USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Hatfield > History of Hatfield, Massachusetts, in three parts: I. An account of the development of the social and industrial life of the town from its first settlement. II. The houses and homes of Hatfield, with personal reminiscences of the men and women who have lived there during the last one hundred years; brief historical accounts of the religious societies and of Smith Academy; statistical tables, etc. III. Genealogies of the families of the first settlers > Part 10
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Mr. Williams was a man of brilliant intellectual gifts, of ripe scholarship and intensely interested in the cause of education. His son, Elisha, also a graduate of Harvard. became the president of Yale College in 1726 and continued at its head for thirteen years during which time it grew in a remarkable way. Two other sons followed in their father's footsteps and became preachers: William, born in 1688, the minister at Weston, and Solomon, the pastor of the church at Lebanon, Conn .; and a fourth, Col. Israel Williams, became the leading military and political figure in Hatfield during a large part of the eighteenth century. Solomon's son, William, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Mr. Williams was married, July 8, 1686, just before he was settled in Hatfield, to Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Sea- born Cotton. She died in 1698 at the age of 32 and he married again. The children by the first wife were Wil- liam and Elisha and a daughter, Martha, who became the wife of Edward Partridge, besides two children who died in infancy. His second wife was Christian, daughter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton. Her children were Solomon and Israel and two daughters, Elizabeth and Dor- othy, the latter the wife of Rev. Jonathan Ashley, pastor in Deerfield from 1732 to 1780.
Rev. William Williams soon won the implicit confidence of the people of Hatfield. He possessed a power of per- suasive utterance and was tactful in his dealings with men. As a preacher he was noteworthy, even among the many famous divines of the Connecticut valley in the early days of its history. He was considered by Pres. Ezra Stiles a more able man than his father-in-law, Rev. Solomon Stod- dard. Many of his sermons were printed, among others an election sermon in 1719; a convention sermon, 1726; sermons at the installation of his relatives, Rev. Stephen Williams at Springfield in 1716 and Rev. Warham Williams at Waltham in 1723, both sons of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, the "Redeemed Captive"; sermons at the instal- lations of Rev. Nehemiah Bull at Wethersfield in 1727 and Rev. Jonathan Ashley at Deerfield in 1732; a sermon at the death of Rev. Solomon Stoddard; and an address at the ordination at Deerfield of Rev. John Sargeant as mission-
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ary to the Housatonic Indians in 1735. Among the treas- ures in Memorial Hall in Deerfield are notes taken by him on sermons he had heard preached in his youth by the leading clergymen of the colony, Mather, Cotton, Eliot, Hubbard, and others.
Mr. Williams built a house on the William Allis allot- ment, about the spot where the town hall now stands.
In the year 1688 the following votes were passed :-
"May 21, 1688 .- Voted as to the poor, those who want maintenance, the Selectmen, every one of them as appertaineth to them as agents, shall have inspection over them, their occupation and their children, that their things and their labor be put to the best advantage.
"Also voted, Whereas Capt. Allise hath procured standard weights and delivered them to the Selectmen for keeping to order, the Selectmen have committed them to the custody of Samuel Belding, Sen., to be put into a bag and secured for the sealers use annually."
What was done about the support of paupers does not appear from the records of the next few years, but at a little later date some families required support, as will be noted in the proper order. The sealing of weights was required by law. In that same year occurs the first refer- ence to a curfew law. It was ordered that the church bell should be rung every evening at nine o'clock.
During that year and the next few regular town meetings were held; instead the selectmen met the first Monday in each month at Selectman Belden's house to transact such business as came before them, ordering bills paid and assum- ing charge of matters that had previouly come up for decision before all the inhabitants. It was a stormy period in the history of the colony and of much uncertainty in all the towns.
When James II. became king of England, Joseph Dudley was appointed governor of Massachusetts. He held office from May 25 to Dec. 20, 1686. Then Sir Edmond Andros appeared with a commission from the king as royal gov- ernor of all New England and a period of misrule ensued. James abdicated in 1688 and William and Mary became the sovereigns the next year. The New England colonists were ripe for a revolt against the hated rule of Andros and on April 20, 1689, he was seized in Boston and deposed with his supporters and a Committee of Safety took charge of affairs. Until the success of the revolution was assured
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it was exceedingly dangerous to do any overt acts or have any records appear that savored of treason. This accounts for the change in the conduct of town affairs, which soon resumed their normal routine. The level head of the shrewd and diplomatic Samuel Partridge guided the town safely through the crisis. The handwriting shows that he began to keep the records in June, 1688, though there is no entry of his election as clerk. May 9, 1689, he was chosen "to join with the Committee of Safety to consider public affairs at Boston."
A new charter from William and Mary uniting the Massa- chusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies as the Province of Massachusetts, including also the settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, was granted in 1692 and under it Sir Wil- liam Phipps was appointed governor. Simon Bradstreet had served as governor by appointment of the crown from May 24, 1689, to May 14, 1692, and Thomas Danforth as deputy governor. Bradstreet had been elected governor by the people from 1679 to 1686.
These struggles were really the beginning of the con- test with England that resulted in the independence of the American colonies. The loss of the choice of their own chief magistrate rankled in the hearts of the colonists till the Revolutionary war. The rights remaining were jeal- ously guarded by the other magistrates-the governor's Council-and by the representatives in the General Court. Samuel Partridge was one of the signers of an address by the Council to King William III. protesting against a bill in the House of Lords in 1701 for a withdrawal of the char- ters.
CHAPTER IX.
KING WILLIAM'S WAR, 1688-98. PROGRESS IN THE TOWN. PURCHASE OF THE DENISON FARM. THE HATFIELD ADDITION.
"And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again."
The beginning of the war .- Military preparations .- Fortifications .- Settle- ment at "the Farms."-Supplies of ammunition .- Changes in the militia officers .- Attacks on the valley towns .- The murder of Richard Church of Hadley .- Capture and trial of the murderers .- Attack on men in Hatfield meadows .- Expenses of the war .- Progress of affairs in Hatfield during the war .- Repairs on the meetinghouse .- Support of poor .- Sheep and cattle .- Tar and turpentine .- Malt house .- Shoemakers .- Schools .- Boundary trou- bles .- Assessors chosen .- Negroes .- Town officials .- Middle Lane built up.
The accession of William and Mary to the throne of Eng- land was followed by war between England and France, in which part of the fighting took place on the American con- tinent. The struggle was known as King William's war and lasted from 1688 to 1698. The Peace of Ryswick, signed Sept. 20, 1697, was proclaimed in Boston in December, but not in Quebec till Sept. 22, 1698, so that the English colonists were in fear of attack for a year after the close of the war. The French in Canada incited the Indians to attack the exposed settlements, but the Connecticut valley was not the scene of such battles as took place in King Philip's war.
"Watching and warding" was again resumed in Hatfield, half of the town to report to Constable Benjamin Waite and half to Constable Thomas Nash. Adequate preparations for defense were not neglected. The militia company, whose officers were Capt. John Allis, Lieut. Daniel Warner, and Ens. Eleazer Frary, was well drilled and ready for emergen- cies. No garrisons of regular soldiers were stationed in the town as in the previous conflict. By 1690 Hatfield had 80 soldiers, according to the report of Major Pynchon. All
males from sixteen to sixty, except negroes, were subject to military service. There were four training days every year, gala occasions, when all the inhabitants turned out to see the soldiers drill on the common. Regimental musters were held
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occasionally. The guns were flintlocks with a barrel three and one half feet long, the old matchlocks with a rest having been found ill fitted for use against the Indians, who used flintlocks if they could secure them. The newer arms were called also firelocks or snaphances. A law passed in 1693 required each Massachusetts soldier to have a flintlock, a knapsack, cartridge box, one pound of powder, 20 bullets, 12 flints, and a sword or cutlass.
There was no fighting in Hampshire County during the first years of the war, but the settlers lived in constant fear. In 1688 and 1689 strange Indians were seen in the vicinity and some murders were committed. Northfield was again abandoned in 1690. The disastrous expedition against Que- bec, in which 2,000 men from Massachusetts took part, oc- curred in that year.
February 25, 1689/90, Hatfield voted that three or four houses should be "well and strongly fortified and in particu- lar Mr. Williams', Jno Field's and Richard Morton's and Benj. Waite's" and liberty was granted Capt. John Allis to fortify his own house provided he did it at his own expense. The fortifying of Mr. Williams's house was left to the militia, probably that of the other houses also. A fortification of palisades was ordered from the south side of John Field's and Thomas Hastings's home lots (the same as the south line of fortification in King Philip's war) to the north side of Noah Wells's and Samuel Marsh's (opposite the Deerfield lane), "these fortifications to be laid out to every proprietor that hath interest within it according to his estate in the town list and that the militia of the town do see that it is done and finished as soon as is capable for the frost." The fortifications were not completed by December, however. In March, liberty was given to John Dickinson to move his house into town "and retain his lot as if his house was con- tinued thereon, provided he do his share of the fortification now agreed upon in the town and shall also build again on his lot when God shall by his Providence give liberty without danger of enemies." His lot was on Mill Lane, and, as no others requested the same privilege, perhaps the only one there. In 1693 the selectmen and a committee of the militia were appointed to "find out the most easy and equal way to repair them [the fortifications] and the gates and get it done forthwith." They were repaired again the next year because
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the enemy was abroad. Before the close of the war the fortifications extended 229 rods on the east side of the street and 245 on the west side, with limits as indicated above, and there were three fortified houses on "the Hill." There was also at "the Farms" one fortified house and a stockade 38 rods long. In 1697 it was voted that the fort at "the Farms" should be re-edified.
Several settlers had built residences north of Bashan. Some of the old cellar holes could be seen till the nineteenth century on land owned by the Beldens in Bradstreet. The settlement was known as "the Farms" because it was on the Denison farm. It was abandoned during Queen Anne's war and when rebuilt, before the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury, was located in the present village of Bradstreet and was called West Farms. The exact date at which the Denison farm was purchased by proprietors is not known, but it was probably soon after the death of General Denison in 1682. The proprietors' records show that in 1689 eight men had house lots there 16 rods wide and presumably 80 rods in length like others in the town,-John Field, Joseph Field, Samuel Field, Robert Bardwell, Daniel Warner, William Arms, Samuel Gunn, and Andrew Warner. Perhaps several other settlers joined them. John Billings and Nathaniel Dickinson are known to have been there by 1698.
A good supply of ammunition was kept on hand. March 23, 1691/2, it was "voted by the Town that the selectmen of the Town send to the County Treasr to supply us with two barrels of Powder and lead answerable for a Town stock to employ Capt. Belcher to apply in our behalf to the Treasr to get it for us and ship it to Hartford," and in 1697 forty shillings were appropriated for powder and lead "to add to the present stock."
On his return from Boston in 1689, Samuel Partridge be- came the captain of the Hatfield company. Ensign Eleazer Frary was succeeded by Daniel White, and the town records show that there was a Lieutenant Belden and a Lieutenant Hubbard, but what their first names were is not indicated- probably Stephen Belden and John Hubbard. There is men- tion of a Sergeant Frary, probably Eleazer, son of the ensign, and other sergeants were Robert Bardwell, Samuel Dickin- son, Samuel Field, Isaac Graves, Philip or Daniel Russell, and John White.
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The events of the war in the Connecticut valley may be briefly sketched. After the massacre at Schenectady by the French and Indians, Feb. 18, 1690, Deerfield, which as a fron- tier town was exposed to a like attack, was garrisoned by 60 Connecticut troopers. In 1691 a party of Indians from New York, numbering 150, encamped in Hopewell Swamp between Hatfield and Deerfield and caused much alarm in the towns, though they professed friendly intentions. Many of them had formerly been inhabitants of the region. Captain Par- tridge was employed by Major Pynchon to negotiate with the Indians to secure their aid in giving warning of any attack from the north. The savages returned to New York in the spring of 1692.
Several families in Deerfield were murdered June 6, 1693. Brookfield was attacked July 22 and a relief expedition was sent from the valley towns, in which Hatfield men took part. The Indians were surprised in a swamp, their supplies were captured, and some of the prisoners were recovered. The General Court granted the members of the expedition £40 and allowed them to divide the spoils.
The presence of bands of marauding savages was annoying to the settlers and many of the towns sought relief from the government. September 14, 1693, Hatfield sent Eleazer Frary to the General Court to say that the town desired no Indians to inhabit or to have trading privileges. In 1695 an act was passed prohibiting trading with the Indians in Hampshire County.
September 15, 1694, an attack on Deerfield by the French and Indians was repulsed.
The next year some of the Albany Indians came again to the Connecticut river. August 18, 1695, a party of Deerfield men was attacked on its way to mill and one, Joseph Barn- ard, was killed. A pursuit of the Indians failed to discover the perpetrators of the outrage. The savages were seen fre- quently skulking in the woods and a strict watch was main- tained and scouting parties were sent out at intervals.
On the sixteenth of September, 1696, some prisoners were taken at Deerfield by an unknown foe, and on October 5 Richard Church of Hadley was murdered and scalped while hunting in the woods near Mt. Warner. Two of his fellow townsmen, Samuel Barnard and Ebenezer Smith, who had been with him during the afternoon, returned in the evening
-
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with the report that they had heard two shots close together. A search party gathered from Hadley, Northampton. and Hatfield, accompanied by some friendly Indians, found the body towards morning. Following the tracks, they came upon four Indians near Mt. Toby. One was captured and the other three were arrested in Hatfield the same day, October 6. The remaining Indians in the camp in Hope- well were disarmed. There were eight other men, nine squaws, and 23 children. Part of the band was at Deerfield. The affair caused the greatest excitement in all the towns.
A court of Oyer and Terminer was held at Northampton, October 21, to try the four prisoners, for which special jus- tices were appointed,-John Pynchon of Springfield, Samuel Partridge of Hatfield, Aaron Cooke of Hadley, Joseph Haw- ley of Northampton, and Joseph Parsons of Northamp- ton. John Pynchon, 3d, was clerk, Ebenezer Pomeroy of Northampton prosecuting attorney, and Richard Webb and William Holton of Northampton interpreters. Samuel Por- ter of Hadley was then high sheriff of the county.
Mowenas and Moquolas were indicted as principals and Wenepuck and Pameconset as accessories. The jurors were as follows :-
Grand jury-Preserved Clapp, foreman, John Taylor, Isaac Sheldon, Enos Kingsley, John Parsons, Thomas Lyman, William Holton, and Samuel Wright of Northampton; Nehemiah Dickinson, Jonathan Marsh, George Stillman, and Samuel Barnard of Hadley; Joseph Belknap, Samuel Belden, Samuel Dickin- son, and John White of Hatfield.
Petit jury-John Holyoke, Esq., foreman, and Thomas Colton of Spring- field ; John King, Medad Pomeroy, Judah Wright, and John Clark of North- ampton ; Timothy Nash, Daniel Marsh, and Thomas Hovey of Hadley; John Coleman, Daniel White, and Eleazer Frary of Hatfield.
The Indians were tried separately and all declared guilty. The principals were sentenced to be shot and the execution, the first in Hampshire County, took place October 23. The two accessories were held till February and then released. They were put in the custody of Samuel Partridge, who ad- vised the colonial authorities not to deal too severely with them on account of the slight evidence against them and "not to agrevate their evil spirits against us."
The trial and execution were the cause of a lengthy cor- respondence between Acting Governor William Stoughton and Governor Fletcher of New York, because the Albany Indians affirmed that the men were innocent and threatened retaliation. The minutes of the trial, signed by the justices,
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were sent to the governor, who forwarded a copy to the New York authorities. Samuel Partridge was allowed £31, 16s., for the expenses of the trial to be paid to the justices, jurors, and witnesses and for the board and guarding of the pris- oners.
The rest of the Indians remained in the vicinity till April, 1697, when they went back to the Hudson and did not return to the Connecticut valley again. The General Court, im- pressed by the danger to the valley towns, passed an order that any Indians found within twenty miles of the west side of the Connecticut river should be considered enemies and treated as such.
Marauding savages continued to operate at various times, however. July 13, 1697, Sergt. Samuel Field of Hatfield was killed, in what manner is not known. July 15, 1698, four Indians made a raid on the North Meadow, where some men and boys were at work hilling corn in the evening-residents of "the Farms." The following account of the attack is taken from a letter sent to the General Court by Major Pynchon, dated July 18 :-
"ye corne being high ye Indians came upon ym on a sudden they not seeing ym till they were upon ym & being unarmed & nothing to resist ym, The enemy killed Three presently Two lads and a man. The man John Billing one of our troopers was a year man ready for service upon all occasions, & hearing ye Bussel went to his horse to be ready But just as he mounted his horse was shot downe dead, The two lads killed in ye place where they were at worke about their corne & another lad yt was with ym at work is wanting yt it is supposed he is also killed, or caryed away, though it is evident they rather desired killing than taking People because they had opportunity to have taken away more lads yt were there who got away one man by name Nathanel Dickenson, whose son was one of ye lads yt was killed was killed also & also ye lad wanting is another of his sons, sd Dickenson at some distance from them being alike concerned for his children Hearing ye Noise & disturbance whereabouts his children were at worke gat his horse and Rid to ye Place where seeing persons killed, & ye Indians drawing off Rid up to ym, when an Indian made shot at him and killed downe his horse, so yt he drew off & escaped wth several others yt were at worke They say it was only 4 Indians who came between ye rows of corne (ye corne being high) & were not descernable til killing of ym"
Pynchon's account was not quite accurate, for John Bill- ings and Nathaniel Dickinson, Jr., aged thirteen, were killed and Samuel Dickinson, eleven, and a boy named Charley were captured. They were rescued by a scouting party under Benjamin Wright of Northampton, composed of settlers from Northampton and Deerfield and some of the garrison soldiers from Deerfield.
The Indians were known to the boys as former River
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Indians of the band near Albany. A report of Samuel Par- tridge to the governor and council about the savages en- camped in Hopewell Swamp in 1697 stated that two of the men were then fighting for the English under Peter Aspin- wall, a friendly Indian. He reported six other men, nine squaws, and twenty-three children as the number, forty in all, and urged that they should all be ordered to remove from the vicinity, pleading with the authorities that the affair should be "so managed as may be to His glory and ye Good & Welfare of his poor Wilderness people." This roving band was probably responsible for all the outrages in Hampshire County during the war. They were the remnants of the aboriginal tribes of the Connecticut valley, Pocumtucks and Norwottucks and a few Nipmucks. These Albany Indians were called Scatacooks after their removal to New York state.
The expenses of King William's war to Massachusetts were £150,000. It had a long frontier to defend from the Connecticut to the Kennebec in Maine, including part of the present state of New Hampshire. Not a great many lives were lost, but much property was destroyed and many captives were carried to Canada. Though bounties were offered for Indian scalps or heads of £10 to £12, and in some cases higher, few were killed. The following notes on the pay of soldiers, etc., are taken from Judd's "History of Had- ley" :-
"Wages of officers and soldiers .- In 1696 and in other years, a private had 6 shillings per week; drummer and corporal, 7s .; clerk and sergeants, 9s .; ensign, 12s .; lieutenant, 15s .; captain, 30s .; major, 50s .; chaplain, 20s .; sur- geon, 20s. Regular troopers or cavalry, each furnishing his own horse .- Common trooper, 10s .; trumpeter, clerk, and corporal, 12s .; quartermaster, 15s .; cornet, 20s .; lieutenant, 25s .; captain, 40s. Dragoons or common sol- diers with horses, 8s. These wages seem not to differ much from those in Philip's war. A post had 4 pence a mile one way, and bore the charges of himself and horse.
"Subsistence for soldiers .- In 1696, the price of food for soldiers not stationary was 8 pence per day; for those in garrison, 3s. 6d. per week. The soldiers were well supplied with food. Many were billeted in families and lived as they did. Others had pork or beef, bread or dry biscuit, and peas. In some expeditions they carried the Indian food called "nocake," which was Indian corn parched and beaten into meal. Rum, sugar, pipes, and tobacco were to be provided for an expedition to Maine in September, 1689. Keeping a horse at grass a day and night was 3 pence, and at hay and provender, 6 pence."
No soldiers were doing garrison duty in Hatfield till the last year of the war, when the General Court assigned three
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men for a garrison for the town and farm June 10, 1698. It appears from Pynchon's report of the encounter in the North Meadow that John Billings, a Hatfield man, was one of these garrison soldiers. The other two were probably residents of the town also. They were assigned to regular military duty under pay of the province, so that their fellow townsmen could be free to attend to their ordinary farm duties.
The Superior Courts were suspended in Hampshire County in. 1695 and during the rest of the war. Taxes were heavy and were hard to collect. Paper money, the province bills of credit, was issued for the first time. Hampshire County was slow in paying the taxes and the money called for, instead of provision pay, was thought especially burden- some. There was some agitation for a secession to Con- necticut.
While Samuel Partridge was in Boston attending the General Court, he exchanged grain sent from Hatfield for money to pay the town's taxes to the colony. The town records of 1690 show that the rate of £33, 15s., for that year was collected in grain by the constables and, if it miscarried on the voyage, Captain Partridge was to be repaid. Wheat was valued at 2s. 6d. per bushel, peas at 2s., corn at 1s. 6d. and not over one third was to be paid in corn. The injustice of the money tax was so severely felt that it occasioned many petitions from the valley towns, in one of which it was stated that "not one in ten [had] any income of money in any manner." The General Court sometimes allowed grain to be taken at a discount of one third from the ruling rates of exchange.
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