USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Leyden > History of Leyden, Massachusetts, 1676-1959 > Part 10
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As a result of his research in bacteriology, Riddell invented, about 1844, the binocular microscope, recognized in the United States and abroad as a great scientific achievement. In 1852, he demonstrated this invention before the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It later became the property of the Army Medical Division in Washington.
In 1847, Dr. Riddell delivered a lecture on aerial navigation before the People's Lyceum of New Orleans. This paper, though written by Riddell, carried the pseudonym, Orrin Lind- say. The lecture covered an imaginary trip to the moon and dealt with many matters which recently have become problems for aviation experts. Garland F. Taylor, director of Tulane's libraries, recently described this treatise as "unquestionably a classic in the early literature of space travel." In his story, Riddell explains that the vehicle for his trip to the moon was a
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"magnetic balloon," the motor power of which was a mag- netized steel quicksilver amalgum. More than a hundred years before "Sputnik II" roared into the skies, the first passenger to ride in Riddell's theoretical space-ship was a dog! There are in the story amusing and ingenious references to the sensations of weightlessness in space and to the physiological reactions of a space passenger. The paper included an account of a trip round the moon, with descriptions of the moon's terrain and "atmosphere." Thus did a native of Leyden become a pioneer in "space travel" a century before the first actual moon rocket hurtled skyward.
During his lifetime, Dr. Riddell compiled over 25 works in the fields of minerology and botany, and some of his southern plant discoveries were named in his honor. He was a frequent contributor to medical and surgical journals and added sig- nificant data on the yellow fever virus. He married in the South. His children were the late Mrs. York Woodward of New Orleans and Jefferson D. Riddell of Los Angeles. Dr. Riddell died in 1865, age 58. An oil portrait of the scientist hangs in the Louisiana State Museum.
Back in 1807, we find that besides the birth of John L. Riddell, other important events had transpired in Leyden. Late in the year, the people were asked "to assemble at the tavern of Nathaniel and Abel Carpenter, Innholders in Leyden, Monday the 21st of December at 3 of the clock in the afternoon to vote on the following: To see if the Town will agree to build a bridge from the center of Green River to the east bank of sd. River which is near Morey's Mills." This not only furnishes the earliest reference to the well-known Carpenter's Tavern, but establishes the location of Morey's Mills in West Leyden near the present bridge site. Since neither Colrain nor Leyden would venture an inch either side of the river's center, the $500. appropriated by Leyden for the purpose of erecting half a bridge, lay dormant for some time!
May 3, 1808, the following article was put before the people: "To see if the Town will agree to send a Petition to the General Court to set off the District of Leyden from Bernardston." This was the first move toward incorporation of the Town of Leyden ..
CHAPTER VII
Leyden's First Half Century As a Township Early Life of H. K. Brown
It was on Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1809, that Leyden became a full-fledged town with the privilege of choos- ing its own Representative to the General Court. Making im- mediate use of this privilege, the following Leyden men sought election to the state assembly early in the year: Hezekiah New- comb, Jr. received 67 votes; Captain Joseph Eson, 40 votes; David Dennison, 6 votes; Abner Chapin, 4 votes.
It is interesting to note that the date of Leyden's incorpora- tion coincided, within 10 days, with the birth of Abraham Lin- coln and was nearly 200 years from the day the Netherlands edict was signed allowing the English Pilgrims to enter the sanctuary of Leiden, Holland.
During the early years of the new township's existence, one of the first problems was the adequate care of the poor and homeless. Though many New England communities "warned from town" those who might become public liabilities, Leyden took a novel approach to the subject, at least as far as women and children were concerned. This method was made clear when on May 1, 1809, it was "voted to set up the Towns Poor at Vendue to the lowest bidder." At this time Mrs. Clark and family were bid off by John Enos for one year at $4.95 per month; Mrs. Edwards and two children were bid off by John Esen at $3. per month and Lucinda Clark was bid off at 27 cents a week by Elisha Newton! Crude as this method may appear, something had to be done for the needy. There was no "State Aid" then.
Indicative of the hardiness of old folk at this period of Ley- den's history, it is told that Elisha Burnham of Beaver Meadow carried the mails on foot from Greenfield, ten miles distant, for many years after the incorporation of the town. Mr. Burnham was then 79 years old!
The War of 1812: Sounding off on a preparedness note, it was voted on September 11, 1812 "to see if the Town will raise the Souldier's wages that stand as Minute Men if called into
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service." This is the only Minute Man reference found in the War of 1812 records. Though Massachusetts' Governor Strong did not approve of the conflict, Leyden retained the fighting spirit of '76. Jesse Henry, a lieutenant in the 1812 recruiting service records that Leyden's eligible fighting men gathered on a Sunday morning in front of the Meeting House. Of the men enlisted on that occasion, six are recorded as follows: Stephen Doyle, Ira Grant, Briggs Potter, Asab Eson, Lincoln Fields and Nathan Budington. Ozias Allen, son of Simeon Allen, a Leyden native, was a casualty of the 1812 war. An official record states that he died in 1814 while with the U. S. Army. So unpopular was this war with Massachusetts authorities, however, it is recounted that one enlistee from the Leyden area had to walk all the way to Boston to join the ranks!
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The Leyden Meeting House still was owned by private in- dividuals at this time. In 1812, it was labeled "Benjamin Green's Hall" when representatives were chosen to the General Court. A year or two later it is referred to as "Bliss and Newcomb Hall." Votes, pro and con, to purchase the building for the town ended in stalemate.
During this period, further provision for the poor was sug- gested when it was proposed to "buy or hire a house for the town's needy persons." Nothing immediately came of this pro- posal, however, for a bit later we find a namesake of President James Madison "bid off" to Elisha Burnham for 65 cents a week.
Drastic measures were sometimes employed to cut down the pauper list. To make sure he would leave town, the house of one inebriate n'er-do-well was torn down by neighbors during the absence of the occupant!
The Years 1814-1830: The Birth and Boyhood of Henry Kirke Brown: Nearly every small town produces at one time or an- other its "famous man." Leyden was no exception to this rule. Toward the close of the War of 1812, at the time The Star Spangled Banner was composed, a child was born in Leyden, who later became not only a great artist and creator of the Washington equestrian statue at West Point, but an outstanding patriot "whose sculptured eagles could scream 'The Battle Cry of Freedom' from Maine to Colorado."
This child was Henry Kirke Brown, born February 24, 1814, on Leyden's Ethan Allen Highway, two miles south of the Ver- mont line. It was a period when Leyden's growth and prosperity
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neared a climax: The Dorrilite shadow had passed; mills were busily humming; schools were well established.
H. K. Brown was the son of Elijah Brown who had removed from Groton, Connecticut to Guilford, Vermont early in the cen- tury. According to old records, Elijah came into Leyden via the Ethan Allen Highway a few weeks before the birth of his illus- trious son-to-be. The mother, Rhoda (Childs) Brown, was a granddaughter of a well-known pioneer obstetrician of Deer- field. The grandfather, Elisha, was a veteran of the French and Indian wars. In his will, he left "his soul to God," and to his son, Elijah, he bequeathed 14 acres of land in Guilford and 13 in Leyden.
H. K. Brown's first American ancestor, Charles Brown, settled in Rowley, Massachusetts where he taught school and played the drum.
During Henry Brown's early childhood, in 1816, occurred the never-to-be-forgotten "cold year," with snow or frost each month of the Spring and Summer. Elijah Brown, with all the other Leyden farmers, had to scrape and save in order to get through the year at all.
Though cast iron stoves had been introduced in the cities, it was some time before these and other products of the impend- ing industrial age, reached the Leyden hills. However, the first Leyden "safe" was proposed in 1816 when it was voted to "empower John Barstow to procure a chest for the use of the town to keep the town books in." About 75 years later, a brick vault was built to house the record books.
This was the period (1817) when President Monroe rode through all New England in an attempt to bring about an "Era of Good Feeling." He hoped to tie the states together following the serious divisions which had arisen during the War of 1812. Soon after his tour of the Northeast, all began to pull together; and in Leyden, townsfolk got to work improving their schools, farms and highways.
About this time, Henry Brown, then only 3 or 4 years old, was toddling about the dooryard of his father's Cape Cod house. Perhaps the little one's eyes wandered at times from the geese and chickens in the barnyard to watch the labors of Captain Green as he worked out his road tax on the farm to the south. And perhaps the eyes of Leyden's future artist took in, momentarily, the misty blue sweep of hills beyond.
When Henry Brown was four, the great flood of 1818 wiped
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out every bridge, big and small, over Green River. In August of that year it was voted "to see if the town would take any measures to prosecute Mathew Barber or others that have fallen timber into the river - the reason for the Bridges going off in the freshet." At this time, two hundred dollars was raised to rebuild the West Leyden bridge "near Morey's Mills."
In 1819 occurred the strange "hot" Winter, with ploughing in January and grasshoppers and mosquitoes in February! Then came the "great drought."
The years 1821 and 1822, years when Henry Brown had begun his school, were years of readjustment and extension in the Leyden educational system. "Toland Hill" was added to the five school districts, and $250. was voted to support all six places of learning. Regulations regarding school teachers be- gan to tighten at this time when a vote was passed requiring the School Committee "not to hire any teacher unless he came recommended agreeable to law."
The "Center" school to which Henry Brown trudged each day was about two miles south of the Brown homestead, on a sharp bend of the County Road near the fork where one lane led to Beaver Meadow and Frizzell Hill, the other to the Meeting House, Tavern and the small shops.
Just above the bend in the road, the southern hills were visible for miles around. Here Henry on his way to school doubtless stopped to gaze at the beautiful panorama before him while his schoolmates shouted to hurry or he'd be late. Then Henry would turn away reluctantly and follow his play- mates who, in turn, would stop and stare should a fast-moving or new model stagecoach pass their way.
The home to which Brown returned from school was, like many other pioneer houses in Leyden, a typical "Cape Cod." There was a Japanese lilac on the north side and old-fashioned yellow rose bushes on the south, near the great well sweep. Inside, a central chimney and huge fireplace was flanked by large front rooms with small-paned windows.
Little is known of Brown's school life, but it is safe to say he showed strong individual and artistic tendencies and that early in boyhood a spirit of rebellion against the for-granted way of life surged up in him.
During the mid-1820's, a restlessness had invaded Leyden. Accelerated by new eastward pathways - the National High- way to Illinois and the opening of the Erie Canal - exodus
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from the eastern hill towns was beginning, and the dropping off of population figures was anything but encouraging to those who hoped to maintain the status quo. In Leyden, the first appreciable population drop is noted at this time and several roads appear on the records as "discontinued." Scrapers were purchased in the hope of improving the highways, the poor condition of which was doubtless another reason for the "West- ward Ho" movement.
Apparently aware of the worsening conditions in Leyden and nearby towns, Elijah Brown backed a move in 1825 to choose delegates from neighboring communities "to see about improving the living conditions of the people, especially the poor."
Town Meetings, those days, were held in the Meeting House Church. Since the Leyden "Town Hall" still belonged to indi- vidual owners, the town voted in 1825 to appropriate money to repair the building in return for its use for town meetings. Though there were two taverns in town at this time (Carpenter's in the Center, and Tanner's a mile down the County Road) all legal meetings were held in the "Church." Among the legal business passed in 1825, the townsmen voted to purchase and lay out a burying ground on Frizzell Hill, repair the fences round the Beaver Meadow cemetery and procure four biers for the use of the town.
On the brighter side of the picture, Abel Perry, living on Leyden's eastern hills, initiated the first reforestation project in the history of the town.
For Henry Brown, the "hills beyond" held great interest, and each year the urge to see what lay over the horizon grew stronger. And this urge was more than a boyhood fancy.
It was 1828. Brown was just fourteen. He had completed grammar school and was undecided which way to turn next. Down in the village, he had a close artist friend, Ezra R. Shat- tuck. Early one Spring morning, Ezra told Henry that an itin- erant silhouette artist was to put on a show at the Tavern that evening; that the man could make life-like silhouettes of anyone for only 25 cents.
Henry was enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing a "real" artist. Often in school he had made rough sketches of his class- mates or the teacher - the idea of recording form on paper fascinated him. He was therefore determined to see the itinerant showman and perhaps learn something of the silhouette trade.
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In 1828, the Tavern, close to the newly opened Post Office, was the center of gossip and commerce. It was from this spot that Leyden yeomen took off for Boston with oxcarts loaded with produce. If they started on Monday morning, they would, with luck, return by Friday night weighted down with supplies of molasses, tea, salt and rum.
On the night of the show, Henry Brown and his friend stole into the front room of the Tavern where a huge fire roared and crackled hospitably. Fascinated, they watched the silhouette artist perform. After the demonstration, Henry talked to the showman and learned some of the tricks of the trade . . . And he learned all he needed to know, for next day he was on the road, bright and early, heading west, to "make his fortune."
So efficient was he in making silhouettes of the countryfolk along the way that he travelled all the forty odd miles to Albany and had a view of the Erie Canal and the big brownstone houses, before his father caught up with him and took him home.
Though Henry Brown returned to situations similar to those he had left, he had a broader outlook on life after his journey to Albany. He was now something of a man of the world!
Down the road from the Brown homestead lived Charles Packer, an intellectual of no small stature with a well-stocked library. Here, after his return from the "west," Henry Brown found companionship and stimulation from the worldly neighbor who sensing in Henry a dormant greatness, encouraged him to draw and read and think.
At this time in his late eighties, and nearly blind, Packer, who had lost his only son, welcomed the boy at all times and was repaid for his cordiality and help by Henry's reading aloud. It was during one of the reading sessions that Henry, happen- ing to look up, was impressed by the intent listening attitude of the old man when firelight played on his face. Without hesita- tion, Brown produced a stubby pencil and in a few minutes had completed a sketch of his blind listener.
When he reached home that night, his parents thought the sketch so good, he was encouraged to reproduce it in oil. Henry had no canvas; no artist's paints. But Yankee ingenuity came to his aid. He "borrowed" a piece of his mother's old sheeting, stretched it across an improvised frame and treated it in such a way that it would "take" paint. With linseed oil he thinned out some old pigments he found in the barn, and got to work.
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The result was a remarkable portrait which showed so much promise, his parents, realizing their son was something of a genius, were determined to give him every chance to develop his talents.
So it is that in 1830 we find Henry Brown as a student at the select Northfield Academy. Here Catherine Brooks, a de- scendant of an early Fall Town settler and later to become one of the finest and most accomplished women of the area, des- cribes her classmate, Brown, as "handsome and tall, with ex- pressive dark eyes." She added that he "was a merry youth full of good spirits and a player of the flute." He is said to have entertained his schoolmates with profile likenesses which he cut from white paper. His fellow students at Northfield predicted Brown would some day go abroad to study art. This prediction, he said in later years, gave him the courage and ambition to make the prophesy come true.
We next hear of Henry Brown as a student of Chester Harding in Boston. Harding, a native of Conway, was at this time, New England's leading portrait painter. He had created likenesses of presidents Madison, Monroe and Adams; he had painted Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and the great adventurer, Daniel Boone.
Brown was in Boston when the slavery question began to wax hot, and was inspired by the zealous patriots around him. This fervent patriotism was reflected in his great sculptural triumphs in the years to come.
After three seasons with Chester Harding, Brown next ap- pears, in 1837, on a surveying expedition led by Christopher T. Armes of Deerfield. The future artist, George Fuller, then a boy of fourteen, also was in this party. A rare primitive, drawn by Richard C. Arms of Deerfield, shows Brown, Fuller and surveyor Armes encamped in Illinois where they were locating an early railway.
Engineering life proved too rugged for the young artist, so in 1838 he was forced to give it up and retire to Cincinnati where for the first time he discovered his talent for sculpture. He remained in Cincinnati till 1839 when he married the daugh- ter of the prominent Judge Udall of Vermont.
Brown next settled in Albany, terminus of his youthful westward trek. Within three years, he had created over forty busts of the leading men of the day in his capacious Albany studio.
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Dissatisfied with his progress, however, he decided to raise enough money to enable him to study abroad. With the aid of generous friends, he carried through this plan, and in 1841 we lose sight of him as he takes off for art instruction in Rome. Here he laid the foundation for a career which later brought him fame and fortune. As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the one-time barefoot boy of Leyden soon was to become the sculp- tor of America's greatest men.
Leyden 1830-1846: Meanwhile, on the home front, particular- ly interesting events had transpired. Hezekiah Newcomb, State Representative from Leyden had, in connection with his duties in Boston, drawn up a colorful map of his native town. In this work, he was aided by Jonathan Budington, Leyden pioneer. The map which has been reproduced on page 107 never before has been published. The original, in three colors, is on file at the Massa- chusetts State House.
Comparing the Newcomb map with the Chapin map of 1794, we find that while only seven mills are shown on the early Ley- den chart, ten mills, including two cloth fulling mills appear on the Newcomb drawing. In addition, the 1831 map gives much more detail than the Chapin production. Meetinghouse, Tavern, school and road locations including the 1828 County Road near Keets' Mills help the reader visualize the Leyden of 1830 - the Leyden which John Riddell and Henry Brown knew as young men. Identification of "Uncle Daniels Peque" by Hezekiah New- comb confirms our earlier conclusions that this hillock was nam- ed for Leyden's first white child, Daniel Newcomb, born in Bea- ver Meadow.
The years 1830 to 1840, under presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, saw great expansion in the country through the westward extension of canals and railroads. The New England hill towns suffered most from this expansion which, with the rapidly growing industrial centers, sapped the young blood from upland farms. In fact, by 1840, Leyden alone had lost from its peak population figure, nearly half its youthful citizens.
Repercussions of the great financial panic which swept the country in 1837 are noted in the town records. To keep the wolf from the door, it is apparent that men borrowed money on all and sundry personal articles. In 1840, for instance, David Pratt put up as security "one smooth bored gun, 1 Box Stove, one axe and one pair specktacles" for a $12.25 loan! In another deal, "one over Coat, one pr. Black Cassimere panterloons, one Stock
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Newcomb Map of Leyden - 1831 (Dark areas are Meadows; peaked rectangles are Schools; plain rectangles, Mills)
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and 1 pr. Buckskin mittens" were offered for a small amount of cash.
But the prize list of collateral goods is found under date of April 27, 1840 when Isaac Cheney, Leyden storekeeper, put up the following as security on a $356. loan: "32 prs mens boots, 40 yds of Sattinette, 7 yds Sheeps Grey cloth, 31/2 yds Full cloth, 10 prs Footings, 301/2 yds Furniture, 57 yds Callico, 5 silk hats, 1 Brown Cow, 1 paint Mill, 1 broom handle lathe, 2 circular saws, 1 large stove with 20 ft Pipe, 1 tinners furnace, 1 nut and 1 bolt mould, 7 leather whips, 1 cast iron press and dies, 200 lbs Broom brush, 1,000 Broom heads, 1 clock, 6 fancy chairs, 1 sow with 5 little pigs."
At this time, Elisha Wells received from Caroline Eudy, granddaughter of the Hessian, John Eudy, $140 for "stock, a bureau and a feather bed." Shortly after this, Wells, who had taken over the Eudy farm, mortgaged to Caroline and Rosanna Eudy (then of Philadelphia), "all the crops now standing on the farm (except the Broom Corn) such as potatoes, Apples, Sun Flower seeds, Buck Wheat and Beans."
While several orphan children of Leyden were placed in the American Asylum at Hartford, those remaining in town were "bid off" at bargain prices, as in evidenced by the notation: "Sophia Josephine Lincoln bid off to Oliver Davenport at 30c a week to board, clothe, Doctor, school and all other expenses."
A bright spot in the 1841 Leyden picture was the erection of the Methodist Church about which the reader will find a full acount in the 1941 Centennial Church Review farther on in this book.
In 1842 there was a trend to shut down the smaller saw and grist mills of Leyden. This was a period when small mills all over the Northeast began to give way to the "industrial age." On June 8th, for instance, Benjamin Bullock, Jr. sold to Edward Thompson for $200: "One saw Mill, situated on Country Farm Brook on land of Hart Larabee." Also sold at this time was "one shingle mill ... one Grind stone and turning Lathe and one 92 inch circular saw." The man who sold this property was the son of Benjamin Bullock, Sr. who had met an untimely death ten years before "from the blow of a sawmill gate which was acci- dentally set in motion when Bullock was below."
On December 20th 1842, Henry Thorn of West Leyden sold to Luther Weld of Brattleboro for $50. "a machine for turning Broom Handles, consisting of a Lathe & Saws & Arbors & Tools
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connected therewith, situated in the Thorn Mill in Leyden and now in use by Weatherhead & Gates."
In 1845, the first school of higher learning was introduced into Leyden when the prominent doctor, Willard A. Wilkins, in- augurated "The Leyden Glen Academy." Little is known of this school beyond the fact it was the forerunner of advanced study in Leyden - the first college preparatory institution in the town.
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