USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Greenfield > History of Greefield, shire town of Franklin county, Massachusetts, Vol. II > Part 32
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There was always considerable militia interest in Greenfield. We maintained a company which attended General Bank's "great Concord fight," and in 1860, the 10th Regt. M. V. M. was encamped on Petty's Plain (Camp Richmond). The colonel of the regiment (Decker) and the adjutant (H. D. Mirick) were both Greenfield men.
Who were the boys of Greenfield forty-five or fifty years ago? Let us try to call them from their homes, canvassing the village from east to west : Henry Hall, Ed. Dewey, Joe Beals, Ed. Mirick, Andrew Wait, Ed. Everett, Charley Lyons, Henry Alvord, Russell and George Davis, Sam Pierce, George Potter's youngest sons, Dwight Kellogg, Charles and George Forbes, Charley Conant, Scott and Henry Keith, Will Chapman, Wilbur Fisk, Gilbert Wilson, Henry Miles, Henry Elliott, Bowdoin Parker, Frank Pond, the Rowleys, and the Mitchell twins-peppery and pugnacious. From Cheapside came the Duncans and John Thompson, and Dan Kelliher. And our ranks were swelled from the North
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Parish and the Meadows by Newtons, and Nims and Smeads.
Of course, " Jim " Long is not forgotten, but he was " be- twixt and between " as it were ; he didn't live in the village, although attending school at the Centre, and he really be- longed to a set of fellows a little older, although often asso- ciating with us. Especial honor is due to those who have stuck by the ancestral hearthstones, or who have come back to them to " stay put."
A temporary list may be added of those not natives and with us but a few years : Sam. Talcott, Will Russell, Sam. Decker and Delue Stevens, Charles and Will Raymond, and Henry and Lew Haupt.
Probably some have been unintentionally omitted. A few have been named who were rather older than my own set, proper, but more or less with us. By bringing in others older, the list could be much extended. But alas ! how few there are of all these to respond to the Old Home summons.
And the Greenfield girls! It will hardly do to call that roll. Charming children and playmates-stimulating rivals in school-cherished companions in youth ! Tender memo- ries are awakened which may only be suggested ! Some sleep now in the cemeteries, so creditably cared for by surviving friends ; some are mothers,-yes, and grandmothers; and some are reserved for duty as the maiden aunt,-a relation often involving a service of self-sacrifice, devotion and inesti- mable value, to which I can personally bear appreciative testi- mony.
Schoolmates remind us of schools and teachers. How proud we were of that square, stiff, two-room wooden struc- ture on Chapman street, which was our first High School. And we were fortunate in the early male principals of the vil- lage schools. I recall particularly, Miner, the mathematician ; Griswold, the grammarian ; Sprague, the scientist ; and Par- sons, philosopher and preacher.
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What did the young folks of Greenfield do for amusement and recreation in those days when not occupied in school ? The boys skated on "The Bend," and coasted on "Clay Hill" and " The Academy Lot," and went swimming under the willows along Green river, or down at the " Red Rocks" in Deerfield meadows, and nutting in Maxwell woods, when that could be safely done without the knowledge of the Dea- con, * who set great store by his mast. Occasionally there would be a lonely but well rewarded day working up " Cherry Rum Brook :"
" How in summer have I traced that stream There thro' mead and woodland sweetly gliding, Luring the simple trout with many a scheme, From the nooks where I have found them hiding : All a dream ! How in summer have I traced that stream."
Then there were what would now be called " coeducational " walks and talks, to Poets' Seat and Bears Den and the pretty cascade beyond the brickyard, at the west end of the vil- lage. There were also drives up the Green river road and the Gorge road, boating parties at Stillwater and picnics at Leyden Glen. That was before the days of aqueducts and bridges and railed paths at the Glen : the boys always ex- pected to get wet at least to the waist, wading the several cross- ings, and the girls had to be carried over,-but not always dry. After the lapse of more than forty years the statute of limitations probably makes it safe to confess to certain con- spiracies. Two fellows who formed a " basket chair " would decide which girls to carry, and to which carrier the required " toll " should be paid by each girl ; and sometimes an excep- tionally pretty or popular girl would be gently lowered in mid-stream and given a suggestion of "water cure," until toll to both carriers had been exacted or a promise extorted by this method of torture. What patient victims they were. It
* Sylvester Maxwell.
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should be added, however, that kissing games generally were not approved in my day, and this may be said to our credit, because the germ theory of contagion was then unknown.
For more distant excursions, we climbed Pocumtuck, and enjoyed the hospitality of Old Deerfield street en route. And Mt. Toby was searched for Mayflowers and rattlesnakes. And we caught perch and pickerel at Locke's Pond or " Shutesbury Pool" and filled our wagon with delicate lupines when crossing the Montague plains on our return. In winter a sleigh ride to Northfield was popular, and the girls of that village, always numerous and attractive, could be relied upon to turn out on very short notice for a dance in the old town hall, or a supper at Pickett's tavern. Speaking of suppers, the kind that it has been so hard to find equalled in later years, were those given at the turning point of a long sleigh- ride at Rice's tavern, on the bank of the Deerfield river, near the present east portal of the Hoosac tunnel.
That great project was close to the heart of Greenfield in the 50's and 60's. The headquarters of the Troy and Green- field railroad were located here, and this village was the resi- dence of Edwards and Field, and Serrell and Haupt, who successively directed that great feat of engineering, and carried it through its hardest struggles.
I must not forget to mention that if one wanted to spend a particularly quiet day in the semi-wilderness, without going too far from Greenfield, forty or fifty years ago, Turners Falls was an ideal spot. We would drive up by way of " Factory Hollow " and the woolen mill, have the exciting experience of crossing the old ferry above the falls-in case we were so fortunate as to rouse a ferryman before it was time to come home-and then for further entertainment, get the Liverboos to give us a plain country dinner, or search for " bird tracks " in the sandstone, (on the wrong side of the river,) or bowl in the old alley at the still older tavern, with cracked balls and a misfit lot of pins, which we had to set up for ourselves.
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This reminds me, that two orthodox entertainments for friends visiting Greenfield in those times were visits to the celebrated Main street gallery of our local artist, "Count" Mark, and the truly remarkable museum of Dexter Marsh, just below the old courthouse, on Clay Hill, with its collec- tion of fossil footprints and other geological curiosities, which was actually of international reputation.
Town meetings, lyceum lectures, (for the number and high character of which Greenfield was for some years quite noted,) dancing parties and public assemblies in general, were held in the old stone and brick town hall on Federal street, until the new town hall was built. " Washington Hall" was quite a pretentious edifice in its day and regarded as the best audience room of its kind in Western Massachusetts at the time of its erection. It was dedicated by a Military and Firemen's ball on the 22d of February, 1854, which was really quite a grand occasion. Not long after the new hall was the scene of a large and successful fair, in which everyone took an interest ; this was in aid of the foundation of the Greenfield Library Association. Washington Hall was not fitted for scenery or called an opera house for a long time afterwards. Theatrical troupes did not visit this town in those times, but we had for several seasons, located up in Mirick's Hall, in Newton Place, a series of amateur theatricals which developed uncom- mon local talent of that kind. Some of the best known ladies and gentlemen of Greenfield and Deerfield took part, under the leadership of George D. Wells. Few of those actors re- main in this vicinity ; the ladies have been widely scattered and the men have since filled honorable positions on the bench, at the bar and in business. At least three became offi- cers of volunteers, and gave their lives for their country.
The old town hall continued to be used for some years for dancing schools, conducted by the local teacher, Mr. Law- rence, and the more celebrated Mons. Paulette, from Balti- more, who taught three successive generations in this town to
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" trip the light fantastic." The very select " Almack Assem- blies " were held in the old town hall two or three seasons, as also the " Shamrock Ball," which was, by the way, one of the prettiest and most attractive annual parties of the town for several years. On such occasions " Rache" Rockwood was an important aid, although the prompting and playing of our good friend, John Putnam, was equally acceptable.
Speaking of music, the two Greenfield contributions to the famous organists of the country, were then living in town. Henry Wilson was making his reputation at the "Stone Church " (Episcopal) and Clarence Eddy was being exercised on Wells street and lower Main in one of the Boylston or Field baby carriages, which once figured so prominently in the industries of the village.
Then came more stirring and troublous times. The ex- citing campaign of 1860, with the election of Lincoln, was followed by a winter of doubt and increasing anxiety, until Fort Sumter was fired upon, and there came the call to arms. I well remember a Greenfield lad who was at a military school in Vermont. He donned a uniform resplendent in brass but- tons, put on a knapsack from a camping outfit and started home, full of patriotic ardor and military zeal. Half a dozen little railroads had to be used, but every conductor touched his hat and, asking for no ticket, passed the youngster along. Great commotion was found here in Greenfield. The ladies of the village were meeting nightly at the Mansion House and elsewhere to make underclothing and "havelocks" and soldiers' comforts, and scrape lint and make bandages, signifi- cant of the scenes which were to follow. The local company of the old Tenth Massachusetts Regiment of volunteers was being hastily prepared to go South in active service. In order to expedite the work, a young man, prominent in the business affairs of the place, advanced private funds necessary for the outfit until the town could make regular, legal provision for this purpose. A few weeks after, this same young man, in
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the same spirit of public duty, and joined by one still younger, volunteered to prevent a great catastrophe at the burning of the steam planing mill on South Hope street. Henry B. Clapp and Nelson Horr then met their death in the public service, as heroically as their townsmen who later fell on the field of battle.
The civil war period followed and Greenfield had her full share of sacrifice and contributed to the history which need not now be recalled. The soldiers' monument on " the com- mon " tells -a part of the story,-but only a part.
"The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout,-are past ;
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal Shall thrill with fierce delight, Those breasts that never more may feel The ardor of the fight."
A few brief personal notes in closing. They were more particular as to the age of enlistment in 1861 than later ; so I was rejected as a recruit in Captain Day's company of the Tenth Infantry, as being under eighteen, and sent back to college, with a little paternal advice as to patience, and special injunctions from my grandfather (Clapp) to pay double fares on my return and take receipts, in evidence of honest deal- ings with the railroads. Thus it was not until the summer of 1862 that I was permitted to volunteer. It is not a few days more than forty years since I enlisted, and from that time served as a cavalryman on the quota of Greenfield, until the end of the war. Indeed, I continued a soldier for almost ten years, but have since tried to learn the lesson taught by Bryant :
" The glory earned in deadly fray, Shall fade, decay and perish. Honor waits, o'er all the Earth, Through endless generations,
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The art that calls her harvests forth, And feeds the expectant nations."
Therefore it is forty years since Greenfield ceased to be my home. During this period I have been only a visitor to my native town. Coming only once a year, or so, of late, the great changes noticed in the town are very marked. Changes in buildings, the extension or addition of streets and building limits, the disappearance of old landmarks, and above all, the changes in names and faces. The names upon the business signs in the principal streets, familiar to me as a boy, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Changes in the homes, as I walk through the residence streets, are equally great. Whole families have disappeared. My own case is a fair ex- ample : The families of Alvord, Clapp and Wells, were for many years numerous and active in the affairs of the town ; yet although these names survive, and I have numerous relatives of other names still resident here, but one single near kinsman among the representatives of those three families, remains on the voting list of Greenfield.
But these reminiscences cannot be prolonged. I have en- deavored to recall, in a fragmentary way, scenes, incidents and people, connected with the town and especially the village, during the years with which I was most familiar and prior to the civil war period. Now let me pass over to other and better hands, the task of presenting views of the old home town, in earlier and in later years. I close with this senti- ment :
" Live the Commonwealth, And the men that guide it ! Live our town in strength and health, Founders, patrons, by whose wealth, Much has been provided ! "
CHAPTER LXX
REMINISCENCES BY
HONORABLE JOHN E. RUSSELL
H E who can remember the events of 60 years has marked greater changes in modes of living than were made in the previous 2000 years. The world has been rapidly shrinking in size so that the daily paper contains yesterday's news from every part of it, and a man in Green- field can now send a message to the shores of the Pacific and get an answer three hours by the San Francisco clock before the message left Greenfield. He can hear and recognize the voice of a man he knows talking in New York.
The life of the Franklin county democrat, who in the midst of hard times stood for sound money, or the whig who drank hard cider and bawled himself hoarse for " Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," differed little in outward and visible signs from the life of the men of the preceding century ; their lives did not much vary from the slow existence of previous centuries. We may jump over the middle ages and the " Decline and Fall " and say that they lived much as the rural Romans did in the time of Virgil. They ate, drank and cared for their families ; told old stories and lauded past times ; they made journeys drawn by horses in vehicles made on the same princi- ples, except some improvement in the springs, as the chariot that Pharoah lost in the Red Sea; their garments, like those of Julius Caesar, were painfully sewed by human fingers ;
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they wrote letters by the light of oil lamps with quills, sanded the ink, folded them without an envelope, sealed them with a wafer and dropped them into mail-boxes without a stamp and looked for a reply after many days.
That was the way in which Walpole, Gray, Mason, Lady Mary Montague and Byron wrote the letters that are immortal literature and helps to history. We have not improved our- selves nor our letters; we have the benefit and the disad- vantages of many inventions, but in mental power, cultivation, observation, heart and character we have not advanced be- yond Ben Franklin and his contemporaries. The man who remembers the slope of Greenfield 60 years ago, looking down the stage road to all the southern world, by the county buildings and sweet fields, with great elms and groves of wal- nuts, can contrast the past and present by looking now at the sordid scene of stations and railway crossings, the long trains of freight cars, the endless switching and the clouds of choking, blackening smoke. Instead of rural sounds he will hear the shrieking of whistles, the puffing and hissing and other nerve- torturing noises. He can lie awake at night in any part of the town and hear the hills, once clothed with rock maple, beech, chestnut and oak, now bare of forest, echoing the same hideous clamor. " Other times, other customs." The quiet Greenfield of former days, though smaller, was as well to do and comfort- able as any town in those times. It was relatively more im- portant as the chief town of the region; the head of river navigation and the market of the farmers of all Franklin. It was notable for the manufacture of cutlery; it carried on chair and wagon-making ; fine cloths were woven at the " Hollow factory." Clothing, shoes and hats were made by village workmen, and in many thrifty farmhouses domestic indus- tries still had place ; they sheared sheep, carded the fleece, spun yarn and wove cloth ; there are men living whose tired childhood was lulled to sleep by the hum of the great spin- ning wheel in the evening kitchen. Every farm raised grain;
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the meadow farms fattened droves of steers that were driven to Brighton, and the local markets were well supplied. There was a self-reliant character to the town, a continuous, steady prosperity of industrious people and a cultivated society. Boats from Hartford came to Cheapside bringing sugar, mo- lasses, rum and salt, enigmatically known as "W. I. goods ;" also iron, steel, grindstones, Genesee flour, etc. The return cargoes of this commerce were lumber in various forms, farm produce and the manufactures of the region.
Great wagons covered with canvas made regular trips to Boston with produce, bringing goods to the merchants. Greenfield was on the main line of travel to the North, and the point of distribution for most of the county. There was a daily line of coaches to the South, and a line for Boston, leaving at midnight. In summer there was a coach to Wor- cester by Barre, where it stopped for dinner; it connected with the railroad to Norwich and steamboat for New York. I well remember this journey in 1842, and that I was allowed to ride on the box with Lynde, the driver, who wore a blue tailed coat with bright buttons, a white plug-hat, and yellow gloves. At Worcester there was "tea," with cold meat and huckleberries at the American house, on the corner of Main and Foster streets, and the cars which left in the evening were low and small, upholstered with black haircloth. We met the steamboat at Norwich, arriving at New York in good time next morning. The Greenfield stage tavern was the present Mansion House. It had a wide piazza the full length of the front ; on the east side was the stable-yard, with room to turn a coach and four, backed by roomy stables. The local interest in the stage lines was represented by Ashur Spencer, Barnard Newell and perhaps Capt. Ames and David Long, who owned the great red brick blacksmith-shop on Federal street; next to it was Field's carriage and wheelwright shop; next to that was Allen & Root's storehouse. The stage horses were shod under the eye, or by the skilful hands of " Jack " Houghton.
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It seemed to my boyhood that the awful fires of this region were never quenched. Amid the smoke and sparks, like Vulcan in his "stithy," I recall the stalwart form of " Sam" Stebbins, in leather armor, with naked, blackened arms, in the glory of his strength. He could shape a coach step at a single heat and when, with two strikers, he forged axle-trees, the clangor of metal might have roused the seven sleepers.
These workers kept long hours. "Jack" Houghton used to rest himself in the evening by forging horsenails. The post-office was under the charge of an ancient Democrat and solid citizen, Captain Ambrose Ames ; it was in a small, neat attachment to his house on Federal street. The work was briskly done by " Aunt " Morgan and "Aunt" Jane. When the country was redeemed from " locofocoism " for about four weeks in 1840 by the election of " the farmer of North Bend," Richardson Hall succeeded Jefferson's post- master and the office was moved to the new Davis block. Captain Ames was a reticent man, who wore a brown wig. He lived to a great age, probably because he ate fried sausages for breakfast all his vigorous life; these were made in winter and put down in jars, as Morginia preserved the 37 thieves, in hot fat; the sausages came out fresh and redolent of sage in midsummer.
The taverns were noted for good living. There was a saying on the road, " Book me for Greenfield," from the re- mark of a notable man who missed his accustomed comforts at a more pretentious town. The stage-house was known as Captain Taggart's, and afterward as Colonel Chase's. It is my dim recollection that the American House was called Gilbert's tavern and was kept by Colonel Wright before it became Keith's tavern, a name it held with credit for many years.
There was an eating-house (the words restaurant and saloon had not come into use) kept by Wells & Ford; they sold Albany ale, small beer, mead, and served meals; in the rear
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they had a candy factory, where one Tileston presided. Here was a bewildering odor of wintergreen, sassafras, peppermint, bergamont, etc. Greenfield was never noted as a dry town ; indeed, the open bars did a roaring trade. As the late Judge Charles Thompson said, it was the heroic age of New Eng- land when rum was six cents a glass. It never was six cents, it was " fo' pence," a thin, smooth bit of Spanish silver, which was legal tender for many small comforts in those days and was worth six and a quarter cents. Whisky had not arrived and German beers were unknown. The common drinking was gin and Medford rum, though the more fastid- ious took " West Ingy." There was a cheap French brandy marked "Seignette." A fruity odor of crushed limes and lemons pervaded the taverns and lump sugar crunched under the stout toddy stick. The farmers from the hills used the great yard and barns of Keith's, standing in their blue woollen frocks, unmindful of weather or western competition, talk- ing crops and long-forgotten politics.
Political meetings were held in the town hall in Federal street. The great whig convention in the hard cider and doughnut orgy of 1840 was on Colonel Spencer Root's land back of the present church and courthouse. A log cabin was built; there were coons, owls and other whig symbols. The chief speaker was General Wilson of New Hampshire. In 1844 the democrats were in the lead, and they had a con- vention in Pine Grove; their speakers were Judge Levi Woodbury, Ben Hallett and Mr. McArthur. At another time Caleb Cushing and Ben Hallett spoke on the common. The whigs had John C. Park in the town hall. Park was a pungent campaigner. My father, a Webster whig, greatly rejoiced in Park, and wondered how Captain Ames, "Tom" Nims and D. N. Carpenter could have the face to sit there and hear him, forgetful that they were the very sinners vainly called to repentance.
There were other amusements than politics; parties, picnics,
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sleighrides to " Bloody Brook " and many dances in the large room of either tavern to the fiddles of Philo Temple, Charles Lyons and John Putnam. There were good lectures and occasional concerts. Boston actors came in the summer for their vacation, and we had " The Lady of Lyons" and the almost forgotten tragedy of " Douglas." Miss Louisa Gan played " Norval." In the company were Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Smith, Mr. Spear, "Jack " Dunn, Andrews and others.
The Fourth of July was a dull day, connected in my mind with Cold Water army picnics in Pierce's Grove. The great event was the occasional "muster." There was a militia company in nearly every town. Colrain had a famous troop of cavalry, well mounted and uniformed. They wore high, black-leather helmets, flaring at the top, with a bright red pompon ; these were made by Magrath, the Greenfield harness-maker, who must have been a skilful man in leather ; the pattern was taken from a colored print of the capture of Warsaw,
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