention of 1788, for ratifying the Constitution of the United States,. Colonel Dwight was the delegate from this town, and an earnest advocate of its adoption. He was one of. the early Justices of the Peace of the county, having been appointed in September, 1765, and also one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for seven or more years immediately preceding his decease. Colonel. Dwight was a man of strict integrity, of amiable and mild disposition, with somewhat of the suavity of man- ner which characterized his father; but that he also. possessed firmness and determination may be inferred from the fact that when-in 1786-a mob of insurgents. forced his three associate Judges to sign a paper agree -- ing to hold no more courts, they failed to coerce him into that measure.
Whilst on a journey to Boston in 1794, he was taken sick and died at Brookfield-the place of his na- tivity-and was buried in the ancient burial ground at West Brookfield, where we copied the following in- scription from his tomb-stone many years since :
" The Hon Elijah Dwight, Esq., of Great Barrington, an honest man, a respected citizen, an exemplary Christian, died at Brookfield June 12th, 1794, aetat 54.
Death is the crown of life Were death denied, poor Man would live in vain ; Death wounds to cure."
There is also a monument to the memory of Colonel Dwight and some of his children in the south burial ground in this town.
The wife of Colonel Dwight was Anna Williams, daughter of Doctor Thomas Williams of Deerfield. She died at Deerfield at the age of sixty-six, in 1810. Of their children several died in infancy, and one only lived to years of maturity, to wit: Captain Joseph Haw- ley Dwight, who resided at Utica and at Oxford, N. Y.
CHAPTER XX.
CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL.
1774-1780.
From 1774, when the authority of General Gage, the last British governor of Massachusetts was practi- cally annulled by the Provincial Congress, to the adop- tion of the state constitution in 1780, no well founded form of government existed in the state. The Provin- cial Congresses of 1774-5, and after that, the Council, with the acquiescence of the people, exercised the pow- ers of a provisional government. In this period the inhabitants of Berkshire held positions frequently at variance with and antagonistic to the established au- thority, relying more upon their county conventions- composed of delegates chosen by the respective towns- for the supervision of their civil affairs and the preserva- tion of peace and good order, than upon the enactments of the General Assembly or the edicts of the council. But that Great Barrington, in this respect, was not always in full accord with some other towns of the county is apparent from her vote of forty to one- January 13th, 1777-"to support the civil authority in this county, established in this state for the redress- ing of public wrongs," and by declining, at the same time, to unite with other towns in petitioning the Council not to issue commissions to the judges of the Court of Common Pleas until January 1st, 1778. Again August 25th, 1778, this town gave its unanimous assent to the proposition for admitting the sittings of the Court of Sessions in the county, and a majority in
300
HISTORY OF GREAT BARRINGTON.
favor of holding Courts of Common Pleas, and this at a time when these propositions were negatived by a very large majority of the voters of the county.
In 1777. May 20th, Captain William King and Silas Goodrich were chosen to represent the towns at a ses- sion of the General Court to be held May 28th, and were instructed "to move for the repeal of the act for the more equal representation, &c., and if not obtained, to assist in striking out a new form of government as recommended in an act of the 5th instant." The Gen- eral Court to which Messrs. King and Goodrich were chosen, produced the draft of the "new frame of gov- ernment," soon after submitted to the people. This proposed constitution, imperfect and objectionable as it was, and rejected by the popular vote of the state, received the unanimous vote of this town for its ratifi- cation. This draft of a constitution having been re- jected, and a committee of the General Court having been appointed to meet delegates of the Berkshire towns at Pittsfield, on the 17th of November, 1778, for a conference on public affairs. the town chose Jonathan Nash to represent it in this conference and at the same time voted No upon the proposition then submitted -"whether under the situation of this county, not having a new Constitution, and other reasons, the laws of this State ought to operate among us."
The sentiment expressed in this vote seems contra- dictory, and directly reverse to all the previously re- corded actions of the town : and the position now as- sumed was the same which had long been held by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the county in opposition to the authority of the state government. The motives which influenced the inhabitants in this change of front are not apparent, but probably origi- nated in disappointment at the failure of the proposed constitution, of which they had expected much, and which they had supported with the greatest unanimity. At a little earlier date-October 1778-the town of Pittsfield had adopted a series of resolutions, providing -in the absence of constitution and courts-for a tribunal composed of its own inhabitants-a town court, with judges and jury-invested with powers
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RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED.
somewhat similar to those formerly exercised by the Court of Sessions. (1)
A county convention was held at Pittsfield in Feb- ruary, 1779, to which Captain Silas Goodrich and Jona- than Younglove were chosen delegates, with instruc- tions to report its proceedings at the annual town meeting in March. We are not aware that any record of the deliberations of this convention is preserved, but we have evidence that a series of resolutions-ap- parently the same adopted by the town of Pittsfield- were there promulgated and recommended to the several towns. These resolutions, reported at the an- nual town meeting, March 22d, 1779, were read and voted upon, paragraph by paragraph, and were accepted, by yeas and nays, though not without strenuous op- position. By sanctioning these resolutions and by its vote of November, 1778-that under the circumstances of the county the laws of the state ought not to operate among us-the town seems fully to have committed itself in opposition to the state government. But that the inhabitants were not unanimous in assuming this new position, and that their action was vigorously op- posed, is apparent from the nays recorded upon the adoption of the resolutions as well as from the follow- ing paper-in the handwriting of Major King-which, though without date, was evidently presented at the same meeting at which the resolutions of the conven- tion were accepted. Of this paper, or of its presenta- tion, no mention is made in the imperfectly written records, but it bears the endorsement of the town clerk -"Reasons for not choosing town officers-lies on file."
" Whereas we the Inhabitants of the town of Great Barring- ton in the county of Berkshire, in town-meeting assembled, upon notice given in due form, to come to the choice of town officers for the year ensuing, have, after serious consideration, come to a resolution not to choose any officers, by law appointed to be chosen in the month of March annually, a Town Clerk and Treas- urer excepted ;
"And whereas the occasion of such a resolution is extremely liable to be misconstrued by some and misrepresented by others ; we therefore think it an indispensable duty which we owe to the
(1) These resolutions are printed in full in the History of Pittstiell, by J. E. A. Smith, vol. 1, pages 381-383.
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HISTORY OF GREAT BARRINGTON.
rectitude of our proceedings, to give the true reasons why we have declined appointing town officers as usual, cheerfully sub- mitting our conduct to the judgment of an impartial world.
"Our reasons are as follows :
"Because, by a wretched system of policy, adopted by this «county, subversive of every idea of civil liberty, courts of justice are forbid to sit, Justices of the Peace insulted, threatened, and treated with every species of indignity ;
"Because, without the check of law, selectmen and asses- sors are absolute Lords and masters of the property of the in- habitants of their respective towns. and may cause the owners to be committed to gaol, without bail or mainpernors for taxes however illegally or arbitrarily assessed.
[Paper torn, three or four words wanting] "the country, on mode of redress remained for the devoted people ;
" Because, those town officers, whose duty it is to preserve the peace, and inform of all breaches of law which come to their knowledge can not ( in our present situation) answer the design of their institution, but must frequently suffer the mortification of seeing the law violated with impunity, though they are under the oath of God to cause the culprit to be arraigned before his judge ;
" Because (for the reasons above mentioned) the inhabitants . of this town in whose abilities and integrity we could with the greatest safety confide, decline acting in any of the offices already referred to."
This paper affords a glimpse of the position of public affairs as viewed by the clear headed Major King. But the course which he proposed was not acquiesced in by the majority, and town officers were chosen as usual. The proposition for holding a state convention for the purpose of framing a constitution was soon after submitted to the people. At a town meeting-May 17, 1779-under an article of the warrant "to know the minds of the inhabitants to be expressed by yeas and nays, whether they are desirous of having a state con- vention for striking out a constitution and form of government," the vote was unanimous, fifty-two yeas, in favor of such convention. At the same time Jona- than Nash was chosen representative to the General Court, with instructions to vote in favor of the consti- tutional convention, and of choosing delegates to at- tend it. A constitutional convention having been determined upon by the General Court, the town chose
303
'CONSTITUTION ACCEPTED.
its delegates on the 9th of August, 1779, and appointed Captain William King, Captain Silas Goodrich, and Jonathan Younglove to draw up and report instructions for his guidance. The constitution formed by this convention was submitted to and accepted by the people in the spring of 1780. The meeting for the election of town officers in that year was convened May 8th, by precepts issued by Doctor William Whiting, and the first election for state officers was held on the 4th of September following. At this election John Hancock had forty-three votes and James Bowdoin nine votes for governor.
CHAPTER XXI. INCIDENTS OF THE SHAYS REBELLION.
1786-7
The insurrection of 1786-7, known in history as the Shays Rebellion, which extended throughout the Com- monwealth and was particularly rife in the western counties, had its rise in the distractions and distresses. caused by the long continued war of the Revolution .. Daniel Shays, the chosen leader of the insurrection, whose name and fame are unenviably connected with its history, was a native of Hopkinton, Mass., born in 1747, an Ensign at the battle of Bunker Hill and a captain in the Continental army. Upon the failure of the rebellion, Shays took refuge in Vermont, where he- remained about a year, and on his own petition was afterwards pardoned. He removed to Sparta, N. Y., and died there September 29th, 1825. By the calami- ties of the war, and by the attendant drain upon their resources, the inhabitants were impoverished; very many were involved in debt, whilst with an enormous. state debt the taxes upon them were burdensome, and the country was almost destitute of money or a cir- culating medium. Many of the inhabitants had been soldiers in the Continental army : had incurred debts and mortgaged their farms while in the service of their country. They were paid for their services in a worth- less currency, with which they could not discharge their obligations. And the government, while enforc- ing the payment of debts, would not accept or cause. creditors to accept the money which it had com
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CAUSES OF DISCONTENT.
pelled the soldiers to receive for their pay. This was a great hardship, and to the common mind seems unrea- sonable and unjust. With the adoption of the state con- stitution, and the reorganization of the courts, numer- ous suits for the collection of debts and for other civil causes arose. The expenses of suits at law were un- reasonably great ; imprisonment for debt was common and many were thereby sorely oppressed. These were causes of discontent to a large number of people, who, influenced by ambitious men and demagogues, were led to array themselves against the government, to obstruct the sittings of the courts and the administration of the laws. The people, as a mass, had not yet learned, what they have since come somewhat slowly to com- prehend, that the effective means of obtaining redress for public wrongs, under a Republican form of govern- ment, is through the ordinary constitutional and legis- lative channels rather than by resort to mob law and violence. They had witnessed the effects of the sup- pression of the King's courts in the general uprising of the people, in a righteous cause, in 1774, and were foolishly infatuated with the belief that the grievances " of which they complained" might be relieved by a resort to similar measures. In this they were wrong ; but the leaders were more to be blamed than the people. Great Barrington had its due proportion of discontented inhabitants, and furnished its quota to swell the ranks of the Shays party. It was also the county seat and consequently the scene of some excit- ing events connected with the rebellion.
The insurgents having on the last Tuesday of August, 1786, prevented the sitting of the court at Northampton, and also in the week following at Wor- cester, next turned their attention to Berkshire. A session of the Court of Common Pleas was appointed to be held at Great Barrington on Tuesday, the 12th of September. In the evening preceding that day a crowd began to assemble, and during that night and the next day the streets were filled with armed men from all parts of the county. The militia had been called out for the protection of the court ; the assem- bled multitude was estimated at 2000 persons, four
20
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HISTORY OF GREAT BARRINGTON.
fifths of whom were opposed to the sitting of the court. "The disproportion was so great as to preclude the propriety of contention on the part of the govern- ment." The mob surrounded the court-house, made open threats of demolishing it, and effectually prevented its occupancy by the officers of the court. The court met at a private house, and adjourned without day, and without transacting any business. The judges of the court were taken into custody by the insurgents, and conducted to the house of Doctor William Whiting, where three of them-including Doctor Whiting-were forced to sign an obligation that they would not act under their commissions until grievances were re- dressed." One of the judges-Colonel Elijah Dwight -"upon a proper resistance, was not compelled to subscribe the obligation." The mob then broke open the jail, set at liberty such of the prisoners as were confined for debt, forced off from the prison limits those who had given bail for its liberty, and then dispersed.
A few days previous to these proceedings, Doctor Whiting had written, apparently for publication-for he had a taste for political as well as religious disserta tions-an essay upon the times, over the signature of Gracchus, entitled "Some brief remarks upon the pres- ent state of public affairs," in which he reviewed and commented upon the grievances of which the people were complaining. And not long after these occur- rences, he prepared a detailed account of the transac- tions, in which he says: "there was collected at the court-house a body of about two thousand men, a very great part of whom, instead of supporting the court, decidedly declared themselves in opposition to its sit- tings. From some particular circumstances which took place at the time, I was rendered peculiarly ob- noxious to the rage of the people. I was taken into custody by a body of men, as I was returning from the house where the court had been opened and adjourned without day. With fixed bayonets, and a fury truly terrifying to me, so that I deemed my life in danger, they conducted me into my own house, and there com- pelled me, together with some of my bretheren of the court, to sign a paper purporting that we would hold
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THE COURT OBSTRUCTED.
no more courts until the Constitution of the Common- wealth was either new formed or revised. At this time a numerous concourse of men had surrounded my house, with the declared intention of demolishing it. A person present (Mr. Ringman) alarmed at my situa- tion at this juncture, and imagining that the senti- ments expressed in the Essay might appease the fury of the people and conduce to the safety of my person and property, sent for some of their leaders and read it in their hearing, with the desired effect." A letter written from Berkshire county, four days after these occurrences, (published in the New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine) describing the proceedings of the mob says : "from ten o'clock the preceding evening until the evening of Tuesday, our streets were crowded with men in arms. They were the discontentedest people of the county, who had assembled for the sup- pression of the court. Although the militia of the county had been ordered by the General to appear in arms for the defence of government, it served only as a pretext for the malcontents to carry into execution, with greater facility, their designs for its abolition." "They" [the insurgents] " entered the house where the justices were, and with the most insolent and barbar- ous threats, under the points of their drawn bayonets, extorted such engagements from them as suited their capricious and absurd humors."
The house-the residence of Doctor Whiting-in which this outrage was perpetrated, stood where the Sumner building now does, and is the same-the old Red house-which now stands on Bridge street, east of the Berkshire House.
A few weeks later, when the time arrived for the session of the Supreme Judicial Court at Great Bar- rington, another mob assembled, ostensibly for the purpose of preventing the sitting of the court, although, as was then well known, the Judges had previously resolved that it was inexpedient to hold a court here at that time. The insurgents on this occasion were insolent and riotous in the extreme, firing upon peace- able citizens, breaking into and searching dwellings, and conducting with the greatest lawlessness. The
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HISTORY OF GREAT BARRINGTON.
rioters were desirous to obtain possession of Ezra Kellogg, Esq., who held the office of Deputy Sheriff, and was on that account particularly obnoxious to them. Mr. Kellogg then resided in the jail house- the old Episcopal parsonage. Receiving timely infor- mation of the evil intention of the mob towards him, he disguised himself in an old overcoat obtained from Lieutenant Gamaliel Whiting-his next door neighbor, and made his escape, in a round-about way across the lots, to the house of Captain Truman Wheeler, south of the village. In their search for Mr. Kellogg, the mob broke open his house, abused his wife, and with bayonets pointed at her breast, threatened her life un- less she revealed the place of her husband's conceal- ment. Baffled, and enraged at not finding him, they discharged a gun through the curtains of the bed on which Mrs. Kellogg was lying-setting them on fire- and through the walls of the house. They also went to the house of Lieutenant Whiting-kept as a tavern -searched it, fired through the tavern sign and through the barn adjoining. Such is the meagre account of the disgraceful transactions of the day as handed down by family tradition. Legal proceedings were after- wards instituted against some of the actors in this affair ; and from brief minutes of the testimony, taken at their examination, by General Thomas Ives, it ap- pears that previous to the search for Mr. Kellogg a body of the rioters was assembled in front of the house of Elisha Blinn -- the Doctor Collins place-some of whom fired upon one Mr. Mansfield, who was passing in the street, and also searched him and a Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee, overhearing a conversation between one Tre- main and others of the Shays party, threatening to "handle" Mr. Kellogg, went to him and gave informa- tion of their intention. It also appears from the same source. that one Dunham was the most riotous and lawless of the mob on this occasion.
A party had assembled near the house of Lieuten- ant Whiting, amongst which was Dunham ; he fired through the shed and the sign of Mr. Whiting, and was very noisy and profane. Dunham asked for a drummer, who was called and ordered to beat by
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RIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS.
Moses Wood-" an officer with a sword." A body of men then searched the Whiting house, hoping to find Mr. Kellogg, but failing in this they went to Mr. Kel- logg's, ordered away some government men who were present, fired through the house, broke it open and abused the family. At this examination Doctor John Budd testified as follows : "I went down to Mr. Kel- logg's, Dunham and others had their bayonets at Mrs. Kellogg's breast, and swore they would kill her; I thought Mrs. Kellogg would faint away ; Callender and Dunham were at the head of them."
Later in the year, parties of the insurgents ob- structed the courts at Worcester and Springfield, and on the 25th of January,-1787-attempted in large force to seize the arsenal at Springfield. In the month of January an army of 4,400 men was organized from the state militia and placed in command of Major Gen- eral Lincoln. By detachments from this army the Shays men were driven from point to point, many were taken prisoners, some laid down their arms and re- turned to their homes, and others took refuge within the borders of the neighboring states of New Hamp- shire, Vermont and New York. During the night fol- lowing the 26th of February, a party numbering eighty or ninety, who had, for several days, been lurking about the New York border, entered the county, ar- riving at Stockbridge about midnight. Having pil- laged the dwellings of many of the villagers of Stock- bridge, and made prisoners of a number of its most re- spectable citizens, they started early in the morning for Great Barrington, taking with them their prisoners and booty. This party was commanded by Perez Ham- lin of Lenox. News of their approach preceded them at Great Barrington. The men of the village, with such others as could be gathered, hastily assembled,- perhaps to the number of forty in all-and with Cap- tains Elijah Dwight and Thomas Ingersoll left for Sheffield, in sleighs, intending to unite with the men of that place and oppose the advance of the insurgents. The Great Barrington men were scantily provided with bullets, but took lead with them from which to supply themselves.
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