USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Monson > History of Monson, Massachusetts > Part 9
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George Bliss, Jr., practiced for a short time about 1816, and Reuben A. Chapman practiced here from 1827 to 1829. Erasmus Norcross, a native of Monson, began practic- ing law here in 1823, the year he was ad- mitted as a member of the Bar.
George H. Newton settled in Monson about
1872, and opened an office in Green's Block. He later moved to an office near the Memo- rial Town Hall. Mr. Newton was very in- terested in Monson and was instrumental in getting many improvements. He served as Town Clerk four years, assessor four years, member of the Board of Selectmen four years. He was a Special Justice of the Dis- trict Court of Eastern Hampden at the time of his death May 3, 1896.
Charles R. Dudley practiced law in Mon- son from 1878 to 1882 and Alfred W. Dana from September 1896 to December 1897.
Freelon Q. Ball, who was admitted to the Hampden County Bar on September 28, 1900, occupied the office of Judge Newton on Main Street. He was elected a member of the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1913 and again in 1916, and served as a member of the Water Commissioners and as Town Clerk for many years, as well as serv- ing as Special Justice of the District Court of Eastern Hampden. He passed away in 1918
Harold Burdick was admitted to the Bar in 1920 and maintained an office at his home on Bethany Road in addition to one in Palm- er. He was appointed Associate Justice of the District Court of Eastern Hampden in 1926 -at that time the youngest man to have at- tained that appointment. He passed away in 1940.
William H. Anderson was admitted to the Bar in 1925 and has maintained an office in Monson since that time. He has served as Town Counsel for 32 years and as Modera- tor 30 years.
Walter Swift, who moved to Monson in 1940, maintains an office at his home on Green Street. Walter Raleigh maintains a Palmer office as well as one at his home on Country Club Heights since 1958. Leslie A. Carpenter, a resident of Brimfield Road for many years, was admitted to the Bar in 1933. He reopened his law office on January 1, 1960, after an absence from the field for many years. Rowland H. Long who pur- chased the Congregational Parsonage on High Street, is the General Counsel for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany of Springfield.
DENTISTRY
The practice of dentistry as a specialized field did not begin until about 1800. The va- rious functions now attributed to the dentist were performed by the doctor, the barber, the blacksmith and the silversmith.
It was many years before resident dentists
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settled in the smaller towns. Traveling den- tists would cover a large territory, staying a week or two in each town. Advance notice would appear in the local papers informing the public of the dates and place in which a temporary office would be set up.
There is no positive record of the first dentist to settle in Monson, however Dr. An- drews is mentioned in a news item dated 1879, D. W. Stanton in 1885, and F. W. Ban- croft in 1888.
Dr. Perlin W. Soule opened an office in the Sabin house (site of the present Bank Building) on May 22, 1886. He served the town faithfully for fifty-one years, retiring in 1937. Dr. William P. Stone, contemporary of Dr. Soule, practiced dentistry from 1902 until his retirement in 1957.
Doctors A. D. Coleman, V. J. Vosilus and Howard Barber practiced dentistry here for a short time. Dr. Harold Bennett maintained a part-time office in the home of his father, Arthur Bennett, on North Main Street for many years.
Dr. Harvey O. Davey moved to Monson in 1936 and maintained his office until his death in 1960. Dr. Erwin M. Eldridge ar- rived to open his dental office in August 1955 just as the elements unleashed their fury in the now famous flood. Among his first duties was assisting with the Typhoid Shots administered to the townspeople.
FUNERAL DIRECTORS
The first mention of Funeral Directors or Undertakers is the following advertisement from a January 14, 1865, paper :
J. S. Loomis Household Goods Coffins and Burial Caskets
In the early days, families looked to the cabinet maker or furniture dealer to furnish an appropriate coffin when need occurred. The cabinet maker also conducted the funer- al. The horse-drawn hearse was owned by the town and the carriage was furnished by a livery stable. Bids were accepted by the town for supplying hearse service and a
news clipping dated April 1, 1887, mentions that competition was so great in that year the Selectmen were able to reduce the price from $2.50 to 99¢ per trip.
The name of Alfred O. White is listed in 1876. In 1894-95 Gray and Lambert are listed as Undertakers and Funeral Directors and could be contacted at Flynt's Store when needed. This same year Ralph F. Bradway also offered his services to the public. He, together with his brother Harry, ran the Bradway Furniture Store at Three Bridge Street. Their father, Marvin Bradway, founded the business in 1891 or 1892.
Coffins gradually changed into caskets with a choice of hardwoods, metals and cloth coverings. One of the finest covers was a broadcloth made in A. D. Ellis Mills in Mon- son. This is still the finest cloth used. In 1924 the first motorized hearse was brought into Monson by Mr. Bradway.
Francis W. Lombard purchased the Brad- way Funeral Home in 1934. Funerals were held from individual homes or from a church until 1936 when the first Funeral Home with all modern facilities, such as display room for caskets, family room and chapel, was made available to the community. Mr. Lombard passed away in 1945 and his wife Mildred obtained her state licenses and still carries on the business. Their son William plans to join the firm this year.
Frank Splaine and Hugo Kuehl opened a Funeral Home on Main Street in the former Rufus Fay house in 1951. The partnership was dissolved in 1958 and Mr. Splaine con- tinues to operate the business.
VETERINARIANS
Dr. Frank Maguire, who resides on Main Street, served as Veterinary Health Officer for Hampshire County for thirty-four years. His work was in the field of the Control of Animal Diseases from which he retired Jan- uary 1947.
Dr. Stewart Harvey purchased property on the Palmer Road in October 1953 and has since built a modern office building and hospital.
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HISTORY OF MONSON
Business History
Business or trade which comprises the buying and selling of both commodities and services has throughout history traveled hand in hand with the settlement of towns. Monson's earliest years of trading are hid- den from view by curtains of ignorance. Historians of the town have bypassed with complacent disregard recordings of the humble, everyday world of commerce. Where, from whom, or for what sums pur- chases of everyday necessities were made was too banal to merit notice when the his- torians delved and produced.
Since business centers are found where the majority of people locate, it can readily be believed that in the middle of the 18th century there existed at least one store, said to have been maintained by one Freeborn Moulton, on what is now called Moulton Hill Road for in its earliest years following its break from Brimfield the eastern ridge of Monson was the first site of a definite town. At an early date another area, now purely residential, the Silver Street Section, had a community life of its own and a general store is said to have been a trade center for those living in that region. No doubt other sites, long lost, boasted general country stores serving as combined posts for barter and later for retail selling, but of them records cannot be found.
Prior to the eighteen hundreds home- makers were of a necessity almost self- sufficient unto themselves and bartering took the place of buying. As late as the 1840's ledgers such as one kept by a Ben- jamin D. Smith who ran a harness and leather business in Monson from 1837 to 1877 show a nice balancing on debit and credit sheets by means of trading. Hence in 1839 in the Smith ledger we read that in payment "to repairing halter, to mending tug, to mending harness, and for 1 hold back," Mr. Smith received, "1 bushel pota- to .. . 34¢, 1 bushel corn ... 75¢, 2 pump- kins ... 8¢, 28 Qts. 1 pint milk @ 4¢ - 1.14". The ledgers or cash books kept by Monson storekeepers through the nineteenth century are very interesting from the viewpoint of the current prices of commodities and also because in many the precise beauty of the penmanship speaks eloquently of a day when business was so unhurried that business men took pride in the appearance of their daily recording of sales.
By the time that the heaviest concen-
tration of industry and population had cen- tered in the valley area of Monson, the Moul- ton Hill and Silver Street sections were outgrown as business sites and merchants established themselves along what is now Main Street. The earliest trading centers of which we have written records were lo- cated on the northern end of the main thoroughfare.
As early as 1790 a William Norcross was a prominent merchant doing business in one of Monson's earliest stores which was destined to exist through such successive ownerships as "Norcross and Flynt", "Nor- cross Co.", "Flynt and Packard", "William Packard and Son", "E. B. Miles" through to a big career around the 1860's under one E. E. Towne, whose name became associated with the building in which this store long existed as "Towne's Block" and was later the same location for the famous Flynt store, which was a leading Monson business well into the twentieth century.
Under the ownership of E. E. Towne this general store became one of the first to utilize the newspaper as a means of adver- tisement. In the April 3rd, 1869, edition of The Palmer Journal Mr. Towne informed the world that he was selling "Paints and Oils cheap enough" and that he had "Goods for Ladies and Gentlemen", "Goods for Farmers, Mechanics, Physicians and Clergy- men". From this one advertisement it is learned that he sold "Hats and caps, fertili- zers, hardware, farming tools, flour and meal, most kinds of fish, teas, coffee, crock-
TOWNES BLOCK
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ery, glasses and stoneware, paperhangings, curtains and mattresses".
Once the world of advertisement had been discovered, merchant after merchant soon grasped its value and by the 1870's the various newspapers including The Palmer Journal, The Monson Mirror (started Jan- uary 1886),The Monson Herald (1893) and The Palmer Register were bristling with in- formation provided by Monson retailers. Incidently there was an office of The Mon- son Mirror in 1887 in the Central Block on Main Street. The race was on and reading over the "business cards" and the lengthy advertisements provides an interesting ar- ray of facts concerning the merchandise being sold, its costs to the consumer and the changing names as stores came and went.
From the 1860's on Monson entered its boom years with the climax coming in the gay '90's when Monson like the rest of the country reached a high peak in business.
Study of the local newspapers during the 1880's and 1890's yields the most lucra- tive source of knowledge concerning who the merchants were, where they were lo- cated and what they were selling. By this time the business section of Monson had spread southward from the original site on Main Street and near the Congregational Church to extend below the present location of Memorial Town Hall.
Barton's Block, near Towne's Block, was occupied in part by a hall noted princi- pally for its usage as the meeting place for many years of the Day Spring Lodge. How- ever, it housed such stores as "The Monson Boot and Shoe Store" of which George L. Fuller was proprietor. Mr. Fuller was an early advertiser as we read in his April 23d,
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Grout's Store, later owned by Eugene Foskit. This is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Morse, 68 Main Street.
1886, advertisement which appears in The Monson Mirror when he informs his readers as follows: "I am spending Thursday and Friday in Boston buying goods. Every- body look out for low prices and latest styles of boots, shoes and slippers." Later in the year he, like many of his fellow retailers of the day, would list prices so that in July of 1886 we read that, "Infants and Chil- dren's Shoes originally selling @ 60¢, 75¢ 80¢ and 1.00 are to be closed out @ 50¢". A year later the same merchant was proud- ly announcing that his store sold "Ladies all solid Kid Shoes at $3.00 - every pair warranted". Also we discovered that men's shoes sold at $2.50 a pair, if hand sewn at varying prices from $3.75 to $6.00, with special low sale prices listed at $1.50 and $2.00. Another occupant of Barton's Block was the druggist, W. A. DeMerritt, one of the druggists who retailed in Monson through the earlier years.
Coming down the hill the next business center of size was the Central Block built in 1879 by Alfred Norcross and R. M. Rey- nolds. This was a three to four story build- ing located just south of the cemetery which adjoins the southern boundary of the Mon- son High School of today. This important block was a busy mart until 1893 when it
Old Central Block, Destroyed by Fire Hor 1310 823
Central Block
POST OFFICE BLOCK, MONSON, MASS.
/
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Post Office Block replaced the Central Block. This burned March 12, 1945. The Atlantic Fill- ing Station has now been erected on this site.
HISTORY OF MONSON
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was destroyed by fire. It housed the Mon- son Post Office through the '80's and until 1893. Other first floor tenants included : Norcross Brothers Grocery and Hardware Store as well as a Five and Ten Cent Store maintained by the same brothers in the basement of the block, and selling a great variety, as we quote from an advertisement of January, 1886: "Hardware, Smokers' Equipment, Confectionery, Teas and Cof- fees, Canned Goods, Flour, Grain, Meal and Feed, Crockery and Kitchen Goods". This list is followed by the statement: "Anything that you need to buy we propose to keep". Nor were they the only ones in Central Block with a wide range of wares for sale. Charles Fowler was proprietor of the Cen- tral Block Dry Goods Store which sold : "Carpets, Boots, Shoes and Gent's Furnish- ings - also Yard Goods, Hosiery, Gloves and Underwear". Other interesting items with their prices listed include such things as Boy's Pants for 75¢, Men's Pants for 85¢, a Carriage Duster for 75¢, a Good, Un- laundered Shirt for 42¢, Reversible Paper Collars for 20¢, a good umbrella for 50¢ and Ladies' Electric Gossamers for $1.00.
A pharmacy maintained by G. L. Keeney advertised wares other than those common to a Druggist such as "Stationery" and "Fancy Goods" while doing business in this same Central Block. The second floor of the Central Block was a center for garment making as evidenced by the advertisements of a Mrs. L. A. Abby, who was termed a "Fashionable Dressmaker" of the period and by the self-styled "Artist-Taylor", Matthew Connolly, who informed the town: "I will make you a nobby spring suit as low as the lowest" (and we must hope he refers to price only, here) in the April 23rd, 1886, edition of "The Monson Mirror".
Nor was this Central Block only a cen- ter for business activities. It contained on
Zija Street Jonsing South, Mots .... .
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Monson, Mass., as it was in 1860
its third floor an auditorium known as Cen- tral Hall which had a capacity of eight hundred and whose stage provided an excel- lent setting for theatricals.
Farther south along Main Street were several smaller business blocks. Curley's Block on the corner of Main and Lincoln Streets was principally famed for the livery stable maintained by John Curley in the '90's. Also situated here at that time was the druggist, Harlow Chapin, as well as two business ladies who were favorites with Monson's fair sex since they engaged in the millinery, dressmaking and fancy goods lines. Their names were Mrs. S. J. Comey and Mrs. S. J. Needham.
Next to this block was the Munn Block which was best known as the location of the Gage Brothers Store who carried on a long and honorable career as grocers and who specialized in such delicacies as fresh oysters in addition to the regular line of groceries which included "the best coffee you can buy" selling at 5 pounds for $1.50 as well as such canned goods as Libby, Mc- Neill's and Libby's corned beef at the start- ling sum of twenty cents a can. Other oc- cupants of the Munn Block during its most prosperous years included a general store called the Granite One Price Store and the H. E. Aldrich Livery and Feed Stable whose business card stated that they were ready to provide "Carriages for Weddings and Funerals as a Specialty".
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Interior of Gage Bros. Store - clerks, John Mur- ray and David Needham.
Other than the Curley and Munn Blocks there were such business locations south of Lincoln Street as the Noble Block, which long housed a bakery shop for many years under the proprietorship of the Butler
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Brothers during the 1880's and existed prosperously through the management of Herman Markus well into the fourth decade of the twentieth century. Another import- ant store in this same area was that of Powers and Pendergast which was in its early career named "People's Market". Pendergast's Store was an early exponent of service. They advertised that orders would be called for and delivered free of charge. In later years this store housed one of the three ice-cream parlors active in Monson, the other two being that of Charles Squier in Central Market and an- other located in the basement of Green's Block where James Curley held sway.
During this same period the residents of the southern part of the town were able to buy supplies at several stores maintained in that area. M. K. O'Brien advertised such items as dry and fancy goods, staple and family groceries, cigars and notions. Mr. O'Brien, father of Katherine Markus, oper- ated his store from his house at 252 Main Street.
Rogers & Co. operated a general store located just north of A. D. Ellis No. 3 Mill. Meats could be purchased in the basement. A third store in the south section was situ- ated on the corner of Bliss and Main Streets. Harrison Howe was an early grocer here, and Delmore Pease's "Ye Old Corner Store" succeeded him.
Aside from the concentrated areas
along Main St., Monson has had many busi- nesses catering to current developments. Monson had an admirable artist-business- man in the person of A. N. Gaouette whose photography work was of long duration- from the 1880's well into the 1930's. Marvin Bradway combined a prosperous undertak- ing business with the sales of such com- modities as Furniture, Pianos, Organs and Sewing Machines. When laundries were very much in their infancy Monson boasted one in the rear of the Flynt Store which special- ized in "Family Washing at reduced rates" and whose proprietor, M. S. Taylor, advo- cated the patronage of "Home Industry" in his advertisements as early as 1887, which was evidently a reaction to a merchant named George L. Jenks who had an agency for the Palmer Steam Laundry connected with his general merchandise store located in the Central Block.
Coal dealers were lively when wood was no longer the chief medium for heating homes as is manifested by the activities of such men as Mark Noble, Ralph Clifford, A. Squier and O. C. McCray.
New inventions were not without deal- ers in Monson for the Agency System was widely used. As early as 1897 F. E. Cady was local representative for an early type- writer, the Hammond, which cost from $50 .- 00 to $100.00. In the early day of the bi- cycle Charles R. Buffington at Green Street was selling the Liberty Bicycle for $150.00
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Gage Brothers Store - this building was taken down in 1956.
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COAL
A SOWIERS
LUNBERTAND
Established in 1874 by Arba Squier. This is the oldest business establishment still selling the same lines of merchandise and using the same name. Frank Haley is the present proprietor.
(the Warwick model) and lesser models for $115.00, while a boy's model sold for $50.00. Still another new device being sold by a local man was the Wilson Sewing Machine which was put into many Monson homes by their agent, Charles Merrick. These are but few of the commodities handled for large business houses in Monson via a local repre- sentative.
One commercial enterprise, based on the agency system, which has played an im- portant part in the past two centuries of Monson's history is insurance. The Hartford Fire Insurance Company was but ten years old when Rufus Flynt, pioneer of Monson's Granite Industry, wrote the company's first insurance in Monson. A record exists of in- surance written by Mr. Flynt in 1821 to
F. E. Howe's delivery wagons outside store in south part of Green's Hall.
cover the Hampden Cotton Manufacturing Company mill and contents, on Main Street where Ellis Mill No. 3 now stands. Disas- trous fires soon demonstrated the need for the new insurance in homes and in infant industries. Mr. Flynt's agency business grew and passed on to other owners such as Tim- othy Packard, Edward F. Morris, G. W. Farrington and Rufus Fay. In 1920, this,
the earliest insurance agency in the town, was acquired by Freelon Q. Ball, and is now carried on by his son, Carlos H. Ball, making it one of the oldest businesses in continual practice in Monson.
Monson House - built in 1872 by Leonard G. Cushman. Robbins and Shaw purchased it in 1880. It changed hands rapidly until 1896 when William Foley purchased the hotel. Shortly after 1900 this building was torn down to make way for the Monson Academy dormitory - Cushman Hall.
The business history of Monson over the two hundred years of its existence has been a continuous flux and flow ; merchants have come and gone and stores have changed hands frequently from as early as the 1880's until recent days. It has been truthfully said that in the 1890's anyone could buy any- thing he needed in the local stores and did so. This generated a cycle of supply and demand which made the town most pros- perous for its merchants who thought noth- ing of long hours of work for themselves and their help. During the middle 1880's we know that the stores were open evenings until late since advertising to close Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30 during the months of July and August was considered a surprising innovation.
In The Monson Mirror of July 8, 1887, there appeared an account of "The Grocery Clerk" and this is what we read was ex- pected of such a retail clerk at that time: "He must be up by daylight which in the winter appears at 4 or 5 o'clock and usually does not finish his work until 9:30 at night. During all this time he is never idle. Junior Clerks receive $2.00 a week and board, while those more experienced get $4. or $5. a week and board. Fourteen to eighteen hours a day is his usual working day."
From such accounts it is clearly seen that Monson's early merchants were con-
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secrated to their tasks of supplying Monson consumer needs as they did so capably through all the years.
THE BUNGALOW SHOP, MONSON, MASS.
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The Bungalow Shop - a Tea Room at 82 Main Street, now the home of Mrs. Gladys Belville.
Mala Street showing Monsen House, Mouton, Mass.
Old Main Street View
Anderson's Barber Shop, located in the south side of store now operated by Elmer McCleary at 150 Main Street. The barbers are William Anderson and John Crowley. Bill Carroll is waiting his turn at the left.
BANKS
In early years, Hartford, Connecticut was the banking town for Monson manu- facturers, and later Springfield. Because of increased business demanding bank facili- ties, the project of establishing a local bank was actively canvassed in 1853. The charter was granted for the Monson Bank on March 28, 1854, the bank to be located on Main Street, and within 200 rods south of the center meeting house.
The original capitalization was $150,- 000, of which more than half was sub- scribed in Monson. Many sites were sug- gested but the Merrick and Fay's black- smith shop lot on the corner of Main and State Streets was finally agreed upon and a small granite building erected there.
The bank opened for business October 1, 1854, in temporary quarters in the ell of the dwelling house of Albert Norcross north of the Congregational Church, and moved to its permanent quarters in the spring of 1855. When the bank was less than ten years old, and before the movement began which afterward became general, the ques- tion of reorganization under the national system came up for consideration. This peri- od of the Civil War was a stormy one with mixed feeling regarding the Federal Govern- ment.
At a stockholders meeting held August 3, 1864, the following vote was passed : "That it is expedient for this bank to re- organize under the national banking law." This was not a unanimous decision, as one stockholder sold his shares before leaving the room and another gave his to members of his family predicting their future worth- lessness.
In 1872, a charter for a local savings bank having been obtained, application was made in its behalf to the National Bank, that for convenience and economy's sake the new institution might have its office with that of the National. For twenty-one years the two corporations occupied the same till, vault, counter and banking rooms without differences arising between them or sus- picion, so far as is known, that such close company resulted in any other than mutual advantage.
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