USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > South Hadley > History of the sesqui-centennial anniversary celebration of the town of South Hadley, Mass., July 29-30, 1903 > Part 6
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With all our experience of modern facilities for sending news over the country we cannot escape surprise at the rapidity with which the report of the battles of Concord and Lexington cir- eulated through Western Massachusetts.
"The shot heard round the world" was fired April 19, 1775, and next day the valley towns, eighty and one hundred miles away, had their minutemen hurrying to the seat of war while the men of the more distant hill towns were but a day behind. Would that another Browning might write the stirring tale of how they carried the news of Concord and Lexington to the west country.
Capt. Noah Goodman, with fifteen other South Hadley men "marched in defense of American liberty," as his report states, but, like the other eager patriots of old Hampshire county, they were halted after two days' marching, by word that the British had retreated to Boston and that their services were not needed.
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South Hadley, with a population of five hundred and sixty, bore her full share of the burdens of the Revolutionary War. The people were united and unwavering in loyalty to the cause of independence and all calls for men, clothing and provisions were promptly answered.
This brief extract from records all aglow with sturdy patriot- ism will show the spirit of the town three weeks before the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, could bring itself to take decisive action : "June 20, 1776-At a meeting of inhabitants of South Hadley held at four o'clock in the afternoon at the Meet- ing House, then met and made choice of Jabez Kellogg, modera- tor, to regulate the business of said meeting: and it ware put to vote whether it ware their minds to declare Independence and it past in the affirmative by a Grate Majoriti. Jabez Kellogg, Moderator."
Col. John Woodbridge, oldest son of the town's second minister, and keeper of a country store in South Hadley, saw much military service. He was for eight years a captain in the French and Indian wars and commanded a regiment in the Revolution. Hle did not, however, live to see the triumphant close of the struggle but died December 27, 1782, at the age of fifty.
Capt. Noah Goodman, a native of Hadley, was the political leader of South Hadley for many years. He was a man of little education but had much energy and force of character. He was sent to the Provincial Congress at Concord, Cambridge and Watertown in 1774 and 1775 and was advised by the town to take his gun with him. He was representative in the General Court whenever the town sent one from 1776 to 1785. In 1788 he was a member of the state convention to consider acceptance of the United States constitution and voted for its adoption, while the Amherst and Granby delegates voted against it.
When the war was ended and "the joy of peace and the exultation of freedom" had had their day, there came a reaction. States, towns and individuals found themselves phniged into debt, with no marketable property, and no currency with which to make payments. Demagogues, as always in such times, were ready to fan the popular discontent into contempt for law, defiance of the officers of the law and, at length, into an armed revolt against the counnonwealth which has passed into history as Shays' Rebellion.
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On January 25, 1787, Shays' army of nineteen hundred men, advancing to capture the armory at Springfield, was received with the discharge of a cannon, which killed four of their number. Without firing a shot, they broke ranks and fled to the Chicopee River, at the ford of the Springfield and Hadley road. On the twenty-seventh, hearing that General Lincoln with the state troops was advancing against them, they fled through very deep snow and in bitterly cold weather, to South Hadley, with the pursuers at their heels. The shades of night were falling when they reached the village, by the Springfield road. In front of a tavern standing on the lower part of what we call College street, was robbed of two barrels of rum, of books of account and of furniture, while beds were stripped and windows smashed. They an adjutant of the party was killed by a comrade, who mistook him for one of the advance guards of the pursuers.
But, for all their terrified haste, they could take time for plundering. At the house now owned and occupied by Mrs. Jonathan Burnett, they fastened the occupants into the garret while they caroused below. Marks of their bayonet points remain to this day. The residence of Major Noah Goodman, which was the remodeled first meetinghouse, yet standing north of the park, broke open and looted the house of Ruggles Woodbridge and stole and destroyed property all the way to Moody Corner, as they fled to the Notch and Amherst.
In the ten years after 1783, the natural resources of the country and the industry and enterprise of its inhabitants gradu- ally wrought a cure for the evils which had well-nigh wrecked our commonwealth. New towns were springing up along the valley, while older settlements had steady growth and the fast increasing commerce of the river demanded the removal of the obstruction to navigation at the great falls in South Hadley.
On February 23, 1792, the legislature incorporated John Worthington of Springfield, and twenty other leading men of Hampshire and Berkshire counties as " Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Connecticut River," "for the purpose of render- ing the river navigable from the mouth of Chicopee River north- ward throughout the Commonwealth." The locks were to be large enough to accommodate boats and rafts twenty feet wide and sixty feet long.
After a survey had been made by Christopher Collis of New York, the work of construction was intrusted to Benjamin
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Prescott of Northampton. As this was the first canal of any size in the country, Mr. Prescott had no precedent for the plan or execution of the work.
It soon became evident that the cost of the enterprise had been sadly underestimated and that money was very scarce. An agent was sent to Holland, the money mart of the world, to interest the Dutch capitalists in the undertaking and he suc- ceeded in selling them nearly half of the stock.
By this time, also, the practical difficulties of the work upon the scale originally planmed had become apparent and an act
A Recent View of the Old Canal Near the Mills. (By permission of the Youth's Companion.)
of the legislature was obtained in 1793, which reduced the width of the canal and length of the locks so as to accommodate boats and rafts not more than sixteen feet wide and forty feet long.
By December, 1794, the canal, nearly two and a half miles long, had been dug, for most of the way through solid rock, the dam at the head of the canal, to turn the river into the new waterway, had been built and the inclined plane, with its car- riage and machinery, at the foot of the canal, was nearly com- pleted. In all the cold of early winter, the people of the region round about had a holiday and gathered in large numbers to
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admire the great work and to ride up and down the inclined plane in the grand carriage.
As the river had a fall of fifty-three feet in the two and a half miles of rapids and the canal bed was but slightly lower than the water level at the head, there was a perpendicular descent of some fifty feet from the lower end of the canal to the beach level at the mouth of Buttery Brook.
Engineer Prescott's inventive genius overcame this diffi- culty by building of stone, covered with plank, a plane two hun- dred and thirty feet long, at an angle of thirteen and a half
A Recent View of the Old Canal Above the Dam.
degrees, and extending from the guard lock at the end of the canal to a lock at the mouth of the brook. When a boat was to be conveyed down the inclined plane, it passed from the guard lock through folding doors into a carriage which received from the canal water enough to float it. As soon as the boat was well within the carriage the lock and folding doors were closed and the water was allowed to run out of the carriage through sluices made for the purpose. The carriage was supported by three pairs of wheels, of which the first or downstream pair was enough higher than the second pair and the second enough higher than
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the third or up-river pair to keep the floor of the carriage level. On each side of the upper end of the inelined plane was an over- shot water wheel, sixteen feet in diameter. These wheels were connected by a shaft on which was wound a strong chain, attached to the carriage. When all was ready, the wheels were set in motion to unwind the chain and the carriage rolled down the incline into the lower lock where the fold- THE PROPR ing doors opened to let the boat float out. SIC TRANSIT Then a boat waiting to go up-river was HIRE. MASS floated into the carriage and drawn up to SH the guard lock of the canal.
Yor HAMI
PUBLIC & PRIVATE
IETORS OF LOCKS &
LNnOO
GOOD.
CANALS
Seal of the Locks & Canals Company.
The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals were so proud of this triumph of their on- gineer's inventive power that they adopted a representation of it for their common seal.
Below Buttery Brook, the canal extended for nearly half a mile across Daniel Lamb's beach lot and the public landing which was laid ont in 1765. So near the river was it and so much below the water level that it was liable to be more or less filled with sand and silt brought down by freshets and needed to be dug. ont every spring, at least.
The canal attracted many visitors for years after 1795. Indeed, no other place in the valley drew so many people by its novel and interesting sights as did South Hadley Canal, the name given to the village which was growing up in Taylor Field.
President Dwight of Yale College, in his Travels, gives an animated description of the scene at South Hadley Canal at this time.
"A spectator," he writes, "standing about a quarter of a mile below the fall, sees on the eastern bank a pretty assemblage of meadows, pastures and a few houses and, on the western simi- lar grounds, interspersed with seattered trees and small coppices A grove of pines, further northward, on the same shore, lends its gloom to vary the landscape. On the eastern shore, also, he is presented with the singular prospect of these works, consisting of the inelined plane and a number of buildings connected with it, consisting of a sawmill, forge, etc., together with a handsome house, erected for the superintendent. In the river itself and on the shores, the numerous wharves, boats, fishermen and specta- tors, amounting to several hundred in the month of May, together with the ascent and descent of the carriage loaded with the
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freight and full of people, impress on the mind very sprightly ideas of bustle and business. The cataract descends over a rift of rock, thirty feet in height and above one hundred rods in length, down which the water is thrown with all the fine forms of fantastical beauty, excessive force and wild majesty and, at its foot presents a noble limit to the prospect below, while a rude succession of hills, with a few solitary spots of cultivated ground opening upon their declivities and, beyond them, the Peak of Mt. Tom, ascending in blue, misty grandeur, terminates the view above. When a spectator approaches the falls, he is presented with an object at once singular and beautiful-a sheet of water spread over an inclined plane of thirty feet, floating most ele- gantly in thousands of perpetually changing, circular waves, and starred with an infinite multitude of small, fluctuating spangles. Until I visited this spot, I knew not that it was possible for water to become so beautiful an object."
The canal was opened for business in April, 1795, and before June sixth of that year, one hundred and eighteen boats and rafts had made the passage.
In 1801 the Proprietors were indieted for maintaining a nuisance in their dam across the river at the head of the canal which, it was alleged, set the water baek onto Northampton and caused sickness. They were obliged, in consequence, to tear down the western part of the dam, leaving only the oblique part or wing dam from the east bank to midstream.
The canal had cost by that time eighty-one thousand three hundred and seventy-five dollars, exclusive of the tolls received, which had been spent for running expenses and repairs.
Frightened by the criminal proceedings against the company, the Dutch stockholders became anxious to dispose of their shares at any sacrifice and the stock fell into the hands of a small number of owners. Within a few years and for many years thereafter, until the Hadley Falls Company purchased the canal property, the stock regularly paid an annual dividend of eight per cent.
The wing dam soon proved inadequate to turn water enough into the canal and, in 1802, the legislature granted the Proprie- tors a lottery to raise twenty thousand dollars and, a little later, another one to raise ten thousand dollars additional, for the pur- pose of lowering the canal bed four feet and substituting a mod- ern 'system of locks for the inelined plane and carriage.
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... .. ... .
---.
These improvements were made under direction of Ariel Cooley, a native of that part of Springfield which is now called Chicopee Falls and a man of great energy and ingenuity.
It took some two years to make the changes and, in the meantime, all freight had to be hauled around the falls as in former days.
When the work had been completed, Mr. Cooley, or 'Riel Cooley as every one called him, made a contract with the Pro- prietors to keep the canal in repair, survey the boats and rafts that passed through the canal and collect the tolls, for fifty years, in consideration of receiving one-quarter of the tolls and the title to all their real estate, except so much as was required for the canal.
In 1814 he found it necessary to build another dam aeross the river to furnish water for the canal. This was partially com- pleted when winter set in and the spring freshet swept it away. In 1815 he completed a dam across the river from the head of the canal and was promptly indicted for maintaining a nuisance, on complaint of the up-river fishermen. He thereupon con- structed a fishway by running a dam obliquely into the river not far below the dam which had been complained of. This made an eddy into which the fish could run from the rapids below. Above the eddy he ent down the dam a plank or two, for a short distance, making a passage through which the fish could shoot. This arrangement proved entirely satisfactory.
The dam was carried away in 1824. Mr. Cooley had died in 1822. ITis nephew and executor, Enoch Chapin, replaced the dam with one which is standing yet. Its position is marked now at the ordinary stage of the river by a slight ripple where the current of the stream meets the dead water, above the Holyoke dam. In dry seasons, when the pond is very low, the old dam emerges from the water to the wonderment of travelers by rail- road and highway.
Chapin was forthwith indicted for maintaining a nuisance, on various counts, of which, after a long and bitter fight by the leading lawyers of three counties, in the lower and Supreme Judicial Courts, the only one sustained was that which charged the prevention of the passage of fish in a navigable river. This judicial decision compelled an alteration which permitted the fish to reach the nets spread for them by men of Northampton, Hadley and the country below Turners Falls.
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Not long afterwards, Ariel Cooley's heirs surrendered the contract and reconveyed most of the real estate to the Proprie- tors, who retained the management until navigation ceased with the advent of railroads and in 1848 the Proprietors sold their canal to the Hadley Falls Company.
It is a matter of interest to know that in 1790, two years before the Proprietors of the Loeks and Canals were incorporated, an effort was made to protect the fisheries of the river. In that year the General Conrt enacted that "no person or persons shall, between the fifteenth day of March and the fifteenth day of June in any year, set or draw any seine or seines or any other machine for the purpose of catching fish on Connectient River or in any river or stream falling into the same, from the rising of the sun on Saturday morning until the rising of the sun on Tuesday morning," under penalty of a fine of two pounds and forfeiture of the seines and other machines.
It was also voted to request the governor to invite the states of New Hampshire, Vermont and Connectient to pass similar laws. The northern states complied with the request, but Con- necticut, with characteristic contempt for the interests of its up- river neighbors, refused to take any action and, in 1797, the law was repealed because it had failed to accomplish the benefits expected.
It will also interest those who, in modern times, have suf- fered for trespassing upon Fish Commissioner Brackett's costly folly, the fishway over Holyoke dam, to know that in 1793 the legislature passed a law that "no person or persons at any time hereafter shall take any sahon or shad within one hundred rods of any part of the dam on Connectient River, near the canal at South Hadley, with any net, seine, pot, scoopnet, or any other instrument or machine whatever" under penalty of four pounds for each offense with loss of net, etc.
In 1805 the legislature passed a law forbidding the use of seines in fishing in the Connecticut between June fifteenth and December fifteenth in each year and the nse at any time of a seine exceeding one hundred rods in length or of two or more seines which, together, exceeded that length under penalty of one hundred dollars.
While the south part of the town was thus wakened to life, matters moved slowly and quietly in the older settlement.
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John Stickley of Stonghton, in the eastern part of the province, while a butcher boy, learned of one, Dunbar, the new style of voeal music and, about the year 1765, when barely of age, came to Western Massachusetts to teach what he had learned. He taught singing schools up and down the valley and in the province of Connecticut and did much to introduce a better style of church music and a greater variety of tunes.
The ancient fashion of "lining out" the psalm, that is of having a deacon read a line and then lead the congregation in singing it, until the entire psahn had so been sung, was not given up without much heated controversy.
Stickney persevered, however, until he had very generally introduced the new method of singing without the deacon's read- ing. It was only after ten years' struggle, that South Hadley voted, in March, 1776, that singing should be carried on in the afternoon of the Sabbath without reading. The old style, how- ever, was not given up in the forenoon and continued in use, at the communion service, for many years afterward.
Before 1770 he bought the farm near the mouth of Stony Brook which is now owned by Myron Green and continued his singing schools until after 1800. In 1773 he opened his house as an inn, to accommodate the river men, who thronged the place.
Rev. Joel Hayes was settled as colleague of Mr. Woodbridge in 1781 and, on Mr. Woodbridge's death in 1783, became pastor of the church.
The town built for him the house on the west side of College street which Mrs. William Lester now owns. Next south of his house was the town pound.
Joseph White soon afterwards built a house north of the parsonage for himself and a small building beyond it in which he kept a conntry store.
In 1785 a small house was moved up the hill from the site of Mrs. Jonathan Burnett's residence to the corner of the present College and Hadley streets. These three houses were the first that stood west of the common.
The common, by the way, then and for fifty years later was wild land, overgrown with brush and berry bushes and none of the shade trees which now adorn the street had been planted.
In May, 1791, Ruggles Woodbridge offered to present a bell to the town and the inhabitants voted to build a belfry and steeple on the meetinghouse.
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Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge, who later in life dropped the name Benjamin, was the second son of the town's second minister, John Woodbridge. He was in practice as a physician in 1765 but after a short time gave up his profession for a busi- ness career. He kept a store, was a licensed retailer of liquor, had potash works and a sawmill and was a very enterprising and successful man. He became a large owner of real estate and was, for many years, the town's wealthiest citizen. In 1788 he built the house now owned and occupied by Mrs. Hollings- worth and the raising was an occasion long famous in the town annals. After the frame was up, a great wrestling match was held at which the champions of the neighboring towns had their innings. From 1797 to 1812 he represented the town in the General Court. He died, March 8, 1819, at the age of eighty-six.
For some reason, perhaps to save the expense, for in those days towns paid the salaries, South Hadley, after Shays' Rebel- lion, for some years sent no representative to the legislature. In 1790 and 1791, it simply omitted to hold an election but in 1792 and 1793 it voted "not to send a representative."
The Great and General Court could not allow such neglect of municipal duty to pass without punishment and, in 1793, fined the town seventeen pounds and ten shillings for their offence. Next year, the veteran, Noah Goodman, was sent as representative and he secured a remission of the fine.
There were in Hadley in 1755 eighteen negro slaves above sixteen years of age. Ten years later she had twenty negroes and Amherst six. In 1771 Hadley had four slaves under four- teen and above forty-five years of age, with others under and above those ages, and Amherst had at least three slaves. There was one slave in South Hadley at that time and possibly more. He was owned by David Mitchell, who lived on the east side of the present College street at the place now owned by Waldo A. Burnett. On March 6, 1778, Mitchell, by instrument in writing duly recorded, gave his negro man, Casar Cambridge, his free- dom, in consideration of eighty-five pounds in cash, and of an order for his wages in a cruise of the brig of war Defence, esti- mated at forty pounds. The one hundred and twenty-five pounds were probably equal to one hundred silver dollars.
It is with a sense of something new and strange that we read of the traffic in human beings which was carried on in our valley during the early years of South Hadley's existence. At the
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session of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, held at Spring- field in August, 1763, Samuel Colton of Springfield sued James MeClester of Enfield for deceit and conversion of his property. Colton alleged that he was possessed of a negro woman, "servant for life," of the value of forty pounds "which" he desired to sell; that defendant represented to him that he was going with a load of freight to Albany and would take her along and sell her to one, Major Matthews, who wanted just such a servant, for forty-seven pounds in New York money, equal to thirty-five pounds and five shilling of Massachusetts money ; that, believing defendant's statements, he on January 20, 1761, delivered the woman to MeClester with fifty shillings to pay the expenses of her journey ; that there was no such man at Albany as Major Matthews ready to pay the price for the woman, as defendant had stated and that the defendant sold the woman for the sum of twelve pounds, to the great damage of the plaintiff. The jury did not accept Colton's estimate of the value of his "servant for life" for they rendered a verdiet in his favor of only twenty pounds. While the negroes were not treated with positive cruelty, they were, whether bond or free, made to realize their inheritance of the curse pronounced upon their progenitor Canaan. When "Prince, a negro," sued David Ball of Westfield for depriving him of his liberty and denying that he was a free- man, although Joseph Hawley and John Worthington, the lead- ers of the old Hampshire bar, championed his cause, the jury gave him merely nominal. damages. When Robert or Pompey, "a negro," was convicted of a breach of the peace or an assault and battery, the court usually added to the penalty which a white man would receive in like case "ten stripes well laid on." In 1753, for murdering her master, Phillis, a negro woman, was burned to death at Cambridge.
There was at least one family of negroes who lived in the south part of the town, on the traet of land now belonging to Deacon George E. Lamb, of which a part was taken for the But- tery Brook reservoir. This land was known to the earlier gener- ation of the Lamb family as the "Guinea Lot." Mrs. Nancy Lamb L'Amoreux used to say that travelers along the Granby road could often hear the merry laughter of the negroes who occupied a house on this lot.
A man named Peter Pendergrass made his appearance in South Hadley during the year 1765. He is supposed to have
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