History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 2

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I > Part 2

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But this is not all. For a hundred years this valley and the mountain towns adjoining have been sending forth their full share of that mighty stream of New England emigrants over the Berkshire hills, across the valley of the Hudson, and over the Alleghanies into the ever-retreating West, carrying with them the daring enterprise, the nimble, inventive skill, the cheerful endurance, the love of liberty under law and order, the high, religious life, chastened by the traditions of suffering and sacrifice in early pioneer homes, the vivid appre- ciation of beauty and refinement everywhere characteristic of the New England people, until every State in the nation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, bears upon all its institutions the unmistakable impress of its high New England parentage.

Thus has this valley of the Connecticut in Massachusetts for a hundred years been lavishly giving of her best citi- zens to people the fertile fields of the teeming West, yet the cup of her prosperity is still full to the brim and running over.

Il.

THE NEW ENGLAND SPIRIT.

The early settlers who came across the ocean to subdue New England, of whom the first settlers of the Connecticut Valley formed a part, were weak in numbers and mostly poor in worldly goods, but they were rich in faith and strong in spirit ; and the result has been that from the handful of feeble pil- grims a mighty nation has arisen, still deeply imbued with their rich faith and strong spirit, which nation now gives sustenance, liberty, and law to the world.

The avowed object of the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers in coming hither was "to advance their church, to build them- selves in holiness, to convert the Indian, and to promote free- dom."

That this was their object and aim there is abundant evi- dence. The company in its first general letter to Endicott and his council, under date of 17th April, 1629, says :

" And for the propagating of the Gospel is the thing we do profess above all to be our aim in settling this Plantation. We have been careful to make plentiful provision of godly minis- ters, by whose faithful preaching, godly conversation, and exemplary life we trust not only those of our own nation will be built up in the knowledge of God, but also the Indians may in God's appointed time be reduced to the obedience of the gospel of Christ."*

Again, in the preamble to the Articles of Confederation be- tween the United Colonies, adopted 19th May, 1643, there is this language : " Whereas we all came into these parts with

one and the same end, namely, to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in purity with peace."

Ilaving thus come to the solitudes of the New World with this high end and aim in view, and having themselves passed through the fiery ordeal of religious persecution at home, in their treatment of those of different faith, who early sought homes among them, the charge of inconsistency has often been laid at their door.

It has often been urged, and with much plausibility, that they who fled from religious intolerance in the Old World should have themselves practised religious toleration in the New. But those who use this argument forget the spirit of the age as well as the circumstances under which they lived, and the high ideal of the New England fathers.

The spirit of the age was distinguished by its intense reli- gious fervor. The world to come, now of sueh dim and shadowy aspect to the bodily senses of modern men, although perhaps no less real to their eye of faith, was to the Puritan fathers, in the dim light of the imperious and awful theologic dogmas which guided their daily walk, a tangible, if not visi- ble, reality. To their haunting visions of immortal joy or woe saddening their lives, must be added the contest with the grim wilderness, the hard, unrelenting circumstances of pio- neer life. Each age has its own methods of battling for the right and asserting justice. Each age has its own ideas, too, of what is right and just, but conscience-the desire to do right and justly-has been active in all ages, perhaps more active in the age of the Puritans than now.

It should be remembered, also, that while religious intoler- anee is wrong when it is not necessary for the public safety, it becomes a virtue when needful in self-defence and where tolerance would be public ruin.

The early New England people, in order to protect their re- ligions freedom, were obliged to exclude with a strong hand those in whose presence they could not live with security. They had fled from the powerful English hierarchy to the wild solitudes of America. Should they suffer it to follow them ? Divisions in their councils, in their weak and defenceless con- dition, would be fatal to their peace, if not to their very exist- ence. Should they suffer divisions to occur ? In those days, too, religious toleration held no place among the Christian virtues. To differ from the established religion was rank heresy, and heresy was punished in most Christian countries as a heinous erime. It was the high ideal of the New England fathers to engratt upon the new State a new form of Christian worship, subject to the same restrictions as the old. But they sought more. Their aim was nothing less than the complete sanctification of the State. To make a pure and perfect State, founded in every respect upon the sublime teachings of Holy Writ in worship and morals, was what they attempted. To further this end, they rightly judged that to fashion and mould a State the individual members thereof must first be fashioned and moulded, and so they began at the foundation, and kept the strictest watch over every individual in the colony whether high or low.

Every one's conduct was at all times and on all occasions the subject of strieture and discipline, and every infraction of law or duty promptly and severely punished. In religious matters especially, no such thing as freedom of individual opinion existed. Ileresy in every form must be nipped in the bud as a thing dangerous to both the State and the souls of men. No impure thing like witchcraft must be suffered to live for a moment. All who participated in the government in any form must be members of the visible church, and must square their every action by the Mosaic law of the Bible. There must be one common faith, one common church, one commonwealth. These facts, so often overlooked in consider- ing their case, while they by no means justify their errors and excesses, explain their conduct. That they were zealots and

* Young's Chron. of Mass., p. 141.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

committed excesses in the line of discipline and punishment is not to be wondered at when we consider their views of things. Judged from their standpoint they were in the right, or at least excusable. In the broader light of modern times they were outrageously in the wrong. Yet no unprejudiced one has ever for a moment doubted the unflinching honesty of purpose, the deep sense of responsibility, and the high moral aims of the New England fathers. Ont of their very faults, or rather out of those heroic virtues, which they often carried into grievous faults, have developed the grandest results in modern history. The best things of the nation germinated in New England.

Local self-government guided by the spirit of law and order, appealing to the conscious dignity and innate self-respect of human nature, and which is the very foundation of our repub- lican form of government, from which so many blessings flow, had its birth-place in the town-meetings,-the first feeble or- ganizations of the early New England towns at Plymouth Rock, at Massachusetts Bay, and in the Valley of the Connec- tieut. And this is the more remarkable when we consider that it took place in the opening years of the seventeenth een- tury, while the lordly Stuarts were on the English throne, haughty and unrelenting in the enforcement of the royal pre- rogative, and the Bourhon kings had yet in store almost two centuries of despotie sway in now republican France.

And in the New England Confederacy of 1643, for which they had no warrant in their charters, but which in its incep- tion was a bold assumption of power on the part of the young colonies, we see the prototype and germ of our great republic.

And further still, the high culture, the refined and elegant life of the nation first took root in the rugged soil of New Eng- land. The wonder is that so fair and fragile a flower as cul- ture should ever have flourished amid such rocky solitudes as the wild New England shores of two centuries and a half ago.

The very next thought of the Puritan fathers of New Eng- gland, after making provision for the support of the gospel and organizing their government, was to establish institutions of learning.

As early as the 28th day of October, 1636, the general court provided for a college,* which two years after, on the 13th March, 1638-39, was named in honor of its first considerable benefactor, the Rev. John Harvard.+

" After God," says an old chronicler, "had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity ; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches when our present ministers shall lie in the dust. And as we were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard, a godly gentleman and a lover of learning then living amongst us, to give the one-half of his estate, it being in all about £1700, towards the erecting of a college, and all his library."}

But the pulpit of New England has after all been its high- est educator. In every village and hamlet, in the centre of every hill town in the land, stood a humble church edifice, in which officiated a man of liberal education, and it may be said, almost without exception, of gentle manners and of much culture and refinement. Possessed of almost imperious power, the New England minister moulded the hearts, the minds, the manners of the people into his own image.

And the religious spirit, which was the controlling spirit of the New England people, is itself the most refining of all in- fluences. Religion in its various forms, notwithstanding the

* Mass. Col. Rec., Vol. 1., p. 183.

+ Mass. Col, Rec., Vol. I., p. 253.

# New England's First Fruits, p. 12.

enormities committed in its name, is the crucial fire that re- lieves human life of its dross, and sends forth the pure gold of human conduct to enlighten, to vivify, and to bless the world.

With such surroundings the New England people moulded their own destiny. Under such influences they made them- selves the Etrurians of the West.

The settlement of the Connecticut Valley followed close upon the settlement of the Bay. The settlers of the valley, as it were, on their way from their English homes tarried four or five years at the Bay to take a breathing spell before they encountered the dangers of the great wilderness in their final homes on the great river of New England.

It will readily be seen, that while the history of the valley is in many respects the history of a distinct and separate com- munity, yet so bound up are its people in their relations to the people at the Bay and in the mother country, that no intelli- gible history of the valley can he given without some account at least of what and who the settlers were in their English homes, and without some account of what the settlers did at Plymouth and the Bay.

CHAPTER IL.

CIVIL DIVISIONS-COUNTIES-TOWNS.

EXTENT OF TERRITORIES INCLUDED IN THIS WORK.

THE Connecticut Valley in the State of Massachusetts, of which this volume treats, extends along both sides of the Con- nectieut River, across the whole width of the State from north to south, and comprises the three counties of Hampshire, Franklin, and Hampden, named in the order of their erection.

This territory is bounded on the north by the States of Ver- mont and New Hampshire, on the east by the county of Wor- cester, on the south by the State of Connecticut, and on the west by the county of Berkshire. It has an average length from north to south across the State of about forty-nine miles, and an average width from east to west between Worcester and Berkshire Counties of forty miles. It is centrally distant on an air-line from Boston about eighty miles, and about one hundred miles by the usual travelled route.

This territory is situated between latitude 42° and 42° 45' north, and between longitude 3º 52' and 4º 5' east from Wash- ington, and longitude 72° 8' and 73º 4' west from Greenwich.

According to the last census, taken in the year 1875, tbe population of Hampshire County was 44,821; of Franklin County, 33,696 ; and of Hampden County, 94,304; the whole territory included in this history containing a population of 172,821.

Il. HAMPSHIRE COUNTY.

The county of Hampshire was erected and organized by the Colonial General Court, at a session of the same held at Boston, on the 7th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1662, by the following act, which is copied from the records of the court in the original orthography, and is as follows, to wit :

" At a General Court of Election, held at Boston, 7th day, 3d month,2 A.n. 1662 .

"Forasmuch as the inhabitants of this jurisdiction are much increased, so that now they are planted farre into the country upon Couuecticut River, who by

¿ May. According to the Julian method of computing time, or what is famil- iarly known as Old Style, the civil year began on the 25th day of March, and March was called the first month and February the twelfth. To reconcile this method with the historical year, which began January 1, as now, in all dates before March 25, both years were given : thus January 2, 1662-63, meant January 2, 1662, of the civil year, and Jannary 2, 1663, of the historical year. Of course on all dates between March 25 and December 31, both inclusive, the date of the year ran the same in both cases. This method was used in England and her colonies until the Old Style was changed to the New by act of Parliament in 1752.

HISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

reason of their remoteness cannot conveniently be annexed to any of the coun- tyes already settled, and that publicke affaires may with more facility be trans- acted according to the lawes heere established, it is ordered by this Court & au- thority thereof, that henceforth Springfeild, Northampton, and Hadley shall be and are hereby constituted as a county, the bounds or ljmitts on the south to be the south ljne of the pateut; the extent of other bounds to be full thirty miles distant from any or either of the foresajd townes, & what townes or vil- lages soever shall heerafter be erected witbiu the feresajd preciucts to be & belong to the sajd county ; and further that the sajd county shall called Hamp- shire, & shall have and enjoy the libertjes & priviledges of any other county ; & that Springfeild shall be the shire towne theer, & the Courts te be kept one time at Springfeild & another time at Northampton; the like order to be ob- served for their shire meetings, that is to say Que yeere at one towne and the next yeare at the other from time to time. And it is further ordered that all the iohabitants ef that shier shall pay their publicke rates to the countrey in fatt catle, or young catle such as are fitt to be putt off that se no unnecessary damage be put on the country ; & in case they make payment in corne theo to be made at such prises as the lawe doe commonly passo amougst themselves, any other former or annuall orders referring to the prises of corne notwithstanding."*

Hampshire County an Original County of the State .- It will be seen from the foregoing record that when Hampshire County was erected and organized in the year 1662 it was not set off from or carved out of an older county of the colony but it was erected entirely out of virgin territory, never before placed under county organization. Hampshire County there- fore became one of the original or mother counties of the State. That such is the fact will be readily seen by reference to the first division of the colony or the eastern part of it into coun- ties in the year 1643. The following is a copy of the minutes of the General Court, from which it will be seen that in the first division of the State into counties, although the valley of the Connecticut had been settled for seven years, and Spring- field had already been recognized as a town by the General Court, it was not included in either county then erected, and that its territory formed no part of any county until nineteen years afterward, when it was united with Northampton and Hadley to form Hampshire County.

" At a General Court of Election held at Boston, 10th day of the 3d month, A.D. 1643.

" The whele plantation within this jurisdiction is divided into four sheircs, to wit:+

" ESSEX.

MIDDLESEX.

Salem,

Charlstowne,

Lion,

Cambridge,

Enon,

Watertown,

Ipswich,

Sudberry,

Rowley,

Concerd,

Newherry,

Wooborne,

Glocester,

Meadford,

Cochichawick. (Andover.)

Linu Village.

" SUFFOLK.

NORFOLK.

Boston,

Salsberry,

Roxbury,

Hampton,

Dorchester,

Haverill,

Dedham,

Excetter,

Braintree,

Dover,

Waymoth,

Strawberry Banck."

Hingham,

(Portsmouth.)

Nantaskot.

Large Extent of Old Hampshire County .- It will be seen that when first erected, Hampshire County, although containing within its limits but three towns, Springfield, Northampton, and Hadley, yet in extent of territory it covered all the western half of that part of the State then belonging to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. It included the western tier of towns of what is now Worcester County, and the whole of what are now the counties of Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden, and Berkshire.

First Division of the County-Towns in Worcester County set off .- The first division of the territory of Old Ilampshire County was made by the Provincial General Court in the year A.D. 1730, and the fourth year of the reign of George II. Below is given the first section of the act, which shows the

territory affected by it. The act took effect on the 10th day of July, 1631.

"An oct for erecting, granting, and making a county in the inland parts of this province, to be called the county of Worcester, and for establishing courts of justice within the same.

"SEC. 1. Be it enacted by his Excellency the Governor, Council, and Repre- sentatives, iu general court assembled, and by the authority of the same, that the towns and places hereinafter named and expressed, that is to say, Worcester, Laucaster, Rutland, and Lunenburgh, all io the county of Middlesex ; Menden, Weedstock, Oxford, Sutton, including Hassanamisco, Uxbridge, and the land lately granted to several petitioners of Medfield, all in the county of Suffolk, Broekfield in the county of Hampshire, and the south town laid out for the Nar- ragansett soldiers, and all other lands lying withiu the said towuships, with the inhabitants thercon, shall from and after the tenth day of July, which will be io the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-Que, be and remain one entire and distinct county by the name of Worcester, of which Worcester to be the county or shire town, and the said county to have, nse, and enjoy all such powers, privileges, and immunities as by law other counties within this province have and do eujoy."#

Berkshire County Set Off .- The second division of Old Hampshire County was made by the provincial General Court in the year A.D. 1761, and the first year of the reign of George III.

The first section of the act given below shows what terri- torial changes were made by it. The act took effect on the 30th day of June, 1761.

" An Act for diriding the county of Hampshire, and for erecting and establishing a new county in the westerly part of the county of Hampshire, to be called the county of Berkshire, and for establishing courts of justice within the same.

"WHEREAS, The great extent of the county of Hampshire makes it convenient and necessary that there should be a new cenuty erected and established in the westerly part thereof:

"SEC. 1. Be it therefore enacted by the Governer, Council, and House of Rep- reseutatives, that the towns and plantations hereinafter meutioncd, that is to say, Sheffield, Stockbridge, Egrement, New Marlborough, Pooutoosack, New Framingham, West Hoosack, Number One, Number Three, and Number Four, and all other lands included in the following limits, viz. : beginning at the west- ern line of Granvill where it touches the Connecticut line, to run northerly as far as said west line of Granvill runs, thence casterly to the southwest corner of Blandford, and to run by the west line of the same towo to the northeast corner thereof, from thence northerly in a direct line to the southeast corner of Num- ber Four, and so running by the easterly line of said Number Four to the north- east corner thereof, and thence iu a direct course to the southeast corner of Charlement, and so northerly in the corner of the west line of the same towo till it comes to the north bound of the province, and northerly on the line betweco this province and the province of New Hampshire, sontherly on the Connecticut line, and on the west by the utmost limits of this province, shall from aud after the thirtieth day of June, one thousand seven hundred and sixty one, be and remaju one entire and distinct county by the name of Berkshire, of which Shef- field for the present to be the county or shire town ; and the said county to have, use, and enjoy all such powers, privileges, and immunities as by law other coun- ties in this province have and do cujoy."¿

Present Extent of Hampshire County .- After Berkshire County was set off no changes were made in Hampshire County until the years 1811 and 1812, when it was again divided for the third and fourth time, and Franklin and Hampden set off' in those years respectively. Up to the year 1811, when Franklin County was set off, Hampshire bad in- creased its number of towns in the territory still remaining to it to sixty-three. Of these, Franklin County took off twenty-four in 1811, and Hampden took eighteen towns in 1812, leaving twenty-one towns in Hampshire County remain- ing after the fourth and last division. To these two have since been added, and Hampshire now contains twenty-three towns, and is bounded as follows, to wit: north by Frank- lin County, east by Worcester County, south by HIampden County, and west by Berkshire.

The several towns now belonging to Hampshire County are, with the dates of their incorporation, respectively as follows, to wit :

AMHERST, incorporated Feb. 13, 1759.

BELCHERTOWN, June 30, 1761.

CHESTERFIELD, June 11, 1762.

CUMMINGTON,

· June 23, 1779.

EASTHAMPTON, = June 17, 1785.

* Mass. Col. Rec., Vol. IV., Part II., p. 52.

+ See Mass. Col. Rec., Vol. II., p. 38.

# See Ancient Charters and Colony and Provincial Laws of Mass. Bay, p. 484. ¿ Ibid., p. 638.

IIISTORY OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.

ENFIELD, incorporated Feb. 16, 1816.

GOSHEN,

May 14, 1784.

GRANBY,

June 11, 1768.

GREENWICH,

April 20, 1754.

HADLEY,

May 20, 1661.

HATFIELD,

May 31, 1670.

IIUNTINOTON, =

June 29, 1773.

MIDDLEFIELD, = March 11, 1783.

NORTHAMPTON, organized Oct. 18, 1654.

PELHAM, incorporated Jan. 15, 1742.

PLAINFIELD,

March 16, 1785.

PRESCOTT,

Jan. 28, 1822.

SOUTHI HADLEY, April 12, 1753.

SOUTHAMPTON,

Jan. 5, 1753.

WARE,

Nov. 25, 1761.

WESTHAMPTON, Sept. 29, 1778.

WILLIAMSBURGH, "

April 24, 1771.

WORTHINGTON,

June 30, 1761.

III. FRANKLIN COUNTY.

The county of Franklin was set off from Hampshire by an act of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts, passed on the 24th day of June, A.D. 1811, the first sec- tion of which, indicating the territorial changes involved in the division, is given below, and is as follows, to wit :

"An Act to diride the county of Hampshire and constitute the northerly part thereof into a county by the name of the county of Franklin.

" BE IT ENACTED by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same:

" That the county of Hampshire shall be divided by a line beginning on the westerly line of the conoty of Worcester, at the west corner of tho town of Peter- sham, in said county of Worcester; thence southerly, following the east line of the town of New Salem, to the southeast corner of said New Salem; thence westerly on the southerly lines of the towns of New Salem and Shutesbury to the southwesterly corner of the town of Shutesbury; thence northerly on the line of Shutesbury to the southerly line of the town of Leverett ; thence westerly on the southerly lines of the towos of Leverett and Sunderland, to Connecticut River; then beginning on the west bank of said river at the southeasterly cor- ner of the town of Whately; then westerly and northerly upon the line of said Whately to the southerly line of the town of Conway ; tlience westerly aod north- erly upon the line of said Conway to the southeasterly corner of the town of Ashfield; thence westerly and northerly upon the line of the said Ashfield to the southeasterly corner of the town of Hawley ; thence westerly upon the line of said Hawley to the easterly line of the county of Berkshire.

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History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Vol. I, Part 2

Author: L.H. Everts & Co Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts Number of Pages: 700

Author: L.H. Everts & Co
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Philadelphia : Louis H. Everts
Number of Pages: 700